The Gilda Stories

A bleak future has settled over the planet, and Gilda is forced to hide from it in a network of caverns in the American Southwest. In the face of economic collapse, widespread disease, and environmental disaster, mortals have discovered vampires exist and that immortality is possible. The rich pay a network of drug-fueled Hunters to seek them out, so Gilda pays three guards to watch outside her cavern full-time.

After a brief meeting with her guards, Gilda leaves the cavern and runs through a dry riverbed to hunt for blood in town. Her return home is interrupted when she senses a Hunter on her trail. He attacks, but she knocks him unconscious with her superior strength. The encounter leaves her wishing for escape from this place; suddenly, the moon breaks through the usual fog of pollution, and she receives a thought-message from her vampire family saying they are safe in South America and she can join them there.

One of her most loyal guards, Houston, approaches Gilda. She explains she may soon be gone and asks what he might do with the time off. Going Off-world is an appealing possibility, Houston says, but he cannot pay the tremendous sum required to bribe his way onto a ship. Only an hour’s preparations are required before Gilda slips away through a secret panel in her cavern room, leaving Houston an envelope with all the money and papers he’ll need for passage Off-world and taking only a few of her life’s keepsakes with her.

Gilda plans to hide out in an abandoned apartment building before proceeding to South America, but in the empty penthouse she finds a woman named Ermis unconscious on the bed, having attempted suicide by drug overdose. Unable to bear the healthy woman’s unneeded death, Gilda exchanges blood with Ermis, and they sleep off the drug together. Ermis’s transformation takes several days to complete. Afterward, Gilda assures Ermis she has no obligation to her and she can still end her own life if she chooses. Ermis feels Gilda’s gesture was generous and wants to stay and live as a vampire.

They set off for South America together, traveling through Mexico until they come to the Panama Canal, which will be difficult to cross. Things get worse when Hunters find them hiding in a cave near the water, and though the vampires kill both of them, a poisoned dart cuts Gilda’s hand and leaves her nearly dead.

A terrified Ermis must decide how to cross the Canal with Gilda’s paralyzed body. The voices of Gilda’s vampire family call out in support to Ermis’s mind, telling her to come “South to Peru […] the old ruins of Machu Picchu” (249). Ermis fashions a sled from branches and drags Gilda across the treacherous Canal. During the journey, Gilda regains some consciousness and converses with Bird in her head, asking if they should take the true death. Bird says no—they should not leave the earth to those who would destroy it—and Gilda agrees.

Ermis gets them to safety, and once Gilda regains her strength, they trek through the mountains, talking of the community they’ll find in Peru. In the novel’s last paragraph, Gilda looks up and sees on a nearby ridge that “Julius and Effie were parallel with them, moving eastward toward Machu Picchu” (252). Ermis and Gilda move in their direction, no longer afraid.