Kindle Edition Download to your Nook (eBook) Download from Apple iTunes (eBook) Download from Smashwords (eBook) Amazon Category:  Horror Publisher: Kathryn Meyer Griffith ISBN-10:  1517651786 Type: Fiction Pages: 419 Copyright: 1992 ISBN-13: 9781517651787 The world's ending, humans are dying everywhere, earthquakes shake the earth, and you're becoming a vampire...what do you do? You learn how to fight. You learn how to survive any way you can. 2012 Epics eBook Awards *Finalist* The earthquakes, the global floods and the devastating fires arrive first. The human race, displaced and panicked, at first flees, migrating to any place there’s food and shelter.Then the worldwide plague arrives with its stench of death. And as mankind suffers and dies out, vampires, their numbers dwindling from the same sickness, struggle and fight fiercely among themselves to survive in a world where there aren’t enough humans to feed upon. As the months go by they become fewer, more desperate and more ruthless. Emma, as the world disintegrates around her, finds herself alone, her family dead…and fighting off an unnatural hunger as she becomes one of the undead. Defying her unwanted destiny she’s determined to resist the bloodlust she feels, the need to kill and feed on human blood, of losing her humanity, for as long as she can bear it…but she’s so hungry…and the night calls. 2012 Epics eBook Awards *Finalist* Excerpt EXCERPT: The next morning, Emma faced the bridge. She wanted to run away. Back to the shelter. Hide her head in the sand. Die. It was insane, trying to go home, and this whole scheme of trekking out to Maine like some brave person. When she wasn’t. What was she thinking? No. She could do it. She had to do it. She looked at the bridge, the water shimmering before her. It had become a sort of a test. Cross that bridge, go home, and bury her past and she could do anything. Even make it to Maine. Her stomach growled in protest. She promised herself she’d find food. Afterwards. “Here goes nothing,” she grumbled, and waded into the frigid water. She regretted that she didn’t have a change of clothing. There was no help for it, she’d just have to build a fire afterwards and dry her clothes out. Taking the rope out of her pack, she held it close. She’d use it as a safety line. The sun filtered down on her in the quiet early morning, as she swam toward the first stretch of the half-submerged bridge. She was a strong swimmer, but she knew her limits, so she took it slow and easy. She braced herself mentally against what floated in the water around her, or what she would find sandwiched in the sections of the bridge. And the smell. God. She was shivering so badly when she got there, that she could barely claw her way up on the first section. Her hands cramped up. Tears of anguish stained her haggard face. She tossed the rope, snagged a broken girder, then torturously pulled herself from the river. After she’d rested a few minutes, she started working her way across the bridge, carefully. She had sturdy tennis shoes on and was glad of it. Waterlogged, they squeaked and left round, wet spots behind her. At the places the bridge dipped or plummeted into the water, or was blocked with debris, she had to find alternative paths. Once everything under her fell into the water, and the only thing that saved her from being sucked down with it and crushed was her lifeline. As she was hanging out over thin air, twirling at the end of the rope like a dead fish on a hook, she wondered again why she was doing this. Maybe she was touched in the head? She smiled at that. Of course she was. But she gritted her teeth, wiped her tears away with numb fingers, and kept crawling along the concrete span. Not all the cars had toppled into the water. Most of the vehicles on the bridge were empty, some weren’t. Emma tried not to look at the decomposing bodies, but it was difficult. They were everywhere. “This is really stupid, Emma…this is really, really…dumb,” she groaned under her breath, as her weight accidentally dislodged a loose piece of the structure, and, with bated breath, she watched it plunge into the watery depths below her. “Really s-t-u-p-i-d.” Her bad leg gave her more trouble than she expected and soon she was dragging it behind her like a useless dead thing. It took agonizing hours to cross the bridge, and when she finally made it onto safe land, her body was shaking with the exertion, and her hands were scraped bloody. Her clothes were frozen to her like an icy shell. The first thing she did was gather wood and build a huge fire, then hunched over it until her clothes were almost dry. It was too chilly to take them off.

Coffee Time Romance Review
The world has been all but destroyed by massive earthquakes unlike any before. People are desperate to survive the unspeakable horror of mass homelessness, hunger, the plague and the horror is about to get worse.

Emma has lost more than people she loves. Matthew struggles to accept his loses and retain some semblance of the man he once was. Together these two lonely souls will help each other survive if they can only accept the very worst of each other.

The world has been destroyed first by natural disasters of earth quakes and then by a direct result of man -- the plague. Emma fights what she has become and only wants to protect the very one she loves even if it means saving him from her inner demon and unquenchable thirst.

Follow Emma and the remaining survivors as the fabric of their lives is torn apart and reformed into something else entirely. Kathryn Meyer Griffith is a writer who will give the reader nightmares. She takes the greatest fears of humanity and throws it in our faces. I for one will never forget the incredible story of devastation and the last gasping breath of humanity.


Two Lips Review
Earthquake, flood, and fire have destroyed everything Emma Bloodworth holds dear. Her husband. Her children. Her home. Her friends. Her career as a gifted graphic artist. She has nothing left but her life and the clothes on her back when she flees the quaking ground, rising waters, and fiery devastation of St. Louis. Most survivors of the plague and the destruction wrought from the earth tearing itself apart turn into nothing better than animals, scavenging for food, clothing, and anything else deemed useful – including women.
Fortunate to have access to a fully stocked underground shelter, Emma spends five months recuperating from her burns, emerging scarred but determined to survive. She teaches herself to hunt and defend herself with a knife, but when scavengers take everything but her knife and the clothes on her back, she decides it's time to strike out for Maine to see if her sister might still be alive. But first, she wants to see her home one last time, and if she can find them, she needs to bury the bodies of her husband and children. Concerned about the large black wolf shadowing her, she runs straight into the same pack of scavengers who want the one thing they haven't already taken from her – her body.
Lonely and unable to contact those of his own kind that haven't succumbed either to starvation or to the human plague that dooms them as well, Byron rescues Emma and shelters her in his cave. Beaten and near death, she languishes for days only to awaken to her scarred skin sloughing off and the knowledge that Byron had turned her into a monster of myth – a vampire. Unwilling at first to believe it, she has no choice but to finally accept it when she hungers for blood and then discovers that she is stronger, faster, her senses more keen than ever before. When Byron dies from taking the blood of plague-diseased humans, she once again finds herself alone. Vowing never to kill a human for blood, she relies on the blood of animals to survive.
Matthew Whitefeather is hunting, his wife and daughter at home in Fenton, Missouri, when the St. Louis earthquake opens a maw in the earth that swallows his pickup in one huge gulp. At home, he finds his wife dead in the tumbled down remains of their home, and shortly thereafter, his catatonic daughter dies of the plague. Alone, he survives in the old way of the Cherokee, living off the land until scavengers ambush him and leave him for dead in the harsh winter elements. When Emma stumbles upon his naked, half frozen body, she nurses him back to health, discovering that even monsters can fall in love.
As they begin a journey together that will take them to the shores of Maine, to Canada, and home again, Emma tries to hide what she is from Matthew, secretly hunting at night for the animals that sustain her. But how long will she be able to carry out the charade when her hunger for Matthew's blood grows daily? And what horrors, as the earth continues to tear itself apart, will they find when they reach Maine...and all that awaits them there...and beyond?
In this re-written and updated reprint of her 1992 Zebra release, Kathryn Meyer Griffith has given us a dire but riveting look at the possible end of the world and how both humans and vampires might choose to deal with it. Between the plague and the violent earthquakes that ravage the land – not to mention the resulting fires, harsh weather, and flooding due to the sudden and dramatic change in the weather – the scene Ms. Griffith sets isn't for the faint of heart. The apocalyptic setting will definitely leave you with something to think about in regards to global warming and how delicate the balance is between people and their environment, plus how volatile our planet really is beneath the surface. Nevertheless, I wouldn't have missed this gripping read for the world (no pun intended).
Both Emma and Matthew possess a strong sense of survival. Emma fights constantly to retain her humanity in the face of her vampirism and its demands. She feels her losses deeply, but she never gives in to grief or hopelessness. Matthew is exactly the man she needs at her side in her position and not just because of his survival skills. With all that's happened and continues to happen to Emma, he's devoted to her. Despite taking pause when he finally learns what she really is, he loves her deeply and unconditionally. Definitely my kind of man.
The Last Vampire is a super stay-up-till-dawn story, the mysticism in Matthew's dream visions bringing me to the question...will there be a sequel? I hope so. Matthew's visions certainly suggest one.


REVIEW (from A SPLASH OF SCARLET BLOG by Tony-Paul) of THE LAST VAMPIRE
Hard times on planet Earth… Earthquakes have torn it apart, destroying cities and killing their inhabitants. Those not dying in the destruction are infected with a plague decimating humanity. People roam nearly-abandoned cities, looters pillage, bodies lie in the streets.
In St Louis, Emma Bloodworth, one of the lucky few still unharmed and having a job, is leaving the city with Larry, a co-worker when another series of quakes strikes as the New Madrid Fault splits. Gaslines explode, buildings collapse, and Larry,is fatally injured. A survivalist, he has a stocked shelter prepared, and with his dying breath, bequeaths it to Emma. Realizing now she’s alone, her husband and children also perishing in the quake, Emma makes for the shelter and so begins a waking nightmare which can have only one ending.
Matthew Whitefeather is a part-Cherokee living outside St. Louis. In the aftermath of the quakes, he returns home to find it looted, his wife dead and his daughter, Sara injured. When Sara dies of the plague, he packs up and heads East, to see if there are any survivors.
The one he finds is Emma, but it’s a different woman from the graphic designer who came to the Larry’s little shelter. Burned and scarred from the fires following the quakes, and brutalized by looters, Emma is saved and subsequent victimization by Byron, a vampire who thinks he may be the last of his kind. Her association with him is cut short when Byron dies of the plague transmitted to him through one of his victims. Now, she’s alone again, without the knowledge she needs to adjust to her new twilight life. When Matthew appears, she’s living in the cave Byron had made his home, guardianed by a huge silver wolf. Matthew has been shot and Emma nurses him back to health, forcing herself not to feed off the only good human she’s met since her part in this disaster happened.
Once Matthew has recovered, Emma’s wolf-friend vanishes, and the two begin a trek to Maine, to reach Emma’s sister and brother-in-law—if they still live—he using his hunting skills to find food, while Emma attempts to keep her true nature hidden from him. As they gradually become lovers, she wishes to share her secret with Matthew but is certain how he’d react; in the meantime, she fights the lure of his blood, feeling it overcoming her love of his body. She knows eventually he’ll learn what she is and once he does, is certain she’ll be doomed. So she hunts animals at night to protect the man she’s come to love.
When they reach Maine, they find nothing left of the island where her sister lived. Now completely alone except for Matthew, Emma realizes they are being tracked by a band of vampires in wolf form, who have been slaughtering the few humans left in the area. She can go to them, they’ll accept her, but Matthew will die, if she herself doesn’t kill him first. The desire to taste human blood is becoming stronger and stronger…
To keep him alive and draw the others away, Emma abandons Matthew, joining the ravaging pack. But Matthew can’t give up the woman he loves so easily. As more earthquakes further ravage the world and the vampires’ source of food becomes smaller and smaller… It’s only a matter of time before they themselves will starve and die out. And Matthew is following…
MY OPINION: Pretty discouraging, if this is the way it’s going to happen…with several bangs and then many whimpers, but it could very well be, except for the vampire part, of course. Emma is portrayed as a woman who isn’t aware of the inner depths of courage and resourcefulness within herself until she’s actually forced to draw on those reserves. She does what she has to, sometimes with regrets, sometimes eagerly. She misses Byron when he dies, not because she’s now as he is but because he’s another being, a companion and someone to share her life. She also is no born killer as the other vampires are, but retains her conscience, determined not to take a human life neither for the sake of killing or as food. Matthew is her opposite as a hunter and tracker, a man raised on the reservation and in tune with the spirit world which guides him through much of his journey. The emotions they feel as they view the destruction of the world they knew, the loss of their loved ones and their strength in each other is portrayed in words which will strike deep emotion.
This isn’t your ordinary vampire novel. No handsome aristocrats here, no beautiful damsels in love or distress, but the ending will pluck a pang of disquiet and poignancy from your heart