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| Lucas and Serena at the Old House as Barnabas returns via the portal |
Sunrise. The brilliance and warmth of the sun. With this new day a kind of score settling within the grounds of the Collinwood estate will begin. A connection to the past will be made, and line of communication to another world will be sought, and death once again will arrive on the Collins family doorstep.
David bounced down the main staircase buttoning his clean white shirt cuffs. He looked around the corner in a smaller room adjacent the drawing room and came out unsatisfied with what he found. Which was nothing.
He entered the drawing room where Maggie Evans and David’s older cousin Carolyn Stoddard-Thorne were enjoying a morning coffee and gossiping about the goings-on down in town.
"David! Hi hon! Coffee?" Maggie’s voice sang, leaping over the furniture and into the foyer to David’s wondering ears.
"You ok?" Carolyn asked handing him a mug.
"Have you seen Siobhan? She got up super early this morning and I haven’t seen her." David asked.
"No." Carolyn replied. "Maybe she’s already made her way out to Windcliff."
"Without saying goodbye?" He wondered.
"Don’t worry, hon, she’s probably busy now that she’s back at work." Maggie assured him.
David accepted Maggie’s conclusion but still something didn’t sit well with him especially after his bizarre run in with Dominique do Arco the night before where she had left him in a rush only with a mysterious photo of a young woman with his last name. A young woman with his last name and his eyes. David’s mind was all over the place, he could deduce from Dominique’s demeanor that India was the reason for her visit, but her vanishing act was another story. He still couldn’t figure out how she disappeared so quickly and silently.
"What are you doing up here so early?" David said to Maggie sitting down in a chair with his coffee.
"Serena needed the morning off with John-Michael so I came over for her. She should be here later this afternoon." Maggie explained. "He’s still sleeping like an angel."
The threesome continued to chat among themselves when suddenly Sebastian, Maggie’s son and Serena’s boyfriend walked into the house unannounced in a panic. He rushed upstairs and said nothing to Maggie, Carolyn and David in the foyer who were startled by his sudden entrance.
"What the devil?" Carolyn said as she turned to Maggie who embarrassingly stood up.
"I’m sorry, I’ll see what’s going on."
Maggie quickly made her way after her son, her heart sinking to her stomach with embarrassment.
David, finding a window of opportunity alone with Carolyn, pulled out a the photo of his daughter with Dominique, who’s name was India, from his inside jacket pocket that was slumped over the back of his chair. He stared at it for a moment then placed it down on the coffee table face up. It was astonishing how much India resembled Carolyn’s mother Elizabeth.
Carolyn sipped from her small opal colored coffee mug and grinned.
"What is this?"
"Who does she look like?" David wondered.
Carolyn’s brow furrowed. She grimaced and snatched up the photo from the table to get a closer look.
"Well I don’t know. She’s lovely, but I can’t tell you who she looks like. She does look familiar." Carolyn confirmed.
"You don’t think she looks like your mother at all?" David lead.
"I can see that, yes. She does have my mother’s eyes. She’s beautiful." Carolyn agreed, flipping over the photo and reading the name out loud and adding two-and-two together.
Her eyes widened, her hand’s suddenly began to give a little shake with shock, it was now obvious what David was trying to tell Carolyn. The girl in the photo was his, a daughter.
"India do Arco....Collins???" Carolyn read from the back of the photograph. "David....no!!"
"I don’t know how to tell Siobhan. I didn’t even know she was mine, or that she existed until last night. An old girlfriend came by and told me about. I thought maybe Siobhan had overheard or something and was angry and that’s why she’s not here." David answered.
"David, I don’t know what to say. How do you think Siobhan will react?" Carolyn replied shaking her head.
David looked at a small photo on a side table of his wedding to Siobhan and picked it up. "I don’t know." He answered. "With everything that’s happened with Vicky and Curtis and Angelique and Julia and Quinn, I just don’t know how much more Siobhan can take. It’s been a lot for her the last few months."
"It’s been a lot for all of us, but that’s the thing about the women in this family, darling, we can take anything. You need to tell her before it’s too late. It’ll become a secret as time goes on, and right now you just found out too, so it’s not a secret. Tell her." Carolyn advised.
Up in the main hallway, Maggie caught up with Sebastian coming out of John-Michael’s nursery where he was sleeping. She stopped him in the hall’s long red carpet. He was in a stressed and frightened state, out of breath and sweating. Maggie was alarmed with her son’s behavior. Her pulse was racing her mind going in all directions knowing that something was clearly wrong.
"What’s happened, is John-Michael ok?" She whispered as the baby was sleeping.
"He’s fine, but Serena isn’t." Sebastian said.
"What do you mean?"
"Mom she didn’t come home last night. I waited for her until almost 2 am. I fell asleep and when I woke up the bed on her side was the same. I came here thinking maybe she slept over but she’s not here either." Sebastian explained.
"Well, no, she messaged me yesterday in the evening asking me if I could cover for her with the baby while she ran an errand until this afternoon. She didn’t tell me anything else. Where could she be?" Maggie wondered.
"I, I don’t know. I called her all night and she never answered. I called this morning and nothing...she wont pick up." Sebastian continued.
"This doesn’t make sense. She told me she had something to do this morning but wasn’t specific." Maggie replied.
"I really have a bad feeling about this. She... she was really spooked about Barnabas...you don’t think..." Sebastian began before Maggie interrupted.
"Ok, Ok...don’t panic. There has to be a logical explanation for what’s happening. Siobhan was gone early this morning too, I have a feeling they might be together. It’s just too much of a coincidence ." Maggie said.
"But You don’t think..." Sebastian said again before his mother Maggie interrupte once more.
"Just come downstairs. We have to tell Carolyn and David what’s been going on. We can’t keep it from then anymore. They have to know Barnabas was reaching out via the baby and we called Lucas. Siobhan and Serena are probably with Lucas now."
Sebastian’s body was already a nervous wreck, telling David and Carolyn that Barnabas, his spirit at least, was trying to break through the veil of the living and the dead via David’s son was not going to go over-well.
Maggie and Sebastian stepped back into the drawing room, immediately David and Carolyn looked up from their conversation about India to find out what was the matter with Sebastian.
"Everything ok?" David asked standing up to greet them as they entered.
"David we need to talk." Maggie replied as she sat down next to Carolyn.
"Is it John-Michael? Is he ok?" The baby’s father worried.
"No, no, he’s fine. For the most part." Maggie added.
"What does that mean?" Carolyn worried.
Maggie and Sebastian looked at each other waiting for the other to drop the truth. Maggie took control.
"Serena came to us a few weeks back and told us that something strange had been happening with the baby. Something very strange. When we investigated more, we discovered that ..." She paused the horror of the next part of the truth she knew, would shake Carolyn and David to their core. "I just want you two to stay calm when I tell you this."
"Maggie, what the hell is going on here! If my son is in danger, I want to know!" David yelped.
"David, please I need you to stay calm." Maggie said, knowing David’s relationship had always been rocky at best.
"Please." Sebastian added.
"We discovered that Barnabas has been trying to make contact via the baby, and Serena was there and she saw him, and rather than alarm you all, I contacted a friend of mine that has worked on closing fishers in the fabric of our dimensions that allows spirits to attempt contact. We wanted to vanquish Barnabas forever without worrying anyone here." Maggie said, finally dropping the Barnabas bomb.
"You can’t be serious!" Carolyn shot back, her voice raised in shock. As much as Carolyn adored Barnabas and missed him, she knew deep in her soul that their small world atop Widow’s Hill perhaps was better off without him, but hiding the fact he was attempting to reach out was a blow she did not expect from one of her best friends.
"Siobhan found out too on the night we tried to close the connection Barnabas was making and we think that she and Serena are together right now trying to finish job." Sebastian answered.
Carolyn and David felt their blood run cold. Carolyn looked pale and sat back down on the sofa. David’s eyes were seeing red. He was furious at their secret keeping and even worse, Siobhan, the woman he loved the woman he was so dreading telling his own secret to was in on the betrayal.
David’s face instantly changed. If anyone had a true hard spot for Barnabas, it was David. His past with the man who came and turned his world upside down as a child and subsequently traumatized him with nightmares and paralyzing anxiety and stress was a constant thorn in his side. He needed to make sure Barnabas stayed gone forever.
David looked at Maggie and Sebastian and let out growl: "Where are they."
****
“Dracula.”
She flicked through the pages as a sudden urge to feel sick came upon her. She grabbed at her throat. She got up from her char, the book fell to the floor and rushed over to the bathroom that was attached to her bedroom and began to throw up.
Something wasn’t right... something dark was coming. Alex could feel it. Alex felt in her body.
She looked into the mirror, her eyes were flickering different colors and then suddenly stopped; both of her eyes, even the whites turned black.
Alex shook her head still feeling ill, still feeling the queasy uneasiness of this sudden and unexplainable illness. She couldn’t stand to look in the mirror anymore, the haunting flickering of her eyes began to frighten her.
But what was it? What was this horrible feeling washing over like this?
She slowly walked her weak body over to a soft chair near a window that looked out onto the Collinwood lands. Alexandra looked out into the deeper folds of the land and saw The Old House.
Barnabas Collins’ beloved home. And something clicked. Alex could feel the shadows lurking just around that house...
Darkness was indeed near.
****
While Maggie and Sebastian broke the news of the attempts to contact Barnabas at the main house, Lucas, Siobhan and Serena were setting up the drawing room at the Old House for Barnabas Collins.
Lucas carefully placed the cameras up around the room again ready to snap a photo of anything supernatural attempting to make contact. Serena clumsily placed white-noise recorders around the room. Siobhan flipped through the blank photos of the first attempt hoping to see her father’s face make a break through, her nerves on edge.
Lucas looked over at Siobhan and sat down next to her on the sofa and grabbed her hand. They were about to double-cross Serena and release Barnabas by pushing Serena into the void, in essence switching Barnabas’ place within the realm of the dead so that he could roam free with the living.
"Remember, an eye for an eye, a soul for a soul." Lucas whispered.
Siobhan looked over at the unsuspecting Serena and closed her eyes. Her guilt was bubbling up but the need to see her beloved adopted father Barnabas was stronger.
"I hope I can do this." Siobhan whispered back.
"You just have to push. Just one big push." Lucas confirmed as he got up to finish his set up.
The clouds were beginning to form a large gray cap above Collinsport. It was a storm. It swirled and filled the sky with a massive energy that was palpable outdoors. There was a cold wind brushing up from the sea that pushed up against the windows causing the frail glass to rattle against it’s iron frame.
Siobhan could feel it, she could sense that what they were about to do was really going to happen. She was read.
Off in the corner of the room watching closely. Listening and observing every detail was the invisible spirit of Dominique do Arco. She had followed Siobhan to the Old House. She wanted to see just who this woman was that the love her of her life David, was so committed to.
Dominique, her spirit glowing white without anyone seeing floated into the room and came up to Siobhan and looked her in the face making note of every freckle and every crease and beauty mark on Siobhan’s beautiful alabaster skin.
"She’s perfect." Dominique said to herself noting how beautiful Siobhan really was. It was no wonder David was so attracted to her.
As Siobhan sat there, she could feel the ice cold air surround her. Siobhan puffed out a deep breath and saw it like smoke from a cigarette then dissipate into nothing.
"He’s here." Siobhan said, mistaking Dominique’s ghostly presence for Barnabas’.
Lucas perked up from his camera. His eyes widened like saucers and dashed over to where Siobhan was.
"What do you feel?" He said extending his hands out to feel the cold air.
"It’s so cold. I feel cold." Siobhan answered.
Serena, backed away from the room, her stomach in knots.
"No! No, no! We need you in here. Come on, come on!" Lucas said, guiding Serena back into the drawing room of the old house.
"Listen I want to help keep John-Michael as safe from Barnabas as you do Siobhan but this is getting too serious for me. I’m ...I’m frightened." Serena said. "And doing this behind Maggie and Sebastian’s back...it’s doubly awful." She added.
"Your fear is only temporary, it’s all just an illusion I assure you. Maggi and Sebastian will come later. I promise too." Lucas said lying. He was determined to bring Barnabas back no matter who got hurt along the way.
Siobhan’s heart sank. She couldn’t believe what she was about to do to Serena but she had to, if she really wanted to bring her father back, she had to.
Dominique watched from her invisible state as Siobhan grabbed hold of Serena’s hands to comfort her.
"It’s going to be ok. Everything is, ok? Just trust me." Siobhan said, her heart beating the pulse of a liar.
"Let’s begin." Lucas announced.
Serena reluctantly turned on the white noise machines and Siobhan helped Lucas flick on the various cameras set up to snap photos as soon as the energy began to open up and release Barnabas.
The white noise machines became louder and louder, the wind outside became more forceful banging the trees against the windows.
There was so much noise, the hissing of the white-noise machines, the flickering of the cameras, the strong wind and ocean bashing up against the rocks out side.
"BARNABAS COLLINS... I CALL YOU... COME TO US, COME TO US AND BE FREE!" Lucas said, to Serena’s confusion. "OPEN YOUR WORLD AND COME BACK TO OURS, LISTEN TO THE NOISE AND FOLLOW IT. BARNABAS COLLINS, I CALL YOU OUT!" He continued.
Serena looked at Lucas, then she looked at Siobhan, then back at Lucas. The terror in her eyes was blaring, Siobhan held on to Serena’s hands, squeezing tightly when suddenly the wind burst open one of the windows and began to flow into the room like a damn breaking releasing gallons of water into the room.
As Serena began to understand that Lucas and Siobhan were actually conjuring Barnabas and not banishing him she tried to break free from Siobhan’ grasp, but Siobhan held tight.
Suddenly, a light. A bright light in the center of the room formed. It looked like a crack in glass, just forming in the center of the room in thin air. Lucas’s eyes were glued to the crack. It was the fisher between the world of the living and the dead opening wider and wider, the crack suddenly lit up like a fire cracker, red, the yellow, then red then white. It started to expand and grow and spread light all over the room.
"BARNABAS! WE ARE HERE! JOIN US!" Lucas screamed over the loud white-noise machines and the wind.
Serena and Siobhan’s hair were flailing around their faces. Their clothes were flapping like flags atop a skyscraper for the powerful force of the storm outside.
"Please! No! Stop this! STOP THIS!" Serena screamed as the flashes of the camera’s began clicking away.
Then it happened.
Barnabas appeared, the opening, in the light, the crack between two worlds. There he was.
Serena screamed. His face was cold, his eyes were dark and seething. He was stepping through once again into the world of the living. Camera’s began to flash again capturing this moment he was standing there now, his shape forming slowly into a man of flesh and bones, no longer a spirit of supernatural matter. His body becoming fuller and more human like. But he could not move until Serena was pushed into the opening of light,
"NOW!!!!!!!!!!" Lucas screamed at Siobhan.
And without thinking Siobhan, yanked on Serena’s arm and began dragging her to the light. Serena was screaming and she fell to the floor, horrified of what was happening. Siobhan and Serena were now struggling for control of one another at the foot of the open portal to the other dimension. Serena needed to fall into the light filled fisher for Barnabas to be fully released into the mortal world.
Dominique, her soul too trapped between worlds, looked into the eyes of Barnabas Collins who’s face was now visible. They were two souls trapped in worlds they did not want to be in.
Dominique snapped. She knew there was one major obstacle in front of her for David and their daughter to reconnect. It was Siobhan. This was her chance to do it. Dominique knew too that the only way for Barnabas to be released was for someone to fall into the light in his place. Time was ticking, she had only a few seconds.
Dominique, in spirit form, and stone faced came to the two woman fighting on the floor of the drawing room at the old house. Siobhan and Serena were pulling and tugging at each other. Rolling around on the floor, Serena trying to save herself and Siobhan attempting to damn her into the world of the dead to free her father Barnabas.
"LET GO! LET GO!" Serena Screamed.
Siobhan didn’t say a word, something inside of her roared. This viciousness inside of her began to expose itself like no one had ever seen.
The camera’s flashed capturing the moment that showed to the naked eye the two woman suddenly stand up and part. Siobhan and Serena had no control over their own bodies now, Dominique, the ghost did. With all her strength and power.
Dominique then did what she felt she had to do to. She grabbed Siobhan by the neck and dragged her closer to the opening. Siobhan, unable to move could only scream terrfied of her body moving without her own power. Serena looked on in terror as she watched Siobhan’s body levitate a few inches from the ground and stand next to the burning light of the other world.
Dominique, squeezed as tightly as she could around Siobhan’s neck and pushed David’s wife into the fisher releasing Barnabas fully. The fisher exploded with Siobhan’s entrance knocking everyone to the ground and a giant bolt of lightening flashed and all the light bulbs exploded. The electricity in the house blasted off and the photo camera’s suddenly stopped flashing.
Lucas lie on the ground, his head bleeding from a hit to a coffee table. Then a hand reached down to his neck and lifted him into the air.
Lucas opened his eyes and he was now 4 inches off the ground, with Barnabas’s hand around his neck, the vampire showing full teeth. Hissing his call for blood.
Lucas screamed and tried to get away, he squirmed in Barnabas grip but the vampire had grown stronger and stronger while in the void of the dead.
"My god! It’s really you!" Lucas said to Barnabas through a strained voice.
Barnabas said nothing, he only snarled his lips and opened his mouth showing long fangs thirsty for blood. The camera’s began to flash again capturing the dark moment where Lucas was at the mercy of the man who had occupied so much of Lucas’ fascination. Lucas tried to scream but nothing came out. He tried to release himself from the vampire’s grip but it was impossible, Barnabas was too strong.
"Let............me.........go!!" Lucas managed to say in a struggled. But it was too late, and too much time had passed. Barnabas needed his life force.
Barnabas pulled Lucas down to his mouth and bit him on the neck. The blood spilled all over Lucas’s face and down his shirt. Lucas screamed and tried to get away but couldn’t. He was trapped in the clamp of a vampire’s kiss.
The blood squirted from the open wound on to Barnabas’ pale skin. Serena looked on in horror.
Dominique stood in her spirit form and saw that she had not passed into the void with Siobhan as she had hoped. She looked around and saw the monster standing in the center of the room blood around his mouth but then, like disappearing ink, the blood vanished from Barnbas’ face leaving no trace of Lucas on the pale man from the undead world.
Barnabas could sense Dominique’s energy; he looked around and tried to find the energy that he was feeling. He then noticed Siobhan was gone. He was incensed. Livid. His beloved daughter was on the other side in the world of the dead.
Siobhan’s soul was the source of energy given to being a Barnabas back..., they had switched places.
Dominique quickly disappeared, vanishing into air to hide from Barnabas who had dropped Lucas’ body to the ground in a bloody heap. He walked around the room and saw that everything was in it’s place. He grabbed one of the cameras, and hit a bright red flashing button that replayed the photos it took on a small digital screen and saw what her feared most. A spirit had pushed Siobhan into the fisher to replace Barnabas.
He growled and saw Serena passed out on the floor just feet away from Lucas’ dead body.
Barnabas Collins was home. And he was not happy.
As Barnabas surveyed his old home by stepping over Lucas’ body he growled at what the intruders had done to it. Just then David, Maggie and Sebastian burst into the old house hoping to stop what had already occurred.
Maggie gasped at Barnabas’ reappearance. Sebastian quickly rushed to Serena who was waking up slowly.
Barnabas and David’s eye met.
"I’m home cousin." Barnabas said, taking the first step to a family reunion.
"Where’s Siobhan?" David said, his voice angry.
Barnabas handed David one of Lucas’s cameras and said nothing.
David, confused, angrily snatched the camera from his vampire ancestor’s hands and flicked through the digital photos and saw the horrifying truth, Siobhan had falling into the fisher and was now in the void of the undead. David then looked closely and saw the face of Dominique, the culprit who pushed her.
"Jesus." David said in shock.
Maggie then screamed seeing her friend Lucas dead on the floor.
"A casualty." Barnabas said wickedly.
"Some things never change." David muttered as the storm outside began to drop thunderous rain. "Where’s my wife? Where is she damn it!!!" David screamed.
"She’s gone...for now." Barnabas replied. "My daughter was part of a cruel plot by the dead man right there. You see young David, they attempted to bring me back by playing a very cruel trick on that young woman. Serena. She was the one meant to fall into the other side. But something ....came and switched the rolls. I can already feel you know exactly who I’m talking about." Barnabas said, feeling David’s pulse in his mind, beating fast and faster with Barnabas growing closer and closer.
"Every time you come back to us one of us suffers. I can’t stand you." David bristled.
"Pity. I quite enjoy you. I always have despite what you think of me. " Barnabas answered.
"You’re demented." David short back.
"David." Maggie said unsure of how Barnabas would react to David’s insults.
Barnabas walked up slowly to David, he looked him over and rememberers the spirit of the young boy he met 50 years ago. A boy who was bright and inquisitive a boy who turned into this sinical and closed off adult. David had changed, and his resentment towards Barnabas was palpable, Barnabas could taste as if it were the blood he drank from Lucas’ ripe neck.
"I did not want this, David. As much as I wanted to be alive, the pull to this world from where I was--was not by me. It wasn’t. I swear to you. My choice would be to go away...forever, but this curse constantly brings me back. In which ever form it wants to. And now... true dead man’s twisted plot has not only bright me back but taken my daughter in my place." Barnabas calmly explained.
"You don’t deserve any pity. Not from me. Not from anyone. All the lives you took over the years ... you deserve nothing but hell." David replied.
"How do we get Siobhan back? How do we get her back?" Maggie yelped as Sebastian began to help Serena to the sofa and Lucas’ body continued to bleed out onto the carpet.
"I have to call someone. I have to call someone!!" Sebastian said motioning towards Lucas’ body.
“We’ll take care of it, just calm town honey. Just calm down.” Maggie said staring down at her friend’s dead body slumped on the floor in a bloody heap.
"All in due time. All in due time." Barnabas said lifting an eye brow.
He knew that things would not come easy this time around. He could feel the resentment and the fear but he was not about to cower in the face of a family that didn’t want him back.
Barnabas Collins, the ancient Vampire of Collinsport, Maine had returned to his rightful home again... and he had a mountain of unfisihed business to do on multiple fronts.
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| Siobhan, Barnabas and Serena as Barnabas returns again from the dead |
