The Dark: A Collection (Point Horror) Page 13

  The lamp toppled backward. The bulb shattered. The hallway plunged into darkness at the second when Doc made her finger push down on the trigger and shoot.

  The shot went wild. A whooshing sound hit the railing on the stairs as Harry rolled out of the way.

  "What did you do that for, Bianca?" Doc raged. "You're afraid of the dark. Remember?"

  Harry called. "You're not really afraid of the dark. He made you that way to keep you quiet. Remember, the dark is your friend. It gives you the advantage."

  Doc fumbled for the light switches. "Bianca, the darkness has black fingers. They're creeping up your neck to strangle you. Turn on the light, or you won't be able to breathe." He confronted her with the images from her own nightmares that she'd confided to him as her medical adviser.

  Just as she had pulled herself together with a superhuman effort two years ago to save Little Katie, she pulled herself together to save Harry. She tried not to think of the darkness. She tried not to listen to Doc's taunting words. Instead she visualized the inside of the house. She knew it better than Doc. She had baby-sat here every week for years.

  Bianca felt along the walls to reach the Shipleys' bedroom. She found the main fuse box for the house inside their closet and turned off the juice. Now there was no way that Doc could turn the lights on.

  Doc was still in hot pursuit. "Bianca, I'll punish you for this disobedience. I'll be forced to lock you in a dark room once we reach Rio."

  With trembling hands Bianca took the phone off the hook in the Shipleys' bedroom. If she left the phone off the hook for more than thirty seconds, it would trigger an alarm at the police department. The police would be here soon.

  All she had to do now was find the front door as she had two years ago. Then all she had to do after that was run outside screaming. She was feeling along the top of the banister leading to the stairs. A shadow loomed in front of her. It was Doc! He was blocking her way.

  Harry, still tied hand and foot, rolled into Doc from the other direction. He tripped Doc. Bianca raced down the stairs.

  "You won't get away from me!" Doc shouted. "It's no use. You have to depend on me."

  Bianca flung open the front door. It had grown very foggy. Suddenly a shaft of silver moonlight broke through the clouds, illuminating the stairway. There stood Doc holding Harry by his collar. Another handgun was pointed at Harry's head.

  "Come back here right now, Bianca, or I'll have to shoot!"

  Bianca felt Doc's first gun still in her hand. She had forgotten about it until now.

  "Shoot, Harry, Bianca. Go ahead and shoot him!"

  She slowly raised her gun hand. It trembled. She could hardly hold on to the pistol.

  "Shoot!"

  The gun went off. The shot went wild and hit Doc in the foot. With a look of astonishment, he dropped his second gun. He reached down to retrieve it. Then he lost his balance. He fell down the stairs with a shrieking cry, landing at the bottom. He lay very still. His eyes gaped straight up at the ceiling. They looked frozen with surprise the way Mrs. Ingersoll's eyes had two years ago.

  Doc was dead. Bianca knew it before she raced back to cradle his head against her breast as she wept and wept.

  Doc had found his tomb. He had condemned himself to what he'd tried to condemn her to — perpetual darkness.

  Chapter 13

  Bianca put on her best dress. She looked into the mirror to apply her lipstick and powder her nose. She seemed like a whole new girl, no longer the old Bianca Winters.

  Honk! Honk!

  Bianca leaned out her bedroom window and yelled, "I'm coming!"

  She grabbed her purse, skipped down the steps, and dashed down the front walkway to the black limousine in front of her house. She hurried around to the passenger's side, waving at a passing police car as her heels clip-clopped along the pavement.

  The police car was not on patrol. There was no longer any need for that. He was going home for the evening after one of the first normal days of work on the island in two years.

  The uniformed limousine driver was holding the door open for her. Bianca kissed him "thank you" on the cheek and popped inside.

  "Where to?" He smiled and revved up the engine.

  She shrugged. "The movies, of course. Where else?"

  Bianca snuggled back into her seat for a nice, long drive. It was easy to get used to this life — having your own limousine and driver at your beck and call to take you wherever you wanted to go.

  They hadn't gotten to the first traffic light before the limousine driver slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him. She took off his cap and tossed it into the back seat. She cozied up against his shoulder.

  "I ought to thank the Shipleys," Bianca remarked. "They've done so much for me already. But my own limousine driver. Wow!"

  "I just got off duty, and you know it!" He kissed her head. "If you think I'm going to the movies in this get-up, you're nuts! I'll change in the back seat before we go inside."

  "I want everybody to see you like that, especially that nasty theater manager in the Hawaiian shirt. I can't believe that he fired you because you punched Rick back. The manager will eat his heart out now."

  Harry smiled. "The manager's called me five times in the last couple of weeks asking me if I'll come back to work as an usher."

  "I hope you've told him no way!"

  "I certainly did! I don't have to put up with his foul mouth any more. The Shipleys are a dream to work for. They pay better. They give me more time off to enjoy, let's say . . . the finer things in life." He hugged her.

  She ran her hands up and down the front of his suit, playing with his brass buttons. "I want Mr. Pigsley to see you in uniform. He and Mrs. Pigsley go to the movies every Saturday night. Maybe they'll give you a certificate to get free ice cream."

  "Mom and I don't need free ice cream!" Harry held his chin up. "We don't have to take charity. I've shaken that bad rap. I'm working full-time for the Shipleys and I've got my high school diploma. Mom's been hired back at the school. They've given her a raise and her old pension back, too."

  "And you don't have to worry about Mike getting into trouble any more."

  Harry looked more serious. "Boy, do I owe you one there!"

  "It was the Shipleys, not me. They used their influence with the judge to keep Mike in a local prison. Maybe you and your mom can visit him on weekends."

  "Thanks to you!" Harry whistled. "I can't believe the Shipleys helped us after Mike kidnapped Little Katie. I guess they're so grateful they'd do about anything you asked. Can't say I blame them."

  He gave Bianca a kiss while they were stopped at a light.

  "I wish that they'd put that Rick Roscoe where he belongs, though, instead of giving him probation because it was a first offense!" Harry continued. "Now they know that he and Marianna were my brother's contacts at the Island Theater, that they were on the take telling him which stores to knock over for a share in the profits, Rick ought to go to jail. The police uncovered all those stolen goods at his house."

  Bianca shook her head. "Rick's been shaken up enough by what happened that he won't come near me. He knows what'll happen if he does."

  "Marianna, too?"

  "She's lucky to be alive! I think she'll act like a whole new girl. No more blabbing in her sleep about wanting to murder me, or anybody else."

  "Yeah, I'm glad that was just wishful thinking," Harry agreed.

  "Besides," Bianca added, "Marianna's got Rick back. I've got my own guy. You're a bigger reason to be jealous of me now, but I don't think Marianna will see it that way."

  Bianca gave Harry a big hug.

  "You're real special!" Harry could hardly keep his hands off her. "I can't believe that creep Doc had you thinking you were chicken all those years. You're the bravest, nicest, most generous girl I know."

  It was almost dusk. Bianca caught sight of a fallen magnolia blossom on the sidewalk. "Please stop!" she said in a small voice, choked with emotion.

  Sh
e got out of the car and picked the flower up. It was white and fragrant with a heady, musky odor. She climbed back into the car.

  "Let's stop by the cemetery first." She reached up and touched the turquoise earrings still dangling from her ears, the ones that she wore for good luck.

  "You don't want to miss the movie, do you?" Harry asked. He knew better than to press Bianca on this sensitive point. He understood what she was thinking without asking — as usual.

  They parked the car and got out. A police officer, who was directing traffic at a funeral that was starting to break up, stopped to salute Bianca. She was the heroine of the St. Simons Island police force now more than ever. Everyone was grateful to her for helping to catch the mysterious killer of Mrs. Ingersoll.

  Harry saluted back. Bianca didn't notice. She was preoccupied. She knew her way to the freshly dug grave lying under a live oak tree near the front of the cemetery. She had attended Doc's funeral when his urn of ashes had been laid to rest. Since then she had started coming here all the time, putting flowers on his grave and leaving little tokens of her own.

  She knelt down beside the grave and placed the magnolia blossom next to the withered ones that she had left there before. The fragrant white petals picked up the dying light of day and shimmered in the growing darkness.

  Doc had been her worst enemy. Bianca didn't like to remember him that way. She tried to recall him as a friend who'd made terrible mistakes and had paid for them big time. Nor would she let him lie alone in the dark, though Harry said he deserved it, though other people on the island were saying he deserved it after his shocking part in Mrs. Ingersoll's murder was revealed.

  Bianca told herself she would always remember Doc as the man he could have been if his brilliant mind hadn't been corrupted by his lust for money — and maybe even more by a lust to control the minds of other people. He could have been a famous doctor. He could have helped people. His life had been a tragic waste. He had tried to cheat other people, yes. He had killed one. Doc had cheated himself most of all.

  Bianca didn't shiver at the darkness as she reached up to adjust her turquoise earrings one last time. Harry gave her his hand and helped her up, then led her back to the car in the gathering gloom. He opened the door to the passenger's side and went around to the driver's side to get in. They hugged each other as they took off toward the movie theater.

  Harry flicked the car light on as darkness deepened. The live oak trees formed a tunnel over the road.

  "You don't have to do that." Bianca flicked the light off and put her arm round his shoulders.

  With Harry next to her, she would never have to ask herself that awful question again. "Are you scared of the dark?" Now the dark was her friend as she kissed him back.

  The Dark 2

  Chapter 1

  "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Katie, happy birthday to you!"

  Everyone started to clap as Bianca held Little Katie around the waist and hugged her. The blond-haired, cherry-cheeked little girl leaned over the cake and blew out the pink birthday candles. She was two years and two months old today. They were getting around to having the birthday they should have celebrated two months earlier.

  Bianca helped serve the cake to the hungry little kids gathered aboard the Shipleys' yacht in St. Simons Island Harbor on this late afternoon of July 1st. She glanced out the window and smiled at the policemen. She made sure that they got cake, too. She also sent a piece of cake out to the man that the Shipleys had hired to be Little Katie's temporary bodyguard, Tom Jones — until Harry graduated from his police and surveillance training course in Brunswick, Georgia.

  Br-r-r-r-ring! Br-r-r-r-ring!

  "Bianca, it's for you." Mrs. Shipley, Katie's mother, handed her favorite babysitter and Little Katie's godmother the telephone.

  Bianca had hardly been able to hear the ringing over the voices of the excited little children squealing, jumping up and down, and getting icing all over their faces.

  "Hello?"

  "Hi, hon! Miss you already."

  "Harry!" she exclaimed. "You haven't been gone one day. It seems like a hundred years."

  Harry's duty called. He was going to school so that he could get a better job and help support his mother. It was good news that Mrs. Fellini had her old job back at the high school. It was good news that she had regained her old pension and benefits. Still the Fellinis needed every penny. There were people who pointed at Mrs. Fellini and said, "You're Mike Fellini's mother, aren't you? You raise convicts!"

  Bianca winced at the thought. Harry and his mother would have to suffer because of Mike and his past convictions. They included kidnapping Little Katie back in May and trying to hold her for ransom.

  Bianca couldn't wait until Harry had finished his training so that he could be Little Katie's bodyguard. The Shipleys were paying for his education. They had promised to hire him. Harry was learning all sorts of martial arts and defensive techniques. Some of his training was the same that the CIA and FBI officers went through.

  "I've got a surprise for you." Harry announced. "In addition to learning to be a chauffeur and a bodyguard, I'm learning to fly a plane."

  "What?"

  "The Shipleys think it would be a good idea."

  She shook her head in amazement. The Shipleys were certainly being thorough. That made total sense. Little Katie might only be two years old, but already there had been an attempt on her life. Already the little heiress to the Shipleys' vast international business holdings had been kidnapped.

  "I'll be home this weekend." Harry promised.

  Bianca made kissing sounds into the phone. She held the phone up. Little Katie babbled to Harry.

  "See you, hon." Harry sounded like he was about ready to hang up.

  "Harry. . ." Bianca stopped him.

  She bit her lip. Bianca had had an uneasy sense since Harry had left here early this morning. It must be her nerves. She hadn't been without him one single day since Doc's death and funeral. She had leaned on Harry. She had counted on being able to tell him her fears. He had made her feel better and think that she could do anything, could survive anything.

  "Something wrong?" Harry sounded concerned.

  Bianca felt guilty. She shouldn't spoil his day. After all, everything had gone perfectly, perhaps too perfectly, with the party.

  "No, ah. . ."

  "I'll come right back if there is. I'm not going to let anything happen to you, Bianca, not while I have a breath left in my body. That's a promise!"

  Bianca couldn't spoil Harry's education plans because of a case of the jitters. After all, she was a big girl now, eighteen. She could deal with it.

  "I miss you, that's all, Harry."

  "Say, just wait until you see how Harry is going to kiss you the next time I see you. Your lips will be so sore you won't be able to eat."

  Bianca laughed and said her final good-byes. Then she hung up.

  The party was breaking up. Little Katie had opened her gifts. The toddlers were getting wild. Naps were needed. Parents were carting their children back to their cars on shore in the parking lot in the Village, the main shopping district on St. Simons Island off the southeast coast of Georgia.

  Soon it was dinner time. Bianca fed Katie her supper while the Shipleys went ashore for a late-night party. Katie and Bianca waved goodbye to Mommy and Daddy.

  Oddly enough, the Shipleys were going to the house of the McColloughs, the oldest family on the island. The McColloughs were Doc's parents. Their oldest son's criminal behavior and death in May on the staircase at the Shipleys' house had not been enough to sever close relations with their even wealthier next-door neighbors.

  It didn't matter that Doc had put on a big show for the past two years, interning at the hospital and acting as Bianca's medical advisor while he had been a killer. It didn't matter that he had murdered the Shipleys' maid, Mrs. Ingersoll, two years earlier, after making an attempt to steal jewels from the Shipleys' house while Bianca had been
babysitting Little Katie. It didn't matter that he'd cornered Bianca in the Shipleys' house two months ago, had almost murdered Harry, and had fallen down the stairs and broken his own neck. The McColloughs were not going to allow Doc to spoil their social life.

  The McColloughs always attended the Shipleys' parties and vice versa. They never talked about Doc. The McColloughs had denied Doc, "Doc" Ernie McCollough, a place in their new, marble family mausoleum. His ashes had been interred in the paupers' section of the cemetery at Christ's Church. The McColloughs had plenty of money — and plenty of other children besides Doc.

  Bianca and Little Katie were not going back to the Shipleys' house tonight. After all, it was Little Katie's birthday. Spending the night on the yacht was supposed to be a special treat. For company they had only the bodyguard, Tom Jones. He remained outside on the deck after the police left.

  Bianca put Katie to bed, read her a story, and took a shower. After all, the Shipleys frequently didn't come home until dawn. She and Katie would be on the yacht until then.

  Bianca took off the turquoise earrings that Doc had given her for her seventeenth birthday, more than a year ago. She put on her nightgown and climbed into bed.

  She was a millionairess now that she had passed her eighteenth birthday and had come into her two-million-dollar trust fund. The Shipleys had created it for her when she had saved Little Katie's life two times — first from Doc two years ago, and then from Mike Fellini in May. Yet the money didn't drive away the shadows from her past. She was afraid to go to sleep. She was afraid to turn out the lights.

  Something was tapping on her porthole. Could it be a prowler? She told herself to stop imagining things. After all, that was the bodyguard's job. He had been trained to stay up all night long to look and listen. He knew how to use a gun.

  Her heart beat faster until she saw the rain drops. She relaxed and slumped back against her pillow. She let her eyes close — that was, until she started to dream about Doc. Her eyes popped open. She was trembling, clutching her pillow.

  Doc had been the most brilliant person that she had known — smarter than her high school teachers. He had won awards while in high school, including the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. He had been the President of the Future Doctors of America. He had graduated two years early at sixteen. He had graduated early from college summa cum laude and had attended medical school. Going on twenty-four, he had been an intern with a promising future.