“Here we go,” said Lisa brightly as she reentered the living room a few minutes later. She was carrying several pencils in her left hand. She was also clutching a large blue notebook against her chest.
Her right hand was hidden beneath the notebook.
A strange light glowed in her eyes—a light that grew brighter as she drew near the table.
“Dear God!” cried Brian suddenly. Lunging against the table, he pushed Carrie and her chair over sideways. At the same moment Lisa uttered a bloodcurdling scream and swung the butcher knife she was clutching downward in a vicious arc.
Alice Miles cried out in terror. The butcher knife, which had been intended for Carrie, quivered in the tabletop. The savage strength of the blow had thrust it through the cards, the cloth, and the table itself.
As Lisa tried to wrench the knife free, Brian grabbed her by the hair, spun her around, and slapped her face. “Stop it!” he roared.
“Gramma!” screamed Carrie. “Gramma, make her stop!”
Lisa was hissing and spitting, scratching at Brian like a rabid cat. “Let me go!” she screamed as she raked her fingers down his cheek, leaving four bloody welts.
Brian slapped her again. “Get out of there!” he shouted. “You get out of Lisa’s body!”
Lisa’s eyes were rolling wildly.
Brian pinned her arms to her sides and shook her savagely. “Get out! Get out!”
She tried to bite him, spittle flying from the corners of her mouth.
“Make it stop!” cried Carrie, clinging to her grandmother. “Gramma, make it stop!”
Suddenly Lisa broke free of Brian’s grasp. With a screech she lunged at Carrie, her fingers straining for her little sister’s neck. When Dr. Miles intercepted Lisa, grabbing her by the shoulder, Lisa lashed out and slapped her grandmother so fiercely it seemed her jaw might be broken.
Dr. Miles slapped back. “Mother!” she said, her voice firm and strong. She was gasping, and her shoulders were shaking, yet she managed to sound like a parent disciplining an unruly child. “Mother, get out of there. You don’t belong.”
Lisa’s eyes rolled in her head. Her hair was tangled, her nostrils flaring.
Carrie turned away and threw up.
Suddenly Lisa’s eyes rolled back in her head, so that only the whites showed. She convulsed wildly, as if an electric shock were running through her, then collapsed like a tent in a windstorm.
“Help me get her onto the couch,” snapped Dr. Miles. She had taken Lisa’s arms. Brian was just reaching for her feet when from the air above them came a cry of horror.
“Carrie!” screamed the voice. “Oh, my God! Carrie!”
At the sound Lisa opened her eyes and shuddered. The voice carried such grief and terror that she could feel tears spring to her eyes, her sympathy for the maddened creature that haunted the night even stronger than the fear that was raging through her.
The ceiling began to drip, not in one place but in several. Rank green water struck the table, the couch, the carpet.
When the water turned to blood, Carrie buried her face in her arms and began to weep.
“Come on!” snapped Brian. “We’re getting out of here!”
He grabbed Lisa and started for the door. A shriek of dismay rang out above them. Just as Brian and Lisa reached the door it blew inward, as if struck by a mighty wind. The edge of the door caught Brian’s head, and he crumpled to the floor, unconscious. Lisa grabbed at the door. It wrenched out of her fingers and slammed shut again. She tried to open it. It was jammed. Placing a foot against the wall, she yanked furiously, shaking her head from side to side.
The door would not budge
A lamp sailed past her, missing her head by inches. It smashed on the wall above the door. Shards of pottery rained down around her.
“Brian!” she cried, dropping to her knees beside him. “Brian, are you all right?”
He made no answer.
She lifted his head into her lap. He moaned and tried to open his eyes. Suddenly Carrie shrieked. Turning toward her sister, Lisa cried out with new terror. The closet under the stairs had opened like a hungry mouth, and Carrie was being dragged toward it by some unseen force. Dr. Miles had her arms locked around Carrie’s shoulders and was straining to hold her. But the force was so great that Carrie’s body was stretched out parallel to the floor. One of her shoes slipped off and flew straight into the closet, as if it had been sucked in by some gigantic vacuum cleaner. Carrie’s other shoe came off. A sock peeled off after it. Both disappeared into the closet.
Lisa leaped up. She could feel the force sucking at her, too. Skirting the edges of it, working desperately to avoid stepping too close, she made a large circle around the living room and came up next to the closet. Standing behind the door she began to push against it, trying to close it, to block the horrendous force within.
She let out a little gasp as something brushed against her, then realized it was Brian. He was standing behind her, his face taut, a large purple welt above one eye.
“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.