A/N: Late musings of the vampire survival guide sort.

Identifying And Destroying The Ancient Vrykalakos

Is your village plagued by a belligerent one-time knocker?

Are you three Dhampires short of a dead undead?

Is a strange visitor kicking the shingles off of your roof?

Well then my friend, your town could be infested by a residential evil known as the Vrykalakos; a dangerous and somewhat curious vampire specimen.

The first step toward taking out a problem Vrykalakos is in being certain that you are indeed hunting a Vrykalakos.

Trust me, you do not want to go out on a great sunny Saturday, ash steak in hand and a bounce in your step, off down to your local charnel house only to realize your target is actually a very pissed off Lobishomen.

Then the next thing you know your being attacked by a hoard of insane nymphomaniacle women and the next morning you're waking up with a hangover, sever memory loss of whatever in the fourteen Hells happened in the last ten hours and an Incubus sitting on your chest.

NOT Good… not that I would know….

Vrykalakos tend to live near the Greek and Aegean areas of Europe as well as the Slavic; that is the first step to understanding your affliction: location.

Would you search for the Malaysian Bajang in the vast snow fields of Antarctica?

NO!

The next step in identifying your busy bloodsucker is in understanding what caused it.

Has anyone you know been improperly buried?

Did they lead an immoral life or take the cheap rout at the butchers, ordering the meat of a sheep killed by a wolf?

Did you lose your emergency baptism kit?

So you think you've figured it out?

Your sleazy lecher brother kicked the can un-baptized and you buried him upside down on accident.

Then one night you got drunk, dug him up, pissed on him and still managed to burry him upside down.

Again.

You don't know why! You where drunk!

So yeah, there's your problem and you think your ready to fix it.

WRONG!

Now that you know the problem you've got to get to the bugger.

A Vrykalakos always returns to its grave and coffin on Saturdays to sleep the day away.

It is preferred that you strike down the creature on this day after dawn for it will be dormant and unable to fight back, otherwise your screwed.

Vrykalakos attack using very distinctive methods, understanding them is crucial to survival.

Would you treat a pulmonary embolism with digitalis extracts and aconite infusions?

Didn't think so.

Of most significant importance is the one method of death dealing that is completely unique to this given species.

Vrykalakos are known to knock on the door of a person's household door and call out the name of someone inside, if you answer the door you will die.

Thankfully the Vrykalakos will call only once for you as they are extremely impatient; so it is wise to await a second call before answering.

The creature also strikes using methods more common to its brethren, such as seating itself upon a sleeping person's chest and slowly crushing the life out of their victim. They are also known to inflict a quick and painful death preceded only by pain in the chest or head.

Are you scared?

Of course not, you don't have time to be afraid!

A Vrykalakos becomes more and more powerful with each passing day and all of its victims are damned to return as revenants much like the creature itself.

So it's Saturday, you've got your angry mob, pitch forks, torches and all; you've exhumed the corpse and confirmed your suspicions via the impeccably preserved nature of said corpse and it's swollen with blood.

Now, here comes the messy part.

You have two main options; you can either impale the corpse or decapitate it, in which case be wary to keep its head out of the creatures reach or it may still be able to survive by carrying its head around with it.

Either way it's extremely messy; vampires swollen with blood have been known to explode upon impalement, spraying blood everywhere.

Also, remember to have as little contact with the blood as possible, some gipsy tribes have reported unconfirmed onsets of vampiric madness brought on by exposure.

….I suppose that perhaps I should have said so earlier but it probably doesn't matter… Anyway, now you're done; you're a town hero!

Now clean up, go home and don't get drunk or you may just end up with that incubus sitting on you anyway.

…Although said incubus may make male modeling look cheap, so you don't really mind that much beyond the questionable circumstances but you can't really remember anyway.