First Vampire World War

Have you noticed that in the movies, the tale is always told from the so-called good guy's viewpoint and the bad guy never gets to tell his side of the story? Well, my name is Raphael Jean Charlemagne and I am here to rectify this grievous oversight. I was born in Cap-Haitien, on the northern coast of the island of Haiti on February 3, 1812, and in the summer of 1839, I had a life-changing experience. I kind of died, but I did not stay that way. Rising from the grave as a fledgling Vampire, I cut a bloody swath through the island of Haiti.

I killed a lot of people, not just because I needed to feed but because I enjoyed it. I like killing people, and I am good at it. I once went into a house in Quartier Morin, and coerced a mother to have sex with her ( full-grown ) daughter while forcing the husband and father watch. Then I had sex with both women before decapitating the hubby. The mother I killed, and the daughter, a lovely twenty-year-old Haitian gal named Nadine, I turned into one of us. Am I good or what? There were a lot of Vampires on the island of Haiti back in those days but eventually the populace rose against us. In the summer of 1967, I left and moved to Boston, Massachusetts. I've been having fun all over the continental United States ever since.

Everything was going fine until, in the winter of 2014, something really bad happened. The world discovered the existence of Vampires. Overnight, the humans began organizing death squads against us. The situation was worst in the U.S. thanks to a particularly vicious unit of highly trained anti-Vampire troops known as the Trackers. The Trackers used cutting-edge technology and weaponry in their battle against the undead. Over the next five years, they rounded up and slaughtered tens of thousands of Vampires. Worldwide, I think about a hundred thousand bloodsuckers got killed. the human race has no equal when it comes to viciousness and savagery. I mean, look at the Crusades, the various World Wars, the Boston Marathon terrorist bombings, and other events where man's inhumanity to man rattled the globe.

In the news, they refer to us Vampires as monsters. We are what nature made us, my friends. We drink blood because we have to. We sleep during the day and come out at night because we have to. We cannot stand the light of day. We are what we are. Humans do what they do because they want to. They invade other countries, persecute people on the basis of skin coloration, religious affiliation and nationality and kill senselessly and yet we're the monsters. Ha! You'll excuse me if I am not overly fond of the human species. I lost membership in the Homo Sapiens club on July 4, 1839. That's the day I met a gorgeous Black female Vampire named Marguerite, and she killed me. Three days later I rose from the dead as a glorious blood sucker. And I've been having fun ever since.

By the year 2020, there were only a few of us left in the continent of North America. The Trackers have hunted us Vampires almost to extinction. Those who remain hide in the shadows, preying on the homeless and those whom society doesn't miss. They don't grow in number because they don't want attract attention to themselves. Well, I've decided to fight back against the humans. I will not go quietly into that blasted good night, ladies and gentlemen. I am immortal, I am forever. Why should someone like me hide from mortals? Wretched things that they are. I am the predator and humankind is my prey. I don't care if you're black or white, male or female, straight or gay, progressive or racist, republican or democrat. I will kill you and drink your fucking blood because to me, you're food!

I don't fear the humans, but I am careful to stay away from large groups of them. Unless I get decapitated or burned to ash by fire or sunlight, I will live forever. The whole stake-through-the-heart thing is pure myth. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not any Vampire's idea of fun but it won't kill us. To kill a Vampire you need to completely destroy the body. Immolation via fire or sunlight work best. Nothing else will destroy us because of our almost infinite capacity for regeneration. Shoot a Vampire and he or she will heal within minutes. Cut off our arms or legs and they will grow back within hours. We don't need to breathe so you can hang us all you want. We aren't great swimmers because our bodies are heavier than yours but we have no problem walking along the bottom of the ocean until we reach the shore. That's what Vampires do when lost at sea. Um, those who aren't eaten by sharks, at least.

I was hiding in an abandoned warehouse in the Boston Harbor, feeding on rats because killing the homeless eventually attracts the Trackers. One night, I finally gave into temptation and fed on a human. A six-foot-tall, athletic and pretty young blonde woman named Annette Chester, a student at Northeastern University. Before I could finish her off, a troop of Trackers came along. I tossed Annette's body into the water and it sank to the bottom. I thought the gal was dead but three days later she came looking for me, as all newly sired Vampires are drawn to the one who made them.

I didn't know it back then but Annette Chester, a talented geneticist, would prove to be exactly what I needed to implement my sweet revenge upon all humanity. Annette had been working on a potential cure for cancer when I turned her. I encouraged her to return to the labs and get the supplies necessary to continue her work. It wasn't easy but I used some acolytes of mine to supply her with everything she needed. The warehouse basement became a makeshift lab where my favorite little Vampire scientist worked on a brand new virus. One that would destroy the humans. Naturally, through human agents, we marketed it as a cure for everything from AIDs to cancer.

My human agent, Theodore Mendel, the CEO of Bio-Ware Inc. proves that greed is the most powerful vice of all. Annette Chester created the virus, and together we approached Theodore. It never occurred to the fool to wonder why a pair of Vampires would work on a cure for most human ailments. I mean, seriously, humans hunt us, why would we want to help them? We offered him the 'cure' as a peace offering between our two species. And he bought it. I mean, I guess he had some misgivings about our true intentions but the cure worked so damn well, just like we designed it too. It's called Eden, like the Garden of Eden in the Bible. The salvation of mankind.

The scientists from Bio-Ware Inc. went to the United States government, the United Nations, the Arab League, the African Union and the Union of South American Nations. They presented them with Eden, the cure for humankind's greatest ills. A single injection of Eden into the body of a forty-something woman dying of AIDs and she healed within hours. A week after injection, she was still healthy. A month later, she was still AIDs-free and totally healthy. The same thing happened to a man dying of leukemia. Eden cured him. Scientists ran numerous tests, but they could find nothing wrong with Eden. It cures AIDs, cancer and every other terminal illness you can think of, and then some. It was proclaimed worldwide as a miracle cure. The world powers began inoculating themselves with it almost immediately, and then it began to trickle down to the masses. Exactly as I'd planned.

In the early days of the Vampire World Wars, I met a Saudi Vampire named Suleiman and he taught me something. He said that back in his days as a human, his government would send radical preachers into western nations to convert key people and then use them to bring down these nations from within. If you can transform your enemy into yourself, you won't have a fight on your hands because your enemy no longer exists, he's become your staunchest ally. That's the beauty of conversion, according to Suleiman. I'm an atheist and always have been but there is something to what Suleiman said. Can you guess what I mean?

What the world's masses and their leaders didn't realize is that exactly one hundred and seventeen days after being injected with Eden, the inoculated human begins to suffer the effects of Vampirism. Sensitivity to sunlight, endless thirst, yep, those are the signs. Overnight, the world changed. Around the globe, millions of ordinary men and women became Vampires. The balance of power shifted. All of a sudden there were millions upon millions of Vampires where there had been mere hundreds before. And I didn't have to bite a single human to infect them. You see, our scheme worked brilliantly. The only thing that instantly cures the human body of anything from AIDs to cancer, paralysis, erectile dysfunction, is Vampirism. Become one of the undead and all your problems go away. You become stronger, faster and infinitely more bloodthirsty.

You're immortal, and always will be unless someone comes along and kills you. Right now, the world is in chaos. Everywhere one looks there are scores upon scores of Vampires and these bloodthirsty fledglings are feeding left and right, and transforming many humans into us, the glorious undead. The humans were caught off-guard by the onslaught of new Vampires, and I am quite pleased with that. Amid the chaos, Annette and I made our way to a U.S. nuclear facility and we detonated numerous nuclear warheads after dropping them across the world, from Africa to Asia, from the Middle East to North America. When it came time to nuke the Caribbean, my homeland, we ran out of nukes. Places like Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and other islands remained untouched by our nukes. The rest of the world didn't fare so well. The detonated warheads unleashed clouds of ashes in the skies, blotting out the sun for three years. During that time, us Vampires thrived. Millions of humans were converted to our cause, and then began feeding on their former friends and neighbors as fledgling Vampires are wont to do. It's a beautiful thing.

As one of the few remaining elder Vampires left in the world, I have risen to a position of power among the new ones. I've got thousands of them under my command. They've flocked to me once word got out that I was the mastermind behind the virus which brought humanity to its knees and created the Golden Age of the Vampire. How about that? I went from pauper to king, from recluse hiding in the shadows from my persecutors to overlord of all I survey. Worldwide, there are almost a billion Vampires now. And our numbers are growing daily. I will find another food source when the humans are extinct but that's a problem for another day. For now, I will reign. I am King of the Vampires, and Annette is my new Queen. It's the least I could do after all she's done for me, don't you think?