Experience Wth A Vampire

I know I have mentioned that I am afraid of vampires. They are the one thing I am sure does not exist (I have to be sure) but they terrify me.

I also have to admit I am fascinated by vampires. When I was younger I watched the movies. I read Dracula by Bram Stoker. I recommend this book. I also highly recommend the Wamphyri series by Brian Lumley. Actually it is the Necroscope series if you want to go to the library and look for them. But I digress.

I no longer watch vampire movies. For one thing I am afraid. For another most "scary" movies today are more aptly just "icky" movies. They show blood and gore just for the sake of making a mess. I am not a fan of all that. I can enjoy a movie that frightens me but I do not want to be made sick.

Back in the 1970's there was a movie that was made for television about vampires. It was named Dracula and starred Jack Palance. After the children were in bed my husband and I decided to watch it.

I had a nice rocking chair that I sat in. It is where I sat when I was feeding the babies or just to relax them before bed. While I rocked them I always wore a knitted brown shawl. It seemed so cozy to drape around the baby and me. It created a cocoon that separated us from everything else.

But the kids were in bed. I sat with my shawl around my shoulders in my comfy rocker and watched this vampire movie. I was never a big fan of Jack Palance. This movie was okay but I felt no big feeling about it one way or the other. But it was about a vampire. It did spook me a little.

Before going to bed myself I suddenly realized I had no milk for the children in the morning. We lived next door to my parents at that time. One of the things that I hated the most about living in the city was that the houses are so close together. For instance the house on the other side of us was so close that there was barely room for a little walkway between the two houses.

But in this case I was lucky to have my parents so close. I decided to run next door to see if Mom had a little extra milk until I could get to the store the next day.

As I was going out I turned to my husband and joked, "If I'm not back right away, it will mean a vampire got me." Then I hurried next door in the dark of night.

Was I afraid? I was a little. I knew there are no vampires but ... well you know how it is.

I was lucky Mom had an extra gallon of milk. She told me to take the whole thing so I did! I wished them good night and went back home.

Now I have to tell you that I knew my idiot husband was going to do something to try to scare me when I got home. I knew it. And I was prepared.

What I was not prepared for was the figure that came flapping at me from the dark between the two houses. It was the size of a man but it had what appeared to be wings of some sort that were flapping crazily. I screamed as loud as it is possible to scream.

Then the figure came out from between the houses into the relative light of the night. It was my husband! He had my shawl over his head and arms and was still flapping like a vampire. He was laughing.

He went into the house with me hot on his trail. I threw the gallon of milk at him. He knew how scared I would be. Well maybe not because he told me that if he had known that I would throw the milk at him he would not have done it. Yeah, right!

Once I stopped shaking I thought I should call my parents to let them know I was okay. I peeked out the window and their house was dark. They were already in bed.

The next day I was talking to my mother and told her what had happened. She said, "We heard you scream. I looked out the window and didn't see anything so I figured you were okay and we went to bed."

What!?!? I think that perhaps, just perhaps, I was under-protected in my experience with the vampire.

Vampires

We were moving into a new house. We moved a lot. This time Daddy was working for a farmer. Part of the pay package was that we got to live in one of the extra farmhouses the farmer owned. That was a common practice at that time.

At that time there were only five of us kids. I am the oldest, about ten years old at the time, and the youngest one was about three. Needless to say we had a lot of stuff to move.

Daddy was pulling a trailer behind his car with as much as he could fit in at the time. He and my uncles would bring a load, empty it, and go for the next load. Mom and those of us old enough to help were busy putting things away.

It was a fairly hot summer day. In the 1950's people did not have air conditioners. The house had good ventilation though. A nice breeze blew through and helped keep us as cool as possible.

Mom decided finally that we had been working hard enough. It was time for a break. There was no furniture there yet so we had nothing to sit on. The floor was dirty from all the traipsing in and out. We flattened a couple of big cardboard boxes and sat on them to have a snack and something cool to drink.

Mom was entertaining us by singing a few songs. Then we asked for a story. We didn't want one of the same old stories she always told. We wanted something new.

She could not think of any. We begged. Finally she started to tell a story and quickly realized we should not hear it. She said it was not a good story for us. We begged and she finally gave in.

Her story was about Dracula, the vampire. We had never heard of vampires before. It was an exciting story. When it was over my little brother was fast asleep and the rest of us had to go back to work.

We worked hard all day. At the end of the day we had not even had time to put the beds together so we slept on the floor. Our rooms were upstairs. The boys were directly across the hall from us girls. The top of the stairs was right outside our doors.

It was a sweltering night. We had all the windows open to catch any breeze that might pass by but there were not many of those.

The main problem was that it was dark outside. Vampires come out after dark. They prey on the blood of poor unsuspecting victims. We were all afraid to go to sleep.

My mother assured us that a vampire could not come into the house unless someone invited it in. We were taking no chances. She told us to leave the lights on which we did.

Having the lights on accomplished two things. Number one; it was dark outside and we could only imagine what was lurking out there just waiting to attack. Number two; moths were attracted to the light. They flew up and banged against the windows. We all knew it was vampires trying to get at us.

Mom tried to calm us. It didn't work. She tried being firm. It didn't work. She finally ended up sitting at the top of the stairs between our bedrooms until we finally fell asleep.

I have been afraid of vampires ever since. See what you did, Mom?