Dark Shadows: Angelique's Descent

by Lara Parker

  Angelique! Gone! Incredible, when I had fought her so long. She wore a green-striped dress, and the stripes seemed to twist like snakes around her awkward frame, but she was still, and staring, her yellow hair spattered about her head like fallen leaves, and I moved around the room, hugely strong, clenching and unclenching my fists, thinking, I know this place. The stones of the sarcophagus reeked of mold and the four stone walls seemed impenetrable; the ceiling vaulted in a high arch from which hung tendrils of tiny stalactites, as though limestone tears had been seeping through the roof for centuries. And then I knew I was in the Collins mausoleum. Our family’s inner sanctum! In an instant I found the secret stone in the second stair, the one that slid to the side, and slipped the latch.

  To my surprise, Ben was waiting, poor oafish Ben, so eager to help, so dull in his mind, and I was relieved to see him. He spun to look at me, and his face went ashen. You remember Ben was the size of a giant and had a giant’s heart, good to the core. But, as you know, he was a defenseless servant, an uneducated vassal, powerless to disobey the orders of his master. Now he lifted his large palms in helpless denial.

  “Mr. Barnabas, is—is it really you?”

  “She knew?”

  “She told me you wasn’t really dead. That you would come back after the sun set. She made me get her a stake.”

  “Well, she failed to put it to use, and now we must find a way to hide the body.”

  “She’s dead?”

  “Yes, I strangled her.”

  “I didn’t think anyone would ever be able to kill her.” Ben backed away as though seeing me for the first time, his jaw slack with incredulity. “Something has happened to you, Mr. Barnabas. You’re changed. Different.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I am different.” It was as difficult for me to say it as it was for him to believe it. “I am no longer human.” Ben choked on a gurgling sound in his throat, and slowly shook his head. I needed his help, but I could see that he might betray me out of stupidity as I strove to explain something I myself did not understand. “I am … how did she put it? One of the living dead,” I said. “And Ben, you must keep my secret. If you tell a soul, I will kill you.”

  “I—I won’t tell nobody, Mr. Barnabas.”

  “Good. Now we must find a way to dispose of Angelique’s body.”

  “I—I’ll take it to the woods and bury it.”

  Footsteps were approaching, boots on gravel. I heard the screech of the opening to the mausoleum and the soft murmur of voices. It was you with my father, whose square face with its gray sideburns appeared beyond the iron leaves and curlicues of the gate. His tight, straight mouth and his matching level eyebrows were stern, and his cold blue eyes uncompromising as he spoke to you. “We will find the person who did this and he will be hanged.”

  You, my elegant mother, with your dark hair and patrician manner, murmured petulantly, “All that matters to you is retribution and revenge. Where is the pain and the sorrow at our loss?” I realized you were, of course, talking about me. And then you said, “You never loved our son.”

  I lunged for the ring in the lion’s jaw and jerked it down. The door to the inner chamber slid open and I dashed inside. It closed behind me and Ben was left to face Joshua Collins.

  “Stokes!” my father roared. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Ben sputtered his words. “I—I come to clean up after the funeral, sweep away the faded flowers.”

  “Well, be off with you. I am here to pay my respects to my son, and have no need of your company.” Sweet Mother, I knew you were gripped by bottomless grief, my father with rage. Revealing my secret would disgrace the family forever. You were drawing near my sanctuary, and I nearly stumbled over the body lying by the casket.

  Angelique was already cold and growing rigid when I lifted her in my arms and thrust her into my own coffin. I made no attempt to close her staring eyes, and every night after that when I returned at dawn, I would remember that once she had lain there, her imprint still on the silk.

  My father advanced for the secret door, and Ben was at a loss to stop him, but as it slid open, a large squeaking bat flew out close to my father’s head, startling him. “What on earth! What is that? How is a bat come to be in there?”

  Ben made another feeble effort. “Mr. Collins. You mustn’t go in.” My father stopped at the door, scanning the room. “No,” he said with a long sigh, turning to you. “There is nothing to see. Only the lonely coffin where our son is laid to rest.”

  Oh, Mother, if only I had not gone out, gone to Collinwood in hopes of one brief glimpse of Josette. If I had not moved into the woods beneath her window, and tried to hide my face in the leaves. If only my darling little sister had not seen me from the doorway and cried out, “Barnabas! It is you. I know it’s you. You’ve come back!” as I floundered through the trees, a horrid phantom with my cape flung out, catching on twigs and thorns, my leaps inhuman. Then she might not have followed me through the graveyard and into the mausoleum, a child delighted by her mischievousness, only to crouch in terror by my casket, while I, drawn by a new and nameless hunger, had found myself hovering in a dark street off the docks, where the cobblestones were greasy with sea air and the tolling from the lighthouse moaned its melancholy warning. A reoccurring beam whipped over the water and illuminated the rotting planks of the pier, and there I saw my first unfortunate, having found no takers for her charms that evening. Her back was turned to the door of the Blue Whale, and faint piano playing tempted her to sway slowly to the music. The intermittent light cast her in silhouette displaying a jaunty hat, a flounced skirt, her vanity obvious even in the gloom.

  I found I was able to move like lightning, and I appeared so quickly beside her she caught her breath, but with one admiring glance she made me out to be a wealthy man, my fine trousers and silver-handled cane suggesting the life of privilege you and my father had given me.

  “What brings you out on such a rare evening, Captain?” she said, turning up a cheeky smile. I withdrew at the sight of a few broken teeth and a pocked complexion that no painted beauty mark could enliven, but she placed a hand on my arm.

  “Half a crown, Captain, for a little company,” she said, her expression wan and imploring. “Not to worry, for I have a room above the inn.”

  It was then I realized for the second time how I had changed. Her brightly painted mouth, the faded curls of what must have been a wig, were oddly alluring. She was not young, but more than fifty years, and yet her tentative gestures of seduction charmed me, and her wistful indication of a life gone sour and sad moved me to reach for her. She hesitated, still wanting to negotiate, and I breathed in the reek of musty perfume and an unwashed ruff. Gently, I pushed aside the objecting hands she had placed against my chest, and I felt my canines thrust violently from my gums. Mother, I wish I could describe to you the unfamiliar sensation, as though my mouth had grown fur, while my tongue explored the points of my incisors in amazement. I bent her as she struggled, and I closed my ears to her frantic squeals. Then my torment at the hideous thing I knew myself to be dissolved in the intense delight of forcing her open, entering her and merging, finding, as I ripped her neck, her jugular, and flooding my mouth and throat with her surprisingly sweet nectar.

  Oh, Mother, try not to despise me for what I reveal to you. Almost at once, I let her drop, repulsed by what I had done. I thought of dragging her to the water’s edge where the outgoing tide might envelop her, but I merely left her there and withdrew into the shadows, staring back at her crumpled form, my second murder in as many days. She looked as Angelique had looked, motionless and small.

  I leaned against the wall of an empty warehouse facing the sea, felt the mossy brick, the slime of years under my palms, and weak, yet satiated, I slid to the ground and sat in a stupor, my limbs in a dull paralysis, my cape a pool around my thighs. I stared bleakly at the shapeless heap on the dock. The searchlight traveled over her, then left her in darkness.

  I was the goblet, she was the
wine.

  I had kept myself alive, and now I knew clearly what that life was to be.

  Dawn crept over the sea beyond the pier and the smudged gray light of an approaching storm revealed a faint horizon, casting into my mind a new fear. I knew I must return to the mausoleum. I seemed to fly there in an instant only to find that Ben had been sleeping beside the stone steps through the night. He woke in a dull lethargy.

  “Mr. Barnabas, are you hurt? Has something happened?”

  “To me, no, but to some unfortunate creature … ah, it will be dawn soon, and here is the bizarre reality.” I made an attempt to explain myself to Ben as I now do to you, how I had no choice but to return to my coffin.

  But Ben was stupefied and only stared at me in bewilderment. “B-but there’s blood on your mouth, on your shirt.”

  “You will hear talk of some attack in the village,” I said, aware of the strain in my own voice. “They will believe, from the marks on the poor woman’s throat, that it was a wild animal. But I—I am the guilty one.”

  “You mean you…”

  “I have been discovering, Ben, that I have remarkable powers, and I have learned something else about my new existence.”

  “What’s that?”

  I could not say it, even to Ben, and when the words formed, juices rose in my throat.

  “I cannot survive without the blood of others.”

  Ben’s response was a mewling sound like that of a stranded cat, and I realized that my only friend in this new life was an uneducated and superstitious peasant.

  “When I saw Angelique with the stake poised over my heart,” I said, “I should have let her finish what she meant to do. I would rather be dead than to go through eternity as what I have become.”

  I staggered through the iron gate, passed by the coffins, and drew down the ring in the lion’s mouth. I was ready to crawl like a bloodied beast into his cave, but no sooner had I slunk inside than I heard my little sister’s childish scolding. “Barnabas! I’ve been waiting for you so long.”

  She was sitting in the filthy corner, against the wall, her knees pulled close to her chest, shivering in her thin nightdress, the pink one with ribbons, and her bright eyes were mischievous when she cocked her head. Mother, she was such a sweet and lively child. How frightened she must have been there among the graves, and how much she must have loved me to come searching for me. She looked up with expectant joy, and, by her eager expression, I could tell she was certain I would gather her up and take her home safely.

  What had the witch said? “All who love you will die!”

  I swung my face away, terrified that she had discovered me, knowing that my mouth and cravat were stained with the blood of my victim.

  “Barnabas, I knew it was you!” But then she saw me, and her voice broke into a wail. I watched helplessly as her delight faded, her eyes grew wide, and she threw her small hands up to hide me from her sight. I came forward to reassure her, but she screamed as only a child can scream, a high unearthly howl that rent my heart and echoed through the mausoleum. Then she scrambled to her feet and, bundling up her night skirt, fled to the graveyard in the swirling mist.

  Ben found her crouched behind the stone of Jeremiah, such a fitting hiding place, for, as you remember, I had only lately killed him in a duel, hoping to reclaim my Josette. And when Ben called and called her name, Sarah sat trembling and weeping in the shadow of Jeremiah’s grave, terrified and struck dumb with fear, as the hard rain began to fall.

  When he finally carried her home, it was too late. She had been in the storm, her clothes were clinging to her skin, and the shock had struck her mute. She had neither the will nor the strength to fight the pneumonia that settled in her lungs. With Ben’s help, I contrived to see her while you were away, to show her my face, unbloodied and contrite. I entered her nursery quietly where her toys were scattered on the floor, a dollhouse with tiny furniture arranged in its rooms, a rocking horse with a tangled mane, and a porcelain lady tossed face down on the carpet. Sarah, your beloved daughter, lay on a silken coverlet, and as I drew near her, I could not help but catch my breath at the perfection of a child, her skin flawless as apple blossoms, the dark lashes that fell on her flushed cheeks, and her bee-stung mouth. I took her hand and pressed each small finger with my own, reflecting on the miracle of life. Each of her fingernails was like a tiny transparent shell. But she woke delirious, and her wide eyes darted around until they settled on my face.

  “Barnabas…”

  I lifted her up from her pillow, feeling her small bones, and pulled her close to my heart, my cheek against her forehead. She put out a rush of heat. “Sarah, I never meant to frighten you. I love you so.”

  “I love you, Barnabas,” she whispered, “and I always will.”

  Her head fell forward onto my breast, and she sighed her last in my arms. It was like a blow; my breath stopped, my body caved into itself, and my whole being was convulsed in sobbing. But sadly, no tears came. It was then I knew I had brought you doubly the grief that no mother should ever endure. All that you loved I had taken from you.

  I returned to the mausoleum in a dull-witted stupor, like a dog that had eaten rotten flesh, ashamed and sick in my soul. “It was I who killed her,” I kept repeating. “If only she had never seen me as I was. If only I had not frightened her so.”

  “No, Mr. Barnabas, it wasn’t you, it was the storm that killed her, and the fever.” How like Ben to be kind, even to me, even when he saw what I was.

  As for me, I could only babble incoherently. “Everyone who has ever dared to fall in love in this family has been miserable. Little Sarah, in her ruffled cap and sleeping gown … what have I become? How can I do the things I do? A child among the tombstones, trapped behind the gate. She followed me and discovered the most terrifying secret.”

  Ben stood listening, his jowls sagging, body thick and slouched, his hands dangling by his sides, unable to respond, helpless to calm me or to console me. Then he shut his eyes and tears ran from under his stubby lashes. He shook his head.

  I became afraid. “Don’t turn away from me, Ben. I’m not responsible for what happened.” And yet I knew I was. The fault was mine. “Ben, I must escape the light.” The light? Do you hear me, Mother? How well Angelique knew me, to put a curse on me that I must live eternally by night. Live! What a mockery I made of that word. For I was dead, and nothing lived except the hatred inside me.

  Ben looked over at me, his expression a grimace of pity and incomprehension. I knew then that only he could save me from myself.

  “I have made a decision, Ben. You must do what Angelique began. The stake and mallet are still lying on the floor in the room with my coffin. If I go to the village and give myself up for the murder of that poor woman, or if I expose myself to the sun and am destroyed, it will disgrace my family forever. No, I will be in the coffin, and that’s where I will remain, with your help.” But Ben shook his head.

  “Mr. Barnabas, don’t ask me to do what I can’t.”

  “But who else can I ask? If you do this for me, at sunrise I will be at peace. The stake you made is of enough length to pierce a man’s heart. Release me, Ben, free me from an eternity of shame.”

  “Mr. Barnabas, I can’t. I haven’t the will. Or the strength. You’ve always been good to me. I can never do that to you.”

  “End my torment! Would you condemn me to wander forever? You will be bestowing the greatest act of friendship—the gift of peace.”

  “Can’t you just go on, the way you are?”

  I struggled to convince him. More than anything, I longed to stop the deaths. “Don’t you understand?” I cried. “These urges rise up in me, and to fight them is futile. Urges despicable and gruesome—animal urges like those of a mad dog or—or a trapped and tortured hyena. With instincts most wretched and ruthless. And those I feed on could become like me, ravenous, diseased. We will all kill to live and live to kill because the force that drives my wretched existence cannot be denied. Even cancer cel
ls will destroy their host to replicate and thrive, just as the severed head of a poisonous snake will still clamp on the hunter’s hand and discharge its poison. Not for nothing have vampires inspired terror and repulsion, been despised and found hideous by all mankind. Look at me! A monster! A predator preying on the helpless, victims of their own innocence. So, Ben, grant me this one last gesture of devotion. Say you will do it.”

  Ben sighed and placed his huge hands over his eyes. “I will, Mr. Barnabas. I’ll do what you want.”

  Mother, I felt a great sense of reprieve. My body was lighter, and I sighed deeply. “And when I am gone, remember what was good about me. Remember me as I was.”

  Ben, poor helpless peasant, torn between loyalty and obedience, was weeping again. And as soon as I had his promise, I knew I would extract another. And I now admit to you, this request was one of the utmost selfishness, and it was my doom.

  “Just one last thing, Ben.” He lifted his rheumy eyes to mine. “Before I go, I must see her again.”

  “Not Miss Josette!”

  “Yes. I can say good-bye to everything in this world except her.”

  “But she thinks you are dead!”

  “I will go quietly in the night, while she sleeps. She will never know I was there.”

  “But what if she wakes up?”

  “She will not wake. I will want to wake her, want it desperately, to—hold her, to—to take her with me…” I could not finish my thought. “But I love her too much for that. I will return before dawn, and you must be here to do what you have promised.” I reached for Ben and embraced him. “Good-bye, true friend,” I said. “Do not fail me.”

  I came to Josette’s room in the form of a bat, hovering at her window, and I saw her sleeping in the moonlight, the crocheted canopy of her four-poster bed casting spiderweb shadows on her coverlet and across her face and form. It was as if she slept in a cloud, all downy quilts and soft stuffs. She wore a blue satin gown that clung to her shoulders, and her dark curls were spread across her pillow. Her lips were parted and the fragrance of her breath came to me, the odor of mint. As I settled on her carpet and leaned over her, I was struck breathless by her satiny cheek, like the petals of a flower, her heart-shaped face, and dark lashes that twitched as though she saw something in her dream. But what pained me more than her beauty, or even her purity, was my helplessness in the presence of her loyal and unselfish soul.