Shadows on the Wall Chapter 85

CHAPTER 85:  Lifetimes

by Nicky

(Voiceover by Grayson Hall):  “Collinwood, as it exists in the mysterious world of Parallel Time, a world Barnabas Collins has entered through a warp in time that exists in an abandoned room in Collinwood’s East Wing.  Barnabas still suffers from the curse of the vampire and the recent loss of Victoria Winters, the woman he loves.  But will this world contain any solutions for him?  Will it ease his heartache; will it soothe the savage beast that still raves inside him?  Or will he find himself trapped there … forever?”

1

             Tom Collins looked out the window into the ebony blackness of early summer and thought, This is the time, and found that he was smiling.  His hands were clasped neatly behind his back; the fingernails were glossy and manicured, as always, as he always insisted they be.  What good was having all the Collins fortune at one’s disposal, Tom always thought, if one couldn’t look good?

            “What are you smiling about?”  The voice was bitter, as usual, and the words slightly slurred.  That was usual as well.  The voice’s owner preferred to keep herself well medicated, usually with brandy, though, and his nostrils twitched.  Yes, tonight it was brandy. 

             He caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass before him.  Her long blonde hair hung over both her shoulders; her cornflower eyes were half-lidded and spidered throughout with red veins.  Carolyn Collins Stoddard Loomis had been a beautiful woman once, but since the divorce proceedings had begun, Tom thought she was beginning to lose her beauty, bit by bit.  It was as if it were being drained out of her, he thought, amused.  “I am smiling,” he said, “because I am happy.”   

            “What can you possibly be happy about?” she sniped. 

            “Why,” he said, affecting surprise as he turned to face her, “because my favorite cousin is returning to his ancestral home this evening, complete with new bride in tow.  She’s rather like a Barbie doll if I remember correctly.  Never left the box.  You knew her when she was a child, didn’t you?  I thought you might remember better than me.”

            “I can’t say,” Carolyn said darkly. 

            Tom came forward and touched her chin with the tip of his finger.  Those glossy, well-trimmed nails were always sharp as well, and Carolyn drew in a breath.  His eyes burned into hers.  She couldn’t look away.  “Doesn’t matter,” he said at last, and turned away from her.  He didn’t have to see look at her to know that she had slumped, and that she was very near to tears.  That amused him as well.  “I suppose.  There’s nothing we can do.  It isn’t as if Quentin doesn’t give us an allowance, isn’t that right, my darling cousin?  Regularly.  And on time.”

            “He does,” Carolyn admitted.  A tear shimmered in her eye, then ran slowly down her cheek, leaving a trail in its wake like a snail’s, glowing under the moon.

            “So what do we have to worry about?” Tom asked.  “That question, in case you wondered, was rhetorical.”  The monstrous good humor had drained from his voice, and he was looking, once again, out into the shadows of the night.  His face had stiffened and froze, his eyes dark.  “What indeed?” he whispered.

            “Oh, excuse me!” 

Tom glanced over his shoulder at the woman who had wandered into the drawing room and stood now before the fire.  Carolyn was looking at her too, and she seemed relieved.  She was probably the only one in the great house to ever feel relief in the presence of this particular … person.  Or dishrag.

 

Alexis Stokes, the sister of the previous mistress of the house, now regrettably deceased, was a pale, washed-out little thing that always reminded Tom of a wet puppy.  She had returned to Collinwood just before her sister’s passing, and she and Carolyn had become good friends.  After Will decided to leave her, Tom figured Carolyn could use a friend.  Certainly he wasn’t her friend.  No, Tom Collins was no friend of Carolyn’s.  “I didn’t know anyone was in here,” Alexis said now, her voice meek and irritating.  He could smell her weakness.  It rose off her, metallic and offensive.

            “You needn’t worry, Miss Stokes,” Tom said, boredom and archness combined in his tone.  It wounded her, as he knew it would.  “Soon, there won’t be anyone in here but you.”

            “I’ll stay with you, Alexis,” Carolyn said swiftly, “if you want company.”

            “That would be lovely,” Alexis said, and cast an uneasy glance at Tom.  “There’s a storm brewing, and they make me so nervous.”

            “You?” Tom purred.  “Imagine.”

            Alexis ignored this, but Carolyn shot him an irritated glance.  “Let me pour us some sherry,” Alexis said.

            “Carolyn has had quite enough,” Tom said.

            “Don’t tell me what to do,” Carolyn snapped.  “I am not a child.”

            “You belong to me,” Tom said through gritted teeth, so quiet that Alexis could not hear … but Carolyn could.  Her face blanched, and all the color drained from it.  She swayed where she stood, and would have fallen if Tom’s hand hadn’t snaked out and dug into her shoulder.  She moaned quietly.  “Don’t you?”

            She glared at him, then nodded slowly.  He released her.  She stumbled away, just in time for Alexis to turn and see.  “Oh, Carolyn!” she cried, and set the drinks she had poured onto an antique table that had been in the family since the late 17^th century.  Tom rolled his eyes.  No coaster, of course.  As Alexis ran to Carolyn, he moved swiftly to the table and removed the drinks, sweating around the rims, of course, and set them on the marble mantle above the fireplace. 

            “I’m all right, Alexis,” Carolyn said, and put a hand to her forehead.  She smiled wanly.  “Just … tired.  Will and I had an argument today.  I’m afraid it took more out of me than I thought it had.”

            “Let me help you to the couch,” Alexis said.

            “No,” Carolyn protested, her eyes on Tom.  “No, I think I should go to bed.”  Tom nodded, smiling.  “It’s late.”

            Alexis glanced at her watch.  “I suppose it is.  I thought Quentin was due back this evening.  I’m so disappointed that he and Maggie haven’t arrived yet.”

            “They’ll be here,” Tom said.  “Don’t you worry.”

            “I’ll help you to your room,” Alexis said, and walked by Tom, darting nervous glances in his direction, took the glasses from where he had placed them on the mantle, and followed Carolyn out of the room.

 

            Tom watched them go.  The look of bored disdain never left his features.  “You heard all that, I assume?” he remarked, seemingly to empty air.

            The woman who had stood, listening and unseen in the shadows that grew thickest in the corner of the drawing room took a step forward.  She brushed errant strands of dark hair out of her face.  “I heard,” she said.  “That poor woman.  That poor fool.”

            “Who?” Tom said.  “Alexis?”

            “Alexis,” the woman agreed, then hissed, “Stokes.” 

            “You needn’t overreact.  She isn’t a threat to you,” Tom said.

            “Isn’t she?”

            “Of course not.  Look at her.  She’s a drowned rat.  You’re …” and he tittered.  “… not.”

            “That’s very flattering of you.”

            “I aim to please.”

            “Yes,” the woman said, and sidled up next to him.  She ran the tip of one red-painted fingernail down his cheek.  He shivered.  “Yes, you do.”

            “She won’t upset your plans.”

            “No.  I suppose you’re right.”

            “Hoffman watches her.  Hoffman is always watching.”  He winked.  “I wonder what Angelique would think, her faithful servant now your faithful servant.”

            “The best thing Angelique ever could have done for me was to die,” the woman said, and laughed her throaty laugh.  “A stroke.  Too delicious.  Even more delicious that the séance was her idea in the first place.  Who knew that it would terrify her so much that one of the arteries in her mind would just … burst?” 

            “You are cruel,” Tom said, smiling, “and duplicitous and wicked.”

            “You love it.”

            “I surely do.”  They kissed then, their tongues dueling like frantic serpents.  “We are a debauched family,” he said after the kiss had broken.  “We are given to tragedy and to evil.”

            “Debauchery,” the woman said.

            “Always.”

            “When Maggie arrives, we will see that her reign as mistress of Collinwood is short.  This house is mine.  Quentin Collins has no right to it.”

            “And after you marry him?”

            “I will destroy him.”

            “Then?”

            “You,” she said, “and me.”  They kissed again.

            After a time, as the clock in the foyer chimed the midnight hour, they parted.  Tom had errands, and she …?  Why, she must prepare.  Yes, she had many preparations to which she must attend.

           On the way out, she watched as Tom passed Buffie Harrington, a fiery slip of a girl with eyes that usually blazed even if she never said more than two words to any of the family who employed her.  She was always chicly dressed, festooned with brightly colored bangles and earrings and bracelets that clicked and clacked together like castanets.  Or bones, which was a disturbing thought.  She didn’t like to be reminded of bones.

            She watched Tom watching Buffie, and felt a cold shiver of jealousy.  Should she?  Tom didn’t really belong to her; he didn’t belong to anyone.  And neither did she.

            Buffie smiled at Tom and batted her long, fake eyelashes. 

            “That will be all for tonight, Miss Harrington.”  They both turned to look at her, this dark-haired woman who desired this house so much, and their expressions were dismayed.  She smiled her frosty smile, Buffie nodded without saying a word, then turned around and disappeared through the doorway that led to the servant’s quarters, which she shared with Julia Hoffman and Anthony Trask, the butler.  Tom didn’t say a word.  He offered her own wintery smile back at her, nodded as Buffie had, then disappeared. 

            She stood alone in the drawing room, moving about aimlessly.  She allowed her fingers to run over the edge of the hideous green sofa Elizabeth adored and had insisted be dragged down from the West Wing.  After Angelique’s death, of course.  Angelique would never have stood for anything so hideous in her living room, and for once, she thought, we are in agreement.  For a moment she felt something like nostalgia, then realized it was for Angelique.  She almost laughed aloud.  The idea!  That bitch was gone forever, and good riddance too!  She began to laugh just then, but froze a moment later.  She sensed something, and looked wildly around.  “Who is in this room?” she cried, then demanded in her harshest voice of command, “Show yourself!”

            She waited, but no one materialized.  No one appeared.  She remained alone.

            Her shoulders slumped.  How she hated that word, “alone.”  Even dear Tom couldn’t make her feel safe or loved.  He wasn’t capable of loving, and that was her fault as well. 

            She set her jaw; her mouth trembled.  Things would be different this time.  She swore it.  She would be the mistress of Collinwood as it was meant to be.  And everyone who had ever mistreated her – Elizabeth, Roger, Carolyn, even Chris, Tom’s twin brother – they would pay.  Every one.

            I promise you that.

            After she left the drawing room, Barnabas Collins materialized slowly. He had hovered for a long moment outside the window, watching and listening, in the shape of a bat.  He hadn’t been able to hear clearly every word of the conversation that transpired within the great house that was so like his own, but he didn’t care.  He had seen her, and that was enough.  The heart that didn’t beat in his chest strained and grew.  

 

            “I have found her,” Barnabas whispered.  “Victoria is alive!”

2

            Julia Hoffman never intended to be a housekeeper.  Once, a million years ago it seemed, she had dreams (oh, and how it hurt, and worse, embarrassed her to think on them!) that she would never tell anyone, had never even told Angelique, and she had loved Angelique more than anything in this world.  But Hoffman knew Angelique well enough to be able to imagine the smirk on her mistress’ face, the way she would roll those enormous blue eyes of hers and simper, “Oh Hoffman, really.  A doctor?  How absurd.” 

            No, she couldn’t have borne that.  

             Now she began to tidy the room after aiming a harsh glare at that simple and yet somehow lascivious Miss Harrington (“That will be all, Buffie,” Hoffman had growled in her lowest, most leonine of tones).  The room was to belong to the New Mrs. Collins (and how that title grated her, oh, and how!), straightening the coverlet on the bed (purple), brushing away dust from the curtains (sea-foam green), vacuuming the carpet (the lightest possible shade of lavender).  She hated it.  Worse, Angelique would have hated it.  She would have laughed her delightful, crystalline laugh, waved her hand through the air, and, choking, gasped, “Oh, Julia, can you believe it?  Really and truly?  My darling, gauche hardly begins to describe this … this décor!” 

            “Oh, Angelique,” Hoffman whispered, and allowed her fingers to lightly brush the purple pillowcase.

            “Still in mourning, are we?  Poor Hoffman.  All in black.” 

Hoffman stiffened.  It was Roger Collins, Quentin’s cousin that he (for some reason that escaped her) allowed to live at Collinwood, with his sister Elizabeth and her divorcee daughter Carolyn.  Roger was perpetually drunk, and gay as a goose.  That’s what Angelique always said, “Even though,” she would add with a titter, “he does try so hard, Hoffman, you wouldn’t believe it.  Like a tiny puppy, always snuffling at my feet.  I caught him trying on one of my dressing robes one evening, can you imagine?”  Disgusting.  A disgusting man, a fairy and a drunk. 

            “I am not,” Hoffman said, her tone as stiff as her posture.  She turned to face him.  Her eyebrows were arched imperiously, her nostrils flaring, mouth tight, chin thrust out like a lance.  “What are you doing in here?  Shouldn’t you be in her room?  Conducting your own peculiar brand of mourning?”

            “Shouldn’t you?”  Roger smiled at her and swirled the contents of his drink.  “My dear, you look positively ghastly.  You are due a vacation, Miss Hoffman, wouldn’t you agree?”

            “I don’t think so.”

            “You needn’t sound so bitchy with me.  I know what you think of me; I know what you all think of me.  And I don’t care.”  He threw back the rest of the drink and stood, weaving and blinking at her.  “You’re as bad as the others, thinking she’ll come back.”

            “She isn’t coming back.”

            “How well I know it.”  His voice had become maudlin now, syrupy.  He peered remorsefully into his empty tumbler.  His face darkened.  “That … that Victoria.  Collins.  Ha.  She isn’t a Collins, not really.”

            This diatribe never failed to bore her.  “She is documented,” Hoffman said, “her father was a diplomat from England and her mother was Mrs. Stoddard’s younger sister.  Your younger sister too, Mr. Collins.”

            “Louise,” Roger said, “was adopted.”

            Hoffman accepted this silently.  That was a fact never spoken, not around Collinwood.

            “She’s a witch,” Roger said, and hiccuped.  He smiled.  “Victoria Collins.  The witch.”

            “You just never learned to spell.”  Hoffman’s lips twitched.  She rarely made jokes, but she quite enjoyed those when she did.

            “She thinks she should have Quentin to herself.  What is the attraction, honestly?”  He sneered.  “As if you would know.”

            “I wouldn’t.”

            “No, of course you wouldn’t.  Hmmph.  Doesn’t matter.  Quentin is already married, and poor little Vicki can throw herself into the sea for all I care.”

            “You should go to bed.”

            “Perhaps I will.”  He swayed against the doorway.  “You may finish your duties, Miss Hoffman.  Good evening.”  Weaving and wobbling, he was gone.

            She watched him go, her eyes wide and ferocious. She ground her teeth for a moment, then smoothed the white apron that always lay over the black dress she was never without, forced her hands not to tremble, then turned back to the room.  For a moment she was overwhelmed with the desire to take the lovely lacy pillowcase between her teeth and shred it like an animal … but only for a moment.  She smiled icily instead, and smoothed away a wrinkle.

            A doctor, she thought, and smirked.  Honestly. I hate people too much to ever try to cure them.

            Or perhaps, she thought, hovering just outside the room, perhaps it’s only the Collins family I hate.

3

 

            “Darling,” Elizabeth Collins Stoddard said, stroking her daughter’s hair, “darling, it will be all right.  I promise.  Everything will be okay.”  She glanced for a moment at Buffie Harrington, who stood helplessly in the doorway, wringing her hands.  Only a girl like Buffie, Elizabeth thought dryly, and not without some amusement, could make hand wringing an act of delicacy.  “That will be all, Miss Harrington,” Elizabeth said, and smiled as warmly as she could under the circumstances.

            Buffie nodded, whispered, “Thank you, Mrs. Stoddard,” and disappeared the way she had come.

            Carolyn wiped away the tears that stained her face.  “I want another drink,” she said, the petulance in her voice magnified by the nasal foghorn quality that came from her crying.

            “Do you really think that’s wise?”

            Carolyn sobbed.  “I do,” she said after a moment.  “I really do.  It’s the only thing that dulls the pain, you know.”

            Elizabeth looked down.  “Yes,” she said quietly.  “I have some idea.”

            “Will isn’t coming back,” Carolyn said.  She scrubbed madly at her face; when she removed her palms, her eyeliner was smeared black across her cheeks.  She looked, Elizabeth thought, alarmed, quite mad.  “He’s gone forever, isn’t he.”

            “I don’t know.”

            “Why should he come back here?” Carolyn moaned, and pulled at her long golden tresses.  “His muse is dead.  He’ll never write another book because his precious Angelique is dead, Alexis isn’t a worthy substitute, the Old House burned down, and I’m an enormous and repulsive drunk.  Isn’t that true?  Aren’t I an enormous drunk, Mother?”

            “Carolyn –”

            “I’m sorry.  I’m very sorry.  Wallowing in self-pity.  Not attractive, certainly not for a Collins.  But I’m not a Collins, am I.  I’m a Stoddard.  Or a Loomis.  Or I was.  Does that make a difference, do you suppose?”

            “Darling, you mustn’t torture yourself.”

            Carolyn’s face darkened.  “You don’t know torture.”

            “That isn’t fair –”

            “Get out,” Carolyn whispered.

            “Carolyn –”

            “Get out, get out, get out!” she shrieked.  Elizabeth drew back in alarm, scurried to the door to her daughter’s bedroom, then turned back to her.  “You’ll feel better, darling,” she said.  “Soon.  You just need some sleep.”

            But Carolyn had turned her back to her mother and stared furiously at her bedroom wall.

            She stayed that way for a minute or two, then sat bolt upright in her bed.  Her terrified eyes darted around in their sockets like trapped animals.  “No,” she moaned.  “No, please, not now … can’t you leave me alone?”

            “I’ll never leave you alone,” the voice whispered harshly, dark with amusement, echoing around the room.  “You are mine.  You will always be mine.”

            Carolyn buried her face in her pillow and whispered, “Will … oh please, Will, save me … save me please …”  She stayed there until the icy cold hand fell on her shoulder and pulled her from the bed and into the embrace of a monster.

4

             Chris Collins never wanted to step foot inside Collinwood again.  Or go anywhere near the estate, even.  He had completed his final year of law school in Boston with every intention of not returning to Collinsport, the town from which he had run from as fast and as far as he possibly could … but then of course he had fallen in love with a local guy, and the local guy wanted to stick around (“For maybe just a year,” he had promised before doing something extra nice as they lay together in their hotel room, still in the middle of their decision-making process), and how could Chris say no?

            Said local guy lay beside him now, chewing on his earlobe, sending spirals of electricity shivering up and down his body.  His toes curled involuntarily.  “Don’t you have to be somewhere?” Sebastian whispered suddenly, and Chris blinked at him and rose up on his elbows. 

            “Now?” he said.  He looked down at their very not-clothed bodies, then back up to the tousled golden hair that grew shaggy around the craggy face he loved above all others.  Sebastian Shaw’s body was long and tawny and nicely muscled.  Chris didn’t usually like muscular guys – that’s what he always said – but in Sebastian’s case …well, sometimes exceptions had to be made.  “I thought we were gonna … you know …”

            “Oh,” Sebastian purred, “we will, we will.  I just thought – well, didn’t Tom say …”

            “Damn,” Chris whispered.  The only Collins he had deigned to see since his return to town was his twin, and even that meeting had been uncomfortable.  Tom was different somehow since the last time they met, though Chris couldn’t put his finger on it.  Something about his eyes, maybe, which seemed sharper or clearer, or his face, which possessed shadows it had never held before.  Still, Chris had vowed to have nothing more to do with his family, and there were no other exceptions to be made for that particular promise.

            “What is it, babe?”

            Chris sighed heavily.  “Tom wants me to look at our father’s will again, just to be certain that Collinwood really and truly belongs to Quentin.”

            “Do you think it does?”

            Chris glowered.  “Yes,” he said.

            “I remember Quentin Collins,” Sebastian said.  He chewed for a moment on the already ragged end of one fingernail.  He looked, Chris thought, very young and very innocent.  Cherubic, even.  He resisted the urge to pounce on him and begin the ravaging, but just barely.  “He was kind of a bully, wasn’t he?”

            “Kind of,” Chris said, and sighed again.  “Elizabeth believes that marriage to Maggie Evans will mellow him – in the “long run” – but I find that difficult to believe.  Impossible, actually.”

            “It might be nice to live at Collinwood,” Sebastian said dreamily.  Chris’ eyes narrowed.  Sebastian noticed, then smiled.  “Don’t worry, Christopher.  I get it.  Your dad didn’t want you to live there.  That’s cool with me.”

            “Good,” Chris said firmly.  “I don’t believe in curses, but …”  His voice trailed off, and he looked out the window.  The moon was nearly full, sailing through the unencumbered June skies.  He frowned.  He had felt a twinge just then, as if a goose had waddled, quacking, over his grave. 

            “A cursed house,” Sebastian said.  He ran a hand through his shaggy hair.  “Meh.  Probably not as cool as it sounds.”  He smiled wickedly, and when he smiled like that, he still looked cherubic, but there was nothing innocent about him at all.  “Come here, baby.  Let me show you something that is.”

5

 

            Barnabas stood staring, his eyes red-rimmed and shocked, at the Old House … or the place where the Old House used to be.  It still stands in my time, he thought, but here, in this strange place, they have razed it, destroying it utterly.  There was not even a hint that it had once existed.  Perhaps, he thought, perhaps it never did; perhaps Collinwood is the only house that stands on this estate. 

            A wave of depression passed over him, and he turned away from the house.  This wasn’t his world, his home; he didn’t know any of these people. 

            But there was Victoria.

            He bowed his head.  Yes, that was true.  She was alive in this time.  Would she recognize him?  Was that possible?  Could it be that there was some connection between the denizens of this Collinwood and those he left behind?  If that were true, then it might be possible that she could love him, maybe did already, and that they could traverse the time barrier, return to his Collinwood and …

            And what?  Live happily ever after?

            “Who are you?”

            Julia?

            He spun around.  Julia Hoffman stood before him, her hair pulled back, exposing the dome of her forehead, all in black.  “You followed me!” he cried.  “How is this possible?”

            “I don’t know you,” Julia said.  Her eyes narrowed.  “What are you doing on this property?”

            Of course, he thought miserably, he should have recognized her immediately.  He had seen her once before, when he had only been able to peer into this room.  The woman glaring before him was the Julia Hoffman of this time.  What was she wearing?  A heavy black dress, sensible black shoes with heavy rubber soles, and what seemed to be some kind of white apron.  His eyes widened.  She wasn’t … she couldn’t be … a maid, could she?  “Pardon me,” Barnabas said as smoothly as he could.  “My name is Barnabas Collins.  I’m a cousin from England.  Perhaps you recognize me.  There’s a portrait of me hanging in the foyer at Collinwood.”

            Each of Julia’s words dripped icicles.  “There is no portrait hanging in the foyer,” she said, “of you, or anyone else.  Now tell me who you are.”

            “I told you,” Barnabas said.  “My name is Barnabas Collins.”

            “Then you must be a ghost,” Julia said smugly.  “The only Barnabas Collins I ever heard of died in the 18the century.”

            “I am his descendent.”  She wasn’t buying it.  He was going to have to do something drastic. 

            Julia’s forehead wrinkled as she studied him closely, and then she suddenly took a step away from him.  Moonlight glinted off her enormous green eyes as fear replaced the anger and coldness she had exhibited.  “Stay away from me,” she said.  “Don’t come any closer.”

            “I’m sorry, Julia,” Barnabas whispered.  He was nearly panting.  His eyes had begun to glow a sullen red. 

            “How did you know my name?” Julia cried.  She turned to run, and he seized her arm. 

            “I’m sorry, old friend,” he snarled, revealing the vampire fangs.  She screamed, but only once, as he sank them into her throat, and held her tightly in his icy embrace.

  6

            As Buffie entered the forgotten room in Collinwood’s West Wing, a part of the house that had been walled off in 1897 by Judith Collins after the tragedy that had occurred there, a tragedy caused, in part, by her brother Carl and the dark magicks he embraced, she couldn’t help but smile to herself.  The Collins family were bastards; worse, fools.  Even Quentin, the so-called master of the house.  He had to be a fool not to see what was happening all around him.  Elizabeth and Roger, greedy and toad-like by turns, waiting for their monthly handout like scraps for dogs; Carolyn, who drank more than she ate; Tom Collins, son of the former master of the house and still clinging to Collinwood like a leech, waiting for his rightful inheritance that was never going to come; Daniel, Quentin and Angelique’s mopey son; Damion Edwards, Quentin’s so-called best friend; Julia Hoffman, the nominal housekeeper and Angelique’s, ahem, “bosom buddy”; and, of course, Anthony Trask, the butler.  Buffie actually liked him.  He was quiet, kept to himself, but he was, somehow, always a perfect gentleman around her.

            She glanced around the room now and shuddered.  It was festooned with cobwebs.  Enormous, laden with dust.  She didn’t to think about the kind or size of spider that could weave webs that big.  It was obvious that Hoffman’s cleaning agenda never brought her into this room.

            The door creaked open, and in the dim light from the candle that she held, Buffie could just make out the silhouette of the person she was scheduled to meet … again.  She caught her breath for a moment; the silhouette held no substance, no form.  It was as if a shadow had come to life.

            Then she smiled.  She was being ridiculous, of course.  Typical Buffie Harrington.  Her mother, god bless her besotted soul, always told her she was a girl with feathers for brains.  But here she was, working up in the big house on the hill for more money than anyone down in Collinsport did, and wouldn’t they just give their eyeteeth for the secrets she was in on, wouldn’t they just!

            They all thought the house was haunted.  She sneered.  Let them.  If there were any ghosts, she hadn’t seen any.  Not even that of the late Mrs. Collins, Angelique Stokes, whom Buffie remembered from high school as a prissy ice queen, a bitch in the girls’ bathroom who smoked and would punch you in the boob if you caught her, even if you wouldn’t ever tell, not in a million years.  And boob punches hurt.  Boys whined about their precious testicles, but there was a special kind of torment that came after being punched in the boob.  And Angelique – why, she knew how to torment people.  She specialized in it.  But Angelique was dead, and here Buffie was instead.

            “Did you bring it?” she asked now.  She was unable to disguise the eagerness in her voice.  Well, so what?  She wasn’t proud.

            The figure nodded, didn’t say a word.  Buffie frowned.  That wasn’t exactly unusual.  It wouldn’t look good for either of them if they were caught up here.

            “I hate to keep meeting like this,” Buffie said, “but, you know, you know how it goes.  The poor just keep getting poorer, while the rich get richer.”

            She thought the figure stifled a laugh.

            “I suppose you want the dirt first,” she said.  She felt a stab of disappointment.  She thought they’d trusted each other more than this!  “It isn’t a lot.  Just that Tom Collins is weirder than we thought.  I don’t even know which room he’s living in anymore.  I think he might be shacking up with Vicki, but she’s even harder to keep an eye on than he is.  But he disappears at night, I think he heads into town to pick up hookers on the docks, you know how the girls down by The Eagle are, and my friend Lavonna said she thought she saw him there the other night with Bitsy Pettibone, who would have thought, Lettie Pettibone’s only daughter an enormous tramp, she was always mean to me in school, deserves what she gets, but anyway, since Lavonna saw her with Tom Collins, no one has seen Bitsy since.  So that’s the skinny, I guess.  Can I … can I have it now?”

            The figure smiled, then laughed again, its most peculiar laugh.  Buffie wanted to laugh too, until the figure’s hand flashed out, and it flashed because it seemed to be holding … was it a butcher knife? yes, belatedly, Buffie realized that’s exactly what it was; but by then it was too late, and the knife had already punctured one of her lungs and sizzle-slashed across her throat.  She was dazzled by the gout of blood that was almost black in the darkness of the room; she stuttered to her knees, clasping her throat and choking.  Her visitor stood in place, as if waiting, then, as if in response to a silent signal, knelt beside the dying girl.

             Buffie tried to speak, but she had no words.  Tears rolled down her cheeks and mingled with the blood that still poured from the gash in her throat.  She wanted to ask why, but she couldn’t make sense of the gabble in her brain.  Her hands beat the bare boards of the dusty old floor in a mad tattoo.

            She was dimly aware that there was something being pressed to her chin, just where the wound was – a goblet?  A glass?  Something to be filled … with her blood?

            The thought filled her with horror and she tried to cry out, but she died before she could.

            Her eyes were wide when her head dropped and thumped undramatically against the floorboards.

            The figure grunted, moved the dead girl’s head to the side, and finished filling what was, indeed, a goblet with the remainder of the blood that only now dribbled from the wound in Buffie’s throat.

            It stood then, looked down at her incuriously, made a small sound.

            Then it left the room, and closed the door behind it.

            And Buffie Harrington stared into nothing all the rest of that night.

TO BE CONTINUED ...