by Aiden James
Chapter Sixteen
“Huh-h?”
Hanna awoke with a start. The living room in her grandfather’s cabin dark, except for the dying embers in the fireplace and the glow from the back porch light seeping in through a small crease in the backdoor curtains. Evelyn was supposed to sleep on the couch, but Hanna decided to forego her turn to sleep in the guestroom, allowing her big sister to sleep in a bed for the second consecutive night. Shawn preferred to sleep with his master tonight, despite her grandfather’s initial reluctance to share his bedroom with the dog. That meant Hanna had the rest of the main floor to herself. She preferred this arrangement since to her the couch slept more comfortable than either of the beds.
She pulled her thick comforter up to her chin with the expectation of drifting back to sleep in a moment. Bundled up like this she yawned, feeling the heated air from the fireplace gently caress her face. The clock on the table next to her grandfather’s recliner read 1:06 a.m. She watched the blue digital numbers change to 1:07 and then closed her eyes… until she heard three light knocks upon a glass window pane.
That woke her up for good. Had she been dreaming? She couldn’t say for sure, so she listened. Nothing happened at first, but as she looked over in time to see the clock’s readout click over to 1:12, the knocks repeated.
Frightened, she sat up on the couch. The knocks sounded like they came from the back door’s window. She glimpsed someone standing outside and gasped. The shadowed form was visible just to the right of the open crack in the curtains.
She struggled to find her voice, for when she did she intended to scream for her grandfather. But then something happened to change her mind completely
“Hanna?” an older woman called to her.
“Who’s there?” she replied, her soft voice shaking.
For a moment, the only response she received was silence.
“It’s me… Grandma Susanne,” said the old woman, and Hanna realized now that the woman’s voice came from the figure standing outside. “I don’t have long, sweetheart, so come quickly.”
Hanna stood up quietly, never removing her eyes from the back door while she put on her housecoat and slippers. Cautious, she moved toward the door while tying her sash around her waist. When she reached it, the shadowed figure stepped out of her direct view, to the right. She almost decided right then to awaken her grandfather before proceeding further.
“I’ve got a special Christmas gift for John, dearie,” said the woman, from outside. Now that Hanna stood closer, it really sounded like her grandma. “It’s something I wanted so desperately to give him five years ago, but I crossed over before that could happen. Please… let me give it to you to give to him.”
The anguish in her voice sounded genuine.
“Grandma…so it’s really you?”
Hanna peered through the crease in the curtains, and when she saw an older woman standing there and not some young thug trying to break in, she pulled the curtains back so she could get a good look at her.
“Oh, Hanna…how I’ve missed you so much!”
The woman stepped in front of the window, removing a tan scarf from in front of her face. She wore a long hooded wool coat that Hanna recalled as her favorite choice when dressing for the severe winter weather in the Smoky Mountains. Powdered snow covered her shoulders, and Hanna noticed that another inch of snow had fallen upon the porch since she retired for the evening, just before midnight.
Tears welled in the woman’s eyes, and she removed the hood from her head, revealing the long blond curls that defined Grandma Susanne’s look. In fact, she never forfeited her beautiful hair, despite the terrible fight she eventually lost to breast cancer. Her soft green eyes seemed to glow under the porch lights, which reminded Hanna of how she appeared to her as a little girl, and the delighted welcome she would always get when time to make a visit to grandpa and grandma’s mountain cabin.
She didn’t understand how any of this could be possible. All Hanna knew for sure at the moment, the woman knocking on the cabin’s back door was definitely her grandmother. Yes, it made no sense at all that a dead person could come back from the grave. But, it must be true because it happened right now.
“Grandma!” she said, excited, pulling frantic on the locks to open the door. “I’ve missed you just as much!”
Once the door was open she stepped out onto the porch, throwing her arms around the old woman, her Grandma Susanne. She sobbed, and Grandma Susanne wept as well, though mindful to tell her granddaughter to keep her voice down so as not to awaken Evelyn and John. The two embraced for several minutes until Hanna was ready to let go and hear about the gift Grandma Susanne had for her grandfather.
“Let’s take a short walk,” said the older woman, pointing toward the northeast corner of John Running Deer’s property. “Your grandpa’s surprise is something you’ll need to bring back with you from the woods. It isn’t far from here.”
Her smile warm and sweet, Hanna couldn’t help being drawn to the benevolence that radiated from the woman. Clothed in just her nightclothes and slippers in the chilled mountain air, she nodded shyly and placed her hand inside her grandmother’s palm, ignoring the nagging thought she should first alert her grandfather and sister before venturing into the woods.
Grandma Susanne’s hand felt warm, and brought back more memories from Hanna’s childhood. Strangely, the warmth spread throughout her body, and she scarcely noticed the subfreezing temperature around her.
Hand in hand, they stepped down from the porch and headed toward the woods. The light from the moon illuminated the area around them. A soft breeze moved through the woods once they moved past Shawn’s doghouse, bringing with it the wood on wood sound John heard earlier in the day. Since he didn’t tell her or Evelyn about his visit into the woods, she was unaware of the gruesome scene awaiting her. Thankfully, the light from the moon barely penetrated the thick pine foliage above their heads as they walked into the woods. Hanna noticed the bones hanging from the cedar’s branch, but she assumed they’d been there awhile, since she couldn’t see the wolf’s coat hidden in the shadows, nor its head and paws lying at the tree’s base.
“Stay close to me, Hanna, and we should reach our destination shortly,” Grandma Susanne advised, once they moved deeper into the woods where the trees grew closer together and sure-footing became precarious on sloping, uneven terrain.
The old woman had no trouble navigating through the thick dimness where Hanna fought to keep up with her.
After a few hundred feet of dense woodland, they reached a small clearing bathed in the moon’s luminance. Hanna’s slippers were covered with mud, pine needles and other grit from the forest floor. Even so, she felt privileged. Grandma Susanne pointed to a large boulder in the middle of the clearing and led the way over to it. The top surface of the massive rock flat and fairly smooth, she brushed away the snow with her coat’s sleeve and motioned for Hanna to sit down on it.
“I know it’s a little cold, dearie, but we’ll only be here for a moment,” Grandma Susanne told her, gently patting Hanna’s shoulder and stroking her face with the back of her hand.
The warmth from her touch flowed through Hanna’s entire being, rendering her impervious to the frigid environment again, despite small misty clouds with each breath.
Once situated comfortable upon the rock, Grandma Susanne took a few steps back from her, to where a cluster of much smaller rocks sat. She looked over her shoulder at something on the other side of the rocks, unseen by Hanna, who assumed this must be the surprise her grandmother mentioned.
“Now…Hanna, I want you to close your eyes and slowly count to ten, like you used to do when you were a little girl and we played ‘hide and seek’ in the cabin,” Grandma Susanne advised, her loving smile unwavering. “When you’re done counting, I’ll show you something amazing. A sight that John and even Evelyn would be greatly impressed with, too, I’m sure.”
Hanna returned her smile, giggling like the small child she once
was. When her grandmother passed away five years ago, she took it harder than anyone other than her grandfather. She’d always longed for a reunion like this, but Hanna never dreamed she’d be given the chance to reconnect with her grandmother—at least not before tonight. Eager to participate, she closed her eyes and began counting.
Grandma Susanne continued to smile, a slight trace of amusement on her face. She stooped down and picked up four glistening objects from the snow next to the rock cluster. Gemstones, cylindrical in shape and non-faceted. Two of them were diamonds, along with a pair of sapphires. All four gems unique enough to be considered priceless, until very recently they had been in the possession of Sara Palmer in Denver, Colorado, courtesy of David Hobbs.
As soon as Grandma Susanne picked up the stones and stood up straight, her warm green eyes melted into hollow sockets. Her warm smile also faded, into a sardonic grin. She stepped over to Hanna, who had just reached the count of seven. Before she finished, the figure continued to morph into the withered corpse that surely rested under the earth—if Susanne Rae Running Deer were to be exhumed from her final earthly resting place.
The figure could’ve remained like this, poised to horribly frighten the unsuspecting granddaughter of the ranger and his beloved late wife. But at the last moment, it morphed into its natural state. By the time Hanna opened her eyes to see her grandmother’s promised surprise, a repulsive and very tall old man stood above her.
He obscured the moon above, which cast an eerie glow on his long gray hair. The deep reddish grooves in his skin had already softened and filled in somewhat after his recent meal at Langston Hall. But his eyes, iridescent and yellow, with pupils that narrowed predatorily as he studied her, were more than enough to elicit a shrill scream from Hanna. She nearly lost her breath once she opened her eyes and found this hideous naked monster of human deformity standing over her. He didn’t even need to flash a full smile featuring his blood-streaked jagged teeth to get that response, which his shit-eating smirk revealed was the prize he’d hoped for.
The scream may have been all that he desired, his bloodlust satisfied earlier. But the fact her scream gave birth to several shriller shrieks seemed to annoy him. He raised his hand holding the four jewels, and unfurled the curled fingernails into bloodstained talons. Hanna’s eyes grew wider with fright and her cries more urgent. He hesitated…as if in silent debate about filleting her throat and removing the source of his irritation.
But instead of killing her, he merely blew upon the gemstones, which emitted sparks and a puff of black smoke. When the smoke reached her face, she choked to the point she could no longer breathe, but only until she passed out and collapsed on the ground. Confirming she lay unconscious, the figure backed up from her, raising his hands into the air and clicking his curled fingernails together above his head. The wind rustled loud from the surrounding woods, and two elongated shadows arose from the higher evergreens that lined the southwest portion of the forest.
As they had done within the confines of Langston Hall, the shadows separated from one another and flew toward the spot where Hanna lay. As they neared her, the shadows shrunk in size and soon appeared as two dark Native Americans walking upon the snow. Their images became lucid once the pair arrived on either side of the naked old man, still quite taller and more repulsive than either of them. Their eyes mirrored the empty sockets of Grandma Susanne a short while earlier.
Their raven-black hair was strewn with crow feathers…each one dressed in buckskins and beads, wearing moccasins. They deferred to the old man’s authority, kneeling before him.
“Agasdi nasgi ageyv!” The figure’s voice rumbled unearthly as it uttered this command.
The one closest to him moved over to Hanna’s limp body and gathered her up. The master smiled in approval, closing his hand around the jewels. He turned toward the northern woods, walking out of the clearing with his companions on either side.
Just as they reached the edge of the forest, their images blurred and faded into a collective swirling mist that rose high into the air. The mist darkened and thickened, spreading like an enormous inkblot elucidated by the moon’s brightness. It continued to rise far above the tree line until all at once it exploded into thousands of small particles that began to vibrate and buzz. Carried by a forceful gust pummeling the virgin woodlands below it, the unearthly mass raced north, roaring like an immense swarm of angry hornets.
Chapter Seventeen
“Hello, Auntie.”
David spoke quietly into the receiver of his mobile flip phone. He adjusted the seat cushion of his chair in the waiting area outside the ICU at St. Anthony’s Medical Center in Denver, where he and Miriam had spent the last forty minutes. Miriam sat across from him with her arm around Janice, whose eyes were red from the tears she’d cried for much of the past few hours after finding her close friend, Sara Palmer, lying unconscious on the floor of her living room.
“Are the kids giving you any trouble?”
His latest comment drew a curious look from Miriam, until she saw the impish expression on his face. Ruth told him everything was okay back at the house, and then she asked about Sara.
“Not so good, I’m afraid,” he told her, the sadness in his voice erasing the wan smile from a moment ago. “The doctors here told Miriam and Jan they have no idea when she’ll come out of the coma.”
He didn’t feel it necessary to add that one of the attending physicians, Dr. Leonard Puckett, stated he believed Sara might never regain consciousness.
“Yeah, it’s really tough on both of them….” David glanced at Miriam, this time with a slight wince. “No, the detectives here earlier are just getting started, so there are no suspects yet… What’s that? Yeah, we believe so….”
He stood up to get a better signal, noticing the nurse attendant pointing to the sign next to her station desk that said ‘No Cell Phones’.
“Hey, Auntie, let me call you later when we get out of here.” He spoke even softer while holding the receiver close to his mouth. “I will—I promise! Tell the kids we might have to take a rain check on the visit to the mall later. But we’re still on for Shakey’s Pizza tonight…. We love you, too, Auntie. Bye.”
David closed the phone and mouthed a silent apology to the attendant, who merely shook her head before turning her attention back to the small stack of paperwork she processed.
“So, how are things at home?” asked Miriam, as she continued to comfort Janice.
“Everyone’s fine,” he replied. “Jill and Chris are working a puzzle with Ruth and Ty’s occupied for now with his X-Box. Apparently he and Steve Elliston got the same on-line game for Christmas and have been going at it for the past hour. He won’t break for lunch if Auntie isn’t paying attention.”
His last comment drew a slight smile from Janice.
David wished he could lighten the load that burdened her heart. According to what she told Miriam over the phone a couple of hours ago, she went to see Sara when she failed to return her calls from Christmas Eve and again on Christmas Day. Janice became especially worried this morning, the day after the holiday, when her second call attempt of the day, around nine o’clock, again went to voice mail. She got in her car and rushed over to Sara’s Cherry Creek townhouse, arriving just after nine-thirty. She found the front door unlocked and Sara sprawled out on her living room floor unconscious, wearing the same outfit she had on Sunday night when she came to the Hobbs’ home to investigate the latest haunting.
The police, who arrived with the paramedics, found no evidence of forced entry, and nothing of value was missing from the home...just the four precious gemstones that David entrusted to her care. He prayed Janice’s presumption proved correct—that Sara had deposited them within the heavy-duty vault secured to the floor in her bedroom closet. The police were reluctant to have one of their specialists open the vault, since a clear link between what lay hidden safely inside and the attack on Sara needed to be established first.
She’d been left with a d
eep gash that extended from just below her left eye all the way down her left arm, ending inside her palm. The injury could’ve been caused by any of a number of sharp objects, and Janice heard one of the officers speculate the weapon might not ever be recovered, since that’s the way it often turned out in assault cases.
The immediate issue was how to get Janice to not feel personally responsible for what befell Sara. She blamed herself for waiting until after Christmas to check on her. His and Miriam’s initial efforts to reassure her that none of what had happened could’ve been prevented by her went ignored. But as the afternoon wore on, she eventually became more receptive to their comfort, and Janice’s spirit finally lifted from the terrible despair she’d fallen into.
Dr. Puckett returned to the waiting room with the latest update on Sara’s condition around 2 p.m. The handsome young doctor advised that although she remained in the coma her vital signs were good. Her wounds dressed, the prognosis for successful healing was positive, though still too early to determine the coma’s duration. Curiously, Dr. Puckett also shared the fact that the medical staff remained at a loss as to how Sara fell into unconsciousness. The x-rays, CAT scan, and an MRI had uncovered no physical trauma to her skull. This knowledge only added to the mystery of what happened and why.
With nothing more that David and Miriam’s presence could accomplish on behalf of Sara, Janice insisted they return home to be with their family. As for joining them tomorrow on a planned trip to Breckenridge, Janice admitted she felt uncomfortable leaving Sara for two days, even though she was under the finest care in the greater metro area. David told her they would hold off on leaving Littleton until noon tomorrow, to give her enough time to decide if she’d like to accompany them to the ski resort.