HAUNTED WIRRAL: The Wallasey vampire

In this latest tale, Tom explores the strange case of the Wallasey vampire...

In the early 1980s a 20-year-old woman named Natalie lost her beloved grandmother Susan to a long illness, and, against the wishes of 'Nanny Sue' (as Natalie had always called her), Susan was cremated at the Landican Crematorium after the funeral service at St Hilary’s Church in Wallasey.

Nanny Sue had always told Natalie that she wanted to be buried because she believed that one day, Jesus would return and, as the Bible promised, all of the dead who had believed in Christ would be resurrected.

Nanny Sue believed there’d be nothing to resurrect if she was cremated.

Natalie had told her father and mother about her nan’s wishes but they took no notice.

Now Natalie kept the urn conatining her nan’s ashes in her room, and her sister Abbey thought this was a barmy thing to do.

Natalie identified with the burgeoning Goth movement and she slowly turned her back on Christianity and most of the organised religions.

She painted the walls of her bedroom at her home on Harrow Road, Wallasey, a dark purple, installed red and blue spotlights in the matt black ceiling, and lit joss sticks to create a mystical atmosphere.

Natalie also started to devour books on Black Magic – and lots of wine - and she toyed with the idea of forming her own coven.

In the bedroom next door to hers, 17-year-old sister Abbey was the very antithesis of Natalie.

Her walls were bright yellow and orange, and she listened to Buck’s Fizz, Modern Romance and the likes of Duran Duran, whereas the music emanating from Natalie’s 'Sanctum' (as she called it), was usually the caterwauling voice of Siouxsie Sioux or something by The Cure.

Then one evening as a thunderstorm raged over Wallasey, Natalie decided to try a spell for raising the dead from an old book on ritual magic that she’d bought in a jumble sale.

The controversial spell required the ashes of a person who had been cremated, and Natalie decided to use the ashes from her nan’s urn.

She put a chair to the door in case anyone came in, and then she started the long invocations as the thundering skies opened and pelted the roof with heavy rainfall.

At the end of the ritual, nothing happened. Natalie swore – and then she noticed the shadow of a thin man on the door – which, being red, was the only thing a shadow could be visible upon in this room of black walls.

She was stunned and a little afraid, but when the ghostly shadow vanished she told it to come back.

That night, Natalie went to bed at midnight, and she fell asleep.

She had a vivid dream that the ghost of a naked young man had come into her room through the ceiling.

He told her his name (it sounded like 'Salin') and he said he had come to her because she had tried that rite to raise the dead.

Salin said he was from the 'world beyond the grave' and that if Natalie did what he said, he’d give her eternal life and even reunite her with her deceased nan.

"I am the only way to everlasting life," he told Natalie, and he explained that he’d have to make love to her and draw off some of her life force to initiate her into his ‘cult’.

Around this time in the waking world, Natalie’s sister Abbey was awakened from her sleep by the rhythmic sound of bed springs and a thumping on her wall.

She thought that Natalie – who was single – had brought some boy home, and the sound of lovemaking became so loud, Abbey’s father got up, went to his daughter’s bedroom door and knocked.

There was no answer and he suddenly heard Natalie cry “Get off me!”

Abbey peeped from the doorway of her room and saw that her father had now been joined by her mum.

There was a scream, and Natalie’s father burst in.

He and his wife saw a shadowy figure fly up from his daughter’s bed and pass through the ceiling.

Natalie got up, and wrapped a blanket about her naked body, but she had blood trickling from a bite mark in her neck.

Her father said he was going to burn all of her books on the Occult, as he believed that Natalie had conjured up something demonic with her cavalier dabbling, but at least once a night after that, the shadowy Salin would return and assault Natalie in her bed and draw off blood from various parts of her body.

Abbey went to several priests and told them about the bloodthirsty ‘ghost’ but the holy men said it was more a case for a psychiatrist than a clergyman.

A young reverend in the area named Daniel heard about the attacks and visited the family at Harrow Road.

He said he had heard of similar attacks and told Natalie’s parents that Salin was a real-life vampire who had been active since the 1930s.

He had been a pillar of the community but behind closed doors he was an occultist who craved eternal life.

He was buried in a certain grave in the churchyard of St Hilary, and his dark vaporous ghost was seen to rise from this grave on some nights when he went in search of 'prana' – the life force vampires feed off in human blood.

Daniel eventually contained the vampire by burying an old Norse amulet with the potent 'Gibu Auja' protection rune engraved upon it, and he and Abbey even staked out the cemetery and saw Salin rise from his grave.

However, in 2007 there were reports that Salin was active again in the Wallasey area.

Whatever your religion is – may your God protect you...