Ghost House Revenge (10 page)

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “I’m hungry.”

Beef, mashed potatoes, and peas made the rounds, and at last everyone settled down
to eat. Sarah noticed Melanie was having problems and asked, “Would you like me to
cut that meat for you? You really should rest your hand.”

“I’d appreciate if Melanie said. “It is kind of awkward.”

“I know how frustrating it is to be helpless,” Sarah said. “When I had a heart attack
a few years ago, I was unable to do anything for myself for weeks.”

“I never knew you had a heart condition,” Melanie said. “You seem so healthy.”

“I’m better now,” Sarah said. “I haven’t had a second attack.”

“Thank God,” Marc said, squeezing his wife’s hand.

Sarah turned to smile at her husband, and as she did so she noticed that Alicen was
staring intently at the diamond ring she wore. Sarah smiled a little at her, thinking
how different she looked from the VanBuren children. While they were listening alertly
to the conversation around them, Alicen seemed lost in another world. And while they
were beautiful to look at, Alicen was plain and overweight. A feeling of pity ran
through Sarah. Poor child, she thought, deciding to talk to her to make her feel comfortable.

“Do you like my ring?”

Alicen nodded, staring as if entranced by the reflection of the chandelier on the
facets. Sarah took it off and handed it to her.

“It’s beautiful,” Alicen said softly. “My mother had one just like it”

Now Derek recalled the engagement ring he had given his wife. It hadn’t been as big
as this one, but it was as beautiful. He felt his stomach twist as he remembered the
last time he had seen the ring on the charred, twisted remains of Elaine’s hand.

“You were wearing that the other day, weren’t you?” Melanie asked, cutting off Derek’s
gloomy thoughts.

“I always do,” Sarah said. “It’s a family heirloom, passed down to me from my great-grandmother.
It’s a very dear possession.”

Alicen, responding to a prod from Gina, turned to show the brilliant gem to her friend.
The two girls sighed over it.

“All right,” Derek said then, “you’d better give that back.” He didn’t want the ring
to make Alicen start talking about her mother.

“I’m sure Alicen wouldn’t hurt it,” Sarah said, accepting the ring and placing it
on her finger.

After dinner, at Sarah’s request, Melanie took her guests on a tour of the house.
They ended up in Melanie’s studio. Sarah noticed the yellow paint stain on the couch.

“Accident?” she asked, sympathetically, looking at Melanie.

“The dog ran through here one night and knocked over a few things,” Melanie said.
A glance at Gary produced a smile from him, as if he were telling her he was glad
she had accepted that reasoning. It was one less thing for Melanie to worry about,
he thought. He had expected her to be upset after hearing Derek mention Janice’s name,
but she hadn’t said a word about it all week. In fact, she looked very sure of herself
tonight. Gary wanted to kiss her but restrained himself.

“May I have a glass of water?” Sarah asked, coughing a little.

“Let me get it for you,” Derek said.

“I’ll manage,” Sarah said. “I need to exercise to work off that delicious dinner.”

She patted her stomach and went downstairs to the kitchen. Passing through the dining
room, she paused to smell the flowers on the table. She was admiring the arrangement
when she heard the voice from the kitchen.

“Murderers!”

Sarah tilted her head. The voice had certainly come from the kitchen, and yet it sounded
so far away. Was it one of the children, playing tricks on her? Trying to frighten
her?

“Murderers!”

“The little monkeys,” Sarah said laughing, pushing through the kitchen door.

Her smile vanished in an instant. It wasn’t a child at all, but a woman, one whom
Sarah recognized. Horrified, she took in the stringy blond hair and pale skin. It
couldn’t be—this woman had been dead for six months!

“Oh, dear,” Sarah moaned, touching her forehead. She felt the cold of her diamond
against her skin. Trying to tell
herself it was only her imagination, she moved to leave the room. But an arm wrapped
around her neck, drawing her back. Sarah grabbed it. Her fingers squished through
flesh and blood and bone as if the arm were made of clay. But it wasn’t clay. It was
much too real, squeezing Sarah’s neck tighter and tighter. She couldn’t scream.

“You saw me,” her assailant hissed.

“No,” Sarah managed to whimper.

“You saw me, and you have to die now!”

Sarah’s heart began to pound. Pain rushed from the center of her chest to her underarms.
Sarah knew the pain—a heart attack. And she somehow knew also that she wouldn’t survive
this one.

Hail Mary full of grace
. . .

Die!”

. . .
the Lord is
. . .

Something muddled her thoughts. Sarah saw lights flashing over her head, blinding
lights. She couldn’t close her eyes.

This can’t be happening
.

“DIE!”

Oh, please, God, I’m so afraid. I’m so fri
—

Sarah Kaufman prayed no more. Her murderer stood back, letting the body sink to the
floor, and looked at her handiwork. There were no marks on Sarah’s neck.

The ghostly being grinned. She had taken life, and she wanted more. . . .

Marc Kaufman turned around from a painting of Fire Island and said to Melanie, “You
don’t suppose my wife got lost somewhere in this big house?”

Melanie laughed. “She probably stopped to talk with the children. I’ll go rescue her.”

She left the room. For some reason a sudden chill rushed over her as she descended
the stairs, a cold feeling in her stomach. She had felt like that after hearing Derek
mention the name Janice, but she had forced her fears away. After all, it was a very
common name. It was only a coincidence that Derek had mentioned it. But why did she
feel that same way right now, when nothing had happened?

Sarah wasn’t in the playroom. Melanie went to the kitchen and pushed at the door.
It wouldn’t budge.

“Sarah?” Melanie called, pushing heavily against it with her shoulder. “Sarah, are
you all right?”

No answer came, and Melanie stepped back to ram her
body against the door with all her strength. Breathing heavily from the effort, she
stumbled into the kitchen—half-tripping over Sarah’s prone form.

“Oh, my God,” Melanie whispered.

Sarah was staring up at the ceiling, her mouth open in a silent scream. Her wide and
glassy eyes were fixed on the overhead light.

Melanie sank to the floor, reaching to touch Sarah’s face. Still warm. She looked
so terrified—what had she just seen, Melanie wondered? She looked around nervously.
But the kitchen was empty.

It was Kyle who broke her spell. Melanie jumped to her feet when she heard the door
open, blocking her son’s way. He looked up at her in confusion and said, “I just wanted
a glass of milk. What’s the matter?”

“Kyle, honey,” Melanie said, pushing him gently from the door so that he wouldn’t
see Sarah, “run upstairs and get Mr. Kaufman. Tell him his wife had an—an accident.”

“What happened to her?” Kyle asked, trying to look around his mother.

“Kyle, please—”

“I’m going,” the little boy shouted, running away from her.

Melanie turned back to Sarah. Why couldn’t she stop looking at her? What in the hell
did she expect to find in that frightened expression?

Marc and Derek entered the kitchen a few moments later.

“Gary’s calling a doctor,” Marc said. “Kyle said my wife hurt herself?”

“I—I think she had a heart attack,” Melanie said.

Marc’s reaction upon seeing his wife was barely audible. “Oh, dear Lord, Sarah—”

Without wasting a moment, Derek pushed Marc aside and dropped down next to Sarah’s
body. At his instruction Melanie left the room to find a blanket. Derek pressed his
mouth to Sarah’s, vainly trying to get her breathing again. She did not respond.

“I’ll try CPR,” he said, looking up at Marc.

“Just help her, please!”

Now Derek pressed the palm of one hand against the back of the other, interwining
his fingers. He positioned himself over Sarah and pushed down on her chest. The muscles
in his arms trembled with the effort, yet none of that strength would seep through
to Sarah’s heart.

“I’m sorry,” Derek said, standing. ‘There’s nothing more I can do.”

“Sarah . . .”

Sirens sounded in the distance just as Melanie returned with a blanket. Derek took
it and laid it carefully over the woman. Marc watched all this, stunned and not believing.
He hardly noticed the ambulance attendants when they lifted Sarah’s body and carried
it out of the house.

Marc rode in the back of the ambulance, biting his knuckles. He was so shocked that
he did not notice the heirloom diamond missing from his wife’s finger.

Melanie had another dream that night. She woke up with a start to feel a cold touch
on her arm. But then she saw the woman with dark hair and somehow lost her fear. Without
protest, she followed her downstairs. The woman turned to her. “It is beginning again.”

“What is?”

But there was no answer. Melanie felt her eyes closing, unable to stay awake. When
she opened them again, she was back in bed with Gary snoring beside her.

Sarah Kaufman was laid to rest in an ancient family plot two days later. On her death
certificate, heart attack had been written under cause of death. Marc Kaufman, though
deeply grieved, accepted that. It did not occur to him to ask if his wife’s death
had truly been from natural causes.

Melanie, feeling as great a loss as if Sarah had been a dear friend, walked slowly
to her car from the graveside. She was sweating in the hot May sun, her dark brown
suit making her uncomfortable. Underneath its bandage, her palm began to itch. Melanie
tried to endure the pain, to make it dominate the memory of Sarah’s face. But that
look of horror hovered in her mind like a dark cloud, menacing her.

“Wait a minute,” Melanie said to herself as she took off her
jacket and got into the car. “Sarah had a heart attack. That’s
all
. It has nothing to do with anything that ever happened in my house.”

She turned on the radio to drown out her thoughts. But still her memory was overpowering.
Vivid pictures came to her of the night of Gary’s accident. She could hear the screams
of her children, echoing her own screams. She could see Gary flying out the window,
glass sparkling in the moonlight.

And she saw a blond-haired woman sitting in her kitchen, looking up at her with wide
blue eyes. . . .

“GO AWAY!” Melanie shouted at her memories.

She gritted her teeth and concentrated on the road ahead, but still there were tears
on her cheeks.

“You’ve been crying,” Gary said when she got home. “Funeral upset you?”

“No,” Melanie said. “I was thinking about the—well, remembering the look on Sarah’s
face.”

“Why?” Gary asked. “It was sad that she died, and a shock, too. But she did say she
had a heart condition.”

“She looked
terrified
, Gary,” Melanie said. “As if she had seen something.”

Gary sighed very deeply and said with patience, “Melanie, she didn’t see anything.
What would she see in an empty kitchen? She had a heart attack—maybe she’d rushed
down the stairs too quickly when she left us.”

“I don’t know, Gary,” Melanie said. “I wish I could believe it was that simple. But
I had another one of those ‘dreams’ last night.”

“What dreams?” Gary asked with concern.

“Do you remember the night you found me in the kitchen? When you said I was sleepwalking?”

“Yes?”

“I had two more of those dreams,” Melanie said. “Once that night Alicen saw a face
under her floor grating, and again when Sarah died.”

“Both highly emotional incidents,” Gary pointed out.

“Maybe,” Melanie said. “And maybe they
were
only dreams. But I heard once that recurring nightmares mean there’s something heavy
on your mind. What could a girl in old-fashioned, ragged clothes mean? Or the kitchen?
It’s always in the kitchen.”

“Symbolism,” Gary said. “Is the girl so hard to figure out? She represents the olden
days—Jacob Armand’s days. You’re thinking too much of him, Melanie. No wonder you
have nightmares.”

“I don’t know.” Melanie sighed. “It seems the woman was trying to give us a warning.
She even said: ‘It’s happening again.’ ”

“You’re the one who always insists it’s happening again,” Gary said. “You just put
those words in another woman’s mouth. Your dreams simply state what’s on your mind.”

“Okay,” Melanie said. “Then what does the kitchen symbolize?”

Gary waved his hands. “I don’t know. Oh, God, Melanie! Don’t start talking about evil
doings in this house. Your dreams are simply the result of too much emotional stress.
They aren’t a warning of anything—except, maybe, that you need to get your mind off
of all this.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my mind,” Melanie said darkly.

“Melanie, look,” Gary said, losing patience, “Sarah Kaufman died of a heart attack,
that’s all! People die in houses all the time.”

“They seem to die more often in this house, don’t they?” With that, Melanie turned
abruptly and went to her studio.

What was wrong with him? Melanie pondered as she daubed paint on her canvas. Why couldn’t
he, just for once, give her the benefit of the doubt? Sarah
must
have seen something! It had started this way the last time, so subtly, the old lady
next door dying on the hill between their houses.

But this time
, Melanie vowed,
I’ll be ready for it
.

As she worked on her painting and occasionally stopped to look out of the studio windows,
the beautiful sunny day gradually overcame her fears and worries. When she saw the
school bus pull up, she was no longer in a dour mood. She watched the children climb
the hill, racing each other. Kyle was first to reach the steps, Alicen last. Just
a few minutes later, Kyle burst into her room.