Winds of terror (13 page)

They lapsed into an anxious silence, and a few moments later Mark rushed into the room, looking worried. "I've been all through the house, upstairs and downstairs. She's not inside. I even checked the attic and the basement. Now I'm going to look outside and check the bam and storage sheds."

He hurried from the room, and Addie leaned back on her pillows, her face pale, her breath coming rapidly. So many strange things had happened lately, and now Mel-anie might be lost in the storm.

"Do you want one of your pills, Grandmother?" Cale asked anxiously.

She closed her eyes and gave a feeble nod of her head. He maneuvered himself to the bedside table, got the bottle of pills and handed her one. Then he poured a cup of water from the pitcher that had been placed at her bedside early that morning.

"Cale, I just don't know what to think anymore," the old woman whispered. "So many things happening. I pray nothing has happened to Melanie ..."

"She's all right," he said, patting her hand. "Don't worry. Mark will find her."

She opened the watery blue eyes and peered at him dubiously. "You don't believe me, do you?" she rasped. "You don't believe that Todd has come back from the grave to possess Mark, do you?"

"Grandmother, I don't believe the dead come back at all!" he said sternly. "Now stop talking like that, will you? You've just had some bad dreams, that's all."

"Stubborn, just like your father. Got your mother's rebellious ways, too!" Her voice lashed out angrily.

Cale was used to such outbursts. He'd experienced them often enough in his years with Addie.

"You didn't even know my mother." He said, sounding amused,. He meant to sound that way, because he knew that was the only way to strike back at her. Once Addie knew she had gotten under someone's skin, she never stopped goading them.

She pursed her lips and refused to speak. Mark walked in on an icy silence a few moments later. He stood in the doorway, drenched to his skin, water running from his soaked hair down onto his face, dripping from his nose and chin.

"She's not out there. I talked to a couple of the field hands, and they saw her going towards the cemetery just before lunch. I think we should form a search party at once. The woods are pretty deep in that section of the plantation. She might get lost."

"Melanie grew up in these woods," Cale commented quietly, looking very unconcerned. "You would come nearer getting lost than she would."

"Nobody's asking you to help!" Mark snorted and threw a meaningful glance at his cousin's useless legs. Cale, usually oblivious to such snipes, felt a stab of pain at this reminder of his handicap.

Mark whirled around to face Addie, pointing an accusing finger at her. "We'll find Melanie, Aunt Addie, but I think this should serve as a warning! She isn't wanted here! Todd doesn't want her here and neither do I! Now you get rid of her, and I'll find someone to come here and work as a housekeeper if I have to go to Talladega to do it. Do you understand?"

Cale seized this opportunity to say, "Really, Mark, when are you going to quit being so childish and stop all this gibberish about Todd's coming back from the dead? I agree this isn't exactly an exhilarating place for a girl Melanie's age who's had enough grief already to last her a lifetime, but I don't think she should leave because it's supposed to be haunted!"

"I wasn't talking to you."

"Stop it, both of you!" Addie said, pulling herself up to a sitting position. "I'm still running this plantation, and I will continue to run it until I'm in my grave, which I'm

sure the two of you hope is not far off. Mark, you go find Melanie, and Cale, I wish you would just get out of my sightl"

Mark seethed with anger as he rushed out of the room cursing beneath his breath.

As soon as Mark was out of earshot, Cale spoke anxiously. "Grandmother, listen. Don't call in your lawyer and change your will right now."

She raised her eyebrows and looked at him quizzically. "And since when is it any of your business what I do, boy? You're lucky I even let you sponge off me the way you do after the way your father showed his gratitudel"

"I don't care about the money," he said, pleading for her understanding. "I just don't want you to change things from the way they are now ..."

"And how do you know for sure I've even left you a dime?" she snorted. "I told you that you've got a trust fund, but you can't be sure.'*

He stared at her, trying to find the words to express himself without alarming her.

Now she laughed. "Don't worry. There is a trust fund for you. Not that you deserve it, but you are my grandson, and blood is thicker than water. I'm going to leave you in it. But I'm going to disinherit Mark and tell him to get off the plantation before Todd makes him kill me."

Cale could only look at her and shake his head in dismay, wishing he could say more, but knowing he'd better not.

"I just hope he hasn't already done something to her . . ." she said worriedly, her eyes going to the rain-streaked window.

Cale could have told her that he was almost positive Mark had not left the house all day, but he thought it best to end the conversation. His grandmother would not listen, he was sure, unless he was willing to go into details —details he could not disclose at the risk of exposing himself. And he was not ready to do that-—^not yet—not until he had his own revenge.

He rolled himself out of the room and down the hall. He would have to phone Sheriff Dixon. It would look better, he thought, for the sheriff to have been notified when they found Melanie. It would show that the family was concerned,

Chapter 12

Melanie opened her eyes with great effort. She felt a giant wave of dizziness and sought to hang onto her consciousness, trying to figure out what had happened and where she was. She stared into the blackness that engulfed her. Or was it merely blackness—darkness, she thought with panic; perhaps she was blind! The thought of such a possibility made her head reel with a devastating fresh wave of panic.

She was lying on her side. She had begun to tremble, and when her cheek quivered it scraped rough concrete. Pulling herself up to her knees, she began to wave her arms about her, trying to feel something—anything— and she cried out loud, "Please, someone, help me. Please . . ."

Her hand struck something and she stiffened. Pain began to dance through her head; her stomach was queasy. Gasping, she realized that wherever she was, the air was close, thick. It was difficult to breathe. She clung to something wooden—a table leg, perhaps—as the past slowly began coming back. She had just lowered Dutch's cofl&n into the ground . . . She was shoveling in the dirt to fill the grave . . . But, that was all she could remember until this moment, when her eyes had opened to either darkness or blindness!

Melanie had never known such utter despair and terror. She moved her hands upwards along whatever lay in front of her. "Please, God, don't let me blind," she whimpered. The pain in her skull seemed to grow greater moment by moment.

She inched along, almost unable to inhale the musty, 101

unpleasant air. Her right hand touched something rough . . . something wooden. She traced its edges. It felt like a box. Her hand reached the end of the box, traversed a void several inches wide—and then hit upon another object right beside the box. Her hands explored this new object, feeling, exploring. It was smooth—no, there was something on the side, something like a handle. What kind of room would have such odd furniture, she wondered, straining to think clearly even though her head throbbed.

Melanie got up off her knees and shuffled her feet slowly in the space between the two objects—Please, God, let me be moving towards a door," she prayed. "Let this room, whatever it is, merely be dark. Don't let me be blind.. .'*

Her fingertips had traced a considerable distance, it seemed, in a straight line. Now she moved them further along, then upwards at a right angle. She stopped—she had to bend over to keep moving. The top of the object was flat, that much she was sure of . . . Now her fingers were going at an opposite angle.

Sobbing with frustration and crying out again for help, her hands fell to her sides. What was this place? What kind of weird objects were these? And there was another one on her left, identical to the others .. .

Suddenly, like a trickle of ice water upon a bare back, the realization of where she was came to Melanie. A piercing scream gushed forth from the very depths of her soul as the awareness circulated through her throbbing brain.

Coffins! Dear God in heaven, she had been tracing the outlines of coffins! She was in the Beecher family mausoleum! It had to be! The mustiness—the closeness of the air! Coffins!

She backed away from the space between the two objects, groping her way along. The scream dissipated into hysterical, gulping sobs. Suddenly she tripped and went sprawling to the floor once again, scraping flesh from her knees as she grazed the rough concrete. Crawling, oblivious to the pain of her torn flesh and her pounding head, she moved, struggling to remember.

Uncle Hartley's funeral . . . how had the room been arranged? Where was the door? She had to get away from the coffims, had to get out of this horrible place.

Crawling, scrambling, her head banged- abruptly against something—the iron door! She raised herself up on her torn and bleeding knees and began pounding on it, screaming for help. The sound of her own terrified pleas filled the room, bouncing back at her from all directions.

She fought to retain consciousness as a great wave of dizziness swept over her. Surely, someone would be looking for her, and she had to stay conscious and continue yelling for help so she could be found.

While she screamed and pounded, Melanie cried brokenly, wondering who had done this horrible thing to her and whyl Cale was right; she should leave. Something was terribly wrong here, something evil was about She did not know who—or what—^was responsible.

Now, even through the pain and the fright, anger, slow but intense, pushed her onward. Her beloved pet had been murdered, and she might have been killed, too. Maybe she would die still, here in this cold, acrid-smelling house of the dead. But why? She had not bothered anyone. She had only come to Beecher House to take care of her aunt, to fulfill a deathbed promise to her mother. Who had dared to do this to her?

Melanie's smoldering anger made her able to ward oflE the temptation to succumb to sleep and blessed oblivion. She wanted to get out! She wanted to find out exactly what was going on at Beecher Housel She had had it with ghosts and tales of possession by evil spirits. She was certain there was a live spirit walking around out there, a very mean live spirit, and she intended to find out who or what it was. Indignant with rage, she wanted vengeancel

A roll of thunder, followed by a sudden crash of lightning, reminded Melanie of the storm outside. She kept yelling and beating on the door, determined to get out of this horrid place and seek her revenge. She no longer trembled with terror ... but with rage.

Time passed slowly. It was hideous, alone in that room with the coffins. Melanie kept telling herself, over and over, that the dead could not hurt her—only the living could—and that she would expose the person who had done this to her. She was not planning to accuse Mark openly, but to follow him around until she actually caught him executing one of his fiendish tricks!

Yet, finally, even anger was not enough, and a feeling of hopelessness washed over her. She felt so tired; her

head hurt so badly, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe. It would be so blissfully easy to sink down and go to sleep ...

She heard a sound way off in the distance. At first, Melanie told herself it was only her imagination playing desperate tricks on her. The thunder rolled and heaved, and the lightning cracked, as she strained against the big iron door and prayed that she was really hearing someone call her name.

No! It wasn't her imagination! Someone was out there. As she beat on the door with strength she had not known she had, Melanie screamed, over and over again, as loudly as she could. God must have heard her prayers ... She was going to be saved from this tomb of death.

There was a loud squeaking and moaning as the door began to heave open. A blast of rain and blessed fresh air hit her full in the face as she fell forward towards freedom. Now she could let sleep overtake her. Now she was free.

Someone caught her as she fell, swooping her up into strong arms. A smile played upon her lips as her eyelids fluttered one last time. Now her imagination was playing tricks on her. She would have sworn it was Mark who held her. But how could that be, she thought as she drifted off. It was Mark who had put her in the tomb in the first place ... Why would he rescue her now?

Chapter 13

Mark set a tray down on the bedside table and crossed the room to open the drapes. It was morning and sunlight streamed into the room. Melanie had slept through the night. Dr. Ambrose had examined her when she was brought in, and said that she had received a slight blow on the head, but that her condition was not serious. All she needed was some rest to get over her ordeal; then she would be fine.

Mark pointed to the tray of eggs, bacon, toast, and a steaming cup of hot coflfee. "I got a housekeeper to come in from Talladega," he said proudly. "She's agreed to come in two days a week."

Melanie looked at him, trying very hard not to hate him. She had always taken pride in the thought that she could never hate her fellow man, but now—now she was sure that she was looking at the man who had murdered her dog and had almost killed her.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Mark asked, aU pleasantness leaving his voice.

Her answer came in a shocked whisper. "You dare to ask, after what you did?"

"After what I did?" he echoed. "My God, girl, I'm the one who organized the search party and found you locked in that place. One more hour there, and you might have died of suffocation."

"You got me out all right." She moved to sit up, a throbbing pain moving through the back of her head. "But you're also the one who put me in there! You needn't deny it, Mark. There's no one else who could