Willie almost choked on his chewing gum when he saw a ghost float down the stairs wearing a fragile, faded gown. Her face was obscured by long, white veil, and she carried a little glass music box that played a creepy tune.
Barnabas was oozing charm as he led her into the parlor. "This is my beloved bride and your new mistress, Willie. Her name is Josette DuPres. You'll recognize her from the portrait in my lady's bedchamber."
Holy crap; one night away from the Old House and he starts pullin' this garbage.
The vampire guided her to a seat and lifted the veil to reveal a very much alive, auburn-haired young woman in an obvious trance.
"Oh my god, th-that's Maggie Evans!" The spectre was startled at the sound of her former name. Barnabas held up his hand to silence his servant.
"Perhaps at one time, but nevermore. You must call her Miss Josette."
Like hell I will, you crazy fu— A sharp look from Barnabas cut off his thought. "Sir, I don't think this is a good idea; we could get in big trouble. Maggie, she got her dad and a lotta f-friends that are gonna come lookin' for her."
"At first, but eventually they will conclude that the girl is dead, and their search will desist."
"But why Maggie?" Willie continued to pester his boss. "She don't even look like that picture upstairs. C'mon, I think ya could do better. Did ya ever notice she's a little cross eyed?"
"This discussion is at an end. You will go to Sam Evans' cottage now and inform him that our sittings are to be suspended until further notice. Then return here immediately; I am going out, and Miss Josette must not be left unattended." Willie opened his mouth to speak again but Barnabas cut him off. "Do you understand?"
The servant looked away, defeated. "Yessir."
Great, now I'm assistant kidnapper. I hate this damn job.
"I have no interest in your feelings of animosity, so kindly put them from your mind. Be sure when you return that Miss Josette has a proper dinner. You may purchase something in the village and charge it to my account." Barnabas swept out of the room.
Willie sat beside the pale-faced young woman, feeling helpless. "Hey, Maggie, you wanna eat? Anything ya like." He passed his hand in front of her face. "Want some Chinese? Pizza?"
"Josette…" She seemed dazed and confused.
Oh, Christ.
Willie knocked at the Evans' house, and Victoria Winters answered. She did not invite him in so he waited on the front step while his message was relayed. Sam Evans was slumped in his chair with a glass in one hand and a bottle in the other. Burke Devlin was on the telephone, speaking with authority to the police about forming search parties. Joe Haskell, with puffy red eyes, sat on the sofa, his head buried in his arms. Vicki stood, wringing her hands.
"I don't think Mr. Evans will be back to work for a while. His daughter was very ill and now she's missing," Vicki explained to him.
Willie looked distraught. "Gee, I'm sorry. I-I hope she's okay."
The young man backed away, sprinted to the truck and raced home. He knew this would happen and had tried to warn Barnabas not to choose her. Not just because he—liked Maggie. That square-jawed look on Devlin's face made it clear: These people were not about to give up; they would turn the whole town upside down to find her, and he and the vampire would go down in flames. The only thing to do was to return the girl, to save her life and protect his master. Barnabas would be upset when he found out, but he would get over it, and then find someone else to be his girlfriend.
When Willie returned to the Old House, he discovered that the master had left for the evening and their houseguest was dressed in flowing white nightgown, aimlessly wandering the second floor. He had no idea where the young woman's real clothes were, so he pulled the parka from his closet and led her out the side entrance.
"C'mon, babe, we're goin' for a ride, but ya gotta bundle up; it's cold out." He pulled the hood up and loaded her into the vehicle. "And we don't want nobody to see ya in my truck." Willie drove around until he found an empty street with a phone booth and pulled over. "Stay here; I'll be right back."
Willie jumped out of the pickup and into the booth. He flipped through the White Pages to find the Evans' phone number, dropped a dime and dialed. Busy signal. Shit. Devlin was probably still on the phone. Hang up, you asshole. He was about to try again when something white and blue glided dreamily past the phone booth.
"Fuck! No! Get back here!" He dropped the receiver and tore down the street after Maggie. Guiding her into a U turn, he led the girl back and stuffed her into the booth with him. Willie locked arms with his right and dialed with the left. Victoria answered the telephone.
"Find Maggie Evans," he said into the mouthpiece, deepening his voice to its lowest timber. As an afterthought, he pulled Maggie's arm to him and covered the receiver with the sleeve of his quilted parka.
"Who is this?"
"Never mind. If ya wanna save your friend, go to—" someplace deserted, no witnesses "—Eagle Hill Cemetery."
"I don't understand."
"Just go! She's in a lotta danger." He slammed the receiver and pushed Maggie toward the truck, feeling more nervous with each passing second.
Willie had no sooner escorted the young woman to the boneyard when the place was flooded with shouts and flashlights. Red and blue police car flashers could be seen in the street as a large search party poured through the gates, and they were spreading out. Looking quickly around, the young man guided his charge to a nearby tombstone that looked sturdy enough to support her.
"You sit here, and they'll find ya, okay?" He placed her hands on either side of the stone. "Don't fall over; hold on." Willie grabbed his flashlight and started to leave, but first he kissed her cheek. "I love you," he whispered quickly and ran for his life.
But it was too late; there was no escape. How could so many people be that organized and get there so soon? There was only one place he could hide until they were gone: the secret room in the Collins crypt. Willie pulled the mausoleum gates closed behind him, tugged the ring and fidgeted nervously as the stone door slowly opened. Jumping in, he pushed the secret panel in the step and closed it again.
He stood frozen, listening to the sheriff on a bullhorn calling for his surrender outside the tomb, then slowly backed into the pitch black room as he pulled the flashlight from his pocket. Something soft impeded his progress, and Willie reached behind him to feel a familiar wool coat. He looked over his shoulder and shone the beam up into a pissed off vampire face.
Willie almost yelled in surprise but Barnabas clamped a hand over his mouth and grabbed the flashlight, flicking it off. "Quiet, you idiot," he hissed. After a moment he released his servant who, needing to distance himself from the vampire, silently made his way to the steps and sat. His left leg twitched uncontrollably.
The minutes passed, and while Willie could not keep still, his boss never budged. It was too dark to see the vampire's expression, but had he been a bookie from the old neighborhood, Willie would have laid even odds that he was about to get the shit kicked out of him.
At length, Barnabas determined the danger to be past, flicked on the flashlight and set in on the steps, dimly illuminating the empty room. He glared at Willie, his expression one of heartbreak, anger and frustration. The servant could stand it no longer and broke the silence.
"You know what I did."
"Yes." His master's voice, as always, was restrained and unemotional. "You betrayed me."
"Wanna know why?"
"I know why."
"You're gonna kill me, aren't ya?"
"Yes."
The young man swallowed. "Fast or slow?"
"It will be slow." With that Barnabas swung his cane and the pointed wolf's head made contact with his servant's face. A spurt of blood hit the floor just before Willie did.
The young man woke up on the cold flagstone floor to the feeble beam of the dying flashlight. The scene was similar to his first encounter with the vampire, only then he had been grateful to be alive. Now he wished he was dead.
He was supposed to be dead. Perhaps Barnabas was not finished torturing him first, although Willie was unsure of what more the vampire could do. His entire body was covered in swollen bruises and welts, and his clothing stuck to him with dried blood. The boy spied the outline of his jacket lying across the room, but couldn't move far enough to retrieve it. He would probably just lie there until he died; that would be slow. Willie closed his eyes and waited for his life to end.
Hours later, he awoke once more, but the flashlight had exhausted its power and the room was shrouded in blackness. Stiff and numb from the cold, Willie again wished for his jacket but he could no longer see where it was, knowing only that it was beyond his reach.
The door to the secret chamber swung slowly open to reveal Barnabas, surveying the situation, his caped form silhouetted in the meager moonlight.
"There you are." the vampire remarked lightly.
"Not dead," Willie mumbled.
"I am all but struck dumb by your grasp of the obvious," the master quipped as he descended the steps. "Well, we can't have you lying about all night; it's time to come home, young man." Barnabas picked up the jacket and lifted Willie by his upper arm as the servant cried out in pain. "Oh, let's not start that again. Be thankful I decided that this was an inconvenient time for you to die." Willie was half dragged and half carried back to his truck where he cautiously steered the vehicle back to the Old House, his home.
Willie spent the next few days sequestered in his room. He bolted the door from the inside, although it was unnecessary; no one bothered him or gave a rat's ass if he was okay or not.
You've yourself to blame, and no other. That's what Jason would have said. Tryin' to be a hero. When will you ever learn? It's every man for himself.
At night he laid in bed, curled into a ball with the cover over his head. During the day the servant sat, wrapped in the same blanket, in the corner near his window where the sunlight came in. He gingerly fingered the gash on his face with a swollen hand that came from foolishly trying to ward off the blows. Luckily, it wasn't broken.
Eventually Willie ventured to the second floor bathroom to refill the water pitcher, a trip he had been postponing because the last thing he wanted to see was his reflection. He knew what it would look like—the ugly hunchback guy. Holding the oil lamp to the mirror he tried to objectively assess the damage in the distorted shadows.
So much for what the Irishman used to call his moneymaker. In addition to the contusions, a scar ran diagonally up his cheek and across his forehead. In the past there were times when Willie thought of himself as confident and good looking. Now he was nothing but a cowering, stuttering freak.
Barnabas appeared at the threshold to Josette's room, and on his arm once again was the entranced bride to be. The vampire smiled with civility. "Oh dear, you are a sight. All that effort to save Miss Evans, and look what happened. She returned to me."
That's because you kidnapped her again. The hollow-eyed woman, again, seemed to have no idea who or where she was.
"This is where she belongs. Don't you, my dear?" Maggie smiled seductively as Barnabas kissed her fingertips; Willie observed her vacant expression as the girl glided into her boudoir and reclined on the chaise.
"Is she always gonna be like that? Like sleepwalkin'?"
"It is, no doubt, a period of adjustment. When we are united, she will become Josette completely."
Or she could just stay an idiot.
"Spare me your unsolicited opinions. Have you not learned by now to mind your own business?" Willie did not respond. "I trust your convalescence is concluded and you may return to your duties tomorrow. Miss Josette has special requirements, and I rely on you to see that she is comfortable and well cared for."
"Okay," the servant muttered.
Willie was dismissed, so he went downstairs to see if there was anything to eat in the cupboard. It was obvious from the condition of the place that he had been remiss of late, and Barnabas did not clean up after himself. Several days' worth of newspapers piled were piled by the fireplace. Willie gathered them together for the trash when he caught sight of Maggie's picture splashed across the front page.
Local Girl Mysteriously Disappears.
He sat by the fire and read the accompanying story which explained how Maggie Evans was found delirious in the cemetery, taken home and later transferred to the hospital for an emergency blood transfusion. At one point the nurse reported that the patient's vital signs had flatlined and ran for help. The staff members rushed in, but Maggie, or her body at any rate, had vanished.
No mystery, Barnabas had stolen her from the hospital, brought her back to the mansion again and planned to make her a vampire like himself; there was nothing his servant could do about it. Maybe, if he could close that door, the one in his mind, but he was no longer sure what that would accomplish. Willie went down to the kitchen and spooned some peanut butter from the jar.
The young man was on his way back to his room when there came a knock at the front door. He froze on the landing as Barnabas appeared at the top of the steps. Quickly descending, he pushed Willie out of the way. "Upstairs," he barked. Willie huddled on the top step, out of sight, and listened as Barnabas greeted Burke Devlin and Joe Haskell.
"Good evening, won't you come in?" the vampire cooed.
"Thank you, Mr. Collins," Joe nodded respectfully.
"We want to talk to Willie Loomis," said Burke, getting straight to the point. Willie held his breath.
"I'm sorry, but he's not here at present. I sent him to Bangor to do some errands on my behalf; I don't expect him until tomorrow. May I ask the nature of your business with my man?"
Joe and Burke exchanged sideways glances, then Devlin spoke up. "We think he may know something about Maggie Evans' disappearance."
"I can't imagine what; I assure you he knows very little on most subjects." Neither visitor responded to the gentleman's brevity. "Forgive me, you are understandably distraught. I only meant that Willie is a simple soul, quite harmless."
Excuse me, Mr. Collins, but you're the one who's simple if you think that hoodlum is harmless," Burke retorted. "He's been nothing but bad news since he came to town."
Barnabas responded in kind. "And he has since reformed. I admit, his previous behavior was reprehensible, but we all have moments of the past which we regret. I do, and I have no doubt you do as well, Mr. Devlin," the vampire suggested slyly.
Burke did not bite the bait. "Why are you protecting him?"
"Why are you persecuting him? I fail to see the correlation between a drunken tavern brawl and the abduction of a young woman."
Joe stepped between the glaring men. "We just want to ask the guy a few questions, that's all. It's because Dr. Woodard noticed that he and Maggie came down with the same illness, with the same exact symptoms. Later, when Maggie disappeared, Vicki Winters got a strange phone call shortly after Loomis was at the house, telling us to find her at Eagle Hill Cemetery. That's why we think there's a connection."
"It could not possibly have been my manservant, because I was waiting in the automobile while he delivered my message at the Evans' residence, after which we came directly here. And, as you know, there is no telephone in my home." Mr. Collins smiled. "I'm sorry I'm not able to be of more assistance." He escorted them through the foyer, making it clear that their brief interview was at an end. "Please, if there's anything I can do, don't hesitate to ask. Good evening." The gentleman closed the door.
Barnabas strolled to the bottom of the stairs and looked up at his servant who watched hesitantly from the shadows. "Do you see the trouble you cause?"
"Sorry." Willie quickly retreated to his third floor bedroom for the rest of the night.
