Series 1/Chapter 6: THE DEATH OF JACK THORNE

The winds continued to pick up speed, swirling around the turrets of Collinwood. Inside the great mansion, a family's anxiety began to bubble up, as one of their own was still missing. For Carolyn, the likelihood that Jack's disappearance was due to something more sinister and Collinwood related was becoming more and more clear every day he was gone.

"Thank you for meeting with me this evening." Detective Kat Banning said as she walked into the living room where Alexandra and Carolyn had been waiting. "We've done a very extensive investigation over the last few days and haven't had a single lead Mrs. Thorne. I'm hoping you've had better luck. Is there anything new that you were able to think of that might get us to some answers? It's almost as if he's just vanished into thin air." 

Carolyn swallowed a heap of air. Her mouth was dry. She could feel it in in her bones that something else was amiss. Over the years and in her youth, she witnessed various bizarre and unexplained occurrences similar to Jack's vanishing. This wasn't new for her, but explaining it to someone who may have a hard time understanding --and worse ---believing that maybe, just maybe, something supernatural had happened was a challenge within itself.

"No, detective Banning, I haven't. I agree with you,  it is as if Jack vanished into thin air. Things like that have happened before. People just ....go away." Carolyn said grabbing Alexandra's hand.

"What do you mean by that?" Kat asked, her mind scanning that statement for anything incriminating.

"I don't know. I can tell you that Jack wouldn't just leave me and Alex without telling us why. He wasn't the type of man to do things of that nature. He loved us."

"Well no one is saying otherwise Mrs. Thorne. I just think that maybe.....well maybe someone knows more than they're saying." Kat answered closing her note pad.

"I think we're just under a lot of pressure, thats all." Alexandra said, clutching her mother's hand and trying to quell the tension in the room.

"What we've decided to do is continue our investigation, but minimize the man power on the case until we have some sort of lead. At this time we have officers searching the grounds here and around town and the waterways for any kind of sign of Mr. Thorne, but as of just before I came to see you, there hadn't been any new news." Kat explained again.

"I understand." Carolyn said with tears in her eyes.

"Please, if you do hear anything, or see anything or find anything, give me a call." Kat said handing her another business card.

She excused herself walked over to the foyer where Caleb was waiting at the end of the staircase.

"So level with me, what do you really think? I've known Jack for almost my whole life and this really doenst seem like something he'd do." Caleb questioned.

"Well, obviously something isnt right. A 72 year old man doesn't just vanish into thin air without a good reason." Kat said.

"What about what Carolyn said? Things like this have happened before." Caleb mentioned.

"What did she mean by that?"

"She meant this house. You grew up in Collinsport, you've heard all the stories, and listen, I'm not saying something weird happened, but would you consider it?" Caleb asked the beautiful brunette detective.

"Are you seriously asking me to consider if Jack Thorne's disappearance is related to some sort of folklore? Caleb, come on!" Kat said with a wide grin.

"Look, I know, it sounded crazy in my head when I thought about it too, but my father's family has had some really dark and twisted things happen to them and no one can explain it. No one outside the family that is.  Kat, Look at me...." Caleb said, his face turning serious "This could be really bad. We still don't know where my own father is."

"I don't care what people say about this house. Jack did not go into some kind of ghostly time warp thing. He either left on his own, or someone ...someone took him. This family is loaded! I'm guessing as soon as the kidnappers find out Carolyn is back in town you'll all receive a ransom note. And as horrible as this sounds, that's exactly what we want. That ransom note will get us clues where, right now, we dont have any." Kat answered matter of factly. 

Caleb backed down, and smirked. She was the same Kat he remembered from high school. Strong willed. Smart and still very beautiful. He had been in love with her for so many years but that admiration came to stand still when his father too disappeared from Collinsport and his mother left him in Carolyn's care in London.

"You know it's been really nice seeing you again. Maybe we can hang out? Drinks? My treat." Caleb said flirting with Kat.

She smiled and put on her jacket ready to brave the snowy cold outside. As she flipped her thick black hair out from under her coat she turned to him and winked.

"I'll call you."

Back in the living room Carolyn again stared blankly out onto the frozen garden outside that looked out onto the Old house, she noticed what looked like candle light coming from one of the windows. "What in...." she said, confused as Alex was looking in the mirror adjusting her earrings. 

"Mother I just don't feel right going out to meet Christopher tonight with everything thats going on."

"What's that?" Carolyn answered turning back from the window where she saw the candles from the Old House.

"Are you ok? You look like you saw a ghost." Alex said noting her mother's ashen appearce, a side-effect of the shock at seeing some sort of activity at the Old House when she was sure no one had been there in decades.

"I think I'm just tired, and of course everything about your father being gone." Carolyn said decding not to say anything about what she saw in out of the window.

"That's exactly why I shouldn't have taken Chris up on the date tonight. What kind of daughter am I going out, leaving you here on your own and daddy still missing!' a guilt ridden Alex said.

"Oh stop it! I know you're worried about your father too, but we can't just stop our lives. We're going to find him, honey, we will, but we also have to carry on living normally until then. Besides, it's nice that you're making new friends in Collinsport. It'll get your mind off of everything that's happening" Carolyn said hugging her guilt-ridden daughter.

"No it won't. I'll be thinking about you and him all night." Alex answered.

"You have to take a break. Chris seems nice, and ....well, you need it honey." Carolyn reassured  her.

"Ok, but I won't be out long. I promise, a few hours tops and then I'll be back here before you know it." Alex said picking up her coat and heading out in to the frosty night.

****

It was later that evening and the shops around the small downtown of Collinsport were closing up, restaurants and bistros were switching to their dinner menus. Alex and Christopher walked along a snowy path in Founder's Park talking about everything they liked, and everything they didn't. The typical first date jitters were masked by shivering of the winter air.

As they walked they never noticed the shadowy figure following every step behind. The figure was Leopold still hungry and waiting for his first real taste of fresh blood. His sites were set on the young Alexandra.

The couple continued to walk and talk and laugh. Making eye contact then shyly looking away never noticing they were going off into a much denser part of the park covered in thick bushes and ever-greens. Leopold, dressed in his thick black peacoat with his color lifted, protecting his neck from the icy wind on his face knew this would be his chance.

He walked closer and closer to the couple doing everything he could not to be detected. But he failed, as he approached he stepped on some fallen branches making a sound that started the couple.

They quickly turned to see Leopold frozen in his tracks.

"Hey!" Christopher yelled back at the follower. "Do you need something?" 

Leopold zeroed in on Christopher, the vampire hissed, his amber eyes turned to fire red. He lunged on at Christopher in a quick motion that made him look like a flash of light knocking Alexandra to the floor and into a snow bank.

The two men rolled around on the floor punching and kicking each other. Leopold kept trying to bite but there was something about Christopher, something that turned Leopold off, his blood was not desirable for some reason. Instead of a succulent bite, the vampire was repulsed and jump off his victim.

Undeterred, Christopher lunged back and Leopold and swung three times, missing the shadow dweller each time.  Leopold smiled evily and reached out with this long, strong arms and grabbed Chris by the throat. While in this hold, Leopold lifted Christopher up by the neck to Alexandra's horror, and threw him up against a wall the that held up a walking bridge just above them. Christopher fell unconscious to the floor into a mound of snow.

With Chris out cold, Leopold then turned to Alexandra, his first choice of prey. She screamed but no one came to her rescue. Leopold began to walk closer and breath harder. She kept walking backwards keeping her eyes right on the monster in front of her. As he got closer and closer he could feel the vibration of her pulse float through the air, it pumped harder and harder, and only intensified as he came closer.

"What do you want from me?" Alex said as Leopold stepped closer. "I can give you money. I can give you as much as you want." 

"This wont  hurt a bit." He said in a deep menacing voice.

And as Leopold got close he grabbed Alexandra's face, then a flash of Jack's memory came to his mind. He recognized Alex...his own daughter.  Suddenly Leopold's eyes changed again from the deep red back to the amber, his fangs returned to their natural state, changing his entire face. When the twisted vampire's face returned to normal, Alex too recognized the man...it was the exact same face of her father when he was younger. She rememeberd  his face from photos and memories of her youth. She couldn't believe her eyes, but it was true, the man, the monster, right in front of her had morphed from a vicious blood thirsty creature to the face of her father as a young man.

Leopold backed up and covered his face realizing what was happening and what he was about to do. His mind racing was filling with Jack's memories of his past life, his wife, and his daughter, the woman he was about to murder with a single bite.

"Daddy? Daddy is that you?" Alex said, slowly stepping closer to the man with his hands over his face. "How is this possible? Daddy?" Alexandra said again, slowly stepping closer to him.

"Stay back!! Don't come any closer!!" Leopold yelled now starting to back away himself.

"It is you, isnt it?! What...what's happened to you...my god!" Alex said running up to her father and grabbing his coat collar, horrified of what she had just witnessed. 

Leopold pealed Alex's hands off of his coat and tried to get away but tripped and fell on the path. When he got up Alex was directly above him, and now there was no question in her mind. It was indeed her father's young face. She knew it deep inside her heart, but she couldn't explain it.

Christopher began to groan in pain and regain consciousness over by the wall where Leopold threw him in a rage. Alex knew as soon as Chris was able to, he'd come back and try to protect her from the assailant that, inexplicably, was her own father. She had to think quickly and protect her father.

Alex quickly helped Leopold up and whispered for him to run. 

She then quickly turned back to see Christopher getting up out of the snow as Leopold rushed off into the winter shadows of Founder's Park. 

"Are you ok?" Alex said helping Christopher up.

"I'm fine!" Chris said, rubbing the bump on his head "What the hell happened? Did he hurt you? Did he take anything?" Christopher asked looking around to see if the assailant was still around.

"I'm fine. Oh you have a little cut on your lip too." Alex said wiping his lip for him. "It was a mugger, but he didn't get anything. He just took off running." Alex said looking in the direction her father ran off too. "Come on, lets get you home."

****

Leopold's mind felt out of control. His memories from his previous life as Jack were filling his brain. How could he have almost killed his own daughter. No matter who he was now, she was still his flesh and blood. He sat in an empty room at the Old House filled with candles and roaring fire. The guilt seeping into faster and faster.

Claudia, the witch who made him this way stood in the corner of the room fuming at his defeat. 

"You failed Leopold." She said telepathically into Leopold's mind.

"What have you done to me? You've made me a monster thirsty after the blood of his own kin!" Leopold replied to her our loud. 

"Forge them! They're nothing to you anymore! The only thing they are good for is the blood in their veins, without them, you'll die!" She said swooping around him in her red cloak.

"You're insane. I cannot drink from Alexandra. I should rip open your veins right here right now and end us both." Leopold said jumping up and grabbing Claudia's neck.

"Do that, and the curse of this home and this family will haunt your sweet  Alexandra and her mother the rest of their lives. I've made it so that if anything happens to me, they're lives will be destroyed. Is that what you really want? Their lives are so precious to you, but you'll put them in danger by killing me?" Claudia warned with a slight trick to her curse.

"You're the monster." Leopold hissed at her.

"I am my mother's daughter." Claudia replied, her voice slightly strained from the choking grab of Leopold's hand

Leopold released Claudia dropping her to the floor. He put on his thick peacoat and dashed out of the old house, his mind split between the monster Leopold that Claudia had created and Jack Thorne, the man he once was. As he walked out of the Old House front door he saw Carolyn standing in the frozen garden that grew between the main house and the Old House. she had come to investigate the mysterious candle light coming from the Old House.

She stood in the frozen, dark night. Their eyes met. Her breath came out of her mouth in puffs of frosty smoke and she realized it was the man she married, his face the way it looked when they met decades ago and were married.

"My God!" Carolyn said stunned. "It's you." She said in a whisper.

"Carolyn..........I ...." Leopold said, his voice still in tone of Jack's.

"What....my god, what has  happened to you!?" Carolyn said, tears spilling from her eyes.

"Something terrible. Something more wicked and twisted than your nightmares can ever imagine." Leopold said, stepping into the garden now eye to eye with his wife from a different life.

"I thought I'd never see you again, but....I just never expected this." Carolyn answered.

"How did you know where to find me?" Leopold said covering his face.

Carolyn said nothing put her hands on Leopold's face, her hand trembled from the cold, she looked deep into the eyes she fell in love with, hers were now of a woman in her early 70's and his were of the 30-something young man she fell in love with. She began to sob and fell into his arms.

"I saw the candles through the living room windows earlier this evening." Carolyn said, revealing how she discovered Leopold. "I don't understand Jack, I don't understand!" She kept repeating.

"I'm not sure how I can explain it. But it's not a trick, its much worse." Leopold said.

"The police, they think you're missing. How are we going to explain you're a live, and....and you look so much younger?" Carolyn questions still crying.

"There is no way that I can come back to how I was, not now at least. That's all the past now. This is who I am. This is what I am." Leopold said.

"What do you mean 'what' you are?" his wife questioned.

"Someone......someone made me something."

Carolyn released herself from Leopold's hold. She stepped back and wiped her tear stained face. It was all becoming clear now, she had had seen this before, many many years ago. This man had become one with the shadows, one with the darkness, one of the undead.

"I've seen this look before, I can feel it now, I can feel what you are in my heart and in my body. Its like it was with Barnabas. It's come back to us... I know what you are." Carolyn confessed.

"I can never resume my regular life. Its too late for that, and because of this we must make it so that everyone believes Jack has died. Carolyn, Whatever happens from here on out, go with my plan. Do not question me at all costs. It must remain a secret."

Leopold buttoned up his jacket and rushed off into the snowy night.

Carolyn was stood alone in the snow shivering, her eyes filled with tears, not knowing what would happen next but knew the darkness she hoped to have left behind when she moved from Collinsport to London were again reemerging. 

And inside the Old House, an eavesdropping Claudia seethed with jealously of their love. Her eyes burned, the tears streaming down her face like lava making paths down her cheeks. 

****

Kat and Loomis arrived to the Collinsport harbor docks around 2am in the morning. The flashing red and blue lights of the parked police cruisers reflected in their unmarked car like forth of July fireworks. The two detectives were ushered over by a uniformed police officer to a large yellow tarp covering something that was fished out of the ocean.

The officer looked at them with an eyebrow lifted and pealed back the tarp, there laying in salt water puddle was a withered corpse of an older man.

"What do we have here?" Loomis asked another  police officer's on the scene.

"Dead guy, looks like he's been here for a while, couple of days at least" The officer said shining his flash light into the water.

"No, this guy's been here for a least a few hours--tops!" Kat answered kneeling down at the body for a better look.

"How can you tell?" The uniformed cop asked, the flashing police lights still reflecting their light, this time on the yellow Police line tape around the scene.

"His skin. I'd guess...." Kat began before Loomis interrupted.

"5 hours."

Kat agreed

"There's no bloating. Its like the opposite happened. He....he looks like he's been drained." Loomis added.

"Of everything." The cop said.

"What do you mean?" Loomis asked.

"Well, there's no blood. Like none. There's these two little wounds on his neck and when the coroner came out, he noticed there was no more bleeding. Like, the blood just stopped."

Kat and Loomis looked at each other confused, baffled even.

"Any ID?" Kat asked as she removed her plastic examining gloves. 

"Yup, that's why we called you two, aren't you looking for a fella named Jack Thorne? I think we found him." The police officer said handing them Jack's wallet.

Kat and Loomis were stunned at the turn of events. And standing just out of site in a darkened corner of the docks observing everything was Leopold, his belly full of fresh blood and his former life now extinguished.

Jack was gone forever, thanks to a homeless man Leopold fed on that he found drunk and sleeping in Founder's park.