Authors: Aiden James
Cynthia moved over to the lone stool in the room, pulling it over to the door while she waited for him, tapping her feet lightly to let him know the ‘timer’ was back, full on. Aside from her usual impatience, maybe she shared the same mental picture of what the skull might look like if all of the curved, sharp teeth were in place. Given its gangly height and other apparent deformities, the skeleton already appeared alien, despite the obvious human characteristics. Definitely predatory.
Thank God it’s dead.
“
Okay, that should do it!” he announced a few minutes later.
Eddie removed the protective case from beneath the table and carefully placed the bones inside and closed it, sliding the journal into a sealed sleeve along the steel container’s side. Only the teeth remained, to be cataloged and removed tomorrow by another assistant. After he locked the case, he turned his attention back to her.
The fact she didn’t reciprocate his radiant smile wasn’t an immediate cause for concern, since he had a fifteen-hour car ride to work on fixing that. Neither one wanted to hang out in the lab any longer than necessary. Ready to begin enjoying a much deserved Christmas holiday break, he almost skipped down the stairs to the main floor with his girl in tow close behind him.
On the way downstairs a loud thud startled them both, followed by the sound of a door handle jiggling. The latter noise most disturbing as it echoed eerily from upstairs, like someone desperately wanted out of a locked lab. He jogged back up the stairs to take a look. The noises stopped. Nothing seemed out of place...but the air had become much colder, revealing his misty chilled breaths. As he walked back to the lab they’d just visited, a peculiar sensation of being watched grew strong, until the tender hairs along the back of his neck sprang to life.
The door slightly ajar, he assumed he left it that way. He pushed it open and stepped inside, turning on the light. Everything as he left it, the case sat on the floor, closed and locked. But it felt even colder in here.
How’d this place turn into such a frigging icebox, and so fast?
“
Ed?” Cynthia’s worried voice echoed weirdly from the edge of the hallway, near the stairs.
“
I’ll be right there!”
His own nervousness surprised him. Normally not one to let his weaker emotions govern his behavior…but now his eyes also played tricks.
As he turned off the lab’s overhead lights and prepared to close the door, he could’ve sworn something moved toward him in the dimness…something darker than the deep shadows of the windowless room. The ink-like form reached him just as he pulled the door shut. For a moment he simply stared at the closed door, expecting something else crazy to happen.
There was no way in hell he’d venture inside the room a third time. He hurried to rejoin his fiancé at the end of the hall, casting several glances over his shoulder along the way. Anxious to leave, he led her out of the building. Despite December’s wintry chill outside, the air seemed warmer than it did on the second floor. They ran over to his Mazda and jumped inside, and the car swerved out of the parking lot before either one had their seatbelts fastened.
He couldn’t vouch for Cynthia, but that strange feeling of being watched by someone or something unseen stayed with him until the University’s campus was no longer visible in the rearview mirror.
There had to be a logical reason for all of this—just had to be. It’s what he kept telling himself all the way to Miami Beach.
Chapter Two
The Delta 747 jerked suddenly and then dipped, as flight 1409 approached the eastern edge of Denver’s metro sprawl. Ruth Gaurni’er tightened her grip on the left arm of her seat, gazing anxiously out her window, thankful no one seemed to notice her surprised gasp. Nearly a decade since her last trip to Denver, she’d forgotten the turbulent winds the region is well known for.
She sighed, her nervousness hidden behind gentle brown eyes. Only the fine lines around her mouth as she pursed her lips gave evidence that her teeth were clinched tight. A handsome woman in her early sixties, she rarely looked her age. Even more so this afternoon, dressed in a sharp burgundy pantsuit with her hair freshly accented the day before with enough brunette shade to lesson the light grey that normally defined her look.
Her seatbelt secured in accordance with the advisory light above her seat, she quietly opened her carry-on bag. Call it superstition, or perhaps a compulsory need to make sure the jewels were still there. Either way, she couldn’t stop herself from checking. They remained safely wrapped in protective tissue inside the rectangular box that had been their home for much of the past 40 years.
“
It’s time, David,” she whispered to no one in particular, relaxing her jaw as she unwrapped the largest gem.
Being the only passenger sitting in her row allowed ample opportunity to feed her obsession, to check one last time before the plane’s descent into Denver International Airport. She raised her head above the seats to check on the stewardess’s location, who was busy collecting empty glasses and paper trash in the plane’s coach section. At least another minute in relative privacy, she uncovered the clear oblong diamond resting inside the box.
A flawless gem nearly two inches in length, and half that in width, Ruth couldn’t remember the exact carat weight from its last valuation, shortly after her husband, Peter, passed away twenty years ago. But enough to push the stone’s value to well over two hundred thousand dollars—a conservative estimate, since the Atlanta-based appraiser told her at the time how the smooth surface and near pristine condition of the jewel added an undetermined amount to its value. Not to mention the non-faceted stone had been polished without any obvious tool marks. She squinted, crinkling her nose while studying it, as often amazed something so wondrous found its way into her family’s otherwise sordid legacy.
The remaining three jewels in the box were similarly shaped and also non-faceted, though not near as large. These consisted of a smaller yellow diamond and two sapphires, one a brilliant blue while the other a deeper purple hue.
Ruth smiled sadly as she considered their inestimable value and cost to her family, since the jewels once belonged to a larger collection of her grandfather’s. The immense wealth had come with a far greater price than the gemstones could ever repay. Anyone unfortunate enough to live under the unmerciful control of William Hobbs Sr., the lecherous old codger who survived far longer than a judicious God should ever allow, could never be compensated for the endless tyranny that reigned on for decades through his male descendents.
But this was a time to rejoice—not fret about past injuries. The man long removed from this life, not all of his descendents took after him. Her beloved nephew, David Hobbs, was nothing like his great-grandfather, and his sons, Tyler and Chris took after their father, thank the Lord. And to think she’d be spending the Christmas holidays with them—she pinched herself earlier while waiting in Chattanooga’s airport for her flight, just to make sure this wasn’t a dream.
She especially looked forward to visiting with Miriam, David’s lovely wife, and her grand niece, Jillian. It would be so much fun to take everyone shopping for something special this Christmas instead of mailing gifts, as always done in the past. A great surprise awaited David and Miriam, in addition to the four precious jewels. She carried trust papers, entitling him and his heirs to a large inheritance first mentioned this past October, when he came to Tennessee on a business trip. Her only regret, the gems remained an incomplete set, as she’d misplaced a quarter-sized ruby. Unlike the other stones, the ruby was circular in shape, and thinner in width. She hoped to look for it again when she returned home in early January.
Satisfied for now, she wrapped up everything and placed the box back inside her carry-on bag and locked it. She then returned her attention to the view through her window. The plane veered further to the west, following its predestined approach to DIA. The landscape below her completely white, the city and surrounding areas had been blanketed by several snowstorms during the past week.
Landing soon, she started to smile. But an uneasy feeling washed over her. It wasn’t the first time this had happened lately, and the feeling always came with the same thought. Something was strangely mysterious about David when she last saw him in October. She recalled his abhorred reaction to what they discussed briefly from her past…about a family ghost.
Ruth snickered slightly and shrugged her shoulders, pushing the worrisome thought from her mind. The snow-covered roads and houses becoming more clearly defined, the plane began its final descent.
Chapter Three
“
Get a move on it, kids!”
David Hobbs stood waiting at the foot of the stairs near the foyer of his family’s spacious home in Littleton, Colorado, dressed in a blue turtleneck sweater and his favorite pair of Wranglers. As was his habit, he absently stroked his close-cropped blond beard. Strong and handsome, with warm eyes that morphed between hazel and bright green depending on his mood, he cleared his throat in preparation for a more urgent command to get his children’s attention. Excited about having their great aunt come to Denver that afternoon to spend the Christmas holidays with them, they were busy chasing one another across the upstairs landing.
“
Kids!”
“
We’re coming, Daddy!”
Jillian Hobbs, David’s twelve-year-old daughter limped around the corner of the landing, nearly tripping on her way downstairs. Dressed in jeans and a Denver Broncos sweatshirt, she was already a tall, slender beauty with the same blond hair and green eyes as her father. She smiled warmly at her dad while heading down the stairs, despite her hips’ stiffness due to a painful flare-up from her
chronic SCFE
He felt a momentary tug on his heart that went beyond empathy for her present discomfort, realizing in just a couple of years she’d likely start dating. Luckily, her older brother, Tyler, was even more protective than David. He and the youngest Hobbs, Christopher, were dressed in similar winter attire and followed close behind her. Tyler, fourteen, favored his mother, whose thick dark hair and piercing blue eyes made him quite popular with many of the girls at Goddard Middle School, while the strong physical stature and cynical humor he inherited from David kept him well-liked by the guys.
“
Ty’s letting me play with his PSP, Daddy!” said Christopher, excited.
Closely resembling his older sister at nine years, with the same colored hair, eyes, and impish smile, he raised the device in the air and pointed at it, nearly running over his sister on the way downstairs. He heeded his dad’s warnings to slow down and not pull on the evergreen garland hung just a few days earlier.
“
Well, let’s get this show on the road,” said David, his bright eyes softening now that he had their collective attention. “Where’s your mom?”
“
Right here,” said Miriam, her snow boots clicking against the dining room’s oak floor as she moved toward the foyer where the rest of her family gathered. Dressed casual like everyone else, her flowing, shoulder-length jet-black hair and radiant complexion seemed to set the air around her aglow—or maybe it was the luminance in her sky-blue eyes that sparkled with the same excitement as her kids.
David wished he could whisk her upstairs to ravish right then. But already running late to pick up his aunt he ushered everyone outside, pausing to make sure Sadie, the family’s Yorkshire terrier, had enough food and water to last until their return home later that afternoon. He set the security alarm in the foyer and joined his family as they piled into their minivan idling in the driveway.
***
“
Sadie’s acting strange again,” whispered Miriam, once they headed north on I-25, the main thoroughfare connecting the southern portion of the metro sprawl to the rest of the Denver area. Determined to keep her voice low, she glanced behind the front passenger seat toward the kids, preoccupied with either their game systems or IPods in the back seats. “Didn’t you notice how she went right under the couch once she realized we were leaving?”
“
Yeah, I noticed,” David agreed. “She’s been real skittish. She won’t even go outside without someone right beside her, and I see she’s been sleeping at night with Jill again.”
“
She’s been like this since last Saturday, when we returned home after picking up the Christmas tree.”
Miriam kept her attention straight ahead, as if fixed on the road before them, and didn’t look over at David until he responded. Yes, he noticed something amiss since last Saturday, though subtle at first. It had indeed started after they came home from picking out this year’s Christmas tree that afternoon. The house felt different somehow when they returned in the evening, like an intruder snuck in during their brief absence. David thought the dog’s reaction had something to do with the tree, since Sadie often barked when a new piece of furniture or an appliance was brought home. This year’s Douglas fir, an eight-foot beauty, could’ve looked like some bristly monster to a color-blind animal with limited depth perception.
“Maybe we should take her to the vet again.”
His response nonchalant, he hoped to draw her other observations first.
“
Perhaps we should,” she said tersely, as if aware of his tactic. “But the dining room has felt like an icebox since then too.”