The Dark: A Collection (Point Horror) (17 page)

Doc said. "I wanted
to wipe your memory out of her mind."

"Even getting me
arrested didn't do that!" Harry boasted. "She was there rooting
for me the whole way."

Doc scowled at Harry.

"I felt so guilty
and confused," Bianca explained. "I thought you still liked me,
Doc, even though I was starting to like Harry, well ... in a
different way."

"If I couldn't
have your absolute devotion, I was willing to take advantage of your
guilt trips," Doc explained. "Anything that kept you subservient
to me until it was time to skip town."

"It was you that
day in the high school, too, wasn't it?" Harry asked.

"I got past the
building secretary and the policeman in the office, upstanding
citizen that I am. All I had to do was turn out the lights in the
basement classroom to give Bianca another warning. I showed her my
silencer, but not because I was going to shoot her. I wanted to scare
her into silence in case she should remember any little detail about
the killer that the police might recognize as me. Then I chased her
to the gym."

"How did you know
we'd be here tonight?" Harry pressed.

Bianca remembered the
funny noise on the phone when she had called Harry at the pier.

"You bugged my
phone. Didn't you, Doc?" she asked, incredulous.

"I had to keep
track of everything you did," Doc admitted. "I had no idea what
you were going to remember when. It was the worst possible thing for
you to recall the jewels, especially the one you tripped over in the
hallway. When I found out you had a new hunch about what had happened
that night, I finalized my plans and got over here quick. I couldn't
risk your remembering me when I wasn't there, especially since this
evening was exactly two years to the night. That alone could trigger
your memory."

"What are you going
to do with us?" Bianca pleaded.

"You, my dear, are
coming with me tonight after I complete the robbery." Doc pinched
Bianca's cheek. "I wouldn't dream of leaving you behind. Not
now. Not after I've seen how useful you can be to me in my future
life."

"What are you going
to do with Bianca?" Harry butted in.

"We'll be driving
to Mexico, crossing the border in a spot where inspections aren't
what they should be. Then we're going to rent a houseboat and sail
down the coast to Rio where we can live like kings."

"But — but — my
parents! The Shipleys! Little Katie!"

"We'll leave them
a note saying we've eloped. How romantic! By the time they suspect
foul play — if they ever do! — we'll legally be husband and
wife."

"Husband and wife!"
Harry burst out, as if he hadn't expected that answer.

"A man of my
position in Rio will need a nice, submissive wife."

"What about Harry?"
Bianca pressed.

"He'll never talk
again."

"Rat!" Harry
spat.

"If the law won't
put you in jail and Bianca's going to spring you on bail every time
you get in trouble because I plant evidence on you, I'll shoot you
with the silencer that killed Mrs. Ingersoll."

Bianca gasped.

"I can't help it
if a lock of Mrs. Ingersoll's hair got wound around my fingers when
I was struggling with her. I didn't discover it until I left the
house. It was a good thing I saved it, though. I found a use for it.
You'll die, Fellini, the murderer of Mrs. Ingersoll. Who else
besides her assassin would have a lock of her hair underneath his
bed?"

Harry lunged at Doc
to knock the pistol out of his hand. Doc stepped out of the way and
hit Harry over the head. Harry slumped to the floor unconscious.

"Harry!" Bianca
tried to run to him.

Doc shoved her aside.
He tied Harry's ankles together with rope that he was carrying in
his pocket. He tied his hands behind his back. Doc handed Bianca the
pistol.

"Shoot Harry!"
Doc stared straight into her eyes.

"Doc! Please!"
She shook her head and backed away.

"You'll do
anything I say. I've trained you well over the past two years. You
hardly have any mind left of your own. You'll make an obedient
wife. Everyone will envy me."

She couldn't
believe that this was the old Doc. Surely it was an evil twin who
looked and sounded like him.

"We're going to
arrange everything so it looks like Harry was the killer and the
thief, gunned down by the other thieves who were trying to rob the
house."

It was too horrible
to be true. Doc had mercilessly taken advantage of her.

Harry groaned and
rolled over. He was coming to.

"Hurry!" Doc
snarled. "You don't want Harry to see you kill him, do you?"

"But — but why do
you want me to kill him?" She begged.

"So we've both
committed one murder. A nice marriage pact, isn't it? That way
you'll be less likely to want to rat on me. I'll keep your dirty
secret. You'll keep mine."

She'd never
disobeyed Doc before. But she couldn't shoot Harry. She hung her
head. Her hand spasmed. She dropped the gun as Harry's eyes blinked
open.

"You clumsy cow!"
Doc yelled at Bianca.

Doc forced the gun
back into her hands and made her hold it. He slipped his hands over
hers. He aimed the gun straight at Harry's heart.

Harry gaped at Bianca
in horror.

"Shoot him,
Bianca!" Doc hissed into her ear. He pressed his fingers down on
hers and tried to force her to pull the trigger.

"No!" Tears
streamed down her face.

Harry couldn't roll
fast enough or far enough to evade Doc's deadly accurate aim. As he
rolled, Doc kept on moving his hand. Bianca's hand had to follow
his. Doc kept on squeezing down more and more on her trigger finger.

"You must obey me,
Bianca! You must obey me!" Doc shouted as if that were more
important than anything.

Bianca couldn't let
Doc make her murder Harry. She loved Harry. Harry loved her. She was
standing next to a floor lamp illuminating the hallway. The cord was
close to her leg. Bianca reached her foot behind the cord. She gave
the cord a sharp pull and yanked the plug out of the wall.

The lamp toppled
backward. The bulb shattered. The hallway plunged into darkness at
the second when Doc made her finger push down on the trigger and
shoot.

The shot went wild. A
whooshing sound hit the railing on the stairs as Harry rolled out of
the way.

"What did you do
that for, Bianca?" Doc raged. "You're afraid of the dark.
Remember?"

Harry called. "You're
not really afraid of the dark. He made you that way to keep you
quiet. Remember, the dark is your friend. It gives you the
advantage."

Doc fumbled for the
light switches. "Bianca, the darkness has black fingers. They're
creeping up your neck to strangle you. Turn on the light, or you
won't be able to breathe." He confronted her with the images from
her own nightmares that she'd confided to him as her medical
adviser.

Just as she had
pulled herself together with a superhuman effort two years ago to
save Little Katie, she pulled herself together to save Harry. She
tried not to think of the darkness. She tried not to listen to Doc's
taunting words. Instead she visualized the inside of the house. She
knew it better than Doc. She had baby-sat here every week for years.

Bianca felt along the
walls to reach the Shipleys' bedroom. She found the main fuse box
for the house inside their closet and turned off the juice. Now there
was no way that Doc could turn the lights on.

Doc was still in hot
pursuit. "Bianca, I'll punish you for this disobedience. I'll
be forced to lock you in a dark room once we reach Rio."

With trembling hands
Bianca took the phone off the hook in the Shipleys' bedroom. If she
left the phone off the hook for more than thirty seconds, it would
trigger an alarm at the police department. The police would be here
soon.

All she had to do now
was find the front door as she had two years ago. Then all she had to
do after that was run outside screaming. She was feeling along the
top of the banister leading to the stairs. A shadow loomed in front
of her. It was Doc! He was blocking her way.

Harry, still tied
hand and foot, rolled into Doc from the other
direction. He tripped Doc. Bianca raced down the stairs.

"You won't get
away from me!" Doc shouted. "It's no use. You have to depend on
me."

Bianca flung open the
front door. It had grown very foggy. Suddenly a shaft of silver
moonlight broke through the clouds, illuminating the stairway. There
stood Doc holding Harry by his collar. Another handgun was pointed at
Harry's head.

"Come back here
right now, Bianca, or I'll have to shoot!"

Bianca felt Doc's
first gun still in her hand. She had forgotten about it until now.

"Shoot, Harry,
Bianca. Go ahead and shoot him!"

She slowly raised her
gun hand. It trembled. She could hardly hold on to the pistol.

"Shoot!"

The gun went off. The
shot went wild and hit Doc in the foot. With a look of astonishment,
he dropped his second gun. He reached down to retrieve it. Then he
lost his balance. He fell down the stairs with a shrieking cry,
landing at the bottom. He lay very still. His eyes gaped straight up
at the ceiling. They looked frozen with surprise the way Mrs.
Ingersoll's eyes had two years ago.

Doc was dead. Bianca
knew it before she raced back to cradle his head against her breast
as she wept and wept.

Doc had found his
tomb. He had condemned himself to what he'd tried to condemn her to
— perpetual darkness.

Chapter 13

Bianca put on her
best dress. She looked into the mirror to apply her lipstick and
powder her nose. She seemed like a whole new girl, no longer the old
Bianca Winters.

Honk! Honk!

Bianca leaned out her
bedroom window and yelled, "I'm coming!"

She grabbed her
purse, skipped down the steps, and dashed down the front walkway to
the black limousine in front of her house. She hurried around to the
passenger's side, waving at a passing police car as her heels
clip-clopped along the pavement.

The police car was
not on patrol. There was no longer any need for that. He was going
home for the evening after one of the first normal days of work on
the island in two years.

The uniformed
limousine driver was holding the door open for her. Bianca kissed him
"thank you" on the cheek and popped inside.

"Where to?" He
smiled and revved up the engine.

She shrugged. "The
movies, of course. Where else?"

Bianca snuggled back
into her seat for a nice, long drive. It was easy to get used to this
life — having your own limousine and driver at your beck and call
to take you wherever you wanted to go.

They hadn't gotten
to the first traffic light before the limousine driver slipped his
arm around her waist and pulled her against him. She took off his cap
and tossed it into the back seat. She cozied up against his shoulder.

"I ought to thank
the Shipleys," Bianca remarked. "They've done so much for me
already. But my own limousine driver. Wow!"

"I just got off
duty, and you know it!" He kissed her head. "If you think I'm
going to the movies in this get-up, you're nuts! I'll change in
the back seat before we go inside."

"I want everybody
to see you like that, especially that nasty theater manager in the
Hawaiian shirt. I can't believe that he fired you because you
punched Rick back. The manager will eat his heart out now."

Harry smiled. "The
manager's called me five times in the last couple of weeks asking
me if I'll come back to work as an usher."

"I hope you've
told him no way!"

"I certainly did! I
don't have to put up with his foul mouth any more. The Shipleys are
a dream to work for. They pay better. They give me more time off to
enjoy, let's say . . . the finer things in life." He hugged her.

She ran her hands up
and down the front of his suit, playing with his brass buttons. "I
want Mr. Pigsley to see you in uniform. He and Mrs. Pigsley go to the
movies every Saturday night. Maybe they'll give you a certificate
to get free ice cream."

"Mom and I don't
need free ice cream!" Harry held his chin up. "We don't have to
take charity. I've shaken that bad rap. I'm working full-time for
the Shipleys and I've got my high school diploma. Mom's been
hired back at the school. They've given her a raise and her old
pension back, too."

"And you don't
have to worry about Mike getting into trouble any more."

Harry looked more
serious. "Boy, do I owe you one there!"

"It was the
Shipleys, not me. They used their influence with the judge to keep
Mike in a local prison. Maybe you and your mom can visit him on
weekends."

"Thanks to you!"
Harry whistled. "I can't believe the Shipleys helped us after
Mike kidnapped Little Katie. I guess they're so grateful they'd
do about anything you asked. Can't say I blame them."

He gave Bianca a kiss
while they were stopped at a light.

"I wish that they'd
put that Rick Roscoe where he belongs, though, instead of giving him
probation because it was a first offense!" Harry continued. "Now
they know that he and Marianna were my brother's contacts at the
Island Theater, that they were on the take telling him which stores
to knock over for a share in the profits, Rick ought to go to jail.
The police uncovered all those stolen goods at his house."

Bianca shook her
head. "Rick's been shaken up enough by what happened that he
won't come near me. He knows what'll happen if he does."

"Marianna, too?"

"She's lucky to
be alive! I think she'll act like a whole new girl. No more
blabbing in her sleep about wanting to murder me, or anybody else."

"Yeah, I'm glad
that was just wishful thinking," Harry agreed.