Oscarson had asked for and received a deck of cards from the drawer of a cabinet to their shared office. Their patience was infinite in the manner of their profession. No one that came in contact with them was going anywhere, and they considered the interruption of their mundane practice by the deputy, the radio astrologer, the military and the creature to be quite a diversion. Other than living in fear of their lives, they had no desire to see it end.
“Ms. Davis? Odessa,” Roth began as he turned to look out the small window near the top of the wall. “These things have only been around for fifty years or so, from what you’ve told me. The military seems to agree with you, but I can’t help thinking that it takes longer for something so monstrous to become a part of the Latino culture as it has.”
“Every culture has its monsters, deputy. Every civilization, as well. The Mayans worshipped a vampiric deity that supposedly fed solely on the sacrifices of live animals. Their likeness has been found on temple walls of ancient ruins in South America dating back over 2000 years. Their modern day descendants still hold ceremonial rituals of sacrifice and still believe in the traditions surrounding them.”
“As for the Chupacabra being a product of the Hispanic community, it is no less so than Louisiana’s Honey Island Swamp Monster or Bigfoot, in the Pacific Northwest. The lake monsters of the British Isles are renowned because early Christian saints supposedly rebuked them. They’re still around, aren’t they? Fact or fiction, we all need embodiments of natural mystery and wonder. As we’ve both seen today, the Chupacabra is real enough, and a product of our own arrogance.”
The sound of light but begrudging applause was heard from out in the hall. before the general came into view. “Well put, Ms. Davis. Now, you may be too young to remember, but in the 1950s, the threat of nuclear attack and decimation of the earth was very real to patriotic Americans. The Russians were pulling ahead, and we needed an advantage if space was not to become the next conquest of the communists.”
“Perhaps we did invent a monster, with just enough humanity to frighten us. In the end, that couldn’t be helped. We have spent enough time and money in pursuit of these creatures, and you know what? Their range and influence are spreading. There are rumored attacks now in heavily populated areas of the United States, and not just with the influx of predominantly Spanish-speaking immigrants. If Mexicans enter the country legally, they have a right to be here. It is my duty and obligation to defend that right by the constitution and the order of the President.”
“Right now, I have units following up on a trail of reports from the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, South America, Mexico and several major U.S. cities, including New York City, New Jersey, San Antonio and San Francisco. In Sweetwater, Miami in Dade County, Florida, 69 animals were killed in one night and strewn across the lawns of two families. I am told it has even now been reported in Moscow. I am mostly concerned about rural areas like Jefferson, where the majority of the attacks go unreported to the proper authorities.”
“Meaning you,” Odessa scoffed.
“Meaning me,” General Wilkes replied evenly. “Which reminds me, the sun will be going down in about an hour and we need to get you folks ready for any penetration of our perimeter by the Chupacabra.” The general shook his head. “Lord, how I hate that name, but if I told you its real project code name, I’d have to kill you!”
He laughed and was still chuckling to himself and his two MPs as he left the room, to be replaced by a team of medical technicians in biohazard gear that inoculated the four against contagion. It seemed to the three men and a woman that they were already being treated, as if infected and under quarantine. The injections, which included air propelled shots to the neck, right arm and hip, were explained as antibiotics, metabolic steroids, electrolytes and blood coagulants, just in case.
“Just in case of what?” Emil Oscarson asked his colleague David Klein, who shook his head uncertainly. They both looked to the men in white contamination suits, but they were already packing up their gear, dropping the empty hypodermic containers, as well as the airguns used to administer them, in bags emblazoned with the biohazard seal. To Roth, it was always difficult to distinguish the emblem from that of nuclear waste. No matter. They were both signs of potential health risks.
The worst was yet to come.
Checkpoints were established by the general at each edge of the parking lot in front of as well as behind the county morgue. Drawn between them was a series of low-density carbolic lasers, set one atop the other, the beams running up a pole every eighteen inches to a height of nearly nine feet. Together, they formed a perfect square and nothing could pass over, under or through them, undetected.
General Wilkes and his staff officers directed activities from the mobile laboratory, situated near the western end of the county coroner’s office building. Once confirmation began to come in that something was testing the invisible fencing, they knew that it could only be the Chupacabra. The creature was capable of differentiating between levels of biological heat as well as synthetic. It knew where the lasers were located and was testing them for a break or other discontinuity that would allow it to gain entry into the makeshift compound set up by the military.
To the Chupacabra pacing outside the perimeter boundaries set up by the low frequency band waves, the laser beams formed a perfect box, with four deflectors to a side emitting vectors out on the other three remaining sides. It could not only sense their presence, it could see them as plainly as brightly-lit red neon suspended in air. Instinctively, it knew their function as well, and it sought a means to break in without sounding an alarm as to its presence or whereabouts.
The additional height and coverage provided by the overhead projectors were only a temporary deterrence. The signals ended at the eaves of the pair of buildings. It could see a room, almost white with incandescence, with men in green and others covered head to toe in white, moving about inside. It feared blindness, however temporary, and knew instinctively that its mate and offspring had been relocated there. The place the adult had died was not in this smaller structure with wheels and struts braced against the parking lot asphalt. The pheromones led its senses to the brick building with the glass doors and skylights.
Skylights…
Even as it withdrew several paces and leapt with a spread of its vestigial wings, like membranes connecting the length of its arms to its sides, a plan formulated in its predatorial mind. There was a presence inside of the human responsible for the death of its mate, as well as others that had been witnesses, if not participants. Other humans armed with biting or stinging weapons would be there to protect them, if the lasers were any indication.
If it was successful, it would take revenge on the human male or any of the others too weak to commit the act but benefited by it. If not, the diversion would be created anyway and the creature’s true destination, that of the room all in white where its dead mate and unborn offspring lay, would be inadequately defended in the confusion.
It reached the rooftop and touched lightly down, with little more than a clicking of its three-toed claws splayed hand and foot to distribute its weight. There was no reaction or movement down below after several tense moments as it began to crawl, talons extended, to where it could peer down into the skylight and the room below.
It was gazing down into a foyer, just off the main hall. As the Chupacabra turned its teardrop-shaped head and nearly pressed its face flat against the glass, it could just make out the high boot tops of the MP at the near side of the door. It could sense another, and that they both stood before the room in which others of their kind exuded fear at their situation.
It delayed only a moment, before plunging feet first through the locked skylight, dropping its four-foot tall body down in a rain of glass and aluminum framing. The soldiers responded almost immediately, but not quickly enough, as the Goatsucker caught the nearest in the chest with its thick lower legs and drove him against the wall. The other got off a single shot of his .45 caliber pistol before he
was clawed across the shoulder and neck.
By this time, the four beyond the door ceased all movement, as it sought a means into the sealed room. Only for a moment, it forgot about the first soldier who had all the wind knocked out of him. The guard rose unsteadily to his feet, took careful aim with his revolver and fired. The Chupacabra was struck in the rib cage by a glancing shot that drove it into the far side of a narrow alcove.
Reaching down, it perceived by the greenish, copper-based blood suffused with that of iron-based red, that it had been hit in at least one of its three stomachs. Attacking the four, and hoping to reach its trapped offspring before help arrived for the humans, was no longer an option. It could be overpowered or worse and lose the advantage of surprise.
Instead, it charged at the two men aiding one another to their feet and gripped them each by the shoulder with its claws in a driving leap that propelled it to a skid before the glass doors to the parking lot. Men were now running to the building from the white room as the guards took up their weapons and ran towards it. With nowhere left to turn, it gazed upward and saw the second skylight directly overhead. It waited to the last possible moment, then coiled