The Dark: A Collection (Point Horror) Read online

  "Harry attacked Rick. I saw it with my own eyes," Marianna insisted.

  "She's lying!" Bianca burst out as she ran to Harry.

  "No, she's not," Rick panted, standing shoulder to shoulder beside Marianna. Both eyed Bianca maliciously. "He's a vicious beast!" Rick stared at Harry.

  "All right, Fellini, you're fired!" the manager barked, still wiping his face with his handkerchief. "I had second thoughts about hiring the brother of a convict. Bad blood runs in families. I'll mail you your wages. I want the uniform back, though. No stealing things to get even. Is that clear?"

  Bianca gaped at Harry, wondering what he would do.

  Harry bit down on his lip. Then he hurled his usher's cap at the manager, making the fatso catch it.

  "After all the goings-on I saw in your theater, I was going to quit after tonight anyway," Harry stated flatly.

  "That smart-ass, tongue is going to get you nothing but trouble, Fellini." The manager scowled at Harry. "It'll earn you jail time just like your brother, Mike. I was about to call the police. Here they come anyway." He glanced over his shoulder. "I don't know what goings-on you're talking about. But I bet you're involved in them."

  Harry looked as if he wanted to say something back, but he kept his mouth firmly shut.

  They were soon surrounded by policemen in uniform. The manager did all the talking, feeding them Marianna's version of the story. Marianna and Rick kept on vigorously nodding.

  "Do you have anything to say for yourself, Fellini?" the police chief asked Harry.

  Bianca could feel what it must be like to be him, to always be the chief suspect because he was related to Mike. She bit her lip.

  "I didn't do a thing, officer. Honest I didn't. Roscoe attacked me first. I was trying to defend Bianca."

  "Miss Winters," the police chief addressed her, "I'm surprised to find you here tonight, in such company. Your doctor called us on his cell phone before he left the theater. He said he offered you a ride home. You refused to leave with him. Do you think that was wise?"

  Bianca looked down at her feet, then up at the police chief. He was the one who had been in her hospital room two years ago, praising her to the skies.

  "I — I just met Harry tonight. He helped me out. I'm sticking here to tell him thank you."

  "If I were you, I wouldn't stick around too much longer." The chief scowled at Rick and Harry. "I don't know who's telling the truth and who's lying. So I'll issue a warning to you both. If we get any more complaints about you down at the station, you'll both be arrested. Am I making myself clear?"

  Both boys nodded.

  "It's bad enough that your brother just escaped from the state penitentiary this afternoon." The chief addressed his remarks to Harry who went white and seemed to be struck dumb. It was his worst nightmare. The chief went on, "He'll probably head right to St. Simons Island to cause more trouble — for the first time in three years. We haven't released the news to the press yet, but I've doubled our patrol around the island. We don't want two Fellinis on our hands!"

  The police chief took a few more notes and then motioned to his fellow officers to leave.

  The manager screwed up his face at Harry. "Maybe the police don't know who to arrest. But I do. If I find any of my property missing, Fellini, I'm going to prosecute. Clear out and clear out fast!" He stalked out of the room without a backward look, anxious to get back to his ticket taker.

  "You poor thing!" Marianna rushed over to Rick, who was sitting on the sofa holding his jaw in his hand, rubbing it.

  Marianna took some Kleenex out of her purse. She sat down on Rick's lap, making sure she was nice and comfortable, and started dabbing at his face. He'd hit his cheek against the wall when Harry had thrown him off. The bruises were bleeding.

  "That louse!" Rick muttered about Harry.

  Marianna seemed to love it. She purred and encouraged Ricky to complain. She dabbed his cheeks and wiped his brow, patting his head and smoothing down his messed-up, sweaty blond hair. She grabbed her comb from her purse and tried to tidy his hair, combing the curls into place. Marianna cast knowing looks at Bianca as if to say, "Didn't I warn you that Ricky was mine?"

  "Let's clear out of this insane asylum." Harry rushed Bianca out of the employees' lounge. "I won't be a minute. If anybody gives you trouble, let out a yell loud enough to wake the dead." He stationed her beside the men's room.

  She stood there while he went in to change his clothes. She'd never known anybody to change so fast. Before she had a chance to wonder what would happen next, now that she was standing in a deserted lobby with the lights dimmed, Harry was back. He dumped the usher's outfit in front of the ticket taker's booth, gave it a kick, and took her hand. He led her out into the Village, the main shopping area of St. Simons Island. They headed for a parking lot near the pier.

  The sultry air sat on their shoulders and weighed them down as they hurried along the sidewalk. The leaves of the low-hanging live oak branches brushed past their cheeks. The twigs and leaves caught in Bianca's hair. Twice she had to stop to disentangle them.

  He helped her into the passenger side of his old, beat-up, antique 1965 Rambler Ambassador with its dented front fender and fins. She'd never seen a car like it before and wondered how it ran after all these years. The bright aquamarine color was bizarre, unlike anything in a new-model car. The paint was peeling. The stuffing was coming out of the seats. It was too old to have seat belts. She was studying the forty-year-old chrome fittings on the radio and the front dashboard controls when he slammed the driver's side door shut.

  "Can't be too picky about what you drive when you can't hold down a job." Harry gunned the motor as he struggled with the key in the ignition.

  He grimaced in pain, an expression he'd been careful to conceal in the movie theater when everybody had been watching. She took his hand and squeezed it. She could imagine how bad he felt with Mike on the lam again.

  A police car with flashing lights drove up beside them. "Do you want a police escort back to your house, Miss Winters?" the policeman asked. "Your doctor called us again and asked us to find you. Your parents have been wondering why you weren't home yet."

  "You tell her doctor Bianca doesn't need an escort. She's with me." Harry thumbed his chest.

  "No — no, thank you, officer! You don't have to go to all that trouble." Bianca managed a smile. "We're on our way home now."

  "It's no trouble when it's for a heroine like you, Miss Winters. You know, my daughter in the sixth grade wrote an essay about you. You're the most inspiring person in her life."

  Bianca blushed. "Really, you don't have to go out of your way."

  "All right, but it's late. Hurry on home." The policeman started to roll up his window. "I don't want your doctor to have to call us again. My, he must be dedicated to be worried about you at this hour! But then, I imagine lots of people would be willing to go out of their way for you."

  Harry backed out on to the darkened street as the police car drove off. "Mom and I are used to this. Mom had a good job working as a secretary at the high school. They fired her as soon as the news got out about Mike's bank robbery. Couldn't have a secretary who had a son in jail in a respectable place like a school. Mom lost her state retirement pension. Tough after twenty years on the job and only ten more to go until she cashed in."

  "How have you managed to pay the bills?" Bianca was aghast. She'd heard about Harry's family having a hard time. She had no idea that his financial problems were this bad.

  He shrugged as he started down Old Church Road toward the Churchyard Oaks Subdivision, where Bianca lived next to Christ's Church. He didn't have to ask where to go. Everybody on the island knew where everybody else lived.

  She heard an engine starting up behind them. Bianca didn't see anybody. It must just be the police car heading home for the night.

  "St. Simons Island is too small to have an employment agency, so my mom signed up with one of those temporary agencies in Brunswick. That's why she isn't home most
days until late. She has to drive a long way to work. They assign her jobs all over the place, from St. Simons to Jekyll to Brunswick, sometimes as far down the highway as Jacksonville, Florida."

  Harry turned and looked over his shoulder into the darkness, as if he heard something, too.

  "What job is she working at now?" Bianca asked. The warm night air blew in the windows, which were rolled all the way down. The car didn't have any air-conditioning.

  "Last I heard Mom was manning the cash register at a paint store in Brunswick."

  "What do you mean the last you heard!"

  "She keeps on getting fired. Word gets around that she's Mike's mother. The store owners don't feel safe with her on the premises. Afraid Mike will pop up. Think he'll escape like he finally did this afternoon. Sometimes Mom changes jobs a couple times a week. Each time the job gets farther away — where they haven't heard about Mike yet."

  "That's not fair!"

  "Truth is, the agency's thinking of dropping her. Too much bad publicity."

  "What will your mother do?"

  "Promised her I'd support her. I'm not doing a very good job of it. I can't tell her I got fired. She'll have a fit. I'll have to find another job real quick."

  Bianca had imagined she had it bad. At least she had a roof over her head. Her parents were employed. No one had fired them.

  Bianca had an idea. "I'm almost eighteen. My birthday's right after graduation. I'm coming into some money in a few weeks."

  Up until now she'd never liked to think about that money, let alone talk about it. It had always made her feel so mixed up, depressed and guilty, as if she were stealing the Shipleys' money under the false pretenses of being a hero. Sharing it with somebody who really needed it made her feel so much better.

  "I could loan some money to you and your mom. There's supposed to be a money market cash fund that I can draw upon right away for emergency expenses. I certainly don't need it all and—"

  Harry screeched to a stop along the side of the road. She put her hands out only just in time to keep herself from being thrown against the dash.

  "Folks can badmouth me all they want. There's no way anybody will ever say that Harry Fellini took money from you!"

  "You could pay it back when you wanted to and—

  He grasped her shoulders. "Can't you see what people are going to say about you and me? They'll gossip that I stole you from Rick so I could take your money. They'll claim that I was the killer. They'll say that I counted on the Shipleys giving you loads of money because they're so rich. That's why I killed the Shipleys' maid and let you and Little Katie escape."

  "No!"

  "Remember what I said about how people will eat you alive if you let them? We can't give them ammunition by doing something so stupid as having you give me money. Remember, people think a Fellini would do anything."

  She nodded. "You've been so nice to me. Nobody's ever been so nice to me since. . ."

  He gave her a kiss in the middle of the forehead. "You're so sweet!" His voice was a little hoarse.

  Shyly, she gave him a little kiss back. It felt so good the way they were sharing their innermost fears and feelings. Her arms went around his waist. She wanted him to make her feel better now that Doc had made her so sad. The more Harry kissed her as they fell to the seat together, the better she felt. One thing led to another until Harry finally came up for air.

  "It's getting really late. Time we got you home."

  It was hard to understand her sudden attraction to Harry. She'd never felt anything for any guy except Doc. It was as violent as it was unexpected.

  Before starting up the car again, Harry looked back down the road the way they'd come. This time he paused much longer before continuing on.

  "Ah ... do you see something?" Bianca asked.

  "No, it was probably just a night owl I heard."

  Night owls did not drive cars, though. Bianca still thought she could hear sounds from another car.

  They were getting to the really deserted part of Old Church Road. It was so dark that Harry's high beams weren't cutting far into the murk. The road was becoming much narrower. Live oaks with gnarled, twisted, overhanging branches, which in places formed a tunnel over the road, crowded in upon them. Harry had to slow way down. He obviously couldn't see a thing.

  The darkness was starting to weigh upon Bianca's mind. Night mists floated through the window and touched her with wet, cold, icy prickles, though the air was still hot.

  "Harry. . ." She wet her lips. "Could we . . . could we turn on the lights inside the car?"

  She couldn't help herself. The darkness was becoming so oppressive that she was pulling at the top of her T-shirt. The darkness touched her with fingers around her neck.

  Harry flicked the lights on without making any teasing comments about her phobia. She could trust him the way she could trust nobody else. He wasn't complaining, though lights inside the car at night made it harder for him to see.

  The lights weren't doing the trick. Bianca still felt uneasy. She supposed it was the fact that her memory was starting to come back. The encounter with the killer in the ladies' rest room had spooked her completely. She felt as if someone was going to reach inside the car and grab her by the neck.

  She remembered the last words of the killer as he had left her sitting on top of the toilet seat. "Now don't you dare leave there, or I'll know."

  Bianca had left the rest room all right. She'd even left the building. She turned and looked behind her into the darkness. She could swear she heard a car following them, though she couldn't see any headlights. She wondered if Harry had heard that sound, too. She wondered if that was why he'd been turning around in his seat and peering over his shoulder every other minute.

  Could the killer be coming after her, right now when she was most vulnerable — in the dark?

  Chapter 7

  Droplets clouded up the windshield. Harry turned the wipers on. One got stuck. He leaned out the window and gave it a whack.

  Bianca couldn't see out the back window very well, couldn't tell for sure who was following them. The Rambler was making all sorts of clinks and clacks, whirrs and buzzes under the hood. Did she hear another set of car tires? Was it her imagination, the night mist, or what?

  Br-r-r-r-ring!

  Bianca jumped six inches. The sound was coming from her purse. She fished out her cell phone.

  "Hello?" she answered in a tremulous voice.

  "Bianca? Thank God! I was getting worried. Your parents said you weren't home yet."

  "Doc!"

  Normally she'd be overjoyed. He was always like the breath of sanity in an insane world. Tonight he'd been angry at her. She wondered if he still was.

  Harry mouthed the words. "Who's that?"

  She covered the receiver with her hand. "Remember the guy you met at the movie theater? The one with the fancy suit jacket, the white shirt and pocket watch?"

  "Are you still out with that Fellini boy?" There was a tone of disapproval in Doc's voice. Usually Doc sounded objective and neutral about everything.

  "He's driving me home right this minute." Bianca swallowed hard.

  "Good!" Doc said impatiently as if he were looking down at his gold pocket watch. "How much farther do you have to go?"

  Bianca whispered to Harry. "How much longer until you get me home? The turn-off to my house is up ahead."

  Harry grabbed the phone from her and shouted, "What business is it of yours when I get Bianca home?"

  Doc replied so loudly that Bianca could hear him, though she wasn't holding the phone. "I'm deeply concerned about Bianca's welfare, which seems to be more than I can say for you. You're keeping her out late after she's experienced severe trauma at the theater. I've talked with her senior doctors at the hospital, gotten them all out of bed. They want to see her first thing in the morning. They're as concerned as I am."

  "Why are you fancy doctors filling Bianca's head with crap? You make her think she can't pee without your permission
," Harry snapped.

  "What do you know about it, Fellini?" Doc remarked coldly. "You and your brother weren't brought up by a mother who cares about you the way Bianca's parents care about her. Your mother let you both run wild. You were allowed to commit murder, mayhem and—"

  "So I'm a bad influence, huh?" Harry drove with one hand on the wheel.

  "The worst possible influence!"

  "Suppose we let Bianca decide that for herself!" Harry fumed.

  "In her condition she is not fit to decide much of anything, and—"

  "Look, I don't know who hired you to butt into Bianca's business. She's got me to look after her now. You're fired! Get it, buddy? Fired! You're the bad influence — not me. In fact, you sound like poison."

  "Oh no, Harry, no!" Bianca reached for the phone. She couldn't let him talk like that to Doc.

  Harry pressed the end button and tossed the cell phone at Bianca.

  "But — but that was Doc!" she protested. "Doc Ernie McCollough. He's so educated. His father's a history professor. His mother's an Aubrey, one of those blue bloods whose family goes back generations. They live across the street from us, next to the Shipleys."

  "I don't care if he's rich. I don't like him putting you down." He chucked her chin.

  "I don't know what I would have done without Doc for the past two years. At first I was in complete denial about the murder. He helped me live with my memory loss. I consult him all the time, and—"

  "You don't need a crutch like Doc. He seems more like a pain in the ass." Harry said with a wave of dismissal.

  "But—"

  "You're strong, not some ten-pound weakling." He pulled her against him until her head was resting against his shoulder. He rubbed the top of her head with his cheek.

  Bianca felt an invigorating sense of power flowing from his hand and cheek into her. She'd never imagined that she could survive for the rest of her life without Doc's help since she'd been psychologically crippled by the horrific experience. At least Doc had always said she'd been crippled. Harry gave her a new self-image. For a magical moment, with Harry's arms around her, she imagined that anything was possible.