This story will be part of Dark Shadows 2, my concept of a sequel to Tim Burton's version of Dark Shadows. I risk committing spoilers by publishing it now, but it is finished and I am so pleased with it that I have to publish it now.
It is also a sequel to NichtBenz's story "Pretty Young Thing." I hope it meets with NichtBenz's approval.
And I have finally published a Dark Shadows story with some humor in it!
In my stories, I use some character names from previous versions of Dark Shadows. But these characters are not what they were in the previous versions. The name in parenthesis following the 1st mention of a character is the actor who would play that character in a movie version of the story. (I can dream, can't I?) For example, "Rachel Drummond (Kathryn Leigh Scott)" means that Kathryn Leigh Scott would play Rachel Drummond [please see my story "Dark Shadows: The Englishman"]. Many of these actors, including Kathryn Leigh Scott, appeared in either the original Dark Shadows or the 1991 prime-time remake. For more about these characters, and the actors who played them, please see darkshadowswikia dot com.
I do not own Dark Shadows or any of its characters, institutions, or entities.
"Dr. Hoffman, Vampire"
Dr. Julia Hoffman wakes up on the ocean floor. "Oh shit, how did I get underwater?"
She tries to swim to the surface but discovers she is wrapped in a sheet or something, with rope on top of it. She claws at the sheet, and is surprised at how easily her nails shred it. The rope is harder, but she still frees herself in a matter of seconds.
She heads for the surface while asking herself, "How much longer can I hold my breath?" Only then does she realize that she is not holding her breath, and she feels no need for air. "How can that be?" she asks herself as she claws and kicks her way to the surface.
Julia's head breaks the surface and she looks around. She sees the fires and thinks, "Two fires that big at the same time? What the hell is going on?" Then she realizes that somehow she knows instinctively which direction is which. The fires are to the northwest, so Barnabas must have dumped her in the Atlantic ...
BARNABAS!
She finally remembers Barnabas catching her pouring his blood into her own veins, his coldly angry words, his teeth coming at her. But she is not dead. No, not dead, but she is extremely thirsty. Thirsty and something else mixed with it - lust? Well, she wanted to be a vampire, she should be happy.
"Yes, I wanted to be a vampire," she tells herself. "A vampire with a coffin safely tucked away somewhere and my money readily available. Not a vampire swimming ashore with little chance of seeing the next sundown.
"How far out did he dump me? Can I swim to shore and find shelter before sunrise?"
But if that is Collinsport to the Northwest, then the more northerly fire is ...
"Lizzie!" Julia screams. "Oh God, Lizzie!" She prays that Lizzie and her family got out safely.
Does God hear the prayer of a vampire?
In the 3 years she lived at Collinwood, Julia did not go to town often enough to have any idea where the more southerly fire is, except that it is in town and close to the water. She starts swimming toward the fire in town. She wants to find out what it is. She is astonished at how fast she can move even in her thirsty and exsanguinated state.
But then she realizes, "Show me a burning building, and I'll show you a crowd of people gawking at it." Even with the fire to claim most of their attention, they might notice a barefoot woman with orange hair walking around in a dress that drips seawater. She changes course to come ashore a little south of the town fire.
Piers, piers, piers. Doesn't this town have a f***ing boat ramp? Lots of boats tied to the piers, but not one with a ladder, or even a rope, hanging over the side where she can climb up it. Climb? Julia looks at her hands for the 1st time since waking up: she now has long fingers and long nails, just like Barnabas. "Dumb-ass," she says to herself. She is about to dig her fingernails into a piling, when instinct takes over again. She presses the pads of her fingers and the ends of her toes against the piling, and climbs it like a skink climbing up a rock.
Once on the pier she takes the time to examine her fingernails more closely. Her pink nail paint is gone. It cracked up and fell off when the nails under it grew. Well, not so much grew as changed shape. Oddly, her toes and their nails have not grown at all. "So I won't need custom made shoes," she tells herself, "assuming I live long enough to need shoes at all."
There is a gravel parking lot between the piers and the street. The sign on the street side of the lot says "Moltke's Marina." Julia feels the sharp points of the gravel under her bare feet, but they do not hurt. Most of the streetlamps are on the shoreward side of the street, so she stays on the waterside as she walks north, toward the town fire. She wants to find out what the hell is going on, but she is going to sneak up on it from the rear.
One block north of the marina, she sees Parker's Market, a small grocery store, on the other side of the street. She remembers Lizzie mentioning it, but she has no idea exactly where it is. There is an alley between it and the next building to the North. And there is a phone booth in front of Parker's Market.
No point calling Collinwood. If she called Eliot, could he get here fast enough to provide her with shelter before the sun comes up? One more new instinct: she knows to the second how long she has before sunrise.
And how would the DOS react to the arrival of a vampire? Would she be welcomed as a colleague with an eccentric diet, or treated like a specimen, and locked in a glass version of Barnabas' iron box? But this is all academic, as she has no coins.
A car is coming from the north. Julia ducks into a patch of dark shadows. No, not a car, an old black Chevy pickup truck, even older than the Collins Chevy. It stops in front of the phone booth. The engine and the lights go off. The driver, a middle aged man, slides across the seat and gets out on the passenger side. He heads for the phone booth.
He is the 1st human Julia has seen since she woke up as a vampire. At the sight of him, Julia's thirst becomes a raging beast. Her fangs ache as they grow to piercing length, and then they burn with the same thirst that is consuming her body. She starts across the street in slow, absolute silence, tiptoeing on her bare feet.
The man's drunkenness would be obvious even to someone without Julia's vast experience in that field. He is also talking to himself. "Dumb bastards, closing the bar just because of a fire across the street." He steps into the doorway of the phone booth, whips out his tool and urinates. "Ah, the pause the refreshes." He laughs.
Julia freezes, on tiptoe halfway across the street, and for a moment her thirst is replaced with white hot rage. How many times has she had to use a phone booth that stank of urine because of shitheads like this one? And in this case there is a perfectly good alley, where a man could piss in private, just a few feet away from the phone booth. But the pig-dog just had to mark his territory.
And how many times has she fantasized about dissecting a phone-booth-pissing-pig-dog alive, and without anesthetic? She would start by filleting the offending organ and making him eat it, one thin slice at a time.
Fine thoughts for a trained and experienced psychiatrist.
"Some other night, some other pig-dog," she promises herself, and moves silently into position right behind her soon to be 1st kill.
The pig-dog tucks in his tool, zips up, and turns around. "Jesus! You crazy bitch! Don't sn-errrrrk!" His last words are cut short by the iron grip of Julia's long fingers around his wind pipe.
Julia's thirst, pissing in a phone booth, and "You crazy bitch!" She now has 3 reasons to make the world a better place by removing this slob from it. He is taller than Julia is, so she jerks him down to her level and then plunges her fangs into his neck.
But as Julia swallows the 1st mouthful of blood she thinks, "Bleeeah! How could alcohol taste so good when I drank it, but taste like shit second hand?" Her thirst outweighs her distaste, and she sucks him dry.
She drops the corpse face down on the sidewalk next to the Chevy, where it is out of sight from the street. She looks up and down the street and side walk: no one in sight. Her newly supersensitive ears will warn her of anyone approaching while she deals with the corpse. She notices blood on the nails and even the finger tips of her left hand, that's how deep they went into the flesh around his windpipe. She licks the blood off.
She looks in the truck cab and sees the keys hanging from the switch. She'll deal with them later. She tries to pull the slob's wallet from his ass pocket. She has no instinct for using these long new fingers, she must learn from experience. She eventually gets the wallet out and extracts the money from it: 2 fives and 4 ones, a whole $14 in total. She clumsily stuffs the bills into her bra and tosses the wallet into the bed of the truck.
She flips the pig-dog onto his back and pats his front pockets. Coins rattle in the left one. She does not even try to reach into the pocket, she cuts it open with her nails. She curses when some of the coins drop into the space between the cloth and the man's leg. But a quarter and a dime land on the sidewalk. She leaves them there for now. A thought occurs to her. She picks up the dead pig-dog by his neck and shakes him. More coins fall out of his left trouser leg.
She cuts open his right front pocket so it will match the left when the police examine the body. Let them make of that what they will. Her watch no longer works after being under water for so long, but she no longer needs one. She takes the dead pig-dog's watch anyway so the police will not wonder why the killer and thief left it.
She looks up and down the sidewalk again. Still no one in sight. Either everyone is already at the fire or they are taking another route. She drops the corpse in the bed of the truck, then examines the additional coins: one nickel and three pennies, no help with the phone.
Julia gets into the truck cab, and turns the rear view mirror to where she can see herself in it - except she sees the street behind the truck instead. So that part of the legend is true. She wonders how much of a mess she looks. She turns the mirror back to roughly its original position and lies down on the seat. She is out of sight to any potential passersby, whether afoot or on wheels, and she can take her time to think what to do next. And she can think much more clearly now, with her thirst quenched. But she still feels the lust. Why? And how does she satisfy it?
Drive away in the truck? To where? She doesn't know the town well enough to find an abandoned building where she can hide during the daylight hours. There might be enough time to drive to Arkham, which she knows far better than Collinsport. At least she knew it 3 years ago, but could she find an abandoned building there now? And what if this old truck breaks down, or she runs into a traffic jam?
She can make 2 phone calls, but to whom? Even if Eliot is home (and what are the odds of that?), can he get here fast enough to help? And except for Lizzie and her family, she knows no one in Collinsport ... YES SHE DOES! Well, maybe.
Flashback: "The Night of the Collinwood 'Happening' "
Julia sits at her table in her red dress, swaying to the sound of "No More Mr. Nice Guy," and tripping on Barnabas's blood.
Lizzie introduces her to some people, but Julia forgets all but 2 of them as soon as they walk away.
The 2 exceptions are Roxanne Drew (Barbara Blackburn), Lizzie's secretary,
and Tony Peterson (Joseph Gordon Levitt), Lizzie's lawyer and Roxanne's date.
And she remembers Tony (just the name, not the man) only because he is with Roxanne ...
Roxanne who is forty-something ...
and who has red hair ...
and who wears a red evening gown with a lot of cleavage.
And in spite of the chill of an autumn night in Maine outside, she wears black high-heeled sandals without hose.
Roxanne also wears gold-rimmed half-moon-glasses, which look both out of place and utterly charming.
Julia holds Roxanne's hand and looks over the half-moon-glasses into her eyes longer than anyone else's. Is there something in those eyes, a thing she has seen so many times before, including in Lizzie's eyes just before she kissed Lizzie for the 1st time?
Julia wishes she had worn a dress with more cleavage. Still holding Roxanne's hand, she tries to make conversation. "Are those glasses just for reading?"
"Yes, Doctor. I wear them all the time so I never have to look for them."
Julia laughs. "You must be a Maine girl, a levelheaded practical Yankee."
Roxanne laughs too, and it is a very pretty sound. "That's me, Doctor. Even after twenty one years in New York, that's me."
Tony notices that Mrs. Stoddard looks unhappy about this conversation, but he can't imagine why. He still decides to get Roxanne out of it. "Pleased to meet you, Doctor Hoffman. Roxanne, shall we dance?"
Roxanne knows that Tony hates to dance, so she gives him a puzzled look. But she also knows that he is far more socially adept than she is, so she says, "Sure." But before moving away, she smiles at Julia and says, "Very pleased to meet you, Doctor Hoffman. Please excuse us."
Julia smiles and nods and resumes swaying. And she wonders, did the word "very" have a slight emphasis on it?
Julia lies in the truck for a bit longer, figuring out the details. Truck, coins, phone ... urine. She gets out and walks to the building on the other side of the alley. The name on the sign is Scott's Hardware.
She goes back to the coins on the sidewalk and stares at them. A dime can be hard to pick up even with normal hands, so she tries the quarter 1st. She gets the nail of her forefinger under it and her thumbnail on top ... GOT IT! She puts the quarter on the sill of one of Parker's windows, the one closest to the phone booth, and returns for the dime, which takes longer, and finally the nickel. Now that all of them are on the window sill, she uses her nails to rake them into the palm of her left hand. She lays them in the alley where she can find them easily, but out of sight of anyone walking by. Then she uses her nails to rake the telephonically worthless pennies off the curb and into the palm of her left hand. She throws them down the alley.
She jumps into the bed of the truck and pulls the shoes off of the corpse. She lifts the shoes by their strings (she does not want to touch their insides, which touched the pig-dog's feet), jumps down to the sidewalk, and drops them on the floor of the cab in front of the passenger seat.
She gets in on the driver's side. As she expected, the transmission is a "3-on-the-tree." From the position of the shift lever she knows it is in 1st or 3rd. She learned to drive in a car with such a shifter (they were almost the only game in town in the late '40's), but it's been years since she drove one and she knows that old ones are often balky. She much preferred the 4-on-the-floor in the red Karmann Ghia she used to have.
Julia is reaching for the key when a thought occurs to her: the pig-dog was drunk, was he also drinking while driving? She searches the cab, starting with the glove box. She finds a flask shaped pint bottle of cheap whiskey stuck in the crack between the horizontal and vertical parts of the seat. The seal is broken, but it is almost full. She smiles, for the 1st time since she awoke as a vampire. She feels absolutely no desire to take a swig, especially since the now-dead pig-dog had his mouth on it. She gets out, taking the bottle with her.
There are spots and streaks of the pig-dog's blood on the sidewalk where she killed him and where she looted the corpse. She knows from experience that liquids don't always flow from small containers the way you expect them to. She has a lot of blood to dilute and only a little whiskey, so she must control it carefully.
She starts with the big stains in front of the phone booth. She squats and pours the whiskey onto the palm of her left hand. It runs off her fingertips and onto the blood stains. She stands up and smears the diluted blood out further with her toes. She repeats this with the rest of the stains, and then examines her work. Even to her vampire eyes, the stains now look far less like blood than they did before.
She examines the white parts of her dress. Yes, there is blood on them too, even though the fabric was wet when she bit the pig-dog.
She gets back in the truck and drops the empty bottle on the floor in front of the passenger seat. She starts the engine, switches on the lights and left turn signal, and slowly lets in the clutch while pushing the gas down. The truck jerks forward maybe 6 inches and then the engine stalls. It figures, he left it in 3rd. She restarts the engine and fiddles with the shifter looking for 1st. As expected, the shifter is balky. It takes her awhile, but she finds what might be 1st, and tries again. The truck jerks a bit, then moves more smoothly as she gets the feel of the gas and clutch. Rather than fight the shifter again, she roars along in 1st gear all the way to the gravel parking lot at Moltke's Marina. And after fighting the shifter, driving this old heap all the way to Arkham looks even less attractive.
She notices that her vampire eyes could see the road ahead better when the headlamps were off than with the light reflecting off the objects ahead. But she does not want to attract anyone's attention by driving without lights, so she leaves them on until she stops in the gravel lot. She stops at the end of the pier with the fewest boats tied to it.
She throws the keys under the seat, where a really determined search will find them. She assumes the police or the dead pig-dog's relatives will make such a search. She wonders what the police will think of the sea water they find on the seat and the floorboards.
Julia walks to the end of the pier and then takes one more step, falling into the water. She throws the pig-dog's watch as far ahead of her as she can. She rubs her face with her hands to remove the blood from her mouth and chin. Then she dives to the bottom. She rubs mud from the harbor bottom on the white parts of her dress, then she kicks her way back to the surface. Treading water, she rubs the bulk of the mud off her dress and hands. She climbs up a piling and stands on the pier to examine her work: good enough.
She stops at the truck to pick up the shoes by their strings again and then runs back to Parker's. Wow, she sure can run fast now! She stops in front of the phone booth, and the water dripping from her dress further dilutes the blood stains. She drops the shoes on the sidewalk.
With a shiver of deep disgust, Julia steps into the shoes. Gee, what a surprise, they are way too big for her. She wants to keep the shoestrings out of the urine, but she does not even try to tie them. Instead, she pulls them looser until only about an inch is sticking out of each of the last eyelets.
Wearing the dead pig-dog's shoes is better than standing barefoot in his urine, but it's a difference of degree, not principle. And even with shoes on, stepping into this much urine is a horror. "Some other night, some other pig-dog," she promises herself again.
She steps into the booth, leaving the door open and therefore the light off. The nearest streetlamp provides more than enough light for her vampire eyes. She flips the phone book up into position and uses her nails to turn the pages. To her delight, her new, long, pointed nails do a better job of turning the thin pages than her old short fingers ever did.
The only Drew listed is Edward Drew, 666-0968. Roxanne's husband? If so, then why was Tony with her at the Happening? Julia will just have to call and hope for the best.
With the number memorized, she retrieves the dime from the alley, gripping it between 2 nails and holding her other hand below them to catch it if she drops it. She gets it into the coin slot and dials. Dialing is a little easier than she expected, because her nails were so long in life. She listens to the ring tone and waits for someone to answer.
NOTES
1. The title "Doctor Hoffman, Vampire" is inspired by the movie Count Yorga, Vampire. It was released in 1970, the same year as House of Dark Shadows, the 1st Dark Shadows movie.
2. The old black Chevy pickup truck driven by the phone-booth-pissing-pig-dog was inspired by the old black Chevy pickup truck driven by Ralph Meeker's character in the movie I Walk the Line, also released in 1970. Please see my profile for more about I Walk the Line.
3. Now you know why Elizabeth looked unhappy in the 1st shot of her at the Happening, as she walked around with a glass of champagne.
4. Angelique, in all her aspects through the years, was the de facto queen of Collinsport. So when telephone service 1st came to Collinsport, she ordered the phone company to name the Collinsport telephone exchange "MOnarch." And when all exchanges became 3 digits, the Collinsport exchange became MOnarch6 - or "666" under digit-dialing. And that's because the original Dark Shadows began in JUNE of 1966. Any other interpretation is solely in the eye of the interpreter.