Vampires. How they fascinate us.
Vampires have evolved through thousands of years of mythology spanning many cultures. For audiences here in the states, our concept of vampirism is based on east European folklore as introduced to us by Bram Stoker. His immortal Dracula was both beguiling seducer and predator. A seductive evil that, for Stoker at least, represented an old world pagan culture that simply had to be destroyed by the enlightenment of Christianity.
As our society has changed since Stoker’s time, the vampire has evolved from villain to anti-hero. Symbolizing perhaps the restless spirit of man at war with his animal side, our fear of death and our dark, secret longings all rolled into one, the vampire has become a brooding, tragic figure longing for restored humanity and pursuing it like a holy grail. (Remember Barnabas Collins, or Nicholas Knight?)
The vampires of contemporary fiction (Twilight, Vampire Diaries, etc.) are young, lusty, passionately romantic figures. Some still brooding and tragic, but nonetheless damned hot-blooded. The vampire/human romance depicted in Twilight represents the primal mystery of sex from a virgin’s eye view. Vampire Diaries takes a darker, more adult view and delves more deeply into the twisted labyrinth of passion and self-discovery.
In my vampire novelette “Unholy Alliance,” I chose to present vampirism against the backdrop of real-world human evil and violence, amid the loneliness and alienation it breeds. The vampire seemed a natural product of and foil against that kind of evil. The story is a dark paranormal contemporary urban fantasy. Its protagonists are homeless teens fighting to survive in city streets run by pimps and dealers. It’s the story of Chris, a young vampire hunter who goes rogue, abandoning the simple concepts of right and wrong he was raised with when he falls in love with Sara, a vampire. Both of them are orphans trapped in a dark, lonely existence. Chris’s only family members were killed by vampires when he was five. He has been raised (and exploited) by cruel, brutal vampire hunters ever since. His life has consisted of killing vampires and robbing crack houses to live. Sara’s parents died in a Nazi concentration camp when she was fifteen. Turned by vampires, her life for the past seventy years has been only the hunt and the blood, the sadistic tyranny of her vampire lord and the constant pursuit of the hunters. All of the kids in Chris’s group and Sara’s are outcasts, either ripped from the lives they had or discarded. Some are just killing angry and out for revenge. Others dare to hope for at least a glimpse of love.
When their self-serving masters die in battle, these kids find themselves on their own for the first time, and decide they’re tired of endlessly giving to a cold world that gives nothing back. Human and vampire unite in taking down some very human bloodsuckers who use kids as sex slaves. There’s no road out of the darkness for any of them, but love gives them a reason to go on.
“Unholy Alliance” is available from Eternal Press and as paperback or Kindle at Amazon.com
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for the productive reader feedback. Is there something you've read here that inspired you? Tell me about it!