How to Kill a Vampire with Sunlight
By far the easiest way to kill a vampire is via direct sunlight. Even before the
first vampire became a vampire, he was cursed to forever have to hide
from the sun. Any skin of a vampire that comes in contact with direct
sunlight will be severely burned.
There is a certain
vampire book series popular with today's youth that insists that
vampires can, in fact, be in direct sunlight. Rather than burn, their
skin supposedly sparkles. While I don't want to burst anyone's dreamy
fantasies, this is simply not true. Vampires burn in sunlight. Always
have, always will.
I say that sunlight is the easiest way to kill a
vampire because all you have to do is get them in direct sunlight for
about 10 seconds or so. Actually getting one into direct sunlight is
not so easy. This is where being smart helps. If you can somehow trick
or trap a vampire in a place where they will eventually be exposed to
direct sunlight, you're golden. The problem with this plan is that
vampires are very fast, very strong, and generally very smart. They
aren't going to simply let you stick them in a place where they don't
want to be and stay there.
The nice part about sunlight is that it
shows up daily. If you can survive through the night and make it
somewhere where you can see the sun, you're probably safe. The problem
is this usually means you have to be outside prior to the sun rising,
which pretty much just makes you a prime target for a hungry vampire.
Still, if you can wait out the night until morning, find the brightest
path to safety and move quickly.
How to Kill a Vampire with a Wooden Stake
Still
a classic, the wooden stake remains one of the best tools to use for
vampire killing. Really, all a wooden stake is is a piece of wood with
one edge sharp enough to pierce human flesh. Or inhuman flesh in this
case.
If you think of monsters in terms of sports, vampires are
those great offensive players who can always score, but are pretty
crappy defenders. Sure, their speed and strength give them a big
advantage, but the truth about vampires is they are too used to
overpowering their opponent with their offensive capabilities that very
few have spent much time learning to defend themselves.
Knowing
this, the key to killing a vampire using a wooden stake is to strike
first. Yes, that means playing offense against the offensive
powerhouse, but in this game of life and death, you only need to score
once.
Okay, enough with the sports analogy, but the lesson remains
the same: a vampire will let its guard down fairly easily. You should
attack quickly and without hesitation. A vampire can heal from most
injuries, but a wooden stake through the heart is not one of them.
Though they heal quickly, their skin and bones are just as fragile as
any humans, so the key to killing them is to make it so they can't heal.
How to Kill a Vampire with Silver.
Again, the curse of silver begins before the
first vampire became a vampire, when the goddess Artemis (Greek
mythology) cursed the first vampire so that his skin burned when it
touched silver.
Using silver is a bit like a blend
between sunlight and a wooden stake. It doesn't work as well as either
of those two options, but it has advantages of its own. First of all,
unlike sunlight, silver is highly portable. You can carry an item of
solid silver (make sure it's real, solid silver please) with you easily.
Secondly, it won't kill a vampire to stab it in the heart with silver
(as it would using a wooden stake), but it will slow down the healing
process, which can be very helpful.
In order to actually kill a
vampire using silver, you'd probably need a lot of it. Silver is more
helpful as a slowing or trapping agent. Vampires, despite their
strength, cannot break a chain of silver, even if they tried. If you
could somehow manage to handcuff a vampire to a tree, say, using silver
handcuffs, all you would have to do is wait until the sun rose the next
day and you would have yourself a fried vampire. Of course, how you
would actually manage to accomplish this task is another story.
How to Kill a Vampire with Fire.
At
first, fire seems like an easy fix to your vampire problems, but there
is a problem. Yes, it will burn vampires, just like it burns humans,
but unlike sunlight and silver, it's only through natural means that a
vampire will burn by fire. What I mean is, the reason sunlight and
silver burn a vampire and cause its healing process to slow dramatically
is because vampires are inherently cursed by these two elements. While
fire can burn just as well as sunlight or silver, it does nothing to
slow the healing process of the vampire, because vampires are not cursed
with a weakness to fire.
If you're going to use fire to kill a
vampire, you're going to need to have a big fire and have the vampire
stuck in it for a long time. Probably, say, an hour to be safe, though
about a half hour will usually do the trick. This is because the
vampire heals as it burns. The hotter the fire, the faster it burns,
but you're still basically trying to beat the speed of the vampire's
healing process. Should the vampire be mostly burnt but then escape the
fire, it can still survive.
This is another situation where tying a vampire down with silver to immobilize it would be very handy, if you could manage it.
How to Kill a Vampire by Tearing Its Head Off
If
you're like me, you've probably never tried to literally tear anyone's
head off, except perhaps in some sort of video game. And that doesn't
count. Tearing a vampire's head off is not as easy as it might sound.
Though their bones and flesh is as fragile as ours, they have strong
neck muscles which make it a difficult task to achieve.
If
you're really intent on removing a vampire's head, there are two good
ways to do it. The first option is to use a silver knife and cut off
the head. This will still likely be a bit of a chore, but the silver
will stop the healing process and slowly wear down the muscles strength,
so with enough patience and time, this will work. The second option is
to have another vampire tear the head off of your vampire of choice.
Vampires are built strong enough to tear each others' heads off fairly
easily, though it's highly looked down upon for a vampire to kill
another vampire, so convincing one to do this for you is not going to be
easy.
In most cases, you would still want to burn the head and the body separately to prevent the vampire from healing.
