You were one strange kid, Nacho (Part One: White Queen, Black Heart)

On October 5th my apartment flooded out and I had to move and the last six weeks have been generally awful. While I was going through everything and trying to salvage the enormous mountains of hoarder trash I appear to have accumulated, I found a shoebox at the bottom of my closet filled with floppy discs from 1988-1993, and Zip discs from the mid-90s. On a lark, I decided to beg, borrow, and steal the equipment needed to read these discs and transfer them into this brave, new future of ours.

Why? So I have filler for the front page! Here we go… A glimpse into the strange world of Nacho Sasha, 1988-1998, part one:

Opening paragraph to a failed post-apocalypse novel titled “White Queen, Black Heart.” Last save date — May 17th, 1988:

January 2, 2025…

Baxter was on loan to the RAF base in Ghana. He was a military consultant, an operative with the CIA, and was really here to watch Persian movements in Central Africa. The Persians were massing troops in every strategic location, ready to take the world powers by the neck and twist. It was no secret what was going to happen, everyone was gearing up for war. It took nearly fifteen minutes for the Soviet troops at the Soviet-Persian border to move their tanks out of the way and allow a car through.

The “Persians” are inspired by the Nostradamus prophecy of the third Antichrist who rises up in the Mideast and all that. So as the story clumsily plays out, we get some of that explained. In the middle of some really awful political fantasy, I suddenly veer wildly into a vampire apocalypse, which opens with this (strangely not-so-terrible) scene:

He stood there and squinted into the shadows. It sounded like an animal was down there; rooting around and pushing its way through the corpses. The emergency light above him did very little to dispel the shadows below him, and he dared not move further downward. He wanted to head back up to the helicopter, but he had been sent after the survivors. He had a duty.

He froze and backed up against the wall as hollow footsteps sounded up the dark stairs from below. He didn’t know what to expect, so he pointed his rifle out in front of him and down the gaping maw frightfully. A woman stepped out of the darkness, brushed herself off, and smiled serenely at him.

“Lady…?” he said nervously, “You gotta get – ”

She held up her hand, silencing him. Playfully, she glanced sideways at him – her dark hair cascading down onto her shoulder. Her eyes were green, holding him…calling to him. But something in those eyes changed, something glittered and mushroomed into two tiny images of apocalypse. She lowered her hand and stepped towards him, running long nails along his terrified cheek.

“How does one get out of here, soldier?” she asked softly. Her movements were sexual, but the feelings she emitted were something more dangerous…

“Who are you, lady?” he asked.

She waved a delicate finger in front of his face, “Ah…no questions.”

He shuddered for a moment, and stared deep into her unblinking eyes. Something was there… He heard words, voices… Something reached out and grabbed a hold of him, jerking his mind until everything around him faded into darkness.

* * *

The National Guard reported one lost helicopter to the Pentagon liaison the next day. There was no wreckage, and no sign of the crew.

And then I go off the rails and that Baxter guy from the opening has to find the genetic code that stops the vampires or something like that. It hurts a little bit to read…

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