The Undead Smart Set

Greetings and Salutations,

It is not often that social reform is truly a significant issue for the undead.  Most vampires couldn’t care less whether their next victim was the scion of a noble line or the fellow who digs the latrines.  Zombies can’t even tell the difference.  Blood is blood and brains are brains.

And yet, it seems that change has caught up with us at last, although it took its time doing so.  Life went along swimmingly for a couple of thousand years without too many cares in the world.  Until a hundred years ago.  At this point, land reform and the industrial revolution had gained momentum to such an extreme that most of the population was relocating to cities, leaving the countryside sorely underpopulated.  It was a trend that began in western Europe, but soon spread . . . everywhere.

At first, I paid it no attention.  Humans, I thought, were in no danger of becoming extinct, and while they were around, there would be plenty of food.  But I was wrong.  My quality of life, and that of my circle, began to suffer enormously.  Zombies began to run amok in completely unsuitable underground labs.  Werewolves were seen in London.  Vampires gave interviews.

Read that last sentence again: vampires gave interviews.  It makes one shudder going, as it does, against everything that vampires stand for.  Vampires do not seek publicity.  We live in quiet opulence guiding the lives of our neighbors like puppeteers.  Any paparazzi unwise enough to come to our door becomes what we vampires refer to as “lunch”.

And yet it happened.  The question now is why?  I decided to investigate.

Months of looking into the habits and diets of the poor deluded undead who have behaved in such improper ways yielded nothing, and I would have been stumped had I not happened to be spending the week over at Count LeMort’’s country estate.  He was complaining that it was becoming nearly impossible to find people to farm his lands.  It seems that no one does this out of pure feudal spirit anymore, they all want money.  Of course, the count was having none of it, and large tracts of land lay fallow.

Those empty spaces made me realize what had happened, where our kind had gone astray.  Whole rural villages ideal for a moonlight attack lay empty, ruined.  The peasants had simply disappeared, moving to cities and towns, becoming factory workers and taxi drivers and *shudder* writers of science fiction novels.  And the undead who ate them had followed them.

As you know, cities are the very worst place for undead to live.  They are places where people dance till dawn (you know what happens when a vampire dances till dawn?  The sun fries us, that’s what!), pizza is considered food and you can’t even see if the moon is full with all the lights and smog.  Vampires lose the feeling that they own the night.  Mummies haunt the British Museum.  Werewolves, never the brightest fellows to begin with, end up even more confused and spend their time at the local Starbucks.  And zombies, of course, trash the nearest secret lab.

Stressful is what I call it. 

So I’m starting a motion to bring back the rural peasant (a sub-motion will be to outlaw pitchforks and torches – there is such a thing as too much of a good thing).  My proposal would be to take useless members of urban society such as music industry lawyers and the guys who build speed bumps and toss them into small hovels in rural areas. 

I shall let you know how it goes.

Regards,

H.