Category Archives: Sam Hall

Episode 708: Will Power

March 1969, Sam Hall, , , ,

“It’s been my experience that death causes as much ill-feeling as life.”

Time-tossed vampire Barnabas Collins is stuck in the year 1897, lost behind enemy lines on a ghost-hunting recon mission. For all he knows, he’s here to stay, so he’s trying to make friends with the locals.

At the moment, he’s in the Collinwood study with Edward, the putative head of the household, in front of an open casket containing Edward’s grandmother. The old lady spent the last several decades telling everyone that she had a family secret that she would pass on just before her death, but it turns out that’s a tricky deadline to plan around. Now Barnabas is the only one who knows the secret, which was: Don’t let Barnabas get out of his coffin and hang around Collinwood. So that worked out great.

Grasping at straws, Edward harangues Barnabas for a while, begging him to tell the secret, but Barnabas just stonewalls and that’s pretty much all they can do.

Frustrated, Edward grouses that Edith even kept the location of her will a secret. She left instructions with Judith in a sealed envelope, and now they have to find it.

And that’s the last time anybody mentions the secret. From this moment on, the story is all about finding the will. It’s the most blatant MacGuffin relay race handoff you’ll ever see.

Continue reading Episode 708: Will Power →

Episode 702: The Vampire Strikes Back

March 1969, Sam Hall, , , , , , , , , , ,

“Don’t touch me! Your grandmother knows how easily I bruise.”

It always starts with a box.

The malicious spirit of Quentin Collins has taken over present-day Collinwood, and he’s in the process of slowly murdering young David. Desperate to save the boy and unable to think of anything else, Barnabas turns to the I Ching, an ancient Chinese secret that has transported his soul back to the late 19th century. There, his astral body meets up with his physical body, which is trapped in a chained-up coffin.

And like any travel experience, it takes forever, there’s hardly any leg room, there’s nothing to eat, and he doesn’t even know where he’s landed. This is why you should never try to check yourself in as luggage.

Continue reading Episode 702: The Vampire Strikes Back →

Episode 701: The Most Important Thing About Quentin

March 1969, Sam Hall, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Life was more exciting, when I was around.”

So, the lesson, I suppose, is that you shouldn’t lock up your relatives, build paneling over the door, and pretend that they went to France.

I mean, I understand the impulse. Quentin is selfish and mean, and practices dark sorcery. You’ve tried to kick him out of the house, but he just laughs, and keeps on drinking other people’s brandy. And then there’s a sale at Home Depot, and you think, This could be so easy…

The downside, of course, is that then your descendants come along and unseal the tomb, because they’re young and curious, and you forgot to write “Dangerous ancestor, do not open” on the entrance portal. Although they probably wouldn’t have paid attention anyway; descendants are dumb like that.

Continue reading Episode 701: The Most Important Thing About Quentin →

Episode 698: Sister Act

February 1969, Sam Hall, , , , , , ,

“I don’t see much point in a party that isn’t a surprise.”

It all started ages ago, back when handsome, irresponsible Chris Jennings was just beginning his career as a werewolf. A bad moon was on the rise, and Chris was planning to spend a quiet evening at home, chained to the radiator. But then his girlfriend came over unexpectedly, and booked a ringside seat for his hideous transformation.

The next morning, Chris decided that this would be a good opportunity to travel, so he took off, apparently without pausing to determine whether Sabrina was alive or dead. He just packed a bag, and ran. The worst thing about being a werewolf is that you don’t get a lot of security deposits back.

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Episode 697: The Young and the Restless

February 1969, Sam Hall, ,

“It seems that when there is a full moon, legend has it that possessed children are extremely restless.”

On this night, the great house of Collinwood stands deserted, more or less. The Collins family has fled the premises, driven away by the spirit of Quentin Collins, an ancestor with an attitude problem. Now they’re all crashing at Barnabas’ place, as Quentin lures them back to Collinwood one by one, for some hypnotically-enforced steampunk cosplay.

I’ll give you a for instance. Barnabas is currently on a recon mission in the spooky old mansion, looking for young David. He opens up the drawing room doors — and there’s Maggie, the Collins family governess, wearing a complicated Victorian dress and an even more complicated Gibson girl hairstyle. She’s sitting alone in the dark room, posing decoratively on a chair and doing needlepoint, just Gibsoning away.

When she sees Barnabas enter the room, she’s startled, and acts like she doesn’t know who he is. “I know no one named Barnabas,” she says, “now please leave here at once!” He insists, “Maggie, I know what’s happened to you,” which says a lot about how Barnabas’ mind works.

She says that’s not her name, but when she tries to remember who she is, she gets confused, shrieks, and crumples delicately to the floor.

When she regains consciousness, Maggie is herself again, and she has no idea what happened. “These clothes,” she gasps, “where did they come from? And my hair! Barnabas — why don’t I remember?” This must have been a pretty action-packed evening for her; you don’t forget a hairstyle like that in a hurry.

So it turns out that Quentin is really, really good at this. He must have a master’s degree in whatever the hell this is.

Continue reading Episode 697: The Young and the Restless →

Episode 696: House Hunters

February 1969, Sam Hall, ,

“She isn’t anywhere anymore, not anywhere at all.”

“Barnabas!” Maggie yells, sprinting down the Old House stairs with an antique telephone in her hand.

“The children!” she cries. “They’re gone! They’re GONE!” There’s two kids, so that makes one gone apiece. Yeah, the math checks out.

Now, viewed purely from the host’s point of view, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The entire Collins family evacuated Collinwood last week, to escape an outbreak of ghost hostility. So everyone’s crashing at Barnabas’ place for the indefinite future, which is very neighborly and a nice boost for the sharing economy, but it’s got to be hard on the guest towels.

I mean, if you’ve ever had four relatives come to visit all of a sudden, bringing along adopted children, itinerant blood specialists and assorted domestics, then you can forgive Barnabas wondering, just for a moment, if misplacing a couple houseguests might help to thin out the traffic around the bathroom facilities.

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Episode 695: Exile

February 1969, Sam Hall,

“Collinwood belongs to the ghosts now.”

For the first time in two centuries, the Collins family has left Collinwood. Well, the living ones have, anyway. The dead members of the family — the silent majority — are in the same place they’ve always been, and the fact that you don’t even think of them as part of the family is kind of the problem.

But the living Collinses are now living elsewhere, taking up residence in the other enormous mansion on their property. They’re trying to keep their kids out of the clutches of their avenging ancestors, with limited success.

The morning after the great exodus, Chris stops by, and tells Barnabas and Maggie that he saw someone standing at the edge of the woods, staring at the Old House — someone wearing old-fashioned clothes.

Maggie gasps, “Quentin?”

Puzzled, Barnabas asks, “What did you say?”

“Quentin,” she repeats. He frowns, and says, “Where did you hear that name before?”

So these people have been under siege for several months, held two seances, lost a silversmith and a perfectly good medium, staged an exorcism and then scurried off to find other accommodations, and most of them don’t even know that the specter responsible is named Quentin.

Seriously, the living are ridiculous. Can you believe these clowns?

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Episode 694: The Surrender

February 1969, Sam Hall, , ,

“If I were a ghost, as I assume someday I shall be, I would not let mere words drive me away from my home.”

This morning, occult expert and exorcism consultant Professor Eliot Stokes woke up to the sound of a crow perched on his windowsill, muttering Russian slang words with the voice of a human child. Touching each of the eight protection stones that surround his bed, Stokes got up and went about his usual routine: selecting an amulet, sweeping away the animal bones that appear each night in his fireplace, and reading the news in the swirls of cream in his coffee.

The omens weren’t particularly favorable, although he made a mental note to brush up on his Russian. Apparently, by evenfall, he would do battle with a powerful energy source for the soul of a young person whose name begins with the letter D. The encounter would end in defeat, fire, and the irreparable loss of innocence.

Still, you never know, he mused, adjusting his necktie. You might get lucky.

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Episode 686: The Case of the Lifted Ledger

February 1969, Sam Hall, , , ,

“Curious, so many hearts should stop in this house.”

Okay, new game: Why is it difficult to host a murder mystery dinner party when the main suspect is actually a ghost?

Well, ghosts can walk through walls, for one thing, so you can’t really do a locked room mystery. They don’t have fingerprints, or leave any physical evidence, really, except maybe the faint smell of jasmine or whatever. The victims all die of heart failure, including the one who fell all the way down the stairs and smacked her head on the hardwood. Also, there’s not much you can do with a ghost once you’ve caught him, and now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure they don’t even exist.

In fact, I’d say it’s impossible to attempt a murder mystery story about ghosts. And yet, here we are.

Continue reading Episode 686: The Case of the Lifted Ledger →