Subj: Collinwood 2001 Year One Part Eight
Date: 3/16/01 7:03:37 PM Central Standard Time
From: N.E. Collins

Vicky and Carolyn were leisurely strolling down the main street of Collinsport. The skies were unseasonably clear and that meant that the opening of The Purple Cow would bring in townsfolk from all over the area. It was an assured packed house. The novelty of a club where men performed as women would have been enough of a draw, but with the added good fortune of nice weather it was a sure thing. There was a rumor about town that Pepe, the owner, had actually gotten an astrologer to pick the exact date and hour that the bar should open to insure it's success.

"You don't really believe in that sort of stuff, do you Carolyn?" Vicky said skeptically.

"Oh, I don't know. I keep up with mine sometime in the newspaper and it sure has been right a lot of the time."

Vicky laughed as she said, "But don't you think that it was right because you wanted it to be?"

Carolyn looked puzzled.

Vicky continued. "I mean, the real reason it seemed right was because you read it and then YOU made it happen, and NOT the other way round."

Carolyn shrugged her shoulders in agreement and then suggested that the two of them get a bite to eat. "I don't know about you, but I'm starving, and since this is YOUR day to spend my mother's money where do you want to eat?"

Vicky didn't answer her.

"Vicky?" Vicky was looking up and her face was defiant.

"Vicky? What is it? What's wrong?" Vicky pointed upwards to the second floor of the Collinsport Inn.

"There was a man up there in that window, and he was staring at us in the MOST unpleasant way."

Carolyn spun around and looked to where Vicky was pointing.

"I don't see anyone."

"He's moved now, but he was there."

Carolyn didn't see what the problem was. "Oh, he was probably just doing what all men do when they see pretty girls they know they can't possibly have..."

She didn't finish her thought for just then the man reappeared in the window and she caught his stern gaze giving her a once over. Then he vanished again. "Why, of ALL the nerve! Just WHO does he think he IS? C'mon."

Carolyn began to move at a more rapid pace. "Where are we going, Carolyn?"

Carolyn called back over her shoulder. "To find out who that man is."

Vicky didn't want to. "Carolyn, no, wait. Carolyn!"

Carolyn Stoddard marched on and around the corner heading for the front door of the Collinsport Inn. Vicky threw up her hands and ran to catch up with her.

Burke Devlin poured himself a drink to wile away the empty time. He had just seen Carolyn and that governess again, and he found that he had to take back what he had thought of the new employee of the Collin's family. She was NO mouse, that one. She had gotten a short cut hairdo that made her one sweet looking lady. He took a long soothing drink of his scotch and water as he thought to himself, Yes, those two will be a pleasure to toy with even more than before! He put down the tumbler and laughed at his own cleverness. The sound of his laughter filled the hollow aching room in which he paced.

Carolyn got to the front door and Vicky was still trying to get her to change her mind when a strange disheveled woman pushing a rusty shopping cart shrieked one word that sent chills down the two young women's spines.

"FRID!" The old woman was staring straight up into the sky and then she jerked her head down abruptly and looked at the girls as she pointed a crooked finger at them and said in a more quiet voice the same word. "Frid."

Vicky was intrigued, but Carolyn growled in annoyance and entered the Inn.

Vicky shyly spoke to the odd woman. "Frid?"

That sent the old lady into hysterics! She started waving her arms and shouting the one word over and over again as she rolled away her cart mercilessly on the cobblestone pavement. "FRID! FRID! FRID! FRID!"

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.