Louisiana is home to many sights and sounds: Mardi Gras, Lake Pontchartrain, riverboat casinos and Jazz music to name a few. Usually, they’re pretty lively things that everyone loves. After all, once you’ve seen the Spanish moss at the Audobon Zoo or visited the beautiful Cross Lake, who could forget it? But everything isn’t so sweet in the Sugar State. In fact, if you visit the sugarcane fields that gave it that name, you might not come back. They’re fine in the day, but you don’t want to go there at night. That’s when the Rougarou comes out.

You’re probably wondering what the Rougarou is, so let me explain. In Louisiana, ever since the introduction of voodoo, there have been a variety of strange creatures wandering around, each one terrifying in its own right. But none are more terrifying than the Rougarou, a creature born of an even more terrifying curse.

You see, when a voodoo priestess is feeling especially vindictive, she’ll do her rituals, make her sacrifices and, in the end, cast her spell on some poor soul. At that moment, he is dead, though not physically. All humanity leaves his body, and he becomes disturbed, yet sane. He will crave raw meat at first, a problem which a trip to the local butcher will solve easily. But the cravings will return, and stronger – then stronger, and stronger still. Eventually, raw meat won’t satisfy him no matter how much he eats. As his curse nears its apex, he’ll begin to crave human flesh, and his cravings must be satisfied.

Calculating as ever, the Rougarou will find a suitable victim – maybe someone close to them, or someone vulnerable like an old man – and lure them to an isolated area like the sugarcane fields. Here, he’ll complete his curse; as he takes the first bite of that poor victim’s flesh, a transformation that started in him long ago will come to a finish, and he’ll become an infernal dog-man, similar to a werewolf but far worse.

His size doubles and triples and white fur shoots out from all over his body except for his eyes and nose which become blacker than the night, even to his sclera. He grows hideous claws and horrifying teeth as his transformation continues, and by the end of it the behemoth towers over any man. He can send a man flying with just one swipe of his arm, and his speed is inhuman; his teeth are like white hot nails ready to sink through flesh in the dead of night where no one can hear you scream. If you meet the Rougarou, you will almost certainly die; but woe to whoever survives, because if you survive a Rougarou’s bite, his curse is transferred to you instead, and the cycle begins anew. Only death or 101 days without a transfer can break the curse once it’s started.

So be careful in Louisiana. It can be beautiful, but it can also be oh so deadly.