My name is Chretien Smith, and I hunt vampires.
Nice work if you can get it, right?
Oh, I know what you’re thinking. Vampires aren’t real. There are no such things as vampires, werewolves, ghosts, demons, or zombies. Every one of them is a creation of fiction, dreamed up in the mind of their authors after a bad dream caused by too much seafood. Vampires are no more real than unicorns or fairies.
I’ve tangled with fairies before. Nasty things.
Truth be told, I don’t really give a flying fig if you believe any of this. This blog is my own clumsy attempt at chronicling my unorthodox advocation of tracking down bloodsucking demons from Hell and sending them back to the darkness from which they came. I used to keep a written journal, but that got torched two weeks ago due to my own stupidity and carelessness. I’m banking on the fact that an electronic journal is at least 20 times safer than anything on paper. No information is ever lost on the Internet, and I figure I’ve got a few decades left before vampires learn how to use a proper search engine. They’re old-fashioned that way.
I usually like to refer to myself as a vampire hunter because I have to deal with the stinking things about 85% of the time. I have fought with werewolves, and exorcised a ghost or two, but it is mostly vampires. I can’t afford to discriminate. I am an equal-opportunity slayer-of-things-supernatural. But when you call yourself a “vampire hunter”, people generally identify you as an all-around monster-buster. Blame it on Buffy, blame it on Anita Blake; the term “vampire hunter” seems to have embedded itself onto the collective unconscious. As I said, most of what I do is vampire hunting, so it fits the job description.
So before I get too caught up in my own war stories, let me jot down a few of my field notes so you all understand where I’m coming from.
Despite what esoteric romance novelists and gothic soap operas might try to tell you, vampires are not nice people. As a former English Lit major, I can appreciate the postmodern mythology that has sprung up around these creatures. Since the mid 20th century, vampires in film and literature became more appealing as misunderstood good guys than as the bloodthirsty villains that they very much are in reality. This can be seen as a type of identification by the author on a being that is attractive, intelligent, and utterly lacking in the tawdry moral and social restrictions that the rest of us breathing folk have to deal with. The vampire is seen as a kind of Byronic hero, a rakish playboy that drinks human blood as a kind of sexual fetish. Some authors use vampirism as a metaphor for homosexuality, or for adolescence, but these deconstructions miss the horror of true vampirism. Reality is never quite as pretty.
Heaven help you if any of your loved ones fall prey to the curse of vampirism. If it’s someone very close to you, such as a spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend, you can expect to get a knock at your door very early in the morning. This will be the local police, coming to inform you that the person that you loved most in this world was found in the woods this morning with the blood drained from his or her body. There will have been signs of a struggle, and an investigation into the matter. Then of course comes the funeral, the teary-eyed visitors coming to comfort you as you try to cope with this devastating loss. If this had all been a mere automobile accident, or some kind of terminal disease, you might be able to make your peace with the departed and move on. But in addition to the grief and separation that you feel, you have a major police investigation watching you at all times. Everything you do becomes suspect. When you left your house last night, where did you go? Was it just a short drive to clear your head, or were you disposing of evidence? When was the last time that you had a argument with the deceased? Do you even have an alibi for the night in question? This is enough to cause debilitating despair in most people.
Eventually, the cops will leave you alone. Most law enforcement agencies are surprisingly competent, and will be able to write you off as a suspect. There are about 6,300 unsolved murders in the United States per year, and this will just be another one. Congratulations, the single most terrible experience in your mortal life has just become an unimpressive statistic.
Weeks later, something unbelievable will happen. You’ll hear a quiet, heavy shuffling sound outside of your house, maybe you’ll hear some glass breaking or a door latch unlock. Getting up to investigate, you will see a familiar shape in the hallway. Recognizing their silhouette immediately, you instinctively rush to help them. By the time you grab their arm to help them stand, a single thought will idly breeze through your mind: “But they’re supposed to be dead“. This thought ought to be terrifying, but it is always the most comforting thing in the world. You’ll convince yourself that it was all just a mistake. The funeral, the investigation, it was all just one big misunderstanding. This beautiful, beautiful person was never dead, and suddenly, everything will be all right again.
But there’s just something not right.
They look just like your loved one, they speak with your loved one’s voice, and they know secrets that not another living person in this world knows about you, but there’s something wrong about it. There’s an uneasiness in the air whenever you look at them. There’s a disturbing eagerness in their kisses. On a base, primal level, every fiber of your being tells you to run away. But that’s just silly, isn’t it? Because this is your beloved, the light of your life. This is everything that you’ve ever wanted, and he or she is finally back in your life. What could possibly be frightening about that?
A lot of people never make it past this point. At this point, the creature will grab the back of their victim’s neck with an inhuman strength and just twist. As long as the blood is reasonably fresh, and the spirit fled, they can drink their fill and not worry about overpopulating the local feeding area with another bloodsucker. If the entity inside your beloved’s corpse wants some company, however, they can just go ahead and drain every last drop of blood from your body while you’re still alive to feel it. After that, no one knows exactly what happens to you. But as for your mortal vessel, it will serve as a cozy residence for the next supernatural spirit that wants it. If that isn’t horrifying enough, consider that this being will know everything about you, including your friends’ names and where they live.
So it’s somewhat less romantic than you read in the novels.
I don’t mean to shatter your illusions. I’m sure that your favorite fictional vampire rogue is a perfect gentleman, and merely misunderstood. I’m sure that somewhere out there is a vampire with a human soul who is living the sweet life of immortality, fast cars, good looks, and Sarah Michelle Gellar on speed dial. But in my experience, such a romantic creature simply does not exist. If you believe absolutely nothing that you read here, at least come away with the knowledge that vampires are dangerous creatures.
– Chretien
Next up: Crosses, Garlic, and other legends.
