The night was late, and the only sounds in halls of Windcliff Sanitarium were the buzzing lights in the hallway. The storm in the mean time raged outside breaking down power-lines and causing small floods all around Bangor. And in the darkest moments of the storm within the flashing of lightening and thunder a being: dark and fierce stood still at the entrance of Windcliff. He was there to finally fulfill his will and destiny. Barnabas Collins was there for Maggie Evans.
The rain had not touched Barnabas, he was dry as a bone. He looked through the glass windows in the doors and saw no movement in the building but could feel all the heartbeats all around him like hundreds of humming birds carefully pricking his skin with their little beaks.
With one swipe of his hand the doors mystically opened and Barnabas walked through, the bottom of his shoes leaving wet foot prints on the floor as he quietly walked down the damp halls.
The rain had not touched Barnabas, he was dry as a bone. He looked through the glass windows in the doors and saw no movement in the building but could feel all the heartbeats all around him like hundreds of humming birds carefully pricking his skin with their little beaks.
With one swipe of his hand the doors mystically opened and Barnabas walked through, the bottom of his shoes leaving wet foot prints on the floor as he quietly walked down the damp halls.
"We have to fix this, do you understand me? Chancellor Winters cannot come back to Collinsport, it would ruin everything. All the research I have done all the years that I lived among the family would be gone in second if we just take the family out now." Barnabas heard Kim say through the door.
"Chancellor Winters has already decided to cut her losses and move on. Keeping any of them alive now is too risky and The Organization just doesn't want to deal with it anymore. It's over Kimberly." Joanna concluded.
"All of them? We have to kill all of them?" Kim asked.
"All of them. It's not our fault you ended up having Caleb with David. Unfortunately, he'll be just a casualty of this war." Joanna said coldly.
As Barnabas listened he finally understood everything: Victoria Winters came to Collinwood with such mystery 50 years ago as Elizabeth's governess was a complete ruse; a work of deception. In reality she employed by a mysterious organization hell bent on destroying the family Collins family in the name of ridding the earth of their supernatural connections. Victoria later died, or so everyone though, from a fall from Widow's Hill. Yet another covert way for the Organization to cover Victoria's tracks and have her escape and only regroup years later with Victor Reed, Kimberly Joanna and Sebastian.
How could he have been so foolish to trust Victoria all those years ago? How could he have trusted Kim now with continuing to try and save his life with blood tests that he and Julia started 50 years ago?
Barnabas felt betrayed. Furious. Angry.
In his furry his eyes started to change to all black, his anger started to boil over. His teeth began to pierce through his mouth, pointed and ready for feeding, his skin went white as snow. He opened his mouth and let out a horrible inhuman scream that was as loud as the thunder outside that blew open Joanna's office door, tearing through the wood with a power ferociousness that stunned the two sisters inside the office to the floor, covering them in dust and debris from Barnabas' furious explosion.
"Oh my god! Barnabas!!" Kim screamed from the floor as she pushed off wooden boards from the door and wall.
Joanna looked on in a horror as she finally came face to face with the most infamous vampire The Organization had ever monitored. Her eyes were giant circles, and the blood rushed to her feet like she was being drained. It was fear, a feeling she had not felt in years.
****
Carolyn and David's flight began to take off into the pouring rain on its way to London to find Alex. Claudia's lie had worked, and everyone believed that Alex was in London on her own when in reality she was in a secret room above a turret at Collinwood, bewitched by Claudia's poisonous tea leaves, that ravaged her face, skin and hair.
In the air the Collins' private plane rocked and bounced with the overwehlming storm that Alex created with her powers. The pilots had underestimated the storm they decided to fly in.
"Are you ok?" Caleb asked Carolyn who was grabbing onto the seat.
"I think so!" Carolyn said reaching over to Caleb's hand.
"Its going to be ok. The storm will let up soon once we get above it." Caleb said reassuring.
The plane continued to attempt to fly higher in the atmosphere to try and escape the storm but it was too difficult for the pilots. The storm was too strong. The small white private jet swung back and fourth in the air like a giant had grabbed hold of it and pulled it back down causing a terrifying moment in the cabin for Carolyn and Caleb that would have lifted them out of their seats had they not been strapped in.
"Dear god!" Carolyn said tightening her seat belt again.
"Stay calm , stay calm...." Caleb said now starting to feel some worry himself.
As the storm Alex created continued to surge in the sky with the air plane, it suddenly took an even more terryfying dip straight down and then back up again.
Carolyn screamed and Caleb reached over to grab hold of her attempting to give her some comfort, but he knew this was no ordinary case of turbulence..it was too late. Suddenly a bolt of lightning struck the plane's wing causing it to spin out of control and start to go down.
The pilot came on the loud speaker and demanded Caleb and Carolyn put on their life jackets because the plane, that had not yet left the area of Maine, was going down into the Atlantic ocean. There was no ifs ands or buts. The plane was going to crash.
"Stay calm stay calm...we'll be ok!!!" Caleb said yelling over the loud speaker and alarms the plane was making.
Carolyn looked over at Caleb one last time, he was smiling and holding her hand every attempt to keep her calm in a terrible moment....then everything went dark.
****
At Collinwood, the power had gone out with the storm, and David and Chris went on a mission to find the breaker that handled the main part of the house where everyone was. They slowly made their way through the winding halls of the mansion flashlight in hand, carefully. Suddenly David had a strange feeling. He looked over a door that he remembered lead to a small staircase. He was drawn to the door and kept staring at it intently.
"Kat is ok, she's feeling a little better and has candles. What are you looking at?" Chris said noticing David staring at the door.
"This door.......where does it lead?" David said out loud to himself.
"I don't know, I've never gone in." Chris replied not knowing David was speaking to himself, almost in a trance, and fixated on the door.
As a boy at Collinwood, David would scavenge both the new and old houses on the Collinwood property and knew where every door led, even if no one else did. The secret passages and doorways were like new adventures for David when he was little. He memorized every tiny hall behind every wall that no one else did, and this door was no different. And just like that his memory returned.
He remembered this door led to a staircase that led to Naomi Collins' old chapel, and something told David to turn that knob and go in.
So he did.
"Hey wait up!" Chris said thinking David was going up to find the breaker.
The lock on the door was tight but old, something Claudia failed to realize. All David had to do was jerk the the door knob violently three times and the door lock would break from the door frame allowing David to pull the door open and walk up the staircase to where Alex was.
"Whats up there?" Chris said hearing a voice all the way up.
As David and Chris started to make their weary ways up the stair case Claudia came from around the corner and down the long hall way. She saw them and in a panic they would discover Alex rushed over and grabbed Chris' arm who was directly behind David in the stairwell.
"STOP!" Claudia screamed at them
"What's going on?" David said now sensing Claudia had something to hide.
"Don't go up there." Claudia warned.
"Claudia what's up here?" Chris asked her with an angry voice.
And suddenly, the human side of Claudia came back; her guilt came rushing back like a flood of water from Alex's storm. She looked into Chris' eyes, he was angry and disappointed that she was hiding something then she looked at David and she could tell he was starting to get angry too. She could no longer hold on to what she was hiding.
"It's Alex....she's up there. But, I'm warning you, she's not the same. She's not the same." Claudia said covering her mouth with fear of what had become of Alex since she poisoned her.
David quickly turned and ran up the steps into the turret Alex had been kept in. The staircase went straight up and creaked and cracked with age with every one of David's steps. His large manly body pushing his way through finally coming to the main door of the Turret.
"Alex!!! Are you in there?" David yelled.
She did not answer.
David begin to push on the door with his shoulder, harder and harder and with more and more force finally breaking open the door. And standing here dressed in a frightful all black with a dark veil covering her face was Alex.
"Alex!!" David said in a loud voice.
Alex, still holding her hands up against the wall causing the power storm over heard suddenly turned to see her mother's cousin standing in her cell. With the all her energy now depleted she fainted and fell to the floor.
"Claudia what have you done?" Chris said now with a confused and disheartened look on his face while David carried the veiled Alexandra past them down the staircase and taking her to her room.
Claudia knew it was all over and quickly made her way down the main staircase as Chris watched in a strange state of sadness and anger at what she had done.
Claudia grabbed her coat off a coat hanger by the door and slipped it on and tied it closed tightly around her small frame.. She looked up at Chris who was now staring at her from the top of the stairs one more last time
"I'm sorry." She quietly said to him.
She then looked at the painting of Barnabas in the drawing room one last time and opened the front door and ran off into the wild storm.
Never once looking back.
****
Back at Windcliff Barnabas hissed and fumed over what he had heard Joanna and Kim saying. All these years Victoria Winters had been part of a terrible organization that was out to kill him and his family ... Barnabas would not allow it.
"This is Barnabas!" Joanna said semi pleased at what she saw. "Remarkable." She added as Barnabas was in his full vampire furry.
"Barnabas calm down." Kimberly said holding her hand out to keep Barnabas away.
"You have betrayed my family. All these years. Victoria, you....this woman...you have all taken years from David and Caleb and you hide Maggie...." Barnabas said walking closer to the sisters as he pushed over fallen office furniture making a path towards the cowering two doctors.
"You don't understand Barnabas I had to...we had to!" Kim said in fear.
"LIES!" Barnabas yelled.
"You have to believe me!" Kim screamed back.
Barnabas growled at her in disgust and pushed all of the items on Joanna's desk to the floor without even touching them, he just swooped his hand over them effortlessly. He got into Kim's face, her hands trembled in fear, then grabbed her by the throat but just before he went into bite, heard the calking of a gun.
"This is Barnabas!" Joanna said semi pleased at what she saw. "Remarkable." She added as Barnabas was in his full vampire furry.
"Barnabas calm down." Kimberly said holding her hand out to keep Barnabas away.
"You have betrayed my family. All these years. Victoria, you....this woman...you have all taken years from David and Caleb and you hide Maggie...." Barnabas said walking closer to the sisters as he pushed over fallen office furniture making a path towards the cowering two doctors.
"You don't understand Barnabas I had to...we had to!" Kim said in fear.
"LIES!" Barnabas yelled.
"You have to believe me!" Kim screamed back.
Barnabas growled at her in disgust and pushed all of the items on Joanna's desk to the floor without even touching them, he just swooped his hand over them effortlessly. He got into Kim's face, her hands trembled in fear, then grabbed her by the throat but just before he went into bite, heard the calking of a gun.
"The moment a single drop of my sister's blood hits your lips I will pull this trigger and you will be nothing but a fable." Joanna said pointing a gun filled with silver bullets.
Barnabas hissed and turned his attention to Joanna who's fear seemed not to fear Barnabas' wrath and was ready to take his life for the good of the Organization.
"That, Dr. Grayson will be the biggest mistake of your mortal life. A single bullet will not over take me, I can assure you." Barnabas said walking slowly over to Joanna. His telepathic powers noting the amount of bullets Joanna had.
Joanna looked at her gun and had no idea how powerful Barnabas really was, she knew there was only one bullet but she was certain she could kill him in just one shot.
"Come any closer and I'll shoot." Joanna yelled.
"Where is Maggie Evans??" Barnabas asked in a cold dark voice.
"Evans? She died, years ago. She's long gone." Joanna said still pointing the gun.
"I told you Barnabas, she died here at the hospital in an accident, I took you to her grave." Kim said from behind and she calmly picked up a chair to throw over Barnabas.
Barnabas was too smart for her and could sense her every movement even if he wasn't looking at her. As Kimberly lifted the chair over his head he swooped his hand up in the air levitating Kimberly and then suddenly dropping her to the ground causing her to lose consciousness.
"A chair." Barnabas smirked as Joanna's hands began to shake with the gun still pointed at him.
Barnabas could feel Maggie's life force, strong and power within the walls of Windcliff. in his anger and in his furry at Kim and Joanna for keeping his beloved away from him, he finally lunged at Joanna and plunged his teeth in her neck breaking skin. She shot the one bullet missing him.
The blood slowly trickled down into his throat. As he drank her blood it squirted on the wall and down her neck onto her white shirt.
Kim, waking up from her fall, screamed at the sight of her sister being attacked by Barnabas and covered her eyes. She cowered in fetal position as the thunder clapped, causing the rest of the hospital to lose power.
Barnabas released the lifeless Joanna from his grips, her body slowly slumping down to the ground, the gun still in her hand and walked over to Kimberly who was shaking with fear.
"Barnabas, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...." Kim said shaking and still covering her face.
Barnabas wiped the fresh blood from his mouth, his eyes still pitch black, his fangs still sharp and dangerous. He pulled Kimberly up by her arm and forced her to face him.
"Look into my eyes." he said calmly to a resistant Kimberly. "LOOK INTO MY EYES!" Barnabas yelled again.
Kimberly looked into his eyes and saw the deep black pools where his irises once were, she began to feel sleepy and slowly blink, the pools of black in Barnabas's pulling her deeper and deeper into a sort of trance taking her away from the trauma of the moment.
"You will go back to Collinwood and you will never come back here again. You will find David and you will not tell him of any of this. Do you understand?" The vampire asked.
Kimberly in her hypnotic state only nodded "yes" and carefully made her way out of Joanna's office. She walked down the empty halls of Windcliff and looked back to the office and saw now exiting ...he closed the door behind him and continued down the long darkened hall.
Kimberly turned back around and quietly walked out of Windcliff and into the rain outside. Back to Collinwod without another sound.
Barnabas made his way through all the hospital rooms and found sleeping patients. All patients Joanna had drugged to keep them asleep through the night.
He painstakingly searched and searched down each hall and each hospital room for Maggie. His one and only. But patient after patient was not who he needed, who he wanted.
Suddenly something scurried in the corner of his periferal vision. He turned quickly and saw a door to a patiente's room was left open. He quickly dashed down the hall and came to a door that was marked GLASSBERG, R. ---Maggie's alias at the hospital.
The room was empty, the sheets on the bed pulled from one corner down to the ground as if the sheets tried to leave with the person who was in that bad.
Barnabas slammed his fist against the wall and turned around into the hall and heard the slamming of a door at the end of the hall. The red EXIT sign above it glowing a deep blood red. The open door led to the outside area, the wind and rain slamming the open door over and over again against the door frame.
Maggie had escaped.
Again.
****
The next morning Kat, who had been sick most of the day and night before, woke up to a whole new house at Collinwood. She came out of her bathroom with a smile on her face. She was feeling better after discovering the reason she was sick. She walked downstairs to tell Caleb her discovery and only found David, Chris, and Loomis McGovern her partner at the Police force.
They all had solemn looks on their faces.
"Loomis! What are you doing here....what's...going on?" She asked confused.
"Kat, we need you to sit down. There's some bad news." Christopher said.
"What's the matter?" Kat said concerned. "Where's Caleb?"
"Kat, there was a very big storm last night while you were sick and sleeping." Chris explained.
"Yeah I heard it. What's going on? Where's everyone else?" Kat continued as she looked around the room.
"Carolyn and Caleb were on a plane to London last night, a very last minute trip. It's a long story as to why they needed to go there but...." Loomis further explained.
"Yeah I heard it. What's going on? Where's everyone else?" Kat continued as she looked around the room.
"Carolyn and Caleb were on a plane to London last night, a very last minute trip. It's a long story as to why they needed to go there but...." Loomis further explained.
"Ok???" Kat said in a confused voice as she looked over at David who had tears in his eyes.
"And....." Chris said picking up where Loomis left off before getting choked up.
"....And Carolyn and Caleb ....their private jet got caught in that storm. It was a bad storm Kat." Loomis said.
"Loom...what the hell is going on. Tell me!" Kat demanded.
"The storm was too much Kat. Their plane crashed. Carolyn is in the hospital now, pretty serious. But the pilots and Caleb. Their bodies weren't found. Kat, Caleb is dead." Loomis said.
Kat's eyes instantly glazed over and she felt like she had the rug taken out from under her and Chris grabbed her to hold her up. She screamed in horror over the news, a scream the came from deep within her small body, then turned and ran back up the main staircase in absolute devastation.
Kat ran into her room slamming the door behind her. She then dashed into the bathroom and closed and locked the bathroom door where she had been just minutes before the bad news.
She slumped down on the floor devastated in tears to think that she would never be able to see Caleb again. Her heart felt like it was going to explode in grief.
From the bathroom floor, Kat reached up on the sink and picked up a pregnancy test. A pregnancy test that was positive.
Caleb was gone, on the same day Kat discovered she was having morning sickness. She was carrying his Caleb's baby.
****
The day light peeked through the shuttered windows of the old house causing little rays of light to stretch from the glass to the floor in rows of bright light stretching over the floor. In a peaceful slumber, Barnabas lay in his coffin, his quest to find Maggie the night before at Windcliff failed when she escaped, all he could do was sleep now, and wait for another day.
As the formidable vampire slept, a person walked into the old house and carefully made their way down the darkened hallway that led to the room where Barnabas lay. The person turned a corner into the room and saw the black coffin with the initials BC carved on it's lid and ran their fingers, clad in black leather gloves, along the ornate carved ridges that ran along the edges.
The person carefully, yet skillfully, slid the cover of the coffin over, allowing it to fall to the ground. Barnabas, laying there still and asleep, did not wake. The person carefully paced around the coffin looking at the body of the man that had done so much to so many, including them. His skin a perfect porcelain white glistened in the sparse sun light.
Suddenly, with one giant heave, the person with the black gloves pulled out a thick wooden steak from inside their jacket and lifted it with both hands above their head. Without a second thought, the person in black plunged it down in the direction of Barnabas' body.
With the reflexes of a panther, Barnabas' eyes instantly flipped open as the stake made its quick entrance into his heart causing a sharp and cruel feeling to shake him fully awake.
The intruder, dressed in all black, stepped away from the coffin and watched as Barnabas gasped for air and struggled in the coffin with the steak in his chest. He slowly lifted himself up, and looked up out of the coffin...standing in the corner of the room in all black was the face Barnabas never, ever expected to see again. The face of Victoria Winters.
Victoria was no stranger to Collinsport. She had come to the small seaport village many, many years ago at the request of Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard as Governess for a then 10 year old David Collins. Victoria knew the ins-and-outs of the town, mansion, and family. Her life, before she disappeared 50 years ago, was met with terrors and horrors that no one would ever believe. And Barnabas was the creature who brought these terrors on to her. Her life had never been the same since.
But she also had a secret. Victoria was the leader of The Vampire hunting Organization that conviced her to take the employment at the Collins estate as to infiltrate the Collins family 50 years ago under the guise of a Governess. The rouse was clever, cunning, and the most dangerous thing Vickie had ever done. But her destiny was set.
Victoria was no stranger to Collinsport. She had come to the small seaport village many, many years ago at the request of Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard as Governess for a then 10 year old David Collins. Victoria knew the ins-and-outs of the town, mansion, and family. Her life, before she disappeared 50 years ago, was met with terrors and horrors that no one would ever believe. And Barnabas was the creature who brought these terrors on to her. Her life had never been the same since.
But she also had a secret. Victoria was the leader of The Vampire hunting Organization that conviced her to take the employment at the Collins estate as to infiltrate the Collins family 50 years ago under the guise of a Governess. The rouse was clever, cunning, and the most dangerous thing Vickie had ever done. But her destiny was set.
Victoria stepped two stepped into Barnabas' direction, allowing herself to be fully revealed out of the shadowy corner and into the creeping light and only said three words to the fledgling Barnabas:
"Its over Barnabas."
