Picking up where I left off. Rambling on about vampires! Right.
Anyway, it would become quickly obvious that there was something not quite right about the recently-turned. The constant excuses, avoidant behavior, sleeping all day, never seeming to eat or drink anything, all of that would ring alarm bells in people's heads. And what if their devoutly religious Great-Aunt Gertrude, who just happens to wear a crucifix at all times, showed up? It'll be really hard to explain why they suddenly recoiled, hissing, and may or may not be clinging to the ceiling like a cartoon cat right now.
Again, this seems to be why most vampires in fiction are shown to either have lived for centuries or simply don't have anyone important to them. It negates the problem of having to try to hide things from living friends and relatives. I'd imagine that eventually the stress of hiding it would cause some people to snap and start acting like Nicolas Cage in Vampire's Kiss. Well, that'd be one way to get it off your chest at least. Or get yourself institutionalized. Either way.
Vampires are immortal. Our vampire is going to have to spend a lot of time moving from place to place, or else people are going to question why they still don't look a day over twenty-five...thirty years later. Good genes, healthy living and plastic surgery can only go so far, and eventually even the most skeptical skeptic is going to suspect that there's something abnormal about them. Friends and family would need to be cut off entirely after a certain point, and faking your own demise will probably come into play. Which brings me to my next point...
Assuming an entirely new identity is hard. We're long past the days where mixing up the letters in your name and calling yourself "Mircalla" instead of "Carmilla" is enough. There's the question of ID, birth certificates, school records, Social Security, passports, and all that fun stuff. Convincing people that you are Bob Joesmith and certainly not Joe Bobsmith will take more than just saying so. It's my understanding that using a false identity is something the authorities frown on once they learn that you are doing so. That said, our undead friend would find themselves in a lot of trouble if they hadn't the resources necessary to make this at least somewhat easier.
I'll just assume all those centuries-old vampires do this through a vast network of connections they've built up over time.
What about the victims themselves? Unless a vampire's feeding exclusively on people who've got nobody else in the world, someone is bound to miss the person. Family, friends, significant others, employers even. People can't just up and vanish without someone taking notice eventually. Also, say a panicky fledgling vampire leaves the body where it can be discovered. Even if they lick the wounds shut, wouldn't an autopsy reveal that the body's short on blood? For no good reason at all? Don't you think that'd be the least little bit peculiar? Even in Dracula, they took note of Lucy's continuous and inexplicable blood loss. Also, what if someone saw the vampire with the victim before they were found dead? Or there were traces of their hair, or saliva, or anything on the body. Whole lot of trouble, right?
I understand how we get around this as writers. They're supernatural, they're monsters, they have powers mortals don't. But again, I just have too much fun thinking about how things would work if you don't just hand-wave everything away.
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