Danni could tell Derek was back from way down the hall, as she could quite clearly hear Eric Zeist yelling at him. She grinned as she approached the lab. Based on what was being said, he and Francis had managed to ditch Eric’s men.
“You’re here at the governor’s say so, nothing more!”
“Last I checked,” Derek was saying as she and Arthur stepped in, “this is a free country. We’re not under arrest, and even if you tried, I’m pretty sure you don’t have the badge to back that up.”
“One call is all it’ll take to...”
“To what?” Francis shot back. “Embarrass yourself? Feel free. Your buddy can pull whatever strings he wants, but all that’s going to do is get us fired, and you know what? If that happens, we’re out of here and your boss gets to go on Face the Press and explain why he’s okay with his state being a toxic cesspool.”
Danni looked off into the corner where Mitchell was sitting staring at a computer monitor and ignoring what was going on around him. She could tell he wasn’t completely zoned out, though, by the look of amusement on his face.
Before she could so much as say a word of greeting, Eric rounded on her and Arthur. “You ever think about knocking? That kid isn’t authorized to hear this.”
Danni narrowed her eyes, practically daring the larger man to step into her personal space. “That might be a better argument if you hadn’t been screaming so loud as to be heard from down the hall.”
“Authorized?” Arthur asked. “What are you guys talking about?”
Danni shared a glance with Derek. His eyes said it all. The governor, in his attempt to cover up whatever was going on in the Pine Barrens, was instead shining a spotlight on it by insisting his men shadow them. Government intelligence at its finest.
Derek turned to Mitchell, having seemingly made up his mind. “Mitch, could you...”
“Already got them.” Without missing a beat, Mitchell spun in his chair and produced a stack of paperwork from the briefcase by his side.
Derek smiled as he took them. “I must be getting predictable in my old age.”
“You could use some new material.”
Derek turned to Arthur. “Take a seat, kid. There’s some stuff you have to fill out. Non-negotiable I’m afraid.”
“I already signed the waivers that Dr. Reingold...”
“These are a bit more far reaching than a typical NDA. And they have more teeth, too. Trust me on this. Oh, and don’t lie in the section about social media accounts. Everyone tries to be cute about that these days, and we always find out.”
“I’m not authorizing this,” Eric barked.
“And I’m not asking,” Derek replied, clearly annoyed. “Your boss might have some pull, but he’s not here. And if you want to test that, I have friends of my own who would be very happy to make your life difficult.”
Danni was amused to see Zeist shut his trap and back up a step. The guy was nothing more than a bully, but her team was a slightly different animal than what he normally dealt with. No matter how powerful someone’s friends were, the concept of messing with the feds tended to give people pause. She was less amused, however, to see that Arthur had gotten dragged into this, courtesy of her picking the wrong moment to return with him.
There was at least one upside, however. It would mean she’d have to watch her tongue a lot less around him. He seemed like a nice guy, and giving him bullshit story after bullshit story didn’t feel right.
Arthur, for his part, looked utterly confused. “What’s this about? Am I in trouble for something?”
“Not at all,” Mitchell said. “If anything, this just means you can help out more.”
Derek reached into his back pocket. His eyes met Danni’s again, and she could see the twinkle in them. He always liked this part. Claimed it made him feel like a little kid playing cops and robbers, except his badge was real.
He handed it over to Arthur who took a quick look.
“U.S. Forest Service, Department of Cryptid Containment? You’re kidding, right?”
“There’s a joke here, all right, and it’s...”
Derek cut the security director off with a glare. “Feel free to call and verify my badge number or any of my team’s. You’ll find we’re quite legit.”
Arthur turned toward Danni. She nodded back at him.
To her surprise, he actually smiled in return, albeit there was still a confused aspect to it. “And that paperwork?”
“Affidavits ensuring your cooperation and confidentiality. Don’t worry, nothing onerous so long as you realize that anything discussed with us from here on in should be considered classified.”
“Classified,” he repeated. “As in legal penalties?”
“Precisely,” Derek replied, clapping Arthur on the shoulder. “Welcome to the conspiracy, kid.”
♦ ♦ ♦
The next few hours were busy ones. Mitchell brought Arthur up to speed on what they were really testing and where the lab’s systems were actually VPN’d to. The boy was skeptical at first – not surprisingly – but Mitchell had a way of taking the fantastical and making it sound plausible. However, Derek suspected the presence of government personnel, people not known for being great practical jokers, helped impart their seriousness to the boy.
While this was going on, the rest of the team busied themselves with discussing strategy and next steps. Following a brief, but heated, call with Governor Yarlberg, Derek agreed to cooperate with Eric and his men on the condition that the governor’s people observe but not interfere.
As it turned out, another police report had been filed, a few days prior to their arrival, by the parents of some teenagers who’d gone missing. According to the teens’ friends, the couple had been planning an illicit rendezvous out on Swamp Forge Road, a claustrophobic stretch of asphalt not far from the route Derek and Francis had taken earlier in the day.
The missing count now up to seven, the added pressure on the governor had put him in a mood far more suited to negotiating – especially after Derek pointed out that his team was almost guaranteed to work faster if they were allowed to actually do their jobs.
After coordinating with Donald Krychech’s office, it was decided that Shilough made sense as the expedition’s kickoff point. From there, they would head into the forest, using their ATVs to connect with the same trail the AEP’s doomed expedition had used to get deep into the woods. The plan was to pick a spot close to where John Guiterrez’s truck had been found and establish a base camp. Rather than a multi-day hunt, though, the plan was to pack light.
Assuming their first night was unremarkable, as Derek fully expected it to be, they’d take a detour to Leeds Point the next day. He didn’t expect that to pan out, but Yarlberg’s press conference had made it a necessary evil. It would give them a confirmed public sighting for any fans in the area in a safe place, far from the scene of the actual disappearances.
Derek wasn’t happy that they’d already been tailed once by that reporter. He didn’t want it happening again and risk someone getting shot by accident.
Their plan set, they were finally able to turn to other topics.
“Any luck with that snot?” Derek asked.
Mitchell shook his head. “Still waiting on it. Probably going to be several more hours at the least.”
“Any initial theories?”
“It definitely came from something living, which I suppose is better than them handing me a canister of industrial waste. I don’t think you’re too far off, though. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s mucus, maybe pus. From what? No clue on that one.”
“Pus, eh?” Francis commented. “Just so long as you don’t share the wealth with the rest of us.”
“Oh please. I’ve seen some of the shit you eat.”
Derek tried to steer them back on track. “So how do you want to play this one, Mitch? I think we can handle it out in the field if you want to...”
“No chance,” the medic replied. “I didn’t like leaving you to your own devices up in Alaska, but those people needed help. There’s no reason to sit here and babysit a monitor.”
“What about Arthur?” Danni asked, pointing his way. He was almost finished signing the small mountain of paperwork that had been thrown into his lap. “He can keep an eye on things.”
Mitchell shrugged. “That’ll work. If anything of note pops up, he can phone it in.”
“All right,” Francis said, clapping his hands. “Let’s gear up and get back to the vacation paradise that is Shilough.”
“Oh?” Mitchell asked. “That bad?”
“I think Derek’s afraid his new girlfriend will still be there waiting for us.”
Derek chuckled. “I was more thinking that guy at the museum.”
“Exactly. Who did you think I was talking about?”
That elicited a few laughs at the table until Mitchell asked, “So, what about the museum guy?”
“It’s hard to say,” Derek replied. “I just got a weird vibe off of him.”
Francis leaned back and put his feet up on the table. “That’s selling it short. Guy was a certified creep.”
“It wasn’t just that. Well, okay, it was mostly that, but some of the stuff he told us. I don’t know, but it’s been gnawing at me for some reason.”
“Like what?” Danni asked.
“Hard to say. Something about that family photo Lesterfield showed us. I don’t know. Maybe the guy just rubbed me the wrong way.
Danni leaned forward. “Lesterfield? Isn’t that...?”
“That guy you looked up? Yeah. Turns out they’re related. Great-grandson or something like that. I just wish he’d have let us film in there. Then maybe I could point my finger to it.”
Francis stood up. “Ask and ye shall receive.”
“What?”
“Let me go get my camera.”
“I thought he made you turn it off.”
“No,” Francis replied with a grin. “He made me pretend to turn it off. I kept it recording at my side the entire time. Figured maybe we could use some of it for the show. Amazing how useful a piece of electrical tape over the recording light can be.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Derek could have kissed his cameraman, but instead settled for the big man fetching his gear. They commandeered a meeting room with a TV and played it back. Most of it wasn’t watchable, being shot from the hip and all, but the audio was good and Francis had positioned the lens to get decent shots of some of the more prominent displays.
“The Leeds legend, the Kallikak family, the Philadelphia hoax,” Ezekiel Lesterfield said on the screen.
“Stop it there,” Derek said. “Something about that is ringing a bell.”
“The Philadelphia one?” Francis asked.
“No. That was garbage. Pretty much a PT Barnum type scam. The Kallikak family. I think I’ve heard of them, but where?”
“Oh, that one is easy,” Mitchell said. “Another urban legend or scam, depending on how you look at it.”
“What does it have to do with the Jersey Devil?” Danni asked.
“Nothing. It was a famous case from around the turn of the century. That’s probably why it sounds familiar. The Kallikaks were supposedly this inbred family who lived deep in the Pine Barrens. There were whole books written about their mental and physical deformities from years of inbreeding.”
“So what came of it?” Derek asked.
“Nothing. Turned out to be a hoax. All the reports were falsified – photos retouched, et cetera. It was all bullshit. But things like that die hard. Ever since then, Pineys, as they’re called, have had a reputation for being sister-marrying hillbillies.”
“Because that’s what the world needs,” Danni replied with a sigh. “More stereotypes.”
“Hold on,” Francis said. “It might not be too far off the mark. I mean, hell, you saw that family photo, Derek. You can’t tell me that Lesterfield doesn’t have some kissing cousins in his family tree.”
“That’s not nice, Frank.”
“Screw nice,” the big man said. “See for yourself.” He touched the controls on the camera and the image fast-forwarded to Lesterfield telling them about his ancestor’s exorcism. “Come on, I know I got it.” The camera swayed back and forth trying to center on a picture hanging on the wall. It was hard to see much, but then it came into focus and, for a brief moment, the image was clearly captured on the screen. “There!” He backed up a second or two and hit pause. “I present to you the Lesterfields, a family for whom high definition is not particularly kind.”
Before Derek could say anything, Danni leaned forward. “Whoa. And I thought Jedediah was kind of ugly.”
“Apparently his kids took after his side of the family.”
“I’m not sure that’s the case.” Danni pointed out the woman standing next to the reverend. “Those two could be fraternal twins.”
“That’s Sarah,” Francis said.
“Doing your homework, Frank?” Mitchell replied with a grin. “And here I thought you were allergic to research.”
The cameraman flipped him off. “Easy to remember, trust me on this.”
Derek turned to the others and nodded. “Yeah. They definitely seem to have a thing for that name.”