Ghost House Revenge (23 page)

When it was over, he opened his eyes and looked again into hers. Their blue had become
lighter, but Derek was too filled with passion to really notice. Liza smiled up at
him, digging her nails into the taut muscles of his arms.

“I knew I could have you, Derek Miller,” she said. Her smile revealed pointed teeth.

Liza had always had perfect teeth.

“What?”

Stunned, Derek rolled off of her. He gazed down at the nude woman lying on the sand,
studying her face. It was Liza’s face, and yet the eyes and smile . . .

“Liza, what’s wrong with you?” he whispered.

She threw back her head and let out an ear-shattering screech. All at once, Derek
felt himself being flipped over, his back crashing down against the flat rocks. Before
he could right himself, the woman knelt over him, pinning his arms to the ground with
superhuman strength. Her face twisted and
stretched and became the hitchhiker’s. She grinned at him, knowing he was now in her
power and that she could do anything to him that she desired. But there was still
a flicker of defiance in Derek’s eyes, and he dared to lean his head back and spit
at her.

“AAAAAUUUUGGGH!”

The cry was deep and guttural, not a woman’s cry at all. Angered, Janice-Liza willed
her face to change once more. What Derek witnessed now tore away the last shreds of
his resistance. For looming above him were the horrid remains of his wife Elaine’s
face, just as she had looked after her terrible accident. Derek screamed, reliving
that long-ago afternoon. Elaine’s car had gone up in flames, her body melting in an
inferno. Her face, once beautiful, had become so twisted and ugly that Derek had passed
out after identifying her at the morgue.

And now she was back again. . . .

“NNNOOOO!”

He tried desperately to turn away from the sickening vision. He screamed and kicked
and pleaded, and yet the hideous face still hovered over him.

“Please, oh, dear God,” Derek cried. ‘I’ll do anything! Just get her away. Please!”

The face drained away and became the hitchhiker’s, smiling at him. He had said exactly
what she wanted to hear.

“You’ll remember that face from now on, won’t you?” she said.

Derek nodded.

“And you don’t ever want to see it again, do you?”

Derek shook his head.

“Then remember this,” she hissed, “if you don’t want to suffer again, you’ll do everything
I say.” Her voice took on a sing-song sweetness. “Won’t you?”

“Yes,” Derek whispered.

“Good,” the woman said. “Go back to the house now. You’ll go straight to bed, and
when you wake in the morning, you’ll remember nothing but a pleasant evening with
Liza.”

“Y-yes,” Derek choked.

He did not move when she climbed up the rocks and left him, carrying Liza’s clothes
in her hands. She padded, naked, across the beach, her feet leaving no marks in the
sand. A few moments later, she was behind the wheel of Liza’s car. This she started
without a key and drove down the hill. When she reached the strip that followed the
edge of the beach, she
didn’t turn onto Houston, but instead found a sand-covered boardwalk, just wide enough
to support the vehicle.

She drove on it, without lights, straight for the bay. The car splashed into the water,
sending out a series of soft ripples. At first it floated, rocking gently. And then
it was drawn down into the murky depths, moving slowly and lazily. When it hit the
bottom, Liza’s body slumped forward against the steering wheel. The soft sand offered
little resistance, and within moments the car had wedged itself in permanently.

On the beach Derek finally stood up and dressed himself. Then he hurried to the house,
where, obeying a command, he went straight to bed.

“Are you okay?” Gary asked Melanie as they sat in the back of a yellow cab on the
way home from the hospital.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Melanie asked, smiling at him. Then she nolded. “I get it. You
think I’m nervous to be in a car again.”

“It would be understandable.”

But Melanie looked calm today. After her outburst about someone tampering with her
car, Gary had been afraid for her. Fortunately, she hadn’t mentioned it again. Realizing
she might have been delirious from the blow to her head, Gary was quick to pass that
incident off as hysteria.

Melanie took his hand. “I’m fine. Trust me.”

They were home within an hour. Gary paid the driver, then hobbled on his crutches
to the front door. He expected Derek to be waiting inside. Instead, it was Lad who
gave them a warm welcome-home.

“Hey, puppy,” Gary said, rubbing the dog’s head. “Where’s Derek?”

Lad barked. Gary looked at Melanie. “He’s probably right behind us,” he said. “Must
have gone out for something. He wouldn’t let the kids come home to an empty house.”

“I should think not,” Melanie said, feeling a little angry at Derek.

She and Gary walked down the hall to the stairs, then Melanie carried her overnight
bag up to her room. By the time she finished unpacking it, she heard the sounds of
her children downstairs. Happy to see them again, she hurried down.

“Mom!” Kyle cried, running to her when she reached the bottom landing.

Hugs and kisses were exchanged, and even Alicen managed an embrace for Melanie. She
noticed a change in the child. Alicen seemed to be
glowing
today; her smile made her very pretty, as a matter of fact. Melanie wondered what
had happened to cause the change.

“You don’t look bad at all, mom,” Gina said. “It’s just a little bandage, like Derek
said.”

“Derek bought pizza for dinner two nights!” Nancy cried.

“Mom, are you gonna cook for us now?” Kyle wanted to know.

“Of course,” Melanie said. “By the way, where is Derek?”

“Maybe he had to go to the dentist again,” Alicen suggested.

Well, that’s another switch
, Melanie thought.
Alicen making excuses for her father?

“He should have been here when you kids came home,” Melanie said. “He didn’t know
daddy and I were coming today.”

Alicen shrugged. “We can take care of ourselves.”

“I know that,” Melanie said. “But I still don’t like the idea of you being alone.
Anything could happen here.”

Gina’s eyes darkened. “Mom, don’t talk like that,” she said softly.

Melanie smiled at her, realizing she might have frightened her. The dining room door
opened now. As if in answer to Melanie’s question, Derek stepped into the hallway.
There was a shadow of a beard on his face, and underneath his eyes were dark circles.
He blinked twice at the group near the front door.

“I thought you were out,” Melanie said. “Aren’t you feeling well, Derek?”

“I’m fine,” Derek said without emotion.

“You look terrible.”

Derek yawned and forced a smile that came out like a grimace. “I guess I fell asleep
at lunch. I was up late last night.”

Melanie looked at him for a few minutes, disturbed to see that he, too, had changed.
It was as if he had switched personalities with his daughter. Where she was now cheerful,
he was gloomy. And Melanie could tell by his eyes that he was hiding something.

But Nancy was pulling at her arm, and it was more important to enjoy the children
than to have worries.

“Where’s my daddy?”

“Upstairs in his office,” Melanie said. “He had to make a phone call. Why don’t you
go up and say hi?”

“Come with us, mom,” Kyle said, taking her hand.

Melanie had wanted to talk to Derek, but Kyle was insistent. So now Derek leaned against
the doorjamb and watched them go up the stairs. He sighed. The slight heaving of his
shoulders made his back ache terribly. He felt as if he’d been severely beaten over
every inch of his body.

He had been sitting in the kitchen for hours, staring out the back door. Something
had happened the night before, Derek knew. He couldn’t remember having said goodbye
to Liza. He knew they had had a pleasant evening—that much was clear in his head.
But when had it ended?

A month, a week ago, Derek would have racked his brains to find a logical explanation
for his loss of memory. He was a therapist, after all. He was supposed to always be
in perfect physical and mental health. But now his physical being felt like a rat
dragged out of a river, and his mental self was frayed to bits.

And for some reason, he didn’t give a damn.

He stopped rubbing his arms long enough to go upstairs to the bathroom. He could hear
Gary’s voice, and he had the vague idea that they should get back to the therapy sessions
as soon as possible. Then he reached into the tub and turned on the shower.

The water was like ice, invigorating. Shivering under it, Derek felt the fatigue draining
from his body. The pain in his bones lessened a bit, and by the time he dried himself
off, he was feeling a little better. Not much—the tiredness was still there. But enough
to hide his uneasy feelings from the VanBurens. He wrapped a big towel around himself
and hurried down the hall to his bedroom to change. He caught sight of himself in
the floor-length mirror. To his shock he saw that his back had a bruise on it from
his shoulder blade to the bottom of his ribs.

“Where the hell did that come from?” he asked himself aloud. He couldn’t remember
falling last night. And his
eyes—they weren’t like his eyes at all. There were dark circles under them, like a
man who hadn’t slept in weeks.

What the hell went on here last night?

There was one way to find out: call Liza. Derek wasn’t sure if she would be home from
school yet, but he’d take a chance. He dialed her number on the downstairs phone and
let it ring twenty times before hanging up.

“She must be in school yet,” he said sadly.

He tried to call her again after dinner, to no avail. The fact that she wasn’t home
when he needed her angered him so much that he slammed the phone down with a curse.

“Derek, what’s the matter?”

He turned to see Melanie behind him. Her eyes widened, and he knew it was at the sight
of his angry face. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply to calm himself, then said,
“Sorry. I’ve been trying to get Liza all day, but she isn’t home.”

“Well, I’m sure she’ll call you when she is,” Melanie said, reassuring him. She moved
past him and went up the stairs, looking at him over her shoulder. It was as if she
couldn’t wait to get away from him.

She found Gary in his office upstairs. “Gary, did you notice something funny about
Derek today?”

“He looks a little tired,” Gary said.

“It’s more than that,” Melanie said. “Derek usually has energy to spare.”

“What are you doing?” Gary asked. “Giving yourself something else to worry about?
He’s just fatigued after taking care of four kids for two days. He isn’t used to that
kind of work.”

“It looks like more than fatigue, Gary,” Melanie said. “The man looks ready to drop.”

“Maybe he’s coming down with something,” Gary suggested. “We’ve had some damp weather
here lately. Even therapists catch cold, you know.”

Melanie considered this. “You know, you’re probably right,” she said. “I’ll find some
cold capsules and give them to him to take tonight.”

That night Derek took the pills, thanked Melanie, then dropped them into his wastebasket
as soon as she left his bedroom. She had said they would make him fall asleep, and
though he wanted that, a firm voice in his head told him he must stay awake. He sat
up reading until midnight, then finally turned off his light and settled back against
his pillows.

Suddenly, in the total darkness, he felt himself trembling. His knees turned to jelly,
his stomach flipped, his heart pounded. In seconds his pillow was wet with perspiration.
All the doubts he’d had earlier drained away, and in their place came a feeling of
raw terror. He remembered everything of the previous night now. Liza’s face loomed
over him, then the hitchhiker’s, and then, oh, my God, Elaine’s. Derek started to
scream, but lips pressed hard against his to stifle it. A tongue pressed between his
lips and sought his. Derek gave in weakly and wrapped his arms around the ghostly
body above him. It felt strangely warm, not what he had expected. When she pulled
away from him, he saw Liza’s face.

“I want you, Derek Miller.”

It was Janice’s voice.

“Yes,” Derek said.

He knew he would have to give in to her. He knew she would show him Elaine’s face
again, if he protested. So tonight, he didn’t try to get away from her. He didn’t
dare.

She stood up now, pulling him onto his feet. When they passed through the beam of
moonlight, he saw to his surprise that she was completely nude. It was Liza’s body,
beautiful and firm. Derek reached out to touch it and heard Janice’s laugh. His hand
shot through her.

“Please,” he whispered. “I want you, Liza.”

“Janice,” he heard.

They left the room, Derek following Liza-Janice like a little boy. He could feel his
heart beating with anticipation, and did not try to fight it. He wanted her! He wasn’t
afraid! He craved her more than he had ever craved anyone or anything in his life.
And so he let her lead him down to the kitchen, to where Lad slept soundly under the
table. As if they weren’t there at all, the dog didn’t stir.

Derek sank down to the floor, pulling Liza-Janice with him.

“I want you now,” he breathed.
“Now.”

Janice fell on top of him, kissing him passionately. Then she sat up and smiled down
at him. This was
perfect
. He was completely under her spell. This was exactly what she wanted.

“Make me feel like a woman,” she ordered.

Derek tightened his arms around her, crushing her. This time, there was substance
there, warm flesh like a living mortal’s. And under Janice’s spell, he saw her only
as Liza. She was good, pure, beautiful. She was not a thing of evil.

* * *

If Derek had been listening, he would have heard the sound of Melanie’s door opening.
She had wakened up in the middle of the night with a splitting headache and was shuffling
down the hallway to the bathroom. The bright light made her head ache all the more,
and she clutched at the sink as she opened the medicine cabinet. To her anger, she
remembered that she had left her painkillers in the kitchen.