"I have an enormous compound in southern Illinois that does not smell like ass. There's a large house with fourteen bathrooms and ten bedrooms. It also has a pool, a pond and a sprinkler system, so I will brook no bull crap about staying clean. The lawns are manicured so there will be no pooping on them. Are we clear?" he asked as he squatted down to their eye level.
"Yes, Daddy," Francis blubbered. "We will not poop on your lawn."
"Are there any woods around there?" Morgan asked.
Dwayne thought for a long moment and then smiled. "I'll buy the adjoining two hundred acres so you'll have an outside defecation area.”
The Cows giggled and nodded gratefully.
"You can each pick your own bedroom and I'll have a Were Possum designer I know come in and redecorate it how ever you would like. You'll each get a new car for your birthday. However, it will be taken away for bad behavior, poor table manners or consuming humans. We will go to the toy store and each of you can pick three things to play with. This will potentially help me figure out what you are without having to ask. Everyone will do online college classes until we can determine that you can follow simple hygiene rules and not eat anyone."
It was nice to know someone else was curious about their gender too.
"The poop patty has come true," Jamie yelled and hugged Dwayne so hard I thought he might snap. However, anything they accidentally ripped off Dwayne would grow back immediately. He was in Seventh Heaven.
Hank gave me a dazed look that captured what I was feeling. I bit back my laugh and grabbed his hand. Granny squeezed in between us and we all watched in wonder.
"If someone had told me how this would have gone down I would have thought they were insane," Hank muttered as he tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear and kissed my forehead.
"That Pop Rock thing still has me scratching my head," Granny admitted. "Dwayne's gonna have his hands full with them."
A truer statement had never been uttered… pun intended.
Chapter 9
"They're not all going to fit in the Hummer," I said as I stared at the eight Cows now lined up ready to leave with us and their daddy.
Dwayne stood proudly with his new children. The visual was redonkulous as each cow stood well over six feet tall and had to weigh in at a conservative three hundred pounds. Each had stuffed a backpack full of worldly possessions. They'd done their best to clean up for Gay Vampyre Dwayne's approval. The excitement was palpable and my heart felt light. These sexually ambiguous Cows just wanted to fit in somewhere and be loved. Dwayne wanted to be needed and he was a good man. I suspected he would spoil them rotten, but they'd had a hellish life so far.
"Not a problem," Francis assured me. "We ride hogs."
"Oh my god." I sighed in dismay and groaned. "Another Were species I didn't know about?"
"Um, no," Hank said with a lopsided grin and twinkling eyes. "Motorcycles."
I wanted to laugh and I wanted to slap him. He had enjoyed that one too much. However, I was relieved to realize a herd or gaggle of pigs would not be running behind the Hummer.
"Where are we going?" Pat yelled as it pulled up on the largest motorcycle I'd ever seen.
"I think we should drop my children off at the compound and get them settled in before we go after the Dragons," Dwayne suggested like any good parent would.
"That sounds like a plan," Hank agreed as he grabbed a can of gasoline and poured it around the trailers. "We need to burn this place down. No trace of the Cows can be left," he instructed.
“You don't have to do that," Pat told Hank.
He stopped patiently and waited for Pat to explain. God, he was going to be a good dad…
"We can blow the farm up in less than a minute."
Granny started running like Satan was on her heels and put her hands over her hair. Oh my sweet hell, I joined her as I realized what was about to happen. Hank was quick to follow, but Dwayne stood proudly with his children as they bent over and aimed their asses at the dilapidated farm behind them.
"Run," Hank shouted as he yanked Granny and me along. "This is gonna be bad."
"We're all gonna die," Granny shrieked as we tried desperately to put more distance between us and the eight Cow gastric inferno that was about to occur.
Hank picked both of us up as we sprinted and dove behind the Hummer. We were a good half-mile away now. Thank god we hadn't pulled the Hummer up to the trailers. The roads were so pitted we left it down the road when we'd picked it up an hour ago. It would suck having to share a hog with a Cow.
The sound was deafening, but the stench was like one I'd never known. Death didn't seem like such a bad option at the moment. The farm blew up in an explosion that could be seen for miles. The Cows jumped on their bikes and dragged an asphyxiated and paler than normal Dwayne with them.
We piled into the Hummer as they threw Dwayne in the back.
"Go, go, go," Francis shouted to Hank. "That there fire's gonna get worse before it gets better."
I was certain we'd all lost brain cells or at least our olfactory senses in the blast—but more shockingly, we were alive to tell the story no one in their right mind would believe.
As we floored it out of the property with the Cows behind us I started to laugh. Hank and Granny joined me until tears ran from our eyes. Dwayne just sat sprawled in the back and grinned.
"My children are something else," he gagged out proudly.