The Jersey Devil (17 page)

The small, cylindrical fuel tank was hot pink. Daryl had painted it for April, knowing it was her favorite color. She twisted the nozzle, looking for her lighter. The flame's range, once she got it going, would only be about twenty to thirty feet and wouldn't last very long.

All she needed was for it to last long enough to make a point.

When she had everything in place, she shouted, “Stop shooting! Let them come closer. Everyone get down!”

They did what they were told without question.

April wasn't thrilled about being the tallest target for the moment, but it was necessary.

“Come on, you little bug shits,” she snarled.

They circled above, the rhythmic flapping of their wings sounding like an onrushing wave.

She caught sight of many others staying away from the fray, a lurking battalion of reinforcements should things go south.

Or, if they were lucky, creatures that didn't have the instinct or balls to fight.

April preferred the latter.

“If this works, you all need to run to the fire,” she said. “At least then we'll know what scares them.”

Could creatures surely spawned from hell really be afraid of fire? She was about to find out.

A Devil snagged at her hair, almost tipping her forward. Another barreled straight at her chest. She turned away just in time, almost losing her footing.

Aiming at the densest mass of Devils, she lit the end of the nozzle and pulled the trigger all the way back. A geyser of flame licked at the low-flying bodies, igniting them. Their high-pitched howls of pain were deafening. The Devils flew in mad, frantic loops, little balls of light shining on the hidden parts of the forgotten cemetery like enormous, spastic fireflies.

“Yes!” April cheered, shooting the flame in a steady arc across the sky. Her father carried Ben in his arms, running with everyone else in tow to the fire they had made earlier.

She began to make her way there as well. Any second now, she was going to run out of fuel.

No matter, it did the trick. The Devils were taking off. Norm and Boompa resumed shooting at the retreating beasts. It was easy pickings to shoot the ones that were engulfed in flame.

The flame withdrew back into the nozzle, until it was no more. She threw the flamethrower aside, unslinging her rifle to blast the nearby creatures that were illuminated by the burning Devils.

“That was b-brilliant!” Norm exclaimed. “I'm almost a-afraid to ask what else your family has brought along.”

“Be afraid when we run out of things to stop them,” she said, taking one last parting shot at a fleeing Devil. She heard it cry out but couldn't tell if she got it or not.

“See where they're going?” Boompa said. “Back east!”

The forest was suddenly alive with the crash and whoosh of Devils that had remained hidden. April felt her resolve crumble. How the hell many were there?

“Shotgun!” her dad said. She grabbed one out of the bag Ben had been carrying and tossed it to him. Her brother was still out, his head in her mother's lap. They had to make sure the Devils didn't get to them.

The fresh wave of creatures flew low and fast. April's hair fluttered in every direction from the strong gust of their passing wake.

Boom
! Her father's shotgun sprayed death in a wide swath. They could hear, but not see, several Devils crash to the ground. April, Boompa and Norm fired until her ears were ringing and she couldn't hear her own curses at the damned things. The hell swarm, overwhelmed by their sheer firepower, left their wounded and dead behind.

April's nerves tingled. She felt like leaping out of her skin. The adrenaline rush threatened to overwhelm her, now that there were no more monsters to fight.

“Check . . . check the hole,” Ben stammered. He sat up with a dull groan, massaging the top of his head.

“What hole?” his mother asked.

“The one behind the sarcophagus. It . . . it was hiding there. I don't know how it moved so fast. I had it. I know I did.”

April said, “I'll check it.”

“I'll go with her,” Boompa said, smiling at her in a way that told her he was prouder than he could ever express in words.

“Come on,” April said before her father could object. She had to run some of this excess energy off. She knew she was in for a hell of a crash, but she might as well take advantage of it while she could.

As they walked to the demolished mausoleum, she said to her grandfather, “Norm's a real deadeye. Did you see that?”

“He's a man who's spent a lot of time outdoors. Funny how that usually equals being good with a gun.”

The mausoleum had been reduced to ankle-high rubble.

Eerily, the sarcophagus was the one thing that had survived the blast. It was cracked and parts of it chipped off, but there it still stood.

“He said it was behind it,” Boompa said.

“Watch my back,” April said, gingerly walking over the jagged stones.

Sure enough, there was the hole, though it was partially filled with debris now.

“I see it, but it doesn't look like much,” she said.

“Can you tell if it goes any deeper? Maybe that's where it lives.” Boompa stood next to her, looking down.

“Only one way to find out.”

April jumped into the hole, her head and shoulders remaining above the rim. Boompa handed her a flashlight. She dug around a bit.

“This doesn't look like a nest or anything. Just a hole that—”

She hadn't noticed the extensive damage to the sarcophagus on this side. The end facing away from the entrance had crumbled completely apart, taking a chunk of the wooden coffin within. A pair of skeletons slid out, the old, brittle bones cascading onto her.

Bone dust went down her throat and in her nose as she batted them away, hollering at Boompa to get her out of the hole.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” she wailed.

The back of her hand swatted a skull. It turned to powder when it hit the edge of the hole.

“I've got you!”

Boompa grabbed her upper arms and lifted her the way he used to when she was a little girl, asking for a ride on his shoulders.

“Jesus shit crackers!” she shouted, wiping the dust from her clothes, her hair, her face.

“I'm sorry, April. I should have been the one to go in there.”

She shook her head. “No way. That was all me. How was I supposed to know I'd take a bone shower?”

Her father came rushing over. “You all right?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. Just got a little surprise, that's all.” He pulled her to him with one of his big paws. “One thing's for sure, that's not where the Devil lives. Too small.”

Her mother, Ben and Norm stood around the ruined mausoleum. Ben was still holding his head, but he looked like he'd be all right. In fact, he looked downright pissed.

“I think I know where it lives,” her mother said.

Norm said, “It seems too easy, don't you think?”

“Maybe that's why it's there, hiding in plain sight.”

“There's an awful lot of them to h-h-hide.”

“And plenty of space to do it.”

“Where are you guys talking about?” April said, checking for cuts. If there were any, she'd have to disinfect them fast.

“They all went east,” Boompa said. “Maybe back home. I guess Momma Leeds has a full house now.”

* * *

When Daryl woke up again, he thought he was still in a dream. Or a coffin. It was so devoid of any light or noise, he wished it
was
just a dream he couldn't shake.

But a few minutes later with no change, his mind clearing despite the pain, he remembered that he was underground somewhere.

“I gotta get outta here.”

Moving was a little easier this time. He first sat up, took some time for the dizziness to clear, then got to his knees.

“Baby steps,” he huffed, remembering one of his favorite movies. In
What About Bob?
, Bill Murray played a man beset by more fears than a person could count. His shrink, played by that guy from
Jaws
, taught him the baby-step method to getting well. “Stop thinking about it.” The last thing he needed was to laugh. He was pretty sure the slightest giggle would send fresh flares of pain to his rib cage that would knock him out again.

Trying to stand, he bumped his head against an earthen ceiling.

His heart went into instant overdrive, his breath coming in shallow gasps. His anxiety compelled him to move, to prove to his mind and body that as long as he could walk and talk, he was not going to die.

Holding his hands in front of him, he moved forward in a low hunch, wary of smacking his head again.

“Calm the hell down, man. Whatever this place is, it's big. See, you're walking. It's not a shallow grave. Just keep walking.”

He did just that, one tentative step at a time, until he realized he was in some kind of underground tunnel.

Covering his mouth, he gagged. “Oh, crap, what's making that smell?”

Yes, if it meant he was one step closer to a way out.

There were no twists or turns in the tunnel, or what he'd come to think of as a gopher hole on steroids. Thinking of why the Jersey Devil would put him here didn't help his nerves. He had obviously been tucked away for a reason. He didn't want to be there when it came back to show him why.

Gaining confidence, he moved faster. Or was it the simple desire to get the hell out as soon as possible? Daryl didn't care. He just needed to find an exit, quick.

His foot snagged on a root.

“Dammit!”

He tipped to his side, feeling the tunnel pitch forward. He went into a roll, loamy dirt filling his mouth as he cursed his misfortune.

Slamming into something hard and unforgiving, he couldn't catch his breath. If his lungs hurt before, his tumble made him realize just how much worse the pain could be.

When he could finally take a few decent breaths, he turned his head and saw his Mets cap, streaked with filth.

Wait! I can
see
my hat!

Looking around, it appeared he'd ended up in a basement. Old jars and cans were stacked against the walls. A pile of rotted lumber was what had stopped his roll. Glancing up, he saw the remains of what had once been a home, three of the four walls of the house, along with the floors and roof now gone. The foundation of the basement was the only thing that had truly stood the test of time. The moon, so bright and beautiful he wanted to cry, shined down on him, as if it had sought him out, a spotlight of hope, a sign from God.

“I'm out. I'm out!”

Grabbing a plank of wood, he pulled himself to his feet. The stone basement walls were only about seven feet high. If he waited a few moments to recover from his fall, he could easily scrabble out. From there, he didn't know where to go, but it didn't matter. As long as he was out of that hole.

Taking stock in the light, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his hunting knife was still clipped to his belt.

“Maybe I should lean some of that wood against the wall and just walk up it.”

It was an idea that could go south quickly if the wood split from his weight.

His head jerked toward the sound of something being dragged across the floor. He flipped the snap from the knife holder, extracting the thick, deadly blade as quietly as possible.

“Who's there?”

Yes, he had the moonlight, but there were all sorts of dark corners down here. Whatever it was had come from his right, over behind the rusted wheelbarrow. Maybe it was someone like him. It could even be one of his family members. If it was the Devil, he wasn't sure he had the strength to fight it. Swallowing hard, he said, “I know you're there. Did it bring you here, too? It's me, Daryl.”

He recoiled at the maniacal peal of a woman. A dark blur knocked the wheelbarrow over, coming straight for him.

The woman looked like a wild animal dragged from a mud pit. Her hair was an unruly mushroom cloud caked with muck. She was naked, her bones showing through her skin, with enormous eyes, the pupils so small they could barely be seen. Her lips pulled back to reveal jagged, stained teeth.

She leapt for his throat, throwing them both into the lumber pile, her jaws gnashing insanely as they were buried under an avalanche of termite-infested wood.

“It's where we would have gone eventually,” Sam said. They'd put the fire out and started walking back to the vans. It was going to be a hell of a hike in the dark. The one shred of luck that had come their way was the almost preternatural glow of the sugar sand, casting a ghostly pall over the forest. There was no way they could walk to the Leeds homestead, or what was left of it. So even though the trek to the vans seemed unimaginable, it was their only choice.

“I know,” Bill said, taking point, “I just don't like abandoning this whole area. Daryl could be somewhere right next to us.”

“If he was, that boy would have found a way to let his presence be known. He knows how to use that big mouth of his.” Sam wished to heaven and hell he'd hear that loudmouth right now.

“The L-Leeds house isn't easy to find. I've heard that locals can be very uncooperative if you ask them to take you there,” Norm said.

“I may have an ace in the hole,” Sam said.

“What would that be?” Ben said. He'd fully recovered, but Sam worried about that head wound. If he had a concussion, the symptoms might not show up until later.

“One of the few people who knows where the actual house was. I'm not sure if he'll willingly take us there, but I'll burn that bridge when we get to it.”

“There's another surefire way to know exactly where those Devils are headed,” Ben said.

“What's that?” Bill asked, his breath coming in great, heaving gusts. If they lost sight of him, they could still follow him by the bellowing of his lungs.

“You saw how many there are. I think they were pretty confident that we weren't walking out of that cemetery alive. We just blasted the holy hell out of them. They're no longer the top predator out here. A group of creatures like that, frightened, maybe angry, they won't be hard to spot. By flushing them out, we may have set them on a path that will bring them in contact with other towns.” He let that settle in a bit before adding, “We'll check the police scanner first thing when we get back to the van. If I'm right, we'll just need to follow the destruction they leave in their wake.”

No one said a word. The weight of what Ben implied was enough to fold what were already dead-tired legs. Sam's soul suddenly felt weary. It was bad enough he'd put his family in danger. Now he may have upset what had been a peaceful coexistence, with everyone who lived in and around the Pine Barrens.

April said, “So you're saying that we may have just royally screwed the state of New Jersey.”

Ben replied, “That very well might be the case. Or you could say we speeded up something that was already in progress.”

“I guess the bright side is that if things get that bad, we won't be the only ones hunting them down. At least we'll have help,” April said.

Sam snapped, “Which means it's more important than ever to find Daryl. When the you-know-what hits the fan, no one in these woods is safe.”

* * *

Heather Davids knew they were going to die out here. She pressed her body closer to Daniela, spooning her to keep warm. They'd covered themselves with leaves so nothing could see them, huddled at the base of an old tree.

Daniela had been sick ever since they drank out of that stream. To her credit, she pressed on, stopping every now and then to throw up. It got to the point where Heather was afraid that there was nothing left in her friend. Then what would happen?

She closed her eyes, only to replay what those monsters did to Tony and Justin. It had happened so fast. One second they were joking around, the next, running for their lives.

Heather opened her eyes, staring through the gaps in the leaves, spying very little. The trees were so thick, they could barely see the moon and stars.

How long had they been out here? She tried to recall how many sunsets they'd seen, but her exhausted, starved brain couldn't keep track. It could be days, a week or even more. She itched all over. Mosquitoes and ticks had been having a field day with them. They'd used the sharp end of a stick Daniela had found to dig the ticks out from under their skin. It hurt and there was the fear that even now, they had the beginnings of Lyme disease coursing through their blood, but it was low on the worry list at the moment.

Her stomach felt as if it had folded over on itself. The hunger pains had given way to a silent apathy that frightened her. The scent of wild herbs, conjuring images of fresh pasta and garden tomatoes coated with olive oil and spices, no longer affected her. Was this the kind of soothing numbness that preceded death by hypothermia, she wondered?

Before they'd settled down for the night, she'd spotted an old beer can, half-buried in nettles. The image had been faded from the sun, but she could make out that it was a can of Carling's Black Label. Her father talked about drinking it when he was younger. It was an old beer, and the first time she'd seen it, she thought of her father.

Seeing it again confirmed her suspicion that they had somehow been walking in a wide circle, which meant they were no closer to finding a way out. They'd come across several bogs and decrepit homes that hadn't seen an inhabitant for decades or more, but not a single person. It felt like being dropped in the middle of an alien world.

A coyote howled. Daniela flinched against her, but remained asleep.

Another coyote joined in the nocturnal lament. Their whines gave her a primordial chill.

Soon, a chorus of coyotes took to wailing, yipping and sounding increasingly distressed.

“Wh-what is that?” Daniela said, groggily.

“It's just coyotes. Something must have scared them. Go back to sleep.” She nuzzled her friend's neck, hoping she could somehow make her feel safer.

“Do you think it could be those things?” Daniela sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

“Even if it is, they can't see us. We'll be okay. I promise.”

“I want to go home.”

“I know, sweetie. Shhh. We're going to find a road in the morning. I know we will. You ever hitchhiked before?”

“No,” Daniela said. “I'm not that dumb. But I'll take a ride with an escaped convict if he'll get us out of here.”

Heather heard a terrific rush of wind and the urgent flapping of wings. She'd watched a nature show once where a camera had been placed outside a cave somewhere in South America. At one point during the night, millions of bats had exploded from the cave, rushing into the night sky. This sounded spookily like that, only worse, knowing that this wasn't a TV show and all they had for protection was a thin layer of dead leaves.

“It's them,” Daniela cried, her body going as stiff as a board.

“Just stay still and quiet,” Heather whispered. “We can't let them know we're here.”

Moving her head slowly, Heather did her best to let some of the leaves fall from the side of her face. She had to see what was coming their way. Shutting her eyes and hoping for it to go away only worked when you were a kid afraid of the monster in the closet.

Between the coyotes and the patter of wings, the calm of night had been shattered by a riot of sound.

Heather looked up, and there they were. Gliding bodies, shadows of things that shouldn't be, passing over the treetops.

There were so many. She had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. A trickle of blood slipped across her tongue.

Aside from the creatures in the air, something else was running through the forest, too close to where they lay hidden.

“What is that?” Daniela whispered.

“I can't see.”

There was no way she was going to shift her position to get a better look, possibly giving them away. Whatever it was, she prayed for it to move on.

Leaves skittered and she heard a low, warning growl. She clamped her hand over Daniela's mouth.

The animal resumed its dash, stopped again, and began sniffing at the ground.

When it finally came into view, stepping cautiously into one of the few shafts of moonlight, Heather cursed their luck.

She was no expert, but she was pretty sure it was a bobcat. It looked like a cross between a leopard and an overgrown housecat, with spotted fur, a wide face and a short tail. Heather guessed it weighed between twenty and thirty pounds and was about as big as a small to medium-sized dog. She was sure it had claws and teeth that would make it seem much bigger.

The bobcat slunk low to the ground, pausing as it locked its gaze on them.

“Slowly hand me that stick,” Heather said so softly into Daniela's ear, she could barely hear herself. If it was going to attack them, their tick stick was their only weapon. There wasn't time to search for a large rock to use as a bludgeon.

“Why?”

“There's a bobcat sniffing our way.”

It pulled its lips back, revealing a deadly smile.

“If it comes at us, you run while I try to slow it down,” Heather said.

“I'm not leaving without you.”

There was no need to really whisper now. The animal knew they were there. It could probably smell them from miles away.

Heather felt the stick as it was pressed into her hand.

After everything they'd been through, she wasn't about to get taken down by an overgrown cat.

She jumped away from Daniela as a pair of dashing shadows descended on the bobcat. It swiped at the air, missing its attackers. They made tight turns, diving back at the bobcat.

The leaves had fallen from Heather and Daniela. Both let out tiny yelps as they watched the strange creatures settle in to maul the bobcat.

“Quick, we need to get back under the leaves,” Heather hissed. With shaky hands, they gathered the leaf pile back on top. All the while, they watched the creatures pull fur and flesh from the bobcat as evenly as if they had chef's knives for claws. The bobcat wailed in agony.

One of the flying creatures lifted it off the ground, and seconds later, they were gone. All that was left were a scattering of blood-soaked leaves and tufts of ravaged fur.

Heather and Daniela didn't dare move, speak or reveal themselves until the sun came up. At least then, they would be able to see their death coming.