The Pines

“Go on,” insisted Athena.

He didn’t look up from the notes. “Eventually, any freakish child could be labeled another Jersey Devil. And in time, whenever campers disappeared, due to say a boating accident or something, it got blamed on the creature.”

“Or the other way around.”

“How do you mean?”

Athena’s voice seemed to come from a long way off. “Whenever the creature took someone, they blamed it on a boating accident.”

“What about Barry?” Doris asked.

“What…?”

“Officially.”

“Oh. They’re saying it was dogs.”

Doris choked out a laugh. “Climbing ladders?”

“This doesn’t help. This is crazy.” Athena sounded defeated. “Some poor starving goon running around the woods. What’s that got to do with…with the horrible things that…? First Lonny. Now Barry. It’s getting closer. I can feel it. I’ve always felt it.”

“I looked for details common to the different versions.” Steve clutched the wad of notes. “You never know what’s going to be important.” And he stared at the papers with hard-eyed pain. “Most of the variations involve some sort of transformation as a major feature. Depending on who you listen to, Mrs. Leeds’s little boy is reported to have grown a long tail, bat wings, hooves, antlers, or—”

“That’s a dead end. Athena’s right. It doesn’t help. Malformed animals—we’ve all seen things out there, things that shouldn’t be.”

Athena tried to talk over her. “There’s an image I can’t get out of my mind. Something on top of Pamela’s trailer, dogs all around it in the storm.”

He shuffled papers, afraid of the look on Athena’s face. “I found something that ties in with what you just said, Doris. Where…? Here it is. A British soldier during the Revolutionary War—the researcher gives him the name of Kallikak—fathered eight mentally defective children by various women in the barrens, then returned to England and sired three normal children.” Putting down the notes, he wondered why Doris kept shaking her head at him.

“Maybe it’s the vegetation.” Doris stirred her coffee, then stubbed her cigarette out in a saucer. “What are those things?” She pointed to a pile of slick-looking papers.

“Newspaper and magazine articles mostly,” he said, “some stuff from books. I must’ve gone through a hundred of them.”

“Looks like you spent a fortune copying this.” Doris flicked dismally through the pile. “Do we need to read it all?”

“For some of them, I just underlined a few things. Look, through 1840 and 1841—reports of strange tracks, and of screams heard in the woods. ‘Again, posse unsuccessful,’” he read. “‘Heavy losses of chickens and sheep.’”

“That could’ve been a bobcat,” said Doris, lighting another cigarette. “Or a bear even.”

He pushed the chipped ashtray toward her. “In 1858, near Hanover Iron Works…”

“What’s wrong, Steve?”

“I don’t know—I felt a chill. Maybe I shouldn’t go on with this. Maybe we should stop here.” He set the notes down on the table, drained his cup with one swallow. “We could still. Stop, I mean.” He looked at the two of them, then down at the notes. “Like sane people. I get the feeling there’s a border we’re about to cross.”

Athena got up and put on a fresh pot of coffee.

“Read the rest of it.” It was Doris who finally spoke.

“Uh, Hanover Iron Works. ‘Management has trouble with workers afraid of Devil and refusing to venture out of their tents.’ Then in, let’s see…I don’t have to read all of this. The gist of it—time and again, we’ve got reports of laborers barricading themselves in their huts.”

Athena stood at the stove, seemingly totally involved by the task of making coffee.

“It seems to come in waves. Fifty years later, we hit pay dirt.” Steve read on, his voice deep, without emphasis. “In 1909, between January 16 and January 23, there’s literally thousands of sightings and incidents. All over Jersey, we have factories closing, schools closing. A theater in Camden closed. And, uh”—he squinted, trying to make out his own handwriting—“this is sort of confusing. We’ve got several accounts of local sheriffs emptying their guns into the woods. The mills in Gloucester and Hainsport shut their doors. People in Mount Ephraim refused to leave their homes even in broad daylight. There were full-scale hunts with dogs mounted in Burlington County, Columbus, Dunbarton, Haddonfield, Hedding…”

Doris emitted a low whistle.

“…Kincora and Rancocas. There was a substantial bounty offered, and twice the militia was called out.” He turned the page. “In 1927, we have two reports of stranded motorists threatened by ‘something that stood upright like a man but without clothing and covered with fur.’ Then, let’s see now, that same year, following reports of what sounds a lot like a giant German shepherd, posses formed in both Woodston and West Orange. Oh, and this one I especially like, it’s dated Thursday, November 22, 1951.”

“The date of my birth, how nice,” added Doris.

He ignored her. “It’s from a Gibbstown paper, The Chronicle. A group of youngsters are playing in a tree house, when a ten-year-old points out the window and screams….” He held up the paper and read. “‘The thing! It’s staring at me with blood coming out of its face!’” The paper rattled. “Then, let’s see…‘The boy fell to the floor and his body was wracked by spasms.’” He set the page down on the table. “I checked the files. Two days later, we have an unexplained disappearance in that area. But a search party only began beating the brush after numerous sightings of what’s described either as ‘a chunky man with a bestial face’ or a ‘half-man, half-beast.’ Good, huh?”

“So what are we dealing with?” asked Doris. “Is it the missing link? Neanderthal man? Tell me. I can take it —I watch old movies.”

Athena returned to the table, coffee spilling over the side of her trembling cup. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did anybody else want some?”

“Another bounty was offered,” Steve droned on. “A few weeks later in Jackson Mills, several dogs were torn to pieces by ‘sort of a wildcat, four feet tall…long…grayish.’ Then things quiet down for a while, until—”

“Oh, that’s enough! Let me see this.” Doris snatched the notebook from him. “Your handwriting stinks.” She glanced at the top page, then passed it to Athena.

She skimmed the list of dates.

1959: Wall Township, St. Trps arrest 30+ rifle-bearing “vigilantes” claim to be on track of creature.

1960: St. Police quell panic in Dorothy, NJ. Set traps & patrol w/rifles. Same in Sims Place, Jenkins Neck.

April 1966: Mullica River. Farm animals mangled and strewn about. Trps follow “humanlike” tracks deep into barrens before lose trail.

“She’s right. Your handwriting is terrible. Is that all of it?”

A jumble of papers spread across the table. “That’s about it, except for a couple dozen reports a year, mostly by vacationers.”

“Reports?”

“Just sightings mostly—of something that sounds a whole lot like Lon Chaney, Jr. Then there’s the poem of course.”

“What poem?”

He pointed. She flipped the notebook and read the scrawl on the back.

When the moon stands over the cedars,

And the waters are hidden by fog,

Comes the cry of the witch’s child,