Fury of the Chupacabras

by Raegan Butcher

  Elroy cried out as he fell away from the grabbing hands thrusting through the windows. He tried to crawl under the floor mats of the passenger side. He felt the pick-up leave the ground. They were picking up the truck.

  Incredible.

  They were flying up into the air with it.

  Unbelievable.

  Elroy felt his stomach jump like he was riding an elevator that had lifted too fast. The flock of creatures moved as one, taking him up over the roof of the building. He mewled with panic and watched through the windshield as the street receded below. He was ten stories up and rising.

  What were they doing?

  Then he thought of what a crow does with a walnut, of how it will fly high up into the sky with the nut and then let it fall to the ground to crack it open. This is not happening! his mind screamed at him. This is impossible!

  And then they dropped him.

  ««—»»

  As Elroy Leonard flew through the air, a panic-stricken teenager stumbled through the front door of the River View Café. Hank Sexton looked up from his dinner to see what all the fuss was about.

  “Hide!” she shrieked. “Oh Jesus, y’all need to hide! We all need to hide!”

  The mayor recognized her as Kim Murphy, the postman’s daughter. She was trembling like she’d just let go of an electric fence. Hank put down his chicken and stood up, angling his big belly from behind the table with difficulty.

  The blonde girl rushed past Howard, a sixty-four-year-old Chinese man, and the owner of the restaurant. Howard’s little wife Nina, standing at the hostess’s station, cried out, “Hey, you no go in there!”

  Kim was heading for the kitchen just as the cooks, alerted by her commotion, were coming through. She crashed right into the door. She was moving so fast that the collision knocked the wind out of her. Howard, Nina, and Sexton came running after her.

  Kim clutched at Howard’s arm, screaming, “Oh Jesus, we need to hide. We all need to hide!”

  “What going on?” Nina asked. “Someone chase you?”

  Kim snapped to attention, as if she’d just had an epiphany. “The freezer!” She squirmed out of Howard’s grasp.

  The two cooks, Lester and Raymond, were standing in the doorway to the kitchen and she blew past them like a ferret. Mayor Sexton and the two confused cooks followed her into the kitchen.

  Kim was already in the back, tugging on the meat freezer door, trying to haul it open. Raymond, lanky, tattooed, and tanned as an old leather couch, was the first to catch up with her, and he pushed on the door, closing it.

  “Easy there, Kim,” he said in his gravel voice. “What is going on, girl?”

  She whirled and started jabbering, “Oh no, Ray you need to help me! Help me! We need to hide! They’ll be coming! They’ll be coming and they can smell us! I think they can smell our blood!”

  Sexton wheezed up. He grabbed her by the arm. “Calm down, Kimmy!” He jerked on her wrist and she came to attention. “What the hell is going on?” he asked her severely. “Is someone chasing you?”

  She nodded but didn’t speak. Her eyes searched the room like a caged animal. Outside, the sound of tires squealing on pavement cut through the night.

  “Who is chasing you?” asked Lester. He was a barrel-chested black man with eyebrows like fuzzy caterpillars.

  “They killed my dad,” she sobbed. Her hands twisted together in an attitude of prayer. “They killed my dad…”

  “What are you talking about?” Sexton asked.

  “They came up out of the ground!”

  “Who did?” the mayor asked. He had a bad feeling he knew the answer already.

  “Should I call Sheriff Walters?” asked Lester.

  She cut him off with an impatient wave of her hand and wailed, “No, no, no! We’ve got to hide! In the freezer! They’ll be here soon!”

  She whirled around and started tugging on the freezer door. Howard barked something at Nina in Chinese and then disappeared with her into the dining room. Lester and Raymond struggled with the girl, pulling her from the cooler.

  “Oh no, no!” she babbled. “They’re all over the place, headed this way, and they ain’t stopping for shit! We need to hide or get the hell out of here!”

  Mayor Sexton knew what to do. He’d seen enough movies. He gave her a solid open-handed slap. She froze, her cheek reddening, and then she leapt at him, cursing like a longshoreman. Raymond and Lester had to peel her off of him. She was spitting and cursing him the whole time.

  They heard Howard and Nina in the dining room shout indistinctly, and then screams from a few random customers, a fractured chorus of voices. Then they heard Heather, the waitress, yell even louder, followed by the sound of furniture breaking. Something screeched and moved through the place like a small tornado. More screaming, disjointed shouts, hysteria, wild panic, and then glass shattering.

  That was enough for old Mayor Sexton.

  “Time to skedaddle,” he clucked.

  Moving deceptively fast for such a big fellow, the mayor was down the back hallway, heading for the rear exit with the cooks and Kim crushed in alongside him. They hit the back door at a run, spilling out into the rear parking lot. Something violent and unremitting was going on in front of the restaurant, a wild brawl of some kind.

  Sexton heard gunshots and people shouting incoherently and a noise that he had never heard before—a shriek that split his ears like a razorblade through a snare drum, and a grinding, metallic whistling noise accompanied by a high-pitched scream of mortal terror.

  Sexton looked up.

  Elroy Leonard’s truck came falling from the sky. It clipped a corner of the roof, twirled like a falling leaf, and then landed flat on top of Raymond, Lester, and Kim, not ten feet to Sexton’s left, squashing them like bugs under a fly swatter.

  The impact knocked Sexton off his feet. He groaned as he hit the pavement and struggled wildly, knowing that if he didn’t keep moving he was a dead man. Wheezing like a busted accordion, he climbed to his feet, straining to lift his tremendous bulk. A creature burst from the back of the restaurant and spied Sexton on the ground. It hissed at him and darted forward. It was just the injection of fear-induced adrenaline that the mayor needed.

  Sexton took off at full speed down the sidewalk, dodging debris and roaring monstrosities that were slaughtering anyone they could get their hands on. His belly bounced as his feet pounded the pavement. He saw Tony Verhey, the town’s tow-truck operator, standing in front of the cafe, firing his .357. Then a swiftly moving shadow descended upon him, and he was snatched into the sky faster than Sexton’s eyes could follow.

  Praying under his breath and struggling to move his thick legs, Sexton dashed across Main Street, and then ran through the alley to the hardware store on Second Avenue. All around him he could hear screams, then more gunshots. There were plenty of folks packing heat in Dadeville—this was the Florida panhandle, after all. Then he heard a short, sharp cry that faded into the most frightening silence he had ever known. Could everyone downtown be dead?

  He stood there gasping, drawing in long ragged breaths, his face as red as a tomato, his chest aching. All those bacon sandwiches; all those slices of pecan pie with a side of ice cream. He was paying for them now. He couldn’t breathe. His vision blurred. He forgot all about what was happening to his town. His world narrowed down to only one thing: the intolerable squeezing pain in his chest.

  He groaned. His hands massaged his breast, trying to smother the burning sensation inside of him, like a hot poker sizzling his flesh. He took two steps, his legs gave out from under him, and he toppled face forward into a puddle and expired.

  — | — | —

  Chapter 9

  Doppler knew they’d never make it to Main Street. She could sense the chupacabras in the sky above, circling high up like buzzards, waiting to make their move. The screeching was growing louder, closer. She peeled off to the right, dragging Ryder and Johnson with her. She made her way toward a darkened neighborhood. As they ra
n, the rain stopped and the wind died down.

  Cutting through the front lawn of the first house they reached, she let go of Ryder and dashed to the front door. Pounding on it furiously, she tried the handle. It was locked.

  Doppler kept banging her fists on the door, shaking it on its hinges. “Open up, please!” she cried. “Help!”

  A light snapped on above her, the door jerked open, and an old man with round eyes pointed a revolver at her. “Keep back! Keep back!”

  Her hands flew up. “No, no! Mister, please, you’ve got to help us!”

  “Are you crazy?” He brandished the pistol, an old Smith and Wesson Model 15. “Are you on methamphetamines?” he demanded

  “Please, just let us in!” Doppler kept looking over her shoulder, expecting death to come calling at any moment.

  The old man backed away, but kept his gun on them. “Okay, but no funny stuff!”

  “Help us, man!” she cried, pulling Ryder and Johnson inside and then slamming the door. The old man saw Ryder’s bloody stump and drew back.

  “What happened? Did you wreck your car?”

  “No!” she wailed. “Listen, mister, you’ve got to lock all your doors and windows and call the cops!”

  “What’s going on?”

  “They’re out there!”

  “Who is out there?”

  “They’re green, and they’re horrible, and they can fly, and—”

  From outside came a shout from a nearby house and then ghastly screaming—the kind a person makes when they’re being murdered.

  Doppler seized the old man by the shirtfront. “Do you have a basement?”

  He tore away from her grasp, smoothing his shirt. “Yes, but there’s no need to run down there. I’ve got this.” He hefted the gun, as if it had all the power in the world to cope with whatever situation arose. She knew better. These rednecks with their guns didn’t stand a chance.

  “Oh, yes there is!” she said as she grabbed Ryder and Johnson and barged past the old man.

  “Hey, damn you! Where are you going?” he shouted after her.

  Then two long green arms erupted through the picture window behind him, shattering glass, ripping the curtains away, tearing the curtain rods from the wall. A spiky reptilian figure clambered into the living room, overturning the furniture.

  The old man dashed down the hallway, blowing past Doppler, Johnson, and Ryder. “This way!” he screamed. “Down here!”

  He crossed the kitchen, ripped open a door, and disappeared down some stairs. Doppler practically tossed Ryder and Johnson in there after him. Then she leapt inside, crowding them down the stairs. She spun and slammed the door shut, calling over her shoulder, “Help me bar the door, you stupid fuckers!”

  Johnson didn’t hear her. But the old guy—they hadn’t even had time to get his name—was coming up to lend a hand. And that’s when a clawed fist burst through the panel near Doppler’s face, gashing her cheek, and sent her tumbling down the stairs. She bowled into the old-timer and they plummeted, screaming.

  As they struggled to stand at the bottom of the landing, the chupacabra came down the stairs in a single leaping stride, to land beside them.

  Doppler saw a clawed foot coming down toward her face. She rolled to the side, avoiding the vicious stomp by inches. The old man was facedown, blinking the dust from his eyes, searching vainly for his revolver. The creature whirled on him and claws raked his back, shredding his shirt, tearing the flesh, and exposing the white bones of his spine and rib cage.

  The old man’s cry of agony mingled with the screeching sounds of the creature. Without a pause to further mutilate the old man, the beast spun and lunged for Doppler, who was rolling on her knees, coming to her feet. The savage face loomed up, teeth glinting, claws reaching for her.

  And then a solid thunk could be heard as the beast nearly toppled.

  Staggering, the chupacabra tried to squeal, but the axe blade sunk deep in the back of its neck prevented it from making a sound. It fell to its knees, hands reaching up to clutch ineffectually at the sharp edge.

  Johnson yanked out the axe by the long wooden handle and then swung it again. The chupacabra’s head came off with a wet, sucking sound as the blade severed the cartilage in its neck. Blood pumped into the air like a fountain and the beast slid to the floor, its head rolling to a corner like a child’s lost ball.

  Doppler leapt up and smothered Johnson with a crazed hug of breathless gratitude. “Thank you, thank you.” She mashed his face into her bosom as she gripped him tightly. “You saved my life. Remind me to suck your dick later.”

  But he didn’t hear her. He pulled away and bent to check the old guy. If Johnson had not been deaf, he would have heard the man’s death rattle as he turned him over. As it was, the light leaking from the old man’s eyes and the blue tint to his lips told the deaf soundman all he needed to know: the owner of the house in which they were sheltered was gone, dead, deceased.

  “We never even knew his name,” Johnson lamented.

  Then Ryder’s voice, petulant and whiny, sounded from the depths of the room. “Hey man, how about a little help here, huh?”

  Johnson didn’t hear him. Doppler did. She looked into the darkened corner of the basement. Ryder was sprawled on the floor between a meat freezer and a workbench full of tools.

  He held up his stumpy wrist. “Can somebody lend me a hand?”

  Doppler pulled him to his feet. He winced and held his stump to his chest with his good hand. Blood oozed through the towel that had been wrapped around his arm.

  “Holy fuck-balls!” he cried out. “That hurts!”

  “Shush!” Doppler hissed at him.

  Tears streamed down his face. “I’ll never play guitar again or stroke sweet Matilda,” he blubbered. His hair hung in his face like a silver curtain.

  Johnson jerked around to face them with the gory axe still clenched in his hands. “We need to get out of this basement,” he said earnestly.

  Ryder recoiled. “What? And go where?”

  “This place is a deathtrap,” Johnson asserted. He couldn’t hear what Ryder was saying, but he saw his mouth moving. He looked to Doppler and saw the hesitation in her eyes. Johnson snorted and headed for the stairs. “You two do what you want. I am out of here.”

  “Wait!” Doppler called.

  But Johnson didn’t hear. He marched up the stairs and disappeared. They heard his footsteps overhead, clomping through the house, then the front door banging open, and then it was quiet. They waited to hear the sound of his screams. When none came, Doppler left Ryder and retrieved the pistol from the foot of the stairs.

  “You know, Jet, he is probably right.”

  “Who?” sneered Ryder. “Our own personal Jesus? Screw him. I am staying here.”

  “But this house isn’t secure,” she reminded him. “They got in upstairs and then they got in down here.” She pointed to the headless creature sprawled at their feet.

  Ryder gave her a wild, panicky look. “Where do you suggest we go?”

  “If we can make it downtown…” her voice trailed off. The prospect of going back outside was daunting. But she knew it had to be done. “It’s only a few more blocks.”

  “Are you crazy? There’s a hundred of those things out there!”

  She nodded in agreement. “And that means there could be a hundred of the fuckers storming into this basement at any time,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “You’ve got a point.”

  They trudged up the stairs, Ryder winced at every step. Pain jolted up his arm like an electric shock with every movement of his body. Once they were in the kitchen he stopped and leaned against the wall, panting. He pointed with his good hand to the kitchen cabinets.

  “See if you can find some whisky or bourbon,” he said, gritting his teeth. “My arm is killing me. I’ve got to find something to dull the pain.”

  She turned to the oven and twisted the dials for the stovetop burners.

  Ryder wa
tched her warily. “What are you doing?”

  “The only way to keep you from bleeding out is to cauterize your wound.”

  He stared at the burner as it began to heat up, glowing red hot. “No fucking way,” he said evenly. He backed away until he bumped into the kitchen table, sending a plate of beans to the floor.

  “Fine.” She spun from the stove. “Die then.”

  She marched down the hall and out the front door without as much as a backward glance. Ryder was alone and, literally, unarmed.

  “That bitch is so fired.”

  He staggered to the cabinets and began pulling them open with his good hand. He found plates, bowls, cups, a salt shaker, but nothing useful. Rummaging under the sink he found a bottle of Captain Morgan’s spiced rum.

  “Ah, thank god.”

  He twisted off the cap and put the bottle to his lips, choking on the hot liquor as it slid down his throat. After a minute the warmth began to spread through his body, and he forced himself to drink two more mouthfuls. He was contemplating dousing his wound with the alcohol in order to kill any germs and fight off the chance of infection, when a sound in the hallway spun him.

  A chupacabra stood in the entrance to the kitchen, staring at him curiously. Ryder let out an involuntary squeak and backed away from the sink. The creature’s tail rose up, brushing the ceiling, drawing Ryder’s eyes to it. He saw some kind of clear liquid dripping from the end of it like snot.

  “Easy, easy,” Ryder muttered, not even aware he was speaking. His eyes searched the kitchen for a weapon. The nearest object was a cast iron skillet sitting next to the red hot burner on the stove. He edged over to it and the creature hissed, its tail following him as if it had eyes of its own.

  He sensed it was about to strike just as his hand flew to the stove. The tail cracked through the air like a bullwhip and Ryder deflected the blow with a deft backhand of the skillet as if he were playing Ping-Pong. The tail made a metallic whang as it struck the iron pan. The tail moved in again and he swatted it away with another brilliantly executed swat, and then parried it with a forehand smash.