No! Vampires are mythological creatures.

They live eternally and use their fangs to feast on the blood of humans and animals. Usually, they are portrayed as sophisticated and charismatic. In most cases, vampires have super human strength, the ability to fly and to transform into a bat. Vampires are vulnerable to sunlight, garlic, crosses and holy water. They can only be killed by a wooden stake in the heart.

The vampire superstition originated in early Christianity when the Latin and Greek churches divided. The idea became prevalent that a Latin body buried in Greek church grounds would not decompose. Over time, this was embellished to include rising from the dead and feasting on the young and beautiful. It was deemed that victims became emaciated, speedily died of consumption and then transformed into blood sucking vampires themselves.

This legend was common in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Middle East. Vampires were called vrykolakas in Greece and stringoi in Romania. In the early 18th century the vampire legend spread across western Europe. This led to mass hysteria and in some cases corpses being staked as a preventative measure.

In 1819, John Polidori published the novel, "The Vampyre" and secured the name. "There was no colour upon her cheek, not even upon her lip; yet there was a stillness about her face that seemed almost as attaching as the life that once dwelt there:-upon her neck and breast was blood, and upon her throat were the marks of teeth having opened the vein:-to this the men pointed, crying, simultaneously struck with horror, "A Vampyre! a Vampyre!"

However, it is Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, "Dracula" that is considered to be the quintessential vampire novel. It provided the basis for modern vampire fiction. "But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over the dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings."

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