Sally was ready now to be a killing machine, but there was nothing to do.

In several places the defenders had fallen back, pushing people behind them, because they were outside the invisible boundaries of Malcolm’s plaza “home.” But as soon as the vampires reached that boundary they stopped as if pressed against glass. A 20-foot gap, thick with milling vampires, separated the crowd from the hotel and the plan for a human corridor had been abandoned.

Malcolm Donald was sick with complicated guilt as his amplified voice soothed the crowd. He talked about setting up his office in a tent, joked about taking appointments. Privately he worried that the Board of Supervisors would point to an ordinance that said he couldn’t live out here. But he pushed those doubts away: if he doubted, then this wasn’t a home. He walked off the stage and into the crowd, still speaking into his headset.

Charity, still shaking, saw hands reach out to touch him and hated him getting loved up while her own hands were bloody where she’d bitten them to keep from screaming. If she’d screamed, people would have stampeded and lots of them would be dead.

Sally prowled the edges of the plaza, moving, moving. Lavinia had been quickly swallowed by the pale sea and though Sally looked hungrily for another glimpse, she saw only the white faces whispering like always. Bodies were piled high.

People spread sleeping bags, talking, even starting to sing and chant again.

Sally bumped into a low concrete wall. She sank to the ground and sat with her back against it.

The need to nestle her face against Lavinia’s chest and be held was a physical ache. She wrapped her arms around herself.

Tears flowed down her cheeks. She put her face in her hands, a knife cutting through her chest. She still felt Lavinia’s hand on her heart three weeks ago when they had made love, heard her voice say “Open yourself, baby. Not just here—” where the fingers of her other hand were “—here.” Only one other lover had put a hand on her heart and for that guy (had his name been Todd?) it had been part of the New Age Woo Woo in which he wrapped what turned out to be a one-night stand.

Lavinia had coaxed her out. “Look in my eyes, babe. Don’t look nowhere else.” Fingers stroking her inside. “Show me everything. Come on, that’s right.” She had opened to Lavinia, she had risked everything, or started to. And she had lost. Even her last words from Lavinia were meaningless nonsense.

And yet she’d heard something like them before. Fly time her robin? She was too tired and sad to puzzle out something which was probably just nonsense anyway.

She looked up at the people nearby. They all looked away quickly except a man with red hair and gentle green eyes who radiated compassion. He was clearly partnered with the grey-haired man with the chubby friendly face, so he probably had no sexual agenda.

The bristly, lonely pre-Lavinia Sally would have glared and flipped him off. But now she actually thought about asking him to hold her. He reminded her of someone comforting, though she couldn’t imagine who. Her mother, a nonentity in her father’s shadow, had almost never given comfort. Anyway, it wasn’t just touch she wanted, it was Lavinia’s touch.

Jesse Casselberger was a natural giver. He felt the crying woman’s need to be held and knew also that she longed for someone very specific. He raised a heartfelt eyebrow at Walter: is there anything we can do? Walter shook his head: we can’t help everybody. They busied themselves preparing a nest with sleeping bags and blankets.

Malcolm’s voice urged people to sleep. “Defenders will take shifts watching you in the night. Nothing will get into this home and we’ll be on the lookout for the real danger: pickpockets.” Laughter.

Soon enough, Sally thought, she’d be completely alone. She’d have to drive the camper somewhere and she’d have to sleep in the bed she and Lavinia had shared. They’d both sublet their apartments; she could get hers back eventually, but she’d be sleeping in the old green camper alone for many nights.

The anguish of that made her open her eyes and call out, “Hey, uh, what’s-your-name?” She meant just “hey you,” but Jesse answered by telling her his name.

“Actually, I, um,” she started. She wanted the gentle male couple to hold her between them but when it actually came to asking, she flushed and shook her head.

Jesse’s gift was empathy. He caught Walter’s eye. Walter looked tenderly at Jesse and two of them walked to the wall and sat down on either side of her. At the unquestioning love and support, she felt fresh tears gush. Several men in the crowd cast envious glances at the gay couple, wishing they’d asked the attractive young woman if she needed help. Mercifully, Sally didn’t see their hungry looks. Jesse put a tentative hand on her shoulder but Sally cringed and he took it away instantly.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Time and again Sally thought she was cried empty. Then her mind would replay Lavinia lamenting their lost home and she’d cry more. Walter and Jesse sat quietly beside her. When she finally fell asleep, Jesse wished there was space for him and for Walter to lay down beside her. When the woman to his right stood up and stomped off, he realized he’d been glaring at her for ten minutes. “Thank you!” he called to her vanishing back, then felt guilty while Walter brought over their sleeping bags. They cuddled up with each other, but not touching Sally because she hadn’t asked.

Charity Claire shivered, arms wrapped around her knees. A horrible thought flared in her mind: If I, right now, said to the vampires, “Welcome, come in,” we’d all be dead!

She gasped, like she’d gashed herself on a razor. Anybody in the crowd could welcome the vampires in. She jerked to her feet and darted glances everywhere.

She felt like she was hiding a murder weapon. She couldn’t share this with anybody for fear of planting the idea in the wrong mind. She was the loneliest woman on earth, surrounded by people who all seemed to be coupled up (or tripled or quadrupled), recovering from the shock by having quiet or noisy sex inside sleeping bags and makeshift shelters.

But not little Charity Claire with her stupid name that sounded like “chocolate éclair” and her mousy good looks and her deadly secret. Always secrets. No one knew how she’d bloodied her own hands to keep from screaming earlier. No one knew what had happened to her a year ago. And now, exhausted, she prowled alone looking shyly into faces and then quickly down, dreading to see the one face which would destroy them all.

Sally woke in the middle of the night and saw Jesse sleepily watching over her. She instantly placed who he reminded her of: not a person but a cat. Callista had had a red cat named Cinnamon who would lie on Sally’s chest with his moist nose against hers, purring and gazing solemnly at her with great green eyes. Cinnamon had always known when a human needed a cat.

Jesse’s hand rested on his lover curled up beside him. For a few floating seconds she couldn’t remember why she dreaded coming fully awake. Then the pain filled her like salt water. She whimpered like a lost animal.

He watched her with sympathy, waiting for her to lead. She couldn’t bear to cry again so she spoke, her voice just outdistancing the tears. “I’d been thinking of getting a cat.” If she’d found a cat as smart and quirky as Cinnamon, she would have.

Jesse nodded, acceptance being his gift. “I’m more of a dog guy, but cats are pretty special.”

“You’d have to keep it in at night. You’d have to keep it in days too, I guess.” The speculation was soothing. “The first night it wasn’t indoors at sunset, toast.” A gush of fresh tears threatened to fill her throat.

“I wonder,” she said quickly, “how there are any animals left in the world. Birds, dolphins, snakes even. They all have blood.” It was the first time she’d thought about this, and curiosity helped keep away the hurt. “I guess if the vampires destroyed all the animals, the ecosystem would be, I don’t know, I don’t know.”

Yesterday she would have run this train of thought past Lavinia. Lavinia would have figured it out, or seen some side of it she missed, or at least had something keenly intelligent to say. They had talked about everything from Richard Feynman to Richard Wagner to Richard Nixon to Richard III. Sally was crying again; she couldn’t help it. The old tough-as-nails Sally Yan seemed to have broken into a thousand pieces.

Jesse firmed himself to offer: “Would you like to be held?” He tilted his head and shrugged minutely, the gesture taking the place of the words, “I’m not trying to come on to you or anything.”

But Sally shook her head jerkily, trying to stop crying. Jesse nodded, ashamed that he’d made her try to suppress her emotions. They were silent for the rest of the night. Jesse lay down and Walter’s arm went around him automatically. He drifted in his beloved’s arms, wishing he knew how to fix everyone.

Charity Claire passed within 20 feet, looking at them with sad envy. She imagined herself with two gentle men comforting her, demanding nothing. The memory from a year ago rose again and this time took over.

It had been seconds before sunset. The evil faces which she could never avoid looking at would soon be outside the window.

Suddenly he was there outside the window: a living man with the smile of a tiger, looking at his watch. As she leaped back with hammering heart, he carefully smacked the glass with a ball peen hammer, swept away broken shards and climbed through just as the vampires appeared behind him.

“One sound,” he promised, still smiling, “and I welcome them in.”

Throat dry as sand, she tried to make herself call his bluff. She’d had a perfect weapon, a big kitchen knife. But the vampires hissed and instead she did everything he demanded. He had stayed all night, he had hurt her, he had slept in her bed, it had been part of his thrill knowing she had nowhere to go until dawn, when he left her bleeding and sobbing quietly. Afterward she washed the sheets five times and still it hurt like knives to sleep in her own bed.

The force of the memory faded to a familiar ache. She pushed on, not sure what she would do if she saw a face like that again. As she ghosted past a man in a sock cap he patted his pocket to make sure his wallet wasn’t missing. Charity tightened her jaw.

Just before dawn Sally Yan came miserably awake longing to see Lavinia’s face again. But now she asked herself what she hadn’t asked last night: what if she actually saw what Lavinia had become!

The sky over the east bay hills brightened. At any second the sun would officially be “up.” She pushed herself to her feet, still not sure whether she was going to look.

But her peripheral vision told her that the vampires were gone. And that was that.