I was a ten-year-old kid whose best friend was an old lady. I felt weird knowing it was true, but I did enjoy our small adventures together. So, when Grandma asked if I’d like to celebrate my birthday at the movies—my choice—I was all in.

“Yes! Let’s see Dracula!”

“I don’t know,” Grandma said, “It could give you nightmares.”

“I’d like to see something… different,” I said.

“You didn’t enjoy Auntie Mame and Around the World in 80 Days? I thought they were lovely and fun.”

Those were the Wednesday matinees we recently saw. Just the sound of ‘lovely’ made me nauseous. I pled my case.

“I saw Godzilla on TV and it didn’t scare me. An old creep with fangs in a silly cape isn’t going to give me nightmares.”

“Well, Dracula’s a vampire, a bit more than a creep.”

“Look, I even felt sorry for Godzilla. The A-bomb made him a killer. In the end, the Japanese army and the man from the Perry Mason show killed him, and everything returned to normal.”

“That hardly sounds normal.”

“What I mean is, I knew it was just a movie, not real. No nightmares.”

Grandma relented, and we went to a double feature in Morristown, The Horror of Dracula and The Thing That Wouldn’t Die. Grandma paused under the theater’s marquee, reading the display posters.

“Hmm, ‘Those who come to end his realm of terror stay to become his victims.’ Or this, ‘The line between vampire and human is a fragile one.’”

Grandma pretended to shiver and said, “I still have my doubts. We could go to Schraft’s for a cup of cocoa and slice of cake instead.”

“The posters exaggerate. They make the shows sound scarier than they are,” I said.

“All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Well, Grandma did warn me and she was right! There was just a thin line between vampire and human! Dracula sucked the life out of beautiful girls while feckless family and boyfriends stood around and did nothing. His victims became vampires. Garlic, crosses, and holy water made him hiss, but he kept coming back. I had barely eaten any raisenets bought me and the box was damp from my sweaty hands.

“Are you okay?” Grandma asked.

“Of course.” I bared my teeth at her to show her how unfazed I was.

In the spirit of my horsing around, she curled her upper lip, flashed her gleaming incisors at me. I thought I’d pee in my pants right there in my seat. I choked out a weak laugh.

“Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying it,” Grandma said.

My blood drained to the carpeted floor. This movie said it all. Things are not what they seem! Despite their magnificent house and upper-crusty English accents, these sorry dopes didn’t know the difference between a fiend and a friend. The beautiful Lucy became a vampire. At the torturous end, Dracula was staked through the heart and set on fire by sunlight.

I wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t return. We stayed for the opening scenes of the second feature, The Thing That Wouldn’t Die, but left early.

***

On the ride home, I had a horrible feeling about where the leering vampire was heading.

That night, I saw Dracula climb out of the half door of our attic.

He swooped past my doorway, his cape rustling. The ghoul skulked outside my bedroom and then disappeared. I arranged pencils in my room and improvised crosses. I crossed myself, then drew crosses in the air above my bed to repel Dracula. For good measure, I invoked the ancestor spirits of the Pure Land that my mother used to pray to and asked them to protect me.

Those spirits were among the tattered memories that survived the two years since my mother left us and returned to Japan. But her shadow insisted on staying.

Though I survived that night, I bolstered my defenses for the next. I took the antique cross that lay on my grandmother’s dresser. Jesus would work his magic through the cross and send Dracula cowering back into the shadows. I’d press that holy jewel on his chalky forehead, sizzling his skin just like in the movie. The night came and went without incident.

When I came home from school, Grandma asked me if I had taken the silver cross off her bureau. I told her that I just needed to borrow it for a while.

“Why on earth would you need to do that?”

I confessed that I was scared and wanted the cross to ward off Dracula.

“Of course, you know vampires don’t exist, right?” Grandma said.

“Maybe not,” I said, “but I saw what I saw.”

“I should never have taken you to see that miserable show. I could just kick myself!”

After several more nights blighted by vampires, Grandma moved me from the upstairs bedroom to the spare room downstairs. It was a relief to have more distance from the undead. I worried less about Dracula and rarely saw him.

I thought about my mother and how she had changed into a person I did not know. Something not of this world, like a vampire, might have taken hold of her. I wrestled with these ideas, which made sense in a crazy way, and managed to survive.