Book 3 – Warren: The Blood Wars
PROLOGUE:
Dame Frederica Goode, The Chatsworth Marquesa
Chatsworth, New Jersey is deep in the Pine Barrens. It’s old and – most nights – dark, exceedingly damp and off-putting. Anybody who gets lost driving down Tabernacle Road and hits the narrow, rutted byways through the Pine Barrens Preserve in Chatsworth gets a queer urge to turn their car around and head back towards US Route 206. Especially as the night comes on. The atmosphere heavy – it bears down on your chest and makes you feel like your throat is closing. Swallowing becomes oddly – and noticeably – labored. Like you just wolfed down too many peanuts and need a mouthful of water really bad.
The night air becomes opaque and shadows waft in front of your headlights as you roll into pothole after pothole. The municipal DPW doesn’t do road repairs down here much. There’s no reason. Not many people live here – and those that do don’t trust or interact with anybody in authority. These souls are died-in-the-wool Pineys. Offspring of original settlers that date back prior to the American Revolution who actually bought their scrub acreage from Lenni Lenape Sachams – or Chiefs – long before the British showed up.
And then there’s Frederica Goode. She insists on being addressed as Dame Frederica Goode. Word is, her great-grandfather bought about ten thousand Pine Barrens Acres back before it was “Preserved” and for years operated a bog iron foundry and glass factory until technology evolved and his businesses failed. He moved on to other financial pursuits and did quite well as an entrepreneur and commercial real estate broker. Today the Goode Corporation operates Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) that manage substantial holdings throughout New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Phoenix, Arizona. Younger brothers Aaron, Jonathan, Amesbury and Bertholde Goode make up the Corporate Board of Goode Corp. It’s a closed, family-owned enterprise. The Goode brothers live at assorted corporate residences throughout their far-flung empire. Dame Frederica Goode, however, resides at her sprawling, creepy Chatsworth Mansion in New Jersey.
Dark rumors in the Pine Barrens persist that for generations the Goode Family has been involved in less than savory activities – including Satanism, cannibalism and child slave trade. Word is that unholy rituals are commonplace in Chatsworth – and on certain nights (usually the Vernal Equinox) screams reverberate through the surrounding swamps and marshland near Reeds Creek or “Branch”.
The Goode “Clan” are said to have always used their business ventures as a feint and under cover of darkness employed a legion of Piney roughnecks to man an armada of flat-bottomed bateaux up and down Reeds Branch of the Rancocas River straight through to the Little Egg Harbor. There, waiting ships off the intercoastal Atlantic waterways off-loaded illicit booze, untaxed cigarettes, drugs and other contraband in exchange for “flesh”, ie. stolen children – shipped to Europe and South America, where they disappear, no questions asked. Unwanted and/or neglected babies, toddlers and adolescents swiped off of street corners and from outside shopping malls and school yards. Kids that nobody wants and nobody misses. Unfortunate, inconvenient and nameless souls who didn’t ask to be born and are fed into a cruel meat grinder of depravity while everybody else turns their heads away.
Of course, Dame Frederica Goode’s family empire was a dangerous and violent business. People died. And all the bodies allegedly disappeared into one place.
Blue Lake.
Google Blue Lake and you’ll be amazed. Yes, it actually exists. And yes – it’s a genuine New Jersey Pine Barrens anomaly.
Find Chatsworth, NJ. It’s off Route 206 in Burlington County. Be sure to pack a good quality military compass – and start hiking. Follow “Reeds Branch” of the Rancocas River past the Prince Street Bridge and the old Foundry Water Tower. Then head Southbound (and a tad Southeasterly) towards Hammonton (it’s a long trek) through marshes and wetlands, drainage bluffs and tea-colored creeks rich with bog iron oxides. Portage over creeks that have cut the trail – and keep heading South. Somewhere inside the Winslow Fish and Wildlife Management Area head look for blue trail markers. Follow them.
You’ll see signs – from the NJ State Police and United States Department of Defense – that say, “Keep Out” and a battered cyclone fence. Years of weather and countless errant youths have carved openings into it. Go through the fence and hike about 3/5ths of a mile and there it is.
Blue Lake.
It’s about 130 feet across, almost perfectly round with steep banks. It’s unlike every lake, brook, river and creek in the Pine Barrens where water flows the color of mahogany from Bog Iron oxides – like somebody left their tea bag inside a China cup over night to soak, only to find the next morning liquid as dark as wood stain. Blue Lake is called Blue Lake because it looks like the Pacific Ocean. It’s perfectly azure, blue. It’s the most beautiful body of water in all of South Jersey.
Why? Nobody knows. Where did the blue water come from? Nobody knows. New Jersey does not have subterranean minerals or rock deposits that would tincture ground water azure blue. Is it some chemical pollution? Rutgers University hydrologists tested the water and can find no explanation for its gorgeous color. No pollution or dyes, additives, bacteria or fungus. No vegetative growth or other plant life that would cause the water to be so wonderfully and gloriously blue.
But the Rutgers boys also found weirdness. Blue Lake water has a very high specific gravity. Unusually high. If you stare into it, you won’t see a crisp reflection of your face. You’ll see some kind of vague, Picasso-type outlines but that’s about it. You also won’t see down more than about a foot deep. Blue Lake swallows light.
The water looks crystal clear. It’s always between 58 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit temperature year ’round! Swimming in the lake is strictly forbidden, and the NJ State Police will arrest you for dipping your toes in. Blue Lake is rumored to have treacherous undercurrents. The cold-water temperature can cause painful cramps and many swimming deaths have been reported.
The Rutgers team also established the most fascinating official fact about Blue Lake: it is at least 30 meters (100 feet) deep! One hundred feet was the limit of their depth testing equipment. They never got to the bottom. The scientists opined that it could possibly be a meteor crater. But did the meteor that created it carry some special space dust that stained its deep waters blue forever? Is that why there’s a prominent US Department of Defense “No Trespassing” sign? Is there a crashed UFO deep inside its waters? Nobody knows.
Perhaps the most puzzling characteristic of Blue Lake, however, comes from legend – a legend that the Rutgers investigators didn’t officially confirm.
Nothing floats in Blue Lake. Even wood. And once an object slowly sinks below the surface of Blue Lake, it’s gone forever. It doesn’t bob about, slowly water-log and ultimately dip. It sinks – and then it’s gone. Lenni Lenape Indians said the lake was cursed. That was bottomless. That it led to the underworld where evil spirits lived and that it “never gives up its dead”.
What can a virtually bottomless, year ’round cold and light-swallowing blue lake that nothing floats in be used for? A lake that was cursed by the Indians and shunned by the local population? Dame Frederica Goode’s family supposedly used it to dump dead bodies and bones in. They were also rumored to have practiced dark, unholy rituals that involved human child sacrifice and cannibalism. Satanic rituals that led to their amassing great wealth and power in the South Jersey and Philadelphia area. Immense wealth and power that eventually led to tendrils throughout the entire United States commercial real estate market. Did they sell their souls to Lucifer?
The Goode house in Chatsworth is an imposing Victorian Mansion hidden behind wrought-iron fences and creaking gates. The home bristles with every known modern security surveillance system available. Guards and dogs patrol the property. Dame Frederica Goode is rarely seen out and about.
On a rainy, grim Easter Sunday in 2025, “Her Highness” Frederica Goode’s exclusive world of wealth and privilege received an unexpected shock from an unlikely source. The old girl took a tumble down her mansion staircase and shattered her hip. She also tore open a bad gash on her throat which was bleeding profusely. She was air-lifted to Cooper Medical Center in Camden by helicopter. Preparing her for hip-replacement surgery, Frederica Goode’s blood was drawn and tested.
The results were shocking. Although her blood showed odd anomalies, the big problem was apparent. Immediately, doctors knew why she had fallen. It was the same reason why she had severe shakes and muscle jerks. Cooper Doctors dutifully reported their results to the Federal Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.
Dame Frederica Goode had Kuru. An extremely rare, always fatal neurodegenerative disease caused by an infectious protein – called a Prion – found in contaminated human brain tissue. Technically, Doctors called it “Spongiform Encephalopathy” caused by “misfolded” proteins (or Prions) that force other cellular proteins to malform – hence destroying brain tissue.
It’s phases?
First Phase: Tremors, unsteady gait and loss of coordination (Ataxia);
Second Phase: Severe shakes, muscle jerks, difficulty walking and keeping balance. Emotional instability, sometimes accompanied by uncontrollable outbursts of laughter or crying.
Third – Terminal – Phase: Inability to eat, chew food, swallow or sit up. Severe wasting and ultimately coma.
The only known etiology or origin of Kuru was macabre. Humans contracted Kuru by eating the brains of deceased relatives during “traditional” funeral rites in certain remote regions of Papua, New Guinea. the ethnic “Fore” (pronounced “For-Ray”) people of New Guinea were the most likely to carry the Kuru virus because they practiced brain eating in their villages for hundreds of years to “absorb the spirit” of their dead parents and family members.
Australian and Indonesian authorities have struggled to eradicate the practice of brain eating in New Guinea in the twentieth century – but the horrific custom endures. Small “Fore” tribal elements in remote areas, predominately in the Eastern Highlands – a rugged, mountainous place with isolated and inbred villages – continue the gruesome funereal tradition.
Cooper Medical Center Doctors in Camden, New Jersey had run across “Kuru” patients before. Three years ago, a family of six domestic servants in a wealthy residence in Philadelphia were diagnosed with Kuru and died shortly thereafter. They’d come from Jakarta, Indonesia on Indonesian Passports but their place of birth was listed as Jayapura, the Capital of the Northern Coast of New Guinea. This is the very heart of Papua, New Guinea. This Indonesian family of domestic servants developed Kuru “Spongiform Encephalopathy” – essentially “Mad Cow” Disease – after arriving in the USA. Kuru has a relatively long incubation period – family antecedents could have eaten Kuru-infected brains ten or twenty years ago and still passed the sickness on to their children.
Autopsies on the Philadelphia servant family revealed advanced onset of Kuru Spongiform Encephalopathy. Their brains were literally liquified into a gelatinous mass of odious puss. Samples were duly shared with the Federal authorities in the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. The “Cause of Death” listed on their Death Certificates was: “Kuru – Spongiform Encephalitis contracted through Cannibalism“. A thorough DNA file was established in the case for use by investigators.
The family’s name was Akembi. Seven Akembis were admitted to Cooper Hospital over a six month period. All died. But the Akembi family had six children. A daughter named Abiru could not be located by Philadelphia Health Authorities. She would have been fifteen years of age at the time of her disappearance and her family’s demise.
Cooper Medical Center Doctors were curious and worked with Federal, State and local Authorities to find out how a wealthy doyenne like Dame Frederica Goode could have contracted Kuru. New Jersey State Police – whose constabulary jurisdiction includes Chatsworth, NJ – were asked to investigate.
Investigate they did.
At the Goode family manse in Chatsworth, NJ State Police investigators found a locked gate. They asked via the intercom for access. The caretaker of the home said they had to go through “proper legal channels” to get access to the property. Access was denied.
Meanwhile, Dame Frederica Goode at Cooper Medical Center in Camden was circling the drain fast. The hip replacement operation wasn’t done – the Federal Center for Disease Control in Atlanta forbade her body to be cut into and formally requested Cooper maintain her in a special quarantine wing of the hospital.
Then Frederica started laughing hysterically and frothing a green, viscous goo out of her mouth. Tests on the ooze confirmed that she her brains were sapping out her skull sinuses and de-congealing down her face and neck. Kuru virus was draining out of her like a sieve. Cooper cradled her body in a rubber bed liner so her escaping body liquids could be captured, isolated and specially tested and then disposed of under Hazmat protocols.
Frederica Goode died 48 hours after being helicopter airlifted to Cooper. A large law firm in Philadelphia demanded release of her remains – but the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta wouldn’t sign off on it. Their solution? Freeze her into a solid block of ice until “consultations” and medical investigations can be completed.
What’s left of Dame Frederica Goode is still on ice.
In the meantime, the New Jersey Attorney General applied to Judge Ambrose Karly of New Jersey Superior Court in Burlington County and was granted a Search Warrant of the Goode Mansion in Chatsworth. The NJ State Police appeared with a SWAT team and comprehensive medical investigative unit outfitted in Biohazard gear, air filtration units and helmets. They pushed straight through the private security guards on premises and commenced to film their search and analysis of every nook and cranny of the rambling old structure.
In the basement they were stymied by two heavy steel doors – locked from the inside – and cemented into rebar-reinforced concrete foundation pylons. The doors obviously led to some underground chamber dug deep below the place and approximately 100 years old. The locks on the steel doors were old and solid – but able to be forced with pry jacks and brute force. When the portal finally groaned and snapped open with an explosive report, the cops and team were assaulted by smells so rank and disgusting that two hazmat-clothed investigators puked into their face masks.
There was an industrial crematorium oven – that looked like it was used for cooking human beings whole. In a corner there were human skulls casually discarded in a pile and stacks of femurs, rib cages, vertebrae and thousands of smaller bones lumped together. Inside the oven were congealed lumps of fat and pieces of leathery skin. Finally, in a filthy, green-stained glass vessel about three feet high were an assortment of human hearts floating in formaldehyde. No brains. Just hearts.
Every medical examiner in New Jersey’s twenty-one counties was assigned a role in analyzing and tracking remains that were found in Chatsworth. Fingerprint and forensic DNA experts were actually brought in from as far as Virginia and Florida to complete identification of the skulls and body parts.
A skull was tested and found to be Abiru Akembi from Indonesia and Papua, New Guinea. A distant offspring of the Fore tribe. Her Kuru-infected brain must have been eaten by Dame Frederica Goode during a bizarre Satanist, Cannibalistic ritual that was conducted at her Chatsworth Mansion. Analysis of China, silver service and serving vessels from the Chatsworth kitchen revealed DNA from human sources.
Aaron Goode, Jonathan Goode, Amesbury Goode and Bertholde Goode have all withdrawn behind a firewall of big law firms in Los Angeles, Houston and Dallas. For “Personal” reasons, they decline to return to New Jersey or otherwise give statements – other than to all agree that their sister Frederica was mentally unsound her whole life and was a recluse at the Chatsworth Mansion while they lived elsewhere and managed the family business. They agreed to sign a Deed gifting all their New Jersey property holdings in the Pine Barrens to New Jersey and make such other reparations as New Jersey might insist be paid – although conceding, of course, no liability or criminal responsibility for anything.
Curiously, Bertholde Goode currently is being treated in a private Medical Clinic in Switzerland. His malady is unknown. His brothers Aaron, Jonathan and Amesbury request that he not be disturbed. He’s apparently in a “restricted” wing. Aaron Goode communicated on behalf of the Goode family until a few weeks ago. He’s now on “extended leave” and attending to “personal health issues” at an undisclosed location. One can only guess what health challenges might befall Amesbury Goode and Jonathan Goode in due course. Their lawyers – in Houston, Texas – maintain their client’s ignorance of any knowledge of Chatsworth, NJ or their sisters’ activities.
New Jersey State Police officials refuse to “drag” the pristine waters of Blue Lake to look for bodies. Their official position is that they have found no evidence of human remains at that location to warrant such an expenditure of resources. Rutgers University concurs and has issued a statement that any such a “dragging search” would be “futile”. The United States Department of Defense maintains silence.
Blue Lake remains off-limits. A silent, azure-blue anomaly in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.
Copyright, 2026 Jedediah Croft
www.bogironfoundry.com
email: vlchek1@gmail.com
*Stay tuned for more high strangeness and another Chapter of Warren: The Blood Wars by Jon Croft
