Ghost House Revenge (11 page)

“Hi, mom!”

“Hi,” Melanie said, laughing. “How’d you get up here so fast?”

“I ran all the way,” Kyle panted. His fair skin was flushed red. “I told Gina I could
beat her upstairs.”

Gina entered the room a moment later, panting, too. Alicen, who had obviously given
up, came in after her, breathing normally.

“You win, Kyle,” Gina said. She fished in her pocket and produced a quarter for her
victorious brother.

“My kid’s a gambler?” Melanie asked.

“I didn’t think he could do it,” Gina admitted.

Now Kyle climbed onto one of the stools in the room, his book bag on his lap. From
it he produced a box made from ice cream sticks, painted bright yellow. He held it
out to his mother.

“Look what I made,” he said proudly. “My teacher said it was the best one in the class.”

“Well, good for you, Kyle,” Melanie said. “It’s very nice.”

“I’m going to give it to dad,” Kyle said. ‘To put in his office.”

“You should give it to mom,” Gina said. “Mother’s Day is coming up soon.”

She turned to Alicen and without thinking said, “What are you going to give your mother
for—”

She cut herself off, her eyes opening wide. Looking at her mother for help, she began
to blush. Then she turned back to Alicen and said, “Gosh, I’m sorry! I wasn’t thinking,
and—”

“It’s okay,” Alicen said, though she felt a pain deep inside. “It’s okay.”

Melanie, seeing how uncomfortable both girls were, quickly changed the subject. “Say,
when is that class trip of yours?”

“It’s tomorrow,” Gina said.

“Already? Well, you’ll have a great time.”

“I can’t wait to go,” Gina said. ‘I’ve never been to a planetarium.”

“You know,” Melanie said, “I think there might be some books on the planets in our
library. Why don’t you go see?”

Gina pulled Alicen out of the room. “Let’s go look, okay?”

Melanie laughed. With kids like that, how could she ever have sad thoughts?

Alicen had tried to pay attention when Gina read off the statistics of Jupiter and
Saturn. She had tried to listen to the conversation at dinner and to laugh at a joke
Kyle told. But she was still smarting from the way Gina had carelessly mentioned Mother’s
Day. She hated that holiday, when people sent cards and flowers to their mothers and
stores were filled with sentimental posters. Why did they all have to remind her she
didn’t have a mother?

She put her forehead down on her desk and cried softly. It just wasn’t fair! Some
people had mothers and treated them horribly. But she wouldn’t, if her mother was
alive. She’d be good to her, better than her father had ever been.

“Oh, mommy,” she whispered. “Why did Gina have to make me think of you dead?”

She sat up, shuddering. Drying her eyes, she looked over at her clock and noticed
it was well past midnight. She’d have to fall asleep now, or she’d never be able to
get up for the class trip. Trying to wear herself out, she got up and paced the floor.
The rug felt soft and warm beneath her feet. She did not go near the grating.

“Mommy,” she whispered. “Mommy, mommy . . .”

Something creaked behind her.

“Aaallliiicceeeennnn!”

The voice sounded hollow and far away. Her heart beating loudly, Alicen hurried to
the door to lock it. Who was out there? Was it just Kyle, teasing her? Or was it someone
else?

“The door is locked,” she whispered aloud. “I’m safe in here. I’m safe.”

But suddenly she didn’t care who was in the hallway. Her muscles became like jelly,
too weak to support her body. Her eyes drooped shut as she sank to the floor. Without
warning, she had fallen asleep. But this wasn’t a real sleep that took her over.

In a minute she was on her feet again. She unlocked the door and pulled it open. Though
the hallway was pitch black, she didn’t have to grope her way to the stairs. It was
as if some unseen force had her by the hand and was leading the way downstairs.

Alicen heard laughter in the kitchen and pushed through its door. Obeying a silent
command, she sank to the floor and waited. She didn’t feel the cold of the linoleum.

There was a woman standing above her. Alicen couldn’t see the features of her face.
But she saw the blond hair and smiled, unafraid. Her mother had had blond hair.

“You’ve come to me,” she whispered.

A hand touched her forehead, and Alicen tilted her head back. She held up her arms
to the apparition, her fingers spread wide like a little child’s.

“Please hold me tight, mommy,” she said.

It was the seven-year-old Alicen asking for affection, the Alicen of all her dreams,
where her mother came to love her. But her mother did not embrace her this time. Instead,
she pulled her to her feet. Alicen looked at the watery features, wishing she could
see them more clearly. She’d waited so long.

“Gina VanBuren made you sad today,” the vision said.

“Yes, she made me think of you, mommy.”

“That was bad of her,” was the reply. “She must be made to pay for it, right?”

“Yes, mommy.”

“Then do as I say,” the vision ordered. “Tomorrow there is a bus trip.”

“Yes.”

“Gina must sit directly behind the driver of the bus. Then she will die.”

“Die,” Alicen breathed.

“And when we are rid of her,” the vision said, “I will give you this.”

Smoke billowed around the apparition’s hand as she raised it to Alicen’s face. In
the white cloud sat the huge, brilliant diamond that had once been on Sarah Kaufman’s
hand. Alicen reached for it, mesmerized. She saw it not as Sarah’s ring, but as the
ring her mother had always worn.

“She must sit up front,” the vision said, snatching her hand away.

“She will,” Alicen promised. “Oh, mommy, I’ll be so happy to wear your beautiful ring!”

The next morning, Alicen woke up in her bed. She went down to the kitchen for breakfast,
completely unaware that she had been sitting on its floor just a few hours earlier.

“Look at that bus, Alicen!” Gina cried as they stood together in the school yard.
“Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yeah, it sure is,” Alicen said, yawning. She was exhausted but didn’t know why.

It was an enormous touring bus, one with a completely flat front covered with shining
glass. The two girls climbed up inside of it and looked down the narrow aisle at the
rows of high, upholstered seats.

“Hey, there’s Doreen and Beverly,” Gina cried, pointing.

Her friends had taken over the seat under the back window. Gina waved and started
to go to them, but Alicen grabbed her arm.

“Can’t we sit up front?” she asked.

“Why?” Gina responded. “Everyone else is in the back.”

“I’d rather sit up here,” Alicen said, indicating the seat behind the driver’s.

“What difference does it make?”

Alicen shrugged. “I don’t know. Uh—I sort of get sick sitting in the back.”

Gina still felt guilty about mentioning Alicen’s mother. Maybe she could make up for
that by humoring her friend. She nodded.

“Okay,” she said, “but I think you’re weird. A seat’s a seat!”

Alicen slid into the seat Gina followed, then leaned out in the aisle to talk to Doreen
and Beverly, moving back every few seconds to let other children walk past.

Alicen leaned forward and pressed her hands against the glass partition behind the
driver’s seat. Suddenly she felt sleepy. She yawned, and all at once her yawn became
a groan. Gina looked at her.

“What’s the matter?”

“Percy’s the bus monitor,” Alicen said. “And Jamie Hutchinson’s coming in right behind
him.”

“We could have sat in the back,” Gina said. “The bus is full now.”

“I guess it’s okay.” Alicen groaned. She turned to look out the window, hoping neither
Percy nor Jamie would see her. She was still mad at the boy for telling her stories
of murders and making her look like a fool in front of her father and Melanie. But
Jamie was too busy reading. Mr. Percy, after a few orders to the children about behavior
and staying in groups, sat down and opened up a copy of the
Wall Street Journal
.

The driver came in next, her face hidden behind a curtain of stringy blond hair. Percy
scoffed at her, then turned his eyes back down to the paper, wondering why the bus
company would hire such an unkempt woman. The driver climbed behind the wheel of the
bus without a word to anyone and started the engine.

Just then, Alicen felt a tap on her shoulder. “Hi, Alicen!”

“I’m not talking to you,” Alicen said plainly, recognizing Jamie’s voice.

“Oh, come on,” Jamie said. “Are you still mad at me? Don’t you want to look at my
book? It tells you all about the planetarium.”

“No.”

“It’s real neat,” Jamie said. “Don’t you want to see the pictures?”

“No!”

Jamie shook his head at her and sank back down into his seat. Now Gina turned and
pinched Alicen’s arm.

“Are you crazy?” she asked. “He’s trying to be nice to you, and you’re acting stuck-up.
Why are you mad at him?”

“It’s none of your business,” Alicen said, not wanting to mention the incident that
had so embarrassed her. “He’s stupid, and I don’t like him any more.”

Alicen gazed out at the passing highway. She saw a station wagon with several black
dogs in the back, a van driven by a young man with long hair, and a hitchhiking pair
of girls. The van stopped to pick them up. This was such a perfect day for a field
trip, Alicen thought. The sky was bright blue, and the sun was shining warmly. Why,
then, did she feel so uneasy?

She felt a pain in her eyes from the glare of the sun and closed them. Her head dropped
against the window, bobbing in rhythm with the vibrations of the engine. She could
still hear the children around her talking. Someone started singing, and others joined
in. It sounded as if they were singing through a long tunnel. She was far, far at
the other end.

“A hundred bottles of beer on the wall, a hundred bottles of beer, if . . .”

Someone was talking inside Alicen’s head. She recognized the voice, but couldn’t place
it. The words made her shudder.

Gina must die, must die, must die
.

“Ninety-five bottles of beer, if one of . . .”

Alicen snapped upright and looked through the glass partition at the back of the driver’s
head. She felt lightheaded, as if she were floating in air and not on board the bus
at all. The song the children were singing seemed further and further away. Now the
pact she had made in the night came back to her. She knew who the bus driver was.
Alicen longed to reach through the glass to touch her mother, but she simply leaned
forward and stared. She saw the back of the woman’s neck turning from pink to alabaster.
Marks of veins began to travel under the skin, like droplets of rain racing on a windowpane.
Beyond the woman’s shoulder, Alicen could see the soft pink hand twisting as its skin
tightened. No one else saw this but her.

She knew the terror had begun.

“Eight-six bottles of beer on the wall, eighty-six . . .”

Suddenly, with a loud growling noise, the bus shot forward.

“Hey!” a boy cried.

“What are you doing?” Percy demanded, leaning forward. “Slow down at once!”

The woman ignored him. The bus picked up speed at such a rate that the trees along
the road mashed together in one
long, green blur. White lines slipped under its wheels with immeasurable speed.

“Everyone!” Percy shouted, anticipating an accident, “on the floor!”

The children immediately ducked under their seats, too frightened to ask questions.
Gina wanted to obey, too; she tried to move but somehow was frozen to her seat. She
squeezed her eyes shut, covering them as she screamed.

But no one could hear her cries over the revving of the motor. It spun faster . .
.

“Heeelllp!”

. . . and faster . . .

“MOM!”

. . . and faster.

“STOP THIS AT ONCE!” Percy shouted, his old man’s voice straining. He grabbed the
steel bar in front of his seat, his newspaper flying to the steps below. The old teacher
pulled himself to his feet now and stumbled across the rubber-matted floor. His hand
shot forward in an effort to grab the driver.

It went right through her.

“What the—?”

Percy backed away in horror, hitting the front window. The driver looked up at him,
grinning. Her face was a death mask, grotesquely like blue-veined marble. Percy opened
his mouth, but no sound came from it.

Screams jerked him from his dazed state. He looked down the bus at the fifty youngsters
crouched on the floor, helpless. He saw a girl with braided brown hair still sitting
in the first seat. Her hands were over her face, and she was screaming. Alicen Miller
sat next to her, staring at him with hateful eyes.

Percy had the irrelevant thought that she was a disobedient brat. Why wasn’t she on
the floor?

Alicen smiled slightly and pointed to something beyond Percy’s shoulder. He turned
and looked out the huge front window of the bus, seeing a sign that read DETOUR and
behind it a construction site.

“Oh, dear God,” he whispered.

Now a surge of bravery made him lunge again at the driver. But as he touched the steering
wheel, ice-cold hands grabbed hard at his wrists. His fingers pulled away in a curling,
jerking motion. He whimpered softly as he felt the sickening crunch of his bones under
the viselike grip of the phantom driver.

He screamed. The driver roared at him, knocking him back to his seat with breath so
foul that Percy felt a wave of nausea. But that pain was cut off by another sharper
pain that ripped through his neck like a hot knife. His hand went to his throat, feeling
something sharp there. He stumbled toward Gina’s seat, blood dripping from his opened
mouth.

Screams of the children. The angry motor, honking horns, sirens. These were the last
sounds Percy ever heard.

The bus collided at last with the tall wooden fence that surrounded the construction
site. It shot over the rim of a pit, rising twelve feet into the air before it dove
down into the deep excavation. Small bodies thumped from ceiling to floor as the bus
rolled. But somehow, Gina’s body didn’t move at all. She had not yet opened her eyes,
even to see what had knocked her to the floor a second earlier. She could feel Alicen’s
legs underneath her. Something warm and heavy pinned them on the floor behind the
driver’s seat.