We're All Dead: Introduction

Introduction

Why We’re All Dead

I am the last free man on Earth. I think. In vampire terms, though, I am a free-range human.

Actually, maybe I am being slightly melodramatic. I saw the second-to-the last woman on Earth about three weeks ago when I was wondering the Apocalyptic Highway to Hell. She looked awful and complained about the blisters on her feet. No sooner did I meet her in her all tired and dirty, that night a vamp flew in out the darkness and scooped her up. I have no idea where the dude took her. These stinking vamps and their flying talents – they’re like those nasty spider monkeys and swoop in and grab you to carry you off to suck on you for weeks. They do feed you, though, to keep you alive so that’s pretty good. Some people kind of like it and become super happy companions with their dead masters. I’ve even heard of some vamps marrying their human food source, and everyone is all fat and happy about it, throwing god damned valuable rice at the freaks. I for one will never give into the vamps. So, I am the last free human on Earth.

Now I’m walking through this dust bowl with fine, dry dust blowing everywhere across the barren Midwest wasteland since the damned zombies killed all the Midwesterners when the tried to nuke the corn fields in Iowa. Yeah, apparently the zombies and vamps got into a dispute over the human food supply. The vamps need humans for food. The zombies need humans for procreation and to dominate the species. Fucking stupid zombies thought it would be cool if they nuked the cornfield and cut off humans from their food supply. Some dumbass named General Wilhelm something or another didn’t think it all through, though.

He was such an idiot (rotting brain kills cells) that he only thought the vamps wouldn’t have food, forgetting that he might decimate so many numbers of them that he wouldn’t get what he wanted either – to create more zombies. Then the vamps got all “pissy” and decided to defy Wilhelm and start a human baby farm and create their own food supply. Problem is they forgot these are human beings with free will. Some humans rebelled and started making war on both the zombies and vamps. And well, here I am – all alone in a barren wasteland the only free man around. The other people got eaten, enslaved or committed suicide. They didn’t want to be a zombie or vamp. So they just killed themselves. You know heaven has to be better than this hell.

I was born and raised on one of those baby farms too. The first three years of my life, my “blood” mom sucked on me by night and my real mother nursed me by day. As I grew older, I never was comfortable being a slave to death. My vamp mom old Granola (the vamps have really weird names) decided I should be married off to some vamp girl named Tamberlyn, who was this violent bitch who liked to beat her prey, fuck and then read old vampire books like Twilight and lament about how none of the boy vampires were half as cute as Edward Cullen. 

Well one day after a particularly brutal beating, I thought, “Fuck this. I’m leaving.” When I declared my intentions to Tamberlyn, she didn’t believe me. She barely looked up from her Eclipse book. So I just left the compound. It was that easy. I did hear them sound an alarm but by then I was safely ensconced in my first of many hiding places under a big rock.

It’s not a pretty story – and now hear I am wandering the world, the last free man that I know of.

Here’s the deal too. I have to hide at night or those fucking vampires will scoop me up too and suck on me like a god damned Capri pouch. Then I have to escape from them, again, when they retire for the day. What a pain in my neck. Sometimes one of them will get all lovey-dovey over my sexy-back and want to keep me, you know, for like a slave too. Well, I’ve gotten real good at escaping when the sun rises.

So far, no one has tried to ship my tired ass back to the human freak farm, though, so that’s a relief. Unfortunately, vampires are strange breed of supernatural creatures. A lot of them are super flamboyant and like to act some gay Dracula-queen. They’re pretty omini-sexual too, and I’m not gay. So I don’t appreciate the bloodsuckers that think that part of the package means I’m going to have sex with them.  One blood-lover once caught me and tried to give me a little “rear entry,” which turned out to be a blessing. The minute he tried to flip me on my back, I grabbed the leg of a nearby chair, pushed him off me, broke off the leg, and managed to stake his ass. Yeah! Take that you blood-sucking freak!

Staking in the heart is but one of several ways to kill a vamp. Some of the myths are true except for a few – that thing about silver actually turned out to be you had to have this element called Rhenium. Rhenium is a silvery metal but rarely seen as such on account of its high melting point, which is the third highest after carbon and tungsten. Rhenium is very hard; it resists corrosion but slowly tarnishes in moist air. See the vamps spread that myth about common silver killing back in the 21^st century with that campy vamp show True Blood. A bunch of “fans” called “Truebies” bought that all right, and when the vamps really did rise from the grave some years later and there was none of that so-called “blood substitute” really invented, well, the vamps were all happy campers when humans tried to “silver” them. They just cracked up and chuckled amongst themselves – and then ate their lunches. My people used to watch too much television. Although I caught some reruns on Blu-Ray once, and I really liked that Sookie Stackhouse chick and her vamp lover, Eric. Yeah, they were hot. I just don’t see it with the vamp sex shit. On the show it looks all sexy-fied and bloody great, and honestly let’s be truthful. Have you ever been bitten by something with fangs? Just asking, because it fucking hurts. I don’t see how that’s a turn-on unless you’re one of those S&M folks who thinks pain and pleasure are the feel-good approach to getting it on.

So back to the whole Rhenium as a bloodsucker killer … let me tell you, it isn’t easy finding Rhenium at your common hardware store. So outside of staking with wood to the heart, it sometimes hard t find inventive ways to kill the mo-fo’s. You can rip their heads off, but I’m not strong enough to give them a quick head ripping so there you go. I have to stake them or just escape. You know what, though, I don’t like getting sucked on, so I try to hide. Sometimes it’s really hard to find a cave or dark place in the shadows to hide from them. They like to come all hours of the night so I can’t light a fire or it will attract those fools. It gets really cold out here in the wasteland, which is fucking unpleasant. Oh, and fire doesn’t kill them either. Those fucks do heal really easily just like the legend suggests. It has to be a stake or go on a needle hunt for the damned Rhenium. I do have some spare stakes in my backpack so screw Rhenium.  

So now I wander by day, looking for water and foraging for food. I managed to get some frees can of Chef Boyardee beef ravioli in my backpack for tonight. I found an old 7 Eleven super store where they had a mega Zom-Slurpee bar – and it was miraculously being run by zombies who intended to infect me. These zombies were so fucking dumb that when I walked in covered in dirt I was able to convince them I was a new zombie. They just all shook my hand and welcomed me into the fold. Fucking idiots! They’re all pretty stupid; it’s just degrees of stupidity. These two morons asked me if I wanted anything as a “gift” since I was newly turned. They didn’t happen to notice I wasn’t rotting in the least.

I took a bunch of canned goods and even stopped and had a Coke Slurpee. They offered to top it with a pituitary gland for a “special ‘cheery’ on top,” but I declined and said I had heartburn from the rancid pancreatic pizza I ate for lunch. They bought that line of shit all right. They just nodded and gave me the canned goods unquestioningly, patted me on the back, and sent me on my way. Dumb mother-fuckers! I can sort of respect the flamboyant vamps – at least they’re not so sub-IQ; but the putrid zombies. I will never like them. They’re too retarded to tolerate; but it does mean I can get free food pretty easily.

Well, a few weeks ago, I decided to get off the Highway to Apocalyptic Hell and head for sunny California (it’s warmer in California than, say, Wisconsin in winter and I always migrate back and forth). It took me a while to get there. I did manage to hitch a ride on the back of a zombie scooter with another stupid idiot who just thought I was a fledging zombie. He had me on the back of the scooter clear across Utah, Colorado and Nevada till we stopped one day. He gave me his “stink” eye and asked why I didn’t smell putrid yet. I told him I was using Irish Spring soap and showed him a green bar as proof. He got real suspicious though and tried to bite me. But he was one of those super deteriorated versions so I manage to rip off his arms. He cursed in some German or something, and I just ran away.

So tonight on my latest search for cover, I found this strange opening to a cave that actually had a door fashioned to it. I was in what on maps says is the Sierra Mountain foothills in what used to be. I had just wondered down out of the mountains and noticed this trail into the woods. I figured it might lead somewhere safe and discovered this door. So I slowly opened it, peered around for any vamps using it for a resting place, and noticed it looked abandoned and probably pretty safe. Cobwebs and dust were all over what seemed to be like some office or something. Old desks and chairs were strewn about. It smelled old, damp and musty. I also noticed something that resembled an old Apple printer and a Mac. A bunch of eBook readers were strewn about too.

“What is the fuck is this place?” I said aloud.

Then I noticed something interesting. A file cabinet had been pushed over and the drawers were hanging open. I walked over, rolled it upright, and then opened the drawer all the way. It was all bent up, and I had to yank it off the tracks. It had a crushed lock on it that had been jammed with something like a screwdriver. Inside, I saw four perfect-bound books. The first one read Colonel Bapista; the second one read General Wilhelm; the third one read Cookie Gingerbreadhouse; and the fourth one read just Bob.

“Hmm … this is damned interesting,” I said aloud.  I recognized those names from back in the day. Old oral stories told of the last grand stand in Iowa and how these four were involved. Now I’m kind of intrigued and want to know what are these books. I grabbed the books, and scanned them. They all read like journals. On first glance, they seem to each be telling similar part of stories.

“How strange,” I thought.

I moved over to an old executive chair and took a seat. I opened my pack, pulled out a can of ravioli, grabbed my spoon to eat, and started reading back and forth. This could be real entertaining!