The Dark: A Collection (Point Horror) Page 14

  Bianca squeezed her eyelids shut. Doc had dropped his own handgun after she had shot him by mistake. She had been trying to save Harry's life — not kill Doc. She saw Ernie McCollough reaching for his gun and losing his balance. She relived him tumbling down those stairs in the moonlight as she had every night since his death. She remembered herself running over to him lying there in the foyer, his neck at an odd angle. She had clutched him to her and wept.

  Bianca had left Harry tied at the top of the stairs and had fled out on to the street screaming for help. Help had been too late. Doc had been pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. She had attended his funeral. It had felt to her as if she had killed him. It still felt like that, though it was two months later.

  Doc Ernie McCollough had been everything to Bianca. He had been her medical adviser. He had been her best friend. He had even — in the days before she had met Harry — been her lover. They had been together always. Even though she now knew it had all been a fraud and a fake, her heart could not help grieving for the dead young man who had once lived across the street from her.

  "I've got to be brave for Little Katie's sake. She's got nobody besides me to depend upon," Bianca whispered aloud in the darkness.

  The darkness had been her enemy ever since the night of the murder of Mrs. Ingersoll two years ago, when Bianca had been babysitting the newborn Little Katie Shipley. The maid had taken her own tumble down the stairs, shot in the back by a gun with a silencer wielded by Doc. When Bianca's mind had repressed it all because it had been so horrible, forgetting everything until only two months ago, she'd become fearful of the dark. The murder had taken place in the dark. Bianca had grappled with the killer in the dark. She had escaped from the house in the dark, clutching Little Katie to her breast.

  The darkness of the night pressed in around Bianca and made her shiver. She smiled only a little when she remembered how Harry had told her to keep her chin up.

  She rolled over on her pillow and dozed off again. This time she went to sleep.

  A noise on the yacht awakened Bianca some indeterminate amount of time later. She sat straight up in bed. She listened with her ears perked up. It was still dark. The alarm clock said 3 a.m. Her room adjoined Katie's. Had she heard someone opening the little girl's door?

  Mr. and Mrs. Shipley were supposed to stop by in the morning to pick Katie up and take her back to their house. That would be about three hours from now. No one else was authorized to be on the yacht except the armed guard. He was to stay on deck at all times. He wasn't to venture into the family quarters unless Bianca summoned him.

  Bianca hurried over to Katie's room and snatched the child up in her arms, The child awakened and moaned. Bianca said, "Sh-h-h!"as she sat there on the bed with the little girl, trying to quiet her own fears.

  Had she imagined the door opening? She thought she heard breathing and realized that someone was there in the darkness of Katie's bedroom with them. Perhaps she had beaten him to the child's bed. Perhaps he had intended to snatch the little girl and make off with her.

  Bianca couldn't stay here. She carried Katie toward the door, wondering if she dared to cry out for the bodyguard or whether she should keep her mouth shut. As she moved, she could hear someone's footsteps following her.

  Bianca disappeared into the Shipleys' bedroom next-door on the yacht. She shut the door and locked it. Still she heard the breathing. Evidently the intruder had slipped in behind her.

  She hurried out of the Shipleys' bedroom into the next guest bedroom. The creep seemed to have followed her inside this room as well!

  Bianca opened the door to the deck and raced out into the night. She passed what looked like the slumped body of the guard. Tom Jones was lying on the deck. His wide-open eyes were staring up at the night sky. He wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing. He looked dead.

  Bianca fled down the gangplank. Thank God it was still in place! At least she didn't have to leap overboard and swim with the child in her arms. She was at the harbor village. She looked towards Mr. Pigsley's shop, Island Ice Cream Delights, hoping against all hope that she would see the old man up and about at this early hour.

  The shop was closed up tight. There was not a light on anywhere, not even upstairs where the Pigsleys lived. They must be asleep.

  The assailant chased Bianca down the street. She hid from him behind every building that she could find. He always seemed to surprise her. He leaped out from behind every bush and tree. His shadow loomed up out of nowhere.

  Bianca kept going across a wide, grassy expanse. Live oak trees grew so close together that they blocked out the moonlight. There was only one tall, stone building that rose in the darkness up ahead. The creep was right behind her. She flung open the door and dashed inside.

  She raced up the spiral staircase. Bianca realized too late that she must be heading up into the island's only lighthouse. Footsteps pursued her. She continued all the way to the top.

  She finally reached the beacon room. She opened a trapdoor in the ceiling and clambered up on to the roof, hoping that this freak would never think of looking there. She stood outside in the damp night air in her nightgown, clutching the child, waiting for morning.

  Everything was silent — dead silent — except for the hooting of an owl. She didn't know if the killer was watching her from a window or whether he had gone back down to the ground and was eyeing her from there. Every time an owl hooted or a cricket chirped, she jumped.

  As she stood there one hundred feet off the ground, she clutched the weathervane. She tried not to look down as her head whirled around. Her legs threatened to collapse underneath her. She couldn't go anywhere from here. She didn't risk going down until morning.

  With her one free hand she clung to the weathervane as if to life itself. If she let go, she was a goner. Little Katie would be, too. So Bianca continued to hold on grimly — to life and to sanity — as the night pressed in on all sides.

  Chapter 2

  Dawn finally came. A streak of fear shot through Bianca as she clutched the weathervane. She could see the ground. It wasn't swimming in milky darkness any longer. It was at least one hundred feet below, if not more. One false move — over the edge she would go!

  "Hey, Bianca, is this some new stunt?" Down below stood a young man with a flushed, florid complexion, curly blond hair and blue eyes. He was snickering up at her. The neck of his shirt gapped open to reveal more curly, blond hair.

  Bianca shuddered and crept back against the weathervane. Rick Roscoe and his girlfriend, Marianna, had threatened her and Katie in the cemetery two months ago. They had tried to intimidate her and make her go out with Rick.

  They had wanted to pilfer her money when she came into her trust fund. Rick had been arrested and put on probation.

  Had Rick been the goon on the yacht last night? Had he chased her up the stairs of the lighthouse? Did he intend to mock her now?

  "Hi, Bianca, my heroine. You look like the girl who saved Little Katie last spring. So brave it's sickening!"

  A girl with dark, curly hair down over her shoulders leered at Bianca with her fiery, amethyst eyes. Her plucked eyebrows resembled black arches. Her eyelashes had been lengthened with mascara until each lash looked like a long and pointed weapon, or perhaps the legs of a black widow spider. Marianna Haynes was every bit as poisonous!

  Marianna's breasts were well defined by her form-fitting top. Her slacks were bursting at the seams, revealing a derriere as big as a full moon. Marianna's arm was looped around Rick's waist.

  Bianca's stomach felt like a tight little ball. Marianna had almost pushed her into an empty grave in May. Marianna had tripped and fallen into the grave herself. She had spent days in the hospital.

  "Some people are so rich that they don't have to go to work. They spend all morning up on the roof working on their tan instead," Marianna taunted Bianca.

  Marianna had to toil away at the Island Theater as the concessions girl. Her boss had hired her back after the incident in May. S
he'd been lucky that she hadn't ended up in the slammer. Marianna and Rick had been feeding information to Harry's jailbird brother, Mike, about which shops to knock over in return for a share of the proceeds.

  Had Rick and Marianna thrown their probations to the winds and sneaked on to the Shipleys' yacht? Had they knocked off the bodyguard to chase her up the lighthouse tower for kicks?

  Maybe her old high-school classmates had satisfied their sadistic desires to make Bianca suffer because a trick of fate had caused her to have more money than they did. Surely they hadn't been trying to kidnap Little Katie last night. No little girl could be that unfortunate.

  "Help me!" Bianca called down to Rick and Marianna. After all, she did not see anybody else. Nobody else was up and about yet.

  "You've got two million smackeroos in the bank. Nobody with that much money needs any help at all," Marianna declared.

  "If you don't want to help me, help Katie. The baby doesn't deserve to suffer."

  Marianna called up, "You wait there, Bianca. Marianna's coming for you."

  Marianna headed up the spiral staircase. She poked her head up through the trapdoor in the ceiling of the beacon room. She waved and laughed at Bianca and Katie, making faces.

  It reminded Bianca of the time, only two months past, that Marianna had cornered her in the movie theater bathroom. Marianna made her write in lipstick I AM A COWARD on the mirror because Bianca was afraid of the dark. Marianna didn't intend to help. It made her feel better to torment Bianca.

  Little Katie bawled. Bianca didn't have a bottle or any of her toys. She hugged the toddler against her chest. That was all that she could do.

  A truck from the correctional facility on the edge of town pulled up along the lawn in front of the lighthouse. The city park was the place for the prisoners to take their morning exercise before it became crowded with shoppers. The convicts filed out of the van one by one.

  Bianca caught sight of Mike Fellini in a prison uniform. He cast her a dirty look and made a lewd hand gesture.

  She had run into Mike in the cemetery in May on the same night that she'd encountered Rick and Marianna. Harry's older brother had kidnapped Little Katie in hopes of extracting one million dollars from the Shipleys. Bianca had tricked Mike into thinking that she had called the police and they were about ready to spring at him out of the shadows. He had fled, leaving Bianca with Katie. Mike had been recaptured and returned to jail.

  Had Mike Fellini escaped from his cell last night and come after her? Had he returned to the prison after getting his kicks? He had sworn revenge.

  Prisoners were working on the lawn. They picked up trash and stuffed it into sacks attached to their backs. Mike didn't take his eyes off Bianca and Katie, not for one second.

  The correctional officer noticed the direction in which Mike was staring. He recognized Bianca in her nightgown. St. Simons Island was a small place. Most people knew everybody else. Besides, Bianca's picture had been in the paper lately.

  The correctional officer raced in her direction. He pounded on the door at the base of the lighthouse. There was nobody to let him in. Someone, probably Marianna, had locked the door. Of course Marianna and Rick were nowhere to be seen now.

  With frightened eyes, the officer got on his cellphone and called 911. He glanced up at Bianca, afraid that she might fall before he could summon help.

  The walkway along the harbor's waterfront was getting busier. An occasional passerby on his way to work would gawk up at Bianca and Katie.

  "Is she a jumper?" One girl looked terrified.

  An ambulance with its flashing lights pulled up before the police or fire department arrived. Three ambulance workers leaped out. One looked like a doctor, carrying a black bag, like all the other doctors that Bianca had met over the past two years at Brunswick Memorial Hospital. She'd been going there for outpatient treatment for her phobia.

  Two medics held a net, the kind that firefighters used. "Jump!" they urged Bianca.

  Bianca's legs were frozen in place. She didn't know if she could let go of the weathervane even if she wanted to. Her hand had been clutching the metal rod all night.

  The doctor approached her. Dressed all in white, he looked rather slim and wiry. Nor did he look very old. His thick, curly blond hair fell into his eyes, which seemed to be blue. His shoulders were big and muscular. He tried to talk her down in a soothing, calm tone.

  "They tell me your name is Bianca Winters. You're a brave girl. Come forward and jump. All you have to do is tell yourself that you can."

  As soon as the doctor opened his mouth, she could tell he wasn't from around here. He spoke in a British accent. He didn't sound the least bit put off by the girl on the roof.

  His voice inspired confidence. She went forward step by step. Still she stopped short of the edge. With Katie in her arms, Bianca couldn't jump.

  A fire truck showed up with flashing lights. Firemen carrying nets and ladders leaped off the truck. The doctor waved them away. He was clearly in charge here.

  "Wait there until I come up," the young doctor urged.

  He broke down the old wooden door to the lighthouse with the aid of a sledgehammer that he retrieved from the ambulance. He raced up the stairs. He crawled out on to the roof of the lighthouse.

  "Now, Bianca, get down on your hands and knees. Crawl towards me." He held out his hand for her to grasp.

  She crawled forward a little and then stopped.

  He kept coaxing her on in his deep, comforting voice that made him sound as if he were in control of the situation and would not let anything go wrong.

  "Look into my eyes. Don't look down. It's just a little farther."

  Their fingers touched. She let him take her free hand and hold it. A spark leaped between them as Bianca gazed into his eyes for a minute, feeling his strength that he was imparting to her.

  She remembered how far down to the ground it was. She felt her head go around, imagining that she was falling. The stranger put his arm around her and pulled Bianca and Little Katie toward him.

  The young Englishman carried her and Katie down the spiral stairs. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as tightly as she could. They emerged in time to see a police van pull up alongside a car of newspaper reporters flashing cameras in everyone's faces.

  In their party clothes Mr. and Mrs. Shipley raced out of the police van. They embraced Bianca and their daughter.

  "Thank God you're all right! The bodyguard is dead — shot through the heart with a silenced gun," Mrs. Shipley sobbed.

  The pavement came up to meet Bianca's face. Darkness was all.

  About an hour later, as Bianca lay in the hospital, a head of dark, flyaway hair burst through the door. Harry had driven back from Brunswick as soon as he had heard on the radio. Anything that concerned the Shipleys was big news on St. Simons Island.

  He hugged and kissed her. "Are you all right, Bianca? What happened?"

  She assured him that it was just a precaution that she was in the hospital.

  Harry wouldn't go home to his mother. He slept in the lobby until Bianca was released the next afternoon. He drove her back to the new home that her family had bought since she had come into her trust fund on her eighteenth birthday in May.

  Her parents had retired from their former jobs and started a travel agency, which had been their dream for years. They now got to take those trips that they'd always wanted to. Her parents had visited their daughter in the hospital earlier that morning. A note on the table said they would be back for dinner.

  "We'll make dinner," Harry assured Bianca. "You can't let that killer slow you down or spoil your style."

  Bianca didn't want Harry to see how shaky she was. When she pulled up the step-stool and couldn't climb to the third step to reach the spaghetti sauce in the back of the cabinet, he caught on fast.

  "You're tough, kid. You can make it. Now walk up those steps again," Harry ordered her.

  "Oh, Harry!" Bianca collapsed into his arms. "You weren
't cornered up on that roof all night long with the killer lurking somewhere below. You didn't have Little Katie with you."

  He carried Bianca into her bedroom. "You're a strong girl, Bianca. You're my inspiration during all that police and surveillance training. You've survived again and again. You'll survive this time, too."

  Harry made her feel better about herself, though he was so busy. First he had taken that crash course in Atlanta right after his graduation. Now there was the advanced course in Brunswick.

  They took a shower together, rubbed noses, and made out. She wrapped a towel around herself and went to fetch new clothes. When she came out of the bathroom, her telephone was ringing off the hook. It was her banker from downtown Brunswick asking if she had authorized the large wire transfer from her account.

  She didn't have time for banking right now. She couldn't recall the details. There were all sorts of bills to pay.

  "I'm sure I did," she answered impatiently.

  Why did her banker have to interrupt her at a time like this? She'd only taken on a personal banker since she'd come into her trust fund. Before that even her parents hadn't had one.

  "I make it a practice to call my clients when there are transactions over a certain amount. I wanted to make sure. That's all."

  She said goodbye. She couldn't be bothered to think about money. After all, she was still in her towel. Harry had his arms around her waist. He was kissing her neck.

  Harry left right after dinner. She turned on her computer to start her homework. She was taking summer school. She had to graduate from high school after the rest of her class. The kidnapping in May and Doc's death had put her behind in her studies. She had agreed to earn her high-school diploma by the end of July.