Fury of the Chupacabras

by Raegan Butcher

  Keith raised his voice. “How in the hell do you plan on pulling this off?”

  Joe finally acknowledged him. “We’re going to go up on the roof.”

  “How do you know the roof ain’t covered with those things? They can fly, you know!”

  “Trust me.”

  “Trusting you is how I ended up here.”

  ««—»»

  In the kitchen, Maria found a bucket and put it on the kitchen counter. Joe walked in and went to the stove and scooted it away from the wall. He bent and ripped the kerosene tank off, then carried it over to the counter and set it down. “We need to find some kind of soap. Dishwashing liquid, laundry detergent, something like that.”

  Ramón and Father Tom came in with their arms loaded with empty whiskey bottles.

  “Set those on the counter,” Joe told them.

  Maria bent down, looking under the sink. She straightened up and held out two bottles of dishwashing liquid. Joe took them from her.

  “That’s good. Now help me.” He handed her the bucket. “Hold this.” He picked up the kerosene tank and poured some of it into the bucket.

  Chico came in waving a hammer. “Señor, señor, I found a hammer.”

  “Good, kid. How about those nails?”

  “I can’t find any.”

  “Keep looking.” Joe turned to Father Tom. “Is there a supply closet or storage room around here?”

  Father Tom nodded. “Yes, I will take him.” He took the boy by the arm and guided him to the hallway behind the altar. Joe took the bucket from Maria and placed it on the counter. He handed her one of the bottles of dishwashing soap.

  “Pour this in here.”

  Maria poured the soap into the bucket while Joe started opening kitchen cabinets and drawers. “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “A wooden spoon and a funnel.”

  He pulled open a drawer and pulled out a wooden spoon. “Ah, here we are.” He went to the bucket and began to stir the contents, mixing the kerosene with the soap. Maria watched the liquids congeal into sticky glop. “What are you making?”

  “Homemade napalm,” Joe said. He winked at her.

  With a sound of splintering wood, the table over the window crashed to the floor. Two chupacabras reached their arms through the bars and groped wildly, digging chunks of plaster from the walls. Maria screamed. Joe dropped the spoon and pulled his pistol. Ramón was quicker and stepped forward with his gun already drawn. He carefully took aim and squeezed off two shots.

  One of the beasts roared in pain with its blood splashing the wall in an abstract star-shaped pattern. The other creature disappeared, screeching.

  Father Tom and Chico appeared in the doorway, the old priest clutched the boy by the shoulders. “What is going on?”

  “Nothing,” Joe said. “You get them nails?”

  Father Tom held up a tin can full of rusty nails.

  Joe pointed. “Ramón, nail the table over the window. Padre, give him a hand.”

  Father Tom shook his head. “That is not necessary.”

  Ramón pointed to the claw marks gouged in the wall. “The hell it isn’t!”

  Joe brushed past the old man and called, “Keith, get in here. We need your help.” He turned to the old man. “You get back to the chapel.”

  Father Tom puffed out his chest. “This is my church, young man.”

  Joe waved his pistol at him. “Not anymore it isn’t.” Keith appeared in the doorway. “What’s going on?”

  Joe pointed to the window. “Help Ramon, will you?” He looked hard at Father Tom. “You’ve got two choices: either start helping us, or stay out of our way.”

  The priest glared at him. Joe glared back. Father Tom placed the tin cup full of nails down and motioned to the boy. “Chico, come with me.” Chico shook his head and retreated from the old man. “I want to stay with them.”

  “Go with the padre, kid,” Joe snapped. The boy looked as if he was going to burst into tears. “Are you mad at me?”

  “No, I’m not mad. You’ve been a big help. But now I need you to go into the chapel and wait with the Padre, okay?”

  Chico hung his head and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Okay.” He left with the Father Tom as Ramón and Keith hauled the table up and leaned it against the window.

  “Give me the hammer,” Keith called over his shoulder, and Maria stepped forward and handed it to him. He began hammering the table against the window while Ramón held it.

  ««—»»

  In the chapel, Carlos peeked out the stained-glass windows, and what he saw scared the living shit out of him: a mass of chupacabras in front of the church, pushing and shoving at the door. They were everywhere: perched on the car, swooping back and forth over the plaza, tails waving like angry scorpions.

  Carlos wondered what made their eyes glow like that. He’d never seen anything like it, except maybe in undersea creatures living in the darkness of the ocean deep. He turned from the window and walked back to the bulging front doors. Nearby Chico and Father Tom sat in a pew and gazed pensively at the huge, crucified Jesus.

  “Why are the chupacabras here, Padre?” Chico asked, rubbing Rolando’s head, scratching behind the little mongrel’s ears.

  “Because God has forsaken us,” said Father Tom, his face pinched. “The people of the town lost their faith in Him and he turned his back on us. First came the drought, then the harlots, and then the chupacabras.”

  Carlos perked up. “You have harlots in this town?”

  Father Tom scowled at him. “Yes, and then there are violent criminals like you.”

  “Hey, wait a minute. I’m a cop, not a criminal.”

  “In this country the police are criminals.”

  Carlos squinted at him. “And I think you Catholic priests are a gang of boy-raping charlatans. You take money from ignorant people and keep them in fear with your superstitious hogwash.”

  Father Tom sat up and waved his whiskey bottle at him. The bottle was now half-empty. “If you’re the police, what are you doing to protect me?”

  Carlos held up his revolver, a stainless steel .357 magnum with a 4-inch barrel.

  The padre snorted dismissively. “Guns! Guns are all men like you believe in.”

  “I’ll tell you what, Padre,” Carlos sneered. “You pray to God to protect you. I’ll stick with Smith & Wesson. We’ll see who is alive at sunrise.”

  ««—»»

  In the kitchen, Joe placed two empty whiskey bottles on the counter in front of him. He took a funnel and set it in one of the bottles. With his hand holding the funnel steady he indicated the bucket and nodded his head at Maria. “Help me, will ya? Pour that stuff in here.”

  She picked up the bucket and poured the contents into the funnel. The bottle filled quickly.

  “Don’t fill it up all the way,” Joe cautioned her. “Leave some room at the top.”

  “Okay.” She filled the bottle and then they filled the next one. Joe asked over his shoulder, “How many empty bottles we got?”

  Keith did a quick count. “Looks like an even dozen. That old dude drinks like a friggin’ fish.”

  “Thank God,” said Joe, with no irony. “Let’s fill them up.”

  Keith brought the bottles over and Joe and Maria swiftly filled them. When they were finished, Joe wiped his hands on his pants and looked around, muttering, “We need something to use as a fuse, some rags or cloth.” His eyes fell on Maria’s long skirt. “We are going to have to rip some strips off of your dress.”

  “But this is my best skirt!” she protested.

  “When we get out of this, I will buy you a dozen nice dresses, but for now, please.” He bent down, grabbed the hem of the skirt and started ripping off strips of fabric, revealing her thighs. She frowned unhappily as he gave her his best smile. “Getting women out of their clothes is my specialty.”

  After stuffing the bottles with rags, they gathered them up and went out to the chapel. Joe shot a glance at the front
doors, wobbling on their hinges from the combined pressure of the chupacabras pushing on the other side. They were very persistent; he gave them that.

  He gathered everyone in a tight circle around him and said, “Here’s what we’re gonna do: Ramón, you and Maria are going to go up on the roof and you’re going to toss a couple of these bad boys down.” He held up a Molotov cocktail. “Make damn sure you don’t hit the car. Hopefully, these things are as afraid of fire as any other animal.”

  “What if they’re not?” asked Keith.

  Joe looked at him levelly. “Then we are screwed.” Joe turned to Carlos. “Okay, as soon as it’s clear, Carlos, you’re gonna open these front doors and me and Keith are going out to the car. We have to move fast, get the trunk open, get the back seat down, and get the rifles and as much ammo as we can.”

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!” Father Tom snorted. “Those beasts will butcher all of us the minute you open those doors. Do you know how fast a chupacabra can move?”

  Carlos brandished his pistol. “Can they move faster than a bullet?”

  Father Tom shook his head. “I’m not going to be up here when you imbeciles open those doors. Chico and I are going to be in the basement. You should be with us too, Maria.”

  Joe gaped at him. “You have a basement?”

  The padre sighed. “Yes, follow me.” He led the others to a circular stairwell in the corner of the chapel. He pointed. “This leads down to the basement.”

  The group tromped down the stairwell. At the bottom they reached a long hallway dug from solid rock leading to a heavy cast iron door with a small barred window in the middle.

  As they were walking down the hallway, Joe cast an appraising eye around the walls. He poked the priest in the back. “What is this, your dungeon?”

  Father Tom told him, “I believe it was dug by the Franciscans in the late 17th Century. This church is very, very old.”

  Joe walked up to the door at the end of the hall and knocked on it with his hand. “This thing is solid as hell. We can come down here if things go bad upstairs.”

  “Why don’t we just stay down here—” Maria began to say.

  Joe interrupted her and barked, “Everybody hear that? If those goatsucker things get in upstairs, come down here.” He singled out Father Tom with an intense look. “And you will let us in if we come down here.”

  “Of course!” the old priest huffed, taking a nervous swig from his bottle.

  “Good. Then it’s settled. Let’s get busy.”

  Maria sighed heavily. No one listened to her because she was a woman; she knew that was the reason her suggestion went completely unheard. The men trudged back upstairs and gathered in front of the altar. Joe pointed to a door set in the wall to the left of the giant crucifix.

  “The padre said this door leads up to the bell tower.” He walked over to it, reached out, grabbed the handle and swung it open—

  —a reptilian figure filled the doorway.

  Razor-sharp talons whisked the air, inches from Joe’s face, nearly taking off his head. He cried out in surprise and scrambled to push the door shut. The creature’s arm shot through the gap. Joe pressed his shoulder to the wood. The monster hissed furiously and shoved back. The door began to open.

  “Get over here and help me!” Joe cried.

  A fist like a thunderbolt smashed on the door, jarring it. Keith joined his brother by slamming into the door and shoving with all his strength. The door crunched on the hideous arm. From the other side came a terrible hissing squeal and the door shook on its hinges. Keith and Joe strained to hold it shut, veins popping in their necks and foreheads. “Goddamn, this thing is strong!” Keith groaned.

  The chupacabra slammed against the wood. The door splintered and cracked open. Keith and Joe stumbled; their feet began to slide out from under them. They heaved against the door, cursing, muscles quivering. The monster’s arm whipped out and the claws snagged on Keith’s jacket.

  “It’s got me!” he screamed. “It’s got me! Help! Help me!”

  Ramón dashed to them, pistol aimed. “Open the door and get back!”

  Joe fell away, grabbing Keith, whose jacket ripped out of the chupacabra’s claws. The door flung open, and the creature roared in the doorway. Ramón blasted it with two point-blank shots to the head. It dropped back into the stairway and Joe jumped up and slammed the door shut. Breathing heavily, he turned and looked at the rest of them.

  “Son of a bitch! How the hell did that thing get in there?”

  Chico, who had refused to stay in the basement with Father Tom, cried out, “I forgot to lock the door on the tower!” He began to cry. “I am sorry, Mr. American. I am sorry!”

  “Has this happened before?” Ramón wanted to know, pointing to the door that led to the bell tower.

  Chico trembled, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve. “We never open these doors after dark.”

  “If they’re on the roof, our plan is no good,” reasoned Ramón.

  “We will have to go up there and take a look,” said Joe. “Shoo them away if we have to.”

  “Are you crazy?” Keith cut in. “How do you know there’s not twenty more of those things right behind that door?”

  “If they’re up there,” Joe drawled, “we’ve got to clean ’em out.” He grabbed a broom leaning up against the wall and snapped it in half over his knee. “Maria, please go get the kerosene from the kitchen.”

  Maria nodded and headed to get it. Joe scanned the chapel. “We need to make some torches. We need some cloth.”

  Ramón went to the altar, and held up the altar cloth. “Will this do?”

  Joe smiled, nodding. “Yeah, cut off some strips.”

  Ramón took a knife off of his belt, opened it, and cut some wide strips from the altar cloth. Joe and Keith tied the strips of cloth around the broomstick. Maria returned with the bucket of kerosene.

  “Who gets to go up there and take a look?” asked Ramón.

  “Keith and I will do it,” said Joe. He dipped the makeshift torches into the kerosene, pulled a Zippo out of his pocket, and lit them. Keith popped the magazine out of his pistol and counted the bullets, then slid it in and racked the slide.

  “I am ready,” he announced.

  Joe looked at his brother and then at Ramón. “Okay, let’s go. Ramón, open the door. Keith, be ready to shoot any of those things in there. Everybody else get back.”

  Rolando suddenly ran up to the door and started barking at it. “Get that damn dog out of here!” Joe snarled.

  Keith looked at the little mutt. “He’s trying to tell us something.”

  “Yeah, he’s trying to tell us there’s a bunch of monsters on the other side of that door,” Joe snapped. “We already know that. Get him out of here.”

  Chico scooped up the dog and spirited him away to sit on a pew. Everyone tensed, anticipating trouble, perhaps imminent death, or at least terrible and lasting disfigurement, which was somehow worse. Ramón jerked open the door. The stairway was empty. Ramón’s eyebrows knitted together. “Where is the one that I killed?”

  Joe bent down and examined a puddle of green goo on the stairs. “Maybe you only wounded it.”

  “Ah, come on man,” Ramón protested. “I shot that thing right between the eyes. Two in the brain-pan. I double-tapped that chingon! It was dead, man, you saw it.”

  “Well, it ain’t here now.”

  “Maybe the others took it,” said Ramón.

  “Why would they do that?” asked Keith.

  “How the hell would I know?” snapped Ramón. “Until today I never believed these damned things were real.”

  “If the dead one got taken away,” Joe reasoned, “then there are more of them critters up there.”

  Keith peeked up the staircase. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said. He stepped back and motioned for his brother to take the lead. “You go first.” Joe gave him a sour look. Keith held up his gun and urged him forward. “I got your back.�
��

  “Yeah, thanks bro,” Joe said, and stepped into the stairwell. The stone steps were slick with blood. Joe started to climb, aware that he was sweating too much and his pistol seemed to suddenly weigh a thousand pounds in the slippery grip of his hand.

  The sound of their boots echoing in the stairway was the only noise aside from their heavy breathing until at last, with pistols in one hand and flickering torches in the other, they reached the door at the top of the staircase.

  Joe stopped and adjusted his grip on the torch and used it to slowly push the door open. He jumped back when it swung out and banged on its hinges. But nothing came screaming down at them. He poked the torch through the doorway and waved it around. He heard a sharp hiss, then sudden screeching and the slapping sound of leathery wings.

  Joe crept to the door and peeked through. The belfry was empty. He turned and motioned his brother forward and walked to the tower wall and peeked down. The plaza was crowded with chupacabras. They milled about, tails swishing back and forth, growling, grumbling, swatting irritably at one another, flaring their dorsal spikes when aroused. Some of them would abruptly streak into the sky, taking flight vertically, like a rocket, leaping up and soaring away.

  “Damn,” whistled Joe. “Look at that. Thicker than flies on a fresh turd.”

  A chupacabra swooped past the tower, just out of range of the torch light. The brothers drew back. Sibilant hissing sounded in the darkness. “Come on,” said Keith. “Let’s get this over with.”

  They crept back downstairs and as soon as they walked out of the stairwell, Carlos called out to them. “What’s it like up there?” He was badly shaken, and trying not to show it. The memory of those searing talons raking his flesh made him break into a nervous sweat.

  “There’s a million of those things in the plaza,” Keith said. “They’re all over the car.” Carlos’s eyes grew large.

  Joe elbowed his brother aside and took charge. “The good news is there were none in the stairwell and they’re afraid of fire. We can pull this off.”