Subj: THE BOX Part Ten
Date: 6/7/00 8:10:38 AM Central Daylight Time
From: N.E. Collins

Laura Collins walked as if in a trance down the dark corridors of the great house. It was five minutes to midnight and she was closely trailed by her personal maid, Mary Agnes, and the servant Claire. They had unsuccessfully tried to halt her progress towards where they did not know, but the lady possessed a strength and determination not apparent in her frame. She made her plodding way to the entrance of the living quarters of her brother-in-law, Quentin Collins. The door opened of itself as Laura Collins obediantly stepped through. The two servant girls had not seen in the dark that their lady herself had not opened the door, so they followed without fear or hesitation.

Once inside the darkened room, Mary Agnes fetched a match and lit a candle that was near the Victrola. Claire lit candle that were on the mantlepiece as well as Laura Collins stood silently and yet ceremoniously in front of the box in the corner. Suddenly, she raised her arms and began to intone in a speech unfamiliar. The lid of the box began to rise of itself! Claire clutched at Mary Agnes fearfully and begged her to quit this evil place!

Mary Agnes, good Catholic girl that she was, had not the sense to fear evil outright. She believed she was protected as she put Claire aside and stepped forward to relieve her lady of the seemingly diabolical work at hand. When she laid her hand on Laura Collins her lady swooned slightly! Claire came forward at Mary Agnes' insistence and held her up as Mary Agnes stepped further up to look into the box.

She looked into the apparent emptiness of the container and laughing she announced, "Evil is without form or substance!" But she spoke too soon for all at once there was a rush as of a great wind and a cloud of reddish brown smoke issued forth from the box. It hung billowing in the upper air as it took the form of huge hairy clawed hand! It snatched Mary Agnes in it's iron grip and before she could so much as cry out stole her away into the box as the lid slammed on it's own!

Claire screamed and screamed! She abandoned Laura Collins who fell in a disarrayed lump on the carpet. Claire ran from the room crying Murder! Murder! The whole household was awakened almost at once. Jensen, with his wife were trying their best to soothe their poor child's rantings and ravings. They could not make any sense of the going ons. When another servant discovered the unconcious body of Mrs. Collins the whole traumatic scene moved upstairs.

Laura was just coming to as Jensen forced Claire back into Quentin's outer room. At his mad daughter's insistence he opened the lid of the box revealing...nothing. It was empty! It was Claire's turn to swoon!

***********************************************************************

Everyone had returned to their beds for the night. Claire had been given a healing broth by the cook and the doctor would be summoned on the morrow. No one had noticed that Mary Agnes was nowhere to be found. In all the confusion it had not occurred to anyone that she was missing, and no one would give credence to Claire's story of that night's events later.

***********************************************************************

Quentin's outer room lay in complete darkness as the lid of the box slowly rose upward. Seeming to rise from a moving platform underneath a much changed Mary Agnes appeared. She clutched the edge of the box with a hand more like a claw as she brushed back hair gone white, her face a tangled mass of wrinkles and her eyes fixed in permenant fear! She tried to leave the box but a voice spoke out, "You must stay." The lid came down on her and slammed solidly shut!

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.