Cades Cove 01 - Cades Cove: A Novel of Terror (39 page)

“
It would be best to ignore her, as if she were indeed a spoiled little girl,” added John, turning up the television.

David tried to ignore the spirit’s antics, but difficult to do when loud scraping sounds joined the knocks, spreading across the ceiling from all corners, similar to what he experienced at home in Littleton. Nonchalant, John flipped through the channels on the TV, as if only light raindrops assaulted the roof.

“
You’ll survive this,” he told David, noticing his wary gaze remained fixed on the ceiling. “You were destined at sometime in your life to encounter the spirit, and she has waited long for this. The Great Spirit has allowed it so. It doesn’t mean she’ll win. Not if your spirit remains strong.” He offered an assuring smile.

A loud thud on the roof followed his words, and the overhead brass light fixture began to sway. David instinctively ducked away, feeling John’s assurance drain away while he expected a splintered hole to appear above him. For now, the logs and split beams held up.

“
We need a better distraction.” John started flipping through the channels again. He found a movie on HBO that David said was a decent flick, having seen it last year at a theatre with Miriam.

Soon the other activity waned, and by eight o’clock the noises ceased. Shawn lay asleep at John’s feet, and David stood up to stretch. He suddenly thought about Miriam, and realized she didn’t have John’s number, should she need to contact him for any reason.

He removed his cell phone from his belt clip. The ‘no service’ symbol lit up on the phone’s display. He recalled having two bars of signal strength when he drove up the gravel road to John’s cabin earlier, but he sure as hell wasn’t about to step outside to see if the reception got better.

“
Call her on my phone,” offered John, after David disgustedly put his phone back on its clip. “I’ve got free nationwide long distance, or so says the bill insert I get every month.” He pointed to where his landline phone sat, in a small cove next to the refrigerator.

“
Thanks, John.”

David stood and walked over to it. Miriam said something about her and the kids moving back into their house today, so he tried that number first. The line crackled and hummed as it rang, and after four rings he got the voicemail. He tried it again and got the same thing. Since it was just after six o’clock in Littleton, he wondered if they’d gone out for dinner. But when he got the same noise and Miriam’s voicemail each time he tried her cell phone, he started to worry. He chided himself for overreacting until he tried Janice’s townhouse and cell numbers.

After two attempts on each, David called John over to him, his hand holding the phone’s receiver…shaking. John took it from him, and his sullen expression told David he heard the same thing. The shrill garbled noise grew loud enough to force him to pull the receiver away from his ear, and then they both heard a high-pitch cackle resounding from the receiver followed by a dial tone.

Panicked, David grabbed the phone back from John, dialing frantically despite the continuous fast busy. John’s worried look only made things worse, revealing they shared a mutual conclusion: Miriam and the kids were in real danger.

Allie Mae returned to Colorado.

Chapter Thirty-four

“
Mom says dinner will be ready in five minutes!” Jillian peered inside Tyler’s bedroom to make her announcement.

“
Tell her I’ll be right down after I wash this stuff off my face,” said Tyler, shooing his sister out of the haven he had reclaimed less than thirty minutes earlier.

Jillian frowned but heeded her brother’s wishes, disappearing into the hallway. He listened as she limped down the stairs to the main floor, feeling a tad bit guilty for being so harsh. He lingered a moment in his room, rubbing his fingers over the smooth plaster that filled the holes around his once-torn window frame. The new window still bore the sales sticker, which he chose to leave on until Dad returned home from Tennessee. Mom told him earlier today he could paint his room in any color he wanted, and she’d help him do it sometime next week.

“
Why don’t you wait until after dinner to wash your face, son, so I can help you with your sling?” Miriam called to him from the bottom of the stairs. She wore an apron and carried a spatula in her hand. “Besides, cabbage rolls are better while they’re hot!”

“
It’ll just take a few minutes, Mom—I’ll be fine!” he called back to her from the hallway, grabbing a face towel from the linen closet next to the main bathroom. “This stuff’s really starting to itch!”

Going on six o’clock, Miriam told him if it took longer than fifteen minutes they’d start eating without him. Tyler flipped on the bathroom light and stepped inside. When he caught his reflection in the mirror, he smiled. Christopher and Jillian had been right: he did look like the real thing, ‘The Hulk’. Even though the green makeup had begun to crack and the black circles around his eyes now smeared, he looked frightful. The sling on his right shoulder made a weird contrast to the costume covering his left shoulder and arm. He flexed his fake Hulk arm muscles and roared at his reflection, forcing as much malice as he could muster. Good to be frightful instead of fearful, he did it again and again, until Jillian called from downstairs to remind him the clock was ticking.

“
All right, all right—I’m hurrying!”

He looked at himself again, unhappy at the thought he’d have to go through this process of getting dressed up in costume two more times, once on Sunday for the Benson’s Halloween Party and then again on Halloween night. It meant he had to be careful with the costume and wig, and getting either item wet probably wasn’t a good idea.

He sighed as he trudged back to his bedroom, where he removed the wig and gingerly slipped out of the arm and shoulder cover that Miriam altered from the original full torso ‘Hulk’ suit. He then returned to the bathroom.

As he stepped inside, he noticed the tiled floor seemed cold under his socked feet and the air much cooler than a moment ago. Since it made him think about what happened last week, he hurried to loosen the sling and set it on the counter next to the sink. Doing things one-handed had gotten easier for him. He grabbed his foaming face wash from the toiletry bag he had yet to unpack and turned on the faucet, letting hot water run in the sink until misty heat rose into the air. When warm enough to wash his face he glanced into the mirror.

Tyler gasped, wanting to run out of the bathroom but unable to move. The bathroom door closed slowly. As it did, he saw the highlights from a beautiful head of strawberry-blond hair, hanging down in soft ringlets on a Victorian-style blue dress similar to what he once saw on display in a Central City boutique.

“
Hello, again, Zachariah-h-h!”

The hollow voice was thick and sultry.

He tried to speak, but only a low guttural sound came out. His legs felt like they might give way as he watched the form move up closer in the mirror’s reflection. The voice the same one he heard three days earlier, where it emanated from hard to say. It couldn’t be from the girl’s face, because there wasn’t one. A dark shadow floated where her head should be, eerily surrounded by her shimmering hair. Like a China doll the skin on her arms and hands ashen, as well as her exposed neckline.

“
I see you’ve missed me.” She moved up closer from behind. The cold air dampened the steam rising from the sink’s basin.

He began to whimper, hyperventilating in panic. Clad only in jeans and a T-shirt, he shivered as the icy presence pressed up against his back. His visible shallow breaths lightly touched the mirror’s glass.

“
Please…just go
away!”
he pleaded, his lips quivering. “Go
AWAY!!”

“
Not without ya, my love,” she replied, her words a frigid whisper as she crept up to where her shadowed face came within an inch of his right ear.

Painful shivers raced down his spine, and taut gooseflesh covered every exposed area on his body. He could’ve given in right then, hopelessly trapped in the upstairs’ bathroom with this thing, this malevolent entity who had shown she wasn’t only capable of inflicting great injury but could also take life if she desired. No one had to tell him that she killed his dad’s best friend, Norm Sowell. He knew it. He knew it if for no other reason than the police coming by twice since last Friday to ask questions about Norm and her. Was he next on her list? On the verge of succumbing to his dire terror, something stirred within him, rising rapidly until it raged as a violent eruption from his throat.

“
DAMN IT, BITCH, GO AWAY, I SAID!”

He forced himself to turn and face her, flailing his available arm violently in her direction. His fist sliced through air icier than the breath on the back of his neck, but connected with nothing. He lost his balance and crashed into the bathroom doorknob, reopening one of the stitched cuts on his hand before he collapsed on the floor. His collarbone throbbed angrily while some of the stitches along his back also broke open.

“
Go away! Just go away
…
please!”
he sobbed.
“Go away and leave me the hell alone!”

Curled upon the floor, he buried his face into his healthy shoulder, refusing to look at her. He heard the bathroom door creak open and someone grabbed him from behind.

“
NO-O-O!!!”
he shrieked.

“
Ty, it’s okay!” Miriam gathered her son in her arms while looking warily around her. “I’ve got you, baby! It’s me, your mom!!”

Tyler turned his face toward her, looking anxiously around the bathroom.

“
It was her, Mom! She was in
here!!”

His entire body trembled and Miriam brought him close to her chest to comfort him. Meanwhile, the condensation near the top of the bathroom mirror began to freeze, forming an icy film that progressively descended toward the sink.

Janice arrived from downstairs, just as Miriam stood up and moved over to the sink to shut the faucet off. She grabbed a washcloth and dabbed it in the water still warm, and then moved back to Tyler, cleansing the blood from the torn stitches. She helped him back to his feet.

“
Get your clothes back on, son,” she told him softly, but at the same time urgent, handing him the sweatshirt he wore earlier while casting another distrustful glance around her. Janice stood in the doorway. “Go get Jill and Chris, Jan. We’re leaving!”

Miriam helped Tyler walk out of the bathroom. The bathtub curtain began to sway and the plastic rings that secured it to its pole rattled loudly. She let out a startled yelp, pulling the door shut behind her to keep whatever was there inside the bathroom. She helped Tyler move quickly to the stairs. As they reached the stairway the bathroom door swung open, the doorknob slamming loudly into the bathroom wall.

“
Mommy what’s happening!”
cried Christopher.

He and Jillian huddled together at the bottom of the stairs.

“
Grab your coats!
Now!!”

Miriam nudged Tyler to go down the stairs with Janice’s assistance. Before she followed, something blocked the hall light behind her. The shadow caused Janice to look up. Her eyes grew wide and she almost lost her footing on the stairs.

“
Look out, Mom—she’s coming for you!!”
shrieked Jillian, pulling away from Christopher to rush to her aid. She grimaced, as her hip locked up on her.

Christopher trembled where he stood, watching the malformed shadow descend upon them.

“
No, Jill, just run!”
screamed Miriam.
“Everybody run and get out of here!”

A loud rustling noise followed Miriam’s screams to her children. Once Janice reached the floor, she helped Jillian hop over to the front door while Tyler and Chris fumbled with the doorknob to get it open, Just before Miriam reached them with the immense shadow right behind her, Janice threw the door open. She and the kids hurried outside, and as they turned to look from the front lawn, Miriam tumbled through the doorway and landed hard on the porch. The porch lights flickered while the front door began to close. Then the lights grew bright again, and the door crept fully open.

Not waiting for what might pursue them, they all ran, crying hysterically as they scrambled into the minivan. Nearly hitting one of the aspens in the front yard, Miriam guided the careening vehicle down the driveway before racing along LeClair Drive toward Janice’s side of the subdivision.

A cackling shriek erupted from the porch, its shrill echo piercing the suburban stillness. A shadowy mist drifted down the steps to the driveway. Leaving the house unattended with the door wide open and most of the lights on, the mist rose into the air where it soon followed the course of the minivan. The line of popping streetlights as they exploded charted the mist’s path as it sped toward Janice Andrews’ townhouse.

Chapter Thirty-five

“
Hello??”

The voice sounded anxious.

“
Miriam?”

For a moment, David didn’t recognize her. He had frantically dialed Littleton for the past half-hour until the tips of his fingers grew numb.