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| Barnabas Collins and Julia Hoffman-Collins |
A night so cold had never been recorded in Collinsport history, and this was the first snow fall of the year. Just outside of town, closer to Bangor, Maine, a small car pulled up to a slushy side walk just half a block from a frosted over old warehouse. The streets were sleek and dangerous, but the small car had made it safely as it followed another more modern black sedan.
Maggie and Sebastian had successful followed Serena to Dr. Shaw's warehouse lab. The chill matched the icy likability of Dr. Jeffery Shaw, a man who's son Andrew was in desperate need of the DNA that was going to be extracted from Christopher to help save his life.
"What is this place?" Maggie wondered out loud. "What is Serena doing here?"
"I think you should stay in the car." Sebastian told his mom, there was worry in his voice.
"I won't let you go in there alone, we have no idea what this place could, be if there is two of us at least ..." Maggie paused knowing what she said next may scare Sebastian into insisting that she stay in the car.
"At least what?" He questioned.
"Well if something happens, most likely the slower one of us would stay behind. That would be me, you'd be able to get out and find help." Maggie finished.
"No, nothing is going to happen. Don't think that way. Whatever is going on I'm sure Serena has a good explanation." Sebastian answered.
They looked at each other knowing that could only be wishful thinking.
To his reluctance, Maggie refused to stay in the car and they both, as stealth as possible, sneaked their way over to the main entrance of the warehouse. The door was an acid washed green, scratched and old like it had been through a tornado and somehow reattached to the face of the building. The building itself was tall but not long. It had dark walls on the outside and what seemed like four large square windows at the top near the roof where lights were on.
Sebastian looked up towards the windows and pointed as if to tell his mother that's where they needed to go. She nodded that she understood and Sebastian grabbed the door handled covered in the icy frost of the night and pulled.
It opened.
The two slowly made their way thought winding dark corridors that smelled of rust and rancid water. Maggie took a gulp of air and covered her nose and mouth while Sebastian made sure she stayed a good two steps behind with his arm extended making sure he was the first to see what was ahead of them.
A staircase.
Sebastian took a deep breath and they both, mother and son, began their assent into the unknown warehouse of Dr. Shaw. After about 5 floors, they finally arrived to a mezzanine that lead to another door.
"What do we do?" Maggie whispered, Sebastian put his finger up to his mouth.
"Shhh."
Sebastian carefully grabbed the door handle and slowly, as best he could turned it without making any noise. He pushed the door opened and there was Dr. Shaw pointing a gun at them, lying in wait.
"Welcome! Looks like I got a two-for-one deal!" Shaw said, alluding to the fact he now had Chris and Sebastian's werewolf DNA in house. "We've been watching you on my security cameras." Shaw announced with Serena nervously standing to his side.
Sebastian and Maggie quickly looked around, they were confused, it was all something they couldn't put their minds to understand. They saw a table, someone laying on the table, and then someone else laying in a bed.
"I believe you know my associate." He added gesturing to Serena standing to the side with a terrible look of fright on her face.
"Serena, what's going on?" Sebastian asked as he and Maggie slowly made their way into the lab with their hands up.
"Now, now, now, now. There really isn't time for a Q & A session, Serena and I have a lot of work ahead of us and seeing that it's almost 2 in the morning I'm sure you two would really like to be asleep so why don't I help that along." Shaw said as the gun clicked in his hand ready to shoot.
"Jeffery, please don't! I'm helping you, I'll make sure everything is taken care of just don't hurt them." Serena demanded.
Shaw looked at her and knew he needed her help. He couldn't risk her trying to retaliate and he have to kill all three of them. Shaw huffed and pointed with his gun to a small room with a little square window in the metal door just off the side of the Lab and forced Sebastian and Maggie inside. He then locked them in.
Shaw and Serena, who kept looking back at Sebastian's face in the window, then began the long processes of what was a DNA transfer.
"What's going on?" Maggie asked Sebastian.
"That's...Christopher! That's Christopher Reed over there on the table!" Sebastian said in a shocked tone.
"He's here?? The police have been looking for him everywhere, what does this person want with Chris?" Maggie wondered.
"I don't know but we have to get out of here, before it's too late." Sebastian said looking around the small room. As he did, he noticed a air-duct just above his head that was too small for him to enter, but perfect for Maggie.
"You're kidding!" Maggie said, as she followed his eyes.
"It's the only way." Sebastian answered.
Maggie took a deep breath and removed her coat. She was going to need all the extra room possible to get through the air-duct.
Meanwhile, Jeffery and Serena put on their scrubs but said nothing to each other. The heart monitor attached to Christopher bleeped and bopped every time his heart beat. Serena, now dressed in light blue surgical scrubs watched as Dr. Shaw slowly and meticulously removed marrow from deep inside Christopher's thy bone. He then took another syringe and continued down the the other side of Chris' body and removed more marrow. After, he took an even bigger syringe and removed samples from Chris' spine and neck. In all there were 6 vials of pure DNA from inside of Chris' body that were ready to transplant into Shaw's son Andrew.
"I'll need you to flip him back over." Shaw said to Serena as she wondered how she would flip over poor Christopher.
Suddenly, as Serena was adjusting Chris' body back on the table, moving him face down to face up, she noticed his blood pressure was slowing at an alarming rate as was his heart rate.
"How long has been been sedated?" Serena wondered, she had not seen him alert since she shot him at the Hotel, which was almost 9 hours before.
"Almost 10 hours." Shaw replied.
"That's too long. His BP...." Serena said as Chris' heart monitor began to ring an alarm.
"He's crashing." Shaw said, as he quickly turned from his Son's bedside.
____
In the art-duct Maggie carefully pushed her way through using her arms and pulling with her hands through the tight tube just above Shaw and Serena. Maggie finally came to the end of the air-duct and pushed the grate off and quickly grabbed it just before it fell to the ground exposing her. She pulled the grate in and inched her way out of the duct and on to a small metal latter that was attached to the wall. She climbed down the latter and dashed over to room Sebastian was still held in.
___
"What do I do?" Serena screamed.
Shaw did nothing.
"JEFFERY! You have to help him!" Serena screamed again.
Jefferey put all of the vials for Andrew in a machine that loaded the vials into what looked like I.V. bags that would then flow into Andrew's body hopefully allowing him to recover super-humanly from his coma.
"Jeffery!" Serena screamed.
Dr. Shaw finally came over from Andrew's bedside and began to start CPR on Christopher. He pressed down forcefully on his chest, he breathed into his mouth, he pressed down again on the chest, back to his mouth.
But it was too late. Christopher's heart stopped. The overdose of the sedative slowed his breathing and eventually caused his heart to stop.
"Its too late." Shaw said.
"You murderer. YOU MURDERER! This wasn't supposed to happen!!" Serena screamed. Her eyes widened, then she gasped just as Sebastian came from behind and smacked a steel pipe he had found down on Shaw's head knocking him to the ground.
Maggie was successful.
Maggie then went over to Chris and caressed his face, Serena rushed over to Sebastian, he pulled her into his arms.
"I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry!" Serena said.
"What the hell happened here? What have you done?" Maggie asked but was soon interrupted by moaning over in the corner.
They all turned to look. With half of the DNA in the vials now in Andrew's body, the experiment had worked. The superhuman DNA had worked, Andrew Shaw was awake.
****
Over the many times Barnabas has come back to Collinsport in the last 5 years, he had lost and retained many of his supernatural abilities. One of his afflictions was that the power of the sunlight would affect him negatively. This was now gone, he was now free to be awake in the day, just as long as he stayed away from direct sun light. His pale skin still very sensitive and almost translucent to the rays of light.
At the Old House, Julia looked around her new surroundings. Coming back from 1971 to 2018, she noticed just how much the Old house was the same but different. And most importantly, her mistrust of what was really happening needed to be kept safe--the play of memory loss from the transfer into the future needed to be kept up. She had no idea what the people in 2018 really intended to do with her. Her caution was true to form. Julia understood every danger that was around her.
"How are you feeling?" Barnabas said as he sat down in the drawing room where Julia was staring out of the front window.
"Oh, fine, thank you." She said coldly.
"Are you feeling more comfortable? I can't imagine what it's like to not have your memory." Barnabas prodded.
"I am thank you." Julia said again, her voice unwilling to open up to this Barnabas, a Barnabas of 2018, a man she recognized but did not trust, her gut telling her that something deep inside this version of the man she loved was cold and hardened. Her body language didn't hide it either.
"We must try and bring your memory back. It would mean so much for Siobhan and even myself. I think once you do, we can be a family again." Barnabas said.
"Is that what you want? To be a family again?" She questioned.
"Yes, that's what I've always wanted. My whole existence family was the connection that always alluded me. I was always a man who was surrounded by people who were related to me but me having my own family was something that escaped me each time I tried. Until that is you and I were in Singapore. We made it happen." Barnabas said.
"But how do you know this is what I would have wanted? How do you know that I would have wanted to leave 1971 and come here to be with this version of you? You took me away from my child. She was so small." Julia said, somewhat breaking from her pretend amnesia.
"Are you remembering something Julia?" Barnabas said, quickly catching on to her accidental break in character.
"What? No, what I mean is what Siobhan and I were talking about last night. She told me about how I left when she was very small, her memory is of me leaving, that's because of Vicky coming for me---on your behalf." Julia said trying to explain herself.
"Hmmm..." Barnabas lifted an eyebrow. He wasn't convinced. "What would bring you to that thought? why wouldn't Julia--you--want to be here? This is your family too." He wondered.
"I just think that perhaps I should have stayed where I was. Perhaps me agreed to come with Ms. Winters was a mistake, I shouldn't be here." Julia said her clear discomfort now obvious and annoying to Barnabas, he knew that once Julia had something set in her mind it would be hard convince her otherwise.
Barnabas slowly walked over Julia who carefully stepped backwards closer to the window. She was so close to the window she could feel the icy winter morning air chill through the glass. He looked deep into her eyes and wondered what she was thinking. He could see this Julia, this version of her was hiding something. It was a gift he had, to see the truth just by looking deep into their eyes. Something Carolyn also was able to do, which is why they often were at odds with each other.
"I feel like there's something you want to tell me Julia, something on your mind. I brought you here because I needed you, Siobhan needed you..." Barnabas said, his voice sounding quite frustrated, then Julia interrupted.
"But didn't they need me in 1971?" She pushed back.
"Julia you died in that timeline, bringing you here has saved your life. I brought you here not only to reconnect with your daughter but to save your life." Barnabas said emphatically highlighting his actions of what he saw as chivalrous. "What killed you all those years ago can practically be cured in this time, don't you understand that?" Barnabas pushed back some more.
"Barnabas, you can't go around breaking the rules of life forever, you can't do things to your whim just because you can. I don't belong here!" Julia shot back again, as she pushed her way free from Barnabas at the window.
"BUT YOU DO!" He yelled at her, now that she felt safer over by the fireplace.
"No, I don't. I came only because Vicky told me it would be the right thing for my daughter but now I see that she has thrived without me, and that is how it should have always been. I shouldn't have come with her and you shouldn't have forced Vicky to do what she did. The Barnabas I know would never have done this." She said once again breaking from her pretend amnesia.
Barnabas paused before he walked over to where Julia was. He could tell that what she was hiding was the fact that her memory was never gone. She was lying, perhaps buying time to find out if what she was experiencing was real. His frustration turned to anger at her lie and Julia could feel the energy in room suddenly change into a dangerous electricity. She did not feel safe.
"Julia...."Barnabas said, as he walked closer and closer to his wife, his mind going to a very dark place. "You do remember, don't you... You've been lying." Barnabas growled as he quickly rushed over to Julia at the fireplace.
Julia scoffed at Barnabas, she could see his was more interested in what she remembered or didn't then the actual damage he had done bringing her to another time.
"You don't even understand what you've done. You are cold again---the man I knew grew and learned that his dark ways were not the way to living a good life whatever that life was. He was a man who fought back from terrible disaster and became someone honorable. I don't know this Barnabas. I don't know who you are!" She screamed in his face.
"You don't know what I have gone through in the last 5 years, Julia, you haven't been here to see just how much I have had to survive without you. But you're here now and you can do what you've always done and help me survive." Barnabas said.
Julia looked over at Barnabas and shook her head. She was terrified of who this man was. His face was the same but the darkness in him she thought had dissipated with their love so long ago. Time had changed him, death and loss had changed him. All she wanted was to go back and return to the Barnabas she loved, not this hardened cold person she saw in front of her.
"Time has changed you. Send me back!" She said, hoping he would understand that this was all a mistake.
"That's impossible. You're not leaving. Not ever." Barnabas said.
"Barnabas you can't keep me here against my will, you have to have Vicky send me back. I don't belong here!!" Julia said, her voice loud and forceful.
"I can and will do anything I want!" Barnabas said equally as forceful as he grabbed her arm.
"What are you doing? Let me go!" Julia said.
He grabbed her and took her kicking and screaming down a long hallway and up and back staircase. She kept punching him on his arm for release but Barnabas was too strong. He looked over and his eyes had turned back, his angry inside to Julia's resistance fueled his fury and his teeth. He was in full vampire mode, hissing and thirsty for human blood. He was cold, hardened and angry all over again.
He brought her up the back staircase that lead to a large bedroom that stood at the back of the old house the faced the sea. He opened the door and pushed Julia in. His forceful push landed her on the floor as he closed the door and locked her in.
"Until you see how important you are to me and to my survival, Julia, until you see just how important you are for Siobhan, you won't be free from this room. You are the key Julia, you are the key to all things that make me who I need to be." Barnabas said, his veins bulging pumping his cold blood through his body.
Julia pounded on the door screaming.
"YOU CAN'T DO THIS! Barnabas!!! Let me out!!!" She screamed, but Barnabas was gone.
Julia looked around. She saw a window and went to it, but it was fused shut. She could not open it.
Barnabas' anger towards Julia's deceit and turned him to an evil side. A side that over the years had slowly returned. His darkness had slowly but surely returned and no one was safe, not even the people he loved, and Julia resisting his plan would only drag him further into this dark, cold shadow.
****
Collinwood was a buzz with electricity and movement. Detective Loomis McGovern had bad news for Carolyn and Alex on Christopher's case. In the drawing room over coffee and the soft light of the mid-morning he handed over his file.
"How can this be?" Carolyn asked as she read over the papers.
"Mother, what is it?" Alex questioned.
"I'm very sorry. Very early this morning we were called to a warehouse just outside of town and the news isn't good." Loomis said to Alex who was still confused.
"Honey, I need you to be very strong." Carolyn began. "They found Christopher."
"Where is he? Where is he???" Alex started, not knowing what was going to come next.
"Honey, he was killed. The people that took him ...." Carolyn paused not knowing how to explain to her daughter what the police report had said. "The people that took him used his body for an experimental procedure and he didn't make it." Carolyn finished.
"No. That can't be true. He....Chris is coming back to me. He has to! We've been through so much, he can't just be gone." Alex said, shaking in her chair as David and Siobhan walked in.
Alexandra burst into tears and ran into David's arms. He and Siobhan had heard the news as well. The devastation was written all over their faces. Kind, sweet Christopher had been taken, used and left to die in a bed in a warehouse. Alex's life was now in the same situation as Carolyn's was just a few weeks ago when she too lost the man she loved. It was like a vicious cycle that the women of this family were cursed to never be happy.
"I'll leave you all alone. I'm sure you have lots of arrangements." Loomis said as he handed over more paperwork of the closing of the investigation.
"Loomis, wait!" David said, as Siobhan took Alex. "Did you find who did this?"
"Loomis, wait!" David said, as Siobhan took Alex. "Did you find who did this?"
"We arrested a man named Jeffery Shaw. He used what we think were Chris' stem-cells to inject into his son who was at the time comatose. He's in jail now and we've charged him with 3 counts of kidnapping, extortion and murder." Loomis explained.
"Three counts?" David questioned.
"Maggie Evans and Sebastian Banning were actually the people that found Chris. He was holding them hostage too. Its a very complicated story that we're still connecting all the dots to, but once we figure it all out I'll let you know." Loomis explained to a shocked David.
Carolyn walked over to David was now at the front door seeing Loomis out. She had overheard Loomis say Maggie was involved and was confused and wanted to know answers.
"Did I hear him say Maggie and Sebastian were there?" She said, her voice hushed as to not alarm Alex who was with Siobhan in the drawing room.
"I don't know what the hell is going on, but I'm sure Maggie will tell us as soon as she can. I'm just glad we have what is as close to closure as possible. How are you holding up?" David said hugging Carolyn as he knew how hard it was for her to her daughter breaking down.
"I'll be fine. It's hard to go through another loss so soon after Jude but I have to there for Alex. She's the most important thing to me on this whole planet. I have to be there for her." Carolyn said, her strength pulling from the Collins blood the flowed through her veins.
"Well you're going to have to be a lot stronger when I tell you this next bit of news." David said, his tone turning worried about how Carolyn was going to react.
"What is it?"
"It's Barnabas. It seems our crypt keeper of a cousin has done it again. Every time we think he's gotten around to be as normal as possible he pulls something out of his hat and turns our world upside down." David explained.
"What has he done?" Carolyn questioned again.
"Carolyn....uh....he's managed to bring Julia Hoffman back. She's alive Carolyn. She's here." David said point blank.
Carolyn's face turned white as a ghost. Her heart sunk deep into her stomach. She was speechless but at the same time she almost felt like she hadn't heard something new at all. It was in Barnabas' wheelhouse to do these types of things, but it was shocking none-the-less.
"This is...I knew it. From the moment I came back I felt there was something different about him. I knew that he hand't changed like he promised. He is the same person he's always been. And now we have to worry about why he would do this? What in the world could his motive be for bringing back a dead woman?" Carolyn said, her angry and frustration pouring out of her like a leaking sieve.
"There's more." David said, as Carolyn rolled her eyes. "He got Vicky to bring her back."
"Vicky!?! Vicky is back in town too?" Carolyn exclaimed, to David nodding his head. "That's it. That's IT! I need to have a conversation with our dear old living dead cousin Barnabas. I've had just about enough of all of this. I've had enough of his turning our world upside down. This will be the last time Barnabas Collins takes what he wants, causes chaos and asks questions later, he's never answered for anything he's ever done. But now..............he's going to answer to me--once and for all." Carolyn finished, her face stone and firm as her words. She was determined to change the dynamic at Collinwood and end the curse...if it were the last thing she ever did.
And just as the conversation between David and Carolyn ended and the two went back into the drawing room to comfort Alex, the mysterious being of light that had escaped the mirror from Carolyn's seance watched. It watched them talk from the top of the staircase, it watched them go back into the drawing room and it watched as the Collins family once again mourned another one of their members.
The mysterious being wasn't new to the mansion. Not in the slightest. It had been there before. It had lived among the family and known them intimately. It had known the ins and outs of the mansion and all its secrets.
As the mysteriouy being slowly floated through the halls undetected it entered the library where the walls were hung with portraits of the many faces of the past.
Naomi Collins, Jeremiah Collins, even little Sarah had a portrait, then a hand, a woman's hand reached over and touched the portrait of Barnabas on a horse outside of the Old House. A favorite panting of this mysterious female being.
"Soon..... soon it'll all come together and soon.... we'll meet again." She mysterious female said, with her glowing body slowly morphing into a living human person, the person she was many years ago.
Angelique Bouchard.
