Marcus Pelegrimas - Teeth of Beasts

“Hello?”

“Hey, Paige. I think I might have found a Chupacabra!”

“Are you at a truck stop, Cole? Is this going to be a repeat of the Jackalope incident?”

“No,” he said. “This isn’t about a fake trophy mounted next to a fire hydrant. I’m talking about a real Chupacabra.”

“Just call them Chupes,” Paige said. “That’s how I’ll know when you’re talking about the real ones.”

“You feel like taking a drive up to Minnesota to track one down?”

She let out a strained sigh. “No, Cole. I’m busy.”

“Still in Kansas City with Officer Stanze?”

“No,” she snapped. “That’s done.”

“Done? Why? What happened?”

“It just is. I’m back in Chicago and I don’t feel like going anywhere else.”

“How’s your arm?”

When Paige didn’t answer right away, he knew he’d hit a nerve. A few seconds later she grumbled, “It’s the same as it was. Maybe it’d be better if I cut the fucking thing off.”

“Don’t talk like—”

“You’ve got your MEG girl there with you?”

“I’m following her to the spot where this Chupacabra is supposed to be.”

“Damn it. MEG’s supposed to stay away from the real things and keep chasing their ghosts around. If just one of them gets killed, the rest will be too scared to answer our calls.”

Rather than stick up for Abby, Stu, or the rest of MEG, Cole chalked up Paige’s words to a foul mood and a whole lot of pain from a wound that had been inflicted by one of her own concoctions. “They’ve investigated other things way before we met them,” he reminded her.

“Sure, but crop circles and Bigfoot tracks don’t bite back.” After struggling to open a noisy bag of chips, she asked, “Are you sure this is even a real Chupe lead? MEG jumps at just about everything. But if you’re just trying to get her alone in a field somewhere…”

“She says she’s got a lead. Supposedly, several people from the same area have called in about a strange monster killing pets and other animals. MEG was out here to photograph an apparition in another house when the team decided to check on the pet attacks. Abby says they only found pieces of a few dogs and cats.”

“And you’re sure it’s not a Half Breed?”

“Yeah. All the witness accounts say it’s hairless, runs on two legs, and has hands. The evidence matched bits and pieces from some other Chupe case files, including a few from Rico and my own little triumph in Indiana not too long ago.”

“You flushed out one little heel-biter and chased it for three hours. That’s different than fighting a big one toe-to-toe.” She finally got the chip bag open with a frustrated grunt. When she spoke again, Paige sounded as if she’d jogged a mile since her last sentence. “You’ll find two kinds of Chupacabras in most witness accounts. There’s a two-legged little asshole from a bad movie, and a four-legged one that looks like a dog or some mangy cat.”

“Which is the real one?”

“They’re both the same thing. The younger ones run on all fours, and sometimes the older ones run that way to change their tracks, but they normally walk upright. They can climb. They can bite. They can scratch and they can move .”

“Are they dangerous?”

“Those dogs and cats probably didn’t fall apart on their own.”

“Got any advice?” Cole asked.

“They’re not usually pack animals, but Chupes are fast enough to hit you like a small group, and they’ve made biting and scratching into an art form. I wouldn’t suggest taking one on by yourself, but you’ve already faced a whole lot worse. Abby might drag you down, though. Do you have the shotgun?”

“Yes,” he replied as he reflexively glanced at the bundle wrapped in a dark blanket on the floor behind the passenger seat. The Mossberg Model 535 Tactical still had that new gun smell, since its predecessor had been blown apart thanks to his first attempt at crafting his own shells. His spear was in the bundle as well, putting both weapons within easy reach. “I warned Abby about the danger, but she countered that by quoting half a dozen case numbers where Skinners took MEG members out to get a look at Chupes and a few Bigfoots. Are there seriously Bigfoots? Or is it Bigfeet?”

“They’re just a different breed of Yeti,” Paige said dismissively. “Will it just be you two?”

“The rest of the team moved on to one of the other haunted houses. They aren’t exactly in the loop as far as Skinners go.”

“Fine, I guess,” she said. “She’s read the reports. She knows the risks. Just try to keep her safe, Cole. You might not want to give her a gun. Pepper spray works great on Chupes. Spray it in the eyes, mouth, or ears, and that should do the trick. If you see anything that’s too much for her to handle, get her out of there.”

“What’s too much?”

“We don’t take tour groups anywhere near shapeshifters if we can help it, and we don’t introduce them to Nymar.”

“But MEG already knows about the Nymar,” Cole pointed out.

“From a distance. It may only be a matter of time before a Nymar weasels its way into MEG and tries to mess up the deal we’ve got going, but there’s no reason to speed up the process. On the rating system for supernatural flora and fauna, Chupes rank a rung or two above a rat.”

“Thanks for the advice, Paige. I’ll keep Abby safe. Besides, this will hopefully just be a chance for me to get alone with her for a while.”

“That’s what I thought. Watch your back.”

Tucking his phone into his pocket, he watched Abby’s signal blink before her car turned onto a side road marked by a sign that seemed to have been constructed and placed for the express purpose of being overlooked. The road quickly degenerated into a pair of dirty ruts leading to an old bridge. Loose boards thumped beneath Cole’s tires in a heartbeat pattern for a few seconds before being replaced by the crunch of gravel.

Abby came to a stop in a clear patch just off the road and had her door open before Cole had a chance to park. By the time he fished his weapons from the backseat, she’d already connected her laptop to a power source and was typing away. “I won’t get very good Wi-Fi out here, but I can pull up the files so you can take a look,” she announced.

Cole slipped into a harness that was made to hold his spear on his back, angled to be drawn with a quick reach over his shoulder. Pumping the shotgun for maximum effect, he said, “Just tell me how many there are and where to find ’em.”

She looked at him, pushed some of her hair behind one ear and nodded. “You’re going for the rugged hunter meets serial killer look, huh? Very nice.”

“You said rugged, so I’ll ignore the rest. The shotgun’s for you, if you want it.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. The reports say old-fashioned pepper spray does just fine,” Abby said. “And it’s from one of you, so it must be accurate, right?”

Cole nodded in what he hoped was an assuring manner. “Right. I just thought you might want something heavier.”

“We’re not out to kill it. I just want pictures. Maybe a sample of hair or something like that. You know what would be great? Audio recordings! Do they howl? Any kind of weird noise from a Chupacabra would play well on the website. All we need is something the other paranormal and cryptozoological websites don’t have.”

Looking around at the unpaved road flanked on either side by a dense wooded area, he asked, “So this is where it’s supposed to be?”

“There are a couple houses a few miles from here on a large section of property that all backs onto this area. According to witness reports and some tracks that were found, our Goat Sucker should be in this neck of the woods.” Seeing the perplexed look on Cole’s face, Abby said, “That’s what Chupacabra translates to. Goat Sucker.”