The Dark: A Collection (Point Horror) Page 19

  On the way back to Ronnie's apartment, Bianca had to pass Christ's Church Cemetery. She didn't like to go in there any more since Mike Fellini had clapped her into a coffin. But she had to duck into the cemetery today because it had one of the densest stands of live oak trees on St. Simons Island. Though it wasn't exactly safe to stand under trees during a thunderstorm, she had no choice if she didn't want to get totally soaked.

  Right in front of her was Doc's grave, one of the newer graves in the cemetery in the paupers' section. The grave was not even two months old. With a pang she remembered attending his funeral when the urn of ashes had been placed inside his coffin. There had not been many mourners in attendance. He had not had that many friends. Instead there had been gawkers and onlookers attracted by all the publicity. And, of course, there had been the press.

  The fragrant white magnolia blooms she had put there on her last visit some weeks ago were dried up and wilted now. With a pang of guilt she worried that she, who had been responsible for his death, had been forgetting Doc. His parents, haughty aristocrats that they were, had disowned even his memory after the revelations about his activities. They had refused to pay for the tombstone. Using the proceeds from her new trust fund, it had been Bianca who had paid for it instead.

  "Doc." She spoke aloud as she stood there waiting for the rain to end. "I wish you could meet Dr. Byron Kingsley."

  She paused for a minute. It was almost as if she could hear Doc answering her.

  Of course he couldn't really say anything. So she continued, hoping that somehow he could hear her wherever his soul had flown.

  "I think you would approve of him. He is a doctor, too, you know."

  She heard a chirp. Maybe a bird had answered for Doc.

  "He's real smart the way you used to be. He uses a lot of big words just like you. And he wants to help me out. In fact, he sort of reminds me of you more than a little, Doc. He really does."

  Bianca did not like to dwell on the bad things that Doc had done, such as killing Mrs. Ingersoll, the Shipleys' maid, by pushing her down the steps and shooting her. She did not like to dwell on how he had tried to steal jewels from the jewelry box in Mrs. Shipley's bedroom. Nor did she like to recall how on that last night when he'd died, he had almost killed Harry by shooting him in the head.

  Instead Bianca liked to remember the good things that Doc could have done if he had lived and continued his medical practice.

  "That's what Byron Kingsley really reminds me of, you know, Doc. He reminds me of the good side of you, what you could have been. He's smart like you, but he wants to help people, too. He's very generous with his time.

  He spends hours and hours with me alone. He never asks for anything in return. He acts as if doing good deeds is a reward in itself."

  "Bianca!" A voice spoke.

  She gasped. She looked around. Where had that voice come from? She'd been extra fearful lately. Her nerves had been preying on her mind. But she'd never actually heard voices before.

  "Doc — Doc, it can't possibly be you!" Bianca exclaimed.

  It sounded just like him. She had never forgotten his voice. She heard it almost every night in her sleep. It was as if she'd heard it yesterday, the last hour, the last second, it seemed so fresh in her recollection. His gruff, gravelly sounding, almost bass voice with his deep, upper-class Georgia accent always seemed to be there hovering in her mind. Yet never after his death had she heard the voice so distinctly like this — not since the night he had died, urging her on the stairs to shoot Harry.

  "Bianca, I'm still here. . ."

  She gaped down at Doc's grave. The voice seemed to come from his tombstone.

  "Bianca, I've been here all along. I've been here watching you every minute of every day. . ."

  "Doc!" Her legs shook so badly that her knees collapsed underneath her. She fell to the muddy, grassy ground. She couldn't take her eyes off his tombstone. She clasped her arms around herself and trembled as if she had a fever.

  "You killed me too soon. . . There was so much I had yet to do. . . Now I can't go to heaven. . . I can't go to hell. . . I just he here watching the living and dreaming about what could have been. . ."

  "No, Doc, no! Don't say that. Please don't. I'm not very good with guns, you know. The thing just went off. You reached for your gun. You lost your balance and fell and—"

  "You shot me all the same! You killed me. I broke my neck when I fell down the stairs. The last thing I heard was the cracking sound."

  "But you were trying to kill Harry, and—"

  "That two-timing wretch who's not faithful to you. . . That wretch who steals your money. . . Who uses you. . . You see, the dead know all. . . We can see everything. . ."

  Tears streamed down Bianca's face. "I — I didn't know Harry that well back then. . . I was stupid. I. . ."

  "Very stupid, Bianca, very stupid. . ."

  "I'm so sorry, Doc, so sorry. . ."

  Bianca's trembling hand reached out and touched the soft, wet mud that covered his ashes, where a puddle was forming in the rain. It felt slimy to the touch, ice cold.

  "I loved you, you know, Bianca. I really did. You never gave me a chance to tell you so before you went ahead and shot me. . . I'd planned grand things for us like getting married and having children. . . Now none of it will ever be. . . How could it be? My ashes lie here in the ground just moldering away. Worms crawl through me. So do slugs. . ."

  She threw herself sobbing against Doc's tombstone. She clutched it to her. She tried to cuddle the cold, gray stone thing to her bosom as the rain pelted down upon her, drenching her to the skin.

  Bianca!

  Suddenly a hand clapped itself down on her shoulder.

  She screamed and screamed and screamed.

  Chapter 7

  "Get hold of yourself! What are you doing kneeling in the cemetery with the rain coming down around you?"

  "Doc?" She looked up.

  Ronnie stared down at her disapprovingly.

  "I've been searching everywhere for you." He stood there in his trench coat with his rain hat on. "I went back to the apartment. I went to the school. The secretary told me that you'd left during the power outage. I drove around the Village. Some passerby told me he saw you darting into the cemetery."

  She sobbed.

  "Didn't they teach you in grade school that you're not supposed to stand under a tree during a thunderstorm with lightning flashing?"

  She couldn't talk she was crying so hard.

  "I wonder if you have any sense at all."

  He dragged her over to his waiting car with the windshield wipers going. He hurled her into the front seat, climbed into the driver's side, and slammed the door.

  "I'm — I'm so sorry." She found her voice. "I thought I heard. . ." She looked back at the gravestone. "Well, it sounded like Doc's voice. . ."

  "Doc's been dead for two months." Ronnie started up the car. "This is something new, Bianca, new and more serious. It's one thing to be scared of the dark. It's quite another to hear voices that aren't there."

  Bianca hung her head as they drove through the rain.

  "How long has this been going on?" Ronnie questioned her in his clinical fashion.

  "Just — just now."

  "It hasn't ever happened before?"

  She shook her head.

  "I'll have to bring it to the attention of your psychiatrists as soon as possible, the ones whose ranks I'm training to join. We'll put you on medication. Now we've got to get to the Shipleys' house right away."

  Bianca forgot about her own problems at the mention of the Shipleys. "It's not Little Katie, is it?

  "That's why I was searching for you. It wasn't for my health."

  Bianca clutched his arm. "Mike Fellini hasn't tried to kidnap the child again, has he?"

  "Dr. Rankin called me at the hospital and told me that he was going over there right away. The Shipleys are asking for you."

  She practically leaped on him. "What happened to Little Katie?"


  "In your state of mind I don't know if I should tell you anything. I don't know what you might do."

  "You've got to tell me. It doesn't matter about me. Katie is far more important."

  He looked her up and down as he drove.

  "Get dressed first. There are clothes in the back of the car. I can't very well present you to the Shipleys like this, can I? You're soaking wet and muddy, like something a cat dragged in."

  Bianca leaped over the seat. She cleaned herself off with antiseptic hand wipes. She dressed herself in record time. She didn't glance at the clothes that he had picked out. She put them on. She climbed back into the front seat.

  "Comb your hair."

  He handed her a comb out of the glove compartment. He pulled up in front of the Shipleys' house. Dr. Rankin's Cadillac was pulled up there. The family physician had gone inside.

  She didn't wait for Ronnie to open her door. She raced out. Without an umbrella, she hurried up to the front of the house. Bianca burst through the door.

  "Thank God!" Mrs. Shipley embraced Bianca. "Little Katie is fit to be tied. That nasty rash has spread. So have the blisters. None of the creams the doctor prescribed are working."

  Bianca snatched Katie up from the middle of the floor, fussing and crying. Mr. Shipley had been trying in vain to interest his daughter in her toys. Bianca sat Katie on her lap and dried her tears. She picked up TR Bear and Lou, Little Katie's favorite bear toys. She made the bears talk to Katie. Soon Katie had stopped crying and was watching the antics of TR and Lou as the six-inch bears cavorted in front of her. Bianca had TR and Lou complaining about how they itched. The bears rolled around trying to scratch themselves. They stood on their heads. Little Katie chortled.

  Dr. Rankin declared, "In my twenty-five years of practice, I've never seen anything like it. We've tested it as a common household poison. We've tested it as a contact dermatitis caused by typical outside allergens such as poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac and other weeds. We've tested for a reaction to mold, mildew and dust commonly found in households. It's not chicken pox, measles or mumps. What I propose to do next is to send a sample to Dr. Bennett in London. He's a world-renowned specialist in skin rashes."

  "Do it at once!" Mrs. Shipley urged. "I don't see how Little Katie's going to last much longer without having to be put under sedation."

  "Wouldn't it be quicker if you took Little Katie to London? The doctor could see her in person. I bet it would cut down on the time involved." Ronnie broke into the discussion.

  "That's a brilliant idea!" Mr. and Mrs. Shipley both exclaimed at the same time.

  "That could, of course, be arranged, too," Dr. Rankin agreed.

  "Call him! Make the appointment now!" Mrs. Shipley insisted.

  "It's nine in the evening London time," Ronnie reminded them.

  Bianca thought Ronnie was amazing, making suggestion after suggestion. He truly was brilliant.

  "Do you have his home phone number?" Mrs. Shipley was not used to being kept waiting.

  "We could look it up," Ronnie suggested.

  They searched on the internet for a while and couldn't find it. Clearly the appointment would have to wait until tomorrow morning.

  Little Katie was fussing and scratching herself. Bianca was beside herself trying to keep the little girl quiet. Dr. Rankin prescribed a warm bottle of milk. The little girl was so exhausted that she would probably nod off immediately.

  Bianca fed Little Katie herself and sang her a song. She put the child to bed. Katie's last words before going to sleep were, "Anca! Anca!" At two she couldn't pronounce Bianca's full name.

  Bianca wanted to stay with Little Katie and suggested she could sleep in the spare bedroom.

  "I think you need a good night's rest yourself." Ronnie took Bianca's arm and led her toward the door.

  "I'll bring Bianca by myself early tomorrow morning," he assured the Shipleys.

  Little Katie was the only thing that kept Bianca sane while the Shipleys made arrangements to leave for London. There was to be a delay of a couple of days. The eminent physician, Dr. Bennett, had to perform surgery on a movie star who had been burned in a car accident. He consulted with the Shipleys by telephone, fax and email. He assured them they would have the first possible appointment after the series of skin graft surgeries. The Shipleys would wait. They wouldn't settle for seeing Dr. Bennett's assistants.

  After sitting with Little Katie the next morning while the arrangements with Dr. Bennett went forward, Bianca called Ronnie at the hospital.

  "Could you please come by at lunchtime and give me a lift to school? I know I've missed the morning. I still have two classes during the afternoon."

  "I thought you were staying with Katie."

  "Mrs. Shipley knows it's important I get my diploma. She says she can take care of Little Katie herself when I'm in class. I can hurry back."

  Ronnie sighed. "I'll be right over."

  The phone rang. Mrs. Shipley said, "Bianca, the call's for you."

  "Hello?" Bianca answered.

  "I'll be waiting for you in the window well today just like yesterday," Rick Roscoe promised. "I'll be waiting for you every day."

  She hung up.

  "Who was it?" Mrs. Shipley asked.

  "Just somebody trying to sell something," Bianca gulped.

  She went out to Ronnie's car when he arrived. "Ah . . . something's come up. The Shipleys need me. I — I won't be able to go to school today. Maybe not any day."

  "That's a wise decision." Ronnie squeezed her hand. "At least until we can get this matter with Little Katie cleared up — as well as this business about hearing voices. I'm sure the school will understand. I'll call the principal myself."

  Ronnie was as good as his word. The principal called Bianca at the Shipleys' house. He assured her that they would work something out so that she could get her diploma. Perhaps she could take night-school courses in the fall. Perhaps she could take a correspondence course online once the matter with the Shipleys was cleared up.

  The dermatology lab that Dr. Bennett ran was very thorough. First he wanted to examine the parents and study their skin before he saw Little Katie. He wanted to consider the girl's condition from all possible angles, including the genetic one.

  "We'll need your help, of course." Mrs. Shipley told Bianca. "Little Katie wouldn't want to be parted from you. You're the only one who can manage her."

  "I'll pack my bags." Bianca didn't hesitate.

  "Do you have that passport we got you in case you had to accompany us on one of our trips?" Mr. Shipley asked.

  They sent a maid over to her house to fetch it. The maid came up empty-handed.

  "Don't you remember where you put it?" Ronnie questioned Bianca.

  In a flash Bianca remembered. She had packed it along with her dresses that night that Marianna had surprised her in her bedroom. She'd been bringing it over to Ronnie's apartment. Now all those clothes as well as the passport were in Rick Roscoe's hands. She couldn't tell Ronnie or the Shipleys. Instead she shook her head.

  "I'm afraid I lost it."

  Ronnie got on the phone and called the passport office. "There will be a delay of at least a couple days in getting a new one," he informed the Shipleys.

  The Shipleys worked the phones and tried to pull strings. Even with their connections in the government, it was still going to take extra time. All they could do was reduce the amount of time.

  "What are we going to do?" Mrs. Shipley fumed. "Dr. Bennett must see us right away. His genetics lab has a big job coming up. They are going to be booked solid for months. We've simply got to keep the appointment for Mr. Shipley and me to have skin samples taken and tests run."

  "If we take Katie without Bianca, the child won't want to go," Mr. Shipley observed.

  "Why don't you volunteer to take Little Katie to London yourself as soon as you get your passport?" Ronnie suggested to Bianca. "That way the Shipleys could fly to London and keep their appointment. It's better that the
genetic tests get run first before Dr. Bennett sees Little Katie."

  Bianca was encouraged by Mrs. Shipley's smiles as she made her offer to take Little Katie to London herself as soon as she could.

  Mrs. Shipley looked at her daughter sitting in Bianca's lap. "I'll miss her so much!"

  "Yes!" Mr. Shipley agreed. "It will be hard to do without her for even a few days. We'll worry."

  Bianca handed Little Katie to Ronnie so she could reach TR Bear and Lou who had fallen on to the floor.

  Little Katie shrieked, "Anca!" The little girl flailed her arms and legs.

  Bianca soothed her, smoothing down the child's hair. She handed Katie the toys.

  Little Katie beamed a smile at her "Anca" and started playing in the middle of her lap.

  Mrs. Shipley shook her head. "We'll have to let you bring Little Katie as soon as you get your passport. The child wouldn't be able to part from you." Mrs. Shipley reached over and patted Bianca's knee. Then she clasped her daughter's godmother's hand and pressed it.

  "I don't know what our family would do without you, Bianca. You're our angel. Maybe even our fairy godmother," Mr. Shipley added.

  Little Katie chortled with glee and clapped her hands. The child always agreed with anything good that someone said about her "Anca".

  "I'll escort Bianca and Katie to London," Ronnie volunteered. "My parents are very good friends with Dr. Bennett, the dermatologist. My father's a doctor, you know."

  The Shipleys made arrangements to fly to London the next day. Bianca stayed in the house overnight while they packed. Mr. and Mrs. Shipley stood in the living room with their suitcases, saying goodbye to Bianca and Katie. Bianca held Katie up to kiss her parents.

  "We'll follow you tomorrow morning at ten sharp," Ronnie assured them. "Bianca's passport should be ready by then. You can meet us at Heathrow Airport at lunchtime the next day." He had his arm around Bianca's waist.

  "We'll call as soon as we get in tonight," Mr. Shipley promised. "Let us know how Little Katie's doing. The doctor will want the latest report."

  "The servants have been instructed to obey you as if you were us," Mrs. Shipley assured Ronnie and Bianca. "Here's one of our credit cards." She handed it to Bianca. "You can charge up anything you might need for the trip. Anything at all. There's no limit, not for Little Katie's angel."