The Raven Mocker (5 page)

“
I know,” he replied, forcing a wider smile. “It’s Christmas. Everything will be fine.”

Ruth glanced over her shoulder at them and smiled, perhaps admiring how they seemed so much like true lovebirds, hand in hand and leaning into each other. They drew in even closer once outside the terminal building, everyone walking briskly to where the Chrysler waited.

***

The minivan pulled up the circular driveway of the Hobbs’ Littleton home just before six o’clock. The grand Cape Cod stood majestic, decorated in colorful holiday lights Tyler plugged in when they left that afternoon.

“
Now…
that’s
a beautiful house. Very fitting for ya’ll,” observed Ruth, once the van stopped and everyone else began to pile out. “It’s much roomier than the townhouse ya’ll lived in the last time I was here…wasn’t it in the foothills someplace?”

“
In Lakewood,” said David. “With the kids getting older, we wanted a place where they could have room to run around.” He turned off the ignition.

“
Plus, the schools are a little better, and I’m fortunate to have my practice just a few miles down the road,” added Miriam, referring to the pediatric clinic she co-owned with two other doctors. Both she and David had arranged their winter vacations to coincide with Ruth’s two week stay in Colorado, with David getting the longest reprieve. He didn’t need to return to
Johnson, Simms & Perrault, the accounting firm he worked for as an auditor, until after New Years.

“
I’ll grab Auntie Ruth’s bags and join everybody inside,” said Tyler, handing the PSP back to Christopher and climbing out before anyone else had removed their seatbelts.

He ran around to the rear of the Chrysler, waiting for his dad to open the back hatch. He grabbed both of Ruth’s suitcases and her coat bag. She continued to keep her carry-on with her, which became increasingly mysterious to Jillian and Christopher.

The scent of cinnamon-apple and pumpkin spice candles greeted them all upon entering the house, along with the powerful aroma from the decorated Douglas fir standing in one corner of the darkened living room. Unlike the unearthly chill David expected, the main floor was warm and cozy. The soft drone from the furnace pushing warm air throughout the house gave him a sense of well-being he hoped was genuine.

Jillian and Christopher raced each other for the privilege of turning on the Christmas tree lights. Meanwhile, David helped Tyler with Ruth’s luggage. Together they moved upstairs to the guestroom prepared for her earlier that day. She and the younger children settled downstairs in the living room while Miriam fixed everyone a cup of hot cocoa in the kitchen.

The temperature along the upstairs landing seemed much colder than earlier, as if someone had left several windows wide open. Yet, when David and Tyler checked, every window remained shut. Tyler followed his dad’s s lead into the guestroom. The deep chill that pervaded everywhere else upstairs gave way to warmth rivaling the living room’s coziness downstairs. David turned on the light and they stepped inside.

“
Well, at least it’ll be nice for Auntie Ruth in here, huh, Dad?” said Tyler, placing the suitcase and coat bag he carried at the foot of the bed.

David set the suitcase he carried next to the other luggage. The room decorated in a mixture of antiques and modern pieces, the mahogany four-post canopy bed was the centerpiece.

“
Yeah…so it seems,” David agreed, forcing another smile once he noticed the uncomfortable look on Tyler’s face. “We’ll get the gas folks out here after Christmas to check the lines, since the heater still seems a little out of whack.”

He stepped out of the room and over to the hall thermostat in an effort to further sell the notion. Tyler didn’t buy it.

“
Like that’s going to make a frigging difference,” he whispered, the sarcastic comment out of his dad’s earshot. “Do you want me to catch the light on the way out?”

His voice carried a slight edge as he walked over to the doorway where David waited.

“
Nah, I’ll get it, son.”

He motioned for Tyler to head back downstairs. He glanced around the room before shutting off the overhead light and closing the door behind him. As he moved to the stairs where his son waited, he thought he heard a low chuckle coming from inside the guestroom. He paused to listen.

“
What is it, Dad?” asked Tyler. He looked anxious to get the hell away from there.

David wondered if, like Christopher, his oldest son had seen any recent apparitions he decided to keep silent about. Just then, a loud burst of laughter erupted downstairs, as Ruth and Miriam shared a mirthful moment in the kitchen.

“
Probably nothing,” he assured him, his cheeks sore from an even bigger smile forgery. “Let’s go get some cocoa before it’s all gone.”

“
Sounds good.” Tyler grinned, seeming a little more relieved. Still, he nearly ran downstairs, refusing to look anywhere but straight ahead.

David almost did the same thing, but the temptation to take one last look got the better of him. Just before he turned off the hallway lights he thought he saw something. It could’ve been extra jumpiness fed by his previous experiences and what Christopher said earlier.

A dark shape hovered outside the guestroom’s doorway.

“
Dad, are you coming?” Tyler called up to him from the base of the stairs.

David glanced again at the guestroom’s doorway, but it sat empty.

“
I’ll be right there, son.” He moved confidently down the stairs, and this time he didn’t look back. Not even when the floorboards creaked on the landing behind him and the small hairs on the back of his neck sprung to life.

Chapter Six

The light scratching and shuffling noises resumed. This time, Tony Williams, the night security guard assigned to keep watch at Langston Hall, stood up from his desk near the storage building’s entrance and moved down the dusty wooden walkway toward the basement stairwell at the back end of the main floor.

The first two times he heard the noises, he called out to see if anyone was inside the building with him. Despite the remote possibility he might’ve overlooked someone hiding in the shadows, a closer look wasn’t really necessary. At least not yet. He’d just completed the first required tour of the evening that consisted of a thorough examination of each door and window lock on all three floors of the former dormitory, and then a quick trip to the bottom of the basement stairwell to make sure the thick steel door down there remained secure. A good hard tug on the handle to ensure the door stayed locked tight was the easiest part of the assignment, or so he’d been told the day before by his boss, Vernon Mathis.

“
Hello?” he called out harshly, hoping the irritation in his voice was enough to get whatever, or whoever, made the noise to take notice. “This building is ‘off-limits’ per the Dean’s office, if anybody’s in here!”

After waiting for a response other than the continual scratching that emanated from the stairwell, big, bad, Tony “The Tank” Williams was on the way…on the way to deliver an ass-kicking to the mo-fo cutting into his study time—be it some small furry critter or some bored prankster from a nearby coed dorm.

For a moment he thought about the terror he used to deliver to opposing SEC quarterbacks on Saturday afternoons—the kind that got him featured on ESPN’s Sportscenter twice in his sophomore year playing ball for the University of Tennessee. Things were looking up back then—way up. He even considered the possibility of turning pro early, say, right after his junior year. But then he tore his Achilles the last weekend at Vanderbilt that fall as the Vols’ starting weak-side linebacker, and ‘the rest’, as they say, was ‘history’ for poor Tony. No more fame, no big dollars, and no easy pussy.

“
Hello-o-oh!!” He repeated again, this time even more forceful as he neared the back of the building.

The annoying noises ceased when he reached the edge of the stairs. He turned on his flashlight and pointed it down the darkened stairwell toward its murky bottom. No sign of anyone or anything moving about, and no place to hide. Perplexed, he shook his head and looked around him, pointing the flashlight down the hallway toward the main entrance. A fluorescent glow from a long line of grime-covered overhead lamps illuminated the main floor.

He moved back to where the guard station sat, which consisted of a small card table and metal folding chair, barely adequate despite their temporary purpose. The chair set right next to the front door and a large window that Vernon told him was original to the building when completed in 1918. As with any old building, it got real cold sitting there. Real
damned
cold, especially late at night.

It sure as hell wasn’t the McClung Museum, which stood less than a hundred yards from here. The McClung was his normal gig every weekend and two week nights, eight o’clock to midnight. Right now, Matt Edmonds, the newbie who just joined the campus police, kept watch at the museum, along with whatever Knoxville police officer had been assigned to help out tonight. Probably sharing their opinions about the Vols’ upcoming bowl game over steaming coffee at the ‘real’ guard station, near one of two 10-foot Christmas trees decorating the front lobby of the museum. And, damn it if it wasn’t warm inside, too—unlike this frigging icebox, this old drafty building that no longer had an address plate since slated for demolition next summer.

Langston Hall was one of the University of Tennessee’s oldest colonial-styled red brick buildings that once served as a woman’s dormitory until the mid-1970s. It now housed hundreds of boxes filled with transcripts and other documents, such as outdated student records and even older report cards from years long since past. Now just a storage place for such mundane items, the building hadn’t seen a guard staff keeping a 24-7 vigil over the place in more than two decades.

But less than a week after Thanksgiving, Tony got the news from his boss, Vernon, the retired Knoxville police captain who now handled the security staffing for UT’s largest campus, that he and five other guards had been reassigned indefinitely to this less-than-desirable post. For the past three weekends John Campbell handled the evening shift on his own. But now he spent his eight hour shift divided between this post and a second ‘hot spot’ on the other side of campus. Starting last night, John manned the desk from 4 pm to 8 pm; Tony took over from eight to midnight; and then, Johnnie Mercer—another ex-Vols football star—relieved him at midnight. Tony could count on Johnnie to run three to four minutes late, since he’d always been like that when the pair worked connecting shifts at the museum.

This was supposed to be Tony’s only weekend filling in here for John, since Vernon promised it would be a brief assignment until Matt got fully up to speed. But since Tony didn’t have any classes until January, Vernon took the liberty to schedule him for this same gig right on through Christmas. Then Matt should be ready to take over by the following weekend.

He better damn well be ready...and WAY before that!

It looked like New Years might be Tony’s only opportunity for a break from this dreary assignment during the holidays. That is, if he didn’t somehow come down with something serious like strep throat or walking pneumonia in time for Christmas Day. He might not be able to avoid working Christmas Eve, but damn straight he wasn’t working Christmas Day. Momma was coming down to Knoxville with his Aunt Jolene from Louisville, Kentucky, and he sure as hell didn’t want to be freezing his ass in here while they were in town.

He sat back down in his chair and pulled his poli-sci preliminary assignment for January in front of him, glancing at his wristwatch. 9:37 p.m. For a moment, he thought about his roommate’s cute steady girl, Gina Banks. Gina was fine…so
very
fine, man. So why Tyrone, instead of him? Tony was bigger, better built, had a dazzling smile, and was a hell of a lot more charming than his best friend who migrated south with him from Louisville after they graduated from high school. Besides, the former ‘Tank-man’ was packaged large where it counted, and had the stamina to keep a woman like her more than satisfied…. Yet, so far, she easily sidestepped his advances.

He released a deep sigh and cracked open the textbook sitting before him, determined to forget about her for now and lose himself in the book’s opening discourse about the fading merits of America’s two-party political machine. Suddenly, it started up again…the frigging scratching and shuffling noises coming from the basement stairwell.

A little more subtle this time, at first he tried to ignore them. Maybe it was just a pack of small rodents, or one big ugly mother rat. Hell, a pesky vermin small enough to escape his detection made sense. After checking twice already, he wasn’t getting up again. Not without a damned good reason.

But Tony couldn’t stop thinking about the noises. It didn’t matter if there was anything there or not, as simply his duty to protect what lay hidden behind the locked door downstairs. After all, it was the whole damn reason he and his other guard buddies were now forced to spend their evenings in this condemned, god-forsaken hell-hole that should’ve been torn down years ago. Something about a few crates filled with skeletons and relics recently uncovered from some ‘secret place’ up in the Smoky Mountains. Along with one other item brought in this morning, according to Vernon.