by R. Gualtieri
♦ ♦ ♦
Derek excused himself earlier than usual. Danni had been right about the local swill tasting like fermented whale urine. A few shots in and he was pretty certain he’d be regretting it come morning. Not that it mattered to him much. A slight hangover was pretty light penance for this type of work.
He stepped outside to make the short walk back to the bunkhouse he, Francis, and Mitchell were sharing, but quickly scanned the skies first. His right hand came up and checked for the reassuring weight of the shoulder holster and snub-nosed Ruger it held. These were the moments, the lull following a mission, that haunted his dreams. Though the Bonanza Creek massacre had been an extreme aberration, he never again wanted to make the same mistake. He’d let his guard down and, as a result, a lot of good people had died. Though he knew the chances of a flock of teratorns swooping down upon the village to avenge their fallen comrade were as close to zero as statistically possible, that didn’t mean he wanted to be caught unawares.
Derek looked skyward for one more moment then blew out a sigh. He knew he needed to stop torturing himself. The past year had been busy, but mostly successful. They’d completed several missions without a single hitch, even with one of their team being a rookie.
He considered that. Danni had definitely made a rookie mistake earlier, one that had nearly scared him to death. But the truth of the matter was she’d been right. There was a good chance they’d have missed their window of opportunity had she not offered herself up as live bait, something he couldn’t pretend to have never done. Calculated risk was a part of the job, and it wasn’t like she was just some kid in off the streets.
After recruiting her, he’d called in some favors and sent her to Fort Bragg for several weeks of intense training. Since then, she had more than proven her worth. What she lacked in experience, she made up for with hard work and bravado. Despite her age, their backers had granted her a badge and a sufficient clearance rating for field work – albeit she was still considered an agent-in-training.
There was also the fact that she got along well with the others, fitting right in. Heck, Frank’s wife had practically adopted her.
They’d gotten lucky in that the show’s producers loved her, too. She was personable and worked well on camera. It also didn’t hurt that she hadn’t punched out any of their fans, as Chuck Wayans, their former tracker, had been known to do on occasion.
All of that aside, though, Derek couldn’t help shake the feeling that his actions had pulled her away from the life she’d been meant to live – a life where she could see her friends on the weekend and indulge in a steady boyfriend. One in which she didn’t have to worry about nightmare creatures constantly trying to disembowel her.
♦ ♦ ♦
Derek reached the bunkhouse, took one last look at the empty sky, and stepped in. Tomorrow, they’d pack up their things and take their leave of the elders – who’d been exceptionally pleased at the gift of the creature’s claw. After that, it was time to move on to their next assignment.
Fortunately, official missions didn’t always coincide with their production schedule. Cryptids weren’t always running amuck and killing people. As a result, a good portion of their travels involved little more than shooting wilderness footage, interviewing locals, and making sure to steer clear of any conclusive evidence.
They planned on flying down to Wisconsin next to film an episode on the monster of Bray Road, the scene of purported werewolf sightings. Derek had studied the evidence and concluded it had all the hallmarks of misidentification. A couple of people had been spooked by something, probably a bear, and from there the story had taken on a life of its own. Then, years later, a cleverly hoaxed film had reignited interest in the subject. All in all, it was a cakewalk. They’d do a night hunt and then reanalyze the evidence, leaving just enough doubt for the next group of investigators who wanted to come along and give it some attention.
Or at least, that’s what he assumed they’d be doing.
Derek entered his room with the intent of sacking out, but instead saw the blinking light on their satellite phone, indicating a message had been left. The phone was government issued. His producers neither had its number nor knew of its existence. That wasn’t good. His contacts typically didn’t call to shoot the breeze.
“What now?” he mumbled to himself as he picked it up and started dialing.
CHAPTER 3
“Hello, Derek.” There was some interference – this far north, the aurora borealis could make even satellite connections a bit flakey – but the smooth voice at the other end was unmistakable.
“Calling a little late, aren’t you, Norah?”
“Not really. It’s not even dusk down here in D.C., and can we please keep this professional?”
Derek inwardly sighed. “Sorry, Agent Caseman.”
“Thank you. Now, Derek, we have a...”
“Dr. Jenner.”
“Excuse me?”
“You just said to keep this professional. Derek sounds so informal. Almost like ... you were my best friend’s wife.”
“Ex-wife,” she snapped.
“I thought the papers hadn’t been signed yet.”
“I didn’t call to talk about Jacob. Oh, and just for the record, that’s none of your business.”
Derek allowed himself a momentary smirk. He had always liked Norah, but now with the split happening, he could sense some strain. Unfortunately, couples tended to divide their friends up the same way they did their belongings when they went their separate ways. That she had been recently reassigned as his team’s liaison within the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the U.S. government, well, that had to have been someone’s idea of a karmic joke. “Sorry. I officially rescind the statement.”
“Accepted,” she said, then hesitated a beat. “You haven’t spoken to him, have you?”
“Didn’t you just say it was none of my business?”
“You’re right ... I...”
“Although, for the record, no. I’ve been too busy hunting Thunderbirds. The cell service kind of sucks up here anyway.”
There was another pause on the line, then Norah quietly said, “Thank you,” before resuming her official tone. “How goes the hunt?”
“Fragged and bagged.”
“Evidence?”
“Nothing but ash.”
“Good. I’m sure the villagers are relieved.”
“It’s definitely a weight off their shoulders. By the way, who exactly are we mollifying by keeping this one quiet? Don’t tell me the Audubon Society has a powerful lobby.”
“You know I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Of course not,” Derek replied, unsurprised. The government paid them to cull cryptids – creatures not formally recognized by science – that became a threat to humans. However, they were always mum about their reasons why it needed to be covered up, leading his team to eternally speculate as to the motives behind their work. Their theories ranged from the mundane to the far-out. Francis in particular favored some outlandish ideas about government cover-ups – but that’s all they were, theories. Unfortunately, that information was always on a need to know basis, and Derek apparently didn’t have that need. “Shall I assume this isn’t a social call?”
“You assume correct. I’m sorry to dump another case on you so soon after finishing one.”
“No you’re not.”
Norah allowed herself a small chuckle. “Normally you’d be right, but this one is ... political.”
“Political?” Derek asked warily. That was new.
“Yes. The request came directly from Governor Jonas Yarlberg himself.”
Derek thought for a moment. “Yarlberg ... isn’t he from...”
“New Jersey.”
“And he asked for us by name?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure this isn’t about a convention appearance? Or maybe he wants us there for the opening of some mall?”
> “Trust me, it’s not that. This is strictly business.”
“How the hell does some bureaucrat from the Garden State know what we really do?”
“Relax...”
“Don’t tell me to relax, Norah. I was under the impression that this was all classified.”
“It is. Yarlberg has connections. One of his former aides is now a director in the Bureau.”
“Great. Nice to know that nepotism is alive and well in D.C.”
“As if it ever wasn’t, but that’s neither here nor there as far as either of us are concerned.”
“Sorry,” he replied, trying to push down his annoyance. It was only a matter of time, he told himself. So far, most of their dealings with the government had the end result of helping people, but Derek wasn’t stupid. He knew that sooner or later they’d end up getting their hands dirty in the game of politics. “So what’s it about? Far as I know, the only real activity in Jersey is that small squatch clan in the southwest. Last I heard, they’d never bothered anybody. Are they...?”
“This has nothing to do with them. They’ve been quiet as usual.”
“So what then?”
“Apparently they’re trying to control a potential media firestorm.”
“Go on,” Derek replied, caught unawares. Usually they were given a location, suspected creature, a casualty list, and that was it. That Norah had offered up the actual motivation behind a mission was definitely odd.
“I don’t have many more details, except that one of their agencies is trying to control a situation before it gets out of hand. From what I’ve heard, they’ve already lost a few people and folks are starting to talk.”
That was more to the point. Derek couldn’t have cared less about some politician saving face, but if innocent lives were involved... “What’s been going after their people?”
There was another pause from Norah, then she replied, “They think it was the Jersey Devil.”
♦ ♦ ♦
“It’s not funny, Derek.”
“You’re kidding, right?” he asked, trying to get his laughter under control.
“No, they’re dead serious.”
“C’mon, Norah. If they want us to come in and do an investigation, they should call up the Adventure Channel and schedule something for next season.”
“It’s not like that. They want you guys there to scare off the real press.”
“Ouch.”
“You know what I mean. Do what you have to, so it all seems like a load of BS.”
“That shouldn’t be hard,” he muttered under his breath.
“Then, you’re to head into the woods to find and kill this creature so that the affected agency can get back to work.”
“That should be easy, too, since it doesn’t exist.”
“Skepticism coming from you?”
“Oh, please. You have access to the same ... hell, more records than I do. You know about squatches, teratorns, extant zeuglodons, and all the rest.”
“Obviously.”
“Then tell me how many legit case files exist on the Jersey Devil.” There was silence on the other end, as he knew there would be. “Exactly. Even in my circles the whole thing is mostly considered a crank. Hell, the stories can’t even get their facts straight. There’s a different description for the damn thing for almost every eyewitness present. You know what that says to me?”
“Do tell.”
“It says that maybe the folks who live there should limit their drinking to after ten in the morning.”
“You can tell them that in person.”
“Really? You can’t possibly convince me, based on everything you know, that you think...”
“What we think is irrelevant in this case,” she interrupted. “If you refuse, I’m ... authorized to cut ties with your group.”
Now it was Derek’s turn to hesitate. There had been disagreements in the past. Heck, he had even turned down some assignments because the evidence was too sketchy to draw proper conclusions. Never had they threatened to pull the plug, though. Was this some scheme by Norah to use him to get back at her ex?
Derek quickly pushed that thought aside. He knew she could be opinionated, but he’d never known her to be petty. “Why the ultimatum?”
“It’s not my doing. Yarlberg pulled some strings. Apparently his former...”
“Lackeys?”
“Associates,” she corrected, “are still loyal. They put assurances in place to make sure this gets done.”
“So they’re willing to screw this whole project over, all the innocent lives we save, just to keep their asshole buddy happy?”
“Isn’t that the way politics works?”
“This is the exact thing I told Jake I didn’t want to deal with when I signed up for this.” He knew it was low to bring up Norah’s estranged husband, but this conversation was beginning to leave a bad taste in his mouth.
She took a deep breath, no doubt, Derek surmised, debating whether to take the bait. “I’m sorry. I did my best to tell them this is a one-time deal. They try this crap again and I’ll register a full complaint.”
“And that will do what?”
“Nothing, but it’ll at least put us on record as objecting.”
Derek mentally counted to ten as he weighed his options. He knew his team did a lot of good. Even if the government gave them the boot, they could potentially keep doing it. Of course, that assumed the Adventure Channel didn’t pull the plug, too. They were currently riding fairly high in the ratings. But if the feds decided to be spiteful, which they probably would... And then there was the added fact that they wouldn’t have the protection of the law on their side.
Yeah, we’re screwed. “Fine,” Derek said at last. “You have our nuts in a vice and you know it.”
“Not how I would put it.”
“What happens if we don’t find anything or come to the conclusion that it’s some whackjob running around in the woods?”
“You guys hunt cryptids. If there isn’t a cryptid to blame, then your job is done.”
“Fair enough. Just make sure this guy keeps his minions out of our way.”
“No promises.”
“Why am I not surprised to hear that?”
“Because you’re too smart to not expect it.”
“But still not smart enough to say no?”
“You never were,” she replied, adding a little levity to her voice. This was the Norah that Derek knew and liked.
“Shoot me the details, okay?”
“Already on their way.”
“All right, then. Circumstances aside, it was nice talking to you, Norah.”
“You too. Take care.”
Derek ended the call. He had been planning on getting some rest, but instead decided to unpack his computer. The team had to be briefed and, from the sound of things, it needed to be done soon.
Guess the werewolf of Bray Road will have to wait for the next full moon.
CHAPTER 4
Mitchell poured himself another cup of the viscous black liquid masquerading as coffee. “You’re kidding, right?”
“You mind not yelling?” Francis replied from his place at the table, a heaping pile of scrambled eggs untouched in front of him.
“I told you we should’ve stopped at that second bottle.”
“Can we focus here?” Derek interrupted. He knew it was unfair to drop this in their laps with the previous mission barely cold yet, but it had to be done.
“So the Jersey Devil is real?” Despite her previous night’s coursework, Danni appeared to be in a far better mood than her two sullen-faced teammates, but then, she obviously wasn’t hungover either.
“No,” Mitchell replied morosely, taking a sip. “It’s a crank.”
“The governor of New Jersey begs to disagree,” Derek said.
Francis snorted laughter. “Maybe he should host our show, then.”
Danni tried to st
eer them back on track. “Isn’t it kind of our job to keep an open mind?”
Though Derek knew cryptozoology wasn’t one of her passions, she was always interested in learning about a new creature. He could understand that. It was hard to not be excited in the face of the unknown.
“Keeping an open mind doesn’t mean automatically believing every fairy tale that comes along,” he explained. “Mitch and I have spent a lot of time in the archives. Every creature we go after has either documented proof of its existence or enough of a case file to warrant serious consideration.”
“Then maybe we just need to go through them more carefully...”
“Been there, done that,” Mitchell said. “When I was a kid, I lived in Jersey for a couple of years. My father was stationed at Fort Monmouth and I used to go camping down south with my friends. We would scare ourselves silly all night with stories about the devil skulking about in the woods. Heck, every time we heard a branch break, we’d just about pee our pants.”
“Thanks for the imagery,” Francis replied.
Mitchell casually flipped him the finger. “When I was first brought on board and learned about all the goodies Uncle Sam has under wraps, I couldn’t read through it all fast enough. Trust me, monsters in the Pine Barrens were high on that list.”
“And?”
“And, there simply isn’t much there, Danni. Random sightings over the years. Very little consistency between them.”
Derek jumped in. “There’s also the fossil record to take into account. Even if we didn’t have the evidence we do, we could potentially surmise that a creature like, say, the Oreng Pendek is real because we have fossils of Homo floresiensis to back it up. Same with most of the other cryptids we keep in check. Not so with the devil. Hell, you’d need half a dozen aberrant evolutionary throwbacks to explain it. There’s just too much inconsistency with the sightings.”
“There’s also one very damning fact,” Mitchell added. “Devil sightings can only be traced back to the eighteen hundreds, late seventeen hundreds at the earliest, long after the colonists had settled in the area.”
“What about Native American legends?” Francis asked, grabbing himself a mug of coffee. “I’ve heard a couple of doozies about winged monsters and such.”
