MommyBlogsGalore.com: Forum #24958583933
Hawkeye Mom
31-year-old mother from Des Moines, Iowa
I know I’ll probably get flamed for this but it has to be said: I don’t trust these Gloamings! And before the Moderators come in and ban me—I’m not advocating violence. I’m just saying that they can’t be trusted. Is that American? They only come out at night?? What is that about? And they’re supposed to be so loving. What did I miss? You and I both know they are responsible for all those unsolved murders. I suppose it’s all a matter of opinion but…
Everyone wants to be one. It’s that whole “I want one too” syndrome all of our kids have. Missy and Wayne begged me to take them to see that boy band Hit This sign autographs at the mall—you know one of them is a Gloaming. Okay, so we went and it was creepy. He looks plastic—like a real-life Ken doll. Everyone in my PTA says that they don’t trust them either. Go to a grocery store or a state fair and you’ll hear the same things. 10:28 p.m.
DitmasParkmom—
“Is that American?” ???? Who says that? I bet you’re really fun at parties. I bet your Facebook feed is the symbol of tolerance and filled with pictures of our “Duh!”-faced relatives. 10:31 p.m.
Hawkeye Mom—
That’s what I’m talking about! Any difference of opinion gets slandered with hate. Does this make me a bad person? I forgive you, though. 10:33 p.m.
DitmasParkmom—
Thanks. I’ll sleep better knowing you forgive me. I happen to think that the Gloamings will bring about a measure of diversity to our population. Maybe its evolution or something. I’ve seen some here in New York and they seem so civil and polite. And they do shake people’s hands while being patient and willing to answer all questions no matter how absurd. And they do really good things—the Gloaming Council’s food and toy drive helps thousands of children in the Greater New York area. They’re not just taking—they’re giving back. 10:40 p.m.
Hawkeye Mom—
They never come to this part of the country and I think that’s a shame. Maybe if they came to my state more I would find them acceptable. The only thing we hear about them are rumors. And sometimes rumors turn out to be true. Put some effort into it. 10:41 p.m.
DitmasParkmom—
That’s kind of clueless. 10:42 p.m.
Hawkeye Mom—
Fuck off! You’re the type of mom who feeds their kids artisanal baby food quiche. When they’re sucking all the blood from your babies don’t come crying to me! 10:44 p.m.
[Moderator ended thread]
Chapter 12
Fall
Twenty-Eight Months After the NOBI Discovery
Joseph Barrera
Political Operative
The next time someone tells you there is no such thing as karma, tell them the story about the liberal political operative who went to work for a Republican candidate for governor. It’ll make their day.
We called Nick’s campaign tour leading up to Election Day “New Mexico Forward!” and it was a surprising success—perhaps not so much in the attendance, but in the accompanying publicity.
We encountered a few logistical issues regarding Nick’s inability to be in sunlight. But the Gloamings started turning out in droves. They had their own official Web page which posted the exact times for every area in the world when it was safe to exit their homes—usually thirty to forty minutes after sunset. The Gloamings also had developed modified Apple watches to provide an alarm that alerted them when it was safe to venture outside. They were particularly adept at using technology to better their quality of life and health given their numerous physical requirements. Their personal Gloaming pages, which provided all essential Gloaming services from the nonprofit Gloaming Foundation, were private and housed on a confidential server in a restricted portion of the dark Web; therefore, not much was known about what services were offered to the Gloamings on this page, but it was well known that the “outside alarm” was a part of the services. Attempts were made almost daily, but the website was notable for being impervious to hacking from private or government sources. Interestingly enough, it was rumored that the server farm was located somewhere in New Mexico or Arizona. Also interesting, at least to me, was that there was a growing movement in the Gloaming community that eschewed most technological devices, even going so far as to construct elaborate Rube Goldberg–ish pinhole sundial systems within an enclosed box that let them know when it was safe to venture outside.
Meanwhile, the campaign rolled smoothly along; each day, I received an email informing me what time Nick would be available to the campaign for public events. I was still concerned about events scheduled after eight in the evening. The challenge was that people—non-Gloamings—tended to be winding down then. I always made sure that there was plenty of coffee for the audience. Leslie even suggested—at first I thought jokingly—that they develop an aerosol mixture to stimulate people’s senses, which could be piped into the crowd. Needless to say, I nixed that idea quickly. But all this kind of endeared the Gloamings to me. In some ways, we were cut from the same cloth: face a challenge, craft a solution, and implement it, no matter what the circumstances.
With money being no object, I became obsessed with polling the race on an almost daily basis. By the Labor Day mark, the most recent poll had the race Duncan Caplin, 51 percent, to Nick Bindon Claremont, 49 percent. Nick and Leslie panicked in their own slow-burn Gloaming way, but statistically this was nearly a tie, and we still had months until people went to the polls.
We were at a Labor Day picnic rally—at night, of course—listening to various union leaders who had surprisingly decided to endorse Nick Bindon Claremont. I could only imagine what kind of threats or payoffs were involved to get these unions to endorse a Republican over a Democrat, let alone a plutocrat billionaire who’d likely worked to obliterate unions in his business pursuits. But I was happy for the good publicity that night, given the fact that every time there was an instance of Gloaming behavior that was deemed detrimental to humans, the press always decided to ask for Nick’s opinion on it. Dead bodies found in a ditch, drained of human blood? The press would ask Nick to comment on it. So for once, the publicity would be about Nick’s views on policy, not his Gloaming status.
I was scanning my iPhone, attempting to pretend I was listening to this union leader go on about the minimum wage, when my phone went nuts. Ten messages popped up on my screen simultaneously.
They were all about the same thing: Wade Ashley was dead.
I jumped out of my seat and shoved my way through the bodyguards into the cool night air. I clicked the link attached to one text: the Washington Post site announcing Wade’s passing. He had been found in his apartment, hanging from a homemade noose made from a leather belt and lashed to a door. Certain conspiracy theory websites disputed the suicide theory since the autopsy report stated that Wade had suffered a cervical fracture from the hanging. Quite a few contended that while the belt around his neck was sufficient to cause death, it was not enough to actually break the neck.
I heard a step behind me, and I whirled around.
Leslie.
She must have seen the look on my face and understood that the news was out.
“We need to talk,” I said.
Leslie cocked her head toward her SUV and walked over as one of her men opened the door. I stepped inside with her.
I knew that their cars were soundproof and covered with what is euphemistically known as a “ring of electronic waves” designed to thwart any attempt to eavesdrop on communications inside the vehicle. The car was covered in a tent of material designed to keep sound in and detection out, similar to the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility that travels with the president of the United States. The bottom line was that I was free to speak freely and on any subject while in one of these secure portable facilities, whether in a car or in the portable tent ones they carried with them.
“You didn’t have to kill him!” I yelled.
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br /> Leslie simply stared at me as if she were waiting for me to expend all of this negative energy so we could get back to business.
“I could have handled it,” I continued. “I would have done whatever it took, short of—”
“It had to be done, Joseph. Do you realize how close he had come to blowing this whole campaign for good? He subverted our surveillance on himself and Amanda Allen. He convinced her to tell him the whole story. Obviously he had little except for her word, but that would have been enough. You know how the press is with…” She trailed off. “With us. I was not going to let that happen.”
She paused. Then calmly, as if reciting, she said, “Joseph. Listen to me. When I was a little girl my dad would read me books about the great Roman generals. He was obsessed with them. My favorite general was Scipio Africanus. He conquered Hannibal in the Punic Wars. He was outnumbered two to one but he used guile and intelligence to best the greatest army known to man. Hannibal’s elephants charged forward but Scipio arranged his columns in a manner easiest for killing the elephants and the soldiers. And in that way he defeated a larger adversary. Afterwards, Scipio said this: ‘Go, therefore, to meet the foe with two objects before you: either victory or death. For men animated by such a spirit must always overcome their adversaries, since they go into battle ready to throw away their lives.’”
Leslie pointed a finger at my chest. “Wade knew—we warned him. I have little sympathy for a reckless man who knew the consequences of his actions.” Her gaze narrowed as if she were already weary of this conversation. “Do your job, Joseph. This probably would have happened whether or not you were here. In fact, it probably would have happened a lot sooner, if not for your sense of morality and guidance. Nick respects it.”
I nodded, still too stunned to realize she had, in her own way, paid me a compliment.
We sat in silence. I wondered if I would ever forgive myself or if I simply did not care anymore. Even today I couldn’t tell you.
“Okay,” I said as I tossed my soul and everything with it. “Time to get back to work.”
From that point we prepared for our bulk of campaign advertising to focus on specific issues of concern to the voters of New Mexico. We had spent the summer focusing on biographical advertising given that Nick was not well known among the electorate. We emphasized his middle-class upbringing in Las Cruces, where he excelled on the football field and in the classroom. We concentrated on Nick’s extended family being longtime residents of New Mexico.1
The main challenge we encountered in our advertising was the inability to show a current photograph of Nick Bindon Claremont. We could show older pictures from before he was a Gloaming, but that only got us so far. The campaign needed something that felt current for the voters; our focus groups specifically mentioned this issue—that voters felt disconnected from Nick personally. I decided it would be elegant and unique if we had different portraits painted of Nick. Just like iconic presidential candidate photographs: Nick in shirtsleeves reaching out and grabbing the hands of supporters. Nick deep in thought alongside distressed voters. Nick smiling with union supporters and families. It took a bit of experimenting to find the best results, which came from portraits done in oil on canvas, but Nick and Leslie were impressed and satisfied with the execution.
The one painting that really seemed to resonate with the public was of an introspective Nick with his arms crossed, an identical pose to the painting of John F. Kennedy in his official White House portrait by Aaron Shikler. Apparently, the “contemplative nature” appealed to voters, according to our focus groups, so we used that painting in numerous mailers, from large posters to lawn signs to stamp-size stickers.
For the first televised debate, I insisted that Nick’s voice be dubbed on a small tape delay, to ensure that the voice-over actor could get the inflection correct. I wanted Nick to appear at once forceful and empathetic.
The throng of reporters covering Nick seemed to grow every day, and they flew in from all over the country. I expected this to happen at first but naively thought most would lose interest in the larger campaign until Election Day itself. I was wrong. It was a mess trying to navigate and handle each separate reporter. I endured on Red Bull and five-hour energy for days on end because I stayed up very late with the Gloamings, then needed to be up early in the morning to accommodate the human staff and reporters throughout the regular day.
For months, I fended off sleazy Gloaming attacks from the Caplin campaign and their super PAC. Of course, it didn’t help that there were a few more bodies found drained of blood in various cities in New Mexico, but we ended up working with the particular police departments to keep the news under the radar until after the election. I don’t even want to speculate about how Leslie and Toshi accomplished this maneuver. For every billboard that warned that Gloaming policies were bad for New Mexico’s children, we bought three billboards showing Nick volunteering at soup kitchens. For every commercial that questioned Nick Bindon Claremont’s ability to understand the “true humanity” of New Mexico, we bombarded the airways and Internet with warm, colorful Nick Bindon Claremont advertisements: “I’m Nick Bindon Claremont, and I approve this message.”
On the morning of Election Day, I woke up after two hours of sleep, with three Red Bulls and a cigarette. The day was a blur.
I was a nervous wreck when the returns came through, and it was still light outside, so I went to the basement to watch them with Nick and Leslie. I tried to stay away from the booze but I was too nervous to manage it straight. We took the lead through the early returns and never let go, and Governor Nick Bindon Claremont won the election by a bigger margin than even I thought he could get: 57 percent to 43 percent. An electoral blowout. We were ecstatic. Nick and Leslie seemed oddly restrained, but I wrote it off to being Gloamings. Needless to say, my entire staff partied until the wee hours of the morning, when Toshi appeared and asked to have a word with me.
We walked over to a dark corner of the hotel bar, near the bathrooms. He said Nick and Leslie were pleased with my job performance and would add a hefty bonus to my fee, but they would not need my services any longer. As if I were simply a worker being laid off with a severance. Then he shook my hand and walked away.
It was an odd and disconcerting end to the campaign.
Impersonal and demeaning.
It did not surprise me one bit.
1 Nick’s paternal great-grandfather moved to New Mexico from Pennsylvania to seek his fortune in the minerals trade. This was important because Nick and his family left New Mexico while he was in high school and Nick didn’t return until about five years ago to become a full-time resident. Even that was a stretch, however, given the amount of time he spent at his other homes in California, New York, and Paris.
The New York Times
Obituaries
Demetrius “Quick” Johnson, undefeated welterweight professional boxer and number one on the Ring magazine pound-for-pound best boxers, died yesterday in New York City from massive organ failure due to an unsuccessful re-creation.
Johnson was born in Mobile, Alabama, the second son of two middle school teachers. After being picked on by classmates because of his missing front tooth, Johnson was enrolled by his father in the Southside Boxing Academy. Johnson took to the spartan nature of training—the repetitive shadowboxing in front of the mirror, jumping rope for hours—and soon entered various tournaments to become Southern Golden Gloves champion for three years in his weight class. Chosen for the United States Olympic team, he surprised everyone by making it to the medal final round and beating the favored Russian boxer Ruslan Aleksandrov to win the gold. The next year, Johnson defeated Roman Martinez in the most-watched pay-per-view bout in history.
The most famous contemporary boxer in the world, Johnson soon came under the influence of Ivan Kozlov, an American of Russian descent who made his fortune in automobile sales. Kozlov loved combat sports—he met Johnson at a boxing match where they reportedly struck up a friendship.
No one knows the exact circumstances of Johnson’s attempted re-creation, but a few of Kozlov’s associates indicated that it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. After the attempt was made, Johnson lapsed into a coma. His associates waited five hours before taking him to a hospital, where he died two days later.
The deceased is survived by his wife and two children.
Chapter 13
Labor Day
Twenty-Eight Months After the NOBI Discovery
Dr. Lauren Scott
Research Physician, Centers for Disease Control
Cancer, AIDS, swine flu, bird flu, SARS, MRSA, Ebola…Who am I to think that anyone should really care about this NOBI virus? “If you could see the faces of the mothers, fathers, or children afflicted with those diseases, you’d be working on a cure for those and ignoring anything dealing with those bloodsuckers.” That was my previous director, moments after I demanded more resources and personnel for my research. It became so bad that I almost felt like he had a point. What would we all gain if I found a cure? I probably should have listened to him, but I truly felt that my work might save our population as much as Ebola or cancer research could, although I’m certain it was hard for other people to envision that same concept.
A People's History of the Vampire Uprising_A Novel Page 19