Chapter 16: Inferno, Part 2

BJ McKay: Hey Bear, I don’t care what they say about you man, I just still think you’re the best companion a guy could have on the road… Almost. (from B.J. and the Bear, a late 70s, early 80s television show)

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Eric POV

After the stampede to get out of the room, only one being was left behind: Jason Stackhouse. I went over to him; there were bite marks all over him, and he was barely conscious. His breathing was labored.

“Your sister is worried about you,” I said as I crouched next to him.

He opened his eyes a little. “Hey—you ain’t gonna kill me are you?” he asked weakly.

I chuckled. “Have you done anything that I should kill you for?”

“No,” he answered immediately, “at least not today.”

I chuckled again.

Jason fought to stay awake as his heartbeat slowed fractionally. Recognizing that there was no other practical way to save Jason, I bit into my wrist.

“Jason, you need to take some of my blood,” I said forcefully. “Now.”

Luckily, he didn’t have the energy to argue.

It didn’t take long for my thousand-year-old elixir to work in him. I used the opportunity to test my ability to withhold Warlow’s blood within me from the person I was feeding. I was pleased to discover that I could. I didn’t like the idea of Sookie having any more of his blood when she took mine later.

Jason jumped to his feet and was on full alert about thirty seconds after the first drop of my blood met his mouth.

“WhadImiss?” he asked as a single word.

“Where should I start?” I intoned.

“Shit!” he said. “They’re all gone!”

“Yes,” I responded. “I freed them.”

“No,” Jason shook his head. “Not them,” he said gesturing around the room. “I meant them!”

“Who?” I asked.

“Jess. And Tara and Pam and my—um—owner. And the pretty sweet one,” he informed.

“Willa.”

Jason nodded.

“Where?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he reported.

I had a pretty good idea—the round room. If that was true, then Bill’s vision was shaping up to occur after the sun rose that day—which meant that my timing to stop it from happening was perfect. Meanwhile, I knew that the people I cared for would be safe enough for the time being, which was a comfort, given the fact that they were in the most heavily guarded portion of the building and I intended to wait for my new “army” to clear the way for me. I closed my eyes momentarily. The hardest part of the plan was always going to be saving their rescue for last, but it was the best move.

Patience was sometimes a bitch—but she was one I didn’t wanted to fuck with.

“What are we gonna do?” Jason asked.

“You are going to come with me,” I told him as I exited the room and picked up a gun from a dead guard to give to him. “Shoot all the humans you want, but don’t shoot any vampires—even if they want to eat you,” I warned.

“But—how will I?” he started.

“Don’t worry. I will protect you for your sister’s sake.”

“Sookie—is she here?” Jason asked, looking around as if she would pop out from around the nearest corner.

“She is safe. I’ll take you to her soon,” I assured. Meanwhile, I need you to obey me without question so that no other vampires get the bright idea of feeding from you.”

Jason was noticeably afraid of that thought. “Gotcha,” he said nervously. “I’ll stick to you like white on rice.”

I decided not to tell him that that particular saying had a sexual connotation. He’d be “enjoying” dreams starring me soon enough, so I was happy to let him be ignorant about some things. If I’d been in a joking mood, however, I might have volunteered Chow for service as the requisite Asian in the “white on rice” equation. I had to keep myself from sneering. The inherent racism in many human phrases was quite over the top at times.

“Your sister will stake me if you don’t get out of here alive,” I said seriously, “so no fucking heroics. And don’t be a dumbass!”

Jason nodded. “Ten-four, Captain. No heroics. Keep my head down. Don’t be a dumbass.”

I chuckled at his response and nodded. Then I assessed my internal clock. It was just after 2:00 a.m.—plenty of time before dawn.

Together, Jason and I went to the next Gen-Pop room, which was for level one males. It’d been my home for a day, but I felt no nostalgia in returning to it. The vampires I’d already freed had taken care of the humans that might have been a threat, so the only killing on the way had been when Jason “capped a fucker” who’d been trying to sneak up behind us. Of course, I’d heard the human coming, but Stackhouse was a natural soldier and hunter. Plus, he seemed to have great instincts, so I let him beat me to the punch—so to speak.

After all, he seemed so eager to help. The Dr. Watson to my Sherlock Holmes. The Robin to my Batman. The Chewbacca to my Hans Solo. No—the Bear to my B.J. I chuckled at the memory of that cult television show that Pam had loved so much that I had to get a Betamax machine so that she could record the episodes. I preferred Charles Angels—for obvious reasons.

After Jason and I opened the door with my “handy” key, I repeated the same spiel I’d given to the women of Gen-Pop 1, and seventeen more vampires had their freedom.

“Hey, what’s up with him?” Jason asked as he pointed into the room that I had already turned to leave. He was motioning toward a lone vampire who had stayed behind. I could tell that the vampire was young—probably only a few decades old. He looked to be in shock, his eyes fixed on one of the steel doors leading to one of the cold chambers.

“I’ll see,” I said, though I was hit with a sense of foreboding.

Jason nodded and quickly stationed himself at the door, moving as if he were some kind of commando. He amused me, and his actions served a useful function, so I let him be.

“Why do you linger?” I asked the youngling, though I dreaded his answer when I saw red tears rimming his eyes.

“My maker is inside,” he said, pointing at the unit he was staring at.

I sighed and opened it. Indeed, his maker was in there. And he had advanced Hep-V. Mercifully, he seemed to be in downtime.

“There were rumors that we shouldn’t drink the Trublood,” the youngling said numbly, “but the guards threatened to fire on us if we didn’t. Without them seeing it, my maker . . . ,” he paused. “He drank eight other vampires’ bloods, including mine.”

“Then he has given his life to save you—and others,” I said, placing my hand on the youngling’s shoulder. “He did his duty as your maker, and now it is your duty to leave this place and carry on his line. You need to honor his choice.”

The youngling looked up at me and nodded. “Will he suffer?”

I sighed. “Not if you don’t want him to.”

“I don’t,” he whispered.

I nodded in understanding. “I will be right back. Say your goodbyes to your master,” I said quietly.

I zipped to Jason. “Stay here and watch your back. I will be but a moment.”

He nodded.

I rushed out of the room and down the corridor. I quickly found who I was looking for, a person from one of the control rooms who had a pencil in her lab coat. Given the fact that she’d lost her head—quite literally—I didn’t think she’d mind if I borrowed her writing implement. When I got back to the Gen-Pop room thirty seconds after I left it, Jason was still on alert. He gave me a nod.

I walked back over to the youngling, who had lain his head on his maker’s chest.

The tenderness of the action made me think of Godric, but I shook my memories away for the time being.

He spoke wearily. “I grew up in Alabama—in a little town. It was the mid-1980s, right around the time the AIDS scare was heating up. One day these two guys at my school found out that I was gay when they stole my diary out of my backpack.” He sighed. “They were bullies and already picked on me because I was small, but once they knew I was gay, they made it a mission in their lives to make mine a living hell. One night, when I was walking home from work, they cornered me in an alley.” He paused. “They were gonna kill me; I’m sure of it. But my maker came out of nowhere and killed them both. They’d already hurt me pretty bad, and my maker gave me a choice,” the youngling said as he lovingly smoothed down his maker’s hair. “He told me that he could either heal me or make me like him.”

“So you chose to be vampire,” I said, “even before we were known to the public.”

The youngling nodded. “My family was very conservative, and my parents were making me go to a psychiatrist who was trying to ‘fix my wicked thoughts.’ My maker offered me a better life; he gave me a better life.”

“Do you want to be the one to do it?” I asked, offering him the little piece of wood.

He shook his head. “Would you do it—please?”

I nodded.

“Goodbye, Master. I love you,” the young one murmured as he kissed his maker’s lips. He stood and turned away. I could see red tears falling from his eyes as he did.

Without hesitating, I rammed the small piece of wood into his maker’s heart before quickly sliding the drawer shut. There was no need for the youngling to see what remained.

“There are humans in this building responsible for your maker’s death,” I said evenly. “Drink from them to get your strength, and then leave this place. Do you have vampire siblings to go to?”

He shook his head.

I sighed. “Do you know where Shreveport is?”

He nodded lifelessly.

“Across from the vampire bar called Fangtasia there is an abandoned store, a closed-down Toys ‘R Us. In the back of that building is a steel door that will lead you to a safe room. The code to get in is 5-9-3-4. Can you remember that?”

He nodded again.

“Good. There is a stockpile of safe TruBlood there. A vampire named Pam will likely be there soon; tell her that you were sent by Eric—understand?”

“I understand,” he whispered.

“You will tell no one else this information—understand?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Good. Now go and avenge your maker.”

In a gush of wind he was gone.

When I returned to where Jason stood, he was brushing a tear from his eye. “That shit was emotional,” he said by way of explanation when I looked at him questioningly.

I couldn’t help but to chuckle a little.

“You’re a badass motherfucker—don’t get me wrong,” Jason said. “But I can see why Sookie likes you.” He paused as if coming to a realization. “You’ve gotta heart—you know?”

“So I’ve been told,” I responded.

“I mean,” he stammered nervously, “it don’t beat, but—um.” He seemed to get a little lost before completing his thought. “That was a good thing you did for that vamp.”

I nodded in acknowledgment. “Come,” I said, leading Jason from the Gen-Pop room.

As we proceeded down the corridors, we found that the vampires had already liberated their brethren in the other Gen-Pop rooms we came to. They’d also left a path of dead bodies in the other control rooms and in the hallways.

“Y’all don’t fuck around,” Jason said like a broken record, each time we came upon more drained corpses.

Clearly, the Level 4 rooms had been the hardest hit by Hep-V. Several sick vampires had stayed behind in those rooms; they’d had no “rumors” to stop them from drinking the tainted TruBlood, and they’d apparently had it several times.

Some were too weak to move, and I offered to end them, but they decided to stay alive to enjoy the blood and the screams in the air until morning.

Satisfied that all the vampires were free—except for those in the white room on the other side of the building—I led Jason down the hall where many of the experiments had been conducted. From the observation windows, we saw some of the more “creative” vampires reenacting the more sordid experiments using their one-time human tormenters as their subjects.

“Serves them motherfuckers right,” Jason commented before pausing to take a look into a room where a female human was fucking a screaming male with a strap-on. Jason cringed and shut his eyes. “‘Cept that. No one deserves that,” he started, “unless they—uh—like it.”

I chuckled at Jason’s attempt to be “progressive”—even amidst his discomfort—and kept leading us to my next target: Dr. Overlark.

Overlark’s office was in a more secure part of the building, but the swarm of hungry vampires had already been through the area. Drained guards littered the floor, but there were currently no other vampires nearby.

Several of the higher ranking officials in the building had offices along the corridor. Sadly, the office with Sarah Newlin’s nameplate on it was unoccupied. However, two of the offices—those belonging to doctors Ovelark and Finn—were occupied. I smiled.

I studied the walls; they were obviously thick and reinforced with silver. The doors to the offices were made of steel—though too strong for a ‘normal’ vampire to get through.

The fact that there were several dents in the doors of the occupied offices indicated that the other vampires had tried—but failed—to get in.

However, they weren’t as motivated as I was. They weren’t as old. And they certainly weren’t as hell-bent on revenge.

“Stand back,” I told Jason.

The young man—to his credit—immediately did what he was told. I “knocked” on Doctor Overlark’s door. When I knocked a second time, it bent inward. When I knocked a third time, it came unhinged—just like the good doctor whimpering inside.

“You are one strong motherfucker,” Jason murmured, coming over to look at my handiwork as I moved the bent metal out of my way.

I could hear Dr. Overlark sniveling as he cowered under his desk, and I could smell his sweat and urine.

Overlark’s pulse raced, and he took a deep breath. I heard a click—a gun being cocked.

My fangs dropped as I moved Jason and myself to safety, just as Overlark stuck his hand out from under his desk and began firing a weapon at us. The bullets that lodged into the hall opposite where the door had been were silver.

Jason nodded his thanks to me as more bullets flew. As soon as I heard the gun click to indicate that it was empty of bullets, I zipped in the room and yanked the doctor from under the desk. He was trying to reload, but dropped his gun as he thrashed his arms and legs.

“No you don’t, motherfucker!” Jason yelled as he followed me into the room. I continued to be both amused and impressed by my bonded’s brother. We worked well as a team, Jason securing the weapon and me dragging Overlark to his feet before holding him by the neck. I was careful not to squeeze—too tightly.

I quickly reassessed the area. There were no other vampires near Overlark’s office. There was still a human in the next office over—near hyperventilation because of the racket we’d made, but other than that, Jason, Dr. Overlark, and I were the only ones in the vicinity.

I looked Jason in the eyes. “I have something I need to do in here.”

“Huh?” he asked. “I thought we was already doin’ somethin’.”

I chuckled. “We are. But this man injected my sister with Hep-V. You remember Nora—right?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“She’s dead,” I stated flatly, though my rage boiled.

“Fuck—uh—sorry,” Jason stammered, his expression conveying sincere sympathy. “You gonna kill him?” he asked, gesturing toward the squirming man in my grasp.

I shook my head. “Not right away. I’m going to tear off his cock and balls. I thought you might want to be spared having to watch that happen.”

Jason gasped and covered his own member with his left hand. “Gotcha. I’ll just—uh—guard the door and—um—keep my eyes peeled for—uh—enemies approaching.”

“Good idea,” I said.

“Wait, no! Help me! You’re a human! Save me from this monster! Please, God!” These were only some of Overlark’s pleas as Jason and I spoke. To his credit, Jason ignored the appeals as much as I did.

“Remember me?” I asked as I addressed the good doctor for the first time since I’d entered the room.

“You’re an abomination!” he raged.

“Come now,” I said patronizingly, “that hurts my feelings. Maybe you just haven’t gotten to know me yet.”

“You can’t glamour me,” he panted.

I sighed impatiently as I used my right hand to squeeze his neck a little more, even as my left hand darted in to take off his contacts—all the while barely stirring his glasses.

He immediately closed his eyes tightly.

I chuckled. “I could glamour you to not feel the pain I’m about to inflict—you know,” I taunted. “But my sister was forced to endure many hours of pain. Sadly, you will only experience a few.”

“You’re an abomination,” he breathed.

“You said that already.”

“God will save me from you,” he said insistently.

“No—he will not,” I responded evenly. “I have knowledge of many gods, and most are fair and just; otherwise, they would not be worth following. The Christian god will not save you because you have corrupted the words of your bible. How do you know,” I asked, moving my lips right to his ear, “that I am not his agent sent to punish you?”

“You are from the devil!” he cried.

“Even if that is true, I am confident that your god will seek his own retribution from you as soon as I have had mine,” I stated coldly.

“No,” he whimpered. “I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care what you believe,” I said, squeezing his throat a little tighter. His eyes flew open at the added pressure—as I knew they would—and I immediately captured his mind with my glamour.

He ceased his wiggling.

“Now, good doctor, in a couple of moments, you’re going to be castrated—vampire style. Okie dokie?”

He could only nod.

“You will stay under my influence, but you will also experience your pain. Sound good?”

Again, he nodded.

“While you lie on the floor in agony, you will answer all of my questions—truthfully. But here’s the fun part—ready?”

He nodded for a third time.

“As you start to answer a question, you will have the wonderful feeling that doing so will make your pain lessen, but—sadly for you—it won’t. In fact, each answer you give will make the pain worse, but you will still feel compelled to answer my next question.” I smiled sinisterly. “With each question, you will feel hope and then hope lost. Do you understand?”

Overlark nodded mindlessly even as I made good on my threat to remove his “tool box.”

His scream was—quite satisfying.

I threw him to the floor and dropped his severed “friends” about five feet away—right in his line of sight. He looked at the bloody mass in horror.

“Ready to get started?” I asked him.

He had to answer truthfully. I saw hope in his eyes as he told me to go fuck myself. Then there was hopelessness.

Beautiful.

As he writhed on the floor, I moved so that I was in front of the computer on his desk. “What is your password?” I asked.

Immediately he whimpered out, “KnightofGod4397—Capitalize the ‘K’ and the second ‘G.'”

“Delusions of grandeur much?” Jason commented over his shoulder.

I chuckled and entered the password. The information on the computer was in code.

“How do I remove the encryption?” I asked the doctor.

“Control-f6,” Overlark answered before crying out in pain.

“That was a mean fuckin’ glamour job,” Jason commented, turning around so that he could see what I was doing, but keeping his eyes averted from the mess on the floor.

“I am known for my creativity in that regard,” I smirked.

Jason cringed a little but nodded. “Well—if someone hurt Sook, I’d wanna make him pay too. I ain’t always been the best brother to her, but I’d kill any motherfucker that took her from me.”

I stopped for a moment, noting the sincerity in Jason’s eyes.

“Are you—uh—with Sookie now?” Jason asked me.

I nodded.

“You ain’t gonna hurt her—right? I mean—I could—uh—threaten you—say I’d kill you if you did hurt her, but—uh—you—uh—seem pretty pissed off today. So—uh—it’d just be better if you agreed not to hurt her.”

I wanted to laugh at the way Jason had put things, but seeing his concern, I responded truthfully. “This I vow: I will never hurt Sookie on purpose. I love her.”

He gasped in surprise. “You love her?”

I nodded. “In fact,” I paused, “I believe it is customary to receive permission from my intended’s family before I wed her.”

“You—uh—wanna marry Sook?” he asked.

“Very much,” I confirmed. As a matter of fact, there was a pledging knife in the home that I planned to take Sookie to the very next day.

Jason looked a little stunned. “And you’re—uh—asking me this while a fella’s dick is on the floor?”

I chuckled. “I guess I am.”

“Okay,” he said. “Just thought I’d point out that that’s fucked up. But—if—uh—Sook agrees, then I ain’t got no problem with you marryin’ her.”

“Did you hear that, Doctor Overlark?” I asked with a smile on my face.

“Hear what?” he was compelled to answer.

“It looks like I’m going to have a new brother-in-law,” I said. “What do you think about that?”

“Humans and vampires shouldn’t be allowed to marry,” the doctor responded, prompting his wails to increase.

“Why the fuck not?” Jason asked him.

“It’s unnatural,” he moaned. “Only the whore of Babylon would marry a child of Satan.”

“You shut the fuck up,” Jason ordered. “You’re talkin’ ’bout my sister and her man. And she ain’t ever been to Babalonia. And I know for a fact that she was born in Monroe!”

I chuckled, shook my head at the interlude I’d just had with Jason, and went back to work.

I began searching through the files on the doctor’s computer as Jason went back to watching the door. It didn’t take me long to find something that incriminated the doctor, the now-dead governor, Sarah Newlin, and other high-ranking officials in the state government.

“Why Doctor Overlark,” I said, my jaw tightening, “it says here that you are the chief architect of Hep-V—that it was your idea. You must be very proud of your work—correct?”

When my cadence edged up to indicate a question, Overlark eagerly responded. “Yes!” As soon as he answered, however, he cried out again.

“Who else has access to this formula?” I asked him.

His eyes momentarily became hopeful as he responded. “Just my team here. Top secret,” he answered before bawling in his pain.

It was music.

I continued searching Overlark’s computer, copying many files as my hands flew across the keys and clicked the mouse in time with the symphony of the doctor’s sobs and groans.

“Why, Dr. Overlark, you are a sick cookie,” I commented with a chuckle. “It seems that you’ve got quite a collection of a particular kind of file on your computer. I believe it’s known as vampire porn—correct?”

Overlark managed to nod before being wracked with even more intense pain.

“Porn?” Jason asked with interest as he came to stand next to me, being sure to avoid looking at the junked “junk” on the floor. “Anything good?” he asked.

“I believe some humans enjoy watching vampires have sex, and the good doctor has a little side-business selling the videos on the Internet; however, I cannot call them ‘good.’ They seem to be records of his more sordid experiments.” I sneered at the hypocritical doctor; to me, what he was doing against my kind could only be termed rape, and there was no way that any legitimate god would condone that act. I hadn’t needed my father or my maker to tell me that rape—against anyone—was an abomination.

“Oh,” Jason said, quickly becoming distressed as he saw that the video that I was copying as evidence against Overlark and the Vamp Camp was of two male vampires being forced to have sex. “Well—I don’t need to see no more—um—twisted sex stuff.” He took a nervous breath. “Not that there’s anything wrong with a—uh—man and a man . . . .” He stopped. “I mean when a fella like Lafayette likes another fella, it’s his—uh—choice and all, so I don’t got no problem with that, but when a fella don’t like other fellas, then his—uh,” he paused, flailing for words, “his—uh—end zone—shouldn’t be . . . . Well it’s just not cool to get forced to do stuff—you know?” he asked me.

“Agreed,” I responded.

“Rape against anyone just ain’t right,” he finished, his face turning white and his eyes hinting at hidden pain.

“Agreed,” I said again, surprising myself by reaching out and putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Jason was a little taken aback by my action too, but after a moment, he nodded gratefully before his eyes went back to the computer screen. “Hey,” he said, tilting his head to one side, “that next file says Burrell.”

Immediately, I growled as I looked at Overlark. “Is that file of Willa?” I demanded, not wanting to open it to look—not wanting to see my youngest child, who was truly an innocent, degraded.

“No,” Overlark answered before his wails overcame him again.

I clicked the video and—with much relief—I saw that it wasn’t my newest progeny, but her father. The late Governor Burrell was engaged in less that righteous acts with two vampires—one female and one male.

“Ah—man,” Jason commented. “That motherfucker’s sick,” he added before looking away from the screen.

I chuckled. “Now, now, Jason. Don’t judge. The governor was obviously a consenting adult,” I chided. “And—in this one, at least—the vampires also seem pleased to be involved. And some people like to be dominated and,” I paused, “swatted with vegetables during sex games.”

“Um—he wasn’t—um gettin’ swatted with that—um,” he stopped. “What the hell was that thing?”

“I believe it was a daikon radish,” I said.

“Oh—uh—never heard of them.”

“I believe they are more common to Asian cuisine,” I reported.

Jason nodded, taking in the new information before shuddering. “But he was wearing lipstick and,” he paused and closed his eyes tightly, “garters.”

I laughed. “Not very flattering,” I agreed, adding the Burrell file to the cache that I was copying. “What were your intentions with that file, Overlark?” I asked.

“Blackmail,” he responded before screaming.

Unfortunately, his cry was loud enough to get the attention of a couple of other vampires; I smelled them as they zipped down the corridor. Quickly, I moved Jason behind me.

The vampires’ fangs dropped at the sight of the blood pooling around Overlark’s body.

My fangs dropped at the sight of them in the doorway.

Jason cocked his weapon.

“These humans are mine! Leave!” I commanded.

Luckily, the vampires at the door were not young. Both were several hundred years old, and I’d seen them in Sophie-Anne’s court before. A younger vampire might have challenged me out of ignorance. A vampire closer to my age might have challenged me out of arrogance and stupidity.

“Sorry Sheriff, we didn’t know these were yours,” the one I recognized as Rasul said respectfully as he looked at Overlark and quickly put away his fangs.

“They are,” I confirmed.

Rasul nodded in respect as the vampiress next to him retracted her fangs too. “I have heard that you are the one responsible for our liberation,” he said.

I nodded.

“Then you have my loyalty until my true death,” he vowed.

“And mine,” the female next to Rasul nodded in agreement.

It was good to have the loyalty of strong vampires, so I nodded in appreciation. “Can you give me an update about the status of the facility?” I asked, remembering that Rasul had been the chief of the Queen’s palace security force and that he’d put up a hell of a fight—even against Russell and myself—when we’d invaded her residence more than a year before.

“As far as I can tell, most of the humans here and in the factory are already dead,” he reported. “After feeding, many of the vampires left immediately.”

“I don’t blame them,” I commented. “Why have you lingered?”

“Some of the other older vampires and I have been trying to find a way into the area at the far west of the facility, but so far,” he paused, “no one’s hand has worked to open the doors. There are still humans holed up in that section—and vampires.”

I nodded. “I will take care of getting those vampires out,” I said. “Meanwhile, I want you and the other vampires in your group to do a final sweep of the rest of the facility; be sure that all uninfected vampires are evacuated before dawn, and destroy the loaded trucks with the tainted TruBlood.”

“So it is poisoned?” Rasul asked.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “After you go, lay low and contact me or my progeny, Pam, in a week.”

Rasul nodded deferentially and then zipped away with the female vampire.

“Uh—Eric?” Jason said, his eyes back on the computer screen. He was pointing to a file that had appeared when the computer refreshed itself with the main server. It was one I’d not seen before and had a name that made my dead heart lurch—”Pam.”

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A/N: Good afternoon! Thanks for all the nice comments about the previous chapter. I hope you liked this chapter too. I’d love—as always—to hear your feedback.

Yes—in case you were wondering—I was a B.J. and the Bear fan in my younger days (I think I was about 6 when it came on air). Here is the show’s description from IMDb in case you’ve never heard of it: “A trucker and his pet monkey travel the highways of America, getting into various adventures and misadventures along the way.” And—yes—this was a real show. I’m not making it up.

I want to make clear that I’m not a condoner of torture. I hope that—with this chapter—I showed the layers of Eric. He can be brutal and merciful. But the thing I’ve always enjoyed about him is that, even amidst his complexity, he is unapologetic.

Finally, I wanted to give credit where I think it’s due. Though a lot of this scene is added, many of its frames are what happened on the show. I, for one, liked several moments of the episode where Eric “invaded” Vamp Camp. I liked his interactions with Jason and the young vampire. I also thought it was poetic justice this he took Overlark’s “junk,” given the nature of many of the experiments happening (which are rape in my book). As for the vampires doing the same? Well—I don’t condone that either. (I guess I’m kind of like Jason there.)

Anyway, it’s a good time to remind everyone of my disclaimer: I don’t own anything.

Cheers,

Kat

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