Ben Acker’s Stories to Keep You Alive Despite Vampires is just that. Warning: If you don’t like vampires, please do not read this book. It starts out with an introduction (behold: quotes like “That’s right: the sharks here are vampires!”). But here’s the catch: the story goes that you are stuck in a house… filled with vampires… and the only way to get out is to tell them scary stories! That’s because vampires absolutely adore scary stories. And then it goes uphill from there: a story about a “hitchhiker who was a phantom of a hitchhiker” is a good action story. But I don’t know my “thriller” from my “horror,” so please bear with me. I love the part in “Thicker Than Water” where the narrator shifts to a hissing tone: “The counssselorsss hadn’t actually killed him at all. He wasss vassssstly overreacting.” Another one of my favorites is “Mr. Birdclock,” about the secrets behind the cuckoo clock. There are also interludes in the book, which I absolutely adore. Note: You can’t just tell these stories to vampires. You can tell them anytime on a dark, moonless night to your friends.
