Stephen King's Vampires

 

 Stephen King is my favorite author.  My favorite book of his is ‘The Stand’  which is pretty ironic because COVID-19 made me think we would all be living this book in real time.

King’s characters are drawn in such detail and from so many different angles that I always feel I know them and relate to some so strongly it is as if they become my friends, and I miss them when the book is done.  I have often wondered what happened to them and hoped for a sequel. I would like to go home to New England with Frannie and Stu and Kojack.  I want to know what that looks like through his eyes.  So, Mr. King, if you write it, I will come.  I hope you do. I’m sure I’m not alone.

 

I grew up in New England, first the Boston area, and then in New Hampshire where our little town bordered Maine.  A lot of King’s books are set in Maine and some do some wandering over the border to New Hampshire as well.  As a teenager, I saw the name of the town I was living in mentioned in the pages of a book.  It was a powerful thing.  There was a familiarity in his speech and in the people who were my neighbors and family because of that one thing we had in common, but for all I know everyone feels that way about his writing.  In his author notes he addresses ‘Dear Reader’, and those glimpses at the person, the author, made me look beyond the words on the page to a man who wrote for a living.  A man who followed his mind ‘down some dark hallways’ and came up with fascinating stories and incredible characters.  

 

Sitting here in my office letting my brain empty itself through my fingers onto this screen, it takes me back to the first of King’s books I ever read which I may never have looked at if my sister hadn’t tried to kill me one night when she was reading his ‘Salem’s Lot’.

 

It was the middle of the night and she was up late reading, probably too scared to shut off her light and go to sleep because of that book. If you have read it, you know why. If not, there are vampires.

We lived in an old Victorian, twelve rooms with gleaming oak floors and banisters and woodwork that my father had painstakingly redone before the rest of us moved in.  The house had heavy wood doors, not like the hollow-core ones now, and in the winter they swelled and squeaked and scraped quite loudly as you opened them. My sister’s bedroom, which had previously been a kitchen, was situated such that I had to go through her room to get out to the hallway and the bathroom beyond.  It was not exactly convenient but we made it work.

This particular night, I woke needing the bathroom. Listening, I heard nothing from her room.  The doors didn’t allow light to get through, but if she was moving around I did not hear it then. The doorknobs were porcelain and they squeaked as well.  I do not know if she saw the knob or heard it turning - either is possible.  Maybe she heard the floor creak as I eased my way across the room and stepped as quietly as I could into her room so as not to wake her?  Her bed was placed against the same wall as my door with just a small lamp table separating her from me which is why I always tried to be as quiet as possible when I had to get up in the middle of the night.  

I believe that she must have heard something and been afraid the vampires in the book were coming to get her.  I learned later that she shut off her light when she heard something in my room, which in retrospect, I do not feel was the best idea.  While I was not in her situation, if I was being attacked by vampires I would want to see them.  Secondly, if they were coming through my room to get her, did she have no thought that something had happened to me?  Did she write me off so easily and go directly into survival mode?  Shouldn’t she have called out or sought help or screamed the house down to save me and herself?  Did it ever occur to her that it may have been just me, innocently waking in the night and needing to get out for something?  Regardless, if she wanted to use the lamp as a weapon, wasn’t it better to be able to see the target?  Don’t vampires have great eyesight and hearing and the ability to move quickly?  But she didn’t.  

I turned the knob quite slowly, and lifted up on the door as I was opening it because of course it was noisy and needed oiled but it didn’t seem to help and was still louder than I liked at two in the morning.  Had she left her light on, I would have known she was awake.  I pulled the door open slowly and stepped out, sliding my feet so I didn’t bump into anything like the table that sat next to her bed, and my sister turned her lamp on, and I jumped back yelling because she was kneeling up on her bed with the lamp over her head, and was about to bash me with it.  Chaos ensued.  Never a good thing when you wake in the middle of the night and you need the bathroom.  

 

Obviously, I lived to see another day.  Later, I read that book and found myself up late at night afraid to close my eyes too.  For the record, I never tried to kill her while I was reading it.  Of course, she wasn’t coming in my room during the scariest parts.  

 

This is the only book of Mr. King’s that I read just that one time.  Many of his books I have read multiple times.  Some people don’t understand why you would read a book again.  I said before that his characters come alive in his words, and sometimes I like to re-visit them and remember the reasons I loved them in the first place.  I think most characters in books are based on an amalgam of people the author has met or known in true life.  Or maybe we as readers build them on characteristics of people we know?  Whichever it may be, some of his characters are so real to me and I have read that book so frequently I think of them as friends.  I like to visit with those friends every once in awhile.  To this day, I cannot see a full moon without thinking, “M-O-O-N, that spells Tom Cullen”.  If you haven’t read ‘The Stand’ you don’t know why, but you should read it  because Tom Cullen is worth knowing.  Thank you for breathing him into life, Mr. King!

That night in my sister's room, I learned what a powerful thing the written word can be.  You and I know there are no vampires, right?  Of course we do.  Mr. King painted such a vivid picture of the possibility of them that I read that book once and never ever again.  I have never in all the years since wanted or needed to revisit it because it is burned into my memory.  Even now, 50+ years later, I have visceral reaction to the thought of returning to that world he created.  We know there is evil in the world and while I have never come across that particular form of evil myself, I have seen other forms of it and lived to tell the tale.  I don't need reminders.  

This is why I write, because an author changed my life.  It always comes back to the story, doesn't it?