The Dark: A Collection (Point Horror) (26 page)

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."