Chapter 8.

The inside of the trailer completely belied the rest of the property. It was immaculate and huge. It was furnished comfortably in a style that hadn't advanced past the 1950's. It was actually kind of cool retro. Everything was mint green and white with a dash of yellow thrown in here and there.

Glass milk jugs sat neatly on a series of bright yellow shelves that lined the entirety of the mobile home. There were several closed doors that I assumed were bedrooms.

"What the hell?" Granny said as she admired the plastic slipcovered floral couches.

She glanced over at me as I gaped and gave me a sharp look.

"Close your mouth, Essie, you'll catch flies. Literally," she whispered. "Poop?"

I closed my mouth on a gag that I faked as a cough when the Cows looked over at me, concerned.

"Sit your cracks down," Francis demanded as she began pulling glasses out of a cabinet. "We're about to blow your minds."

That statement could go so many ways... All four of us wedged ourselves down on the couch as the Cows grinned and gave each other covert looks.

"We don't get much company," Pat said. "Humans used to come out here, but Jamie was having a bad day about three years ago and ate one. We don't see 'em much anymore."

"I can see how that might affect business," I choked out.

Hank was correct. No one was going to believe this.

"How are you feeling today, Jamie?" Hank inquired politely.

"I'm fine. Thank you," Jamie said.

"Thank k.d. lang for that," Dwayne mumbled.

Pat, Lee and Morgan served us tall glasses of milk. They sat them carefully on the mint green Elvis themed coffee table.

"Aren't you going to join us?" Granny asked as she eyed the milk distrustfully.

"Oh, hell no," Harley bellowed. "No way I'd drink something I spewed out of my body a couple hours ago."

The Cows all nodded in agreement. Holy hell, there was no way I'd be able to swallow the milk without projectile vomiting. However, Hank and Granny had no such issue. Dwayne was excused since he was a Vamp and only drank blood. Lucky bastard.

"Sweet baby Moses in a thong bikini," Granny gushed as she took another sip. "This is magnificent."

The Cows grinned and high-fived like they'd won a medal at the Olympics. No matter how much Granny liked it, I couldn't do it. Granny also liked lima beans...

"Ain't ya gonna try it, skinny girl?" Pat inquired with narrowed eyes.

"The whole spew out of the teats thing kind of put me off," I explained to Pat honestly. "I'll try it in a minute."

It took everything I had not to snap at Pat about the skinny comment. It certainly wouldn't help matters if I called it a fat ass.

All the Cows nodded in understanding and I heaved a sigh of relief.

"Do you shift much?" Hank asked as he put his barely touched glass down on the table with a slight gag.

"You want me to top that off?" Francis asked pleasantly.

"No, I'm good," he replied with a smile that resembled a grimace.

"I want more. That really is slap your mamma good," Granny complimented the Cows, holding out her empty glass.

Harley gave a whoop of delight and poured Granny another round.

"As to the shiftin'," Francis told us, "we don't do it much."

"No siree," Lee chimed in. "After Jamie ate that human we figured we should only shift to yank teat."

"Amen," Pat said with arms raised to the Heavens. "But because of Jamie's little snafu, the humans don't come round much no more so we got a milk overload."

"And since we don't drink the shit, we don't have much reason to shift no more," Morgan spoke up for the first time.

"Two or three of us shift every other week or so. If we don't we'll pop like a tick. Milk explosions are loud and ugly. They can cause deafness in your left ear," Pat shuddered and made a loud popping noise that created the picture vividly.

"I've exploded at least twelve times this year. It sucks growing back limbs," Jamie explained.

We all sat in somewhat awkward silence as Jamie shed a few tears over the snafu and the lost appendages. The Cows patted it on the back then grunted and swayed.

I accidently picked up my glass and took a sip in my panic to think of something to say. It tasted like warm butt, not that I knew what butt tasted like... but it sure as hell smelled like it. Swallowing my bile as not to upset the Cows was more difficult than beheading a Dragon, but I did it.

With tears in my eyes and my stomach roiling I decided to talk-it was either that or I'd puke. "So dude, um... ettes or not, I was wondering if you're related in any way."

"Yep," Francis said with a wrinkled brow, trying to figure out the first part of my sentence. "We're all Dungs."

Dwayne's gasp and girlie shriek was alarmingly audible. He stood up with fluttering hands and next thing I knew he was plastered to the ceiling.

"Shit fire," Granny muttered as she grabbed his leg, pulled him down and sat on him.

The Cows clapped wildly and begged him to do it again. Hank put his head in his hands and sighed heavily.

"So, um... about this Vampyre Dwayne..." Dwayne said from beneath Granny as he removed his scarf from his nose and tied it into a do rag on his head. "Why is it you want to see him?"

"The poop patty told us to wait here for him," Lee said.

"It told us he would come and save us," Pat added.

"From what?" Hank asked.

"The poop didn't tell us that part," Francis said sadly. "We stay here because we know he'll come."

Granny wisely placed her hand over Dwayne's mouth before he could say anything that would turn our strange social visit into a bloodbath. "Your poop lies," she said.

"Don't you be talking smack on the poop, old lady," Harley grunted as the others paced in agitation.

"The poop clearly lies," Granny persisted. "You are not the only Were species in the world."

The grumbling was turning ugly. Hank quickly stood and put himself between us and the Cows.

I shot Granny a shut the hell up look and tried to diplomatically take over. "Wait," I shouted over the unhappy grunts, violent fist clenching and chest thumping. I was not going to die in a trailer in Indiana after accidently ingesting butt juice. "Is it possible you might have misread the poop? Could it have meant that you are the only Cow species left in the world?"

That stopped everyone.

"Hell and damnation," Jamie gasped out. "That bag of bones might be on to something."

The Cows all sprinted to the wall shelves and began taking down the empty milk jugs-that weren't empty. In the glass bottom of each bottle was a poop patty. Thankfully they were sealed shut. The Cows examined them with excitement and purpose. I pinched myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming this whole insane evening up. Nope, I was wide awake. This was a living nightmare.

"I found it," Terry yelled triumphantly. "That girl could be right!"

"The girl has a name," I muttered.

"There you go," Francis said, giving Granny a dirty look. "The poop don't lie."

"Okay, clearly the... poop is onto something," Hank said as he bit down on his lip to keep from laughing and inciting the Cows. "There has to be more in the poop about this Dwayne fellow."

"Not in the poop," Pat said with narrowed eyes and a flushed face. "In our history there are many stories of the Vampyre known as Dwayne."

"Oh shit," I whispered. This was going to be good... or really bad. If we were going to die I wanted to know something. "Do you people ever use pronouns to describe yourselves?"

Everyone stared at me blankly. It was worth a try.

"Never mind," I said in defeat. "Tell us the Dwayne story."

"Our mamma and daddy were married by the holy priest, Gay Vampyre Dwayne," Pat began.

All the Cows plopped down on the floor like children expecting a bedtime story. With clasped hands and wide eyes they waited for Pat to regale us. It was kind of cute in a nightmare- inducing sort of way. The mention of Dwayne's sexuality was interesting and weird.

"It was a beautiful ceremony with over a thousand in attendance," she went on. "Mamma wore a gown made by hogs and Daddy was nekkid. That's our tradition. Vampyre Dwayne... "

"Gay Vampyre Dwayne," Francis corrected Pat.

"Yes, Gay Vampyre Dwayne preached and stood on his head for three days. He wore a pink robe with no underpants."

"Was it the robe or the lack of undergarments that gave away he was gay?" Dwayne inquired, somewhat insulted.

Granny slapped his head and took another swig off of her milk. "Hush boy, I wanna hear about Gay Vampyre Dwayne."

Hank was looking a bit shell-shocked and said nothing, but kept his body between us and the sadly misinformed Cows.

"Now, normally Mamma would have eaten Daddy on their honeymoon, but Gay Vampyre Dwayne inspired our parents to let go of their normal sexual eating patterns."

"How did he do that?" I asked, worried about what I would hear but too curious not to know.

"Not quite sure," Pat said with a shrug. "But if I had to guess I'd say it was the three hour performance of "Hey Diddle Diddle" done to a tribal drum beat."

I glanced over at Dwayne who was preening. I pulled his do rag down over his face. With no real clue where the tale was going, we didn't need Dracula to reveal his true identity yet.

"It also might have been the explanation of eating someone in a way more pleasurable than the kind ending in death," Morgan added with a blush to end all blushes.

I felt heat crawl up my own neck and land on my appalled face. I glanced around the room. Everyone was a varying shade of red except for Dwayne. Vamps couldn't blush. He was looking quite pleased with himself.

"So anyhoo," Pat went on, trying to ignore the icky sexual elephant in the room. "Mamma spared Daddy's life and they had ninety-two kids. We became pacifiers and started a dairy farm."

"Pacifists," Hank corrected.

"That's what I said," Pat shot back.

"Nope," Granny cut in. "You said you were a piece of rubber babies like to suck on."

"Well, I'll be damned," Pat sputtered. "That's completely screwed up."

"Happens to the best of us. So then what happened?" Dwayne asked as he rolled out from underneath Granny and stood next to Hank. "Where are all your siblings and your mamma and daddy?"

Pat's head dropped forward and its shoulders sagged pitifully. All the Cows on the floor closed in and moaned quietly. They looked like a clump before a rainstorm. "They're all gone. The Fire Breathers came and burned most of our family while we slept about fifty years ago. Mamma and Daddy were so sad they took their own lives."

"They ate each other?" I gasped out.

"Hell, no," Francis snapped with huge tears rolling down its face. "They both consumed three hundred packs of Pop Rocks and blew up like fireworks on the Fourth of July."

"It was awful," Harley sniffed.

"And messy," Morgan added.

Never in my life had I heard anything so bizarre and unsettling. I frantically searched for an appropriate condolence, but none came that weren't offensive or backed up by massively inappropriate laughter.

"Wait," I said, giving up on any compassionate response about the freakish demise of their parents. "Fire Breathers?"

"Yep. Never saw 'em, but we know they was fire breathers. Everything and everyone except us and Mamma and Daddy was burned to a crisp," Jamie said in a hushed and tear-clogged voice. "We didn't do nothing to nobody. Don't know why something wanted us dead."

"After Mamma and Daddy combusted we ran away. We was in Iowa at the time and we hoofed it down here and staked our claim to this land and tried to make a go of it," Pat told us. "Them Fire Breathers never came back, but we'll run if they do."

"Why wouldn't you fight back?" I asked.

"Don't know how," Morgan said.

"You are COWS," Dwayne shouted in frustration as he began to float skyward. "You are some of the most deadly predators in the world. You could kick the Dragons' asses."

"We could?" Francis asked, completely confused.

"Son of a bitch," Dwayne screeched as his head slammed into the ceiling. "This is all my fault."