A Fatal Flaw

Originally written Saturday, December 10, 2005 (continued)

Both of them looked like they had a lot to say but no easy way to say it. They glanced at each other, then at the floor and windows, their jaws hung open and then snapped shut. “Please. Will one of you just tell me why you’re here?”

I’d learn in a few minutes that Moshe was probably silent because he didn’t know which parts of his story would concern me. So again Trudy spoke for him. “Moshe was made a vampire like a month and a half ago. And then the woman who did it disappeared.”

“The old bite and bail?” I said, making it sound like a common practical joke. In fact, it was very rare, and very much not a joke. Vampires, like all old souls, have incredible egos. To turn a human and then not stick around to mold and shape and mentor one’s creation is comparable to young mothers abandoning children, albeit somewhat less scandalous. In fact, it’s probably much less common, since unwanted pregnancies are not unheard of, whereas it would be rather difficult to make a vampire by accident.

“Heh,” snorted Trudy, sounding like she was trying not to laugh too loudly and hurt his feelings. “I like that. Bite and bail. Um, yeah. I guess. Yeah. And he’s been trying to live his human life like nothing happened. Going to work, seeing friends. Going to, uh, what is it? A temple? Synagogue?”

“Temple. But, um, only the evening meetings.” A second after he said it, he seemed to realize it probably went without saying.

I looked at him. “So, how did it happen? What do you remember about her?”

He sighed as if it helped him collect his thoughts. “She was at the mall one night. She said she liked my playing and asked to take me out for a drink. So we did, and when we were saying goodbye, she said she was a vampire and she could make me one, too. I thought she was joking. She swore she was serious and said she could prove it to me. And I, um… I dared her. And I actually did think she was joking. Even when I felt her bite me I thought she was just one of those kids who wear fangs and stuff. I didn’t see them but I thought she must have put them in.” By this time he’d know the optical illusion of vampire teeth, but at the time he wouldn’t have. “I was a little buzzed, so I felt light-headed but I thought it was the martinis. So when she cut her own arm and gave it to me to drink, I was just playing along.”

“And then, after several minutes of excruciating pain throughout your internal organs, you passed out.” I know the routine.

“Uh huh.”

“And when you woke up, she wasn’t there.” His story was so plausible, given the naïveté he elicited, that I’d forgotten I hadn’t planned to believe him. I was even filling in the gaps in my mind. He didn’t seem the type to attract women too often, so I imagined the vampire
young-looking and attractive enough that he’d want to impress her but not too much to be clearly out of his league. She also must have been very engaging.

“Of course not,” Trudy butted in. “Can you believe that? Completely bailed.”

I ignored her. “What did you talk about over those drinks? What did she look like?”

“Um, she was not too tall… maybe a little shorter than you.” I’m five-foot-three. “With this curly hair, to her shoulders. I think her eyes were hazel. They weren’t blue, anyway. I’d remember that.”

“And what you talked about?”

For the first time that night, I saw him smile. Obviously, there was something about this woman that—sorry for the obvious pun—sucked him in. But by the time he finished talking, the smile was gone. “Oh, everything. All sorts of stuff. But not really. You know how you have one of those conversations? Like, you know you never stopped talking but you can’t remember later on what you said? It was like that. She even told me her name when we met, but by the middle of the conversation I’d forgotten it because we were so swept up. But I know she joked a lot. She kept making up stories about just crazy stuff, and I totally believed her. And then she’d go, ‘I’m so joking,’ and I felt all embarrassed. Which I guess is why I thought she was pulling my leg with the, uh, the vampire thing.”

Wow, I thought to myself. This is just off the wall. Clearly this woman is no spring chicken. She had a plan, and an emotionally sadistic one. The whole sequence of events was deliberate. The only thing that remained ambiguous was whether she had chosen Moshe on purpose. She might have been looking for someone who was especially unlikely to actually want to be turned, or maybe that part was irrelevant. At best, she didn’t care. I wondered if the young man in front of me would have agreed to this transformation under other circumstances. My gut told me no.

“So, since then…” I began, urging him on to the next chapter of the story.

Predictably, Trudy took it on again. “So, since then he wasn’t eating anything good for him. Until I showed him how to catch stuff.” He did look a little less pasty than usual. When I first met him, I had assumed his pallor came from age and sunlessness, but if his story were true, then it would have been from quite the reverse, from being too young and inexperienced to take care of himself. Trudy relies on a few different food sources, most of them animal. One reason she’s made her abode in the tunnels below the college is that they’re completely infested with rats. From what I understand, however, squirrel is highly preferable, and if there is one thing every college campus in the U.S. I’ve been to has in common, it’s an overabundance of squirrels. Still, human blood is necessary at least some of the time to stay healthy and coherent, and I wondered whether she had shown him her police radio yet.

the events of this day to be continued...