There is one real positive thing about my hometown of Bon Temps, Louisiana: Though it isn’t all that big, it can sure adapt.

Back in high school we were studying Shakespeare, and there was this quote in Hamlet that seems to describe the last few years: “There are more things in heaven and on earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Everyone trots that out in bad horror movies, but there’s a reason for that. It really does say it all.

I always thought that life, and society, wouldn’t change in my little corner of Louisiana. That was before the whole world got shocked one evening when we found out that vampires were real and not just something that you saw in cheesy late-night movies.

Two years later, a real vampire walked into my life one night in Merlotte’s and pulled me smack-dab into the middle of his world. There are times that I wish I had not been working that night, but I know it would have happened one way or another.

THE VAMPIRES

I love the sun. I felt so sorry for vampires when I really considered what it would mean to live your life in the darkness—to never see the blue sky, watch butterflies, see a hummingbird at a feeder . . . just enjoy the day. And some vampires haven’t seen the light of day for over a thousand years. A thousand years of night! It’s hard to wrap my mind around.

And all the time they kept their existence as secret as they could. They’d still be skulking around picking off humans if some Japanese scientists hadn’t managed to create a form of synthetic blood that was just like the real stuff; in fact, in English they named one brand TrueBlood. I figure there were probably stories in the newspaper or on television about this product when it was getting approved for the market, though I don’t remember seeing any.

But the vamps were all over it. It gave them the impetus they needed to start networking, trying to form a plan to coordinate their entrance into the modern world. After a lot of palaver, they decided to, as they say, “come out of the coffin” to let us know they are here and have been here for a long time. The vamps were very anxious to present themselves as no threat to the normal human population. They wanted everyone to know that they were the person next door—except for the “not going out in the day” thing, the fangs problem, and the blood addiction. They downplayed that part, emphasized the “not Eurotrash in a tuxedo” aspect.