Vegan

By Erin Lee

Breaking the rules can be deadly. Following them can be worse.

The Ten Golden Rules: They are simple.

Do not mistake humble for weak, nor meek for frail.

Don’t confuse empathy with stupidity, or honesty with foolhardiness.

At no time underestimate the power of gratitude.

Always be appreciative and sincere.

Forever hold true the virtues of integrity and patience.

Never assume.

***

The Ten Rules of Karma: They are certain.

Expectations based on pretenses often come with a price tag too high for even the loftiest of egos. Arrogance is certain to find its way back to powerlessness.

Those who put themselves first always die unaided, afraid, and eventually overlooked.

Honor comes not with manipulation or forced servitude.

What you give is what you receive tenfold.

Truth is in action and intention alone.

***

The Word:

The meek shall inherit the earth.

Or so they said…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crazy Ink
• Release date: Feb 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386318729

Erin Lee

Erin Lee lives in Queensland, Australia and has been working with children for over 25 years. She has worked in both long day care and primary school settings and has a passion for inclusive education and helping all children find joy in learning. Erin has three children of her own and says they have helped contribute ideas and themes towards her quirky writing style. Her experience working in the classroom has motivated her to write books that bring joy to little readers, but also resource educators to help teach fundamental skills to children, such as being safe, respectful learners.

Book preview

DEDICATIONS

For my tribe.

You know who you are.

Thank you for honoring our kindness code.

For its vegan leader and the gentlest person I’ve ever known.

Gemma, your loyalty and integrity are unmatched.

The world needs your kind of crazy.

Last, and most important, for Farmer Charming, who taught me to love animals big and small and finally got his barn.

Thank you. Max approves.

VEGAN

Prologue

ALL TRIBES, NO MATTER how big or small, or from what land or time they hail, have laws. There are rules set up to keep things in order. Some are written down. Some are sealed in blood. Others are unspoken. But in every clan, there is a code of honor. And in every land, no matter how clear that code is or isn’t, it’s always broken. Again and again and again. It’s just human nature. Usually, it’s about survival. Sometimes, laws are broken simply out of greed. It makes no difference why, really.

We’ve all heard the saying before: For a society or group to endure, it is only as strong as its weakest member. But we flawed human beings never go further than that—to describe what strength looks like. Or, a step more, to define weakness. We lack the courage to identify it through our own reflections or in the ones we love.

Is strength in a big ego or the ability to manipulate people to do things? Or, is it in the guy taking orders, waiting for a more important member with a higher status to bark out a command? Is weakness in the leader who puts self before others? Or, is self-survival the same as putting the oxygen on first in a plane crash? What makes us weak? Who determines strength? How do we decide the strongest and weakest members of a tribe? And frankly, what gives us the right? Who is ultimately in charge?

It’s one thing to make a proclamation. But, like with truth, the thing that usually matters most is not in the words of promise or expectation. What matters most is the action and the action’s intended or unintended consequence. That is, results mean more than statements or rules. The effect trumps the cause.

For a population to truly be resilient, it must know its blind spots. What qualities does that weak link have and why? Where are the participant’s flaws? They must decide: How real is the danger in including him or her? And, once this is determined, a tribe must elect how to make this member stronger or decide to throw the weakling out altogether. Or, they can ignore the weak link until they can’t anymore.

But be warned: When a tribe fails to protect everyone, it’s bound to fail. That’s what history tells us—the Bible too. And you know what they say about repeating history and expecting a different result...

Insanity.

It’s true.

Although, has anyone ever been sane enough to ask what happens when a tribe is made only of weak members? We human beings probably should. That is us —own it or don’t. Like Adam and Eve, metaphorical or God’s word, we are an entire race of beings built on temptation and eternal flaw. That is who we are. We are mortal. We are weak. Some, more than others. And this will be fatal to all of us.

In the end: The effect trumps the cause. And the effect is all I’m really shooting for now. The rest will be left to judgment of a savior who may or may not exist. For now, I’m making up my own rules and living the way only I know best.

I am weakness.

My strength is in my ability to own it.

I am the leader of my own tribe and the keeper of my ultimate fate. And there is nothing I won’t do to protect the meek. In all of it, I believe it is the way it was meant to be. Survival is our destiny and absolutely everything is at stake...

The Ten Golden Rules:

They are simple.

Do not mistake humble for weak, nor meek for frail.

Don’t confuse empathy with stupidity, or honesty with foolhardiness.

At no time underestimate the power of gratitude.

Always be appreciative and sincere.

Forever hold true the virtues of integrity and patience.

Never assume.

The Ten Rules of Karma:

They are certain.

Expectations based on pretenses often come with a price tag too high for even the loftiest of egos.

Arrogance is certain to find its way back to powerlessness.

Those who put themselves first always die unaided, afraid, and eventually overlooked.

Honor comes not with manipulation or forced servitude.

What you give is what you receive tenfold.

Truth is in action and intention alone.

The Word:

The meek shall inherit the earth.

Or so they said...

Warning

THIS BOOK IS DARK FICTION dealing with disturbing, undiagnosed psychological issues and twisted religious views. It dives into the mind of a perverted occult killer and includes violent, graphic material only suited for adults. It is not suitable for minor children.

This novel is intended for entertainment purposes only, not for clinical research, case study, or diagnosis. Vegan was born, in part, as the result of multiple interviews with people convicted of murder in three states, combined with years of graduate level research on the pathologies that contribute to violent acts of murder and their architects. Research for this project also involved the study of South African tribes who partake in the use of human muti killings for the purpose of healing. They believe the effect trumps the cause.

Interviews, correspondences, and all research—including clinical case reviews and professional journal articles—for this project was conducted in the author’s capacity as a novelist, for this fiction horror novel project and for her Diary of a Serial Killer series, not as a psychologist.

Lastly, this book deals with themes of religion, God, spirituality, and atheism. Those who are easily offended by the questioning of such topics may not want to read this book.

This author supports all religious beliefs and backgrounds including none at all and does not condone bigotry or religious or other persecution of any belief system for any reason unless that system is harmful to people. Themes of religious beliefs here are addressed merely as part of a character’s identity and struggle to define her place in a higher power’s universe and as no statement on any religious institution or belief situation positive or negative. Her struggle with faith in a trying time was written simply to add to the story, her mental illness battles, and her motivations for acts committed within.

Read at your own risk and, hopefully, with an open mind.

.

The Word says:

Blessed be ye poor:

For yours is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are ye that hunger now:

For ye shall be filled.

Blessed are ye that weep now:

For ye shall laugh.

Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.

Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.

Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.

Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.

Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

King James Bible:

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

VEGAN

Chapter One

Blessed be ye poor:

For yours is the kingdom of God.

An ordinary day at the sanctuary

I’VE SINGLE-HANDEDLY killed off nine generations of legacy all because of a big-eyed chicken named Lucy with a broken leg. The dreams of my husband and his fathers before are so far off from how they were breed to be that I almost feel guilty. But here, in this sanctuary, as I peek out the dingy window above my kitchen sink, I can’t say I really regret a thing.

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Stay busy. Don’t think about it. You can’t go back anyway. I squeeze rust from a steel wire pad I should have thrown away ten washings ago. I place it on the window sill, leaning to get a better look at Rancher. My husband, a hardened livestock farmer with the heart of a lamb, is busy watering the vegetable garden. I never wanted the prince charming. Fairy tales meant nothing to me from the time I walked in on my white collar father and his secretary. I always knew I wanted a real man—one who worked with his hands and didn’t have time for corporate games—and from the moment I laid eyes on him, I knew Rancher was the one God had created for me.

He shouldn’t be out there so long. Ornery fool. That garden: It should be my job. I’m the one who insisted we plant it. If I had my druthers, I’d be out there now, helping him. But I need to fix this dinner. Not exactly something I can ask of him. Not now. As for the garden, I figured it would be a right good way to save money but also another food source—something to keep us out of trouble between protein bursts to help keep his strength up. He was resistant initially, asking me if plants have feelings too. If plants have souls, do you think we could put them to work? And if we eat them, won’t they be hurt? Are animals killers too? They eat grass. I reckon the grass dies when they do. What about that?

Yes. He was being sarcastic and ridiculous. Still he raised good points. He has a way of making me think. It’s something I love about him now and always, but not something I appreciated much at that particular time. I was already listening to one too many grass-eater jokes from the neighbors who couldn’t understand that everything in our world had changed and that we’d never go back—no matter what. We couldn’t. We knew—all because of that silly hen. Animals do have souls.

The only way to get through it, making him give up the livestock ranch and turn it into a sanctuary, was to fight it