Halloween Haunts 2013: Beware of the Jersey Devil by Carol MacAllister

October 31^st – Halloween night:

A lonely drifter wanders on a dark sandy road through the scrubby New Jersey Pine Barrens. Clouds mask the full October moon. A screech is heard from a stand of pine. Running footsteps cut through dried leaves. Night air turns chill. Heavy breathing rumbles. Something demonic approaches the drifter who trembles with fright. Earlier words echo in his thoughts: Beware of the Jersey Devil. And, the legend continues for nearly 300 years.

Mrs. Leeds, so the story goes, wanted no more children. While delivering her 13^th child, she shouted, “I am tired of children. Let it be a devil.”

The baby was delivered and placed in his mother’s arms. Suddenly, it transformed: its body elongated into a serpentine shape, feet turned into hooves, its head grew into a long bony horse shape, wings sprung from its back. It rose up from the bed as strong as a man and whipped its forked tail striking everyone in the room. With a bone-chilling shriek it flew to the fireplace then up out the sandstone chimney into the stormy night. Ravenous, it quickly found  its first meal: several sleeping children.

The Jersey Devil frightened the population of the Pine Barrens so severely that in 1740 the locals performed an exorcism. The ritual harnessed the abomination for only a hundred years and then the chains were broken and the Jersey Devil returned with his evil pranks. Frequent sightings are interrupted as an omen of disaster ranging from loss of livestock, drought, shipwrecks to outbreaks of war.

During January 16-23, 1909, the Jersey Devil flew out from the Pine Barrens to terrorize the entire Delaware Valley. Footprints in the snow, hundreds of sightings and a plethora of eyewitness stories described the creature and told of his shrieking voice. Major sightings ranged from the Northwestern corner of New Jersey to New Brunswick where armed men rode trolley cars to protect riders, to the shore towns of Point Pleasant, Barnegat, Jackson, the urban areas of Trenton and its appearance spread throughout small towns within the remote sandy interiors of scrub pine. Panic ensued and newspaper headlines forewarned readers of danger.

In 1974, Mr. Springer a local of the Pine Barrens tells of an ambulance driver riding around during the night who heard the screams of the Jersey Devil come from the woods. The man drove away like a madman and still believes he had heard the cries of the Jersey Devil. Utility men working on power lines and telephone poles in secluded areas have been frightened by encounters with the monster.

Even today, sightings are reported. Rewards for photos, home movies or capture have been offered. In 1973, the film, The Legend of Boggy Hollow, showed the life story of the Jersey Devil. The X-Files based a TV episode on the creature but changed the demon to a wild Bigfoot woman character and confused the state’s long-standing myths and accounts.

Some may refute the existence of the Jersey Devil, but disregard their remarks. Locals in Leeds Point know there is one certain thing: the Jersey Devil still wanders throughout New Jersey rattling doors, hopping rooftops from house to house, hiding in shadows and perching in treetops. During the dark chill nights of All Hallows week heed these words of warning: “Beware of the Jersey Devil.”

Happy Halloween!

TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: Carol is offering three e-book editions of her collection The Blackmoor Tales.

Giveaway Rules: Enter for the prize by posting in the comments section. Winners will be chosen at random and notified by e-mail. You may enter once for each giveaway, and all entrants may be considered for other giveaways if they don’t win on the day they post. If you would like to comment without being entered for the giveaway, include “Not a Giveaway Entry” at the end of your post. You may also enter by e-mailing memoutreach@horror.org and putting HH CONTEST ENTRY in the header.

CAROL MACALLISTER has an MFA in creative writing with a concentration in fiction and poetry as well as an MFA in fine arts. She has been writing horror for nearly 20 years and placed pieces in over 350 publications. A past officer of the Garden State Horror Writers, she started out with a bunch of HWA people. Weston Oches, Sandy DeLuca, Jonathan Maberry, Mary SanGiovanni, and lots more. Some of her poems have received mentions in Ellen Datlow’s Year’s Best. She loves to write and short stories seems to be her best contribution, but with short stories one is usually the bride’s maid and never the bride unless one has a novel out there. She has edited and published four collections of others’ works that were published as limited editions. When working on her MFA, she wrote an analytical critical paper on introducing fantastic characters into real settings. It is very long, but she hopes one day to share shorter versions with writers in the HWA. Her first e-novel, MAYAN CALENDAR REVEAL, is a combo of horror and sci-fi that earned her a guest spot on UFO Magazine‘s radio talk show this past July, where she spoke for 90 minutes on UFOs and Lovecraftian monsters! She is very excited to publish her collection of short stories, THE BLACKMOOR TALES.

Link to the ebook on Kindle and sample read: http://www.amazon.com/THE-BLACKMOOR-TALES-ebook/dp/B00DQIJIU6

Read a poem by Carol MacCallister:

A Demon’s Treat

Fresh newt’s eyes and frog legs flinch

while boiling in the brew,

Spells are cast on howling winds,

There darts a trick or two.

Trouble lurks at every turn,

unknowing victims race

from moaning dead, banshee cries,

monster’s snarling chase.

Autumn’s rustling branches drone

at demons overhead

on ancient brooms, phantom steeds,

Rousing up the dead.

Strange, how innocence is lured

to wander through dark streets,

Each year, a few just disappear,

Snatched! – a demon’s treat.