Series 1/Chapter 2: CURSE OF COLLINWOOD

There was a feeling in the old Collins' mansion that would make the hair on your skin stand at attention. It was the kind of feeling of a chill in the air, a frosty  bite of cold wind that swished by your bare neck.

In a back bedroom on the second floor, the setting sun peeked through the shuttered window in an orange glow casting strange shadows on the draped furniture, abandoned by the family it once served. Jack Thorne suddenly awoke, drenched in sweat feeling the icy cold air all around him. The dark room his instant prison. He looked around and saw that someone...or something...had tied him to the bed and left him in the dark.

"Leopold." A voice whispered from one of the room's shadowy corners.

"Hello? Who's there?" Jack replied, slightly lifting his head to see where the voice came from.

"Leopold, You've aged. You've come so far, and you've aged." The female voice replied.

"I'm sorry, there must be some misunderstanding, my name is Jack Thorne, I came here to just quickly pick somethings up for my wife. Her name is Carolyn...she used to live here!" Jack said, stretching the ties around his wrists and ankles to their limits while he spoke.

"You've forgotten who you are too. I had a feeling one day this would happen. " The voice said.

"I don't ---understand. Who are you?!" Jack said struggling with the restraints to release himself.

From the shadowy corner a beautiful wavy Raven-haired woman in a scarlet gown slowly appeared out of the blackness, her lips Crimson and full. She began to levitate over jack, her hair swirling in an enchanted breeze that froze the air around her, the windows suddenly burst open and an icy sea air filled the room. The terror in Jack's heart froze him in fear.

"You have forgotten who you are dear Leopold, but now you have returned and I shall have what I have been waiting for for over 300 years." The woman said opening up her arms.

She chanted: "From the depths of the sea and the sky above I bring you back to earth my love, my love. Come forth to me aged back like new, here in this time our love renew! 

The woman's mouth opened and a dark red mist poured out of the woman's mouth and fell over Jack like a fog, covering his face, covering his body, seeping into his skin, soaking in like a sponge to water. Jack screamed, there was a pain filling every vein in his body like thousands of small daggers stabbing him over and over and over again. 

 Then, the wind blew in and the red mist from the woman's mouth disappeared. A flash of light sparked and lit the bedroom like the sun turning all it touched to white. 

Suddenly silence.

****LONDON, ENGLAND****

In a stylish townhouse in Shepard's Bush, a ritzy London neighborhood, Jack's 25 year old daughter Alexandra sat reading an 1897 novel by Bram Stroker. Her eyes were glued to the pages at every sentence. The rush of Adrenalin filling every vein like a raging river. At the center of the chapter, a monster of man, wicked and dangerous slowly crept up on an unsuspecting victim from behind. His hands reached around the female victim's neck and slowly, the twisted smile of a vampire closed in on the warm flesh of the woman's neck... suddenly Alex's phone rang startling her in her chair, the book falling out of her hands and on to the floor face down revealing the cover and title of the book. DRACULA.

Alexandra chuckled at her silliness and rushed over to answer the ringing phone.

"Hello? ... No this is her daughter Alex. Who may I ask... OHH! Caleb? How are you? How's daddy?" She asked the person on the phone.

Caleb was the son of David Collins, Carolyn's first cousin who had gone missing 20 years before. When Caleb's ex wife divorced him shortly after his disappearance, Carolyn took it upon herself to raise Caleb as her own in London. It was only in recent years that Caleb had returned to Collinsport to find out, unsuccessfully, what had happened to his father. No one knew where David was, and the family fishing company needed a CEO; with Carolyn's blessing from London, Caleb, now in his early 30's took over and had been the only Collins in Collinsport for over 5 years.

The family had lost millions from the business, and the only way to gain some capital back was to sell off the mansion, but now, Jack had disappeared too...and Caleb could feel something just wasn't right about the entire station.

"Well that's why I'm calling. Jack was supposed to meet me back at the realtor's office to bring back the keys to Collinwood but he never showed.  Have you heard from him?" Caleb, asked.

"What!" Alexandra said worried. "No, we haven't heard from him at all. Have you tried the hotel?"
A worried Alexandra questioned.

"No. Alex, listen, I know this maybe difficult, but I'm getting very concerned. I think you and your mother need to return to Collinsport as soon as you can. I don't know what else to do. No one has seen or heard from him." Caleb said standing in the Realtor's office on his cell phone.

Just then Alexandra's mother Carolyn walked into the room. Carolyn had lived in Collinsport her whole life. The terrible things that happened to her and her family when she grew up had traumatized her, and when Collinwood was set to be sold by the surviving members of the Collins family she gladly gave her blessing allowing Jack to go as her proxy to collect whatever items were salvageable. 

"Caleb, I'll call you right back." Alex said, seeing her mother walk in. "Mother." She began in a somber tone.

"Hi honey, who was on the phone." Carolyn said removing a wicker hat  tied around her chin with a lily white sash as she placed a basket of fresh blood red roses she had picked from the garden on a table. 

"That was Caleb on the phone. He rung to speak to you about daddy." Alexandra said still numb from the news. "He's ...he's missing mother."

Carolyn's eyes turned to stone and her face froze, one of the roses fell to the floor. 

"Missing? What are you talking about?  How could he be missing, he just got to Collinsport a day ago." Carolyn asked confused and in denial. 

"Caleb said he never met him back at the realtor's office to return the keys from the mansion. He said we should get to the states right away. He's very worried." Alex added.

Carolyn paused before she spoke. She warned everyone that the house should have been left alone. that nothing good could come from that house of  horrors. No matter what any one said. She begged Jack no to go.

Carolyn reached down to the floor and picked up the rose. She looked at and lifted an eyebrow. 

"It's happening again!" Carolyn said with tears in her eyes. "It's all happening again."

"What is mother?" Alex asked.

Carolyn turned and looked at her daughter, there was a fear in Alex's eyes that Carolyn had not seen before.

Jack was in trouble,  that they knew, but just how much trouble was in Carolyn's deepest fear.

"Call the airlines. Get us two tickets to Bangor." Carolyn said. "We're going back."