Lessons in the Occult

Lesson 5: How to kill a vampire

 Anthony and I now focused on what method we should use to kill the vampire we were after. From his research Anthony had found all sorts of horrible ways to dispose of a vampire and keep it dead. You can burn it to ash, for example. Or you can stab a wooden stake through its heart. Removing a vampires head was also mentioned as being good for killing one.

The problem with any of these methods, aside from being terribly messy, is that they would be fatal for anyone, not just vampires. It would be terrible, not to mention illegal, if we were to stab a suspected vampire with a wooden stake and then find out he wasn't really a vampire. Anthony didn't want to risk hurting anybody if we made a mistake.

Luckily, there are other ways the kill a vampire. Stuffing a bulb of garlic into a vampire's mouth will make it drop dead and turn into dust. The only other way Anthony knew of to kill a vampire is to get it to walk out into the sunlight, which will also turn it to dust. We decided on the garlic option, since we didn't think a vampire would cooperate if we asked it to come outside while the sun was shining.

"Now that we have decided how to kill the vampire, how do we find it?" I asked Anthony.

"That's the easy part" Anthony replied. "You will wait with Jamie until the vampire comes to feed again. Then you will follow it back to wherever it sleeps during the day."

"But won't it try to give me the slip?" I inquired.

"It won't try to give you the slip because it won't know you are there" Anthony responded confidently.

I wasn't so sure. I figured that a vampire was supernatural, just like ghosts are, and I worried that it might be able to see me. I explained my worries to Anthony. To my surprise, though, he already had it all worked out.

"Ghosts are spirits without bodies, right?"

I nodded my head in agreement.

"And I can only see a ghost with my spirit, not my eyes, right?"

I nodded again.

"Ok. Last thing: vampires are bodies without spirits. That means they can't see with their spirits, and that means they can't see ghosts. Do you get it now?"

And, of course, I nodded for a third time. I also gave Anthony an approving smile. He had used very good logic to decide that vampires cannot see ghosts, and I had to agree that it made perfect sense.

And so we discussed our plan from beginning to end. I would wait in Jamie's room until the vampire came. Then I would follow him to his hideout. When I found out where it slept during the day, I would report back to Anthony. After that, Anthony would go to the vampire's hideout during the day while the vampire was sleeping. He would sneak in and stuff a bulb of garlic into the sleeping vampire's mouth. The vampire would turn to dust and Jamie would be saved!

I went over to Jamie's house that very night, but nothing happened. The night after that I thought I saw someone creeping around outside Jamie's window, but nothing tried to come in. It was on my third night of guard duty that the vampire finally came.

I saw the vampire's face outside of the bedroom window. He had a strained face, red as if he was angry, with a scraggly beard and framed by long greasy hair. He pressed his hand against the window and it opened for him as if by magic. He crawled silently through the window and crept toward Jamie's bed. He was more than six feet tall and looked very fierce. A cold wind blew through the open window, which made Jamie shiver, but the vampire waved his hand over her and she fell into a deep magical sleep. Anthony hadn't mentioned anything about vampires having magic, but I guess I should have known. Otherwise people would never sleep through having their necks bitten.

It didn't take the vampire long to finish feeding. You see, human stomachs (and vampire stomachs) aren't very big. You would probably have trouble drinking more than three glasses of water in a row because your stomach fills up so fast. Well, a vampire's stomach fills up just as fast on blood, which is probably a good thing. That means they can't do too much damage to someone during a single feeding.

When he finished, the vampire jumped out the window, which closed and locked behind him. He ran right out of town and into the woods beyond. He followed an old trial and finally stopped in front of a small rock tunnel. I was floating right behind him this whole time, of course. He crawled through the tunnel, which opened up into a cave probably not much larger than your bedroom. Then he buried himself in a pile of dry leaves and went to sleep. I watched for a little while to make sure he didn't move again. Then I returned to report to Anthony.

* * *

This is Anthony. I wanted to make a comment here because I am presenting the next lesson on something I learned during our vampire hunt. It was early Saturday morning when Mr. Harrison woke me up and told me he had located the vampire. I quickly got dressed, grabbed a bulb of garlic from the pantry, and hopped on my bike. Mr. Harrison led me right to the cave entrance. I was there before it was even ten-o-clock in the morning. I would probably be home for lunch! Ya, I was feeling pretty good about myself. Everything was going according to plan.

Anthony Shy