Brains and Blood
So I had this idea.
The zombie apocalypse finally comes, the dead rise, eat everyone, starting with their brains. This greatly worries the vampires, of course. They can't drink dead blood; they need living humans to survive. So a group of vampires retreats to some big fortified castle in Eastern Europe or someplace, with a good-size pool of human slaves, figuring they can repopulate the planet after all the humans are gone and the zombies starve to death.
150 years later, it turns out zombies don't starve.
Fortunately, vampires can fly, so they've been able to make supply runs to distant cities in the now entirely zombie-filled world, bringing back the things necessary to sustain human life and vampiric luxury. Naturally, whenever they're outside the castle, they're attacked by zombies wanting to eat their brains and flesh, but the vampires can kill them with their superhuman speed and strength. Well, usually, anyway. They used to hold them off with guns, but the ammo ran out 75 years ago.
Now, the castle and the tunnels beneath it are the only remaining stronghold of both humans and vampires. The tunnels have been expanded over the decades to meet the needs of a long-term holdout. The mountain that the castle sits on is now honeycombed with the tunnels where the humans live and breed and grow food. Outside the castle's impregnable walls, the mountain is a writhing sea of zombies, all drawn instinctively to the last source of fresh meat on earth.
The vampires, unaging, live in genteel squalor, surrounding themselves with the rotting remains of the finer things they once enjoyed, and surviving on strictly-rationed blood from the tightly-controlled population of humans. There are occasional birthday parties when a human turns 50; the aging human is turned over to the vampires to be murdered and drained completely dry, just like it used to be in the old days.
The humans survive underground, mostly just working to keep themselves alive. They're all anemic from the regular blood-drawings. They're bred to each other, in pairs selected by the vampires, around the age of 17. That way they get the maximum breeding out of each generation. Occasionally there's an attempted insurrection, often using the sun lamps they use to grow food in the tunnels. All the vampires have to do then is turn off the power to the tunnels, leaving the humans in suffocating darkness. Then it's just a matter of killing any humans who still have some smart ideas as they stumble in the dark. If you want a laugh, you let them hear you coming.
After an insurrection, the vampires always take a guy and crucify him upside-down in the central human area, with a saline drip in his thigh and a beer tap in his neck. Vampires will come and do shots from him while the humans watch. It generally takes one of these "examples" a week or so to die, through the record is twelve days.
Mostly, though, such attempts are rare, and getting rarer as even the stories of what the world used to be dwindle away. Most of all, the humans are aware that without the vampires' powers, the castle would fall to the zombies. Turns out life as a sustainable resource is slightly better than the alternative.
This damn setting came into my head almost full-blown, and was refined over half an hour of conversation with a friend. I can't really find a use for it. It's not only relentlessly grim and awful, it's insolubly so. The humans are miserable, the vampires are miserable... even the zombies are miserable. Everything's neatly balanced, though; any momentary reduction in misery for any of the groups will only increase the misery of all three groups permanently. It's a perfect system designed to produce a steady output of suffering until the end of time. There's no story you can tell with this setting that won't be a painfully unpleasant slog from a horrible beginning to an even more horrible ending.
So, I'm thinking romantic comedy.
I mean, really, it writes itself. You got yourself a couple attractive young teenagers, kinda pale from living underground and being permanently a quart low, but we can make that work. And the vampires have commanded them to breed with each other, right, but initially they dislike each other! But then at the end, they want to spend the rest of their lives together! Well, until they turn fifty, anyway.
Picture the trailer: "In a world that only wanted two things from them, they learned that what connects the brains and the blood... is the heart."
The zombie apocalypse finally comes, the dead rise, eat everyone, starting with their brains. This greatly worries the vampires, of course. They can't drink dead blood; they need living humans to survive. So a group of vampires retreats to some big fortified castle in Eastern Europe or someplace, with a good-size pool of human slaves, figuring they can repopulate the planet after all the humans are gone and the zombies starve to death.
150 years later, it turns out zombies don't starve.
Fortunately, vampires can fly, so they've been able to make supply runs to distant cities in the now entirely zombie-filled world, bringing back the things necessary to sustain human life and vampiric luxury. Naturally, whenever they're outside the castle, they're attacked by zombies wanting to eat their brains and flesh, but the vampires can kill them with their superhuman speed and strength. Well, usually, anyway. They used to hold them off with guns, but the ammo ran out 75 years ago.
Now, the castle and the tunnels beneath it are the only remaining stronghold of both humans and vampires. The tunnels have been expanded over the decades to meet the needs of a long-term holdout. The mountain that the castle sits on is now honeycombed with the tunnels where the humans live and breed and grow food. Outside the castle's impregnable walls, the mountain is a writhing sea of zombies, all drawn instinctively to the last source of fresh meat on earth.
The vampires, unaging, live in genteel squalor, surrounding themselves with the rotting remains of the finer things they once enjoyed, and surviving on strictly-rationed blood from the tightly-controlled population of humans. There are occasional birthday parties when a human turns 50; the aging human is turned over to the vampires to be murdered and drained completely dry, just like it used to be in the old days.
The humans survive underground, mostly just working to keep themselves alive. They're all anemic from the regular blood-drawings. They're bred to each other, in pairs selected by the vampires, around the age of 17. That way they get the maximum breeding out of each generation. Occasionally there's an attempted insurrection, often using the sun lamps they use to grow food in the tunnels. All the vampires have to do then is turn off the power to the tunnels, leaving the humans in suffocating darkness. Then it's just a matter of killing any humans who still have some smart ideas as they stumble in the dark. If you want a laugh, you let them hear you coming.
After an insurrection, the vampires always take a guy and crucify him upside-down in the central human area, with a saline drip in his thigh and a beer tap in his neck. Vampires will come and do shots from him while the humans watch. It generally takes one of these "examples" a week or so to die, through the record is twelve days.
Mostly, though, such attempts are rare, and getting rarer as even the stories of what the world used to be dwindle away. Most of all, the humans are aware that without the vampires' powers, the castle would fall to the zombies. Turns out life as a sustainable resource is slightly better than the alternative.
This damn setting came into my head almost full-blown, and was refined over half an hour of conversation with a friend. I can't really find a use for it. It's not only relentlessly grim and awful, it's insolubly so. The humans are miserable, the vampires are miserable... even the zombies are miserable. Everything's neatly balanced, though; any momentary reduction in misery for any of the groups will only increase the misery of all three groups permanently. It's a perfect system designed to produce a steady output of suffering until the end of time. There's no story you can tell with this setting that won't be a painfully unpleasant slog from a horrible beginning to an even more horrible ending.
So, I'm thinking romantic comedy.
I mean, really, it writes itself. You got yourself a couple attractive young teenagers, kinda pale from living underground and being permanently a quart low, but we can make that work. And the vampires have commanded them to breed with each other, right, but initially they dislike each other! But then at the end, they want to spend the rest of their lives together! Well, until they turn fifty, anyway.
Picture the trailer: "In a world that only wanted two things from them, they learned that what connects the brains and the blood... is the heart."
Labels: Brains and Blood
This is the best. Idea. EVER.
Posted by
Candy |
9:49 AM
OK, after thinking about this premise more seriously, I have a few questions that may or may not expand the possibilities of this universe, because really, this sort of situation is just begging for something to upset the equilibrium:
Is it possible for vampires to interbreed with humans?
How do the vampires create other vampires? Have they done so to replenish the ranks of those killed by zombies?
Why don't the zombies starve?
How many vampires vs. humans are there?
What are the vampires susceptible to, besides sunlight?
How many zombies are there? (I'm wondering how practical attrition would be as a tactic against them. But we saw how well wars of attrition worked in WWI...)
Crap. Now I'm going to be thinking about this all day instead of working.
Posted by
Candy |
9:58 AM
Also, why teenagers? How about two 49-year-olds?
Posted by
Charlene |
10:45 AM
No, what you *need* is several castles. Maybe in Central Europe, which probably has quite a few left over from the last Dark Age. This allows for a larger society with more complications. Plus, you need leftover geek gear of various types, especially comm and computer stuff. Then all it takes is one budding DaVinci from the human herd to upset the apple cart. The right man (or woman) at the right time...
Posted by
Anonymous |
2:18 PM
Okay, how exactly does this zombie apocalypse start? What precipitates it? Unchecked geneticists with unlimited resources and pure evil in their hearts? Hair spray gone horribly wrong?
How about a hero and heroine, round about thirty-ish who fall in love with each other even though they've been breeding with other people since they were 17? I think that would definitely hike up the angst factor.
Also, in raising this new generation(s), wouldn't it be diabolical if the vamps had a hand in that in order to make the herd more docile?
Shit, I could really get into this. I say do it. Seriously. Answer some of Candy's questions first, but definitely run with this.
Posted by
shaunee |
2:30 PM
How practical is a tactical nuclear attack on the zombies? There must be some leftover underground base, where beyond hundreds of feet of reinforced concrete a desiccated corpse still clutches a briefcase hiding the launch codes for long range delivery vehicles. According to research reports, the plutonium pits don't age too badly, so even after 150 years there could be some functional canned suns left.
It should then be possible to turn a sufficiently isolated and easy-to-defend area (New Zealand? Greenland? some islands?) into a glass parking lot, then wait until the radiation dies out to some manageable level, then move in.
How smart are zombies? How difficult enemy are they, strategy-wise? They have the numbers, but do they have the brains (pardon the pun)?
Posted by
Shaddack |
2:38 PM
This is freaking awesome.
But -- every creature needs a fatal weakness.
Superman has kryptonite.
Achilles had the whole heel thing.
Vampires have sunlight.
Humans have a virtual smorgasbord of fatal weaknesses; use the Seven Deadly Sins and go from there.
But what about the zombies?
Answer that, and then you may have figured out how to upset the equilibrium, just as Candy says.
Hell, maybe that's what your hero and heroine figure out in the story. Which, of course, you have to call FEED ME.
I don't think it'll work as a romantic comedy. Seriously. The setting is too grim (and awesomely so). But something along the lines of EVIL DEAD -- humorous horror/adventure/lurve? Dude. Absolutely.
God, now I want to read this script.
DAMN YOU. I hope you're satisfied.
Posted by
Jackie |
7:35 PM
I guess my comment didn't "take," earlier:
Basically, I said that this was awesome, both in content and delivery.
Also, I wondered if the zombies became super-powered by eating vamp-flesh.
Might make for an interesting wrinkle.
Posted by
West |
8:10 PM
This is at least 5 brands of HAWESOME.
But I don't know what to think about the fact that I've got some mutt cross-breed between Shaun of the Dead and Underworld pictured in my brain. (You didn't mention werewolves, so really I have no idea why Underworld...perhaps my subconscious thinks the only way this idea can be improved upon is with the addition of werewolves? I think werewolves should be left to the sequel(s), actually...)
PS Here via Smart Bitches - didn't want to freak you out too much with the random comment.
Posted by
fiveandfour |
8:28 PM
You're a fiendish genius, Noah, and I also think Candy is spot-on.
(You hang out around this place, Candy? How incestuous is our Portland blog-o-whatsit, anyway?)
I agree, also--the vampires are gonna be way, way smarter than the zombies, and ought to be able to take them out in much greater proportional numbers--and once all the dead are zombified, they can't so much increase their population, unless they get to the gooey, humany center of Vamp HQ.
You need a destablizing element to make it go places, though, rather than just being really really fun.
Posted by
little light |
9:09 PM
From The Dean's Desk:
My dear readers, The Dean believes that adding another wrinkle would amuse all. What if the humans (from consuming only food grown under lights) develop some interesting abilities a la Heros? Maybe the humans, not being complete fools, have managed to breed a nice steady but secret livestock source of iron rick\h protein. And some of the super human babies are secreted away and brought up as the super humans saviors...then bring on both teenagers and the hidden supers. The Dean does admire the ability of the careful readers to spin this out.
The Dean
Posted by
The Dean |
9:51 PM
Ignore Jackie. (Sorry Jackie.) Your instincts are right -- romantic comedy! And who cares if it's dark -- you'll find a way for your alpha male and female to repopulate a zombie- and vampire-free world. Gotta have that HEA.
Posted by
Doug |
10:30 PM
Sounds fun. And because they're anemic, they can faint at the drop of a hat, like Regency heroines, for added slapstick.
Posted by
Anonymous |
11:23 PM
I'm immensely flattered and moderately terrified that so many people want me to write this thing. I'd posted it mainly as a goof, just "look at this unusable setting for a comically incongruous genre," but to my surprise and fear, y'all seem to like it.
I do want to emphasize that I am aware of various ways to destabilize the situation should I want to. My personal favorite is for a tunnel construction project to cut too close to the surface of the mountain, causing the ground to collapse under the weight of the mass of zombies. Now zombies are pouring into the tunnels, where there are no defenses, and eating the humans. Panicked, the vampires rush down to the tunnels, forgetting to first turn off the sun lamps, so the first wave of them just catch fire. The remaining vampires finally kill the power, leaving the tunnels illuminated only by burning, shrieking vampires, as the screaming and chewing noises from below get closer and closer.
But I suppose that's also a bit of a downer.
There are other possibilities, of course. Aliens come and save the humans. Weaponry somehow improves enough to commit mass zombicide and start reclaiming ground. The werewolves show up, having conquered the entire planet in the absence of humans and vampires. ('Cause naturally, werewolves can't become infected with zombie, and they regenerate any parts that get bit off.) Brilliant destiny-filled humans invent a Magic Science Solution to the whole problem, but are opposed by the dumb anti-life superstitious plebs, so they make long speeches.
There's always solutions; this is speculative fiction. If all else fails, we can just pull something completely out of our asses. (*coughRoddenberrycough*) I'm just not sure this situation demands a solution. It's kinda more fun as an unrelentingly bleak and awful impasse.
Then again, the thing I actually WANT to write next is a monster movie set during the First World War, so maybe I should bow to popular acclaim here, since I clearly don't know what people like...
Posted by
Noah Brand |
12:55 AM
(Also via Smart Bitches.)
Couldn't sleep last night, and started thinking about it. If the vampires need human blood to survive, doesn't that give humanity a lever?
They need to form a union.
Or else they could go for mutually assured destruction - perform mass vasectomies. Means the end of humanity, yes - but on the other hand, the vampires suddenly have an interest in treating the remaining humans really well. No more death at 50.
If it's RomCom, what about a heroine who is paired with a gay partner, and remains a virgin. I've read nothing in the genre, but I'm pretty sure that vampires have a thing for virgins. So one evening she's called out from the tunnels, and the male vampires, who've never met a genuine maiden before, are all knocked for six - madly in lust. Much hilarity ensues.
Posted by
Marianne McA |
1:39 AM
Also via SB's:
Regarding twist/zombie weakness: If the zombies don't starve, then why must they eat human brains? Maybe brains are an addictive drug.
OR an aphrodisiac. I see a huge, sloppy zombie orgy taking place on a pile of half-eaten human corpses.
Should I be worried that I can see that?
Posted by
Jeri |
7:56 AM
"Ignore Jackie"?
::sniffle::
Posted by
Jackie |
10:12 AM
Also via SB's-
This is the best blog I have read in a gazillion years. Thank you for distracting me for countless billable hours. Seriously, thank you!
I would so own the DVD of that movie.
Take a look at F. Paul Wilson's "The Keep" (I've never seen the movie, only read the book) for a faux vampire story (no zombies, though) in WWII. I think it has tunnels, too.
Posted by
Anonymous |
10:55 AM
Physical isolation from the zombies - say, behind an unclimbable wall - shouldn't be too difficult. Zombies don't tunnel especially well, and they don't have Spiderman's climbing ability, so building the Great Wall of Transylvania should just be a matter of application of slavepower.
The ammo shouldn't be so hard to replace, either. The materials for making basic gunpowder are common, and hunting enthusiasts have been handloading for decades. Or, just go back to flintlock muskets. If you just can't make gunpowder, it's back to ballistae and trebuchets.
How is zombieism transmitted? Because I'm thinking a handful of vamps in spiked full plate armour (with their superhuman strength it'll feel like wearing tinfoil) and a decent chopping axe in each hand should be able to Moulinex pretty much any group of zombies.
If zombie goo spraying into the air can transmit the virus (or whatever), you'd need a higher tech solution.
Posted by
breklor |
11:01 AM
Now, the castle and the tunnels beneath it are the only remaining stronghold of both humans and vampires. The tunnels have been expanded over the decades to meet the needs of a long-term holdout. The mountain that the castle sits on is now honeycombed with the tunnels where the humans live and breed and grow food. Outside the castle's impregnable walls, the mountain is a writhing sea of zombies, all drawn instinctively to the last source of fresh meat on earth.
The vampires, unaging, live in genteel squalor, surrounding themselves with the rotting remains of the finer things they once enjoyed, and surviving on strictly-rationed blood from the tightly-controlled population of humans.
I'm sorry, but the only thing I get from this is that it's the Republican game plan.
Put themselves in power, bleed a select population of humans (the middle class) dry while keeping them just barely alive, and treat the rest of the world like it's less than human.
I don't see a romantic comedy coming out of that.
And I just had my meds, too.
Posted by
Anonymous |
2:01 PM
(Bloghop via SB as well)
This is certainly brain food.... for thought. Disaster and Romance - oh yeah. Gloom and Comedy - fer sure. Gorey entrails and steamy sex - recipe for success. You got it all. Seems like a no brainer (heh) to me.
Posted by
crowwoman / rhian |
3:46 PM
little light: Oh yes, I read Noah's blog regularly. I don't comment too often, though. I met Noah via--well, the same way I met all the my Reedie friends and acquaintances.
Friendcest and blogcest, ahoy!
And Noah: I know this idea was more a lark than anything else, but it was too good not to share and speculate about endlessly. I'm especially fond of the werewolf idea. Lends that special over-the-top quality to the whole thing.
Posted by
Candy |
4:24 PM
Just saw this deal in PM today:
Mark Henry's THE UNDEAD SOCIALITE'S GUIDE TO NIGHTLIFE, about an ad-exec turned zombie trying to save a missing friend, "Shaun of the Dead" by way of Paris Hilton, to John Scognamiglio at Kensington, in a three-book deal, by Jim McCarthy at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (World).
ZOMBIES. BIG.
WRITE THE DAMN THING.
Posted by
Jackie |
5:46 AM
I've got a suggestion: instead of two humans, make it a vamp teen and a human teen.
Since this is obviously an idea with a couple of seasons in it, I say fuck off the Bridget Jones shit and make it a full Situation Comedy:
>>>
Scene: Apartment in Vampire Compound.
Vampire Father: Hey Honey, I'm home!
[Audience Cheers]
Vampire Mother: [Kisses him at the door] Hi Sweetie!
VH: I love that lipstick.
VM: [coquettishly] Sweetie, That ain't lipstick.
[Laughtrack]
How was work?
VF: You know, the usual. Manning the perimeter to stop Zombies from breaking into our compound. 150 years and they still have an insatiable appetite for brains!
Wisecracking Teen Vamp Son: They won't find any in here!
[Laughtrack]
VF: Honey, I'm starved! What's to eat?
VM: Dinner's in the kitchen.
[VF opens kitchen door to find gagged teenage male bound to a chair. He pulls down the gag.]
Human: You don't want me! I've been eating garlic all day!
VF: We're going to suck your blood, not make out with you.
[Laughtrack]
Vamp Teen Daughter [enters other kitchen door]: Speak for yourself. He's cute.
VW: Sweetie, how many times have we told you: Don't Play With Your Food!
[Laughtrack]
VTD: You never let me have any fun!
VW: That's not true!
VTD: Oh Yeah? Then how come I always have to come home at Dawn?
WTVS: Uh, because we're Vampires
VTD: Watch it, you little leech, or tomorrow you'll with a silver crucifix under your pillow!
[Laughtrack]
VF: Knock it off you two. Honey, let's wash up before dinner. I don't know about you, but I'm covered in Zombie Blood. Junior, take out the trash! [All exit stage right]
[VTD checks the coast is clear, then takes the gag off the human and kisses him. Audience whoops.]
VTD: I thought they'd never go.
Human: Are they always like that?
VTD: Worse. Vampires don't always live forever, it just feels that way.
[Laughtrack]
Human: Are you going to tell them that we're dating?
VTD: I'm sorry, I can't. They wouldn't understand.
Human: Why?
VTD: Because I'm a vampire, and you're human.
Human: Oh. I though it was because I'm Jewish.
[Audience groans]
VTD: Is that why you like me? Shiksa Appeal?
Human: Of course not. I'm just a sucker for a girl that can fly. So they're going to drink my blood?
VTD: 'Fraid so. You're going to be exsanguinated. It sucks.
Human: You're telling me!
[Laughtrack]
VTD: Don't worry, I'll think of something.
[Cut to Commercial]
Will the Vampire Teen Daughter figure out a way to save her Human Boyfriend? How will she break the news of their relationship to her family? Are the zombies really looking in the wrong place for brains? When do we get to meet Vladimir, the wacky next-door neighbour who impales people on wooden poles, then waits for them to die?
For the answers to these and many other questions, stay tuned to Blood And Brains and Me!
<<<
Whaddaya Reckon, Noah?
Posted by
the.exile |
8:38 PM
Hi. Here from Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books.
Just wanted to add that this really is the greatest idea for a movie *ever*. I would be creating an LJ community right now for it, if it existed.
I wish I had some moviemaking power, because I would love to see this become real.
Posted by
Gwynevere1 |
9:43 PM
what about the space aliens?
Posted by
Anonymous |
11:05 AM
Very clever story. You should write it and sell it.
Couple of ideas...
1.What stops the humans from killing themselves? People can stand to be enslaved, but to be abused, held underground in constant fear and without sunlight and no place to possibly run to...
I'd think you'd have an epidemic of suicides as generations were raised to it. The world would have to hold some promise to keep the human herds healthy.
2. What happens to women once they've past breading age? If they begin at 17 how long would they survive? And if they can come to term under such stress and survive birthing in grubby, dark tunnels, what will they look like by the time they are 25? (And really, I don't think vampires would mind starting the breeding as soon as possible but that would make an exceptionally ugly story.) I don't think a cow could live under those conditions for long- never mind a delicate human with all their nuerologial trappings.
3.It might be helpful to call upon the vampire's oft noted love of superficial beauty and culture...Would the vampires make some sort of elitist cultural hierarchy for the gifted and beautiful? Would the humans be exercised (like cattle) and taught to make beautiful things for the vampires..paintings, clothing? I doubt vampires make good seamstresses or interior designers...
Either way,your story is clever. I dig.
Posted by
Anonymous |
12:53 PM
P.S with a limited food source, I doubt the vampires increase their population..except they'll need vampires to fight the zombies since the humans would be too weak.
Posted by
Anonymous |
12:57 PM
Interesting idea. But horribly flawed. On one side you have shambling unintelligent zombies. On the other you have superhumanly fast, intelligent and strong vamps that can also fly. Unless they were the most indolent and sedentary vampires ever to be spawned the zombies wouldn't stand a chance. Even if there were no bullets anywhere, a team of 10 to 15 vampires with axes and pickhammers could easily take apart an unorganized group of Zeds at least 50 to 100 strong, even if they couldn't fly. Why wouldn't the vamps limit their own numbers and retreat to a nice fortified island somewhere with a few hundred humans and ask for maybe one or two pints a month from each person (say 25 to 50 vamps and 300 humans). Humans guard and grow food during the day, vamps guard, feed, and maybe develop gunpowder again at night. There's got to be some one out there with a chemistry book and the means to loot a gun smith with their limitless resources. The zed infestation wouldn't last more than 10 to 15 years as a real threat and then the clearing could begin.
again interesting idea but poorly thought out man.
Posted by
Anonymous |
4:37 AM