onto the streets of Jefferson. He had not used the radio on purpose to contact Bill James of the incident at the county coroner’s office and drove reasonably within the five-mile range over the town-wide 25-mile an hour speed limit. There was no need to rouse the watchful suspicions of The Jefferson Observer and its publisher.
The impatience and sense of urgency instead was reflected in the eyes and mannerisms of the deputy. He thought about the last of the mental list he had made of the witnesses and experts who had either come in contact with or had knowledge about the strange reptilian kangaroo that was even now trying to escape the confines of the local morgue.
The children, those kids he chased through the woods out on 17. What were their names again? Oh yeah, that’s right. The freckle-faced blonde was Abel Jenkins. The black kid with the strange green eyes was Tyrone Davis. Better remember them for his report, if he ever gets a chance to complete it or the investigation ever comes to an end. It seemed as if this death of a bull had turned the world he knew upside down. Odessa Davis had asked to borrow his mirror long enough to check her make up and put her hair in place, when the realization hit him and he pulled suddenly to the shoulder of the road on the way out of town.
Those same green eyes he saw in the Davis Boy now appraised him curiously in the mirror.
“Why are we stopping?” She asked, then nodded with a smile. “Took you long enough to figure it out, deputy. My brother Tyrone lives with my aunt Ninevah. After our parents died under mysterious circumstances in Trinidad-Tobago, the five of us were sent to live with relatives. Tyrone was just a baby, and my father’s sister thought he would have the chance for a better life in the U.S. She never married, which explains why my aunt has a son with my last name.”
“Sounds reasonable enough. So Tyrone spilled the beans about what happened to him yesterday at Sutter’s Crossing. That still doesn’t make you an expert on the Chupacabra. That comment bought you a ride out with me to where they took it. If you can’t give me more incentive than a boy’s wild story about hunting monsters and finding one in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to let you off right here, Borjon or no Borjon.”
“Okay, deputy. Don’t go getting your shorts in a twist.” Odessa drew the nail of her painted index finger in toward the edges of her full lips before giving the deputy sheriff back his rear view mirror. She composed herself, her verdant eyes searching for a place to begin.
“Ever hear of SETI?” When Roth indicated he hadn’t, with a hesitant shrug of his shoulders and reluctant shake of his head to indicate his ignorance, Odessa gave him a quick explanation. “SETI is an acronym for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and represents the project to monitor radio signals from outer space in the hopes of detecting life elsewhere in the universe. Back in 1960, a young astronomer named Frank Drake got the bright idea of using an 85-foot West Virginia antennae to detect possible microwave radio emissions coming from the direction of a pair of Sun-like stars."
"It attracted the attention of the astronomical community of the day, particularly the Russians. The Soviet Union dominated SETI throughout the decade. Then in 1970, NASA, fresh off the Apollo moon landing, commissioned a comprehensive study to provide a detailed analysis of the science and technology called Project Cyclops that has been the foundation of SETI to this day.”
“In 1992, on the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Columbus in the New World, the observations began with fanfare after more than a decade of study and preliminary research. They followed the strategy of the JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California in a Sky Survey that was a targeted sweep of more than a thousand Suns. Unimpressed with the initial findings less than a year later, Congress terminated funding. SETI has struggled under private funding, ever since.”
Jacobs checked his watch. Time’s up, he thought. Still, he was intrigued and needed help. “What about Puerto Rico? Does this have something to do with the large dish there?”
Odessa, realizing she had burned her 30-second chance with a background of SETI, continued on hurriedly. “As I said, I was raised in Trinidad-Tobago, but I always loved to lay on the beach at night and look up at the stars. I wondered what could live out there. My wonder turned to fear after reports began to surface locally about strange creatures that bit the necks of farm animals to draw out their blood and liquefied organs. Luckily, I escaped the island fate that befell so many others when I received a scholarship in radio astronomy from Georgetown University in Washington D.C.”
“It was not long after that my parents died and my family went their separate ways. After graduation, I helped to provide for my little brother by signing on with SETI’s Project Phoenix. I accepted an assignment to Arecibo, Puerto Rico. It is the site of a 1000-foot reflector dish set in a mountaintop sinkhole, 450-feet beneath the structure supporting the dome. It was my job to monitor the radio telescope at night, to watch the stars just as I had as a child.”
“All was going well during the mid-1990’s when I began to hear reports from the villagers of strange attacks on cattle and farm animals, such as we had back home. Because I am Creole, the locals did not hesitate to share their fears and concerns with me, and I began to investigate the problem on my own. I felt that my search above in the heavens and on the earth below were one and the same. Unfortunately, my superiors did not share either my concerns or beliefs in the matter.”
"My investigations brought me closer and closer to an unnamed military research facility in the vicinity of El Campo, where some of the first and most persistent reports have circulated for almost 50 years. There are 25 bases in Puerto Rico, and this was obviously one of the oldest. They are all scheduled to close in the next decade, but not this one. Why? I couldn’t understand the secrecy or the extra security, as I was repeatedly turned back by the military police. Not long after, I was followed in unmarked cars, my phone was tapped and my apartment burglarized.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong, and yet it seemed the project administrator, who terminated my contract, did so under pressure. He could give no reason without revealing what he should not know about my extra-curricular activities. All he would say is that my services were no longer required and that budget cutbacks made it necessary to downsize my position, among others.”
“When I took what few belongings I had out from my office in a box, I was called into a room where I was debriefed by men in black with crew cuts and uncomfortable in a suit, as if out of uniform. I was told to forget all I found out on the island about certain military activities and was given a ticket stateside, with an armed escort, to the docks. That was three weeks ago. I had nowhere else to go, so I visited with my aunt Ninevah and my brother. I saw the newspaper report and when Tyrone came back with his own story to tell, I realized I had to find the common thread to both and offer my services.”
“Me?” Jacobs inquired.
“You,” Davis said with a nodding incline toward the deputy sheriff.
“Officer Roth, you are in more danger than from just El Chupacabra. If I know about what you have captured, you can be sure an element of our own government will soon come after it. They will not let anyone stand in their way.”
Odessa leaned back. Content she had at least given her side of the story.
“So, can I stay?” She asked, not daring to return his disbelieving gaze.
“Like I said before,” he said as he cinched the shoulder strap tightly between her breasts.
“Hang on!” Her head was thrown back as the deputy spun gravel and caught the two lane black top with the late model Plymouth. Roth hit the siren and headed west beyond Jefferson to where he would hopefully find the two coroners alive and the embattled steel door restraining the Chupacabra intact.
THE SHOWDOWN
Jacobs and Davis pulled into the blacktop parking lot of the Marion County coroner’s office ten minutes later. Conveniently located at the West End of town to accommodate the centrality of the small community, Roth wasted no time as he drew his service revolver and
ran through the double doors, leaving Odessa behind. The radio astronomer drew pensively out of the patrol car and leaned momentarily against the top of the door. All her life, she had heard the rumors and the whispered stories about the terrible creature that came at night to feed on the cattle and livestock of her island home.
It had been the reason she was forced to leave the Phoenix Project at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. There was no doubt about that. The only question that remained was whether she would commit herself now to ending the pursuit of a monster that began when she was a child. The young black woman bit at her lower lip and the worry drew her arched brows together. If not for her, then she would see this thing through to the end for Tyrone and Aunt Ninevah. She had to be sure it was either real or dead.
“Wait for me, deputy!” Odessa rounded the car door and shoved it closed, leaving the driver’s side left hurriedly open. She crossed the small parking lot, pulled open the door and could hear the banging, clawing and yowling even before she had gone through the second pair of double doors to the foyer.
The voices, muffled as she entered the building, were clearer now. She heard Roth’s strident baritone with Cajun inflections mingle with that of one, no two,