Cades Cove 01 - Cades Cove: A Novel of Terror (47 page)

He removed her shoes to keep her from kicking him with the sharp heel tips and pointed toes, throwing them to his brother to hold for safekeeping while he showed him ‘the only way to tame a back-talkin’ slut like this-un’.

“
Now, ain’t that better?” he told her once he straddled her torso to where she couldn’t move.

“
Let me go, goddamn ya, ya fuckin’ snake!”

“
O-o-oh! I like a gal with some fight in ‘er!” He grabbed her arms near the wrists and held them fast to the ground. He bent his face down to hers.

“
Don’t do it, Billy Ray!” said Zachariah. “She’s mine—not yers!”

“
Ya disgust me!
Ow-w-w!!”
She howled in pain as he tightened his grip on her wrists. “Make him stop, Zach!
Ah-h-h!! Stop
hurtin’ me!!”

Zachariah moved over to where they struggled on the ground, but seemed unsure what to do next. He circled the spot where they lay, pleading for him to get off her. Disgusted with the younger Hobson’s response, David ran over and tried to knock Billy Ray over. But the mysterious force prevented him from so much as grazing his body, though he turned his head in David’s direction.

Allie looked toward him and whimpered, as if aware he couldn’t save her. To Billy Ray it appeared she looked instead at the flowers strewn near her head.

“
What’s this, I see?” he asked, turning to his brother for an answer when she refused to give one.

“
It’s my present from her,” said Zachariah, bending down to pick them up. Billy Ray stopped him.

“
It wasn’t what ya was hopin’ for when we went to all this trouble earlier tonight, now was it?” He pointed at the bench they created and back toward the tree where Zachariah had carved her name. “I’ve got somethin’ right proper in mind for em in a ‘lil while.”

“
Let me go!”
Allie Mae squirmed more aggressively to free herself.

“
Hold still ya goddamned bitch!” he hissed in irritation.

Billy Ray slapped her hard across the face, and when she shrieked again he slapped her harder, pulling her bonnet off and shoving it inside her mouth. That act finally got his younger brother moving, to stand up like a man and rescue his beloved.

Zachariah grabbed him from behind by the shoulders. Slighter in build, he succeeded in lifting his brother off Allie Mae. But only for a moment. Billy Ray turned and slugged him in the gut, causing him to fall backward. Zachariah’s head landed hard on a thick protruding root from another, much older oak. With blood trickling down the side of his face, he lay motionless. Horrified, Allie Mae screamed, while David went over to check on him. He couldn’t get close enough to be sure, but he thought Zachariah still breathed. Definitely unconscious.

“
Ya killed him, ya bastard!! Ya murderer!!!”
she shrieked after spitting the bonnet out of her mouth.

Billy Ray secured her under his weight once more, shrugging his shoulders in indifference. He laughed and tore open her dress, ripping away her brassiere to expose her breasts. She fought harder, which made the leering smile on his face broaden.

“
Get off me! Yer
hurtin’
me!!
Please
...
let… GO!!!”

Shocked and mortified for her, David tried to attack him again, screaming at him to leave her alone. He managed to knock Billy Ray’s hat off and he saw the goose flesh rise on the back of his neck. But it only made him briefly look behind him while he squeezed Allie’s breasts with his rough and dirty hands.

“
Yer goddamned spirits can watch if they’re so inclined,” he told her. “But one way or another yer givin’ me what I’ve come for!”

She continued to squirm while he pressed his face down onto her right breast. He pulled up her gown forcefully, ripping her undergarments free and throwing them toward the woods. All the while David tried to rescue her, desperately pushing his body against the invisible force to where the charged warmth became a fiery burn too painful for him to endure. She seemed to see him through her tears, sobbing while she pled for Billy Ray to stop his assault.

He shoved her legs apart, and then eyed the small bunch of lilacs and honeysuckles lying next to her head. He chuckled gleefully as he picked up the flowers with one hand while securing both of her wrists with his other. He then brought them between her legs and wiped them around her sex. When he started shoving them inside, a worse look of horror appeared on her face. Powerful rage swept through her and she managed to free her wrists from his grip. With her left hand she raked four fingernails against the tender spot just below the right side of his jaw.

“
Get the fuck off me!!”

David desperately sought to help lift her attacker to where she could slide out from under him. Again repelled, this time the invisible force sent him flying down into the stream.

Billy Ray howled in pain, grabbing at her fingers while blood oozed freely from his wounds. Enraged as much as she, he slammed her arm down against the ground. A soft crunch and snap announced it fractured on impact.

“
Someone please help me!! He’s goin’ to kill me!!!”

“
Shut the hell up, bitch!!”
Billy Ray roared at her.
“Or, I’ll kill ya now!!!”

She ignored his threat and screamed even louder. He warned her once more, and when she wouldn’t quiet down, he began to pound her face with his fists. David had managed to climb back onto the bank, his clothing soaked. The left side of Allie Mae’s face bloodied from the blows from Billy Ray’s hand, she looked at David to her right, openly begging him to save her. But he couldn’t. The force that had stopped him before crackled with intense energy and extended to the edge of the bank’s slope. He could only watch helplessly.

“
Who are ya callin’ to?” asked Billy Ray, sarcastic, following her gaze to David. “I told ya to shut the hell up!” He leered in David’s direction, until his gaze fell on a sharp pointed rock protruding from the ground a few feet away.

“
Let’s see if yer spirits can save ya from this!” he said menacingly, again securing her wrists with one hand while he dug out the rock.

David’s heart dropped when he realized Billy Ray’s intent. The force remained impenetrable. He fell to his knees on the bank, crying while he pleaded for Billy Ray to stop.

As if he could hear this, the fiend looked over at him one last time and smiled. Then he turned his attention back to Allie Mae, whose eyes followed the course of the heavy, sharp-pointed rock he wielded above his head. She screamed again as he brought it down onto her mouth. Muffled cries followed as crushed teeth and torn tissues fell inside her open throat. Again and again he brought down the rock, and once it smashed into her left eye socket she quit moving. Billy Ray added a few more blows for good measure, and each delivered on Allie Mae’s left side, away from David. When finished, he casually tossed the rock, barely missing David’s head as it flew by and fell into the stream. The waning bubbles announced its arrival at the bottom of the streambed. But the evil intentions of her attacker weren’t finished. To David’s horror, after loosening his belt and removing his trousers, Billy Ray savagely raped the corpse.

David looked away, unwilling to witness the continued violence and grunts from this man who so closely resembled him physically. He laid on the edge of the ravine’s bank weeping until something nudged him. Fearing Billy Ray would be leering down at him, he was grateful to find him gone. Allie Mae’s corpse lay a few feet from away, and in the lantern’s soft glow he saw Zachariah begin to stir next to the other oak.

The pasted streaks on David’s hands nearly undetectable, they had smeared and been washed away during his struggle to save her life and his subsequent dousing in the stream. His watch, waterproof and still attached to his wrist, showed the time as12:48 a.m. Allie Mae’s passing must have been around twelve-thirty. He stood up and carefully pressed his hands forward. The mysterious force had receded, undetectable until he neared her body. He wondered now if her spirit had just touched him and worried what would come next. Billy Ray reappeared at the top of the ravine carrying a pair of shovels.

“
We best move quickly,” he said to Zachariah, after he returned to where the corpse lay while his younger brother struggled to his feet.

“
What the hell have ya done??”
Zachariah cried out once he saw Allie Mae’s violated and violently torn body lying nearby. He immediately ran over to her side, gathering her body in his arms, his sobs heartrending.

“
Ain’t no time for cryin’ over her, Zach!” responded Billy Ray, harshly. “If she hadn’t broke yer heart and put up such a fight just now, she’d be all right. But, once a bitch n’ whore, always a bitch n’ whore!”

He pointed to the wounds along his neck, which still bled.

“
Goddamn ya, Billy Ray!!”
shrieked Zachariah.

He laid Allie’s body back on the ground and ran over to his brother, pummeling his back and shoulder with his fists. The older Hobson easily subdued his weaker sibling, gripping his wrists with enough force to bring him to his knees. Zachariah howled in pain and crumpled to the ground, wailing loudly from his grief.

“
Yer goin’ to hang for this!!”
he screamed.
“Sheriff Thompson’s goin’ to see to it once I tell ‘em what you’ve done!!!”

“
You’ll do no such thing!” retorted Billy Ray. “What do ya think he’d say when I tell em’ how ya helped me kill Marshall Tillis? Once I show him where ole Marshall’s buried behind Blake Casper’s place? Hmmm??”

His smile pompous, he brought the edge of one of the shovels close to his brother’s face. Zachariah continued to sob, but he heeded his brother’s threat and got back on his feet. He reluctantly took the other shovel from him and picked up the lantern, casting another sorrowful glance at Allie Mae’s lifeless form. He followed Billy Ray as he moved toward the woods on the other side of the bench. David crept close behind as far as the mysterious protective force would allow, causing Zachariah to look over his shoulder several times.

“
Pay no attention to her conjured spirits,” said Billy Ray, moving toward the darkened woods across from the ravine. “Foller me over to where we found the makin’s for yer bench. There’s a hole we can use to bury her.”

Just a few feet beyond the tree line lay a shallow depression in the ground, where the stone slab unearthed that night had been. Since only a foot or so below the surface, the two set out to make it deeper. But after digging into the soil a few inches, the tips of their shovels met repeated resistance, the earth refusing penetration into the thick clay.

They argued about what to do next; whether to dig a hole someplace else or to make due with the one they had. With Zachariah rapidly loosing his nerve, Billy Ray made the decision to bury the body here in this spot, stating that no one in the community would come looking for Allie Mae before sunrise.

They retrieved her corpse and carried it to the hole, picking up her shoes and other clothing as well as the remaining stems from the strewn bouquet. They placed the corpse and everything else inside the hole and began covering it all with dirt. Zachariah noticed something glistening in the dirt, near the hole’s edge. He reached down and picked it up, and as it glistened in the lantern’s glow, Billy Ray snatched it from his grasp.

“
Well I’ll be fucked!” he declared, examining the oval object in his hand.

David drew as close as he could to see what he held. The precious stone, a sapphire, appeared polished, though covered in a film from many years under the earth’s surface.

“‘
Anythin’ else in there?”

Billy Ray dropped to his knees and dug his hands around the body while Zachariah stood by, grimacing. He pushed aside the body, throwing its limbs back as his fingers probed the soil. He soon recovered a handful of other non-faceted gems: a deeper purple stone, another green and red, and one with a yellowish tint that David guessed to be either topaz, or the off-color diamonds the region known for. Billy Ray lifted the corpse up and shook it, perhaps thinking the jewels were Allie Mae’s and had been hidden in her garments, but only trickled blood fell from the body that had grown cold and stiff since her death.

He tossed her aside and dug his hands even deeper, recovering several more gemstones. When at last he could find nothing else, he stood up.

“
We ain’t got time to look for more tonight,” he said, after placing the gems inside his trousers’ front pocket. “‘Looks like we might’ve found ourselves some treasure!”

He picked up the corpse and threw it back down in the hole, Allie Mae’s limbs twisted grotesquely. Zachariah grimaced after seeing her mutilated face in the lantern’s glow again.

“
So are ya just goin’ to leave her here?” he asked sadly, his eyes swollen from tears.

“
Yep. But not like this,” replied Billy Ray. “Lay yer shovel down and come with me.”

They moved back to where the bench sat. With tremendous strain, the two lifted the immense stone slab and carried it back to the hole. Billy Ray’s strength amazed David, since it appeared the slab weighed upward of three hundred pounds and Zachariah provided little help in sharing the burden as they moved it back into the woods. When they arrived at the hole, Billy Ray guided his brother in positioning the slab directly over its original spot. Then they dropped it, crushing the corpse beneath.