Horrorist:

I hope this letter find you in good standing. As you know I have been on a brief vacation as of late, due to an injury. In my time off however I have been able to do a little work on a case that I was presented with over two years ago. With my down time I decided to head up to New England and conduct a few interviews and do some research. Don’t worry I paid for every thing myself as I know of recent some of the Horror Watch funds have become stretched. Anyway I decided to keep my mind active as my body healed. For a case that many of us would lead no where or have no implications on our work, I found to be tragic and fascinating at the same time. Although not the full report here are some of the more interesting notes from #123-D4, otherwise known as The Brody File.

As noted above a year ago HorrorWatch began to receive information from a Thea Brody. A young woman who said that her family had a story to tell us about, mainly her grandmother Ellen and her father Michael. Unfortunately her story dealt with several shark attacks on persons of her family, and we deemed it trivial and of no importance, but what I have uncovered possible proves us all wrong. After chatting with Thea on the phone for several hours over a couple of days, she arranged for me to meet her grandmother and father, the only problem was that I had to travel to Amity Island New England, to get the story. With nothing to do, I agreed to go and made the trip up north.

First let me say Amity is beautiful, it is a small island that is more or less tourist heaven, although I arrived in late spring, I could see how in summer the small community would be beautiful with it’s sparkling beaches and down home laid back feel. After checking in and waiting until the next day I made my way too the Amity Retirement and Care Home, where I was to meet Ellen Brody. Mrs. Brody had begun to fail in health in recent years but for the her age she looked amazingly well, but on closer look her eyes held a much darker story, that I was about to be told.

After introducing myself and chatting a while about her granddaughter and her health Ellen jumped right into the tale. “I guess you wanna know about the shark, then.”. “Yes.” I replied, “If it is all right with you and you feel up to it.”. At this point the aging blonde beauty looked up and breathed deep and told me the story of her husband and a terrible Fourth of July in 1975. Here is the story as I was told.

“We had only been in Amity a little more than a year, we had just moved from New York because my husband, Martin, was tired of the crime and lifestyle we were living. Martin had been a cop and found out Amity was looking for a new chief of police, he eagerly took the job and we headed off to Amity to start our new lives, a better life for all of us, me Martin and our two sons Michael and Sean, Sean being the younger of the two. Things were going fine for the entire time and then about a week before the 4th a young lady by the name of Christine Watkins came up missing after going night swimming. Her boyfriend called in she was missing and Martin went out to where she was last seen to gather information, however it was his deputy Hendricks, that found her.

The poor girl was found nude and literally in pieces lying on the nearby beach covered in filth and sand. Martin went and filed the report as a shark attack, but the arrogant and greedy Larry Vaughn, Amity mayor at the time, talked Martin into changing it into a boating accident instead. Martin didn’t want to but, the local medical examiner agreed with Larry and said he would back it up. Martin didn’t like it but caved in and kept his mouth shut, something that he would always regret, always.

I can remember a confrontation where Martin was going to put up signs and close the beaches, but Mayor Vaughn and the rest of the town elders worried about their pockets and not town safety confronted Martin on the local ferry. Martin always remembered these words that Larry said to him “You yell barracuda people say, what huh?, But you yell shark and you have a panic on your hands.”, yes that was true but it could have saved the lives of people and my family as well.

A couple of days later while relaxing on the beach we saw something more horrible than can be imagined. While the beach was full and very active, a young boy by the name of Alex Kitner went out on his raft, one minute he was out there having a great time, the next instant he was gone in a bloody flash, swallowed whole by the shark, a huge great white. Martin said he felt drawn into the water as he watched it happen, but powerless, in truth our first instincts were for the safety of our own children who were playing in the surf. I felt such sadness as Mrs. Kitner called her son’s name from the beach, I would know her pain years later however.”.

At this point Mrs. Brody began to tear up a little, but gained her composer and went on. “So now everyone knew there was a problem in the waters of Amity but the damn town leaders once again were more worried about still saving the summer tourist season. One of the council men actually ran our local paper and buried the accident to keep it out of the headlines, Martin wanted to close the beaches and he was going to but at the last minute at a town hall meeting the mayor changed it from closed until further notice to closed for only twenty four hours, the fool. But things didn’t go as smooth as people wanted and Mrs. Kitner saw to that. After her son was killed Mrs. Kitner put an add in all the local papers as far away as New York and in many wild game magazines. She put a $3000.00 bounty on the shark and who ever killed the shark would collect.

The next few days Amity was a mad house, hundreds of people came trying to collect the bounty to local men also tried to catch the shark with a roast beef, they nearly ended up becoming bait themselves. But it was Quint who eventually got the contract. Quint was more salty than the ocean that surrounded us and he was known by everyone on the island, he also made an impression at the meeting by saying he would kill the shark for $10,000.00 not three. Quint was a bit hard, but sharking was how he made his living.

Early Martin had called the oceanographic institute and asked for any help they could send so one day a young man by the name of Matt Hooper shows up on the Amity docks and seeks out Martin. Hooper immediately wanted to see the remains of Christine and flew into a rage, about calling it a boating incident. The same day local fisherman caught a tiger shark, relief was instant but short lived.

Hooper said yes, it was rare for a shark of that type being in amity waters, but they could not be sure until they cut it open and saw what was in it’s stomach. The appeal of the remains of Alex spilling out on the pier was not an image anyone wanted. As the crowd was celebrating Mrs. Kitner appeared and confronted Martin, she slapped him for knowing about the shark and not telling anyone. Of all the events that took place, I have no doubt that this affected my husband the most.

Later that night at our home Matt showed up and him and Martin snuck down and cut open the tiger shark, it was empty. Matt had a theory of a rouge shark and talked Martin into going out with him that night and looking for the shark. This was an accomplishment in itself as Martin hated the water. While out in the ocean Matt and Martin find a boat owned by Ben Gardner, it was up ended. Matt went into the water and found not only a large tooth but the body of Ben Gardner as well. He dropped the tooth however and when him and Martin confronted Vaughn on the 3rd of July he pleaded for them to close the beaches, Vaughn said no tooth no proof. Martin used to chuckle when he remembered Hooper telling Vaughn he wouldn’t face the shark problem until it bit him on the ass or something like that. It was now one day until the vacationing crowd arrived. Martin was given a few extra officers and asked for help from anyone with a boat to help watch the beaches for the shark.

The next day was the turning point for all of us. Two kids gave us all a scare by wearing a rubber fin and giving us a true fright, but the distraction allowed the real shark to swim into a nearby pond and kill a man in a boat, it also brought our son Michael face to face with the creature. Hundreds of people saw this from the beach, Amity was doomed. The same day Martin made Vaughn sign a contract for Quint to kill the shark, and to my horror Martin and Matt went with Quint aboard his boat the Orca to hunt the shark. They were gone for three days, but only Martin and Matt returned and not in a boat, they had to swim. Martin told me how they ended up being hunted by the shark and how it had sunk the Orca and killed Quint.

According to Martin’s story the shark was to be nearly 25ft long and weigh 3 tons. He said it was huge and savage attacking them at every chance, they shot it stabbed it and put barrels into it to help keep it afloat, but it was too powerful. At some point Quint, sort of snapped and refused to give up and ended up blowing the ships engines up, that’s when Matt decided to go into the water and try to inject the shark with some kinda of poison, he failed and the shark attacked the boat and ended up killing Quint. Martin was finally able to kill the shark after placing a tank of compressed air in it’s mouth and shooting it, the shark’s head exploded, killing it.”.

At this point a nurse brought in Ellen’s meal and I said I would be back in awhile to get the rest of the story, I gave her about two hours, but before I went back I headed over to the nearby Amity public library and found the following information.

In 1975 on the beaches of Amity there were in fact five deaths caused by a great white shark in the island’s waters. Christine Watkins, Alex Kitner, Quint, Ben Gardner and an unnamed man in a boat. There were also reports of a missing dog by the name of Pippet at the same time, who vanished form the beach. Copies of these headlines and documents will be included in the full report. Although like you ,probably now, I was saying where does this story fall into the type of work we do at Horror Watch? But the next couple of events will change your mind. I grabbed a bite to eat myself and went back to the nursing home, where not only was Ellen in the room but her son Michael. I was about to get another story. Michael and Ellen wasted no time in getting to the meat of the next chapter of the Brody’s as you could tell from his demeanor, he was tired of the story and drudging up the past, although not rude he was direct.

In 1978 almost exactly three years after the first shark visited Amity, the small island was once again besieged by another great white of epic proportions. Once again Martin Brody would learn of the shark and try to convince people it was out there, and once again the town elite would dismiss it as Martin imagining things again. “Dad told them he was not going to go through that hell again, but he was wrong.” Mike said . As he held his mother’s hand Mike began to tell me the events of the summer of 1978 and the events that plagued Amity and a group of teenagers, including Mike.

“it all started with two divers that came up missing. You see the site where the Orca sank became kind of a tourist attraction in itself. People were always going out there to see the boat that “the shark” sank. These two out of towners come up and are down there taking pictures and before you know it, they are gone. The only thing found is their camera. Then like two days later a girl by the name of Terry and her mother are killed while water skiing. Terry was skiing her mother was driving the boat, two friends of mine saw an explosion from the beach, it was ruled an accident but dad always though different, and when we saw the scars on the shark’s face we knew it had caused it. Later that night my dad got the pictures back from the diver’s cameras and it clearly showed the outline of a shark’s eye and mouth. Vaughn and the rest of council didn’t believe him and the fact that he had shot off his gun and mouth at the beach, ended up getting him fired.”

“Show him dear.” Ellen said.

Mike reached into a briefcase he had and pulled out the picture his father had developed, it clearly was an eye, of what I couldn’t say but with the included copy maybe you could have Huntergamma see what he can do with it on his computer. Ellen then said that tension was running high between Vaughn and Martin anyway due to her bosses financial pressure to get a new resort open. She also told me she was there when Martin was up in the shark tower, installed in the fall of 75, when he stormed the beach, he did it for the right reasons, she said, but no one cared this time.

Mike started up again, “I snuck out of the house with my younger brother Sean and met up with some friends of mine down at the beach, there was me, Sean, Tina, Eddie, Lucy, Jackie, Andy, Timmy, Douglas, Denise, Marge and Mayor Vaughn’s son Larry Jr. We were going to go to an old lighthouse, to have fun and a picnic, but we decided to go a little further out, a mistake that was going to cost us. We all went out in six boats ranging from good to inflatable, but the next few hours were horrible for us all.“

Mike and his mom both took turns describing what happened next, but in short the story is as follows.

As the eleven friends were heading out on their day of fun, something was following them, the shark. Moments before Mike and friends headed off into the big blue a local dive guide was nearly killed by the shark as he was leading a group on a lobster hunt, he didn’t get a chance to warn the kids because the shark scared him so bad he came up to fast from the deep and had an , which embolism , which nearly killed him, this incident occurred seconds after the kids and their boating caravan passed the diver group.

From here out Ellen says that her and Martin found out the kids were missing and along with Deputy Hendricks took the police boat and headed out after them. Tina and Eddie, a couple, broke away from Mike and friends for a little quite time according to Mike, at some point the shark attacked their boat. Eddie was knocked into the water and killed by the shark, Tina after watching the entire event was left in a state of shock for nearly a year.

The Brodys and Hendricks found her floating in the remains of her boat and got her to safety. At this point Ellen and Hendricks go back to Amity on another boat called in by Martin. Martin , however continued his pursuit of his sons and friends. He also called in harbor patrol to send out a helicopter to help him find the kids. Mike said things were going fine until Doug’s small raft popped.

“we were sitting there laughing at him, and then out of nowhere the shark appeared like a storm and attacked his boat and many others. It was biting anything that moved, and out boats were so close together that when we tried to get moving we all became tangled and out of the six boats, minus Tina and Eddie’s only one was left sailable in the end of that first attack. I was knocked out by a boom and fell into the water, I don’t remember anything else until my dad found me and two friends heading back to Amity to get help.”

Ellen told me the rest of the day’s events as Martin and some of the kids told her. “They were now on the ocean and drifting. The only thing between them and the entire Atlantic was a small place known as Cable Junction, a power supply place for the island, but as they drifted the shark was always close behind, picking it’s spots and having fun like a cat with a mouse, on one attack it destroyed another boat and killed a young girl named Marge who had been looking after Sean, and through the entire thing Sean saw it all. After a few hours the harbor patrol finally found them and the pilot landed the copter and was going to give them a tow to safety at Cable Junction, but as the copter tried to take off the shark attacked it and killed the pilot along with sinking the copter at this point the kids made their last ditch effort to get to Cable Junction, they had to because the sinking copter destroyed all remaining sails that any of the boats had.

Martin was able to get a fix on them and was on the way, but as he arrived the shark was making it’s final attack. He told me saw the kids diving into the water and swimming for Cable Junction, the shark rammed his boat and he hit into the junctions rocky beach wrecking the boat. The drag wench on the boat had released or he was using it in one way or another and it pulled up a power cable. Martin laid on the cable and used himself as bait, when the shark bit down he released the cable frying it in the water. A few hours later they were all rescued from Cable Junction.”.

Once again I checked out archived news clippings and found the events to be true and in 1978 the paper did report the deaths of seven people to shark attack in the waters of Amity, see enclosed files. Once again this could be chalked up to extremely bizarre coincidence, but the tale of the Brodys is not over yet, as Michael told me another story.

Do you remember when we were kids and there was that big tragedy at that Sea World in Florida? You know the one where two great whites had broke in to the park and killed several people during a grand reopening? Well guess who was a foreman on the construction of that park? If you said Michael Brody then you were right.

A brief recap goes like this, in 1983 Sea World, under the financial backing of Calvin Bouchard, opened a huge new exhibit that consisted of an underwater kingdom and a man made lagoon that linked into the Atlantic itself. The project was of grand scope and back then cost over 34 million dollars and a day before grand opening a great white about twelve feet long got into the park. With the help of Phillip Fitz Royce, a famous wildlife photographer, Bouchard and Mike’s girlfriend at the time Kay decided to try and catch the shark instead of killing it and use it as an attraction, the first great white ever in captivity.

They were in fact able to capture the shark, but Bouchard wanted the shark available for opening day against Kay’s orders he put the shark on display, it died, but like I said there was two sharks. The same day a massive shark some 35 foot began to run amuck in the park, it was believed to be the mother of the dead shark. Also if you cab believe this one, Michael’s brother Sean was visiting his brother during this time, as he was on break from college, and once again Sean was nearly killed by a great white and his brother came face to face with yet another demon from the deep.

Demon, you say? Yes I think so, well maybe not a demon of flames and fire but there has to be something more to this lineage of Brody and shark wouldn’t you say? No well I’m not through yet. If you are interested in having one of the Watch members like Savvyraven, Glytch or Lord J pulling up all of the files from the Sea World incident of 1983, have them get cracking on it now and I’ll add them to my notes and compile it all in the final report, I should be back to the dungeon in about five days, so there is plenty of time to have this done for when I return.

The final chapter, well thus far, of the Brody’s is much more personal and even more unbelievable and stranger than the rest, it takes place between Christmas Eve 1987 and January 4, 1988, but first a little information between 1983-1987.

After Sea World, Mike Brody changed careers and became a marine biologist, he also married a woman by the name of Carla and they had a daughter by the name of Thea, the family then moved to the Bahamas where Mike did research work on conchs and his wife worked as an artist. His brother Sean went into law enforcement and ended up becoming a deputy in Amity. Ellen and Martin Brody stayed in Amity where Martin died of a heart attack. Ellen was quick to point out that it was not a heart attack, but fear, fear of what was out in those waters waiting for him, waiting for her family. She may have been right.

Four days before Christmas Eve 1987 Sean Brody received a call to go out and remove a bit of debris that was floating in the harbor, the debris had become entangled on a buoy . As he was dislodging the waste a great white lunged out of the water and severed his arm. It then attacked the boat and Sean fell into the water, where the shark ripped off one of his legs and a massive portion of his torso. Ellen Brody had to I.D. her son’s body.

“I never wanted him to take the job, I never wanted him to be on the water, but after I saw him, I knew, I knew what it was.”. Michael took over from here for awhile.

“Mom called and said Sean was dead, I asked how, and she told me, I didn’t know what to say or do. I told my assistant Jake that I was going home for a bit and me and Carla and Thea headed back to Amity for my brother’s funeral, it was a sad homecoming to say the least. Mom was different and she was demanding that I get out of the water, but the truth is great whites do not like warm water and the Bahamas is warm year round to say the least, I wasn’t worried. I talked mom into coming back with us to get her mind clear and relax, but that was not to be. She began to have dreams of herself in water and a shark coming after her, nonsense you might say but she was right in the end. One Jake was in our little fiber glass sub when a huge great white appeared beside him, it was here.

Later after all things settled down my mother told me she was on the beach with Thea and she felt it, she knew it was here and knew why it came. She also told a friend by the name of Hoagie, a local island pilot, that she knew it was coming. Me and Jake decided to study the shark to monitor it, you think I would have known better, it nearly killed me one day, I was able to hide in some old wreckage and use an air tank to get away, but it was then that even I began to think our family had some kind of curse.

Jake rigged a type of transmitter and we were able to stick it in the shark and track it by it’s heart rate, so we could at least have a fix on it’s position. But one day things got out of hand. We were watching the shark and then it just vanished, we couldn’t find it anymore.”

“That’s because it found us!”, Ellen interjected. “Me, Thea and Carla were at a ceremony to unveil one of her works of art at a local beach, Thea went to ride a banana boat or something while we stood at the podium. As I watched Thea from the stand, I saw it come through the water, I know it wanted her, she got away however a poor woman on the raft was not so lucky. Once again we watched as the shark drug somebody down to hell.” Mike continued, “I came back and Carla tore into me which she had every right to do, I knew the shark was there, I just kept quiet, it was such a find in those waters, but in all actuality it had found us, like my mother, I knew that this was the shark that had killed Sean and it was coming for the rest of us. I looked for mom but she was gone. She had taken my boat and was now sailing around looking for the shark, me and Jake found Hoagie fishing and he took us up in his plane to look for her.”

“I knew if I didn’t find it, it would find me, so I just went all over.”, Ellen said, “And I was right. It found me and came straight at me, it didn’t slow and it didn’t stop, it was my time.”

Mike filled in the rest of the tale, “We saw her and we saw the shark, even from the plane you cold tell how huge it was and what it’s purpose was, it was death. Hoagie flew over it and actually landed the plane as close to the boat as he could, it’s a wonder we all didn’t die right there. Me and Jake swam for the boat Hoagie however was attacked as the shark began to destroy his plane, somehow he managed to escape the shark and make it to the boat.

Jake came up with an idea, if the transmitter was still on the shark he could change it to a receiver and send electrical impulses into the shark itself, driving it mad. As he tried to work on the shark, it dove into the air and snatched him from the boat. I began to try and send impulses to the shark, and it worked! The shark began to raise up out of the water each time I sent an impulse, and I swear as god as my witness, the damn thing screamed each time it surfaced, I have never saw anything like it, as the shark rose out of the water mom steered the boat in it’s direction and at the right moment rammed the shark with the boat, and somehow, someway, the shark exploded.”

“Exploded?” I asked.

”Yeah it exploded, it knocked me and everyone else into the water, where I was relieved to find Jake alive and floating, mauled, but alive. We made it back to the island and mom went home a few days later. She came back to Amity and we have stayed in the Bahamas since then. I hope you can see how this is not just a random occurrence or bad luck, our family has been cursed by this for some reason or another.”

“So the shark just exploded huh? No dynamite, grenade, rocket launcher? It just exploded? BOOM! Right there after you hit it with a boat? Would a whale do that? Or is that just a behavior linked to sharks only?” I had to ask because up until that point the story was believable at least.

Mike and Ellen both kind of gave me a strange look, but after saying it I knew it was kind of in poor taste, so I apologized and thanked them for their time. I knew that this conversation was over and I left.

As I was leaving Amity I got a call at my motel from Thea Brody, “So what did you think of the story?”, she asked.

“Well it’s amazing, except for the exploding shark bit, but there may be something to the story, something deeper.”, I said.

“I hope so, I don’t remember too much about it except for the lady getting killed on the banana boat, but do you think the story has potential or not?”.

“Uhm, yes I guess why?”, I asked.

“Well I’ve been shopping around an idea of selling the story as a movie, or a book, you know make some money on it, what do you think?” she said.

“I don’t know, to be honest I mean selling the legacy of your family is kinda wrong, don’t you think, I mean you did lose an uncle and a grandfather not to mention all of the other people that were killed. But if you have to do it, then I think it could be interesting. Well, the first story with your grandfather was incredible, the second with him and your father was pretty good, but as the story goes on the Sea World chapter seems to have some kind of gimmick, and the last part with your grandmother and an exploding shark, I just can’t see why anyone would make such a movie.”

“Well thanks for being honest with me, hope you get home safe, bye”, she said and with that she hung up.

So to sum up my time in Amity, it was different. Perhaps the Brody’s do have some kind of deep personal aspect that they have to overcome, perhaps there is some evil force at work against them, or perhaps they are trying to make a quick buck in the end, I’m not sure. Read over this and let me know how you want me to proceed, I’ll do as you want with it. See ya soon.

-Prime