Halloween Special: If Vampires Were Real...

What if Vampires were real? Not pallid teenagers wearing all black and sipping on Cranberry Juice or muscle-bound actors who gradually grow doughy as the series go on, but real, live/dead Vampires. What would they look like and how would they behave? I’ve been thinking about it and had been unwittingly researching it for some time.

Trope Number One: A Vampire’s Nest… 

It’s a common trope in vampire lore that vampires band together in packs or nest or families and inevitably, a headstrong vampire approaches the wise and aged leader of the vampires and suggests that humans are merely food.

“Why should we hide in the shadows, draining our victims in secret?” The young, headstrong vampire might ask.

“Because humans would come with their technologies and their wrath and they would slaughter us all. Humans outnumber us. They are 7 billion on this planet and we are but a few.” The wise vampires might respond.

Here’s the issue I have with this line of logic. It makes no sense. Technically, vampires are asexual, in that they only need one to reproduce. According to accepted vampire lore, any human can become a vampire. It could be argued, a bit of a reach, but it could be argued that a human being is a kind of larval vampire.

Certain predators in natures mirror the behavior of eating their own young. Male Cheetahs are known to cannibalize their young, as do spiders, as do Kimono Dragons and many other lizards. These predators share one telling similarity; they live and hunt alone. Solitary behavior would explain why vampires would hold such sparse numbers. This, of course, means that, in real-life, there would be no such thing as a nest of vampires.

Trope Number Two: Vampires Fear Of The Day

Now that we’ve stripped the vampire of all his buddies, let’s address the issue of the burning light of day. There are two lines of thought when it comes to a vampire and the sun. There’s the flashy screaming and hissing as the sunlight tears through the vampires skin like fire over paper. Then, there’s whimsical hissing as the vampire throws his cape over his face and scrabbles for his trusty pair of sunglasses. It’s been my consideration that it didn’t make much sense that any sort of predator could fall victim to such a violent and immediate end. What evolutionary advantage would there be in exploding in flames, what adaptation would cause that?

What would make sense is that vampires would be adapted to dark, wet environments. The pupils of their eyes would be dilated out so that they could seek their prey. Direct sunlight would hurt their eyes and their skin would dry out as the sun kissed their skin.. I kind of envision vampires as a kind of large, bipedal fish, much like the Creature From The Black Lagoon, except they drink blood rather than doing whatever the hell the Creature from The Black Lagoon does. I, honestly, have no idea.