Atlantic City, New Jersey – A police officer is critically injured and a suspect is dead following a robbery attempt near a casino garage at Caesars casino
Something Happened at Mardi Gras, and They’re Covering It Up
It’s taken me quite some time to decide whether to tell anyone about this. With Mardi Gras coming up again soon, I wanted to make sure people were warned, and know what happened. Something happened at Mardi Gras last year. And it’s being covered up. Every word of what follows is true. My friends and I decided to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I’ve always heard that the city was a non-stop, twenty-four hour, year round party. I’ve also heard that the days leading up to Mardi Gras take this to the extreme. There were three of us altogether. Myself, Chris, and Sam. We decided to arrive three days early and build up to the actual day of Mardi Gras. We drove down, taking turns at the wheel so we wouldn’t have to stop at any hotels along the way. ------------------------------ The First Night Saturday was our first night there. We’re from New Jersey, where it was about 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) when we left. But when we arrived in New Orleans, it was in the 80s, and very humid. Our hotel was right on the Mississippi River, and our room had a waterfront view. We settled in, cleaned up, and went out to walk around and check things out. We slowly aimed ourselves toward the French Quarter, checking out as much as we could along the way. I was a bit shocked that we could just buy beer from vendors right on the street and walk around, unbothered by police. We can’t do that in Jersey. All in all, we had a great time, great food and drink, and retired to the hotel around 4 am, while the city was still buzzing. As tired as I was, it took a while to fall asleep, due to the loud people partying in the hallway and surrounding rooms. ------------------------------ The Second Night Sunday, we went to check out Harrah’s (the casino), and then we made it back out to the streets for the atmosphere and alcohol once again. While walking around, we met a girl named Antoinette (Toni for short), who told us that she was a local, and that she was going to college there. Toni suggested we all go to a little restaurant just slightly out of the area, called Le Bon Temps (pronounced: Lay Baw Taw). That translates to “the good times” in English. We all headed down together, and it was a pretty cool little place. While we were there, I witnessed something that I had previously thought was only done in sitcoms. In the middle of our dinner, the door to the kitchen flew open, slamming against the wall. Out from the kitchen walked a large man, using one hand to carry a smaller employee by the back of his shirt collar. The guy being carried looked like there was something wrong with him. His eyes were half closed and bloodshot, while his face was almost pure white, completely void of expression. The larger man carried him by the back of his shirt all the way across the restaurant to the front door, where he pushed him outside and shut the door behind him. On his way back to the kitchen, the large man said “Sorry, folks, but you just can’t show up to work stoned out of your gourd like that.” There were some giggles from the patrons in reply. We all drank quite a bit that night and I ended up staying at Antoinette’s place, about a mile away. Chris and Sam said they were going to stay out for a while longer and then go back to the hotel. ------------------------------ The Third Night The next day, Monday, I texted my friends that I’d meet up with them later that evening. I spent the day with Antoinette, and we had a great time. I started wondering if this was too much for me to be getting into, allowing myself to get involved with a girl like this when I live so far away. She was definitely someone who I would want to pursue a relationship with, but I knew I’d be leaving town without her in just a few days. I decided to push these thoughts away, and let the proverbial chips fall where they may. We had two more days. Anything could happen. While Toni and I were walking back downtown later, I noticed there was a girl walking about a block behind us who seemed to be pretty out of it. I couldn’t tell if she was drunk, high, or what. Toni told me to just ignore her, as she hurried me along. Once we got to the corner where we were meeting up with Chris and Sam, things began to get strange. As we were crossing the street, I felt a hand on my back, almost like someone was pushing me, although rather weakly. I turned around, and realized that it was the girl who was walking a block behind us earlier. She wasn’t actually pushing me, though. It appeared that she needed to hold onto something to avoid falling over. We stopped and asked her if she was ok, and she just sort of grunted. At this point, I think we all became concerned. She started mumbling a bit, saying things like “My name is Emily,” “I was with friends, but now I’m here,” and “I live here, that way,” pointing in a direction that was blocked by a parade route. I asked her, “What happened? Did you lose your friends?,” to which she did not reply. We were standing right in front of a Burger King. I asked the crowd if someone could get a cup of water for her. Everyone who heard me just looked the other way and kept walking, some giving me the evil eye, as if I had done something wrong. A BK employee near the door said “You get her out of here, now!,” slamming the door shut. I noticed that Toni was staring at Emily with a very serious look on her face. Toni whispered into my ear, “She isn’t drunk. We should get out of here.” I replied, “But, shouldn’t we help her? She’s really messed up. We can’t leave her here to die.” Toni begrudgingly said “Alright, but let’s make this quick.” We each got on one side and carried Emily along with us down the block, where we came across a security guard standing in front of a parking structure. I stopped and asked the guard if they could help. I explained that we didn’t know what was wrong with her, but that she needed attention, and possibly a ride to the hospital. The guard looked at me like I was stupid. Toni gave her a shrug. The guard then re-focused on Emily. She reached into Emily’s backpack, rifled around a bit, and pulled out an ID card. The guard then said “I’ll take care of this and get her an ambulance. You can go on your way.” Toni started pulling me along, as I said “thank you” to the guard. As we were all walking, I asked Antoinette, “What did you mean when you said she wasn’t drunk? Is there something going on that we don’t know about?” Toni just said, “There’s a lot of strange things going on around here that you don’t want to know about. And neither do I.” My friends kind of laughed, and we moved along. We had some drinks and got back into the celebratory mood. Chris mentioned that he had been wanting to check out one of the New Orleans cemeteries that he had read about. Toni did not look enthused. But, Chris was already in motion. He walked over to one of the police officers who were standing guard, and asked “Hey, do you know where the closest cemetery is?” The officer looked him dead in the eye and stared for a few seconds. Then… And no, this is not a joke, even though it sounds like a bad slasher movie line… He said, “There’s one just a few blocks over that way, but you don’t want to be going down there.” Chris smirked. “Why not?” The officer replied, (And again, he really said this. It’s not just a cheesy line from a horror movie.) “They don’t really like your kind over there.” I have to be honest. I was kind of freaked out by this interaction. And Toni wasn’t looking happy. Chris said, “Come on, nothing’s going to happen. This isn’t a horror movie.” After a long sigh, I replied, “I guess it can’t hurt. I’ve heard that the cemeteries are a sight to see around here.” We embarked on Chris’ quest, much to the chagrin of the rest of the group. There was quite a change in the look of the city as we got closer to the cemetery. It went from historic New Orleans chic to… something much less visually appealing. As we drew closer, I started to see and feel eyes on all of us. As we walked the final stretch to the cemetery entrance, there were at least a dozen people standing on their front porches and in their front yards, looking at us like we were about to do something really stupid. “We shouldn’t be here,” Toni said quietly. “Well, we are here, so let’s just be quick about it.” I said. When we got to the front gate, it was locked. Apparently, visiting hours were over. “Oh no, I guess we have to leave! Too bad,” said Toni. Despite our misfortune, we could still see all of the large, creepy and wonderful burial structures through the wrought iron fencing. Because New Orleans is below sea level, bodies are buried above ground. The arrangement of the structures in the cemetery actually looked like a small city. A city of the dead. The eyes were now piercing the backs of our heads, and we knew something was going to happen if we didn’t get out soon. But, Chris started walking the perimeter of the fencing until he happened upon a crevice big enough for him to try and squeeze through. He told us to follow him. I was hesitant, and Toni was telling me that we need to leave, but I figured a quick adventure inside couldn’t hurt. We’d be gone in a few minutes, not even enough time for police to arrive and catch us. So, we all squeezed through, one by one. It was getting pretty dark now, and this was really starting to feel wrong. I was just waiting for the doors to start opening and the dead to come out and greet us. I decided I was done with this place, and said to Chris, “Alright, we’re going back. This is just disrespectful, and the locals obviously don’t want us here.” He shot back, “Scared, huh?” I ignored him. We all squeezed back out, one at a time. Toni went just before me, and I was the last one out. I had a feeling like someone else was behind me, even though I was the last one. Before going through, I looked behind me… And I could swear that in the darkness, the door on one of the structures looked like it was sliding open. I could even hear the faint sound of a cement block scraping across the ground. I’m sure it was just my imagination, but this made me decide to get the heck out of there with the quickness. We walked silently at a much quicker pace back to the more populated downtown area. The noise and lights in the French Quarter seemed to welcome us home. ------------------------------ Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Carne Vale. A Farewell… To The Flesh. Today, the streets were twice as crowded as they had been the night before. This was the big day. Tons of new tourists filled the streets, to the point that we literally couldn’t even walk on Bourbon Street. We attempted to, but got stuck in the crowd like someone had tried to fit 100 crayons into a box that was only meant for 50. If anything happened here, we simply wouldn’t be able to move or get out of the way. For the rest of the day, we stuck to the side streets. As the parades carried on, it became more and more difficult to even go anywhere else, as they were blocking the streets, and thus blocking any way for us to go in the direction that we wanted. At this point, we kind of gave up and decided “If we can’t beat ‘em, we join ‘em.” “Let’s just go watch one of the parades,” I said. The others were indifferent. We all grabbed drinks and walked toward one of the main streets of the city as nightfall was beginning to close in on us. On our walk, we came upon some sort of dance troupe in the street. There were probably a dozen people in the troupe, all dressed in dark red, tribal looking outfits. Along with their dance, a few played hand drums, and they were all singing in what may have been French. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, though. At some point, the woman in front who appeared to be the leader of the troupe caught my eye and stared with a look as if she was not happy to see me. I saw her look over at Antoinette, then avert her gaze as if she had been caught. “Let’s go,” said Toni. As we walked away, I looked back and saw that the woman was staring again, with the same unhappy look on her face. A few minutes later into our walk, we started to see ahead down the street where it was looking more and more congested with people, to the point of it looking like the main floor of a sold-out rock show. I wondered how these people could deal with being so compressed together. Toni spoke up. “We want to stay away from anything that crowded,” she said. The rest of us agreed. I said, “Well, let’s just get a little closer. We don’t have to get right in the pit, but I do want to see what’s so exciting over there.” We kept walking. As we got closer, something started to seem a bit more clear. Not all of the people were making noise because they were having fun. Some of the merry-making noises turned out to be screams. As we moved closer, despite Antoinette’s objections, I noticed a small huddle of people in the center. Someone was on the ground. I hurried up to the circle and pushed my way to the inside. What I saw there left me frozen in my tracks. There were two people. One was laying on their back, motionless. The other… was on their knees, hovering over the one on the ground, and it looked… like they were eating their face. Blood was spewing everywhere while gawkers screamed in terror. Toni grabbed my arm from behind and said “I told you, we have to go!” She pulled at my arm, but I couldn’t avert my gaze from what was happening. Eventually, she pulled hard enough that I lost balance, sort of fell over, then got back up and started retreating with her. When we got back outside of the circle, we saw that there was another of the exact same scene happening maybe 20 feet away from us in another direction. “What is happening?!” I screamed. Then, the first circle we saw was dispersing rapidly as the flesh eater abandoned their meal and started seeking dessert in the crowd. Just like that, another was incapacitated on the ground, becoming seconds. But there was something else that I noticed while the thing was rising to look for its next victim… It was Emily, the girl who followed us the previous night. Toni told us that we were going to need to get to her place. As we began running, there were more and more of these things attacking and eating others. Where were they all coming from? If this wasn’t horrifying enough, I then received the answer to my question. Some of the flesh eaters were missing faces themselves. Just bone, blood and remnants of skin where their faces used to be. And they were using these skeletal faces to eat those of others. They weren’t ‘coming from’ anywhere. They were being created by the other flesh eaters. As one walked away from their meal, I saw the body of their victim rise and begin chasing their own mark. I was transfixed on this horrific, spontaneous public meltdown of society happening right before our eyes, when I was suddenly thrust to the ground with great force. I never saw it coming. I had no idea what was happening. I eventually focused, and realized that I had one of these faceless flesh eaters hovering over me. Blood was dripping from their jowls onto my face. I knew it was all over for me. Before I could even scream, Antoinette suddenly appeared face to face with the creature hovering over me. Except, she looked different. Her eyes were blood red, and she appeared to have a large set of fang-like teeth protruding from her open mouth. She used one hand to pick up the creature, bringing it face to face with her. She stared directly into its eyes and let out a guttural, terrifying sound like I’ve ever heard. Whatever this was… The creature was afraid of Toni. She dropped it, and it scrambled off immediately. She looked at me with her new face and shouted, “Get up and follow me. They won’t touch you now.” We ran behind her the rest of the way, tears in my eyes as I tried to figure out what was happening. When we got to her place, Toni locked the doors, and then shook some sort of liquid out of a bottle onto the floor in front of each of the doorways and windows. “This won’t be over until morning,” she said. Her face was back to normal now. We all stayed together in the living room that night. I knew that Toni would keep us safe. When daylight broke, she alerted us that it should be safe now, but that we needed to leave the city and go home immediately. We piled into her car so that she could drive us back to ours at the hotel. As we drove, I noticed that the streets were now empty, save for what appeared to be clean-up crews picking up the aftermath. Some were power washing the ground where there appeared to be dark stains. There were no bodies, and no flesh eaters out seeking breakfast, from what I could see. We were all dead silent for the entire drive, focused on what was happening outside our windows. Toni turned on the radio to a news station, and they were reporting that several people had died in what they called “parade float accidents” the prior day. As Toni said goodbye to us, she hugged me and put a note in my pocket. I haven’t had the courage to read it yet. CHX
Something Happened at Mardi Gras, and They’re Covering It Up
It’s taken me quite some time to decide whether to tell anyone about this. With Mardi Gras coming up again soon, I wanted to make sure people were warned, and know what happened. Something happened at Mardi Gras last year. And it’s being covered up. Every word of what follows is true. My friends and I decided to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I’ve always heard that the city was a non-stop, twenty-four hour, year round party. I’ve also heard that the days leading up to Mardi Gras take this to the extreme. There were three of us altogether. Myself, Chris, and Sam. We decided to arrive three days early and build up to the actual day of Mardi Gras. We drove down, taking turns at the wheel so we wouldn’t have to stop at any hotels along the way. ------------------------------ The First Night Saturday was our first night there. We’re from New Jersey, where it was about 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) when we left. But when we arrived in New Orleans, it was in the 80s, and very humid. Our hotel was right on the Mississippi River, and our room had a waterfront view. We settled in, cleaned up, and went out to walk around and check things out. We slowly aimed ourselves toward the French Quarter, checking out as much as we could along the way. I was a bit shocked that we could just buy beer from vendors right on the street and walk around, unbothered by police. We can’t do that in Jersey. All in all, we had a great time, great food and drink, and retired to the hotel around 4 am, while the city was still buzzing. As tired as I was, it took a while to fall asleep, due to the loud people partying in the hallway and surrounding rooms. ------------------------------ The Second Night Sunday, we went to check out Harrah’s (the casino), and then we made it back out to the streets for the atmosphere and alcohol once again. While walking around, we met a girl named Antoinette (Toni for short), who told us that she was a local, and that she was going to college there. Toni suggested we all go to a little restaurant just slightly out of the area, called Le Bon Temps (pronounced: Lay Baw Taw). That translates to “the good times” in English. We all headed down together, and it was a pretty cool little place. While we were there, I witnessed something that I had previously thought was only done in sitcoms. In the middle of our dinner, the door to the kitchen flew open, slamming against the wall. Out from the kitchen walked a large man, using one hand to carry a smaller employee by the back of his shirt collar. The guy being carried looked like there was something wrong with him. His eyes were half closed and bloodshot, while his face was almost pure white, completely void of expression. The larger man carried him by the back of his shirt all the way across the restaurant to the front door, where he pushed him outside and shut the door behind him. On his way back to the kitchen, the large man said “Sorry, folks, but you just can’t show up to work stoned out of your gourd like that.” There were some giggles from the patrons in reply. We all drank quite a bit that night and I ended up staying at Antoinette’s place, about a mile away. Chris and Sam said they were going to stay out for a while longer and then go back to the hotel. ------------------------------ The Third Night The next day, Monday, I texted my friends that I’d meet up with them later that evening. I spent the day with Antoinette, and we had a great time. I started wondering if this was too much for me to be getting into, allowing myself to get involved with a girl like this when I live so far away. She was definitely someone who I would want to pursue a relationship with, but I knew I’d be leaving town without her in just a few days. I decided to push these thoughts away, and let the proverbial chips fall where they may. We had two more days. Anything could happen. While Toni and I were walking back downtown later, I noticed there was a girl walking about a block behind us who seemed to be pretty out of it. I couldn’t tell if she was drunk, high, or what. Toni told me to just ignore her, as she hurried me along. Once we got to the corner where we were meeting up with Chris and Sam, things began to get strange. As we were crossing the street, I felt a hand on my back, almost like someone was pushing me, although rather weakly. I turned around, and realized that it was the girl who was walking a block behind us earlier. She wasn’t actually pushing me, though. It appeared that she needed to hold onto something to avoid falling over. We stopped and asked her if she was ok, and she just sort of grunted. At this point, I think we all became concerned. She started mumbling a bit, saying things like “My name is Emily,” “I was with friends, but now I’m here,” and “I live here, that way,” pointing in a direction that was blocked by a parade route. I asked her, “What happened? Did you lose your friends?,” to which she did not reply. We were standing right in front of a Burger King. I asked the crowd if someone could get a cup of water for her. Everyone who heard me just looked the other way and kept walking, some giving me the evil eye, as if I had done something wrong. A BK employee near the door said “You get her out of here, now!,” slamming the door shut. I noticed that Toni was staring at Emily with a very serious look on her face. Toni whispered into my ear, “She isn’t drunk. We should get out of here.” I replied, “But, shouldn’t we help her? She’s really messed up. We can’t leave her here to die.” Toni begrudgingly said “Alright, but let’s make this quick.” We each got on one side and carried Emily along with us down the block, where we came across a security guard standing in front of a parking structure. I stopped and asked the guard if they could help. I explained that we didn’t know what was wrong with her, but that she needed attention, and possibly a ride to the hospital. The guard looked at me like I was stupid. Toni gave her a shrug. The guard then re-focused on Emily. She reached into Emily’s backpack, rifled around a bit, and pulled out an ID card. The guard then said “I’ll take care of this and get her an ambulance. You can go on your way.” Toni started pulling me along, as I said “thank you” to the guard. As we were all walking, I asked Antoinette, “What did you mean when you said she wasn’t drunk? Is there something going on that we don’t know about?” Toni just said, “There’s a lot of strange things going on around here that you don’t want to know about. And neither do I.” My friends kind of laughed, and we moved along. We had some drinks and got back into the celebratory mood. Chris mentioned that he had been wanting to check out one of the New Orleans cemeteries that he had read about. Toni did not look enthused. But, Chris was already in motion. He walked over to one of the police officers who were standing guard, and asked “Hey, do you know where the closest cemetery is?” The officer looked him dead in the eye and stared for a few seconds. Then… And no, this is not a joke, even though it sounds like a bad slasher movie line… He said, “There’s one just a few blocks over that way, but you don’t want to be going down there.” Chris smirked. “Why not?” The officer replied, (And again, he really said this. It’s not just a cheesy line from a horror movie.) “They don’t really like your kind over there.” I have to be honest. I was kind of freaked out by this interaction. And Toni wasn’t looking happy. Chris said, “Come on, nothing’s going to happen. This isn’t a horror movie.” After a long sigh, I replied, “I guess it can’t hurt. I’ve heard that the cemeteries are a sight to see around here.” We embarked on Chris’ quest, much to the chagrin of the rest of the group. There was quite a change in the look of the city as we got closer to the cemetery. It went from historic New Orleans chic to… something much less visually appealing. As we drew closer, I started to see and feel eyes on all of us. As we walked the final stretch to the cemetery entrance, there were at least a dozen people standing on their front porches and in their front yards, looking at us like we were about to do something really stupid. “We shouldn’t be here,” Toni said quietly. “Well, we are here, so let’s just be quick about it.” I said. When we got to the front gate, it was locked. Apparently, visiting hours were over. “Oh no, I guess we have to leave! Too bad,” said Toni. Despite our misfortune, we could still see all of the large, creepy and wonderful burial structures through the wrought iron fencing. Because New Orleans is below sea level, bodies are buried above ground. The arrangement of the structures in the cemetery actually looked like a small city. A city of the dead. The eyes were now piercing the backs of our heads, and we knew something was going to happen if we didn’t get out soon. But, Chris started walking the perimeter of the fencing until he happened upon a crevice big enough for him to try and squeeze through. He told us to follow him. I was hesitant, and Toni was telling me that we need to leave, but I figured a quick adventure inside couldn’t hurt. We’d be gone in a few minutes, not even enough time for police to arrive and catch us. So, we all squeezed through, one by one. It was getting pretty dark now, and this was really starting to feel wrong. I was just waiting for the doors to start opening and the dead to come out and greet us. I decided I was done with this place, and said to Chris, “Alright, we’re going back. This is just disrespectful, and the locals obviously don’t want us here.” He shot back, “Scared, huh?” I ignored him. We all squeezed back out, one at a time. Toni went just before me, and I was the last one out. I had a feeling like someone else was behind me, even though I was the last one. Before going through, I looked behind me… And I could swear that in the darkness, the door on one of the structures looked like it was sliding open. I could even hear the faint sound of a cement block scraping across the ground. I’m sure it was just my imagination, but this made me decide to get the heck out of there with the quickness. We walked silently at a much quicker pace back to the more populated downtown area. The noise and lights in the French Quarter seemed to welcome us home. ------------------------------ Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Carne Vale. A Farewell… To The Flesh. Today, the streets were twice as crowded as they had been the night before. This was the big day. Tons of new tourists filled the streets, to the point that we literally couldn’t even walk on Bourbon Street. We attempted to, but got stuck in the crowd like someone had tried to fit 100 crayons into a box that was only meant for 50. If anything happened here, we simply wouldn’t be able to move or get out of the way. For the rest of the day, we stuck to the side streets. As the parades carried on, it became more and more difficult to even go anywhere else, as they were blocking the streets, and thus blocking any way for us to go in the direction that we wanted. At this point, we kind of gave up and decided “If we can’t beat ‘em, we join ‘em.” “Let’s just go watch one of the parades,” I said. The others were indifferent. We all grabbed drinks and walked toward one of the main streets of the city as nightfall was beginning to close in on us. On our walk, we came upon some sort of dance troupe in the street. There were probably a dozen people in the troupe, all dressed in dark red, tribal looking outfits. Along with their dance, a few played hand drums, and they were all singing in what may have been French. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, though. At some point, the woman in front who appeared to be the leader of the troupe caught my eye and stared with a look as if she was not happy to see me. I saw her look over at Antoinette, then avert her gaze as if she had been caught. “Let’s go,” said Toni. As we walked away, I looked back and saw that the woman was staring again, with the same unhappy look on her face. A few minutes later into our walk, we started to see ahead down the street where it was looking more and more congested with people, to the point of it looking like the main floor of a sold-out rock show. I wondered how these people could deal with being so compressed together. Toni spoke up. “We want to stay away from anything that crowded,” she said. The rest of us agreed. I said, “Well, let’s just get a little closer. We don’t have to get right in the pit, but I do want to see what’s so exciting over there.” We kept walking. As we got closer, something started to seem a bit more clear. Not all of the people were making noise because they were having fun. Some of the merry-making noises turned out to be screams. As we moved closer, despite Antoinette’s objections, I noticed a small huddle of people in the center. Someone was on the ground. I hurried up to the circle and pushed my way to the inside. What I saw there left me frozen in my tracks. There were two people. One was laying on their back, motionless. The other… was on their knees, hovering over the one on the ground, and it looked… like they were eating their face. Blood was spewing everywhere while gawkers screamed in terror. Toni grabbed my arm from behind and said “I told you, we have to go!” She pulled at my arm, but I couldn’t avert my gaze from what was happening. Eventually, she pulled hard enough that I lost balance, sort of fell over, then got back up and started retreating with her. When we got back outside of the circle, we saw that there was another of the exact same scene happening maybe 20 feet away from us in another direction. “What is happening?!” I screamed. Then, the first circle we saw was dispersing rapidly as the flesh eater abandoned their meal and started seeking dessert in the crowd. Just like that, another was incapacitated on the ground, becoming seconds. But there was something else that I noticed while the thing was rising to look for its next victim… It was Emily, the girl who followed us the previous night. Toni told us that we were going to need to get to her place. As we began running, there were more and more of these things attacking and eating others. Where were they all coming from? If this wasn’t horrifying enough, I then received the answer to my question. Some of the flesh eaters were missing faces themselves. Just bone, blood and remnants of skin where their faces used to be. And they were using these skeletal faces to eat those of others. They weren’t ‘coming from’ anywhere. They were being created by the other flesh eaters. As one walked away from their meal, I saw the body of their victim rise and begin chasing their own mark. I was transfixed on this horrific, spontaneous public meltdown of society happening right before our eyes, when I was suddenly thrust to the ground with great force. I never saw it coming. I had no idea what was happening. I eventually focused, and realized that I had one of these faceless flesh eaters hovering over me. Blood was dripping from their jowls onto my face. I knew it was all over for me. Before I could even scream, Antoinette suddenly appeared face to face with the creature hovering over me. Except, she looked different. Her eyes were blood red, and she appeared to have a large set of fang-like teeth protruding from her open mouth. She used one hand to pick up the creature, bringing it face to face with her. She stared directly into its eyes and let out a guttural, terrifying sound like I’ve ever heard. Whatever this was… The creature was afraid of Toni. She dropped it, and it scrambled off immediately. She looked at me with her new face and shouted, “Get up and follow me. They won’t touch you now.” We ran behind her the rest of the way, tears in my eyes as I tried to figure out what was happening. When we got to her place, Toni locked the doors, and then shook some sort of liquid out of a bottle onto the floor in front of each of the doorways and windows. “This won’t be over until morning,” she said. Her face was back to normal now. We all stayed together in the living room that night. I knew that Toni would keep us safe. When daylight broke, she alerted us that it should be safe now, but that we needed to leave the city and go home immediately. We piled into her car so that she could drive us back to ours at the hotel. As we drove, I noticed that the streets were now empty, save for what appeared to be clean-up crews picking up the aftermath. Some were power washing the ground where there appeared to be dark stains. There were no bodies, and no flesh eaters out seeking breakfast, from what I could see. We were all dead silent for the entire drive, focused on what was happening outside our windows. Toni turned on the radio to a news station, and they were reporting that several people had died in what they called “parade float accidents” the prior day. As Toni said goodbye to us, she hugged me and put a note in my pocket. I haven’t had the courage to read it yet. CHX
Something Happened at Mardi Gras, and They’re Covering It Up
It’s taken me quite some time to decide whether to tell anyone about this. With Mardi Gras coming up again soon, I wanted to make sure people were warned, and know what happened. Something happened at Mardi Gras last year. And it’s being covered up. My friends and I decided to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I’ve always heard that the city was a non-stop, twenty-four hour, year round party. I’ve also heard that the days leading up to Mardi Gras take this to the extreme. There were three of us altogether. Myself, Chris, and Sam. We decided to arrive three days early and build up to the actual day of Mardi Gras. We drove down, taking turns at the wheel so we wouldn’t have to stop at any hotels along the way. ------------------------------ The First Night Saturday was our first night there. We’re from New Jersey, where it was about 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) when we left. But when we arrived in New Orleans, it was in the 80s, and very humid. Our hotel was right on the Mississippi River, and our room had a waterfront view. We settled in, cleaned up, and went out to walk around and check things out. We slowly aimed ourselves toward the French Quarter, checking out as much as we could along the way. I was a bit shocked that we could just buy beer from vendors right on the street and walk around, unbothered by police. We can’t do that in Jersey. All in all, we had a great time, great food and drink, and retired to the hotel around 4 am, while the city was still buzzing. As tired as I was, it took a while to fall asleep, due to the loud people partying in the hallway and surrounding rooms. ------------------------------ The Second Night Sunday, we went to check out Harrah’s (the casino), and then we made it back out to the streets for the atmosphere and alcohol once again. While walking around, we met a girl named Antoinette (Toni for short), who told us that she was a local, and that she was going to college there. Toni suggested we all go to a little restaurant just slightly out of the area, called Le Bon Temps (pronounced: Lay Baw Taw). That translates to “the good times” in English. We all headed down together, and it was a pretty cool little place. While we were there, I witnessed something that I had previously thought was only done in sitcoms. In the middle of our dinner, the door to the kitchen flew open, slamming against the wall. Out from the kitchen walked a large man, using one hand to carry a smaller employee by the back of his shirt collar. The guy being carried looked like there was something wrong with him. His eyes were half closed and bloodshot, while his face was almost pure white, completely void of expression. The larger man carried him by the back of his shirt all the way across the restaurant to the front door, where he pushed him outside and shut the door behind him. On his way back to the kitchen, the large man said “Sorry, folks, but you just can’t show up to work stoned out of your gourd like that.” There were some giggles from the patrons in reply. We all drank quite a bit that night and I ended up staying at Antoinette’s place, about a mile away. Chris and Sam said they were going to stay out for a while longer and then go back to the hotel. ------------------------------ The Third Night The next day, Monday, I texted my friends that I’d meet up with them later that evening. I spent the day with Antoinette, and we had a great time. I started wondering if this was too much for me to be getting into, allowing myself to get involved with a girl like this when I live so far away. She was definitely someone who I would want to pursue a relationship with, but I knew I’d be leaving town without her in just a few days. I decided to push these thoughts away, and let the proverbial chips fall where they may. We had two more days. Anything could happen. While Toni and I were walking back downtown later, I noticed there was a girl walking about a block behind us who seemed to be pretty out of it. I couldn’t tell if she was drunk, high, or what. Toni told me to just ignore her, as she hurried me along. Once we got to the corner where we were meeting up with Chris and Sam, things began to get strange. As we were crossing the street, I felt a hand on my back, almost like someone was pushing me, although rather weakly. I turned around, and realized that it was the girl who was walking a block behind us earlier. She wasn’t actually pushing me, though. It appeared that she needed to hold onto something to avoid falling over. We stopped and asked her if she was ok, and she just sort of grunted. At this point, I think we all became concerned. She started mumbling a bit, saying things like “My name is Emily,” “I was with friends, but now I’m here,” and “I live here, that way,” pointing in a direction that was blocked by a parade route. I asked her, “What happened? Did you lose your friends?,” to which she did not reply. We were standing right in front of a Burger King. I asked the crowd if someone could get a cup of water for her. Everyone who heard me just looked the other way and kept walking, some giving me the evil eye, as if I had done something wrong. A BK employee near the door said “You get her out of here, now!,” slamming the door shut. I noticed that Toni was staring at Emily with a very serious look on her face. Toni whispered into my ear, “She isn’t drunk. We should get out of here.” I replied, “But, shouldn’t we help her? She’s really messed up. We can’t leave her here to die.” Toni begrudgingly said “Alright, but let’s make this quick.” We each got on one side and carried Emily along with us down the block, where we came across a security guard standing in front of a parking structure. I stopped and asked the guard if they could help. I explained that we didn’t know what was wrong with her, but that she needed attention, and possibly a ride to the hospital. The guard looked at me like I was stupid. Toni gave her a shrug. The guard then re-focused on Emily. She reached into Emily’s backpack, rifled around a bit, and pulled out an ID card. The guard then said “I’ll take care of this and get her an ambulance. You can go on your way.” Toni started pulling me along, as I said “thank you” to the guard. As we were all walking, I asked Antoinette, “What did you mean when you said she wasn’t drunk? Is there something going on that we don’t know about?” Toni just said, “There’s a lot of strange things going on around here that you don’t want to know about. And neither do I.” My friends kind of laughed, and we moved along. We had some drinks and got back into the celebratory mood. Chris mentioned that he had been wanting to check out one of the New Orleans cemeteries that he had read about. Toni did not look enthused. But, Chris was already in motion. He walked over to one of the police officers who were standing guard, and asked “Hey, do you know where the closest cemetery is?” The officer looked him dead in the eye and stared for a few seconds. Then… And no, this is not a joke, even though it sounds like a bad slasher movie line… He said, “There’s one just a few blocks over that way, but you don’t want to be going down there.” Chris smirked. “Why not?” The officer replied, (And again, he really said this. It’s not just a cheesy line from a horror movie.) “They don’t really like your kind over there.” I have to be honest. I was kind of freaked out by this interaction. And Toni wasn’t looking happy. Chris said, “Come on, nothing’s going to happen. This isn’t a horror movie.” After a long sigh, I replied, “I guess it can’t hurt. I’ve heard that the cemeteries are a sight to see around here.” We embarked on Chris’ quest, much to the chagrin of the rest of the group. There was quite a change in the look of the city as we got closer to the cemetery. It went from historic New Orleans chic to… something much less visually appealing. As we drew closer, I started to see and feel eyes on all of us. As we walked the final stretch to the cemetery entrance, there were at least a dozen people standing on their front porches and in their front yards, looking at us like we were about to do something really stupid. “We shouldn’t be here,” Toni said quietly. “Well, we are here, so let’s just be quick about it.” I said. When we got to the front gate, it was locked. Apparently, visiting hours were over. “Oh no, I guess we have to leave! Too bad,” said Toni. Despite our misfortune, we could still see all of the large, creepy and wonderful burial structures through the wrought iron fencing. Because New Orleans is below sea level, bodies are buried above ground. The arrangement of the structures in the cemetery actually looked like a small city. A city of the dead. The eyes were now piercing the backs of our heads, and we knew something was going to happen if we didn’t get out soon. But, Chris started walking the perimeter of the fencing until he happened upon a crevice big enough for him to try and squeeze through. He told us to follow him. I was hesitant, and Toni was telling me that we need to leave, but I figured a quick adventure inside couldn’t hurt. We’d be gone in a few minutes, not even enough time for police to arrive and catch us. So, we all squeezed through, one by one. It was getting pretty dark now, and this was really starting to feel wrong. I was just waiting for the doors to start opening and the dead to come out and greet us. I decided I was done with this place, and said to Chris, “Alright, we’re going back. This is just disrespectful, and the locals obviously don’t want us here.” He shot back, “Scared, huh?” I ignored him. We all squeezed back out, one at a time. Toni went just before me, and I was the last one out. I had a feeling like someone else was behind me, even though I was the last one. Before going through, I looked behind me… And I could swear that in the darkness, the door on one of the structures looked like it was sliding open. I could even hear the faint sound of a cement block scraping across the ground. I’m sure it was just my imagination, but this made me decide to get the heck out of there with the quickness. We walked silently at a much quicker pace back to the more populated downtown area. The noise and lights in the French Quarter seemed to welcome us home. ------------------------------ Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Carne Vale. A Farewell… To The Flesh. Today, the streets were twice as crowded as they had been the night before. This was the big day. Tons of new tourists filled the streets, to the point that we literally couldn’t even walk on Bourbon Street. We attempted to, but got stuck in the crowd like someone had tried to fit 100 crayons into a box that was only meant for 50. If anything happened here, we simply wouldn’t be able to move or get out of the way. For the rest of the day, we stuck to the side streets. As the parades carried on, it became more and more difficult to even go anywhere else, as they were blocking the streets, and thus blocking any way for us to go in the direction that we wanted. At this point, we kind of gave up and decided “If we can’t beat ‘em, we join ‘em.” “Let’s just go watch one of the parades,” I said. The others were indifferent. We all grabbed drinks and walked toward one of the main streets of the city as nightfall was beginning to close in on us. On our walk, we came upon some sort of dance troupe in the street. There were probably a dozen people in the troupe, all dressed in dark red, tribal looking outfits. Along with their dance, a few played hand drums, and they were all singing in what may have been French. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, though. At some point, the woman in front who appeared to be the leader of the troupe caught my eye and stared with a look as if she was not happy to see me. I saw her look over at Antoinette, then avert her gaze as if she had been caught. “Let’s go,” said Toni. As we walked away, I looked back and saw that the woman was staring again, with the same unhappy look on her face. A few minutes later into our walk, we started to see ahead down the street where it was looking more and more congested with people, to the point of it looking like the main floor of a sold-out rock show. I wondered how these people could deal with being so compressed together. Toni spoke up. “We want to stay away from anything that crowded,” she said. The rest of us agreed. I said, “Well, let’s just get a little closer. We don’t have to get right in the pit, but I do want to see what’s so exciting over there.” We kept walking. As we got closer, something started to seem a bit more clear. Not all of the people were making noise because they were having fun. Some of the merry-making noises turned out to be screams. As we moved closer, despite Antoinette’s objections, I noticed a small huddle of people in the center. Someone was on the ground. I hurried up to the circle and pushed my way to the inside. What I saw there left me frozen in my tracks. There were two people. One was laying on their back, motionless. The other… was on their knees, hovering over the one on the ground, and it looked… like they were eating their face. Blood was spewing everywhere while gawkers screamed in terror. Toni grabbed my arm from behind and said “I told you, we have to go!” She pulled at my arm, but I couldn’t avert my gaze from what was happening. Eventually, she pulled hard enough that I lost balance, sort of fell over, then got back up and started retreating with her. When we got back outside of the circle, we saw that there was another of the exact same scene happening maybe 20 feet away from us in another direction. “What is happening?!” I screamed. Then, the first circle we saw was dispersing rapidly as the flesh eater abandoned their meal and started seeking dessert in the crowd. Just like that, another was incapacitated on the ground, becoming seconds. But there was something else that I noticed while the thing was rising to look for its next victim… It was Emily, the girl who followed us the previous night. Toni told us that we were going to need to get to her place. As we began running, there were more and more of these things attacking and eating others. Where were they all coming from? If this wasn’t horrifying enough, I then received the answer to my question. Some of the flesh eaters were missing faces themselves. Just bone, blood and remnants of skin where their faces used to be. And they were using these skeletal faces to eat those of others. They weren’t ‘coming from’ anywhere. They were being created by the other flesh eaters. As one walked away from their meal, I saw the body of their victim rise and begin chasing their own mark. I was transfixed on this horrific, spontaneous public meltdown of society happening right before our eyes, when I was suddenly thrust to the ground with great force. I never saw it coming. I had no idea what was happening. I eventually focused, and realized that I had one of these faceless flesh eaters hovering over me. Blood was dripping from their jowls onto my face. I knew it was all over for me. Before I could even scream, Antoinette suddenly appeared face to face with the creature hovering over me. Except, she looked different. Her eyes were blood red, and she appeared to have a large set of fang-like teeth protruding from her open mouth. She used one hand to pick up the creature, bringing it face to face with her. She stared directly into its eyes and let out a guttural, terrifying sound like I’ve ever heard. Whatever this was… The creature was afraid of Toni. She dropped it, and it scrambled off immediately. She looked at me with her new face and shouted, “Get up and follow me. They won’t touch you now.” We ran behind her the rest of the way, tears in my eyes as I tried to figure out what was happening. When we got to her place, Toni locked the doors, and then shook some sort of liquid out of a bottle onto the floor in front of each of the doorways and windows. “This won’t be over until morning,” she said. Her face was back to normal now. We all stayed together in the living room that night. I knew that Toni would keep us safe. When daylight broke, she alerted us that it should be safe now, but that we needed to leave the city and go home immediately. We piled into her car so that she could drive us back to ours at the hotel. As we drove, I noticed that the streets were now empty, save for what appeared to be clean-up crews picking up the aftermath. Some were power washing the ground where there appeared to be dark stains. There were no bodies, and no flesh eaters out seeking breakfast, from what I could see. We were all dead silent for the entire drive, focused on what was happening outside our windows. Toni turned on the radio to a news station, and they were reporting that several people had died in what they called “parade float accidents” the prior day. As Toni said goodbye to us, she hugged me and put a note in my pocket. I haven’t had the courage to read it yet. CHX
Something Happened at Mardi Gras, and They’re Covering It Up
It’s taken me quite some time to decide whether to tell anyone about this. With Mardi Gras coming up again soon, I wanted to make sure people were warned, and know what happened. Something happened at Mardi Gras last year. And it’s being covered up. Every word of what follows is true. My friends and I decided to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I’ve always heard that the city was a non-stop, twenty-four hour, year round party. I’ve also heard that the days leading up to Mardi Gras take this to the extreme. There were three of us altogether. Myself, Chris, and Sam. We decided to arrive three days early and build up to the actual day of Mardi Gras. We drove down, taking turns at the wheel so we wouldn’t have to stop at any hotels along the way. ------------------------------ The First Night Saturday was our first night there. We’re from New Jersey, where it was about 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) when we left. But when we arrived in New Orleans, it was in the 80s, and very humid. Our hotel was right on the Mississippi River, and our room had a waterfront view. We settled in, cleaned up, and went out to walk around and check things out. We slowly aimed ourselves toward the French Quarter, checking out as much as we could along the way. I was a bit shocked that we could just buy beer from vendors right on the street and walk around, unbothered by police. We can’t do that in Jersey. All in all, we had a great time, great food and drink, and retired to the hotel around 4 am, while the city was still buzzing. As tired as I was, it took a while to fall asleep, due to the loud people partying in the hallway and surrounding rooms. ------------------------------ The Second Night Sunday, we went to check out Harrah’s (the casino), and then we made it back out to the streets for the atmosphere and alcohol once again. While walking around, we met a girl named Antoinette (Toni for short), who told us that she was a local, and that she was going to college there. Toni suggested we all go to a little restaurant just slightly out of the area, called Le Bon Temps (pronounced: Lay Baw Taw). That translates to “the good times” in English. We all headed down together, and it was a pretty cool little place. While we were there, I witnessed something that I had previously thought was only done in sitcoms. In the middle of our dinner, the door to the kitchen flew open, slamming against the wall. Out from the kitchen walked a large man, using one hand to carry a smaller employee by the back of his shirt collar. The guy being carried looked like there was something wrong with him. His eyes were half closed and bloodshot, while his face was almost pure white, completely void of expression. The larger man carried him by the back of his shirt all the way across the restaurant to the front door, where he pushed him outside and shut the door behind him. On his way back to the kitchen, the large man said “Sorry, folks, but you just can’t show up to work stoned out of your gourd like that.” There were some giggles from the patrons in reply. We all drank quite a bit that night and I ended up staying at Antoinette’s place, about a mile away. Chris and Sam said they were going to stay out for a while longer and then go back to the hotel. ------------------------------ The Third Night The next day, Monday, I texted my friends that I’d meet up with them later that evening. I spent the day with Antoinette, and we had a great time. I started wondering if this was too much for me to be getting into, allowing myself to get involved with a girl like this when I live so far away. She was definitely someone who I would want to pursue a relationship with, but I knew I’d be leaving town without her in just a few days. I decided to push these thoughts away, and let the proverbial chips fall where they may. We had two more days. Anything could happen. While Toni and I were walking back downtown later, I noticed there was a girl walking about a block behind us who seemed to be pretty out of it. I couldn’t tell if she was drunk, high, or what. Toni told me to just ignore her, as she hurried me along. Once we got to the corner where we were meeting up with Chris and Sam, things began to get strange. As we were crossing the street, I felt a hand on my back, almost like someone was pushing me, although rather weakly. I turned around, and realized that it was the girl who was walking a block behind us earlier. She wasn’t actually pushing me, though. It appeared that she needed to hold onto something to avoid falling over. We stopped and asked her if she was ok, and she just sort of grunted. At this point, I think we all became concerned. She started mumbling a bit, saying things like “My name is Emily,” “I was with friends, but now I’m here,” and “I live here, that way,” pointing in a direction that was blocked by a parade route. I asked her, “What happened? Did you lose your friends?,” to which she did not reply. We were standing right in front of a Burger King. I asked the crowd if someone could get a cup of water for her. Everyone who heard me just looked the other way and kept walking, some giving me the evil eye, as if I had done something wrong. A BK employee near the door said “You get her out of here, now!,” slamming the door shut. I noticed that Toni was staring at Emily with a very serious look on her face. Toni whispered into my ear, “She isn’t drunk. We should get out of here.” I replied, “But, shouldn’t we help her? She’s really messed up. We can’t leave her here to die.” Toni begrudgingly said “Alright, but let’s make this quick.” We each got on one side and carried Emily along with us down the block, where we came across a security guard standing in front of a parking structure. I stopped and asked the guard if they could help. I explained that we didn’t know what was wrong with her, but that she needed attention, and possibly a ride to the hospital. The guard looked at me like I was stupid. Toni gave her a shrug. The guard then re-focused on Emily. She reached into Emily’s backpack, rifled around a bit, and pulled out an ID card. The guard then said “I’ll take care of this and get her an ambulance. You can go on your way.” Toni started pulling me along, as I said “thank you” to the guard. As we were all walking, I asked Antoinette, “What did you mean when you said she wasn’t drunk? Is there something going on that we don’t know about?” Toni just said, “There’s a lot of strange things going on around here that you don’t want to know about. And neither do I.” My friends kind of laughed, and we moved along. We had some drinks and got back into the celebratory mood. Chris mentioned that he had been wanting to check out one of the New Orleans cemeteries that he had read about. Toni did not look enthused. But, Chris was already in motion. He walked over to one of the police officers who were standing guard, and asked “Hey, do you know where the closest cemetery is?” The officer looked him dead in the eye and stared for a few seconds. Then… And no, this is not a joke, even though it sounds like a bad slasher movie line… He said, “There’s one just a few blocks over that way, but you don’t want to be going down there.” Chris smirked. “Why not?” The officer replied, (And again, he really said this. It’s not just a cheesy line from a horror movie.) “They don’t really like your kind over there.” I have to be honest. I was kind of freaked out by this interaction. And Toni wasn’t looking happy. Chris said, “Come on, nothing’s going to happen. This isn’t a horror movie.” After a long sigh, I replied, “I guess it can’t hurt. I’ve heard that the cemeteries are a sight to see around here.” We embarked on Chris’ quest, much to the chagrin of the rest of the group. There was quite a change in the look of the city as we got closer to the cemetery. It went from historic New Orleans chic to… something much less visually appealing. As we drew closer, I started to see and feel eyes on all of us. As we walked the final stretch to the cemetery entrance, there were at least a dozen people standing on their front porches and in their front yards, looking at us like we were about to do something really stupid. “We shouldn’t be here,” Toni said quietly. “Well, we are here, so let’s just be quick about it.” I said. When we got to the front gate, it was locked. Apparently, visiting hours were over. “Oh no, I guess we have to leave! Too bad,” said Toni. Despite our misfortune, we could still see all of the large, creepy and wonderful burial structures through the wrought iron fencing. Because New Orleans is below sea level, bodies are buried above ground. The arrangement of the structures in the cemetery actually looked like a small city. A city of the dead. The eyes were now piercing the backs of our heads, and we knew something was going to happen if we didn’t get out soon. But, Chris started walking the perimeter of the fencing until he happened upon a crevice big enough for him to try and squeeze through. He told us to follow him. I was hesitant, and Toni was telling me that we need to leave, but I figured a quick adventure inside couldn’t hurt. We’d be gone in a few minutes, not even enough time for police to arrive and catch us. So, we all squeezed through, one by one. It was getting pretty dark now, and this was really starting to feel wrong. I was just waiting for the doors to start opening and the dead to come out and greet us. I decided I was done with this place, and said to Chris, “Alright, we’re going back. This is just disrespectful, and the locals obviously don’t want us here.” He shot back, “Scared, huh?” I ignored him. We all squeezed back out, one at a time. Toni went just before me, and I was the last one out. I had a feeling like someone else was behind me, even though I was the last one. Before going through, I looked behind me… And I could swear that in the darkness, the door on one of the structures looked like it was sliding open. I could even hear the faint sound of a cement block scraping across the ground. I’m sure it was just my imagination, but this made me decide to get the heck out of there with the quickness. We walked silently at a much quicker pace back to the more populated downtown area. The noise and lights in the French Quarter seemed to welcome us home. ------------------------------ Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Carne Vale. A Farewell… To The Flesh. Today, the streets were twice as crowded as they had been the night before. This was the big day. Tons of new tourists filled the streets, to the point that we literally couldn’t even walk on Bourbon Street. We attempted to, but got stuck in the crowd like someone had tried to fit 100 crayons into a box that was only meant for 50. If anything happened here, we simply wouldn’t be able to move or get out of the way. For the rest of the day, we stuck to the side streets. As the parades carried on, it became more and more difficult to even go anywhere else, as they were blocking the streets, and thus blocking any way for us to go in the direction that we wanted. At this point, we kind of gave up and decided “If we can’t beat ‘em, we join ‘em.” “Let’s just go watch one of the parades,” I said. The others were indifferent. We all grabbed drinks and walked toward one of the main streets of the city as nightfall was beginning to close in on us. On our walk, we came upon some sort of dance troupe in the street. There were probably a dozen people in the troupe, all dressed in dark red, tribal looking outfits. Along with their dance, a few played hand drums, and they were all singing in what may have been French. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, though. At some point, the woman in front who appeared to be the leader of the troupe caught my eye and stared with a look as if she was not happy to see me. I saw her look over at Antoinette, then avert her gaze as if she had been caught. “Let’s go,” said Toni. As we walked away, I looked back and saw that the woman was staring again, with the same unhappy look on her face. A few minutes later into our walk, we started to see ahead down the street where it was looking more and more congested with people, to the point of it looking like the main floor of a sold-out rock show. I wondered how these people could deal with being so compressed together. Toni spoke up. “We want to stay away from anything that crowded,” she said. The rest of us agreed. I said, “Well, let’s just get a little closer. We don’t have to get right in the pit, but I do want to see what’s so exciting over there.” We kept walking. As we got closer, something started to seem a bit more clear. Not all of the people were making noise because they were having fun. Some of the merry-making noises turned out to be screams. As we moved closer, despite Antoinette’s objections, I noticed a small huddle of people in the center. Someone was on the ground. I hurried up to the circle and pushed my way to the inside. What I saw there left me frozen in my tracks. There were two people. One was laying on their back, motionless. The other… was on their knees, hovering over the one on the ground, and it looked… like they were eating their face. Blood was spewing everywhere while gawkers screamed in terror. Toni grabbed my arm from behind and said “I told you, we have to go!” She pulled at my arm, but I couldn’t avert my gaze from what was happening. Eventually, she pulled hard enough that I lost balance, sort of fell over, then got back up and started retreating with her. When we got back outside of the circle, we saw that there was another of the exact same scene happening maybe 20 feet away from us in another direction. “What is happening?!” I screamed. Then, the first circle we saw was dispersing rapidly as the flesh eater abandoned their meal and started seeking dessert in the crowd. Just like that, another was incapacitated on the ground, becoming seconds. But there was something else that I noticed while the thing was rising to look for its next victim… It was Emily, the girl who followed us the previous night. Toni told us that we were going to need to get to her place. As we began running, there were more and more of these things attacking and eating others. Where were they all coming from? If this wasn’t horrifying enough, I then received the answer to my question. Some of the flesh eaters were missing faces themselves. Just bone, blood and remnants of skin where their faces used to be. And they were using these skeletal faces to eat those of others. They weren’t ‘coming from’ anywhere. They were being created by the other flesh eaters. As one walked away from their meal, I saw the body of their victim rise and begin chasing their own mark. I was transfixed on this horrific, spontaneous public meltdown of society happening right before our eyes, when I was suddenly thrust to the ground with great force. I never saw it coming. I had no idea what was happening. I eventually focused, and realized that I had one of these faceless flesh eaters hovering over me. Blood was dripping from their jowls onto my face. I knew it was all over for me. Before I could even scream, Antoinette suddenly appeared face to face with the creature hovering over me. Except, she looked different. Her eyes were blood red, and she appeared to have a large set of fang-like teeth protruding from her open mouth. She used one hand to pick up the creature, bringing it face to face with her. She stared directly into its eyes and let out a guttural, terrifying sound like I’ve ever heard. Whatever this was… The creature was afraid of Toni. She dropped it, and it scrambled off immediately. She looked at me with her new face and shouted, “Get up and follow me. They won’t touch you now.” We ran behind her the rest of the way, tears in my eyes as I tried to figure out what was happening. When we got to her place, Toni locked the doors, and then shook some sort of liquid out of a bottle onto the floor in front of each of the doorways and windows. “This won’t be over until morning,” she said. Her face was back to normal now. We all stayed together in the living room that night. I knew that Toni would keep us safe. When daylight broke, she alerted us that it should be safe now, but that we needed to leave the city and go home immediately. We piled into her car so that she could drive us back to ours at the hotel. As we drove, I noticed that the streets were now empty, save for what appeared to be clean-up crews picking up the aftermath. Some were power washing the ground where there appeared to be dark stains. There were no bodies, and no flesh eaters out seeking breakfast, from what I could see. We were all dead silent for the entire drive, focused on what was happening outside our windows. Toni turned on the radio to a news station, and they were reporting that several people had died in what they called “parade float accidents” the prior day. As Toni said goodbye to us, she hugged me and put a note in my pocket. I haven’t had the courage to read it yet. CHX
Something Happened at Mardi Gras, and They’re Covering It Up
It’s taken me quite some time to decide whether to tell anyone about this. With Mardi Gras coming up again soon, I wanted to make sure people were warned, and know what happened. Something happened at Mardi Gras last year. And it’s being covered up. Every word of what follows is true. My friends and I decided to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I’ve always heard that the city was a non-stop, twenty-four hour, year round party. I’ve also heard that the days leading up to Mardi Gras take this to the extreme. There were three of us altogether. Myself, Chris, and Sam. We decided to arrive three days early and build up to the actual day of Mardi Gras. We drove down, taking turns at the wheel so we wouldn’t have to stop at any hotels along the way. ------------------------------ The First Night Saturday was our first night there. We’re from New Jersey, where it was about 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) when we left. But when we arrived in New Orleans, it was in the 80s, and very humid. Our hotel was right on the Mississippi River, and our room had a waterfront view. We settled in, cleaned up, and went out to walk around and check things out. We slowly aimed ourselves toward the French Quarter, checking out as much as we could along the way. I was a bit shocked that we could just buy beer from vendors right on the street and walk around, unbothered by police. We can’t do that in Jersey. All in all, we had a great time, great food and drink, and retired to the hotel around 4 am, while the city was still buzzing. As tired as I was, it took a while to fall asleep, due to the loud people partying in the hallway and surrounding rooms. ------------------------------ The Second Night Sunday, we went to check out Harrah’s (the casino), and then we made it back out to the streets for the atmosphere and alcohol once again. While walking around, we met a girl named Antoinette (Toni for short), who told us that she was a local, and that she was going to college there. Toni suggested we all go to a little restaurant just slightly out of the area, called Le Bon Temps (pronounced: Lay Baw Taw). That translates to “the good times” in English. We all headed down together, and it was a pretty cool little place. While we were there, I witnessed something that I had previously thought was only done in sitcoms. In the middle of our dinner, the door to the kitchen flew open, slamming against the wall. Out from the kitchen walked a large man, using one hand to carry a smaller employee by the back of his shirt collar. The guy being carried looked like there was something wrong with him. His eyes were half closed and bloodshot, while his face was almost pure white, completely void of expression. The larger man carried him by the back of his shirt all the way across the restaurant to the front door, where he pushed him outside and shut the door behind him. On his way back to the kitchen, the large man said “Sorry, folks, but you just can’t show up to work stoned out of your gourd like that.” There were some giggles from the patrons in reply. We all drank quite a bit that night and I ended up staying at Antoinette’s place, about a mile away. Chris and Sam said they were going to stay out for a while longer and then go back to the hotel. ------------------------------ The Third Night The next day, Monday, I texted my friends that I’d meet up with them later that evening. I spent the day with Antoinette, and we had a great time. I started wondering if this was too much for me to be getting into, allowing myself to get involved with a girl like this when I live so far away. She was definitely someone who I would want to pursue a relationship with, but I knew I’d be leaving town without her in just a few days. I decided to push these thoughts away, and let the proverbial chips fall where they may. We had two more days. Anything could happen. While Toni and I were walking back downtown later, I noticed there was a girl walking about a block behind us who seemed to be pretty out of it. I couldn’t tell if she was drunk, high, or what. Toni told me to just ignore her, as she hurried me along. Once we got to the corner where we were meeting up with Chris and Sam, things began to get strange. As we were crossing the street, I felt a hand on my back, almost like someone was pushing me, although rather weakly. I turned around, and realized that it was the girl who was walking a block behind us earlier. She wasn’t actually pushing me, though. It appeared that she needed to hold onto something to avoid falling over. We stopped and asked her if she was ok, and she just sort of grunted. At this point, I think we all became concerned. She started mumbling a bit, saying things like “My name is Emily,” “I was with friends, but now I’m here,” and “I live here, that way,” pointing in a direction that was blocked by a parade route. I asked her, “What happened? Did you lose your friends?,” to which she did not reply. We were standing right in front of a Burger King. I asked the crowd if someone could get a cup of water for her. Everyone who heard me just looked the other way and kept walking, some giving me the evil eye, as if I had done something wrong. A BK employee near the door said “You get her out of here, now!,” slamming the door shut. I noticed that Toni was staring at Emily with a very serious look on her face. Toni whispered into my ear, “She isn’t drunk. We should get out of here.” I replied, “But, shouldn’t we help her? She’s really messed up. We can’t leave her here to die.” Toni begrudgingly said “Alright, but let’s make this quick.” We each got on one side and carried Emily along with us down the block, where we came across a security guard standing in front of a parking structure. I stopped and asked the guard if they could help. I explained that we didn’t know what was wrong with her, but that she needed attention, and possibly a ride to the hospital. The guard looked at me like I was stupid. Toni gave her a shrug. The guard then re-focused on Emily. She reached into Emily’s backpack, rifled around a bit, and pulled out an ID card. The guard then said “I’ll take care of this and get her an ambulance. You can go on your way.” Toni started pulling me along, as I said “thank you” to the guard. As we were all walking, I asked Antoinette, “What did you mean when you said she wasn’t drunk? Is there something going on that we don’t know about?” Toni just said, “There’s a lot of strange things going on around here that you don’t want to know about. And neither do I.” My friends kind of laughed, and we moved along. We had some drinks and got back into the celebratory mood. Chris mentioned that he had been wanting to check out one of the New Orleans cemeteries that he had read about. Toni did not look enthused. But, Chris was already in motion. He walked over to one of the police officers who were standing guard, and asked “Hey, do you know where the closest cemetery is?” The officer looked him dead in the eye and stared for a few seconds. Then… And no, this is not a joke, even though it sounds like a bad slasher movie line… He said, “There’s one just a few blocks over that way, but you don’t want to be going down there.” Chris smirked. “Why not?” The officer replied, (And again, he really said this. It’s not just a cheesy line from a horror movie.) “They don’t really like your kind over there.” I have to be honest. I was kind of freaked out by this interaction. And Toni wasn’t looking happy. Chris said, “Come on, nothing’s going to happen. This isn’t a horror movie.” After a long sigh, I replied, “I guess it can’t hurt. I’ve heard that the cemeteries are a sight to see around here.” We embarked on Chris’ quest, much to the chagrin of the rest of the group. There was quite a change in the look of the city as we got closer to the cemetery. It went from historic New Orleans chic to… something much less visually appealing. As we drew closer, I started to see and feel eyes on all of us. As we walked the final stretch to the cemetery entrance, there were at least a dozen people standing on their front porches and in their front yards, looking at us like we were about to do something really stupid. “We shouldn’t be here,” Toni said quietly. “Well, we are here, so let’s just be quick about it.” I said. When we got to the front gate, it was locked. Apparently, visiting hours were over. “Oh no, I guess we have to leave! Too bad,” said Toni. Despite our misfortune, we could still see all of the large, creepy and wonderful burial structures through the wrought iron fencing. Because New Orleans is below sea level, bodies are buried above ground. The arrangement of the structures in the cemetery actually looked like a small city. A city of the dead. The eyes were now piercing the backs of our heads, and we knew something was going to happen if we didn’t get out soon. But, Chris started walking the perimeter of the fencing until he happened upon a crevice big enough for him to try and squeeze through. He told us to follow him. I was hesitant, and Toni was telling me that we need to leave, but I figured a quick adventure inside couldn’t hurt. We’d be gone in a few minutes, not even enough time for police to arrive and catch us. So, we all squeezed through, one by one. It was getting pretty dark now, and this was really starting to feel wrong. I was just waiting for the doors to start opening and the dead to come out and greet us. I decided I was done with this place, and said to Chris, “Alright, we’re going back. This is just disrespectful, and the locals obviously don’t want us here.” He shot back, “Scared, huh?” I ignored him. We all squeezed back out, one at a time. Toni went just before me, and I was the last one out. I had a feeling like someone else was behind me, even though I was the last one. Before going through, I looked behind me… And I could swear that in the darkness, the door on one of the structures looked like it was sliding open. I could even hear the faint sound of a cement block scraping across the ground. I’m sure it was just my imagination, but this made me decide to get the heck out of there with the quickness. We walked silently at a much quicker pace back to the more populated downtown area. The noise and lights in the French Quarter seemed to welcome us home. ------------------------------ Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Carne Vale. A Farewell… To The Flesh. Today, the streets were twice as crowded as they had been the night before. This was the big day. Tons of new tourists filled the streets, to the point that we literally couldn’t even walk on Bourbon Street. We attempted to, but got stuck in the crowd like someone had tried to fit 100 crayons into a box that was only meant for 50. If anything happened here, we simply wouldn’t be able to move or get out of the way. For the rest of the day, we stuck to the side streets. As the parades carried on, it became more and more difficult to even go anywhere else, as they were blocking the streets, and thus blocking any way for us to go in the direction that we wanted. At this point, we kind of gave up and decided “If we can’t beat ‘em, we join ‘em.” “Let’s just go watch one of the parades,” I said. The others were indifferent. We all grabbed drinks and walked toward one of the main streets of the city as nightfall was beginning to close in on us. On our walk, we came upon some sort of dance troupe in the street. There were probably a dozen people in the troupe, all dressed in dark red, tribal looking outfits. Along with their dance, a few played hand drums, and they were all singing in what may have been French. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, though. At some point, the woman in front who appeared to be the leader of the troupe caught my eye and stared with a look as if she was not happy to see me. I saw her look over at Antoinette, then avert her gaze as if she had been caught. “Let’s go,” said Toni. As we walked away, I looked back and saw that the woman was staring again, with the same unhappy look on her face. A few minutes later into our walk, we started to see ahead down the street where it was looking more and more congested with people, to the point of it looking like the main floor of a sold-out rock show. I wondered how these people could deal with being so compressed together. Toni spoke up. “We want to stay away from anything that crowded,” she said. The rest of us agreed. I said, “Well, let’s just get a little closer. We don’t have to get right in the pit, but I do want to see what’s so exciting over there.” We kept walking. As we got closer, something started to seem a bit more clear. Not all of the people were making noise because they were having fun. Some of the merry-making noises turned out to be screams. As we moved closer, despite Antoinette’s objections, I noticed a small huddle of people in the center. Someone was on the ground. I hurried up to the circle and pushed my way to the inside. What I saw there left me frozen in my tracks. There were two people. One was laying on their back, motionless. The other… was on their knees, hovering over the one on the ground, and it looked… like they were eating their face. Blood was spewing everywhere while gawkers screamed in terror. Toni grabbed my arm from behind and said “I told you, we have to go!” She pulled at my arm, but I couldn’t avert my gaze from what was happening. Eventually, she pulled hard enough that I lost balance, sort of fell over, then got back up and started retreating with her. When we got back outside of the circle, we saw that there was another of the exact same scene happening maybe 20 feet away from us in another direction. “What is happening?!” I screamed. Then, the first circle we saw was dispersing rapidly as the flesh eater abandoned their meal and started seeking dessert in the crowd. Just like that, another was incapacitated on the ground, becoming seconds. But there was something else that I noticed while the thing was rising to look for its next victim… It was Emily, the girl who followed us the previous night. Toni told us that we were going to need to get to her place. As we began running, there were more and more of these things attacking and eating others. Where were they all coming from? If this wasn’t horrifying enough, I then received the answer to my question. Some of the flesh eaters were missing faces themselves. Just bone, blood and remnants of skin where their faces used to be. And they were using these skeletal faces to eat those of others. They weren’t ‘coming from’ anywhere. They were being created by the other flesh eaters. As one walked away from their meal, I saw the body of their victim rise and begin chasing their own mark. I was transfixed on this horrific, spontaneous public meltdown of society happening right before our eyes, when I was suddenly thrust to the ground with great force. I never saw it coming. I had no idea what was happening. I eventually focused, and realized that I had one of these faceless flesh eaters hovering over me. Blood was dripping from their jowls onto my face. I knew it was all over for me. Before I could even scream, Antoinette suddenly appeared face to face with the creature hovering over me. Except, she looked different. Her eyes were blood red, and she appeared to have a large set of fang-like teeth protruding from her open mouth. She used one hand to pick up the creature, bringing it face to face with her. She stared directly into its eyes and let out a guttural, terrifying sound like I’ve ever heard. Whatever this was… The creature was afraid of Toni. She dropped it, and it scrambled off immediately. She looked at me with her new face and shouted, “Get up and follow me. They won’t touch you now.” We ran behind her the rest of the way, tears in my eyes as I tried to figure out what was happening. When we got to her place, Toni locked the doors, and then shook some sort of liquid out of a bottle onto the floor in front of each of the doorways and windows. “This won’t be over until morning,” she said. Her face was back to normal now. We all stayed together in the living room that night. I knew that Toni would keep us safe. When daylight broke, she alerted us that it should be safe now, but that we needed to leave the city and go home immediately. We piled into her car so that she could drive us back to ours at the hotel. As we drove, I noticed that the streets were now empty, save for what appeared to be clean-up crews picking up the aftermath. Some were power washing the ground where there appeared to be dark stains. There were no bodies, and no flesh eaters out seeking breakfast, from what I could see. We were all dead silent for the entire drive, focused on what was happening outside our windows. Toni turned on the radio to a news station, and they were reporting that several people had died in what they called “parade float accidents” the prior day. As Toni said goodbye to us, she hugged me and put a note in my pocket. I haven’t had the courage to read it yet. CHX
Note: The particularly important details and music artist names are in bold text. Licensed music track names are in italics. The year is 1973, five years after the events of the Mafia III, and 22 years since Vito Scaletta’s seen or heard from his old friend Joe Barbaro. The canon ending of Mafia III with this Mafia IV story is Vito taking over the city after Lincoln skipped town, however Cassandra and Burke are left alive and loyal to both Vito and Lincoln still. Burke was able to survive his liver cancer by getting a black market liver transplant in Mexico, like he did in his ending, except with Vito running the city. On Vito and Lincoln’s behalf, Burke and Cassandra agree to stay behind in New Bordeaux and keep the city locked down, incase Leo Galante and the Commission try anything. The beginning cutscene is Vito answering his telephone after getting up in the morning in his new penthouse, on the top floor of the New Bordeaux casino he finished that was once Sal Marcano's, and grabbing a cup of coffee. It's Alma with some urgent news. Lincoln Clay came down to the cigar warehouse to visit her after 5 years of silence, and he has big news. Joe is alive in Empire Bay and has been this entire time. However, as punishment for his actions, he's become Leo Galante's personal driver against his will and is forbidden from contacting Vito ever again, or else him and Vito will be killed. Alma then tells Vito to meet Lincoln at the airport to learn more, as he's already there awaiting Vito's arrival. When they're away from anyone who could listen in on their conversation, Lincoln tells Vito he has a friend named John Donovan he's going to introduce him to, hiding in the outskirts of Empire Bay, ready to help Vito and Lincoln with their new mission Vito gets dressed in one of his signature trench coats with a suit and tie, ready to rain down hell on the Vinci crime family and their allies, and finally be reunited with his lifelong friend he previously thought was dead, Joe Barbaro. Here is my idea for the kill list, all related to the Commission in Empire Bay and their allies.
Leo Galante - Top target on the list, Vinci family consigliere who's in with the Commission and the man you thought put Joe in the ground for the past 22 years. Bury this wrinkly old cocksucker.
Johnny Galante - Vinci family capo and younger relative of Leo's mentioned in Cassandra's ending, possibly Leo's cousin even. John Donovan knows that the two are close, and that Johnny's a valuable asset to Leo's organization. Kill him both to hurt Leo's earn and influence, and to hit him straight in the heart by taking away his family and everyone he loves
Michele Galante Jr. - Another Vinci family capo, and Leo Galante’s youngest brother. Killing Leo’s little brother will both take away one of his most reliable allies, and leave him stricken with grief and enraged, and more prone to making mistakes.
Nunzio Galante - Leo’s seasoned older brother by 3 years, and yet another Vinci family capo. He knows enough about smuggling that he worked out an ingenious plan for smuggling military grade weapons into the city. He pays off corrupt officials at Empire Bay International Airport, to allow guns to be loaded inside the walls and floors of planes, unknown to everyone onboard save for the palms the Galantes and Frank Vinci have greased to cooperate and keep quiet. The time has come to put this crafty old bastard in the ground.
Don Frank Vinci - Frank Vinci is the boss of the Vinci crime family, the family Leo's been a consigliere of for decades, and a lifelong friend of his. Kill Frank, and Leo loses more ground than he could ever imagine, and will be forced to deal with both the loss of his boss, and the loss of his lifelong childhood friend.
Don Ennio Salieri - Longtime close friend of both Frank Vinci and Leo Galante, Don of the Salieri crime family, and a third party Frank and Leo call in to crush Vito's uprising, when it becomes too big of an issue for Vinci alone to handle. Salieri was eventually able to grease enough palms while behind bars to have his life sentence overturned, and he got released from prison on good behavior in 1953, after he served 15 years of his sentence. He’s since relocated to his main operations to Empire Bay, having already had connections and men present there while he was in prison, backed by the Commission and the Vinci crime family. He's seasoned, but he’s nothing Mr. Scaletta can't handle. Give this tired old fuck the gangland ending he's had coming.
Isaac - Isaac is the personal assistant to an influential loan shark named Bruno Levine, who handles the money of the Commission, including the Vinci crime family and the Salieri crime family. He does anything from serve his boss coffee, to count incoming and outgoing money for Bruno. Because of his duties, he's aware of Bruno's location at all times. You’ll need to get to Isaac to get information on his boss out of him, and dispose of him afterwards if you want to get to Bruno.
Bruno Levine - Bruno is a Jewish-American loan shark who kicks up all of his earn to both Frank Vinci and Ennio Salieri, and the Commission in Empire Bay. Killing him kills a lot of earn for the Commission, and they loses a valuable asset. In addition to getting rid of him being practical, to add insult to injury, he gave your father that loan. It's about time to put this asshole out of business.
Mr. Chu & Mr. Chu Jr. - This old man has been leading the Empire Bay Triads with an iron fist since before you were even born. The bastard has a son too, who eventually went on to become his underboss. The Empire Bay Triads became a close ally of the Vinci crime family, the Salieri crime family, and the Commission shortly after Vito killed Don Carlo Falcone in 1951, forming a lucrative partnership with the Commission. Mr. Chu and his eldest son are valuable assets for Leo Galante who give him extra reach. Melt their iron fists and show these two pricks just who they fucked with.
Eddie Scarpa - This cocksucker used to be Carlo Falcone's underboss for as long as you could remember. After you whacked Falcone in the fall of 1951, he decided to throw in with Vinci to save his own skin. He took over the smuggling and dock union extortion that fat fuck Derek Pappalardo used to run. You know all too well how to deal with this sorry fuckin' rat.
I'm thinking Vito and Joe work with Lincoln Clay and John Donovan to split up Empire Bay and distribute territory to three other factions not unlike what Lincoln did with New Bordeaux. This time though, this is a much larger city in a much, much different part of the United States. The empire building mechanics would be a lot smoother, more robust, and streamlined compared to Mafia III. They would work similarly a more modernized version of how the hit city sandbox game Scarface: The World Is Yours handled it's empire building and management mechanics, minus the whole switching to other characters lower on the ladder to do your bidding. This would be ideal for a story rich organized crime game in my opinion. Here are my ideas for those factions, all close allies of the up and coming Scaletta crime family. The Cuban mob led by Alma Diaz. Vito goes way back with Alma, and she does not hesitate to answer him and Lincoln's calls to save Joe's life and royally fuck both Leo Galante and the Vinci family. Conti crime family, led by Enzo Conti. This Conti crime family formed sometime in late 1968, months after Lincoln helped Enzo flee New Bordeaux and drop off of Sal Marcano's radar. It turns out he fled north to Empire Bay and finally formed his own family, having more than enough years of experience in the underworld to handle the job. Lincoln's tight with him and manages to recruit him to Vito and Joe's cause. The Yakuza, based out of Empire Bay's Japantown. Longtime sworn enemies of the Empire Bay Triads, with bad blood going back decades. They would greatly enjoy seeing Mr. Chu and his son's heads mounted on pikes, along with whacking everyone who's ever supported their organization. You don't know them well, and they're known to be very unpredictable and ruthless. Use these traits to your advantage when taking on the Commission of Empire Bay and their friends. I should mention as expected, this entire 1973 section where you play as Vito is much shorter than Mafia III. Vito's takeover is shown much more quickly over time than Lincoln's, and there's time skips during it, to keep it short and sweet, and to show onscreen only what's important. There is also no option for your underbosses to betray you, as to reduce confusion and keep the story consistently the same each playthrough, like the first two Mafia games. However, unlike Mafia III, after all of these tasks are completed and every single assassination target on Vito’s kill list is dealt with, the game does not end. In fact, it's not even anywhere near close to being over yet. Vito's 1973 section was merely the beginning act. It was really a lead up to an entirely new Mafia story, centering around a newcomer to the American mob. Fast forward two years following Vito’s rampage that led to him taking over Empire Bay and the Commission, in the year 1975 him and Joe now rule Empire Bay, with Vito as the Don of the Scaletta Crime Family, and Joe working as his loyal underboss. You play the rest of the game as a young up and coming soldato named Louis in his 20’s, who’s a rising star in Vito’s organization. Do right by Mr. Scaletta and Mr. Barbaro, understand kid? My basic idea for the character and his backstory is that he's a young Italian-Canadian mobster from Toronto, Ontario, or whatever Mafia's equivalent of it could be called. Let's call him Louis DeSimone. His family hails from Tuscany in Italy and moved to Toronto, Ontario in 1939, shortly after World War II broke out in Europe. Louis DeSimone was born in July 1952 in Toronto, and was raised in Toronto's Little Italy. Being northern Italian and hailing from Tuscany, Louis has blond hair and green eyes, making him visually very distinct from past series protagonists, who were all dark haired brunets with brown eyes. Louis fled south to Empire Bay when the feds started cracking down on his old family and put his boss in prison, and he ended up finding a new home with the Scaletta crime family. The first few missions playing as Louis DeSimone involve shooting your away out of an arrest by a Toronto Police Service SWAT team in Toronto in December 1974, seeing the rest of the members of your old crime family either get arrested or shot in front of you as you make your escape. You spend the next two missions fleeing Ontario through Quebec and upstate New York, before finally arriving in Empire Bay in early 1975, late January to be exact. Winter is in full force with snow everywhere, Louis' arrival to Empire Bay for the first time in his life mirroring Vito's return to Empire Bay in 1945 30 years earlier, except under far different much more dire circumstances. Louis' older brother and his father, both capos in his old crime family in Toronto, are shown to be arrested by the TPS SWAT team in his first mission, the same one that attempted to gun him down when he resisted arrested. Louis knows someone had to have ratted out his old crime family, and he wants to find out who someday. The thing is though, he doesn't just want to kill them. He wants to get out of them why they did it before he kills them. More than anything else, he just wants to find out why his crime family was betrayed and served up to the feds on a silver platter, having most of his biological family sent to prison in the process. He’s out to uncover the mystery of why his family fell apart, and he’s more than willing to help people like Don Vito Scaletta and his underboss Joe Barbaro to eventually get the answers he seeks. In the end, he’s not even after revenge primarily, more than that, he wants answers and information regarding the fare of his old crime family, and wants to know why his family fell apart. I came up with the idea for this character because I figured that playing as a fugitive from the law made sense for the mob life, and I'm surprised we haven't had a fugitive protagonist in the Mafia series yet. In the 1975 chapters while playing as Louis, the Watergate scandal, President Richard Nixon’s resignation, and the official end to the Vietnam War are all discussed on the in-game radio during news segments. In the last 1979 chapter, the beginning of the Soviet-Afghan War is also the subject of a news segment on the radio. The story eventually transitions into the 1980's as years pass, with the scenery, cars, and music changing accordingly, and historical events of the time discussed in the game. In the 1989 section of the game, the murder of the infamous former Sinclair Parish Sheriff Walter “Slim” Beaumont is mentioned on the in-game radio, as just over 21 years ago Slim and his corruption ring were the top headline of national news. the time the game ends, it's 1992, and significant historical events from the past few years at the time that are covered on the radio in-game include anything from the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, to the 1992 L.A. riots. The rise of the internet and home computers are briefly touched upon during news segments on the in-game radio during the early 1990's section of the story, but not greatly delved into given their relative infancy in that time period. During this entire 1975-1992 stretch of the story, Vito is no longer playable, and Don Scaletta takes a backseat in the story as a main supporting character, similar to Don Salieri throughout Mafia: Definitive Edition. You now play as the Italian-Canadian Scaletta family soldato Louis DeSimone, who is later promoted to being a capo in 1985. At the end of the game in 1992, Louis is promoted to Consigliere of the Scaletta crime family, and it’s revealed in the epilogue that he became the don of the family in 2006 at the age of 54, and his now released from prison older brother serving as his underboss, and and Enzo Conti’s grandson Giovanni Conti serving as consigliere, taking over from Louis’ previous position which before that belonged to his father and Enzo’s only son, Lorenzo Conti from 1973-1992. It is worth noting that unlike Don Salieri, Don Scaletta has much more integrity, and has more genuine loyalty for his men and his associates. If you've beaten Mafia 1 or Mafia: Definitive Edition, you'll know this is something Salieri lacked in the end. Over time, Louis also goes from having a strictly business relationship with Vito and Joe, to bonding with them and becoming a genuinely close friend and trusted member of the family, seeing Vito as something of a second father, and coming to see Joe as the fun uncle he never had. Another major character development theme is Louis DeSimone adapting and assimilating into Italian-American culture in his new home in the Northeastern US, it seeming like something new mixed with the familiar Italian-Canadian culture he was raised in back in Ontario just north of the border. The game will include a number of hit music from the 70’s that played on the radio back then, such as Bobby Womack’s Across 110th Street and Tony Christie’s (Is This the Way to) Amarillo, The Grateful Dead's Casey Jones and at least a few songs by the then new American rock band Cheap Trick, as well as popular songs from the 1960’s people still listened to at the time, such as Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs’ Wooly Bully, King Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man,Zager and Evans' In the Year 2525, The Zombies' Time of the Season, and Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Are Made for Walkin'. When you progress through the game, especially after you switch to playing as Louis DeAngelo for the rest of the story, years change, and the music changes. Different songs start playing on the radio, such as Sylvester's You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real),Randy Crawford's Street Life, and The Village People's Y.M.C.A., Cheryl Lynn's Got to Be Real, Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive, and the Bee Gees' Stayin' Alive start playing in the 1979 portion of the game. After you've completed the 1975 section of the game, Foghat's Slow Ride starts playing on the radio. Starting in the 1977 section of the game, Cheap Trick's I Want You to Want Me and Heart's Barracuda start playing on the radio. In the 1980's portion of the game, Thomas Dolby's songs Hyperactive! and She Blinded Me with Science, in addition to Night Ranger's Sister Christian also start playing on the radio. If Hangar 13 can afford the licenses, I also think a few Michael Jackson and Madonna songs should definitely be on the radio during the 1980's portion of the story, given the immense popularity and regular radio airtime those two had in that decade. If this ended up being possible, I imagine that Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal, Beat It, Bad, and Billie Jean being on the radio in the 80's sections would be a must, Smooth Criminal especially because of how well it suits the series. Madonna's Lucky Star, Burning Up, Like a Virgin, and Borderline would also be perfect for the 80's portion of the game to me. Also mentioned by NPCs and civilians in the game are topical events of the time period, such as the release of the groundbreaking 1973 horror film The Exorcist at the end of Vito's playable portion of the game. Other music of the 1980's segment when playing as Louis DeAngelo for the remainder of the game includes hits of the era such as Joe Jackson's Steppin' Out, The Buggles' Video Killed The Radio Star, Corey Hart's Sunglasses at Night,Laura Branigan's Self Control and Gloria, The Weather Girls' It's Raining Men, A-ha’s Take On Me, Men at Work's Down Under, Kim Wilde's Kids in America, The Gap Band's You Dropped a Bomb on Me, Culture Club’s Karma Chameleon, Michael Sembello’s Maniac, Twisted Sister's I Wanna Rock and We're Not Gonna Take It, Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive and Bad Medicine, Soft Cell’s Tainted Love, Robert Palmer’s Simply Irresistible, Rick Astley’s Together Forever, Whenever You Need Somebody, and Never Gonna Give You Up, Cutting Crew’s [I Just] Died In Your Arms, Loverboy's Working for the Weekend, Dead or Alive's You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) and That's the Way (I Like It), Tiffany’s I Think We’re Alone Now, Daryl Hall & John Oates' Maneater, Aneka's Japanese Boy, Mötley Crüe's Dr. Feelgood, Girls, Girls, Girls and Kickstart My Heart, Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire, Huey Lewis And The News' Hip To Be Square, Bill Medley's (I've Had) The Time of My Life, The Police's Every Breath You Take, Whodini's Magic's Wand, Guns ‘N Roses’ Welcome to the Jungle and Paradise City, Tears For Fears' Everybody Wants To Rule The World, Rockwell's Somebody's Watching Me, Regina's Baby Love, Nena's 99 Red Balloons, Earth, Wind, and Fire's Let's Groove and September, Billy Idol's Eyes Without a Face and White Wedding, Rick James’ Give It To Me Baby, Olivia Newton-John’s Physical, The S.O.S. Band’s Take Your Time (Do It Right), Kenny Loggins’ Highway to the Danger Zone, Wham!’s Everything She Wants, George Michael's Careless Whisper, Toto's Hold the Line and Africa, Blondie's Heart of Glass and Atomic, and Mai Tai's History. **Note that not every single year and moment of the 17 year 1975-1992 section playing as Louis DeAngelo is playable or chronicled. My idea is it would be handled similarly to how the time skips in Mafia 1/Mafia: Definitive Edition were handled. Time skips of two or more years, or in this case, even longer such as 4 years sometimes, the game skipping from 1979 to 1983. This is to keep the game and story length ideal, and not risk it getting boring or repetitive, or going on for too long. Repetition was a big problem in Mafia III even if I still thought it was a superb game, so I think it'd be best to learn from that for the next big entry. The games story will skip ahead and show onscreen only what's significant, similar to the first Mafia game and it's remake, as well as certain aspects of Mafia II. Louis starts his section as a 22 year old fugitive soldato who got picked up by another crew south of the Canadian border, and in the epilogue of the game in 1992, is promoted to the consigliere of the Scaletta crime family at the age of 40, being set to take over the family once Vito and Joe become too old to run the day to day on a regular basis. Louis DeSimone is promoted to don of the Scaletta crime family following Vito and Joe being officially retired as of 2006. They’re both still involved and paid huge amounts of money by Louis out of respect, but keep a much lower profile by then since they have handpicked successors and aren’t worried about where the business is going. The years chronicled in the main gameplay segments are as follows: 1973 1975 1977 1979 1983 1985 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 Much more of the rural areas and countryside outside of Empire Bay are included than what was available in Mafia II. The way rural environments are handled for this hypothetical Mafia IV is akin to how Mafia: Definitive Edition and Mafia III handled their rural environments outside the main cities, except much larger in scale, given the increased power of the current new consoles such as the PS5 and Xbox Series X. This region is based off of upstate New York and the surrounding areas across multiple states in the Northeastern US, and includes forests, fields, mountains, rivers, lakes, beaches, and small towns. Also included are other cities and towns, based off of other large cities in New York like Syracuse, Buffalo, and Rochester, where other story missions, business activities, and side missions take place, along with smaller notable places like Ithaca, Binghamton, and Utica. The entire states of New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Delaware, Maryland, and Ohio are also included, including places based off of all of their major cities and most of their notable towns in between. Large portions of Pennsylvania are included as well, including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Scranton. All of the province of Nova Scotia including the city of Halifax, and Large portions of the eastern half of the Canadian province of Ontario are included as well, including cities based off of Toronto, Ottawa, and Niagara Falls. There's even a small portion of Quebec included, including Montreal and the surrounding countryside of the province outside that city, including a few small towns in southern Quebec. The player must pass a quick border patrol check when crossing the US-Canada border in a car or other ground vehicle. Wildlife is present in the game, mostly to add to the background, scenery, and immersion in rural environments on the map. These are all animals native to the Northeastern US, ranging from white tailed deer, coyotes, bobcats, Canada lynxes, rabbits, hares, groundhogs, gophers, beavers, raccoons, opossums, bats, chipmunks, red and gray squirrels, mice, and rats to more formidable and potentially dangerous animals that may sometimes attack the player, such as grey wolves, black bears, mountain lions, and moose. These last four animals are known to spawn in the mountainous regions, especially in New York, Ohio, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Ontario, including the rural regions based off of the Catskills and the Adirondack mountains. Dogs are present in the cities, towns, and settlements where humans live and keep them as pets, being walked and sometimes found in people's yards. Some are used as guard dogs by enemies and are aggressive towards the player on sight. Domestic cats are also present in the background of residential areas, and both Louis and Vito own them as pets throughout the game in their safe houses, as well as other onscreen characters we see the homes of throughout the game. Aircraft make their first usable appearance in the Mafia series too, from airplanes to helicopters. Vito cannot use planes or helicopters in his playable 1973 portion of the game, as he does not know how to pilot, being a paratrooper in World War II who never actually flew any of the planes himself. Aircraft are unlocked to use when Louis DeSimone gets his pilot’s certificate offscreen in 1977, and at the end of a chapter set that year, Louis has to fly Vito in a helicopter to a penthouse in Downtown Empire Bay acting as a family safe house, equipped with a helipad. Louis frequently serves as a personal driver and pilot for both Vito and Joe afterwards, having done a lot in his time serving the family to earn their trust and respect. Melee weapons also make a return from Mafia: Definitive Edition, with even more variety this time. In their respective sections of the game, Vito and Louis may use anything from baseball bats, pipes, shovels, brass knuckles, golf clubs, police batons, switchblades, kitchen knives, bowie knives, ice picks, 2x4s, claw hammers, crowbars, tire irons, chain links, machetes, meat cleavers, pickaxes, hatchets, sledgehammers, to fire axes. This amount of melee weapons is so no matter what environment the player finds themselves in during a mission or any other game activity, there is usually a weapon of some sort nearby. If the player has obtained piano wire, you may also strangle an enemy to death with it from behind as a stealth kill, this being a classic assassination method infamous for being used by the Italian Mafia. Rope can also be found and used for similar strangulation stealth kills, appearing in the gameplay environments where piano wire can’t be found. There is a wide variety of new guns and explosives to use in this concept for Mafia IV, going with the new weapons of the time the game takes place that criminals quickly got their hands on. This includes the SPAS-12 combat shotgun, the Beretta 92 pistol, the AK-74 assault rifle, the mini uzi, the MAC-10 submachine gun, both suppressed and unsuppressed variants, the Beretta 92 pistol, the Taurus raging bull revolver, Glock handguns, the TEC-9 machine pistol, illegally modified to be full auto, the Ruger Mini-14 full auto variant, and even Vietnam war era flamethrowers, which I think is only natural given that as of Mafia III, we already have RPGs and grenade launchers. Late in the game from the 1989 section and onwards, the Benelli M3 combat shotgun becomes available. The Milkor MGL grenade launcher becomes available beginning in the 1983 portion of the game. Attached grenade launchers are also available for the AK-47, AK-74, and M16 assault rifles. More advanced rocket launchers of the 1970’s and 1980’s are naturally included as well. Free ride makes a return in Mafia IV, with the player having the options to change the weather, time period, and an option to play as Louis, Vito, Joe, Lincoln, or John Donovan. Naturally, a multitude of new free ride missions are available as well. I previously posted a much earlier and less detailed draft of this on the old Mafia3 subreddit 3 years ago back in 2017 as an idea for a hypothetical Mafia 3 expansion where you play as Vito, but have since updated and revamped it to a possible Mafia IV plot, and fixed any plot holes I noticed and made it much more fleshed out and in depth, and focus on more than just Vito in the end. You may view my original here if you so desire, to compare. https://www.reddit.com/Mafia3/comments/6sldhp/spoiler_mafia_iii_vito_dlc_basic_plot_idea/ Feel free to give me constructive criticism on this, as I encourage this discourse and believe it is integral to growing and improving, to build upon or improve these ideas I've come up with, or say whether or not you think something like this should happen in the future. Thank you for reading!
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