by Aiden James
Both Evelyn and Miriam looked anxiously toward David in the dimness, their worried grimaces at first resembled maniacal smiles until they both sobbed fearful.
“Evelyn, can you somehow slide out of your chains?”
David’s last hope, Miriam’s escalating murmurs told him that she couldn’t free herself from hers. Likely the same for Evelyn, he wouldn’t allow himself to think all was lost… at least not yet.
“We can’t do it!” cried Miriam, looking over at Evelyn before turning her attention back to him. “Both of us are stuck!!”
“Shit!” he hissed.
His shackles seemed heavier as his own panic rose quickly. His mind went blank while desperately seeking some other means of escape.
“Hold on, Miriam—I’ll think of something!”
“Think of what?”
Her exasperation always made it harder for him to concentrate.
“Something!”
“Please, both of you stop!” Evelyn scolded, seemingly in control of her emotions again. “Your devotion to one another will serve us so much better than any anger over what has happened to us! We need to put our hearts and heads together and come up with an idea that—Oh, my, God! Watch out, David!!”
Her courage melted as her eyes now focused on something coming down from the ceiling.
He looked up in time to see an immense, open mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth descend upon him. Similar to the images portrayed on the columns lining the corridor, a pair of glowing red eyes appeared, along with the rest of the enormous serpent’s slithering body. The creature’s face resembled the Chinese dragons he once saw depicted everywhere in San Francisco’s ‘China Town’, with huge flared nostrils on its long snout and two rows of golden horns on its head just above the brow. It veered away long enough to snap its dangerous jaws at Miriam and Evelyn, who screamed and pressed themselves against the columns they were chained to on the corridor’s other side. Then it dropped itself upon the floor, its focus again on David.
The serpent let out a roar that shook the entire room to where even the immense columns creaked as if they might crumble. Deliberate, it slithered toward him, its mouth opening wider as it approached the helpless, terrified man huddled in a fetal position on the floor. He could only listen and watch…Miriam and Evelyn’s frantic cries and shrieks along with the creature’s leathery skin brushing against the stone floor as it approached.
Resigned to his eminent death, he called out to his beloved wife, expressing his undying devotion one last time and then closed his eyes. The creature’s hot breath, laden with the stench of rotten meat filled the air around him, the last thing he considered as it arrived.
Chapter Thirty-one
Sunset came early to the Smoky Mountains Friday night. Or, at least it felt that way to John. The forensic team had just finished their examination of his cabin, where sprayed Luminol revealed widespread blood residue upon most of the living room floor and lighter blood spatter on two walls. Despite his and Butch’s earlier detection of an acrid scent hinting at bloodshed, his steadfast hope of finding his granddaughters alive overrode the growing mountain of evidence that said otherwise.
“We’re all done, I reckon,” advised the leader of the team, Sam Roberson.
A tall, slender, steel blue-eyed man in his late forties, with a thick head of salt and pepper hair, he closed his supply case and ushered the rest of his team, two other males and one female, out of the cabin. Born and raised in nearby Pigeon Forge, John had met Sam once before, during an investigation following a series of break-ins into two of the nearby national park’s visitor centers.
“It might take a few weeks to get the final analysis on everything we collected this afternoon, but I’m sure either Butch or the detectives you spoke with recently will be in touch.”
“Thanks for your time today, Sam,” John told him, thinking again about where the collected blood and tissue samples probably came from. Evelyn? Hanna? Or, both? “I’ll wait to hear the results when you get them in.”
He bit his lip while closing the front door. There would be a time to grieve, but not yet. Something inside told him so…a piece still missing. And as long as the puzzle remained incomplete, he refused to accept the loss of those dearest to him. That included David and Miriam Hobbs, who for some reason traveled to Gatlinburg yesterday and then came here. He and Butch gathered this information from the rental agreement found inside the Honda Odyssey, which the Sevier County Sheriff’s Dept had since impounded for further inspection.
“Shawn?...Where are you, boy?”
John waited for Shawn by his recliner, who ran down the hallway from one of the bedrooms and then cowered low as he approached his master. John worried that some of the glass chips in the guestroom from the destroyed mirror might get stuck in the husky’s paws. However, Shawn’s paws were fine…but something else seemed wrong. Shawn continued to look back toward the hallway, as if expecting someone else to suddenly step out into the living room.
After pausing to listen, with his ears and instincts, John returned to his intended task of carefully clearing away his granddaughter’s belongings left on his favorite chair and the table next to it. No one else was there...just Shawn and him. The laptop lay closed, courtesy of Sam once his staff finished dusting for prints and collecting possible DNA evidence. Her notepad still sat open on the table. It, too, had been checked.
“‘He Who Can Not Rest’?” he mouthed quietly, and then lifted up the page to see if other notes followed.
Nearly half of the next page filled with web page addresses and cross referenced words and strange symbols unfamiliar. Intending to research this info later, since Butch had hand-copied the web addresses earlier that afternoon, John returned to the first page.
‘Teutates’? Why does that name seem familiar? And what about this reference about wasps and snakes double-underlined??
“Evelyn was close to finding out something very important,” he said quietly.
Did the wasps’ reference relate to the anisgina’s attacks on the cabin prior to Christmas, since a massive swarm of hornets might sound like a giant horde of wasps? The snake reference made him think again about the strange symbol left on the guestroom’s wall where the dresser mirror used to be. Gigv Inadv. The legendary great snake, ‘Uktena’, immediately came to mind again, for whom scores of Cherokee legends were created.
While reading the notes about the German occultist’s website, he heard a noise. It sounded like a coin or something similar had just landed on the floor in the guestroom and now rolled around. Shawn’s ears perked up, and he began to growl. John shushed him, motioning with his index finger pressed to his lips to remain quiet while he tiptoed down the hallway.
By the time he reached the guestroom, the noise had stopped. Iced air filled the air around him. It didn’t take his heightened senses to realize a spirit had been here very recent and possibly still lingered. The feeling of being watched from all directions confirmed that notion.
At first glance, not much had changed since his last visit to the room. But something glistened on the floor amid glass chips yet to be swept up. Even from where he stood, he could tell the quarter-sized object was a gemstone—a dark fire opal his best initial guess. Cautious, he stepped into the room while Shawn followed close behind, and bent down to examine the item. What in the hell is this??
He picked up the gemstone.
My God, it’s a ruby!
The stone’s size and unusual clarity and smoothness amazed him. A flurry of images flashed before his mind’s eye. Everything from the ornate gold handle to which the gem once belonged to the object’s eventual burial deep within the earth was revealed to him. And then more recent images briefly appeared…a beautiful girl dressed in a Victorian-style, long blue dress followed by extreme violence to her person. The last thing he saw, an elderly woman carrying the gem in a box with other jewels that also once belonged to the splendid scepter.
Surprised by the vision’s detailed images
, John steadied himself with one hand on the dresser. While unsure if the quarter-sized jewel had been brought here by his friend, David Hobbs, no doubt it somehow related to Allie Mae McCormick and the ravine she cherished during her life, nearly a century ago.
Definitely the girl he just saw, he also recognized the prized scepter removed from the ravine by Dr. Pollack. The ruby’s smooth surface reminded him of the loose jewels he and Micky Webster, his fellow ranger who helped him find Allie Mae’s gravesite, relinquished to the University of Tennessee’s Antiquities Department.
While holding the ruby up close to the bedroom’s overhead light, he glimpsed a shadow pass by the guestroom’s doorway.
“Who’s there?” John asked, warily.
Shawn ran out of the room in pursuit of the intruder, but then stopped, his tail wagging while he waited for John to join him.
As soon as John joined him in the hallway, he saw a bearded man wearing a tan fedora, dressed in a shirt, trousers, and work boots that were once the common attire of the mining folk in the region. Standing near the living room, the figure looked down at Shawn, grinning, and then raised his eyes to meet John’s gaze.
“David?”
John uttered the question tentatively. The man did look like David. Yet, at the same time, seemed somehow different from the last time he saw him, in October. John hoped it wasn’t just because the apparition was semi-transparent.
Did the anisgina kill you?
“Nah, I ain’t him…just his kin,” the man replied.
He pointed to John’s hand that held the ruby, and then tipped his hat before turning away, moving into the living room where his heavy boots reported his progress. The footsteps headed for the front door until they abruptly stopped.
John ran after him with Shawn barking excitedly at his heels. When they reached the living room, the apparition had disappeared. Its chilled essence hung in the air, despite the warm blaze in the fireplace. But John paid little attention to the room’s temperature or comfort, instead distracted by a tremor within the ruby he held in his hand.
Something had happened to the gemstone since he first examined it just moments ago. In the center of the ruby, a mist had formed. John moved quickly over to the coffee table and grabbed his eyeglasses. He then turned on the lamp next to his recliner and brought the ruby closer to his eyes for a better look.
Holding the ruby up to the light, it surprised him to see the mist moving, and it also looked like a faint image began to solidify within it.
John gasped, covering it up with his hand. He looked around himself, anxious, hoping to find someplace to dispose of the thing, like it had become some sort of venomous spider or other deadly bug poised to bite him. A small wooden box sat on the fireplace’s mantle, next to a photograph of his daughter, Joanna, taken when she wasn’t much older than her daughter, Evelyn, was now. John picked up the box and carefully removed a small silver pinky ring that belonged to his late wife, Susanne. He quickly placed the ring in the breast pocket of his flannel shirt and deposited the ruby inside the box, closing the lid hastily. He then returned the box to the mantle.
“Hopefully that buys me enough time,” he mumbled worriedly.
John forced a smile for Shawn, who pawed at his pant legs, seeking assurance. He truly wished he had that to give. What he did have was a renewed interest in his granddaughter’s research from yesterday. What she had sought gained a lot more urgency now, in light of the most recent events. Confirming the identity of his mysterious visitor would have to wait, though almost certain it was David’s ancestor, the infamous Billy Ray Hobson. The most pressing questions dealt with the ruby itself and what he saw moving inside it.
John opened the laptop and waited for it to power on, resting the device on his lap as he sat down in his recliner. Luckily, he remembered the guest password Evelyn had set up for him a few months earlier, despite his insistence he would never use the thing. Too much of a hassle to get information that was questionable at best in terms of authenticity…at least that’s what he thought before now. Evelyn was on to something with her internet search—perhaps the very key to resolving their problem with the angered anisgina once and for all.
What he already read in her notes made sense in light of what had squinted at him from within the ruby’s glowing center. An eye…. Cold and reptilian like a snake. A chill traveled down his spine as he considered a new possibility…that the jewel lying within the small box on the mantel belonged to a sacred creature among his people known as “The Great Serpent”. Until this very moment, John had passed the serpent off as merely an old Cherokee legend, a fairy tale to help his ancestor’s explain everything from the war between night and day to the inevitable expulsion of his people from the Smoky Mountains. If this mythical creature turned out to be factual, then the ruby belonged to the ancient guardian charged with protecting the only path to the underworld—the ‘land of the dead’ located beyond the Three Blood Rivers.
“The ‘Eye of Uktena’,” John whispered, his tone reverent as he picked up Evelyn’s notepad and began the painstaking course of retracing her steps from yesterday. If enough time to undo the wrath of the anisgina, he could think of no better way to rescue his granddaughters and David and Miriam.
“May the Great Spirit show me how to use it, to allow me safe passage through the depths of ‘Tsvsgino’ and find them… and allow me to bring them all back from hell safely to the land of the living.”
A noble prayer… as long as the owner of the eye didn’t come for him first.
Chapter Thirty-two
Tyler awoke from a deep sleep. Someone had pulled his blankets down to his waist and pushed on his shoulder. That someone now tapped him lightly on the forehead.
“Ty, wake up!” whispered Christopher. “There’s somebody moving around in the game area.”
At first reluctant to acknowledge his little brother’s urgent pleas, grumbling that it was likely just the chalet’s upper floorboards settling, he rolled over with his back to Christopher. He pulled the bedcovers back up to his neck, anticipating a return to the sweet comfort and bliss from a moment ago. Then he heard it.
What the hell?
“See, I told you!” whined Christopher, his tone more fearful than before.
Tyler’s wide-eyed response as he sat up in bed didn’t help. Before he could pull on his jeans, one of the balls on the pool table rolled across the slate surface. It bounced against the table’s sides before landing inside the corner pocket closest to their bedroom.
Definitely can’t explain away that shit!
He stood up and faced the doorway leading out into the loft area. The darkened silhouettes of the pool table and several video games were eerily enhanced by a nightlight near the top of the stairs. Bravely he stepped forward, with Christopher clinging to the back of his T-shirt. His heart pounded heavy in his chest as he listened. Hearing his great aunt’s snores downstairs, he waited for some other sound from the billiard area.
“W-who’s out there?” he asked, hoping to sound gruff like his dad when pissed off about something, but knowing he couldn’t hide his nervousness. Fully awake, he thought about his earlier encounter with Allie Mae’s spirit. God, don’t let it be her…please!
At first nothing, other than the sound of Aunt Ruth sawing logs downstairs. Feeling hopeful, that maybe a logical explanation existed for what they heard, he took a quiet step back toward his bed. A low sigh suddenly filled the darkness in front of him, accompanied by the sound of something brushing softly across the loft’s carpet.
Shit!!
“Ya shouldn’t have come back, Zachariah-h-h!!”
They couldn’t see her…not yet. But her voice sounded like it came from just outside the bedroom’s doorway.
“Quick! Shut the door, Ty!!” Christopher urged him, his voice shrill.
The snores from downstairs now ceased.
Frightened as his little brother, Tyler couldn’t move. More on account of the voice… she sounded so hostile, like wh
en she tried to kill him two months prior. To his horror, the brushing noise moved through the doorway and into the bedroom. Instinctively, he backed up with Christopher whimpering behind him.
“Someone must die-e-e-e!!” The voice a mixture of sensuality and deepening malice, it bore a southern twang that only made it worse… so dangerous, its threat real. “Yer next!! He’s comin’ for ya’ll…one by one…until he collects everyon-n-ne!!!”
“The tree man?”
Christopher’s voice barely audible, the question seemed like it slipped out by accident. Tyler turned to shush him before he said anything else, but an amused chuckle floated through the air around them. Christopher trembled, tightening his grip on his brother’s shirt.
She’s in here…coming from everywhere! … Sweet Jesus, how in the hell do we get out of this??
“Teutates will be here very soon-n-n-n! And when he comes, he won’t look so old…especially after yer blood drenches his flesh-h-h!!”
A cold breeze embraced their faces as they stepped back into the dresser.
Shit! No where else to go!!
“…Or, maybe he’d be pleased if I got started on ya both first-t-t-!!”
If just him, he wasn’t sure what he would’ve done. But his protective nature took over. The chilled presence invaded Tyler’s personal space, and the sickening smell of raw meat amid a low wheezing, gurgling noise nearly caused him to hurl his dinner. Behind him, Christopher fought to keep from vomiting.
Dad said her face was smashed and her larynx torn away when she died.
