Chapter Text
“-- And don’t forget to like, comment and subscribe!.... And I shoulda stayed at Landman & Zack,” Foggy muttered after he stopped recording.
4000 subscribers. That was what his channel, Critters in the Fog, had achieved after two years, thirty videos and like $1500 in fines for trespassing. Foggy was starting to think he should give up. His sole sponsor, Red Lion Coin, had been bankrolling him for too long and even they were starting to lose patience.
Not that he didn’t appreciate his loyal subscribers, especially the dozen or so who actually bothered to like and comment.
Speaking of … he needed to check the stats from his last video about the Loveland Frogmen.
@jackbatlin 2 weeks ago
Wow, those cops got really mad, glad you didn’t get arrested this time. And thanks for doing audio descriptions now. Makes the videos a lot easier. Love some accessible videos about Ohio frogmen
@pagesandpages 2 weeks ago
Agreed makes it way easier to watch while im doing dishes
@cutiemcdutie 1 week ago
Amazing!! Omg i loved the part in the swamp, hopefully you didn’t get sick after you fell in.
@cow3y3s 3 days ago
Really good! Any chance you might do a video on the devil of Hell’s Kitchen?
@jackbatlin 2 days ago
Lol the devil of Hell’s Kitchen is totally fake, he shouldn’t waste his time.
12 Replies
@pagesndpages 2 weeks ago
Bring back marci
@jackbatlin 2 weeks ago
They broke up :(
@pagesandpages 2 weeks ago
@jackbatlin noooo
He ignored the commenter looking for Marci – she was pretty clear in that she didn’t want to be dragged into any more videos after bailing him from jail in New Jersey – but the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen… now that was an idea.
The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen had started being sighted a few years ago. Mostly scattered, blurry photos and a few low quality security camera captures that could have easily been a person dragging a coat or something. If the Devil was real, it had a good sense for avoiding being caught on film.
A couple other YouTubers had made attempts at videos, but they were always full of third-hand sources, no actual evidence and spending half the runtime hawking Audible.
Foggy considered his options. He had a few cameras he could set up in locations the Devil had been frequently reported. Maybe Brett would be willing to let Foggy take a look at some security camera footage – the Devil had been apparently spotted near the Midtown South precinct more than once.
The real question was whether or not the Devil was even real – New York had a lot of people, a lot of crime-fighting vigilantes and a lot of general suspicious activity. Foggy had his doubts… but having doubts wasn’t really in the spirit of his channel. And hey, he’d wandered the pine barrens for 3 days looking for the Jersey Devil, at least this devil wouldn’t require him to to go camping…
He was still mulling it over when he got an email from Red Lion Coin.
“Hey Foggy,
We regret to inform you that Red Lion Coin is going to have to stop sponsoring Critters in the Fog. We are not seeing the return on investment we were hoping for. Thanks so much and good luck with your future endeavors.
Dale
Red Lion Coin”
Fuck.
Foggy scrambled for his phone – he had Dale’s phone number saved, he had to talk to them about this.
“Foggy –” Dale began as soon as he picked up the phone.
“Dude! What the shit, you could have warned me!” said Foggy.
“We have been,” said Dale, boredly. “We sent like six e-mails about it.”
“Three, not six. ”
“Still too many, Foggy.”
Foggy sighed, “Come on, Dale, just — just one more shot! I don’t want to have to move back in with my parents…”
“That’s not my problem,” said Dale.
“But I have a — an amazing idea! It’ll be huge, just give me a chance!”
He didn’t actually have an idea, but Foggy was nothing if not good at improvising.
Dale sighed, “Fine. What is it?”
“It’s — it’s uh…” Foggy looked around the room, desperate. Bed. Desk. Camera. Lamp – lamp monster? Anglerfish? No – nope, Foggy wasn’t going into the ocean. His eyes fell on the monitor that displayed comments.
“It’s the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.”
On the other side of the phone, Dale was silent. Foggy took that as a good sign.
“I’m almost in Hell’s Kitchen, I was born and raised there. I could go out and gather rumors and, uh… see what’s going on with that?”
“... Interesting…” said Dale, slowly. He sounded like he was calculating something.
“Maybe it could be a three parter?” said Foggy, hopefully.
Dale paused and then sighed again. “Alright, Foggy. A three parter — and they all gotta get at least 25 thousand views, minimum.”
Foggy barely contained himself from cheering out loud.
“Absolutely! 25 thousand, easy! You won’t regret this, man, I prom —“
Dale had hung up on him.
It was more difficult to research the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen than it had been to research nearly anything else — there was no history to him, just rumors. Reports on what exactly the Devil was were unclear. Some people said it was a mutated sewer gator, or a bunch of dogs that were so coordinated that people believed it to be one creature. Some people claimed to have seen it close up, that it looked like it was blind, something about its eyes. In the end, the lack of consensus meant that Foggy had wound up making a weird pin-and-string board across a map of Manhattan for the intro and narrating social media posts. The Devil seemed to stay more or less within the boundaries of Hell’s Kitchen, though there were a few one-off sightings as far as Harlem and Chinatown.
Eventually, Foggy isolated a few places that seemed to have the most sightings and, armed with a camera and a few snacks, he set out.
He wound up setting up shop near some old handball courts on West 46th, managing to sneak in just before closing and preparing to hide before somebody from NYC Parks came along to lock up. Somebody did come by … but, oddly, they only closed the gate and made motions like they were locking it, but even from the back corner and tucked behind a recycling bin, Foggy could tell they’d left it open.
Well, whatever. Maybe if he couldn’t make the video work, he could blackmail parks officials.
The street was soon dark and, then a bit later, quiet. Foggy mostly looked at his phone – he hadn’t really realized how boring a stakeout would be.
He was just getting into his 300th Tiktok when a shiver ran down his spine. He looked up and peered around at the shadows surrounding him…
Was something … moving?
He squinted into the bushes – trying to tell if it was just a strange shadow cast by the streetlamps or if there was something in there.
Click.
Foggy sat up straight and turned to where the gun had cocked right behind him. He very slowly raised his hands.
“So,” said the very large man with the gun, “He sent a spy after all.”
Foggy made a confused noise in his throat.
“Is he watching now?” the large man said, nodding toward the camera. “Does he want a show?”
“Woah – woah, I’m not working for anyone! I’m just a Youtuber, man! I’m trying to catch the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen!”
The man looked at him like he was stupid. “Seriously? That’s the story you’re going with?”
“The dumbest answer is usually the correct one?” Foggy said, weakly.
The man raised his gun. Foggy squeezed his eyes shut.
Goddammit, he should never have have Landman & Zack.
The air suddenly rang with the loud cracks of the gun, but somehow, miraculously, none of them hit Foggy at all. He opened his eyes.
Something enormous, dark red and feathered was on top of the man and the gun was skidding away across the tarmac. The man was trying to yell, but the thing on top of him kept slamming him into the ground, headbutting him, cutting his cries off. The thing twisted suddenly and the man went flying into the street, where he scrambled to his feet and took off running. The thing gave chase and had almost vanished into the shadows again when it paused and cocked its head.
Foggy stared.
The creature huffed a breath and darted out of the street lamp’s light, vanishing into the darkness.
The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was fucking real.
—-
Foggy probably shouldn’t have been entirely surprised to find himself at gunpoint again.
“Guys – I’m looking for the Devil,” Foggy said, holding his hands up. Somehow this happening twice in two nights was making the guns a little blasé. He was set up a few blocks away, in a deserted parking lot. Another sighting hotspot for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. He’d been so excited by the previous night’s encounter, but his footage had wound up being nearly unusable. It was out of focus, all the action taking place just out of view enough to look fake. Disappointing, but it had been encouraging.
Maybe a little too encouraging, considering the three angry looking guys and the gun.
“Guess you found him,” said one of the three armed jerks, “Who are you working for, huh?”
“Uh… Red Lion Coin?” said Foggy. “I guess?”
The gun-wielder lowered his gun a little and all three men looked at each other.
“Red Lion? So, he doesn’t trust us? Sends you to keep an eye on us?”
Foggy had no idea who the he was, but considering it was lowering hostilities, he played along.
“Y-yep, that’s me. No offense, but you guys can be a little … shoot first and ask questions later, so he thought maybe it would be prudent to make sure you guys are behaving,” said Foggy, the shaking in his voice subsiding as he continued, “and not calling attention to yourselves by firing a gun off on top of a residential building.”
“Tch, the cops are smart enough to ignore it around here,” said one of the men.
“Of course,” said Foggy, wishing he hadn’t just somehow made himself an accomplice in whatever the hell was going on with these criminals and Red Lion, “But you know how … he is.”
“Yeah, and that persnickety little lap dog –” said the man with the gun. “Uh, edit that out, huh?”
Foggy forced a laugh, “Y– yeah, no, no worries man.”
He stopped laughing when a long scrape comes from the side of the building. The man with the gun raised it again, this time over Foggy’s shoulder.
“Devil’s not real,” said the man with a gun. “Just another freak in a costume.”
There was a sound like the crack of a whip and a cut off scream – and the gunman was gone. Foggy barely caught sight of him going flying off the edge of the building, followed by a loud crash. The other two men quickly pulled their own guns and scanned the edge of the rooftop.
Foggy noticed the great red mass just in time to duck out of the way as it charged in and dragged both men over the edge and into the dark.
Foggy lay on his back for a minute, breathing hard. Holy shit.
Did he catch any of that on camera?
Foggy pulled his phone out, thankfully undamaged. The camera was still streaming to his phone – he just had to check the past few minutes of footage…
Before he could, a shadow dropped down over the camera and his phone screen turned blue.
Camera off, the app blinked at him.
Foggy looked up suddenly at where his Go Pro was placed on the edge of the roof, pointed down to the laneway.
The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen loomed in the dark – massive, bigger than Foggy could have ever imagined, nearly humanoid but not like anything else Foggy had ever seen. He was pretty sure this thing could swallow him whole if he wanted to. The Devil took a step forward, pushing the camera that was clutched in his taloned hand aside, a red mane of feathers ruffling slightly in the wind around his tall, curved horns, before he stood up slightly and faced Foggy with dark, cloudy eyes.
“Do you not realize where you are?”
His voice was low and raspy and made a chill run down Foggy’s spine. It took another step forward and lowered itself to Foggy’s eye level.
“You – you can talk?”
“Obviously.”
Well, in addition to being real, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was also sarcastic as hell.
“Do you know where you are?” the creature repeated, like Foggy was an idiot. “Hell’s Kitchen. In the middle of the night. And here you are, wandering around among coyotes and foxes like …” the creature jammed his massive snout against Foggy’s belly and dragged it up to his chin with a deep, loud sniff, “a stuffed turkey.”
“Did you mean that to sound so sexual?” Foggy whispered, then fell silent as the creature’s lips and enormous sharp teeth danced against his throat, continuing in a harsh rasp, ignoring his question.
“Baiting the worst of this city into…” the creature exhaled hot breath that stank of raw meat, “taking a bite.”
Foggy swallowed, blood rushing to his face. “Okay, so you did.” This had better not awaken anything in him.
A heavy, wet drop of saliva dripped off the creature’s tongue and ran down his neck, soaking into his shirt. With another snort of hot breath, the creature suddenly jammed his nose into Foggy’s stomach again. Foggy yelped, stumbled back and landed heavily on the rooftop. The creature turned away and slunk into the darkness, dragging his heavy tail behind him.
“Go home, Foggy,” the creature said without looking back. He took a step on to the fire escape and, after the sudden loud rattle of the creature leaping off into the dark, the night fell quiet.
… How did the Devil know his name?
—
So, obviously, no way in hell was Foggy going to go home after that. How did the Devil know his name? Foggy would need to ask him, somehow, and … well, unfortunately, the only way Foggy had to meet the Devil again was to get himself threatened by mobsters.
And it was only about the name thing. Not because he’d been up all night thinking about that voice. Or those teeth.
But unlike the first two nights, it wasn’t so easy to put himself in danger. The first two nights were a bust – both on crime and on Devil sightings and by the third night, Foggy decided to pretend to guilelessly wander around looking like – well, like a stuffed turkey.
He whistled loudly, wandering around with his camera in plain view, hoping for a mugger. If there’d been any alleys in Manhattan, he’d have gone down one.
It was nearly 4am before he even heard something – gunshots – and Foggy did what he truly thought he’d never be dumb enough to do.
He ran towards them.
—
Foggy was sure it had all been very dramatic, but he’d missed most of the action. He arrived just in time to see a – was that a ninja? Go flying across the abandoned shipping yard and splash into the river. All that remained, surrounding the Devil and trying to … well, to kill him, were a few men armed with guns and several … ninjas?
… Was this actually happening?
The Devil cracked the air with his tail, grabbing a man by his arm and flinging him away into another, sending them both skidding across the gravel until they both smashed into the wall of a shipping container and stopped moving entirely.
The Devil’s mane flared out suddenly and he turned his large head in Foggy’s direction, absolutely dumbfounded – an expression Foggy hadn’t realized that a creature like that could communicate. The Devil struck out with a hand, grabbing a ninja by the head and slamming him into the ground without stopping his glare in Foggy’s direction.
Unfortunately, this was when the assorted criminals noticed Foggy, too. He ducked away as one of the men raised his gun in his direction, yelling something Foggy couldn’t hear. The Devil charged in Foggy’s direction, running on all fours and kicked the man into a ninja. There was some complicated movement with the ninja’s sword and – oh Christ.
Foggy froze and stared, open mouthed, barely noticing the Devil reaching him. He bounded over the chainlink fence and grabbed Foggy around the middle, heaving him over his massive shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He was sure he’d be swooning right now if he wasn’t swooning for an entirely less romantic reason – the fucking severed head rolling across the shipping yard.
Nobody could blame Foggy for passing out immediately.