The foraging for food and water, the struggle for life in a world without masters, housed in a body that man had made dependent on himself. - Richard Matheson

They were strange, the facts about them: their staying inside by day, their avoidance of garlic, their death by stake, their reputed fear of crosses, their supposed dread of mirrors. Take that last, now. According to legend, they were invisible in mirrors, but he knew that was untrue. As untrue as the belief that they transformed themselves into bats. That was a superstition that logic, plus observation had easily disposed of. ‘It was equally foolish to believe that they could transform themselves into wolves. Without a doubt there were vampire dogs; he had seen and heard them outside his house at night. But they were only dogs.

When you sleep, your dream world is as real to you as life, isn’t it?

And, before science had caught up with the legend, the legend had swallowed science and everything.