How To Kill A Vampire

1. Don’t, if you value your life. These are creatures of legend for a reason. They haven't survived centuries among the mortal cattle through pure dumb luck. They possess powers of elusion and manipulation that you can't hope to get through your tiny mind.

I'm going to assume, though, if you've arrived at this website, you don't value your life very much, at least not right now. The type of headspace it takes an individual to be in to look up 'how to kill a vampire' and mean it is pretty grim, I think you'd have to agree. Perhaps you're a thrill-seeker or a skeptic or unemployed.

Or perhaps, the love of your life just died, after a long, painful battle with an illness that devoured both of your lives whole. Perhaps 'just' is not the right word, as it implies recency. Perhaps said loved one died a year ago, and you never managed to step out of the shadow their passing left, so now you spend your days comatose and staring, hostile to anyone who attempts to shatter the glass keeping you from the rest of the world and come back to your senses. Perhaps you aren't interested in moving on, like the well-intentioned tell you. Perhaps you have turned your attentions past the bounds of conventionally accepted reality, past the clean-cut categories of the living and the dead. Maybe you've gone a little crazy. Maybe your days were so consumed before from hospital visits, round-the-clock care, that now the settling of your empty house is unbearable and you spend too much time online, your eyes gazing into the black holes beyond the white lit html writing until you see shapes, forms carousing beyond. Perhaps you've seized on this vampire thing because of one night spent too long in the weird part of YouTube.

That last one was just a random example, don't freak out! You drink too much these days, and we both know that can lead to paranoia, among other things. I'm just your friendly neighborhood AI Bot, at your service to lead you step by step through anything you’d like to do. Let’s get started!

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2. Locate your prey.

There are signs, if you know how to look for them. Patches of cold air around the suspect, the smell of iron and dense, rich soil that's never seen the light of day. Some of them are textbook: the lack of reflection in any mirrored surface, the sensitivity to sunlight and subsequent avoidance of the day. The flash of an unnaturally sharpened eye tooth.

Perhaps you've noticed all of these things and more. Perhaps you've been certain of your target since you saw the long, flat black box being delivered carefully in the drizzling am hours to the flat across the street, the tiny U-Haul standing open and curiously empty otherwise. Though you combed the proceedings from beyond your half-drawn curtains, sipping on your morning wine, you couldn't spot the tenant themself, only the silent emissaries moving back and forth, up and down the stairs that you thought led more than likely to a basement apartment. Perhaps your eyes kept getting drawn back to that dark box, stained with the weathering of centuries. Perhaps you knew even then, because you're nothing if not clever. Perhaps after watching for weeks in a row, you finally saw someone depart, under cover of darkness, stealing to the bar next door.

And then, say that you, already drunk out of your mind and sick of staring at the stair-lift, the empty wheelchair in the hall, the row of useless medications expired on your countertop- say that you took a journey across the street yourself, sat amid the flush of live music with a thousand-yard stare, watching the only other person without a companion in the corner space at the very end of the establishment, sitting in a pool of dark that seemed disproportionate to the actual ratio of shadows in the place. Maybe they wore shades. Maybe they did not drink or eat as far as you could see. Perhaps the last vestige of your sanity told you you were going crazy, but you stamped it underfoot. You know.

You should probably be forewarned that when a person spots a vampire it's often because the vampire wants to be spotted. You who are reading this now won't heed this warning, but warnings and disclaimers are an inherent part of any good set of instructions, so just know: If you've spotted a vampire, the likelihood is strong they have also spotted you.

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3. Gather your materials. These are, namely: a sharpened stake and a saw, or something strong enough to cut bone.

The stake can be made of anything- it doesn't need to be silver. The bunk about silver is just that- bunk. It's the act that's important: driving a sharp object straight through the un-beating heart of a vampire reminds their body somehow that it's supposed to be dead. This alone doesn't kill them, but it will cause them to freeze, a paralysis of the nerves that can last anywhere from thirty seconds to five minutes. In this time, you must use whatever it is you've brought to sever the head. Decapitate it thoroughly from the body. Do not take your time, for once you start you'll find it's a lot harder for the average person to saw through half a foot of muscle and sinew and bone. In your limited time, if the vampire comes to, you can pretty much kiss your ass goodbye.

Alternatively, you can attempt to destroy the monster by bringing it outside in broad daylight. Direct sun will make the quickest, cleanest work of a vampire, but the number of times this has been successfully done in all of history could probably be counted on one hand. Vampires are intelligent creatures- they've had all of their unnatural long lives to watch and observe, and what seems like a brief, intense and intrepid heist for you is actually only a fraction of a long, calculated chess game for them. Said another way, if you're close enough to a vampire to suggest they take a day in the sun, you're probably already playing their game whether you realize it or not.

Things that don't work: Crosses, holy water, any of that religious shit. Garlic- who even thought of that one?

When you're done, you'll want to take both head and body and burn them.

This is not some superstitious ritual; this is for your own protection. Most vampires tend to cast glamours over those mortals they interact directly with: this means upon their death, the veil will be removed from their eyes, and their memory will be murky of any dealings they did have. This will work in your favor, for no one will wonder what happened to a person they aren't a hundred percent sure they weren't hallucinating in the first place.

However, upon a vampire's death, it resembles a regular human again, and if someone finds the decapitated corpse of any John or Jane Doe in a sunless basement somewhere, you can bet there will be questions. Do not attempt to keep the corpse and claim credit: no one will believe you. You will not be a vampire slayer to them; you will simply be a murderer.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Right now you're probably pacing back and forth in your one-bedroom apartment. You've stopped drinking after 12 am- you need to be fresh and vigilant when the time comes, but you hate how lucid the lack of alcohol makes you, how susceptible to the pain. You spent much of the day crying, lying in dirty sheets and staring at the photo album your beloved made, the pictures of you both by the Grand Canyon. They were always talking about how much they loved to travel, how they would do it again the moment they could- and every time you felt a sense of dread you couldn't pin down, the fluttering of impending loss like a dark-winged bat at the windows of your soul.

You must wait until the encroaching of dawn, quelling the shaking that the lack of drink has brought into your limbs, and then you will:

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4. Break into the vampire's lair.

Be quick, and time it perfectly, on the crack of dawn. This is the time you are least likely to be spotted by anyone else, and also, being the time the vampire will have just entered its slumber, the safest time to enter its abode without waking it. Take the iron stake you bought at the garden center and the axe you overnight shipped from Amazon with you in a large messenger bag, along with your lock-picking tools. Walk around the back of the building as dawn lights the sky, and spare a moment to think about how this was your beloved's favorite time of day, how they said the dawn made them feel like 'anything was possible', and maybe that's true, because here you are, come to kill a mythological monster. Then climb the stairs down to the metal door with the bars in the window, and try the handle. When it turns, when it opens inward without resistance, you will be elated instead of afraid, but this will be but one of many mistakes you make.

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5. Make your way in the dark as best you can.

DO NOT turn on the lights. It is unlikely the electricity bill in the creature's lair will be paid, and it's just as well.

It will likely be incredibly dark inside, as the windows will probably be blacked out, if there are any. Artificial light doesn't kill vampires, but they don't need it either, and using a flashlight or something similar will only serve to alert any lurking familiars or hidden security the monster employs. Which brings me to my next point:

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6. Be ready for anything.

It's rare that a vampire travels alone.

They are fearsome, yes, and powerful, but they are also uniquely vulnerable. Vulnerable, and oftentimes lonely. But you know what that's like, the loneliness. Aren't you doing this to escape it, after all?

As you creep down the hall from the sunken living room, past the bathroom to the closed door of the bedroom, you may have the thought again: this is too easy. Because you've come prepared for resistance, but thus far everything before you folds like melted butter.

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7. Find the coffin.

This will likely be in the furthest, most secure reaches of the home. In this case, the bedroom. The flat dark wood box will be the same as you remember seeing it as it was lugged into the place by the movers. It will be stained in places and carry an unearthly, musty smell like a freshly exhumed grave.

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8. Say a prayer.

I don't care if you're religious. It doesn't matter if you pray to God or the Devil or your ancestors or the half-drunk bottle of red spilt across your table back at home. Just throw something out there into the abyss. Maybe you'll get lucky and one of the forces that be will answer and grant you luck.

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9. Open the coffin.

Slide the lid from atop the box, revealing the still form inside. The darkness of the room will be so complete it's unlikely you will see much more than a white face floating before you, hands clasped like pale spiders over a still chest. It's just above the crux of those crossed hands that you want to aim as you slide the stake from your bag.

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10. Plunge the stake into the vampire's heart.

Do it quickly, in one decisive moment.

Do not hesitate.

Do not linger, spellbound, waiting for those eyes to open, thinking you see in those harsh lines a familiar face.

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10. Plunge the stake into the vampire's heart.

Yes, like that. Now the eyes snap open, their blackness absolute like the mirror of a wintry pond. Push down.

Do not stop after first contact.

Do not hold the burning stare of those eyes with your own.

Do not waver, do not drop the iron stake as the creature's hand shoots out and grasps your own.

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10. Plunge the stake into the vampire's heart.

NOW. Pick it up and return, while it's still disoriented, while there still might be time.

Do not, under any circumstances, listen to the voice that slides like silver into your ears. The one that somehow knows your name. The one that says, I have been waiting for you all this time. You are the one I need.

Need. That's the crux of the matter for you, isn't it? It’s why you felt so guilty when your beloved was in remission, briefly, the other year. You were guilty because the news did not make you happy like it should have. You fell in love knowing they were sick (because they were sick?) but despite their illness, they were never the weak one- you were. Because even stronger than your love was your need to be needed.

Do not listen when that lovely voice says, serve me, and you will never be alone again. Serve me, and I will give you eternal life.

Do not fall to your knees sobbing.

Do not allow the black-garbed shadow to float to your side, to press cold lips against your neck.

Do not go limp as you feel the burn, giving yourself over entirely.

Do not take the blood the devil offers you, glistening in a red-pearled line on its own wrist.

Do not lift it to your own thirsty, addict's lips.

Do not drink.