Cades Cove 01 - Cades Cove: A Novel of Terror (5 page)

“
Sweetie, she’s probably somewhere upstairs,” David assured her. Christopher fast asleep, he laid him on the loveseat. “I don’t think I can carry him up those stairs tonight,” he told Miriam, who had just hung their coats on the hall tree in the foyer.

Jillian headed upstairs to look for the dog. Tyler paused long enough in the living room to change the TV channel to the G-4 Network before joining his sister in her search.

“
Hey, son, we’re not watching X-Box stuff...not tonight!” David called after him. His groaned “Oh, Dad!” resounded mournful from the top of the stairs. “I imagine he’s had free reign around here since Thursday night.”

“
Who needs television when you’ve got me?” Miriam snuggled up to him, pressing her face beneath his jaw, and then caressed his neck with tender kisses.

“
Hey, I found her!” Jillian announced from atop the stairs. “She’s hiding under my bed, and I can’t get her to come out!”

“
Hold that thought, my dear,” David whispered. He returned her kisses until Jillian called to them again. “We’re coming!”

Even from downstairs they heard the dog’s whimpers along with Tyler’s urgings for Sadie to come to him. By the time David and Miriam reached Jillian’s bedroom, Tyler was halfway underneath Jillian’s canopy bed.

“
She’s
not
going to come to you!” said Jillian confidently, crouched next to her brother. “And I’ll bet the only person she’ll listen to is Mom!”

“
Oh, yeah?” Tyler retorted, his voice muffled from under the bed.

“
Maybe Jill’s right, guys,” said Miriam, lifting the bedspread to take a peek. Sadie lay curled up in one corner, panting, on the opposite side of the bed from where Jillian and Tyler’s faces peered at her. “Come here, baby.”

The dog whined until she pulled her out and gathered her in her arms.

“
She’s shaking!” Miriam looked over at David. “Come here…feel how she’s trembling.”

He came over to where she stood, near Jillian’s nightstand. A beautiful purebred Yorky, Sadie had long brown hair covering most of her body, except for her head, which was a mixture of rust and blond. Her dark brown eyes always seemed to sparkle in the light, but now half-open as she continued to shake in Miriam’s arms.

“
Is she sick?” he asked, lovingly stroking the dog’s neck, which usually brought a soft grumble of pleasure and Sadie would lean into his hand for a good scratching. Not this time.

“
I’m not sure,” said Miriam. “It’s almost like something scared the hell out of her.”

She started to carry Sadie out of the bedroom, and immediately the dog clawed to get out of her arms. She stooped down and released her, and Sadie crawled back under the bed.

“
Should we call the vet?” David watched Tyler and Jillian resume their contest to see whom the dog preferred most.

“
No…I don’t think that’s going to do any good,” she told him, glancing around the room. “Would you mind taking a look around to make sure nothing’s out of place?”

“
Sure.” He knew she wanted him to check the entire house for evidence of a break-in while they were gone. Just two months earlier, a string of burglaries had hit their peaceful community. “I’ll be right back.”

He checked both floors and the garage, and took a quick stroll around the yard. Nothing out of place, though it felt a little eerie walking through leaves up to his ankles in the darkness and hearing them crunch beneath his shoes. Next weekend would be spent raking these leaves if his self-absorbed teenager didn’t miraculously offer to do it before then.

Satisfied, he went back inside. He checked all of the doors and windows on the main floor and then returned to the living room to get Christopher. Groggy and disoriented, David assisted him in negotiating the long stairway up to his bedroom. Soon, Tyler retired, promising to wind down before his ten o’clock bedtime. Jillian often fought to stay up later, but tonight didn’t put up a fuss.

“
It’s just you and me now, my love,” he whispered from behind Miriam, blowing softly upon her neck where she waited for him, standing with her back to him inside their bedroom doorway. She pulled him inside the bedroom, and after he closed the door and locked it, they embraced. Their foreplay intensified and he carried her over to the bed, where they made passionate love for the second night in a row.

Chapter Five

“
Billy Ra-a-a-y-y-y....”

“
Huh?” David awoke lying on his back.

Miriam had already moved over to her side of the bed. They made love for more than an hour before calling it a night…he remembered that much. But something had changed in the room since then. The bedroom door stood ajar, and the glow from a light source carved a narrow sliver up to their bed.

“
Damn it, Ty!”
he hissed, thinking his son had left the hall light on after visiting the bathroom, or getting a drink from the kitchen downstairs.

His wife stirred briefly in her sleep and rolled away from the light. The digital clock on her nightstand read 12:33 a.m. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, irritated at being awakened at half past midnight for the second consecutive night
. Tomorrow’s really going to suck!

“
Come he-e-r-r-r-e-e-e!”

“
Who said that?”

He got out of bed and pulled on his pants. The words whispered, the voice sounded like it belonged to a young woman standing in the hallway just outside the bedroom.

He crept over to the doorway, remembering the door had been locked. He tried to recall if Miriam unlocked it after they made love, which she often did in case the kids needed her during the night. But she almost never left the door open, since she struggled to fall asleep. He peered into the hallway. No sign of anyone on the landing, although he now noticed another light, this one above the stairway.

What in the hell? …I turned off everything up here earlier. I’m certain of it.

Pushing aside the bedroom door to where he could slip through, he stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him. He checked each room on the second floor, starting with Jillian’s bedroom. She slept soundly in her bed. Sadie, curled up at her feet, lifted her head when he opened the bedroom door and then rested it on Jillian’s shin as he shut it again.

Christopher snored from exhaustion in his bed, and when he checked on Tyler in his bedroom he noticed the cardboard triangle on his window under the hall light’s illumination. The camouflage of the orange-eyed black spider gracing the patch made the cracked panes look like a believable Halloween spider-web creation. He’d yet to learn of the window’s damage since neither Tyler nor Janice told him about the football incident.

Satisfied his oldest son lay asleep, he closed his door and moved back over to the guestroom and bathroom. Both empty. Bewildered, he stroked his beard while moving back to his bedroom. Then he heard the girl’s voice again.

“
I’m not up th-e-e-r-r-e…. I’m down he-e-e-r-r-e!”

A sudden chill ripped across his spine. The voice sounded hollow, as if the words were spoken from someplace far away...and yet, impossibly, like it also resounded from beneath the landing, perhaps inside the dining room on the main floor. His first instinct was to grab the handgun he kept stashed in his nightstand, but then his machismo took over. He ran downstairs.

The entire main level immersed in darkness, the kitchen and living room nightlights he turned on earlier were off. But the security system was still armed. David turned on the dining room chandelier and the living room’s overhead light.

“
Are ya afraid, Billy Ray-y-y?”

Billy Ray? Who in the hell is that??

“
Who’s in here!” he called out gruffly.

Accept for an icy breeze embracing his face and torso, there was no other response. Just unnerving silence, as if the house itself held its breath in anticipation of what would come next. He walked into the kitchen from the living room, flipping on a row of fluorescent lights. Again, empty. No one in the laundry room either. Ditto for the den.

“
Come out and show yourself, damn it!”

He grabbed one of the larger knives from the wooden cutlery block next to the stove, and wielded it menacingly. After circling back through the main floor he explored the garage. Still nothing. Worried, suddenly, this mysterious female might visit harm on his family while they slept, he ran to the foyer and up the stairs. He almost fell down the staircase when the voice cackled gleefully a few feet behind him.

David whirled around. There wasn’t anyone else on the stairs.

The knife ready, he moved back downstairs. But the evasive female kept silent, despite several more trips around the entire floor in hopes of drawing her out from her hiding place. Weary of the game, he waited in the living room. The clock on the mantle read 1:05 a.m. Too much adrenaline to go back to sleep, he turned on the TV and set the volume low. Perched on the edge of the sofa, he suffered through three late-night infomercials while waiting for something else to happen.

Just before two-thirty, after one last uneventful tour of the main floor, he returned the knife to the cutlery block in the kitchen and turned off the television and all of the downstairs lights. By then, the earliest morning birds outside began their songs in earnest as he trudged upstairs. But before he reached the second floor landing a high-pitched ring emanated from the dining room.

P-i-i-i-n-n-g-g-g!

With his heart racing, David tiptoed back down the stairs and crept over to the dining room. He half-expected the ringing sound to stop as he flicked on the switch to the chandelier, but it didn’t. The noise resonated from a large crystal bowl that graced the middle of the antique dining table. He couldn’t help but stare at the bowl, listening to the reverberations until they died.

Why in the hell is this happening to us??

The room grew cold around him, and David felt an odd sensation....like a hundred menacing eyes watched him from every direction. He shivered as he considered the connection between tonight’s events and what happened in Gatlinburg. As much as his pragmatic mind hated the idea, too many similarities said so.

And the voice...who did it belong to? Was it even real? If not, is this what happens when you go insane? Maybe all the tireless hours he worked the past few months had finally caught up with him.

“
This is just
too
crazy,” he snickered, uneasy. He turned off the chandelier and stepped back slowly from the dining room. A deathlike heaviness surrounded him as he paused in the foyer’s darkness.

He wasn’t sure if anything or
anyone
followed him upstairs or not, but the hairs on the back of his neck didn’t stop tingling until he climbed back into bed and pulled up the covers. When he heard the female’s laughter coming from downstairs again, he told himself over and over that it wasn’t real. Thankfully, it became harder to keep his eyes open. Once he succumbed to sleep, it seemed like a matter of minutes before Miriam’s alarm signaled the start of the new week.

Chapter Six

“
Come on, kids, we don’t want to be late!” urged Miriam, motioning for Jillian and Christopher to gather up their book-bags and lunch boxes. She walked briskly over to where David stood, next to the coffeepot in the kitchen.

On his second cup of coffee, he paused long enough to give her a kiss.

“
I had a great time this weekend,” he whispered in her ear. “If you’re up for some fun later tonight, you know where to find me.” Offering a wry smile, he winked.

“
Oh, yeah, big boy? We’ll see about that. It looks like you could use some serious rest.”

She looked up into his eyes. Painfully aware she noticed the redness under them, he’d missed out on his usual seven hours of sleep.

“
A few more cups of petrol, and I’ll be good for the entire day!”

“
Yeah, right.” She turned away and headed toward the front door.

“
Bye Daddy! Bye Ty!” said Jillian and Christopher, just before they exited the house. Jillian stuck her head back in through the doorway. “I like your coat, Ty!”

“
Wow, son…now that looks great!” Miriam agreed. She stopped to admire her eldest child decked out in his new leather jacket as he stepped into the kitchen. “The girls won’t be able to keep their hands off you, and your buddies will wish they had it so good, huh?”

Tyler smiled shyly, blushing from their assessment of his new biker coat. He pulled out a package of chocolate Pop Tarts from the pantry and poured himself a glass of milk from the fridge.

“
Well, we’ll see you tonight,” she said, prodding Jillian back outside. “‘Love you both!”

Tyler and his dad echoed her sentiment, and soon the sound of the minivan faded into the distance.

“
We should be on our way, too, ‘Studly’.” David patted his son on the shoulder. Tyler blushed again. “I’ll take Sadie outside to do her business, which should give you enough time to finish your breakfast. You sure that’s enough to tie you over until lunch?”

“
Yeah, Dad, it is,” said Tyler, working on his second Pop Tart. “I’ll meet you out front by the car.”