Vampyre Seed

J ack is one hell of a guy. Everyone I asked went on and on about the trade of his mother's cow for what grew the beanstalk that made them famous. They had all grown rich on the tourists flocking to see my uncle's corpse, the family harp, the golden egg, and lament the cooked goose. It had been a good season in Jack's little corner of the world.

So when Jack came home with the strange, red colored seeds that seeped real blood; well, he's Jack, they said. His nothin' don't stink, and it's sure to make us rich.

That's what they said, before the fateful night that damned seed hatched.

I made the mistake of suggesting he plant them out in the back forty, just across from Old Man Henken's goat pasture. Cute little darlings, those goats were.

Jack planted the seed, watered them, and fertilized them with goat berries he carefully picked up, one by one. But then he pulled a typical Jack and threw away the instructions I had so carefully written out for him. He put a pine stake next to each seed hill, all ready to tie the new little shoots up with. And then, thinking he'd squeeze a little something into every unused inch of dirt, he planted garlic in between the rows.

Well, not a one of those seeds sprouted nothin'. But that ain't much of a story, now is it? Jack gets some seeds, plants them, and nothin' happens. No, sir. That ain't a story at all.

But, did I mention that Jack dropped one seed, all by its lonesome, way out in the goat pasture? Well, he did. And the next full moon, up it came, and what it grew into was something that don't like garlic or pine stakes, but likes full moons, a lot. It liked goats, too. Or rather, it liked the goat's blood. Thing is, it was new and didn't know that turning goats is not a smart idea. You see, goats are smarter than most people, and definitely smarter than what grew out of that seed Jack dropped.

The goats didn't have no way to drive a stake through the thing, but they were able to corner it over by the bog, and then push it in. It's still down there, trying to slow-swim its way through the muck to crawl out.

But this here story ain't done yet. Nope. There's more.

Them goats what got bit by the fiend got hungered and turned their entire herd, and then they went a callin' through town. You never seen nothin' like it, and I sure hope I never do again. It was horrible. Goats everywhere, hungry as sin, climbin' up on folk and gnawing into their neck.

You'd think that'd be the end of the townsfolk and this story; but Jack, ever the quick witted, well, he bought himself a steel collar, a whole truckload of garlic, and started sellin' tickets.

Ya just can't trust some people, and you sure shouldn't trust nobody named Jack. I don't. But I'm gonna get my revenge yet, just you wait and see. The thing in the bog has almost crawled to the edge. I can hear him. And guess what! I have the key to Jack's steel collar.

© 2004 Guy Koehler