The Jersey Devil (15 page)

Flicking it off violently, he scrabbled to the farthest edge of the cabin.

A shadow passed over the hole in the ceiling. He fired wildly until he was out of ammo. He was starting to hyperventilate, and the periphery of his vision boiled with inky blackness.

The smaller creatures dove through the hole.

“No!” Louis screamed, covering his face with his arms. He felt the Devils pecking at his skin, biting and scratching, each fresh wound seeming to burn with infection.

Something heavy stomped on the roof. The cabin shook. Bits of dust and dirt rained down on him. The smaller Devils skittered away, jumping up and down all around the cabin.

“Please, go away!”

When he saw its satanic face, he knew for sure it was the Jersey Devil. It landed in front of him, its hard hooves clunking on the wood floor. It spread its massive wings, breathing foul vapor in his face. It smelled like the floor of a slaughterhouse. It dropped the man it was holding on the floor. Louis saw the Mets cap on the guy's head, assuming he was being kept for a snack later.

Before he could move to try to get out the door, it whipped its tail at him, slashing his throat. His hands went to his neck, desperate to stem the tide of blood that poured over his fingers.

He couldn't breathe!

Louis struggled to stand, fought to draw air, becoming woozy as his life seeped from the wound.

The little Devils swarmed over him, lapping up his blood. His vision clouded, saving him from watching the Jersey Devil bend forward, its long neck craning down until it buried its face in his stomach, tearing through his flesh and devouring the steaming organs within.

“Give them a quick check,” Ben said to his grandfather. They walked as fast as they could in what he believed was the direction the Devil had gone with his brother. It was hard going, the ground being so uneven, the sandy soil so soft, they'd all come close to turning their ankles several times.

Boompa spoke into the walkie-talkie, “Everyone okay, son?”

There was a brief crackle of static, then, “We're good.”

It was a lie. Seeing Daryl taken by the Devil, none of them was anywhere within the realm of good.

Unless he meant good and scared.

Or good and mad.

Because Ben was madder than he'd ever been in his life. He should have seen the damn thing coming. At the very least, he should have heard it and fragged its ass. It wasn't as if he didn't know how to conduct himself in enemy territory. Never let your guard down. Ever. How could he have been so stupid?

When he found the Jersey Devil, it would pay dearly for this. He'd come here knowing full well that the creature, if they ever found it, had a finite number of days left on this planet.

Now, when he came face-to-face with it, and he would, he'd savor every moment of its demise.

He was damned good at finding things. Back when he was stationed in Marjah in Afghanistan, his platoon had been tasked with ferreting out a cadre of Taliban that had the town on lockdown. On their second day, they'd nabbed one of the terrorists, a kid less than twenty, who turned out to be more of a coward than a killer. He'd given them enough intel to take the town back.

But then he'd disappeared. Tension was heightened, knowing the bastard could give their position away. He had to be found, fast.

It took Ben with two other men less than an hour to retrieve the informant, cowering under a bed in a house filled with small children. From that point on, Ben was known as the finder of lost souls, sent out to use what some joked was his sixth sense to locate men who'd made a living out of being able to vanish into thin air.

It was as if they were marked, carrying a beacon only Ben could hear. Just like the red stain on his own side.

If Daryl was hurt or worse, he'd make the Devil pray for a clean and swift ending—if it could even rationalize, which he was beginning to fear was the case. The beast was obviously intelligent enough to plan and strategize. For the first time since he'd been indoctrinated into the legend, he began to wonder if it was, in fact, partially human.

“Watch your step,” he said, pointing to a depression. Norm and Boompa gave it a wide berth.

Ben did his best to keep to a path where the trees weren't so bunched together. His eyes were constantly looking up for signs of the creatures, and down for potential pitfalls.

“How do we k-k-know if we're on the right track?” Norm said, puffing hard.

“I just know.”

Ben held up a hand, signaling for them to stop.

“You hear something?” Norm asked, nearly bumping into him.

“Shhh.”

Breathing slowly from his mouth, he listened for his family. Leaves shuffled so faintly, he knew they were veering farther apart from one another.

“Boompa, tell them to change their course a little more to the north.”

“Gotcha.”

It was advantageous to have two groups, but not if they got completely separated.

“You holding out okay?” he asked his grandfather.

He clipped the walkie-talkie back to his belt. “Don't you worry about me. I don't think God kept me kicking around for eighty years just to have me drop dead from a walk in the woods.”

Ben didn't like the look of him. He was as pale as fresh milk and sweating profusely. He'd worked with his grandfather on the farm all his life and knew it wasn't the heat. Old Boompa was worried to death about Daryl.

They started walking again.

“You remember when Daryl was little and said he could tip a cow?” Ben said, his head bobbing up and down, finger on the trigger guard of his rifle.

Boompa gave a short laugh. “He wasn't even as high as that heifer's leg. I never saw someone so determined to do something that wasn't going to happen.”

“And I told him he shook her up so much, he'd turned her milk into a milkshake.”

“That was just so you could get out of milking her. Poor kid had to see for himself before you stole all the milkshake!”

“Hey, it worked.”

Ben recalled his brother's disappointed face when he came back carrying the full pail. Two defeats in one day were more than the little dude could take. When he saw Ben laughing, he'd kicked that pail right over and stormed into the house, screaming how he hated cows and big brothers alike.

Their father had called Daryl Don Quixote Junior for the rest of that summer. Only the adults understood what it meant at the time.

Ben felt heavy thumping coming up from the soles of his boots.

Something was on the move.

Something big, and heavy.

There was a mad flurry of wings flapping overhead. He looked up to see a roiling mass of birds shooting across the sky. What made it strange was that the mass was made of all types of birds, not just, say, a murder of crows or flock of geese.

The thumping got louder, the ground shaking slightly.

“Get ready,” Ben said. “Something's coming this way.”

Boompa cocked his ear toward the approaching rush. “Sounds like deer. A whole herd of them.”

“This isn't the Serengeti,” Norm said. “Wild animals don't rush around in packs in the Jersey woods.”

“When those things are out there, they do,” Ben said.

They had to find cover. Boompa was thinking the same thing, because he was on the walkie-talkie telling Ben's father, mother and sister to get behind the widest trees they could find.

Ben, Norm and Boompa pressed their backs against a trio of big pines.

“Here they come!” Boompa wailed.

Wild-eyed, hopping scared deer thundered past them, weaving around the trees in a ballet of barely controlled retreat. Ben tucked his right shoulder in a little closer, worried that he'd get clipped by one of the fleeing animals. He looked over at Norm. The man was as still as a statue, watching with rapt fascination as the deer flooded past. Boompa gave him a thumbs-up from his position.

It took less than thirty seconds for the frightened herd to peter out.

Boompa shook his head at the last deer as it bounded over a fallen tree. “Well, I think that proves we're going in the right direction.”

Norm sighed, dropping his head toward his chest. “I've never seen anything like that, at least up close. I could even smell the fear coming off them.”

He was right. The ripe odor hung in the air like a dense fog.

They heard more footsteps, but it was too late to duck behind a tree.

Four coyotes sped toward them, jaws snapping.

“You've gotta be shitting me,” Ben grumbled. He shot one, missing the lead coyote. Two more shots yielded one more down, the coyote flipping in the air, yowling in pain. Keeping his calm, he caught the next two in the face, obliterating them from the neck up. Both bodies continued their momentum, finally sliding to within a few feet of him, raw chasms emptying blood and exposed meat onto the forest floor.

“Damn g-good shooting,” Norm exclaimed, cringing at the sight of the dead coyotes.

Boompa screamed. Ben turned to his right, just in time to see an enormous coyote take him down.

* * *

Carol couldn't believe what they were seeing. Deer after deer ran for their lives, just missing them as they cowered behind the tree trunks. April held her rifle to her chest, her forehead pressed against the barrel, eyes closed, waiting for the madness to pass.

The frightened animals kicked up great gouts of water as they fled. The gradient of the forest had taken a dip as they'd made their way, finding themselves in what Carol believed to be a scrub oak swamp. They waded up to their shins in dank water that smelled like frogs and rotten eggs.

Bill kept looking their way to make sure they were all right.

It felt as if she hadn't taken a breath, waiting for the last animal to go by.

When everything was clear, Carol said, “There's only one thing out here that could get them in a panic like that.”

Her husband nodded. “That means we're getting close to the son of a bitch. We better keep moving.”

“Come on, Mom,” April said, giving her a gentle tug. They resumed sloshing through the thick water, hoping to find drier ground. She wondered if there were water moccasins here. It was best to put it out of her head.

Carol had been thinking about everything she'd ever read about the Jersey Devil. She couldn't recall any reports of multiple creatures, or of it attacking people the way it had them, or worse, that poor Piney family. There was no denying that these things were the Jersey Devil, especially the big one. But their behavior was as mystifying as it was deadly. They seemed almost rabid. Rabid but smart. And strong.

For a creature that had done its best to elude people for hundreds of years, it was doing its best to announce to the world that it was here and in charge of the Barrens.

The closest it had ever come to being this brazen was in 1909, when the Jersey Devil had been spotted for a week straight from Trenton all the way down to Philadelphia. People saw it try to attack animals, heard it clawing at their windows and rooftops, and watched it dash off into the sky. It got so bad, men gathered into posses, beating down the woods to smoke out the creature. It was front-page news at the time, in legitimate papers.

But no one had died and, eventually, the Devil faded away. In fact, it had lain pretty low ever since then, popping up from time to time, but always retreating to wherever it called home. She suspected that it hibernated, like a bear, but for far longer periods of time.

What the hell had happened to make it so ruthless, reckless even?

She'd heard that the foundation at least was still there, but almost impossible to find without a guide. Once they found Daryl and took him somewhere safe, a few of them could try to make it out there.

Daryl.

Maybe Norm was right. Maybe they should have contacted the authorities. For a moment back at the vans, she'd hoped Norm would leave them, head into town and tell someone what had happened. When he volunteered to come help find Daryl, she was both thankful and upset.

Now it was early afternoon and getting hotter by the minute. They couldn't keep this pace up all day. They were tired and hungry and if they didn't watch it, they would soon be dehydrated.

The sound of gunshots broke her concentration.

“Where's that coming from?” she said.

Bill was on the walkie-talkie. “Dad, was that you?” There was no reply. “Was that you that fired those shots? Are you guys okay?”

April looked ready to bolt to where they figured them to be. Carol had to hold her back.

“You guys copy?”

He turned up the volume. All they heard was static.

Daryl awoke with the mother of all headaches. Wherever he was, it was too dark to see and smelled like earthworms and mushrooms. He tried to move, his hand pushing through soft dirt.

“Where the hell am I?”

For a moment, he thought he'd been drugged, his senses were so slow to return. Gradually, he was able to piece things together despite the throbbing in his head.

He'd been grabbed back at the campsite. Before he knew it, he was in the air, but he couldn't breathe. Something had been tightly wrapped around his rib cage, making it almost impossible to suck in enough air. Panicking, he started to hyperventilate, which was about the time the lights went out.

The last thing he remembered seeing was his sister looking up at him, her rifle drawn, crying out his name.

His torso was a ball of agony. Every muscle and bone felt as if he'd been a human ball in a soccer game played by elephants. He didn't hear any wheezing when he breathed, which was one good sign. At least his lungs hadn't been punctured by any broken ribs.

His hands fluttered to his head.

His Mets cap was still there. He'd had it since he was twelve, calling it his lucky charm for the past eight years.

Was it still a lucky charm? He guessed it could be worse. He could be dead.

But this sure felt like something close to death.

“I guess this beats being dropped off in a giant bird's nest.”

Daryl often wondered if the Jersey Devil, being a winged creature, spent most of its time within the thick canopy of trees. That would explain why people couldn't find it. People were earthbound. Even from above, it could still conceal itself. And who really had the money to fly helicopters and planes all over the Pine Barrens searching for a monster the majority of people thought was just a spooky story?

Maybe this was a place where the Devil kept its prey, a kind of outdoor pantry.

Whatever the case, he had to get the hell out of here.

Sitting up brought white sparks of pain in his head.

“Dammit, dammit, dammit.”

He lay back down, feeling the cool ground at his back. Reaching up, he felt only solid earth. He was hoping there was some kind of board or door above him that he could work on moving aside once he got his strength and courage up to move again.

“And here I was worried about Boompa.”

His breathing growing heaver as panic set in, the pain in his ribs and chest made his eyes roll in his head.

Wondering what had befallen his family, Daryl drifted off until he could no longer feel the pain.

* * *

“You guys copy?”

Sam struggled to get the coyote's limp body off him. His knife was buried to the hilt in the wild dog's neck.

The weight magically disappeared as Ben and Norm cast the cooling carcass aside. His knife dripped with blood. They each lent a hand to get him up.

“Much obliged,” he said.

“You look like you went swimming in a slaughterhouse blood tank,” Ben said.

Giving himself a quick once-over, he saw his grandson was right. He must have caught an artery, because that crazed coyote bled every drop it had on him. Tossing the walkie-talkie to Norm, he said, “You better answer my son before he comes charging over here like one of those deer.”

Ben handed him a small towel from his pack. “I'm not sure how much good this is going to do, but you can at least get some of the blood off your face. Use this, too,” he said, handing him a warm bottle of water.

“It's good to see your old Boompa's still got it,” he said, tilting the bottle over his upturned face. He closed his mouth tight. He didn't want to choke on any of that blood.

“You feel all right? We can rest up for a bit,” Ben said.

“I'm fine. I look way worse than I feel. We have to find your brother and this old man isn't about to be the one to make us lag behind.”

“You let me know if you need a break. In fact, maybe it's better if you and Norm head back to the vans. I can take it from here.”

“The hell we will. I'll be worse off waiting than actually doing something. Besides, I have you to watch my back.”

“Yeah, I'm great at that. Daryl got taken and you almost got killed by a coyote.”

“Don't start talking like that. There isn't a man on this planet that could know what the hell is going on out here. You have us headed in the right direction, and when the time comes, I know you'll get Daryl back. Just keep doing what you're doing.”

Sam's heart was doing a jig, but nothing to worry anyone about. That fall didn't do any wonders for his back, either. Again, old-man complaints that didn't need to be voiced.

Was there some bit of grim satisfaction from taking that coyote out by hand? He couldn't deny that. At least it showed he could take care of himself. The last thing the family needed now was for him to be a burden.

He looked over at Ben, motioning for them to press on.

* * *

Trudging farther through the swamp, Bill found the navigation increasingly more difficult. It didn't help that his legs felt like jerking out from under him. Was that exhaustion, or the damned Huntington's disease? His body hurt all over.

It was easy to say, but hard to shake.

The swampy goop puddled around their feet as the floor sloped upward. At least that was one thing going their way. Now if they could only get past the black cloud of gnats that buzzed in their ears and zipped up their noses and in their mouths when they took a breath.

“I see one,” April said, pointing up and ahead of them.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

They'd noticed the smaller Devil watchers an hour ago. They kept to the trees, peering down at them. What gave them away was their size. They may have been miniatures compared to the one that took Daryl, but they were still about as bulky as two or three hawks combined. They had a tendency to make the branches they alighted on crack or sway.

He saw April raise her rifle and motioned for her to stop.

“Not yet,” he said.

“So we just let them track us until there's so many of the fuckers around, we can't handle them?”

“April!” her mother said. It was the first time she'd spoken in a long while.

“They're not attacking for a reason,” Bill said.

“Yeah, so they can overrun us when the sun goes down,” April said.

“I can't explain why, but I don't think so.”

What he didn't want to tell her was his suspicion that the Jersey Devil might know a thing or two about revenge. After his family killed four of them last night, the Devils took their anger out on that Piney family and their cows. Then they took Daryl. He worried that if they killed another one, Daryl would be the one to pay the price even further.

If it hadn't happened already.

April was right about one thing. Night wasn't far off. They were going to be at a major disadvantage in more ways than one.

As if reading his mind, Carol said, “We have to stop. My legs and feet are killing me. We haven't eaten. What good are we going to be if we're ready to pass out?”

Carol was covered in a sheen of sweat. So was April. He could only imagine how he looked to them. He wondered how his father was holding up. They'd checked in with him a couple of minutes ago and he sounded fine.

“We can stop for a while, but I don't like all the cover around us. Those things can easily hide. I know it defies logic, but I'd feel safer if we found open ground, but were close enough to run for some kind of cover.”

They came across what looked like the last vestiges of several homes, the only solid thing left a massive stone staircase that was sunken halfway into the ground. It felt as if they had fallen into a time warp, depositing them in a world where man had long since been erased from the planet.

“I say we keep going,” April said.

She called out for her brother. Just like the hundreds of times prior, there was no answer.

“We don't even know where we're going or where to look,” Carol said, her voice breaking. Bill saw the tears spill from her eyes and ran to her.

“We're going to find him.” He pulled her to his chest, rubbing her back.

“How? He could be anywhere. People have died out here, lost and wandering around until they can't take another step. You all saw how vast it is. When I think of Daryl out there, alone, and us on foot, following what? After those deer, we haven't seen a single trace to make us think we're even going the right way.”

April came over and put a hand on her shoulder. “We can't give up, Mom. He'd never give up on us.”

Carol turned on her. “I didn't say I want to give up! He's my son! I'll stay here for the rest of my life if I have to, searching for him. I just wish to hell we had a sign that told us we were on the right track.”

April pulled back but didn't try to argue.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say it that way.”

Bill tilted his head up toward the trees. “Our sign is right there. If we weren't getting close, they wouldn't be here. Not just to watch us. We're going to find a better spot to rest a bit, then we're going to find him. Those things will eventually lead us to him, whether they know it or not.”

Carol cupped April's face in her hands, kissing her cheek. “I shouldn't have snapped at you.”

“Don't worry. We're all on edge.”

They resumed walking, April spotting another Devil partially hidden in the trees.

They want us to see them
, Bill thought.

But why?

Just as the sun was beginning to set, Carol spotted where they could finally sit down for a spell, but it seemed terribly ominous.

“How about it?” she said.

Bill looked ahead with his hands on his hips, chewing hard on his Big Red gum.

“It's in the open and we have more than enough places to take cover,” Carol said.

Bill said, “April, call your grandfather, tell him about it. If this is our best option, I'd hate to see what our worst would be.”