The Dark: A Collection (Point Horror) Read Free

room, looking at her just like that.

    Chapter 2
    Until tonight, May 27
two years ago had been the one night that Bianca could not remember.
She recalled coming home late that Friday afternoon when she'd been
only sixteen and a sophomore in high school. She'd changed out of
her gym clothes to put on jeans and a T-shirt. She was going to be
late for her babysitting job at the Shipleys.
    Until tonight Bianca
hadn't been able to recall walking up to the Shipleys' front
door. The next thing she'd remembered, after changing out of her
gym clothes in her own bedroom, was sitting in the middle of a
hospital bed with bars on the sides that went up and down.
    She'd been propped
up by pillows, a white sheet pulled up to her waist. Nurses had been
rushing in and out to take her temperature and her pulse. She'd
been wearing a hospital gown that tied in the back and gapped open
the rest of the way.
    Where had her gym
clothes gone? Her T-shirt? Her jeans?
    It had looked like
the next morning with light filtering through the window. Her parents
and Mr. and Mrs. Shipley had been sitting by her side. The Shipleys
had been holding their baby daughter, Little Katie, who'd been
noisily sucking on her bottle.
    "How are you
feeling?" Mrs. Shipley had asked, beaming at Bianca. Her smile had
seemed nervous, exaggerated. "That nasty sedative that the doctors
gave you last night has finally worn off!"
    Bianca had been so
dumbfounded that she hadn't been able to speak. Was she dreaming?
    Mr. Shipley had
rushed up and placed a strawberry soda with whipped cream and a
maraschino cherry on the tray beside Bianca's bed.
    "Feeling hungry?"
he had asked. "If you want a six-course dinner delivered from the
Cloister Hotel on a silver platter, it's yours."
    "Yes!" Mrs.
Shipley had looked serious. "Name anything you want. It's yours."
Then she'd broken down crying. She'd hugged Bianca fiercely and
kissed her on the forehead. "Nothing's too good for you, honey.
Nothing!"
    Bianca had stared
with an open mouth at everybody.
    The florist had raced
into Bianca's private room and had thrust into her face the
biggest, prettiest bouquet of flowers — mixed carnations, roses,
daisies and pussy willow. The card had said: As a reward for saving
our daughter's life, we're setting up a trust fund in the name of
Bianca Winters, for the amount of one million dollars, to be drawn
upon by the time she is eighteen.
    Bianca's parents
had broken down weeping. They'd hugged the Shipleys. They'd
hugged Little Katie. Everyone had hugged everyone else.
    Mrs. Winters had
protested. "Bianca was only doing what any babysitter would do. You
don't have to give her money as a reward!"
    Mrs. Shipley had
slipped her arm around Bianca's shoulders. "Bianca saved Little
Katie's life! If it weren't for your brave daughter, I would have
been holding a funeral. My daughter's life is worth any amount of
money."
    "But — but I didn't
do anything for Little Katie! I never made it to your house!"
Bianca had burst out. "I was in my house thinking I was going to be
late. I must have fallen asleep. Did I fall down the stairs? What am
I doing here?" Bianca had looked around.
    She hadn't felt any
soreness or stiffness in her arms and legs as she sat there in the
hospital bed. She would feel something if she'd fallen down the
stairs and broken a bone. She'd sprained her ankle once when she'd
been in grade school. That had felt mean — real, real mean.
    Her mother had
sobbed, "Honey, don't you remember anything at all?" She had
covered her face with her hands. Her father had looked at Bianca
sadly and patted her mother on the back.
    Only then had Bianca
noticed the entire police department from St. Simons Island standing
in the back of the room. They had slowly approached the bed until she
had been surrounded.
    "Miss Winters,"
the police chief had addressed her, "you deserve a police medal,
maybe a Presidential Medal of Honor for bravery, for what you did
last night. You not only saved this little baby's