Read The Dark: A Collection (Point Horror) for Free Online

They were pressing down until her
breath came in short, little gasps.
    "You'll do
anything to save your life, won't you?" he purred.
    She nodded her head
vigorously. "Yes!"
    "Nobody can catch
me as long as you keep your trap shut. Right?"
    She nodded.
    "You won't rat
about me cornering you in the rest room tonight, not even to those
policemen in the audience? It'll be between you and me. Deal?"
    She moaned.
    "Remember, if one
little hint gets out to those policemen, I'll know where it had to
come from."
    She repressed a sob.
    "Then I'll have
to waste you. Got it?"
    She sniffled.
    "It won't be
pretty. I had to rush when I killed Mrs. Ingersoll. I won't have to
rush with you. I can take my time and enjoy every moment of your
slow, lingering death."
    They suddenly seemed
so familiar — the hands, the voice, the darkness, the struggling.
She kept on thinking, Deja vu.
    The assailant shoved
her into one of the bathroom stalls and shut the door behind her.
"Now don't you dare leave there, or I'll know."
    She didn't dare to
make a sound.
    She heard the heavy
footsteps retreating. He didn't flick on the light. She was left in
the pitch blackness.
    She cowered in the
stall, hardly daring to move. The darkness reached out with little
hands and grasped her neck where the killer's fingers had been. She
gasped. Her chest was tight. It hurt bad.
    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