eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
As an answer to this tragic loss of undead life, “Count" Domenick Dicce has written the definitive how-to guide that just might save your pale, ice-cold skin. This helpful tome will cover everything from Vampire 101—such as hunting, feeding, and getting used to your new powers—to Vampire Graduate Studies—such as coffin selection, the ghoulish world of vampiric social hierarchy, and the universal Laws of the Vampire.
This humorous and giftable guide will be perfect for you or the vampire nut in your life, complete with illustrations throughout.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780698406032 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 10/13/2015 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Group |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 144 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
I
Welcome: Velcome
So, you’re a vampire. That sucks! Transforming from a human to a vampire can be quite traumatic—one minute, you’re craving a slice of pizza, the next, you’re craving a slice of somebody’s bleeding finger. Sadly, due to the solitary nature of us vampires, chances are you’re reading this book because the bloodsucker that turned you has already come and gone. Wham, bam, suck you, ma’am! It’s just like the undead to leave you outside like a piece of roadkill. While not all vampires are ghastly, generally we are not the warmest of creatures.
Having been through this experience myself, I wanted to help others. This transition will be one of the biggest moments in your undead life, and nothing is harder than the first year. Most vampires are killed within this time. My only hope is that this book makes your transition smoother and safer than mine was. The knowledge I share could be the difference between an eternity of happiness and a lifetime brooding alone in misery until you become an untimely pile of dust blowing away in the wind.
By opening this book, you have already taken your first step in coming to terms not only with who you are, but what you are capable of. Most vampires go about this journey the wrong way. Usually they use trial and error, often accompanied by brushes with actual death or angry torch-carrying mobs—both undesirable. Some try to find older vampires to be their mentor—bad idea. We generally hide out for a reason: safety! Vampires do not take kindly to newbies bringing them out of concealment and possibly making them the next guest at a stake-throwing party. The truly naïve do their research through vampire lore—rookie mistake. Although some facts are found this way, there are many more myths, half-truths, and downright lies. We vampires have spread most of these falsehoods ourselves, in order to help with our survival. Do you really think vampires can’t come into your home if you don’t invite them? If that were true, I’d have missed out on a lot of good meals!
I know this new world is confusing and the transition is difficult, but I am determined to save you the pain and humiliation I experienced. I only wish this kind of book had been around a few hundred years ago—it might have saved me a lot of grief. Read on, and we’ll get you through this together. Remember to always keep this book in a safe place. We can only survive if people think we are imaginary and nonthreatening.
Oh, and if you’re a human and still reading this book? Fooled you! Aren’t vampire tales hilarious? Ha ha ha . . . um . . . I am always up for meeting a fan. Let’s talk over dinner soon!
II
Feeding: Got Blood?
First of all, let’s get one thing straight: We are not carnivores. We are sanguinivores. Sanguinivores feed on the blood of vertebrates. This is the only time I will use really big words to show off how smart I am. It comes with being around for a few hundred years. Simply put, we do not eat meat. We drink the blood of animals with a backbone or spine—the fresher the source, the tastier and more nutritious the blood. Like all-natural food, blood spoils. Luckily this is rather easy to tell since blood is good to eat in its liquid form. Once blood dries, it loses all nutritional value, though rest assured it takes more than rancid blood to kill a vampire!
We are not limited to a strictly human diet, although human blood is the most nutritious. It allows you to grow stronger and quickly recover from any injuries suffered due to a recent fight or an overestimation of capabilities. We vampires do tend to be excessively confident in our abilities—maybe we should drop the whole “immortal” mentality. Human blood is unique in both its taste and nutritional factors. Not only will it be the most amazing flavor you have ever encountered, but your whole body will fill with what I can only describe as pure energy. In the vampire world we have a saying: Once you’ve had a human snack, you never go back.
If the thought of drinking human blood makes you a little squeamish, then you can live on an animal diet. This, however, is not recommended. You’ll never grow as strong as human-eaters and your appetite will never truly be satisfied. But hey, even vampires deserve free will. You don’t need to be ashamed of abstaining from humans in the beginning. This is completely normal and nothing to be embarrassed of. The older vampires will tease you about your zoogan eating habit, but they’ve probably secretly tried it themselves. It’s not an easy diet to stick with.
VAMPIRE FOOD PYRAMID
If you are still a stiff about not drinking blood as the years go on, then try to eat as genotypically close to humans as possible. Of course the closest animals to humans are gorillas, chimpanzees, and other primates, but you probably won’t want to break into your local zoo to feed. Unless you live in an African jungle, my advice is to find another source. Most mammals will do a decent job of sustaining you, but I have found rats are the most reliable. Their DNA is remarkably similar to humans, which is why humans use them for so many of their medical experiments. The nice thing about vermin is that they are everywhere, and people never miss them. If you eat someone’s dog, Fluffy, chances are there will be a very upset owner looking for the lost pet. The only downside with rats is that they are small and don’t fill you up. Well, unless you are hunting in a New York subway. Those things get huge!
Not into rats? Okay, we’ll find you something else, but don’t go back to beef. You may have eaten it in your other life, but you bought it. Killing a farmer’s source of income will more often than not lead to an investigation. For this reason you should probably avoid all livestock. Sure, it’s filling, but it’s not worth the risk. Besides, do you really need to drain an entire cow? Let’s not be gluttons here. Even though you do not gain weight, there is no reason to overindulge.
Nutritionally speaking, birds are the next best things for you. But logistically speaking, they are the most difficult and time consuming to catch. The whole flight thing makes them tricky prey, and then when you do get ahold of them, the feathers make it very uncomfortable to enjoy. You could pluck them, but this takes forever and then you have to deal with feathers being all over the place. They are just a pain in the fang.
Fish are also excellent sources of blood, but again, difficult to catch. I enjoy eating them more than birds, though some find their slimy texture a little hard to handle. The upside is, if you like to fish, they tend to bite when the sun has set. This is a plus, considering the sun will kill you (more on this later—in the meantime, stay out of the sun). Make sure to check local laws about what times you are allowed to fish along with what is in season. We’re vampires, not criminals! Yes, a person dying might be the by-product of us feeding, but the definition of murder is “the unlawful killing of one human being by another,” and we are not human. I would not use this defense in court, but it should help your conscience as you transition away from your human past.
Reptiles are next on your list of nutritional food choices. They are plentiful and tend to be easier to catch than birds and fish. You can live off reptiles indefinitely, but again, you will not be a strong, healthy vampire. Because reptiles are cold-blooded, they are the junk food of the animal kingdom. They taste delicious but offer little nutritional value. You’re probably wondering why cold-blooded fish are so healthy. I theorize it has something to do with being leftover from our human lives where we ate fish more often or some other biological reason, but I have no idea. After all, I am a vampire, not a biologist.
Last on our list of drinkable blood are amphibians. Although just as nutritious as reptiles, they are my least favorite creatures to suck on. Before you even ask, NO, sucking on a toad will not give you warts. The problem with amphibians is that you take one bite into them and you have a disgusting slimy coating on your tongue for the next hour. If you absolutely must eat amphibians, I would suggest using your fingernails to slice open a major vein and just squeezing the blood out of them. This is highly inefficient, but much more pleasant than a slimy tongue.
BAD BLOOD
You cannot eat bugs to sustain yourself. This myth was started because of the character Renfield in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The idea behind this is that vampires consume blood for the “life-force” it contains. Life-force is this concept of spiritual energy in living creatures. This life-force can be absorbed to a lesser extent by consuming living creatures such as insects. Eating bugs is just plain disgusting and, to me, insane. I am not alone in believing Renfield would have been crazy for doing this. In the medical profession, Renfield has his own diagnosis. It is referred to as Renfield’s syndrome, which is a rare psychiatric disorder in which the sufferer feels a compulsion to consume blood. According to current psychiatric terminology, Renfield’s syndrome is classified as schizophrenia or paraphilia. These people who believe they are vampires have been a blessing and a curse. On one hand, they are easy scapegoats for us to blame if we should accidentally reveal ourselves. On the other hand, they just give vampires a bad name.
Until some mad scientists come up with a synthetic blood for us all to drink, we don’t have other options. This is as good a time as any to start getting rid of some myths about our eating habits. While most of these items will just make you really sick, there are a few lethal ones you should stay clear of.
Eating solid food will not kill you. Unless you are stupid enough to eat garlic, in which case, according to Darwin, you should not exist anyway. Thanks for weeding yourself out. If you attempt to eat any solid food, you will go through two stages. The first is worrying that you are going to die, and the second stage is wishing you would die. In human terms, it is a very bad case of food poisoning. Sadly, yes, you are not going to know which end of your body to position over the toilet first. This may in turn lead to some very awkward moments. This will be the only time in which a vampire will have a bowel movement. (Ladies, you will be happy to know that your butt is now really only for decoration. Since we now subsist on an all-blood diet, using the restroom is a thing of the past—we absorb the blood into our system.)