Stephen Randel - Trail of the Chupacabra

“The what?”

“Ziggy?”

“Never leave a man behind!” General X-Ray cried as he pulled the bus into a sharp U-turn and headed back to the hotel. They found Ziggy playing hacky sack in the middle of the parking lot and eating a banana. Fire alarms inside the hotel were blaring. Businessmen and -women were stumbling out of the front doors. The sounds of sirens were building from down the street.

“Like, thanks, dudes.” Ziggy stepped into the bus and sat in his preferred spot in the stairwell, tucking his knees under his chin. “Like, where are we going, anyway?”

Loud dance music pulsed away in the club. The sun was long up, and the rest of the drunken customers were all gone, but the girls kept dancing for El Carnicero, and he definitely kept watching them. Empty champagne bottles littered the table in front of his couch. The room was dark, but lights from the stage bounced off the mirrored walls and disco ball overhead. A woman wearing almost nothing approached him.

“Why so sad?” She sat down beside him.

“Busy.”

“With what?” She rubbed his chest.

“Get off me.” He pushed her hand away.

“You can tell me,” she purred.

“Guns. Moving guns for the Padre.” He drained the last of his champagne glass and pushed her off. She leaned back over and unzipped his pants.

“By my estimation,” the General said, “the drought has lowered the level of the Rio Grande to a point where we can use it to our advantage.” The dust-covered school bus bounced down a rutted road, bucking and weaving as it swerved back and forth to avoid rocks and potholes. “They won’t be expecting us out here.”

“Like, where is here, man?” Ziggy asked as he ate the rest of his banana.

“The middle of nowhere.” The General checked his mirrors. “The border fence doesn’t run all the way out here. All that separates us from Mexico is that damned river.”

“Like, I’m not a strong swimmer, dude,” Ziggy whispered, looking up from the stairwell with fear on his face.

“Not to worry, you yellow-bellied commie hippy freak, this brigade is mobile and hostile. Won’t even have to get our feet wet. This military vehicle is dang near amphibious.”

“Sir, General, sir,” Fire Team Leader Charlie said. “I wouldn’t push the old girl so hard. It wasn’t made for this sort of stuff.”

“Poppycock.”

“Like, poppy what?” Ziggy asked the General. “That, like, sounds pornographic, man.”

“Nonsense. We’re going to be fine. We just need a flat crossing point, maybe with some sandbars. Speed is our advantage. Although I wouldn’t mind finding a spot we could jump it from.” The General scratched his flabby chin and jerked the wheel over hard with one hand to avoid a terrified jackrabbit in the dirt road. “Always wanted to invade Mexico by air.”

Fire Team Leader Bravo spoke up from the back. “Sir, may I suggest we just use the crossing at Eagle Pass?”

“You may suggest it, but we ain’t.”

“Why not?”

“How many men do we have on board?”

“Nine.”

“How many passports do we have?”

“Don’t rightly know, sir. Boys, anybody got one of them there passports?” The only hand that went up was Avery’s.

“What country of origin?” Avery asked as he shuffled through his fanny pack. “American? Portuguese? Japanese? Russian? I’m set.”

“You see, Team Leader,” the General said, “the enemy now requires paperwork to enter their country. Can you imagine that? A grown man needing a document to enter and stay in a country — it’s unbelievable. Just one more reason to invade, I suppose. Private Foxtrot! Where’s my map?”

“Sir, right here, sir,” the private said, handing over the road atlas.

“We’re off the grid. This road doesn’t show up. That’s good.” The General gave the bus some gas. “Boys, this is going to be as easy as Saipan!” Fire Team Leader Charlie looked over at Avery with concern.

“This might be bad.”

“How bad?” Avery whispered as he swallowed hard and held onto the firm, green Naugahyde seat in front of him while the bus careened down the bumpy road.

“Heavy casualties. Survivors envying the dead,” the Fire Team Leader said as he looked for a seatbelt.

“River ahead!” the General announced. “Battle stations!”

The men of the Southwest Texas Revolutionary Armed Confederate Border Operation Militia secured themselves as best they could. Avery and Ziggy just looked on as the Rio Grande appeared in the distance. True, the years-long drought in Texas and New Mexico had lowered the water level of the mighty river significantly, but to say it was something that could be navigated by a school bus was a bit of a stretch — a stretch as long as the Rio Grande.

“You boys know the secret to off-roading?” the General asked. “Stand on the stupid pedal!” He yelled and floored the accelerator. “Suckin’ gas and haulin’ ass!”

The first part of the journey wasn’t so bad. The bus caught a little bit of air coming off the five-foot riverbank. No big deal, really. They took a few bounces across some flat rocks in the riverbed, throwing the men around a bit. A little splash of water here, a little splash of water there, nothing to be too concerned about. Then they took a comfortable slide over the top of a conveniently placed sandbar, followed by a gentle, smooth roll into the far side of the river. The first part was easy. The hard part was next. When a school bus loses momentum in a moving stream of water, everything tends to go tits-up. Buses are heavy. Heavy vehicles and water are a bad combination, kind of like small children and bayonets. At first, the bus seemed to track across the water and almost gain speed as it splashed across the top of the shallow river, but then it started to slow down. Ironically, inside the vehicle, the passengers believed that the bus was still accelerating. It’s a delayed effect. The wake from the splash helps to propel an enormous object, like a bus, forward, encouraging optimism from its inhabitants. These same inhabitants naturally think that the powerful forward thrust of the wake behind the vehicle after their terrifying fall is a good thing. Unfortunately, when fleeting moments of joy immediately follow moments of abject terror, it’s usually not a good thing. It just means that abject terror is probably taking a smoke break. And abject terror doesn’t usually smoke for long.

“Rawhide!” the General yelled as the bus entered the water, but then it slowly started to slip to the left. He didn’t care; he poured on the gas. The back wheels spun furiously but found no purchase. “Come on, you useless son of gun, go, go, go!” Nothing really happened except for the back end of the bus swinging downriver. They were now pointed backward and starting to bob downstream, and the problem with a bus bobbing downstream is that it usually doesn’t bob for very long. After few seconds, they started to sink. Water began to seep into the bus. Ziggy crawled up the stairwell as the water level rose.

“Like, dude, getting higher here, man.” Ziggy sat on the floor next to the General and pulled his knees up under his chin. “I’m not cool with the water, man. Not cool. Nope, nope, nope.”

“Broken arrow, broken arrow!” the General cried as he looked back over his shoulder and spun the steering wheel as if trying to parallel-park the bus on the far bank. “Did I ever tell you about my great-nephew’s amphibious landing at Normandy in the big war?” he asked Ziggy. “He was piloting a landing craft full of soldiers and was supposed to pull up on Omaha Beach. Unfortunately, he got a little turned around in some bad weather and made landfall due east at Gold Beach, which was occupied by the enemy at the time, and by enemy, I mean the British. He had a few thoughts about engaging them with his machine guns, but thought better of it because Roosevelt was sympathetic to the tea-sippers at the time.” The General yanked hard on the steering wheel, shifted into reverse, and stood on the gas pedal. “For the record, one of FDR’s worst all-time decisions.”