When writing horror, you sometimes
have to know…what’s the best way to put this? Odd things. You might need to
know the effects produced by a lightning strike to the human head. You might
need to know exactly how long it takes a person to suffocate in a pile of cat
litter. Or you might need to know the volume of blood in a given kind of animal
so that you could, for example, figure out what to bring to a vampire party.
With some creatures, you can easily
look up how much blood they contain. The amount of blood in an average human is
pretty well documented. A healthy, 5’10” adult male is going to have between
1.32 and 1.5 gallons of blood. That’s actually a lot of liquid to try to drink
in a single sitting. When was the last time that you drank a whole gallon of
anything at once? And yet, vampires are routinely portrayed sucking people
completely dry of blood. Now, I get that vampires don’t eat solid food, so they
need to compensate by drinking their entire diet, but imagine drinking 1.32
gallons of blood. That’s 11.682 pounds. Have you ever eaten more than eleven
pounds of food in one sitting? Even figuring for a supernaturally dark
appetite, that’s a lot to eat in one
go. Most people only eat between 3 and 5 pounds per day. So, if a vampire is drinking a whole human, it’s probably only
eating every two or three days.
For those of you concerned with
feeding a large group of vampires, either in real life or in fiction, here’s
the simple rule of thumb my research has uncovered: the average blood volume of
a healthy animal is 7-9% of that animal’s total body weight. So, if you want to
figure out how many gallons of blood there are in a creature, simply take its
total body weight, multiply it by .08 and then divide the resulting number by
8.85. Why 8.85? Because a gallon of blood weighs 8.85 pounds, so that’s an easy
way to convert the blood weight into gallons.
And just in case you are super busy
or your vampire party is tonight, here’s a quick reference list:
African Elephant: 65 gallons of
blood
Giraffe: 23.5 gallons of blood
Large Bull: 21.69 gallons of blood
Draft Horse: 14.8 gallons of blood
Standard Horse: 12 gallons of blood
Holstein Cow: 11.5 gallons of blood
Llama: 4 gallons of blood
Silverback Gorilla: 3.61 gallons of
blood
Human: 1.32 gallons of blood
Labrador retriever: Just over half a
gallon of blood
Cat: 8.5 ounces of blood
Rabbit: 4.3 ounces of blood
Mouse: 0.05 ounces of blood
So, if you are throwing a medium
sized vampire party, say 15-20 vampires, I’d suggest you bring a giraffe. Not
only will it provide enough blood, it has a long enough neck that they can all
sit down to eat at the same time.
Demon
Freaks
J.R.R.R.
(Jim) Hardison
Publisher: Fiery Seas Publishing
Release Date: October 3, 2017
Genre: YA Horror/Comedy
Book Description:
It’s the night before the SAT
test. The forces of darkness are stirring.
Twin brothers, Bing and Ron
Slaughter, know they’ve got to cram like their lives depend on it because their
college plans sure do. If they don’t ace the test, they’ll be doomed to spend
the rest of their days flipping burgers at the McDonald’s their parents run.
That’s why they hatch a plan to meet up with the members of their punk band,
the Ephits, spend the night studying at a secluded cabin in the woods, and
maybe squeeze in a little jamming. What could go wrong with a brilliant plan
like that?
Ancient evil. That’s what.
As a cataclysmic lightning storm
rolls in, Bing, Ron and the rest of the Ephits find themselves tangled in a
sinister plot to summon a demon. Yes, demons are real. To survive the night,
the band must find a malevolent artifact, battle bloodthirsty monsters and
stand against the most dangerous and powerful foe humanity has ever faced…the
Golfer’s Association.
Teaser:
“Wait, wait, wait,” Ron
interrupted. “The Golfers Association? Don’t you mean insane cultists or Satan
worshipers or evil wizards or something?”
“Insane cultists, Satan
worshipers and evil wizards are like elderly nuns compared to the Golfers’
Association,” their prisoner responded. “You’d be much better off if it were
something that simple. These guys are demon freaks.”
“Demon freaks,” Bing repeated in
a whisper. “That sounds…bad.”
“Oh, it’s bad alright,” the
prisoner shuddered. “You have no idea.”
About
the Author:
Fish Wielder is J.R.R.R. (Jim)
Hardison's first novel novel (He wrote a graphic novel, The Helm, for Dark
Horse Comics). Jim has worked as a writer, screen writer, animator and film
director. He started his professional career by producing a low-budget
direct-to-video feature film, The Creature From Lake Michigan. Making a bad
movie can be a crash course in the essential elements of good character and
story, and The Creature From Lake Michigan was a tremendously bad movie.
Shifting his focus entirely to animation, Jim joined Will Vinton Studios where
he directed animated commercials for M&M’s and on the stop-motion TV series
Gary and Mike. While working at Vinton, he also co-wrote the television special
Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy with actor Paul Reiser.
Jim has appeared on NBC's The
Apprentice as an expert advisor on brand characters, developed characters and
wrote the pilot episode for the PBS children's television series SeeMore's
Playhouse and authored the previously mentioned graphic novel, The Helm, named
one of 2010's top ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens by YALSA, a branch of the
American Library Association. These days, Jim is the creative director and
co-owner of Character LLC, a company that does story-analysis for brands and
entertainment properties. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his lovely wife,
two amazing kids, one smart dog and one stupid dog.
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