The Vampire Hartwell Page 2

  My balance was askew, which made it difficult for me to stand up and find my way. After tripping on the oval wood table in front of me at least three times, I crawled to the bathroom where I was able to light a candle after struggling to find a spark.

  My world was so hazy until the faint light pained my crusty eyes as I rubbed them furiously with my fists to gain a clearer self-image in the mirror. My rebooted brain was still experiencing some rough patches and images of a beast with shiny, sharp teeth flashed across my mind as if that was the reflection I was looking at in the mirror.

  I grew excited as my pulse quickened, breathing heavier by the moment like I was running away from someone or something. When the frightening image faded and my vision cleared, although my eyes were still red and burning, it became apparent that my neck was severely cocked to the left side.

  I reached up instinctively with both hands and violently snapped my neck back into place. The dramatic body realignment combined with my still fragile state as a newbie caused me to pass out and collapse in a heap on the floor.

  Days came and went and I hadn’t moved from the same position – pancaked flat on my back. This time around, my inactivity was accompanied by breath, and breath was guided by a virtual training manual playing as the main feature in my mind.

  Scenes of unsuspecting men and women shockingly looking into the eye of a creature while it devoured them from the neck were interwoven with a life portrayed as one that was constantly in motion, constantly on the run.

  While the pursuer was never presented in a distinct manner, the ally was: the mammalian being was part man, part evolutionary wonder.

  My subconscious was treated to a lengthy reel of the evolutionary tract of cetaceans – from their early days as hoofed creatures with triangular teeth like wolves, to cat-like creatures, to early variations of the hippopotamus, to bottlenose dolphins and Orca, the killer whale, which is the largest species of dolphin. The hybrid mammal also had the ability to convert to a smaller aquatic mammal, capable of diving into water and hiding beneath the surface to avoid birds of prey.

  The images left me feeling safe and protected until I spent the last 24 hours viewing footage of his natural enemy, the hunter. Hunters had also evolved from Homo sapien warriors to beings capable of combating adversaries both on land and in the sky. The loop that kept playing over and over again was that of a man running through a forest clearing and changing into an angry pit bull, and then a powerful ram as it picked up speed, and then a huge grizzly bear with knife-like claws capable of running at speeds up to 30 miles per hour, and then the massive wing span of a hawk capable of picking up small animals with its hook-like talons.

  After each iteration, the ending image was one of the beach and more specifically, the ocean, and the word SAFETY flashing on the screen. The hunters were physiologically-designed to combat the vampires, with their full set of evolutionary incantations, but they had not fully evolved. But years of being thrown through the rinse cycle was finally paying off, proving that through strife comes change.

  AWAKE

  I was always with my son and my wife, even if I wasn’t physically present in with them. You could say that as a vampire I was their blood shadow, because blood shadows are often referred to as ghosts of beings that give no physical indication of their presence but, corporeally, they are very much around.

  The next one hundred years-or-so were pure torture, except for the random acts of blood-letting and violence that made me one of the most feared disruptive forces of my generation.

  My life of vampirism started fairly innocently, as blood-thirsty creatures go. I was on my back and playing the part of the three-day download for days. Before the change, I had a daily ritual of taking a walk down the street every afternoon to fetch a newspaper from a local tobacco purveyor, and then I would stop next door at Mrs. Wilcox’s house for a baked good, or two, before heading home. Unless, of course, I was out of town traveling with my family.

  Mrs. Wilcox was 60 years old and had battling the early stages of Alzheimer ’s disease. To say that she forgot her own name some days would be an exaggeration, but there were definitely gaps in her life that went permanently missing from the memory bank. It had been two weeks since Thomas, as she called me, had stopped by and the scones were starting to pile up because Mrs. Wilcox had not stopped baking.

  It had been years since she had been in my residence, but one lonely afternoon she decided to see what was going on with her only friend. The truth was that even if she made it back on the street that night, it would have been a long shot if she would have found her way home.

  A faint knock on the door got things started, but barely made a dent in my deep slumber on the bathroom floor. Repeated attempts from Edna Wilcox’s brittle and slightly-discolored hands also went on deaf ears, so she looked for something more substantial to pound on the door. She managed to locate a five-inch-round rock but tried the civilized approach one more time before resorted to force.

  “Thomas? Thomas, are you in there? This is Edna Wilcox!” she yelled straining her lungs, which caused her to cough painfully for about 10 seconds. She thought about tapping the rock against the door with both hands, but it flew out of her grasp about mid-way to the door causing a loud “Thud!”

  The sound served as a spark that lit the fuse of a keg of dynamite. Edna Wilcox stood in front of the door admiring a dent that was her handiwork, as my eyes opened and burned a bright orange. I rose to my feet effortlessly, on a 90-degree angle without the use of my hands. I floated to the door without the use of his legs and said, “Who is it?” in my best big-bad wolf posing as granny voice.

  Edna nearly gave up and had turned her back until she heard a familiar voice. The door swung open as my mind was now analyzing her body temperature and optimal points of entry.

  She turned around and said, “Oh Thomas, you are home. I was starting to worry…” and then proceeded to prattle on as she basically described events that were now ancient history to a reborn son of the blood. My ears blocked out the infernal noise and my eyes focused like a lion waiting in the tall grass for an opportune time to pounce on my prey. While I was transfixed on her neck, my consciousness was scanning the street for mortal and animal traffic patterns.

  A local shopkeeper walked by and looked up at Edna talking to me and then looked down to see where he was walking, before picking up his head and seeing nothing but a closed door. It must have been only a few seconds between viewings of my doorway, and this piqued Burt Larson’s interest enough to stop by the next day. But my good neighbor only managed to be lunch for a vampire that was quite awake and had an insatiable appetite for beleaguered San Franciscans.

  CANDY

  I went unchecked for the initial segment of my vampirical existence, with these 18 years of on the house wild exploration taking me from one corner of North America to the other. I spent time in the state of Washington, Oregon, Vancouver, British Columbia, back through Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, for only a brief time, because people appeared to be experienced with his kind, making his job more difficult. Mexico was also a frequent stop-off because the tequila running through these people’s veins was purely intoxicating! It always gave me a bigger high when blood was mixed with other libations, versus just drinking alcohol from a bottle or a glass.

  Subsequent years were spent in the Midwest—perhaps my favorite place to dine because the people were so hospitable and never seemed to fail to invite me in. Apparently, it was against their DNA to be unwelcoming. I also experienced a similar dynamic with Canadians, who never seemed to grow tired of giving me their blood.

  These years felt like taking candy from a baby and left me with such a feeling of invincibility and superiority that I didn’t believe there was a creature on the planet that was anywhere close to me. There was the occasion that that I would run into a fellow vampire or two while on the road. The first time it happened was in Minnesota, right after the winter thaw. I usually tried to avoid
extreme cold, because people usually had too much on and it was a hassle to open them up. Since I was already fairly cold inside, it helped to track my movements with the various warmer seasons. This served to helped stabilize my body temperature.

  It was 45 degrees one spring in Egan, Minnesota and the people were acting like it was a beach day! No jackets, sweatshirts, hats, or scarfs to be seen in this northern igloo. My best spots for penetration was always a pub or bar, and this night proved to be no exception. I made contact with a couple of girls, because it was always more of a challenge to coordinate targets in pairs, and I had guided them out the back door of the sal*on for some quite reflection in a darkened alley.

  The three of us looked fairly normal, just like a trio of drunk locals enjoying each other’s company. I must have gotten so good at blending into the crowd that I wasn’t giving off the “I’m here for your blood” vibe. I could sense that two gentlemen had been watching us for at least 25 minutes and I was hoping that they weren’t the jealous boyfriend types, although I figured it would be quite a thirst-quencher. I tended to pr*y on unsuspecting women for some reason… they were easier to coerce and I hate to admit it, but I’m just not that into guys!

  Also, I really missed Maggie and was not willing, at least at first, to give myself in that way to another woman. I rationalized it that the blood thing was purely a survival mechanism, not a sexual act in any way, although the flow of blood often left me aroused. I could smell the sweet blood aroma of Scandinavian ladies even before I approached them for extraction. But, just as I was about to make a series of moves that would lead to their near-death, these two dudes appeared and crashed my party in the alley.

  Let me backtrack for a moment. Even though I was out of control and hopping for state to state in search of able blood donors, I thought it foolish to either drain my target fully of blood or turn them into the type of creature that would spend all of their days in search of blood. I was still hurting from the loss of my family but that didn’t mean that I had to take my angst out on others and ruin their lives. Besides, I had a few customers that I tapped multiple times during those first 18 years. And since I had a special reason to become a vampire, the reuniting with my family, I didn’t think it would be fair to cast another person into a life that they weren’t d*siring. Believe me, the life wasn’t for everyone… it was tremendously isolating and shallow if not exhilarating at times, especially in the early days when the hunt was so new.

  There I was in all of my glory, about to walk two young women to the border of life and death, when these two guys followed us outside. I could hear their thoughts amid my single-minded blood focus, and it confused me at first. I initially thought it had gone too long without refueling and was starting to hallucinate. I heard the one guy say to the other, “Let’s wait until he opens them up and then we’ll make our move.”

  As I moved closer to the two women, I could sense these two closing in on us so I played it cool for as long as I could. “Let’s go!” the other guy said as I whispered to the women, “Why don’t you take a little nap. I’ll get back to you in just a minute.” And they fell into a deep sleep as I gently set them on the ground.

  “You guys don’t want to do this,” I instructed who I thought were two mortals.

  “Do what?” one of the guys replied.

  I smirked, “Get your blood drained. I’m pretty thirsty and starting to get a little light-headed, so if you could just move along I could get back to what I was just doing. Unless you two want to be dessert?”

  One guy looked at the other and asked, “I didn’t think he was a vampire, did you?”

  The other guy replied, “No, I had no idea!” Then he turned to me and said, “We’re sorry! We’re sort of new at this—we were just turned last week—and didn’t mean to step on your toes.”

  “My name is Hartwell,” I said as I extended my right arm and open palm in greeting.

  “The name is Byron,” one said and the other offered, “Ryan.”

  I later ran into Byron and his new running partner Brian and thought the exchange of personnel was a good trade.

  I was in a sporting mood and said as I picked up one of the girls, “I’ll give you guys one if you promise to not kill or turn her.”

  They looked at each other in confusion as Byron, the more curious of the two, asked “We don’t know anything else other than killing and turning.”

  I handed him one of the girls and then picked up the other so I could teach a blood-based tutorial. I bit into the girl’s neck and then drank a little before talking again. “The key is to take just enough to satisfy the urge without eliminating the source. If we continue to use up all of the resources, there might not be enough for the next time we are in need.”

  This was obviously the earlier days of my green ways in recycling. I drained half of my girl before giving it to Ryan, while Byron also followed my instructions.

  “So, if we come back here in six months we can do this again?” Byron asked.

  “Exactly!” I replied.

  PAYBACK

  A little background: every vampire has a cosmically-assigned hunter - who is a natural enemy - and a protector, who is a constant ally. It takes 18 years from birth for both individuals to attain full maturity and understanding, with most of the growth occurring in the subconscious until then.

  With that being said, I was in Pennsylvania one night when I decided to go to a bar for a late-night drink. It was just after midnight and many of the patrons had exceeded the legal blood-alcohol limit in the days when it was legal to drink and mount a horse. I had taken a few unsuspecting drunks for a leisurely stroll in the alley for a little puncture and drink, and was focusing on a third pigeon when I was surprisingly impeded by an unfamiliar face.

  “You don’t want to do that,” the man-child said with confidence. I stepped back to get a good look at this baby-faced kid that dared to challenge me, because I had been previously undefeated when it came to confrontations.

  “You should go home, junior, and help your mommy knit a quilt,” I replied with all of the cockiness of a predator in the prime of my death.

  The man was focused on the “impending danger, not my pointed words, as he yelled, “Duck!”

  Normally, I listened to no man but my intense hearing was telling me that the directive was accurate.

  Thaddeus Brewster stood across the room with a silver-tipped arrow cocked in his bow, and released the vampire-killer toward my core.

  Garrison Phillips stood calmly erect and reached out his thick leather-gloved right hand and caught the arrow an inch away from my slowly-pumping, cold, heart.

  “We have to go,” Gary said as he clutched my arm and exited the bar with Thaddeus in hot pursuit.

  “Flying would be good!” Gary yelled and jumped on me as I unfurled my wings and took flight. Thaddeus immediately took flight in the air in his human form and transformed into an oversized hawk.

  I looked back at Gary and asked, “When did I get these?”

  “Do mean to tell me that all this time you didn’t know you had wings?” Gary replied in disbelief.

  Thaddeus the hawk came speeding by and shredded Gary’s back with one of his huge talons.

  “Aahhhhhhhhhh!” he screamed and then composed himself and said, “Do you mind going a little faster, big guy?”

  We continued the back and forth battle through Pennsylvania until reaching the border of New Jersey. My limited flying experience was no match for Thaddeus’ proficient use of wind currents and advanced obstacle-avoidance methods. A few more vicious swipes of the talon and we were grounded. The 400-yard, full-speed fall would have crushed any mortal, but Gary quickly helped me up and I naively said, “Maybe we lost him.”

  It was 4:30 a.m. and the nearly-full moon was still shining brightly. I was facing Gary and a huge shadow consumed both of our forms.

  “Not in this lifetime,” Gary said as I turned and looked straight in the belly of a massive grizzly bear.

  �
��Run!” I yelled trying to utilize a sophisticated tactic I utilized often as a mortal. But Gary, playing the part of the ultimate protector, stayed behind to try to slow the angry creature down. He changed into a wolf and literally howled at the moon before jumping at Thaddeus’ furry neck, jaw clenched on its target. The wounded bear roared in anger and pain and attempted in vain to shake the determined Gary off of him. Thaddeus regained his thoughts long enough to swipe his lengthy upper claws and puncture the body of the wolf like a pin cushion. Gary yelped in pain and then Thaddeus effortlessly tossed his limp body deep into the forest brush.

  I was so confused by the turn of events that I ran as fast as I could instead of gliding, teleporting, or flying away. Although I had received three days of comprehensive information when making the transformation from mortal to vampire, it had been 18 years and I was desperately in need of a refresher course.

  Thaddeus the bear roared and the ground shook as he started running in the my direction. I must have had a good 30-second head start on Thaddeus but the speedy bear quickly made up the stagger, shocking me, and I was scared for the first time in my life as a vampire.

  I muttered, “What in god’s name…” as I turned around to see the bear lumbering toward me with the speed and wildness of a runaway locomotive.

  Thaddeus made up the stagger, grabbed me from behind and wasted no time ending the first of our many battles. He picked me over his head and then impaled me through a long, sharp branch of an adjacent tree. My back was to the tree, I had a four-inch-wide tree trunk running through my back and most importantly, my heart, as I dangled five feet off the ground.

  But before I died, Thaddeus turned back into his human form and walked up to me and said, “That’s one,” as he waved the index finger of his right hand.

  It took an hour for life to reset, with Gary coming to first as a wolf and then morphing back to his human form. He slowly rose to his feet and then followed the tracks and scents that led him to his greatest nightmare: his vampire impaled on the massive tree branch.