Stephen Randel - Trail of the Chupacabra

“Son of…” Avery hopped around on one leg while the other throbbed in pain. Avery took the broom handle and stuck one end in the ground. Holding the top of the long wooden stick, he placed his foot in the middle of it. He tried to snap it. Avery fell over. The stick rolled away. Picking it up, he jammed one end into the space between the tire and wheel well of a backhoe loader. Pulling back with all his strength, he leaned his weight into it. This time the broom handle snapped. It sent Avery rolling over backward. Dusting himself off, he took the two pieces of broom handle and began to alternate swinging them diagonally back and forth in front of his body in a looping motion that brought the sticks up and around his head.

“Strike, strike, deflection,” he said as he swung the sticks. Avery whipped the sticks back and forth, faster and faster in a crisscrossing figure-eight pattern. “Block, block, deflection, strike, strike.” On the balls of his feet, Avery moved side to side with small, hopping jumps. “Evasion, evasion, deflection, strike, strike. Keep the sticks moving. Never stop moving. Don’t let your opponent judge the range of your sticks. Block, block, strike…strike…deathblow!” Avery leapt in the air and took a huge downward swing with one of his sticks. “Victory is mine.”

Avery placed his arms at his side and bowed deeply to his imaginary sparring partner. He wasn’t at all happy with the weight and balance of his sticks, but they would have to do. He hoped he wouldn’t run into any Filipino martial artists inside. The odds weren’t good, but they’d die laughing if they saw his pathetic fighting sticks. Avery marched to the main door. Stepping around the bodies of dead cartel gunmen, he ducked inside.

Deep underground, Barquero watched as the Padre’s men began to barricade the massive meth lab against Cesar and his men. The majority of the Padre’s men took positions around the freight elevator at the far end of the facility as the gunfire above intensified. The rest of the Padre’s men went to guard the stairwell that Barquero had come down. He knew he couldn’t kill all of them. He needed to wait for Cesar. Then he could kill the one he wanted the most. Barquero slowly lowered himself from the platform above the facility’s floor and dropped to the ground. In the chaos and confusion, no one noticed as he hid behind a stack of chemical containers.

“General.” Fire Team Leader Alpha wiped the sweat from his face. “That’s all of them.” The General and men stood looking at the ten wooden crates.

“What do you think is in ’em?” Private Tango asked.

“They look like coffins to me,” Private Zulu answered.

“Hell, no.” The General kicked one of the dirt-encrusted boxes. “Too short and too skinny for coffins.” He got down on his knee and began to rub the dirt from the side of one. “It’s got something painted on it.” The General spit on the top corner of the crate and rubbed furiously at the dried soil. “New…New Haven…New Haven, Connecticut. Private, get me that smashing iron from the bus.” Private Zulu returned promptly with a claw hammer. The General took the tool and pried back one of the corners of the crate. The men of STRAC-BOM aimed their flashlights into the crate as the General lifted the lid. Even Ziggy looked on in anticipation. Nancy ignored them. “Great day in the morning,” the General said as he gazed upon the contents of the crate.

“What are they, General?” Fire Team Leader Bravo asked. Tears welled up in the General’s eyes as he lifted up something long and heavy.

“Henries, boys. I’ll be goddamned, but we found Henries.” The General lifted up the mint-condition Henry repeating rifle to show his troops. “You could load this salty bastard on Monday and shoot until Sunday. It’s… it’s… beautiful. It’s perfect.” The General wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

“They worth much?” asked Private Zulu.

“Perfectly preserved like this?” The General brought the never-before-fired weapon to his shoulder and sighted down the long barrel of the lever-action rifle. “Thousands, maybe tens of thousands apiece.”

“So,” Private Zulu said. “We got ten crates, at six rifles a crate, times thousands…tens of thousands…” The scrawny private stuck out his tongue as he attempted to do the math.

“Like, did we find the hip bone, man?” Ziggy interrupted.

“Quiet,” Private Zulu said. “I’m ciphering. Carry the…”

“It’s a lot of money, boys.” The General turned and shook the hands of his Fire Team Leaders. They saluted in return. All of a sudden, Nancy hissed. The big iguana’s head bobbed up and down violently. From the desert, sets of glowing eyes moved back and forth in the dark.

“Battle stations!” the General ordered. “Fire at will!” The men began to unload their weapons into the night. Like ghosts, the sets of eyes vanished from view and then reappeared in another place. “Keep firing, men!” The General squeezed off rounds from his pearl-handled revolvers into the dark.

“Behind you!” Fire Team Leader Alpha yelled as he let off a blast from his shotgun. Private Foxtrot turned around and aimed his single-shot twenty-two at nothing in particular and fired.

“I’ve only got two more shells,” the private said as he fumbled to reload his rifle.

“I’ve only three more,” said Fire Team Leader Bravo.

“I’m out!” yelled Private Zulu. Ziggy picked up Nancy and crawled into the pit.

“Ohmmm, ohmmm,” Ziggy chanted as the gunfire rattled his delicate nature. “Like, peace, man.” He was terrified, and even meditation wasn’t helping.

“Keep up the fire, boys.” The General shot from the hip as he aimed at glowing sets of eyes. The growling coming from the pitch black beyond their flashlight beams became louder and louder. The General’s pistols clicked empty.

“I’m out!” Fire Team Leader Charlie yelled. The sound of gunfire stopped.

“Into the hole!” the General ordered. “Fall back! Fall back!” The men piled in on top of one another. Seven civilian militia, a hippy, and one exceptionally large iguana made for a rather tight fit. “Men, when they come for us, remember, no surrender, no retreat.” The evil growling became ever louder. The glowing eyes steadily advanced on their position.

“I just want to, like, go home.” Ziggy kissed Nancy. Nancy bit him.

Inside the Padre’s building, Avery followed the trail of dead cartel gunmen down a long hallway. As he took cover in doorways, every advance he made was preceded by a violent lashing of his improvised fighting sticks.

“Cover, cover… move, move, move,” Avery muttered as he launched himself at another doorway. Eventually he reached the last door before the stairwell. “Advancing, advancing… cover, cover, hold.” Avery looked down the stairs and suddenly got a very bad feeling.

Cesar and his men knelt poised in the freight elevator, their weapons at the ready. Cesar looked at his men.

“They’ll be waiting for us.” Cesar chambered a round in his assault rifle. He took out a grenade and pulled the pin. “I’ll go first.” The elevator came to rest at the bottom floor. Two of Cesar’s men took hold of the bottom of the elevator’s sliding door and lifted it up. Cesar tossed the grenade underneath it. A hail of gunfire exploded from inside the lab, puncturing the door in long streaks of bullet holes. One of Cesar’s men went down. The grenade exploded, and Cesar’s men threw the elevator door all the way up. Cesar dove into the massive lab. Dust and smoke filled the air as he took cover behind some machinery. He fired his weapon at the cartel gunmen as his troops spread out looking for cover. Another of his soldiers fell in a heap to the floor. “Padre! I’ve got you!” Cesar reloaded and began firing again.