Wanting to See

Originally written Wednesday, November 23, 2005

This is a light work week because of Thanksgiving, so I went after class to drop in on Trudy in her new living space, but once again her belongings were missing. I spent half an hour wandering the tunnels until she found me in the main corridor near the quad dorms, acting rather irate. I asked her what happened.

“Your friend from the dance.”

“Richard?”

“Who’s Richard? No. The one you asked me about. The Jewish vampire.”

Oops. I hadn’t meant to objectify him that way, especially to someone with questionable biases like Trudy. I guess I wasn’t the only one struck by it. “Moshe.”

“Yeah.”

“You saw him?”

“I don’t think I saw as much of him as he saw of me. Last night. I was in my room, and I don’t know how long he was there, but I looked up and he was there. Watching me.”

Trudy’s room for the past several days was a sizeable, otherwise currently unused storage closet branching off of one of the more remote tunnels. It didn’t have an actual door, but pipes and pillars and shelving units provided a decent amount of privacy from the few passersby that might have come that way. And because the tunnel was rather remote—I wouldn’t have thought to look down it if Trudy hadn’t led me to it from elsewhere—passersby were rare and, almost without exception, deliberate.

I widened my eyes in concern, curiosity, surprise, and she continued: “I chased after him, and he ran away. I caught up with him when he took a wrong turn and got him cornered. So I got a good look at him but not a lot else. He looked just like you said about him, real pale, and he felt cold—“

“Even to you?” I asked.

“Yeah. That means he hasn’t eaten lately. He was also acting weak, like running was tough on him. So I guess he got me off guard. I asked him what the hell he was doing, who was he. He wasn’t scared, though, and real calm he just said, ‘I want to see.’ Just that. I had no fucking clue what he was talking about. Then he just ran away again and I didn’t even think of going after him again until he was way out of the room. I didn’t even think of stopping him.”

After the encounter, she moved her small collection of things again—bedroll, radio receiver, clothing, cash, and such. She told me the story while we walked there from the main corridor (she had scented me nearby and came to find me to give me the update). Her new location was even harder to find than the previous one, accessible only through a panel in the ceiling of another storage closet, a tomb-like hole with space to sit but not to stand.

“Are you sure you don’t want to find a regular place to live? I mean, there are ways to get around the daylight thing without living underground. I’ve known a few vampires who do just fine.”

“If you asked me a week ago I might’ve said show me the place. But right now the safer the better, and this feels safer. So it’s better. It’s also cheaper.”

It’s definitely that. But since she brought up the issue of safety, we discussed Moshe and the little bits of information she was able to pick up from her brief interaction with him. If all the signs suggest he’s a light eater, he’s probably young, or at any rate not a serious threat to mortals. In one sense, this is relieving, but in another, it underlines the question of why he seems so interested in Trudy and possibly me. He jangled my nerves a bit on Saturday, and that’s nothing compared to the startled state he left Trudy in. It’s a conundrum: we’re the ones who can probably take best care of ourselves, yet we’re also the ones he’s given most cause for concern… as far as we know.

I’ll need to find a subtle way to speak to my mortal friends. I have many, and I’ll be seeing a few tomorrow for Thanksgiving. But the only ones who know about the less conventional aspects of my life are Patrick and his roommate, both of whom will be away this weekend with their respective families. I clued Patrick in while I drove him to the airport after leaving Trudy’s and asked him to pass the info on to Dennis. I told him they should let me know right away if Moshe makes any kind of contact with them the way he has with me and Trudy. Tonight I’ll have to sleep on ways to bring it up with friends who won’t understand the vampire part. Before I left Trudy’s, I asked if she wanted to come by my friends’ house for the holiday tomorrow night. She had an unusual look on her face as she accepted the invitation, but I couldn’t tell if she were relieved, grateful, flattered, or something else entirely. In any case, it made me glad I asked her.