Chris Barker

Vampires are the only horror monster I have personally met. It happened when I was nine or ten.

I was staying at a campsite in France for the summer with my parents and my brother. It was a dark, hot night, and me and the other children were playing hide and seek. 

I was by myself, crouched behind a tent, gripping the rope in one small, hot hand. I was holding the guy rope low to keep myself steady, stifling a laugh like a cough.

The tents had round, grey-green tops like the bellies of elephant seals; they smelled of vinegar when they got wet.

I saw two figures, adults by their size. They were walking casually down the path between the tents; the night was so clear I could see the dust their feet raised. One had its arm around the other’s shoulder; I couldn’t tell if they were men or women.

As they walked on the path, in front of me, they were perfectly silhouetted against the light. They were walking, but at the same time seemed to hang in space, with no sense of movement. A long cloak billowed around the one with its arm around the other’s shoulders.

I only saw them for a second before I let myself drop behind the tent. I thought, at that moment, what I had seen was a vampire. It was leading a victim into the dark, to turn into something like itself.

My heart began to hammer so hard I was afraid it would be overheard. My toes knotted in my sandals as if trying to keep the blood inside. My whole body seemed to clench as small as possible. 

The strange thing was that I didn’t feel entirely bad for the victim. 

This incident was one of those strange products of a child’s mind- half real, half imagined. Probably a camper was wearing a long coat, which billowed in the wind. Or maybe fancy dress. Obviously, what happened wasn’t ‘real.’

It didn’t feel like that at the time. It felt like seeing the hidden darkness beneath the surface of everything. Much like fiction, the world gives you back what you put into it. 

Maybe vampires are inherently fascinating.

A ghost or a zombie is a monster all the time. A werewolf is a monster sometimes and a person sometimes. A vampire, uniquely, is a monster and a person all of the time.

What makes them interesting is that they are ourselves, but ourselves as we fear we might be, or sometimes wish we were. As one of the characters in my book says: ‘we’re all human, even those of us who aren’t.’

Many people helped create my novel The Grave War, particularly my wife Donna, who is endlessly supportive, loving, and above all, organized enough for us to get anything done. My brother Jonathan helped hammer the ideas behind the book into shape, and my entire wonderful family deserve all the praise I can give them.

Most of all, I have to give credit to that long-ago vampire. I hope wherever you are, you are healthy (vampires don’t age, of course), and continue to be fed. Mwahaha. 

However, if you wish to respond in person, be advised that I have stakes and crosses, and would rather you left a note.