Fan Fiction ❯ Do you know the tree sucker? ❯ Chapter 1

Jamie Hyatt

Week 5

Tall Tale

Back when the West was still wild, and buffalo still roamed the prairie in great numbers, a man lived in quiet seclusion. He was a private man who lived in the deep woods on the edge of the rolling prairie in a dank, dark little cabin. It was the sort of cabin that gives proper ladies shivers to look at and the kind of place that little children double-dog-dare one another to go near. No one knew much about the man, since he only escaped his cabin at night, but he had lived in the woods for many, many years. Grandparents would ramble about what their grandparents' grandparents had said about the man.

The nearby villagers assumed he was an old man barely able to move, but the few people who had caught sight of him in the moonlight swore he was a young chap. A young chap they said, a fertile young buck with shaggy hair and pale skin, dressed in the fashions of yore. Rumors ran faster than a chicken with its head cut off. “Vampire,” hushed voices whispered. A vampire, in the open prairie? Now that didn't seem logical at all! No unusual deaths were reported around those parts anyhow.

One fearless little girl, a girl by the name of Jenny Thomson, got sick of all the hear-say. Jenny had two blonde pigtails that bounce around on her back and was more tomboy than most boys. She was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery. When Jenny got determined, not even the shaking of the earth or the howling of the winds could change her mind. She weren't afraid of any “moldy old vampire,” as she put it, and she weren't gonna stand around and gossip no more. One night, when the moon was full and hung high in the sky, she shouldered a sharp stick and headed out to the cabin with her head held high. Fearless as she was, the thought of being sucked dry started to take ahold the closer she got. By the time Miss Jen was at the cabin she was a shaking and a shivering in her boots. Suddenly, the door flew open, and she stood face to face with the man, well face to waist since he towered over her.

The two stared at each other. He stood tall as an oak, skin as pale as cream, and hair as dark as a raven's wing. The so-called vampire raised an eyebrow and waved at her. “Hello little girl,” he said calmly.

The girl look up at him with an open mouth and waved back, “Hello.” Being as direct as she was, she quickly asked, “Are you a vampire? Word has it you is, or so says the gossiping women, and what's your name, and how old is you?”

The man walked from the doorway and knelt at the little girl's side. Jenny was a bit afraid because he was so close, but she didn't let on. “Hm, well I am older than the night but younger than the day, my name is Pete, and well I'm not a vampire. I'm a sorta vampire.”

The little girl frowned at his answer put her hands on her hips. “I ain't ever heard of that! What's a sorta vampire?” Jenny asked.

“Well, a sorta vampire is a vampire who doesn't suck blood,” Pete explained.

“You don't suck blood? Aw shoot. That ain't proper for a vampire!” she exclaimed. “Then what do ya suck?”

“Well,” he said, “I drink tree sap. I suck those trees dry and let them fall on their own accord. I keep the prairie the prairie.”

Jenny looked up at Pete questioningly and asked, “What da ya mean?”

“Well, I mean that if the prairie was full of trees, it wouldn't be the prairie, now would it?” he asked simply.

Jenny thought this over and said, “I guess you're right Mister Pete, I just wanted to know for sures what was in this cabin. I hate here-say!”

“Well, now you know,” he replied patting little Jenny on the head, “I live here, and have been for many years slowly advancing the prairie and making it even greater than it already is.”

Jenny went home that night, head held high once again for she knew the truth now. It was the vampire Pete with his taste for sweet tree sap that helped create the prairie, and there ain't no one ever gonna tell her otherwise.