Jade: Earth's Last Hope Against the Undead by Kenneth W. Cain

"
    "I'm not sure I understand."
    "What if you die? What if I die?" He threw
the stick into the fire where it snapped in half, one broken end
catching and crackling. "We may have sacrificed our only chance at
ever being happy by coming back here."
    "That isn't true."
    "It could be."
    She shook her head despite knowing he was
right. It very well could be the truth. But it didn't have to be.
"Trent, how could we have ever been happy knowing this was still
going on, that at any moment it could start all over again?"
    He shrugged. "I don't know. I guess you're
right."
    "Of course I am. Listen, I don't like this
any more than you do, but we have to end it. And like it or not,
there's only one way to do that."
    "Which is?"
    She didn't answer, knowing it would be a
sore subject to broach.
    "See? You don't even have a plan."
    But in truth, she very much did.

    She made sure to keep the mood light that
day, trying to make it all about them and less about everything
else. She needed that for Trent to reveal his true feelings about
her.
    So they walked along a local stream and it
did surprise her when he took her hand. They walked that way for a
long time, words unnecessary.
    For lunch, they found a local eatery that
had only just reopened. They weren't charging for the food yet, so
everything seemed a bit ransacked and unplanned. People still
crowded inside of the dive, looking for a mere morsel of food
cooked like the old days before everything had gone bad.
    There were other surprises, too. She'd seen
a boy riding a scooter and someone driving a car, of all things. At
one point she even swore she'd seen a hot air balloon drifting
along the skyline, far off in the distance. People had regained
some of their confidence and as the world around them progressed,
so did the mood between Jade and Trent. Everything quickly moved
toward normalcy again, which made it very hard to proceed with what
she knew she must do.
    That night they sought refuge in an old
apartment building. They cleaned up some, making the place somewhat
presentable before they settled in for the night. In that way,
regularity had been restored to their lives and with it came what
she'd long missed.
    When he removed his shirt, she ran her
fingers over his muscles and across his chest. She loved the way
his lip quivered when she tickled him this way. She brushed his
thick hair back over his head and kissed him deeply.
    He backed her toward the bed a step at a
time as though they were dancing. There, at the foot of the bed, he
pulled off her shirt and unhooked her bra. They stood bare-chested,
her heart throbbing against his and his beating even harder against
hers. Nothing else mattered in that moment. There were no vampires
or seconds ticking by, just the two of them and what they felt for
one another.

    She stole away in the middle of the night
and fled through the hills toward the large moon that lit the sky.
She knew where to go and had taken the entire trip back to plan her
assault. When she reached the house, everything seemed dreadfully
inactive. Still she drew her sword.
    Across the lawn, she'd made it half the
distance to the house before seeing any signs of life. Among the
outskirts of the farm several humans labored in the fields,
gathering crops in the middle of the night as if this were somehow
normal. And it might have been, at least partially so, if not for
those blinking lights on their head harnesses.
    Somewhere in that house resided the woman
behind it all. Maybe she did have friends, other vampires who had
lived their lives happily here on Earth. But if any of them had
truly been happy on Earth, she'd betrayed them in those final
moments. She'd been the mole all along and had even programmed Jade
and others to kill those vampires at will.
    Jade had to remain cautious, though. There
still might be others, those who had aligned themselves with Hiru
in hopes of keeping the livestock to themselves. That way they'd
never run out of blood. There'd be an endless