The hunter's... duffel bag.

Somebody asked me about my kit. Let's see:

1. A black leather duffel - forget cool gadget boxes with little pockets for everything. I chuck everything in a black leather duffel. Black because it's less visible if you have to ditch it in a shrub at night, and leather because, well, it lasts. And blood cleans off it really nice with some Kiwi leather cleaner.
2. Grave stakes - A grave stake, as described earlier, is a wooden (ash) stake that was originally shaped like a cross to serve as a grave marker, consecrated for use in blessing the dead. It no longer matters whether or not it has the cross-bar, so long as it once did. (Hey, I don't make the rules). I make mine out of ash chair legs, which I order special from a reputable furniture dealer, so I know they're really ash. I carry 4-5 at a time, because they have a tendency to get lodged in ribcages.
3. A mallet - I need this for driving grave stakes.
4. A water gun - I like the old Super Soaker 100. I found it with some of my brother's childhood things. It's a simple, pump-action 1/4 gal. model that was popular in the early 90s. You'll understand why it's useful when I add...
5. A half-gallon of holy water - Unload a quart of this into a sleeping vamp's face. It's fucking sweet. With the burning, and the unholy screams? Priceless.
   
6. A crossbow - A good crossbow should cost at least $600. Mine, a custom-built Horton with an ash stock (measured to fit just right in the crook of my arm) and a silver heel, was $7000. But most of that's just showing off. Hey, I get few kicks in this line. I consecrated my crossbow, and carved a cross into the stock. Most of that was for effect, but you never know.
   
7. Bolts - Ash shafts, silver heads. Pink, synthetic feathers. (Hey, that's all the guy had when he built them.) These are a custom job; they stopped selling them on eBay. I use a woodburning kit to burn cross-shapes into the shaft. The crosses don't do anything, but the vamps are afraid of them. That way, when I miss (which is often), I get to watch them look down at the shaft in their gut and scream like a girl while they try to pull it out. Again, few kicks. I carry a quiver of 20 or so bolts, and I go fetch them when the vamps dead (they're $22.50 a piece). These are consecrated.
   
8. Sawed-off shotgun - last-ditch defense. You get close enough to a vamp to use this, and you're probably already dead. But a round to the chest'll slow them down, and you can tear up limbs with buckshot faster than they can heal them. Might buy escape time. Mine was on sale at WalMart - I got it and the hacksaw for $90. The buckshot is consecrated (I'll repeat some earlier advice: hunters should get ordained. Imagine asking a priest to bless your shotgun shells).
   
9. Crosses - I cover myself in crosses. Around my neck, in my pockets - little wooden crosses everywhere. I have hundreds in a box; I toss 'em in odd places like mothballs: couple in the duffel, couple in the closet, couple in the car. I buy them in bulk from this family in Mexico. You never know when fumbling across one might save your life. As far as I know, crosses don't actually harm the vamps; but they scare the shit out of them.
   
10. A machete - My machete was pricey - I wanted good steel - but it's still a fucking machete. Nothing particularly interesting. It slices, it dices, it scares the shit out of witnesses. I blessed mine, mostly because I like saying "holy machete."
11. 8 oz. human blood - I carry this in a water bottle; it's the vamp equivalent of carrying a steak around to distract guard dogs. Fledgling vulgaris are far more hungry than they are smart.
    
12. T-shirt, electric razor, deodorant, bar of soap - Because you never know when you might have to scrub down. A whore's bath is a hunter's best friend.
    
13. A roll of $20s - Some methods of killing vamps leave bodies. When this happens, it's usually better to leave before John Law shows up. Usually, they won't keep looking for us; their "victims" are several weeks decomposed, so they have nothing to rely on but eyewitnesses who claim the corpse was munching on folks. Still, a roll of $20s is a necessity - it's a small enough denomination to not rouse suspicion, but enough of them will get you across state lines and into a shitty Motel 6.
14. Marlboro Reds (5 packs) - A reminder: I don't hunt vamps at night. Why? Because I have an IQ above 70. I do, however, stakeout at night (no pun intended), and that is nicotine-driven work.
15. Peppermint oil - Shut up. It masks the human scent, okay?
16. Condoms - Because I'm not always working (Of course, the condoms have passed their expiration date, so I must not be doing much of anything else, either).
    

q & a: it's not as fun as t & a

I'm fucking well bored. I'm heading out of town this weekend to help on a routine sweep, but activity seems to be low right now. Not that I'm complaining, but one can only watch so many reruns of The West Wing.

So... since I have no interesting news, I'll answer questions.

C'mon, I know I'm an ass about it, but I still answer them. Use the comments, though; I'm tired of sorting through the various dick enhancer ads in my email.

Let's get a grip.

Recently, I've been asked a lot of questions about the existence of other faerie tale creatures and Hollywood monsters.

Now, whether these people are merely mocking me, or whether they really believe that the existence of vampyrs is somehow license to believe in leprechauns, I don't know. But somehow, admitting the existence of one creature we thought to be mythological seems to open a floodgate to talk about them all.

Fine. Here are answers to some questions I've received:

Ever run across any other (Guild) agents that take care of other types of
stuff?

What, like rabid dogs and stuff? No. The Guild is just for dealing with vampyrs. We hunt vampyrs. That's it.

What do you guys do with werewolves?

There's no such thing as a werewolf, at least not that I've ever seen. There is a Baltic strain of vulgaris that is particularly hairy.

Do you agents handle excorsism?

First of all, turn on your spell-check. Secondly, if you mean exorcism, then no, we don't. The Catholic church, with which we are not affiliated, has an organization that handles such matters. Unlike the Guild, they jealously guard their privacy, because the Catholic church is... I don't know, embarrassed or something.

Have you ever met Frankenstein?

Shut the fuck up.

If vampyrs are real, what else is real?

Vague much? Look, I don't fucking know. We deal with vamps. That's all we do. I don't know anything about anything else. Like I said before, I know there's a group that deals with exorcism. I think there's another one that deals with poltergeists and spooky shit like that. We never cross paths; we work different fields. And if anybody ever calls us and says, "there's a kid down here yakking up pea soup," or "my shit's flying all over the place," we'll tell them to fuck off. Why? Because we just deal with vamps.

I don't mean to be rude (well, actually, I don't care if I'm rude), but I do want to explain this clearly: I'm a vamp man. When it comes to other stuff, I don't know shit about shit. You got questions about banishees or your fairy godmother, go ask somebody else.

More questions.

This is a fucking dull week. Can't have a job outside the Guild, so there's nothing to do if the blood-monkeys aren't moving about.

So I'll answer questions. This one's from comments:

What was ur training like as an apprentice? How big is your guild? Are there other guilds for vampyr hunters in the US?

Training? Training sucked rectum, if you want to know the truth. Somehow (and don't ask me who they had to screw to get this done) they get us into Army basic training. That sucked, but I won't bother tell you about it, because there are about 7 thousand movies out there to mislead you about how noble and personally enriching that is. So watch them, and then you can imagine in your head (80s sports montage-style) my pseudo-military training. You'll be wrong - basic is about 20% dirt, 20% sweat, and 60% simply getting fucked around by guys who yell a lot - but whatever.

After basic, I got a mysterious "undesireable" discharge, declaring me "unfit for military duty." Thanks, assholes. Couldn't you have arranged for a more flattering discharge?

Then came Guild Academy. That was no sweat. They had us in these community college classrooms (the Guild doesn't have offices in the U.S.), and they taught us about vamps - mythology, scientific fact, case histories, theory - boring classroom shit for about a week.

Then came weapons. They dragged us out of bed at 5:30 a.m. and found an endless supply of abandoned warehouses, silos, and slums for this crap. They essentially told us to forget about guns (then what the fuck was that Army shit all about?) and focus on crossbows, compound bows, and long blades. We had these wooden bo-ken for blades, and I spent most of the next five weeks covered in long, thin bruises.

No combat training. You know why? Because fuck fighting, that's why. There's no way you'll win in hand-to-hand combat with a vampyr. No way. I don't care how tough you are. Your best bet is to a) keep your distance (hence the projectile weaponry), or b) kill 'em while they sleep. I mean, I've sliced up a conscious vamp or two in my crappy career, but only as a last resort... and I nearly shit my pants every time.

Then, after weeks of fighting and shooting shit and setting stuff on fire, they put a Bible in your hand and send you to seminary. It's the worst anti-climax of all time. You spend three weeks reading the Bible, and saying "Jesus, this, Jesus, that," and learning benedictions and shit, and then you're ordained. But here's the stupid thing - they have you ordained by a Guild-friendly church official, because real seminary takes years to complete, and they don't want any church to have you on books. But if they were going to cheat on it anyway, why'd they make me read the Bible stuff? That's a big fucking book! I mean, New Testament, yeah - I should probably know that stuff. But Deuteronomy? First Samuel? What the hell did I need all that for?

And then you're supposed to be an apprentice. You follow the real hunter around for two years, hunting and stuff. But that didn't happen for me, 'cause the Guild is having increasing problems with recruiting. After seminary, they shipped me out to my first assignment with nothing but a roll of bills and some vague instructions. And that, my friends, was training.

As to your other question, I do not belong to a guild. I work for the Guild. As in, there's only one of them, and it's supposedly worldwide. There have been splinter groups over the years, but basically it's just the Guild.

And a hunter really shouldn't work without the Guild. Some are enticed by all the dusty books and lore into thinking it's some big destiny shit, a sacred calling. They leave the Guild and go off to be "rogue hunters." But really, it's all stupid. All we are are glorified dog-catchers, and the Guild helps to take care of some of the nastier aspects (vampyr bodies, for example, and bail money when necessary).

I don't really know how big the Guild is. It's not secret, I've just never thought to ask. I know that each state (except for Hawaii, which is naturally quarantined against vampyr infestation) has at least one hunter, and that we often travel to other states to assist there. In my training class, there were seven others. As for the rest of the world... fuck, I don't know.

Hey, fucker! Comment!

Hey, if you're reading this, leave a comment somewhere. Comments are the commerce of blogging. You're getting this shit for free, so leave me a little something.

Who knows? If you ever end up getting gnawed on, I just might move a little faster.

Career opportunities

Another question via email:

Dagmar,
How did you become a Guild member? Does it pay alot?

Well, my high school guidance counselor asked me what I wanted out of life, and I said I wanted to shoot shit with crossbows and smell like burning rats all the time, so he gave me the number to this guy...

First of all, I'm not a member; it's not a fucking club. I'm an "agent," which is just a glorified way of saying "grunt." Secondly, it pays shit. And "a lot" is two words.

As for how I came to work at the Guild, that's a bit of a long story, and I don't feel like writing anymore right now. Suffice to say, I got caught up in some shit, there was lots of snarling and biting, and hilarity ensued. I guess the fact that I didn't shit my pants was enough for someone to offer me a job as an apprentice hunter. I told him to fuck off, and they made me a hunter. Guess the job posting on Monster.com wasn't putting out.

Secrets, secrets secrets

I received the following message via email the other day:

Mr. Krauss,
If the Guild you say is so secret, how can tell everyone about it? Won't they kill you or something? I would.

First of all, if you're going to insist on formalities, it's Rev. Krauss. I may not take confession or pass out fucking crackers and wine at the Holy Snacktime, but I'm ordained, damn it.

Secondly, you're missing some words.

Finally, I never said it was secret; the Guild doesn't give a shit if I tell people, because on the large scale, nobody will ever believe it.

Let me elaborate: The Guild refers to its existence (and the existence of vampyrs) as "the secret we tell everybody." The only level of awareness we care about is what we call global credulity. If anybody ever found any bit of evidence that could prove beyond a doubt to the world that the Guild and vampyrs exist outside of bad novels and tv shows, we'd suppress it. But other than that, talk away. Everybody will think you're crazy anyhow.

The only reason we care about this minor level of secrecy is that we don't know how people would react to this nasty bit of information, and whether or not they'd get in our way. The Guild is not officially sanctioned by the United States, or any other government (save some small, useless bits of land in the Eastern bloc), and we don't want to see the work we do federalized. Plus, people are nuts; I guarantee within 6 months of such a revelation, some hippy lobbying group would start putting bills on the table to protect the rights of these blood-drinking fuckwits.

But short of world-wide acceptance of our existence, we encourage people to study up on vampyr mythology. That way, if you're ever in a position to actually see this shit with your own eyes, you won't be a total fucking moron about it - you'll at least have a context with which to focus your paranoia.

Occasionally, we have to use non-Guild contractors or friends of victims to take care of vamp problems. We avoid this hocus-pocus bullshit and tell them straight-out what's up. The few who felt like telling people about it afterwards ended up on heavy doses of anti-psychotics at their local nut farm.

I take that back. One wrote a book, which was made into a movie, which sucked rectum and tanked at the box office.

A few years back, we had a bit of a publicity scare. A particularly repudiated reporter found some verifiable evidence about a vampyr colony in the north Bronx. The Guild was all a-flutter: "Are we going to have to kill him? Blah blah blah." Turns out, all it took was sending a smooth talker in to explain to this guy what would really happen to his reputation if he brought the story to the Times. The conversation didn't last long.

Oh, and by the way, you'd kill me? No, I'd laugh in your face while I beat you about the head with your own leg.

Henderson, TN

Just got back from a nest cleaning in Henderson, TN.

Henderson is a shit-splat town about 20 miles south of Jackson. This town had - I swear to God - one stoplight. And I'm fairly sure that spotlight was only there to prevent commuters from passing through the town without noticing.

I've been noticing increasing vamp activity in rural agricultural towns in the past couple of years. I can see the appeal; these towns have more than enough people for a successful feeding season, and without the nuisance of properly-equipped law enforcement.

It's how vulgaris vamps are geting out to these bumfuck towns that baffles me. U.S. vamp activity has been, up until recently, restricted to large cities: nests form in abandoned tenements, and vamps tend to stick within 10 or 12 miles of their point of origin. They're not really smart enough to steal cars or drive, and I'd have noticed the inevitable rash of interstate train deaths if they were riding the rails, so how are they spreading?

This nest in Henderson was definitely a city vamp off-shoot; while most of the residents of Henderson wear endless combinations of plaid and denim, the alpha vamp of this nest was wearing a battered DKNY coat and Bally loafers. Whoever this meatbag was in life, he wasn't from Henderson. The beta and theta vamps were a little more vague; in jeans and t-shirts, they could have come in from Memphis or originated in Henderson. But from the delta on down, it was all hillbilly.

The extermination was no biggie. I met Cole and Swoop in Jackson, and we pulled a typical drag-and-burn. They were staying in a rotted-out mobile home right off the main road, and it crumpled quick. If they'd been further into the forest, we might have had sunlight problems, but as it was, the whole thing took about 20 minutes. And, of course, we didn't have to deal with carcasses, because the fires took care of that.

Like I said, the clean was a piece of cake; it's this migration pattern that's really starting to give me the willies. It used to be, we couldn't eradicate them all, but we could generally contain the threat and predict, within 50 miles or so, the next outbreak based on hypothetical infection patterns we had generated by contacts at the CDC. Now something - or somebody - is defying these patterns, and it's fucking me off.

Breeds of vampyr

Vampyrs, like any other animal, vary in species. There are a number of different classes of vampyr, all easily identifiable if you have a few minutes to sit and have a cup of tea with one. But, seeing as though they'd drink you than a decaf chai, it's probably best to run away from any of these.

1. Ekimmu - this is the lowest form of vampyr, and may better be classified under "zombie." An ekimmu is a weak-grade vampiric spirit possessing a recently dead body. They have little mental capacity beyond hunger, but can sometimes be controlled by a clever human. Unchecked, they will shamble around chasing people until daylight, at which point they will hide (if shelter is available). A small toddler with a wooden leg could outrun them. Ekimmu do not think in advance; if they can be lured out into an open field near daybreak, they will perish at sunup. The only thing that makes this breed sort of dangerous is that they are often confused with real vampyrs. Ekimmu are not bothered by crosses or stakes, and need no invitation to stink up your home. Misled villagers tend to rely on these inappropriate methods, which can lead to unnecessary deaths.


2. Pseudo-vampire - The psedo-vampire is a human who fancies him/herself a vampire. They may wear fangs, stay indoors all day, and even drink blood. Their presence is a nuisance to vampyr hunters, whose tracking efforts may be misled by these ridiculous posers. That they are ranked above the ekimmu only goes to show how ridiculous the latter species is.


3. Vampyrus vulgaris (the common vampyr) - this is your average, run-of-the-mill vamp. They crawl around, snarl, drink stuff, and generally infest a neighborhood if left unchecked. They are not particularly bright, and have no greater scheme than to eat and occasionally fuck a corpse. They are usually pretty easy to kill with a standard daylight drag-and-burn scenario. Vulgaris generally nest in packs, and usually follow an alpha, which may be marginally more intelligent than the rest of the pact. In rare instances, vulgaris have been found under the command of a persuasive human.


4. Vrykolakas - the vrykolakas is rare, and is a mystery even to self-imposed "experts." Traditional wisdom suggests that the vrykolakas came from Greece (well, the word is Greek). The vrykolakas is much more dangerous than the standard vulgaris because it possesses human-level intelligence and can control its hunger in favor of self-preservation. Very little is known about the vrykolakas, because very few have ever seen one (in fact, there have been barely enough sightings for the Guild to acknowledge the existence of this species). Anecdotal evidence suggests that they can pass for human in low-light conditions, withstand indirect sunlight for a short time, and are immune to silver.

In my admittedly short career, I have only personally seen the vulgaris breed, and a few human posers. Ekimmu rarely require the attention of a specialist; a well-informed and open-minded town population can handle an infestation with greater ease than, say, rats or roaches. In addition, there have been no recorded incidents of ekimmu problems in the U.S. (my territory) in the last three decades.

I remain unconvinced that there is such a thing as a vrykolakas; historical evidence is dodgy at best, and the stories we do have may very well be exaggerated accounts of common vulgaris. However, the Guild seems to lend some credit to these legends, so I won't rule them out.

You may comfortably assume that when I use terms like "vampyr" or "vamp," I am referring to the vulgaris variety. I will refer to human pseudo-vampyrs with terms like "stupid fuck" and "fang-wanker."