Die Young, Stay Pretty
Vampires, and why they don't suck.
      by Rachel Hyland

Vampire: The Masquerade. This could be you.

Uh. Apparently not.

Hence the Vampire Research Society -- also known as the International Society For The Advancement Of Irrefutable Vampirological And Lycanthropic Research -- which is quite the center for undead control. The Society's President and Founder -- who, has been praised, impressively, as "the most celebrated vampire hunter of the 20th century" (for which title there is bound to be some fierce competition) -- asks the question: "Dare we risk ignoring a force whose strength lies in the fact that no one will believe in its existence?" He means vampires. Traditional, fabled, non-RPG vampires. Uh, yes?

Or what about the New Jersey Association of Real Vampires, in which webmaster Roz talks creepily about a vampire community (and she's not kidding), and about how people -- sorry, vampires -- "drink blood for pleasure or to create a powerful bond between lovers, friends, or a group of people."

Are you getting the shudders now, too?

Then there's The Living Vampires Homepage which, aside from being an oxymoron, is a dismayingly comprehensive site. The best part is the Classifieds, which must be read to be believed. And laughed at. Of course, at first it's just funny -- funnier than you can point a sharp pointy stick at -- but reading more it becomes just... sad. And kind of scary.

Spike. He's evil and yet we love him. We're weird.

Vampirism isn't just a biological condition, or a dark and often chilling mythos, to these people. It is a religion, a way of life actively embraced and pursued... or a scourge to be hunted and destroyed. Is immortality achieved by these lost souls? Are these wannabes ever "blessed" by the everlasting kiss of the Lonely Ones? And how many of these deluded innocents might someday suffer at the hands of these modern-day Inquisitioners who are so desperate for a hobby that they take to the fantasy section of the library to find a life-goal?

We genre fans can accept the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, the possibility of faster than light travel and the viability of a city on Mars in a heartbeat, but let someone tell us that they've been abducted by aliens, or astral projected, or been given James Marsters' home phone number, and we pretty much think them way the hell and gone into too-much-Sci-Fi-Channel Land. So when confronted with the reality that others think a world of vampires is a reality -- and that they think they are vampires -- who among us can help but be as skeptical as a very skeptical person at a skeptics convention? Yet this "vampire community" is just as real to its denizens as the bridge of the Starship Enterprise is to an avid Trekkie... uh, does that make it better or worse?

Still worse. Because a harmless belief in the HoloDoc harms no one, but the death-obsession that is manifested in someone who truly wants to be a vampire is just tragic. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about vampires, even above the biting and killing and being dead yet walking around thing, is actually the attraction they hold. What does it say about us that we are so very enraptured by walking corpses? Is it the lure of eternity, the mystique of timeless beauty, the optional extra in style? Or is it the fact that the vampires of myth no longer feel anything real? That with just one hickey, the cares of this workaday world can recede, leaving nothing but the hunger?

Stop that! He's a vampire, people!

And yet, is there a worse way to die? Or a worse way to live? Drained of the life force, in pain -- possibly for days, depending on the mythological biology of choice -- and in a constant state of unrest and unease... or just plain evil. How can anyone want this?

Not that it matters. Sure, vampires are the monster of the moment, but that doesn't make them at all real, no matter how much many of us would like an Angel for our very own. And, yes. That is a very good thing. Vampires, those terrors of the night and obsessions of the day, belong exactly where they are: in our minds and our imaginations and half-naked on our TV screens. But just in case... a girl can never accessorize with too many silver crosses.

The 11th Hour acknowledges the following historical sources: The Dracula Book by Donald F. Glut, In Search of Dracula by Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu, and A Dream of Dracula by Leonard Wolf. And, uh, also Dracula.

We welcome your comments on The 11th Hour and this review. Please send letters to: letters@the11thhour.com

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