Legends of the living dead have filled the pages of mythology since time immemorial. If ninety-nine point nine percent of the stories can be explained as hallucinations, tricks of the light, moving shadows or sheer imagination, a hard core of disquieting fact remains.The vampire lives in the minds of men. When was it born? Perhaps in the dim distance of the remote past when the racial subconscious was being moulded. What keeps the vampire tradition alive in the mind of modern man? The two tiny words of "what if...?"Leroy Thompson met a girl in a dark country lane. He offered her a lift. He met her again and again, but always by night. Then he looked in the driving mirror and saw only his own reflection... She cast no shadow in the headlights... She screamed and leapt from the car before he reached a bridge that crossed a moonlit stream... What if?