Back in the 1920s, a very popular stage adaptation of Bram Stoker’s vampire novel Dracula toured England. At the end of each performance the actor-manager came back on stage to talk briefly with the audience. He hoped, he said, that the play wouldn’t give them bad dreams that night. So when they got home, when the lights had been turned out and they started to worry about things that might be hiding behind the curtains or peeking through a window, he advised them to “just pull yourself together and remember that after all — ‘There are such things!’”1
In spite of the current popularity of the vampire theme in films, television and books, you don’t have to be afraid of getting bitten by one. (There are vampire bats in the tropics and people with pathological behaviors but those are different concerns.) There aren’t really any Dracula-like vampires who have lived for centuries, sleeping in their coffins by day and feasting by night. The monsters that populate the old horror movies — or who are found in today’s “men who are vampires and the women who love them” genre — don’t get out into the real world in which we live.
But that is small comfort in the real world. There are such things as terrorists trying to blow people up, religious conflict, melting glaciers and icecaps, high unemployment, a divisive political climate and other threats. With all of that to deal with, a few vampires would hardly be noticed. There are some very frightening things alive in our world. They can attack you right out in broad daylight and they won’
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