The Jersey Devil (26 page)

Daryl tried in vain to soothe her. “You asked me for help. Remember? They're going to take good care of you and keep you safe. We'll find your babies. You're going to be all right now.”

It took Sam, Daryl and Norm to get her out of the van. Sam held on to her wrists. She kicked at his balls, her foot just missing. When the hospital staff saw the struggle, two male orderlies came rushing out.

“She's not in her right mind,” Sam said. One look at the dirty, wild-eyed woman confirmed it. The orderlies were wide and strong, providing the needed muscle to get her in the wheelchair.

They had just strapped her arms to the chair when the sound of breaking glass brought them all to a stop.

Sam looked to the source of the sound and felt his stomach fall to the floor.

Heather watched the Jersey Devil smash through the glass enclosure above the emergency room entrance. Its thrashing wings pelted shattered bits of glass at them like studded hailstones. Landing between her and April, the monster emitted a soul-quaking shriek, then cast its horrid gaze to Jane and the men working to keep her in the chair.

A security guard and one policeman burst from the doors, guns drawn, shouting something that she couldn't make out.

Heather's heart sank. Daniela dropped to the ground, curling up in a ball, head turned away from the creature.

“Don't shoot,” April screamed. “You'll hit one of them.”

“Just stay back!” the cop commanded her.

The Jersey Devil slowly stomped toward Jane, its hooves clomping on the hard concrete. The heat of the sun bounced off its leathery skin in undulating waves. Heather saw that a portion of one of its wings had been punctured. It was covered in dried blood.

“Stay away from me!” Jane wailed. “Don't touch me! Please, leave me alone!”

The orderlies, seeing the image of a true devil from their childhood textbooks, turned to run back into the hospital. The Jersey Devil swiped at them with a wing, clotheslining them at the neck. They fell backwards, their skulls crunching. At the ghastly sound, two of the smaller creatures came swooping down, eager to clamp their mouths on the soft tissue of their faces.

One of them had the face of a miniature horse, the long face shortened somewhat, leather stretched over sharp bone, stained crimson. The other looked almost human, with a flatter face, elongated nose and chin that were the beginnings of a deformed snout. Its eyes were closer together than the others she'd seen. The sight of it made her skin crawl.

“Boompa, Norm, get the hell into the van!” Ben shouted, rushing to the other side of the van.

Daryl took wild shots at the creatures as they sped overhead.

“We can't leave her,” the old man said, facing the creature. His left hand flexed into a fist.

“What the hell are those things?” the security guard stammered. His gun jittered wildly.

The cop pulled the trigger, the bullet grazing the monster's shoulder. Specks of blood and flesh filled the air, along with a noxious odor. With lightning speed, the creature spun, diving at the man like a torpedo. It rammed into his midsection, the force so great, he was cleaved in half. To Heather's eternal horror, the bottom half of the cop spun into her, bathing her legs in gore.

The Devil circled around, landing in front of Jane, who was strapped to the chair.

Ben emerged from the side door of the van, brandishing the biggest gun Heather had ever seen.

“We have to get out of here,” Heather said to Daniela, trying to lift her up. “Come on. We'll be safer inside!”

The sound of a man screaming in pain brought Daniela back to her feet. Ben's arm was in the Devil's grip, the gun on the floor. It twisted his arm, bringing him to his knees. April brushed past Heather, almost knocking her down. She let out a guttural cry, launching herself onto the back of the creature, taking it by surprise. It spun in a circle, wings extending, hitting April, trying to break her free.

Of everyone out here, the crazy woman, Jane, was in the most danger. For one, the creature was fixated on her. If what everyone had been saying was true, it would need her to make more of those horrible monsters. Second, she was tied down to the chair, unable to defend herself or even run away.

Heather had to help her.

“Stay right here,” she said to Daniela.

While the creatures were distracted, she ran to Jane, getting behind the wheelchair.

“What are you d-doing?” the TV crypto guy said. He had a rifle aimed at the spinning Devil, but didn't dare take a shot.

“Getting her inside!”

Heather pushed the chair around the struggling monster, April still on its back, now biting at its neck like a wild animal.

When Daniela saw her coming, her face hardened with lucidity. She ran to hold the emergency room door open. To both their disappointment, the way was blocked by a throng of people—patients, doctors, nurses and other personnel—all of them too stunned to step aside and let them in.

“Get the hell out of the way!” Heather screamed.

No one moved. Not a single one.

Shots were fired. She jumped, twisting to see if the heavily armed Willets had done what they'd come to do.

The old man and the TV guy were on the ground, pinned by the smaller creatures. Daryl was bounced off the hood of the van by one of the creatures, holding his head, dazed. April was on her knees as well, blood running down her arm. The Jersey Devil turned to Ben, who had broken free and now stood in the doorway of the van, holding a gun with his left hand. The beast rocketed into the van, it and Ben disappearing from sight. The van tilted, close to landing on its side from the impact.

In a flash, the creature was back, leering at Jane, Heather and Daniela.

It walked past April without giving her so much as a passing glance. She swiped at it, missing.

“Let me out of here!” Jane screamed, her arms struggling to be free. Heather backed away, her eyes never leaving the advancing creature, but avoiding its dead eyes.

“Everyone move aside!” Daniela shouted at the people clogging up the entrance to the emergency room.

But it was too late.

* * *

April watched, helpless, her arm numb from the bullet that had passed through her bicep, as the Jersey Devil grabbed the wheelchair with Jane in it. It shot straight up, high over the hospital while people poured from the building to see where it had gone.

Jane's cries faded the farther it flew, until they couldn't hear her at all.

The smaller ones left Boompa and Norm, circling around their father in the sky.

It was eerily silent around the emergency room entrance ramp, despite being crowded with terrified people. April saw one old woman, holding a bloody bandage to her hand, totter and almost fall from craning her neck so far back to watch the creature. She got up to steady the woman.

“You need to go inside and sit down,” she said.

“It . . . it took that poor woman.”

“And it'll take you, too, if you don't get to safety.” April spoke sharply to the crowd. “That goes for everyone. You need to get inside before it comes back.”

Ben placed a hand on her shoulder. “I'm sorry, sis. I thought I had it.”

He took a rag and tied it over the wound. The pain wasn't as bad as April thought it would be. “You could have shot me in worse places.”

“Look out!” someone shouted.

Suddenly, people were running in every direction.

Boompa looked up and muttered, “Christ in heaven.”

The wheelchair, with a screaming Jane, came plummeting back to earth. It landed on top of several people scrambling to get out of the way. They came apart like overripe fruit, juices squirting everywhere. The wheelchair, and Jane, flattened. The loud crunch of bones sounded like a lumberyard of wooden beams snapping at once. Jane's head landed in her lap, still attached to her body, no longer encumbered by a solid bone structure to keep it in place. Both eyes had exploded from the sockets.

The Devils plunged within the melee, raking at heads, biting at limbs. In seconds, the area had been turned into a bloodbath. Boompa grabbed April's good arm, dragging her into the van.

“We can't hide in here,” she said.

“We're not hiding,” he replied, handing her a Beretta. “We have to clear those bastards out of here.”

She noticed Gordon Leeds on the floor of the van, blood leaking from his ears. Boompa felt his neck for a pulse.

“He's dead. Must have borne the brunt of Ben and the Devil's weight when they crashed in here.”

One of the seats had been ripped from its mounting, half of it on Leeds's chest.

“One less person to defend that damn thing,” April said. As much as she wanted to hate Gordon Leeds, there was a part of her that pitied the man, sworn to a family oath that was bigger than he'd ever be.

April, Boompa, Daryl, Norm and Ben emerged from the van with enough firepower to turn the Devils to paste.

The only problem was getting a clear shot would be next to impossible. The Jersey Devil was fast, unnaturally so, making quick work of everyone around it. Heads were twisted ninety degrees, throats slashed, limbs torn off. All the while, its mad children took turns feasting at the human buffet.

April could swear they were getting bigger the more they ate.

Heather and Daniela were on the ground, dazed. It looked as if they'd been swarmed over by a stampede. The doors were closed tight, others pounding on the glass to be let inside. Whoever was left alive ran up the ramp, screaming, casting wary glances behind them, waiting for the monsters to pursue them.

Norm took a shot at one of the smaller ones, but it jumped away, taking to the sky. The bullet buried itself in the cooling carcass of a woman in a bloodstained nurse's uniform, most of her face missing.

“Dammit!” he cursed, aiming for the other, the one that looked like a cross between a child with Down syndrome and a goat. It took to the sky, disappearing over the hospital.

The Jersey Devil remained grounded, savaging anyone in its path. When it spotted Heather and Daniela, it bounded atop them, dragging them to their feet by their hair.

They raised their guns at the creature, not daring to pull the trigger lest they hit the women. Both twisted under its grasp, trying to pull free. Daniela went limp. The weight of her body, married with gravity, caused her hair to pull out at the roots. The tearing sound set April's teeth on edge. Daniela rolled free, the bloody ends of her scalp dangling in the Devil's grip.

Instead of running, she faced the monster, bringing her knee up hard into its groin.

It didn't affect the beast in the slightest.

Instead, it smiled, revealing hideously rotten teeth, before tearing out her throat.

Daniela staggered back, hands at the raw meat of her neck, blood hissing between fingers.

“No!” Heather screamed, reaching out for her friend.

Daniela's eyes turned up in her head and she collapsed, her life pumping out of her in syncopation with the last beats of her heart.

Boompa and Ben opened fire at the right side of the monster, now that it no longer held Daniela. With an easy flick of its wings, it zipped aside unscathed.

It clutched Heather directly in front of its body.

What April saw next made her throat burn with volcanic bile.

The Devil's coarse, mangled penis rose from between Heather's legs. She was lifted inches off the ground by its turbid protrusion.

Boring its vile gaze into April, it said in a voice as deep as a canyon and old as time itself, “For you.”

Sam Willet felt lightning bolts of pain arc across his chest.

The Jersey Devil spoke!

Maybe Gordon Leeds was right. It was as much human as it was monster.

The poor girl in its arms looked about ready to faint, and he couldn't blame her. They were at a standoff. At this close range, with five people with their fingers on their triggers, even by chance, one of them was going to hit their mark. And it knew it, which is why it was using the girl as a shield.

“Put the girl down,” Sam said, his voice even, stronger than he felt. He didn't know if it was possible to will a heart attack away, but he was damn well trying his best right now.

The beast hissed back, its eyes locked on April.

“You're not taking her,” he said, nodding toward his granddaughter. To her credit, she didn't seem the least bit fazed by the Devil's fascination.

The Jersey Devil turned its deep-set eyes to him. Sam felt a hand squeeze his heart. His vision wavered, but he refused to put his rifle down.

April started with a low chuckle. She said, “The joke's on you. You could try, you ugly fucker, but you'll never get what you want out of me. I can't have normal kids, and I sure as hell can't have whatever shit stains will come out of that diseased-looking thing you seem to think is so impressive.”

In its anger, the Jersey Devil flew at April, stopping just short of bowling her over. Heather screamed, still in its clutches.

When April moved the Beretta to the Devil's forehead, it lifted Heather higher so the gun was to her mouth

“Your mark doesn't mean shit,” she said.

There was a loud explosion. Sam staggered, kept on his feet thanks to Norm.

The Jersey Devil wailed, taking to the sky with Heather. Blood came down in tiny droplets, staining the ground.

“Shit!” Ben spat, dropping to a knee and aiming at the ascending creature.

“You n-nailed it!” Norm shouted, staring at the blood.

“Not good enough,” Ben said, keeping the Devil in his crosshairs. “It still has Heather.”

The girl was yowling in a mix of agony and unbridled fear.

Sam heard the desperate wail of police sirens.

The Devil must have as well, because it hovered over them for a moment, looking where the emergency vehicles would be coming from. The other two creatures came from wherever they'd been hiding, now flying on either side of it. All three took off, vanishing in seconds.

Ben punched the van's hood. “Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! I had it!”

April grabbed his shirt, pulling him to the open door. “Come on, we have to follow them and get out of here before the cops arrive. Once they block us in, we'll be stuck for the rest of the day, if not the week, trying to explain what the hell happened here.”

Norm looked in the van and said, “What about L-L-Leeds?”

Despite the heaviness in his chest, Sam grabbed the dead man's feet. “Help me get him out. We'll leave him here with the rest of the casualties.”

Shooting him a wary glance, Norm said, “I didn't sign up for disposing of bodies, Sam.”

“Then you're free to stay here with him.”

He didn't have time to give a rah-rah speech or assuage Norm's concerns. They had to get their asses on the road and hope they could spot the damned things.

He could hear Norm's teeth grinding, but the man wordlessly helped him extract Gordon Leeds from under the interior wreckage and laid him down next to an orderly who was missing his head.

They made it out of the single road leading to the hospital just as a flock of cop cars and firetrucks came screaming in.

As they tore down the road, Sam noticed the gunshot wound on April's arm. “Go back!” he yelled.

Ben hit the brakes. Everyone fell forward.

“Did you see them?” Daryl asked.

“Your sister's been shot.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” April said. “Keep driving. That thing has Heather and we all know what it's going to do to her. We have to stop it.”

“It won't go back to the old Leeds house,” Norm said. “B-Because we know about it. But that leaves over a m-million other acres for it to lose itself.”

Ben kept the van idling. “It's not going to violate Heather.” His face was grim, but there was the beginnings of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “It took Heather knowing we would follow it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” April said. She looked ready to jump out of her skin.

Now Ben put the van back in drive. “Because I just shot its dick off.”

* * *

Heather watched in horror as the world sped beneath her.

She didn't want to end up like Jane and she sure as hell didn't want her throat slashed like Daniela. Her terror had taken total control. She couldn't even feel sad for her friend. Not now, dangling from the clutches of this nightmare, hundreds of feet in the air.

The Jersey Devil emitted a constant stream of rumbling groans. It was hurt. She could see the blood spattering the bottom half of her legs.

As much as she wanted to be free from its grasp, freefalling to her death was even less of an option.

All she could hope for was that the wound was so severe, it would have to drop down to land either out of exhaustion or the inability to keep flying.

The ability to speak her feelings aloud had been robbed by cold fear. She wished there was some way to see where it had been hurt. Maybe, if she could apply a little pressure to the wound, it would force the creature to land.

No, that wouldn't do. Unless it flew low enough over some trees that could break her fall, if not her neck.

The two smaller creatures swooped back and forth, snapping at her, just missing taking portions of her flesh.

And then she heard something that seemed so out of place, she wondered if she was hallucinating.

Music.

It sounded like a live concert, or someone with some really big speakers out to piss off the neighbors.

When she looked down, her head spun. The Devil had climbed even higher. Vertigo punched her in the solar plexus. She was sure she was going to black out. It would be a mercy.

But she stayed conscious, long enough to see they were soaring over a shore, blue waters stretching on for as far as she could see.

And on the shore, there were tons of people milling around the green grass of a giant park. She saw the stage, heard the clapping and cheering as the music cut off.

What she wouldn't give to be down there, a cold beer in one hand, maybe a corn dog in the other, jamming out to any kind of music—all that mattered was that she was safe and surrounded by people having a good time.

She had to look up. If she stared down at the event any more, she'd vomit, and she wasn't sure she had anything left to come up.

Something flew just ahead of them. It wasn't another creature.

It looked like a giant Frisbee, but one powered by four propellers, like a helicopter.

The Jersey Devil banked hard, heading for the flying object the way a hummingbird went after insects.

When the object dipped away, making a fast descent, the Devil and its minions followed. The ground rushed up toward her. Heather closed her eyes and screamed, wondering who would be waiting for her on the other side when she died.

* * *

Norm's body buzzed from head to toe, so much so that his ears even felt stuffed, the steady thrum of his heightened heartbeat drowning out most of what was said around him.

He kept looking to the cooler, remembering what was inside. That was going to be small potatoes compared to everything that happened. If the Jersey Devil did manage to slip away once again, at least they had proof right here, and back at that bar. And it would be hard to explain away the massacre outside the hospital.

He buried his face in his hands, wishing it all away.

April had her head out the window again, searching the sky for the Devils.

He shook the pill case out of his pocket, contemplating tripling his dose of anti-anxiety meds. The way his heart was hammering, he could sure use them.

But the damn things made his head feel like cotton, dulling his senses. He needed to be clear. If they got another shot at the creatures, he needed to see straight.

He threw the small case across the van. It bounced off the dented wall, hitting Daryl.

“What was that?” Daryl said.

“Pharmaceutical courage,” Norm replied, chewing on his lip.

Despite all they'd been through, Daryl Willet smiled.

He said, “Bet you never thought it would be like this, did you?”

“N-no, I certainly didn't.”

“We're gonna kill it.” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “If not for us, then for my dad. That mark doesn't mean a thing to me. I just won't pass it on. And you heard April, she can't. No, it's all going to end here and now. And you have a front-row seat. You'll be famous after this.”

Tugging at the end of his goatee, Norm replied, “Or infamous. Not many cryptozoologists go out killing the very things they've spent their lives trying to prove were real.”

Daryl tapped him on the leg. “When this is over, everyone will see the truth, and they'll know it had to be stopped. Then you get to write it up in some textbook, probably get a movie deal, too. Make sure Chris Pratt plays me.”

Norm watched the youngest Willet, in obvious pain, shift in his chair, wiping down his rifle. His wasn't the calm before the storm—it was the calm in the eye of the hurricane.

Sam looked pale and haggard. He was thumbing through a box of old cassettes. Handing one to April, he said, “Can you please pop this in?”

Frank Sinatra's smooth as silk voice crooned from the van's speakers. It was jarring, listening to him sing about the summer wind after all they'd been through. Sam closed his eyes, his head resting back. Sweat trickled down his face. Norm thought he heard him mumble, “One last time.” He was about to ask what he meant, but thought better of it.

Besides, there was something that had been nagging at him. Norm thought hard before speaking. “When it spoke, I started to re-rethink every single theory about the Jersey Devil. If it can talk, it can think and reason. That, in a way, makes it human. If we k-k-kill it, does that make us murderers?”

Daryl's expression turned stony.

“No, that makes us saviors. Whatever doubts you have in your mind, bury them deep. We can't have that getting in the way of doing the right thing when the time comes. And you know what the right thing is.”

Norm looked to the rifle on his lap, images of Bill Willet, Jane, Daniela and so many others paining him. The boy seemed years beyond his age, a hardened man who had accepted a fate that would crush most others.

“I do,” Norm said softly.

April slapped on the door.

“I think I see it!”

“Where?” Ben said, his forehead almost pressing against the windshield.

“Not far ahead of us. I saw something big swooping down real fast.”

When Norm moved forward to look for himself, his foot slipped in something slick. It was Gordon's Leeds's blood.

All he saw was blue sky and a few puffy clouds.

“You sure?” Sam said.

“I'm pretty sure.”

There was a break in the trees lining the road. Ben slowed down, easing the van to the side of the road. He and April opened their doors, scanning the horizon.

“Is that music?” Daryl said.

“Yeah,” April said. The bullet's blackened exit wound on the back of her arm looked horrendous. Norm didn't know how she was still functioning. At least most of the bleeding had stopped. He realized that the Willet kids would stop at nothing now to avenge their father. It was no longer about proving the Jersey Devil was real or discovering the secret to the mark that had forever altered their family's fate.

Now, it was simply a matter of an eye for an eye.