"The Future That Never Was"
Part One
On the good days, Joe Haskell has nightmares of the beautiful blonde vampire chewing into his neck. He cries in his sleep, "No, no," and this is the only word he has been able to utter since being admitted to Windcliff Sanitarium. Doctors cannot see the scars of fang penetration in his jugular vein, but Joe always knows they are there. Even if the skin has healed, he remembers the violation. He remembers the nights when he felt compelled to answer Angelique's summons. Courage was not enough to resist the vampire's will. Fear was not enough. Love was not enough. All that saved him was a mysterious twist of fate—she simply vanished. Perhaps someone else destroyed her. Perhaps, just once, goodness triumphed.
On the bad days, when his body resists the fruit salad of medications they dispense to him, he dreams of the wolf. His cousin Chris Jennings had transformed—right before his eyes—into a creature that was half-animal and half-man. The eyes belonged to Chris, but the fur and fangs were that of a mindless predator. It was neither beautiful nor gentle. It did not beckon to him, and it would not stop at just biting his neck. Every time Joe dreams of the wolf, he dreams of what never happened. In his sleeping mind, he feels himself disemboweled. He watches his own guts and blood erupt out of his belly. He feels his arms torn out of their sockets. Then he screams in his sleep, "No!" and the orderlies rush in to restrain him. When he breaks his fingernails trying to claw his way out through the walls, they put him in a straightjacket.
They give him electro-shock. They increase his dose of meds. They lock him in a cell with padded walls. They make notes in their files and shake their heads in pity. "Poor Mister Haskell," they say, while thinking of what an interesting case study he'll make for their next published article. As long as the Collins family pays the bills, Joe continues receiving the best of care.
##
"Your nurses aren't much to look at, Joseph," said the man who leaned slouching against the padded wall. "Is this really the best that the future has to offer?"
Joe did not look at the man, believing him to be an hallucination. The man had been coming into Joe's padded cell every day for… He could not be sure it if was days or weeks. Not years. He would know if years had passed, wouldn't he? The only real people were the nurses, the orderlies, and the doctors. Visitors were not allowed in here, and even if they were, they would not arrive after everyone else had left. They would not enter through a locked and barred door.
Something about the man's voice sounded familiar like a friend he should be able to recognize. He had a peculiar accent like an Englishman but not exactly. He used strange vocabulary calling a nurse in a bad mood a "nettlesome shrew." Many times, Joe was tempted to raise his head and look at the man's face. But what good would that do? He wasn't real. Joe refused to believe he was real.
"All this time and you've yet to ask my name or properly introduce yourself," the man said one day. "You are clearly not a gentleman, sir, unless your wits are so addled you've forgotten your manners."
The man wore black knee-high boots. They were genuine leather, not the cheap vinyl worn by go-go dancers. The boots looked well used, scuffed at the toes, worn at the heels, dulled by lack of polish.
"As for myself, I can hardly be called a gentleman although I have had aspirations to improve my social status. I learned early in life that benefits come to those few who stand above the many. Surely this fact has not changed by now? Oh, the future seems to be bountiful with machines and medicines and very short skirts for ladies, but has the condition of man really changed? Tell me, Joseph, has anything improved in nearly two centuries?"
Joe raised his eyes just a little, but not high enough yet to see the man's face.
He wore close-fitting white pants that tucked into the tops of his knee-high boots. At his left hip, a sword in a tin scabbard hung from a broad leather belt. He had a long cape dyed the color of Superman's but it draped loosely off his left shoulder. His jacket was like something out of a marching band, also light blue with bleached white lapels and double rows of brass buttons.
"Ah… A little spark of life, do I see?" The man, who had been slouching against the padded wall until now, stood up straight.
Joe cringed at the movement. He snuggled into the wrap of his straightjacket. Go away and leave me alone, you crazy drum major, he wanted to say, but the only word he could utter was, "No."
The man tugged his jacket straight. His sleeves had broad cuffs like a pirate's coat and had several buttons there too. "I see you've noticed the uniform. I would have preferred to spend eternity in something less… limiting, you could say. Though I suppose I could do worse than to suffer purgatory as a lieutenant in the United States Navy."
"No… no… Na-Navy?"
"That's right, the navy! Under the leadership of our commander in chief, President George Washington. I was a lieutenant for three years just before my, uh… my current circumstances. I started out as an ensign, and before that I was a boatswain on a merchant's brig, and before that I was a cabin boy. I've spent the better part of my life on the ocean. Everything's so clear, out there, on the open sea. Do you know what I mean, Joseph? Are you a seafaring man?"
"Yes," he whispered. I have a job. I work on the docks at Collinsport. I'm saving up, dollar by dollar, to own a business someday.
"I thought so! You've got the look of a water-man in you."
The man paced the room, back and forth, from one wall to the other. He was above average height—maybe six foot one—and looked to be in good shape. His movements showed strength and balance as commonly seen in men who spent long hours on the decks of ships.
"I suppose, now that I'm sure of your attention, I could tell you my life's story. Are you interested in my family background, Joseph? It's quite boring, you should be warned. My parents were from Pennsylvania and came up to Portsmouth before I was born. I have three older sisters and an older brother who inherited the family farm. It was not a profitable farm, even when my father was alive. It didn't offer much promise for me. Thus I left home when I was eleven and never looked back. In due course, my brother got married and had children, who had children, who had children…. Oh, now I'm boring myself!"
Who are you? Who would I be hallucinating? You're too tall to be Napoleon. You just admitted you're not George Washington. You're in the U.S. Navy so you're not Admiral Lord Nelson. I didn't do so great in history class; who else could you be? Joe puckered his lips and tried to cough out the word, "Who."
"Are you asking my name, Joseph?"
Joe nodded, one time bobbing down. On the upswing of his head he dared to look up at the man's face.
His own face smiled back at him. Same brown hair. Same blue eyes. Same sun-tanned cheeks. Except for longer sideburns, it was the mirror image of himself.
"My name is Nathan Forbes."
##
The following day, Nathan Forbes brought a wooden cup full of dice. The cubes looked like real ivory, a buttery shade of white. The dots were scuffed from frequent use. "Do you know how to play dice, Joseph? Do they still have dice in the future?"
Joe scooted himself around to face the wall. He sat cross-legged on the padded floor. The straightjacket felt snug, almost too tight but he liked it that way. He liked how the buckles and straps felt heavy and solid and real.
"Oh, we're back to the silent treatment?" Nathan jiggled the cup and the dice rattled. "Allow me to guess. You're surprised we resemble each other?"
My name is Joe Haskell. I was born on the sixth of January, nineteen… forty… something… I live in Collinsport, Maine. I work on the docks. I'm saving up to buy my own business. I have a girlfriend named Maggie Evans.
"Are we related, I wonder? Are you my descendent or a distant cousin?" Nathan strolled back and forth. Joe could hear his voice move from the left side to the right side, behind him. "Or perhaps it's a cruel joke of fate."
You're not real. You're in my head. You're a dream.
"Now that I recall, when I first met Victoria Winters, she mistook me for someone else. I believe she called me by the name Joe. Yes, I'm sure of it. She expressed some offense at my cordial greetings and admonished me for being engaged to her best friend."
Joe squinted his eyes shut. If his arms were not bound in the straightjacket's sleeves, he would have put his fingers in his ears. You're not real. You're in my head. You're a dream.
"Ah, the lovely Miss Victoria Winters. She asked us to call her Vicky, which we all thought was odd. Such a strange girl and so mysterious. She never could explain how she came strolling out of the woods one day, dressed so peculiarly in a short dress that exposed her legs."
Joe began rocking forward and back, forward and back. This isn't happening. I'm alone. I'm dreaming. It's the meds. What is in those meds?
"Then all those strange things started happening in the family, and Vicky was blamed. They put her on trial as a witch. I committed perjury on the witness stand to ensure her condemnation. At the time, I had my own selfish reasons. They don't seem important anymore."
Vicky at a witch trial? This is even crazier than anything I could dream of. Joe opened his eyes and stared at the pale padded wall.
"In reality, she wasn't a witch at all," Nathan continued calmly. "She had traveled back in time, from what we called the future, or what you would call… the here and now. She lived with the Collins family for a while. She got to know them all—Joshua, and his wife Naomi, and their son Barnabas."
Joe slowly turned his head to his shoulder. From the corner of his eye, he looked behind himself. I remember that name. I know someone named Barnabas Collins.
"She witnessed some of the tragic events that befell the family, but not all of it. She never learned the big secret."
"What…" Joe flexed his jaw in between the words. "… secret?"
Nathan broke out a wide grin. "Ah-ah-ah, my friend, not so fast. Such a thing can't be blurted out like the punch line of a joke! You need to get your sea legs under you, first, before you can stand up to a storm."
"You… You're not real. You're in my head. You're a dream."
"Am I?"
"Go away."
"Sorry, my friend, I'm not planning to go anywhere just yet."
Nathan sauntered up to Joe's side. His long blue cloak flared out wide like the curtain of an open window catching a breeze. He held onto his sword's scabbard and settled down to sit on the floor. Propped against the wall, his long legs extended straight, he shook the cup and tossed the dice.
"Damnit! Snake eyes."
##
On a clear day, when it was not raining, a nurse wheeled Joe into the garden. They had strapped him to the wheelchair with leather buckles around his wrists and legs, but at least he was not in the straightjacket. He wore a green terrycloth robe over his pale blue pajamas. Despite the sunny weather, his calves felt cold. He liked it cold. It reminded him of the sea.
"Here we are, Mister Haskell," the nurse said brightly. "Isn't this nice?"
The meds thickened his tongue and his thoughts, so he could only answer sluggishly, "Uh-huh."
Garden was a generous term for the stretch of lawn. A natural fence of square-trimmed hedges made the first row of barriers. Behind the hedge, a row of evergreen trees blocked off the rest of the world. It seemed, from this angle, that nothing else existed outside of Windcliff Sanitarium.
"Now I'm going to leave you for a little bit. I'm dying for a cigarette. It'll be a few minutes. I won't be far." The nurse stepped on the locking brake of his wheelchair. "Don't you go anywhere, Mister Haskell!"
As the nurse walked away behind him, Joe could not see her. He only saw her shadow as a warped human shape slithering over the grass.
Canadian geese honked overhead as a flock migrated across the sky. Joe gazed upward. He tried to determine if they were flying north or south, if were spring or autumn. The sun at midday was directly overhead, so he could not be sure.
"What's her name?" Nathan Forbes asked, strolling up from the left.
Joe ignored him.
Nathan struck a grand pose, one hand on his sword belt. His elbow bent and lifted the fullness of his blue cloak. "The nurse I'm referring to, Joseph, surely you know her name? She's not unappealing. Not that I can do anything about it, in my present condition. Oh but a man cannot help but dream."
"That's funny." Joe looked up at the man standing beside him. "You are a dream."
Today, he had a pack of playing cards. They were not printed on shiny paper, but instead were a faded and crumpled brown. They had the same four suits—clubs, hearts, diamonds, and spades—but no printed numbers.
"Speaking of women, do you have any intentions toward someone of the fairer sex, Joseph?"
Maggie always bought her perfume at the Five-and-Dime store, so the scent wore off about twenty minutes after she put it on. Joe knew this from the times she had stayed overnight at his apartment, or when he stayed over at her seaside cottage on the nights when her father was away. The perfume stank like geraniums soaked in turpentine, but when it wore off and blended into her skin, it left behind a soft after-thought of odor not unlike a Christmas wreath.
Joe breathed deeply of the grassy lawn, the square hedges, and the distant trees, hoping that it would be something close to rolling over in bed in the morning and inhaling Maggie's hair just after she had been in the bathroom.
He inhaled again, and then again deeper. The rhythm of his breathing quickened, becoming rough and erratic. She's gone. She's gone. I'll never see her again.
"Whoa, easy there now, friend." Nathan dropped to one knee beside his wheelchair. He patted Joe's shoulder—a strong hand with a weight and warmth that Joe could feel through his terrycloth robe.
"We broke up," Joe managed to say, his voice cracking like a teenager. His eyes were still closed as he fought to keep the tears from leaking out.
"I don't know that expression, but I take that to mean you're no longer engaged in intercourse?"
Joe's eyes blinked wide open. "That's personal, damnit."
Nathan's eyebrows frowned though his mouth kept smiling. "I think we're misunderstanding each other. I meant social intercourse. How much has the English language changed since my time?"
Calming down, Joe released his grip on the wheelchair's hand rest. "Maybe some words have. It's no sweat, man."
A few more quick pats to the shoulder, and Nathan rose to his feet again. "Now, this young lady… Whatever you've done to offend her, surely it can't be so terrible. Have you tried apologizing?"
"It's too late."
"I beg to differ," Nathan said. "My friend, nothing is beyond repair especially in the realm of love.
Joe looked up at him, the man who could be his own twin. For an hallucination, he appeared to be so solid and real. The sunlight even made him squint. "So, you have a lot of experience with women, Nathan?"
He laughed out loud, merry and bitter at the same time. "You could say that. Yes, you could certainly say that. In all honesty, I have made a great many mistakes where the fairer sex is concerned. I have behaved like a scurrilous cad."
"I have no idea what that is," Joe said.
"I'm sure you don't." Nathan put his thumb around the hilt of his sword and twiddled his fingers on the gleaming hand-guard. "I'm assuming you've never been challenged to a duel?"
"No."
"Oh, my friend, perhaps if I were more like you, I would not have come to such an ignominious end."
Joe asked, "What does that mean?"
"I was murdered."
In the pause, Nathan apparently waited for him to be surprised or shocked. Joe simply let out a long sigh and nodded. There was still a chance that Nathan was an hallucination, but he might also be a genuine ghost.
"Who killed you?" Joe asked.
"I'll tell you, in good time, but before I do there's this matter of reuniting you with your fair lady."
Joe looked aside. "Back to that? I told you, we're done. It's over. She left me for someone else."
Nathan shuffled the pack of cards he held. Not the way they would in Las Vegas, but he made a quick motion like clapping his hands and re-sorted the cards in between each other. Joe watched him, fascinated with the dexterity. He realized that because the cards were stiff and not laminated, there really was no other way to shuffle them.
Joe said, "I don't suppose you know Five-Card Stud or Texas Hold 'Em."
Nathan responded, "And I assume you don't know how to play lanterloo or 'at put' either? No matter. I'm illustrating the point that life is like a game of cards. If you lose one night at the tables, you can return the next night and win the whole pot."
"Or you can keep losing," Joe said.
Nathan closed his fist around the pack of cards. "Answer me this. Do you love her?"
"Yes of course."
"Then, my friend, I promise to help you win back her affections. If you doubt me, I can assure you, I am not inexperienced in such matters. There was a time when I would have deceived you about my misdeeds, but being murdered has caused me to reevaluate my past conduct. Perhaps a full confession is what I need to do, for the good of my soul."
"Whatever floats your boat, man."
"I have left a string of broken hearts up and down the Atlantic coast. I have married more than once, under false pretenses, to prey upon lonely and naïve heiresses. My most recent target was Miss Millicent Collins, a cousin of Joshua and Naomi…"
"…and the original Barnabas Collins," Joe finished. "I remember him now. He's the ancestor of the Barnabas that I know. His old portrait is on the wall at the big house Collinwood. So you knew him back in the day?"
"Yes," said Nathan, and for the first time his devil-may-care grin sagged at the corners. "I knew him."
Joe sat up straighter in his wheelchair. "Let me guess. Barnabas was not too happy about you playing bingo with his cousin, and he challenged you to a duel?"
Now the smile returned, as broad and gleaming white as if Nathan posed for a toothpaste commercial. "Not an improbable scenario, but that is not what happened. I was not murdered for how I seduced, manipulated, and—yes, I'll admit to it—tortured the mind of the innocent Miss Collins. Perhaps I should have been. I'm not proud of what I did to her, or what I was going to do to her… or her little brother Daniel. I was overcome with greed and ambition. Once I set my course, I was loathe to turn my sails. But I never saw my wicked scheme through to its conclusion. I was murdered before I had the chance to ruin her."
"I don't understand why you're telling me this."
"Don't you?" Nathan bent over and gripped the armrest of Joe's wheelchair. They came face to face, as closely as he would lean into a mirror while shaving. "I swear, if given a second chance, I'll do the right thing. I'll be a good husband to sweet Millie and I won't care if she has a penny to her name or not. I'll sign any papers her lawyers put in front of me. I'll be kind to Daniel—I'll treat him better than a brother-in-law ever could. We'll live in a cottage by the sea, and I'll plant pink roses in her garden. All I'm asking for is a second chance… another shuffle of the cards… another seat at the game table."
"What you're asking," Joe said. "It's not possible."
"But it is!" Nathan leaned in closer, his body blocking out the sun. "Victoria Winters journeyed from these days into my lifetime."
"That can't be."
"She did! I saw her. And what's more, she is not the only one."
Joe began to feel a bit dizzy and nauseous, perhaps from too much sunshine or the meds were wearing off. Where was that nurse? How long did it take to smoke a cigarette?
"Another man did the impossible," Nathan continued. "After he killed me the first time, he returned a second time to change the course of events. He… he assaulted me, and coerced me into recanting my testimony in court."
"What court?" Joe asked.
"Victoria's trial for witchcraft, of course."
"Oh yes."
"He promised to let me live, if I cooperated and obeyed his will. Even so, I wound up being murdered a second time. Is this justice? So he saved Miss Winters's life, which is what he came to do. Why does fate grant him what he wants, and I'm still dead?"
"Who?" Joe demanded. "Who murdered you?"
Nathan backed away. "I must leave. Your nurse is returning."
##
The following Tuesday, a different nurse wheeled Joe down the long white halls and into the therapist's office. These sessions were a necessary but tedious routine of flash cards, word games, and intrusive questions about his mother that Joe always failed to answer to the doctor's satisfaction. The truth was—and the doctors never believed it—Joe Haskell had lived a happy, normal childhood with loving parents and easy-going friends. He did well in school. He was not addicted to drugs. Nothing terrible had happened to him until he came to the town of Collinsport.
He had expected to see his usual doctor whom he had secretly nicknamed Father Knows Best for his resemblance to the actor.
Instead, standing by the desk was a tall lanky woman in a lab coat. By her short auburn hair, Joe almost recognized her from behind. When she turned around and faked a broad, thin smile, a chill went into gut although he could not imagine why.
Doctor Julia Hoffman was the senior director of Windcliff Sanitarium so he should have felt honored to benefit from her attention to his case. She was also a personal friend of the Collins family who continued to pay for his treatment. She was especially a close friend of Barnabas Collins, spending extended periods socializing at his house. It seemed one did not often see Barnabas without Julia, these days. Gossip in town not only speculated that they were lovers, it was taken for granted as a fact.
"Doctor Hoffman," he said, returning her smile as a sort of greeting.
"Call me Julia, please." Julia Hoffman gestured to the nurse. "Remove his restraints."
"Yes doctor." The nurse bent over to unbuckle his wrist and ankle straps. Joe looked down at her, appraising her not for himself but the way Nathan might. The nurse was not wearing a bra. He wondered how it would be to live in a world that forced women to conceal their bodies in corsets and thick skirts, where the glimpse of a wrist or an ankle would be as titillating as a girl in a bikini.
Joe stood up. Free of restraints, he reached for the ceiling and stretched high, lengthening his back and twisting out the kinks. "Oh that feels good! Thank you, Doctor… I mean, Julia."
The petite nurse in her short white uniform made her exit. She closed the door with a gentle click of the latch.
"How are you feeling, Joe?"
"Okay, I guess."
Julia Hoffman turned away from him to circle around the desk and sit down. "You're looking better, I must say."
"Do you want me to lie down?" Joe looked aside to the flat leather couch.
"I don't require it. Whatever makes you comfortable." Julia focused on the papers and materials that cluttered the doctor's desk. She moved some things about. She returned pencils to the plastic cup. She reordered a few cards of ink blots. The way she handled the cards reminded Joe of how Nathan shuffled his playing cards.
He almost started to smile, thinking of the many nights since that afternoon in the garden. He had taught Nathan blackjack and in return learned how to play whist. Thinking of it now, Joe put a hand over his mouth to cover the sprouting smile.
"Would you mind looking at some ink blots for me?" she asked.
"Sure."
One after another, Julia raised cards of ink splatters. The random spots meant nothing to him, even less than in previous sessions. His imagination had left him completely. Desperate to answer, and not appear crazy, he started making up random things that popped into his thoughts.
"A lobster waving pom-poms. A tuna playing the trombone. A swordfish dancing the Charleston."
Julia put the cards down. She blinked her eyes rapidly, either in thoughtfulness over his answers or the glue in her fake eyelashes was bothering her.
"Those aren't your usual answers," she said.
"Do they have to be?"
Julia turned a few pages in his manila file folder. Joe approached the desk, hoping to glimpse some clues in the typewritten pages. So many pages! His file was at least two inches thick.
Behind her, between the desk and the barred window, stood Nathan Forbes.
Joe hadn't noticed him until this moment. He could not be sure if Nathan had been standing there all the time or if he had suddenly materialized out of thin air. Either way, it didn't matter. Joe sneaked a wink to his friend while Doctor Hoffman was reading the notes.
"When you were first admitted, you were in a catatonic state. It was as if you were paralyzed by fear. In the first nine months of treatment, you were only able to speak a single word—no. Are you able to recollect anything from that period of time? Is there anything you wished to say before, that you couldn't express, that you'd like to say now?"
"I'm not sure what you mean." Joe wiped a hand across the back of his neck. He was surprised that his hair had grown out a few inches, down into his collar. It must make me look more like Nathan.
From a side drawer, Julia took out a few sheets of paper and a yellow pencil. "I'm going to let you have these materials, Joe, and I'd like you to do something for me."
"Sure."
"Every morning, I want you to write down any dreams that you've experienced the night before."
"All right." Joe accepted the paper and the wooden pencil. Such familiar things, yet they felt strange and new in his hands. "Doctor, how long have I been here?"
"That's not important."
"Please?"
Julia blinked rapidly again, and she turned her head aside to gaze at the window. "Very well, I suppose you should know. It's going on twenty-seven months."
"Two years?" he whispered. "I've been here for two years?"
"Yes." Julia turned her scrutinizing stare on him. "Most of that time, you were catatonic or had to be sedated. They report that you started coming out of it quite suddenly on March twenty-ninth. Does that date mean anything to you?"
"No."
Nathan, behind the doctor's back, gave him a clue. He pointed to his own chest and then pretended to choke himself. Joe glanced in that direction but tried not to be too obvious about it. He understood that was the date when Nathan Forbes was murdered.
"Are you ready to…" Julia clasped her hands on the desk, but even in the tight clutch of her fist, he could see her fingers were trembling. "…talk about what you saw… before you were admitted?"
Joe casually slipped his left hand into the pocket of his terrycloth robe. "No, but I will write down my dreams if I have any."
"There's…" Julia stood up. "One more thing I'd like to try. Have you ever been hypnotized?"
"Nope."
"I think it could help you." Julia reached into the pocket of her lab coat. She brought up a medallion crusted with multi-colored glass beads.
Nathan frowned and signaled with shaking his head.
Joe responded to Doctor Hoffman, "I don't want to be hypnotized. I don't want to remember. I just want to stop being afraid, and I think I'm on course to do that."
"Promise me you'll reconsider? It could help you immensely." Julia slowly walked around the desk. Cautiously, she ventured a little closer to him. "I want you to know that your well-being is my primary concern."
Nathan with a sneer rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. Though he dared not speak, or be discovered, his meaning was clear. She doesn't give a whit about you. She only cares about protecting the family secrets. Joe could not help coughing out a short laugh.
Doctor Hoffman rested a hand against the polyester scarf she wore at her throat. "Excuse me?"
"Sorry, doctor, I wasn't laughing at you. I just thought of a joke."
"Oh? Would you care to tell it to me?"
Joe broke open a wide grin. "There once was a girl from Nantucket, who…"
"Never mind." Julia spun on her heel. She returned to the desk and picked up the telephone. "Nurse? Mister Haskell is finished with his session. Please escort him, not to the ward but to a private room. Yes, thank you."
##
"A private room! How spectacular." Nathan jounced on the bed. The steel frame rattled. The heavy springs creaked. His scabbard clanked.
"Isn't it great?" Joe hooked his fingers in the steel wire mesh that covered the window. "I can see outside. We're on the second floor. I can see over the trees."
Nathan palmed over the blank sheets of paper lying on the nightstand. "You can write love letters to Maggie."
"What good'll that do? If she hasn't come to visit me in two years."
Nathan settled back to recline on the stack of pillows. Ankles crossed, he stretched his long legs on the mattress. The blankets were tucked in tightly at the corners. "What is two years? Many a time, my ship has sailed into port after a long absence. Reunions of love are all the sweeter when they follow the bitterness of separation."
"I'd rather not listen to you brag, if you don't mind."
"Brag? Me? Why, my friend, I am the paragon of discretion. I am merely offering you the benefit of my experience."
"I do all right." Joe reviewed his own wardrobe: blue cotton pajamas and a green terrycloth bathrobe. Compared to the sparkling buttons of a colonial navy uniform, he looked pretty shabby.
Joe went to the wooden bureau. He opened the top drawer. Empty. "I have no clothes."
"Neither do I."
"But you're dead," Joe reminded him.
"This is true."
Joe closed the bureau's drawer. He stood there with his hands resting on the varnished wood. Solid and real. He looked at himself in the mirror mounted on the wall, and behind him he saw a twin of himself in a blue-and-white colonial uniform.
"Nate?"
He had started calling him by the nickname recently, and Nathan had not objected.
"Yes, Joe?"
"Are you ready to talk about it yet?"
Nathan raised his arms and crossed his wrists behind his head. He reclined against the steel bed frame. "You sound like the doctors. You want me to talk about my feelings? You want me to share the unpleasant memories that trouble me?"
"If you want."
"Are you going to help me, Joe?"
Joe rotated in place. He leaned his back against the bureau. "If I can."
Nathan stared up at the ceiling. "Do you own a firearm?"
"Yes, that is, I used to before I came here. I have a Winchester rifle that belonged to my dad, and I have a thirty-eight Smith and Wesson revolver."
"Are you a good marksman?"
"Well, the last time I practiced, I could hit a coffee can off a fencepost at fifty feet."
Nathan continued staring at the ceiling. He was quiet for a long time, and Joe waited for him to say something.
"Have you ever killed a man?"
"No," Joe said. "Some guys I knew were drafted into Vietnam, but I was lucky... if you can call it that. I missed the lottery by this much."
"By this 'draft' do you mean conscripted into the militia?" Nathan asked.
"Yeah, I guess so." Joe's chest felt heavy and tight. For the first time in a long time, he needed a cigarette. "What are we talking about, Nate?"
"I've been thinking about my problem, and I've reached an epiphany. I was plotting the events of the night he murdered me—both times, I should say. Every time I shuffle the cards, there's always a scenario where something goes wrong. It's too high a risk. It's like trying to save a sinking ship in a storm, when the best course of action would be to prevent the ship from sailing out of the harbor in the first place."
"I don't understand," Joe said. "Who killed you?"
"A vampire."
Joe tried to back up at the sound of the word. But he was against the bureau, and all he managed to do was knock the furniture hard into the wall.
"I shot him with a crossbow, but I failed to pierce his heart. He yanked the wooden bolt out of his own belly. He laughed at my terror just before he strangled me to death."
Joe's teeth chattered. "He strangled you? He didn't…?"
"He used his bite for feeding, or for pleasure, or to gain power and control over his victims. In my case, he simply wanted me dead."
Nathan sat up. He swung his legs to dangle off the mattress. He turned away from Joe and stared off at the window. Afternoon sun shined from behind the trees and cast silhouettes of branches on the glass.
"The second time, when he returned as a specter from the future, he had apparently considered his previous actions a mistake. He offered to let me live if I would recant my testimony in court."
"Yes, you talked about that before," Joe said. "Vicky Winters was on trial for witchcraft?"
"He fell in love with her—in your time. He followed her into the past—to my time—to save her from the gallows."
"How is that even possible?"
Nathan cocked his head to gaze back across his uniform's shoulder epaulet. "Be patient, my friend. I'll tell you how after I tell you why."
"Sorry, Nate, go on."
"The second time, he used his vampire bite on me. You understand what that means, don't you?"
Joe stroked his own throat, massaging the taut muscle under his ear. The memory was still fresh. Angelique used to prefer biting the right side. She wore a white gown, and with her blonde hair and pale green eyes, she resembled a heavenly angel. Even her fangs were beautiful. Despite the horror of feeling his own blood sucked out to feed her cravings, and despite the revulsion at how she compelled him to surrender, he still reminisced about those pearly tips.
"It means he enslaved you," Joe answered.
Nathan burst to his feet. His boots clumped heavily on the floor boards. His long cape swelled behind his rapid pace. "I am no man's slave!"
"It wasn't your fault, Nate. The bite… It's like the meds they give me here. It takes away your will."
Nathan whirled about and Joe saw for the first time his angry face. Joe thought of an old photograph of himself from summer camp, during a tug-of-war, and his own face had looked something like that.
"I had enough of my own will left, that I hunted him to his secret lair. I prepared a wooden stake. I was going to drive it into his black heart but his manservant protected him. In point of fact, it was Ben Stokes who killed me the second time but it was for him. Always for him! They all protect him."
"Who?" Joe asked. "Who is the vampire?"
Nathan drew in a deep breath to draw himself up tall. "I realize, now, the best plan is to prevent him from ever becoming a vampire. You see, I knew him first as a friend… when he was a man in love with a dainty lady named Josette. He incurred the wrath of a jealous witch, and she cursed him to an eternity of night."
Joe took a step towards him. "Who is it? Who is the vampire?"
"The witch's name is Angelique."
"No, that's wrong. She's a vampire, but you keep saying it's a man."
"Before you knew her as an undead creature, she was a witch. In my time, she cast diabolical spells upon the Collins family, and no one ever suspected. She played us all for fools. She brewed a love spell to make Josette run off with another man. She broke his heart and swooped in to gobble up the pieces. Somehow, he found out the truth. One night, he tried to kill her with a pistol… and he failed."
"Who? Damnit, Nate, tell me who?"
Nathan reached under his cloak. He brought up an old-fashioned pirate pistol. A flintlock with a thick wooden barrel and a filigree brass trigger assembly was more a work of jewelry than a weapon.
"This is what he used," Nathan explained. "In my time, it was the best we had available. But you see, it doesn't have bullets like your—what did you call it—Smith and Wesson revolver. It fires a round lead ball. Inside the barrel is smooth, not scored with grooves or what you call rifling that would give a twentieth century bullet its more accurate twist."
In a daze, Joe shook his head. Why wouldn't Nathan answer?
"What this means is, you're able to shoot a tin can at fifty feet, but not if you try aiming this pistol. From where I stand, I have a fairly good chance of hitting you and maybe not the wall. I could aim for your face, but the ball could zing off to anywhere."
"Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because you need to know," Nathan said. "That's why he missed her heart even though he aimed for it. That's why he failed to kill the witch from eight feet away. And unlike your Smith and Wesson, this pistol is loaded with a single shot. One shot, and you'd have to take time to reload. Time he didn't have… She survived the shot. Wounded but alive, she pronounced her curse on him. Angelique made him a vampire that night, and the friend I knew ceased to exist."
Exhausted from repeating the question that would not be answered, Joe sank down to the bed.
That was when Nathan delivered the punch line, "My friend Barnabas Collins."
Joe whirled around.
Nathan had vanished, leaving him alone in the room.
##
Joe used the yellow pencil and the loose sheets of paper to write a letter. He hunched over the small bedside table. He squinted under the harsh shine of the light bulb. His penmanship was nothing to be proud of, so he wrote slowly and carefully. Every word was important.
Maggie,
There are monsters in the world. Vampires are real. Werewolves are real. Ghosts too. I know because I've seen them. I have suffered a vampire's bite. I have witnessed a man turning into an animal. Knowing these things is why I'm in Windcliff now. I was afraid, but I'm not afraid anymore. I love you. Don't worry about me. Buy yourself a silver crucifix and wear it always. Don't be afraid.
He folded the paper into thirds, but he did not have an envelope. He simply wrote her name in large letters, Maggie, on the outside. He tucked it into the empty top drawer of his bureau.
##
Joe had the privilege of going to the recreation room. The nurse walked with him—no wheelchair today; no straps. He tightened the belt of his terrycloth robe. He wanted to look presentable even if he wore nothing better than pajamas. He had combed his hair. He had shaved.
The room had modern florescent lights on the ceiling. Big windows were covered in iron bars, but green draperies concealed them from view. If not for the bright sunshine making silhouettes of the grillwork, Joe would not know that he was in a sanitarium.
Vinyl sofas had puffy cushions and looked cozy. A few patients were sitting there, reading paperback books or watching a soap opera on the black-and-white television.
Small tables placed randomly about the room held board games or puzzles. Joe scanned around to an empty table. The nurse followed his lead, escorting him to the window at the far side of the room. She waited for him to sit down. Then she faked a smile and said, "I'll be back at four o'clock with your medication."
"Okay," Joe said.
Nathan was not here. Joe looked around the room but only saw the half a dozen patients and a couple of orderlies in white scrubs. It had been days since he had seen the navy officer, and he was starting to miss him.
On the table was a half-finished puzzle. According to the box, the picture was to be a vase of sunflowers. Joe picked up a piece that was all yellow and searched into the partially formed petals for where it might fit.
Someone in fuzzy slippers approached. "Hey, handsome, is this seat taken?"
Joe looked up, expecting to see a woman with a deep voice. Instead it was a guy of about high school age, scrawny and sickly, with a heavy gauze bandage pasted on the side of his head.
"Be my guest." Joe opened his palm in welcome.
"My name's Greg Taylor." He settled into the aluminum chair on the opposite side of the sunflower puzzle.
"I'm Joe Haskell."
"Are you new?"
Joe tried the puzzle piece in a flower petal. It would not fit. "No, I've been here a while, but this is my first time out in public."
"I can dig it, man. I've been here three weeks under constant observation." Greg pointed to the bandage taped on his head. "They're afraid I might try again."
The whole side of his head was shaved bare like a Mohawk Indian. The square bandage covered his exposed scalp down to the ear. Stitches were visible under the white masking tape.
Joe felt a rush of heated blood. He slammed his hand to the table. Puzzle pieces jiggled. "Are you stupid or something?"
"Huh?"
Joe grabbed the young man's wrist, so frail that he could almost snap it in half with his thumb. "Do you know the extremes that some people go to, to survive? And you put a gun to your own head?"
"Hey, don't lay a guilt trip on me, man." Greg made no effort to pull out of Joe's grip; perhaps he knew it would be futile.
"I'm telling you a fact. Killing yourself is the stupidest thing you can do!" With his free hand, Joe scrambled the puzzle pieces, tearing apart the half-finished sunflowers. "As long as you're alive, you can start over. Shuffle the cards. Make a new game."
Greg looked down at the scattered bits of yellow and brown and green. His eyes moistened and the lids turned pink. "How do I do that, Joe?"
"Stay alive. No matter what comes after you. No matter what tries to eat you. Run. Hide. Bolt your windows at night."
"Jeez, man, were you in 'Nam?"
"No."
From the corner of his eye, Joe noticed a new arrival to the room: Doctor Julia Hoffman. She wore a street coat of avocado green. So she's back.
Joe soberly rose to his feet. He braced himself for Julia's approach, but he had time to give the young man one more bit of advice. "Oh, and get yourself a silver crucifix."
Click-click-click, Doctor Hoffman's flat shoes were loud on the linoleum tiles. Her posture was stiff like a wooden puppet. Her smile was strained. "Hello, Joe, how are you doing today?"
"I wasn't expecting to see you, doctor."
From the pocket of her overcoat, she produced the folded paper addressed to Maggie.
Joe reached for it but she snatched it away. "That's mine! You have no right."
Her smile dropped. "As long as you're in this facility under my care, you should have no expectations of privacy. The nurses brought it to my attention, and they were absolutely justified. Joe, this is a serious setback in your progress! Now, I want you to come to my office and we're going to have a long discussion. This time, I want you to reconsider my offer to hypnotize you."
"No." He stayed on his feet, using his height as the last advantage he had over her. Although she was tall for a woman, about five-six, he had a few more inches. Drawing himself up straight, shoulders back, it forced her to look up at him.
"May I remind you, Joe, that you don't have a choice? I can get the orderlies to restrain you, if necessary. I'm sure you don't want that."
"And I'm sure you don't want anyone to know about your ulterior motives, doctor."
"I don't know what you mean," she said.
Blinking her heavy false eyelashes, she looked aside to the young suicidal man who sat at the puzzle table. Big curious eyes watched them. Joe thought, Let me show you how it's done, kid. Don't give up. Don't let them win.
"You know what he is," Joe said. "You protect him. You don't give a damn about my well-being. I was so blind, why didn't I see it before? You've always protected him."
"You're ranting nonsense, Joe."
"Maybe I've written other notes that I hid somewhere else in my room," he said, putting on his best poker face to bluff her. "Maybe those notes have a few more details than the one in your pocket. Maybe the nurses wouldn't be so quick to call you, the next time."
She backed away. "I… I have to go, now. There's an urgent situation at Collinwood, but I will be back. We're not finished, Joe."
He slouched into an easy smile, the way Nathan might do. "Good-bye, Doctor Hoffman."
##
Joe returned to his room after a bland supper of meatloaf, green peas and mashed potatoes. He expected another night of quiet. Another night of watching the shadows on the curtains and telling himself not to be afraid.
The nurse flicked the wall switch. Light came on from the ceiling fixture. "I'll be back at nine o'clock with yours medications, Mister Haskell."
"Okay."
She closed the door behind herself. A key turned in the lock. Joe looked at the brass knob and wondered, if he had to… if he really had to, could he break out?
Dice rattled in a wooden cup.
Joe spun around.
Nathan Forbes sat sideways on the mattress, one leg bent into a triangle. He shook the dice cup a little longer.
"Hey, Nate, where've you been?" Joe plopped onto the foot of the bed. He sat facing his twin.
The lieutenant cast the dice. The yellowish ivory cubes bounced on the tightly tucked blanket. They came up five and three. "Eight," he said.
"Why did you stay away so long?" Joe asked.
"Haste maketh waste." Nathan gathered up the dice into the dark wooden cup. Carefully he put it aside on the lamp table.
"Doctor Hoffman came to see me today. She's starting to put pressure on me. When are we gonna make our move?"
Nathan looked straight at him. The clear blue eyes were like his own eyes, but not. "Are you sure you're ready?"
"Yes."
"You understand what you need to do?"
Joe recited his mission in a cold monotone. "I need to kill Angelique before she curses Barnabas Collins into being a vampire."
"And you have no qualms about brutalizing a woman?"
Joe stroked the side of his neck. It tickled on the spots where Angelique's fangs had violated him. Even still, he could feel the scars underneath the skin. "Not after what she did to me."
"Good man." Nathan stood up from the bed. His sword belt creaked. His cloak settled into a long drape from his left shoulder down to his ankles. His boots clumped heavily on the floor.
"When you accomplish the deed," Nathan said. "You need to burn her body. Pour salt in the grave. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
Nathan tossed him a small packet of cardboard matches. "I've seen the nurse use these to light her cigarettes. A great invention, I must say."
Joe put the matchbook in the pocket of his terrycloth robe. He rose to his feet and faced the lieutenant, ready to receive orders. "How do we do this, Nate?"
"It's very easy." Nathan Forbes opened his arms, palms forward, like a statue in church. His jacket's broad cuffs were thick at his wrists. "You just have to want it. Reach out to me. Trust me."
The door unlocked by itself. Slowly, it creaked open.
A bluish-white glare shined beyond the door. Joe squinted against the fierce brightness. He reached out to the air blindly. He felt a man's hand, warm and solid, grasp onto his own. Trusting, he walked forward into the light.
to be continued in Part Two...