Blood Shadow
The Vampire Hartwell
Phil Wohl
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2015 Phil Wohl
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PROLOGUE
My name isThomas Hartwell and I am a vampire. Saying that after over acentury as a blood shadowdoesn’t make it any less shocking, even though Ihave spent more time on this earth as a blessed one than a mortal. The 100years, or so, was pure torture, except for the random acts ofblood-letting and violence that made me one of the most feareddisruptive forces of my generation.
My story and the story of myfamily has been told before, but I thought it was important to fillin the gaps of the journey from my perspective—an autobiographicallook if you will—from the very beginning in San Francisco to thetime I hit the shores of Beach Haven, New York.
This account will serve as anextended therapy session for a creature purported to exist withouta soul. But I will let you in on a little secret: we have evolvedgreatly over the years and now have a heightened sense ofself-awareness and genuine care for others around us (if we likethem). You know what happens to people who we don’t like, orthreaten the very safety of family: they become little more than ablood snack in a long line of people whose veins have been openedby my razor-sharp fangs. I wish I was a pacifist, but that’s whatcomes with being a head of the household: protection is mygift.
LOSS
It was 1902, and the BarbaryPlague—not-so-affectionately called
The BlackDeath—was sweeping through Victorian SanFrancisco. The disease started in Chinatown and spread throughoutthe city like a raging wildfire. Four out of five people whocontracted the disease died within eight days, while the survivorshad to deal with being prime healthy targets for a mass ofblood-thirsty predators.
I was living in the lap of luxuryin San Francisco with my wife Marjorie, or Maggie as she liked tobe called, and my eight year-old son, Nathaniel. It was a radicalchange from the destitute life I was experiencing before Maggiecame into my life. Chasing riches in the competitive times that wasthe gold rush left me with few options other than dying in povertyor robbing a bank such as the San Francisco National Bank. In fact,I was casing the joint out for a few weeks because the gold thingdidn’t appear to panning out.
It became apparent to me in just ashort time that the bank was most vulnerable just about closingtime. All other times of the day there were two guards on duty, butat closing there was just one guard who liked to call it quits afew minutes early each day. I walked into the bank a couple ofticks before 5:00 p.m. one day, and saw a woman with her back tohim me when I asked, “Excuse me ma'am, what time do youclose?”
This woman, this creature from theheavens turned around in all of her shapely, blonde-haired splendorand looked at the large-round clock with her huge blue eyes andreplied, “Five-o’clock, sir.”
I had never seen this woman faceto face and when our eyes locked, I literally froze in my boots andfinally saw my future standing in front of me. I was so poor that Islept wherever I could, which often meant outside, and my clothesand boots had many holes in them. I need money so badly but Iquickly figured that a major hurdle to spending the rest of my lifewith this woman would be if I robbed her bank. I also thought thatthis was the first time she noticed me, but I must have been theworst bank robber of all time because she knew who I was and why Iwas there.
This woman seemed too prominent,so important, that it was doubtful that she would fall for areckless loser. She tried not to play into my trap by asking, “Isthere anything else?” while she jiggled a ring of keys in her hand.“It’s closing time.”
I looked deep into her big blueeyes and wanted to say, “I would like to take you out to dinnerwhen I come into some money,” but I didn’t know when or if thatwould ever happen. I did look deep into Marjorie Carter’s eyes, shebeing my long-widowed, 26 year-old angel. Maggie had the blatantmisfortune of going through a miscarriage and losing her husband inthe same year. The shock of the cumulative setbacks left herbasically dormant for six years, as she sorted through theemotional wreckage while working as a bank secretary At the SanFrancisco National Bank.
“I am sorry I wasted your time,” Isaid and bowed my head in shame.
She must have seen something in myeyes that resembled a decent human being because she replied, “Idon’t think you could ever waste my time, Thomas, unless you camein here to rob us.”
I’m still not sure how she knew myname, but I felt such a surge of energy from what she said that itpropelled me to make a better life, and turn into the person shethought I could be, so we could be together. It was this renewedsense of purpose that made me pan through a gold in a site I hadcombed at least a dozen times, a body of water that was eventuallytagged with the name Hartwell Brook. I had hit the jackpot only amonth after everything seemed lost when I walked into that bank anda guardian angel saved me from taking a wrong turn.
I became a millionaire just beforethe turn of the century, in a time when there was scarce few men ofsuch wealth in the country. My relationship history before I becameestablished was what you could call sparse, with only the mostdrunk of females sharing time and space with me.
