The Jersey Devil (8 page)

Bill Willet drove the old van down the Jersey Turnpike. They'd just crossed the George Washington Bridge, having endured a traffic snarl that set them at a snail's pace for two miles. He kept glancing at the temperature gauge, sure the old rust bucket would overheat. The last thing they needed was a trip to a mechanic. And if the heat they were packing were to be accidentally discovered, well, they'd be up shit creek without a paddle, boat or arms to swim.

April sat next to him, her window wide open, enjoying the light summer breeze. Bill caught quite a few men checking her out back when they were inching along. It was hard to resist his fatherly instinct to tell them to keep their eyes in their heads, even though April was in her mid-twenties and already divorced. Instead, he settled for one of his world-class sneers, which looked to have given at least one fella a case of whiplash as he jerked his gaze back to the road. Bill only had one baby girl and that she would remain until his dying day.

His left hand shivered and he dropped it to his side so no one could see. His test results would be there when they returned from Jersey, but he already knew. Something was wrong, had been wrong for some time now. Huntington's disease. He'd had to sneak peeks in the computer, reading up on what was possibly killing him. What he read was far from encouraging.

“So tell me, Boompa, how long did Grams live in Jersey?” April asked.

The old man had taken a nap in the back when traffic was tied up, but he was up and fresh now.

“Oh, it wasn't long. Maybe a couple of years, though it felt like an eternity at the time. Her father moved the family to the Pinelands right after she graduated high school in the Bronx. He was a foreman of a construction crew and went wherever the work took him. Your grams and I had been seeing each other for about a year when her father broke the news. We were in love by then, so I moved not long after.”

“That's so sweet,” April gushed. “What were you, like nineteen at the time?”

“Just turned twenty. I wanted to marry her right then so she could stay in New York with me, but my parents advised me to wait. It was good advice. I moved close to her and spent the next two years building up my savings so we could have a good start.”

April curled the ends of her hair in her fingers. “I wish I had waited before marrying Alan. If I was smart, he'd still be waiting and I'd have forgotten all about him by now.”

Bill pulled into the left lane to get around a slow moving SUV. “Look on the bright side. You got out the moment you realized what an absolute waste of space he was and you're not tethered to him through a child,” he said. He couldn't count the days and nights he and Carol had fretted, waiting for April to gush that she was pregnant, both of them knowing the marriage was destined to crash and burn.

Instead of defending her choices, April smiled. “Amen to that, Dad. Testify!”

She whooped and gave them both a high-five. He admired his daughter from the corner of his eye. April had been as spirited as a wild horse since the moment she'd learned to walk. Alan never stood a chance. Bill wasn't sure any man did.

Even though she'd heard Boompa's story a hundred times, she prodded, “So, was the plan to get married and stay in, what was that town?”

“Tabernacle,” her grandfather said. Bill thought he saw the man's face turn wistful. “It was nothing but farms out there. Your grandmother's father rented a house on a small plot of land on the outskirts of one of those farms, though he didn't do any farming himself. It was cheap and actually pretty cozy, if I remember correctly. Much better than the room I rented at a boardinghouse. I'd been working in a cranberry field while we kept company and was sick to death with the smell of them. Couldn't get the scent out of my clothes or the room.” He scratched his beard, sighing.

April said, “And you both left Tabernacle after . . .” she paused. There was no need to say it. Everyone in the family knew what happened next.

“Yep. She couldn't stay there. It was too much for her nerves. Oh, I put on a good face, but truth be told, I was getting kind of skittish out there. The nights were so dark and quiet, but after what happened, I imagined all sorts of things. What made it worse was knowing that my imagination was less terrifying than the truth.”

The vibe in the van grew dark, bordering on melancholy.

Three generations of Willets had been haunted by what had happened down in Tabernacle, smack dab between two forests that were the perfect hiding places for the unspeakable.

All Bill wanted now was a way to put an end to it all while he still could, much like his father. An end to the worry, the speculation, the doubt of what the future held for him and his children. What had plagued them couldn't be found in any of the Jersey Devil stories over the centuries. Their tie to the legendary creature was uniquely their own.

And it was high time they severed it.

* * *

“Holy shit Mark, you have to see this!”

Kelvin Anders fumbled with his cell phone, taking picture after picture of his grisly find. He and his neighbor Mark Oberman made monthly trips all around the Pinelands, searching for the remains of the unbelievable number of ghost towns that lay hidden in its depths. He'd once read that there were more ghost towns in the Jersey Pinelands than the American West.

So much of the sandy soil in the Pinelands, called sugar sand, acted like a kind of quicksand for old mills, factories and homes. Over time, whatever was still standing was eventually sucked into what became a sandy grave. Kelvin and Mark liked to locate and document those towns, taking pictures for themselves only, even if it was just a few foundations or scraps of weathered timber. It was a harmless hobby that got them out of the house. Every foray into forgotten history was capped by a trip to the Cornerstone Bar a few blocks from their house, where they'd alternate buying rounds and look at the pictures they'd taken.

Kelvin was pretty sure they wouldn't be ogling these snapshots.

Mark jogged over with heavy footsteps. He'd only gone twenty or so feet and he was already winded. Neither of them were getting any younger, these trips in the woods pretty much the extent of their exercise. Too much time on their asses in office cubicles had made them soft.

He recoiled when he looked at what Kelvin was photographing. “What the hell?”

“You think some illegal hunter is dumping carcasses here?” Kelvin asked, holding a hand over his nose. The sound of buzzing flies was deafening.

“Not with a pile like that,” Mark said, stepping back but still enveloped in a dome of putrescence. “If I didn't know better I'd swear that was a bear stockpile, but I don't think they gather up that many kills in one place. And I'm not even sure there are any bears out here anyway.”

Out here anyway
was near Speedwell, on the edge of the Wharton State Forest. They'd been looking for the remains of a town called Friendship, which used to be one of the biggest cranberry operations before the turn of the twentieth century. They never expected to find this.

Kelvin bent closer to the small pit. Inside was a circle of skinned animal carcasses. Chunks of meat had been torn from hides, organs left to spill out of split cavities. Bones protruding through denuded flesh appeared to have been snapped—soft tissue like eyes and tongues either devoured or liquefied.

“It looks like there are at least three deer, a couple of dogs, maybe a coyote, definitely some cats. And I don't know what the hell that is,” he said, pointing to a large pile of random meat and bone.

“I'm gonna be sick,” Mark said. He stumbled off to puke against a tree.

Kelvin was as fascinated as he was repulsed. Who or what would do something like this? Could it have been one of those Satanic cults? Maybe they'd had a mass sacrifice. But did Satanic cults still exist? He couldn't remember the last time he'd read a reputable report about one. That was all sensationalist stuff from the '70s and urban legends told to scare kids from going out into the woods or abandoned homes.

More likely it was the work of a crazy person, someone who had checked out of society and was living out here like a wild man. Which meant he and Mark had just stumbled into his special place.

There had always been that fear, traipsing in the middle of nowhere. The Barrens were notorious for being home to strange and outright aggressive people who didn't want to be found. If what was in this pit was any indication, someone a tad on the violent side could be very close.

“I think it's best we get out of here, now,” Kelvin said. He was done taking pictures. He couldn't shake the sudden feeling they were being watched. Normally, he'd say it was his own mind messing with him, but not today. Not with a ring of flayed animals in front of him.

“You read my mind,” Mark said. He'd locked one arm to support himself against a tree. He looked as green as spring grass. “Maybe we should call the cops.”

“We're definitely calling the cops,” Kelvin said as he hustled past his friend. “Come on.”

He heard Mark culling wads of spit deep in his throat. “Just let me get everything out,” he said.

Their car was parked on the side of the road, maybe a hundred yards away. Kelvin wished he could teleport right into the driver's seat. Every noisy step they made was a beacon, a dinner bell ringing for the maniac who had left the gory tableau for them to find. Absent any weapons, he grabbed his keys, three of them poking from between his fingers as a makeshift brass knuckles with bite.

He waited for Mark, staring ahead, looking for signs of anyone that could pop out on their way to the car. Sometimes on their excursions, they would bring Mark's metal detector. It would be as good as a steel bat right about now. Too bad it was in his buddy's garage at the moment.

“What the hell is taking you so long?” Kelvin said, turning.

Mark was nowhere to be seen.

“Mark? Mark?”

His heart went into an instant gallop. Kelvin walked slowly back to where Mark had been standing.

“Hey, Mark! Quit fucking around.”

His heart raced. Mark wanted to get out of Dodge as much as he did.

Had the person who filled that pit found him chucking up the last of his lunch?

But if there'd been a struggle, he would have heard. It was as if Mark had been sucked though a sinkhole. With the soil the way it was out here and all kinds of underground waterways, that was a distinct possibility.

Kelvin cupped his hands around his mouth, no longer worrying about alerting a madman in the woods. “Maark! Mark, where are you?”

He stopped short when he got to the tree Mark had puked on. His slick, brown vomit was still there, running slowly down the jagged bark.

There was no sinkhole.

For a moment, darkness crept into his periphery and he felt the ground pull out from under him.

Mark's severed head lay in the leaves, the flesh of one cheek flecked with dirt, his eyes wide open and terrified. As Kelvin stood transfixed by the mind-numbing sight, he thought he saw his friend's mouth open slightly, as if he wanted to say some last words before the final vestige of life bled from his soul.

Kelvin turned and ran, spitting up bile as he navigated between the trees faster than he'd moved since high school.

Norm had timed it so he'd arrive at the agreed-to spot in the Pinelands at the same time as the Willets. After he'd landed at Newark, he rented a small SUV with four-wheel drive, just in case. He'd heard a lot of the more remote roads in the Barrens were barely roads at all, eager to grab hold of unprepared cars and never let go.

He'd come early so he could make a couple of stops and interview a few of the Jersey Devil witnesses. Again, they all passed his BS detector. He'd been most skeptical of the couple, Joanne and Noah, simply because they had a vested interest in having their own encounter with the creature. What could be better for a Jersey Devil tour business?

When he saw the look of genuine fear in Joanne's eyes and heard Noah talk about how they'd delayed starting the business because the whole thing had made them nervous, he knew they were telling the truth.

So was the kid, Wyatt, who was more excited than afraid now that he was in the safety of his home and could brag a little that he'd faced the Jersey Devil and won. His father shot him a warning glance when it looked like he was getting too enthusiastic.

“Don't forget,” Wyatt's father had said, “none of this would have happened if you hadn't stolen my gun. None of this
should have
happened.” His father was a big man with a neat, black beard and forearms that looked like they could cleave a steel girder in two. Norm wouldn't want to mess with him. And by the look on the kid's face, neither did Wyatt.

The plan was to meet the Willet clan in the small town of Chatsworth, simply because it was known as the Gateway to the Pine Barrens. Norm loved the small American town look and feel of the place. He took a few dozen pictures and some video with his phone, which was better than the old video cameras he used to lug around in the early nineties. Chatsworth was famous in the area for their annual cranberry festival, cranberries having supported countless businesses and families in the region over the past couple of centuries. He was kind of disappointed that the festival was months away. Being from the Carolinas, Norm loved a good country fair. He remembered working the ox pull matches at the Beaufort Days Fair when he was a teen. Just thinking about it brought back the smell of fried dough and barbecued meat, the laughter of kids on rides the local fire department had erected, and most of all, the beautiful girls all dolled up for a night on the midway.

He had to remind himself he wasn't here for livestock contests and corn dogs.

The state trooper that blew through the red light on Main Street, lights flashing frenetically, brought Norm back to earth.

It was a hot day, especially standing out under the sun, watching the car spit dust up in its wake. His hat did yeoman's work keeping the rays off his head, but the humidity had made his clothes feel as if he'd just pulled them from the washing machine.

There was a general store, yes, an actual general store, right across the street. Norm couldn't believe it. There were even two rocking chairs on the covered porch. A tiny bell clanged when he walked in the door. He was greeted by an icy blast of air-conditioning.

Enjoy it while you can
, he thought. The days ahead would be spent outdoors.

“Hi, how can I help you?” an older woman sitting behind the counter asked. She had long gray hair tied up in a tight braid, kind eyes set within wrinkles that could only come from a lifetime of smiling.

Norm smiled, doffing his hat for a moment. “I'm just grateful it's nice and c-cool in here. Do you have anything cold to drink?”

“Right behind you,” she said.

There was a cooler filled with an assortment of old-time soda. He found a bottle of birch beer, popped the cap with the bottle opener on the side of the industrial cooler and pocketed the cap.

“That'll be a dollar,” she said. He passed her a buck and she rang the sale in a cash register that had to be older than the Empire State Building.

“Is it all right if I drink it in here?” he asked.

“Suit yourself. If you get hungry, we make some of the best fudge in the state.”

He perused the trays of different flavored fudge in the display case. His stomach rumbled.

They both looked out the window when another state trooper car wailed down the street.

“I wish they'd slow down,” she said. “It's not like they can help the person they're rushing off to.”

Norm leaned on the counter.

“You know w-w-where they're going?”

“I do. I like to listen to the police scanner. It helps kill the time. Plus, I get to know what's going to be on the police blotter section of the paper before everyone else.” She patted a small black box on a shelf behind the register.

“I'm curious, what exactly are they rushing off to?” Norm asked. “Was th-there an accident?”

The woman opened her mouth and stopped. Norm worried that he'd said something wrong and was going to be ejected into the heat.

“Say, aren't you that monster guy on TV?” She cocked her head, staring at him, trying to tie the hat and goatee to his image on the television.

“I'm afraid I am,” he said with genuine humility. It was still strange, being known as the monster guy who did all those weird cable shows. He waited for her to ask him why he didn't stutter on TV. Then again, he was doing pretty well today. Maybe she didn't even detect it.

She pointed an arthritic finger at him. “Weren't you scared when you went out looking for the Lizard Man down in Bishopville? I remember when it happened. I was living in South Carolina at the time, just fifty miles south. If you ask me, I think what they saw was a Bigfoot, not some lizard that walked on two feet.”

Norm had to restrain himself from laughing. He could remember a day when only kids and crackpots knew about these kinds of things, especially a legend like the Lizard Man. Television was good for something.

“There really wasn't anything to be afraid of except the bugs. The Lizard Man hasn't been seen there in a long, l-long time. The people of the town were wonderful to me, though. That's not always the case when I waltz in with a camera crew.”

“Are you here to film something about the Jersey Devil?” she asked.

Norm tugged on the end of his goatee. “Not yet. Just doing some scouting, I guess you could say. You ever see it for yourself?”

She shook her head sadly. “I didn't, but my mother did when she was around twenty. It just popped up in the woods behind our house and nearly scared her to death. Before she could even scream, it flew off and she never saw it again.”

Finishing his birch beer, he asked, “Do a lot of people believe in the Jersey Devil around here, or is it just fun to have it as kind of the state mascot?”

She went to the display case and cut him off a piece of fudge. “On the house,” she said. “You won't find any shortage of people that not only believe it, but have seen it, heard it or know someone who has. The thing is, we keep these things to ourselves, mostly. You could almost say that folks feel if you talk about it too much, it'll find you to, in its own way, get you to zip your lip.”

There was a sparkle in her eye that Norm interpreted as either she was delighted in letting him in on a local secret or pulling his leg, just a little. The fudge, raspberry cheesecake, was unbelievably good. He asked her if he could get two pounds to go.

As she was wrapping it in a brown paper bag, he said, “Oh, about the police. What exactly h-has them in such a hurry”

“They found another dead man in the woods.” The register clanged again as he paid for the fudge. “Well,
they
didn't exactly find him. From what I can tell, two men were out in the woods and one of them found the other dead.”

“That's horrible,” Norm said. Suddenly, going into the endless forest of the Pinelands had lost its appeal.

“That's not the worst of it.” She bent closer as if to whisper a secret, which was odd because they were the only ones in the store. “I thought I heard one of the staties say all that was left was the man's head.”

* * *

Norm listened to the police scanner with the woman for another few minutes, until he spotted an old van and a bright red new minivan park across the street.

“I think my friends are here,” he said. “Thank you for the fu-fudge and the company.”

Before he could leave, she tapped his arm. “You think you could do an old lady a favor?”

There was no way he could resist. “I sure can.”

“Be very careful out there. And I'm not talking about the Jersey Devil. There's something strange going on around these parts. I'd like to know that you're safe.”

He put his hand over hers. “How about this? When we're all done, I'll come back and show you I'm okay. I know I'll need more of this delicious fudge by then.”

She smiled sweetly. “I'd like that.”

The second he opened the door, he regretted it. His body had acclimated to the cool store, and now it felt even hotter than before.

The Willets emerged from their vehicles, Sam waving when he saw him.

“Hey there, stranger,” Sam Willet said. He was wearing a stained baseball cap, the bill's fabric frayed.

“We picked a wonderful day for hunting,” Norm said, already feeling sweat pop out around his neck.

“Aw, it'll be much cooler once we get under the trees.”

Norm took in the Willet family.

They were all tall, with the exception of Ben, though he looked as solid as a brick shithouse. Norm knew he'd spent time overseas in the military. The guy looked like a man who had seen things he couldn't un-see. There was a brooding silence about him that separated him from the rest of the family. As mean as Ben's father looked, Norm was pretty sure Ben was the true one to fear.

April looked like a model from a country music video, tall and lean and tan with denim shorts and a very tight T-shirt. Her brother Daryl, still wearing that dirty Mets cap, wore a smile like a sheriff wore his badge. He was the tallest in the family and Norm wouldn't be surprised if he scaled skyscrapers in his spare time.

Then there was Bill, with his buzz cut and Halloween mask for a face, hands like Easter hams and a jaw cut from some kind of Disney hero. His wife, Carol, was long and slender, but with a chest that defied gravity.
Good old country genetics
, he thought. She looked ten years younger than her age. He talked to her and Sam often. Carol was the family cryptozoologist, interested in things beyond the Jersey Devil. They once spent an entire night talking about Long Island's Montauk Monster over Skype. They both agreed whatever it was that washed up on the shore was some poor animal that had been experimented on at the Plum Island facility. Nothing to gather the villagers over.

Sam shook Norm's hand. “I'm so glad you could come. We seem a bit obsessed about this, but we have our reasons.”

“I just can't believe I hadn't done this m-myself years ago. I guess I've had too much Sasquatch on the brain,” Norm said.

Norm got knuckle-breaking handshakes from the men and back-cracking hugs from the women. It made him realize how soft he'd become. Everyone looked happy to see him, but he could feel an undercurrent of tension.

He told them about the man's head that had been found less than an hour ago and generally where it had occurred.

“It sounds awful, but I don't think it bears the MO of the Jersey Devil,” Norm said.

Sam Willet scratched at the gray stubble on his neck. “I'm not so sure, Norm. I'm not so sure. It would be easy to dismiss it, but I think everything that's been going on can lead back to that damned thing.”

“That's a pretty big stretch. I mean, this is well beyond the scope of any animal, real or un-undiscovered. If people are d-dying from animal attacks, I'm more inclined to think of a rogue bear.”

“Not many out this way, believe it or not. Just call it a feeling, mixed with some history that's not been talked about before.”

There were so many things Norm wanted to ask the family on this trip, and he planned to make good use of their time together.

“Well, if you were planning to go anywhere near where that man was killed, I'm pretty sure the cops have cordoned off the area,” Norm said.

“Not today,” Bill said. “My father wants to visit the highest point in the Pinelands first.” The big man dropped his keys, swiping them off the ground quickly.

“You'll never get a truer lay of the land,” Sam said. “You brought your cameras and other gear?”

Norm nodded. “All in my fine little rented truck over there.” He pointed towards the white Honda CRV.

Daryl and April broke into laughter. “I wouldn't exactly call that a truck,” Daryl said. Even Bill had a crooked grin on his face.

Here Norm was, a man born and raised in the South, and he was getting out-rednecked by these New York farmers.

He looked at the pristine Japanese car, and smiled himself.

Ben walked back to the minivan. “Come on, you can follow us,” he said in a clipped tone, not waiting for a reply.

Bill added, “Stay close, because GPS is pretty sketchy out here. Cell service, too. We've had one bar at most for the past half hour.”

Carol handed him a manila folder. “Some notes on the Jersey Devil, including a few things you're not going to find other places. I can go over it with you tonight, once we set up camp.”