Guest: Lindsey Gray

Please welcome Lindsey Gray on this very intriguing historical day! 12-12-12.   Lindsey has two books out in The Redemption series: REDEMPTION and REVISITED, and has an ebook copy of of each book to give away.  VampChix will select two winners, and each will receive one title.  Tell us in the comments if you believe vampires really exist!

DO YOU BELIEVE?

It has been said all myths are staked in truth. The mythical essence of the vampire has permeated our society for over a thousand years. Do they really exist? To some, vampires are very real.

            In a small village in Serbia, people live in fear of a vampire called Sava Savanovic. The Balkan vampire is said to be the areas first insurgent and has existed in a small shack in an oak tree forest. There have been deaths in recent months, which the villagers attribute to the local vampire.

            Starting in the 1960’s, it is said that neglected Highgate Cemetery in London, England was a vampire’s playground. An attack on a young girl in 1971 supported the accounts of many others in the area who had come across the white-faced creature.

            In 2010, a British transplant to Seattle, Washington accounts an experience meeting a vampire in a bar. She was the designated driver for the evening and reports she was stone cold sober. She recalled that the bar was noisy, but when the claimed vampire touched her shoulder, all the noise faded away. The vampire attempted to prove himself by showing off his pointed canines and conveying intimate details of the young woman’s life and family. Clearly spooked, the woman separated herself from the vamp and returned to her friends, astonished that she might have very well had a run in with the real deal.

            Then there is the most famous vampire brought forth in literature, Dracula. In 1897, Bram Stoker published “Dracula”, the tale of one vampire’s attempt to relocate himself from his origins in Transylvania to London. Romanian leader and mass murderer, Vlad the Impaler, is said to be Stoker’s inspiration for his title character. Was he really inspiration or was Stoker privy to knowledge he could only convey through fiction?

            While I don’t personally believe there are vampires hiding around every street corner, I do not doubt the possibility of their existence. I would like to believe they are like the popular literary characters of recent years, Edward Cullen, Bill Compton, and Stefan Salvatore, or even my very own character, Lily Edwards. If vampires are real, we can all pray that they are nothing like Stoker’s Dracula or Anne Rice’s Lestat de Lioncourt.

            Do you believe vampires really exist? If so, why?

Visit Lindsey at her FB, or Twitter, and blog.