The Dark: A Collection (Point Horror) Page 8

  Bianca let out a sob. Harry clapped his hand over her mouth and backed up against a gravestone.

  "You've got to keep your chin up," he whispered. "You won't help Katie if you start bawling."

  She nodded. Instead she would pray.

  He let her mouth go, took her hand, and kept on tugging her along behind him. Ivy and myrtle vines reached out from everywhere, clutching at their ankles and curling around their shoes. They stumbled along trying to pick up their feet and not fall flat on their faces. Long tendrils of Spanish moss fell down from the trees around their necks like nooses. They struggled through the interconnecting maze of live oak roots growing together in huge clumps bulging above the ground. They ran smack into tombstones. Their feet kept sinking down into the muck on tops of graves.

  A voice came out of the fog. "If you know what's good for you, stop! If you don't, I'm going to do something you won't like to this little girl."

  Bianca froze.

  "Don't listen to the creep!" Harry hissed, urging her on. "He doesn't mean what he says. Katie's his meal ticket."

  "How can you be so sure?"

  "It's Mike," he gulped.

  Even now she could feel Harry's wrenching pain. She didn't want to have to say it, but she had to. "You heard what they said on the radio. He's armed and dangerous. He could do anything at any time."

  Harry yanked Bianca forward, nearly pulling her arm out of its socket. Bianca couldn't explain to him how she felt about Little Katie. Katie had been the only reason she'd survived that attack two years ago. Without Katie she wouldn't be alive.

  "Stop if you know what's good for you!"

  Suddenly a giant, dark form leaped out of the fog, his knife blade pointed at them. Katie was squirming in one arm while he held the knife in the other hand.

  "Up against that tree!" Mike snarled.

  Bianca and Harry backed up against a live oak tree.

  "How far do you think you're going to get with the island swarming with detectives?" Harry tried to reason with his brother. "They've put out a call for your arrest over the radio."

  "I'll deal with you later, brother. It's this little missy I've got dealings with now." Mike, carrying the squirming child, approached Bianca.

  "Don't hurt Katie! She hasn't done anything!" Bianca sobbed.

  "If you don't want me to hurt her, you're not acting smart," Mike said. "I was at the Island Theater tonight. I saw you talking to those policemen. How do I know you weren't telling them you ran into me in the back of the theater?"

  The back of the theater? She strained her brain to remember him. She'd run into a bunch of people tonight. Their faces were all a blur. But she certainly hadn't been talking to the police about Mike Fellini!

  "I was in the very last seat all by myself. I was the big guy with the shoulders." Mike proclaimed. "You stared right into my face. You can't tell me you didn't."

  Now she remembered! Why, she'd fallen into his lap! He'd frowned at her and told her to beat it with a snarl like the Frankenstein monster.

  "You weren't at the theater," Harry objected. "I'm an usher — or at least I was. I didn't see you."

  "I slipped in after the show started, brother. Don't think I paid a red cent. Guys like me can't afford such luxuries as ticket stubs. Let's just say I disarmed one of the fire exits near the big screen. Your girlfriend managed to find me anyway. She looked scared to death, like she was running right to the coppers to snitch on me."

  Bianca hadn't the faintest idea who she'd run into!

  "Why would you come to the show right after you escaped from prison?" Harry asked. "I've never seen you there before. I've worked there almost every night for four years."

  "Now that I'm out of the slammer, you don't think I know which shops to rob without some help, do you, brother? I've sort of been out of circulation for the past three years. Two of my old informants sent me a red hot tip in prison. I was supposed to show up at the theater this evening if I wanted to make a buck. That's sort of why I picked today to break out."

  "But I wasn't scared because I recognized you, Mike," Bianca tried to explain. "I — I was just scared of the dark. I was trying to bolt from the theater as fast as I could."

  "Yeah, sure! I wasn't born yesterday!" Mike lunged at her with the knife, threatening to stick it in her ribs as Harry moved in front of her. "I know when somebody doesn't like my mug. You were scared as a rabbit. I bet you called those coppers. They showed up real quick."

  It was impossible to make Mike believe what had really happened tonight. He probably didn't even know Doc.

  Bianca took a different tack. "What does Little Katie have to do with it, no matter what happened at the theater?" Bianca longed to take the child into her arms and comfort her.

  Little Katie's gag was down around her neck.

  The toddler recognized Bianca and was making little noises, holding out her arms to her babysitter.

  "I kidnapped Katie to make a fast buck after I knocked over the liquor store that my informants suggested. I don't have any better way to do it, do I? Especially not with people like you snitching to the police every time they see my face. Even those red hot tips from my informants only bring me enough money to eat on. I want to escape this racket for good — live on easy street for the rest of my life like the rest of you."

  "Look, I'll do anything you want. Just let Katie go!" Bianca pleaded.

  Harry lunged at his brother. He surprised Mike, who lost his balance and toppled backward on to the ground, dropping the knife. Harry leaped on top of Mike and started rolling from side to side, trying to keep his brother from reaching the weapon.

  "Bianca, grab the knife! Run! Quick!" Harry shouted.

  Bianca had eyes for only one thing. When Mike had fallen backward, he'd also lost his grip on Little Katie. The child had rolled on to the ground and was now toddling about, tripping over the gravestones while bawling at the top of her lungs.

  Bianca snatched the little girl up in her arms. It felt so good to hold her after she'd feared that the toddler was dead.

  "Don't worry, I'll take you home, honey," Bianca promised.

  She saw something silver on the ground and picked it up. It was the knife. She looked toward Harry. He was barely holding his own against his brother. She owed something to Harry, She couldn't just leave him here with Mike.

  "Run, Bianca! Run while you have a chance! You owe it to the baby."

  "Will you be all right?" she called, reluctant to leave Harry in such a fix.

  "You can bet on it."

  Bianca stuffed the knife into her pocket. She turned and fled into the murky mists. She was headed in the direction of the back of the cemetery and home. Normally she wouldn't be able to function alone in such a place in the darkness. For Little Katie she could do anything.

  Katie was fussing. Bianca searched through her handbag to see if she could find anything to quiet her. Her hand closed around a six-inch stuffed black bear called TR. He must have been there since last Friday night when she had baby-sat for Little Katie. He was one of the girl's favorite toys.

  She pulled the bear out and stuffed him into Little Katie's hands. The child took him eagerly. She immediately began sucking on the bear's ear. He was as good as a bottle to the toddler. That way Katie kept herself occupied while Bianca tried to make her way through the morass of tombstones and underbrush.

  Most of the graves dated back centuries. Tombstones had fallen over and were lying flat on the ground, crumbled into bits. Others had partially collapsed and stood as sharp, jagged ruins to snag the clothes of the unwary. Still others lay flat on the ground, half sunken into the earth. Their surfaces were slick with the night mists. Bianca slipped and nearly fell when she skidded over them.

  The child was lying in her arms, calmly sucking on her toy. The two-year-old trusted Bianca to get her safely back to her crib. Bianca couldn't give up for Little Katie's sake. She couldn't give up though she wandered until daybreak, not even if the darkness made her lose her mind with fe
ar.

  A white mist hung around the back fence of the cemetery. Her subdivision was on the other side. She had only to crawl over the fence then she'd be in somebody's backyard. Once she found one backyard, she could find others. The Shipleys had the biggest backyard, the one closest to the cemetery. Their house was probably located just on the other side of that fence.

  Bianca stumbled and fell. She rolled over a bulging live oak tree root and nearly tumbled into a gaping black hole in the ground.

  What on earth could that be? It was far too deep to be a hole dug by a squirrel or a dog. It was too geometric to be a hole left by the roots of a tree that had been pulled up from the ground after falling over during a violent thunderstorm or hurricane.

  She drew back from the edge. This had to be a hole dug for a grave for an upcoming funeral. She'd almost fallen headfirst into it. She could have broken her neck and gotten killed.

  Bianca peered down into it as mists floated over the top, sometimes revealing its blackness, sometimes concealing it. There was a quality to its blackness that was darker than anything she'd seen — darker than midnight, darker than a room with no light, darker than fear itself.

  Cold beads of sweat formed on Bianca's forehead. She shook. She couldn't make her arms and legs obey her. She couldn't run away. She couldn't move.

  "Help me!" Bianca pleaded. "Somebody help me!" Tears rolled down her cheeks. "If only I could see! If only there was a light somewhere!"

  Maybe Doc was right. Maybe her case was getting more serious.

  Katie started to fuss. The toddler sensed that something was wrong.

  Bianca heard footsteps approaching.

  "Harry?" She asked hopefully, spinning around.

  A big, lumbering form lunged at her out of the darkness. "Where in the hell did you go, bitch? Trying to give me a run for my money, huh?"

  She screamed and tried to escape, but he leaped on her first. She couldn't get away.

  "What — what have you done to Harry?" Bianca gasped.

  "Let's just say that he won't bother us any more tonight." Mike pinned Bianca down on all fours.

  Little Katie rolled out of Bianca's arms. The child sat there, fussing a little but mostly sucking on her bear.

  "I took what I needed out of his wallet. He owes it to me. After all, he's got a job and gets paid. I don't." Mike flashed some cash as he sat on top of her and stuffed it back into his pocket again.

  "But — but you didn't hurt him, did you?" Bianca pleaded. "You know, he doesn't have a job any more. He got fired tonight. The manager told him to turn in his uniform."

  "I didn't hurt Harry as much as I'm going to hurt you and that bratty baby if you keep on yapping about him!" Mike growled. "You've already caused me enough trouble snitching to the police so they're hot on my trail." He reached into her pocket and felt for the knife until he found it.

  "No — no! I — I didn't tell them a thing about you. Honest." Mike had been the farthest thing from her mind hours earlier. "They'd already heard that you'd escaped from the state penitentiary."

  "Yeah, but they didn't know where I'd gone after that."'

  "The police chief said he thought you'd come back to St. Simons Island."

  "The island's a big place — miles long. You narrowed it down too much." He smiled at her with a twisted sort of smile as he brushed the back of his hand against her cheek. "But maybe you can make up for it. You can put out for me the way you put out for my kid brother. Start acting nice instead of telling the cops wild stories about me in the movie theater."

  He started to slobber all over her. He yanked at her T-shirt and tugged at her jeans, trying to work the button loose.

  "Good thing my contacts could tell me where you were headed. I knew right where to come to find you after I took the little girl."

  "No!" She struggled. Now he was tugging at her underpants. Nobody had treated her like this before. She couldn't allow it, certainly not in front of Little Katie. She screeched at the top of her lungs and madly pummeled Mike as hard as she could.

  Mike fell back, groaning. She'd kicked him in a sore spot.

  "You bitch! Can't you stop caterwauling?" He clutched himself. "Maybe I ought to make sure of that." Mike threatened her with his knife. "Maybe I ought to cut out your tongue."

  She shrank away even as she straightened her pants and buttoned her jeans.

  A demonic smile spread over his face. "Better yet, I'll cut out the baby's tongue. That'll shut the brat up for good. And it'll put the fear of God into you."

  Mike reached for Little Katie, who was innocently sucking on TR Bear.

  Bianca let out a blood-curdling cry and lunged at Mike.

  Mike stopped cold. He never touched Little Katie. His hand spasmed. The knife fell to the ground. He looked up and stared at seemingly nothing. His eyes got bigger and bigger.

  "I — I hear footsteps. Is this some kind of trap?" Mike's eyes got wild. He looked at Bianca accusingly as if she had betrayed him. "Jesus! You must have called the cops again."

  He didn't wait for an answer. Mike darted away from her and Katie into the fog and shadows.

  Bianca picked up Katie and stepped forward into the mists. She kept on creeping about from tombstone to tombstone. Katie contentedly sucked on TR Bear. The toddler seemed unconcerned with what was going on as long as she had Bianca to hold her and her favorite stuffed bear to occupy her.

  Someone lurched out of the mists. Bianca gasped.

  "It's me!" Harry announced.

  She breathed more easily. In this fog she couldn't see two feet ahead of herself. Everyone looked like a ghostly wraith until they were nose-to-nose.

  She touched the bruises on his face. He had marks everywhere. He even had a black eye.

  Harry hugged her. "I've been so worried. I heard you screaming. Then I heard Mike running away. I've been looking for you ever since. Can't see my own hand in front of my face in this fog."

  She took some Kleenex out of her jeans pocket and wiped the dirt off his cheek. Then she kissed him on the lips.

  He kissed her back. "What did you do to Mike? How did you get rid of him?"

  "He heard footsteps and got scared. He thought it was a trap."

  "Look, this isn't the place for a big long conversation. We'd better scram, too," Harry remarked.

  She soon discovered that Harry couldn't walk as fast as she could. He was limping badly. His left ankle was sprained from his fight with Mike. That probably accounted for his not finding her more quickly despite the yelling and shouting and the fact that Christ's Church Cemetery was only a few acres in size.

  "Here, let me help you!" She tried to get him to lean against her shoulder.

  "I'm OK!" he protested indignantly. He grimaced in pain as he tried to put some weight on his ankle.

  "I thought we agreed to help each other," she reminded him.

  He smiled. "You caught me there. See what I told you about how you're smarter and braver than you think?"

  He consented to let her help him but only when they got to the tougher spots, tripping over graves, live oak roots, bushes and things like that.

  "Look!" he admitted after a while. "I'm holding you back. Why don't you go on ahead of me? Your home's just over that fence up ahead."

  "Harry!"

  "I'll never be able to climb it in this condition. I'll either have to find a break in the fence or wait until you get home and send help. If nothing else, the graveyard attendant who comes on duty at dawn will call my mom for me."

  Just the thought of leaving him alone in this place in the dark was enough to send chills through her body.

  "We've got to stay together, no matter what!"

  Harry bit his lip. "I didn't want to have to tell you this. Maybe I have to. You've got to hurry, and faster than I can go."

  "But Mike's gone!"

  "Yeah, Mike may be gone for now. The others aren't."

  "The others?"

  "Yeah, the ones who have been following us all night — ever since
we left the theater. Remember the black car?"

  Chapter 9

  "Rick Roscoe and Marianna are here. They followed us. I practically ran right into them when I was trying to find you. I don't think they saw me in all the thick fog. I ducked behind a gravestone."

  She remembered Mike saying something about his "contacts at the theater". Marianna and Rick seemed slimy enough. Had they tipped Mike off about what store to knock over once he escaped from jail? They would be mean enough to follow Bianca and Harry here and call Mike to let him know where they were.

  "We've got to hurry," Harry urged.

  Bianca slipped her arm around Harry and tried to pull him along while she carried Katie in the other arm. She supported the child on her hip. She had no choice except to push forward. Two people were now depending upon her. She couldn't let either one down.

  Someone landed on top of Bianca and knocked her to the ground. Whoever it was must have leaped down from a live oak tree. She screamed. Katie started bawling.

  Harry cursed as Rick and two slimy-looking guys he'd brought along landed on top of him.

  Bianca struggled but couldn't get to her feet. Marianna was holding her fast. It was all that Bianca could do to hold on to Katie with both arms.

  "We're going to have a chicken roast." Rick glared at Harry. "Maybe it took us awhile to find you in all this damn fog. But better late than never."

  "Let Bianca and Katie go!" Harry demanded.

  "No girl messes around with other guys when she's dating Rick. Isn't that right, Ricky?" Marianna purred.

  Bianca got up her courage. "We've only been out once, Rick. We hardly know each other. What do you care what I do?"

  Marianna hissed. "Ricky needs money real bad. He doesn't earn much more money at his job than I do. You're his meal ticket. You're not good for much else, you know. You're too scared of your own shadow."

  Bianca wished that the Shipleys had never given her the trust fund. It caused more trouble than it was worth.

  "I deserve a rich girlfriend," Rick crowed. "I'm not going to have that squirt over there interfering!" Rick strutted up to Harry, and punched him in the nose while the two toughs held him fast.

  "You'd do anything for cold cash, Roscoe, wouldn't you?" Harry spat. "Even murder!"