Ghost House Revenge (33 page)

“You bastard!” Janice screeched. “You’ll do as I say!”

She lunged at Mm, her fingers curled like talons. They sought the flesh of his cheeks
and ripped down them. Derek cried out and pulled away.

“You’re my slave!” Janice hissed, striking him.

“No!’

He stared into her eyes, and saw them change. The face blurred, widened, became Elaine’s
face. But this time, Derek was able to look at it He knew it wasn’t his wife’s face
at all, but a cruel apparition. Janice screamed with rage and struck him again.

“You’re my slave!” she cried. “My slave and my lover! You’ll obey me!”

How could he dare defy her? She would show him. He would learn what terrible things
she could do to him, in spite of the fact that she craved his affections almost above
vengeance against the VanBurens.

She threw herself at him, pressing her fingers to his throat. He gagged and tried
to grab for her wrists. Stupid thing to do, they passed through them as if nothing
were there.

“Go away!” Derek cried. “You don’t exist!”

Janice laughed and bent to kiss him. He was so handsome. Her tongue pried his lips
open, found his tongue, and sucked hard at it, as if to drain his courage. Derek sank
down away from her, wishing he could fall through the bed, through the floor. Anything
to get away from her passionate kisses!

“Let me alone,” he demanded hoarsely.

“Never,” Janice said.

She tossed her head back, the lackluster hair falling over her thin, lifeless shoulders.
She began to stare at him. The filminess in her eyes began to drain away, and the
irises became as sharp and clear as they had ever been when Janice was alive. In those
eyes there was a devilish power, a power Derek could not resist. It weakened him more
than the sight of Elaine’s twisted face, more than the thought that he might never
see Liza again. Why? Why did those eyes have such power over him?

After all his resistance, it took only a pair of eyes to turn him inside out. He sat
up and put his head against her, not realizing what he was doing. The room began to
spin, and her voice sounded as if she were speaking through a long tunnel.

“Take them where their mother won’t find them,” she said, stroking his thick hair
as if he were a child. “I will be there in time to punish them. But first they must
suffer in darkness.”

“Suffer,” Derek said.

Janice kissed him. And then she was gone.

Derek sat up on the bed, his head dropped down to his chest. His heart thudded so
loudly that he thought everyone could hear. He tried to quiet it. Otherwise, how could
he sneak up on them?

Rubbing his eyes, he stood up and walked from the room. Alicen was waiting in the
hallway, dressed in a loose white nightgown.

“Daddy?”

Derek moved past her without answering. Alicen watched his retreating figure, feeling
tears rise. She had been lying in bed, knowing he was across the hall, waiting for
him to come apologize for beating her that morning. Why did he have to hurt her so,
now that mommy was back again? Why couldn’t they be a happy family again?

She’d get even with him, that’s what she’d do. She’d go into his room and tear it
apart and mess up his clothes and use a crayon all over the furniture and . . .

The three VanBuren children, having grown bored with the Monopoly game, were now coloring—even
Gina, who was too old for such things. But it made Kyle happy when she shared things
with him. They colored the pictures, leaving the game board and all its pieces on
the floor. Cleaning up could wait until later.

“Nancy, the sun is yellow,” Kyle said. “Why are you making it purple?”

“I like purple.”

“Well, I think it’s dumb,” Kyle said. “Everyone knows—”

His words were cut off when the door swung open. Derek entered the room and stopped
to look at them. The three children didn’t speak, mesmerized by the coldness in his
eyes. He looked so mean.

Gina moved closer to Kyle and pulled Nancy to her. The three children huddled together,
watching Derek move to Kyle’s closet He removed a flannel robe and held it out to
the boy. At last Gina spoke up.

“What’s going on?” she demanded.

“Put this on, Kyle,” Derek ordered. “We’re going out.”

“Out?” Gina echoed. “Are you nuts or something? Kyle can’t go out!”

“Don’t talk back,” Derek said in a warning tone.

“But why do you want us to go out?” Kyle asked. “Mommy’ll be home soon, and shell
be so mad.”

“If you don’t put on the robe and come with me,” Derek cautioned, “I’ll get my belt
and—”

He moved closer to the bed, away from the door. Seeing a chance, Gina jumped from
the bed and ran as fast as she could. Derek tried to grab her flying hair, but she
was too fast for him. She disappeared around the corner of the hallway, Derek running
after her.

I have to get to the stairs!
Gina thought.

But someone was standing there. A blond woman. Gina stopped in her tracks. Her mouth
dropped open, and she gaped wide-eyed at the woman who blocked her way down. She couldn’t
be there, she was dead! Crazy Derek was making her so scared she was seeing things.

“You aren’t real,” Gina said, her voice trembling. “You’re dead!”

But the woman didn’t go away. Frozen, Gina stood her ground, not thinking that Derek
was coming to find her. She could hear him yelling down one of the hallways. But she
was too mesmerized by the vision. The woman smiled wickedly at her. Once Gina had
loved her smile. She had been so sweet then. Mommy had met her when they were having
all that trouble with Jacob Armand, and she always made them feel better. But Jacob
had killed her, mommy said. She was dead.

“Gina, you God-damned brat!”

Derek’s shouting broke the spell, and just as he lunged for her, she found her feet.
Hardly feeling the floor, she sped down the hallway, reaching its end only to find
there was no place to go. She turned, bursting into a bedroom with Derek only a few
feet away.

“No!” Gina screamed even as she threw the door shut and locked it. Derek’s body fell
against it, pounding. The girl could feel vibrations all through her body as she leaned
heavily against the door, crying. But after a few terrifying moments, the pounding
stopped.

“I’ll be back, Gina,” Derek said.

Gina listened to the soft thudding of his shoes on the carpet as he retreated. Then,
trembling, she turned around. Her breath caught in her throat—the room was in a complete
shambles. Someone had torn the covers from the bed, and now they were tossed here
and there. So were Derek’s clothes, ripped from the room’s single dresser and hanging
from the bedposts and curtain rods as if they had been thrown around by a madman.
Worse than this, the lovely antique bed and dresser were covered with crayon marks.

Gina looked around at all this in a stupor, not believing it. Her eyes fell on a message
scrawled across the mirror on the closet door.

MOMMY AND DADDY LOVE ALICEN.

Now she heard a whimpering noise and turned to it. A moment later, Alicen stood up.
She had been hiding behind
the bed, and now she threw herself on it, oblivious of Gina. The other child felt
herself crying again. No! She couldn’t be locked here in this room, alone with crazy
Alicen!

“I’m sorry, daddy,” Alicen whimpered into the bare mattress. “I’m sorry.”

Hearing her babbling made Gina all the more nervous, and she burst out sobbing. Alicen
sat up, glaring at Gina. What was she doing in here? But then her eyes softened. Gina
was her friend. She had made her happy that first day she’d come here. And she needed
someone to talk to so much.

If she couldn’t have a mother and father right now, a friend would do nicely. Just
for now.

“Hi, Gina,” she said, as if nothing were wrong.

“H-hi, Alicen,” Gina replied, not knowing what else to say. How do you talk to a crazy
person?

“I’m sorry I messed up this nice room,” Alicen said. “I was mad at my father, ’cause
he hurt me.”

Gina took in the girl’s bruised and bloodied face. For a moment, seeing that Alicen
was just as vulnerable as any other girl, Gina forgot her fears. She went to the bed
and sat down.

“Your father tried to hurt me, too,” she said. “And he’s got Kyle and Nancy. What’ll
he do with them?”

She was afraid of the answer, but didn’t get one anyway. Alicen simply nodded.

“My father has a terrible temper,” she said. “He’s going to beat me for doing this,
but I don’t care.”

“Your father shouldn’t beat you,” Gina said. ‘It’s wrong.”

What was he doing now, with Kyle and Nancy? She should run from the room to rescue
them, but she was so afraid. Why didn’t her mother come home?

“My mother won’t let him hurt me, though,” Alicen was saying now.

“Your mother?” Gina replied. “But she’s dead.”

“She is not!” Alicen cried. “She’s right here in this house!”

Gina backed away, suddenly understanding. Janice had made Alicen believe she was her
mother.

“Alicen, that isn’t your mother at all,” she said. “It’s a woman named Janice Lors.
She was murdered here seven months ago.”

“No!”

“You don’t have a mother!”

“Yes, I do, yes, I do! Dead people don’t give beautiful presents!”

She jumped to the floor, pounding it with her fists and
screaming. She grabbed at the heavy floor grating and ripped it up with no effort
and threw it across the floor. Her hand thrust into the dark crevice, and when she
drew it back, she was holding Sarah’s ring. Gina gasped.

“Mommy gave this to me!” she shouted triumphantly.

“Alicen, that’s Sarah’s ring! Your mother is—”

The door burst open. Derek was standing there, holding a gun.

“You’re going to come with me quietly,” he said, “or I’ll blow your brains out.”

Slowly, keeping her eyes on the round hole of the barrel, Gina stood up and went to
him.

Melanie removed the purchases from her shopping cart and quickly filled the conveyor
belt. She was angered at herself for having left the shopping until today, when everyone
else was shopping for the weekend. A half-hour trip had turned into more than an hour.
And there were still six people ahead of her on line.

She knew the children had been home about an hour now. If only she had sent Derek
out to do this. The kids were probably worried about her. But at last she reached
the cashier. Two prices had to be checked, slowing her down all the more. She almost
ran out to her car when she was finished.

She would be home in a few minutes, she reassured herself.

But that wasn’t to be. She turned a corner and found her way blocked by a truck pulling
out of a factory driveway. There were four cars in back of her, and no way out.

“Well,” she said, sighing, “they’ve done without me for an hour. They can survive
a few minutes longer.”

The cellar was cold. It gave no hint of the intense summer heat outside. Kyle coughed
violently, the icy air constricting
his lungs. Angered at the noise, Derek pressed the gun to the boy’s head. Kyle forced
himself to stop coughing.

Worse than being cold, the cellar was dark. Nancy began crying loudly. “I want my
mommy!”

“Shut up!”

Derek waved the gun. Kyle stared up at him, wondering if the gun was loaded. In the
next thought, he prayed his mother would come home soon. What was taking her so long?

Derek pushed them ahead of him. They walked slowly in the darkness, brushing away
cobwebs, their shoes making soft noises on the concrete floor. At last, Derek stopped
at a door on the back wall. He flung it open and motioned them inside.

“I don’t wanna go in there,” Nancy protested. “I want my mommy!”

Derek picked her up and threw her into the dark cave. Her little body landed on the
sand floor of the storage room like a sack of flour. Before she could right herself,
Gina and Kyle were pushed in beside her. Derek stooped down to let himself under the
low door and placed a big flashlight on the floor. He turned it on, shining it at
the three cowering children, then crawled over to them.

“My mommy’ll be home real soon,” Kyle said, his voice hoarse. He started coughing
again.

“Shut up,” Derek said. So much in Janice’s power, he didn’t know what he was saying.
He worked without thinking, tying their small wrists and ankles with pieces of clothesline,
and gagging their mouths. Then he went to the door and, lifting the flashlight from
the floor, said, “It’ll be over soon. Once she’s punished you, it’ll all be over.”

Only Gina knew who “she” was. But why did Janice want to hurt them? Jacob Armand was
the one who killed her, not them.

Derek shut the wooden door, sealing the room in total darkness. Nancy started to whimper
behind her gag, and Gina moved through the darkness to lie beside her. Soon she felt
Kyle’s head on her shoulder. All they could do was pray their mother would come home
soon.

Owen kicked a stone out of his path and continued on his walk. But he had been searching
the woods for over an hour, and his feet ached. Spotting a log, he sat down to rest.
No sooner had he stretched his legs out than his eyes were
attracted by something glittering in the dirt. He leaned forward and lifted a silver
and turquoise bracelet from a pile of wet leaves.

“This is Liza’s,” he said, recalling that he had given it to her a few Christmases
back.

“It’s
my
bracelet,” he heard someone say.

Owen turned around to see a frail blond woman standing behind him. She looked insane,
like the patients at the Fort Lauderdale mental hospital. He backed away from her.

“No,” he said calmly. “This is my sister’s bracelet. Do you know where she is? Her
name is Liza.”

“It’s my bracelet,” the blond screamed.
“Mine
. I knew you were out here. I knew you’d try to steal it.”

Suddenly, to Owen’s disbelief, she bent down and wrapped her thin arms around the
log. She lifted it high in the air, as if it were made of paper.