While the night progressed, and the moon continued to shine down on the fog covered Collinsport, Julia made her way towards the Collinsport Inn where she had heard She might get a glimpse of her newly discovered granddaughter Quinn Devereaux. Julia wanted to see her, but deep down inside she wasn't sure if she could actually meet her in person. Not now, not yet, now when she still was living in Collinwood in seclusion from the rest of the world that didn't know she was alive and well.
She carefully walked up the street, as discretely as possible with a flowery scarf around her hair, dark glasses over her eyes even in the dark, and thick tweed coat around her body keeping her warm in the cool spring night air. She walked along main streets where the restaurants and local taverns were busy with patrons. Eventually she made her way past a shop across the two way street from the Inn and as luck would have it, she came in contact with Maggie Evans who was leaving the shop with a few extra things for the cottage; now that Serena was living there too.
"Oh excuse me!" Maggie exclaimed as she looked at the strange woman in dark glasses at night who bumped into her.
Julia looked at Maggie and quickly turned her face away, but it was too late. Maggie could never forget that face.
When it registered to Maggie who she bumped into her jaw dropped.
"Julia???" Maggie asked in total shock, to the point she dropped her shopping bags.
"I'm sorry you must have me confused with someone else." Julia said trying to make a quick get away.
"No, I am definitely not confused. You're Julia Hoffman!" Maggie said.
Julia grabbed Maggie by the arms and quickly pulled her aside. Their footsteps echoed as Julia led Maggie down the a small cobble-stone ally that was between the two shops, a place Julia could talk to Maggie without the prying eyes of other strangers walking down the street.
Maggie, of course, was still in shock at who she was seeing in front of her. A woman she believed to have been dead decades ago, with all the commotion going on in her own life with Sebastian and Serena and Jeffery, Maggie hadn't heard that Julia was alive---or that she was even in town!
"Keep your voice down!" Julia insisted.
"How can this even be happening right now? Julia how are you alive?" Maggie questioned her former psychiatrist.
"It's a very long story, I don't even know exactly how to begin." Julia said looking back to see if anyone was coming, but the coast was clear, the only thing behind her was the Collinsport Inn across the street from where they were standing.
"Well I never really put the events in this town in any kind of category, so if you want to clear anything up, I would most likely believe you. Julia, you died in 1987, I know that for sure, so how are you standing in front of me looking the same as I remember you back... in..." Maggie paused and realized she really didn't to think that hard about Julia's return. "why do I have a feeling someone named Barnabas had a hand in you bringing here looking just as alive as ever?" Maggie finished.
"That's only half of it, Maggie, there's really a lot more that I can't even get into right now."
"Of course there is." Maggie said sarcastically. "What are you doing out at night with glasses on anyway?" She wondered.
Julia didn't know what to say. How could she come right out and say she was in search of her long lost granddaughter that she never knew existed because she had abandoned said granddaughter's father years ago after killing his father in an accidental shooting?
Telling the truth now after so many decades of denial and pretending she had never done what she did was harder than just pretending and keeping the lies alive. The lies were now truth in Julia's brain. But just as Julia attempted to continue to conceal the truth and get her way out of Maggie's constant questions Maggie quickly flipped the topic to two people leaving the hotel across the street a awaiting their car at the Hotel valet.
"That bastard!" Maggie said as she saw Jeffery and Quinn in the hotel valet queue.
Julia quickly removed her glasses to see her granddaughter more clearly, the beautiful auburn haired Quinn Devereaux. Julia's eyes watered. She looked so much like her when she was young. It was almost uncanny how much Julia saw herself in Quinn's face.
"Who...uh.. who is that?" Julia carefully asked making sure it was who she thought it was as they were now both looking at Jeffery and Quinn from across the small Collinsport street.
"Jeffery Shaw and his lawyer Quinn Devereaux." Maggie growled. "He's the man responsible for everything that happened to Christopher Reed." She added.
"Quinn...." Julia whispered as it was confirmed to be her one and only blood family member.
'He's a monster, and that woman isn't better!" Maggie said just as bristly.
"Why?" Julia wondered.
"She's his lawyer. She got him off murder chargers. Some how, some way she got it into the DA's mind that it wasn't worth charging Jeffery for Christopher's death. I don't know, people like that shouldn't be able to have happy lives after the terrible things they do. Even if it is their job." Maggie said to a saddened Julia.
Julia squinted to see her granddaughter better. The lights of the hotel valet area reflected down on the pair enough that Julia and Maggie could clearly see exactly who they were talking about. Quinn's hair, her fair skin. Her wide eyes that seemed to glow green all the way from across the small two way street, were almost spitting images of Julia when she was that age. She couldn't believe she was seeing her granddaughter, a woman that she had never knew existed and now was standing in front of her, just a few hundred feet away, her own flesh and blood. An image of a haunting past that Julia had suppressed and lied about her whole adult life.
"Julia? Are you ok? You look like you're in some kind of trans!" Maggie said noticing Julia's odd behavior.
Julia only looked at Maggie with a fascinated look and could only nod her head that she was fine, but continued to stair at Quinn like she was gazing at the most perfect piece of art.
Across the street waiting for the Hotel Valet to bring Quinn's car around, Jeffery was growing impatient. He and Quinn had to make one more appearance before a judge in the morning so that the DA's final approval of no prosecution could be handed down. Quinn's deal with the DA required him to sign more papers in person in front of him him that night before the court hearing in the morning. All Jeffery could think about, however, where Andrew and Serena were and if they had found the serum at Collinwood.
"You know it would probably look better if you wouldn't act so damn strange tonight knowing that we have to meet with the DA in about 25 minutes to turn in these papers." Quinn quipped, her frustration with her client showing.
"I don't have the patience for this right now." Jeffery snapped.
"Why? What's the matter?" his lawyer wondered.
"Andrew and Serena haven't checked in. I don't know what's happened up and Collinwood. They may have the serum or they not. Neither of them are answering their cell phones." Jeffery answered nervous and agitated.
"Wait, excuse me? Serena who? I'm assuming you don't mean the woman you blackmailed into kidnapping the person who I literally just got you off the hook for murdering. Not that Serena right?" Quinn said again, her annoyance now showing in plain view as Jeffery continued to keep things from her, things that were important to know if she was going to defend him on any on-going illegal activity.
"Quinn, please not now."
"Jesus, Jeffery! You're going to have me disbarred if they find out you're still involved in something underhanded, I put my neck on the line for you and you're still doing something that could potentially through this whole thing out the window." Quinn scolded.
"This is about Andrew's life and making sure he survives what you saw yesterday. There's no way around it, and Serena still owes me." Jeffery answered.
"You mean she owes me. I was the one that threw the DA off her trail too. Just what is it exactly are they doing that will help Andrew that is making you act this way?" She said but then realized as his lawyer it was better that he not tell her. "FORGET that last part! I shouldn't know anything if it's illegal, it could remove our attorney/client privilege, although at this part of our relationship I'm not sure that's a bad thing." She warned.
Jeffery only leered at her with an equally annoyed look. He kept looking down at his phone, but there were no missed calls. Serena and Andrew were M.I.A.
****
The hotel room was secure and safe, a private place where no one would bother them, and the medications that Jeffery had in hand would sedate Andrew enough until the next day where he would then be human again and also buy them time to find the actual serum to cure Andrew.
The car raced through the small foggy town, the streets were still slick from the storm. They drove passed the Founder's Park where the large statue of Joshua Collins stood looking out over the town he founded. They drove past the police station where Loomis was outside. His lit cigarette reflected a hot red light on his cheek. He quickly tossed the cigarette down into a large puddle of water in the street gutter and got into his car to chase after the speeding Alexandra and Serena, he welcomed the standard speeding ticket after the insane few months he had dealing with the Collins family, he had no idea what he was in for.
Meanwhile, Andrew was writhing in pain in the backseat of the car. Alex could see his body quickly changing while Serena drove.
"We have to hurry!!" Alex said as Serena swerved around other cars and with Loomis hot on their trail with his lights blaring.
"Is he going to be ok?" Serena asked as she tried to look in the back seat.
"Not if we don't get him to Shaw's hotel room. What kind of medicine did you say he was going to use?" Alex wondered.
"Sedatives. Just to help him sleep." Serena informed Alex.
"Andrew, please hold on, please!" Alex said as she grabbed his hand.
Their touch ignited yet another memory from the past. It was Chris' face smiling at Alex while they were in London walking together one evening in Piccadilly Circus. The lights of all the square were like tiny stars all around the loving couple. They twinkled and sparkled, it was one of the most perfect nights they had ever had together . But something was different. Even though the memory was in fact of Chris, and the event did actually happen in the past year in London, something was different.
Chris was looking at her strangely. Chris stepped back in the memory and let go of Alex's hand, which never happened. He looked at her with an expression that she did not remember and suddenly his body began to change. He was turning into a light form something miraculous, and then without explanation Chris turned int Andrew.
It was now Andrew in their shared memory holding Alex in Piccadilly Circus.
Andrew grabbed Alex's hand in the memory. This was Chris' way to tell her he wanted her to be with Andrew. And to save him.
Alex quickly released Andrew's hand and she was back in the racing car in Collinsport.
"What happened? Are you ok?" Serena asked Alex noticing she suddenly went silent for a second while she had the memory flash when she touched Andrew.
"It was Chris. Chris....he sent me a message." Alex said, as Andrew screamed in pain.
The loud groan was so loud it shook the entire car. At this point, The back seat was no longer a safe place to carry Andrew who was now half way into his transition. The moon light shined down into the car threw the sun-roof window and surrounded all who were in the car.
Andrew's feet began to rip through his shows. His arms began to split the seams of his shirt. His pants were starting to cut at the seams where his legs were getting bigger and bigger. His ears began to change, pointy and fur covered. He began to scream with pain as his body absorbed the light of the moon.
The car carrying Serena, Alex and Andrew turned the corner, Loomis McGovern still hot on their trail unsure of why this car was traveling at a massive amount of speed.
People are the streets were dashing out of the way. Screaming at the car that was running red lights through town and traffic intersections like a hot butter through knife, carving a dangerous path of other cars pulling over and into side streets to avoid being blasted by the small car going close to 105 miles an hour and the police car in pursuit.
They soon arrived on the street of the Hotel, and Alex saw a light at the end of the tunnel.
But it was too late. Andrew was now fully transformed into the mouth foaming, flesh hungry werewolf. His eyes were red, burning red. His teeth were like carnivorous knives craving the soft fleshy bodies of the women in the front seats.
"Oh my god!!!" Serena said as she gazed at the creature in her backseat.
Andrew, now in werewolf form snarled, and shook the car. The seats began to tare at his trashing and
Serena was only minutes away from the Hotel, but the car could no longer control the monster inside of it.
"My god what's happening?" Maggie said as the two cars suddenly came closer and closer to where they were standing and where Jeffery and Quinn were also getting into their own car on their way to the evening meeting with the DA.
As Serena's driving became more and more erratic, she came closer and closer to the hotel, and within seconds the velocity of the car's speed mixed with wet roads and the rocking back and forth from Andrew's massive transitioned body mass plowed directly into Jeffery and Quinn's car that was inching it's way out of the Hotel driveway.
Jeffery and Quinn did not see Serena's car. There was no time. Everything happened like a flash of light, like the blink of an eye.
Serena's car hit Jeffery's car so hard that it launched in the air and flipped it down on its roof when it landed. Jeffery and Quinn rolled over several times on the street until the small car came to a smokey rest in the center of the rainy, wet street.
Serena's car was finally stopped but was crushed from the front all the way up into the center of the car. Alex was moaning in pain. Serena was out cold. Loomis' car came up from behind and pulled over. He was in shock at what he saw. Two cars in smolders.
"OH MY GOD!" Maggie screamed from across the street.
"Quinn!" Julia said equally as petrified for her granddaughter who had minutes before gotten into the second car that was now upside down in the middle of the street smoking.
Maggie dropped her shopping bags and ran over to Serena's car, Julia rushed over with Loomis to Jeffery and Quinn's.
"We have to get them out of here. I smell smoke." Loomis said to Julia, not even noticing who she was.
"Gas too!" Julia said
"Oh my god! Serena! Alex! Wake up, Wake up honey!!" Maggie screaming into the car and tapping Alex's face from the passenger side window. Maggie tried to open Alex's door but it was too crushed. She quickly rushed over to Serena's side, that door too was too smashed to open.
As Maggie tried to wake up Alex and get the two front doors open she noticed that the back door of the car was undamaged and rushed over. She quickly grabbed the handle and pulled the door open.
As if flung open, the monstrous Andrew who was coming out of his daze from the accident roared his way out, Maggie screamed in terror and began to back up at the sight of Andrew.
The werewolf snarled, huffed lunged out of the car knocking Maggie down to the ground and scratching her face with his claws in the process.
Maggie lay there bleeding from her face. She put her hands up on her cheek. She could taste her own blood now slowly meeting the creases of her lips. She managed to sit up, her head was dazed from the bang to the ground. She had seen what had pushed the door open but was unsure of who it was....Sebastian came to mind suddenly.
Maggie's thoughts were all so fuzzy, and it all happened so quickly. As she let the dizziness from the fall subside she heard screams of people all around her and a snarling, the wolf was loose.
Maggie stayed still. She felt the breathing now on her neck from behind. She slowly closed the car door with her foot and in the reflection of the window she saw two red hot eyes peering at her from this large dark mass of directly behind her.
"Sebastian?" Maggie said, unsure if it was her own son thirsting for her flesh.
"Maggie!!!!!" Julia screamed noticing the monster as she slowly pulled Quinn out from the upside down car.
Quinn moaned and tried to get up.
"Don't move! Don't move!!!" Julia said back to Quinn.
People were screaming and running in every direction. The sound of Andrew's heavy breathing was like a bull's. It was pushing hot air onto Maggie's hair. The wolf, Andrew, pulled his head back and howled a blood curtailing sound that woke Alex from her daze. Alex opened her eyes and saw Loomis coming over from Jeffery's car with his weapon drawn pointed at Andrew.
Alex, her forehead bleeding from the accident, her lip bruised and purple, suddenly felt life coming at her in slow motion. She felt her body tense up in fear of what was about to happen next. She screamed at Loomis to stop and without even knowing she did it, a powerful magnetic energy radiated from her hand and pulled Loomis' gun from his hand and it flew across to the other side of the street.
Alex's powers, the magic she had inherited from Claudia Bouchard, were slowing returning. She could feel it percolating in her body again. She had tried for 4 years to suppress these abilities because of all the terrible things she did when she used them, but now they were there. They were so strong, and she couldn't fight the urge to use them to save Andrew from Loomis' bullet.
Andrew looked over at Alex and howled again then quickly ran off into the distant darkness of the night and fog growling and snapping at all the other Collinsport resident's running in every direction.
Maggie quickly got up from the ground, glass from the accident sticking into the palms of her hands and got Alex out from the back seat as Loomis got Serena out from her own car door that he managed to open.
"What happened? How did you..." Maggie asked Alex about Loomis Gun.
"I didn't do anything." Alex said still dazed from the accident.
Loomis only looked at her strange, but only asked one question.
"What was that?"
Alex said nothing as the ambulances arrived and quickly began to tend to Serena and Alex.
A third ambulance arrived to help Quinn. Julia had never left her side since she was removed from the car.
"Honey, you're going to be ok. You're going to be fine." Julia whispered as the EMC's came over.
"My arm....my arm." Quinn said.
"It looks broken honey, just relax they're coming for you. They're coming to help you." Julia reassured.
"Jeff....Jeffery." Quinn muttered.
Jeffery was silent in the twisted seat next to Quinn. His head was turned away. Quinn reached over but as she did, the EMT's pulled her quickly out of the car. Another EMT rushed over to Jeffery. They took his vitals and then rushed back to the ambulance leaving Jeffery in the car.
"What about Jeffery?" Quinn said now on a gurney, her mind in a blur dazed from the accident.
"Is that the man she was in the car with?" An EMT questioned Julia who was standing next to Quinn on the stretcher. Julia nodded "yes."
The EMT paused and looked back at Jeffery's mangled car. Julia's eyes followed as two police officer's placed a sheet over the area where Jeffery was protecting him from curious eyes.
"He didn't make it." The EMT whispered back.
Julia looked back at Quinn, but Quinn had not heard the EMT about Jeffery's death.
"I need to find him. I need to get to him!" Alex said to Maggie who was holding her hand.
"Honey, I don't know what's going on, who was that? What was that?" Maggie terrified that it was her son Sebastian who had his own past with lycanisim.
"I need to get to him!" Alex kept saying as she was placed on the gurney.
"Ma'am do you know these ladies?" A second EMT asked.
"Yes, this one is a family friend, and the other one is my son's girlfriend." Maggie said.
"They're going to be ok, ma'am, only a few cuts and bruises luckily. I'm going to have to ask to let us take them now to the hospital." The EMT said.
"Ok. Honey, I'll call your family and we'll all meet you at the hospital Ok? I'll get with Sebastian too," Maggie said unsure if she would really find her son "and we'll all be there shortly. Don't worry." Maggie told Alex. "Is she going to be ok?" Maggie then asked about Serena who had not woken up.
"She's pretty banged up but nothing serious on the outside. I think she'll be ok. She looks like she hit her head pretty bad." a fourth EMT said.
"If she wakes up on the way you be sure to tell her Sebastian is coming! You hear me?" Maggie ordered still unsure if her son was the wolf or not.
"Yes ma'am!" the EMT obediently replied. "You should have those gashes on your face looked at too. They're pretty deep. Did you slip in the glass?" The EMT then asked.
Maggie felt her face again and suddenly remembered how she got the three slices on her left cheek....and slash of a werewolf. She swallowed hard in a stunning moment of worry...what would become of her now? Was a werewolf scratch as bad as a werewolf bite?
Julia looked over at Maggie at the other end of the accident scene with Alex and Serena. There was chaos. There was confusion. So much had happened in such quick succession. They stared at each other knowing that the worst of what they had experienced so many years ago had reared it's ugly face again. Death. Monstrous, and bloody horrible death was all around them--again. Things, this time around, seemed bleaker than ever.
As the scene began to wind down and the various parties rushed off to the hospital and the police arrived and began to take stock of the serious accident and covered up Jeffery's body. The rain began to pour again making the streets slicker than they were before.
The sound of the rain mixed with the slow slush of the passing cars on the street while the clean up began was cut short when the clouds suddenly parted revealing the moon. Then the werewolf, hidden somewhere in the dark howled a cold howl of death.
Julia and Maggie came back together on the of the street frozen in shock and hugged.
It was still out there. It was still hungry and it had the taste of Maggie's blood in it's claws.
Andrew howled again, a deep cold howl that echoed all the way up to Collinwood causing shivers to go up David and Siobhan's spine. They looked at each other then received the call from Maggie about the accident.
"We'll be right there!!" David said as Siobhan snuggled a sleeping baby John, worry written all over her face.
"We have to tell Carolyn." Siobhan said.
"Carolyn..." David reminded himself. "Where is she? I haven't seen her all night." He continued, not knowing that his cousin was trapped in a vault of stone-body at the old house.
The moon lit the ocean waves like a lantern in the night. They crashed over the black sea-side rocks of Maine like the powerful fists of a boxer.
What this night had created, was the beginning of the end for many in the town of Collinsport.
