A new theme plays over several specific video clips of a pine forest and the ruins within it. A pleasant, inquisitive voice speaks as the clips play, introducing the story.
Narrator: For such a young country in the history of civilization, the United States has its fair share of abandoned settlements which are slowly being reclaimed by nature. The ruins found there are reminders of the experiment of society which eventually failed for one of any number of reasons.
Appalachia, Jornada del Muerto. Rhyolite. Bodie. Bombay Beach. Kennecott. Centralia.
Whether due to economic failures, natural disasters, or resources drying up, these ghost towns capture our imaginations in a way we can’t fully explain. Some enjoy gazing at a real life snapshot of tragic history, some are fascinated by a glimpse into a possible future for all of humankind. For almost everyone,, though, the tumbled stone walls, cracked roadways, and rusted out cars represent a level of inexorable decay and destruction entirely out of our control.
Perhaps that’s why a sense of pervasive unease creeps into the stomachs of those who visit these phantom communities. This foreboding is compounded when you discover that some stubborn citizens still roam the forgotten outposts, completely out of step with modern life.
You’ve heard the stereotypes. Out of touch, lacking hygiene and education, inbred and suspicious of outsiders. The descendents of moonshiners and mill workers and coal miners, they’re hard-living, barely human, and stubbornly eke out an existence almost as wild as the animals with which they share these wildernesses.
You’ve got the picture, right?
One of the most curious quirks of the denizens of these lost societies is their eclectic belief system. A strange heterogeneous goulash of puritanical Christianity, indigenous spiritualism, fearful respect for nature, and crippling distrust of progress, simmers over generations of tradition to create a type of superstition that creates its own unique lore and legends.
Perhaps nowhere in the country is as iconic or deeply entrenched in this culture than the Pine Barrens.
1.1 million acres of the New Jersey Pines were designated as America's first natural reserve. There are countless ruins of ghost towns throughout the forests, the remnants of work villages centered around sawmills, bog mine furnaces, cotton mills, shipworks, gristmills, glassworks, paper mills, and charcoal factories dating back to the seventeenth century.
Despite these early industrial endeavors, the Barrens have fallen victim to nearly all of the challenges discussed earlier, including the inhabitants who are similarly locked in time.
Pineys was once a derogatory term for the descendents of the destitute industry workers, as well as the fugitives, escaped slaves, excommunicated quakers, deserting soldiers, outlaws, and other dregs of society who fled into the region to escape their previous lives. Today, it’s a term they proudly wear like a badge of honor.
As with any of these type of badlands, myths and legends are as common as common law marriage. The Black Doctor, the treasure of Captain Kidd, the white stag… and of course… The Jersey Devil.
I’m Aaron Mahnke. And this… is AstroCryptids.
Montague watches with some hesitation as the surly, bearded men around him slap handfuls of mud onto their faces and arms. Looking down, he considers the foggy bog water gently lapping at the toes of his boots. Deliberately drawing out the procedure, he crouches slowly and stretches his left hand out toward the murky puddle.
Red Beard: Better get a move on. You’re dinner as long as you’re exposed.
Gray Beard: Let him get a few stings, he’ll be diving headfirst into the bog.
Brown Beard: Hurry up, the sun’s almost down.
Montague: You said you hunt it by night.
Brown Beard: Yeah, and the longer we’re out there the better chance we have of catching it.
Montague glances down at Rett, who is peering up at him curiously, its eyes rapidly scrolling through the red dot-matrix icons. With a sigh, Montague dips his hand into the frigid water and begins scooping out muck to spread on his face and arms.
Rett rears back and a series of sparks issue from between its whiskers, the mechanical cat’s version of hissing.
Red Beard: Hey, those things aren’t going to be making a fuss the whole time are they?
Montague: No, no, not at all.
He casts a sharp look at Rett, who settles back on his haunches and lifts a paw toward his face. Monty shakes his head as Rett’s face bobs up and down, mimicking the grooming licks of a living cat despite not having a working mouth. Montague looks up at the newest traveling companion, a mechanical, clockwork dog hovering in the air above him. Its ears and tail spin fast enough to lift it into the air like a drone.
Montague: Right?
From inside his ear, which is now unfortunately covered in black, brackish mud, the bluetooth connected to the dog answers with Jacky’s voice.
Jacky: Of course! Mum’s the word!
Montague imagines that she just gestured, zipping her mouth despite knowing he can’t see her back in Morgan’s apartment. Pushing the image aside, he nods to the three guides who had allowed him along on this excursion into the Barrens. They nod to one another and turn to march into the pines.
The moment Monty takes his first step, he can hear the unmistakable sound of potato chips being crunched in his bluetooth, followed by Jacky asking one of her bodyguards to get her some French onion bacon dip. Montague mutters under his breath.
Montague: Jacky!
Jacky: Right! Here we go!
He can hear the clacking of keys as she begins researching the backstory of the creature they’re hunting.
Montague: By the way, great idea getting Mahnke to do the opening. It’s so much more engaging!
Jacky: Hey, if there’s anything I know, it’s the value of good voiceover work.
She’d had several suggestions for getting the show off the ground, including going on location instead of wasting time in tourist traps. Jacky told him she would have cut her shoot from David’s Park in Waukesha, Wisconsin last week. When Montague asked her if she thought that was a little tasteless, Jacky had fixed him with an inscrutable look.
This week she’d recommended the ruins of the Hanover Iron Works, and set about finding a group of devil hunters for Montague to approach about joining their expedition. Now, with Monty, Rett, and the doggy drone communication device Jacky had put together following, the three Pineys are grim-faced and determined as they lead them into the wilderness.
Jacky: Alright, here we go. About two hundred ninety years ago, a Piney called Mother Leeds discovers she’s pregnant with her thirteenth child. Her husband, some drunk out of work “inventor”, hasn’t helped at all with the dozen kids she’s had so far, and she’s fed up with it. So when she finds out he’s knocked her up again, she yells “may the thirteenth one be a devil!” Which, I don’t know how that was supposed to help, but that’s what she said. Anyway, cut to a stormy night in 1735, because of course it’s a stormy night, and she’s going into labor. Daddy Leeds is passed out drunk, probably in his shack where he’s been trying to invent a way to make false teeth out of bog iron. So out pops baby number thirteen, lookin’ all normal, ‘til it turns and looks at the old bitch that cursed it. Just like that, it sprouts horns. It’s face elongates like a horse, big bat wings pop out of its back. The little baby hands become claws and the feet become hooves, and it grows a long forked tail. While everyone is staring at it like ‘What the entire fuck is this?’, it lets out a war scream and proceeds to massacre most of the family before flying up the chimney and escaping into the stormy night. Pretty cool, right?
Montague blinks a few times, staring at the clockwork dog as if waiting for it to start barking laughter through the bluetooth. It turns and flies closer to Monty’s shoulder, obviously Jacky piloting around to make sure she hasn’t lost connection, and Rett takes a swipe at it mere moments after she made it fly back up out of reach.
Jacky: You still there?
Montague: That can’t be real.
Jacky: I mean, it’s the local legend. I didn’t say it was real.
Montague: No, I mean, that can’t be the whole story. This is one of the best known cryptids in the country’s history, and that nonsense is how it got started?
Before she can respond, Montague notices she’s pushing the doggy drone to speed up. They’ve fallen behind the Pineys, and something is happening. Montague increases his pace to catch up and see what’s going on. He’s stopped cold when the gray bearded Piney throws his fist up without looking back. Montague taps the brown bearded one on the shoulder and shrugs a question at him.
Brown Beard points toward a clearing where the orange half moon shines down onto the banks of a wide creek. There, in the middle of the stream, stands the creature.
Montague: Oh. My. Gods.
It flaps wings with an impossible span, stepping forward on skinny legs before dipping its long, horse-shaped head into the water.
Jacky: Aw damn.
Montague: Are you seeing this? I can’t believe it!
Jacky: Believe it. That’s not the Devil.
Montague: What?
Jacky: It’s a sandhill crane.
Montague squints, and now he can see it. The slender legs are obviously bird legs, the long face a beak. Sighing, he looks around at his companions, who are already unslinging their rifles. Monty raises his voice to stop them.
Montague: Wait! That’s just a crane!
With an ungodly screech, the crane takes flight, shaking droplets off its feathers as it darts into the canopy. Montague is met with three very annoyed, very hairy glares. He puts his hands up in surrender.
Montague: I, uh, I didn’t want you to waste ammo on a bird?
Three sets of bloodshot, moonshine-soaked eyes roll simultaneously at his defense, then shoulder their firearms once more.
Brown Beard: Come on. Even if it was the Devil, you scared him off.
They make to move on as the doggy drone hovers close to Montague’s ear again.
Jacky: You guys are only about a half mile from the mill. I’m sure you’ll find something interesting there.
Rett stands up on his plastic, human legs, stretching out his armor-clad torso to reach, and takes another mighty swing at the drone. He misses and nearly tumbles forward off Monty’s shoulder, but manages to hang on at the last second.
Montague glances back at the creek once more, then steels himself to continue following the Pineys.
A little over forty five minutes later, the group arrives at what’s left of a massive, red brick wall. Only the single wall remains standing, with the walls between windows reaching up at varying heights. In the moonlight, it looks like the jagged, blood-stained teeth of some colossal behemoth buried up to its maw in the sandy earth.
Red Beard: This is a hotspot for devil sightings.
Gray Beard: Shot at that sumbitch back in seventy-three. Clipped his wing, too. It dove for me, and would have had me if I hadn’t crawled into that big furnace over there.
He points at the great, rusted belly of a furnace bigger than the hotel room Monty had stayed in before casting his lot with the AstroCreeps. He looks up at the doggy drone.
Montague: What are the chances the devil actually shows up for my promo?
Jacky: I mean, even if it is real, slim to none. Its hunting ground has expanded nonstop over the last three hundred years. There are sightings reported in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, West Virginia, even Maryland.
Montague: West Virginia? Are you sure they’re not getting confused with Mothman?
Jacky: Hmm… could be.
Brown Beard: Oh shit, what is that?
Everyone turns toward where he’s staring, and several gasps can be heard. Nailed to one of the fragmented walls is the skin of some massive creature.
Red Beard: Is that…?
Gray Beard: Looks like it, boys. Somebody got him.
Montague steps closer, followed by the doggy drone. The long face is unmistakable; definitely not a beak this time. The arms end in long, jagged claws. It’s a little thicker in the legs than expected, but it’s hard to tell if they would have been hooved due to just being a skin. A long, ragged tail is nailed to the side of the creature by the tip.
Montague: What about the wings though?
The Pineys give Monty an impatient look, but choose not to answer.
Brown Beard: Let’s pull it down. Should get a good price for it back in town.
Jacky: How the hell did that get here?
Montague: I guess someone shot it out of the sky.
Jacky: No, I mean, what is the skin of a kangaroo doing in New England?
Montague starts.
Montague: A… what?
Jacky: That’s a kangaroo pelt.
Monty facepalms, but before he can share the information, the Pineys shove him aside to approach the wall.
Montague: Guys… that’s not the Jersey Devil.
Gray Beard: Of course it is.
Montague: That’s a kangaroo pelt.
Brown Beard: The hell is a kangaroo?
Gray Beard: It doesn’t matter. That’s the devil. Same sumbitch I shot at back in seventy-five.
Montague: Three.
Gray Beard: What?
Montague: Seventy three. Earlier you said you clipped the devil in nineteen seventy three.
Gray Beard: Well I’ve seen him more than once, damn, boy!
A blue-white light suddenly shoots from the snout of the doggy drone, casting an image onto the next decaying wall to the right. Jacky has activated some sort of projector, and a video plays of kangaroos hopping around an Australian grassland.
Red Beard: What is this devilry?
Brown Beard: It doesn’t matter, move!
He swats at the doggy drone, but Jacky is quicker. The doggy banks and swoops out of his reach, settling close to Montague’s shoulder once again. The projector clicks off, but all hell breaks loose over the next few minutes.
Rett takes a swing, finally connecting and knocking the doggy drone off course. The mechanical cat leaps from Monty’s shoulder and spears the drone out of the air to the earthen floor of the ruined iron works.
Jacky: Monty? Mooooonty! What’s happening? I’ve lost visuals and control!
Montague: They’re fighting!
Jacky: Who—
That’s the end of that. The bluetooth goes silent with a loud click in his ear, and he can’t get a response from Jacky after that.
On the floor, Rett and the doggy drone are squaring off. A panel opens in the dog’s back, allowing its tail to flip inside on a pivot that brings a nine millimeter of all things rising from its back. The dog bounds around, firing shots each time it lets out a yelp. Rett pulls off an impressive series of acrobatics on his human limbs, dodging shots as he goes.
Montague: Jacky! Stop this damn thing!
Silence from the bluetooth.
The Pineys dive for cover behind foundations and heavy cast iron equipment. All the dots on Rett’s visual display come on and turn bright red before he unleashes his laser vision at the doggy drone. The drone spins its ears, taking off in a hurry to avoid the beams. Rett tracks it as it rises, cutting a red hot trail up the brick wall and slicing the kangaroo pelt in half.
Brown Beard: No!
Shots ring out, but this time from the Piney’s rifle, as sandy soil explodes around Monty’s mechanical cat. Montague spins around and starts to sprint toward Brown Beard, but the doggy drone senses the new threat and fires. The Piney’s right shoulder suddenly explodes, causing him to drop the rifle and cry out in pain.
Rett continues to fire at the doggy drone as it turns the muzzle of its pistol back toward the cat. Shots begin to echo all around the iron works as the other two Pineys take shots at both mechanical animals. Monty darts across the floor and grabs an overhead beam to kick Gray Beard into the giant iron furnace.
Red Beard takes a shot at the doggy drone, but Rett isn’t going to let someone else have his prey, so he fires a laser that strikes Red Beard’s rifle and splits the double-barreled muzzle down the middle. It melts pitifully and droops down in front of him. Rett fires off another beam for good measure, lighting the Piney’s beard and sending him screaming into the forest with his face on fire.
The doggy drone fires a few shots from behind the furnace, hoping to clip Rett while taking cover. Rett fires in that direction, hitting the pile of wood beneath and setting it ablaze. A wail sounds from within the furnace as smoke begins to issue from the half a chimney that’s still left over.
Montague: ENOUGH!!!
Rett and the doggy drone hesitate, turning to regard the Doctor-Professor as he glares at them each in turn. Sheepishly, they each make their way over to him, Rett dropping his head as he stops at Monty’s feet awaiting permission to climb up to his shoulder. The doggy drone tucks the pistol away and allows its tail to emerge once more, stabilizing its flight as it hovers near Monty’s other shoulder.
Jacky: Montague! Monty! Are you there!?
Monty reaches up to tap on the bluetooth.
Montague: I’m here.
Jacky: What happened?
The Showman surveys the disaster the two droids have created and puts his hands on his hips.
Montague: Carnage. Destruction. Laying waste. Ya know, the usual.
Jacky: Aw dang! I missed the good part? Hey, I found something out about the Jersey Devil legend while we were disconnected. You’re not going to believe this…
Montague stands in front of the smoldering walls of the iron works, presumably being filmed now by the doggy drone by the way the camera moves. Orange light from the furnace fire flashes against the left side of his face and casts bizarre, twisted shadows on the wall behind him.
Montague: So, it turns out the Jersey Devil is just overhyped defamation. Imagine that; another week, another disappointing legend.
The Leeds family were Quaker outcasts who fell out of favor with their community when the patriarch started publishing an almanac that included astrological crop advice, folk medicine, apocryphal Christian mysticism, nature magic, and dissertations on demon princes and choirs of angels not mentioned anywhere in the good and proper King James Version of the sacred book.
The furnace creaks behind him, and a metallic whine escapes as it begins to pitch forward. It crashes to the ground with a sound similar to a box of pots and pans being dumped into a bathtub.
Montague: If that wasn’t bad enough, he was a loyalist. This put him right in the crosshairs of a much more prominent, beloved, and clever almanac writer you might have heard of. No? Maybe the nomme de plume Poor Richard will ring a bell.
Franklin cranked out some disparaging propaganda to snipe his would-be competitor, and the mudslinging included a caricature of the Leeds family crest, which is a dragon. Imagine you asked a four year old to draw a dragon, what might it look like? Long horse-like head, mismatched front claws and back legs, a disproportionate tail and bat wings way too small to have ever lifted the beast? Franklin managed to destroy the reputation of a crown sympathizer and create a trend of maligning the residents of the Pine Barrens that endures to this day, all with a few strokes of his quill. Needless to say, the far more entertaining founding father’s slander caught on pretty quickly, and the legend of the Jersey Devil was born.
It hasn’t taken long for the embers from the crashed furnace to alight on the carpet of pine needles on the floor of the forest. Tails of fire have begun to snake all around the Doctor-Professor, thickening as more and more fuel is overtaken and consumed.
Montague: While the true story of the beast’s origins are harder to find, for three centuries the devil has been little more than a boogeyman for the simple-minded Pineys to terrify their litters of children into going to obedience. Every couple of decades, the Devil is purported to come out of hiding and reveal himself to some awe-struck dullard, only for deeper scrutiny to reveal that it was mostly manufactured hype.
How could any of this possibly be relevant? Come on, is there a more fitting metaphor for Phrixus Deimos?
Time after time I’ve watched this overblown doofus slink out of the shadows with a “this time for sure!” attitude, only to get absolutely embarrassed before he trudges back into irrelevance. People buy into the hype every time out of some default token of respect just because he’s been in the business for two hundred and ninety years or something. Any time there’s a tournament or an opening for the Cross Hemisphere Championship, we’re subjected to a few weeks of his esoteric musings and arcane references while people who don’t know the truth about him see his moniker and try to wax poetic about the nature of fear. Deimos is the UGWC’s boogeyman, only frightening those naive enough to forget that the shadows scatter as soon as you shine a light on them.
Rett suddenly hops up onto Monty’s shoulder, peering around as his eyes go through a rapid series of shapes signaling concern. The scene seems to be growing brighter as Montague continues.
Montague: Unfortunately for him, this is the new world, and his delusions of dominance are locked in a time lost to history. Deimos endlessly pledges himself to a crown he’s no longer fit to wear, and the world is marching on with or without him.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that there was a time, a very long time after Mother Levene squeezed him out and cursed him as a bastard, when Deimos was a very serious threat. Hearing his hoofbeats on the roof while you polished your championship was enough for the blood to run cold. That time has faded, the walls of Freak Show Central have crumbled, and there’s a thick layer of rust and dust on the career.
On Synergy I’m going to ruin this man, but I won’t need a quill and a political platform to do it. The ring is my bully pulpit, so get ready to hear some oration when I shut down Phrixus Deimos’ chances in the Global Challenge, claim my nine points, and move on to complete the set against Yamazaki.
In the meantime, if you need a preview of Infinity, where Ragdoll and I will cash in our twelve points each to give you the greatest match in the history of the event…
He raises his arms as the camera pulls back, showing all of the pines roaring with flame behind the broken teeth of the iron works wall and grins. With a mighty crack, one of the trees gives up and plunges through one of the walls, completely obliterating it as it comes to rest about six feet away.
Montague: What a show!
