The candy is coming, we just need to beg strangers for it. You know, I try this year round, but for some reason it only ever works at the end of October. Go figure.
As for the costume, my daughter has chosen ninjas as this year's theme.
I was hoping for "astronauts." |
And finally, the scary stories: I love scary stories in all forms. Be it book, or movie, or TV, I love being scared. And while it seems like every horror movie put out these days claims to be "based on a true story," the very best scary stories are 100% true.
Like the story of Mercy Brown, the Rhode Island Vampire.
Now, I'll grant you that this happened back in 1892, which seems like a long time ago, but this is also the most recent documented incident of vampirism in the United States. And like most of my favorite ghost stories, it takes place in Rhode Island. And the real kicker is, while Mercy Brown may be the last vampire reported in Rhode Island, she's not even close to being the first!
Our story begins in the town of Exeter, Rhode Island. There in 1892, the Brown family had suffered a string of terrible tragedies. Mary Brown had died the year before of a horribe illness, where she seemed to slowly be drained of all life, becoming thinner and thinner, her eyes becoming sunken, her skin pale, like she was becoming a living corpse before their very eyes. Soon after she died, her oldest daughter (also Mary, because, you know, it was a popular name back then) contracted the same illness, and shared the same fate.
By the following year, Mary's (first Mary, not second Mary) daughter Mercy and son Edwin were also ill. After Mercy died, the people of Exeter were convinced that a vampire was to blame. They exhumed the three Brown corpses, and while two of them showed appropriate amounts of decomposition, the third, Mercy, showed very little decomposition, with seemingly fresh blood still in her veins. Seeing this, the people of Exeter, immediately cut out her heart and burned it, making her ashes into medicine for poor Edwin. (It didn't work. Remember that the next time your doctor prescribes "ashes of your dead sister.")
Mercy, and the rest of the Brown family, had what was known at the time as consumption, what we know today as tuberculosis. It was a poorly understood illness at the time, with many conflicting and incorrect ideas about what caused it. (It's much better understood now, but really, do you know what causes tuberculosis? I didn't think so. And if your doctor told you, "Yep, that's definitely vampire-related," you'd at least consider the possibility, so don't look down on the poor folks of Exeter.)
But why did these not-nearly-as-ignorant-as-people-think Rhode Islanders jump right to vampirism as a likely cause? Probably because of all the times it had happened before!
The first documented case of Rhode Island vampires seems to date back to the 1790s. And that's not necessarily the first case, just the first one where we have found clear documentation proving that said person existed, died, was exhumed and treated as a vampire.
This first case of vampirism centered on a girl named Abigail Staples of Cumblerland. According to official town records, after her death at the age of 22 or 23, Abigail's father asked permission to exhume her body, "In order to try an Experiment on Livina Chace Wife of Stephen Chace Which Said Livina Was Sister to the Said Abigail Deceased."
(They really liked capitalizing back then.)
So, that doesn't say anything specific about vampires or consumption, simply referring to an "Experiment'" but destroying a vampire to keep her from destroying her own sister is rely the least creepy explanation I can come up with.
And soon after that, around 1799, comes another story out of Exeter. After the deaths of between 4 or 6 (details vary) of his children, Stukeley Tillinghast (Best. Name. Ever.) decides to exhume their bodies, and ends up believeing that his daughter, Sarah, is the vampire feeding on the rest of the family. Hilarity ensued.
Between 1799 and the finally story of Mercy Brown in 1892, as many as ten documented cases of vampirism can be found just in Rhode Island, plus a few more just over the border in eastern Connecticut.
Just ridiculous superstition, right? Just silly folklore nonsense from those crazy, ignorant Rhode Islanders.
Well, perhaps, but this isn't fifteen or sixteenth century Europe. This is happening in the United States, starting in the same time period as the writing of the Constitution, and on up past the end of the Civil War, almost to the beginning of the twentieth century.
But of course these folks were isolated in their small towns and not as educated as the average American.
Except that's not entirely accurate, either. These towns kept careful records, they had newspapers, so people obviously knew how to read. If they were isolated, it was really only because they wanted to be, not because of any great distance or physical barriers. This was, after all, just Rhode Island. You could walk the entire length of the state without too much trouble.
So what was really going on there? Why did so any people believe in vampires, and why did it stop after Mercy Brown?
This mystery reminds me of something I've always felt was odd about the Salem Witch Trials. Again, they happened only in one isolated area, and quite apart is distance and time from the European witch trials. And while it is obvious that most of the victims were blameless, it seems possible, just possible, that the panic could have been sparked by some degree of truth: that maybe, just maybe, someone in the village was practicing witchcraft.
Similarly, why would the people of these small Rhode Island towns be so convinced of vampires, even after consumption had been identified as tuberculosis and treatments had been developed, unless somewhere, at some point, one of these "vampires" had really been an actual vampire?!
Imagine this: One by one, members of a family become stricken by what appears to be consumption. One by one, each family member wastes away, until their skin is drawn tight over protuding bones, their eyes so sunken into their sockets that at night, by the light of a few candles, they seem not to have any eyes at all. And then, they die.
Perhaps, then, someone sees some creature in the local cemetery, perhaps just too big to be a dog. Perhaps they notice a grave recently disturbed. At any rate, they decide to investigate, to dig up the grave, open the casket.
Inside, they find something horrible; something not dead, but not truly alive either. They realize this...thing...has been the cause of the lamented family's misery, and calling upon stories they always thought were only folklore from the Old World, they cut off its head, they cut out its heart, they destroy the thing with fire.
The town is at peace again, but none of them will ever forget the thing that they saw in the cemetery.
And if something similar happens in a town nearby, won't one of the townsfolk want to help, to warn those citizens of what it could be. Again, they are not superstitious, do not believe in such creatures, but the man gives his word he saw it with his own eyes.
And so it continues. Never spreading far from where it began, and the supernatural cure does not always work, for often these are just what they seem: vicims of consumption.
But once in a while, just enough to keep the stories alive...
And why did it suddenly stop in 1892? Maybe it didn't, they just stopped talking about it! It could be that the same thing is happening in parts of Rhode Island even now, they just don't publicize it anymore. The Brown case got quite a bit of media attention, and maybe once the late 19th century version of Fox News descends on your village and starts openly mocking your beliefs, you may shut up about it for a while.
"Damn liberal media." - Dracula |
That doesn't mean it stopped.
So the next time you find yourself driving through Rhode Island late at night, keep your eyes open. You might see a young woman walking along the side of the highway. You might think she's looking for help, that perhaps her car broke down somewhere.
I'd advise you to keep driving. Don't even slow down.
Because the Ocean State might just be... the Vampire State!