You learn a lot when you have limited immortality. Today's feature is another gift from a patron. A vampire who calls themself the Altermann. Always a joker, you can translate it to "Old Man" in German. Feast your eyes on these beautifully crafted, only slightly blood-stained, wooden stakes. Notice the silver inlay, the tiny carvings, the very fine craftsmanship. Altermann claims at least one of these stakes claimed their master's unlife.

So go ahead. Run your fingers along them. Let the story tempt you into giving up the Sun for the chance to live forever.

***

Hallo! You can call me the Altermann. I am a six centuries old vampire. I traded my life for knowledge. I speak over 2000 languages, some of which are not even spoken anymore so maybe I do not speak them anymore. I have lived on all seven continents. I have studied the history of mankind for nearly the entirety of my extra time. I like to watch how we have evolved, even over the course of just a few hundred years. I suppose you could consider me a voyeur, just watching the world go by and never participating. I am okay with this. When we monsters try to live among humans, well lots of people die.

You've probably noticed over the past few decades that the stories of monsters have dwindled to faerie tales and fiction. Part of that is by design. A design that I am proud to admit is heavily influenced by myself. Too much attention requires money and cover-ups and is just plain embarrassing sometimes. Before the internet a monster could terrorize the countryside to its whim, only being hunted if they got too greedy or gruesome. Our population is much smaller than it used to be, but that is okay. It means more for the smart monsters. The was a scientist that spoke of survival of the fittest. The fittest monsters are those who do not upset the balance.

The internet has been devastating to us for two reasons specifically: People can share their stories to others much faster and somehow there are new monsters being created. Some much worse than we who already exist. These fledgling spawn go on rampages and either die out quickly or worm their way into the territory of older, more established monsters. Then your Slenderman's replace your Bogeymen. Cryptids have taken the spotlight and run with it. And don't even get me started on skinwalkers. So blatantly disregarding the rules in the past few years. Stories about them are everywhere now. Shameful.

I could be jealous. I could be upset at how vampire's are portrayed in the western world, all shiny and brooding. I'm not. Its all by design. I'm much older than most monsters. You don't live as long as I have without without a plan, or being powerful enough to fend off the occasional would-be usurper. I enacted the first phase of my plan in the 1400's, only a few short decades after I had been converted. It was a very bad time to be a monster in Europe. I spent a century or so locked in a library (figuratively) before realizing that the protestants had settled in America.

Phase two of my plan involved dealing with my master. An ancient bastard, already over 1000 years old when he made me. It took so, so many vampire hunters to kill him, but, eventually they succeeded. Most of my peers had been dealt with by then as well. I was my own vampire and very nearly the oldest left of our kind at only 200 years, plus or minus a decade or two.

I began phase three and part of that was leaving my old home. Hard to do when you have lived within a few hundred miles of your birthplace for so long. I bid my parents graves goodbye, set up trusts and accounts for my non-vampire business associates and friends, and boarded a boat for the new world. I'll admit, probably not my smartest decision sitting on the open water for weeks without a good meal, but it had to be done. Big things were on the horizon for America, and I wanted to be a part in shaping them.

Its a funny thing, immortality. I don't age of course. So far, no wound has been able to keep me down. I've even exploded and while yes, that took some time to recover from, I'm still here. So when you can live and die violently, why not start a war? I missed out on signing the declaration due to extenuating circumstances. But let me tell you, there is something to be said about dying for a cause, it was the most freeing thing I did for the first few years of the American Revolution.

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I had to slow down in 1777, as I had found a partner. My first outside of the master. I hadn't had time outside of business, planning, and learning. While my time with my spouse was important and our adopted children meant the world to me, I had to call it quits on that life in the early 1800's. There is something to be said about loss after love. I hadn't experienced anything like it before. I almost gave in to the call of death. It nearly made me forget about my plan. So I consolidated my lost time and went back to work.

Part of my plan was already working flawlessly. Men were forgetting about the monster under the bed to face the monster of human nature. It sounds pretentious, I know, but there is a truth to it. Nose to the grindstone, I missed a lot over next hundred years. I spent a lot of time traveling and catching up on the rest of the world. I was slowed down in 1914 and then again in 1939. A lot happened in such short time.

My big break was soon after. The Space Race had begun and my influence was felt by some. Eventually, we put a man in space. Not a soul on Earth was more happy than me. My plan was so close to fruition. Maybe another century and I could trade this bright planet for a dark one. A lifetime for others, an extended wait for me.

A problem arose in the 1980's. I suddenly had the attention of monster hunters. While I was able to regenerate from many grievous wounds, I knew that a well placed stake could end my quest. Hell, I had spent the fortune of kings to find a way to kill my master so many years prior. Some sort of earthly magic to balance our cursed longevity. I was careful, I was prepared. I killed some and paid others. It seemed like the hunt was over.

So imagine my surprise when I awoke one bright, sunny day to those splintery 12 inches of African blackwood piercing my chest. Absolute dumb luck and anatomy kept me from dying that day. It was 2012, and the damn internet had been tracking me for almost 20 years. The sounds of sheer terror and shock when I rose from the dead before the group of twenty or so hunters still lull me to sleep some mornings. I still watch the surveillance video for a good laugh from time to time.

They had gotten past all of my defenses and exposed my resting place to sunlight by some elaborate means. I hovered burning and bleeding for a moment, processing. My nightgown fell away a smoldering mess. Maybe it was the sight of a blazing, naked woman, maybe it was the fact that I wasn't dead. For some reason, the group of hunters did not react. Not until I tore the throat out of the one holding the hammer. With barely more than a flick of my wrist, I severed his head and tossed the body at the contraption that was burning me. Now, it was dark. Now, I was the hunter.

I'm sorry to admit, I went a little feral. I usually don't even kill humans while feeding. I leapt at the closest one and clamped my jaws around his neck, taking a deep drink of cigarette tinged blood before chewing through. I tore out the stake and let it clatter to the floor as I speared my hands through another hunter. He instinctively pulled the trigger and automatic fire tore through me. I grabbed his hand and redirected his weapon towards a group only a few feet away.

I heard the clunk of a hand grenade and dropped to the floor. Using the hunter's body as a shield against the brunt of the explosion, I couldn't help but remember all the times I had fought during war. This was similar, but everyone was my enemy here and I didn't have to hold back. No one was going to tell others about what they witnessed here. Pushing the shattered body off of me, I stood and took a machete out of a canvas sheath. It would help in the quick dismemberment of my prey. Their blood would go a long way into making me whole again.

After I hunted down all of the hunting group's contacts and associates, I considered changing my pseudonym. The Altermann was useless to me now. The internet knew I was a woman. I decided in the long run to keep my chosen name. After all, you can't really believe everything you read on the internet. So here's another lie for you: I was born in 1409 and 'died' in 1442 when I became a vampire. My birth name was Elizabeth and my husband called me Betsy. I have been leading humans into space for hundreds of years. Let me help you, so I can leave you in relative peace with the other monsters.

***

Ol' Lizzy sure is a hoot! What do you say? Do you want to spend eternity in space, never seeing the sun again? With the internet available to compile all available books and media, you would have plenty to do and read for a few hundred years.

Alas, I cannot go. To much to do here at the Curio. Make sure you visit again. I'm sure I'll something especially for you in the future. After all its like she said, you don't live as long as a monster with out a certain amount of power and a plan.