It was London, and I was twenty two or twenty three. I managed to crawl across the bedroom floor towards the prone form a guy around my age. I pried his mouth open with both my hands. He twisted his head and attempted to vomit blood upon my face. Hateful!
We were both exhausted from our prolonged wrestling match, but I’d managed to pin him with a few secret words – and a lot of rope. And now the ugly part… I hefted a b rick and slammed it into the open orifice. Teeth, blood and rubbery skin mashed in a disgusting crunch. And then four more crunches as I hammered the block of stone deep into his throat. He stopped convulsing and finally laid still.
No stake through the heart. No crosses. He didn’t turn to dust. He didn’t evaporate when I opened the window to let some early morning sun into the room. Instead I dragging the body to the lower floor of the Tottenham flat, retrieved a shovel from my equipment and buried the fiend facedown in his own backyard. And then set fire to the hovel in which he’d digested a baker’s dozen of tramps and almost yours truly.
So that’s how you kill a vampire in the real world. I’ve only taken out two, but both were extremely arduous affairs. I much prefer exorcising non-corporeal entities. Whereas the “science” behind banishment has evolved over the centuries, the means of bludgeoning a bloodsucker really haven’t. I was reminded of my efforts by a recent article in NewScientist which detailed the uncovering of an ancient skeleton believed to be one of the first vampire killings:
(Italy) A SKELETON exhumed from a grave in Venice is being claimed as the first
known example of the "vampires" widely referred to in contemporary
documents.
Matteo Borrini of the University of Florence in Italy found the skeleton of
a woman
with a small brick in her mouth while excavating mass
graves of plague victims from the Middle Ages on Lazzaretto Nuovo
Island in Venice.
Borrini says his study details the earliest grave to show archaeological "exorcism evidence against vampires".
You can find the article (and additional photos) in it's entirety here. Mr. Borrini, be extra wary you don't let the right one in should a mysterious stranger come knocking at your door.
