Shadows on the Wall Chapter Thirteen

Chapter 13 - Nightmares and Daydreams

by NancyB

(Voiceover by Alexandra Moltke): "It is a day and night of revelations
on the Great Estate of Collinwood. One woman is about to make a
terrifying discovery, while another is called upon to fulfill her
destiny...."




Sometimes it was a relief to not be the one in control. She spent most
of her time as the person others looked to for answers and direction –
and she had to admit that she did prefer it that way – but it got
tiresome to always be Doctor Hoffman. She was always on; she
was there for everyone at anytime. And sometimes she wished to be
free to be just Julia.

That’s the way he was making her feel right now. She was Julia, and
she was definitely not the person in control at the moment. He was
larger and stronger than she was, and she felt dwarfed by his physical
presence. He took her into his encompassing embrace and held her
against his broad chest as if she were a small child in need of
comforting. But his gentle ministrations rapidly gave way to ardent
attentions, and she shivered as his massive hands went from rubbing
her back to sensuously stroking it. This felt so right; why had she felt
that she needed to push him away?

Julia pulled back slightly to look up into his soulful eyes, but his mouth
was on hers, stirring her into a frenzy. Her mind went numb while the
rest of her body sizzled and smoked with passion.

This is the way it should feel, her mind whispered. How could I
have thought that we didn’t belong together?

She pressed herself more deeply into the kiss and felt his hands leave
her back to tenderly cradle her face. His hands – so insistent, so
strong, so - cold. Why are his hands so cold? she wondered, but
the question was quickly forgotten as his lips left her mouth and began
to trace a line of eager kisses down her pale throat to the delicate
flesh of her neck. He knew how vulnerable she was there, and he had
forestalled many an argument by paying homage to her neck with his
sweet kisses. She felt her reason and inhibitions rapidly dissolving with
each kiss and heard deep, soft sighs that she was vaguely aware were
her own. His touch gradually took on a different quality, rougher,
more selfish as if he was doing this for his pleasure and not hers. She
jumped slightly at an unexpected nip, but he held her fast in a tight
grip. And then she felt a bitter sting - was he actually biting her? - and
jerked back hard.

“Tom!” she cried in protest but looking up into his face, she realized
that her lover was not Tom at all.



Julia Hoffman awoke abruptly, a shriek caught and smothered in her
dry throat. Her hand immediately flew to her neck but instead of
ragged and bleeding, she found the skin smooth and unbroken. A tiny
sigh of unconscious relief escaped her lips, and she blinked several
times to orient her to her surroundings. She looked down to find
herself curled in the armchair in her room like a contented cat, the
book she had been studying open in her lap. Still dazed from her
unexpected nap, Julia turned the book over in her hands as if she had
never seen it before and peered at the title: Vampyres in Legend and
Literature. She had found it recently in a quaint little bookstore in
Bangor that dealt in old and used titles. She had been sure she had
acquired every conceivable book on the topic - after all, hadn’t she
been doing this research for most of her adult life? - but she had spied
this old British volume in her browsing and had fairly pounced on it.

Vampyres in Legend and Literature - well, that explained her crazy
dream, didn’t it? But it didn’t explain who the vampire had been,
did it? Julia flushed as she remembered her emotions in the dream;
she had really felt quite decadent in his embrace.

His embrace. She could deny it all she wanted, but she knew who
the man in the dream had been. And it had not been Tom. Yes, she
was fond of the dear boy, but all of the passion she had felt for him
had all but dried up and blown away like leaves in an autumn wind
once she had laid eyes on him. Barnabas Collins. The man in her
dream. The vampire in her dream.

She shook her head in self-disgust. “Julia, you really are acting quite
ridiculous,” she murmured to herself. “Just like a lovesick teenager.
You barely know the man, and you’re putting him into your dreams.
Get a grip, woman,” she admonished herself.

But she knew it was no use; it wasn’t going to work this time. There
was something about Barnabas Collins - his deep-set eyes, his
haunted expression, his old world manner, and of course, that
voice - that intimately touched her soul, that wrapped itself around
her heart and squeezed until she could barely breathe for thinking of
him. Admit it, Julia, old girl, you’re smitten.

Okay, she knew as a psychiatrist that it was normal to dream about
someone you loved and wanted. But it was decidedly not normal
to dream that that person was a vampire, for Pete’s sake. Unless, of
course, one was in search of a vampire. Like she was.

That’s all it was, Dr. Hoffman,  she tried to tell herself. You fell
asleep reading a book about vampires. You’ve hunted for one of the
creatures for years. You are confusing the man you desire with the
object you desire. Mystery solved, case closed. 

But was it?

Was there something about Barnabas that made her suspicious? Julia
chewed her lip as she tallied what she knew about the man, and it was
precious little: he claimed to sleep during the day because of a rare
eye condition; she had not seem him partake of food; his touch had
been cold when their fingers had brushed.

And then there were the attacks recently. The animals, that girl -

Julia glanced out the window to see the sun hovering in a sea of
orange and gold above the horizon. She quickly disentangled her legs
that had been tucked up underneath her in the chair. Her feet and legs
tingled from lack of circulation as they hit the floor, and she let out a
yelp of pain. Hobbling over to her closet, she grabbed her coat and
headed out the door. If she hurried, she could be at the Old House an
hour before sunset.

***************


Julia knocked perfunctorily on the door of the white behemoth know
among the Collins family as the Old House. She had seen that
obnoxious handy man driving off as she had approached the mansion,
and if her instincts were correct, the master of the house was not yet
available. Receiving no answer to her summons, Julia slowly pushed
the heavy door open and peered inside before entering.

“Mr. Collins?” Her voice echoed back to her, but she felt obligated to
call out again, “Mr. Collins?”

Julia closed the door behind her and stood in the foyer suddenly
feeling a little foolish. What if her theory was wrong, and Barnabas
Collins found her wandering around his house uninvited? What would
her think of her? And did her have any inkling of how she felt about
him?

She stood there a moment longer, frozen by her thoughts, until she
realized how cold and empty the house felt. The aura of death seeped
through the pores of the house. Julia Hoffman was not a woman who
was easily frightened, but there was something here - and yet not
here. The house felt dead but alive at the same time. There was
an underlying energy here as if the house had two skins: a surface skin
that met the eye and a skin below that that squirmed with an unnatural
energy. And the current from that energy made her feel like something
was crawling on her skin. Julia rubbed her arms to rid them of the
feeling and then straightened her back in determination. It was time to
find what she had come here for.


***************


The cellar. It was the logical place, and the one place she hadn’t
looked. Julia had wandered through the mansion but had not found
any sign of Barnabas Collins. She had poked and sneezed her way
through endless dust-covered rooms which had not known human
occupation in untold years. The drawing room and one obviously
feminine bedroom looked to be in the beginning stages of renovation
(Must be what that Loomis spends his time on, Julia supposed),
but otherwise, the Old House appeared as ancient and uninhabited as
an Egyptian tomb.

Julia approached the metal door and peered through the bars but
could see nothing but the narrow stairway that descended into the
gloom below. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door, grimacing
as it creaked and groaned noisily at her presumptuous action. She
stepped cautiously onto the first step and was immediately assaulted
by the mold and mildew that rose up to greet her. She gingerly
negotiated the remaining stairs and paused at the bottom while she
waited for her eyes to adjust to the lightless room.

It took shape slowly before her eyes - a long, ebony box about six
feet in length. It appeared to float in a fog of mist above the damp
floor, and Julia gasped in spite of herself. She stood absolutely still for
a moment as if in homage to the object that dominated this long
forgotten room. Finally willing her feet to move, Julia approached the
coffin overwhelmed by emotions- wonder, hope, dread - all at the
same time.

Could she really found what she had searched for for so long? And
could she really have fallen in love with him, one of the Undead? Julia
shook her head in amazement at the entire situation. Just another
unorthodox feature of her unorthodox life.

She placed a tentative hand on the lid and immediately snatched it
back. Instead of cold and lifeless as she had expected, the wood
pulsed with potential life. She forced herself to touch it again and felt
its power seething through her. Her fingers sought and found the hold
she needed, but it took both hands and a mighty heave before the
heavy lid finally surrendered to her efforts.

And then she was looking down at him. The vampire she had sought.
The man she wanted.

His features, though waxen, were beautiful and yet tragic. She wanted
to trace his forehead, run her long fingers gently down his gaunt
cheek. He was paler than she remembered seeing him, but she
realized that he had yet to feed tonight.

Julia was unsure how long she had stared transfixed by the sight of
him. Realizing that there was no sign of breathing, she bent down and
laid her head against his chest to listen. There was no movement, no
heartbeat, and she was crazily reminded of the Tin Man and his plea
for a heart. A slight movement startled her, and she straightened up
abruptly in fear.

The vampire’s black eyes were open, and his gaze pierced her,
holding her in place. “What are you doing here?” he growled in a
voice that sounded more animal than human.

Julia Hoffman struggled as hard as she could ever remember doing to
maintain her composure, “I’m proving a hypothesis,” she managed to
utter in a fairly even voice.

“This is the last experiment you will ever conduct, Doctor,” he hissed.

He was on her in a moment, his actions so swift that she had not even
seen him move. He wrapped his immense hands around her throat,
and she could feel him squeezing the breath, the life from her.

“I - I can help you,” she gasped with her last bit of air.

“There is no help for me,” he snarled, but his face was so close to
hers that she could see a trace of surprise at her words in his eyes.

She felt him lessen his grip slightly, and she struggled to continue.
“Yes - yes there is. I can cure you. I have studied your
condition - my life’s work - to find one of you –“

“I don’t believe you,” he spit in a guttural voice as he jerked her
closer to him. His strength was that of ten men, and she felt like a rag
doll in his grasp. Julia fought to remain conscious, but along with the
lack of air, she knew she was drowning in a sea of emotions. She was
living her dream, feeling his breath on her neck, feeling the excitement,
the ecstasy of being close to him. But there was also the blinding fear
and the agonizing pain.

And then there was only darkness.

***************


Victoria Winters found the repetition soothing. She pulled the stiff
brush all the way through her shiny sable hair and then repeated the
stroke again and again. After all of the strange occurrences at
Collinwood since her arrival, she needed a moment to think of
nothing. To just brush her hair, over and over again.

But as hard she tried, she could not banish the thoughts that spiraled
through her mind. The phenomenon involving David, Quentin’s
disappearance, Roger’s sudden marriage. And then there was Mrs.
Stoddard and her odd behavior lately. She looked so pale and so
distracted. Vicki just didn’t understand.



Vicki watched the motion of the hairbrush in the vanity mirror as she
pondered these incidents. She watched as her arm went up and
down, up and down. Despite all that had happened, why did she feel
she belonged in this crazy place? Wouldn’t any sane young woman
have run screaming long before this?

Vicki abruptly stopped mid-stroke. What was that noise? It had
sounded like someone calling her name. She sat very still for a
moment, all of her senses alert, but she heard nothing more. She
shrugged and returned to her task.

There it was again; she was sure of it this time.

Victoria.

Only the sound was not outside of her door; it was inside of her
head.

Victoria, I need you.

Vicki Winters dropped the brush with a clatter and rose from the
vanity. She was completely unaware that her skin was now covered in
gooseflesh; she knew only that she must follow the voice and do
whatever it asked of her. She opened her bedroom door and waited
to hear what it wanted.

Come to me, Victoria. It is time to release me.

And Victoria Winters turned and headed for the West Wing.

TO BE CONTINUED …