Vampires Versus Zombies: War

A lot of people don't approve of interspecies relations and I honestly think these bigots need to get over themselves, seriously! My name is Karen Elroy and I'm a young Black woman living in what's left of the City of Ottawa, Ontario. Three years ago, before the zombie outbreak, my life changed. I met this charming older Black gentleman who introduced himself as Laban, and I thought he was a distinguished and totally cool guy. He was a professor at Carleton University, which I attended at the time. We had a secret romance, and I thought I was the luckiest chick in the world. As it turns out, Laban wasn't what he appeared to be. He was a vampire, hailing originally from central Ethiopia, and he'd been around since 400 B.C.

Laban, the master vampire, was my maker. I became one of the undead, but I was far from an ordinary vampire. As one of the Ancients, Laban had powers the likes of which ordinary vampires could only dream of. Your standard issue vampire is three times stronger than the average human being of a similar size, and about as fast as an Olympic athlete. We're quite resilient physically, and heal ten times faster than normal. Vampires are tough but we're not invincible. Don't believe the crap you read about in the poorly written supernatural romance novels. Ancient vampires like Master Laban can do some truly amazing things. Laban can shape-shift at will, not into something way out there like a wolf or a bat, thank God, but he can make himself look like anyone. All he has to do is touch them once.

When Laban made me a vampire, he broke many rules. For starters, the ruling vampire council decided a long time ago that the only new vampires to be made would have to be approved by them. Master Laban, whose existence predates that of the vampire council, isn't exactly a stickler for the rules. He made me stronger than any vampire my age ought to be. I can do amazing things. I can leap incredible heights, for starters. One time, I was fighting this blood sucker and he threw me off the top of the Parliament building in Ottawa. Now, a fall from such a height would cripple or kill any fledgling vampire. Me? I walked away without a scratch. I can lift ten times my body weight. The things which would kill any ordinary vampire, such as prolonged exposure to direct sunlight, a stake through the heart, or beheading, they can slow me down but they can't stop me. I got shot in the head by a gunman wielding a bazooka. Took my head clean off my shoulders. Can you guess what happened next? Moments later, my head grew back, and I walked away as if nothing had happened. I found the gunman and ripped his heart out, and drained him of his precious blood.

Ah, yes, the blood. The average vampire needs to drink about two full cups of blood a day to stay alive. It's the only thing which animates our undead bodies. We need it the way a doll requires batteries. If a vampire stops drinking blood for a week, he or she will experience a second death. They'll wither to dust. Simple as that. I don't have that vulnerability. I drink blood, yes, for I am a vampire, but I can last a long time without it. To prove it to me, master Laban locked me up inside an unbreakable silver cage for nine days, and at the end of it, I was crazed but alive. Master Laban and I are as beyond ordinary vampires as they are beyond normal human beings. We're not predators, we're apex predators. As far as Master Laban knows, we're the only ones of our kind still around. Super vampires are a rare breed. It takes one to make one.

Life wouldn't be worth living without risk, even if you're an undead monster, you know? My master has gone missing. The one who made me, strengthened me and made me the heir of his knowledge and power has mysteriously vanished. And I don't think he went quietly. Whether he's alive or dead, I'm not sure. We're linked, but that link has been severed. We usually can sense each other but he knows how to hide himself from even my super senses so, yeah, if he wants to hide from me, he most definitely can. I wish the master was around because I need him quite badly. In fact, the world is in need of him. You see, in 2013, the humans finally did it. They created the perfect weapons for their own destruction.

Scientists from the United States government found the remains of an ancient creature, a progenitor to the race of the vampires. They experimented with its DNA, and created a virus out of it. Said virus reanimates the dead, but not as vampires. The reanimated dead created by that highly transmissible virus are mindless monsters incapable of speech or thought, and they crave human flesh. Oh, and unlike vampires, they can move about by day as well as night. They're called zombies. The U.S. scientists thought they could control these nightmares, they quickly found out they couldn't. The zombies are out there, and thanks to them, the human species is endangered. There have been zombie outbreaks all over the world. They're popping up all over the place, in New York, Melbourne, Havana, Tokyo, Johannesburg, Port-Au-Prince, Vienna, Kingston, Mogadishu and elsewhere. They're everywhere and they've started to really cause chaos.

The thing about zombies is that in their mindlessness, they're a threat to anything that moves. They eat animals and humans, and yes, they feed on us vampires as well. Who's going to survive the zombie holocaust? Day by day, there are fewer humans and far more zombies as the infected humans join the ranks of the flesh-eating, mindless undead. I'm fighting for the leadership of the various vampire factions. Once I've gotten rid of these would-be pretenders to the throne of the vampire world, I can unite our people against the zombies, before these mindless ghouls destroy mankind and rob us vampires of our favorite food source. It's not going to be easy but I don't have a choice, do I?