The next time I saw him, he showed up at my door on the following Thursday. I hadn�t been expecting guests. I remember I was sitting on the couch just starting to watch "Rain Man," when they came. It was Christopher, Larry, Lisa and Dee. When I asked what they were doing, Christopher said they were having what he called a "port-o-party." This is where they would drive around picking up more and more people in the car, as they drove around. (Not strangers on the street, but people they already knew.)
They insisted that I come along. So I changed clothes quickly and joined them. I don�t remember it actually being a party. No one had alcohol or drugs. It was more of an innocent visiting game.
I was introduced to Dee. He was short and wore high heeled boots. He wore eye liner. I felt that he was a bit immature. At one stop we made, he got out of the car and slammed his guitar as hard as he could on the pavement. I don�t know if the guitar was ruined or not, but I just didn�t understand the stupidity of such an action! My guitars were my prized possessions. A small nick or scratch would have been the end of the world to me!
Lisa was totally quiet. She was a tall pretty red-head, dressed in skin tight stretch pants and very high heels. I marveled at her ability to walk in them!
We drove around for a while, making stops at various houses, where I was introduced to more new people. It was a pleasant evening, aside from Dee�s destructive display with the guitar. (It was hard for me to immediately accept that I would have to work with him in the band.) I was dropped off at my house and escorted to the door by Larry, the silent bodyguard.
After that, I went on several more port-o-parties with them. The next one was with just Christopher, Dee and myself. At one stop, Dee turned around in his seat, and said, "You know we�re vampire�s? You�ll have to pass an initiation."
Christopher looked at Dee and shouted, "Shut up!"
Several weeks later, I was asleep in my bed. I was having a dream. There was an old burnt down barn. The beams had fallen down. The only way in was to crawl. I got down on my hands and knees and went it. The floor was covered with burnt soot and cinders. A rat ran across my hand. I could hear bats chattering at the ceiling. I came to a clearing where I could stand up. Christopher was lying on the floor. I ran to him and started to shake him. He opened his eyes. They were glowing red. He sat up and said, "I am the angel of darkness." A second later he was biting my neck. The pain was incredible.
I woke up from the dream, holding my neck. The phone was ringing. I picked it up and found that it was Christopher. I said, "I just had this really weird dream about you."
He said, "I know."
I said, "What the F*** do you mean, you know"?
He laughed and said, "Well, what�s the matter? Don�t you like rodents and bats? I have to admit, the barn was a bit squalid, but what do you expect for a bad dream, my dear?"
The hair stood up on my arms. A chill ran over me. I dropped the phone on the bed. When I picked it back up, there was nothing but a dial tone.
Over time, I learned that his ability to know my dreams was constant and accurate. Each time I had a dream with him in it, he would describe it to me the next time I saw him, or spoke with him on the phone. It became a game. If I dreamt of walking down the street with him in the rain, the next time we spoke, he�d nudge me in the arm and say, "Hey, umbrella." Anything to let me know that he knew.
He also began to predict accidents before they would happen. There were several occasions when I told him I was making small road trips. He had told me not to go, and each time I went against his warnings, I would end up with car trouble or in some minor traffic accident. Each time, just before something bad was about to happen, I would smell his cologne, very strongly, in the car.
One evening we were out at the club where we had first met. It was a weekly ritual to go to this club at the beginning of each week to check out the new bands. On this night I met them there, instead of joining the car pool. We sat and talked for a while, then Christopher announced that he had to leave; Larry had to work in the morning.
They stood up, put on their coats, then Christopher hugged me good-bye, as usual. I watched them leave, and decided to stay for a while longer. I went to the bathroom to check my hair. I stood in front of the mirror. As I moved my hair, I noticed blood running down my neck. I wiped it off to find more open wounds. My neck was bleeding for quite some time. Oddly, I had felt no pain when he hugged me. It didn�t seem like he was near my neck long enough to have done anything.
A lady in the bathroom saw my neck, and said, "God, what happened?"
I was shaking, as I said, "I don�t know. I think I was just bit by a vampire!"
She laughed and walked away!
I went to my regular open stage blues jam. Christopher was supposed to show up there to hear me play. My neck was still quite a mess. I wore a scarf around my neck. I kept taking the scarf off, telling all of my blues-playing acquaintances that there were vampires, and they were real and they were in Indianapolis. No one took me seriously. In fact, I don�t think anyone even heard me!
The following day, Christopher called. I asked him, "What are you, a vampire?"
He replied, "I don�t claim to be anything," and ended the conversation by saying that his dinner was ready.
In the group, the people that I was introduced to that normally hung around Christopher�s house or were a part of the port-o-parties, no one had ever seen Christopher actually eat, or drink anything. This was a delicate subject with him.
One evening, as we sat around Lisa�s apartment working on songs, Dee started to tease him. Christopher had picked up a potato chip. Dee said, "Hey, watch this! That chip is going to go down him like a lump in a snake! He is so skinny!"
Christopher giving him a look that could kill, said, "Yeah, but I could throw you over this building."
A silence fell over the room. No one doubted that he could, in fact, throw any of us over a building. The solid conviction of his words is what gave him that power.
Larry was appointed to pick me up and deliver me home each time we had a rehearsal or a meeting. I had my own car, and often wondered why I got such special treatment. Larry was usually very quiet, only speaking when absolutely necessary. Out of curiosity, trying to make conversation with this silent huge man, I asked him why he did all of these favors for Christopher if he wasn�t getting paid. He told me that Christopher had once saved his life, and that he was indebted to him forever. He didn�t give any more details.
The second time I actually "slept" with Christopher, was the strangest night of them all! We had all gone to the club, in Dee�s car. For the first time, Larry was not with us. Christopher and I sat at the table, talking, and holding hands. Dee had run into a girl that he knew on the dance floor. He wanted to go to her house.
We got in the car, and went to this lady�s apartment. Dee and his friend went upstairs to be alone. Christopher and I were down stairs on the couch. He mentioned something about calling Lisa so she wouldn�t worry, but he didn�t call her.
I slept on some couch cushions on the floor, and Christopher slept on the couch. He was lying on his back with his arms crossed on his chest. Actually, I didn�t sleep. I was very awake. I noticed that the sun was coming up and that this lady�s apartment had a huge sliding glass window. The sun was shining through the window. The patch of sun was moving slowly toward us. I suddenly realized that I was going to see Christopher in the sunlight for the first time. I was very interested in seeing this, since everyone had joked about his nocturnal vampiric lifestyle. I guess I was just as curious as everyone else. Everyone knew that there were strange things about him (his sleeping habits, his non-existent diet, his age was a mystery, his real name was a mystery, etc.), but I didn�t tell anyone he had bitten me. I supposed that maybe he had bitten them, too! (It wasn�t until many years later that I was finally able to "compare notes" with the other people that were around him.) I was very interested in seeing his reaction to the sun.
I sat up and watched the sun creep over him. At first nothing happened. Then, he opened his eyes, and smiled at me. His eyes were like reflectors, glowing gray like they had miniature flash lights inside them. I�d never seen anything like it!
A few minutes later, we were getting in the car. Christopher bundled himself up in his trench coat. Nothing was exposed except for his hands. He got in the back seat with me and hunched down into my lap, as if he were sick, shielding himself from the sun.
He cursed the sun all the way home. (I had never heard him curse before!) I kept asking if he was going to be all right. He told Dee to turn on the air conditioner. It was mid-February and he wanted the air conditioner! He was burning up under the sun! Normally, Christopher was cold to the touch, like a corpse. When the sun was on him, he was like a bug under a magnifying glass. What I had first thought would be an interesting thing to see had turned into quite a panicky situation. I was very concerned for him.
During this time in my life I was unemployed. My parents had helped me out with my rent. I needed a job. I had been a topless dancer for a short period of time when I was married to the biker. I remembered that I did make a lot of money at it. Lisa was a dancer, and I had often asked if her place of employment was hiring. Christopher helped in my quest to find a job, by suggesting this little neighborhood bar called Bud�s Lounge.
Larry picked me up and drove me there. I was immediately content with the place because the boss was a woman. I had been to so many other bars like this where the employers were lecherous men who forced the girls into bad situations. I could see that this place was very different. I auditioned that night, and got hired.
I find it completely amazing that this place was so fitting for me. I ended up working at Bud�s for over five years. It is a place that is engraved in my heart, and the friends that I made there are friends for life. I guess it shouldn�t surprise me that Christopher could make such a great suggestion. Over the years he made many great suggestions for me.
Sometime after that I was told that Christopher and Lisa were a couple, and that they had been a couple from the very beginning. All of his involvement with me was an affair behind Lisa�s back. This was rather hard news for me to take. I was given the choice at that point, because Lisa was getting suspicious of me, to either stay with the band or continue to see him behind her back. I had to choose between Christopher and the band. Much to everyone�s surprise, I chose the band. Perhaps this was an unexpected blow to Christopher�s ego. Dee was very happy with my decision! This worked out rather nicely, and I started to date a young man by the name of Shannon.
I had moved out of the house I had lived in with Don and Dianne. When I had stopped by to pay off my debts, I had a short conversation with Dianne. We were talking about how this move was for the best; no hard feelings -- when I added the comment, "You never liked my friends anyway."
She replied, "No, your friends were fine. It�s just that one guy with the long black hair, he gave me the creeps!"
I said, "Who? Christopher? He wouldn�t hurt a fly."
She said, "Something about him just scared me."
I was working at Bud�s when Christopherand Dee had a slight falling out. He called me there to tell me that with Dee out of the band, I was going to have to write all new songs for the band, since the material we normally played was written by Dee. He was very insistent, and told me he wanted the songs right away. I told him I had a few written, but they were slightly gender-locked in lyrical content. He wasn�t happy with that, and agreed only to sing a few like that. I had never been pressured to write music before, and I was very nervous about it. I didn�t think we would be playing soon if we had to replace Dee.
The kid I was dating, Shannon, was nine-teen years old. His parents had left him behind when they moved out of state. Shannon stayed behind because he was in a very promising band called Jaded Heart. He had only been playing bass for five months. He wasn�t the greatest, and he could only play what his band-mates taught him.
He was a sweet kid, though, who sort of followed me around like a little puppy dog. He was constantly over at my house. We had been together for nearly two months before I finally asked if he would like to meet my lead singer. When he agreed, I added "Well, I�ve got to warn you now. He�s a vampire." Shannon didn�t seem to believe that.
We drove over to Christopher�s house. I was thinking this little visit with my new boyfriend along, might ease Lisa�s mind since I had heard that she was still suspicious of my relationship with Christopher.
Introductions were made, and we sat on two opposing couches. (Christopher and Lisa on one -- Shannon and me on the other.) Christopher asked Shannon all about his band, and was hinting that he would like to produce or manage the band. This was about forty-five minutes, then it was time to leave. We were escorted to the door. Christopher gave me a hug, and shook Shannon�s hand.
We didn�t get down two flights of stairs before Shannon started screaming, "Oh my God! His hand...! The guy is dead! He�s a vampire!"
In the weeks that followed, Shannon asked me nearly every single day if we could go back to Christopher�s house. I didn�t know why he had such a sudden fascination.
The next time I spoke to Christopher, I told him, "You know, Shannon�s totally obsessed with you. He keeps begging to see you again."
Christopher said, "Oh, really?... Well, Send him over."
When I told Shannon that Christopher had invited him, he was out of my door faster than a speeding bullet. I didn�t see Shannon for two weeks after that.
Next, I was being told that Shannon was to replace Dee in our band. I was completely against the idea. I knew he couldn�t play well enough, and I knew I didn�t have the patience to teach every single song note by note. I told Christopher, "Look, I don�t mind him in my life, and in my bed, but I don�t want him in the band."
Christopher replied with two words, "He�s in!"
Then he started telling Shannon that we would have to break up as a couple in order to stay in the band together. I didn�t quite follow the logic behind this. Shannon and I continued to see each other. We decided to pretend to break up and hide that part of our lives to avoid lectures from Christopher.
At our next rehearsal, Christopher barged into the room, screaming at both of us, "You haven�t done what I have asked of you!"
Christopher could reach eight octaves, and had a very powerful singing voice, so when and if he ever shouted at you, it was nearly enough to make your hair fall out!
Shannon and I were eventually forced into breaking off our relationship. It took several weeks for me to get my thoughts together and decide what was more important. What I saw next was the deciding factor.
Shannon moved in with Christopher and Lisa. He was very obviously being brainwashed right before my eyes. He didn�t do anything unless Christopher instructed him to do so first. He didn�t talk to anyone, especially me, unless C hristopher said it was all right. As I said at the time, the Shannon I knew was dead. The kid had absolutely no free will of his own.
I called Christopher with the complaint, "You stole Shannon!"
Christopher replied, "Well, I don�t know what to tell you, my dear. Shannon is loyal to me now."
I hung up the phone, grabbed my road atlas and pointed randomly at a page. My finger landed on Warren Dunes, Michigan. I got in the car and drove there. (Don�t ask me why. This isn�t something I was in the habit of doing. I just wanted to get away and to think.) The place was beautiful. I laid on the beach and wrote in my journal. I finally reached the decision to go home and get Shannon out of there, no matter what it took.
All I managed to do was quit the band myself. I couldn�t get Shannon out. Christopher made it impossible for me to even speak with him. It was forbidden.
I also made an attempt to talk some sense into Lisa. I told her about the affair, and that I was concerned that he would probably have affairs with other girls. She agreed. I expressed that even though she was in agreement with me, and a bit upset with him, that she would only go home, he would snap his fingers and she would forget that she was ever upset. She said I was right, and that�s exactly what happened.
Later that week, I received a letter from Shannon. It said that I should not call, or come over, or make any attempts to reach him. He warned, "Christopher is quite pissed, and we both know what he can do."
I suppose I was doubly jealous. I lost Shannon, and I also lost the friendship with Christopher. I didn�t understand what I had done wrong, if anything. I guess it was against the rules for me to have a boyfriend.
I got completely away from them. I started to date a young man named Tristan. This was a brand new friendship, with no ties to Christopher whatsoever. However, several months later Tristan mysteriously disappeared. I left hundreds of messages of concern on his machine. When Tristan finally called to let me know he was all right, he confessed that he had been at Christopher�s house all of this time.
I had not introduced them. I have no idea how Tristan fell into it. (Another grand mystery) At any rate, Tristan also moved in with Christopher, Shannon and Lisa. The small apartment was filling up rather fast... and I was quickly running out of eligible boyfriends!
This was quite disturbing. Christopher still had tabs on me. He knew whom I was dating, and could take them out from under my nose. I was also aware that he probably still knew my dreams. I had always thought he had "sent" the dreams. It was natural for me to develop quite a few paranoias. I began to think that he had complete control over my life, even from a distance. How does the saying go? "A good friend can make an even greater enemy." Christopher was a monster of an enemy!
I continued to stay away from him. I counted my losses and tried to move on. Around this time, I ran into Max. Max had been an old "port-o-party" friend, a mildly annoying person with homosexual tendencies. (He wasn�t annoying because he had homosexual tendencies; he was just annoying in general.) For the first time, I was able to share the story with someone who had known Christopher. I was relieved to find out that I was not the only one who had been subjected to the dream game. I was also not the only one to wonder about his age and his identity, and all of the other mysterious things. Max had been trying to uncover these mysteries for years!
Max and I spent months discussing Christopher. We did get his real name. We also talked to Billy, who was Christopher�s hair and make-up artist. Billy was reporting attack dreams... dreams that were quite violent, and obviously from Christopher.
I know this might seem like a lot of mumbo-jumbo to the average citizen. I wouldn�t have believed in this sort of thing either, seven years ago. I cannot express, though, exactly how real this became.
With any sort of paranormal experience, it is hard to tell people about it without the fear that everyone will think you�re a nut case. Given a logical explanation, too, his dream game might be dismissed by most as a trick of the mind. I experienced his dream readings first hand. He had no time to plant an idea into my mind that I would later dream about. This happened many times when I had not seen or spoken to him for days. He was also very specific and graphically described these dreams to me. Whatever the case, this ability of his was very real to me, and very scary at times... and he knew it.
When Max and I had discovered Christopher�s real name, we felt that this was a great accomplishment. No one had ever known his name, or his true age. Christopher had claimed to be twenty-eight for years. We caught on to this, and after a while, Christopher wouldn�t even answer a question about his age. Max and I also found out that Christopher had been born in Germany. This was all we knew. I sat on this information for years without doing any sort of personal investigation. In 1994, I finally hired a private investigator to uncover his age. It took months, and when the information came back, I wasn�t exactly shocked to learn that according to my investigator�s findings, Christopher was over seventy years old! This is another example of something that seems improbable, yet almost totally believable after you�ve met him.
I had paranoia�s about Christopher. I began to feel that since he knew my dreams, he probably also knew most of my thoughts. After a while, when you can�t come up with logical explanations for things, you might start to believe in magic!
When I started to compare notes with Max, I realized I wasn�t the only one with these paranoia�s. Max also thought that Christopher knew everything that he did or thought. We were not exactly afraid of him. It was more of a fascination.
We joked about this type of thing. For a while, it seemed that everywhere I went, be it a grocery store or to visit friends, there would always be a black cat. Max and I joked that this was Christopher in cat form, spying on us. I don�t think we actually believed that it was Christopher, it was just fun to blame all odd coincidences on our strange friend.
Every time I would tell the story about Christopher, something strange would happen. Once I was telling co-workers about him and later found that the tires on my car had been slashed. Another time, while I was at work telling a girl about Christopher, I took a break to get a drink. As I was handing my glass across the bar to be refilled, my boss was moving a beer bottle. The two glasses barely tapped each other and shattered all over the bar. One shard of glass was draped over my thumb. My first reaction was to rake the glass off my hand, but instead I carefully lifted the broken piece. If I had raked it off, I�m sure I would have cut my hand badly. Later, when I got home, Max came in the door with his hand all bandaged up. I asked what had happened. He said he didn�t know. All of the sudden it had just started bleeding. When he removed the bandages, I saw that the cut on his hand was identical to the one I nearly had.
When I met David A. (the first boyfriend that I was ever able to stay with without any interruption from Christopher) in 1992, we spent several days in deep conversation. When I told him about Christopher, Dave�s nose spontaneously started to gush blood! I had never seen such a severe nose-bleed in all of my life. Again, I joked that this was a result of telling this story.
Many years later, when Jeff Guinn and Andy Grieser were at my house interviewing for "Something in the Blood," their tape recorders jammed in the middle of my story. I joked with them at the time that strange things happened whenever I tell this story.
I guess it is easier to explain what I think about Christopher by saying that my opinion of him changes every day. Some days (although not as often now that I am no longer in his presence) I will think that he is possibly not a mortal human. Other days I think that he is merely a man, with no real powers or abilities. When I am reminded of how strange it actually was to be a part of his circle of followers, I sometimes see him as a cult leader of sorts. I�ve compared him to Manson, because he had such mind control over us, yet we never actually felt that we were losing our free will. Christopher made his suggestions (whatever they were) and everything he would suggest would sound so incredibly intelligent and "right" for our lives. He didn�t tell us to go out and kill anyone, or anything illegal or dangerous, but his power of suggestion was very intense, and we would have done anything he asked of us. That, in itself, is quite a scary thing!
To know that he was taking in young men like Shannon and Tristan (adding to his list of followers, who, as he would say, were very loyal to him), I was very concerned that many other young guys (or girls) would fall into this trap. Was it good for them to be there? What was Christopher getting out of this?
Maybe he enjoyed the attention. Maybe he was a person that wanted to be in complete control. Maybe he had a messiah complex.
As I look back at the immense faith I had in his powers. I can say that he was like a personal messiah to me. He was more tangible that any other figure in religion. I had no faith in any religion at that time. I was very frightened by death. My father had instilled a doubt in my mind about Christianity, Heaven, or an afterlife. When I was very young, he told me that when you are dead, that is it.
Christopher knew I had a fear of death, and he asked me why. He asked if I had ever had an out of body experience. I told him yes, but I hadn�t been sure if it was real or a dream. He interrupted my story to say, "Well, then you know that the body and the soul are separate."
I walked around with my fear of death, telling everyone I met about Christopher. Years after I had gotten away from him, I was still holding the belief that he had some sort of key to immortality.
The severity of this belief didn�t hit me until a very good friend of mine pointed out that I had more faith in Christopher than I did in Jesus Christ.
It was true! I wasn�t ready to have faith in something or someone that I could not see, hear, or touch. I thought that Jesus had said some nice things, and that the Bible taught people a good way to live, but I didn�t give these things a second thought. I didn�t see Christianity as a way to gain immortality. I doubted that it was possible.
I eventually moved back in with my parents. The lease was up in the small house I had been renting with Max. I left the house, and everything in it to Max. Back home again, I sat in my room (the one I had grown up in) and wrote. I wrote every single detail of my involvement with Christopher. I had no one to share this with, and I really did think I was losing my mind!
I found a book called, "Vampires Among Us" by Rosemary Ellen Guiley. It had case studies of different young people who drank blood. The people in the book weren�t like Christopher though. They merely pricked their fingers with little exact-o-knives, and shared a few drops with friends as sort of a bonding ritual. No one reported the kind of mind control and seduction that we experienced with Christopher.
In the back of the book, there were addresses of some organizations and researchers. I wrote to Martin Riccardo, because the caption under his address said that he collected information on vampires. I sent a very brief letter saying I had a very serious story to tell, if he could prove that he was sincere in his research.
He wrote a very nice letter in return, explaining that he had been researching this sort of thing for a long time, and that he would sincerely like to hear my story -- that it would be completely confidential.
I wrote many letters after that, giving the full story. My main question for Mr. Riccardo was, "Have you ever heard of this man? Has anyone ever written to you saying that Christopher bit them?"
No one had ever written to him about Christopher, but he said that there were many others who had very similar stories to mine. At first, I wasn�t thrilled with this. I was hoping to get more "dirt" on Christopher, but when the first letter arrived from a woman in Ohio that had also been a victim, I was blown away by the notion that someone else had actually "been there."
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