Fade Away
A kiss to remember…
Lauren Benson was enjoying her senior year in college with her roommates and best friend, Taylor. With tension building for midterms, taking advantage of a night of fun to cheer on the school football team was exactly the distraction she needed. However, that was the last night she’d ever be the same again. Lethal creatures are stalking the campus and Lauren becomes a target. Will she be strong enough to resist, or will she simply fade away…
When you think of vampires, you may think of the stakes you’ve seen so many times thrust through the heart of the vampire to vanquish its evil presence. In older adaptations and stories, the vampire needs to be asleep at the time. However, this has become less important with modern adaptations, and vampires can be staked whether awake or asleep.
In different cultures and areas around the world, different types of wood are used and some are considered to be more effective than others. Hawthorn was required in Serbia—whereas oak was required in Silesia. Some of the more commonly used woods are wood from the rowan tree as well as mountain ash. In England, it was common to drive an ash stake through the heart of those who committed suicide. This was to prevent them from becoming vampires. People who were believed to have died violently or were considered evil in life were also thought to be at risk of becoming vampires, and at times, whole trees were plunged through graves to stop these people from returning as vampires.
Then, of course, there was the habit of planting wooden stakes on the ground above the grave so any vampire rising would impale itself on the stake. Many modern psychologists believe that by performing the rituals to destroy the “vampire,” they destroyed the psychological attachment to those who survived, thus allowing the family and friends of the deceased to cope with their loss and carry on with their lives.
Staking a vampire may have become popular because the man who inspired Dracula—Vlad the Impaler—impaled those who crossed him on large stakes that were driven into the body vertically. This meant they bled to death slowly; and this could be the reason why wooden stakes became common lore.
Windigo: Perhaps the most dangerous of the Indian would-be vampires. The cannibal Windigos are giants of the Chippewa and other northern Algonquin tribes. According to most versions of the old legend, the Windigo were once human beings who had become cannibals, causing their hearts to turn to ice. They are immortal, like vampires, but there are legends that state that the Windigo can be turned back into a human.
Mosquito Man: Some tribes have legends that concern man-eating creatures that were turned to mosquitoes—the end result is that they can continue to harass people and even feed on them—just in a less deadly way. There have been legends of the monster being able to suck its victims brains out using its proboscis—rather like a Vampire feeding on its victims’ blood.
Two-Face: The “Two-Face” monster is from the Sioux tribe and resembles humans in every way—except that they have a second face that happens to be on the back of their heads. According to the legend, if you make eye contact with them you will be stricken dead or paralyzed which, of course, enables them to kill you. If you want to avoid a grisly end with the “Two-Face,” don’t look at its eyes!
Bukwus: The “Bukwus” is the ghost of a drowned human being in Kwakiutl lore. It looks like a skeleton with a bloated face and long, greasy, tangled hair. Don’t be fooled by its beckoning and offer of food. Anyone who decides to take part in its meal will be turned into another undead Bukwus.
Skadegamutc: The “Skadegamutc” is actually a ghost witch from New England and is said to be the end product of the dead of an evil sorcerer. By all accounts, he rises from the dead deep in the night to kill and eat humans but returns to the grave and appears to be a normal corpse. If you run into one of these vampire creatures, your only chance is to destroy it with fire!
Rolling Head: The Iroquois believe that the “Rolling Head” is created when a wife is unfaithful and killed by her husband. Apparently, she returns as a disembodied head which flies or rolls around looking for revenge on the man who killed her. It is doomed to die, however, when it starts trying to kill neighbors or relatives of the couple.
A Grisly Discovery
Archaeologists in Italy recently told of a vampire sighting of their own when they discovered the remains of what was believed to have been a female vampire. They uncovered the body and found it with a brick forced into its jaw. Forensic archaeologists told worldwide news outlets that the discovery took place while researchers were investigating a 1576 mass grave said to contain the bodies of plague victims.
It was common during the Middle Ages for victims of the plague to be buried and then unburied as more bodies were added to these mass graves. It was reported that some of the unburied bodies would have a dark, blood-like substance under their noses and mouths. The workers believed this was a sign that these dead bodies were the bodies of vampires and that they were part of the cause of the plague. To prevent these “undead” creatures from continuing to spread the plague, the gravediggers would put bricks or rocks into the mouth of the corpse in hope of preventing the plague from spreading further. The body discovered by the archaeologists is proof of that practice taking place.
The Curious Case of Anastasie Dieudonne
The St. Petersburg Times reported the story of Anastasie Dieudonne in 1927. The young woman, who originated from Haiti, had confessed to drugging her niece and draining her blood by making a small incision between her toes. The paper reported that Anastasie was driven to act by an uncontrollable urge and that she was mentally ill. Many social historians have claimed that the story of Anastasie Dieudonne was driven more by a disorder than by her adoption of vampirism, but the act of drinking blood from another living human being qualifies Anastasie as a vampire.
Arnold Paole: The Soldier Who Returned
A Serbian soldier returned home from war to settle down in 1727. His name was Arnold Paole, and it didn’t take long for those around him to remark that he had changed considerably since going to war. Arnold finally admitted that he had been attacked by a vampire while serving in the army. He then claimed that he tracked and killed the creature of the night. However, he still feared that he would become a vampire.
After Arnold Paole died a short time later, a lot of people claimed to have seen him. His body was exhumed, and it seemed that new skin was growing beneath the dead skin on top. His body was staked and, from reports of the time, it was said that he groaned in pain. Locals removed his head and burned his body.
James P. Riva
Just 23 years old when he killed his disabled grandmother in Massachusetts in 1980, James P. Riva claimed to be a 700-year-old vampire who killed her just to drink her blood. When questioned, he later changed his story to say that he had killed the old lady in self-defence. A native of a town called Marshfield, James P. Riva went from drinking his grandmother’s blood to claiming that she was the vampire and that she used an icepick to drain his blood while he slept at night. It didn’t take long for the jury to decide whether or not he was guilty. In 1981, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for shooting his grandmother four times with bullets made of gold and stabbing her repeatedly through the heart before burning the house down.
Fritz Haarmann
Best known as “The Vampire of Hanover,” Haarmann was one of the first documented serial killers. Between 1918 and 1924, he is known to have killed at least twelve people. Many of those he killed died of wounds to their necks. Haarmann was eventually captured and sentenced to death for his grisly crimes. In 1925, he was beheaded and his brain studied by scientists. His head was preserved in a jar and by all accounts was kept at a medical school deep in the German heartland.
Roderick Ferrell
Roderick Ferrell took role-playing to the next level when he led a group of his followers called “The Vampire Clan” from Kentucky to Eustis, Florida. The clan meant to kill the parents of Ferrell’s girlfriend so she could become part of his coven. Arriving in Florida, Ferrell and a friend beat his girlfriend’s father with a crowbar and took part in a ceremony, which included burning a large “V” into his chest. When arrested, Ferrell told the police that they would never be able to keep him locked up because he was an all-powerful, 500-year-old vampire named Vesago. Ferrell eventually became the youngest American to enter death row in 1998. Recently, his sentence has been commuted to life without parole.
Richard Chase
A fascination with blood led to a month-long horror spree between 1977 and 1978. Richard Chase was dubbed “The Vampire of Sacramento” after he killed, disemboweled and drank the blood of six victims. Chase, by all accounts, attacked randomly and only entered homes where the door was unlocked or wide open. He said that a locked door meant that he wasn’t welcome. Chase was sentenced to the death penalty after being found guilty of first degree murder six times. He eventually took his own life in prison in 1979.
Allan Menzies
Obsessions sometimes lead to more grisly affairs. When Allan Menzies became hooked on the vampire movie “Queen of the Damned,” he started to believe he was the main character from the movie “Akasha.” At his trial, he admitted that he knew he had to kill somebody and had decided on his best friend, who had lent him the film in the first place. When his friend McKendrick insulted the main character of the film, Menzies flipped and stabbed him 42 times. Then he hit him with a hammer and finally consumed part of his brain. Menzies was sentenced to life imprisonment but committed suicide after a year of incarceration.
During the 1990s, the London Underground was facing a very strange happening. Trains kept breaking down between Baker Street and Edgware Road. The affected trains would lose all power on the line between the two stations—travellers would find themselves in darkness, and commuters and staff started to become very concerned. The management was forced to conduct an investigation into what was happening and believed that a major fault lay under the section of track causing the power to fail on the trains.
The Circle Line could well be the oldest underground railway line in the world. Its beginnings can be traced back to 1863. In the early 1900s, the track was renovated to become electrified, but when the breakdowns started in the early 1990s, electrical engineering experts could not find the problem, and for the first time, even the experts were stumped.
In desperation, the London Underground operators asked the public if they had any ideas what was causing the breakdowns. The overwhelming response was not sparks, smoke or any other such worldly thing. The majority of the responses suggested the paranormal.
One of those who answered the London Underground operators claimed that she had been travelling the line for fifteen years and alleged that she had always felt something was wrong with that section of the track. According to her, passengers passing through after leaving Baker Street would have “panic” attacks.
Another passenger who had been caught in one of the breakdowns explained that after the train broke down, the passengers noticed that there were several “figures” standing outside of their carriage. There were several accounts of these strange figures.
After receiving such strange reports, the operators of the Underground started to look into the engineering records of that part of the tube system. The records went back over one hundred years, and due to the diligent record keeping of the London Underground, it seemed that between the 1800s and 1990, workers on that section of track had found fragments of bone and teeth.
The British Museum was called in to help by the operators of the London Underground, and it was proven that the track ran over the site of a huge medieval plague pit that was said to have held the bodies of 20,000 victims. The management of the Underground had that stretch of track blessed and sprinkled with holy water. After that, the problem disappeared and has not returned… Yet
Russia is one of the most folklore heavy countries in the world. It has folklore, history and myths about almost every aspect of their culture, and those myths certainly include Vampires. The Russian vampire shares a lot of the same traits as other European vampires, especially those from Eastern Bloc countries.
Eretica: The Eretica was often associated with the idea that those who believed certain things, like heretics, would become undead vampires. An Eretica, most famously, was a young, beautiful woman who sold her soul to the devil while still alive, and over the course of one day became an elderly woman who wore rags. Once the sun set, she and the other Ererticas would meet up in a hiding place—normally a ravine for a nightly sabbat.
The Eretica was, by all accounts, only active during the spring and fall. It slept in the coffins of those who had been evil during life, and if one fell into the grave of an Eretica they became an instant victim—doomed to slowly waste away.
Upyr: The Upyr is the main vampire spoken of in Russian myths and lore, but due to the size of Russia, the legend changes from region to region. The bloodthirsty Upyr would, at first, drink the blood of the children of a family and move on to the parents afterwards.
One of the most interesting traits of this vampire is that it has teeth or fangs made of iron and can chew through almost any obstacle. Like many vampires in lore around the world—the Upyr doesn’t sleep during the day. It just wanders around waiting for its next victim.
If you want to track down and kill this vampire, you will need to hook a line of thread to one of its buttons and follow it back to its lair. Once you have gained access to its lair, you must sprinkle holy water across its abode and then stake this beast through its heart. This must, however, be done with care because while one strike through its heart will kill it, two strikes will bring it back to life.
Melrose could well be described as the perfect place to take your family on vacation. Nestled in the Scottish Borders there’s so much to do—sports, biking, hiking and fishing. However the ruins of Melrose Abbey also lie in this idyllic setting, and Melrose Abbey is the setting for a story that has terrified the locals for hundreds of years.
Founded in 1136, the Cistercian monks built Melrose into one of the richest monasteries in Scotland. It survived wars and, even when damaged by the British, was rebuilt—a magnificent building that was meant to last forever. Beyond its magnificence, however, lies something more sinister. The story of the “Hundeprest,” or you could say the Vampire of Melrose.
There once was a local chaplain who, by all accounts, liked all of life’s pleasures and was nicknamed, because of his love of hunting and his pack of dogs, “Dog Priest,” or Hundeprest. When this less-than-holy chaplain finally died, his soul could not find rest, and his evil spirit was seen wandering the streets of villages and towns in the area searching for victims. The local folk turned to monks of Melrose for help, and after praying, fasting and challenging the vampire, they fought it. Its mortal body was thrown into a fire and turned to ashes.
However, it is said that the creature tried to enter the abbey late at night in the form of a bat and then turning into a vampiristic creature. The monks managed to defeat him again through the power of prayer. Denied entry to the abbey, the creature stumbled upon the home of a lady who once worked for him. It is reported that he stayed close to her home screeching at her and causing unrest. She had no other choice but to call one of the most experienced monks from Melrose Abbey to investigate what was happening and to perform an exorcism.
The expert older monk bought along another monk and two novices to begin investigating the woman’s plight. They decided to watch the chaplain’s grave, and when day turned to night, the chaplain levitated out of his grave in vampire form, throwing the gravestone aside. A frightening sight, he began to approach the expert, wizened monk watching his grave. The monk retreated and lifted his staff and proceeded to smite the vampire over and over again until the grave opened with a terrible crash and the Hunderprest was swallowed into it.
The expert monk knew then that he was dealing with a great evil. He was fighting a true vampire, and he knew that he would have to open the grave as the first strains of sunlight entered the sky. They waited until morning, and the expert monk sent one of the novices to fetch tools to open the grave. When he returned, they starting digging and eventually opened the coffin—they found the Hunderprest, or Vampire Chaplain lying dead, grinning, with blood covering his cold lips. The expert monk ordered his body removed and to be burnt and his ashes scattered to the winds.
Today there are still those who say they can hear the screams of the chaplain who had, through the misdeeds of his life, become the very epitome of ungodly evil.
There is nothing like pumpkin picking first thing in the morning 🙂
MLNewman 