chapter 2

I slept all day.
In the evening, I felt rather cumbersome as I got up. My clothes felt rather snug too.
I took a look at myself in the mirror. I was a good deal chubbier than I had been the night before. I felt proud and satisfied with myself as I admired my new paunch and the gaping buttons on my waistcoat.

Ten years later in 1753, I had not aged a bit, yet many people around me had.
My lifestyle had changed considerably to my life before I met the raven.
Now I found myself blinded by sunlight. I much preferred the gentle flicker of a candle or the glow of the moon. As a consequence I became unsynchronised with all around me. They had their lives in the daytime and I had mine at night.
I did not need to feed often. Once a month was perfectly adequate. The day after I fed, I would swell with the excess adipose that I had ingested. I could live off that without feeling hungry for the entire month.
Of course, my exploits did not go unnoticed. One person a month going missing in a town like Whitby was a lot. But there was no organised police force, no proper investigations were made. They blamed the disappearances on superstition and heresy. One day it was a catholic plot against the protestants, then it was a Protestant plot against the Catholics. The French were blamed, as were the Dutch. The ressurectionists and the criminal underworld were blamed, but so were the evil spirits, fairies and goblins coming down from the moor.

1753 was the year the first whaling ship set sail from Whitby for Greenland. Whitby grew from the fishing if whales, seals and other sea creatures. The blubber was in great demand as it was boiled and made into oil and grease. Whalebone corsets were all the rage.
I wanted to go out to sea and witness some of the action, but my nocturnal lifestyle made thus an impossible ambition to achieve.
Instead, I got myself a night watchman job in one of the great warehouses that sprung up.
I no longer had to search for human victims. I had all the adipose I needed to survive.
The whale fat did not taste as good as human fat, but it was so plentiful that I could (and did) bathe myself in great vats if the stuff.
My skin became beautifully soft. I did not restrict myself to feeding once a month. Surrounded by so much fat I had a little bit of the gorgeous greasy substance every day.
And I grew fat too!
I had my clothing made with extra wide seam allowances, so that I could let out the seams as a grew bigger and fatter and my clothes would last me longer.
Oh how much I enjoyed that time in Whitby. The whole town was thriving. Ships made in Whitby were considered to be some of the best in the world. They were made stronger to cope with the icy waters of the North Atlantic.
Captain Cook had his ship made here and he used many sailors used to whaling on his voyages of discovery.

New houses were built in the town. When they filled the valley floor, they started building on the cliff tops. They build a new elegant Georgian crescent opposite the abbey and looking out to sea over the harbour. They called it the royal crescent.
Many rich ship owners moved in.
I heard tell if the lavish parties that they held. Dinners that consisted of anything from five to nine courses.
Judging by the gentlemen's expanding waistlines, those dinners were not an annual feast.
I was tempted to go some feasting up there myself, but these folk were high profile residents who would easily missed. I didn't need them. I was getting more than enough from the whales anyway. It was only my last for human fat that tempted me.
One hundred years later, the whale stocks of the North Atlantic were severely depleted. Whalers had to go further afield to find new species to kill and plunder.
Whitby had to make do with fishing in the North Sea.

On a personal note, I was still healthy and strong. I lived in the same house, still looked in my early twenties and kept up a nocturnal lifestyle.
I could no longer work in the warehouses. I had to revert to human flesh, which was not so bountiful. I lost lots of weight and I was comparatively skinny when I got a job in the new lunatic asylum as a night watchman.
If I thought that the patients in the lunatic asylum were going to bring me new victims, I was badly mistaken. Many had that half starved look on the workhouse inmate. It seemed that I was going to have to look elsewhere.
Then in August 1883 something occurred in Whitby, that would leave the town changed forever.
I read in the Whitby Gazette of a storm the night before, one of the worst storms on record up to that date, was responsible for the shipwreck of a strange Russian vessel.
Observers standing on one of the harbour piers awaited the ship's arrival. By the light of a spotlight, witnesses noticed that "lashed to the helm was a corpse, with a drooping head which swung horribly to and fro" as the ship rocked. as the vessel silently ran aground, "an immense dog sprang up on deck from below," jumped from the ship and ran off. Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the man lashed to the wheel (the helm) had a crucifix clutched in his hand. according to a local doctor, the man had been dead for at least two days. Coast guard officials discovered a bottle in the dead man's pocket, carefully sealed, which contained a roll of paper.
The newspaper article revealed that the ship, a schooner, was a Russian vessel, one from Varna, called the Demeter. The only cargo on board was a "ballast of silver sand" and a "number of great wooden boxes filled with mould". The cargo was consigned to a whitby solicitor, a Mr S F Billington, who had claimed the boxes.
The bizarre circumstances of the ship's arrival was the talk of the town. There had been some interests about the whereabouts of the big dog which jumped ashore on the night. The dog had disappeared and some citizens were worried that the dog may be dangerous. Reportedly, a half breed mastiff was found dead, it's throat torn out and it's belly split open.
There were excerpts in the newspaper taken from the ship's log which begun on the 6th of July. All had been calm on the ship for several days. On the 16th July, a sailor reports seeing "a tall, thin man, who was not like any of the crew, come up the companionway and go along the deck forward and disappear." yet no one, upon inspection if the ship is to be found. Five days later, on the 22nd July, the ship passes through gibraltar and sails out through the straits with no further problems.Two days later, however, another man is reportedly lost and the remaining men grow panicky and frightened. Five days later, another sailor is missing. On 30th of July, only the captain, his mate and two crew members are left. on the 2nd of August, another crew member disappears> at midnight on the next night, the remaining deck hand disappears and the captain and his mate are the only remaining men aboard. the captain reports that the mate is haggard and close to madness. in a panic, the mate, a Romanian, hisses, "it is here." the mate thinks that "it" is in the hold, perhaps "in one of the boxes". the mate descends into the hold, only to come flying from the hold moments later, screaming in terror, telling the captain, "he is there. I know the secret now." in despair, the mate throws himself overboard, preferring drowning to a confrontation with "the thing". Since the captain feels that it is his duty to remain with the ship, he vows to tie his hands to the wheel and take the ship to port. At this point the log ends.
Many people in town held the captain of the Demeter a controversial hero.
The newspaper reporter ended his narration by stating the great dog had not yet been found.