Cry Baby Hollow

by Love, Aimee

  As soon as the door closed, she popped into the closet and checked the monitor on the camera on the front of the cabin. She didn’t expect to find anything, but it was the only one with a live feed active. All of the others were silent. She examined the grainy black and white image and froze. A wolf was slinking through her front yard, hackles raised, teeth bared, oblivious to the rain thrumming on its back.

  Aubrey had to force herself to check the other cameras before taking any action. None of them were feeding the main unit anything at the moment. Motion triggered the video to record activated the live download, but the cameras took a picture every minute regardless. They just only dumped the pictures from their memory to the main box every twelve hours. Video took a lot of energy to shoot and even more to transmit back, so she had put the motion threshold high to save the cameras battery life. Each unit had a solar cell, but that could only last so long. For all intents and purposes, she was blind until she waited twelve hours or figured out how to force a data dump off schedule. She switched back to the camera out front but by now the wolf was gone.

  She went back and gave Joe the bad news.

  “When I set them up, I was expecting a pickup full of rowdy rednecks,” she told him apologetically, “not a lone stalker.”

  “Should I get my baseball bat?” He asked with a grin.

  She shook her head and told him about the wolf.

  “Whoa. Hold on a second,” his expression became very grave. “I know I’m not the smartest tool in the shed, but you’re gonna need to explain your use of the words ‘my wolf’ and ‘again’.”

  “I saw it before. In the woods.”

  “You think that’s what you saw take out the deer?”

  “No,” she said, still adamant. “This was just a little while ago, while I was hiking.”

  “I thought you said you saw a man.”

  “Before that. A few days ago.”

  “And you still went up there today?”

  Aubrey shrugged.

  “It wasn’t menacing. It just acted like a dog. It ran off as soon as I tried to get a picture of it. Besides,” she said defensively, “you said they were harmless.”

  Joe sighed.

  “Maybe it was just a coyote,” he said hopefully. “You know they look a lot alike. There’s no speciation between the two, or timber wolves either. No more difference than between me and a Chinaman. Or a husky and a pug. They interbreed and everything.”

  Aubrey stared at him.

  “What?” He asked.

  “Speciation?” She said skeptically.

  “It’s a real word. I didn’t just make it up,” he told her defensively.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So?” He asked.

  “Just admiring your vocabulary,” she grinned.

  “Hell, I get the Discovery Channel at my place in the city,” he told her. “I really do think you ought a join a gym.”

  “Treadmills make me feel like a hamster, and I don’t like people watching me run.”

  “From the sound of it you’re drawing a fair crowd even up in those woods,” he pointed out. “So what now?”

  “We wait until morning and check the pictures.”

  “We just sit here?”

  “Unless you want to call the sheriff,” she suggested sarcastically.

  He shook his head.

  “The car pullin’ up might run em off, but they could just come back. Nothin’ but a waste of time.”

  “And then they’d know we’re on to them,” Aubrey pointed out.

  They settled back on the couch and watched the rest of the movie in silence. After it was over Joe followed Aubrey up into the loft and collapsed onto the bed.

  “Whoever that guy is, he sure knows how to spoil a mood,” he said, his voice dripping with regret.

  “There will be other nights, Joe.”

  He grinned.

  “You think it’s safe to sleep?” He asked.

  “Sure. People don’t break into houses when they know someone’s home. They’re probably watching to see when we leave.”

  She turned out the light and crawled into the bed beside him, fully clothed.

  “I’d like to apologize ahead a time for anything untoward you might a caught with your cameras,” he told her once she was settled.

  “Untoward?”

  “Well, you see… I’m in the habit of takin’ a morning swim.”

  Aubrey smiled. It wasn’t hard to guess what was coming next.

  “And I don’t often bother with a suit.”

  “I’ll avert my eyes modestly,” she promised.

  “I’d appreciate that. The water’s awfully cold and I wouldn’t want you suffering from any misconceptions.”

  Something occurred to her suddenly and she fought to suppress a laugh. “You know, Vina has a telescope pointed out at the lake.”

  “Aw hell,” Joe groaned.

  “She said she can see my lights reflecting on the water, but not the cabin itself. Given the angle, I’d bet she has a good view of your dock. How much you want to bet on whether she averts her eyes modestly?”

  Joe shook his head and blushed so furiously he thought his face would melt off.

  “Modesty ain’t her strong suit,” he agreed glumly.

  Aubrey reached over and put her hand on his chest comfortingly and, in spite of thoughts of stalkers and wolves, she slept soundly all night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Aubrey opened her eyes and saw that the sky had lightened fractionally, though the rain was still falling steadily. She felt Joe’s hand resting on her hip and squirmed backward so she could feel his solid warmth spooned against her back.

  “You

  think our friend is gone now?” Joe breathed into her neck.

  She nodded and held her breath.

  His hand tightened its grip on her hip and he pulled her against him until she could feel every minute detail of him pressing into her. His hand left her hip and ran down her leg and then back up past her waist to her shoulder. He brushed her hair aside and kissed the back of her neck.

  She shuddered and let out a tiny moan.

  When Aubrey woke the second time she saw that the rain had slacked off and Joe was no longer in the bed beside her. She peeked over the railing and saw him sitting at the table, drinking a glass of orange juice and playing himself at Carcassonne.

  “Morning,” she called down.

  “I helped myself to a shower,” he told her. “I hope you don’t mind, but I didn’t have a key to throw the deadbolt and even if you say the guy is gone, I didn’t like to leave you sleepin’ alone in an unlocked house.”

  “I wouldn’t have minded anyway, Joe,” she assured him, feeling ridiculously awkward. She tried to think of how she would have behaved yesterday, realized that yesterday had been just as awkward for the exact opposite reason, and gave up. Taking a shower seemed infinitely easier than figuring out how the morning’s happenings were going to alter her relationship with Joe.

  “You want some breakfast?” He asked as she disappeared into the bathroom.

  “Sure,” she called through the door and then drowned out any further need for conversation by turning on the hot water.

  When she got out there was an egg sandwich and a glass of orange juice waiting for her across the table from Joe and he was already half through with his.

  “I figured you couldn’t be sick of ‘em since you didn’t eat the one yesterday,” he told her with a grin.

  She sat down and examined it. The toasted bread contained an egg over easy, tomato and mozzarella left over from last night’s appetizer, and a thick slab of bacon. When she took a bite the yolk broke and dribbled down her chin.

  “This is fabulous,” she told him h
onestly, wiping her face with a napkin he held out to her.

  “Why thank you, darlin’,” he grinned, obviously pleased.

  She hopped up and went into the kitchen to hide her flush of pleasure and the dopey grin she couldn’t seem to suppress. He’d never called her ‘darling’ before, and though he’d said it with the casual ease that he might have used to thank the check-out girl at Food Lion, it still sent a rush of pleasure through her. She grabbed a longneck from the fridge and opened it for him. When he saw her coming back with it, his grin widened into a bright, angelic smile.

  “Bein’ my bartender is a full time job you know,” he said, snagging her hand as she set down the beer. He pulled her down onto his lap and kissed her.

  When she finally got back to her sandwich it was cold, but she decided that the digression was well worth it.

  “Any pictures yet?” He asked around a mouthful of egg.

  She looked at the clock on the bookshelf and shook her head.

  “The download starts in an hour, but it only does one camera at a time and I don’t have any idea what order it goes in. We’ve got a while yet.”

  “You mind if I stick around?”

  She thought about it for a minute and shook her head.

  “You sure?”

  She nodded.

  “I don’t wanna overstay my welcome, but I don’t wanna leave you to the tender mercies of the psycho in the bushes either.”

  “Its fine, Joe,” and as soon as she said it she realized her mistake and reached out and took his hand. “We both know I wouldn’t ask you to, but I’m really relieved that you volunteered to stay. I don’t like the idea of being alone in a glass house until I know what’s out there, either.”

  Joe nodded and went back to his sandwich, satisfied.

  “Just do whatever you’d do if I wasn’t around,” he told her, chasing down a bite with a swig of beer.

  “If you weren’t here, I’d be getting ready for a walk.”

  “In the woods with the crazies and the wolves? Golly, can I come too?”

  “Sure,” she told him, then looked up and realized from his expression that he’d been joking.

  “Seriously?” He asked, realizing that she wasn’t.

  “Don’t you want to look around for foot prints or tire marks?”

  “Sure Grissom, lemme just go get my kit.”

  She looked at him blankly.

  “I guess you don’t watch much CSI.”

  She shook her head.

  “You been livin’ in a box for the last decade?” Joe asked in wonder.

  “No,” Aubrey told him haughtily, “on a battleship.”

  “Maybe we should stick to Batman. Grissom doesn’t really have a sidekick,” he took both their plates into the kitchen, rinsed them off, and put them in the dishwasher.

  “Are you going to wear tights?” She asked.

  “Maybe later,” he told her. “If we’re goin’ walkin’, boots might be a better bet.”

  Aubrey got dressed and grabbed her stun-gun, cell phone, keys and a print out of the map. The sky was clearing by the time they got to Joe’s. Aubrey looked around the yard and driveway while he put on his boots, but everything was one big mud puddle. She didn’t see any signs of cars, feet, or paws.

  Joe came out and she led him wordlessly to the path she had carved across from his driveway and from there up into the hills. When they got to the footpath that she suspected led to Wayne Mosley’s, she stopped and examined the ground. There was no sign that anyone had been that way recently.

  “You know, if it was Wayne, he’d a just walked down the road to my place. He’s not known to be terribly bright.”

  “What if it was someone from his family? They could have crossed into the hollow here and gone down to his place, then taken the road.”

  “Why not just pull into his driveway, like they were comin’ for a visit? That time of night, in a storm, nobody was likely to see a car.”

  Aubrey shrugged. She didn’t really suspect Wayne. The person on the dock had been wearing a bright yellow poncho with a hood, which struck her as very un-Wayne attire. It had also seemed too slight to be Wayne. Everyone seems big when you’re 5’4” and weigh in at 120 lb., but she thought Wayne had broader shoulders, and each time she had seen him he’d been slouched. The person on the dock had stood tall and slender.

  Aubrey continued on with Joe trailing gamely along behind her until his hand shot out and grabbed her arm. He pulled her close and leaned in to kiss her.

  “Look behind us,” he murmured just before their lips touched.

  “Excellent diversion,” she grinned and released him.

  “I learned from the master,” he winked. “Two feet or four?” He asked. “All I saw was the shrubbery jigglin’.”

  “Four,” she told him softly.

  “We headin’ back now?” He asked hopefully.

  “Just a little further,” she promised.

  She led him to the offshoot and up past the no trespassing sign.

  “I don’t guess it’s occurred to you that the reason the sign is there is to protect the home of that endangered species we just saw?” Joe suggested, growing increasingly agitated with ever step.

  “I thought it was just a coyote?”

  He nodded noncommittally and glanced over his shoulder, but the creature was nowhere in sight.

  Aubrey continued up the path, checking the increasingly rocky slope for any sign of a cave.

  “You know, Vina said there used to be some crazy old guy who lived in a cave up here when she was a girl. He came down one day and killed a bunch a people. She said everyone knew it was a clear case of demon possession, but this bein’ East Tennessee and Catholic priests bein’ somewhat scarce, they just shot him.”

  “Yeah,” Aubrey recognized the tale as one of the bedtime stories Vina told her when she was a little girl. “His name was Jacob Skinner.”

  “No shit? It’s true?”

  Aubrey nodded.

  “I looked it up years ago.”

  “That’s an unfortunate name for a psychopath,” Joe observed.

  “He murdered his wife and two daughters and then a few of his neighbors. He’s buried in the cemetery in the hollow.”

  The path turned right abruptly and started to go down steeply. Looking over into the trees, Aubrey could see why. They were walking along the top of a sinkhole or pit of some kind. The path leveled and turned left again and they came out into a sheltered little clearing. All around them there was a crescent of granite cliff face, three stories high in the center and dwindling to nothing at all at the ends. In the cliff face, there were three perfectly square openings, ten feet tall apiece. They were far too regular to be natural. In the center of the clearing there were the remnants of a bonfire. Aubrey looked around. High school kids partying, she guessed, but there were no cigarette butts or beer cans. She squinted and tried to see into the gloomy caves.

  Joe looked behind them.

  “It’s just an old quarry,” he told Aubrey and pointed out the remnants of a road going down the back side of the hill.

  Aubrey was backing slowly away from the cave entrances.

  She reached out and grabbed Joe’s arm, swinging him around as she pulled out her cell phone and dialed.

  “What?” Joe looked around. Aubrey’s face was pale and her breathing shallow and quick. She held out the phone to point into one of the caves but didn’t release his arm so he could get closer and look.

  The call was answered and Aubrey put the phone back to her ear.

  “My name is Aubrey Guinn,” she told the dispatcher, trying to keep her voice even. “I’m in the woods near Red Bank Road and I’ve just found a dead body.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

 
They heard the whine of the engine just before the ATV broke through the trees where the road had once been and skidded to a stop in front of them.

  “Hey Bo,” Joe greeted the deputy who got off. He was much younger and in better shape than Larry, but he was profoundly ugly. He had a large, bulbous nose, an almost non-existent chin, and one of his eyes was slightly larger than the other. He had red hair so fair it was almost pink and skin that looked like it belonged on a cave dwellin

  g fish or some other animal that had never seen the light of day.

  “Hey Joe,” he looked around the clearing, completely ignoring Aubrey. “Where’s this corpse a yours?” He finally asked.

  Joe shrugged apologetically.

  “I didn’t see it and she won’t let go of my arm so I can go and look,” Joe told him ruefully.

  “Aw, hell Joe, you know it’s probably just a possum,” the deputy said with a dismissive glance at Aubrey.

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” Joe told him. “Best go take a look.” He glanced down at Aubrey, more than a little alarmed that she hadn’t said anything rude to the man. The only sign that anything was wrong was her unwillingness to let go of his arm.

  The deputy walked forward a dozen feet and looked around.

  “Hell, there ain’t even a possum.”

  “Just inside the center cave and over to the left,” Aubrey told him helpfully.

  He took another step forward.

  “Jesus God!” He screamed and turned abruptly with his hand over his mouth.

  “Hell of a big possum, huh Bo?” Aubrey asked smugly.

  The deputy gagged and hurried over to them. “You touch anything?”

  “No,” Aubrey assured him.