Vampire tales chill readers> Author of campfire stories a former Maine resident

RYE, N.H. — Vampire zombies and giant lightning bugs in the Maine woods might seem more the terrain of a certain other horror author more closely associated with the state, but a new novel by a former resident skews to a slightly younger audience.

“The Tale of the Campfire Vampires” is the kind of story best left untold around campfires — at least on the kind of camping trips that don’t involve state-of-the-art RVs and crowded oceanside campgrounds with swimming pools.

The young-adult novel, which appeared in bookstores in June, is the work of New England native Clayton Emery, who now makes his home in an 18th century farmhouse a few miles from Rye’s postcard coastline with his wife and their teen-age son.

But Emery comes by his interest in Maine honestly. A self-proclaimed “Navy brat,” he spent part of his childhood in Brunswick while his father was stationed at the Naval Air Station. He lived in Bangor from 1991 to 1994 while his wife, Susan, a doctor, completed her residency at Eastern Maine Medical Center.

“I always thought it’d be cool to have an adventure way up in Maine and have these monsters,” Emery said during an interview at his home.

The result was “Campfire Vampires.”

The book, which tells of two cousins who encounter monsters during an organized canoe trip down the Allagash, sold to Nickelodeon’s “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” book series.

“One of the kids is Mr. Nature,” said Emery. The other is the opposite of that.

The camping veteran is Doug, who could keep L.L. Bean in business single-handedly. He’s none too pleased to have his city slicker cousin along on the trip. Zeke, whose idea of roughing it is going without cable, is none too pleased, either.

Amid these unhappy circumstances, Zeke accidentally unleashes on the camping party the Wendigoes of Penobscot legend — hulking zombies with claws, fangs and burning hearts. Guiding the boys through the situation are the Pukwudgies — benevolent Indian fairies that flash in the night like lightning bugs.

Like most of Emery’s work, “Campfire Vampires” targets a youthful audience. His other published efforts include “Tales of Robin Hood” and “Cardmaster.” He also wrote the “Whispering Woods” trilogy of the “Magic: The Gathering” book series, based on the popular role-playing card game.

“I get lots of fan letters from 14-year-old boys,” said Emery, who also has written mystery stories that have appeared in magazines such as Ellery Queen.

Another young-adult book by Emery also hit the bookstores last month. “Father-Daughter Disaster!” is part of the series tied to the TV program “The Secret World of Alex Mack.” Finished but unsold is “The Face at the Porthole,” which is set around Lubec. It’s about two kids, a Vietnamese immigrant and a local, who get caught up in a cross-border smuggling operation.

He also has targeted the adult market with a historical novel set in Maine and based on the Penobscot Expedition, the Revolutionary War fleet that was burned and sunk by its own sailors in 1779. The Continental Navy members aboard the nearly 40 vessels set them ablaze to escape the British fleet pursuing them up the Penobscot River, where University of Maine researchers believe they have located some of the wrecks. Emery’s fictionalized account, told from the perspective of one of the marines, so far has not attracted a publisher.

The monsters in “Campfire Vampires” sprang from Emery’s long-standing interest in Colonial times and from the research he has done for another project, a series of Colonial-era mysteries whose main character is a white Indian detective named Joseph Fisher.

Emery’s research, part of which was conducted at the Bangor Public Library, unearthed information about how the Indians incorporated into their own folklore the Christian teachings of the Jesuits from Quebec who were trying to convert them. The flaming hearts of the Wendigoes in “Campfire Vampires” are one manifestation of that.

“They put the sacred heart of Jesus into the Wendigoes, so that they had these glowing chests,” said Emery.

But he said “Campfire Vampires” focuses less on the legend and more on its manifestation.

“It’s basically a monster story,” he said. “There really isn’t a lot of room for the Indian lore.”