Raymond Fleck laid his exhausted head on the table. It was so incredibly complicated to be a good person in this world.

Gentle, firm fingers kneaded at his shoulders and Raymond promised himself again that next time he’d notice when Cindy was tense and be the one to rub her. “Shall we drive out to lover’s lane and sit in our cars?” she suggested and he smiled. For what other couple would deadly creatures leering in your windshield be a sweet memory?

Their Kick the Vampires Off teeshirts and sweatshirts had worked. People were starting to say, “hey, this could really work.” It had seemed like in another year people around the world would join hands to declare the vampires unwelcome in the home that was Earth.

And then it had all fallen apart as hate sites popped up like sickly white mushrooms. He and Cindy now found themselves linked with movements to kick out Muslims, Jews, blacks, gays. When they spoke up to denounce the hate, death threats poured in.

The phone rang. Warily he answered, putting it on speaker.

A gruff voice said, “Drop the felching teeshirts, I got something effing more important.”

Raymond said in surprise, “Charla Thorpe?” They’d gotten supportive calls from her in the early days.

“I s’pose you heard about me?” her voice said, darkly secretive.

“Um, no, we, unless you mean some of the rallies you’ve been holding…?”

“Nah, never mind. Just know that I’m callin’ from the hospital and the fucking vamps got Tomie.”

Cindy’s hands tightened on Ray’s shoulder. “Oh no,” she whispered.

Staring at the whining florescents above her hospital bed Charla clenched her teeth. The vamps hadn’t got Tomie, she’d shot him with her wooden-bullets-only machine gun. She felt like a shit salad with roasted cat piss dressing: the first thing about responsible gun ownership was safety, and she’d just blazed away. If anyone had asked, she would have quickly put the blame on anyone but herself. But nobody had asked.

When Tomie had vanished into that swarm of vampires, she’d given up. Still, when the improbable news helicopter swooped in, she had stuck up an arm automatically and someone had grabbed it. They’d rescued her because it made a fabulous news story and she repaid the reporter well with spicy quotes but now she was a middle aged frump in a hospital bed alone with her thoughts.

This she did not do well. She had kept herself active and busy for years so that she would never, ever have to be alone with her thoughts.

“We’re both so sorry, Charla,” Raymond’s clumsy voice said in her ear. “We know you loved him…”

“Yeah, well, that’s all fine. Listen, we’re joining forces, you guys and me. You in?”

The voice was suddenly wary. “Um, what will we be doing, Charla?” She could almost see Miss Pretty Pert Pert behind him shaking her head.

“There’s a movement to Welcome the Felching Vampires In, and we’re going to put out the call to shut it down,” Charla snapped. “You gotta put out that call. Put it out around the world, if you see one of these Quislings, kick them off the planet.”

As the silence dragged out, she snapped like a hail of wooden bullets, “Are you with me or not? Tell me now.”

On the other end, Cindy’s grip on Raymond’s shoulder became steel. “This is Cindy MacPherson, Charla. What exactly does that look like? How do people to kick them off the planet?”

“A stake through their felchin’ hearts, is about the size of it. It’s all they deserve.”

Cindy and Raymond looked at each other with horror, Cindy’s head shaking. But before they could answer, the illusion of falling gripped them. The phone toppled out of sight. They clutched at each other but missed and each fell alone with only his thoughts.

And in the hospital, Charla fell into the hole beneath her bed, knowing that she was being cast straight down to hell. She wasn’t a warrior for God at all and her scream was wet with the despair of the utterly damned.

***

Amanda led the others from the alley in the brightening air. She expected to be paralyzed once the sun rose and she searched for a spot where the light would fall on her.

Her eye fell on the golden top of Bernal Heights and she pointed to it. Her long strides ate up block after block and they shadowed her. But between one step and the next the two men ran away, terrified of the dawn. The tall woman with the eyepatch gave her a longing look before darting away herself. And so alone once more, Amanda Malreaux climbed a steep street to a dusty hillside and positioned herself to catch the first rays of the sun.

Bruskly businesslike, she knelt, opened her bloodstained robes and bared her shoulder so that the sunlight could heal her, if it would. Nothing hurt at the moment. The front of her shoulder looked normal; the wound was all in the back. She swiveled her back to the sun and in that very instant, fell forward.

For an endless time she lay helpless, feeling nothing. Then the sun cleared the hills and she felt the first probing rays on her shoulder.

She barely noticed as the bullet popped out and the wound closed neatly. Every corner of her mind was filled with the ecstasy of the touch of the sun on her shoulder, her neck, the backs of her outstretched hands.

Giving up sex had been a sacrifice, even at a time when she still felt the pain of her decision around the abortion. Sometimes she had missed sex intensely, though mostly she had been happy without it.

But now! Just the touch of sun on borderline wreathes of skin, not even her whole body, and she was ravenous for more. If the other three had stayed (and if they could have moved), there was no question what they would be doing right now. She should be grateful they had left.

As it was she writhed and would have cast off all her clothes if she could have. Memories of Kendal filled her thoughts: the touch of his lips, the feel of fingers on her sensitive places and, more graphically, his penis pushing into her, the longing for him to fill her with his seed and make a child, crying out to him, “Yes, my love, yes, yes, my love!”

The time ticked by and she could not move to undress but she could wriggle just enough along the ground to find a small hillock (she would blush to remember this later) and hump her groin against it through her drenched underwear and sober clothes.

When the falling began, she at first only moaned with frustration that the hillock was gone.

***

Charity came again, weeping with happiness, and realized that the delicious falling sensation had not stopped with the orgasm.

But she was not afraid. She had faced much bigger fears. This falling, tumbling – it felt like making love more deeply. Somewhere nearby, she knew that Tommy was zipping and popping through the air as happy as a bumblebee. He was safe and this had to be a dream anyway.

They fell with blankets still wrapped around them and Peter’s arms were around her. Never moving apart, they built toward their next delicious falling.