Monsters!

Toby Michaels (Oliver Robins) and his father are monster fanatics and his room is full of monster movie memorabilia. When a new neighbor moves in, Toby investigates to see if there are new children in the neighborhood. He meets the neighbor Emile Bendictson (Ralph Bellamy) who notices Toby's monster interest and his vast collection through the window. In the course of the conversation, Bendictson reveals that he is a vampire but Toby does not believe him because Bendictson is outside during daylight and vampires - according to lore - cannot be outside in the sun. Bendictson laughs and Toby goes home to tell his parents. They dismiss his story.

Toby decides to spy on Bendictson, who has enough strength to lift the front end of his car while polishing it. Toby gets caught by Bendictson and tries to protect himself with garlic and a crucifix. Emile laughs again and tells him that most of what he has read about vampires is not accurate. To illustrate this, Bendictson treats the boy to a garlic-filled Italian dinner, and tells Toby he wishes to live out the rest of his days. Later, Toby goes back to his house and finds hospital bags of blood in the bottom of a closet. Then Toby begins to get sick which his parents think is a case of the flu.

Bendictson comes to Toby's window and invites him to go for a walk. They go to the cemetery and he explains to Toby the truth about vampires. He tells him that they are like people who are infected with a thirst and Toby doesn't quite understand. Bendictson also explains that after he changed he had to move constantly and says that the presence of vampires incites a genetic mutation in average humans. He pulls Toby closer and Toby sneezes incessantly to illustrate his point. Humans have a genetic aversion to "his kind" as he puts it, thus he can't stay in one place too long as nearby humans will mutate and try to kill him. Before they leave the cemetery, he shows Toby how to enjoy lightning bugs in the cornfield, as it was something he had learned as a boy.

Toby becomes even sicker and so do his parents, and it turns out all the neighbors in a five block radius are becoming ill. After midnight, Toby and his parents begin to change, mutating into the monsters Bendictson described. Bendictson seems to know that his end is coming so he leaves his front door open and is killed by a pack of monsters that enter his house. The next morning, Bendictson's battered body is being loaded into an ambulance. The neighbors all mourn his passing and do not realize that it was they who killed him. That night, Toby takes his dad and shows him the lightning bugs in the field and his dad sneezes.

• List of The Twilight Zone episodes

• "Monsters!" on IMDb
• "Monsters!" at TV.com