Pagham-on-Sea: Dark Tourism

Why come to Pagham-on-Sea? Well, if you’re a big vampire fan with money to burn but can’t afford a weekend in one of the bigger, more expensive cities like London where the upmarket vampire scene is pretty elitist, then Pagham-on-Sea has several B&Bs and a TravelInn.

There are three vampire-owned clubs in the town and two vampire-owned all-night cafés. Packages can be bought online via shady dark-web websites, with a QR code sent to your phone. No code, no entry.

Your package can vary from just club entry, where you can hang out with vampires in a look-but-don’t-touch situation, to being fed on privately (more expensive), to being fed on after consuming opiates including laudanum (some vampires miss the taste) and/or absinthe containing a wormwood infusion, as per the original recipe.

Some packages are marketed as ‘assisted dying’, and do not require you to be terminal or even unhealthy to qualify, but they do require you to pay through the nose. No one will ask questions, but you will not be resurrected afterwards.

Vampire Clubs

1. Twilight Crypt

Off the back of the YA phenomenon, Twilight, vampires exploited the growing, easily manipulated fanbase of teens and tweens looking for a good time and their very own Edward Cullen. The Twilight Crypt is lax about ID, and the vampires who work there are chosen for their youthful appearance and angelic aesthetic. On special ‘Shimmer and Shine’ theme nights, they cover themselves with UV body paint and glitter, so that they sparkle in the club lights. This is a notoriously dangerous place and a big favourite with the thrill-seekers, so be prepared for raids. Always take silver nitrate with you in a spray bottle and aim for the eyes/mouth.

2. Velvet Snuff Box

Unsurprisingly, this club has several cellar rooms where snuff films are made from the ‘assisted dying’ packages. Vampires are quite blatant but in this case they always get consent. Apart from that, it’s a very popular venue and one of the town’s biggest clubs. No QR code, no vampire package: it’s just a normal night. The Box is two townhouses knocked into one. The first floor has the cloakroom, foyer, and quieter bar area. The second floor has two dance floors, and the third floor has the offices.

3. L’Éclipse

An undead-inclusive cocktail bar and disco, L’Éclipse is a chic, modern club with cheesy EuroTrash nights, a big Eurovision Song Contest weekend, and a strict over-18s policy. The vampire owner, Maria Tsadilas, is (literally) in bed with Detective Inspector Paula Parsons, and keeps her club above-board. The only packages for dark tourists that include entry to L’Éclipse are cocktails only, no feeding on the premises, booked through private companies and third parties as ‘group bookings’, and are not endorsed by the club.

All-Night Cafés

1. Eastern Lounge

Once a Shifter cafe owned by the Azeman family called the Lúlú, The Eastern Lounge is now in the hands of Count Lászka’s nest and is a vampire café that unofficially serves opium, laudanum and imported absinthe at proofs illegal in the U.K.. You have to have an official invitation and an assigned ‘Decadent’ [your approved vampire feeder for the evening] to access this part of the establishment, behind a trick bookcase (of course). In the old days [the 1960s-80s] when it was still the Lúlú, the ‘secret’ part of the café was where people hung out to smoke weed. It officially serves Turkish coffee all night, and is famous for its belly dancers and baklava.

2. Stranger Earth

This is a cafe for the vampires and other undead who like the dark and damp, and look like Nosferatu’s grandad. Unless you’re okay with black mould, grave dirt, and lecherous, mouldering corpses slavering over your vital signs, best not to go in here. You can really only access it via the sewer system anyway. Is it really a café? Well – yes, in the sense that you can sit on packing crates and take tea made in a centuries-old samovar over a camping stove. There may or may not be dead mice in it, it’s pot luck. It’s called STRANGER EARTH because that’s the only readable slogan graffiti’d on the wall behind you. It’s probably paint, yeah, but we’re not sure.

Want more?

Check out these posts on the undead of Pagham-on-Sea:

Undead Fashion – guest blog by Revenant Awareness activist and CEO of Open Casket Clothing, Clementine Wells

The Undead of Pagham-on-Sea: Lychgates – how to gain access to the undead communities as a new Riser

Meet the Locals: Mercy Hillsworth – undead-adjacent short on a Resurrectionist character in The Crows.