Free Ghost House Revenge by Clare McNally Page B

his Volvo. He unlocked the
     door, got behind the wheel, and drove out of the parking lot. The car had taken him
     halfway home when someone suddenly tapped his shoulder and said, “Hello.”
    Startled out of his thoughts of Liza, Derek turned around and saw the hitchhiker sitting
     in the back seat. She was grinning.
    “What in the hell are you doing here?” Derek demanded angrily.
    “I waited for you,” the woman said. “I wanted to talk.”
    “What for?” Derek asked. “Why do you keep following me? We don’t even know each other.”
    “Well, my name is Janice,” she said. “And I know you very well.”
    Suddenly she jumped over the back of the seat. Her hand fell between Derek’s legs,
     grabbing him. He jumped, feeling a pain in his groin as intense as if she had kicked
     him. The car jumped a curb, and Derek moved quickly to straighten it again.
    “Are you crazy?” Derek shouted, pulling over and stopping. “Get the hell out of my
     car!”
    “I want you,” the woman said, unbuttoning his slacks.
    Derek pushed her hand away. It was like moving cotton. He turned and looked at her,
     assessing her strength. She’d be easy enough to throw out of the car, but he didn’t
     want to give her a chance to have him arrested for assault.
    “Just get out” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you. Just leave me alone.”
    “The way you left me alone?” she demanded as she opened the door. “You’ll pay for
     that, Derek Miller.”
    She was out of the car before he realized he had never toldher his name. He jumped out of the car, calling out: “How’d you know my name?”
    But the street was now completely deserted. Filled with curiosity, Derek walked up
     and down, looking for the strange woman. But she was nowhere to be found. Wondering
     how she could have slipped into the shadows so quickly, he returned to his car. He
     had never been a man to fear threats, and so he climbed into the car and tried to
     put the incident out of his mind.
    “What could that crazy little bitch do to me?” he asked himself.
    He drove home at a faster speed than usual, unwilling to admit that the thought of
     the woman knowing his name made his flesh crawl.

8
    Derek stared up at the beam of dark wood that ran across his ceiling. He had been
     awake for an hour, trying to make sense of the evening’s strange events. His hands
     were folded behind his head, and his teeth dug into his lower lip, pressing harder
     as his thoughts grew more intense. He had already decided how the woman had gotten
     into his car. It was old, and the lock didn’t work very well. But how did she know
     where to find him? And more than that, how did she knew his name?
    Derek shook his head roughly, driving away sleep that wanted to claim him. He wanted
     this mystery solved,
now
.
    Thinking the comfortable bed was making his mind wander, he got out of it and pulled
     on his robe. Walking barefoot out to the hall, he closed the door softly. He stopped
     when he heard a whimpering noise—Alicen talking in her sleep. Derek ran his fingers
     through his hair, then reached for the knob of her door. His fingers held it but hesitated.
    “Mommy!”
    The kid sounded so frantic.
    “Mommy, come home.”
    Derek pulled his hand away from the door. Another dream? When were those going to
     stop? When was Alicengoing to face the fact that her mother wasn’t ever going to come home?
    But he knew Alicen would never accept the truth. Even though she had seen Elaine’s
     car explode and had stood there watching as the twisted body was pulled from the wreck,
     she refused to believe it was her mother. That first year had been especially painful.
     Alicen would look outside every time a car stopped in front of the apartment house,
     hoping it was her mother.
    Derek was struck with the painful memory of Alicen’s eighth birthday. Elaine had only
     been dead a month.
    “Mommy told me she’d buy me a new dress,” Alicen had said.
    Derek could almost feel her