Waiting Spirits (13 page)

“Push!” he gasped.

Working together, the two strained desperately to close the door.

Dr. Miles was weakening, losing her grip on Carrie. She looked up.

“Daddy!” she cried. “Daddy, help me!”

Confusion seemed to explode around them—a cacophony of shrieks and cries and noises that could not be understood.

And then—suddenly—everything was silent. Carrie dropped to the floor. Lisa and Brian, suddenly pushing against nothing, slammed the door so violently it jarred them. Alice Miles knelt beside Carrie, rubbing her arms and weeping.

Brian took Dr. Miles by the arm and pulled her to her feet. “You get Carrie,” he snapped at Lisa. “There's no time to waste.”

Lisa helped Carrie to her feet. The four of them stumbled toward the door. But when they reached it a roar of rage split the air and the door began to slam back and forth again.

Dr. Miles straightened up a little. Shaking Brian's hands away, she said, “It's no use. She's not going to let us out.”

As if in verification, the window shades came rolling down with a snap, the curtains were pulled shut across the windows, and the telephone lifted from its little table to go sailing through the air, wrenching its cord from the wall as it did

They were trapped.

Somewhere above them a high voice began to laugh, a light, rippling laugh that should have been lovely but wasn't, because of what lay lurking behind it.

And suddenly Lisa realized what had happened, what was wrong with their plans, why they had made a dreadful, dreadful error and were now in mortal danger.

It was not that the house was haunted.

It was not that the ghost of Myra Halston wished them harm.

It was that Myra Halston was totally, terrifyingly insane.

Lisa knew this beyond a shadow of a doubt because Myra Halston was trying to get back into her head.

Grabbing for Brian's hand she cried, “Tie me down!”

Brian turned to her, his face incredulous.

“No time for questions!” shrieked Lisa, pulling at her hair, as if that could keep the ghost out. “Tie me down before it's too late! She wants Carrie, and she's using me to get her!”

She closed her eyes and began to shake. Brian slammed her into a chair and yanked his belt free from the loops, ready to use it to bind her.

Suddenly Lisa sighed. “Wait,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “It's all right. She's gone.”

That was true. “She”
was
gone. But the “she” in question was Lisa Burton.

Her body was now completely under the control of the insane spirit of Myra Halston.

Chapter Thirteen
The Corridors of the Mind

Lisa wanted to scream. She had to warn the others what was happening. But she couldn't. Myra wouldn't let her.

Through eyes no longer her own, Lisa watched with horror as the others accepted what Myra was telling them—that she had fended off the attacking spirit and knew it to be gone for good.

“Don't believe her!” Lisa tried to yell. “She's lying! She's crazy!”

But she had no mouth with which to scream. The words were trapped inside.

Two spirits occupying one space made a strange overlap; somehow her mind had linked with Myra's when the woman's spirit entered her body. Now Lisa knew what Myra was thinking.

And what she was thinking was insane, her thoughts shifting wildly, out of any rational control.

In one moment she was planning to murder Carrie in order to bring her to the other side so they could be together. In the next she was plotting to stay in Lisa's body forever, so she could be with Carrie in life.

In either case it was Carrie who was uppermost in the woman's mind. In fact, Lisa soon realized Myra was obsessed with Carrie—obsessed not only with her death but also with something that had happened the day she died. Something that had been hidden ever since.

As the seconds ticked by, Lisa felt herself being submerged into Myra's mind. She struggled against it. She wanted to get out—
had
to get out to protect her family.

But she couldn't. Myra had the strength of insanity and Lisa was trapped.

The feeling was maddening.

She flinched from the word, afraid she would soon be mad herself. The prospect terrified her.

Because to be Myra Halston was a terrible fate.

Lisa could see that more and more clearly. This was a mind controlled by terror.

Suddenly her own terror scaled up to a new level. She couldn't see! Myra had taken such total control of her body that her eyes and ears no longer sent her any information.

Fear swelled within her. She realized that if she should totally succumb to Myra, it would be a true death; her spirit would be pushed out of her body forever.

She thought of something she had heard about dreams: if you dreamed you were falling from a great height, you had to wake before you struck, or you would die in your sleep. She sensed something like that now; if she were to be overtaken by Myra's personal demons, it would be the end of her—and possibly of Carrie, too, since there would be no one left to stop whatever Myra Halston decided to do. Lisa had to help Carrie. But how?

Perhaps if she understood Myra Halston better….

She thought suddenly of the title of the song she had listened to so many times that summer: “The Corridors of My Mind.” What if she traveled the corridors of Myra's mind? Could she find the key to breaking Myra's control over her?

She took a mental step forward, cautious, hesitant. She knew that as surely as the spirit of Myra Halston haunted their house, so Myra Halston was herself haunted by demons of her own making. And Lisa was afraid to meet them.

She wanted to go back. But how could she do that? She had no place to go back to.

Myra had her body, and she herself was lost in Myra's mind.

Lisa shivered—or at least, she felt the feeling that would have caused a shiver if she still had a body of her own.

Somewhere she heard weeping.

That made sense. Myra had been weeping for sixty years now. The sound of it must echo through every twist and turn of her soul.

Lisa began to walk. To her right she saw a door. Where had it come from? Was she imagining it? Or had the thought of corridors made it appear, like some living metaphor, a tangible symbol of what she was looking for?

Feeling as if she was walking through a dream, Lisa approached the door. Terrified of what she might find on the other side, she hesitated, then forced herself to open it.

Inside was the ocean on a beautiful moonlit night. Waves surged across the sand. A warm breeze rustled through a young man's hair, and a full moon flooded the beach with whiteness.

Lisa backed away, closing the door gently.

But she felt a little better. It was good to know that not all of Myra's memories were of sorrow or madness.

Behind another door she found Myra's wedding day, and a strange mix of feelings, joy and terror and pride and hope all jumbled together in a mixture of white lace and flowers.

Some doors led to blackness, as if the memories had been forced from Myra's mind, leaving only emptiness in their place.

Others led to quiet scenes of family life.

It was when she opened the seventh door that she began to scream. No sooner had she stepped through it than clammy hands reached out to touch her, groping across her face, her arms, her body.

She leaped back, slammed the door shut, then leaned against it, panting and shaking. Looking back where she had come from, she wondered what her grandmother would do if she were here.

She knew the answer at once. She would go on and open every door she could, no matter how frightening the prospect, until she found something that might help.

Lisa knew she had do the same thing. She had a problem, so she had to study it to solve it.

But she had never had to learn in a library like this—a library of memories, where the pages could reach out and grab you by the throat.

She squared her shoulders and opened another door.

Candles. A million candles. And in the center of the room, dressed in white, the dead body of a beautiful little girl.

Lisa choked back a sob.

This must be Carrie Halston.

She stepped into the room and threaded her way through the candles. The tiny body lay on an altar draped in green and gold. The hands were folded on her chest and her tightly curled hair was carefully arranged around her neck and shoulders.

Daisies were scattered at her feet.

The child's face was soft and peaceful. Lisa looked down at the girl who would have been her great-aunt. She could see a hint of
her
Carrie in the face—the snub nose, the high cheekbones. She reached out, then drew her hand back with a gasp.

The eyes had snapped open.

“Mommy?”

The smell of pond water filled the air.

Suddenly the little girl's hair was no longer curled, but wet and lank, clinging to her shoulders. “Mommy!” she cried. “Mommy, where are you? I need you!” The voice was edged with hysteria.

The girl turned toward Lisa, her eyes wide, twice as wide as any eyes could ever be, her face distorted with a terrible accusing anger. Her mouth opened to show great dripping fangs, green algae clinging in the gaps.

“You weren't there!” The cry was a deep, rasping roar. “You weren't there!”

And then she lunged.

Lisa turned and ran screaming through the room. She knocked down candles, hundreds of candles, which blazed and flared as they hit the floor. The room became an inferno behind her. And walking through the fire, clothes ablaze, hair in flames, eyes wide and staring, was the girl who had lain on the altar.

“Join me in death,” she crooned. “Join me in death, Mommy.”

Lisa screamed again and ran forward.

A door!

She pulled up short. There was something wrong with the door. It was a bad door, a frightening door. Somehow Lisa knew it had never been opened and that it was never supposed to be opened. Myra Halston had sealed it more than fifty years ago, locked it in the deepest and most terrified part of her mind and done everything she could to forget it was there.

But it
was
there.

And it was the only way out.

But what was on the other side?

Lisa looked behind her. The fire was raging out of control. The little figure was almost on her, flaming hands reaching for her, fangs working hungrily.

She turned back to the door. Her hesitation ended when she felt a burning hand on her leg. With a scream, she flung open the door and leaped through.

Chapter Fourteen
Out of Body

She was in a garden.

She wrinkled her brow. Why would such a beautiful place be sealed away so deep in Myra's mind, as if it were the greatest horror of all?

She looked around and flinched when she saw Carrie again. But this was a different Carrie, lively and vibrant, a lovely young girl wearing a frilly dress. She was sitting on a swing under a towering tree. It took Lisa a moment, but she recognized the tree—it was a younger version of one that still stood in what was left of the back yard.

From the house she could heard the sound of a gramophone playing “Beautiful Dreamer.”

Carrie seemed not to notice her.

Lisa began to walk forward. Following a path that wound through the plantings, she soon passed a fish pond. She shivered and went on.

Ahead of her she could see a white, wooden summerhouse, lacy and latticed. Inside was a large swing. Sitting side by side on the swing were a young man and a beautiful woman. Their gay laughter was like music in the air.

Like Carrie, they did not seem to notice Lisa.

She walked to the edge of the summerhouse and peered in through the latticed wall. The woman was her great-grandmother. She had lovely auburn hair, coiled on her head. She wore a white dress that had frills at the cuffs and down the front. She was extraordinarily beautiful, in an ethereal sort of way. It was obvious that the young man thought so. He was clearly infatuated with her.

The man turned to Lisa and looked her in the eye.

She gasped. A flood of information poured into her mind. She put her hand to her throat, needing time to digest what she was learning. She wasn't sure how the information was coming to her, but she was sure that she now knew as much about the young man as Myra did.

His name was Andrew Long. He worked for Harrison Halston, Myra's husband. He was also in awe of Harrison, whom he took to be everything he had ever dreamed of becoming himself.

Andrew Long was from a poor family that had scrounged for food and clothing during the years of his childhood. His father had died in the first World War. His mother had worked two jobs to bring in food. Andrew had left school and begun work when he was twelve. He was tough, smart, and hungry—hungry for life, hungry for security, hungry for love.

He had come to Harrison Halston's office as a messenger boy ten years earlier and risen slowly but steadily to a position of trust and power, because tough, smart, and hungry was just the way Harrison Halston liked his employees.

Only Andrew Long was a little too tough, a little too smart, and a little too hungry. Worst of all, he was a little too fearful of losing all he had gained.

And he had good reason to be afraid, because he had done something terribly stupid. He had fallen in love with Harrison Halston's greatest treasure, the delicate, half-mad Myra. Perhaps it was because he walked the thin edge of sanity himself that something in him reached out to her. But he was sane enough to know that what he was doing was crazy, that he was playing with something worse than fire when he began to pursue her. And that he would have to do an awfully good job of covering his tracks, or risk losing his newfound status.

Myra Halston had thought little of Andrew Long's attention at first. Oh, she was mildly flattered. But she was used to men falling in love with her; it had been going on most of her life. So she toyed with Andrew, flirting and smiling in a way she thought was innocent, not knowing she was weaving a web that would doom them all.