Waving everyone back, he snapped off his light and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He moved forward slowly, with care. When he was in front of the door he examined it. The floor was dusty and there were definitely tracks—of just what he couldn’t tell—going this way and that. Something had been moving around in here.
He slowly reached out and grasped the door handle. Shoving the door open, he brandished his shotgun and ducked inside. It was a boiler room. The boiler, a large metal cylinder, took up the whole center of the room. From behind it, Joe heard a muffled commotion. Something shifted back there, and made a rustling sound.
Knowing he should go get Ryder and let him take the chance, Joe instead crept to the boiler and peeked around the side.
He came face to face with an ancient black man, whose face had more wrinkles than an elephant’s knee. They surprised each other and both let out yells. The old man tumbled backward, arms windmilling. He overturned a rusty bucket and it clattered noisily on the concrete floor.
From out in the hallway came Ramón’s worried voice, “What’s going on? Joe, are you okay?”
Joe was trying to look everywhere at once: the floors, the ceiling, the other side of the boiler where the old man had come from. He expected to be attacked at any moment, from any direction. His shotgun swung in wide arcs, covering the room.
“Yeah,” he managed to shout. “I’m okay!”
The old man was on the floor, cowering with his arms up over his head. He wore a ragged brown raincoat over tattered wool pants held up with ratty suspenders. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” he wailed. ”Don’t shoot me, please, oh lordy have mercy. I knowed I wasn’t supposed to be in here, but I just came to sleep!”
“Be quiet!” Joe hissed.
“Ah,” the old man climbed to his feet. He smoothed his shabby coat with gnarled hands. “You lookin’ for the Grunches, ain’t you?”
“That depends,” Joe answered cautiously. “What’s a Grunch?”
“One of them big, bug-eyed lizards. That what you lookin’ for, ain’t it?”
“You’ve seen them?”
The old man’s head moved up and down like he was bobbing for apples. “I seen ’em back in the day, yessir, in New Orleans. Ain’t nothin’ new. Grunches has been around for a long, long time, sonny-boy.”
Joe’s eyes searched the shadowy corners of the room. “Any in here with you now?”
“Nah, no Grunches here now.”
Joe expelled a breath. “Okay, let’s go outside so we can talk.”
The old man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You ain’t here to evict me?”
“No, I’m here hunting Grunches,” Joe told him. “Just like you said.”
When Joe and his team emerged from the building with their new acquaintance, the sheriff groaned in disbelief. The old man’s name was Peter Allen Wheatstraw, but all the folks in town knew him as Tennis Shoe Pete on account of the mismatched shoes he wore, one tennis shoe and one dress shoe. He had been in Dadeville for as long as anyone could remember. He lived by selling pieces of scrap metal that he salvaged from abandoned houses. No one knew anything else about him. He was considered a harmless, eccentric old coot.
“Damn it to hell, Pete,” called Sheriff Walters. “What are y’all doin’ in there?”
Pete froze. “I knowed you was lying to me,” he said accusingly to Joe. “You sumbitches is evicting me!”
“No, no,” Joe assured him. “You’re going to be staying at the Starlight with us.” He motioned to Ramón and Lupita.
Pete stared at him, thunderstruck. “Inside a real motel room?”
“Yes,” Joe assured him.
“Who gonna pay for dat?”
“I am,” Joe told him.
Tennis Shoe Pete’s face split into a wide grin, revealing several missing teeth. The sheriff and the ranger, along with the TV crew and Karl Colgate, crowded around the old derelict.
“How long you been squattin’ in there?” asked Walters.
“About a month,” Pete admitted shyly.
Colgate stared at the building. “How did you get in?”
Tennis Shoe Pete pursed his lips at the question. “Huh?”
Colgate pointed to C wing. “It’s all boarded up and the front door padlocked shut. How did you get inside?”
Joe nodded; it was a good question, one that he cursed himself for not asking right away. He was becoming distracted by all the Hollywood bullshit. He head wasn’t one hundred percent in the game, and he was losing his edge. Not good. More people could get killed if he became careless. One of those people could be him.
Pete pointed to the admin building. “I first went in there, but it’s all tore up. Mess everywhere. No place to sleep. So I followed the tunnel to that other building.”
“Tunnel?” Joe stepped forward. “What tunnel? Where?”
Pete pointed to the admin building. “In there.”
“Can you show us?”
“Of course I can,” Pete beamed, happy to be the center of attention. He felt important for the first time in years. Casting a glance at Cavcey, he asked, “Am I gonna be on television?”
Cavcey smiled at him like a cat contemplating a particularly juicy canary. “Sure thing. You can join our team of trackers.” He sent an unctuous smile sailing in the direction of Joe’s group.
“Oh yeah,” Joe said to Pete, catching Cavcey’s eye as he spoke. “They will pay you a thousand dollars too.”
Pete’s eyes bugged. “A thousand dollars…to me?”
Cavcey began to sputter in protest, but Ryder stepped in and draped an arm around Pete’s shoulders.
“Anything you need, Pete,” he promised. “Welcome to the big leagues.”
Pete puffed up. “Come on then,” he said importantly. “Follow me.”
Strutting like Napoleon reviewing the troops before the battle of Austerlitz, he led them to the sidewalk in front of the administration building. Pointing a withered finger, he began to move toward the open doorway. Ryder stopped him with a hand to his arm.
“Wait a second Mudbone, we need to get ready.”
“No you don’t,” Joe countered. “Because you ain’t going in there.”
“We just gave you twenty thousand dollars with the promise of three more,” Cavcey protested.
Ryder’s head bobbed. “Yeah, that’s right. And that means we are going in there with you buddy, camera rolling.” He grinned. “The boys on the Bigfoot show are gonna shit their britches when I bring in a chupacabra, stuffed and mounted.”
“Yeah,” Colgate mused, fiddling with his hat, pushing it up on his head. “Why aren’t those guys here? This seems more like their kind of deal.”
Ryder smirked. “Those tree-hugging pansies wouldn’t know how to hunt if their lives depended on it. Those dudes couldn’t catch the clap in a two-dollar whorehouse.”
“There’s another big difference,” Joe pointed out. “They don’t ever find anything because they’re looking for imaginary shit that doesn’t exist. Bigfoot is a myth. Chupacabras are real.”
Joe turned to Lupita. “Take Duke and Panocha back to the car. They’ve done enough for one day.”
Lupita’s eyes showed surprise, but she was able to keep it from her voice when she said, “You got it, boss.”
Ryder watched her go and then looked at the rest of them. “I’d crawl on my hands and knees through a mile of broken glass just to suck the dick that fucked her last.”
“Wow,” Ramón said. “That’s poetic.”
Ryder didn’t get the sarcasm. “That’s why I write the songs, brother. I got the soul of a poet.”
Colgate muttered under his breath, “And the brains of a doorknob.”
But Ryder didn’t hear him; all those years of rocking out had done a number on his ears.
When Lupita returned, Joe gave Ryder a quick nod. “Okay, this is your show, Jet. You lead the way.”
Ryder’s face fell. “You mean now?”
“Yeah, now,” Joe
said pointedly. “With the camera rolling, capturing you in all your glory.”
Ryder swallowed hard, his enthusiasm evaporating faster than spit on a hot stove. He stared at the dark doorway. Cavcey lifted the camera and set it on his shoulder. Johnson held the boom mic. All eyes were on Jet Ryder, waiting. Ryder wavered, trying hard to come up with a reason not to go inside. Then he hit upon it.
“We need to film the intro first,” he said with barely concealed relief. He gestured to Cavcey to get his camera set, made sure that Johnson was running the sound equipment, and then assumed a heroic stance, suddenly transformed; he seemed taller, stronger, with a chiseled cast to his lean face. He looked into the camera, mock-heroic, self-important, straining for gravitas.
“We are here in Dadeville, Florida, on the trail of the most dangerous creature in the southern United States: the dreaded chupacabra.”
He took a step toward the door, then turned and looked into the camera again. “Several innocent citizens of this sleepy southern burg have entered this building in the last week. Not a single one has come out. All are presumed lost.” He swelled with self-importance. “When there’s a problem like this. People know who to call: not the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, or the Marines—no, they call one man: me! Jet Ryder. Rock star. Hunter. Sportsman. A true American. I’ll battle the beast with nothing more than my trusty bow, Matilda.”
“He named his bow?” Colgate rolled his eyes.
Ryder swung around and gestured for Cavcey to get a shot of Joe, Ramón, and Lupita.
“Because of the incredibly dangerous nature of our elusive prey, I will be accompanied by my team of first-class trackers.”
Cavcey’s video camera caught Lupita, Ramón, and Joe glaring into the lens with open hostility. They looked like true bad asses, loaded down with weapons and looking for trouble.
The bald man swung the camera back to Ryder and gave him a nod. Ryder still didn’t move. Noticing his hesitation, Joe called out, “They’re probably not even in there. The dogs would have let us know.”
Ryder’s voice was strained. “But you sent the dogs away.”
“That’s because we don’t need them anymore. If what Tennis Shoe Pete here says is true—”
“It’s true!” Pete huffed indignantly.
“—then the chupacabras have probably gone somewhere else using the tunnel that he claims is here.”
“It is here,” Pete griped. “If you’d grow some hair on your balls and go inside with me instead of wringing your hands and cryin’ like little babies, I’ll show you the damn thing.”
Ryder still didn’t move. He clutched his compound bow tightly and stared at the building. He appeared frozen. Joe indicated Lupita and Ramón, and then held up his Winchester.
“We’ve got your back in case any of those bad boys comes flying out of there.”
Ryder reared back. “Wait a minute, these things can fly?”
Joe stared at him. “Didn’t you do any research before you came out here?”
Ryder frowned. “You mean like me, personally?”
Joe was flabbergasted. “Don’t your flunkies at least look up stuff on Wikipedia, for Christ’s sake?”
Ryder shrugged. “They told me a chupacabra was the size of a dog.”
“Bah!” Ramón snorted. “That’s just you gringos, who for some reason like to call every stray dog with mange a chupacabra.”
“Well, maybe you ought to hip me to a few things about them before we go in there all half-cocked,” Ryder suggested hopefully.
“You’ll know them when you see them,” Joe assured him. “They’ve got great big eyes that glow in the dark and that’s the best place to aim for.”
Ramón nodded in agreement. “Aim for the eyes, yes.”
“And watch out for their tails,” warned Joe. “They’ve got a pretty good reach with those tails—eight foot at least, and a stinger on the end that will kill you faster than a jack rabbit fucks.”
“W-what?” Ryder jerked his head. Behind him, his crew tried to hide their smirks. “You guys aren’t bullshitting me, are you?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” Ramón assured him. He was enjoying the man’s discomfort. “Tell, me, what have you hunted in the past?”
“Deer, moose, elk.”
“No, no,” Ramón chided. “What have you hunted that could be considered dangerous?”
“Wild boar, bear, mountain lion.”
“Okay, this isn’t anything like that.”
“How is it different?”
“Chupacabras are smart,” Ramón told him.
“Smart?”
“And chupacabras are fearless,” added Ramón. “You can’t drive them with noise like you can with a tiger—only fire.”
Joe kept nodding in agreement. “Fire is the only thing that scares them.”
Ryder was suddenly all eyes. He looked as worried as a valet parking attendant in Baghdad. “But, I mean, you guys have done this before, right? Hunted these things?”
Joe gave him another quick nod. “Yeah, we’ve been doing this for a few years now.”
Ryder didn’t look mollified. “We are paying you to track them,” he whined. “Why do I have to be the one who goes in first?”
“We did track them,” Joe pointed out. “We tracked them to the tunnel that’s supposed to be in this building.”
Joe planned on letting the jackass take his chances; it was no skin off Joe’s ass if the silly bastard got himself killed. Joe wouldn’t piss down his throat if the man’s heart were on fire. He wasn’t sure he’d make much effort to save Cavcey either, if it came right down to it. But the sound guy and the crazy old coot were okay and, of course, Ramón and Lupita were family, so he would fight to the death on their behalf. Ryder could take his chances. Fuck him.
Ryder gathered himself up. Breathing deeply, he tip-toed to the doorway. He paused to look over his shoulder, as if he expected his crew to have run away. When he reached the threshold he pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back and seated it on the string.
Looking over his shoulder at the camera he said in a hushed tone, “My team of trackers located the beast inside this abandoned school building. I will kill it and eat its heart to gain its power.”
He moved into the building with the camera crew right behind him. Joe, Ramon, and Lupita covered them with their shotguns.
They were in a small vestibule. The walls were peeling, moldy and pitted with decay. The vestibule opened on an office area with a tall admittance desk. It was gouged and torn. A section of it had been smashed to kindling. Insulation from the ceiling hung down in long strands, like fingers.
Ryder jumped when the light from the camera snapped on. To cover up his obvious nervousness, he barked at Pete, “Well, what are you waiting for? An engraved invitation? Show us the damned hole.”
Pete navigated the hallway slowly, shuffling, unhurried. Stepping around a corner, he waited until the group had caught up and then he pointed. The corridor ended in a series of offices. The doors were smashed and broken safety glass scattered across the floor, sparkling like discarded diamonds. The furniture in the offices had long since been destroyed. The remnants of desks were nothing more that piles of broken wood and twisted bits of metal.
Pete pointed to the nearest office. The door hung askew, dangling on one broken hinge. “In there is where they sleep.”
Ryder moved to it and poked his head through the doorway. “He’s right,” he called over his shoulder. “There’s a big hole in the floor.”
In the center of the room a black crevice gaped, with broken tiles and insulation surrounding it. Dirt had been flung around the room, piled up in the corners like a sandbox. Colgate raised his camera and snapped a few pictures.
“All this time we were waiting for them to come flying out the front doors… but they’ve been in here tunneling,” Colgate said. He motioned to Pete and pointed to the hole. “You’ve been down there?”
Pete nodded. “Oh yes, many times.�
��
“Where does it lead? Does it lead only to C wing?”
“Oh no. They got tunnels leading everywhere down there.”
“Great. They could be anywhere,” Lupita remarked sourly.
Joe turned to Ryder and gestured to the gap in the floor. “Looks like we’re going to have to stand guard here and you’ll have to go down there and see if you can deliver the kill shot.”
Ryder moved his worried eyes from the yawning darkness of the tunnel to the faces of the three smirking hunters. He waved angrily at the camera. “Turn that off!”
Cavcey exhaled noisily and brought the camera down from his shoulder. When Ryder was sure that he wasn’t being recorded, he said, “I can’t work a compound bow in a hole.”
Lupita held up her Ithaca. “Take a shotgun.”
“Yeah, we’ve got plenty,” added Ramón.
Ryder looked at the hole and slowly shook his head. “Nah, I ain’t goin’ in there. I am a sportsman…a hunter.” He looked with disdain at the hole. “Not a tunnel rat.”
“Okay, chickenshit,” Lupita sighed. “Stay topside and pose for the cameras. I’ll go.”
“No,” Joe cut in curtly. “I’m going.”
Ramón clapped him on the shoulder. “This is no time for heroics. We will let you.”
From outside they heard thunder, and then the sound of rain pelting the roof like someone throwing fistfuls of gravel. The storm had arrived. Wind began to push against the plywood covering the windows, rattling them. Ryder jumped at the sound, bringing up his bow. His crew rolled their eyes behind his back. They did that a lot.
Joe exchanged his Winchester for Lupita’s Ithaca—it had a shorter barrel and a pistol grip, easier to maneuver in the cramped space. He hopped down, and disappeared to his waist in the hole.
Fury of the Chupacabras Page 13
