In the autumn of 1735, Mrs. Deborah Leeds and her thirteen children experience something strange in the Pine Barrens of colonial New Jersey. Blood-curdling screams and disturbing noises are heard coming from the bedroom of Mrs. Leeds thirteenth son, Absalom.
One week later, Mrs. Deborah Leeds and Absalom go missing. Isaiah, the oldest son of the Leeds family, claims that Absalom transformed into a Devil in the middle of the night and took their mother with him. To find Deborah and the so-called Goat-child, Absalom, the Reverend Jeremiah Barnes journeys into the Pinelands and helps the children to find their mother.
As the Reverend is searching for the Devil, all of the Leeds children are killed, one after the other—and in the most gruesome ways imaginable. Gedaliah, the strangest son, claims to know where to find the Devil and tries to tell the Reverend the truth, but the Reverend doesn’t listen and it’s only until it’s too late that he finds the Devil’s true identity—an identity that shatters his beliefs.
The names, locations and incidents in this novel are roughly based on the true history of the Jersey Devil, which some have reported to see in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.