•Dark Shadows• < TK

Chapter 12

Several Angel Bay employees enter carrying an iron coffin.

"Put him in."

"NO! NO YOU MUSTN'T!"

Angelique and her henchmen pull away in a van, with Jungkooks coffin; wrapped in silver chains in the back. They pass a sleeping Willie Loomie in the old Collins station wagon.

Moments later down the docks, the van makes a stop in front of the Collins Cannery, just long enough for Angelique to lean out the window and recite a brief incantation: "Sleeping flame, I summon thee, to your form return. Make the night as bright as day and burn, baby, burn..."

As the van pulls away, magical things start to happen in the cannery. The valve of a gas pipe turns by itself, and the highly combustible hissing begins. The conveyer belts and seamers hum to life, stamping out cans and lids.
One of the machines grinds down the sharp edges of spinning tin lids. Several dead bodies piled on the floor beside it, neatly arranged by Angelique. That's where she got the blood to serve Jungkook.

All it takes is one little spark from a spinning lid.

Willie is roused from his drunken snooze by an explosion. A reflected fireball climbing up the station wagon's windshield.

"What in the-,"

At Collinwood Manor in the drawing room, a distant fireball lights up the night sky and the harbor below the Manors front lawn, drawing Seokjin to the windows.

"My god..."

Eagle's Hill Cemetery...

Angelique's flashlight wielding henchmen carry Jungkook's coffin toward the family crypt.

"You mustn't!"

"You know I've come to realize that shutting you in that box for all eternity might've been a tad harsh. So here's the deal. I'm going to destroy everything you love, and you're going to take some more time to think about us, she says while slipping off her underwear and dropping it on his face. "See you in a couple centuries, lover boy."

Jungkook screams and what sounds like cries as the coffin is closed over him again as he begs; the darkness taking over him.

Angelique and her henchmen close the doors of the their car and roll away. Red taillights illuminating the mist covered graves. Once the car is out of sight, a pair of feet make their way across the grounds toward the Collins family crypt.

At the Collins cannery, a crowd of onlookers has gathered to watch the fire department and police battle the cannery blaze. The building is clearly beyond hope, they're just trying to keep it from spreading to the rest of the harbor.

Willie drunkenly pushes his way to the front of the mob; the flames causing gusts of hot air to blow past him. "Oh boy, Mr. Seokjin's gonna shit a brick."

Angelique's van roars up the dock and screeches to a halt beside the emergency vehicles. Her high heels click against the wooden planks as she struts toward a squad car, close to where Willie watches the fire.

"Sheriff, we need to talk."

"Christ, Angie. The whole damned town's burning! I don't have time to chit-chat."

"Oh? You don't have time for proof that the Collins family is harboring a murderer?", she asks holding up a tape recorder.

Collins family crypt...

Jungkook's distressed breath echoes against the iron just an inch from his face. Trying to cling to insanity, he speaks to himself.

"Don not dismay, Jungkook. I'm sure this we won't be buried alive for quite so long. Perhaps only a few brief decades...,"he says before groaning in deep sorrow. "Oh, Taehyung...to think that I shall miss seeing you; loving you," he cries.

But then he hears a muffled shout from outside; a clang.

"Hello? Hello, I hear you!", Jungkook shouts.

More clanging, over and over is heard outside the coffin. The lids begins to scrap and then an explosion of moonlight enters as the coffin is opened.

"Oh sweet glorious be! My savior, whoever you be, fear not! I thank you! Oh, what year is this? How long has it been!?!"

Over the edge of the coffin slowly peaks...Yoongi.

"It's been twenty minutes," Yoongi says while trying to save his uncle.

"Yoongi!?! But how on earth did you know that I was imprisoned? Or, for that matter, where?"

"My mom told me," Yoongi hesitates before continuing. "You probably think I'm crazy."

"Young man...I think nothing of the sort. Where is your family? And Taehyung!?!"

"I haven't seen Tae, but everyone else is in town watching our cannery burn."

"Angelique," he growls before sitting up. "Come! We must stop her before our beloved Collinwood suffers the same fate!"

Jungkook makes a valiant effort to leap from the coffin, but his chained body drops hard to the floor. Yoongi looks down at him.

"But first you should probably unchain me."

Collinwood Cannery...

The tape recorder sets on the hood of the sheriffs car. Angelique presses play.

"Yes. I killed Dr. Hoffman, and the workmen, and those very nice unshaven young people!"

Shocked faces and gasps are seen and heard throughout the crowd.

"I'll be damned...", says the sheriff. "And to think the whole town is named after them."

"I'd be willing to bet that Jungkook has already skipped town. And I'd be willing to bet that you'll find the corpses of more of his innocent victims in there!", says Angelique before addressing the crowd.

"The Collins family has rebuilt their business with murder and intimidation! Well I say, "not in my town! There's one of them now! He's probably the one who started the fire to cover his bosses tracks!", she shouts before pointing at Willie who turns and runs to his station wagon.

In classic horror movie fashion, the Old Collins station wagon won't start as the mob advances on him. At the last second, it sputters to life.

"If I make it out of this alive, we're getting a fucking Cadillac!"

In the woods, on their way home as well, Jungkook and Yoongi race toward to the manor on foot. Jungkook carries Yoongi in his arms as he navigates the tightly packed trees with superhuman speed.

Collinwood Manor...

The station wagon tapes up the driveway and skids to a halt precisely as Jungkook and Yoongi come speeding out of the darkness, and Seokjin and Jimin come running out of the front door. The world's most panicked family reunion now transpires.

"Willie! What on earth's happened?", shouts Seokjin.

"Fire! Murder! Angry mob!", he says out of breath.

"Yoongi, thank heavens! I've been worried sick!", says Jin as Jungkook drops him into his arms, barely slowing as continues into Collinwood. Jungkook bursts into Taehyung's room, only to find it empty.

Jungkook can't believe it, the witch has outmaneuvered him again. But there's no time to go after Taehyung now, for the sound of a siren is growing unnervingly close.