by R. L. Stine
He touched the clear sap coating on the head of the nail that fixed it to the tree. His fingertip came away wet. He showed her.
“This is fresh—really fresh.”
Weezy touched the goop and nodded. “Like maybe this morning.”
Jack checked the ground and saw tire tracks. It had rained last night, and these tracks weren’t washed out in the slightest.
“Looks like a truck,” he said, pointing.
Weezy nodded. “Two sets—coming and going. And one’s deeper than the other.” She looked at Jack. “Hauled something in or took something out.”
“Maybe it was Old Man Foster himself.”
“Could be.”
Foster had supposedly owned this chunk of the Jersey Pine Barrens forever, but no one had ever seen him. No one had ever seen anyone posting the land, either, but the signs were everywhere.
“Want to follow?”
She glanced at her watch and shook her head. “Got to go to Medford with my mom.”
“Again? What’s this—an every Wednesday thing?” She looked away. “No. Just works out that way.” When she looked back, disappointment shone in her eyes. “You going without me?”
Jack sensed she wanted them to go together, but he didn’t think he could hold off.
“Yeah. Probably nothing to see. If I find anything, we can come back together.”
She nodded and offered half a smile. “Sure you won’t get lost without me?”
He glanced at the sun sliding down the western sky. Every year, people—mostly hunters—entered the Barrens and were never seen again. Folks assumed they got lost and starved. No big surprise in a million-plus acres of mostly uninhabited pine forest. If a vanilla sky moved in, you could lose all sense of direction and wander in circles for days. But with the sun visible, Jack knew all he had to do was keep heading west and he’d hit civilization.
“I’ll manage somehow. See you later.”
He watched her turn her Schwinn, straddle the banana seat, and ride off with a wave. After the trees had swallowed her, Jack turned off the fire trail and began following the tire tracks along the narrow passage—little more than two ruts separated by a grassy ridge and flanked by the forty-foot scrub pines that dominated the Barrens. They formed a thick wall, crowding the edges of the path, reaching over him with their crooked, scraggly branches.
The passage forked and the tracks bore to the right. A half-dozen feet into the fork he spotted another reflector. At the next fork the tracks bore left, and sure enough, another reflector.
Odd. He’d figured the first had been a marker for the starting point of the trail. Grass and trees could thicken over a growing season and obscure what had once been an obvious opening. But whoever had come along here this morning was marking every turn, placing reflectors where headlights would pick them up as they approached. That meant he was planning to come back in the dark. Maybe tonight. Maybe many nights.
Why?
Jack found the answer a half mile farther on where the tire tracks ended in a clearing with a large, solitary oak in its center. Near its base someone had dumped a dozen or more fifty-five gallon oil drums—old ones, rusted, banged up, and leaky.
He jumped at the sound of a car engine roaring his way. A few seconds later a weird-looking contraption bounced into the clearing on the far side. It had the frame of a small Jeep, maybe a Wrangler, with no roof, sides, or hood. The engine was exposed, though the fire wall was still in place, and instead of a steering wheel, someone had fixed a long-handled wrench to the column. The front and rear seats had been replaced by a pair of ratty-looking sofas occupied by three kids in their mid-teens. Jack recognized the driver: Elvin Neolin from his civics class. He’d seen the other boy around school as well, but the white-haired girl was new.
Pineys.
They lived out here in the woods. Some had jobs in the towns around the Pines, and some lived off the land—hunting, fishing, gardening. All were poor and a few were a little scary-looking in their mismatched, ill-fitting clothes and odd features. Hard to say why they seemed odd. Not like they had bug eyes and snaggleteeth; more like looking at a reflection in one of those old-time mirrors where the glass wasn’t even.
Some folks called them inbreds, talking about brothers and sisters getting together and having kids. Jack didn’t know if any of that was true. People liked to talk, and some people just naturally exaggerated as they went along. But no one could deny that some Pineys didn’t look quite right.
The kid riding shotgun was Levi Coffin, a sophomore at SRB High. Coffin was an old Quaker name that Jack envied. Jack Coffin . . . how cool to have a name like that.
Levi jumped out and strode toward Jack. He was tall and lanky, and his clothes were too short in the arms and legs. His mismatched eyes—one blue and one brown—blazed.
“This your doin’?”
Jack tensed. Levi looked a little scary.
“No way. I just got here.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, north. “Followed tire tracks from back there. They ended here.”
Levi glanced over his shoulder at Elvin, who was staring his way. Elvin was on the short side with piercing dark eyes, stiff black hair, and high cheekbones. Looked like he might have some Lenape Indian in him.
Their eyes locked, then Levi turned away, muttering, “All right, all right.”
What’s that all about? Jack wondered.
Levi inspected the tire tracks while Elvin hopped out and walked over to the drums. Jack sensed the white-haired girl staring at him from the buggy. He realized with a start that she had pink irises. White hair . . . milk-white skin . . . what was that called . . . ?
Albino . . . she was an albino.
“I can’t see him, Levi,” she said in a high-pitched voice.
Was she blind?
“What?” Levi swiveled to stare at Jack.
Elvin was struggling with the top to one of the drums. He looked toward Levi, who turned back, then gave his head a sideways jerk toward Jack.
Elvin nodded, saying, “Hey, Levi. Gimme a hand.”
Levi walked over and touched the lid—barely touched it—and it popped loose.
Jack felt a funny sensation ripple down his spine as he remembered an incident in school with Levi. Something way strange here. He hesitated, then started toward the drums as the two boys lifted the lid. They dropped it when they saw what was inside.
“Damn!” Levi said. “Damn them to hell!”
Jack might have quipped about where else you could damn someone to, but the rage in Levi’s voice warned him off. He stepped up and saw the thick, cloudy green liquid; his nose stung from the sharp chemical odor.
“What is it?”
“Some sort of toxic crap,” Levi said. “They’re using this spot as a dumping ground.”
“Who?”
“Crooks from upstate. We’ve found stuff like this before.”
Jack said, “Better than dumping it in some river, I guess.”
Levi glared at him and pointed to a barrel on its side. The sand near its top was wet with gunk.
“That one’s leaking. It sinks into the groundwater. And guess who gets their water from wells out here. We do. But who cares about Pineys.”
Jack understood some of the reaction. Kids at school tended to rag on the Pineys, make fun of their clothes, joke about the brother-sister connections. But Jack wasn’t one of those and didn’t like being lumped in with them.
“No fair.”
Another look passed between Levi and Elvin, and then Levi shrugged. “Forget it. El says you’re okay.”
Fine, but Jack hadn’t heard El say anything.
“We should tell the cops,” Jack said. “My sister used to date a deputy and—”
Levi and Elvin and the girl were shaking their heads . . . same direction, same speed, moving as one. Jack was getting creeped.
“Uh-uh,” Levi said. “Cops ain’t gonna go patrolling the Pines looking for someone they don’t know, who might or might not come back.
”
“Oh, they’ll be back.”
Levi’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know?”
“Because they marked the path with reflectors.”
“Yeah? Show us.”
As Jack reached for his bike, Elvin pointed to the weird buggy. “With us.”
“You’re old enough to drive?”
The two boys laughed.
“Plenty old enough to drive,” Levi said. Elvin never said much at school and didn’t seem to have much more to say out here. “Just not old enough for a license.”
“Aren’t you af—?” Jack began, then cut himself off. Afraid of being caught? Out here? By what—the Jersey Devil in a sheriff’s Stetson? Stupid question.
He spotted a Piney Power sticker on the rusted rear bumper.
“What’s that mean?”
Levi shrugged. “Some folks hereabouts think Pineys should get organized and vote and all that.” He glanced at Elvin. “We just like the sound of it.”
Elvin laughed. “Yeah. Sounds cool.”
The girl said nothing, simply stared at him.
Jack gave the buggy another once-over. Without sides, a top, or even a roll bar, it had to be the most dangerous car he’d ever seen. He’d be risking his life in that thing.
“Well,” Levi said, “you ridin’ or not?”
Jack couldn’t wait.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
As he seated himself on the rear sofa, the albino girl scooched away and squeezed against the far end. Her pink gaze never wavered from his face.
“I can’t see him.”
“Yeah?” Levi turned in the front sofa and looked at Jack. “El says he’s okay.”
“But I can’t see him!”
Jack waved his hand between them and she flinched.
“You can see me.”
“That’s Saree,” Levi said. “She’s talking about a different kind of seeing.”
Jack was going to ask what he meant but then Elvin started the engine with a roar.
Trying to ignore Saree’s unwavering stare, he directed El down the path, following his own bike tracks, till they came to the firebreak trail. El turned around and drove back.
Levi was right. The Burlington County Sheriff’s Department didn’t have the manpower to stake out Old Man Foster’s land or even this one path. Could be weeks before the dumpers made a return trip. Had to be a way to make them give themselves away. Or better yet . . .
An idea began to form.
“What’s down that way?” Jack said, pointing left as they approached the first fork.
“More of the same,” Levi said. “Why?”
“Wondering if there’s a Spong nearby . . . the deeper and wetter the better.”
“I know a cripple,” Saree said, still staring.
El followed her directions through a few more forks that left Jack totally disoriented.
“You know where we are, right?”
Saree rolled her eyes.
Okay, dumb question to ask a Piney. But at least she seemed to be relaxing a little.
A few minutes later, she said, “Right up here.”
El rolled to a stop before a thirty-foot-wide cripple—a water-filled depression half surrounded by white cedars. Without the cedars it would have been called a Spong.
Jack couldn’t help smiling when he saw it.
“Yeah, this’ll do.”
“Do what?”
When he told them their eyes lit. Saree even smiled.
“I still can’t see you,” she said. “But I think you’re okay.”
Weird. Too weird.
▼ TWO ▼
What’s wrong with inbreeding?” Jack said as he spooned some niblets into the well he’d made in his mashed potatoes.
His mother gasped. “Not at the dinner table.”
“No, really. I want to know.”
His father cleared his throat and adjusted his steel-rimmed glasses. “Thinking of marrying Kate?”
Kate laughed as Jack said, “No!”
His folks sat at opposite ends while Jack and his older sister, Kate, sat across from each other. Only his missing brother, Tom, kept it from being a full family meal. Jack didn’t miss him. Tom was a pain.
“Then where’s this coming from?”
Jack shrugged. “Kids at school talk about Pineys . . .”
He couldn’t get those weird kids out of his mind. They seemed so different . . . like they had their own language . . . an unspoken one. And that lid on the barrel . . . Elvin couldn’t budge it, but Levi just touched it and it popped free. It reminded Jack of the time Levi and Jake Shuett faced off in the caf a couple of weeks ago over some remark Jake had made about Pineys. Suddenly a ketchup pack Jake was holding squirted all over him and his lunch plate dumped in his lap. Jack had written it off to a spaz attack. He hadn’t given it much thought, but now . . .
He wasn’t expecting much information from his folks, but Kate was home on a laundry run from medical school—it was only in Stratford, barely thirty miles away—and maybe she’d know.
He glanced at her. “Why’s it bad?”
Kate was slim with pale blue eyes and faint freckles. After starting med school she’d cut her long blond hair back to a short, almost boyish length. Jack still wasn’t used to it.
She paused, then said, “It’s bad because we all have defective ‘recessive genes’ hidden in our DNA that are passed on from parent to child. Now, as long as that defective recessive gene is matched up with a working gene, all is well. But if a mother and a father both have the same recessive gene, and each gives it to a child, that child could have problems.”
“I saw an albino girl today—”
She nodded. “Perfect example: Two normal-skinned parents, each carrying an albino gene, have a one-in-four chance of having an albino child. Family members tend to share a lot of the same recessives, and so inbreeding—when close relatives have children—increases the risk of genetic diseases, because the closer you’re related, the greater the odds of matching up the same recessives in your kids.”
Now the important question: “But are all recessive genes bad? Could there be ones for, like, big muscles or a good memory?”
Kate smiled. “You’re thinking. That’s good. Yes, plants and animals are bred for drought resistance and giving more milk and the like.”
“Well, in that case, inbreeding people could have some good effects, right?”
“Theoretically, yes. But for every Einstein or Muhammad Ali, you could get a number of kids with cystic fibrosis.”
Or weird powers?
Or maybe I read too much science fiction, Jack thought.
▼THREE▼
He awoke to the sound of someone whispering his name . . . coming from the window. He hopped out of bed and crossed his darkened room. The high moon lit the grinning face on the far side of the screen.
“Levi?”
“Would you believe they came back again tonight?”
Jack felt his heart rate kick into high gear. “They took the bait?”
“Hook, line, and sinkhole. Figured since it was your idea, you oughta come see. We got the car. Wanna?”
“Be right there.”
He pulled on jeans and a rugby shirt, stepped into his Vans, then unlatched the screen and slipped into the night. Levi led him around the corner to where Elvin and Saree were waiting in the buggy, Saree behind the wheel—no, wrench. Her white hair looked silver in the moonlight. They hopped in and Saree took off without a word. At least she couldn’t stare at him.
The Pines were practically in Jack’s backyard, but she entered along a path he didn’t know. She made seemingly random turns through the trees but appeared to know where she was going. Finally she stopped in a small clearing.
“Gotta walk from here,” Levi said, “else they’ll hear us.”
The four of them hopped out, and this time Saree led the way, single file, down a deer path.
“They fell for it, Jack,” Levi sai
d from behind him. “Just like you said. I never would’ve thought of that in a million years. You got a twisted mind. I like that.”
Jack enjoyed the praise, but thought the solution had been obvious. Whoever had dumped those barrels didn’t know the Pines, otherwise they wouldn’t have needed to post reflectors. So Jack’s idea had been to move the reflectors off the path to the dumping ground and onto a path that led to the cripple instead.
He heard angry voices before he saw anyone. Saree slowed her pace and gradually a glow began to grow through the trunks. They crouched as they neared the tree line. Jack peeked through the underbrush and saw a flatbed truck angled nose down into the cripple. Its headlights were still on and its motor running. A blue tarp covered whatever was stacked in its bed. Its front end sat bumper-deep in the water, and its rear wheels had dug ruts in the soil from trying to reverse its way out.
One man was cursing and swearing as he stood in the two-foot-deep water and pushed against the front grille while another gunned the engine and spun the tires.
“Now that we’ve got them,” Jack said, “what do we do with them? Call the sheriff?”
Levi shook his head. “No way. We bring in some grown-ups. They’ll take care of them.”
“Take care of them how?”
“Piney justice.”
Piney justice . . . Jack had heard about that. He was going to say something, but right then the one in the water gave up pushing and slammed a hand on the hood.
“Ain’t gonna happen, Tony!”
Tony—dark, heavyset with a thick mustache—jumped out and began kicking the water in a rage.
“Save it, man,” said the other guy as he splashed past him, heading toward the rim of the cripple. “We’re gonna have to off-load this stuff to get outta here.”
“How’d this happen, Sammy? We marked the trail!”
“Must’ve made a wrong turn. Or . . .” He stopped and looked around. “Or somebody moved the markers.”
Tony stared at him. “Who?”
“Wiseass locals, my guess. Probably out there right now having a good laugh.”
Uh-oh, Jack thought. Time to leave.
