Chapter Fourteen: Happier Ending

 

Nick told me many times that a werewolf is no match for a vampire. It turns out that ten of us can kill one of them easily enough. I am writing this entry one year to the day since my comrades and I finally finished the task that Nick Whittier set out to do in 1923. My friends allowed me the great honor of being the one to drive a stake through Adolf Hitler’s heart. There were no faked deaths or secret clones at the Second Battle of Starside. The madman who murdered seven billion people is finally and truly dead.

Leaving Nick behind at the prison after he rescued me was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I desperately wanted to stay and fight Hitler, and that treacherous bitch Lara Russell. Nick, as always, was more concerned about the greater good. He convinced me that the battle could not be won, but that the war was not lost. Saving the remnants of humanity was my responsibility. His responsibility was saving me.

Hitler claimed that he never viewed Nick as a threat, but his actions at the prison proved otherwise. He chose to ignore me and focus on hunting down my friend. Nick’s distraction bought me the precious time I needed to escape from the prison. Hitler made a foolish error. Not only did he allow the leader of the werewolf community to escape, but he also blew the element of surprise. I was the only one who knew that Hitler was behind the zombie apocalypse and that his assassins were murdering the survivors. Had he killed me, the other werewolves would have been easy targets. I was weak from being tortured, but I managed to make it to a small group of werewolves who I had earlier sent into the wilderness in order to help survivors. I took a few days to recover once I reached safety, but not before we got the word out. The warning spread through our network to the werewolf communities all over the world. It pained me to call off the search for survivors, but I knew we had no choice. I ordered the werewolves to retreat into the large cities. The zombies had no interest in us, so it was easy to hide inside the massive herds of undead. Hitler’s hit squads, however, were not immune to his own biological weapon. Most of the assassins were smart enough to retreat to their secure locations and not follow us into the cities. Those who did try to complete their missions were killed either by the undead or the fierce werewolf resistance that they met. Hitler’s grand plan to wipe us out had failed. In his arrogance, he had greatly underestimated us.

With the remaining loyalists hiding underground, we had the run of the surface. The Nazis spent a little over a year sitting around waiting for the zombies to starve to death. We, on the other hand, put that time to good use. The werewolves had scattered and hidden within society after World War Two. The survivors of Dr. Mengele’s genetic experiments and their descendents had always had a strong sense of community though. The werewolves had kept in touch for decades, and that bond was only strengthened once the world learned of our existence. Even before the zombie apocalypse, I had helped to organize the werewolves who lived all over the world. The threat of annihilation brought us even closer together. Over the course of that year we rallied and formed our own army to deal with the Nazis. We scouted and discovered many of their secure locations. After the zombies died, Hitler’s followers emerged from hiding. It was their turn to be ambushed. They had been focused on building their fascist utopia, and they had not been expecting to face an army of angry werewolves. Hitler’s fanatical followers refused to even consider surrendering. We slaughtered the isolated groups of Nazis all over the world. Our first strike went well, but wiping out all the Nazis was not a simple task. Our army met organized resistance and many good men and women died to rid the world of the terrible threat. Hitler’s group in Starside was the last to be defeated. The Nazis there fought tenaciously, but they were no match for our strength and numbers. They fought to the death to protect their evil leader. Fittingly enough, Adolf Hitler was the final casualty of the war.

My infant son was not there to see our victory at the Second Battle of Starside. He was born after the conflict ended. He is part of a new generation who will grow up in a world free of the carnage and chaos created by Adolf Hitler and his followers. Nick Whittier’s Dark Moonlighting series will forever stand as a testament to what humanity went through in those dark years. My son, and his descendents, will never be allowed to forget those events. I was elated to find Nick’s lost manuscripts once we conquered Starside. I have not edited them in any way, even for typos or to change the ridiculous titles that he chose. For historical accuracy, I have also decided to leave the proceeding chapter that was written by Adolf Hitler. His evil nature is often difficult for me to describe. His own words do a better job of illustrating his madness than I could ever hope to do.

My people and I can shift into the form of an animal, but it was Hitler and his followers who were the true monsters. The Nazis were completely wiped out. After the casualties from the war, our numbers stood at around 42,000. It has been a very strange century, but humanity has survived. There are enough human beings left to repopulate the Earth and rebuild civilization. Sure we can all shift into wolf form now, but we still have everything that made us human. Our respect for life, our ability to love and our morals are still intact. That is a lot more than could be said about the Nazis. In addition, we also have this monumental experience that we all shared. We will never forget how close humanity came to extinction because of a madman’s warped philosophy. Such a calamity can never again be allowed to occur.

Hitler was ultimately defeated by some of the descendents of the people he tried to wipe out during World War Two. Ironically, we were the only survivors of his second Holocaust. During his final days in the bunker in 1945, Hitler declared that Chuck Kruse was inconsequential. To him, Chuck was just another member of a race he believed to be inferior. My grandfather was more powerful than Hitler ever could have realized, but it was not because of his supernatural abilities. His true value came from raising his children, and his grandchildren, to be good people. Chuck had been tortured, mutilated and forced to watch as his family was murdered. He had every right to be filled with hate for the rest of his life, but he resisted the temptation of that dark path. I led our forces to victory, but it was my grandfather who molded me into the man I am today. He taught me that true strength does not come from brute force. He taught me that hatred and brutality solve nothing. He taught me the value of loyalty, friendship and respect. Chuck Kruse taught me how to be a good man, and he only had that opportunity because of Nick Whittier.

All the human beings who are alive today exist because of Nick. He wrote that he thought of my grandfather like a son but, in a way, Nick became a father to all of us. Nick was responsible for liberating the Otto von Bismarck Memorial Prison Camp and Research Facility during World War Two. The first werewolves were facing certain death in that concentration camp, but they were able to escape thanks to Nick. From this point forward, every human being who ever lives will be able to trace their lineage back to those Holocaust survivors. Nick initially joined the war effort because he could eat Nazis without feeling guilty about it. The trip started as a vacation for him, but it turned into so much more. I recently made a trip back to Washington D.C. to retrieve the one memento that my friend brought back from the war. The French landscape painting will hang on the wall of my office until I pass it down to my son. It was not an impressive piece, just a little painting that caught Nick’s eye. From now on though, it will be a symbol of our origins.

Hitler called Nick Whittier an unwitting champion of National Socialism, but I disagree. My friend was filled with regret at the end, but there was no way he could have anticipated the consequences of his actions. He did what he thought was necessary. Nick made mistakes in his life, and he tried his best to fix them. That did not make him evil. As far as I am concerned, that is just another example of how human he truly was.

It is impossible to say that Nick’s life was cut short since he lived the equivalent of ten lifetimes. I still mourn him though. He accepted his death, but I will never stop missing him. He lived a life that was plagued with hardships and despair. I know that he is finally at peace now, but we are all worse for having lost him. He had been focused on curing himself of vampirism for most of his life. In the end the virus still raged in his body, but I believe he got his wish. His actions during the last three months of his life proved it. Nick killed the monster inside of him not with some antiviral concoction but through sheer force of will.

I dedicate this book to Nick Whittier. He was the greatest friend the Kruse family has ever known and a true hero for humanity.

 

 

* * *

 

Thanks so much for reading Dark Moonlighting 5: Electric Dark Moonlightingaloo. The title was inspired by Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. While few people have seen the hilariously bad dance movie from the 1980s, “Electric Boogaloo” lives on in pop culture as the worst title ever created.

 

I hope you enjoyed the end of the Dark Moonlighting series. I also hope you aren’t royally pissed off at me right now for killing the characters who you liked. Trust me, I didn’t want them to die either! I had grown rather found of all of them while writing these five novels, but that’s how the story had to end.

 

This is the last Dark Moonlighting book… unless of course I’m really bored at some point in the future and decide to do some prequels. I have plenty of other ideas for books though, so keep an eye out for my new releases. I also have five other novels that are currently available.

 

“But Scott,” you say. “I noticed that you are a self-published writer. I know how hard it is to make a living at your job without the support of a big publishing house. The number of marketing resources available to you is limited, and it’s extremely difficult to get noticed. I really enjoyed this series. It provided me with hours of entertainment for a very low price. I’d like to do something extra to show my appreciation. How can I help you out?”

 

Thanks for asking! It’s true that it is very difficult to make ends meet as a self-published writer. On the off chance you have a friend or family member who works as an acquisitions editor at a major publishing house, you should feel free to encourage them to check out the Dark Moonlighting series. Chances are that doesn’t apply to you though. In that case, all you have to do is find 10,000 or so people to buy these books so I can climb the Best Sellers lists!

 

“Yeah… that sounds like a lot of work,” you reply. “I’ll tell some of my friends and family members about the series, but I think you’ve greatly overestimated my interest in helping you. I was thinking more along the lines of something that would only take me, at most, five minutes to do.”

 

In that case, you should consider writing reviews for these books at the website where you bought them. Lots of positive reviews are super-duper important for a book’s visibility to other readers. Plus, as a neurotic author, five star reviews make me happy and encourage me to keep writing. The reviews don’t have to be in-depth or earth-shattering. A simple sentence or two works just fine.

 

In all seriousness, thank you very much for reading the Dark Moonlighting series! I hope you enjoyed reading these books as much as I enjoyed writing them.

 

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Also by Scott Haworth

 

Humor:

Abraham Lincoln’s Lie

College Collage

Dark Moonlighting

Dark Moonlighting 2: Kruse Control

Dark Moonlighting 3: Live Free or Dark Moonlighting Hard

Dark Moonlighting 4: The One with the Whales

Dark Moonlighting 5: Electric Dark Moonlightingaloo

 

Science Fiction:

Heaven 2.0

The Unlikely Defenders

 

Thriller:

American Liberation Front