Subj: In The Shadows Of Hell's Gate-chapter 1
Date: 4/24/02 12:27:30 AM Central Daylight Time
From: Julianka

Elizabeth awoke feeling chilled through, with an overwhelming sense of dread. She couldn't understand how she could be cold. She was covered by a top sheet, puffy comforter and thick afghan.

She laid facing the partly open door of her room. A habit left over from Carolyn's childhood, she always left the door ajar in order to hear if her baby cried during the night.

She forced herself to put away her fear. After all, she was safe in her own home, this feeling of unease was foolish.

Elizabeth fell into an uneasy slumber. Her dreaming mind settling at last on the surreal scene of the Collin's family mausoleum. The building stark pale gray against a black and starless sky. She marveled at the sharp detail of her vision. Taking note of the clarity with which she could see names and dates on the grave markers and tombstones.

Elizabeth's attention riveted back to the mausoleum. A slash of red captured her eye. A fast moving stream of crimson came tumbling out of the crypt, followed seconds later by a great geyser of red bursting through the roof of the building and beginning to rain down, bathing the mausoleum and it's surroundings in blood! Elizabeth knew the viscous red substance
moving in a raging river toward Collinwood, was blood. It hit her senses equal to a slap in the face. She could smell it, taste it and feel it. Even hear, it as it flowed, like a heartbeat pounding in her ears. She was helpless to stop the flood as it poured ever closer to her home and loved ones.

Elizabeth awoke with a crash of awareness. Her heart thundering in her chest and a icy sweat coating her. From downstairs she heard the front doors slam open. Slow footsteps coming up the stairs. She recognized the familiar creak of a riser midway up the staircase. Someone was in the house!

Elizabeth started to get out of bed to alert the household to the intruder, to protect her family, but she was paralyzed. Unable to move so much as a finger! She tried to scream, call for Roger, but no sound issued from her lips. Her whole will strove in vain to move, to scream. She sensed the intruder getting closer. Nothing stood between the helpless sleepers and the monstrous fate creeping ever closer. Her titan struggles cost Elizabeth her consciousness. When she came to again, she had a sweet few seconds, thinking the entire experience merely a horrific nightmare, when the crash of the front doors slamming open shattered her relief.

It began all over again. Her struggling to move, to scream out with the horror moving closer, only to pass out again. How many times she awoke and fainted again she didn't know. When she came to awareness again she put every last bit of her flagging will into the attempt to break whatever was holding her frozen. Elizabeth threw herself from the bed. Plunging headlong out into space she tumbled to the floor. Luckily the bedside rug padded her fall. She lay trembling and sobbing, her legs still tangled in the bedclothes. She wasn't sure she could face what she was afraid might await her in the hall, but she knew she was all that
stood between her nightmare visions and her family.

Elizabeth pried herself up to her feet. She slid on slippers and robe in one motion. She took a flashlight from her nightstand drawer, not so much that she needed the light, but the heavy metal casing would make do as a club. Her hand shook slightly as she grasped the door and opened it wide. The hall nightlight showed that all appeared normal. She walked quietly from room to room, checking to see that Carolyn, David, Maggie and Roger were alright..that they were safe.

To be continued...........

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.