“It escaped.”
Eddie and Weezy stared at him.
“How do you know?” she said.
Jack pointed to the opening. “Through there.”
Weezy looked up, then down at the fallen piece, then nodded. “I think you could be right.”
“That still doesn‟t answer the big question: Who would go to all the trouble to cart these stones here and set them up to cage an animal?”
Jack could not resist. “What if it wasn‟t just any animal. What if it was …” He paused, then screamed the last words. “The Jersey Devil!”
Eddie and Weezy both jumped, then Weezy laughed. “You‟ve been hanging around him too long. Weren‟t you listening? It can‟t …” But her smile faded as she said, “On the other hand …”
Eddie grinned. “Hah! Told you it was the JD.”
“No, it wasn‟t. But maybe it became the Jersey Devil.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Did you ever hear of crypto zoology?” She quickly waved a hand at Eddie. “Never mind. Look who I‟m asking. It‟s the study of strange creatures that may or may not exist.”
Jack had never heard of it, but had an idea what it was about.
“You mean like Sasquatch and the Loch Ness monster?”
She smiled and nodded. “And yeti and the kraken and a bunch of others. So, what if ancient folks—maybe early, early members of the Lodge—built this to house some weird creature? Or maybe two of them—male and female. Maybe they were sacred to them, and maybe the little pyramid sitting in the center here had some significance or some function.”
“Like what?”
“I don‟t know—yet. But what if they escaped into the wild? And what if they had offspring and their offspring had offspring? Eventually the Pilgrims came and the colonies started, and one day someone sees one of these things. And then somebody else sees it. Pretty soon someone makes up the Jersey Devil story to explain it. The story starts circulating and eventually we have a Pinelands legend.”
“But what … ?” Eddie paused and Jack saw him swallow. “What if one of those things is still around?”
Weezy grinned. “Wouldn‟t that be cool?”
“Hey, guys,” Eddie said. “Let‟s get out of here.”
“What for?” Jack said. “We just got here.”
“Because I see footprints up here. Big ones.”
5
Jack froze. He glanced at Weezy and saw her standing statue-still as well. “Where?” he said. “You mean here? Nearby?”
Eddie looked around. “Right behind me. Didn‟t notice them before—I mean, who
would with this thing sitting in front of you—but they‟re here.” He dropped to one knee and thrust his arm through the gap. “Here, Weezy. I‟ll help you up. See for yourself.” Jack blinked.
Eddie offering to give his sister a hand … he must really want out of here.
Weezy looked a little surprised too, but took his hand. Her foot slipped as she tried to climb up.
Jack instinctively raised a hand to give her butt a boost and instantly thought better of it. Not a good idea. Instead he wove his fingers and held out his interlocked hands for her to step in.
“Here.”
The sole of her wet sneaker landed on his palms and he boosted her up. Once she was out he made a point of hoisting himself up and through the gap without help.
His feet squished in his sneakers as he checked out the sandy soil. He saw their own footprints, clean and crisp in the damp sand, but where—?
And then he spotted them—a line of indistinct, oblong depressions trailing along the perimeter of the pyramid.
“I thought you meant fresh tracks,” he said. “These are old.”
“Not that old. With all the rain we‟ve been having, they wouldn‟t be there at all if they were old.”
Jack had to admit he had a point.
“They‟re kind of big,” Weezy said in a small voice.
Eddie pointed at the nearest. “‟Kind of‟? That‟s a foot long if it‟s an inch. Maybe longer. It could have been made before the last rain.” He looked around. “Let‟s not kid ourselves, okay?
There‟s something out here in the Barrens. We saw it that night when the government guys were digging up the mound.”
Jack remembered the hulking shape silhouetted through the trees. Whoever it was had made Pepe le Pew smell like a rose.
“Oh, that. Probably just some big piney who hadn‟t had a bath since Christmas. All we saw was a shadow.”
“A big shadow. I don‟t want it showing up here.”
“It won‟t,” he told him.
Eddie looked around again. “Yeah? People go missing in here every year. We all say they got lost and starved to death—”
Jack smiled. “You always say the Jersey Devil got them.”
“I‟m not kidding, Jack. What if they don‟t starve? What if something gets them and that‟s why they never make it back?”
Weezy looked at Jack. “Maybe we should go.”
“Hey, wait. The Pinelands cover a million acres. Even if there is something out there, the chances of it crossing paths with us are pretty slim.”
“I‟m not so sure about that,” Eddie said. “This cage or whatever may be special to it. Maybe it comes back here, like, regularly.”