Cades Cove 01 - Cades Cove: A Novel of Terror (13 page)

“
Hey, do you mind if I call you back later? Mary’s at my door trying to get my attention, so it must be important.”

“
That’s fine. I’ll talk to you then.

Mary Lavoi stood on the other side of her office door window, waving three large tan envelopes containing x-rays Miriam waited on. She motioned for Mary to come inside her office and bring the envelopes to her. Following a busy morning, the afternoon promised to be even more hectic.

***

Norm Sowell came over to David’s desk at noon. “Did you forget about lunch today?”

“
Huh?” David sat up with a start. His laptop lay open with the screen blank. He had dozed off again, and this time for nearly half an hour.

“
Man, are you all right?” Norm looked more amused than worried. His furrowed brow and eyes that were a pair of narrow blue slits shining out from his tanned face belied his sly grin. “I do believe you’ve been sleeping on the job, my friend.... Or, maybe having a little too much fun at night, and I don’t necessarily mean at home with the wife.”

“
Sh-h-h!”
David whispered sternly. “Keep your voice down! Do you want everyone around here to think I’m some slacker? And to answer your other comment, no way, not ever. Your style my friend, not mine.”

Norm stepped back with a look of feigned offense. He moved out into the aisle, arching his back as he scanned the area. Satisfied they were alone, he stepped back inside the cubicle and propped his arms up on either side of the entrance to David’s ‘home away from home’.

“
I hate to tell you this, bro, but your pals over here are probably aware you’ve been snoozing, seeing they’ve all left for lunch already,” he said, chuckling. “I suggest we head out before they come back with a pillow and blanky for you!”

“
Very funny,” David replied, irritated but finding it hard not to smile. He closed his laptop and took off his glasses, setting them next to his PC. “I think you should drive this time, buddy, because I’m not feeling myself today.”

He grabbed his coat and joined Norm in the aisle.

“
No problem.” Norm patted him on the back as they headed for the elevator. “But, you’re going to have to fill me in on the wild escapades obviously keeping you up late these past few nights.” David cut him a look. “With the wife I know, I know!”

The two left the building and headed to Norm’s Jaguar in the parking lot. Since both had busy afternoons awaiting them when they got back, they opted for an O’Charleys a few blocks away. David opted for iced tea instead of his usual beer. Once it arrived along with Norm’s preferred Heineken, David asked a question he thought he’d never consider prior to Sunday night.

“
Do you believe in ghosts?”

“
You mean the kind that say ‘boo!’ and go bump in the night, like Casper?”

Hating Norm’s contemptuous smirk, David regretted bringing up the subject and the likelihood of being mercilessly teased for the next several months.

“
I’m serious.”

Norm’s smirk faded as he studied David from across the booth. He tapped his fingers against the label on his Heineken, obviously buying time to think.

“
I can see you are serious,” he said. “I’ve got to admit I’m going to be real disappointed if that’s the reason for your lack of sleep, rather than some intense sex with your lovely wife.”

“
Well, do you or don’t you?” asked David, unable to mask his growing irritation.

“
It’s hard to say,” Norm replied, relaxing against the back of his seat. “I haven’t even thought about anything like that since I was a young boy with an overactive imagination. Now my imagination’s only active if we’re talking about pussy.” He flashed an impish smile. “Why do you ask?”

“
There’s something in our house.”

“
You’re not yanking my chain, are you?”

He sipped his beer while his smirk returned, bigger.

“
I wish I was,” said David, loathing Norm’s look. He pushed ahead despite this. “More than that, I wish it was something on a small scale, like most of the haunted house shit you see on TV late at night.”

“
So, what are you talking about here? If it’s more than some nighttime phantom, is it a screaming banshee, like my auntie used to talk about when I was a youngster?”

“
What’s a ‘screaming banshee’?”

Norm shook his head and took another drink from his Heineken, glancing at his wristwatch before answering David.

“
According to Estella, my aunt, a screaming banshee is a restless spirit who’s often given to spells of violence—like shattering glasses or throwing candlesticks and shit like that across a room,” he said. “You know, your basic poltergeist activity. Also, legend says they fly shrieking into forests late at night. It’s Old Irish folklore.”

“
How in the hell do you know so much about this stuff?”

Norm’s knowledge of the supernatural impressed David, suspecting it far exceeded his own, to his surprise.

“
How in the hell do you
not!
” Norm replied. “You grew up in the south. Don’t tell me you never heard any ghost stories growing up in Chattanooga.”

Their food arrived. They moved their plates and utensils aside to allow enough room for the large platter of ribs set before them. As soon as the waiter moved on to his next table, David picked up where they left off.

“
To be honest, I don’t remember hearing any stories like that,” he said. “I mean, I vaguely recall a few times when ghosts were mentioned. But my childhood was such that I avoided my folks’ discussions since they usually led to a fight anyway.”

He grew sad reminiscing on his early youth.

“
Hey, we don’t have to talk about the past if you’d rather not,” said Norm, placing a small pile of ribs on his plate. By now his latest smirk had disappeared, which made David feel less self conscious. “We’ll keep it to the here and now.”

“
Okay,” he said, exhaling deeply.

He told Norm what happened on Sunday night when he heard the mysterious female voice calling to him from downstairs. He paused to put some ribs on his plate, and to study Norm’s expression. For the moment Norm seemed interested, so he shared everything else that had taken place through yesterday evening.

“
You’ve got some pretty weird shit going on, my friend,” observed Norm, between rib bites. “I take it something else happened later last night for you to be as tired as you are today.”

“
Yeah, something did,” said David. “Miriam and I dropped the kids off at Janice’s place, where they’ll be staying until we figure out how to get rid of this thing. Meanwhile, back at our house, the ghost or whatever it is set up some kind of strange symbol or message in our bedroom. It did it while I waited downstairs for Miriam to return after she took some clothes for the kids and other stuff to Janice’s.”

Norm stopped eating for a moment, and David could almost see the spinning wheels in his warped mind.

“
Not that kind of message,” he said. “It was made of twigs and leaves arranged in a half-circle around our bed. I cleaned it up before Miriam got back so she wouldn’t panic, and everything seemed okay when we went to bed afterward. Oh, one other thing. Since Monday night our house has felt like a frigging icebox.”

“
Cold spots, huh?” said Norm. “That’s common when a house is haunted. Jesus, I’m surprised I remember so much from what auntie used to talk about.”

“
Well, last night I also had the strangest dream,” said David. “I was taken back to the very spot Miriam and I visited last Saturday in Cades Cove. It seemed so real, man, but like I was visiting a hundred years ago. There were young kids—a girl and boy dressed like they used to back in the early 1900s. The girl could hear me, and I think she saw me too. I fell into a stream and woke up, soaked to the bone in our bed.”

“
Wow,” said Norm, after taking a moment to reflect on what David told him. “So how do you plan to take care of this?”

“
I’m not sure.” He paused to drink his tea. “You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?”

“
Yeah, you’re crazy all right,” said Norm, snickering. “I’d have to see things for myself before I could tell you what I really think. That’s not to say what ya’ll have gone through lately doesn’t have its own merit.”

“
It’s just you’re a very practical, pragmatic kind of guy.” David raised his half-empty glass in a weak salute.

“
Exactly!” said Norm, tipping his beer bottle. He appeared relieved, having learned the extent of David’s troubles with very little personal expense to himself.

‘
If only I could be like you, my friend,’ David thought to himself, wistful.

Chapter Fourteen

A strong breeze moved through the treetops, rustling golden aspen leaves and the fiery red foliage from several mature maples that graced the Hobbs’s front yard. Mid-afternoon, crisp and cool, the sun glimmered brightly in a cloudless sky. Janice pulled her Subaru up the driveway and parked directly in front of the steps leading to the front door.

“
You’re sure you want to go in there?” she asked Tyler, who sat next to her in the front passenger seat.

“
I don’t have a choice.” He studied the front of his house, his gaze intense as he surveyed each window, trying to see past the drawn curtains and plantation blinds. “My book report’s got to be in there. I’m pretty sure I left it in the living room after I finished working on it this past weekend.”

“
Would you like for me to come with you?”

She sounded nervous, and from the look on her face he could tell she would’ve been just as happy to forget about his homework assignment and get the hell away from there. Even from the safety of the car the atmosphere felt charged and uneasy. She began to open her mouth, perhaps to offer to rewrite the damned thing herself.

“
No. It should just take me a minute. Well, five minutes tops,” he assured her.

After yesterday’s meltdown he didn’t want her thinking him weak and in need of someone to hold his hand. He tossed his backpack into the backseat and got out of the car, shoving the sleeves of his new jacket up over his elbows to make him feel tougher.

“
Are you sure?” she asked again, disengaging her seat belt.

“
Yeah, I’m sure,” he said, forcing a smile. “I’ll be right back.”

He patted the Subaru’s hood as he went by. When he reached the front steps, a chill much cooler than the usual October air in Colorado greeted him. He took out his key and drew a deep breath before unlocking the front door. The door creaked as he pushed it open, adding extra creepiness to a moment that didn’t need it. Dad insisted on leaving all of the doors leading to the outside untouched by WD-40, since he liked knowing when someone went in or out.

Tyler left the front door ajar, stepping inside the foyer and over to the security alarm box. Once he disabled the alarm he moved into the living room, noticing it felt colder in here than it did outside. It seemed surreal hearing the heater hard at work while the air around him remained icy. He searched in earnest for his book report and stopped thinking about his weird house.

The report wasn’t on the coffee table. He checked the shelves and storage area beneath the tabletop, but didn’t find it there either. Thinking he might’ve stashed his homework assignment in the end table between the sofa and recliner, he checked there next. While sifting through a pile of scratch sheets he used for math assignments, he glimpsed a shadow moving across the far side of the living room and into the kitchen.

He looked up, gasping slightly, and glad that Auntie Jan wasn’t there to see him react like this. Tyler told himself it was just his heightened wariness getting the better of him. He finished sorting the papers in his hand and set them on the end table, moving on to the entertainment center. A soft rustling noise emerged from the kitchen.

Tyler stepped back from the entertainment center, holding his breath while he listened. When the rustling continued, he tiptoed toward the kitchen. The noise stopped as he came around the corner. It sounded like it came from near the kitchen island. Even now the row of copper pots and pans hanging from the rack above the island swayed, as if someone brushed against them on their way out of the room. The hairs on his neck sprang to life as it reminded him of what happened yesterday with the kitchen curtains.

Just let me find the stupid report and I’ll get the hell out of here!

He moved over to the counter near the oven where his dad often left the mail. The report wasn’t there either. He checked the dining room before returning to the foyer, where he glanced at the Subaru through the open front door. The car idled softly less than twenty feet away. For the moment Janice had her head down, reading a book of folk tales his parents bought for her in Gatlinburg.

He shifted his gaze to the staircase and then back to the car’s safe haven. Tyler debated whether or not to forget the report and take a hit on his history grade. But the nagging thought of hard work thrown away urged him on. The only logical place left to check was his bedroom upstairs.

He took a deep breath and walked upstairs, determined to ignore the tingling sensation along his back and arms. When he reached the landing he heard more noises coming from inside his parents’ bedroom, behind their closed door. No longer tempted to investigate hidden mysteries, he hurried down the hall to his bedroom.