“That’s the last thing we need. Zombys in a Vampyre story. Twilight of the Living Dead. Ugh!”

“That’s how people live, by telling stories. What’s the first thing a kid says when he learns how to talk? “Tell me a story.” That’s how we understand who we are, where we come from. Stories are everything.”

“When I saw the Twilight movies I thought being a Vampyre was so romantic. When my friends decided to be Vampyres it was so cool. We would do anything to be like Dwayne and Maria and the rest. I got what I wished for but I have no life to enjoy it with.”

“Why did so many teenagers fall for Stanley Horowitz’s tricks?”“These were impressionable teenagers,” Nick explained. “Many of them were devoted fans of romantic Vampyre stories. They over-romanticized what it means to be a Vampyre, and that gave Stanley a way to manipulate them.”“I’ve read Twilight,” Tamara said. “My daughter is a huge fan. Is she in any danger?”“The danger arises from wanting to belong to the in crowd so badly, you lose sight of what’s real and what’s fantasy.”“Surely today’s teenagers know that vampires are fantasy,” Tamara said.“Possibly. But remember, Vampyres are not romantic. Vampyres are dead. They are walking reminders of tragedy. Loving one is necrophilia. And wanting to be one is the first step on the road to catastrophe.”

“Sure, zombies can “be a metaphor.” They can represent the oppressed, as in Land of the Dead, or humanity’s feral nature, as in 28 Days. Or racial politics or fear of contagion or even the consumer unconscious (Night of the Living Dead, Resident Evil, Dawn of the Dead). We could play this game all night.But really, zombies are not “supposed to be metaphors.” They’re supposed to be friggin’ zombies. They follow the Zombie Rules: they rise from death to eat the flesh of the living, they shuffle in slow pursuit (or should, anyway), and most important, they multiply exponentially. They bring civilization down, taking all but the most resourceful, lucky and well-armed among us, whom they save for last. They make us the hunted; all of us.That’s the stuff zombies are supposed to do. Yes, they make excellent symbols, and metaphors, and have kick-ass mythopoeic resonance to boot. But their main job is to follow genre conventions, to play with and expand the Zombie Rules, to make us begin to see the world as a place colored by our own zombie contingency plans. […]Stories are the original virtual reality device; their internal rules spread out into reality around us like a bite-transmitted virus, slowly but inexorably consuming its flesh. They don’t just stand around “being metaphors” whose sole purpose is to represent things in the real world; they eat the real world.”

“Remember, Vampyres are dead. While a female Vampyre can go through the motions of sex, since their flesh retains normal flexibility and warmth, they are unable to truly participate. So having sex with a female Vampyre is a cross between intercourse with an unconscious woman and intercourse with a corpse.”