Salem's Lot

The hours slipped by unnoticed to the point where I no longer felt the passage of time. Sweet, delicious sleep called to me and I yawned in response, but I needed to write about the book I’d just read. If I didn’t, it would come knocking at my window in the middle of the night, asking to be invited in….

When I was in high school I became fascinated with Vampires. I suppose I was no different than most young people who become obsessed with the idea of eternal youth and rebellious morbidity. The thought of shadows slithering into my room as my caramel neck lay exposed against the soft white pillow, and the veils of moonlight seeping through the chiffon curtains like pale grey spider’s webs, enticed me. I studied the occult with ravenous delight, gathering as many books about vampires that I could get my sixteen-year-old hands on.

Vampires were never a gentle beast (as some poor young souls have been fed to believe in this Twilight saturated era); no, these were monsters; but unlike their stumbling boogeyman counterparts so many of us feared lurking under our beds or clawing at our closet doors, these beasts were slick, agile... seductive. Consider some of the most “successful” serial killers we read about today: Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy. Their victims were not forced to follow them; they were seduced, ensnared if you will. A vampire’s victim oftentimes yearns to be taken.

Salem’s Lot is by far the best vampire novel I have ever read. Plain and simple. Keep in mind that you’re hearing that from someone who has read a great many vampire novels of both the fiction and non-fiction kind. No, Twilight does not count.

The plague borne in Salem’s Lot frightened me to the core. Which was strange because vampires have never done so before. I wanted to get away from them. I wanted daylight to break through the stygian, abysmal cloth of night. I am not a religious person, but there was nothing I wouldn’t have given for a drop of holy water or a crucifix while I read this tale of intoxicating evil. Due to this fact, you must know that I am the type of person who believes that everything happens for a reason....

The morning after completing the book, I walked through a local grocery store and noticed something small and silver on the ground. It was a crucifix. Somehow it had broken free of its previous owner’s necklace and onto the floor.

Under normal circumstances I would have returned it to “Lost and Found,” but on this day I scooped it up and placed it within the pages of Salem’s Lot, because who knows what I may have invited in after reading through its yellowed pages....

So, as my eyes grow tired and my mind grows weak, I will leave you with this, dear reader: whether you are religious or not, the most important thing in the world is to simply have faith and believe that you have the power to overcome the evils in this world... and also the power to resist inviting them in….

I dedicate this toast to you, Mark Petrie. You are most definitely the type of person I want to be when I grow up.