Seen any vampire or zombie movies lately? Sinners, 28 Years Later being the latest use of these creepy incarnations of evil. Not that indulging in these dark worlds full of freaky forms of guts and gore are only depicted on the silver screen. These two species of horror storytelling have been around for a very long time, predating modern literature, let alone cinema. They are products of dark, demonic imaginings. Cleary, tales of blood suckers or brain-eaters make for a freaky fright.Vamps or zombies, their terrifying means of maintaining their deadly dietary needs tap into the fandom’s shadowy pleasure in reading or watching them persue their prey. Indulging the various iterations of these two particular defective forms of life are open for anyone’s interpretation beyond their surface details. Vampires and zombies have a fanbase, generation to generation. We humans enjoy certain horror shows, as long as they exist soley in fictional form.

I assert, however, that they also exist in the real world, right now. That is, world wide. They’ve been around for a long time. They are a menace to society. Unlike the fictional renderings of these frightful baddies, they are non-fictional entities occupying the metaphorical sphere of interpretation. They have the appearance of being human, occupying white, blue, pink,gray and green collars. What distinguises them from others is their behavior. Their actions, like their fictional counterparts, kill at worst and at best ruin lives. Some of them know exactly what harm they do, others are unwitting accomplices.

Allow me to expound on the vamps and Z’s that I assert are among us. I said they are worldly in their presence, but let’s use the U.S. of A. as a prime example of how they contribute to the clear and consistent, and now very contemporary, deterioration of quality of life.

Keep reading, and it should become apparent as to the actual subjects to which I refer.

Vampires: They can only exist at the expense of others. However, these vampires understand who their fellow vampires are. For the most part they all get along very well with one another.There are not a lot of them, but they can easily identify one another. They are all very much blood suckers.They may occasionally sink their fangs into other vampires in order to establish superiority if challenged in the slightest way. There’salways an Alpha, right? Their main source of sustanence are the general public. In this country there are approximately 1,000 of these vampires. Worldwide there are maybe 3,000. Given we in the U.S. have a population of around 340 million who are NOT vampires, can you see how finding a victim is quite a simple task?

Zombies: here in the U.S., I’d say there are about 100,000,000 of them. They are the ones whose jugulars have been penetrated, though rather than their blood being sapped, it’s pretty much their ability to live safely and securely, be it their health, education, housing and overall financial stability. The vampires–who represent something in the neighborhood of 0.00027470588% of the U.S. population–victimize those 100K I assert to be their main source of sustenance. The victimized become zombified by rising from their symbolically sucked-dry carcasses, only to again enter into the danger zone of the vampire predators by repeatedly seeking protection from them by those they have been led to believe are vampire killers. These fake vampire hunters that the hollowed-out zombies are willing to entrust to eat the brains and/or drive a stake through their hearts of their vampire oppressors are, in essence, vampire assitants. They are more like the handlers of the vampires (this was depicted very compellingly in the movie Let the Right One In).Vampires need enablers to shield them from the light of day, the light that reveals them for what thy are. They feed on darkness.

My metaphorical zombies need no assitance. They are ruinous enough all on their own. They are the very definition of INSANITY. They keep repeating their belief in the vampire killers they think can protect them, but repeatedly not getting protected, then getting victimized by that small number of vampires again and again, thinking the outcome will be different the next time this cycle is repeated. These zombies need to take it upon themselves to eat the brains or impale the hearts of these ravenous vampires, which should be very do-able given their overwhelming advantage in numbers. But they aren’t very good at math. So, rinse and repeat. The vampires are not afraid of their numerical disadvantage. Why should they be? They see how reliably foolish their adversaries are, no matter their number. They know their handlers/enablers have their backs.

The vampires and zombies of literature and cinema will always have their audience. That audience can feel repulsed and terrified at the thought of being a victim. But the book has a final chapter, and the movie will eventually fade to black, roll the credits. In the world of actual flesh and blood, my blood-suckers and brain-eaters make for a seemingly never-ending scary tale. But they may be at a possible moment of inflection. Things keep being perpetuated for the worse, and the vampires, especially, are having to exist with increasing daylight they cannot shut out. In legendary Howard Beale fashion, the victimized are seeing things more cleary, slowly but maybe at an increasing rate are becoming mad as hell and they are not going to take it anymore! At least that’s what the vibe seems to be at the moment. And as it should be more and more.

The vampires are still doing quite well, possibly beyond their most pernicious dreams. But in that increasing amount of light cast their way, they may have shown their fangs all too gleefully given their brazen lust for more and more. They are humans with without concern for humanity. They refute reality. Even when their worst of actions are exposed, they barely flinch. It’s just fake news. The only reality they embrace is the bottom line, a spreadsheet that denotes their abundance of extractions from that other 99.555% of the rest of us. They’re very good at the math they total up, and it matters not at whose expense.

To say the least, we need to keep the vampires and zombies confined to fictional accounts. In non-fiction, the zombies need to stop being robotic behaving zombies of their own device. Stop repeating your insane, self-destructive behavior. Millions, tens of millions of people are now clearly collateral damage to their blood-thirty greed. While the damaged may see how the vampires and zombies are an integral part of the problem, they cannot assume Buffy or anyone else is coming to their rescue.

The blood-lusting, corrupted bottom line is where the rest of humanity needs to draw a line. Finally. It’s time to drive a stake through some black hearts, and put some real rational brains in those complicit Zombie heads.

This horror story needs its ending. But it won’t need a sequel.