Cades Cove 01 - Cades Cove: A Novel of Terror (10 page)

“
Well, I’m not so sure,” he said, determined to keep his personal experiences out of this discussion. “I imagine there are folks like that available. But I doubt they’re in the phone book. Besides, how would we know if they were crackpots or not? I watched a rerun of that show with you, remember? As I recall, the house was still haunted when the camera crews and everybody else were done. I’ll bet that family’s now the butt of every joke in their neighborhood—just like we’d be.”

She frowned.

“
Like I said, I’m not letting this thing take over our house,” he said gently, to reassure her. “If worse comes to worst, I guess we can contact a priest or whoever else to come over and bless the place.”

“
We’re not even catholic, and neither of us has been to church in years. So, how’s
that
supposed to happen?”

Her anxiety worsening, it was obvious she’d already made up her mind that a malicious entity took over their home. Of course, he thought the same thing. He glanced in the rearview mirror where all three kids watched, and then back at his wife’s troubled expression. Sadie sat perched on her lap with a near identical look.

“
All right, you’ve got a point,” he conceded. “But, let’s be careful to not overreact to any of this.”

“
Do you think something followed us home from Tenn-essee?” Miriam asked this as if she considered the idea for the first time. “I mean, the strange experience we had in Cades Cove.... Maybe we weren’t supposed to go to that ravine, David. Don’t you remember the weird look the park ranger gave us when you asked him if he heard of the place?”

“
I think his reaction was based more on his unfamiliarity with the spot,” he countered. “Ned told me not many folks knew about the place, and it sure as hell looked like it when we got there.”

“
Yeah, it did.” She glanced back at the kids.

They all leaned forward in their seats, eager to learn what went on during their parents’ anniversary excursion. She smiled and assured them everything would be fine and not to worry. She returned her gaze to him.

From the look on her face, he could tell what she thought about now: Allie Mae. But he knew she wouldn’t mention the girl from Cades Cove tonight. Not if it meant further frightening their children by giving a possible identity to the unseen menace in their house.

“
Let’s not make any assumptions just yet,” he advised, intending to move her thoughts as far as possible from what happened in Cades Cove.

“
Maybe it’s not from the park itself,” she wondered aloud, and then eyed him, suspicious. “Do you recall hearing a loud ringing sound in the chalet during the last night we were there?”

Shit!
He assumed only he heard the ringing noises that night.

“
I don’t know…maybe it’s what woke me up,” he said, trying to be evasive while his mind sought a new distraction to bring her mind back to Littleton, Colorado and their present situation only. “Remember when I broke the glass in the kitchen? You know I don’t often wake up in the middle of the night, a noise like that might’ve been what did it.”

Her expression changed. Subtle, barely detectable, and he knew she restrained herself for the kids’ benefit rather than his. A small fire ignited in her eyes, and she straightened up in her seat while she held him in her gaze. It was if she could somehow see his mental images of the strange nocturnal events from the last two nights. If only he’d possessed the foresight to dispose of the little cloth bag before they left Gatlinburg...or better yet, never lifted the damned thing out of the ravine’s cool grass in the first place.

“
No, it was earlier than that, David,” she said. “It happened just after you first fell asleep, and the ringing happened twice. I thought about waking you up, but the second ring was weaker and sounded further away than the first ring, like it might’ve come from outside the chalet.”

She continued to eye him intently, and the fact he was unaware of this earlier ringing that night made him feel even more vulnerable. He realized he had to be extremely careful with what he said, as well as what he chose to omit. To escape her stare he turned his attention back to the kids.

“
Did anything unusual happen while your mother and I were gone?”

They all shook their heads ‘no’.

“
Let me rephrase that,” said David, his first question too vague. “Did anything we should know about happen while we were in Tennessee, from Thursday night until we came back this past Sunday afternoon?”

This time, they all glanced at each other, and he noticed Tyler’s stern look to his younger siblings, who appeared to debate silently whether or not to tell their dad some secret.

“
What is it?” He moved his gaze from oldest to youngest, settling on Christopher, who seemed the most nervous. “Tell me what happened, Chris.”

“
Ty broke a window,” he said, his voice a whisper, and looked down at his feet.

“
What??”
This caught David completely caught off guard. “In our house? Which one??”

“
The one in his bedroom.” Christopher glanced up at his older brother, who let out an exasperated sigh.

“
It was an accident, Dad!” Jillian piped in. “Any of us could’ve done it, because we were playing football too close to the house!”

“
I’m sorry,” added Tyler, for the moment refusing to look up, shaking his head in regret.

Normally quick to berate his kids for being careless, this time David refrained from a lecture, having found a perfect detour from the world of shit he was headed towards. As for Tyler’s window, he recalled noticing something odd about it the other night when he investigated the mysterious voice. He smiled a little at the ingenious effort to conceal the window’s damage under the guise of a Halloween decoration.

“
What’s so funny?” asked Miriam, eyeing him curiously.

“
I take it you knew about this?” he asked, his smile turning into a wry smirk.

“
Jan told me when we got home, while you and the boys were taking the luggage upstairs,” she admitted. “Only one pane was actually broken, and two others are cracked. I already called a glass company and they’re supposed to send someone to replace it on Friday. Jan and the kids did a great job covering the hole in the window after it happened. So, as long as the blinds are down, it should keep the outside cold air from getting inside the house.”

She glanced back at the kids while patting Tyler’s knee, who continued to look down at his lap.

“
Something
else
is making the house so cold!” added Jillian.

“
Well, can I count on you three to be more careful next time?” David asked them, his smile widening. “If so, I’m willing to let it count as a learning experience. What do you all say to that?”

Tyler raised his head in surprise. He looked over at his mom and then at his younger brother and sister before returning his gaze to David.

“
Sure, Dad,” he told him, his smile hopeful. “I promise to think before I act next time.”

“
Me, too!” said Jillian, and Christopher echoed her enthusiasm.

“
All right, that’s settled.”

Pleased by the response, David shifted in his seat so he could face everyone. Miriam seemed grateful for how he hand-led this situation. He now understood its importance to everyone, until the more recent unsettling events took precedence.

“
Did anything else happen from the time of the football incident to when your mom and I came home on Sunday?”

“
Nothing happened until Sunday night with Sadie, Dad,” said Jillian. “Remember when we couldn’t find her, and she hid under the bed? And, she wouldn’t come to anyone but Mom? So, Mom said something scared the ‘h’ out of Sadie, and you asked her if she thought we should take Sadie to a vet?”

“
Yes, sweetie, we all remember.”

David chuckled at how his daughter turned into a motor-mouth when she got excited. Tyler had once been like that, and Christopher would go through this stage someday. His eldest son’s concerned voice snapped him out of his moment of nostalgia.

“
Sadie’s been acting pretty weird ever since,” added Tyler.

He seemed less upset than earlier. David hoped that after going easy on the window incident it would help Tyler confide in him more.

“
Anything else from Sunday?”

They all said ‘no’.

“
How about you, babe?” he asked Miriam.

“
Nothing I can think of,” she said. “The next thing, I believe, was on Monday afternoon when Jill heard the knocking upstairs.”

David felt relieved that nobody else heard the eerie voice and laughter Sunday night. He finished writing Miriam’s observations down on the pad when Jillian spoke up.

“
Do you remember how my room got really cold, and all of a sudden Grandma’s dresser started shaking?” she reminded her mom. “It rose into the air and then slammed back down on the floor!”

David frowned and looked over at Miriam, momentarily forgetting his own white lies while ready to admonish her for this omission.

“
I should’ve told you about it,” she confessed. “But after neither of the boys could confirm the knocks and the loud slam against Jill’s door, I honestly didn’t know what to think. Sorry about that, sweetheart.”

She reached back to where Jillian sat and gently clasped her hand. Jillian squeezed her mother’s hand tight.

“
Are you boys sure you didn’t hear or see anything unusual yesterday afternoon?”

“
No, Dad, we didn’t,” said Tyler, after a brief glance at Christopher, who confirmed this by mouthing ‘no’ again.

“
So, there’s nothing else from yesterday or last night.”

“
Oops, Daddy, I just remembered something,” said Christopher. “Sadie was acting really strange when Jill and I came home from school yesterday. It was my turn to take her outside, but she acted like she might’ve had an accident somewhere in the house. I never found any dog poop or pee, but she whined a lot when I checked the dining room.”

“
Sadie’s not been herself since we got back from Tennessee,” added Miriam, stroking Sadie’s neck while she sat contented in her lap. “You know, they say animals can see and sense things we can’t. Isn’t that right, ‘baby girl’?”

The dog looked up at her face in response to the coddling. Sadie licked Miriam’s hand with her tongue and then cast a brief glance toward David that made him wonder if the dog even had any idea what they discussed. Miriam looked up in time to see his smirk widening.

“
Don’t be surprised if she’s the only one who really knows what’s going on,” she chided.

“
Hopefully it won’t come to that,” he said, the smirk replaced by a more serious look as he considered what they discussed so far. “I guess that’s it for Monday. What about earlier today?”

“
Something happened to Ty that really upset him,” said Miriam, patting Tyler on his knee once more. “But, he has yet to tell anyone about it.”

“
He was shaking when Chris and I got home!” added Jillian, not realizing her tone was closer to exuberance than concern. Tyler scowled in response.

David turned to face him better, and he immediately looked out the side window closest to him, likely embarrassed from being so scared earlier.

“
Tell me what happened, son.”

Tyler shook his head, defiant, and continued to stare out the window. Under the glow from a nearby street lamp, his eyes welled up and his chin quivered.

“
I suppose it can wait until another time.”

David reached back to grasp Tyler’s shoulder as a show of his affection and support. Tyler didn’t remove his gaze from the window, but nodded that he preferred to wait.

“
Jill called me soon after she and Chris got home,” said Miriam. “I rushed home after getting Eileen to take my last two appointments—I owe her lunch twice in the next week, since she did it for me yesterday too.”

“
That’s when the noises in the ceiling started!” said Jillian, taking advantage of her mom’s sidetrack and obviously enjoy-ing the attention.

“
Actually, it didn’t really get going until about twenty minutes after I got home,” said Miriam, shooting a wry look at Jillian for always wanting to be the story teller in the family. “Everyone was sitting on the sofa. I could tell from the look on Ty’s face that he was really upset about something, and Jill and Chris were trying to get him to talk about it. Maybe if I had enough time I could’ve gotten him to tell me what happened. But no sooner than I made a cup of hot cocoa for him and brought it into the living room, the noises started. They were subtle at first.”

She paused to look out the passenger window, as if afraid the unseen menace now lurked somewhere nearby. .

“
That was the calm before the storm,” she resumed, turning to look at him. “Loud crashes followed, like somebody picked up our bed and dresser and slammed them onto the floor upstairs. You should’ve seen us then. We all huddled on the couch, crying like babies.”

Her mouth began to quiver and she folded her arms tight across her chest. David sought to comfort her, along with Jillian and Christopher. Tyler seemed far too focused on being a brave man to provide any relief to them.