The Dark: A Collection (Point Horror) (5 page)

She could hardly
remember the girl who had stood in front of the bathroom mirror and
fancied she might be pretty because Doc had said so. She was a shadow
of that confident self. Doc would be ashamed if he could see her
cringing.

The bathroom light
flicked on. The stall was flooded with a garish, yellow glow. Her
heart thundered against her chest with such force that it almost
knocked her over.

Was it the murderer
coming back to finish her off? Should she have climbed out the
window? The footsteps stopped in front of her stall. Hands were
grappling with the lock — impatient, angry hands.

The stall door flew
open. Light poured in.

Chapter 4

There stood Marianna
Haynes. Her frizzy, curly dark brown hair toppled over her shoulders.
Marianna put her hand to her waist and tapped her sandaled foot. She
tossed her head and smirked as she chewed her bubble gum.

"If it isn't Miss
Goody Two Shoes, the heroine of St. Simons Island! My, aren't we
brave tonight cowering in the bathroom stall!"

Marianna stepped
forward in her white-sandaled heels with her toenails on display,
painted fire-engine red. "If only my Ricky could see you, he'd be
so proud."

Bianca had no
illusions who Marianna meant by "Ricky". Marianna was Rick
Roscoe's ex-girlfriend.

Her violet eyes
glared at Bianca. Her plucked eyebrows stood up like pointed, black
arches.

Her eyelashes were
lengthened with mascara until each looked like a long and pointed
weapon, maybe poisonous, certainly lethal. She sneered. Her teeth
were short and pointy like a cat's.

Was Marianna the
killer? Bianca was so rattled she could believe anything. What would
Doc want her to do? He'd tell her to brazen it out and keep her
cool: That was hard to do as Bianca climbed down from the toilet
seat. She'd been perched on top of it so her feet wouldn't show
underneath the stall. It wasn't a dignified position to get caught
in.

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.