foreign nationals. Norwegian, she thought. No, definitely Swedish. She had known enough foreign students when she attended Georgetown University whose parents were diplomats and heads of state who wanted their children to be educated in proximity to American politics.
She ran down the hall calling the name of the sheriff’s deputy, until she turned a corner and nearly collided with him standing outside the door of an autopsy room in the morgue. She began to ask if he and the two older men were all right, when she was interrupted by a resounding bang from the inside. It was a dull thud, as if whatever was behind the steel door only knew to throw its body against the metal frame in the futile hope of escape.
Still, Miss Davis jumped back with a small cry and dug her nails into Roth’s shoulder as she hid behind him. Jacobs, feeling like anything but a protective hero, shrugged off the painted nails that held her fast to his side. “No time to get squeamish, Odessa. That door’s not going to hold this thing forever. It might be paned in steel, but the hinges and threshold are only as strong as the mortar and cinderblock that hold them in place!”
Even as he explained, the deceptive determination and strength of the Chupacabra inside drove it again and again, relentlessly, in an attempt to free itself of the confines within. They could now see the whole structure jump as dust and pellets of concrete rose and fell in response to the progress it was making. The hinge pins, once recessed in the wall, were no longer flush with the sea foam green of the painted cinder block.
It would soon have the entire threshold loosened and thrown down from its foundation.
They had to come up with a solution quickly. There was no time to call in reinforcements, and nothing but Jacob’s .38 caliber special stood between the four and the imminent peril that would step across the fallen door in a matter of minutes.
Then, he recalled his arsenal. Leaving the frightened Oscarson and Klein to monitor the slow but inexorable progress, Roth had Odessa follow him back out to the patrol car, the door ajar and the vehicle askew to the freshly painted lines of the parking lot. Throwing open the door to the caged back seat, separated from the front by a mesh net and locks controlled from the front, he gathered the rifles and tranquilizer darts and headed back inside.
By the time he reached the two older pathologists, Jacobs could see from the side of the room that the door jam was now unseated from the threshold. There was not much time now.
“You know how to use one of these?” Roth asked as he unholstered his .38 and handed it to the astronomist. Odessa opened the barrel, checked the rounds, closed it again and spun the bullets in all six chambers before deftly aiming the pistol in the direction of the embattled door.
“Hey, I’m an island girl. Guns and coconuts are second nature to me, mon.”
Jacobs glanced sidewise at her and gave her a lopsided grin in response to her nervous wink. He handed the double-barrel shotgun to Klein, apparently an avid hunter, and the 30.06 deer rifle to Oscarson, who appeared less comfortable with guns. “I don’t think I can kill this thing,” Emil confessed.
“If that Chupacabra in there gets out and heads straight for you with claws flashing and that proboscis darting, I doubt you’ll have a problem putting a bullet between its dark eyes. Don’t worry, doc. It’ll come natural enough when the time comes. I promise.”
The deputy’s assurance was punctuated by an especially hard thrust of the strange animal against the door from the other side. The powdered debris issued forth from the edges as the door bulged outward noticeably. For the first time, they could see the first traces of the impacts in the door itself. Shapes were beginning to form on the dull metallic surface of the door.
It would be out soon.
Roth kept the tranquilizer dart gun loaded with CO2 cartridges for himself. He had no idea, given the alien nature of the creature, what effect, if any, the anesthetic would have on the Chupacabra. Then again, he was even less certain why he should make any effort whatsoever to subdue the monster. It had easily killed a Brahma bull and a full-grown Rottweiller without noticeable effort and drained them both of bodily fluids and organs. Now, after being hit by a car, it was up and enraged to the point that it could come through a steel door after its captors?
Something distracting tugged once again at the back of the deputy’s mind. First, there was the distance between the two attacks and the need to rest after feeding on prey so large. Although apparently capable of deceptive strength and speed, the animal would have had to cover nearly thirty miles and be hungry enough to kill again. What could drive such a creature to such persistent ferocity?
There could only be one explanation.
This Chupacabra had a mate that attacked the Syke’s bull, Percy. That would explain the hunger and the wide range of the attacks at approximately the same hour two nights ago. He had no doubt that the nest the boys found was used regularly by the one that now threatened to free itself with an exponential increase in ferocity and a keening whine that they could easily hear now through the cracks in the mortar.
Nest…
“Oh my God!” Jacobs exclaimed as the others turned toward him. They thought it was his reaction to the falling of the first cylindrical pin of the door as it hit the floor with an earsplitting intonation of metal on ceramic tile. Like the amplified ping of a tuning fork to deafening decibels, it was soon joined by a second. Two remained, one holding only at a bent angle outward toward them as it slipped more with each ram of the Chupacabra from the other side.
Silence.
The high-pitched yowling dropped to a pained moan over the course of several minutes. There were no more attempts to escape, as the creature withdrew apparently to the far side of the room. The three men and the astronomer lowered their weapons and looked to one another for any sign of understanding for the lull. Suddenly, there was a scream as if from multiple inhuman vocal chords striking the same tortured note simultaneously which tapered to a staccato of smaller cries.
It did not sound even remotely human. More like a feral cat with its voice box exposed.
In the intervening moments, a hissing began to issue forth from the echoing recesses of the morgue autopsy room. The creature was gathering its strength for one final effort. The pathologists, the deputy and the young black woman raised their weapons again; uncertain of what reserves the wounded Chupacabra had left. It was hurt after having been struck by a car. It should have been tired, if not by the travel between kills, then at least sated after committing them.
As if sensing their thoughts and defiant of them, the four foot tall reptilian creature understood the greatest area of resistance remaining in the bent frame of the threshold. In the dark of the empty room, it balanced on its claws and propped against the back wall. Its breathing was labored, the narrow, birdlike chest rising and falling, as the heavy muscles of its thighs clenched. The dark, lidless eyes glowed from within as the spikes on its back rose in anticipation of a final stand with the humans outside.
It knew them by scent, of course. Four individuals. Three male, one female. If the Chupacabra had come upon them in the wild, it would have been the woman that would die first. She posed the greatest long-term threat. She could reproduce. There was little time to choose a first victim now, in self-defense. It would have to be the one that attacked first. Its survival depended on overcoming the largest, the bravest of those outside. Once it killed the first human it had ever directly and consciously encountered, the others would flee.
But not far.
Drawing back the lipless mouth to reveal long, sharp canines through which her tongue slithered like an armored serpent, the glow it its eyes reached a volcanic crimson and it cried out in anguish, anger and resignation all at once. She looked once off into the corner at the makeshift nest with the overturned equipment and ran across the room with a bounding leap.
It struck the door near the top of the mantle with the full force of its kicking legs, using its vestigial wings for lift and balance. Jacobs and the others barely had warning as the door slammed
from its hinges and nearly fell on top of them, in a cloud of dust and debris. They clutched their ears against the resounding cacophony, as the door bounced once against the cracked tile of the floor beneath it and lay still.
Only momentarily distracted as they gazed at the fallen door and the swirling mist of powdered mortar beyond the threshold, they each slowly and unsteadily brought their weapons to bear on the unfathomable darkness. There was no movement, any light or sound for the space of several tense moments. It was free, and to try and escape now, to run headlong and heedless of the weapons they now brandished, would have been sheer madness. They had captured the creature and imprisoned it. It knew and would have its revenge, whatever form that would take.
They saw the ruddy glow of its eyes first, enshrouded in the settling dust, but it was the claws that first pushed through the veil. They pinched at the air as the Chupacabra drew itself out into the threshold atop the steel door, the talons of its nails clicking. It balanced precariously on it haunches, drawing its spindly arms inward until the claws of its three fingered hands nearly met across the thin chest. Although Odessa had chased after the legends and ran from the stories of the Goatsucker from childhood, she had never before seen one in the flesh.
It