David Jasso, “Víctimas inocentes” [Innocent Victims] (2009) 1

David Jasso is one of the founding members of the Spanish horror fiction collective Nocte, created to raise the profile and enhance the standing of Spanish writers working in this genre. The story is set in an unnamed small community, which one assumes to be in Spain. The narrator is a young husband, married to a woman called Luz, meaning “light” as well as being a Spanish forename, and with a two-month old baby boy called Dani. “Víctimas inocentes” is as interesting for what the vampires do not represent as for what they do: transgressive sexuality is conspicuous by its absence despite ample opportunity to introduce it. The story is about the innocent being tricked and betrayed by one of their own and then emotionally blackmailed into consenting to join a dark force that is taking over the world.