"My theory is starting to make more sense now, isn't it?" Granny muttered under her breath.
"Actually, yes," Dwayne told her.
"What you be wantin'?" the one in the front grunted in a voice that could have been a feminine male or a masculine female.
Mystery still not solved. I moved slightly for a better view, trying to detect if there were any boobs evident.
"Came to buy some milk," Hank said agreeably with a neighborly wave.
"That girlie right there could use some," another grumbled as it pointed at me. "She's so skinny she could fall through her butt and hang herself."
"I'm sorry, what the hell did you just say?" I shouted. This was unbelievable. A group of Androgynous Pats were insulting me? This was not working for me…
"You can't take the truth then you can just walk your emaciated carcass right back to where you came from," the first one snorted with an indifferent shrug.
"Yep," my insulter backed the leader up. "And don't let the gate hit ya where the good Lord split ya."
"What is this? A bad redneck comedy show?" I mumbled. I was not too skinny—at all.
"Shhh," Granny whispered. "I wanna hear what else they have to say. This is some good stuff."
"You ain't human," the leader yelled. "What is ya?"
"We're wolves," Hank said with a calm that belied the tension I could feel coming off of him. "Heard your milk was good and thought we'd stop and try it."
"Wolves. Interesting," she said, puzzled. "Thought we was the only Were Species left in the world."
They all nodded sadly and hung their heads. What was happening here? I was tempted to go up and hug the grubby crew.
"Where did you hear that?" I asked as I took a small step forward.
"We read poop patties," the leader announced proudly. "We learned about forty years ago that we were the only ones left. I'm kinda flabbergasted at the moment."
They all nodded and stared at us as we all tried to keep the contents of our stomachs in place and stared right back at them.
"Huh," I said, searching for something appropriate to follow that one.
"I regret all those doughnuts now," Granny muttered.
"I'm Essie. This is Hank and my granny, Bobbie Sue," I said as I took another tentative step forward and held out my hand.
"Francis," the leader said as she took my hand and shook it.
Well, that certainly didn't help the sexual identity crisis. As they reeled off their names I got more confused than ever—Pat, Mickey, Terry, Lee, Harley, Morgan and Jamie.
Damn it, this was going to drive me bonkers.
"That one there in the back ain't no Werewolf," Pat said as she pointed at Dwayne.
"That's correct," Dwayne said carefully. "I'm a Vampyre named… Dracula."
"Well, I'll be damned," the one named Mickey yelled and smacked its forehead so hard it took it a second to remember what it was saying. "I thought you looked familiar. I saw you in the movies at the discount drive-in. You was great."
"Thank you," Dwayne said graciously and bowed.
All the Cows were wildly impressed with Dwayne's fictional acting career. I rolled my eyes and tried not to laugh.
"Seeing as we have a celebrity on the property, we'd like to invite you in and serve you up some milk," Francis said.
"Do we got any?" Jamie asked doubtfully.
"Hell to the yeah," Harley crowed proudly. "I shifted earlier and Lee yanked on my teats for a good two hours. We got plenty of milk."
"Come on in, y'all. Harley's milk’s so good it will make you wanna slap your mamma!" Francis and the crew began to lumber over to the trailers.
We stood frozen to our spots. Were they for real? I didn't feel an ounce of fear and I could tell Hank, Granny and Dwayne didn't either. The Cows were either really good or really stupid.
"Hey, Dracula," Pat grunted as it and several others came up behind us to usher us to the trailer. "You happen to know a Vampyre named Dwayne?"
"Um, possibly," Dwayne, aka Dracula, mumbled as he glanced over at me with huge eyes.
"Hey," Pat shouted to the rest of the bovines as they moved en masse down the road. "Dracula knows Dwayne."
They all turned abruptly and ogled Dwayne. My hand went back to my gun and Hank's magic began to spark a bit. Granny took hold of Dwayne and kept him from levitating.
"I didn't say I knew him. I just know of him," Dwayne corrected Pat quickly.
"That's too bad." Francis' hands balled into fists and the others followed suit. "A poop patty told us to find him."
Hank pulled me and Granny towards him and moved Dwayne to the center of our tight triangle.
"What else did the poo pile tell you?" Granny asked.
Granny's fangs had dropped and popped through her colorful scarf. Thankfully the Cows didn't seem to notice.
"First of all, it's a poop patty. A poo pile doesn't speak to us. Poo piles are useless," Francis explained in a very serious tone.
"Good to know," Dwayne murmured tactfully. "Do the poop patties actually speak?"
"No," Harley said as they all laughed heartily. "They show us pictures and words."
"That makes more sense," Dwayne said with a sigh of relief. "Talking feces would just be alarming."