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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

For Questions, please contact the VC Magazine Staff at VCMagazine_Staff@yahoogroups.com

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