Mon. May 11, 1970
Many changes have occurred in the month since Carolyn Hawkes and her mother, Elizabeth Stoddard, went on their European holiday… Barnabas Collins has managed to escape his entombment by switching places with the new caretaker at the Old House, John Jaeger… But, Carolyn does not know that John, or Barnabas, looks exactly like her late husband, Jeb Hawkes…
Willie Loomis had been hired by Roger Collins as a temporary replacement for Caretaker of the Great Estate, until Roger could find a permanent replacement for Chris Jennings. Willie did not particularly enjoy working so close to the Old House, but the pay was good, and Willie had insisted to his Roxanne that they not marry until Willie had saved up enough money to start them on their lives together. To his credit, Roger also had not wanted to hire Willie, but it seemed that few people in the village wanted to work at Collinwood.
Willie had just started to settle in at the Caretaker's Cottage, Chris's belongings still in the boxes that were scattered about the rooms by Mrs. Johnson, when the phone rang. Thinking it was the main house, Willie answered the phone. "Carolyn!" he exclaimed, when he heard the voice on the other end.
"Willie," Carolyn said, from inside a phone booth at the local trainstation. "Uncle Roger told me to call you when Mother and I arrived… Well, we're at the Boston Trainstation. We'll be in Collinsport in a couple of hours. Can you be there to pick us up? I know it's early in the morning, but Mother and I took the red-eye from London, and we're both exhausted."
"Sure thing, Carolyn," Willie agreed. "I hope you guys had a good time…" Willie genuinely hoped so, as he knew how devastated Carolyn had been over the loss of her husband. He had sort of felt the same way about Barnabas, even though Barnabas could still be recovered...
Recovered he was, for at the Old House, Barnabas awoke with a start on the couch in the drawing room. He looked around the drawing room with surprise—both at it's new appearance, and also at the fact that he was not awakening inside his coffin. "Where is Angelique?" he wondered aloud, not knowing that Angelique had spent the night at the police station, then the Collinsport Inn, to be near Quentin.
Realizing that she was not home for him to offer any explanations about his disappearance the night before, Barnabas gathered up his courage to do what he had intended to do since the night before—end his curse once and for all. Barnabas gathered the tools he had procured the night before after driving Horace Gladstone's car a mile down the road and returning back to the Old House on foot.
Opening up the Secret Room, he stepped over the Gladstone's body and undid the chains with the bolt-cutters he had found in the gardener's shed behind the house. "I can do this…" he said to himself, before lifting up the coffin lid. He gasped in shock when he looked down at his old body lying in the coffin…
Act One:
John opened his eyes and blinked in the sudden influx of light as his prison ceiling was removed from above him. To his surprise, his own face stared down at him, seemingly shocked to see him. Of course, he was shocked, he thought. Who wouldn't be to see themselves looking at them?
As John sat up inside the strange, box-like prison he had been in for over twenty-four hours, his double quickly kneeled down to the floor and picked something up. "Who are you?" John demanded. "What is this place?"
John's double did not answer, and instead, thrust the object in his hands in John's face. John jerked back from the sudden movement and stared at it in surprise. It was a large crucifix. John narrowed his eyes. "A cross? What are you trying to do with that?" He pushed the hands holding the crucifix up in his face away and started to get out of the coffin.
"I don't understand!" John's double gasped. "Why doesn't it do anything?" He stared at the crucifix for a moment and threw it to the floor.
"Horace!" John gasped in shock at the body lying on the cold stone floor. He turned to his double. "What did you do to him? Who are you?"
John's double stared at him, his eyes wide with fear. "John Jaeger," the other John stammered. "I'm John Jaeger!" He lifted up a sharpened stake and lunged towards John with it, but John easily grasped his double's hands and stopped him.
"Augh!" the other John screamed, as John squeezed his hands to make him let go of the stake. To John's surprise, he could hear the sickening crack of the other man's hands. John let go, and the other John let the stake drop to the floor as he held his hands to his chest in pain.
John looked down at his own hands, surprised not just at his new seemingly superhuman strength, but at how different his hands looked. "What on Earth?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. He did not recognize the onyx ring, and his hands looked older, puffier—like they belonged to a different man. He turned his hands over and stared at them, as the other John quickly ran away.
John watched him leave the small room, and as he started after his double, he stopped and looked back at his prison, realizing that it was a secret room off of the drawing room. "What is going on here?" he asked out loud…
Act Two:
After picking up Elizabeth and Carolyn and driving them back to Collinwood, Carolyn sent Willie on an errand to the pharmacy in town to pick up a few items. Afterwards, Willie decided to stop at the Blue Whale for some lunch.
Willie noticed that there was a new, pretty blonde waitress behind the counter—but of course, she was not prettier than his Roxanne. "What'll it be, stranger?" she asked, smiling. Willie had gone to the bar to order his food before sitting down. He noticed that while her mouth was certainly smiling, her eyes looked sad. He noticed she had dark circles under her eyes, as if she had not been sleeping well.
"I'll just have the fish and chips," he answered. "And a beer… Maybe some of that "Jaeger's Brau…" he said.
"Of course," Buffie nodded. She notified the cook of Willie's order and brought his beer to the table he was sitting at. "I've not seen you around here before… New in town?" she asked.
"Oh, no…" Willie grinned. "I've lived here off and on for the past three years. I've just been in Winter Harbor for the past month."
"Oh, I see," Buffie answered. She looked over at the entrance and saw a man enter the bar. "Excuse me for a moment."
Detective Larry Chase gave her a little wave and strode over to her. Buffie looked expectantly at him. Well, Miss Harrington, I've got good news for you."
"Is it about Quentin?" she asked. Willie's ears perked up at the mention of Quentin's name. There couldn't be too many men named Quentin in a town as small as Collinsport.
"Yes," Larry nodded. "I think you'll be pleased to know that he's been released from jail. Mr. Roger Collins just picked him up."
Buffie breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God! So, you believed me after all!"
Larry shook his head. "It's not up to me to believe you or not," Larry told her, "That's up to a jury to decide. Mr. Collins paid his bail, and now Quentin Collins has to wait for his trial…"
"His trial!" Buffie exclaimed. "Oh no…"
Willie turned away and picked up his beer to take a gulp. So much had happened since he had left for Winter Harbor to be with Roxanne… It seemed like Carolyn Hawkes was not the only member of the Collins family to face tragedy lately…
While Mrs. Johnson helped unpack her things, Carolyn took a long hot bath before going to bed. She had not been feeling well lately—the entire train ride up from Boston she had suffered from motion sickness—so she had sent Willie to the local pharmacy to get her some anti-nausea medicine.
With much relief, she fell into her own bed to sleep, for once. At first, she welcomed the darkness of sleep. But now that she was home again, memories invaded her swirling thoughts—and unlike in Europe, where Paris, Rome, Berlin and London had kept her from thinking of him too much—memories of Jeb filled her mind once again…
There was nothing but white. A swirling fog dance all about her, blowing her nightgown softly about her legs as she walked through the mist. Up ahead, a man stood and waited for her…
Carolyn walked, but she did not walk… Instead, it seemed as if she was floating towards him. The man was tall, and blond. In his hands he held a glowing box. The box was gold and reflective and the closer she got to him, she felt a warm pleasantness emanate from the golden box…
As she floated near him, the fog swirled away from the man, and it was Jeb's face whom she saw smiling sweetly at her. "Carolyn…" he said.
"Jeb…" she floated towards him, and put her arms around him. He held the glowing box in one arm, and hugged Carolyn to his chest with the other. "I missed you so much…"
Jeb smiled down at her. "I missed you too. I've been watching over you this whole time… I've wanted so much to touch you, to hold you."
"I've wanted that too," Carolyn smiled. She kissed his cheek and felt warm and tingly all over her body.
Jeb looked down at the box he was holding in his other arm. "I've got something for you—a gift. Take it, Carolyn… This is the only gift I can give you, now…"
Carolyn looked down at the glowing, golden box and let go of Jeb. She took the box in her hands and her entire body was filled with the warmest, most pleasant sensation she had ever felt in her entire life. "What is it?" she breathed, closing her eyes, as the warmness washed over her entire body…
Act Three:
After the warmness subsided, Carolyn felt peaceful, a sense of tranquility she had not felt in so long. "Jeb, what's in the box?"
Jeb smiled at her again, as the mist started to cover his face and body. "You'll find out, soon enough…"
Carolyn watched as Jeb disappeared in the fog. "Jeb!" she cried out. She hugged the golden box close to her, and it too, disappeared. But, instead of as if in a fog, it seemed to disappear into her…
Carolyn opened her eyes. She was in her own bed. "Jeb!" she cried out, sitting straight up. It had seemed so real. She had really felt like she was talking to Jeb and holding the golden box in her arms. Carolyn hugged herself and leaned back against her pillow…
Meanwhile, a man who had once looked very much like Jeb, but now looked like the dark-haired man in the portrait in the Great Hall, walked through the woods between the Old House and Collinwood. "What is happening to me?" he asked out loud.
John looked up at the day sky, thinking that the sun felt unusually hot in the middle of May. He was glad for the cover of the trees, but he still felt hot in his double-breasted suit. Where had it come from? Why was he wearing it. He tugged at the tie and loosened it. He was also extremely hungry, as if he hadn't eaten in days. Of course, he had just been in a large box for over twenty-four hours.
John wondered where his double had gone. And why had the man murdered Horace? John shook his head in confusion. The sun felt extremely hot, and he was becoming weaker by the moment.
"Barnabas!" a man's voice called out to him. John looked up in confusion at the shorter, sandy-haired man who stood before him, the other man's eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets in shock.
John shook his head in confusion. "Barnabas? Who's Barnabas?" But, in his confusion, he did begin to sense something—a scent of some sort that he had not noticed before.
"Barnabas," the other man stammered. "Barnabas—what are you doing here?" The man looked around anxiously. "What are you doing outdoors… during the day?"
"During the day?" John was really confused now. Why was this man calling him Barnabas? Did John look like this Barnabas person, now? John realized that he had hurried out of the Old House without looking at himself in the mirror.
"Barnabas, I think we better get you back to the Old House, right now!" the shorter man insisted. He grabbed John by the arm and tugged him back down the path home. John could smell the scent even more strongly now, and for the first time he realized it was coming from the man. He also realized he could hear the man's pulse flowing through his veins. John shook his head to clear his mind. "Wait a second, do I know you?" he demanded.
The other man stared at him. "Barnabas, what's wrong? You know me, it Willie! Willie Loomis!"
"I'm not Barnabas!" John insisted. He felt strange. His teeth felt funny, painful, as if they were bursting through his gums.
Willie eyes opened wide and he gasped in shock. "No, Barnabas! Not now—not again!" He started to run, but John was too quick for him. He grabbed Willie with his new, super-fast reflexes and pulled him into his tight embrace—like a lion latching onto an antelope…
Cast:
John Jaeger… JONATHAN FRID
Carolyn Hawkes… NANCY BARRETT
Willie Loomis… JOHN KARLEN
Barnabas Collins/Jebez Hawkes… CHRISTOPHER PENNOCK
Buffie Harrington… ELIZABETH EIS
Larry Chase… KEN MCEWEN