Chapter 1
With an explosion of pain and sharp ringing in his ears, his limp body began to slowly scoot backwards across the damp floor of broken tile. He struggled to focus his eyes as the dark room swirled in unstable motions. In front of him was a tattered trench coat thrown over the bathroom stall door. His fingers pressed hard against the tile to raise himself to a sitting position in front of the porcelain fixture.
Sitting still for a moment and trying to catch his breath, the man looked down at his hands as they swirled in and out of focus. As his vision slowly steadied, he noticed that his right arm was covered in blood from the bend of his arm leading all the way down to his fingertips. Gasping in horror, he tried to stand. Nausea and pain kept his coordination slow and weak. His right hand gripped the toilet paper fixture and his left hand pressed against the side of the stall. Struggling to lift his own frame, he groaned loudly in pain as his legs wobbled to a semi-standing position. He grabbed the blood-smeared toilet paper and tried to wipe his hands with little success as the blood was still oozing freshly from a puncture wound in his arm.
Click!
The latch holding the door together was loosened and the man stumbled across the floor to a dirty sink. He found a bar of soap and scrubbed his hands and arms, watching the water below swirl down the drain in a light red color. He found some brown paper towels and patted the areas dry. After wrapping several of the paper towels around his wound, he looked back at the trench coat thrown over the door. The room was very cold and his body felt chilled to the bone, but his head and face burned hot as from a fever.
After walking a few steps, he stumbled and fell into the stall door, knocking the coat on to the floor. He rolled over on his stomach and pushed against the floor with all of his might to bring himself to sitting on his knees. After taking a deep breath, he grabbed the door handle of the stall with one hand and the trench coat with the other and pulled himself back up. His arms went through each sleeve slowly and one at a time. He saw a mirror hanging on the wall with the bottom right corner missing, and slowly made his way forward to look at himself. Grabbing the mirror frame and pulling it from the wall, he gasped in horror.
The face in the mirror was a complete stranger! He had no memory whatsoever! He stared deeply at the face in the reflection and struggled to recall a faint glimmer of his identity—a childhood memory, his name, where he lived, anything at all—with no success. He dropped the mirror and gripped the sides of his long dark hair in frustration as the glass shattered and cracked on the floor.
On his way to the door, he paused. He wondered if someone was waiting outside for him. Slowly turning the knob to lower the reverb of the creaking, he peered into the dark hallway in front of him and peered silently. He stood and watched for several moments before making a sound.
Once again, he inhaled deeply and decided to brave the hallway. The rumble of thunder echoed throughout the corridor, and the sound of rain roared heavily upon the roof. His foot scuffed across a fedora hat lying on the ground in front of him. He slowly bent over to pick up the hat and dust it off. He placed it on his head and reached into his coat pocket. He felt a couple of objects inside the left pocket and pulled them out to examine them.
In his hand, he held an old worn-out wallet and a small flashlight. He flipped the switch and peered inside the wallet. There were twenty $100 bills inside and a movie ticket stub for Secret Beyond the Door, starring Michael Redgrave and Joan Bennett. These names didn't mean anything to him, and he had no idea where all of the cash had come from. Folded between the bills was a slip of paper:
IOU: E. Stoddard $5,000
He struggled to recall any memory and only drew blanks. Shining his flashlight forward, he slowly walked down the hallway. His head began to throb more intensely and he fell against the wall and raised his hands to his temples. A sharp pain was piercing through both sides and through his forehead, and a loud drone echoed deeply within his ears. Trying his best to shake it off, he regained his balance and stepped forward. The beam of his flashlight caught a large wooden sign on the wall:
The Blue Whale
The smell of mold and rotting wood began to permeate his senses as his feet slowly creaked across the splintered wooden planks on the floor. He shined his light around the room and saw a bar with dozens of bottles lined across the shelves behind the counter. Also in view were several tables in a large dining room. However, he froze with panic when the flashlight beam caught something in the far corner of the room.
Lying on the top of a table was the body of a beautiful young woman soaked in blood and a large wound on her chest like a bullet hole.
(DISCLAIMER: I do not own the rights to Dark Shadows. This story is a creation of my own within the universe of Dark Shadows with the sole intention of entertaining the reader. I do not profit or receive any royalties from the owners of the property, Dan Curtis Productions)