Mad Vlad and His Sunshine Cowboys

It's a story about a nation gone crazy and the madman that took it to it's inevitable end.

And just like that, the monsters descended from on high.

I was pushing my bike too hard this afternoon and I knew it. Working my grandfather’s BSA Goldstar hard, carving up the coastal highway between Westport and Albion had become a routine. A ritual. Praying I’d find another soul and yet scared to death I would.

I don’t know why I look anymore.

It had been four months since the bombs fell and it was just shear dumb luck that I had come over from Sacramento for a three day weekend to do some restocking and repairs on my grandfather’s old cabin and fallout shelter.

I’m guessing I lost my little sister and her family after the aerial burst over Sacramento and my parents in the two over L.A.

I just feel tired and numb.

We had been in a new cold war with Russia ever since Vladimir Putin rechristened himself Czar Vladimir II, ruler of Russia, Grand Prince of Kiev and ruler of Kievan Rus. He then embarked on a program of biologically enhancing every male over the age of eighteen. Mad Vlad was building a super army he called his Sunshine Cowboys. This wasn’t widely known throughout the world though until the Georgian genocide and then his euthanasia program to weed out weak and feeble-minded. Then we started to hear the propaganda. He wanted nothing short of global domination. After describing the American people as a human scourge, Czar Vladimir II promised in a mass media address to the world that he would take the continent by force. He would cleanse the world of the weak and mentally insane Americans.

And he did.

During the first year of the new cold war, our government worked as appeasers to the Czar and his demands. Our own president stood before the United Nations special counsel and asked

“Why shouldn’t the Russians be the most influential power in global affairs? How could the American people expect the world to capitulate to their selfish demands forever. I think, Madam Chairperson, that there is plenty of room on the world stage for our Russian comrades.”

The very next day the world news outlets reported clouds of ash so dense that they blocked out the sun in some places over northern Europe. It was discovered to be cremated human remains. They had turned the Republic of Georgia into a giant crematorium. It wasn’t long until Germany was over-run by mutant Russian soldiers and then the European Union fell one nation at a time.

After the first cold war, a political faction worked hard to disarm our nation.

They succeeded.

Not only did we lose our nuclear capabilities over the years but a liberal Supreme Court ruled that we no longer had the “right” to keep and bear arms. The court further stated that we had no “right” to be a threat to other nations or to our fellow countrymen.

We became defenseless. 

There were no riots.

Even through the noise of the wind blasting past my ears as I rode, I could hear the large military aircraft flying above the dirty yellow radiated clouds.

It wouldn’t be long now.

I pulled my bike over at the Albion Grocery and went inside for my stash of gasoline. I had found someone else's fuel stash by chance a few months ago.

Lucky me.

I filled my bike, ate some old jerky and then headed home for the last time.

The monsters would be waiting.