Ghost House Revenge (24 page)

She couldn’t stand the pain enough to go back to bed, so she decided to brave the
dark house and go get her medicine.

Liza-Janice suddenly looked up with a start. She and Derek were embracing on the kitchen
floor, completely naked. Derek’s underwear and robe were scattered on the floor near
where the dog still slept, undisturbed.

“She’s coming,” Janice hissed. “That bitch Melanie is coming.”

“Keep her out of here,” Derek said.

“I’ll kill her.”

There was a coldness in Janice’s voice that made Derek shudder. He grabbed her wrist.

“Don’t go away,” he begged.

Janice looked at him. His eyes were so beautiful in the moonlight that she felt her
evil passions growing again. She smiled crookedly. “I’ll get rid of her,” she said.

Melanie was halfway into the dining room when a loud noise behind her made her turn
around with a yelp. It was the sound of a motor revving. Melanie listened, not knowing
which way to turn. Something was drawing her away from the kitchen door.

Come out to the stairs, Melanie. Come out to the stairs
.

She ran into the hallway. To her shock she saw that the lift had somehow started up
by itself. Its pulleys and gears whirred wildly, but it wasn’t moving. Melanie switched
on the hall light and stared up at it in confusion. A moment later, Gina appeared
on the top landing. Kyle came up behind her, rubbing his eyes.

“Mommy?” he whimpered. The yellow hall light made his mother’s face look all distorted,
and he moved closer to Gina.

“Mom, turn that off,” Gina ordered. “It woke us up.”

“I don’t want to touch it!’ Melanie screamed. “Just go back to bed.”

“I don’t want to,” Kyle said. ‘I’m afraid.”

Gary was here now. “Kyle, listen to your mother. I’ll fix it.”

Reluctantly, the children obeyed him. Gary glanced at Melanie, then grabbed the banister
to try to get to the lift. It had stopped halfway down the stairs. Melanie, realizing
Gary didn’t know how to walk on steps, suddenly shot up the stairs after him.

“Let me get Derek—please,” she begged.

“Derek isn’t in his room,” Gary said. “I want that thing off before it wakes Nancy.”

“Gary,
please,”
Melanie said. She was terrified that he might fall and hurt himself again. She began
to cry.

Gary frowned at her, then turned his gaze to something over his shoulder. He watched
a shadow move across the floor as the dining room door opened wider. Melanie turned
and saw Derek.

“What are you doing down there?” she demanded. “Why—”

Gary interrupted her. “Could you please turn that thing off for us?”

Nodding, Derek walked up the stairs. Pulling a wire, he at last silenced the machine.
Then he took something soft and warm into his hand and held it up. It was a dead rat.

Melanie groaned.

“He must have gotten caught in the gears,” Derek said calmly.

“Oh, get it out of here!” Melanie ordered, unable to take her eyes off the tangled
mass of fur and blood. The rodent’s teeth glistened viciously in the light. Derek
turned back down the stairs to dispose of it.

“See that?” Gary said. “It was only a mouse.”

“Rat,” Melanie corrected.

“A mouse,” Gary insisted. “Like you always find in big old houses.”

Melanie stared down the stairs in silence.

“It really is happening again, Gary,” she said quietly.

“No,” Gary said.

“Someone’s coming for us,” she said.

“Oh, damn it, Melanie!” Gary cried. “You’re supposed to be the strong one in this
family, remember? Stop being ridiculous.”

Melanie glared at him. Suddenly she wanted to get away from him. She hated him for
mocking her fears.

“I think I hear one of the kids up,” she said, hurrying past him.

“Oh, Melanie,” Gary whispered. “Don’t you see it can’t be happening again? It just
can’t be.”

He didn’t hear strange, feminine laughter. He didn’t hear a voice saying:

It is happening again, you fool. And nothing is going to stop it
.

Derek returned to his room after dumping the rat in the trash. Now he lay in his bed
on his stomach, his face buried in his arms, trying to breathe deeply and fall asleep.

But sleep wouldn’t come to him. He felt too dirty, too shamed to allow himself the
peace of sleep. Too scared. How could he have let himself fall into her trap? He should
have seen this coming when Janice called him by name that day in his car. He should
have known there was something different about her by the insane look in her eyes
and the crazy way she talked.

Shame was a painful thing for him. It twisted at his muscles and made his stomach
burn. He claimed to love Liza Crewe, had even asked her to marry him. Yet he had been
unfaithful to her, with the woman he hated most. Janice had lured him from Liza’s
arms into her own evil embrace.

But he was a man, after all. A man deprived of sexual love for many years. Janice’s
lustful embraces had awakened some sort of animal feelings in him, and he had been
unable to control himself.

He was making excuses. Wasn’t he always the one who claimed to be strong? Why couldn’t
he fight this woman?

“What is it you’re ashamed of, Derek?” he asked himself out loud. “That you cheated
on Liza or that you fell under that bitch Janice’s powers?”

But what kind of powers were they? How could she change her face to Elaine’s—God,
don’t let me think of that, he prayed—to Liza’s, to any face she knew would control
him? How could she have such a hold on him, so much so that he couldn’t get up right
now, pack his bags, and leave?

What was she?

He felt panic-stricken. How could he explain this to anyone? How could he explain
it to himself? It was crazy. If he ever told anyone, they’d think he was crazy.

He was trembling and wished Liza were there by his side. She would hold him in her
arms, tell him everything was all right, protect him. She would understand.

Derek had never thought he would need to be protected by a woman. But where was Liza
now? He’d been unable to get in touch with her since the night he asked her to marry
him. Had something happened to her? He had the sick feeling Janice had something to
do with that. And the only way to find out would be to stay here and give in to her.
If it meant finding Liza again, Derek would do anything.

But he knew he would hate himself for his weakness. . . .

At breakfast the next morning, Melanie explained to Kyle and Gina how the lift had
started. Not wanting to frighten them, she changed the rat into a little field mouse.
She related the events less to ease their fears than to make herself believe her own
had been unjustified. In the darkness she had been terrified. But somehow, the daylight
made her strong again. She was willing to believe it had been “just one of rose things.”

“Poor mouse,” Gina said. “How do you suppose it got in here?”

“Probably crawled through a hole under the house,” Derek suggested, shifting a little
to ease the aching in his muscles. He knew exactly where the animal had come from.
Janice had lured it into the house and had planted it in the gears of the machine.

“I’ll have to have that checked out,” Gary said. “And God knows what else we’ll have
to have fixed this summer. We’ll have to have the roof repaired, too, before we have
floods.”

“That’s to be expected of an old house,” Melanie said.

Gary looked at her.

“So are a lot of other things, darling,” he said.

Melanie smiled at him and got up. She wasn’t completely convinced that he was right.
But what good would it do to mope around, waiting for something to happen? Wouldn’t
it
be better to fight her terrors? The best way to do that, she knew, would be to throw
herself completely into her work.

She went up to her studio, and Gary and Derek headed up to the therapy room. Derek
wasn’t really in the mood for a workout, but what excuse could he give? So he motioned
toward the mock stairs and said, “We’re going to start on them today.”

Gary studied the four steps. “It doesn’t look difficult.”

“That’s what you said about getting out of the wheelchair,” Derek reminded him.

Gary looked over his shoulder. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said.

Without answering, Derek proceeded to show Gary the right way to use crutches on stairs.
Then, yawning, he told him to practice. He was supposed to stand and watch Gary, to
support him if he fell. But instead, he went to look out the window. He thought he
saw Janice walking through the woods—but then there was no one there.

“How long do you think it’ll take me to get used to this?” Gary asked.

Derek ran his fingers through his dark hair, but didn’t say anything. The previous
night still weighed too heavily on his mind, and the shame and sickness he felt were
competing too strongly with his work.

“Derek, come see if I’m doing this right,” Gary requested, loudly. Still, his therapist
was silent. “Hey, what’s the matter with you?”

“I—I’m sorry,” Derek said, turning. “Hey, look. You’re almost at the top. One step
to go.”

Gary frowned at him and continued up the stairs. His legs ached only a little from
the effort, since months of lifting weights had made them strong. Still, he hesitated
a little as he turned and looked down the stairs. One slip of the crutch . . .

Cut it out
, he said to himself.
You aren’t going to fall
.

Five minutes later, he reached the bottom step. Five minutes! Gary sighed with frustration.

“Tired?” Derek asked.

“A little,” Gary admitted. “But I suppose you want me to try again.”

“I don’t care—” Derek cut himself off. “Sure, sure go ahead.”

Once more, Gary ascended the stairs. He was nervous about coming down. He moved slowly
and held fast to the railing.

“I hope this gets easier,” he said. Derek didn’t answer. “I mean, I don’t know what
to put down first sometimes.”

Derek cleared his throat and realized he had let his mind wander. “You’ll get the
hang of it,” he said, catching the last of Gary’s sentence. “By the time your wife
comes back home, you’ll be an old pro.”

With all his strength, Derek tried to drive away the memory of the previous night.
It was daylight, and he wasn’t alone. Why should he be afraid now?

He knew, though, that he dreaded the fall of darkness. And worse than that, he knew
he couldn’t run away from it.

“Do you feel any better today?” Gary asked his wife as they sat together on the living
room couch after dinner.

“A lot” Melanie said. “Getting into a new painting was a smart move.”

“You’re not afraid any more?”

“No,” Melanie said slowly.

“Nothing should scare you,” Gary said, kissing her. “We’re safe here, I promise.”

Across the room an unseen being sat in the huge rocking chair, watching them. So they
thought everything was all right? The idiots! They had escaped her wrath up to now,
but no more. She wouldn’t rest until they were punished for what they had done to
her. Tonight, she would move in first on the easiest victim.

Later in the night, when all the house was sleeping, she went to Alicen. The little
girl had been dreaming of her mother. Elaine looked so beautiful, not mysterious or
cloudy at all. Alicen reached up for her.

“Hold me, mommy,” she cried.

Something cold took her hands, and her dream mother faded away. Alicen’s eyes fluttered
open, and she sat up slowly.

“Mommy?”

“I have something for you to do, Alicen,” her vision said, pressing a small, hard
object into the girl’s palm. Alicen looked down at a tiny black vial, then back up
at the vision.

“I want you to put that in the dog’s dish.”

“Why?”

“Don’t question me,” the apparition said firmly. “Do as you’re told.”

“Okay, mommy,” Alicen said quietly.

Wanting to make her mother happy, she walked silently, hardly seeing the long stretch
of doors or the darkened rooms downstairs, and went into the kitchen. She found Lad’s
dish in a corner and emptied the bottle into it.

Lad, disturbed by the sound of her footsteps, sat up with his ears perked. He got
on his feet and went to his dog dish, where he sniffed the strange new scent . . ..

At the same time Gary was learning to walk on stairs that Saturday morning, a plane
touched down on the runway at LaGuardia Airport, just in from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
It taxied to its final destination, where a collapsible tunnel was fixed to its door.
Bearing garment bags and overnight suitcases, the passengers filed out. Children wearing
Mickey Mouse hats held fast to their parents’ tanned hands, while old couples discussed
moving to Florida for good. A blond, tan young man burdened with an overnight bag
filled with books exited, pleased to be in New York. He was here on business, with
the hopes of seeing his sister Liza during his visit.

Owen Crewe shifted his bag from one muscular shoulder to the other and brushed a strand
of mustache from his lip. Liza would be surprised to see it; he hoped she’d like it.

Walking through the tunnel, Owen headed first for the phone booth. To his disappointment
Liza didn’t answer his call. She hadn’t answered the night before, either. But then
she had no idea that he was coming to visit. He had had no idea until yesterday that
he’d be assigned to a psychiatrist’s forum here in Manhattan. It had been a last-minute
decision by his superiors to let him sub for one of their sick colleagues.

Owen had ordered a car for himself and was pleased to find it was air-conditioned.
He climbed behind the wheel and took out a map of Long Island. He located Belle Bay
on the Nassau-Suffolk border, then switched on the ignition.

Traffic was heavy this Saturday morning, and it took him nearly an hour. Owen was
almost convinced he had passed the town when he saw a sign showing Belle Bay at the
next exit. Guiding his car onto the ramp, he found himself on Houston Street, a long,
barren stretch of road that skirted the edge of the town.