7

Vicki felt inexplicably nervous as she watched Carolyn leave the dining room. She glanced at her plate and realized she had eaten very little, if anything at all. She had taken a small bite of the chicken, the smallest piece of eggplant but had barely touched her peas. She looked at her necklace bobbing on Carolyn's chest and wondered if the vampire legends were wrong, or if she were something else.

"Joe should be here to pick me up in a minute." Carolyn threw down her napkin. "Just put the plates in the dishwasher and nuke them. Don't wait up." The mysterious blonde grinned enigmatically and glided delicately out of the dining room and turned left toward the foyer. Curiously vexed by the mysteries of this house and her new sister, Vicki rose with her and vanished herself cut through the back hall into the drawing room across from the main entryway. Her footsteps fell as silently as possible across the room to the doors slightly ajar into the foyer and let her eyes peek through the crack watching her half-sister vanish into the night. Realizing she gone, the wayward daughter secreted herself back upstairs realizing she had the time to explore the house and rushed to the end of the hall. Her eyes fell on the door to the west wing as they noticed the key in the lock of the door. Where'd that come from? Had Carolyn been in and out since dinner, or were the ghosts trying to help her?

Vicki's fingers defiantly turned the lock over with her heart now pumping faster. She pushed against the door with an inexplicable wave of apprehension and dread came over her along with the dull creak of old hinges resisting against her weight. Fighting the illogical panic attack she was feeling, she left the door ajar and passed through two arches supporting a short hall and then into a long corridor lined with doors every twelve feet and adorned with the aging furniture of another time. All her memories of reading Nancy Drew novels were returning her as she stopped quietly and looked around the empty and musty corridor. It was dark and meticulous as if it were some museum after hours. The air even smelled sweet like cinnamon or some other rich spice. Between bedroom doors were paintings above ornate cabinets. She glanced nervously at the painting of a beautiful blonde and regal grand dame. The nameplate read "Angelique Bouchard-Collins," and her rich azure eyes seemed to be following her. Vicki turned to a chair nearby. Next to it, a book had been left upside down as if someone had just left it mere moments ago intending to return to it. Covered in a plain black cover, its inner title page read "The Iliad."

Out the corner of her eye, Vicki thought she saw a glimpse of someone hurrying to slip through unseen, but it just made Victoria that much more curious. Briefly looking back, she glanced back to Angelique's portrait and forced herself to look closer to the visage of the beautiful woman upon it. It was still watching her as the young girl within her felt a shudder down her spine. A faint noise of weeping was guiding Vicki further and made her entered an open bedroom. She had the feeling someone was crying near her as her feet hesitantly advanced on the chair to see the person in it. Vicki tried to say something as Liz Stoddard finally stood up to her.

"Why'd you do it, Carolyn?" She asked distraughtly. "Why did you do it?"

"Do what?" Vicki asked her mother's presence. "What'd she do?"

"Carolyn," Liz's spirit seemed to reliving the last seconds of her life. "Why would you kill your mother?"

Vicki gasped and turned around with hands grabbing her and spinning her around. Roger Collins gripped her tightly as he too became trapped in time.

"I treated you like a daughter." He said to her. "How could you do what you did?"

"I'm not Carolyn!" Vicki forced her arms loose and turned to meet the apparition of Barnabas Collins behind her and leaning on his cane.

"Carolyn," He looked distraughtly to her. "I'm so sorry. I never meant what happened to occur. How could I know?!"

"What happened?!" Vicki implored the shades now starting to surround her. She stepped back into a chair, landing in it and tipping it as over with her in it. Flipped over completely to her side, Vicki landed on her hands and knees and lifted her head to see David Collins hiding in the corner of the bedroom.

"I didn't mean to see! I didn't mean to see!" He started screaming at her, but Vicki could only crawl backward and terrified from these poor earth-bound ghosts reaching out to her. Roger and Liz were reaching their hands down to her as Barnabas watched ashamed. It was his fault. He couldn't stop what had happened, and how he was trapped to watch into eternity the results of his mistakes. Her head looking around for a way to flee, Vicki saw other faces of other much older ghosts trapped in this house. She saw a handsome figure with sideburns covered in dust, a beautiful blonde woman with white skin morosely watching, a little girl watching terrified from a chair, a sinister reverend with tortured eyes, another man covered in dust with a look of sheer hatred and a brunette ingénue hiding in a doorway. Several of them advanced on her while others stood from afar. Vicki backed to the wall and screamed unable to control her voice another moment, recoiling from their cold undead touches. She then froze where she fearing the fate they had for her, but nothing happened. Her breath spent, her heart pounding, she slowly opened her eyes. They were all gone. She wasn't sure if they had been real or if she had imagined it, but she looked around once more. With them, the room had changed, and the once beautiful furnishings were now ruined and deserted. Portraits were fading, and furniture was covered in dust with debris and disassembled furniture lined the walls. Cobwebs hung in layers under dust stretched across the room. Crawling from the room slowly to avoid seeing anything else, her eyes rose slowly and her lips gasped as they noticed Angelique was the only portrait not quite so ruined by neglect. It seemed much more vibrant than the rest as Vicki's voice gasped. Vicki braced herself to stand up, but she then paused when she noticed the feet of someone standing before her. She looked up and up as Carolyn towered over her on the floor; her eyes looked down upon her disapprovingly repentant. She had the same despondent look she had when Vicki had arrived.

"You know, don't you?"

"You killed them." Vicki slowly stood on her feet. "You killed them all!"

"Vicki," Carolyn advanced on Vicki; her perfect hair lightly swayed elegantly on her shoulders. "You don't know what you're talking about. Let's go downstairs and talk about it."

"No!" Vicki backed down the hall from her. "I don't know what you are, but you're not human!"

"Vicki, you're talking crazy." Speaking slowly and assuredly, Carolyn followed her down the hall. "Take my hand and we'll talk about it."

"Don't touch me!" Vicki shifted Angelique's portrait as her back hit the wall. "You're a monster! You're not real!"

"Vicki, you're losing it." Carolyn didn't look away from Vicki as her hand instinctively straightened Angelique's picture with one gesture. Her eyes were methodical and cold as if it was just something she had to do. "Just touch me and I can make you feel all better."

"No!" Vicki backed away further as she bumped into some doors. "You want to kill me, just as she you did them!" Her eyes barely looked into the second floor library behind her as she started screaming. There were bodies everywhere sitting at tables with books or standing before shelves. Each one was dried and desiccated without anything human left to suggest they were once alive. Skeletons with hair stared back at her with empty eye sockets and hideous grins permanently etched on their frozen decayed faces. Posed and displayed in deteriorating clothes, they sat in chairs with books in their hands or stood balanced against shelves as if they had just been caught reading. There had to be over a dozen of them. The whole room looked to be some sort of shrine dedicated to the dead. Her voice filled the room with the shocking piercing strain of a woman losing her mind!

"Vicki," Carolyn spoke. "Stop screaming. This is our family and friends." She turned to a body wearing a decaying dress. "Mother, this is Vicki. I told you about her." She paused. "Mother says you're more beautiful than she thought."

Vicki froze in terror against a shelf watching Carolyn moving through the room talking to the corpses. Her demented half-sister paused by one and even kissed it.

"Joe, we need to find a date for Vicki." Carolyn turned toward two skeletons literally propping each other up. "Tom or Chris? I don't think they're her type, but I can ask." She heard non-existent voices and looked back into the alcove. "Mother, tell Jason he is too old." She then turned her head to the remains of a young man playing checkers with the emaciated rotting remains of another young man. "Vicki, I think this young man has a crush on you. No, not David, the one I caught in the tower last week."

"You're mad." Vicki forced out. "You're not normal!" She started to run out past Carolyn, but the demented blonde stopped her with an eager grimace and closed the doors. She took the key from the inside lock of the double doors after locking them and then grinned almost demonically back to Vicki.

"Mad?" Carolyn dropped the key down the top of her black sweater. "Well, we all go a little mad sometimes. Let me help you feel better!" She lunged as Vicki shrieked. She grabbed a book and threw it at Carolyn, but the blonde psychopath ducked too fast. Disgusted as she was by the corpses around her, Victoria started darting around the table between them as Carolyn reached down and shoved the heavy oak table with minimal effort, sending it with a crash into the wall. Vicki's eyes widened at that remarkable feat of strength and whirled around trying to keep her eyes on her. Could anything stop her?! Was there anything that could? Falling over bones in a chair, Vicki crashed to the floor atop a tangle of broken bones and dried cadaverous human remains trapped in a tangle of clothing just as Carolyn grabbed her leg. At that moment, Victoria felt an immediate burning sensation from her and felt herself getting older and her body drying from the inside out. Her soul felt it was almost entering Carolyn as her demented half-sister tilted her head back in and gasped at the sensation of her sister's life force filling her every being. Maybe this would be the one to do it. Maybe finally she could end this curse on her. Vicki briefly felt she was inside Carolyn watching her do this to herself. In one moment, she was both herself and Carolyn; her spirit almost pulled from her body like the others. The blonde one started to lightly grin in demented pleasure as Vicki's eyes slowly glanced at the wolf's head cane in the hand of the body she had landed upon and had shattered underneath her. Her fingers weakly gripped around it as she reared back hard. Hitting her sister as firmly as she could with it, the burning stopped, but she felt like an old woman even as Carolyn gasped full of strength and vitality. The blonde succubus grinned ear to ear with Vicki hobbling on her burning leg and swinging the old silver-tipped cane.

"Why did you do that, Vicki?" Carolyn grinned devilishly once more. "I could make you so beautiful. All I need is your soul, your life force, you won't miss it. Do you hear them complaining?"

"I..." Vicki backed away wearily swinging the cane. "Don't know... What you are, but..." She felt as if she was having a heart attack and backed against the window. "You're not getting... My life."

"Vicki," Carolyn reached for her face. "You'll be so much more happier a part of me. Together, we could live forever!"

The lovely brunette ingénue continued squeezing herself into the garret window. She would rather jump out of it to save herself than give up her life. She continued squeezing backward and backward as Carolyn's hands reached for her. Her hands were almost to her face as Vicki wept in fear and realized that this was how she was going to go. The terrified ingénue gasped one last weakened breath and her eyes rounded in fear of what was happening to her. Cowering in fear against the window, Victoria then felt the windowpane snap open behind her and give way as she felt open air and then the solid hard impact of hitting the ground down below hard without realizing what had happened. She heard a sick crunch under her back as her head reared back. Her last visage was of Carolyn looking down from the third floor window.

"Don't worry Vicki!" Carolyn looked down from the window to her sister lying lifeless. "I'll help you!" She vanished beaming ear to ear from the window.

Vicki gasped once more as she felt her strength returning. Maybe her spirit was returning to her body, or just maybe it had been briefly dislodged from inside her. Her heartbeat just barely returned to normal as she felt the soft earth and squashed weeds under her back. Feeling sore and bruised all over, she forced herself to roll over in pain as she crawled across the ground under her and dropped again two feet off the edge of the veranda stretching the length of the estate. Pulling herself up wearily, she limped as far as she could on one leg and then slipped and rolled on her back into the treeline several yards from the mansion. She rubbed the hand-shaped burn on her leg as she stared back to Collinwood and marveled at how far she had been able to come. She had reached the trees as she heard a crash from the estate. Carolyn came storming out the kitchen entrance in a hurry and stopped under the window and looked around. She looked slightly comical with her long strands of blonde hair flitting about her turning head. Trying to see where Vicki was, she rubbed her head.

"Vicki," She called out. "But I'm your sister!"