How to kill a vampire

I’ve just come across a collection of journal entries and memorandums about a tragic experience of a group of persons with a count named Dracula, an otherworldly creature called “Vampire” that I wasn’t even aware it existed until now.

Maybe you know about them and, as I’ve read some time later, think is enough to use a wooden stake. It is not. Its purpose to prevent it from rising. But remove it and it could come back again.

In one of the diaries of some Dr. Seward in this collection he tells how they killed one of these creatures while it was sleeping.

First, use a wooden stack and a hammer and, just a point above its heart struck with might.

Expect the creature to writhe and quiver while screeching. After a while it should lay still.

Afterwards, the gruesome task of cutting off the head should be done. Don’t forget to add garlic to its mouth.

Why garlic? Can’t completely tell, but it is mentioned many times since one of the people mentioned in the diaries is striken by vampirism. They try to cure her with flowers of this plant among other things, but sadly with no avail. Maybe its apotropaic effects are for people completely converted, but it does nothing against the vampirism process itself.