Summer Pines. (A Jersey Summer Horror Story.)
If you grew up on the South Jersey coast, you heard about the Pine Barrens. Long before there were Russian mob victims that went missing in the snow, long before that ridiculous story about the ‘Jersey Devil’ (allegedly the 13th child born of some Piney woman named Mrs. Leeds), long before the UFO sightings by drunk gumbas and stoned teens in the 70’s, the Pine Barrens were talked about in hushed tones; Jersey’s very own Bayou. And those tones were hushed for a reason.
If you have ever been there, you will know that just because it says “Pinelands” on the maps most of the time, it is very much a barren land. Oh, there are creatures who live there. Pineys (That’s Jersey talk for swamp-dwelling rednecks) still attempt to live off the acid-poor soil and scrub brush, futilely hoping to prove to the world they aren’t the backwards banjo people the Shore press makes them out to be. There are black bears and even Bobcats have made a comeback. But if a place could have a tone, the tone of the Pine Barrens would be one very clear one of a deep, raspy voice telling you to get the fuck out.
You can actually see this tone in the stretch of the long, sinister shadows its oaks and pines cast on the leafy ground. It is present in the morning mists that stretch out over stony ruins of past industry, dead cars that have been left behind and have started sinking into the ponds. These cars were most likely left by some fool who got lost searching for non-existent demons or teenagers attempting to get high where no one would find them, and never finding their way back. It is in stench of the decaying bodies of deer and raccoons that have gotten trapped in the swamp ponds, having made the fatal mistake of looking for water. It is in the echoes of the lost souls that have died or been disappeared, their screams hanging in the air as if distilled in amber and ricocheting off the dull breezes that push their way through. All places have a memory, and the Pine Barrens’ memory chest is a long, crimson one.
****
Brilliana thought a midnight dip in a Pines pond with her girlfriend would be the perfect spooky summer sojourn. The idea of sneaking a stealthy naked swim in an allegedly haunted forest notorious for mob hits and devils thrilled her stone-cold Atheist self because it spoke of that most intoxicating of aphrodisiacs: proving others wrong. Now, however, it was especially tempting since her girlfriend Jess sincerely believed in all of that supernatural bullshit. It would be perfect, and maybe even get Jess to stop dragging them both to all of Jess’ coven meetings. It wasn’t that Bri didn’t want to be supportive and spend time with her beloved, but she found Wiccans so incredibly pretentious and devoid of humor. Jess was a rare find in that she was neither of those things, but she was still nonetheless deeply devoted to all that nature kumbaya. Perhaps this would help shake some of that out of her without Bri having to be pushy. Besides, it would also get them to have sex outdoors, which Bri had been haranguing Jess to do for the better part of a year.
They had fallen into the same old routine of either heading to L.B.I. for the weekend during the summer nights, having a few beers at Bob’s and Barbara’s or The Rainbow Room, tipsily fumbling around in the car, or doing Karaoke with Rodney and his sordid assortment of trashy friends from college, most of whom Brilliana could not stand (but because they were important to Jess, she continued to pretend they were important to her). Now that Asbury Park was gentrifying, they would sometimes go there and hit the Stone Pony.
Overall, Bri was becoming increasingly bored with the bar scene since it was where she tended to work, and when she brought this up to Jess, Jess honestly could not think of an argument against switching things up. Then Jess read up on a story that had gone viral a few weeks ago about a pair of teens who had gone missing in the Pine Barrens recently because they were looking for the Jersey Devil. Jess had sent her the article as a way of trying to yet again, gently nudge Bri about the supernatural. Bri found the article interesting, and decided to use it as a weapon in the religious war that over the last two years had silently grown between them, like weeds you don’t pay heed to until they crack the pavement. She was madly in love with Jess, but for fuck’s sake, even Halloween, the single coolest holiday of the year, was now sacrosanct, since, known as Samhain in Wicca, it is to Witches what Christmas is to Christians. Jess had taken all the fun out of it! They spent the entire All Hallow’s Eve chanting to the hundred million Goddesses and Gods and elements of nature in a circle until Bri thought she was going to explode and go all Kali on their humorless asses.
Bri got off on scaring the bejesus out of unwitting people. Every year before she had gotten together with Jess, on Halloween she would hide in alleyways in some kind of costume that evoked either vampires or werewolves or ax murderers. Most of the time, the passersby she leapt out at were drunk college students, typical Jersey shore tourists. Her speciality was dressing up as a sexy vampire and terrifying the scores of dudebros that would wander their shore town in packs, forever on an endless search for booze, drugs, and pussy. There was a smug satisfaction in knowing she could make a group of obnoxious macho assholes scream when she was exactly the kind of woman they would try to hit on if she were not wearing fangs and terrifying ghoulish makeup.
At 5’10, with sultry hips, a trim waist, legs that could run the length of the equator, chic, short spikey blond hair, and almond-shaped green eyes with gold flecks, Brilliana was gorgeous and wild. She had always been too restless in classrooms and refused to go to college after high school. She knew she was destined to be a bartender, and occasionally a tour guide. These gigs combined her knack for local history with her love of entertaining and needing an audience. Because she was beautiful and charismatic, it was easy to hold people’s attention, and of course, get big tips. During the summers she worked for a small independent tour company: Walking Tours Down The Shore. She even did a special ghost tour: Ghosts Ahoy! She made decent money for the simple life she had chosen: a small basement apartment in Barnegat about 20 minutes away from the Long Beach Island bridge. Her parents were originally from Ship Bottom and though they had moved to California long ago, she liked to still stay nearby, telling herself that her childhood was never out of reach if she just stayed close to home. Woody’s Grill, The Wizard of Odds, Fantasy Island, and of course, Stutz’s Candy, which her mother never let her forget she once misread as “Slut’s Candy” when she was little, were just a drive away. When she missed her parents she could feel them with her as she made her way back to where they had all lived together, a perfect little unit of three. She may have been wild and restless, but her spirit seemed tethered to her roots in spite of it. And so she lived a more transient work life where things could easily be dropped or changed in terms of hours, people, and requirements in order to live simply and stay in the area she felt safest.
The ghost tour is in fact, the very way she met her shy, sweet girlfriend Jess; who was clearly obsessed with all things paranormal right from the start. Bri noticed her immediately as the group started to gather in the usual place, across the street from The Surflight Theater. Jess was so petite, she looked as if her plaid shirt could swallow her whole. Barely 5’3, Vanilla Ice Cream-pale, long jet-black wavy hair, blue glasses and red lipstick, she was strangely hot in a vaguely gothy-yet-nerdy way and not at all Bri’s normal type. She wore black and white converses, skin-tight dark blue capris, a tight white t-shirt with a Pentagram on it that had a smiley face in the middle, and a black and very oversized black and red plaid shirt. It was her smile that hooked Bri. She watched from her car before getting out to meet the group. She was in her usual costume: fake lantern, velvety crimson jacket with a silver corset underneath, black skinny slacks and long black boots. She didn’t want this tiny, adorable woman to catch sight of her just yet.
She watched as Jess was obviously reading through the tour guide pamphlet and fanning herself with her ticket. And there it was: the flash of a smile that lit up her entire face. It looked like there was a secret tucked inside her pocket that she was recalling. It was the most delicious smile she’d ever seen. Bri could feel herself already getting into flirt mode, but she knew she had to remain professional until the end of the tour. How she ever managed to not immediately hit on Jess she would never know. Later, she would be unable to remember anything about the tour itself that night; the entire thing was a blur. All she could do was restrain herself from paying obvious attention to Jess until the tour was done. She even nearly walked into a signpost at one point when turning her head to see where Jess was in the swarm of seemingly blank faces as she was leading the group towards the beach for one of their stops.
In the end, it was Jess who asked for Bri’s number once all the others had slowly disappeared, having asked their twitterpated guide a gazillion questions, mostly involving whether or not the movie Jaws was actually filmed on L.B.I. (it wasn’t) and if the man with the dog was really killed by a Great White on the beach they had stopped at (he was). Bri tried diligently to answer all the questions her customers fielded to her without rushing through them or seeming disinterested. Throughout it all, she could see Jess out of the corner of her eye leaning to and fro on her feet, clearly wanting to talk, but hanging back to let the others talk first. When at last they had all shuffled off their summer coils, Jess sauntered up to her, wearing that secret pocket smile, her violet eyes dancing. Violet fucking eyes. Bri’s heart could not stop pounding.
“Hey. That was a really good tour. It was a lot darker than I thought it would be.”
“Thank you! Um, what made you think it wouldn’t be dark? It’s a ghost tour about horrible deaths all over the island!”
Jess held up the pamphlet and waved it a little at Bri, grinning smugly.
“Well, you gotta admit ‘Ghosts Ahoy!’ sounds more like a cheesy musical comedy than a death tour. Besides, you gotta treat this kind of stuff with a little more dignity.”
“Well I mean, they’re all just stories, y’know? The murderers and deaths and stuff, they’re all real, but ghosts? Unavenged spirits? C’mon that stuff isn’t…that stuff is just made up. It’s just for fun. Most of the people who come on these tours kind of know that it’s all grist for the imagination.”
“Mmm…I don’t know about that, but…maybe a better name though?”
“Hrmm, like what?”
“How about…Lunasea: Tales of Murder and Mayhem in LBI?” She held up her hands theatrically as if picturing a marquee where the title would go.
“Lunacy? I mean, we’re not visiting any asylums but…”
“No, no L-u-n-a-S-E-A! It’s a pun! But one that plays on the darker nature of your tales. It sounds more like an adventure novel than a goofy play or something. I mean, no offense to the Surflight.” Jess nodded over at the theater.
“Hey, c’mon now, they’ve done some good stuff! My Aunt used to do summer stock there!”
“Oh I know, I have a cousin who used to direct plays there. They did a really cool version of Jesus Christ Superstar when I was a kid.”
“Holy shit! I saw that one too! Except the night I saw it, the guy who played Judas was drunk and the guy who played Jesus had a cold and sounded like Harvey Fierstein.”
At this, Jess chuckled softly and looked down a little, shifting her feet and clutching her pamphlet.
“Listen, I have a couple of ideas about your tour, since I am really into spooky stuff. I know you think it’s all made up, but I would like to try to talk to you about the ghost history of the island I know and see if maybe you might have more to add to the tour…over dinner sometime? My name’s Jess. By the way. I think your name is so cool!” She seemed to almost wriggle at this exclamation, like an excited puppy. Bri was so knocked out, she said yes without blinking.
Their eyes locked and Brilliana swooned as she drove all the way back over the bridge.
****
Jess’ heart was thumping against her chest. The pair had pulled up to an off-ramp after they spent about 35 minutes navigating that most dreaded of Jersey labyrinths: the Garden State Parkway to find the right exit. She had lived in North Jersey for most of her life, but had always wanted to do a spirit hunt in the Pines. She knew Brilliana wanted this to be more of a romantic outing, but as soon as their feet hit the soil of the scrubby land, there was no way she was going to turn up the opportunity to explore. She had a Maglight lent to her by Rodney, whose father was a cop. She had a small notepad to record anything she saw or felt. She had her inhaler ready to go in case they had to run. She was all systems go.
Brilliana had been jazzed about this little excursion. She had a small blanket, some towels, some lube, chocolate, and some wine. She figured they could sit under the full moonlight near one of the ponds and swim and possibly make love right there out in the open. She even secretly hoped there were other devil-hunters about who might walk in on them. The idea of that titillated her. She was dying to get a spark back into things. Being madly in love with someone didn’t guarantee the spark would always ignite. She wanted to not just reignite their spark, but fan the goddamn flames as far and thick as she could. She knew a spooky setting would be exciting to Jess, but a part of her also hoped it might tame some of Jess’ phenomena obsession by seeing there was nothing to discover but each other. Yet as soon as their feet touched the ground after they had parked next to a small dirt path, Bri, normally the ever so fearless Halloween Queen that terrorized half of LBI, felt a sinking sense of dread. It spread throughout her body as if a spider had spun its web inside her heart and out to every vein. Jess tugged on her hand and with that secret pocket smile spread clean across her beautiful face, her violet eyes said “Let’s go!” and so because she loved her, she did.
They walked for a little while, stumbling and listening for animals or potential other people. Jess, boundlessly enthusiastic to be in what she considered her element, whipped the flashlight hither, thither, and yon. The moon was full and lit their path fairly well even without the flashlight. Bri still felt like they were trapped in the dark, and started to shiver even though the temperature was in the 70’s. Both had expected mosquitos, and had swathed themselves in DEET, but nothing seemed to bite. Suddenly they could both hear a strange, deep hiss, but neither could tell where it was coming from. Jess, thinking this must be some otherworldly being, stopped and put her arm out to Bri, who was certain it was probably just a possum. The hissing seemed to be coming from straight above them. Bri clenched her fists and nudged Jess. “C’mon, let’s keep going, I’m sure it’s just a possum or something.” As they moved, both of them heard a strange crackling sound. The hiss started again, even louder. This time it sounded like it was directly above their heads. Jess swung the light, nearly the same length as she was, up towards one of the pine trees to their right. Both of them let out a small yelp as they saw movement in the light. A fluttering sound. Just as Jess was about to exclaim something about tree spirits, they saw the large, ethereal outline of a barn owl flying off the branch in the shadows outside the moonlight, continuing its strange hissing sound as it soared far above them; off for its own midnight summer outing. Jess, crushed that she had been so easily duped by the sounds of the forest, let out a frustrated sigh. Bri patted her shoulder, and in the cover of the night, rolled her eyes just the slightest bit. She was also not a little bit sad she didn’t get to see the haunting face of the owl, shaped like apple slices with dark pits for eyes, giving way nothing as it stalked the rodents of the Pines.
The soft crunch of the women’s footsteps on the dirt path echoed in their ears, deafening the silence between them. Bri was starting to feel unnerved and she couldn’t understand why. She didn’t believe in ghosts or devils or even God. She knew the only thing they would run into were either Pineys, teenagers, delusional ghost hunters, or a raccoon. Why was she so creeped out by this? She had genuinely thought this would be exciting and fun, and possibly even a bit of a turn on for them both. But so far they were just hustling through the dark with some moonlight and had only met one hissing owl.
As they continued to wander, Bri started to notice that there were no normal summer sounds coming from the woods. All the usual things you would hear on a summer night: crickets, cicadas, frogs and toads? Not a single, solitary peep. This did not set Bri’s mind at ease, and again she was struck with feeling out of sorts with how she had expected to feel tonight. What was there to be scared of? There was literally nothing here but grass, rocks, trees, and Jess. She wanted to say something to Jess, something to evoke a caring, nurturing response from her beloved, but she also did not want to give away that she was scared. It would make Jess think she had become more susceptible to belief and that was not something she would abide, even if she was freezing and in dire need of a hug. It was bad enough she hadn’t heard from her parents in nearly a month, and now she was out here in this forest of nothing with someone she was starting to feel worlds apart from and whom she wanted to be with more than anything in the world. The thought struck her that in spite of all that was around her, she was utterly alone.
“Do you hear that?” Jess said, snapping Bri out of her racing thoughts.
“Hear what? Literally the only sound this place has is our footsteps.”
Jess looked at her wide-eyed.
“You…you don’t hear that?” Her voice started to sound a bit frantic.
“Jess, are you ok? Did you get high before we left or something? Did you eat one of Rodney’s edibles again? You know that shit makes you para-”
Jess grabbed her arm.
“No, THAT.” Jess pointed in front of her. Bri still heard absolutely nothing, nor did she see anything in front of Jess but more trees and moonlight mixed with the flashlight bouncing all over the dirt path because Jess’ hand was starting to shake. She was now at the peak 11 scale of freaked out.
I can’t shut it out. Fuck! Babe, that sound, it’s making my ears hurt.”
Suddenly Jess dropped the giant flashlight right on Bri’s foot and clutched her ears with her hands, bending over as if in pain. Brilliana, now absolutely in pain, grabbed her injured foot and began to swear a blue streak that could reach the moon itself.
“Goddamnit Jess! Fuck, that fucking hurt! What sound are you talking about? There’s NOTHING HERE! That piece of shit flashlight weighs a fucking ton.” Bri began hopping over to a tree to keep off her bad foot, clutching it and trying to lean against the tree. Jess was now lying in the fetal position on the ground yowling in a nearly inhuman way.
“Make it STOP!” she screamed out into the uncaring void.
Bri felt guilty, as the pain started to ebb from her foot. Her heart started to sting at seeing Jess in such a state. She started to hop over to Jess when Jess started to shake.
“It’s coming from there. It’s getting louder. It’s right up there!” She said as she made painful motions to get up off the ground, still shaking as she did.
Bri tried to grab Jess’ arm to help her up, but before she could do anything, Jess bolted forward and started to run out into the woods where there was no dirt path to follow. Bri’s eyes widened and called out to Jess, but she was racing into the dark section of the woods where there was no moonlight and no path. All she had was the flashlight and a bad foot. Leaving the blanket, the wine, everything else behind, she grabbed the flashlight and ran as fast as her long legs could take her, practically flying.
****
While she stumbled and fell at least three times, Bri finally made it to a clearing where she stopped dead in her tracks. There was Jess standing at the edge of a small pond, stock still. Bri wanted to call out to her, but something deep inside told her it would not end well. She walked slowly forward. The moonlight beamed down on the pond and on Jess, but it was not beautiful. It covered everything in the area like silt made from light. Jess made no movement. When Bri came within ten feet of Jess, she heard a whispering in the winds that crept into her ears. You would think it was simply the sounds of a breeze, but there was a very clear tangle of raspy voices. They were sending a message to her.
“STAY BACK.”
The words made Bri’s spine curdle. Jess was not facing her. She was facing the pond, looking down and standing sentinel as she had been cut from stone and had stood here on guard all her life. Bri inched closer. Every step she took made her entire body lock up. The voices continued to threaten her. There was no gender or humanity in the voices. They were a writhing mesh of verbal evil, and they did not want any misunderstandings. They meant business.
“STAY BACK OR DIE.”
Bri’s jaw clenched and tears started to pour from her eyes. Shivering and terrified, she wasn’t sure she could do this. She never thought anything could scare her. She never thought anyone would dare fight her. She was the lioness everyone else bowed down to. How could some whispery voices and a creepy moon stop her from saving Jess from whatever the fuck was happening? She pushed on, now taking quicker steps, pushing the voices out.
Slowly Jess turned around as if by some other force and not her own. Her face was a complete blank slate. She stiffly pointed at the pond’s surface, which shimmered in the moonlight, but there was no joy in the ripples on the surface. Bri felt a jarring sensation burble up in her stomach and reach up towards her throat. She wanted to say something to Jess, to break her free from whatever this spell was. But instead she felt a compulsion to move forward. As she stepped up to Jess, now less than two feet from her, she could see her eyes were now empty. In place of the beautiful violet corneas that held the center of the universe within them in her loving gazes, there was a hideous green glow. Her cheeks looked hollow. Her mouth was a thin line devoid of any emotion. The love that they had shared was not evident. Jess was nowhere to be seen.
A tinny voice rattled from somewhere inside of whatever it was that Jess ahd become. Her mouth did not move, but her finger pointed to the pond.
“GO.”
Bri resisted. She even managed to shout out a good, hearty “Fuck off!”, but no avail. The Pine Barrens had spoken, and she did not heed their warning. Bri dug in her heels and tried to reach out and grab Jess’s hand. Looking almost as if she was levitating, Jess glided to the side, and Bri felt a bony hand on her back push her forward. She tried to turn to see what was there, but there was nothing visible there. The nails from the phantom hand dug into her shoulder blades, enough to draw blood. Bri tried to turn and run, but whatever force was pushing her had friends, and soon she was completely enveloped by invisible hands pushing her towards the surface of the pond as the empty shell of her girlfriend looked on blankly
Feeling the unseen force push her into a kneeling position on the ground right at the pond’s edge, she felt a hand push her head down just enough to ensure she was staring at the pond’s surface. There were ripples on the water, and then an image appeared as the ripples cleared.
It was her parents.
Brilliana began to cry at the image. They were smiling and sitting on their porch overlooking the ocean in Santa Cruz. Wine was being sipped and the ocean waves could be seen in the distance of their porch, lapping up sand as they looked lovingly at each other. It was such a beautiful image to her aching, frightened heart that she had completely forgotten her surroundings for a brief moment. Because of this, she failed to see the shape Jess had shifted into. But she did turn around as soon as she heard a slithering sound coming up behind her. Bri tried to whip her body towards where Jess had been, but Jess wasn’t there. Bri tried to run in the direction of the woods she had entered from but fell flat on her face as she discovered her entire body wrapped up in what seemed like some kind of rubber hose, the way a spider traps a fly. She heard a hissing in her ear, and a slight flickering of something wet.
“You didn’t lissssten. Now you must pay the Pinessss for your negligencessss.”
Bri tried to scream, but the tail had already slid across her mouth. Wriggling and writhing, much like the snake had, she tried to free herself. The snake dragged her through the mud and into the water. To ensure there was no thrashing (no need to attract attention), the water from the pond parted and the snake pulled her in and then the water reunited, covering all traces of Brilliana. The invisible forces covered up all traces of footsteps in the mud where the struggle had ensued.
The water burbled a bit, and the snake slithered out, rid of the cargo it had sacrificed to Leeds pond. A sleepy human sigh emitted from the snake as it morphed back into Jess, now completely back to her human form. She shook off the mud and water from her clothes, grabbed the flashlight Bri had dropped, and headed back to the footpath to retrieve the blanket and wine. She whistled as she put the things back in the car, later to be thrown in a dump in Newark. As Jess left the park, the sounds of the Pines reemerged. The crickets began to chirp, the cicadas started their nightly summer songs. Frogs made their burp-like croaks. Lily Pads popped up to the surface of Leed’s pond. Dragonflies buzzed above its now placid surface, still as the air in the night. The barn owl flew over the pond, still on the prowl for its next meal.
****
There are thousands of more memories like Brilliana spread throughout the Pinelands. The memories of the land are long and red. They are tucked away like secrets hidden in pockets only the land could know.
