Shadows on the Wall Chapter 19:The Heart's Filthy Lesson (spurned lovers) by CollinsKid (There's always a diamond friendly Sitting in the Laugh Motel The Heart's Filthy Lesson With her hundred miles to hell...) Oh Ramona If there was only something between us Other than our clothes... Something in our skies Something in our skies Something in our blood Something in our skies... - David Bowie, "The Heart's Filthy Lesson" "what's the matter, trevor? scared of something?" - Helen Lyle (Virgina Madsen) , "Candyman," 1992 */*/* "My name is Victoria Winters. There is a number, cosmic and perfectly shaped, in the stars tonight. It starts as a pin-prick in a sea of blackness, and it grows to engulf all space in the sky. It chokes pipelines and lays waste to fate. It is a cancer. A rogue element has been introduced to the scene. Where it walks, plants wither and die, and a blackened, scorched path forms through lives, minds, souls. And when it walks, it walks under that number in the sky. That number is a four." */*/* barnabas & mrs. collins dream:future already (cause we're lovers) i'm fast asleep now. - bjork, "headphones" (...pulsating in their heads & because despite themselves they are still binded together on the same black loop their cortexes pick up the same bleep and the prophe-play dereels in both their heads; their eyeballs rotate and cassandra squirms next to her husband.) (somewhere in the dream, a reel screams:PICTURE START:) and suddenly, they're both falling, from the edge, down widows hill -- a special trajectory and course. first them, then it's josette (his heart bleeds) , then it's vicki -- ...there is a puff of eldritch fire, and they see the autopsied body of tom jennings. despite their thick (reptillian) skins it makes them retch; the crisscrossing saw-scars are all over his flesh and he's the color of dead fish. as they watch, his black morgue table is suddenly an open dirt grave, and then his nails are growing, growing like knives, and he bares his teeth, which are animal and freakish; his eyes open and spill out high-beams of yellow light. he grins, and those freakish jaws clamp down on their skulls -- another puff of blue fire, and it's a familiar bedroom -- windows open to admit a raging storm, wind and rain everywhere, shutters CLANGING and CLANGING rhythmically, and somewhere a rock song waxes and wans in their ears:all you need is love, love, love (but it ISN'T, she insists) a wall of fire, and then david collins stares into them. an alien sun blazes in the immediate sky above him, entirely too close to them, and he says:"i can't think" -- & then vicki is there, and she points to something creeping in a dark corner; a japering silhouette, creeping around and up and down (& he suspects himself) . they push through the darkness... ...to a house by the sea, dark and victorian, and inside a huge, rambling sitting room dripping with jewels and spacious furniture, there's coffee shop waitress maggie evans, but she looks very little like coffee shop waitress maggie evans -- in fact, she's in a dark evening gown and her hair is fashionably styled and her lips are purple rouge, and she's in the arms of her lover who is (NICHOLAS?? she exclaims in disbelief) -- somewhere in the universe, vicki says, "she's such a good friend" -- and somewhere, behind the darkness, over storm-swept fields and just at the lip of the great, black woods, something is rustle-racing through the tall grass, snarling and gnashing and pounding through the crops around a stately old farm. it is An Animal That Walks Like A Man!, and that man is quentin (IMPOSSIBLE she says) . and then tom's back, grinning through those black-bleeding, distended razor-jaws, eyes glowing like an overgrown, and as that white joker's-face leers/leans in at them, he screams:CAN WE GIVE IT ANOTHER SHOT BABE? (They wake up in starts and remember too little.) */*/* awake (willie loses hours) There was dirt in his mouth. William Hollingshead Loomis tried, failed, then tried and succeeded to feebly lift his shaggy head, spitting frantically to try and excise the taste of land from his lips. Well, what the fu... He was belly-down in the middle of a field full of ragged, high dead-brown grass. Around him, grubs, centipedes, ants puttered through little lives in the soil. Above him, the wind roared over the before-dawn sky. It was dark gray up there, and the clouds were starting to die. There was precious little light, but some. Willie checked his wrist; watch was broken. But it last put the time at 4:45. His clothes and hair whipped in the wind; the storm in nearby Bangor was still passing over them. He realized suddenly that the field he was in was in fact at the mouth of the great woods, which looked oh so looming and dark this not-morning. The giant trees swept in the wind, too, as if raging down at him. (this is a hunting ground.) A before-dawn windstorm, and he was in the middle of it. Willie didn't like it, as he raised himself on weak legs. Didn't like it at all. This field seemed to stretch on for miles, and the woods were like a gaping maw. And the sky was storm-swept and barely light...how had he gotten here? He'd been at Tom Jennings' coffin, waiting to do the deed...had he done it? *Had* he? Willie looked up, and squinted. Not too far before him was a huge farmhouse, slightly Victorian and a bit weather-worn. He recognized it as Tom, Chris, and little Amy's farm. In the back yard, a swing or two whipped in the wind on old metal chains, squeaking. The empty animal pens were stained and rotting. He still swore he heard horses. Willie's head was like a hive of bees; buzzing and stinging. He shut his eyes tight and shook his skull back and forth, trying to regain his skewed equilibrium, and almost lost his balance. He was damned dizzy, and hungry. Weak as a pussycat. Why, he hadn't felt like this since -- (before) -- what? -- but he didn't know. Cursing, Willie coughed a couple times, and felt his ribs ache. He'd been sleeping for too damn long. He had to get back to the Old House, talk to Barnabas and Dr. Hoffman; he hoped Barnabas hadn't left for that drive up the coast yet. The poor guy was seein' sunlight for the first time in at least two of Willie's lifetimes; he was all anxious to see everythin' he'd been missin'. Still, he hoped he could get some straight answer on whether he'd put the kibosh on ol' Tom -- -- but just like that, the thought was gone from his head, and Willie Loomis' focus became home, and breakfast, and a shower, in that order. Thoughts of a funeral home and a dead man slipped his mind, through some sort of crack. It was damned creepy out here in the field just before dawn, with the wind all shriekin' and the sky sorta in-between light and dark. He would be happy to get back to civilization. And so he started trudging forth the scything brown grass, on those drunken seaman's legs. Willie would not realize his mistake til late that evening, when he began to bleed from the wound on his neck. */*/* J-E-R-K (the mysterious paradise of mortals) she's your cocaine your exodus laughing she knows what you are so shimmy once & do it again... - tori amos, "she's your cocaine" The old sundae machine creaked and rattled through the motions like a trail-worn mule. Behind the glass counter of the spic-'n-span, pure white-yet-inviting Collinsport Inn coffee shop, Maggie Evans sighed as she finished her last bout with the old contraption and handed a cone full of cookies-'n-cream to yet another child peering over the glass. "And that's it," Maggie said, wiping her hands with a dishtowel and then wiping the sweat from her brow, a loose lock of red hair spilling into her eyes from her once-(a million years ago six o'clock that morning)-perfectly coiffed 'do. "Go open bank accounts." The quintet of neighborhood kids scattered with their ice creams, peeling for the warm-brown wooden doors at the edge of the coffee shop, then hanging a hard left at the front doors of the Inn. The front door slammed back on its hinges unhampered behind them, and from his post at the front desk somewhere not far off, Mr. Welles growled something at the already-gone children about the door and wood. Maggie, already back at the coffee, couldn't suppress a smile. The coffee shop crowd was sparse this morning; a few guests hung around the corners and at the window, and a fisherman and two truckers Maggie was familiar with sat at two different tables, the former stinking of mink oil and nursing a scalding cup of black coffee and the latter picking at two bowels of the day's special soup (cream of chicken) . Maggie bent over the oven and checked the status of the pot pies. It was now very hot and far too aromatic back here behind the counter; she longed to get a breath of fresh, cold air. Her back ached and her hands were red. Her bright pink uniform already had coffee stains; her white apron was ragged and her matching hat was askew. Not yet noon and already I feel forty-eight, she thought with faint gloom. That was happening too much these days. Was Pop even up yet? Then, with growing dismay:was he even home? Maggie's face was pinched with frustration as the bell over the front door rang again. A moment later, a new customer entered. Maggie recognized him immediately -- wavy, jet-black hair like a movie star, razor-sharp moustache, twinkling, gleeful eyes, permanent flash-frozen grin showing off perfectly capped, glittering white teeth. Dapper manner and clothes; felt hat. It was the man she'd given the ride to not long ago; it was -- "Angelic morning, isn't it?" Nicholas Blair boomed good-naturedly in a cultured voice that washed over Maggie like syrup, so loud that the truckers and the fisherman all looked up, weary and wary, and shot the ignoring city slicker sour looks. "If I was much more of a romantic, and I'm not sure that's humanly possible, I would swear those little ones that just tore out of here were fugitive cherubim." "Congratulations," a beleagured Maggie said as the new customer sidled into a seat across the counter. "You used the words 'fugitive' and 'cherubim' in this town. You now get a free cup of coffee." "Do I really?" Nicholas Blair smirked, moustache twitching as if trying to rip itself from his upper lip. "No," Maggie said, hefting a tray full of piping-too-hot pies from the bottom of the oven, feeling her pores close and burn and her thoracic muscles scream. "I'm just leading you on. I've had one whale of a morning." "And she *puns,* too!" Nicholas exclaimed, still grinning to swallow the world. "So were you the kind caregiver that fed those children their daily treats?" "Yeah, that's me. I'm the fence." "How...Christian of you," Nicholas simpered. Maggie snorted as she closed the oven up again. "Yeah, that's me; God's daughter. I'm a pushover of a bank; occasionally one of 'em's a few change short. So I put it on the ever-growing tab sheet." Maggie held up a large notepad on top of the oven, full of scrawled names, then tossed it back down. "If it were real debt, I think I'd have a few households by the short hairs." "So go commercial," Nicholas quipped, still grinning like the Cheshire Cat and never taking his eyes off her. Maggie laughed, a light sound like the tinkling of carnival bells, and put a saucer and cup of coffee down next to him. "Then where would the Bobby Simpkinses of the world be?" "At great loss for not having known such a lovely charity as you," Nicholas said, smirking. That voice was syrup again, and Maggie flushed. "You, Mr. Blair, are too much. I can't keep up with you." "I wish you'd try," Nicholas purred. "Tonight, at the Blue Whale, perhaps? A meeting of the minds, a tale of two walks of life:the mortal and the angel?" Maggie chuckled, mopping up the counter. "I'm flattered, and you're very suave. But I'm afraid I'm kind of spoken for." "Kind of?" "My six-month anniversary's tonight," Maggie said. "You might know him, actually; Quentin Collins?" Nicholas' brows knitted like an angry furred animal and he squinted. "Quentin? Why, yes; one of the in-laws...well, all my best wishes to you..." His brows knitted further, contorting comically, and he stage-whispered:"*That's* surprising..." Maggie frowned, amused. "Is it such a shock he's with a duck like me?" "*Duck?*" Nicholas exclaimed loudly, again drawing glares of ire from the townies in the back. "*You?* You underrate yourself, Miss Evans, you're a swan...well, no, no, that's not it. It's just that...well, I got the impression that Quentin Collins was something of a playboy." Now Maggie really started to frown, but just a little. "Playboy? Maybe a little, but he's definitely a one-woman man. And I have the spyglass to prove it." (but not the engagement ring, a voice in her head hissed, and her heart sunk a little) Nicholas shrugged, doing an excellent job of looking unconvinced. "I suppose you're right. I don't see how he could ever want for another if he's already with you." "Keep it up and you might get a piece of pie," Maggie smirked. But then, nagging at her mind:"Anyway, I don't see why you'd think that," she said unsteadily. "Quentin's my guy. There's nobody else." (is there?) Maggie Evans and Quentin Collins had no common wavelength:it was an unpleasant facet of their relationship she had become accustomed to. He'd started by flirting with her, and he'd won her easily, because he was handsome and worldly and loved by so many, and she'd felt like the luckiest gal with the most wonderful guy. Once, in what seemed like ages ago, he'd told her to just enjoy the ride. But Maggie had learned that with Quentin Collins' ride came a rocky road. Where he'd once been so consistently fun-loving and adventurous, Quentin was now a man overcome with formerly-sporadic bouts of melancholy, solemn introspection, and stark, grave views on the future. It was as if before he'd known her he'd seen countless wastelands, and no matter how far down he managed to bury those stark memories, they inevitably would rise up and plague his psyche again. He was smarter than she was; she knew that...and he'd been places, and she'd been nowhere. You once wanted to be an artist, Margaret, she thought. And yet here you are:small-town waitress and harried wife, even though you're really a daughter -- living in malaise through routine and repetition. Tom's death had ripped him open, and still Quentin drew his coat closed from her; he would not let her share his hurt, choosing to live inside a blast zone of his making. She had suggested calling off the anniversary dinner at the restaurant in Bangor, but he'd been stoic and refused; they had a date and he would keep it. She tried to protest, but couldn't. He was the Adonis that would not open for her, even though she did at a moment's notice (oh but for the months since that hadn't been just figurative...) ; the Roman statue that wouldn't crack and melt in her arms, but rather left her reaching, reaching around his sides... (you see more than i do, she'd said once, when he was in one of his blackest moods, mourning the invisible.) (you wouldn't like what i see, he'd said.) She felt like an alien around him. What if someone else could see what she didn't? She knew there was someone smarter, more graceful; swan instead of a duck -- could he find her? Had he? (why wouldn't he *touch her?*) Her blood was ice water. "Well, congratulations are in order for you," a snake's voice ssssaid, and Nicholas Blair's laughing-moon eyes brought her back to reality. "Quentin's an inordinately lucky man. The fates have smiled on you both." "Th-thank you," Maggie said shakily. "Delectable coffee," Nicholas purred, finishing his cup and placing it on the saucer. He slapped down a wad of bills, including what Maggie noticed was quite a large tip. "Borne from Heaven...just like you. He put his hat back on, and then promptly tipped it at her. "Good day to you, Miss Evans -- " "Maggie," Maggie said softly, still lost in her thoughts. Nicholas' face suffused with suppressed glee. "Maggie," he cooed. "Have a beautiful anniversary." And with a swirl of gray he was gone, and the bell at the front door tinkled in his wake. And Maggie felt hollow. */*/* grieving process, part 1 (curse) wake up dead man. - u2, "wake up dead man" (the tambourine rattled, and it had begun.) Quentin sat in the gazebo, his clothes slept in and ragged. Uncombed and unshaved. His eyes were dark pools that went on forever and betrayed nothing. His huge paw clutched the neck of a decanter of brandy. He'd wanted to get drunk and hadn't; it was just barely sipped. He nursed it feebly, cursing his lack of resolve. He'd wanted to be numb, but hadn't the stones to go all the way. Every day but today, he thought wearily. O Quentin Collins, the fool who doesn't drink when depressed. Carl would find it exceptionally funny, but Carl found war funny (then again, so had he once) . He'd been out here for hours -- in fact, he'd been out here all night. They'd all known better to bother him, especially Julia, who was no doubt back at the Old House with Cousin From England trying to piece together the grand puzzle that was He. He'd said too much and would say no more; they'd tipped their hand and he refused to tip his own. His dear two hundred year old cousin had an agenda, but then so did he and Eliot. And so did Angelique. He was actually surprised that dear *Cassandra* hadn't come out; she had an exceptional talent for nosing into wherever she knew she shouldn't be and playing poor maligned Polly Pureheart. And damned if she didn't actually make you feel just an inch bad for abusing her -- if only for a moment. But she had to be scared. If Tom was loose, it meant trouble for her too. (didn't it?) He knew Tom would rise. He knew it but he had shoved it to the back of his mind. Eliot was no doubt flooding the phone line back at the house with urgent messages in hopes of holding council with him about the crisis, but Quentin could not deal with it right now. He was on overload. He'd stayed out here all night in the woods, and he'd half-hoped that he'd look up at three in the morning and there Tom would be, with a mouthful of razors, grinning at him -- because he wondered, portrait or no portrait, just what would *really* happen. (wouldn't death be just fascinating right now?) Oh what peace that would be, that little cowardice. To uncover that wretched old horror on canvas, to take a jack-knife and to split it open, watch it fall apart as he began to disintegrate -- then at least, no one else would go before him, the forever man. "Quentin?" A vision under a canopy of green leaves, a flickering, painful memory, and there she was. Vicki Winters stepped cautiously onto the gazebo, her eyes sympathetic saints, welling with something, her composure and composition grave. Her almost-purple hair swam down her back, unencumbered for once. She really did look quite beautiful -- but then, she always did. "Victoria," he muttered gamely, trying to put on a decent face and failing miserably. He didn't need this. Vicki's face was a moue of sorrow. "Quentin, I'm *so sorry*. I'm sure you were very close to your cousin...I can't imagine how you must feel." "You're right," Quentin said aloud, almost unaware, and the Forest of Oshden and a wizened old claw flashed into his mind. "You can't." "But I want you to know, I'm here," Vicki said, taking a seat beside him. "If ever you need someone to talk to, or anything at all -- I can at least listen." "You wouldn't want to," Quentin murmured. "No, I don't think you'd want to listen to what I'd have to say at all." "Quentin, that's not true." Vicki sighed, softening even more. "I know what it's like to...lose some people, some things. When you lose someone close to you, you lose a piece of your identity. And my own identity is so very shaky -- when I lost a friend, it was a little less of me. So I can understand how you feel, if only just a little." "You don't know that," Quentin snapped, and Vicki recoiled. "Quentin," she said, her face growing a shade pale. "I'm sorry; I only wanted to try and -- " "And what?" Quentin continued, cutting her off, his eyes blazing through his shaggy mane of hair. "You thought you would commisserate with me; we'd share sad stories? Did you think I would be so willing, so open to you? You don't know me like you think you do." "I'd like to try -- " "*Would* you?!" he shouted, and now Vicki was really recoiling. He sipped from the decanter and laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. "Oh, I don't think so, Miss Victoria Winters of the Hammond Foundling Home. You see; I know everything about your life in that short string of words. What do you know about me? What do you *really* know? Because I can guarantee you that everyone back at the Great House -- they only know what I let them. None of them know the first thing about the strange, dark thing that my life has been, and neither do you." He leaned in close to her, and she was shivering now. "Did you think we'd form an emotional bond?" he hissed. "A spiritual one, maybe? Do you think we'd grow close, and spend a long morning watching the stormy skies and sharing in my pain?" "You don't know the first thing about *pain,*" he spat, taking another long drag from the decanter, feeling it course through his veins. "That's not true," Vicki shot back. "And you don't know anything about me -- " Quentin said, cutting her off. "-- And the death sentence that I am. That's right; death sentence. Is that what you came looking for? Did you want to make a *connection?*" he growled, leaping to his feet and stalking towards her, pushing her back against a wall. He was hating himself, but couldn't stop. "Did you come looking for eternity? You'd better stop and think if you *really want it.*" She shoved him away from her, hair askew, eyes blazing. "I don't know what kind of man you are, Quentin," Vicki spat. "But I know it's one *I don't want.*" She stalked off the gazebo, heels klacking, and Quentin sank down onto the bench again, trying to curl into a fetal position, eyes burning, misery sizzling through him. Her hair whipped around her, and she turned back to him once more. "My life is *not* a short string of words," Victoria Winters hissed, eyes liquid fire. She leaned in his direction. "What did *you* come looking for?" She was gone. */*/* information (spy eye) "you won't have it. by hook or by crook." - "the prisoner," 1968 Julia's brows knitted into a scarlet moue of disgust, eyes glittering under newly-formed red tresses that slid down to her shoulders. "No, Professor Stokes, I *do not* want any English tea. You know why I'm here; it's pointless to continue to deflect my questions." "But oh so entertaining!" that baroque voice boomed back at her, still jovial and pleasant at all costs. T. Eliot Stokes put down his teacup and clasped his huge hands together as he looked back across his sitting room at the apprehensive woman. "Really, Doctor Hoffman, you have the persistence of a small short-haired marmoset. And I find that endearing, until the marmoset's jaws latch onto my coat sleeve, anyway. But I'm afraid there is nothing for me to say, on Quentin Collins or any other...arcane subjects. I'm afraid you've come to the wrong person to indulge your sweet tooth for the strange and mysterious." "I know you and Quentin are close friends," Julia said, crossing the room with quick, determined stride, circling like a shark. "And I'm well aware of your field of expertise. One must draw the obvious conclusion. You can't honestly tell me that you and Quentin Collins aren't sharing the same secrets -- about his 'curse?'" A rich, sweet laugh. "Oh, Doctor Hoffman," Eliot said with a flourish of his teacup. "Now, I fear, you truly have lost me." The steam was practically pluming from Julia's ears. Her mouth was a jagged, sharp little line. "This is lunacy, Professor Stokes. We both know our respective parties are in the business of keeping secrets -- secrets about the Collins family, and the strange occurances plaguing the people at Collinwood. And we *both* know all about...about Tom Jennings." She was slightly pale, and her hands shook involuntarily for a moment before she forced herself to halt them. She stared him down. "We should be aiding each other instead of playing these paltry little games." "My dear Doctor -- can I call you Julia?" Eliot began, sitting down slowly in his favorite easy chair. "It's obvious you very much want something from me. I'm afraid I have nothing to give, and am woefully ignorant about all topics Tom Jennings, and other sundry stories. Furthermore, if I was playing any kind of 'game,' I would care to believe it would not be paltry, and rather glorious and engaging." He cocked an eye at her, showing a mouthful of glittering white teeth in his smile. "With that said -- you have admitted to being a broker of secrets. What secrets might you have for sale, Julia?" Julia's hands were balled into little fists, and she continued to glower with anger. "Very well," she hissed. "If that's the way you want to play the game, Professor." She stalked stiffly over to the door of the little Victorian house, and gripped the doorknob. "Why, Julia, it's the *only* way to play," Stokes said, his voice like hot butter, his grin magnamanious and vaguely Santa Claus. "By the way, your new hair is excellent." The door slammed behind Julia, and Stokes shook his head good-naturedly and went back to his tea. And, outside the nearby window, Carolyn Stoddard slid down the side of the little house like a cat, ears still perking up. */*/* dead land (visitor) There was a burning bird in the sky. David Collins saw it through the window of the old sedan, with his nose and hands smooshed up against the glass like suction cups. He watched it intently as it soared over the cornfields, through that stark gray, rainy sky, as the car passed over bump over bump in the old dirt road through this countryside, and as the light drizzle on this strange Sunday spattered against the window. "What's got you so fascinated, David?" Vicki asked as she continued to gamely drive the car through this very difficult terrain. David neither looked up nor responded, face still squinched up against the window. But, a few choppy seconds later, the bird was gone and David, dejected, plopped back into an upright position in his seat. "Why are we going out here again?" he muttered. "Because, with poor Mr. Jennings having passed on, your little friend Amy must be so lonely up at the old farm. And Dr. Hoffman says she's only got a few relatives she barely knows up there looking after her. So we're going to see if we can make her feel a little better and pay our respects. That's why I helped Mrs. Johnson bake those meat pies and make those sandwiches; that's what they're for." She motioned to the large care package of food in the back seat. "He's dead," David said mildly. "Sandwiches won't bring him back." "Oh, David, hush," Vicki sighed. "She's not my friend," David continued, sullen. "I barely know her. They just keep getting us together. I don't think she knows how to talk." "David!" Vicki exclaimed. "You stop talking like that about poor Amy. You know how it is to lose someone close to you." David just glared at her, doing his very best to see red. "Anyway, I think it's pretty *stupid*," he scowled, folding his arms resolutely, as if that settled it. "You never met him." His eyes lit up, and his features slipped into an evil grin as he turned his laser-like gaze onto Vicki. "Did *Quentin* tell you about him?" he simpered, voice dripping with juvenile mocking. Vicki's face flushed like the sun. "David, that's enough," she said quietly in a too-controlled voice. Her hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel. "Now you hush." David flopped back on his seat, supremely satisfied, and stayed there. The car drove down the rickety pike, following the slip-shod wooden fence that had seemed to be with them for miles. Finally, they hit the crucial turn and arrived at their destination. The Jennings farm was a stately old place, with one big house and a smaller barn off to one side. The little animal pens were empty now, as they had been for too long, looking forlorn and disused. The few cows and chickens left were off grazing somewhere -- who knew if they'd come back. As it was, the house itself was dreary, done up in moody grays and dark blues, with faded paint peeling and rusty gutters, and a screen door dangling from hinges. Where it had once been beautiful, it was now a dying Gothic homestead, the paint literally starting to wash off under the rain. It stood under that dead gray sky, a monument to a broken home. Two sharp thumps, and David and Vicki exited the car, heels digging into the dirt and the squishy, dead lawn, now sparse with grass. David actively watched where he stepped, plodding along down the path with Vicki's hand on his shoulder, her other holding the hot care package to her chest. They hopped up the steps to the old screen door, which Vicki peeled open with a metal scream. She winced; David grimaced. Under their feet, a dirty, mud-stained WELCOME mat which was now a very faded yellow read:COME ON IN! Through the smudged glass of the front door, only a few vague, dim outlines of a stark interior could be seen; a stair here, a hall there. The rain trickled down through the old gutters and pitter-pattered against Vicki's leg. Vicki rang the bell. Moments passed, and her ears perked, listening for any footfalls or calls. Nothing. She rang it again. Then, again. Perplexed, Vicki sighed. David was not amused. "Can we go now?" "*No*," Vicki said, looking to him reproachfully. "We're going to give this food to Amy and her relatives." "What're ya gonna do?" David asked, now hopping on one foot and alternating his feet, bored. "Break in?" His hopeful expression indicated he might enjoy this approach. "No," Vicki said again, grousing. She sighed, frustrated, and leaned on the doorknob to balance herself on the tiny step. It was obvious no one was there. She'd just have to place these under the door and leave a note -- Just then, the front door creaked like an old, old woman, and the knob slid through Vicki's hands. Just like that, the door opened. It had been unlocked the whole time. With a soft klick, it blew ajar for them, propelled by the light wind. Vicki and David stared through the open door, into the dark abyss of the Jennings front hall. It was a dusty, dimly-lit old house, with antiquated old furniture and the smell of old permeated all things. The floor was dirty; a carpet in the front was stained and faded. A nearby hall mirror was spattered with some sort of debris and unclear. It was as if the place was dying, and had been for years -- ever since Tom and Amy's parents had gone on to their reward. It seemed the house already had as well, and the people inside it were living in an ornate open grave. The banister on the stairs looked dodgy, and the wooden stairs themselves climbed up for what seemed like miles, to what was a dark and phantom-like upper floor. Down the hall, the kitchen looked unclean and a distant window looked out onto the fields, and more rain. Somewhere in there, an old, old clock ticked away the dry seconds and minutes and hours and years. David peered out from behind Vicki. "It's *haunted*," he said gleefully. "Oh, it is *not*," Vicki grumbled. She shifted her balance, hefting the care package, and stepped through the doorway cautiously, feeling just slightly apprehensive -- as if giving away her position outside the house meant her penetrating a phantom curtain which hid -- and contained -- whatever shades skulked inside. The floorboards creaked underfoot, and Vicki started a little. David hopped inside, looking up and down all around. He wrinkled his nose. "It stinks in here." "David," Vicki began with exasperation, but then she smelled it too -- more than must. Something rotting, old. It was coming from the kitchen, and it was truly rancid. She cleared her throat. "Is anyone here?" she called out, her voice ringiing through the old air. "Hello?" David just rolled his eyes. "It's a dump!" he cried with something akin to joy, and before Vicki could stop him David was bolting down the hall to the kitchen, then swinging a right into some unseen room. "David!" Vicki yelled out, and hurried down the hall after him. She found herself in the kitchen, where the stench only hinted at before hit her full-blast. Vicki couldn't help but grimace as she took in the room; a trio of windows set into the walls, all dirty and transluscent, aged by the winds and spattered by the rain. Some garish sort of green-&-blue wallpaper that was probably vibrant and pretty once, but was now faded, stained, and ugly, peeling in spots of shocking white. The plain off-white floor was filthy, now almost brown. Two ancient dog bowels were off to one side of an ancient gas stove, still with water and (Vicki retched) years-old dog food in them; next to that, a back door leading out onto the rainswept pens and back field, and from there the still-dark woods. A refrigerator was set next to the sink, but judging by the strange, sybilant noises it emitted every few minutes it wasn't working too well. A huge metal lamp swung softly just above the old wooden table for four in the middle of the room, with its phony-white top. Scuff marks at the ends of the chairs. At opposing walls on either side of the room, two large bulletin boards absolutely covered in faded, old pictures, children's scrawled drawings, and other mementos hung from the walls. Vicki's heart ached again for Amy as she stepped in closer to one of the pinned-up photographs. It was old, tinted brown now, and it showed Amy and Tom and their family, outside their house in a better time, when the paint was dryer and brighter, and the animals more plentiful and healthy...there they were:Amy, Tom, their parents, and...Tom? Vicki's brow furrowed. (who IS that?) Outside, the rain picked up, whipping against the glass with a sharp rat-a-tat. Vicki started, straightening up, and let out a deep breath. It really did stink in here, and the light was precious little. Just as before, it felt like a place for the dead -- dank, strange, remote, and, here behind these old windows, with the noise of the storm muffled just a little, completely out of synch with the live world. But still, there seemed to be something inside here with them...enough to make her disconcerted. Enough...and breathing. It was then that Vicki noticed the scrawl at one edge of the bulletin board in front of her. Something dark-brown, almost red; huge, child's-scrawl letters jumped out on the wood. It was just a fragment of a message, crazily cartoonish in its size and penmanship, but it made Vicki's skin crawl and her breath hitch. ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, the words screamed. Next to it, the family picture smiled back at her. Goosepimples down her spine. (we need to leave now.) Vicki placed the care package down on the kitchen table, scrawled out a note on a napkin for the obviously-out relatives, and then crossed the kitchen into the nearby sitting room, which was even more of an antique than the front hall, full of brown, old furniture; faded couches, drapes, carpeting. A little coffee table sat in the middle of the room, with old waterglass outlines imprinted on the wood. Across from it, a tiny, old TV. Next to that, shelves upon shelves of old, dust-choked books. David was plopped down lazily on a nearby easy chair, which she was sure was covered in yet more dust and would no doubt make him sneeze like a banshee any second. "Come on, David," Vicki said firmly. "We're going." "Already?" David whined, hopping out of the easy chair. Vicki was amazed he didn't leave a child-sized outline in the dust. "We just got here!" "I left the food with them," Vicki said, hurrying back down the front hall, keeping an arm on David as he hurried before her, half-pushed. David grumbled something as they approached the still-ajar front door, and Vicki let out a mental sigh as she saw the somehow-comforting gray of the rainy, muddy outside and the old car through the screen door. She was about to hustle David back outside when a scraping noise -- like razors on glass -- screamed across both their ears from above. Both Vicki and David froze in their tracks, and slowly turned to face the staircase. In the background, day and the car seemed to call out to them with the distant pitter of the light rain -- light streamed in through the open door; a gaping, pleading mouth. The stairs still led up to that dark abyss on the upstairs floor. Now Vicki realized a door lay at the top of the stairs, closed shut from them. She was sure the sound had come from there. The pictures on the wall leading up the stairs -- more relics of a family past -- hung there, watching them watching it. Vicki's heart did a figure-eight as the faded, torn wallpaper on the wall to her right caught her eye -- there, on the wallpaper, was a huge paint-splash of dark arterial blood, recent and wet. The image screamed behind her eyes and she was about to scream, when it vanished. But the memory remained -- blood on the wallpaper. (i DID see that.) Her spine moaned in horror. Vicki put a foot on the first step, and then stopped. She turned and looked at David, whose mouth was a sharp, white line. His eyes were obsidian and small, and he had nothing to say. Her heart surged with apprehension. In her head, that red message blasted into her brain. (i don't want to go up there.) So she didn't. "Come on, David," Vicki said through a mouth full of cotton, and the two turned and exited quickly, the door clicking shut behind them with a hollow nick from the lock. In the kitchen, the clock continued to tick, like an impotent bomb, rising over the muffle of the rain. Outside, Vicki and David got back in their car and drove off down the road, back to home and light. The house was not empty, and it watched them go. */*/* the grieving process, part 2/absolution (infidelity) (beyond his ken, he was unaware of automobiles speeding up the rainy road, towards the great old house, and so he sits...) Quentin was back on the gazebo steps again, splayed on his back. Staring up through that canopy of green. The rain was starting to hit harder, pouring down in little rivers, turning the garden into a rainforest. Peeking through the leaves, the gray sky was getting clogged with black clouds, and thunder, the siren call of the storm, was beginning to roar somewhere far away. The weather was in that phantom zone between afternoon and evening, where everything hung -- baseless. The decanter was nearly bottomed out now. He didn't feel as drunk as he needed to, though his veins were warm and his brain felt like gelatin -- the razor edge on the pain had not dulled, but *had* become rusty and infected, sickening him to the core. Fantastic job, he thought. You can't even get drunk right anymore. He wondered, if the rain poured harder, if it soaked him more, would it absolve him his wrongs? Would it make up for the triangle of trees in Oshden, for the passion he'd so easily sank into, for the fire? Would it take back the ringing tambourines, the hand that ruled the world? There was a rustle in the bushes, and he wearily turned his head, dark movie star mane slipping into his eyes. He brushed it away, and... ...there she was again. Vicki was at the lip of the garden path, coat drawn around her, skirt still soaked nonetheless. Her hair tangled and wet against her neck and brow. She stared at him wistfully. Judging him. He felt redemptionless, remembering earlier when he'd seen red and spat at her, and he lowered his head in sorrow. A long moment passed, with just the whispering whirlpools of rain kissing the air and sound barrier. Finally, Vicki spoke. "I asked you before," she said quietly, "what you came looking for. And I'd still like to know -- damn the consequences. Despite what I may find." Quentin smiled ruefully through dry, cracked lips, staring down at a particular spot of muddy grass, listening to the rain. "And some days I'd like to tell you, despite what you may find." He lost his smile, and just looked tragic. "But other days...no." Vicki took a seat on a conveniently-placed fake rock, among the many which Cassandra's too-chic decorators had recently installed, and tossed her wet hair back in a cascade of raven ropes. "Are you drunk, Quentin?" Quentin laughed a little, soft and weak, still staring at the ground. "Oh, I tried hard. But no. I can't seem to...get a handle on it today." He rubbed his forearms. "My blood's warm. That's it." Vicki inhaled the wet garden air, slowly and easily. "You loved him very much, didn't you?" "More than he knew," Quentin mumbled. "More than anyone knows." He drew a hand down over his face, and flashed a weak echo of that famous smile at her. "See this? It's all sleight-of-hand." "You said that before," Vicki said, rocking on her rock. "But there is something true to you, Quentin; I know it." "You surprise me," Quentin said. "No one would fault you for severing all contact with me. I was a fool." "You were in pain," Vicki said. "You still are." "I was a fool," Quentin repeated. He hung his head. "I've been a fool all my life. I paid for it and I keep paying. Tom was part of it." "Tom was ill," Vicki protested. "I am the master switch," Quentin said drolly, inflection betraying heartache. "I may not look like much, but I assure you, I am the cause of his death." "You look like a lot," Vicki said softly, padding over and sitting down on the step next to him. "But no, you did not kill Tom. I know it, Quentin, whatever your history -- you are not a death sentence. I imagine you've seen much anguish and hurt in your life, but it doesn't make you who you are. What defines you are the things you do, and the way you live your life. And no matter how you may have lived it before, or what you've done in the past, right now you're one of the most gentle, caring people I've ever met. You're an...an amazing soul, Quentin." She blushed. "I feel like there's volumes of things I could learn, behind your eyes." "You're teaching me," Quentin says. "Slowly but surely. And I am a worse student than David. I'm the dunce. You're the oracle, whether you know it or not." "You're not a dunce," Vicki said gently. "And you'll get through this. You have Maggie. You have your family." Quentin let out a pained, rattling sigh, and stood on weak legs. "My family," he mumbled as he took a few errant steps towards a patch of drenched lillies. Vicki stood by the gazebo, clutching a wooden strut and watching his back. "My family," he repeated. Then laughed hollowly. "Blood is everything. Especially here, in this place." "I've noticed," Vicki said. "Does it hurt?" She bristled. "A little," Vicki said softly, sadly. "But I also think it's beautiful." "But you wouldn't," he said, turning to face her. "If you'd been here for the duration. It's a vicious cycle -- and I'm part of it. They don't know me, not a one of them. They see the poor, renegade relation. The playboy, the writer. They don't see me for what I really am." He shook his head. "I don't think I'd want them to." "You insist on being a mystery wrapped in an enigma," Vicki said, folding her arms with wistful amusement. "I think you romanticize yourself." "I wish that were true," Quentin said with a sad little nod. He strode up to her, close. "You know what I wish? That I could be like you." Vicki laughed. "You're insane." "It's no joke. You're what I aspire to be," Quentin said, eyes aching. "No history; no ghosts. No tainted blood. No yesterday, just...today. And tomorrow. And the day after that. Stretching on for thousands of miles. Living in the future instead of dying in the past. Because that's where I am. I try to pull myself forward but the rope cuts my hands. I have no ground to stand on. You see things so clearly, so unfettered by self-pity or immeasurable guilt. You see a world I lost years ago -- delicate and vibrant, but courageous, because one's nature determines their reality. When they lose that, it's all over. But you won't. I knew the moment I first saw you; you'll never lose, Vicki. You'll never lose." They were cheek to cheek. The rain was pouring now, drenching both their skins. She stared up into his eyes. "You make me out to be a force of nature," Vicki said shakily, licking her lips. "But I'm not." "You're my salvation," Quentin said, voice cracking. Vicki shook her head, eyes liquid again. "Quentin, I'm not a salvation," she whispered -- "And I'm wrong for you," Quentin finished, cutting her off. He was breathing heavily and so was she, bathing each other in hot recycled air. "I'm an unhappy ending to a finished story -- " "No, you're not," Vicki hissed desperately. "Quentin, you're n -- " She didn't finish, but it was mutual. The spark flashed, and they kissed. And both swooned in each other's arms. ...but... ...unseen, unnoticed, and ultimately uncared for, Maggie Evans stood at the edge of the garden path in her expensive, just-bought lavender evening dress , watching her heart break. Her eyes exploded with oceans of tears, her cheeks sizzled, her fists balled with her new (and also very expensive) jeweled purse, and she nearly swooned herself in sheer despair. Within seconds, she was klicking in her best (and soon broken) heels down the path, through the gravel driveway (where she in fact slipped, fell, and gashed open a stockinged knee before picking herself up) , and leaping back into her car and speeding back down the hill, because although she hadn't heard a word of their conversation, Maggie Evans knew that, unlike Victoria Winters, she would never be Quentin Collins' salvation -- -- and her Roman statue was dead. (and beyond his ken, the beat goes on.) */*/* anything but figurative:maggie makes a connection (have a beautiful anniversary) "She's the kind of gal who is everybody's pal...and nobody's friend. A wisecrack can supplant reality, and a big laugh can avoid truth. For essentially, Maggie is a lonely person...hoping for something and expecting nothing." - "Shadows On The Wall," Art Wallace, 1966 -- and then she was in the driveway (Pop's car gone again godDAMNit she wouldn't do this tonight) , and the car screeched to a halt, and she rushed and fumbled with her keys her keys too many and the lock slipped and she nearly fell and the door swung open and Maggie rushed in through the rain into the dry and slammed the door shut with a thundercrack. Her ears burned, and her blood was ice and fire, and her heart her HEART was slamming against her ribcage and she felt like she was going to throw up as hard and disgusting as Pop on his worst days and she thought 'six months six months of futilety' she thought Margaret she thought Margaret you could have been a landscaper an artist and here you are serving kids ice cream and fishermen cream of chicken. Quentin's my guy. (crock of shit.) She hurled the purse across the room with a shriek, and it hit a blank canvas with a dull thump before dropping to the carpet. She kicked her heels off with a scything of her legs, and then she sobbed and sobbed, almost in physical pain. She could feel her heart bleeding. Across the room, Pop's always-half-finished canvases, of little children, of dockworkers, of boats even -- all seemed to be sitting there, mocking her:What a great guy you've got, Maggie. Six months of banging up against a wall. Fantastic. There was a knock on the door. Maggie sobbed harder. This she didn't need. (don't answer it.) So she wouldn't. And she sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed. But the knocking didn't stop. So Maggie stumbled to her feet, and nearly ripped the door off the hinges opening. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her nose was running, and she was the picture of wounded animal. Nicholas Blair was standing there. Bowler hat in hand, contrite. Brows knitted in deep, soulful concern. More honest than she'd ever seen him; the syrup was gone. Gloves on. Rain pouring down on his perfect hair. "Maggie," he said softly, looking very worried for her. She let him step inside silently, and shut the door behind him. She started crying again; couldn't help it. "Maggie," he said again, now very concerned. "Maggie, what's happened?" He put his hand -- now ungloved -- on her arm gently. And because that was almost all she'd ever asked for Quentin Collins but so much less than she'd needed, and because she hadn't been touched in months, and because she was ultimately terribly lonely and had few close friends (Carolyn was everybody's friend, particularly if there were drugs involved, and Vicki was now a dead issue) , and because she had a dead-end job and still lived with her ungrateful alcoholic father, and because she was rapidly approaching 24 and still here in Collinsport, Maine, and because he'd treated her like a queen since the second he met her, and because her head was on fire and her heart was hemmhoraging:Maggie kissed him. Hard. Long. She drew away, then pulled in again. Passionate. Burning. The little hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood up. He took her in his arms. Kissed her back. Rough. Intense. Emotional. They stumbled back down the steps. Her eyes and loins were burning, and a fire started to crackle that'd been dead for *SO LONG* and she kissed and -- kissed and they hit the -- couch -- his hands were everywhere, and she was breathing so fast -- (...and somewhere, back up on that hill, with quentin, vicki winters' mind was conflicted and full of remorse. "we can't do this," she protested feebly...) Her blouse was coming off and his hands were up her thigh; they were like silk -- he kissed her neck -- her mouth, her eyes -- she ripped his coat off, tugged at the buttons on his shirt -- her lipstick was ruined -- their hearts exploded -- ("it would be for all the wrong reasons" -- but vicki didn't know she believed that. "and we'd hurt good people. it's not right and it's not fair.") Her legs kicked; her equilibrium spun around like a top -- his cheek was on his -- his *hands* -- his mouth -- her bra was undone -- his belt came off -- ("maggie's such a good friend...") She pushed and melted into him again, and her cerebral cortex and nerve endings crackled like wildfire; her hair was everywhere; her mind was a tidal wave -- lightning went up her thighs -- ("we couldn't hurt her like that...") And he THRUSTED into her and the world exploded -- Maggie cried out -- she PUSHED back -- it had been centuries -- their minds melded -- she felt joined -- the dimensions around them compressed then exponentially cycloned out of control -- the storm battered the windows -- -- she THRUSTED -- (-- she reached around the Roman statue's sides and EMBRACED --) Maggie was afire. Date: 4/22/2000 From: CollinsKid */*/* storm (willie bleeds) The rose curtains whipped and blew through the open air as the shutters CLANGED and CLANGED like gunshots back against the windowframe in Josette's room on the top floor of the Old House. Light and dark flashed across the ceiling like a shadow play, and wind and rain swept in as if machine-propelled. The window yawned open, looking out onto the dark, dark woods, and millions upon millions of violent, shaking trees, bent back by the hurricane storm. The candle flames whipped back and slowly started to wink out, leaving the old room in more and more darkness. From beyond the window, a wild ghost, bent on unnatural vengeance, seemed to scream and shriek for satisfaction to the occupants inside. Willie Loomis -- "the occupants" -- was curled up in a ball in the inside corner of the room's closed door. He whimpered and moaned, and his neck trickled scarlet, burning with pain. His mind was a bushfire of horror and pain, and impotent terror. He didn't want to look out there, onto those crazy spook woods, and he didn't want to see that black sky, and he didn't want to look back at the house on the hill and know -- (what's next) -- he didn't want to know what he knew. The banshee outside screamed harder, and Willie cried out, terrified of things he couldn't see but knew were there. He was paralyzed. The monster in his mind was frozen in his memory, and it took all his will just to suck in breath. A candelabra crashed to the ground, shoved by the winds, and Willie jerked from his fetal position. Blind horror was smashed onto his face, and he quivered like a dying animal... (...and his mind's eye a pale, gaunt, nude figure with blood-red scars racing up and down and all over his body leaped at him with eyes like fire and jaws full of jagged glass and latched on to his throat like a giant leech and his will was null, his soul forfeit) Willie closed his drowning eyes tightly, and rocked back and forth, moaning inconsolably. On the nightstand above him, an old, old record player stood stationary, with a single black record onboard. The wind screamed. */*/* kitchen/david sees shadows Something was moving behind the curtain of the kitchen window. David was positive, as he stared intently at the darkness just beyond the white curtain obscuring his view. He sat at the table alone, with his dish of cookies and his glass of milk, his last snack before bed. The kitchen was quiet and dark now; outside the storm raged unceasingly, but it was muffled from in here. He'd seen the full moon earlier. Now he swore, along with the other japering shadows creeping around the shadowy kitchen, that he saw something else out there. "David?" Vicki called out as she entered from the servant's door. "Are you almost finished with your snack? Come now; I don't want to have trouble getting you into bed like last night." "There's something out there," David said resolutely, staring into the depths. "Outside the window." He pointed at the glass. Vicki crossed over to the table, and stared at the window. "David, there's nothing. It's just a tree branch or some leaves." "There was someone out there," David said stubbornly. "I know it and you can't change my mind." "Alright; I won't try to change your mind," Vicki said, sighing. "Now come on; finish up and let's get you to bed." David was the picture of indignation. "Go take a look," he said. "Pull back those stupid curtains and look for yourself." "David, this is ridiculous." "Oh, so now you think I'm ridiculous?" David snapped, chin trembling. "I *didn't* make it up!" He stamped his foot. "I'm sorry, David, I don't think you're ridiculous at all," Vicki said solemnly. "And I'm sure you didn't make it up; I believe you saw something but I don't think you saw anything but a tree branch." The whole vibe in the kitchen was admittedly giving her the willies; all polished metal and glass, spic 'n span, from the linoleum to the drapes -- and so empty... She crossed to the window. "See, I'll even take a look." And with that, Vicki drew open the drapes to reveal the dark night beyond the window -- and an empty stretch of lawn leading out towards the woods, and Widows Hill. "See?" Vicki said reassuredly, both to David and herself. "Nothing's out there. Satisfied, Dick Tracy?" "No," David groused, obviously disappointed. He traced the rim of the half-empty milk glass with a finger. "I wish someone had really been out there," he pouted absently. "Then I could've proven you wrong." "I'm very sorry to disappoint you," Vicki said. "Now hurry and finish your snack, and Saturday might come quicker." She headed across the room, a silent chill going up her back again as she took in the wide-open, dark and sterile kitchen, and that dark maw of a window. David frowned, disgusted, and finished his glass of milk. Outside, the wind picked up, and turned into a constant, unending siren scream. */*/* nancy drew (carolyn breaks and enters) ...And a few floors up, closer to the eye of the storm, in a large dark room, the golden doorknob to Julia Hoffman's room turned and gave way. Carolyn slipped in between the door like a cat, and swiftly shut the door behind her, keeping an ear perked for any ambient noise. As the storm thundered outside and shadows danced across the walls like obscene phantoms, she strode purposefully (but quietly) towards Julia's desk. A few tugs, a jiggle, a prayer and a twist, and the skeleton key in Carolyn's gloved hand conquered the desk lock. Carolyn pulled the drawer open, revealing a treasure trove of Julia's personal effects, but nothing worth her time. She then turned to the dresser drawers ,and found little more than a whole lot of clothes. Carolyn went through drawer after drawer of clothes, clothes, clothes, probing and finding nothing. She shut the last drawer with an annoyed sigh. Paused. Thought. Thought. Thought. Then, an ancient, cobwebbed memory of playing in this wing at age 7 flickered into Carolyn's mind, and she eyed the jeweled mirror above Julia's desk. With a creak, the mirror slipped off the wall -- and exposed the hidden compartment for all too soon. Pleased as punch, Carolyn twisted the knob of the compartment and opened it up. There, for her eyes only, were Dr. Julia Hoffman's many, many medical diaries. Carolyn's mouth curved into a black cat's killer smirk... ...and below her, phantom footfalls echoed somewhere within the Great House. */*/* four (all you need is love, love, love) "catch you with my death bag!" - killer BOB, "twin peaks," 1990 cause we're lovers & that is a fact yes we're lovers & that is a fact & nothing will keep us together... - david bowie, "heroes" from the other end of the hallway, a rhythm was generating... - patti smith, "land:horses/land of 1,000 dances/la mer (de) " The double doors of the Old House slid open with a comforting creak, and Julia, purse in hand, stepped through the doorway, slipping in the darkness. Closing and latching the doors, she shuddered from the after-bite of the storm cold, and drew her jacket close to her for but a moment before slipping it off and tossing it onto a nearby coathook. She placed her purse down on a desk in the drawing room, and smiled tiredly as the candleabra's tiny fires danced across the dark walls, which cascaded with ice-white and black as the storm went through its natural seizures just beyond the window. Even now, the wind and trees roared at her through the glass, that portal to chaos she'd just left. It had been hell getting to and from Wyndcliffe, especially with the storm working itself in a lather all day. Her expedition to Stokes' had run dry. But at least she had the last of the medicine for Barnabas to take when he got back from his trip upstate, to make sure his newfound life and light stayed forever. She circled the room absently, and her face bloomed into a graceful smile as she thought about Barnabas, racing up and down the coast, probably adoring this storm and the myriad sensations it brought him; sensations and feelings they all took for granted, even the bitter cold she'd fled with such determination moments before. She thought of him, watching the gray sky all day, bathing his face in that preliminary drizzle, walking along the beach for miles and never once dreading an unkind sun. And she wanted desperately to be there with him. But it was enough that he was out there, on his odyssey, she thought. He needed this time, and she knew he was having the time of his life. Digging into Quentin and Stokes' clandestine alliance could wait a day or two. They had won a great victory -- despite the loss of Tom, she thought as her face fell. Oh, Tom, I couldn't give you what you wanted or needed. I'm sorry, more than you can ever know; for you, for Amy. And I thank God that Willie was able to give you the true peace you deserved before you went into the ground. Angelique can't deny you it, no matter what. I hope you find all the happiness you could ever want for, in that world beyond my comprehension... It was then that Julia saw the record player on the front desk. Her eyebrows knitted, and Julia frowned. A *record player*? Surely Barnabas hadn't bought this so quickly; was he taking to it all so well? No, that was impossible; it hadn't been there when he'd left -- Thunder rolled, and all but one of the candleabra blew out. The room was bathed in darkness, with splashes of light slipping across the room from the outside; iridescent shard-shapes, made of natural chaos, shimmering like spectres. Watching Julia, as she grew very pale and clutched a hand to her neck. (something is not right here.) Flame bloomed down the hallway, and Julia rushed around to see candles, lit and burning, down the dark hall. She dithered, standing there in the foyer, and she suddenly felt very afraid. There were muddy footsteps at the foot of the stairs. And sneaker scratchings on the wood floor. The wind wailed, lonely and quiet in the creaky old house. (*she had not had to use the key to open the door.*) Julia went for the doors. The record player shrieked, and began to play. She froze. Her mind was feverish; her heart beat ceaselessly and full of frightful impotence. Outside, she could hear the growls of the hurricane. Just then, a high-pitched guitar twang shrieked through her eardrums, and a wild, repetitive beat shook the drawing room and foyer. It was a rock song. And a familiar one, too, as Julia recognized brisk young voices crooning. It was a song she knew. It was one she'd heard in a radio. The Beatles, in fact; those kids from England. "All you need is love, love, love," the young lead singer sang out, and Julia crazily wondered if she'd stumbled upon some clandestine rock concert. (...Held in Barnabas' house. Oh, right, Julia.) There was a series of loud, brisk, insistent scratching noises down the hall, like a wild animal with claws scraping, and Julia whipped around to face the dark column of the hall. A figure was stumbling down the corridor, cloaked in shadows. "Who are you?" Julia croaked, her skin screaming with gooseflesh as she backed up. "Don't come any closer!" The rock song burst into a loud, insanely raucous chorus, and a pair of huge, powerful arms grabbed Julia from behind at the waist and spun her around. Julia gasped as she whirled around, and her breath died in her throat as she came face-to-face with her attacker. The pallid, death-gray face before her was the color of dead fish, and as the lightning's illumination cascaded across the room again she saw golden-yellow slits for eyes. The lips were full and ruby-colored, shining brightly with (blood) , and the face was twisted into an insane/obscene leer of desecration. Tom Jennings burst into a wild, gaping grin, razor-teeth gleaming as Julia's eyes fixed on his. "HI, JULIA!" He threw her across the drawing room, and she screamed. The music was blaring now, almost drowning out the storm, and Julia struggled to pick herself up off the floor, moaning in horror and hysteria. Tom stalked around the archway to the drawing room, pacing like a wild animal. Outside, the storm continued to rage. The dim-but-stark candlelight in the room bathed him in unnaturally-clear spotlight. "DID YOU MISS ME, JULIA?" that fun-loving, guy's guy voice, now demented and demonic, boomed out over the music. "I SURE MISSED YOU! I SURE MISSED YOU!" "Oh, *GOD*," Julia moaned, beyond all human terror. Then he bounded across the room and he was on her again, and the room spun crazily -- "JULIA!" Tom cried boisterously. "IT'S ME! IT'S ME! IT'S TOM!" He kissed her neck, lecherous and diseased, over and over, then her cheek, then her forehead, and Julia squirmed and beat at his hands and screamed and screamed and that stupid pop song got louder and louder, beating back the noise of the storm -- With a feline-beast roar, Tom bashed her across the face, instantly bloodying her nose and blackening her eye, and making her crumple against a candleabra, which tumbled to the ground with her with a hard CLANG. Julia moaned and screamed and moaned and screamed, crawling now across the carpet, trying to get away from that bounding, gibbering thing bouncing towards her, and the world was still spinning and the dark was everywhere and the Beatles song screamed with drums and clashing guitars -- -- he was on her again, and with another snarl, he punched her again, slamming her back against the archway. Julia crumpled, insensate, and tried to get her bearings -- but Tom leaped onto her again, and bashed her in the face again and again. His preternatural strength was merciless, and very potentially lethal. Julia almost swooned. "JULIA!" he screamed again, and pulled her into a limp lover's embrace. He dragged her around the room with him, clutching her in his claws, and "All You Need Is Love" screamed like soundtrack as he pulled her into an obscene, non-consensual parody of a dance. Tom's arms pulled hers up and down, and his feet bounced around, and Julia tried to collapse but he struck her across the face and she lost teeth, and then he threw across the room again and she SLAMMED into the banister of the stairs, and her breath was gone and her lungs screamed as she sank to the floor. Julia's head skewed around crazily, looking for something, anything to save her, but everything was moving so fast and the world was like a crazy carousel and -- To one side of the hallway, the shadowy figure was hugging the wall. Light bathed things, and Victoria Winters leaned limply against the side of the hall, a crumpled heap of arms and legs. Her face was pale, her eyes a sea of distant horror. Vicki bled profusely from her neck. "Julia," she half-mouthed, half-croaked, and then seemed to swoon standing up. Vicki's head bent back, and a fresh, bright smear of dark arterial blood shone on the old, faded wallpaper. Julia screamed as Tom leaped upon her again, and threw her back into the drawing room. She slammed against the fireplace and felt her wrist sprain. She leaped to her feet and tried to make a rush for the door, but didn't make it to the archway. Julia screamed as Tom pounded her in the face again, they flung her at the window. Julia smashed against it with a krak, but did not break it. She slid down the glass like a smashed bug, sinking like a stone. Julia's eyes were now very blurry, but they rolled, rotated, and fixed on someone -- something -- across the room. At the other end of the room, something was crumpled half-in, half-out of the drawing room closet, next to the fireplace. Julia, momentarily winded and clutching at consciousness through intense shock, struggled to get a clear look at whatever was there, watching it watching her, at what seemed like miles across the room. Lying in a sprawled heap on the carpet, half-in and half-out of the drawing room closet, David Collins' cheek was smooshed against the floor, and his eyes were wide and vacant. A bright scarlet stain was blooming on the white throw rug. "I can't think," the zombie-eyed child mumbled thickly over the din of the Beatles. Julia croaked in utter despair, coughed up blood, and then shrieked with a newfound rush of adrenaline and horror as Tom dragged her up to her feet once more, cradling in her arms like a wounded bird and rocking her to the crazy, jangling music. His hands clutched at her breast, her thighs, caressed her face. The whiteface joker leered at her with corpse-like glee, and she felt his stinking breath on her neck as he rocked her crazily back and forth, off-tempo and violently. "ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, JULIA!" Tom shrieked at the top of his deceased lungs. Julia screamed for her life. "CAN WE GIVE IT ANOTHER SHOT, BABE?" Tom howled insanely, and broke into grating, choppy, beyond loud laughter. His sharp nails scratched at her neck, then his hands grabbed her wrists, pulling her back against him hard. Her neck bent up to his mouth. Julia's voice reached sonic proportions as she screamed endlessly, but never managed to drown out the Beatles once. She was hysterical, horrified, helpless, hopeless; her knees buckled, her feet scrabbled, she jerked and jerked -- the storm beat at the windows -- John Lennon sang his happy song -- Tom Jennings' monstrous canines buried themselves in Julia Hoffman's jugular with a spray of crimson, and latched on like a starved leech. Julia howled as her blood burned, and her body became wracked with inhuman pain, and her heart susurrated; her veins drained and her eyes burst with helpless tears; her spine was jelly and her hands beat and beat and her legs gave way and her hips jerked; she felt fire up her thighs; there was some sort of twisted, obscene, alien climax -- (a mental reel screams:END) Black.