The Vampire Hartwell

by Phil Wohl

  Five months after the joyous wedding, Mary gave birth in what could be termed as a "difficult" delivery. While she had been carrying like she was going to give birth to a litter of babies, Dr. Jones said on many occasions "You got one strapping boy in there that is raring to get out and farm!"

  There was so much activity on her stomach that Mary would joke, "We should let him milk the cows and chase after the hogs."

  I could sense that my world changed the minute that Calvin and Emily Brewster entered the world two minutes apart. It's was the classic case of one baby coming out and everyone relaxing and rejoicing for a moment until Dr. Jones exclaimed, "Hold on! There's another one fixin' to get out!"

  FAMILY II (Gary)

  This was about the time that I was going to pay Gary a visit, because it was the first time since we met abruptly that the sides were not in our favor. With one hunter going to be joined by another two in 18 years, we would be one person short of a fair fight unless Gary had followed my instructions. Truth be told, he usually did, although don't tell him that or he will get a big head.

  Garrison always love to tell the story how he and Eloise Walsh met. He, unlike his polar opposite Thaddeus, opted to live in Virginia Beach after he returned from Europe. He heard it was a place for lovers, which obviously increased his chances of finding a suitable and passionate bride.

  He was skipping shells across the ocean's surface one night at sunset after weeks of unsuccessfully connecting with the opposite sex. Gary cocked his arm and was about to sweep his arm through the throwing zone when he felt a slight impediment. He always liked to complete tasks, so he completed the throw and then turned around to fetch another shell when he realized that the "impediment" that he felt was a human skull, a female one at that.

  "Are you all right?!" a shocked and disturbed Gary asked the person even before he knew she was a woman.

  Eloise was groggy from taking a blow to the head from a super-human being, who obviously had forgotten that he had such strength. It's true that Gary doesn't know his own power, his brute strength sometimes. It took her a few minutes to come to her senses and realize what planet she was on.

  "What happened?" she asked as she tried to focus on the two Garrison's in front of her. Eloise explained it this way in subsequent years, "He had sort of a glow around him, well, both of him, and I thought he was an angel sent to me from heaven."

  It was lucky for Gary that I was doing a little soul-searching and his wife-to-be was on the prowl for a mate, so the bump on the head only accelerated what was problem going to occur. Gary has always been the strong, silent type but when he needed to talk he talked, just like when we first met and he yelled at me to duck when Thad was trying to shoot and arrow between my eyes.

  This time, Gary was loaded with a simple directive, "I like the beach. It is a safe place. We should live here."

  She smiled and replied, "Okay, I like the beach, too."

  They were married six months later and Eloise gave birth to Sharon within hours of Mary Brewster squirting out up the twins. I felt a certain vulnerability when Cal and Emily were born, and then more secure when Sharon entered our world, because the sides would be even whenever we resumed out activity again 18 years hence.

  LIT

  After leaving Europe so it could rebuild its physical and mental framework, I meandered around the other continents, hanging out and hunting with lions in the plains of Africa, enjoying the friendly and adventurous people of Australia, and dancing and drinking with the passionate senors and senoritas of South America. And, when my elevated mood started to deflate, I realized that I had been afloat an iceberg in Antarctica, so I left there and went to Asia to try to rebuild my shattered self, my damaged psyche.

  I spent a few years at a commune in Tibet, completing a vow of silence over the first year - which, if you know me, was tough to complete - and then went into even deeper thought my second year. Those monks were pretty savvy for a group that didn't get out much. There was one monk in particular that appeared to have a sense of consciousness above all others. This young man's was Tenzin, but everyone called him Dalai. In later years, I came to realize that this 20-something was the 14th incarnation of the Dalai Lama.

  "You have been quiet and you have been noisy, but always noisy inside," he said in a calm, but confident voice as he pointed toward my head and then my heart.

  I had thought for some time that I was ascending to some higher level of being, but all I was really doing was biding my time until the eventuality of my being would come to fruition.

  "Nothing can replace family," I simply replied. I not only missed my son and wife terribly, but also Gary and Thad as well, as the three of us had become an extended family of sorts.

  He smiled. In fact, it always looked like he had a permanent smile and glowing grin on his face. I often wondered during those years of reflection how one man could be so happy, so content with his lot in life? He must have been aware of something that I had failed to grasp!

  He looked at me for at least 20 seconds, but it seemed like time had ceased to exist. Was it possible that he had gently entered my soul and was collecting pearls for next iteration of wisdom?

  His face turned serious for perhaps one of the few times in his life, as I surmised that he might have learned something about himself while foraging around in me.

  "Love in here," he said as he rested his hand on my chest, "not here," he added, as he touched my bald head. It was strange not having hair, but it definitely cut down on the daily maintenance.

  And then, the last thing the Lama said to me, before I saw him years later at a Pearl Jam concert was, "Family in here, not here," repeating the same gestures he previously employed. I didn't really see him at a Pearl Jam concert, it actually was a philharmonic concert at the White House. Just wanted to see if you were paying attention!

  So, I nodded to his most excellent and then walked out of the monastery, and kept walking - figuratively - until I returned to the last place I had been with my family, San Francisco. The old place had changed considerably since the war ended and the baby boom began. Families had sprouted up everywhere, and one was living in my house, or a structure that resembled my old house, which was damaged in the massive earthquake of 1906. It wasn't enough that the plague took most of the people a few years earlier, then most of the people who were "fortunate" enough to survive the scourge of disease and vampires, they were finished off by a catastrophic ground shake and subsequent aftershocks.

  I glided into the two-story structure without knocking or alerting anyone of my presence. It wasn't necessary to disrupt this family of three - mother, father and son - which sent me into a deep flashback of my life back in the more charmed days of my mortal existence. We were happy, really happy! Me, Maggie and Daniel, although we named him Nathaniel in those days, were a cohesive unit, and I thought our bond was unbreakable!

  But, just as my life had appeared to be an unchangeable impasse before I met Maggie and then after she left me, it had become painfully obvious that nothing really lasts forever.

  I started sobbing, which meant my tears instantly froze and turned into ice cubes as they hit the air and then tumbled to the floor. While the parents could not see me because I didn't want them to, the young boy became intrigued by the ice that appeared to falling out of the air.

  As he ran closer to me, my form became apparent to him. I din't know whether to run, hug him, or drink him for a snack, so I decided to to something else. He said to me internally, "Don't cry, mister."

  I stopped crying and whispered a suggestion in his ear, "Enjoy every moment with your family."

  He smiled at me and then bounded over to his parents, who affectionately gave him a hug. I looked down at the puddle of water near my still-bare feet and cleaned it up, because nobody likes leaving a mess, especially a vampire.

  I left the house and never wanted to return since that October day back in 1958. My heart was broken again, like it had been so many times since my family passe
d. Time had not healed my wounds and I needed to get away for a little while and burn some more time to bridge the gap between the past and future, when I hoped that Lowery's pronouncement that I "would see my family again," would come to fruition.

  I searched for the most desolate and least populated area I could find in San Francisco and stopped at the junction of Haight and Ashbury Streets, where I proceeded to squat in a vacant house after cleaning it up and refurbishing it. I then crawled into all of the cannabis and other natural remedies of escape I could find.

  My clothes became tattered as my hair grew back and facial hair developed into a spirited and unseemly beard. To say that I spawned a generation of hippies might be a bit of an understatement, now that the cloud has lifted and I have a little perspective. I was so lit for that six-year period that I didn't realize how crowded the neighborhood had become until the light of a network TV camera shined in my eyes and awoke me from a drug- and family-induced haze. It was time for me to get back to the East coast and leave all that smelly, filthy nonsense behind!

  TURN

  It was almost 18 years to the day that Eloise Phillips and Mary Brewster gave birth to three children in separate, but extremely related births. I remember the day we departed and the confused, yet elated, looks on the faces of Thad and Gary. I never wanted to be a burden on anyone, let alone two people who I never met before we filled the roles of a vampire triangle of hunter and protector.

  While Mary and Thaddeus Brewster had their hands full with their energetic twins, Calvin and Emily, Eloise Phillips had a fairly low maintenance teen in Sharon Phillips, who had blossomed and was much more mature than her high school classmates.

  "I don't want to go to the prom!" Sharon shrieked at her mom when chided as to why no one had asked her. Not a sole in her Virginia Beach High School graduating class of 324 had stepped up and popped the question for fear of being shot down. Not only had Sharon developed into quite a beauty, she also had broken a few noses and arms of male classmates who thought they could take liberties with her over the years. It was the mid-1960s and women's' rights were starting to take hold.

  "Maybe you've been a little too rough on the boys. It's not very becoming for a young lady to act this way," Eloise said as she braided her daughter's hair. She started winding the hair too tight, which caused Sharon to be transported into a different dimension to defray the pain.

  It was a good thing that Garrison had exited his La-Z-Boy recliner to go to the bathroom, because he sensed a surge of energy in his daughter's room and sped in there quick enough to intercept a clenched fist that was stopped about an inch from the side of his wife's head.

  "That would have left a mark," he mumbled.

  Eloise was so focused on her braiding that she didn't notice the speedy fist heading her way.

  "Oh, Garrison! What did you say?" she asked.

  "I have to take this child for a walk in the park," he replied as he clenched his daughter's hand and led her out of the room.

  "Well be back in time for dinner. Is there anything you need me to pick up?"

  Eloise completely trusted her husband, even though she appeared oblivious to all of the special energy around her.

  "Some seafood would be great," she smiled, as her husband had always been able to fill her desire to eat fresh lobster even though the lobsters swam up the coast in New England.

  Gary and Sharon walked outside and then they released hands as she waited for near the passenger side of their perky Dodge Dart.

  "No, not today," Gary stated. "We don't need a car where we're going."

  Gary sped past his daughter at a velocity only he and his daughter could witness. She had never seen her father move in such a way, since he barely moved since passing on the gardening duties to her a few years earlier.

  "What the..." she said and then got on her high horse to catch up.

  After about 25 miles he had left her in the dust and she wasn't even sure if she was moving in the right direction, although the beach was in sight. And then she heard a voice inside of her head that she had never experienced before.

  "You don't have to see me to know where I am," Gary said internally to his daughter, who might have been more confused after the message than she was previously.

  Gary could sense that his daughter wasn't catching on so fast, so he added, "Stop thinking Sharon, and just be. Focus on the heartbeat, not the location of physicality.

  Sharon went into deep thought, and before she knew it she was standing on a rock formation on a beach in Maine with a couple of lobsters in her hands.

  "Who are you?" she asked me as I stood in front of her, the heartbeat of which she had tracked only hours before her 18th birthday and her rebirth as a full-fledged protector.

  Garrison had been tracking both me and his daughter all the way up the coast. In fact, he started tracking me the previous month when he could sense an increase in more core temperature and intensity.

  "No my dear, I the more pertinent question is, "how someone so lovely is in my midst?" I said and then kissed the top of her right hand like a respectable gentleman.

  She was smitten as our eyes met, even thought I was about 80 years her senior, but looked about 20 years or so older.

  Garrison's first instinct was to protect his daughter, but the only person he was cosmically sworn to protect and serve was me, so he let the harmless flirting proceed.

  "I am Hartwell. Thomas Hartwell."

  And then I looked over at Gary and winked at him, trying to reassert any bravado I had lost decades ago. There was a huge shift in energy amassing in the middle of the country and I needed to be at the top of my game, which I was still trying to reach without the support of my family.

  "We should bring all of this fresh seafood back to your home and have a beach cookout," I suggested to Gary who replied, "That's a great idea!"

  "We have much to discuss my friend," I said internally to him.

  I'm not even sure what happened to me in the days leding up to the kids' 18th birthday. It was as if all that anxiety and aggression that had been storing up inside of me was bubbling at the surface and was about to explode!

  "We have to get ready," I said to Gary after dinner as we sat in front of the blaze on the beach. He was always so focused on me that he had become oblivious to outer sources of energy. He didn't even realize that I had made his wife believe that I was his daughter's prom date.

  "She will need some training, but we have the numbers now," Gary said about his daughter Sharon, and then had a weird sensation toward his Western exposure.

  I could sense that he was now feeling what I had already been experiencing for weeks, as the presence of Thad's kids was now apparent to him.

  "He had two?!" Gary questioned, as the sides were now even at three. "And they're quite strong!" he added.

  "Yes, they are," I conquered.

  "Could be time to move unless you feel safe here?" I asked.

  "They'll be coming," Gary replied. "It doesn't really matter where we are, so we might as well start here. Knowing you, we'll be moving before long anyway."

  Things were a lot different in the middle of the country for the Brewster family. Mary Brewster always felt like she was in the middle of a twister she could not control.

  "Why do I always feel like a referee with a striped shirt?" she asked her husband Thaddeus.

  "Let them play!" Thad implored like he did since they were young enough to go at each other. Thad watched them intently like any doting parent, and wondered if he could harness all that collective energy and turn the duo into a cohesive unit. The "changes" were about to start forming as their abilities came on line and then they came aware of my presence. While Thad had let his tracking of me go for a number of years, I could feel that he had reconnected with me months earler and would be leading a search party of three to come get me.

  "Why do they always have to live near the water?" Thad grunted as he focused on the activity in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

&nbs
p; Emily and Calvin stopped wrestling for a second and she said, "How come we've never been to the beach?"

  Cal snapped, "Because there ain't no beach to go to!"

  "We should probably teach them to swim already," naive Mary interjected.

  Thad thought, "Oh, they'll learn how to sink soon enough!"

  It was a Thursday night, and aside form the surf pounding the shore it was quiet, way too quiet for my tastes at the time.

  "It's been a while," I said to Garrison. "Do you still know how to do this?" I asked, wanting my protector to start doing just that.

  Gary ignored my barb and explained, "We have to kill all three of them, but they only have to kill you to end each fight. I'll occupy Thaddeus and you go after those rambunctious twins. Use their enthusiasm against them."

  I then looked out into the distance and asked, "What about your daughter?"

  "The only way she'll learn is to get killed a few times."

  I asked, "When are you going to have the talk with her?"

  And before he could answer me, Sharon had zipped over and interjected, "The talk about what? Mon already gave me that talk!" she huffed, trying to make me believe that she was mature and ready for anything.

  We both weren't in the mood to make a big deal about it, so Gary replied, "You are a protector, and we have to protect Mr. Hartwell over here, who happens to be a vampire!"

  I played my part by revealing my fangs and wings, which caused her to gasp and step back at first, but then she wondered about her father and asked, "What can you do?"

  Gary rolled his eyes, almost resenting being treated like some carnival freak. So he stood up and revealed his evolutionary tract: wolf, hippopotamus, Orca killer whale and bottlenose dolphin. He turned back into his human form and then sat down on an Adirondack chair and challenged, "Now you."