The Dark: A Collection (Point Horror) Read online

  She straightened out her clothes. Then she tried pushing around Marianna to escape.

  Marianna caught her by the hand. "Where do you think you're going?"

  Bianca felt something cold in the pit of her stomach. What next?

  "I've got to have your autograph. After all, it isn't every day I meet somebody so famous in the bathroom. A poor slob like me has to take advantage of every celebrity's appearance."

  Bianca was no celeb. She didn't sign autographs. "Look, I've got to get back to the show. Rick will get angry." Her voice was so low that even she could hardly hear it.

  Marianna's eyes lighted up like fiery amethysts. "Sure, Ricky will understand why I've got to get your autograph! He used to date me, you know, back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and you weren't so famous."

  Marianna looked like an Amazon with huge, powerful shoulders. She threw Bianca up against the wall.

  "Give me your autograph. I won't budge without one."

  "I — I don't have any paper!" Bianca pleaded. At least Doc wasn't here to see her grovel.

  "We'll use the toilet paper." Marianna reached into an empty stall and yanked a big handful off the roll. "After all, that's where I met the big heroine of my life. That's how I'll always remember you, cringing on top of the toilet seat with your legs up. You were shaking like a cat cornered by a mutt!"

  Marianna threw her head back and screeched. She held her belly, rocking back and forth with laughter. Then she lunged forward and thrust the toilet paper at Bianca.

  "Sign!"

  Marianna was leaning so close to Bianca that the paper was in her face. Marianna breathed down her neck, her breath hot on Bianca's skin. It couldn't get any hotter if Marianna had turned into a fire-breathing dragon.

  "I — I don't have anything to sign with." Bianca wriggled her way around Marianna's huge frame.

  Bianca thought, If I can only get out the door! She remembered that feeling of desperation from two years ago. Her body shook.

  "We can't let a little thing like that stop you, can we?" Marianna gushed in her deep, Georgia accent.

  Marianna rummaged through her denim handbag. She reached into the various pockets, retrieved a tube of lipstick, and waved it in Bianca's face.

  "This is the Honey Cinnamon and Spice flavor I wore when Ricky kissed me the last time. It tastes so good he couldn't get enough." Marianna tried to smear it on Bianca's lips.

  Bianca jerked away.

  "It's only fitting I give this lipstick to Ricky's new girlfriend, who won him fair and square, on account of the fact that she's so rich and famous. I warn you, though, sometimes my lips are bruised for days afterwards.''

  "I — I don't want to wear your lipstick." Bianca forced herself around Marianna.

  Marianna's female football player frame towered over thin, petite Bianca. Marianna blocked her way to the door. Her big chest heaved up and down with mirth, making her breasts shake.

  Marianna grabbed Bianca's hand. She forced the lipstick tube into it by prying Bianca's fingers out of fist formation one by one. Then she pressed Bianca's fingers around it.

  "I want a nice autograph I can show to my grandchildren and claim I knew the famous Miss Bianca Winters." Marianna eyed her wickedly.

  Bianca tried to write her name on the wad of toilet paper. She kept on ripping the thin, flimsy stuff.

  "I — I can't do it."

  Marianna threw the toilet paper into the trash can.

  "Write your autograph real big so everybody can see it!" Marianna pointed to the glass mirror on the wall behind the sinks. "All I have to do is pull Ricky in here. He'll be real impressed with his brave, new girlfriend." Marianna's voice dripped with sarcasm. "He'll want all his buddies to see it."

  Bianca could imagine the kids in the school laughing at her. Doc would shake his head. "You mean after all the time we've spent together, Bianca, you couldn't think of a more clever way to defend yourself."

  Bianca dashed for the door.

  Marianna tackled her. She pried Bianca's hand away from the door handle and hurled Bianca against the mirror. Bianca's shoulder hit the glass. It cracked.

  Marianna's violet eyes were blazing. "You aren't leaving this ladies' lounge until you write I AM A BIG COWARD and sign it BIANCA WINTERS in red lipstick. Because that's what you are — a total coward."

  Marianna did a demonstration. She wrote the letters as big as she could on the mirror. There could be no mistaking what she wanted.

  Tears of panic and terror, humiliation and shame, rolled down Bianca's cheeks. She turned to the mirror and did what Marianna demanded.

  Bianca thought, Is she going to spring on me and shoot me when I'm done? Is this just my final humiliation, my epitaph? Is she the killer who's been waiting around for two years to waste me?

  Marianna grabbed a stick of bubble gum from her purse. She leaned against the wall, chuckling to herself at the entertainment that Bianca was providing.

  "You know Ricky doesn't love you, don't you? He's still gonna come to me when he gets horny. He's horny as a devil. He doesn't like his girlfriends skinny and wimpy like you. Doesn't like them so mealy-mouthed and weepy."

  Bianca had only gone out on a first date with Rick because Doc had told her to. What Rick really thought was the farthest thing from Bianca's mind as she scribbled I AM A COWARD with the lipstick tube.

  "You're a rich girl, Bianca. The Shipleys are going to give you that big, fat trust fund. Ricky likes a woman with lots of cold cash. Looks like you and I are going to share Ricky."

  Marianna stuffed more bubble gum into her mouth. She leaned into Bianca's face and blew a bubble until it popped on Bianca's nose. "You hand over the money. I'll dish out the sex."

  Marianna stomped her foot and laughed so loudly that Bianca felt her eardrums would burst. Bianca tore off toward the door. She didn't look back as she raced across the empty lobby. She flung open the doors to the theater and plunged headfirst into the darkness. In a panic she forgot where Rick was sitting.

  "Oh, ex-excuse me!" She bumped into everybody.

  "Hey, girl, you blind or something? Watch where you're going!" kids hissed at her.

  She spilled somebody's Coke.

  "Oh, I'm sorry!"

  "Clumsy bitch!"

  She knocked into somebody's elbow. She spilled his popcorn.

  "I didn't mean it!"

  She sat down on the wrong guy's lap.

  "Get off my boyfriend!" A girl gave Bianca a shove on the behind.

  Bianca blundered around in a nightmare, looking for a blond shock of hair. She spotted a guy with his elbow sticking way out into the aisle, draped over what used to be her seat. He was dropping popcorn all over the floor while he stuffed it into his mouth.

  Bianca tapped Rick on the shoulder. She stooped down low and hissed into his ear. "You have to take me home." She was aware of the two off-duty policemen sitting not far away. But she didn't dare to say anything to them.

  "Are you crazy?" Rick gawked at Bianca. "I've got to see how many more people this maniac lady can kill in the rest of the movie. She's going ape. Ten bodies in the last five minutes!"

  His eyes shone with glee as if he couldn't get enough of this murder and mayhem.

  Bianca had never dreamed that Rick would turn her down flat. After all, wasn't he supposed to be her date?

  Bianca couldn't just stand here in the aisle and clasp and unclasp her hands. The Black Widow, who had killed her lover eons ago, was shooting more people. It looked like a massacre. It turned her stomach.

  "Hey, sit down, girl! You're in my way!" Kids started to complain about Bianca.

  On this humid night Bianca could smell the damp, moldy odor of the old building that hadn't been cleaned lately. That combined with the stink of old beer. Somebody must have sneaked it in. It added to the smell of spilled Coke several days old, along with the scent of stale popcorn, and the stench of hundreds of kids sweating into their shirts with all the suspense. Bianca's head spun around.

>   She fought back the urge to rush out of the building. Doc had told her to avoid what he called "panicked flight". It would undo all the good she had done herself by finding a date and coming here in the first place.

  "Listen, Rick," Bianca held on to her last shred of reason, "I'm sorry. I — I can't stay here one more minute."

  All the kids in the theater turned around in their seats and hissed "Sh-h-h-h!" at Bianca. Their eyes glowed red. They didn't look like people any more. They had hideously distorted faces and bloodthirsty expressions like a bunch of murderers.

  She darted her gaze over to where Doc was still sitting with the gorgeous nurse with sexy legs. He'd always told Bianca to come to him to talk things over when she grew desperate. But she didn't know if she could make it all the way over to his seat in the dark.

  She thought, They're all after me.

  Bianca was transported back to two years ago, almost to the night. The killer was after her. She could hear his footsteps. She could feel his hands around her neck.

  Someone screamed at the top of their lungs. Bianca didn't realize it had been her until she turned and raced up the aisle. All the red, scintillating eyes gaped at her. She had to reach that shimmering light coming from under the door. She had to get out of this darkness, as she had escaped from the Shipleys' house two years ago, through a door that had lighted up with a silver glow.

  Bianca burst through the swinging doors and straight into a pair of arms. Whoever it was clapped his hand over her mouth. He dragged her away from the double, swinging doors into a sequestered alcove in the back of the theater. Not many people went there, especially late at night when the movie theater was about to close.

  Suddenly this wasn't the Island Theater any more. Bianca was struggling again with the assailant of her nightmares, the murderer from two years ago. Mrs. Ingersoll once again screamed and took her last plunge down the stairs. Bianca held Little Katie tightly in her arms. The shadowy figure once more tried to take the child from her, probably to throw her down the stairs after Mrs. Ingersoll.

  "No!" Bianca groaned aloud. "I won't let you take Little Katie. Not for anything in the world!"

  Bianca kicked her assailant with such force that she made him let go. She wriggled out of his grasp and fled across the lobby that led out of the building. In her mind's eye she saw the Shipleys' front door, illuminated by the strange, pale, silvery glow from the marsh miasma. She had to reach that door before the killer did. Light meant life. Darkness meant death.

  Bianca's assailant caught her by the ankle. She tripped and fell. She tried to dig her nails into the cheap, red-and-black movie theater carpet that had hardly any thickness or texture. Dirt was caked an inch thick. Gum wrappers, candy wrappers and old boxes of M&Ms littered the floor. He kept on pulling her back toward him. She didn't see anybody she could appeal to. Most of the movie theater employees had gone home. The light at the refreshments stand was out. The CLOSED sign was up.

  The guy was dropping her on to a leather, cushioned couch in the darkened alcove. He was trying to climb on top of her and pin her down. If it were just her life at stake, she would give up and let him finish her off. That would be the easy way to make this nightmare end.

  Bianca was again back in the Shipleys' house. She had to think of Little Katie. Little Katie didn't know how to walk yet. She hadn't spoken her first word. If the baby died, she would never know that she'd been alive. Katie was Bianca's responsibility. Mr. and Mrs. Shipley had entrusted the little girl's life to her. Bianca couldn't let Katie die, not if it took every bit of strength left in her body — not if it took her own life.

  Bianca bit her assailant's hand. She heard him cry out. She made a run for it toward the exit. She thought only of the elusive door with the silvery glow that had begun to look like heaven.

  The thug dragged her back to the couch and pinned her down again, crushing her with his whole weight. She flailed back and forth, trying to knock him off her. Her own strength was running out.

  "Spare Little Katie! Kill me! But let her go!" Bianca pleaded.

  Somebody shook her by the shoulders and called her name. "Bianca!" It didn't sound like the killer.

  She did a double take. Suddenly it wasn't May 27, the day of the murder. It was now, almost exactly two years later.

  Chestnut-brown eyes stared down into hers. His dark hair was mussed up and hanging around his ears. A big scratch marred his cheek. His usher's cap was gone. His uniform with the stripe up the sides was torn. His white shirt had lost a few of its buttons. It hung loose around his waist. It was Harry Fellini!

  Chapter 5

  "Hey, Bianca, get a life!" Harry frowned. "Who do you think I am — some sleaze from a back alley jumping you? You're at the Island Theater."

  Bianca's mind had snapped. She'd seen the Black Widow going berserk on the screen. The audience had turned into a bunch of vicious beasts. She had run for her life, slammed into poor Harry Fellini, and mistaken him for the killer of her nightmares.

  "Sorry I was a little rough. Didn't want to let you run out of the theater like that." He explained. "You were far gone."

  "I did this to you?" She touched his torn, white shirt.

  "It wasn't an encounter with a baboon from the zoo!" Harry brushed himself off.

  Bianca's trembling hands fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. But she was too clumsy, getting them buttoned askew. His cap lay on the floor on top of a pile of dirty popcorn. She snatched it up and handed it to Harry, hanging her head.

  "I'll — I'll pay for the damage. It won't happen again. Oh, I shouldn't have come here tonight! It's been one, big, long disaster."

  "If you can't go to a movie without acting like that, you're in bad shape. Come and sit down."

  Harry drew her into a room behind the refreshments stand, away from prying eyes. It didn't look like anything special, just an employees' lounge. There was a small refrigerator in the corner, an old, beat-up, used model that had seen better days. An urn of hot water for tea and a coffee-maker, along with a basket of sugar packets, tea bags and a carton of half-used cream, sat on a table.

  He showed her to a sofa shoved back up against the wall. The stuffing was coming out of holes everywhere. It was comfortable enough, though, especially after what she'd been through.

  He poured black coffee into two Styrofoam cups and stirred sugar and cream into both with a stick. He plopped down next to her and handed her a steaming cup.

  "Don't worry. The boss's upstairs, smooching it up with the ticket taker 'cause he knows it's closing time. Got a regular bachelor pad up there — a bar, stereo system, bed and everything. Keeps that bar well stocked. Won't be bothering us anytime soon."

  Harry glanced at his wristwatch, a cheap model with a fake leather band. It was midnight.

  What could Harry possibly have to say? Bianca felt humiliated enough. She'd made such a spectacle of herself that she had better stay at home on Saturday nights. She wouldn't be able to face anybody in school on Monday. They would point. "There's that dumb Bianca Winters. She's so frightened of the dark that she's lost her mind. Doesn't even remember where she is."

  Then there was that warning from the killer to wonder about. Had her brain invented him because the lights had gone out in the bathroom? She'd have to talk to Doc. He would know how to interpret it.

  Bianca couldn't meet Harry's eyes. "I — I don't know what came over me back there."

  Bianca wanted to call a taxi to get home. She could bury her head under her pillow and never have to look anyone in the eye. Maybe she should drop out of school. She didn't have to graduate in June with her classmates. She could go to night school — where nobody knew her — to earn her diploma.

  "Hey, don't keep apologizing! Don't you have any pride left?"

  Doc never talked to Bianca like that! He would pat her hand, insist that she would do better the next time, after they'd discussed matters. He would assure her that she was acting normally for someone who had been through such a horrible trauma.
>
  "Drink that coffee. Believe me, kid, you need it. It hits the spot on a night like this."

  Bianca took a big sip of coffee and burned her mouth. The coffee jolted her as he had promised.

  "You've got to take down that sign that says: Hit me, I'm an asshole!" Harry advised. "You could say I'm an expert. I wore a sign like that three years ago right after Mike got thrown into the slammer for holding up a bank. Couldn't look anybody in the eye. Went around staring at the floor."

  He took a sip of the coffee, then stared her straight in the eye.

  "Kids knew how to push my buttons. They teased the hell out of me, saying that I would go up the river like Mike, or claiming that Mike was the Boston Strangler in disguise. I stayed after school and met the guys who badmouthed me out in the woods behind the football field. I punched them out to prove I was better than Mike."

  "What happened?"

  He shrugged. "Sometimes I won. Sometimes I lost. The teasing never stopped. Every few days it was another guy or one of the same guys as before. I was everybody's football. They kicked me around until my leather was worn off. They had lots of fun. I was miserable, just letting my guts hang out for everybody to see."

  It touched Bianca that he was telling her private stuff that must hurt to remember. He'd seemed such a loner at school. She'd assumed that Harry hadn't had any feelings since he'd always worn one of those frozen mugs and had looked like a tough guy.

  She had imagined that her own private hell was the worst — being the sole surviving witness to a murder that she couldn't remember, having a killer hanging out there waiting to waste her as soon as she remembered the slightest thing. But she couldn't imagine living with the shame of having a brother or a sister who had gone to jail and wasn't sorry about it.

  Everyone on St. Simons Island had heard about Harry's brother, Mike Fellini. He had gone from petty theft and purse-snatching when he'd been in high school to armed robbery as soon as he'd dropped out.

  Three years ago Mike had been holed up in an old, abandoned shack on the far side of the beach next to the swamp. No respectable employer on the island would hire Mike to change a tire for fear that he would run away with it. He'd been spotted at night in various places where no one had good reason to go — such as the swamps and the lagoons. Some had gossiped that he'd spent his time hunting for buried treasure left there by the Spanish several hundred years ago.