Devil Hunters (Tales of the Crypto-Hunter Book 2)

by Rick Gualtieri

  “I don’t have any beauty pageants on my calendar. Any word from Norah?”

  “Not yet.” Upon their arrival back at the campus, ushered in the back door so that as few people as possible saw them, Eric Zeist had tried to confiscate Mitchell’s cell phone, but the medic had put a quick end to that. Zeist’s men had grudgingly let Mitchell put in a call to their superiors but had been watching his group like hawks ever since.

  “Dammit! We can’t wait for her to comb through red tape. Danni and Frank need us now.” Derek took a deep breath then indicated the door. “What’s the word out there?”

  “It’s ... a bit tense.”

  “Define tense.”

  “They’ve got Julia locked up in a conference room down the hall. Two of their gestapo buddies are guarding her.”

  “I bet she’s pissed.”

  “A bit. Can’t say I blame her. They dragged Arthur out of bed and brought him here before placing the building on lockdown.”

  “Why?”

  “Containment. Seems our buddy Eric is acting on orders from the good governor.”

  “Great, just what we need.” Derek stood and shuffled to the door. “Let’s get out there and take control of the situation before this entire thing goes to hell.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Arthur stood up as Derek and Mitchell re-entered the room. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m alive,” Derek replied.

  The college student walked toward them. “What happened to Danni? Nobody here will tell me anything.”

  “Sorry,” Mitchell said. “I’ve been ... a little busy.”

  Arthur hooked a thumb toward Zeist’s men. “I meant these guys.”

  “I’m not going to mince words,” Derek replied. “She’s in trouble, but we’re going to do everything we can to save her.”

  “Trouble? Does it have anything to do with the samples we’ve been analyzing?”

  “A lot to do with it.”

  “Because I’ve been looking over the results all night and have some ideas.”

  “That’s enough,” Eric barked, stomping over to them. “The kid doesn’t need to know any more than he does.”

  Derek turned to him. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “You can barely walk.”

  “That’s more than enough to make a judgment call.” Derek held his gaze. “So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to let our friend out of that closet you’ve got her in and bring her here. Then you’re going to back off and let us do our jobs.”

  “The governor’s on his way. He’ll...”

  Though the comment caught Derek by surprise, he didn’t miss a beat. “But he’s not here yet, is he? And until he is, this is my expedition and those are my team members out there. So you’re either going to help or get out of my way. Those are your only two options.”

  The two men glared at each other for several seconds until Eric finally blinked. He turned to one of his men. “Go get the woman and bring her here, but don’t let her even look in the direction of a phone.”

  “Better.” Derek motioned Arthur over and took a seat. The small amount of time on his feet had been an effort, reminding him that overdoing it wasn’t going to help anyone. Sadly, there didn’t look to be much choice in the matter. “So let’s talk about what you’ve got, kid.”

  Nervousness flashed across Arthur’s face, as if he remembered he was a student intern talking to someone who was both a celebrity and a government agent. “Is this going to help her?”

  “I won’t lie. There’s no way of knowing. But anything more than what we currently have is better than where we are now.”

  Arthur took a seat between Derek and Mitchell. “Those samples we found. At first I thought they were degraded because of contamination, but now I’m not so sure. I think they’re actually human, but ... at the same time not. Almost an offshoot species, but more because of external factors, not evolution.”

  “Go on,” Derek said.

  “You’re going to think this is crazy.”

  Mitchell chuckled. “Try us, kid.”

  “The toxins in the samples. At first, I thought they were external, like maybe whatever DNA was in there got mixed in with something else, but I spent a little more time with it and now I think that sample was some sort of excretion.”

  “Like saliva?”

  “More like pus or maybe phlegm. But whatever was in it originated from the source, not after the fact.”

  “So whatever this thing is, it has toxins in its body.”

  “Heavy metals, industrial waste, we’re talking some serious shit.” At that, Arthur looked embarrassed. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Derek replied. “I’m not your parent and you’re not being graded. Speak frankly.”

  He adjusted his glasses, but smiled anyway. “Thanks. But yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. I’m pretty sure this sample is from a human who’s been badly affected by whatever is in their system, but at the same time, I don’t think this is a freak occurrence. I’ve never seen anything like this, but my gut tells me you couldn’t introduce this sort of damage to the human body all at once and have it survive.”

  “How then?”

  “I think it’s ... hereditary.” Arthur paused, looking nervous as if he, too, felt his story was ridiculous, but then he nodded. “I know it sounds crazy, but...”

  “Not as crazy as that thing opening its mouth and talking to us.”

  “What?!”

  “Sit back. Let me bring you up to speed.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Derek’s recounting of their ambush was interrupted by the sound of someone cursing up a storm in the hall. The door opened and Julia was led in, escorted by two of Zeist’s men. She was busy chewing them out about civil liberties and freedom of the press. All were valid points as far as Derek was concerned, but not particularly helpful for her current situation, especially since he was certain his team wouldn’t be allowed to back up her claims once this was over and done with.

  Her sister was still out there somewhere, though, and he was certain she’d agree that was the far more pressing issue at the moment. “Miss Wilhelm, can you please join us over here?”

  “Screw that! If this gorilla thinks he can...”

  “Julia! It’s about our friends and your sister.”

  As expected, that got through to her. She gave Eric and his men one last dirty look, then stalked over.

  The security director, for his part, said, “Any of you tries to give her your phone and I’ll smash it myself.”

  “Try it and I’ll smash you in the...”

  “That’s enough, Mitch,” Derek said before turning to Julia. “We’re going over what we know, trying to piece together who or what it is we’re up against.”

  “What do you mean ‘what’? I thought you said it was a group of people.”

  “That’s what we’re discussing. Turns out, calling them people might be generous if what I’m hearing is true.”

  That caught her attention and she stopped complaining to listen in.

  “What you said about this possibly being hereditary has got me thinking,” Derek said, nodding toward Arthur. “Ezekiel Lesterfield.”

  “The museum proprietor?” Mitchell asked.

  “One and the same. You saw him on the film. He’s not what I would call a pleasant-looking fellow. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but then he showed up in the swamp to save what we thought was the Jersey Devil. And he wasn’t alone. The others who were with him, I didn’t get much of a chance to examine them, but from what I could tell, Ezekiel and the devil represented two extremes.”

  “Extremes?” Julia asked. “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s okay, I’m just beginning to myself. According to what Ezekiel said, the devil is related to him. Called him Noah. It sounded like they’re all family and kinda looked that way, too. There’s Ezekiel, who looks normal enough to fit in with society, but at the other end of the spectrum i
s Noah. He’s ... hard to explain, but it’s like evolution decided to run in multiple different directions at the same time. Based on what he’s presumably done to our own people and others, I’m not entirely shy about calling him a monster inside and out. As for the rest of the group who ambushed us, they were all somewhere in between – a veritable smorgasbord of birth defects and deformities, but apparently nothing so debilitating as to keep them from doing what they did. From that aspect, they were all hale and hearty.”

  “So ... a family of, what, freaks?” Mitchell asked.

  “In a nutshell.”

  “I don’t get it,” Julia said. “Did a circus break down and the performers all decide to run away into the swamp? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Derek shook his head. “No, it doesn’t, and I don’t think that’s the case anyway. According to Ezekiel, his family has been here for a long time, even before that crazy preacher grandpa of his.”

  “But I thought you said he and this Noah were related.”

  “Yes, and it’s all starting to make sense now ... sorta anyway.” Derek turned to Arthur. “What you said about it being hereditary, I think that might be the key here. The missing link, if you will.”

  The college student looked confused. “How so?”

  “What if Jedediah Lesterfield’s exorcism was less about god and religion and more about protecting his family?”

  “You think this Noah guy is over a hundred years old?” Julia asked.

  “Not at all. That would be crazy.”

  “And the rest isn’t?”

  Derek smiled at her. “Crazy is my line of work, but even I have limits.”

  CHAPTER 26

  “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?”