Cades Cove 01 - Cades Cove: A Novel of Terror (27 page)

“
All I know is what you know, man,” said Norm. “I didn’t even know her first name until I heard you and Miriam call her ‘Allie Mae’ in your recent discussions. Of course, it’s the name on the little bag that now bears my blood.”

“
Well, at least tell me what she looks like?” All he had to go by were fragments from his dream and the phantom images in the photographs recently taken. What Chris saw only confirmed the dress color Tyler told Janice about. David feared he might not recognize the spirit if he saw her. Certainly, Norm had seen her up close, given the sexual nature of the detectives’ questions on Friday.

“
Do you really want to know that?” Norm asked, sighing sadly.

David became aware the apparition had stood up. His eyes now adjusted to the dimness, he saw Norm’s shadowed head blocking the faint outline of the lamp above the table. Brushing sounds on the carpet foretold that Norm shuffled toward him.

“
It might be better to simply show you how she left me, since I have to stay like this forever unless you’re successful,” he advised, continuing to approach the bed. “Go ahead and turn on the light.”

David now hesitated, fearing what he might see, and preferring the mental picture of Norm he had in his head: vivacious and stunningly handsome, with a smile worth far more than all the monetary wealth he accumulated since graduating from law school thirteen years ago. To allow anything other than that image become permanent in his mind wasn’t something he wished to consider.

“
Go ahead and do it!” urged Norm. “Do it before I lose my nerve to go through with this!”

He stood before the bed. In the sparse illumination provided by the bathroom’s light David could see part of a bare leg and the tails of the lavender dress shirt Norm wore the last time he saw him alive. He reached over and flicked on his bedside lamp and then looked back at the figure as the darkness instantly vanished in a wash of soft light filling the room.

“
Oh my God!”
David muttered in horror.

Norm appeared just as Allie Mae left him, impaled upon the fountain’s ornamental tip. His dress slacks and boxers were still pulled down around his ankles, though not visible to David at the moment. The purple hard-on still pulsed, throbbing as if the blackish bruises from Allie Mae’s hand still had a firm grip on it. But that wasn’t the worst. Norm’s midsection had a gaping hole where blood seeped from, trickling down his dress shirt and legs.

“
Look at me, David, and remember what you see!”
cried Norm, his pearly white teeth stained from the blood thrust of his mortal injury. His face ghastly white, his brilliant blue eyes had turned pale gray. “Think of this the next time you’re curious about what
she
looks like!”

He moved around the bed and shuffled closer to him.

“
Can she be gorgeous? Hell, yes! But know also she’s the most hideous creature you or me will ever lay eyes on! Something happened long ago to change her beauty, and whatever that thing is still lurks within her. When it’s active, you don’t want an up-close view of her face. How much better it’d be for you to behold Medusa’s face instead!”

Aghast, David pushed himself to the other side of the bed, finding it near impossible to move.

“
Take a good
long
look!” Norm told him, leaning over the bed. The trickling blood from his midsection became a gushing rush that poured out onto the bed, splashing up against David as he tried to escape.
“Don’t you dare forget what you see now and what we discussed tonight!!”

Closer and closer he came. David began to whimper, trying to curl up and away from the encroaching corpse of his dearest friend aside from Miriam. Norm reached out and grabbed David’s leg with his hand, sending an icy chill that radiated up through his entire body. He screamed….

And then woke up in the darkness of his suite at the Residence Inn. In a panic, he reached over and turned on the lamp next to his bedside, nearly toppling the digital alarm clock to the floor. The clock read 2:01 a.m. Relieved to find himself alone, the soft light from the lamp filled his entire room. No blood on the bed, or anywhere else. No sign of Norm either. The only things different from when he retired an hour earlier: his bedspread, which now hung mostly off the bed and probably a byproduct of the nightmare, and the curtain behind the table next to the heater. The curtain was drawn shut.

Chapter Twenty-six

David’s flight on Southwest Air didn’t actually leave the ground until 5:13 p.m. Sunday evening. Happy to get a window seat near the front of the aircraft, “Allie Mae’s Treasures” lay safely hidden from view inside his briefcase. Worried it might disappear again, he checked several times to make sure it hadn’t. Once the plane cleared the rough turbulent winds DIA is known for, he tried to relax, staring absently out the window while he reflected on his day so far. Breakfast was a somber affair, although Norm’s kin from Mississippi were glad to see him and Miriam again. They spent much of the time reminiscing about Norm’s antics as a younger man, since his family didn’t see him much after he became a busy and successful corporate lawyer.

Grateful for his wife’s presence at the service that followed, it gave David the strength to walk up to the podium where he spoke of the special bond he shared with Norm. Not a dry eye in the cathedral by the time he finished, Miriam grasped his hand once he returned to his seat, squeezing it tightly while whispering her love for him.

Afterward, she drove him to the airport. They held each other tight for nearly ten minutes at the security checkpoint and then David got in line, waving to her one last time before she walked away with her head lowered, her long dark hair covering her face as she cried.

The plane landed in Chattanooga at 9:25 p.m. After collecting his luggage and rent-a-car he drove to the eastern outskirts of Chattanooga where his aunt resided. He regretted not calling her ahead of time when he remembered she often retired early.

He parked his rented Buick LeSabre in her short driveway and headed up the steps to her craftsman cottage built in the early 1930s. A scraggly pussy willow tree to his left brought back memories of painful whippings he received as a child, courtesy of the tree’s wands. He peered in through the window closest to the front door before ringing the doorbell. Sitting in an overstuffed chair next to her television set, his Aunt Ruth knitted an afghan on her lap. She arose from her chair once the doorbell rang, with her cocker spaniel named Max at her side barking.

“
Why David, what a surprise!” Her face lit up once she saw him standing on her front porch. Max continued to bark, unfamiliar with his scent. He hadn’t seen the dog since a puppy, roughly twelve years ago. “Come on inside!”

She opened the door and let him in, pushing Max behind her with her leg while scolding the dog to behave.

“
Have you eaten dinner yet? I can throw together some soup and cornbread for you, if you’re interested in having any?”

“
Actually, I’ve already eaten, Auntie,” he lied, hoping his growling stomach didn’t give him away. “I’m sorry to stop by so late. I just flew into town on business, and thought I’d come and see you since it’s been awhile.”

“
Why, I believe it’s been almost four years since my trip to see you and Miriam in Denver,” she agreed, shaking her head. “We shouldn‘t go so long between visits, don’t you know!”

“
I agree, Auntie,” he said, thinking ‘she’s right’ but also grateful for the reprieve.

He looked around from where he stood, noticing she had changed the wallpaper in the dining room, besides adding the new HDTV in the living room. Still, to him the house reeked from being the source for most of his unpleasant childhood memories. His aunt had lived in the house for most of her life. Much of the past twenty years spent alone, her husband died six months before David graduated from college. Before then, the house belonged to his grandfather, for whom he harbored deep resentment.

“
Let me take your coat, David, and you can join me in the living room,” she said.

She hung his coat next to the front door and he followed her into the living room, where she motioned for him to sit on the couch. She moved back into her armchair, setting her needlework aside. Though some new pieces had been added in recent years, the room carried the same early American style he remembered from his youth.

“
It’s so
good
to see you, son!” she told him. “How long are you here in Chattanooga?”

“
I won’t be staying here,” said David. “My business meetings are up in Gatlinburg. But since I hadn’t visited down here with you in awhile, I decided to fly to Chattanooga and then drive up to my hotel room in Pigeon Forge tonight.”

A mixture of truth and lie he thought he could live with, since telling her anything about his true purpose and intentions would only lead to unending questions and opinions he could live without. Besides, if she had any inkling he and Miriam vacationed in Tennessee just over a week ago, it would crush her.

“
Well, this is
so
nice!” she said, touched by his thoughtful gesture. The dagger piercing his guilty heart twisted in further. “But that’s a long drive, David…. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay here with me tonight and then make the trip up to Gatlinburg first thing in the morning, when you’ve got the benefit of daylight? I’ve got a spare bedroom upstairs, don’t you know!”

She looked so frail and vulnerable, and for a moment he seriously considered her offer. Ruth Guarnie′r was a slender, handsome woman, even as she rapidly approached seventy, with kind deep brown eyes. If not for the multitude of fine lines on her forehead and the long silvery hair pulled up tightly behind her head, she could’ve passed for someone twenty years younger. But he could tell the onset of serious arthritis made it difficult for her to get about these days. Having Max certainly made things less lonely, yet David knew she relished the opportunity to visit with another human being—especially her own flesh and blood.

“
I can stay for half an hour or so, Auntie,” he said, hating himself for the disappointment he saw in her face. “My room’s already guaranteed, so I’ll have to show up there sometime tonight. At least by three in the morning.”

“
Well, if you feel tired, I want you to strongly consider staying here until tomorrow,” she said, her countenance lighting up again. “You can count on the finest country breakfast at daybreak, too!”

“
That’s a mighty tempting proposition.”

Unable to keep from smiling, he always loved that about her. Hell, if she had protected him from those who liked to hurt him as a boy, he knew they’d enjoy a much better relationship now. But he couldn’t help linking her to his painful past…. Maybe she should move. If she left this house filled with painful memories behind, he might see her differently.

“
I have an eight o’clock meeting tomorrow morning, where I need to deliver a presentation,” he told her. He pictured himself handing the bag to a park ranger or someone else behind a desk at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park headquarters.

“
Well, okay, then.” She adjusted herself in the chair, grim-acing slightly. “Damned bones!” she said, her tone a mixture of playfulness and irritation. “Gettin’ old should just be reserved for tax collectors and Republicans!”

“
I can see why you’d think that,” he said, chuckling and feeling more at ease in her presence. He thought of some photographs Miriam wanted her to have. “I’ll be right back, Auntie!” he told her, getting up from the couch and running outside to his car.

Max rose from her side to run after him, barking from the porch while he retrieved the pictures from his briefcase. Under the LaSabre’s dome light, the bloodstained surface of the bag seemed brighter and fresh. He shuddered and made himself look away, slamming the passenger door shut before racing back up the steps to the bungalow’s front door. He dodged inside, hoping Max’s territorial moxie would ward off anything that tried to follow him inside his aunt’s home.

“
Well, what have you got there?” asked Ruth, when David returned to the living room.

“
Miriam wanted me to give these to you.” He handed her the pictures and sat down on the couch again.

“
My, oh, my have the kids
grown!
” she enthused, after viewing the first few photographs. “Chris looks more and more like you, David, and I think Jill’s going to be as beautiful as her momma when she’s all grown up—with lighter hair, of course!”

When she got to Tyler’s picture she paused to study it, seemingly surprised by what she saw.

“
Boy is that child a Hobbs or what!”

“
You should see how the girls his age react around him.” He smiled proudly.

“
His age? Honey, I think you better keep a good eye out for a teacher or two who might stray where they shouldn’t!” Ruth looked back at the photo, examining it more closely. She started to say something else, but didn’t. Instead she placed the pictures on a small drum table near her chair. “Well, you be sure to tell Miriam how much I appreciate her thinking of me like this!”

“
I definitely will, Auntie.”

“
You did say you’re heading to Pigeon Forge tonight, didn’t you?” She wore the same look she had a moment before when she studied Tyler’s most recent school photo.