A Plot Hole or At the Least A Question MAJOR SPOILER!!!

The first time Barlow makes an appearance in the novel is at the town dump where he speaks with Dud Rogers.

The text is as follows:

Dud wiped his hands on his green pants, hitched them up, and strolled over.
‘Dump’s closed, mister.’
The man turned toward him. The face that was discovered in the red glow of the dying fire was high-cheekboned and thoughtful. The hair was white, streaked with oddly virile slashes of iron gray. The guy had it swept back from his high, waxy forehead like one of those fag concert pianists. The eyes caught and held the red glow of the embers and made them look bloodshot.
‘Is it?’ the man asked politely, and there was a faint accent in the words, although they were perfectly spoken. The guy might be a frog, or maybe a bohunk. ‘I came to watch the fire. It is beautiful.’
‘Yeah,’ Dud said. ‘You from around here?’
‘I am a recent resident of your lovely town, yes.

That suggests that Barlow was at least middle aged or older.

Later, when (a vampirized) Susan appears with her companion, the text from the novel reads as follows:

‘Sheriff?’
A light, carefree voice, like tinkling bells. Why had his hand dropped to the butt of his gun?
He turned and saw the Norton girl, looking incredibly beautiful, walking toward him hand in hand with a stranger – a young man with black hair unfashionably combed straight back from his forehead. McCaslin shone the flashlight at his face and had the oddest impression that the light was shining right through it without illuminating it in the slightest. And although they were walking, they left no tracks in the soft dirt. He felt fear and warning kindle in his nerves, his hand tightened on his revolver . . . and then loosened. He clicked off his flashlight and waited passively.
‘Sheriff,’ she said, and now her voice was low, caressing.
‘How good of you to come,’ the stranger said.
They fell on him.

I have to say that I was under the impression that the 'young man with black hair unfashionably combed straight back from his forehead.' was in fact Barlow and that he had been growing younger since coming to the town and rejuvenating with the blood of the townspeople.

This is a point that is made once again when Mark and Ben track Barlow to his coffin at the end of the novel:

Mark came around and they stood together in front of the coffin’s locks and seals. They bent together, and the locks split as they touched them, making a sound like thin, snapping clapboards.
They lifted.
Barlow lay before them, his eyes glaring upward.
He was a young man now, his black hair vibrant and lustrous, flowing over the satin pillow at the head of his narrow apartment. His skin glowed with life. The cheeks were as ruddy as wine. His teeth curved out over his full lips, white with strong streaks of yellow, like ivory.

Once again with the line: 'He was a young man now' seems to suggest that since coming to the town Barlow had been revitalized, from old, to middle aged, to young again.

Think it over and post with any thoughts.

Cheers for now.