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| Abandoned drawing room at Collinwood |
Every family has it's secrets.
Every family hides something they don't want the rest of the world to know. Some do it to protect a loved one, some do it to hide their shame, but others ... others have no choice but to hide their family secrets, for if revealed the outside world would be too horrified to even understand them.
Some of those secrets can lay buried forever; never to see the light of day. But for one family in a small Maine fishing village named after them, those secrets were exposed long ago by terrible curse placed on all who used that name: Collins.
No Collins bore the brunt of tragedy and pain more than one family member called Barnabas. He traveled over time and space, over centuries to find a way to break the curse of living a life of the un-dead; forever trapped in cycle of immortality and regret. He saw many of his family suffer the consequences of his actions, but continued to press on hoping that one day this curse would be broken, and they would all be free of the dark shadows that haunted every single generation after him.
Barnabas Collins learned the hard way that nothing stays buried forever, his experiences being the perfect example of that.
The supernatural curses that haunted the first family of Collinsport, Maine over 50 years ago continued down through generation after generation. Their vary existence as a family has been a daily battle between the dark and the light, love and hate and most of all between good and evil. Barnabas' legacy left them shattered and tormented and his disappearance decades ago left them wondering what was it all for?
Over the years their beloved family mansion and the surrounding homes that made up then compound known as Collinwood lay empty and abandoned on it's perch on a cliff named Widow's Hill, ready to be sold to the highest bidder.
The surviving members had fled years before, the others are dead or are missing, each one of them escaping their own demons, ghosts and shadows in one shape or form.
That was until this very day. Today, someone comes home. Someone connected to this family of the damned, someone who's life will never be the same again.
An older gentleman opens the rusted gates of old Collinwood manor and pushes them back. The over grown weeds pulled and tugged at the gate with the giant “C" monogram; flexing and tightening around the iron bars like a noose.
Every family hides something they don't want the rest of the world to know. Some do it to protect a loved one, some do it to hide their shame, but others ... others have no choice but to hide their family secrets, for if revealed the outside world would be too horrified to even understand them.
Some of those secrets can lay buried forever; never to see the light of day. But for one family in a small Maine fishing village named after them, those secrets were exposed long ago by terrible curse placed on all who used that name: Collins.
No Collins bore the brunt of tragedy and pain more than one family member called Barnabas. He traveled over time and space, over centuries to find a way to break the curse of living a life of the un-dead; forever trapped in cycle of immortality and regret. He saw many of his family suffer the consequences of his actions, but continued to press on hoping that one day this curse would be broken, and they would all be free of the dark shadows that haunted every single generation after him.
Barnabas Collins learned the hard way that nothing stays buried forever, his experiences being the perfect example of that.
The supernatural curses that haunted the first family of Collinsport, Maine over 50 years ago continued down through generation after generation. Their vary existence as a family has been a daily battle between the dark and the light, love and hate and most of all between good and evil. Barnabas' legacy left them shattered and tormented and his disappearance decades ago left them wondering what was it all for?
Over the years their beloved family mansion and the surrounding homes that made up then compound known as Collinwood lay empty and abandoned on it's perch on a cliff named Widow's Hill, ready to be sold to the highest bidder.
The surviving members had fled years before, the others are dead or are missing, each one of them escaping their own demons, ghosts and shadows in one shape or form.
That was until this very day. Today, someone comes home. Someone connected to this family of the damned, someone who's life will never be the same again.
****
An older gentleman opens the rusted gates of old Collinwood manor and pushes them back. The over grown weeds pulled and tugged at the gate with the giant “C" monogram; flexing and tightening around the iron bars like a noose.
The gentleman, a man in his 70's walks up the foggy main
path and makes his way to the front door.
"Not quite what I expected, but charming none the
less." He says to himself in a tight-jawed British accent.
The realtors handed the man, named Jack Thorne, the mansion’s keys. All had weary and cautious eyes; too terrified of the ominous look of the house to join him.. No one, not even Jack’s wife’s young cousin who had been living in Boston but came back to Collinsport to meet with Jack, would come with him to survey the property. This was something he completely
understood, after all this was Collinwood Manor. He knew it's history. He knew
it's story, and he knew it well.
Inside the old 16th century mansion, all the furniture
had been cloaked with white coverage to protect it from dust and the elements
from decades of neglect. Jack was here to note
all the home’s salvageable items for a very important woman back in London.
His wife of 36 years: Carolyn Stoddard-Thorne.
Carolyn was terrified down to her bones of the town in
Maine her maternal ancestors founded, Collinsport, and would not return with
Jack to take stock of the remains of her former childhood home. The terror and
memories were just too much. Jack opted to do it alone.
In one of the drawing rooms Jack noted glassware and
knickknacks Carolyn might be interested in. Then above a hearth taller than he
stood a painting covered in a white cloth like everything else. Jack reached up
and pulled it quickly off to reveal the
one thing Carolyn said she did not want to see.
Barnabas Collins, the stoic, painted figure of the man
who brought his wife Carolyn and her family so much turmoil almost 50 years
ago.
As Jack stared up at Barnabas' painting a loud noise came
from the foyer and almost simultaneously the clock struck 5pm, ushering in the
New England evening fog. Jack furrowed his brow and walked back into the foyer
to see what made the noise.
"Hello? Anybody there?" He called.
He walked slowly to the other side of the foyer and looked
into another darkened room. Nothing.
The sound came again, this time from behind him with a
swooping of cold air that rushed up the back of Jack's neck.
Jack spun around and saw nothing again. With his hand on
his neck and his eyes like saucers he slowly crept over to the mouth of the
staircase the went to the second floor.
"Who's there! Who are you?" Jack said seeing a
darkened figure at the top mezzanine.
The blackened figured said nothing.
"I ask you again! Who are you? What are
you-----"
As Jack demanded to know the identity of the intruder the
figured seemed to jump from the mezzanine in a large black mist floating from
wall to wall covering the entire foyer and fell upon Jack, completely covering
him.
All he could do was scream, but nothing came out. His
body froze in terror as the black mist morphed into the body and face of a
woman, her eyes ice blue were filled with sadness and tears yet they went into
Jack like daggers.
She opened her mouth and tearfully spoke only one word.
"Leopold?
