Volume 02, Story 9
The apartment is quiet except for Homeboy snoring on the couch, swaddled in a Mexican blanket like an Aztec burrito of the gods, when the knocking starts. Chino answers the door with a loaded paintball gun and finds himself face to face with Uncle Hank, who strolls in with his hands raised in mock surrender. “Easy there, sailor. I come in peace.” He helps himself to three beers from the fridge and gets to the point: “Whatchu out here for, Uncle Hank?” “Trouble’s brewing, boys.” “What kind of trouble?” “Vampires. A butt fuck ton.” Homeboy starts counting fingers to work out how much that is. Chino supplies the technical answer: a hundred and eight imperial gallons of ale or a hundred and twenty-six imperial gallons of wine. “Okay. That’s more fingers than I got.”
The vampires are in the Ominous Forest, and Uncle Hank would rather not call Uncle Rob. “We’re mortal enemies.” Fallujah or Korengal Valley, Homeboy guesses. “It’s a long story.” The crew assembles in full MARPAT and face paint, except Homeboy, who is additionally coated head to toe in wet mud. “So the vampires can’t see me.” Chino doesn’t look at him. “Dude… these are vampires, not Yautja.” Killian stands calm in a collared shirt and blazer. Chuy flexes in black workout shorts. Rawr stands confidently naked. Count Dragula lounges in a frayed Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts, a red bandana on his forehead, sniffing the air like a sommelier of skunk and naming every strain he smells on Homeboy. Uncle Hank briefs the room on the map: Chuy and Rawr know the forest, the coven will come to them, kill them all. Dragula explains where the vampires came from: the frat vampires from last time got kidnapped by the Ominous Forest rednecks, who discovered they could be turned and forced the frat boys to convert them.
Before the op launches, Uncle Rob barges in flanked by two annoyed Mexicans, cane planted. “What is the meaning of this?!” He is furious nobody called him. Uncle Hank slaps the map. “Can we finish?!” The staging area is Mr. and Mrs. Dealer’s dispensary, which the crew storms at midnight. Mr. Dealer, in a bathrobe and a scowl, lets them in on the condition they buy something. Mrs. Dealer appears in a silk robe over a nightgown, hugs Chino’s and Homeboy’s heads into her chest, and leads Sarah Yazzie and Mary Jane off to the edibles factory while the men handle their man business. The recon team is Chino, Homeboy, and Dragula: go quiet, assess, report back.
In the forest they find a defended compound of sheds and cabins, men patrolling with assault rifles and shotguns. Then Dragula realizes too late that vampires hear like dogs, and a voice comes from the shadows: “Get up, boy.” They are marched to the largest structure and made to kneel on concrete, hands behind their heads, in a circle of Redneck Vampires with rifles and Confederate tattoos. A throne of busted recliners and broken dining chairs waits. Then Nagan enters: a bloated vampire draped in white KKK robes, carrying a six-pack of Budweiser. He chugs a whole can, tosses it into Chino’s chest, and demands a name. “Megatron.” When Chino asks his, Nagan puffs up: “I’m Nagan. I’m the grand wizard of this here clan and you are trespassing.” The boys lose it laughing. “You couldn’t pick a less on-the-nose name?” Nagan has never heard of Negan from The Walking Dead, and he is horrified to learn there is a season he missed. “No! Don’t spoil it for me!” So they watch a season with him on a flatscreen bolted to a shopping cart.
When a redneck vampire rushes in with “trouble’s brewing,” Chino admits the truth: they were scouting the compound to come kill everyone. Nagan is betrayed. “But we just watched a season of The Walking Dead! Together!” Homeboy holds Nagan hostage with diplomacy while Chino goes to stop Uncle Hank’s assault team. In the forest, Uncle Rob watches through a dog-sized tank drone’s speaker while Uncle Hank holds a rifle on Chino. Dragula has vanished. “I think your pothead buddy joined the other side.” Chino comes with a message of peace, and Uncle Hank is forced to answer the question nobody asked until now: why are they hunting these vampires at all? “Because they’re vampires.” Everyone groans. Uncle Rob rolls the drone away. “Fuck this. I’m going home.”
The negotiation happens across a table in the big structure: Nagan on one side, Uncle Hank stiff and bristling on the other. “Why do you want to kill us?” “Because you’re vampires.” Nagan blinks. “I would really hate to point out the irony of how racist that is.” “What?! I’m not racist! I’m Native American! I’m a minority.” Chino shrugs. “Nah, Uncle Hank. Nagan’s right, yo. You’re human. He isn’t. He’s a minority now and you want him dead just for existing.” Uncle Hank stares him down, then sighs. “Fuck! That’s the second time you’ve made me think deep about my own bullshit.” He apologizes. Nagan apologizes back, strips off his clan robes, stands up completely naked and completely unbothered, and opens his arms. “Thanks to these two colored fellas, I see that I’ve been thinking wrong about colored people all my life. Let’s bring it in.” They hug. Nagan pledges the coven will never feast on human beings, involuntarily of course, because he has seen True Blood and knows about vampire groupies. Uncle Hank promises not to indiscriminately kill vampires without just cause. They walk out side by side talking business about errant clan members.
Back at the apartment, the crisis is over and the place smells like King Taco. Dragula asks the one question nobody wants to answer: “So whatever happened to those frat boy vampires?” Chino and Homeboy freeze mid-chew and slowly turn to look at each other. Neither of them says anything.
Featuring Chino, Homeboy, Uncle Hank, Killian, Chuy, Rawr, Count Dragula, Uncle Rob, Mr. Dealer, Mrs. Dealer, Sarah Yazzie, Mary Jane, Nagan, Redneck Vampires.
Read the full story in The Adventures of Chino & Homeboy, Volume 02