Dracula’s Garlic Gambit: A Tale of Terror, Tears, and Tasty Roots
Count Dracula was done with blood. The crimson nectar had lost its allure. “No one likes a bitey midlife crisis,” he grumbled one evening, swirling a glass of beet juice in his castle’s dimly lit kitchen. He adored the juice—not for its flavor but for its uncanny resemblance to blood. A vampire’s nostalgia is no small thing.
In truth, Dracula was spiraling. His cape was unwashed, his bats untrained, and his last attempt at a social event—a Halloween soirée—had ended with the guests running away screaming, garlic necklaces swinging like medieval glow sticks. The final nail in his coffin? A neighborhood kid who, upon seeing him, yelled, “Hey, it’s Edward Cullen’s grandpa!”
Something had to change.
Dracula’s Midlife Crisis: Garlic, Beets, and Montana Creek
Count Dracula was officially done with sucking blood. It wasn’t the same anymore. The villagers were carrying smartphones, not pitchforks, and garlic was trending on TikTok as a superfood. It was like they were taunting him. Also, the truth was, he was bored. A midlife crisis will do that to you when you’re 412.
So, in a stroke of brilliance (or complete insanity), Dracula decided to start a garlic farm. Yes, garlic. The thing that was supposed to send him running for his coffin. But this wasn’t just a regular farm. Oh no. The Count also planted beets. Why? Because beet juice looked like blood, and he thought it was absolutely hilarious to sip it from a goblet and yell, “Cheers!” to no one in particular.
Moving to Montana Creek
Dracula packed up his castle—well, technically, Renfield packed it up, muttering about unpaid overtime—and moved to Montana Creek, a charming town that could have been ripped from a Hallmark movie. Quaint houses, pumpkin-spiced everything, and people who really loved garlic.
Like… really loved garlic. There were garlic wreaths on every door, garlic lattes in the café, and a yearly Garlic Fest with a parade where kids dressed up as cloves. For Dracula, it was like moving to hell but with better landscaping.
The first few weeks were rough. He couldn’t walk down Main Street without dry heaving, and his bat-like reflexes weren’t fast enough to dodge the aroma wafting from the garlic bread bakery. “Why did I think this was a good idea?” he groaned to Renfield one evening.
Renfield, who was attempting to catch a fly with chopsticks, replied, “Because you’re having a crisis, Master.”
Dracula sighed. “Well, crisis or not, I’m committed. To the garlic farm!” He raised his beet goblet dramatically and then immediately spilled it on his cape.
Farming, Friendship, and Fiascos
The first year was… chaotic. Dracula didn’t understand farming, like, at all. He mistook weeds for crops, argued with a scarecrow, and once tried to hypnotize a tractor into starting. Renfield, meanwhile, was busy befriending the local cows, which he claimed were “weirdly soothing.”
Dracula soon realized he wasn’t exactly cut out for farming. The nights were fine, but the days were a blistering nightmare, even with SPF 1000 sunscreen and an umbrella large enough to shade an entire picnic. He toyed with the idea of auditioning for Yellowstone, reasoning that there must be a part for a brooding vampire cowboy. “If Kevin Costner can smolder, so can I!” he declared, practicing his lines in the mirror—before realizing he had no reflection.
But despite the chaos, something strange happened. Dracula started making friends.
Gus, the local beekeeper became an unexpected confidant. Gus had no idea Dracula was a vampire but frequently commented on his deathly pale complexion. “You should try some honey,” Gus said. “It’s good for your skin!” Dracula politely declined but did try to convince Gus to train his bees to work night shifts. “Imagine the productivity!” he reasoned. Gus just chuckled and handed him a jar of wildflower honey as a consolation prize.
There was Betty, the garlic-obsessed gothic blonde who could have easily been cast as Morticia Addams' rebellious younger sister. Always dressed in black, with silver skull earrings and combat boots, Betty had a mysterious past that no one dared to ask about directly. Rumors swirled around town that she had once been a roadie for Ozzy Osbourne, spent a year living in a haunted lighthouse off the coast of Maine, and held a world record for the most cloves of garlic eaten in a single sitting. What was known for sure was that Betty ran the local garlic stand at the farmers' market, where she sold her infamous “Hellfire Bulbs” with the tagline, “So spicy, they’ll exorcise your demons.” She took Dracula under her wing, insisting she could turn him into a proper garlic farmer. “I don’t care if you’re allergic to it or whatever—it’s about respect,” she told him on their first meeting, handing him a pair of black gardening gloves adorned with tiny embroidered pentagrams. When it came to braiding garlic, Betty was a force of nature. Her fingers moved with the precision of a concert pianist, creating intricate designs that looked more like gothic chandeliers than braids. Dracula, on the other hand, turned every strand he touched into a noose. “For the love of garlic, Vlad, you’re not hanging villagers anymore!” she scolded, snatching the twisted mess out of his hands.
“Old habits die hard,” Dracula muttered, trying to look innocent. Betty rolled her heavily lined eyes. “You’re lucky you’re charming. And pale. You’ve got that whole vampire chic thing going for you. I’d kill for your bone structure.” It wasn’t long before Betty’s background became even more of a mystery. She casually mentioned her time as an apprentice to a “master alchemist” in Romania. “He said garlic has ancient powers,” she explained, plucking a bulb from the ground and holding it to the light like it was the Holy Grail. “Also, he may have been my third husband. Or my seventh. It’s blurry.” Despite her quirks—or perhaps because of them—Betty became Dracula’s closest confidant. She introduced him to her “secret seasoning blend” (a mix of garlic powder and what might have been powdered ghost pepper), taught him how to ward off deer using only her death stare, and even helped him redesign his farm’s logo to include a garlic bulb with bat wings. “She’s a genius,” Dracula confessed to Renfield one evening. Renfield, who was watching YouTube videos on how to teach cows yoga, didn’t look up. “You know she’s probably a witch, right?” “Obviously,” Dracula replied. “But I’m not exactly in a position to judge.”
And let’s not forget the kids who wandered onto his farm during field trips, asking questions like, “Why are your teeth so sharp?” and “Do you sleep in a coffin?” To which Dracula would reply, “No, I sleep in a memory foam mattress, you heathens.”
A Garlic Renaissance
By year two, Dracula had not only survived but thrived. He learned to appreciate garlic—at least from a distance—and his beets were the talk of the farmers' market. He even created a beet-garlic fusion smoothie that was so bad it made people cry, which Dracula considered a massive success.
The Garlic Fest became his favorite event of the year. He dressed up as a vampire (hilarious, right?) and sold beet juice shots out of tiny vials labeled “Blood Lite.” Renfield won third place in the garlic bread bake-off, though no one could explain how he’d managed to coat the crust with red beet juice.
Loss, Laughter, and Living
There were tough moments, of course. Dracula missed his old life sometimes—the dramatic capes, the moonlit chases, the way people screamed when he entered a room. And he couldn’t deny the pang of loneliness when he realized most of his friends in Montana Creek would age and pass on while he stayed the same immortal weirdo.
The Moral of the Story
Count Dracula’s garlic farm became a legend in Montana Creek, a testament to the fact that even a 412-year-old vampire can reinvent himself. He faced his fears, embraced his flaws, and found a new kind of life among the garlic-loving, beet-sipping humans he once avoided. And the best part? Every full moon, Dracula would stand in his fields, raise his goblet of beet juice, and shout: “Who needs blood when you’ve got flavor?!”
There was happiness too. Real happiness. The kind that came from watching his garlic bulbs grow, laughing with Betty over a burnt batch of garlic knots, and sipping beet juice with Gus under the stars.
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Jere Folgert
GroEat Farm is located in Bozeman, Montana. www.groeat.com
