by Matt Rogers
Chapter 11
Entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes and so do their ideas. Some of those ideas have changed the world for the better, some for the worst, but they all start out as a little spark of imagination. Now, imagination can carry people a long way, all the way to top possibly, and that same imagination isn’t confined to inventing new things for people to use; no, sometimes it’s used to invent new ways for people to use old things. A case in point; people have been sailing for a long time and it was usually for work or voyage but as the Human race progressed sailing became a popular hobby for some. Those people tended to be rich because, well, boats are not exactly an everyday use item for most since most don’t live on the water and fish for a living. After a while, though, boating became more affordable and the middle class began experimenting with boat-ownership themselves. It seems like a fun past time but, like everything else, it does have its disadvantages such as storing and cleaning. Some of those middle class boat-owners decided to unload their little water-party-cars which is where Joe came along. He saw a need and filled it. If someone with modest means wished to drive a boat all they needed was to give Joe a little money and, shazam, part-time boat owner. It seemed like a no-brainer to Joe. It’s not like we’re talking the ocean here; this was a lake and anyone with any common sense can have the time of their lives on a lake. Heck, the boats he had weren’t fast enough to pull a water-skier.
“You sank the pontoon?”
“Yes, we’re very sorry, Joe” said Vivian.
“How can you sink a pontoon?”
“Um, I don’t know. We were boating along and it started to go down.”
“But it’s a pontoon, Miss Vivian? They’re impossible to sink.”
“I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened” she answered and if I hadn’t known the truth I would’ve completely believed her for she had such a sorrowful look on her cute little face and tears welling up in her big, blue eyes.
“It’s okay, Miss Vivian, I guess sometimes things happen.”
“But you’ll be okay, right? You’ve got insurance?”
“Well…”
And that’s the greatest problem entrepreneurs face; the one-time catastrophic event they hadn’t had the time to save for because if they had the resources they’d no longer be entrepreneurs, they’d be success stories.
“How much did it cost us?” George asked.
“Forty thousand” Vivian answered.
“Huh? I thought it’d be more” he responded.
“Johnny, you’ve been quiet ever since I paid Joe. What’s the problem, do you think I paid too much?” she asked.
“I think you got taken to the cleaners” I answered.
“How?”
“There is no way a piece of wood strapped over two canoes is worth forty thousand dollars.”
“How much do you think it was worth?” asked George.
“Probably half as much.”
“Why the cheating scoundrel! I’m going back and rip his head off!”
“Why, George?”
“Because he lied, I can’t stand liars.”
“But you lied to him.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes you did, you said his boat accidently sank.”
“It did accidently sink.”
“You ran it onto the shore.”
“Yes, but I didn’t think it’d sink.”
“What did you think would happen if you ran two aluminum tubes onto a sunbaked shoreline?”
“I thought, okay, I didn’t really think about it. But that’s not the point!”
“What’s the point then?”
“The point is, okay, I don’t know what the point is either but I don’t like it!”
“George” interrupted Vivian.
“Yes, Mistress?”
“Let it drop. Forty thousand isn’t worth the trouble.”
“It’s not the money, Mistress, it’s the principle of the thing.”
“What principle?” she asked.
“What principle? Okay, I don’t know what principle, I only know…”
“Excuse me?”
“Yes, Johnny?” said Vivian.
“Did you say forty thousand wasn’t worth the trouble?”
“Yes, Sweetie, I did.”
“Are you rich?”
“Oh, I don’t know, what would you consider rich?”
“Someone who didn’t think forty thousand dollars was worth the trouble.”
“Oh, then yes, we’re rich.”
“How rich?”
“We don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“How could you not know?”
“Well, it’s like this; we sort of invested in the stock market a few years back and our finances fluctuate a little.”
“A few years back?”
“Yes.”
“How many years?”
“At the beginning.”
“You invested in the stock market at the beginning?”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“We invented it.”
“You invented the stock market?”
“Yes, we had to.”
“Why?”
“To hide our finances.”
“To hide your…? Okay, short version again, please.”
“Sure, Sweetie, like I said, you only need to ask. Okay, we had a little problem during the Middle Ages due to the wealth some of our kind accumulated so… What, Johnny? You’re giving me a weird look again.”
“The Middle Ages?”
“Yes?”
“You just said you were around during the Middle Ages.”
“Yes?”
“How old are you?”
“A woman never tells. So anyway, some Vampires and Werewolves began attracting a little too much attention because of their wealth. Now, this normally wouldn’t be a problem but a complication popped up which had the local populace in the area a bit miffed.”
“What?”
“Starvation. The weather patterns around there were ruining the crops and the peasants began starving so they got angry which got them killed. Problem solved right? Wrong. There was a surge in population and an increase in relocation we hadn’t seen before so the next wave of peasants came in and we had to kill them too but this led to a little too much coincidence for a lot of the wealthier class of Humans who were riding the starvation out along with us Superiors; and you know what happens when one group of wealthy sees a vulnerability in another, don’t you?”
“No, what?”
“Acquisition, Sweetie. The wealthy Humans went after what we Superiors held.”
“What did you hold?”
“The same thing all wealthy people held then; land.”
“Land?”
“Yes, land. The wealthy Humans wanted the Superior lands and they went about acquiring it in the most ingenious way.”
“How?”
“By spreading the truth. Well, not the truth exactly but a facsimile of the truth which was even more effective.”
“What?”
“They invented the first Vampire and Werewolf stories.”
“They invented…? Never mind, please go on with the story.”
“Sure, Sweetie. Okay, the wealthy Humans were in the same boat as us Superiors because the starving peasants were eying them with just as much jealousy and hatred. When people are starving it doesn’t really matter how someone acquired their wealth, the only thing which mattered was a few people were living while a whole lot were dying. So the wealthy Humans were in a bit of trouble because, quite frankly, this was the Middle Ages and food was completely dependent upon Mother Nature who’d decided in her infinite wisdom there were too many people around and maybe she should starve them away. Anyway, it appeared the wealthy Humans would need to give up some of their hoarded crops when they got wind of peasants dying around the lands owned by one of our Elders. This probably wouldn
’t have even caught their attention except she did something really, really stupid.”
“What?”
“She bled them.”
“She what?”
“She bled them. She was preparing for her pregnancy and thought she could solve two problems at once; put down the peasant uprising and fill her coffers with Human blood she could use in her pregnancy. I know now it seems a little bloodthirsty but at the time Human life wasn’t nearly as revered as today. Remember, those Humans only lived till about forty back then and they had scores of babies because they expected to lose most of them before adolescence. If you think about it she was probably right in her thinking since most of those peasants were going to die naturally of starvation anyway but, well, hindsight is twenty-twenty.”
“How many did she kill?”
“Oh, she killed all of them. Actually her family killed all of them but she was the one who gave the order so it generally falls on her shoulders.”
“What was her name?”
“Isabella Satan.”
“Satan? As in Satan, the Devil?”
“Yes.”
“But Satan is a male.”
“No, Sweetie, she isn’t. Senora Isabella Satan is a Vampire who was single handedly responsible for the Dark Ages to follow. The wealthy Humans heard about the deaths of all the Satan’s subjects and saw the opportunity…”
“Hold on.”
“Yes?”
“I’ve never heard of Satan being a Vampire.”
“Well, in the Middle Ages women weren’t allowed to hold positions of power if they were married. Isabella Satan was married to Lucifer Satan.”
“So then…? Okay, I’m confused.”
“The titular head of the family was Lucifer but remember we’re a Matriarch so the actual head of the family was Isabella.”
“So the wealthy Humans…?”
“Blamed the bloodless corpses on the only person they believed had the right to control the family; Lucifer Satan.”
“And Lucifer Satan was?”
“A Werewolf.”
“Okay, weird but okay. So, why did the wealthy Humans make up the Vampire and Werewolf stories?”
“So they could have a scapegoat. It’s been going on forever; if you’re in a position of power, things are going bad and you have no answer for the problems facing you, blame someone else. It helps if the person you’re blaming is in the minority and during the Middle Ages the wealthy were definitely in the minority.”
“But it was the wealthy who were blaming the other wealthy.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. So what happened?”
“Well, the wealthy Humans made up stories like we drank peoples’ blood and Werewolves only came out during the full moon, stuff like that, and the peasants swallowed it whole. They started revolting against the Satan until…”
“One second.”
“Yes?”
“Why did they make up stories about Werewolves?”
“Oh, that was Lucifer’s fault. You see, the local population was much more numerous than the Satan family so they couldn’t just run right out and rip their heads off.”
“Why not?”
“Johnny, we might be strong and fast but we can’t fight sixty peasants with pitchforks. Eventually one of them is going to get a lucky jab and then, well, have you ever seen a pack of hyenas around an antelope carcass?” asked George.
“Yeah.”
“They’ve got nothing on a bunch of hungry peasants with giant eating utensils in their hands.”
“Oh! Yuck!”
“Yeah. They killed and ate a couple of Lucifer’s family members and when they did the gloves came off.”
“What happened?”
“Lucifer waited for night, went out and ripped a whole bunch of peasants to pieces” said George.
“Eww” I said.
“Yeah, eww. But you asked about the Werewolf story origin and it began the very same night. You see, he waited for a full moon, left his castle and killed all of the peasants.”
“Why’d he wait for a full moon?”
“We can see better than Humans but we don’t have night vision. A little moonlight gives us an advantage, though, because a crowd can’t attack a lone figure at night, not when he can hide in the shadows. So he slipped out and started his revenge killing which he probably went a little overboard on I readily admit but, remember, the peasants had eaten some of his family so you can forgive him for doing what he did.”
“He ate them?”
“No, he tore their throats, stomachs and entrails out” George answered.
“Oh.”
“That’s where the origins came from; a bunch of wealthy Humans saw the opportunity to gain at the unfortunate expense of some starving peasants on the Satan property.”
“So Vampires sucking blood comes from…?”
“Isabella Satan draining her peasants in anticipation of her upcoming pregnancy” finished Vivian.
“And Werewolves coming out during the full moon…?”
“A calculated move to give an extraordinary individual the advantage over an ordinary mob” said George.
“But why a wolf?”
“You know of any other creature associated with the moon who tears the throats out of its victims?” asked George.
“But what does this have to do with the stock market?”
“It’s the beginnings of our understanding we needed to keep a low profile if we were to survive among Humans, Sweetie” said Vivian.
“So, did the wealthy Humans get the Satan lands?”
“Oh, no.”
“Why not?”
“Remember our advanced immune system?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, we’re immune from disease too.”
“So?”
“We let loose the Plague, Sweetie.”
“You let loose the Plague?”
“Uh-huh. The wealthy Humans were going to keep riling up the peasants unless the Satan did something about it so Isabella had her sister release the Plague.”
“Her sister?”
“Uh-huh, Stephanie.”
“Hold on! Your Stephanie? The Matriarch?”
“Yep. Our own little hibernating baby-maker.”
“But… Oh my God, how old is she?”
“Old enough.”
“Okay, just a second here. I thought Vampires could only get pregnant once?”
“True”
“Then…?”
“Stephanie is the twin Vampire of Isabella Satan.”
“And she let loose the plague.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She could do that?”
“Uh-huh, Stephanie’s pretty powerful.”
“It takes a powerful Vampire to release the plague?”
“It takes a powerful Vamp to resist releasing it, Johnny. It’s quite a remarkable weapon after all.”
“But didn’t it kill half the people on the planet?”
“No, just half the people in Europe, the rest of the planet was unaffected.”
“But that’s horrible.”
“Why?”
“Why? Did you just ask me why killing innocent people is horrible?”
“Oh, Sweetie, this was the Middle Ages, no one was innocent.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, back then people were killing each other all the time for no real reason whatsoever. You wanted land? Kill the landowner. You wanted someone’s wife? Kill the husband. It didn’t matter because the people in power were the most corrupt Humans in the land.”
“You make it sound like a terrible time.”
“Oh, it was terrible for the peasants but it was downright paradise for the wealthy. If you had access to resources you could do virtually anything without regard for anyone’s well-being because there was no concept of well-being or human rights as they have today.”
“Really? What did they believe in?”
“They be
lieved in their inherent superiority, at least the wealthy did; the poor just believed in eating, sleeping, toiling, and dying.”
“That’s awful.”
“Only to the peasants.”
“So the Satan let loose the Plague.”
“Yes, and everyone forgot all about their jealousy of the rich because the Plague doesn’t discriminate, it kills everyone.”
“And this got the Satan off the hook?”
“For the time being, yes. But everyone could see we had a problem which needed solving.”
“You needed to go underground.”
“Exactly, Sweetie, you’re just so smart. We realized we could no longer go about doing things the way it’d been done before because the population was beginning to suspect we might exist and were becoming afraid.”
“And that was a problem because…?”
“Because fear is a two edged sword, it can cause obedience or its opposite, revolution. Humans are quite unpredictable when scared; they can acquiesce, they can secretly plot your undoing, they can outwardly balk… my goodness, they can do all those things at the same time and it becomes quite confusing for us because we don’t have a reference for their feelings.”
“Because you don’t know fear?”
“Uh-huh, I love teaching you because you grasp things so fast. Yes, we don’t feel fear so we don’t know what a person who does feel it is likely to do. Now, fear does tend to work in our favor most of the time but it only takes once for a Catastrophe to happen.”
“A Catastrophe?”
“Yes, the death of a Vampire.”
“Not a Werewolf?”
“No, Werewolves are replaceable, Vampires are not.”
“Why?”
“A Werewolf can’t make others, Johnny” George interrupted.
“Huh? But I thought Werewolves and Vampires were mates.”
“They are but, well, look at it this way. If there were ten Vampires and one Werewolf it would be possible to sire ten Superiors but if there were only one Vampire and ten Werewolves? Well, let’s just say after the bloodshed there’d be a lot less Werewolves and still only one possible birth.”
“So Vampires are more important than Werewolves?”
“Oh yeah, Vampires are much more valued than we are. I guess it would be the same for Humans if they could only sire one time” George said.
“Hey, guys?”
“Yes, Phillip?” responded George.
“Could you could finish the conversation on the road? Bob and Steve are beginning to molt.”