Chapter One
This story begins, like many stories do, in a dark, foggy night, in a dark swamp filled with the vilest of the many vile life forms that make swamps their damp homes. Two years ago, a strange submarine had appeared upstream, in a bog. Marked on the metallic surface, a strange symbol unknown to the locals, or to most of them, at least. I came to know this much later, however. Up until then, I had been in the distant north, in a city called Ultima. When news came of the events that took place here, where this story begins, unfolds and develops into another series of extremely unfortunate events, I left the north and made for the south, to discover the truth of what I’d heard. It was only when I registered the events that I truly understood the idiom ‘to go south’. One could say that a situation goes south when it worsens. I find it rather unfair, though, as any sane man would agree that the north can be just as bad as the south, and the west just as horrible as the east. One could also say that in space there is no north or south. It is an invention, a convention commonly shared by many. But for the three people that were inside the submarine, things started to go south for them the minute the timer on their stasis – a word which here means ‘suspended animation’, or ‘a state between life and death’ – chambers hit the zero mark. Two years, it had been. Two years since they first went inside those chambers, to escape a crueler fate, and a watery grave.
I never learned who awoke from their slumber first, as they had entered stasis at different times, after setting course for the destination they had been told to aim for. I did learn, however, that they scared the poor owner of a shrimp restaurant that had opened up near the half-sunken submarine. The man ran screaming as the three siblings crawled from inside their confinement, to breathe their first breath of fresh air in two years, and to look up at the night sky. What I did learn was that there was another witness to this scene. A lad, no older than fourteen, who was fishing for crabs in the mud of the bog. He watched with horror, at first, then fascination, as the three figures stumbled and staggered out of the submarine onto the quay, laying down, as their legs were too stiff to support their weight. The lad rowed his boat to the quay, after removing his fishing net from the mud, which contained not one, not two, but three big crabs. He approached the three figures carefully. It was dark, save for the red light that poured out of the submarine. He had gotten so used to the old thing, as the other locals had, that he never dreamed it would one day open. He had wondered what could be inside it, but never did her imagine that not one, not two, but three people would crawl out of it. He eyed each of the three people with wonder. The two boys were nearly identical, except one had wilder hair and was broader of shoulders and more muscular, the other was athletic as well, but slender. They had the same skin, dark hair, thick dark eyebrows and growing sideburns. The girl on the other hand, while looking very much like the other two, was softer built, pretty, with the same dark hair and eyebrows as her male counterparts. The lad later informed me he instinctively guessed they were siblings, though he hadn’t imagined them to be actually a set of triplets, three siblings born at the same time.
‘Coo!’ The lad exclamated. While you must be unfamiliar with his manner of speech, it would do for me to inform you that the lad in question was cajun, and they have an unnusual dialect, a mixture of english and french words and corruptions that made for an interesting language. ‘Ey!’ The lad shouted, trying to wake up the sleeping – or fainted – trio. ‘Do ya year me? Ey!’
‘Hmpf.’ The lad sat on the quay, frustrated. He had half a mind to walk away to town and sell the three fat crabs he had caught with his net, but decided they were too big and packed with sweet crab meat. That would be a waste, he thought to himself, to go and sell those juicy crabs to someone in town. Most like one of the policeman would beat him up for poaching, as he was in private land.
Hudson land. It would be best to avoid having to deal with them, he thought.
Personally, I have a deep dislike for seafood. To eat a crab that came for a swamp…Just the thought of it makes my skin crawl. Years ago, my home was torn by a tidal wave, and when I came back, there was nothing but crabs, picking at the scab that that place was in my life. But some people do enjoy it, and the lad did, and so he broke into the restaurant. The owner was a fat oaf that paid too little for too much, he thought. He would cook the crabs alive and smear them with the expensive – and rare around those parts – yellow butter. Just thinking of it was enough to make the lad’s mouth water. Maybe the smell of food would wake up the three siblings on the quay.
After the crabs were done, the lad took a crab hammer and went outside and sat by the table. Just as he was about to suck the white meat out of a crab claw, one of the three strangers screamed.
‘Violet!’ The large one shouted, reaching for the sky with his hand. He had been having a nightmare. ‘Me name ain’t Violet.’ He shouted back at the stranger. ‘Where am I? What day is today? What
year?’ The large young man crawled towards the place where the lad was. ‘Wat’s wrong with dem legs?’ He asked. ‘I…I don’t know…I can’t walk yet. But please, tell me where I am, and the date.’
‘Bayou Lafayette.’ The lad informed him. ‘Bayou…Lafayette?’
‘Yeah! I was about to eat dem crabs…Real kristpee crab legs, you lak?’ The lad asked the young man across that large section of the quay that served as the restaurant’s parlor. ‘Do you know the date? What year is it?’
‘Year?’ The lad was a swamp dweller, an orphan, who poached to survive, and he didn’t even know his own birthday. But it wasn’t a problem. The young man noticed a calendar hanging outside the restaurant’s and realized what day, month and year it was. His eyes went wide with disbelief. ‘Two years…Two years we’ve been asleep…’
‘Ya been dere two years?’ The lad asked, incredulous. The young man ignored him. The young man crawled back to the other young man and woman.
If you have read the previous thirteen dreadful books I have written and I do honestly wish you hadn’t, or haven’t, depending on how lenient your local government is concerning these matters, you know who the young man is. You also know who the other two are. You know why they were inside that submarine. You know what happened to them. But if you don’t know, if this is the first time you have picked up a book of mine – and I wish for your sake that you hadn’t – it is my solemn duty and responsibility to formally introduce this curious trio, and to recapitulate on the events that had led them to that quay, in the swamp.
Their family name was Quagmire. A fitting name, considering their surroundings at this point of the story. An even more fitting name considering the swamp of dismay and disarray that was their lives. They were triplets, two boys, and a girl. They were clever, attractive – even though they looked rather unkempt after two years in stasis – and ingenious. They had strong ties to the legendary Baudelaire orphans, and a no longer existing organization which I hope you’ve never heard of. They were Isadora, Quigley and Duncan Quagmire.
Their lives had been nothing but a swamp full of misfortune, woe, fires, despair and sorrow, and grim circumstances. But at some point in a distant past they had been happy. They had two great parents, a large mansion to call home, and a large inheritance coming their way. All that ceased to be theirs when a fire separated the three, leaving two of the three judging the third one dead, the third one lost, and their lives nothing but a series of unfortunate event after unfortunate event. The only bright spots were some of the people they had come to know and love, and between those rare people were the Baudelaire orphans – who, if you’ve read my previous books, which I hope you haven’t, you know who they are. If not, consider yourself lucky, and put down this book immediately before it’s too late.
Isadora was the sole girl of the triplets. She was a pretty girl with gorgeous, grayish green eyes, and dark hair. She was the most artistically sensible of the three, as her main interest was poetry, specifically, couplets, a series of short two verse poems which she could fashion into codes to communicate with her allies, as she had done succesfully in the past. Isadora hadn’t written a couplet in what felt like ages, and poems were the last thing on her mind at this point, as she struggled to get that numbness out of her legs, to make use of them again.
Duncan Quagmire was one of the two boys of the triplets. He had silky dark hair, and the same grayish green eyes of his brother and sister. Duncan and Isadora had, at one point, been admitted to a school, and the two met the valorous Baudelaires then. Duncan had used all his journalistic knowledge to help the Baudelaires, even though their plan was useless and futile, and he and Isadora were mercilessly abducted from school grounds. They had been fortunate to reunite with the Baudelaires two more times, but after that they fell into the ocean and were taken into what once was the greatest terror of this world. Having survived that, however, there wasn’t much else that scared them at the moment.
Quigley Quagmire was the last and lost Quagmire. Separated from his brother and sister by a fire, Quigley was forced to become a survivor. His interest in cartography helped him get safely to Tedia, then Paltryville, then the Mortmain Mountains, where he joined the Snow Scouts to discover the secret headquarters of the organization that was behind everything. It was then and there that he met the Baudelaires, and, the least fortunate of the three, saw himself cut away from his love, Violet Baudelaire for a long time, and then again. Now, two years later, the three Quagmire siblings had awakened to find a different world than the one they left. And so their true story began.
Chapter Two
After the numbness was gone and they regained command of their legs, the Quagmires emptied the submarine. Inside they found a map, knives, matches, jackets, trap-making kits, some canned foods, which they traded for the three juicy crabs the cajun lad had caught and cooked. They didn’t trust canned food after their time in Dread Down. They had seen a man open one to be immediately poisoned by the foulness inside. The cajun lad cracked one open and proved their theories wrong. The canned goods were still good, but the Quagmires were not taking any chances. There were no notebooks or books aboard the submarine. That did not surprise them. Books, pen, paper, and ink were not allowed to the dwellers of Dread Down. They had to communicate verbally, and they resorted to keywords and passwords to pass along intelligence, not that it helped any of them; when the time the Unknown Agents had been waiting for arrived, their great Weapon doomed nearly all of them. Only a few dozen escape pods made it safely out of the underwater inferno; most of them didn’t even have the time to launch, not to count the prisoners down in the Great Gaol. They were as good as gone once the Unknown went haywire. Many died before even making it to an escape pod, dwellers and Agents alike. Yes, there were Agent casualties, but the number of which paled in comparison to the hundreds of dwellers that died that day.
Before it all, Quigley and Duncan were shoveling coal into burning furnaces in the Great Gaol. They were thankful that Isadora had been picked as handmaiden to the woman leader of the Agents. Her contact with the leaders’ son had improved their lives a lot. Life was hard in Dread Down, but the Great Gaol was hell. They thought of Gregor Anwhistle. They had met the man, who boasted of nearly wiping out the Agents with medusoid mycelium before he was stopped by his fellow volunteers for attempting to fight fire with fire. A boisterous old man who must have been seventy if he was a day, but strong as a bull, he was. Knowing his daughter, I can only imagine he must truly have been fearsome. Now, he was gone. There was no way that he could have escaped the Great Gaol. No one ever did.
It was when Quigley was removing the last contents from the submarine, a metallic box with the Unknown Agents’ question-mark-and-eye sigil, that the message began to play. The screen was lit, and the face of Jill Nebra was made visible to him.
‘Duncan! Isadora! Come and see this!’ Quigley shouted. Isadora and Duncan appeared, and watched as Doctor Jill Nebra spoke on the screen, amidst static. The submarine had been in bad condition, as the unhealthy swamp water was not kind to the metal and the circuits. There was barely any power left, but the Quagmires found the sight of the doctor’s face comforting. She had been one of the few that made Dread Down tolerable.
‘
Quigley. Isadora. Duncan. If you are hearing and seeing this message, that must mean that you’ve removed the metallic box from atop the switch that would trigget this message, and that means that you’ve recovered from the after-effects of stasis. The last time I spoke to you, I told you to configure your route to make for the south of our country, more precisely…’ the message stopped and cracked for a moment, leaving out the name Dr. Nebra was about to say. Then, the message resumed. ‘…
and Bayou Lafayette. Your father, Quentin Quagmire, came from a large family, and had relatives in the south. You must find the only relative of your father’s. The only one who I trust will help you find me again. You must find me, as only I will be able to point you in the right direction.’
‘
The world will surely have changed. It is all I can do but to tell you to make for your father’s relative’s house. He owns most of the lands around Bayou Lafayette. Make sure to mention your father. I’m afraid the two were estranged, but he will help you. He will, I know it.’
‘
I also must make one last request. Find my nephew and niece. Find Nemo and Cindry if you can, and help them. I look forward to meeting you again.’ The screen went black, and the power of the submarine ceased. The whole vessel shook, and the Quagmires realized, to their terror, that it was sinking into the bog.
‘Out!’ Quigley needed not shout the word, as the three Quagmires quickly exited the submarine, throwing themselves and the metallic box onto the quay, and they watched as the submarine – their home for the past two years – sunk into the dark, disgusting water and mud of the bog.
‘Galee! Da sub’s sinkin’!’ The cajun lad shouted when he realized what was happening. He still had some corn stuck to his chin, as he had cracked open a can of corn. ‘Guess dey’ll have ta change da restaurant’s naym now.’ He looked up at the shrimp place’s sign, a wooden board with crudely painted words on them. ‘Sub Mud-Bugs.’ Isadora read the sign. What a stupid name it was.
‘The old man’s goin’ ta be pissed!’ The lad had a good laugh. He appeared to loathe the restaurant owner, and he did. ‘Hey. Can you tell us again the name of the man who owns the lands around here?’
‘Ya mean ol’ Jeremiah Hudson?’ The lad asked. ‘Jeremiah Hudson, is it? I’ve never heard of him.’ Duncan commented. ‘I dun see why you’d ave.’ The lad replied. ‘Ya sound like dem northern folks, you.’
‘We are.’ Isadora said. The Quagmire family name had been originated around these parts, but their branch of the family had made north generations ago. They had nothing in common with the likes of Jeremiah Hudson, as it soon would be plain to see. ‘Can you tell us how to get to his house? We need to talk to him.’ Quigley asked. ‘Hmpf. You spend two years in dat kang and ya come out wantin’ ta see ol’ Jeremiah Hudson? Dat is fooyay. Ol’ Jeremiah dun talk ta anyone, and he dun like anyone in ‘is lands.’
‘We have urgent matters to attend to. We need to speak to him, if only for an hour or two.’ Duncan said. ‘Can you at least point us in the right direction?’ Quigley asked. He had looked over the maps he found inside the submarine, but nothing concerning Bayou Lafayette or even that part of the country. ‘You want to go bag dare in da swamp? Dem gators will get you.’
‘Gators?’ Isadora asked. She did not like the sound of the word. And after the things the Quagmires were to witness at Bayou Lafayette, they would dislike that word a whole lot more. ‘You mean
alligators?’
‘Yeah.’ The lad said. ‘Gators, and other hayacalls are in da swamp, and will get you. Best you go to town. Ya can sell all dat stuff in town.’
‘Thanks, but we’d rather go see Jeremiah Hudson.’ Quigley kneeled and opened the metallic box. His eyes went wide and he shut it before anyone else got a glimpse of the contents. ‘Ya can borrow me boat, den, you.’ The lad pointed to the boat, with two oars, a bucket and some damp rope. A pitiful excuse for a boat, but a boat still. ‘Are you sure? We can’t pay you.’ Duncan said. ‘Nah, it’s good. You gave me kangs of food. Just be careful of dem gators, and other hayacalls, you. Bayou Lafayette is a moodee place!’ The lad ran off with the canned goods he put in a stolen rucksack from the restaurant before they could ask him his name. It made no matter. It was good riddance. That lad wasn’t good company anyway, and the Quagmires prefered the company of one another.
‘He said across the swamp so that must mean that way.’ Quigley pointed to the opposite side. Fireflies could be seen, flickering and glowing eerily amidst the fog. Strange noises came from the woods, and the smell of the swamp was as nasty as the look of it. ‘Quigley, what is in the box?’ Isadora asked. Quigley hesitated for a moment, but he kneeled and opened the metallic box and turned it around, revealing it’s contents to his brother and sister. ‘Oh my.’ Isadora put a hand on her chest. Duncan’s eyes went wide as he asked Quigley, ‘You mean we’re supposed to
use those?!’
‘I don’t know if we’re supposed to. But there might just come a time when we need to. Like Doctor Nebra said, the world must have surely changed these two years. We don’t know what we’re up against. I suggest we keep these. Just in case.’ And saying this, Quigley Quagmire removed three guns from the metallic box, presenting two to his brother and sister.
Chapter Three
The metallic box sunk easily and rapidly into the darkness of the swamp when Quigley disposed of it. The other supplies, water, bullets, knives, rope, matches, candles, flintstones, wood, all of it was packed and inside the boat, and the three Quagmire triplets each had a gun on them. They were used to guns. The Agents each carried one, and so did their minions, scouts and soldiers. They just never expected to carry guns themselves. ‘It’s best if we keep them concealed at all times. And be careful. I don’t want anyone of us getting shot by mistake.’
Isadora had been the most resistant to take one of the guns, but Duncan and Quigley convinced her. She took the smallest one, but did not load it. The three Quagmires had found suitable clothes inside the submarine. It was refreshing to wear something else than those dreadful body suits, in which they always felt naked and vulnerable. Duncan took care of the helm, while Quigley, as the strongest, took the oars, and Isadora watched the water in front of them, using a broomstick she stole from the restaurant to tug away rotting driftwood – and sometimes, a dead animal –
Not much time had passed after they venture into the bog until the mosquitos and bugs started to make a feast out of them. The stings and bites itched and swelled up, and they were on the verge of giving up and turning back when Quigley opened one of the supply boxes and found a conveniently labeled box of strong insect repellant, which the Quagmires used generously all over their exposed areas. The repellant also soothed the stings and bites, and the redness diminished. It was a quiet boat ride into the dark swamp with only the full moon above to guide them. The fog made it hard to see what was further than three yards away. It was when Isadora was about to push away an old floating tree trunk that Quigley stopped her. ‘No. Look.’ Quigley pointed to the rigged surface of the tree trunk. His finger led Isadora’s gaze across the supposed trunk, it was when a firefly flew by that she saw two eyes staring from the muddy surface. Isadora whimpered. It would be best not to imagine what could have happened if she had poked the alligator in the eye with a broomstick. With Duncan’s help, and Quigley’s strength, and Isadora’s broomstick, they managed to steer the boat away from the alligator. After that, it became easier to distinguish alligator from tree trunk. The three Quagmires kept silent to not startle the wildlife. They were in a hostile environment, yes, but then again, after the Great Unknown, what was a swamp full of alligators to them? Sure, alligators will kill one as quick as any villain would. But only if provoked. Villains on the other hand…I’m sure the Quagmires, as well as I, would not rather think about it.
With nothing but the croaks of frogs, the ocasional bubble of gas that crept up from the depths of the bog and the hum of the fireflies that flew all around, the Quagmire triplets were beginning to consider themselves lost in that dreadful swamp. They were almost tempted to turn back when, after turning away from another alligator, they came up from behind a large fallen tree which had kept them from seeing what was behind it as they treaded their way in the swamp, they saw a light, and this time it wasn’t a firefly, or even a swarm of them. A lamp. A lamp, lit and shining red amidst the blue and green and black and gray of the swamp. A refreshing sight, and a comforting one. As the Quagmires made their way towards the lamp, the contours of a wooden quay began to unravel from the mist. Arriving at the quay was a relief. A quay meant shore, and shore meant land. Solid, trustworthy land they could step on without sinking or being bitten by snakes, because there
were snakes there.
‘Should we leave it all here?’ Duncan asked as they set foot on the quay, beneath the dim lamp’s light. The lamp hanged from a pole with a sign that read
Bayou Lafayette with the name Hudson beneath it. ‘I don’t know. We’ll just see if Jeremiah Hudson is anywhere near, see if we can locate him. If not, we’ll comeback where we came from, or we can make camp somewhere and wait for dawn.’
‘I like that notion.’ Isadora said. She looked at the swamp, all fog, mud and trees and danger. ‘Going into it again in this darkness would be too much, for me at least.’ Duncan wrapped his arm around Isadora. ‘You think
you are scared? I think I nearly wet my trousers once or twice, in there.’ Isadora smiled. ‘Let’s go find Jeremiah Hudson. He can’t be too far off.’ Quigley said.
After another minute of debate the three decided it would be best to not use a flashlight. They did have one among their supplies, but since the moon was full and the fog seemed to clear a bit, they decided to go ahead and search for this Jeremiah Hudson. The moon was full, and that was all the light they needed. After fifteen minutes of hike, the three arrived at a meadow, and saw a fence on the other side. It was covered in vines, decayed and even broken here and there. A nearly completely rusted mailbox was laying on the ground with what must once have been a mass of unanswered letters. They began to fear they had walked into an abandoned land, or that Jeremiah was dead, when a light nearly blinded them.
‘Who are da lot of you?! Wat da ya want in dis land?!’ The accent was remarkably cajun, but the man was hidden behind the blinding light of a flashlight. ‘Pardon! We mean no harm! We’ve come to speak with a Mr. Jeremiah Hudson!’ Quigley shouted at the silhouette. ‘And just wat do three tee kids like you want with Jeremiah Hudson?’
‘We’re his relatives! Children of a cousin of his. We were told to come here.’ Duncan said. ‘Please, sir, turn off that flashlight. Our eyes are accostumed to the darkness, that light is blinding.’
The man complied, turning the flashlight off. He approached the Quagmires, and they saw how tall he was. Seven foot tall if he was any at all. They couldn’t quite make out his features in the darkness but they could tell by the shape of his silhouette that he was strongly built, with broad shoulders and thick arms. ‘Relatives? Family, ya mean? Ah’ll see ya to the big house den. Come. Dis way.’
‘Aren’t you Mr. Hudson?’ Isadora asked. The man chuckled. ‘Me? Nah. I’m the handyman. Ah’m René Chenier. Call me René, you.’
The Quagmires followed the man, René, through a path between two rows of aging willows, with flowing branches and leaves. They saw a large house at the opposite end of the path. A few windows were lit, giving away that the place was not indeed abandoned. ‘We ‘aven’t had visitors in forever.’ René remarked. ‘Strange, ta get three at a time.’
The Quagmires were not sure what to expect, and they did not know what would happen to them at Bayou Lafayette. But they had their guns. If trouble arose…Well, best leave such considerations for when the time came.