When we think of vampires, we generally think of the Edward Cullen and Dracula types who have captured the popular imagination for centuries. Pale? Check. Fanged? Check. Totally fictional? Check. But ...

At home and abroad, vampire scares usually began when a person died and others in the vicinity began dying, too, usually of the same sickness. Dod Miller / Getty Images A little more than a century ...

Eric Nuzum, author of The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula, toured Transylvania and even drank his own blood in... The Man Who Met 'Real' Vampires (Soundbite of song ...