by Aiden James
“I CAN’T!!” he shouted defiantly. “My friend needs me and there’s nothing YOU can do to STOP ME!!! ‘You hear me, Allie Mae?? Leave me the hell ALONE!!!”
A heavy sigh filled the air around the van.
“That was really stupid of you just now, David!” Miriam scolded him, after she pulled the van back on the road. She had rolled up her window and now glanced nervously around her. “Didn’t you learn anything from the last time we dealt with her??”
She shook her head disgustedly while he glowered at her from the passenger seat. He locked the passenger door, more as a distraction to keep things civil between them. He didn’t allow himself to think about what the wraith might attempt next. In the headlights’ beam he saw the edge of the road that headed south to John’s place.
“The road’s just ahead. Turn here!”
Miriam glanced one more time into the rearview mirror before making the turn. She gasped, almost sliding off the road again. David warily looked over his shoulder in response. A mist-like form pursued them, coming up fast, the bottom of the form bluish with a pair of porcelain-white feet hitting the ice-covered road in patted rhythm. He recalled the blue gown that Allie Mae’s spirit often appeared in, and when his mind understood that she now ran to catch up to them, he urged Miriam to floor the accelerator.
“Don’t look anymore—just drive!” he told her, forcing himself to stay as calm as possible. She looked over at him with pleading eyes, as whatever hardness had seized her since last night completely melted away. “You’ve got to trust me, darlin’!”
She nodded worriedly, but without looking back she raced down the road, careful to maneuver the road’s curves smartly. He kept his eyes trained on his side-view mirror. When he could no longer make out the outline of the mist behind them, and they neared the fork that would take them to John’s doorstep, he returned his attention to Miriam once more. Her knuckles were ghastly white from her tight grip on the steering wheel.
“Okay…we’re almost there,” he said, making sure his tone and delivery stayed confident and reassuring. “Turn here and this road will take us right up to John’s cabin.”
The name of the road was Beaver Falls Trail, though only the ‘Beaver’ and the first two letters of ‘Falls’ were visible when the headlights flashed across the road sign. The rest of it was covered with snow. Another iced-over dirt road, Miriam squealed the tires as she pulled the vehicle onto it. She kept the pedal pinned to the floorboard, taking no chances for anything to catch them from behind.
John Running Deer’s cabin came into view, illuminated by security lamps. Several lights on inside the cabin as well, in all likelihood Evelyn was there. Miriam parked the Odyssey next to Miriam’s sporty Nissan, and cut the engine. For a moment, they listened to the wind that pushed flurried snowflakes against the windows.
“Let’s not wait for Allie Mae to show up again,” said David, drawing another worried look from Miriam.
Liking this so much better than the disdain he’d dealt with lately, he hoped things would get cleared up once and for all when she saw absolutely nothing romantic going on between him and Evelyn. Hence his readiness to go on up to the door and get on with this business.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” she agreed, allowing a deep sigh to escape her before glancing one last time into the rearview mirror. “I suppose we should wait to take the bags with us.” She opened the driver side door and jumped down from her seat.
“That would be my assumption,” he agreed, joining her outside the minivan.
They shut their doors in near unison and walked up to the front door.
He recalled how warm and inviting the cabin had been when fighting for his life two months ago. John’s home became David’s safe-haven. But something had changed since then. Pretty sure Miriam felt it too; she hovered close to his side as they climbed onto the front porch. She drew even closer as he rang the doorbell.
Shawn’s barks greeted them, followed by an awkward few minutes listening to footsteps that came close to the door and then moved away before approaching the door again, this time much more confident. Finally, Evelyn opened the door, after twice peering through the curtains of the window next to the door.
“David?” she asked, as soon as she opened the door, shielding her eyes from the porch light’s glare. “What are you doing here??”
“Uh…well, we came as soon as we could,” he replied, curious as to why she would ask such a question. What do you mean ‘what are you doing here?’ YOU begged me to come here and as a result, my wife has been pissed as hell at me—THAT’S what I’M doing here. “Are you okay?”
He looked over at Miriam, making sure he had her approval before moving forward in this discussion.
“You must be Miriam,” said Evelyn, warmly. She opened the door, moving an object from her right hand to her left, kept hidden behind her back. She then extended her free hand to Miriam, who shook it politely. “Oh, come on in—both of you.”
Now that he had a better look at her, he noticed the dark circles around Evelyn’s eyes—the tell-tale sign of a recent string of troubled nights. Her smile almost as lovely as he recalled from two months earlier, it had since been touched by sadness. He motioned for Miriam to go inside the cabin first and then he followed. Shawn brushed up against them both, wagging his tail.
“So what brings you to Gatlinburg?” asked Evelyn, closing the door behind them and offering to take their coats.
Miriam looked puzzled as if sorting through some discrepancy between what she expected to find here and the actual reality. David knew his look reflected the awkwardness he felt, since he couldn’t predict how Miriam would react to him being anything beyond cordial to John’s lovely granddaughter.
“You asked me to come here last night,” he sought to confirm, to which she offered only a blank expression. “You were emphatic that I come here right away...so we brought the whole family—the kids and my aunt are holed up in a chalet in Gatlinburg.”
Now Evelyn looked confused. “What are you talking about, David?”
“On the phone,” he said, after trading perplexed glances with Miriam. “You called us late last night, and said that John was in serious trouble and needed me. That’s why we came here tonight.”
“But, David, how can that be?” she asked, bewildered. She seemingly forgot about the carving knife she held behind her back, casually setting it down on a small table near the door, where John liked to keep his daily mail. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“What?? How so?” asked David, even more surprised. . Miriam wore a similar expression to Evelyn’s after she and David watched her set the knife down.
“Because it’s impossible,” Evelyn replied to David, glancing briefly at Miriam. “It’s impossible because I’ve never called you—ever.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
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 i
nterest 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.