[tCotR] Bob

[Roderic]

The guy caught my attention while I was standing at an atm in a cafe. He came from no where, because I had waited until the last person who used the atm had left and it hadn't been approached by another customer for about three minutes. I don't normally go to cafe's, but I've been trying to keep my home location a secret. If not from the cops, then from the vampires who had a knack for finding me, even if I wasn't in my normal hideout.

I wasn't even mad, or bothered that the guy had bitten me; that'd be a little hypocritical given my situation. To ***** about being bitten by a vampire, knowing the city was full of them, and in knowing that, remain here, would be a waste of breath in my lungs. But after he'd bitten me, he stuck his hands in one of my back pockets, as if to say he could do whatever the hell he wanted to do, whenever he wanted to do it. No. John Doe, you couldn't. Maybe with some other human that didn't know what the hell was going on around here, but I did.

No, I didn't know his name, but it didn't matter. I don't care. John Doe was as good as any, because it's what they called an unidentified man who ended up on a slab in the morgue, dead. He was already dead and I didn't know him. So it worked.

[Roderic]

I hate thieves. No, I hate pickpockets. I understand the mom who goes in to a Wal-mart and steals some formula for her baby after being laid off two weeks ago. Or the dad who walks out of a grocery store with a cart full of groceries after his wife died from cancer three months ago. What I can't understand, is the jerk off, who is mentally and physically capable of holding down a minimum wage job, but chooses not to because he's a lazy prick.

I check my pockets to see how much the vampire managed to get; four bucks. Four bucks wasn't a lot in the scheme of things, but the guy had two things I wanted. My cash back and the first vampire. He had to know who it was, didn't all vampires know? Even if they were stories, or he said she said encounters? Some vampires tried to throw me off my track, but I was pretty sure I knew what vampire was the first. If two had to die to see, that was alright with me.

John Doe was going to help me get somewhere tonight, whether he liked it or not.

[Roderic]

I ended up tailing the guy half way through town.
First he went to the place surrounded by a wall, the place where they had some zombies and other strange things. I still wasn't sure how much of this life was possible, but I was betting science played a big part on it. How, I wasn't sure, but logically it seemed science had to be the reasoning behind it, albeit all mythos research done on vampires, zombies and any other potential things out there, like werewolves and even the lochness monster. I just didn't believe people became what they did after death, based off anything other than science. The idea that the soul was 'dark,' or 'evil' just didn't fly with me and it sounded like something people wrote up to tell kids to keep them in line.

He had killed a couple things in the older part of town, what used to be called something different. He seemed to be on a mission, judging by the look of determination on his face. Maybe he just had to blow off some steam, or maybe there was something else going on I just didn't understand. I kept my presence to a minimum while I watched this John Doe, thankfully still having some vampire blood in me to manage the task. I had wished to remain unseen and it seemed, judging by our close proximity that I wasn't seen. My blanket of darkness kept me hidden as the man tore about everything he encountered.

There was something about him as I watched him. Something familiar. I couldn't place it at first, but the way he moved seemed familiar. As he left the zombie riddled land by means of water, again I was grateful that I fed off a vampire who could do what he did as I followed him half way across town.

[Roderic]

John Doe takes me all over the city. First to some abandoned places where the guy has one hell of a time feeding. Either, he doesn't care, or he's just that unlucky. I go for the latter because it seems to me that most vampires wouldn't want to go around town exposing that about themselves. Then again, I did get a few pictures of vampires when I was hacking a few data bases.

One of the people he tries to feed off of was a woman, who pulled a knife on him and stabbed my John Doe in the eye. I was impressed, but at the same time, I was irritated she had gotten a wound in on him. Then I realize in the end, she's helping my cause in a roundabout way. With his vision impaired, it would be easier for me to handle the guy later on. I let her live.

He then takes me to a shop not far from the abandoned places where he pawns some things off. One hand over his eye, the other pulling out everything he could from his pockets to score some quick cash. Drugs, chains, bracelets and a few other things that remind me why it is he first came on my radar. Then I saw it. He managed to get something that was mine. In a roundabout way. A badge from the hospital. One I had managed to swipe off some lady to get out of there early about a month back.

He realizes what he has and decides to pocket it again. I'd be getting that back. Just a matter of time.

[Roderic]

We keep on going, the shadows still keeping me covered. Only thing is, I don't feel as secured in them as I did twenty, or thirty minutes ago. This thought is only amplified when the guy looks in my direction for a solid twenty seconds, shakes his head and shrugs it off.

As we go to the other side of town, the guy muttering a few curses as he rubs at his eye, thinking he'd somehow manage to get the eye wound to stop bleeding or maybe even grow back, I keep an eye on my surroundings, trying to figure out where it is we might be going. I've no clue, the guy's patterns are pretty random, as if he's intentionally trying to loose people or confuse someone. I turn around to look and see if we're being tailed, but I don't see anyone that I'd seen earlier in the night. So what's got him on alert?

He ducks in to an old school and I wait. The vampire ability I am borrowing isn't working right. I can see my right foot and left hand sticking out of them. It's wearing off and I can't stop it from happening. I'm what you'd considered a blood thief novice and have been playing with a few powers, trying to understand and perfect them, but haven't been able to do that yet. In time.

I let my target get comfortable in his new location. I pull out a pack of reds and a matchbook that I got from Hotel West a few weeks back when I crashed there a night. I strike a match against the back, light my cigarette, then toss the match to the ground. I put it out with a stomp of my boot, work on the cigarette and wait.

[Roderic]

I'm not really sure what he's doing in there and I don't really care. Two minutes pass by, then three, four and finally five minutes until I'm done with my cigarette. I don't like to rush things that are important and getting him to help me get the first vampire isn't something I want to rush. I flick the cigarette to the ground and proceed to stomp that one out with the same boot that stomped out the match I lit.

I judge the building. It seems to be three floors due to the windows, but maybe there was a basement. I'd imagine most vampires would try to go some place dark if they were going to bunker down in fear of the sun turning them to ash. I'd start there and work my way up to the top floor on down. I'm hoping there's only one way off of each floor, which would be the fire exit as elevators need electricity to run off of and last I knew most abandoned buildings didn't keep that on for too long after they cleared their things out.

The basement proves me wrong. Nothing there but rats, garbage from loiters and some overgrown sewer fungus which tells me this place has been abandoned for some time. I keep this spot in the back of my mind because I'm curious at the composition rate in it. I'd look in to that later.

I take the steps two at a time as I go to the top floor, not bothering with trying to will the shadows to my way of things. It wasn't a hard feat to take them two at a time, as my daily routine for the last ten years had been the same and has kept me in good shape. It was dark and if he came down or up at me, I wanted him to see me. Especially if I was blocking any and all escape routes.

The third floor was empty as well, so I trudge on down to two. That's where I see him. Sitting on a portable laptop he'd probably stolen off someone on his way here, watching something on it. It sounded like Youtube, but I couldn't be real sure. It didn't matter. He was occupied, so now was my chance to move.

[Roderic]

Only as soon as I start to make my move, I catch something out of the corner of my eye from a large window that was once boarded up, but had the planks removed. Maybe John Doe did it, maybe not. That information is irrelevant. What is relevant is that there are flashing lights outside, of the kind I don't want to see. Apparently he doesn't want to either. John doe shuts his laptop, puts it in a back pack in a hurry and tries to make his move to the door I just came from.

I have to react or lose him and that just wasn't an option. "Get down you idiot." I lunge at the guy and take him out from the side as a bright white spot light shines on the building and at the large open window. I think I heard the laptop in his back pack make a crunching noise when the guy hits the ground, but that didn't matter. I decide to take a different approach. I want to gain his trust. "I don't know what you did to get their attention, but going out the front door isn't the way out."

John Doe doesn't say much, not that I expected him to. He mumbles a few things and grunts, but I don't care what he did to bother paying attention. "Got a plan on getting out or do you want to shut up and work together? Don't want to show up with these in the big house." I flash him my fangs, small as they are because I hadn't been a blood thief that long, or a successful one at that, in hopes of winning the guy over. Making him think I was one of them. A vampire.

"What the **** is wrong with your fangs?" He's uncertain about me, not that I blame him. I showed up right before the cops came and I don't look exactly like them yet. "Genetics." No one could argue with that. Unless they had been a vampire a long time and genetics didn't play a factor in anything. He looks me over and I stay looking at him, waiting for him to make up his mind. Seconds pass, then a minute and then probably two. He wasn't budging, so I had to resort to desperate measures to get his *** moving. I focus on calling the shadows to me, for two reasons. The first was to show him I was a vampire (even if I wasn't) and for the other. If we get caught, I wasn't going with him.

[Roderic]

"You're a shadow too." John Doe said when he saw what I could do as the shadows slowly encased me. I wasn't sure what the hell he was talking about, so I just nodded my head. "Yeah. New to the scene you could say." I didn't know what else to say. It was clear I could control the shadows, but how that made me a shadow, I wasn't real sure. I reflect on his words and realize that he used the word "too which indicated we could do the same things, so he too was a "shadow."

"Can you walk across water?" He asked as I was looking at the door. Now that I was protected in a cover of darkness, going out the front door wasn't that big of a deal for me. I look back at him and give him a firm nod. "Yeah." What did that have to do with anything? Couldn't all vampires do that? I'd been doing that almost every night since I had become a blood thief.

"The woods are about a mile back. That way." He pointed to show me and I nod again. I knew that, as I spent some time in them trying to evade certain people. "We just have to cross a river and we're home free." And just like that, we'd be alone again. I nod my head to show the plan was a solid one. The plan was perfect.

[Roderic]

The guy heads to the door and soon, all I see is his back and then nothing at all. I'm not sure if he's still in the area, or even close to me, but all I can do is hope that he is. I can't follow his breathing because vampires didn't do that sort of thing or even the sound of his trainers as he walks. It seems as if the guy really is invisible in all aspects.

I stop when the floodlight shines through a busted up first floor window and bounces off different parts in the building, even hitting my shadowed form. I laugh when the light sweeps around the room, remembering that they couldn't see me. The door to the front of the building opens just a crack and then a little more before I gather it's John Doe and he's making his move for "freedom." I wait as the light sweeps back around, then once it's off the main front door, I follow suit.

The night air hits me hard and heavy. It's getting colder with each passing day. I resist rubbing my hands together, which would indicate I had blood circulating in my body. I would be marked as a human. I stuff my hands in my coat pocket as we leave the scene, heading to where I hope the river is.

Only, I don't get that far before something happens. The floodlight comes back to my direction and as I move, it moves with me. I can go left, it goes left. I go back, it goes back with me. "Freeze!" The cop yells out at me and I know now I've been spotted.

[Roderic]

I do what the cop tells me to do. Hands in the air, dead center in the spot light. Well, wasn't that a *****? I hear the cop speak in to his walkie talkie, some code for something or another. I'm not familiar with them as I try to evade the cops at every chance I get, but I'm sure it's not anything good. Never is in these kinds of situations.

"Use your shadows again." John Doe hisses at me from somewhere to my left. I look, but I don't see him yet. Could be the bright light, or the fact he's still in shadows. It's not my main focus or problem right now. I try to do what I always do when they come from around me and wrap me up, but it seems I can't. I hear feet approaching me and the sound of something metal swinging. Handcuffs. I've never heard that sound before, but it was definitive. Something you just knew when you only heard it that first time.

The cop is saying something to me. I'm not sure and I sure as hell don't care. I'm trying to devise a plan to get out of here and then it hits me when he's got me up against the building and he's patting me down, looking or weapons. Yeah, I've got a couple of them on me alright. He knows it too. Just as he goes to grab my switch blade from my coat pocket, I raise my elbow up and slam the guy in the his nose with a thrust up. He shoves me with one hand against the wall, the other, I guess on his nose, before I stomp my boot on the top of his feet. I had some ***** do that to me once when I got her alone and I remembered to stop judging a book by their cover that night. Can't say she walked away with any valuable life lesson.

I'm just about to make a runner for it when suddenly, I'm back inside the building. "What the ****?" I mutter, then remember that I made someone vanish before. It seems I could do the same thing to me. I hear the cop calling for back up and giving the location, John Doe still in hiding and hopefully still around. I grab my switch blade, flick it open, and again make a runner for it, the door to the main entrance slamming the cop against the back of his body. My blade grazes the back of the cop's earlobe, taking a piece of it off as I run by and providing me with another distraction as I make my way down the street the sound of my boots and trainers hitting the concrete.