ISSUE 004

DOWNTOWN LAKEVIEW: Under a low smothering canopy of wildfire smoke a prison shuttle bus drops another sixty freed female inmates (with half as many teeth among them) into the middle of an ex-con job fair. Fire crews and military recruiters work one side of the street while pimps, pushers, storefront pastors and strip-club staffers work the other. Emancipated Linda slips away to discover that her rising-star sister, Dani, and their widowed mother have moved on to points unknown. Her childhood home is now an armed meth cookhouse inhabited by small-time criminals who are eager to partner with Linda, a legendary meth maker.

Across town, Hector steps off the train from Mexico after being discovered as an impostor and dismissed from study at the seminary, and finds Lakeview has become an end-times boomtown. With the skin between his shoulder blades twitching in anticipation of a well-deserved bullet, and his storming mind unable to toggle a single setting for his binary issues of forgiveness and vengeance, hunted Hector hides his face and seeks sanctuary at his former place of employment: ToroTread. Stepfather Howard is gone, but Adam and the ToroTread crew welcome their long-lost childhood friend with open arms. Hector is home at last.

Linda's father, WAYNE DOYLE, owned a tavern called The Moonbeam. It's been closed since the night Wayne's best friend and Marine Corps comrade, Ray (the town drunk, and Adam's father) fired a bowling ball from the ancient Mexican cannon in Veteran's Park to herald Wayne's birthday. Linda peers through the gaping hole in the side of the boarded-up Moonbeam and looks at the billiard table where they laid Wayne out before he died.

Nobody was so much as scratched by the bowling ball stunt, but Wayne laughed until his heart seized up and he died just the same. Linda has always been skilled at finding losers to create and share Grade-A misery disguised as love, but she doesn't have a clue how to find someone like her late father: a man who cares enough to protect her from Carlos, help her stay clean and become a good mother.

Back at Candy's cabin, Carlos is the proud father of a four-pound megabatch of crank. When he comes in from the barn to conduct a taste test with his crew, however, he learns of two new developments. First, his stepfather, Howard, has fled in the R.V. with the stolen Aryan bankroll. Second, the dark cabin is now home to three lanky men with French accents and bloody smiles. After tracking a blood trail to the cabin and gorging on Carlos' crew, the vampires conducted their own taste test. Turns out that a bloodstream full of meth is what they've been craving since being awakened by the ambush in Nevada. The drug alone has no appeal to the vampires - but the blood of an IV meth user packs a punch they can't get enough of. They're hooked.

A criminal partnership is entered. Carlos will hire new talent to help him cook and deal meth and the vampires will clean house, eliminating rivals and enforcing collections in return for an endless harvest of meth-infused victims. A framed photo of Candy's spectacular estate prompts a move from the rustic cabin to the tire magnate's French-inspired mansion on a cliff-edged promontory overlooking Lakeview's bustling ex-con population and the Modoc reservation's upcoming Burning Rabbit Festival.

Caught naked with his mistresses, Candy escapes the vampires' home invasion by diving into a hidden network of passageways. Unable to recall the password to his underground panic room, Candy lives a very real game of cat and mouse inside the walls of his own home, venturing from hiding to take food and attempt flight as the vampires and Carlos' gang move in and take over. Candy's forays grow bolder as unchecked meth use by proxy diminishes the vampires' senses and relative sanity. Savoring their status and power, the vampires' plan to return to France is sidetracked, then forgotten. They neglect their predatory edge, instead tapping the veins of captive tweaker women like hysterical casks of cheap wine as the wildest part of Oregon burns around them.

Hector joins Adam's ToroTread crew and distinguishes himself by volunteering for the most dangerous missions, and taking the greatest risks while the crew repel assaults by thieves; rescue and shelter locals; and battle through roadside ambushes while servicing and retrieving stricken rigs in the field. The ToroTread boys develop as an effective combat unit, risking their lives and prevailing daily in situations that combine elements of humor, terror and bravery with wheels, weapons and the primitive greed and stupidity of men.

Adam's father, Ray, was made executor of Wayne's estate. Freshly released from jail for the cannon stunt, he putters into town in his custom motorized wheelchair (nearly the size of a small car) to find Linda hiding out at the Moonbeam. Ray apologizes. Presents her with the deed to the tavern and a small life-insurance payout, promoting her from ex-con to small-business owner. Linda hires Ray and together they reopen the bar as a moonshine-and-homebrew watering hole for fire crews and National Guard troops, putting profit toward an escape plan that will allow Linda to move away and raise her baby in safety.