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Just a Vampire
By Delilah Moon
Chapter 4
July heat had set in. In order for Tammi to work in
the garden she had to beat the noon day sun. It was
about 9AM and she and Izzy headed for the now lush
garden. Izzy was dressed in her "garden outfit," a
green gingham dress with two large pockets on the
front of the skirt and a pocket on the chest with a
cute white chicken on the front. She had a straw sun
hat with a green sash and yellow and white silk
daisies around the brim. In her arms she carried a
small wicker basket for gathering vegetables. Tammi
had her usual jeans shorts and a copper-colored raw
silk top. She carried a large laundry-style wicker
basket for picking beans and corn.
When they reached the edge of the garden, Tammi
instructed Izzy,
"OK, go pick what you would like to eat for lunch."
Tammi kept an eye on Izzy while she began picking lima
beams and string beans growing among the corn stalks.
"Mommy? Where is a cucumber?" Izzy asked, looking at
the cucumber vines.
"Remember how to find them? You have to look under the
leaves."
"I don't want to look under the leaves," Izzy whined,
"they're itchy and scratchy."
"Well I guess you won't be eating cucumbers for lunch,
will you?" she taunted.
Izzy sat her basket on the ground and gently moved the
leaves to look under them. She saw a cucumber. She
grabbed it and pulled. The vine broke off along with
her cucumber. Poor Izzy began to cry.
"Izzy? What's wrong?" Tammi asked as she ran over to
Izzy.
"Mommy, oh no!" Izzy cried holding the vine.
Tammi smiled at her daughter. "Aw, it's ok sweety. It
was an accident. You forgot to twist it, didn't you?"
Tammi looked under the leaves and found another one.
"Look, try again. Twist it off."
Izzy leaned over and twisted the cucumber. It snapped
neatly off the vine. Izzy smiled and sniffed and
handed her mom the "broken" cucumber and put the
vineless cucumber in her basket and headed for the
tomato plants. "I want a tomato."
"Don't forget to twist it," called Tammi.
"OK, Mommy," Izzy said as she carefully stepped across
a row of young field peas. "I won't forget this time."
Up the hill above the house sat Darron and Jason. They
were both wearing tree bark camouflage pants, Jason
with a black t-shirt, Darron with army green.
"So how do you plan to do it?" Asked Jason as he
watched mother and daughter through his binoculars.
"Silver bullet?" shrugged Darron.
"Where the hell you gonna get a silver bullet?" Jason
scoffed, lowering his binoculars and looking at
Darron.
"Maybe just silver coated," thought Darron aloud.
"Where you gonna get a silver plated bullet, dumass?"
"I dunno."
They sat for a few moments.
"Do you think the kid's a vamp?" asked Jason.
"Probably," Darron nodded.
"We're not going to kill the little kid, are we?"
Jason was not comfortable with this idea.
Darron sat quietly, throwing small rocks at his boots. "Probably," he said at last.
"Would a wooden arrow be the same thing as a wooden
stake?" Jason suggested.
"I don't see why not," Darron replied. I can't get
close enough for an arrow, though.
"We can't kill the little girl, dude." Jason
insisted.
"She's a vampire, Jase! What choice do we have?"
"How do we know? Maybe it's just the mom."
Jason was having second thoughts, "they're just out
there picking a bunch of damn vegetables, they're not
bothering anybody."
"Yeah, sure, right now. It's daylight. Remember our
Tammi there goes out sometimes at night and doesn't
get back till morning. What do you think she's doing?
She's out there feeding on people!" Darron reminded
his doubtful friend.
"We don't know that. ...... Maybe we should follow her
and see where she's going."
"That's a good idea. Next time we'll come out at
sunset and be ready to follow her."
Darron stood up and brushed off the leaves from his
pants. Jason followed and they headed for the truck.
"What about my crossbow?" Jason asked over the truck
bed as they tossed in their packs.
"Naw, I can't get that close. It has to be a bullet or something we can shoot from here," Darron said, as they got in the truck.
"No, listen, here's what we can do..." Jason began as
they drove away.
"Girls? You ready?" Tammi called as she put a folded
quilt on the table next to the picnic basket. She got
three bottles of water from the pantry. The girls
bounded into the kitchen.
"OK, let's go!" Yelled Tiffany as she raced to beat
Isabelle to the door.
"Hold it," said Tammi. "I need a little help here. You
carry the water, Tiff."
Tiffany huffed and grabbed the water bottles,
carelessly dropping one in the process.
"Hey, do you want to go on this picnic or not?"
Tiffany snorted as she grabbed the bottle of the
floor.
"Tiff," Tammi said sternly.
"What!" Barked Tiffany.
"Drop the attitude!"
"What attitude?" yelled Tiffany.
"This one!" Tammi barked back as she grabbed Tiffany's
free arm. Tiffany let go of the bottles and poised to
hit Tammi.
"Go ahead! Try it!" growled Tammi.
Mother and daughter stood glaring at each other for
several seemingly eternal moments.
Tammi softened her glare and let go of her daughter.
"Let's go have a good time, ok?"
"Whatever," Tiffany sighed, picking the water bottles
again.
Tammi was concerned. "What's wrong with you lately?
You just don't seem to care about anything."
Tiffany shrugged.
Tammi called to Izzy who had run back to her room,
"We're ok Izzy! Let's go now."
Izzy came into the kitchen.
"Here, you can carry the blanket." Tammi gave her a
hug as she handed her the quilt, done in earth-tone
patchwork. The trio left the house and entered the
field through the gate between the garden and the barn
and headed for their favorite picnic spot under the
sprawling branches of a huge old oak tree.
"Thank you so much, Izzy! You were a fine helper!"
Tammi praised her little trooper as she was getting
very tired of carrying that big, heavy quilt by the
time they reached the tree. Tammi took the blanket and
spread it on the ground. From the picnic basket she
took a bundle of tansy, tied with a cotton string. She
untied the string and gave the bundle to Izzy.
"Ok, Izzy," Tammi instructed, "spread out a little
tansy all around the blanket to keep the ants out of
our picnic."
Meanwhile, Tammi set out the food on the blanket. The
three girls sat on the quilt and munched on
sandwiches, apple slices, celery sticks, raisins, and
carrots. As always, there were plenty of extra carrots
and apples for their new friends, the mustangs. When
they first began going into the field for picnics, the
horses would only watch curiously from a distance. But
after a few weeks, they began to cautiously move
closer, and now, a few months later, the horses were
playing with them. Tiff had given them names, the big
black stallion she named Inca and the Appaloosa mare,
she named Maya. Tammi was lying on her back munching a
carrot. Inca approached and nuzzled her hair.
"Stop that!" Tammi swatted at his nose playfully.
Tammi took another bite of her carrot. Inca grabbed
the carrot. "Thief!" shouted Tammi. Inca bounced
backward and pranced off with the carrot, shaking his
mane. Tammi jumped up and chased after him playfully.
"Give me my carrot!"
"Call the carrot police!" laughed Tiffany.
"Carrot stealer! Carrot stealer!" giggled Izzy jumping
up and down, "Carrot stealer! Carrot stealer!"
Izzy ran after Inca. "Give me mommy's carrot!"
Inca leaned down to Izzy, but as she reached for the
carrot, he pulled his head away. Izzy laughed and
reached again. Again, Inca pulled the carrot out of
reach. He turned and Izzy ran after him as he slowly
hopped and turned just fast enough to stay out of her
reach, meanwhile eating the carrot.
Izzy stomped back to the blanket. "That bad horse ate
your carrot, Mommy!"
"Well I guess maybe you should give him another one!"
laughed Tammi, holding up another carrot.
Maya neighed from across the field. Inca turned his
head lifting his ears, then took off across the field
like a bolt of lightning.
"Or not," shrugged Tammi as she took a bite out of the
carrot.
Tiff sat looking in awe at the horses running across
the field. "Aren't they wonderful?"
"They are indeed," Tammi agreed with a deep sigh as
she laid back on the quilt and closed her eyes,
feeding deeply from the warm summer breeze, the huge
old oak tree, and the company of the wild horses.
Izzy was lying on her tummy with her chin on her hands
watching a shiny black beetle crawl by and humming a
song to herself.
Tiffany sat staring at the horses, looking rather
content, but her mom sensed something was wrong. And
indeed much was going wrong in Tiff's life. This move
had been hard for her. She had left her best friend,
Rene' who had lived just 4 houses down the street.
Well, really it was her only friend. All the other
kids in the neighborhood thought she was weird. They
came up with the most ridiculous reasons to explain why.
"Why do you dress like that?" Like what? Jeans and a
cotton top? Why is that weird?
"Why are you so smart?" Smart? Why is that weird? Homeschooling had something to do with it, maybe. Tammi had always home-schooled her since they moved so much.
Maybe she was weird. She thought about when she fell
and skinned her knee on the sidewalk and everybody
freaked out when she licked the blood off. And even
Rene' thought she was weird when she told her she
liked the way blood tasted. She wanted to talk to her
mom about it, but she didn't know what to say. How do
you tell your mom, "Mom, I like blood. Am I weird?"
The girls heard a rumble of thunder in the distance.
All three jumped to their feet squealing excitedly.
"A storm! A storm! A storm!" they shouted as they all
danced in a circle.
"We better get packed up and go home!" Tammi said as
she gathered up the picnic. The girls helped, and they
all started back home to the rumbling of the
approaching storm.
Editor's Note
About the Author..
Delilah Moon is the author and real-life mom, wife,
and vampire from which the character Tammi is based.
In the next chapters of "Just a Vampire", Darron and
Jason attack Tammi and her daughters, and a war begins
as Tammi and Rick try to identify and stop their
attackers while the vampire slayers call in
professional reinforcements from Europe. There are
more characters to meet, and much more excitement as
the drama begins. Delilah hopes to have her book
finished by July of 2006 and we will let her fans and supporters here at the Vampire Church know when it becomes available. Delilah welcomes your
comments at her Yahoo address, delilahanubis@yahoo.com.
Previous chapters of "Just a Vampire" are located at:
Chapter 1 - http://vcmagazine.net/Vol29/story.html
Chapter 2 - http://vcmagazine.net/Vol27/story.html
Chapter 3 - http://vcmagazine.net/Vol32/story.html
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