The Raven Mocker (29 page)

After the initial shock of being unexpected guests had worn off, David and Miriam joined Evelyn in the living room, where they sipped freshly brewed coffee in front of a roaring fire. Something that he recalled fondly from his previous visit to the cabin, he and John shared a long talk during the first night of his stay. Now, he relaxed on the couch next to Miriam, watching a friendly rapport develop between her and Evelyn.

Evelyn had just explained the reason for the towels and blankets that covered every reflective surface inside the cabin. Holding up fairly well emotionally, she told them what had happened earlier that evening. The entity’s wiles and taste for violence far exceeded the frightful attacks brought against them all by Allie Mae in October—which made David worry again about the wisdom of bringing his family out here. He took this opportunity to begin the description of what recently took place at their home in Littleton, allowing Miriam to share much of the information and then filling in anything else of importance she left out.

When he mentioned the odd acrid smell in the cabin, still detectable beneath the disinfectants and deodorizers, Evelyn could scarcely explain what caused it the night before, sobbing uncontrollably at the mention of Hanna’s name. Grateful for Miriam’s nurturing nature, she immediately rushed to her side and took Evelyn in her arms. The two women cried together, and afterward Evelyn felt comfortable enough to discuss the shower of blood that had been visited upon the living room—Hanna’s blood from being murdered in Evelyn’s presence by the sadistic spirit that took obvious pleasure from her horror and the profound sorrow that followed.

Convinced that Hanna was indeed dead, Evelyn refused David’s optimism that without a body it wasn’t a certainty just yet. But he did share her opinion that the spirit terrorizing the Hobbs’ household was the very same one tormenting her family and also had murdered at least three other people—including two employees of the University of Tennessee. After speaking to John just two days earlier about these crimes, David and Miriam recalled how quickly the news had spread to Colorado, as the murders made national headlines since then.

The entity went beyond the normal definition of evil, Evelyn advised, which only added to the mystery of what it still sought from her. While possible that it simply wanted to kill everyone associated with the desecration of its tomb in the ravine where he and Miriam had innocently celebrated their fifteenth wedding anniversary, she couldn’t shake the feeling the demon was after something specific...something from her, and perhaps still something from them. Why else would they be duped into coming back to Gatlinburg?

When Evelyn described the hysterics the spirit would fall into, after she wouldn’t give in to its demand to willingly let it inside the cabin, David immediately related this to how Evelyn’s voice had sounded when he got the urgent call last night. Coupled with the fact the entity had successfully impersonated Evelyn’s Grandma Suzanne, he marveled at its cunningness. Especially chilled by its ability to pull upon his sense of obligation to John and, though she had yet to admit it, Miriam’s jealous streak that had long-since been dormant, only to be awakened by the spirit’s passionate impersonation of Evelyn as a desperate, lonely, and sexually vulnerable woman.

But, now… what could they do to defeat it, this fiend whose vileness and power seemed to grow stronger with each new day?

Upon Evelyn’s insistence that they stay the night with her and not risk encountering the additional threat of Allie Mae’s ghost along the deserted park roads on their way back to their rented chalet, David moved to go outside and retrieve their luggage. He did this before anyone could stop him, mustering his courage and with determination to move quickly, sprinting from the front door to the back of the Odyssey, grabbing the overnight bag and Miriam’s toiletry case and locking the hatch in one seamless movement. He then raced back to the front porch.

The tiny hairs along the base of his neck sprang to life just before he stepped through the door and into the cabin’s warmth. He slammed it shut behind him and secured the lock and deadbolt. But not before catching a glimpse of something… Was it part of Allie Mae’s death attire, the blue gown she favored from the turn of the twentieth century? Or, perhaps something else… an almost purple shadow creeping swiftly toward the door, playing tricks upon his eyes beneath the porch light’s bright glow?

“
David, what is it?” asked Miriam. “Did you see anything when you were outside?”

She got up from the couch and came over to him. He glanced out through the curtain next to the door, spying at the outside world as Evelyn had done earlier when they arrived. The shadow was gone, or at least out of his direct view.

“
I may have seen something, but I’m not sure.” He wore a smirk that he hoped would sell her on the notion he wasn’t worried.

Evelyn got up from the recliner and walked over to the same window, opening the curtain wide enough for her to get a good look at the porch and the front of the cabin. Her lack of caution surprised him, in light of the spiritual beliefs she professed the last time he was here. Not to mention everything else that had happened lately. Unaware of the fact she’d already conceded this aspect of the battle with the entity, and focused instead on its struggle to materialize inside the cabin and its inability to make it past the covered mirrors and other blocked reflective surfaces.

“
What do you see?” he asked her, pulling Miriam closer to him.

His wife looked up into his face, and despite her uneasiness he could see the love in her smile. Whatever had turned her heart against him earlier had since vanished, finally.

“
Nothing,” Evelyn replied.

She led them back into the living room. Before she sat down in the recliner again, she retrieved her laptop computer from a large backpack resting next to the chair. After powering up the device she adjusted the wireless modem to where it would operate on the cabin’s television satellite.

“
If we can find out some useful information before the spirit strikes again, it’ll enhance our chances of surviving whatever it intends to bring next,” she said, motioning for them to again sit on the couch across from her. “David, while you were outside, Miriam mentioned the name it called itself when it pretended to be me last night on the phone. Once I get connected to the internet, I’ll see if I can find out anything about this name.”

“
Teutates,” Miriam confirmed quietly. “That was the name spoken on the phone last night. You…I mean, your
voice
referred to the entity by that name and also described it as ‘He Who Cannot Rest’.”

“
It’s still hard to fully comprehend how clever this thing is, being able to disguise itself as pretty much anyone it chooses,” observed David. “It makes you wonder if that’s how it tricked Hanna into leaving the safety of this place. It seems the most plausible explanation to me, anyway.”

Evelyn looked up sharply.

“
What? Did I say something wrong?”

Her reaction worried him.

“
No…it’s nothing,” she said. He could tell her smile was forced. “I just wish I had made that connection right away…maybe in time to have somehow stopped her from leaving in the first place.” She began to weep again.

Miriam got up from the couch, prepared to come over and comfort her once more. Evelyn initially waved her off, telling her she deeply appreciated her compassion and needed only a moment to regain her composure. But then she asked if Miriam would like to join her in searching the web, since her laptop now had a connection to the internet.

“
It should only take a moment,” she sniffed, once Miriam joined her by the recliner. Miriam gently massaged Evelyn’s shoulders while watching her activate the initial search. “I’ll Google ‘Teutates’, and see what comes up.”

To everyone’s surprise, the page instantly filled with websites that were either devoted to or mentioned this name, with at least nine more pages to follow.

“
Well…isn’t this interesting?” Evelyn mused softly, clicking on a website near the top of the list, one that dealt with the deities of ancient Gaul.

As soon as she accessed the site, a list of these gods and goddesses appeared in alphabetic order. Teutates was listed near the bottom. She and Miriam read the god’s description and soon learned that Teutates’ importance placed it among the elite of the Gallic deities. Other names and derivatives were used throughout Gaul and the British Isles, and the Romans placed Teutates on the level of Mars and Mercury.

Visits to other sites showed the same description, along with the fact Teutates, “God of the People”, was a blood thirsty deity that required frequent sacrifices to be appeased. The devotion of the Gallic peoples to their god greatly impressed the Roman poet Lucan, who identified Teutates on the same level as even the highest rulers of the Roman pantheon.

“
Well, here’s something quite interesting,” said Miriam, glancing at David and then back at the laptop’s LCD screen again. “I remember studying Lucan in my lit course back in college, but I don’t recall anything quite like this passage….”

Her voice faded as she silently read the excerpt along with Evelyn.

“
What does it say?” asked David.

He sat up straight, perched on the edge of the couch. His interest aroused, it wasn’t strong enough yet to get him to join his wife and Evelyn as they absorbed the page’s contents.

“
It’s from Lucan…Pharsalia I, 495-510…whatever that means,” said Evelyn, peering up briefly from the screen. “And those who pacify with blood accursed Savage Teutates, Hesus’ horrid shrines.”

Miriam shuddered, and looked longingly to where David sat, like she wished to be cuddling close with him. Evelyn announced she wanted to look at other pages, and then navigated away from the website they were at, drawing Miriam’s attention back to the laptop’s screen.

“
What about the English name, ‘He Who Cannot Rest’—do you see any sites for it?” she asked, while Evelyn scrolled through the earlier search results for Teutates.

“
Good idea, let’s take a look and see.”

She typed in the new name to be researched, which resulted in fewer responses than the previous search.

Most were from an array of novels and video games, which yielded no further connection to Teutates. But then Evelyn stumbled on a site belonging to an occult enthusiast named Claude Von Dansving, who also fronted an Austrian heavy metal band called ‘The Death of Dansby’. The main page quite creepy, it featured hellish Viking skulls alongside buxom vampires with glowing red eyes. Evelyn started to navigate away to the next link on the Google search result page, when Miriam stopped her. A link that said “Teutates: The One Who Never Sleeps” sat near the bottom of Von Dansving’s main page. Evelyn clicked on the link, which opened up to a full-screen picture.

“
Oh, Shit!”

Evelyn shook her head while Miriam silently mouthed ‘
Oh, My God!
’

That finally got David off his butt to come take a look. At first, he couldn’t see what held their attention, since the screen on Evelyn’s HP wasn’t visible until he stood directly in front of it.

The depiction of an enormous, misshapen hornets’ nest enwrapped within the coiled body of a viper immediately chilled him. A vile mixture of milk-like venom and blood dripped from the image. Surrounding the angry snake and disrupted nest were rows of shrunken human heads, similar to what one might find among cannibalistic tribes of the nineteenth century. Behind the nest stood a very tall figure. Not exactly like the ghoul that Christopher told his parents about less than a week ago. But close enough.

Chiseled features and defined muscles, like a comic book hero, its curled saber-like fingernails dripped with blood. The eyes glared angrily as glowing narrow slits, and were the most definitive characteristic of the figure, aside from the fingernails. They bore feline characteristics with the coldness of the snake before it, and the flash program that fed the image changed the color of the eyes in a continuous motion from neon blue to deep green, and then a fiery yellow and finally to a drenched crimson that deepened further toward black before the cycle repeated. The surrounding goriness of the image increased as the eyes grew darker, and then tapered off when the eyes turned blue, like the mysterious figure’s bloodlust had been somehow satisfied.

Alongside the image sat a volume button, for the moment muted. Evelyn tentatively clicked it after getting encouragement from David to continue. A chilling buzz filled the air around them in stereo, along with a phrase whispered in Gaelic. The words also flashed in neon green script along the bottom of the page.

Evelyn told them that the rolled-tongue enunciation of the words reminded her of the strange phrases shrieked at her by the derisive spirit. Evelyn clicked on a small red button next to a Gaelic phrase chanted in gothic rhythm…. ‘
ailgidim conne
…
ailgidim conne
chugad!
’ The German translation that first appeared along the page’s bottom was no more helpful than the original, so she clicked the button once more. The English translation now appeared.

She shuddered again while joining Miriam in slowly mouthing the words, with David looking on silently. Perhaps merely a weird coincidence, since what they viewed from the website had been nothing more than a tribute to the ancient Gallic deities and violence that pervaded throughout much of the metal band culture. Yet, the similarities between this and what they’d already experienced couldn’t be easily dismissed.