The Jersey Devil (10 page)

The forest went eerily silent around them. Every flutter of the leaves overhead made April jump. Ben unzipped the big bag. She watched the cryptozoologist draw a silent breath when he looked into the bag.

“We have plenty for you, too, Norm,” Ben said, grabbing an AR-15 for himself.

“What the h-hell's going on?” Norm asked.

The moment April saw the picture of the Devil, her senses had sharpened to a fine point. She knew they weren't out here to sing campfire songs and eat marshmallows. But seeing the creature, and knowing that it showed itself to them on purpose, to let them know it was aware they were coming for it, made everything all too real.

Her grandfather put an arm around Norm. “This is all just for our protection,” he said.

Yeah, right,
April thought. They'd been planning for this for as long as she could remember. They weren't walking out of here without a dead Jersey Devil in the rubber body bag Ben kept in the van's hidden compartment.

To his credit, Norm said, “Don't b-bullshit me, Sam. You have enough weapons here to take down an entire town. You want me to d-document your family killing what may be an undiscovered species of animal?”

“It's not an animal,” her father said.

“How could you know that? The legend of th-this thing has been around for centuries and not a s-s-s-ingle person has an answer,” Norm said, pacing around the fire.

Bill rose to his full height. Norm had to look up to meet his steely gaze. Her dad looked pretty pissed, but April knew his anger wasn't directed at Norm.

He pulled up his shirt, turning his side toward Norm. “I know because of this!”

Norm looked at him as if he'd lost his tether with reality.

“What are you talking about?”

“Look closer.”

In the orange flicker of firelight, Norm bent to inspect Bill's side. The red birthmark in the shape of a cloven hoof was a throbbing redness that looked like an infected wound. Norm's eyebrows went to the top of his head.

“What is that?” he asked.

“It's a mark. I've had it since I was born,” her father said. She watched her mother pull her lips into a tight line.

April lifted up a corner of her shirt. “I have it, too. So do my brothers.”

Daryl and Ben showed their marks to Norm. His eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“I, I don't u-understand,” he said.

Boompa said, “My wife, Lauren, was the first to have one. Except she wasn't born with it. It came to her later, not far from here.”

A bird screeched somewhere in the distance. Everyone paused. Hands clung tighter to weapons.

Boompa continued. “It was given to her, by that thing. And she passed it on. Norm, my family's been marked by the Devil, but we don't know what for. I aim to put an end to it now.”

Ben said, “When we kill it, we want you to show it to the world. You decide who gets the body, or samples, or whatever. You can even leave us out of the story, say you bagged it. We may be here for different reasons, but they're pretty sympathetic to one another.”

Norm threw up his hands. “Do you all know how crazy this sounds?”

April was quick to reply. “Yes, we do! If we didn't have these reminders branded on our flesh, it would have been easy to forget all about it. But they're there. It has to be this way. You can study the damn thing all you like, but not while it's alive.”

With her emotions riding so close to the surface, she almost let slip a secret she was too terrified to tell even her best friends. Once she had been told the family secret about the mark on her sixteenth birthday, it scared the living hell out of her. She'd always wondered why her brothers wore shirts on sweltering hot days, even in the pool. The thought of passing it on and the unknowable consequences gnawed at her from the very first time she'd had sex with Frank Lommer the day
before
prom. She'd been a virgin. As much as he wanted to see her in all her birthday suit glory, she'd refused to let him turn on the light so he couldn't see her strange birthmark. Despite his protests to go bareback, she insisted he wore a condom. Getting pregnant was not an option—not knowing she could pass this weird mark onto her child.

It was why she'd had her tubes tied before she married Alan. There was no way she was bringing a cursed child into this world.

The most frightening thing in all of this was not knowing what the mark meant. It pained Boompa, losing Grams before they could find an answer. He worried about her soul day and night. She'd overheard him praying to protect her and guide her to heaven one night. The desperation in his voice brought her to tears.

“So, this is a monster hunt in every sense of the word,” Norm said. He stared into the fire, the shimmering light casting his face into alien patterns.

Boompa replied, “Yes, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you before you came. But I got the sense that once you'd recovered from my divulging our true intentions, you would have been here anyway. Something has it riled up. It's killing people. Someone has to stop it, and I'm pretty sure no one else would even think to do what needs to be done.”

Norm's shoulders shook as he laughed. “You're right about that, Sam. I doubt the cops would s-s-send a SWAT team out here to take down the Jersey Devil, even if a hundred people were k-killed.”

“They'd be too busy looking down when they should be looking up,” Daryl said, tossing a plastic bottle into the fire. He'd kept the cap on so it burst with a loud pop.

April's father put a beefy hand on Norm's shoulder. “We're not going to force you to do anything you don't want to do. If you want out, I'll lead you to the main road first thing in the morning.”

She knew what the answer would be. Sure, the man was put off by the guns and the thought of killing a legendary creature, but she also knew he'd never come this close to proving the existence of
any
cryptid, living or dead.

“If you're all going to run around shooting everything that m-moves, I can't be a part of that.”

“We know our way around firearms, Norm,” Boompa said. “We're no dummies. The only thing we're gunning for is the Devil.” He held out a can of cold Schaefer. “Care to drink on it?”

Norm stood there, shaking his head, taking a moment to look at everyone. April smiled when he caught her eye. She wasn't sure whether it was comforting or just made her look plain insane.

Finally, he took the beer and said, “I must have lost my mind from the heat, but I'm in.”

The family tilted their drinks toward him and gave a “Cheers,” in unison.

Daryl's soda stopped halfway to his lips. He motioned for them to be quiet.

“Anyone else hear that?”

Ben looked above them. “What'd you hear?”

April, preferring her .38 special because they never jammed, cocked the hammer back. Norm got real jittery, seeing how fast they all went into defense mode.

Daryl pointed behind Norm. “I thought I heard a branch snap, but I could swear it was overhead.”

“Everyone take it down a notch,” Bill said, his head swiveling from side to side, jaws chomping on a thick wad of gum. “Relax those trigger fingers.”

April noted how her mother had put her rifle down in exchange for her phone. She was actually recording!

“Mom, what are you doing?” April whispered. “It's too dark to see anything anyway.”

“There's enough firelight right now. Just watch my back.”

This time they all heard it, and it was indeed coming from somewhere in the trees. Everyone's attention was drawn to the area behind Daryl.

“Raccoon?” Norm asked.

“Maybe,” Boompa said.

No one moved. They waited patiently for even the slightest sound, eyes scanning the pitch for anything creeping into the circle of light.

“You catch that?” Ben said.

“What?” April said.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Something's there and it scared everything else away.”

April didn't realize she'd been grinding her teeth until pain shot through her skull.

A log popped in the fire and everyone but Ben flinched, heads twisting toward the sound.

That must have been the moment it was waiting for.

A soul-quaking screech rent the night in two. They didn't see it so much as feel it as it flew just over their heads, leaving a foul animal stench in its wake.

“What the fuck was that?” April screamed. The fast-moving shadow had been larger than a bat, but nothing like the purported size of the Jersey Devil.

The flying creature swooped again, this time lifting the straw hat off Norm's head.

“Crap!” Norm cried out. April saw a flash of blood ooze down his forehead.

Daryl took a shot at the retreating creature, but it was too fast. The sharp crack of his rifle sounded ten times louder than normal in the still night air. “Dammit!” he cursed.

“Get the floodlight,” Ben shouted.

April darted to the old van. Boompa had installed floodlights that pointed in each direction of the compass on the roof. They were connected to a separate battery he'd mounted inside the van. She flicked the switch. Night outside the van's windows instantly turned to day.

Her blood froze when she heard her father mutter, “This can't be possible.”

Sam Willet had played out this scenario in his head a million times over the past sixty years. None of them had prepared him for this.

“Everyone just hold your fire,” he said. April emerged from the van with a look of pure terror on her face. She aimed her pistol into the trees.

The problem was, they had been preparing all this time to track down and kill the Jersey Devil.

Singular.

He took a moment to count. There were ten of the creatures perched on thick tree branches above them.

Ten that they could see in the harsh glare of the floodlights. The sudden, searing brilliance didn't even make the bastards flinch.

That they were descended from the monster of the Pine Barrens, there was no doubt. They looked to range in size from two to four feet high, each with a wingspan twice that.

“They look like baby dragons,” Norm whispered.

“That they do,” Sam said.

Norm was right. Their smallish, equine faces stared at them, black, impenetrable eyes reflecting the bright lights like a jeweler's lamp glinting off a handful of onyx stones. Brown flesh was pulled taut over lean bodies, rib cages showing through on most of them. Their hind legs ended in hooves, so they had to use the sharp claws at the end of their thin but muscular arms to balance on the branches. Fleshy tails whisked back and forth, the way a cat's would before it pounced.

Sam kept one of them in his rifle's crosshairs. It would be so easy to blow it to pieces right now. But if he did, what would the rest do in retaliation? The creatures outnumbered them and had the advantage of flight.

“I never heard of more than one Jersey Devil before,” he said.

“Well, we have more than one now,” Daryl said.

Carol tilted her camera over her head to get a clearer shot, while Norm simply stared with a mouth wide enough to catch a thousand flies.

Ben said, “You all need to get in the van. We're too exposed out here. I have this thing on automatic. I'll spray the trees with cover fire. The moment I do, all of you run for the van.”

His modified and illegal AR-15 would probably take a few of the creatures out of the game. Sam knew his grandson was right. Even with all of their guns, they wouldn't stand a chance against animals that knew the territory and could zip around them like hummingbirds.

“If these are the kids, Mom and Dad might not be far behind,” Sam said. What he didn't voice was his concern that if they were, the van would be a flimsy shelter. He'd come across the Jersey Devil before, and he knew what it was capable of. Now there were ten surrounding them. Thin steel and glass would be no match.

Daryl said, “I'll help you, bro.”

“No you won't,” Ben snapped. “Make sure Mom and April get inside safe.”

The devil children remained perfectly still. Sam could sense they wouldn't wait much longer.

Bill said, “Okay, son, now!”

Ben's rifle blurted molten fire. The Jersey Devils leapt from their perches, howling like wounded owls. The trees exploded into a rain of sawdust.

“Go, go, go!” Sam shouted, ushering April and Carol in ahead of him while Ben emptied the magazine in a 360-degree arc. Daryl took a few shots before clambering inside. Sam had to practically drag Norm into the van. The man's legs had locked the instant the shooting began. Bill crashed into them both as he and Ben slammed the door shut behind them.

It sounded like the van was being pelted by heavy stones as the winged oddities hurled themselves against it, oblivious to their own safety. April yelped when one of them went face-first into the rear window, the thin glass all that separated her head from its own. Tiny spiderweb cracks etched outward from the impact.

“Did you hit any?” Sam asked his grandsons.

“I think I got a couple of them,” Ben said. He looked like he desperately wanted to go back outside and finish the job.

“I definitely saw one literally explode,” Bill said. He had an arm draped over Carol, his hand on April's shoulder.

“I can't b-believe what I just saw,” Norm said, regaining his wits. “That's a small army out there. And they're not a-a-afraid at all.”

The side door thumped when a body smashed into it. Daryl jumped, aiming his rifle at the door.

“Don't shoot in here!” his father yelled.

“I won't, I won't.”

The kid was breathing hard, but he didn't look afraid. Knocked on his heels a bit, but ready to face the madness outside if need be.

Sam was damn proud of his family—and angry that he'd led them here. How was he to know it would be like this?

Something sharp raked across the van's roof.

“Somebody has to have heard all that shooting,” Norm said. “What do we say when the cops come here and those things fly off?”

“No one's coming,” Sam said. “When I tell you we're in the middle of nowhere, I mean it. Any locals that live out here aren't going to give a damn about someone shooting. It happens all the time. For some, the reason to live here is just so they can fire their weapons whenever they want.”

The small Devils flew in and out of the floodlight's beams, vicious blurs of pure animus. One of them made a sharp right turn in midair, heading straight for the front windshield. At the last second, it pulled into a skid, bringing its hooves to bear on the glass. Sam winced when it hit, but the windshield held.

“This old rust bucket can't take many more of those,” he said.

Bill angled toward the side door, moving Daryl out of the way. “Ben, hand me your rifle.”

Ben had been in the process of reloading.

“No way, Dad. I'll go out there. You know I'm the better shot.”

“I don't need to be a good shot with that. I just need to pull the trigger and hang on.”

Ben moved to block his father.

“Look, you're my son and I'm not sending you out there. I don't care if you're Wild damn Bill Hickok.”

“I'll go with you,” Sam said.

Bill shook his head. “No, you stay in here, too. They just need someone to put the fear of God into them. Hopefully, they'll go back to wherever they came from.”

Everyone knew there was no arguing with the man. Ben reluctantly shifted away from the door, passing his AR-15 to him.

“If I see you're having trouble, I'm coming out,” he told his father.

If he gets into any trouble, we're all going out
, Sam thought.

Bill threw the door open. One of the flying devils careened into the rifle, almost knocking it from his hands. It must have been a hell of a strong little beast, because Bill used to tear phone books in half for fun. His grip was deadly.

He went into an immediate crouch, strafing the trees with gunfire.

“Go on, get the hell outta here!” he shouted. The devils released a chorus of screeching that made Sam's heart throb in his chest. It sounded like they were calling for help.

But deep down, he knew there had to be. These things were young, and where there were young ones, the adults were never far behind.

“Close the door!” Bill shouted.

Ben dragged it shut. He, Daryl and April hustled to the front of the van so they could see what was happening. The sound of the AR-15 was deafening.

The van rocked to the side, and they heard Bill cry out. Sam held his breath. He exhaled once he heard return fire. That meant Bill was still up and doing what he had to do.

“I think they're leaving,” Daryl said. His face was pressed to the windshield. A smear of some sort of bodily fluid ran down the center of the window.

Sam nudged his grandchildren aside to get a better look. He didn't see any more flying demons. His son took a few more shots, and things went quiet.

Carol opened the door a few inches.

“Is it okay to come out, honey?”

“Give it a minute, but I think so.” Bill's voice was strained, as if he were in pain. Carol must have heard it, too, because she didn't wait that minute.

They piled out of the van while Norm maintained his spot on the floor behind the driver's seat.

Bill stood scanning the trees. Blood ran down his head and neck. One of his forearms had been torn open, a flap of flesh dangling in the cool night breeze.

“Oh, my God!” Carol said. “Daryl, get the first-aid kit from the minivan.”

“On it,” Daryl said, running to the other car with his rifle at the ready.

“It's not so bad,” Bill said.

“Bill, you have blood everywhere! And that wound is going to need stitches,” Carol said, holding his arm tenderly. He winced when she touched the gash with the pad of her index finger.

“April was always better at sewing,” he said, trying to smile.

Sam took in the condition of his son, feeling his belly ignite. He wanted to get his bare hands on the ugly sons of bitches and twist their heads off.

“The good news is, there are fewer of them now,” Ben said. He was staring down at the forest floor. “The bizarre news is this.”

He pointed at a carcass in the leaves. A big hole had been punched in its belly, spilling guts and blood everywhere. Its wings were spread out, as if it had died by crucifixion. Sam, who always carried a pocket flashlight, shined the beam on the body.

“Jesus Christopher Columbus,” he muttered. “That can't be.”

One of the consistent traits of the Jersey Devil over the centuries was its horse or goatlike face, or as Norm called them before, dragons. The Devil was, by all accounts, a hellish mix of several types of creatures, all damned into one.

This one was different.

The openmouthed face that stared up at them with filmy eyes looked almost . . . human.