🐊 The Marked: The Gatorman Incident

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Character Name: Robert “Robbie” Thorne
Location: Pine Barrens, New Jersey
Found Object: One gold coin (not explicitly mentioned in the tape, but implied by the narrator’s presence)


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🎙️ Monologue: “The Swamp Remembers”

They say water never forgets.
It holds everything that sinks—bones, secrets, and the last breath of those who begged not to be taken.

I thought the Gatorman was just another campfire story told by truckers who’d had one too many at roadside diners.
Then the coin led me here—to the Pine Barrens, where the water is the color of old tea—and to a brittle cassette tape labeled 1976 – Thorne Incident.

The tape hisses when I play it.
But beneath the static, I swear I can still hear Robbie Thorne scream.

The question isn’t what pulled him out of the car.
The question is what led him to park there in the first place.


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🚗 Incident Report: “The Man in the Mercury”

His name was Robert Thorne. A traveling hardware salesman.
No one remembers his face—only the thick, jagged scar that would later run the length of his calf.

It was late. August, 1976.
The Heat was a physical weight, crushing the humidity low over the blacktop.

His rust-colored Mercury Marquis coughed, sputtered, and finally died near the edge of the Barrens—not thirty feet from a drainage ditch.
He pulled over, popped the hood, and cursed the radiator.

Steam hissed up, carrying the bitter smell of antifreeze and rotting pine.
No signal. No headlights in either direction.
The isolation was absolute.

So he did what any man did back then—
locked the doors, peeled off his sweaty shirt,
and tried to sleep through the suffocating quiet.

The woods pressed in—humid, heavy, alive with unseen insects.
The smell of stagnant water and something musky, like old leather left in the sun, seeped through the vents.

Something croaked once, wetly, in the distance.
Then the entire swamp went silent.
An unnatural silence.


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💥 The Thump and the Wait

Sometime after midnight, a heavy THUMP landed on the hood.
Robbie jerked awake, his mouth dry, the back of his neck slick with cold sweat.

The car rocked.
Another thump, lighter this time—closer to the windshield.
Then a slow, dragging scrape across the roof—metal whining under something heavy and impossibly rough.

He wiped the fog from the windshield, whispering a frantic prayer.
And saw it.

A hulking shape, slick and scaled, crouched at the edge of his headlights.
It wasn’t moving—just watching.

Its skin gleamed like oil, reflecting the dead yellow of the streetlights.
Its eyes glowed faintly green.
And when it opened its mouth, the jaw unhinged.
The grin was too wide—too full of uneven, yellowed teeth.

The creature circled the car, its massive, three-toed claw tracing a deliberate line down the Mercury’s paint, leaving a furrow that scraped his nerves raw.
Then, with a wet squelch, it vanished into the dark swamp fog.

Robbie waited, heart hammering a frantic rhythm against the steering wheel.
It knows I’m here.

Then came the sound of massive force hitting glass behind him.


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🪞 The Pull

The Gatorman came through the rear glass like a blast of black ice.
Shards exploded inward, slicing his arms and face.

He lunged for the front seat—but the thing was faster.
It caught his left leg in a grip like a hydraulic clamp made of stone.
It pulled.

Robbie screamed, kicked, clawed at the vinyl dash, but the grip only tightened—serrated scales biting deep.
His blood spread hot and slick across the seat fabric.

Desperate, he slammed the cigarette lighter in.
The creature yanked harder, dragging him halfway out the fractured door.
Its breath hit him—a foul mix of swamp rot and something sulfuric.

Click.

He snatched the glowing red coil of the lighter.
Turned.
And jammed it, hard and deep, into the creature’s lower jaw.

The Gatorman shrieked—high and wet, like steam escaping a ruptured boiler.
It let go.

Then it went berserk.

The car shook under its rage—the roof denting inward with terrifying finality.
The windshield crazed.
The headlights blinked like terrified eyes through the swamp fog.

Then, through the chaos—a salvation of chrome and yellow light crested the hill.
A truck.


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🛻 The Escape and the Fear

The Gatorman froze.
Its eyes locked on the truck’s blinding high beams.
Then it melted back into the treeline, scales vanishing like a shadow sinking into black water.

Robbie Thorne stumbled into the road, bloodied and gasping, waving his arms in a frantic ballet.
The truck braked hard, tires shrieking against the desolate road.

The driver’s voice trembled. “Get in, man. Get the hell in.”

They sped toward the nearest hospital.
Robbie muttered one thing over and over:
The teeth... they were everywhere. It wanted to chew me open.

The police found the Mercury the next morning.
The roof was cracked like an eggshell.
The backseat shredded.
And the rear window punched outward—from the inside.


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🩹 The Mark

Robert Thorne survived.
But the gashes down his leg never healed right.

They left a thick, ridged scar—an ugly, raised lattice—like something had tried to peel him open and seal the incision imperfectly.

He doesn’t talk about it now. He drinks instead.
But sometimes, when the air grows swamp-thick and the night hums with insects,
he limps a little harder.

Because some scars don’t just heal.
They mark you for return.


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📖 Filed Under: The Marked

Category Detail Status

Entity The Gatorman of New Jersey Active
Year 1976 Confirmed
Survivor Robert “Robbie” Thorne Marked
Injury Deep lacerations, permanent ridged scarring Permanent
Object Connection Thorne was driven by the coin’s influence to isolate himself in the Barrens. Unconfirmed



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🕯️ Storyteller’s Note: “Reflections”

I played the cassette again tonight.
The scream still cuts off—right before the thump.
But the sound keeps going somewhere beneath the static.
A slow, rhythmic tap... tap... tap...

When I looked into the mirror above my desk,
there was moisture beading along the edge of the glass.
Thick. Greenish.

It smelled faintly of stagnant water and sulfur.
Not rain.
Not sweat.
Swamp fog.

I think the Gatorman remembers me now.
And I think it knows I’m holding its coin.


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🪓 Got a local legend? A family curse? A scar with a story?
Drop it in the comments.
The Marked are everywhere.
And some of them are still being hunted.

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