ISSUE 007

Lucien and his brothers were made vampires in a horrific celestial ceremony of human sacrifice officiated by their mentor, at the cost of the lives of their pregnant mother and unborn brother. Looking to rejuvenate their evil souls and free their bloodstreams from methamphetamine addiction, Lucien brings his brothers to the Moonbeam to prepare an altar. Now all they have to do is capture Linda before the apex of tonight's full moon.

Burning Rabbit has devolved into a sick festival of savagery and violence at the hands of the prison gangs. Sodom and Gomorrah would seem like Disneyland by comparison. Government drones hover and military aircraft streak overhead at Burning Rabbit and the prison compounds, but well-placed hostages like Dani's news crew make surgical strikes impossible.

While the city-sized hostage standoff at Black Hide seems utterly intractable, the approaching wildfires have crested the forested hill behind Candy's mansion overlooking Black Hide. This fire forms the mobile hammer element of a classic military "hammer and anvil" maneuver. The fire's advance drives the inmates and their hostages ever closer toward the immovable anvil of the National Guard's dug-in positions.

In a combination of brotherly goading and sick gentlemanly sport, each vampire makes a solo attempt to extract Linda from the ToroTread compound. They manage to claim the lives of a few refugees, and most of the remaining ToroTread team, but Linda remains safe. The compound, and the chaotic town of Lakeview, are now surrounded by rising tides of choking smoke and rings of fire.

Against this hellish backdrop, the vampires realize that months of meth use have deteriorated their senses and skills, and compromised their ability to rapidly recover from injury. They must quickly capture Linda and her baby to ensure their own survival.

Ray nearly sacrifices himself by creating a grand diversion that allows Adam and Linda to escape in a pickup truck and run for the National Guard roadblocks. When fire blocks the road, however, the vampires catch up to them, leaving Adam for dead and taking Linda back to town.

Ray fights his way into Lakeview using his lethally accessorized custom wheelchair and is horrified by what he sees at the Moonbeam. The vamps have Linda ceremoniously tied down on the billiard table. The full moon crawls toward its apex, and a spot of light shining through the ridge beam creeps toward the center of Linda's belly. Cinders fall from the smoky sky, igniting the roofs of nearby buildings.

The vampires begin to argue. Marcel wants to forgo the ceremony and continue degrading his powers with meth, hoping to die in a mortal fashion, a'la "Leaving Las Vegas". Thibault votes to allow Marcel this final option, but Lucien has no patience for quitters. An incredible brawl erupts among the haggard vampires, giving Ray time to load the ancient Mexican cannon in the park across the street with black powder, gasoline and the contents of a nearby pickup bed: tire chains, wood screws, a ball trailer hitch, several open-end wrenches, pieces of a picket fence.

Lucien comes completely unhinged. He drowns Marcel in a mop bucket and savagely beats his will into Thibault. He revives Marcel by stomping his chest to drive the water from his lungs. Now everyone's on the same page.

Adam staggers back to ToroTread and is pounced upon by Carlos, who lost Howard's trail in the chaos of the approaching fires and panicked crowds. Carlos holds his dazed and bleeding childhood friend at gunpoint, demanding to know Linda's location. For a moment, Adam manages to turn the tables and get the drop on Carlos.

But it's Hector who settles the bill, sacrificing himself by forcing Carlos into a booby trap that failed to function during the vampires' abduction of Linda: an over-inflated commercial tire with a locking ring (which, in the tire industry, is the "Hurt Locker" equivalent of a daily-chained series of IEDs). The compressed air explodes the giant tire with the lethal force of a bomb, and the steel ring sections Carlos and Hector like grapefruit, ending the terrible saga of the Horton Triplets in equal parts blood, revenge and redemption.

On the radio in his sublimely outfitted panic room, Candy raises Forest Service Headquarters and requests that Air National Guard units (who are dropping napalm nearby in a desperate bid to back-burn and extinguish multiple wildfire fronts) lay some ordnance directly upon his mansion at the treeline where surviving Yucatan Mafia and Aryan gang members have turned on each other while fighting the bikers in a bloody free-for-all.

Candy's request is approved and air is soon on station. Candy opens a fine bottle of wine, sits astride his boyhood pony saddle (Kane had Rosebud; Candy has this saddle) and prepares for the end of the world.