“Before coming here, we did our due diligence on the legend of the Jersey Devil.”
“I know a thing or two about it,” Julia replied. “Mother Leeds and her thirteen children.”
“The last one was born a devil and flew up through the chimney,” Arthur said. Then, when he saw Derek staring at him, added, “I’m pretty sure anyone who lives here can tell you that much.”
Derek nodded. “Not surprising. Stuff like this brings a bit of historical flavor to an area, but in a fun way. Still, it’s nothing we didn’t know. What we found interesting, and which led us to originally conclude there wasn’t anything of note here, was the changing aspect of the creature.”
“How so?”
“If you read about most cryptids, like sasquatch for instance, there’s always going to be some variation depending on who’s telling the story, but ultimately the vast majority of them add up to a giant hairy humanoid in the woods. They have that in common. Same with the Mokele Mbembe.”
“The what?”
“A legend from the Congo,” Mitchell clarified.
Derek nodded to him. “There’s some difference in descriptions of skin texture and size, but almost all the eyewitness reports can be summed up as a sauropod dinosaur.”
“That’s pretty crazy,” Julia said, leaning back in her chair.
Derek shrugged. “Regardless, there’s a certain symmetry to the stories that gives them at least some potential for credibility. But that doesn’t exist with the Jersey Devil. The reports of its appearance all vary wildly. Sometimes it has wings, sometimes hooves, sometimes a horse’s head, sometimes it hops like a kangaroo, et cetera. When you read a history like that, it’s easy to conclude that you’re dealing with nothing more than a local tall tale.”
“Or witnesses who are drunk enough to see pink elephants,” Mitchell added.
“Also a factor in these things.”
Julia folded her arms across her chest. “So what does this have to do with a hundred-year-old exorcism and the bastard who kidnapped my sister?”
“I’m getting to that. What if everything we assumed to be nothing more than a fabrication is actually fact? More importantly, what if it’s all the same family?”
Julia looked confused, but Mitchell said, “I think I see where you’re going with this. Same family, same fucked-up genetics, but different devils.”
“Exactly.” Derek slapped the table in front of him. “Ow! Need to not do that for a while. But essentially, yes. Say you have this family living out in the marshes, mostly isolated from the rest of society.”
“New Jersey Hillbillies?” Arthur offered, his eyes wide as he apparently tried to process this.
“Yeah,” Mitchell said. “But let’s say the problem here is twofold. First off, maybe they’re inbreeding, keeping it all in the family.”
Derek nodded. “Not unheard of for close-knit clans like this. Stories of inbreeding in the Pine Barrens aren’t exactly new, so that seems a fair assumption.”
“What’s the second problem?” Julia asked.
“Part of the reason we were called in: toxic waste.”
“Hey!” Eric cried.
Derek turned toward the security director. “Oops. Did I say that out loud?”
“You’re playing with fire, Jenner.”
“Sorry. I tend to forget myself when I’m full of bullet holes.” He turned back to the group and rolled his eyes. “Pretend I didn’t say that last part. But let’s consider history. The Barrens used to be home to several industries that tried to make a go of it: steel, charcoal, glass. Let’s assume – hypothetically speaking, of course – not all of those industries cleaned up their messes when they left.”
Arthur leaned in. “So what you’re saying is this inbred family probably lived, or still live, where a bunch of this stuff was dumped.”
“Precisely. Both of those factors can contribute to birth defects, but now add them together. Brother and sister get married and raise a toast of lead and mercury at the reception ... and they do it over and over again, generation after generation.”
Julia covered her mouth with her hand. “What would that do to them?”
“I think we met the answer to that question last night. This is a family that plays a hard and fast game of birth defect roulette. On the lucky side you end up with Ezekiel or Jedediah Lesterfield, people capable of fitting in with normal society. On the low end of things, you get someone who would be labeled a monster. Over hundreds of years and several generations, that’s bound to happen at least a few times.”
Mitchell smiled grimly. “Hence the different descriptions of the devil. Because it was different ... different members of this fucked-up family over the years.”
“Yep, people far too deformed to do anything but live their lives in the woods, only occasionally being seen by outsiders.”
“How tragic,” Julia said.
“Tragic,” Derek agreed, “except for when they decide to start killing or kidnapping people.”
“But why?”
“That kind of genetic damage can’t be good for one’s state of mental health,” Mitchell offered.
“I don’t doubt it,” Derek replied, “but I think it goes deeper than that. Ezekiel showed us a picture of his great grandad’s family. There was over a dozen boys, but only one girl. He even specifically pointed it out. What if there simply aren’t enough women in the family to go around?”
Arthur stood up and smiled. “The Y chromosome!” When the others turned toward him, he quickly sat back down, “Sorry about that.”
“What did you mean?”
Arthur appeared to consider this for a moment, but then he locked eyes with Derek, the first time he’d seen the kid be self-assertive. “I didn’t think anything of it when I was doing my original analysis, but the DNA results seemed to suggest an overly aggressive Y chromosome. Whatever it was that the sample came from, it was almost definitely male.”
“What does that have to do with these things kidnapping my sister?” Julia asked.
“In nature, some species can change sex during times of need,” Arthur explained. “If there are no females present, the males can spontaneously change their sex so as to allow for continuation of the species. But maybe, thanks to the damage introduced here, nature is kind of working in reverse. What if they’re predetermined to be mostly male thanks to the screwed-up nature of their genes?”
Derek nodded. “I see where you’re going with this. And what if there are some stretches of time where it’s worse than others? Remember the Lesterfield exorcism? It was brought about because girls had gone missing in the area, presumably taken by the devil. Well, what if that was true? Maybe, out of desperation for their fucked-up way of life, that’s exactly what happened.”
“And Jedediah used the exorcism as a way to cover it up before people converged on the woods in force.”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking, Mitch. What we’re looking at here right now is history repeating itself.”
“So those bastards kidnapped my sister to rape and impregnate her?” Julia cried, a look of horror upon her face.
“Danni, too,” Derek said grimly, “as well as any others they’ve taken.”
“But what about the guys?” Arthur asked. “I thought I read that a few men went missing, too.”
Derek narrowed his eyes. “I’m not a betting man, but if I was I’d say they did to them the same thing they tried to do to Frank and me.”
♦ ♦ ♦
“He did what? B-but that’s crazy.”
“Is it any crazier than what we’re going through?” Danni asked. “Or the things that kidnapped us?”
Bolstered by a need to do something, anything, to keep the oppressive weight of her situation at bay, Danni had started talking ... keeping at it until Sophie finally responded again. And, despite the pain of the memory, she could think of no better way to bolster her resolve than to once again face the horrors she’d already survived.
“And your brother actually tried to fight that thing?”
“We both did. But he was first, inspired me to keep going even after...”
“I’m so sorry,” Sophie said.
Danni gritted her teeth. “I didn’t tell you that story to make you feel sorry for me. I wanted you to hear it so that you understand there’s no such thing as an unwinnable fight, an unkillable monster. These things are big, they’re scary, and they’re smart, but beneath it all, they’re not much different than you and me. They can be beaten, but you can’t give up. That’s what they want.”
“But how?”
“I ... don’t know.” Danni couldn’t bring herself to lie to the poor woman. That would have been wrong. At the same time, she realized that so long as she could perhaps inspire a little hope in at least one other person here, she could keep that flame alive inside herself. “For now, all I know is this: we need to do whatever we can to keep ourselves safe and unhurt.”
“Unhurt? But...”
“You don’t have to say it.” The truth was, she didn’t want to hear it, was too afraid her own resolve would crumble. “Believe me, I know. I won’t lie to you and say anything is going to be easy, but we have to try. None of that Stockholm Syndrome crap, no thinking we deserve this, no giving up. Always fight, even if it’s only in your mind. No matter how long it takes. Let them get sloppy, complacent, make a mistake. And when they do...”
“What?”
“You do whatever you can to make them pay. We do whatever we can.”
“I-I’m not sure I can. You don’t understand what they’ve...”
“That’s okay. Not knowing is fine, but it’s a lot better than giving up. But please believe me when I say I won’t stop fighting. And I swear on my brother’s soul that I will find a way to...”
The sound of a door being thrown open immediately silenced both women.
“But i-it’s not f-fair!”
“That will be enough, Noah.” The voice of Ezekiel Lesterfield floated down the dank prison hallway toward Danni. He didn’t sound pleased. “It’s rightful retribution, that’s all. I earned my place, my Sarah. It’s only fair that I be compensated being that she hadn’t taken to seed yet.”
“But Sssarah is mine.”
“She belongs to whoever Adam says she belongs to. Unless, that is, you’d like to bring it up with the old man.”
Silence followed, save for the fall of footsteps, one normal, the other heavy and plodding.
“I didn’t think so. Now mind your manners and maybe you can have the next.”
“Liked this one.”
“I can see that. There is a lot to like. It’s rare to find a vixen in these woods so fresh-faced and unspoiled.”
Danni could see them approaching. They passed by Sophie’s cage. The woman stayed quiet, no doubt hoping to go unnoticed. Danni couldn’t blame her, but at the same time, she had a bad feeling that she wasn’t their target.
“M-maybe you share her?”
“Now now, dear Noah. Don’t be greedy. Did I not try to be generous with you earlier, despite it coming at great personal cost to myself?”
“Wasn’t me,” Noah replied in an almost sulking voice. “Didn’t even get a turn.”
“I know that, child. Your cousin, on the other hand, had best steer clear of me for the foreseeable future.”
Danni backed up as the grotesque form of Noah Lesterfield appeared in front of her cage. He leered down at her with barely concealed greed as Ezekiel stepped next to him.
“Good day to you, Sarah,” he said cordially, removing his hat as if trying to be polite.
“My name’s Danni.”
“No, it isn’t. But that’s okay. You’ll learn. All eventually do. Don’t worry. I won’t hold your initial reluctance against you.”
“It’s Daniella Kent, to be precise,” she continued, ignoring him. “I want you both to remember that name. Danni Kent. Because I’m going to be responsible for you and your whole crazy family ending up behind bars.”
Noah laughed a wheezing chuckle.
Ezekiel joined him. “I so do appreciate a sense of irony in a bride-to-be. I appreciate seeing it broken even more.”
Danni looked past them, suddenly realizing they’d returned alone. “Where’s Abby?”
“Who?”
“Abigail,” Danni replied, refusing to play their game. “The girl you took earlier. If you’ve hurt her...”
“Ah, yes,” Ezekiel replied, leering at her. “Alas, I am heartbroken to say that I have recently been widowed. My Sarah, she was a good lass, quite comely. I so did enjoy my time with her. Sadly, she was not cut out for the rigors of this life. But you, you have some fire in you, girl. Adam has agreed that you’ll be my new Sarah to help ease my suffering.”
She’d heard them say that name before. “Adam?”
“He’s the patriarch of our dear family, Noah’s father.”
“Sssupposed to be m-mine,” Noah complained.
Danni opened her eyes wide at their exchange but said nothing.
“But she’s not,” Ezekiel chided. “Your pappy has spoken and his word is law. If you have a problem with it, I suggest you take it up with him. Maybe he’ll slap some manners into you.”
That shut Noah up and he shrank away from the much smaller man like a whipped dog. Danni felt the slightest bit of empathy for his plight but quickly pushed it away. Her friends might very well be dead because of him. If he was looking for pity, he’d need to look elsewhere.
She shook that thought from her head as quickly as it came. Derek and Francis were both survivors. They’d pulled through worse. They had to be okay. And if they were okay, that meant they were coming for her. She had to hold on to that hope, do what she could to survive until then.
But if she got the chance to take out her frustrations on any of these fuckers in the meantime, so much the better. She sized up Ezekiel. He was thin and severe looking. She had little doubt that if push came to shove, she could take him.
He noticed her staring at him and stepped up to the cage smiling, revealing crooked teeth. “That’s good. A woman should take a measure of her husband to be. You’ll get to know the rest of me soon enough, but not quite yet.”
A feeling of relief washed over Danni, but it was instantly quashed as he continued.
“Adam insists on getting to know every new Sarah first. Breaking them in, so to speak. And if his mighty seed should happen to germinate in your womanhood first, so be it. The clan will be that much stronger for it.”