Stephen Randel - The Chupacabra

Back in his office, Avery guzzled warm Mountain Dew straight from a two-liter bottle as he madly pounded away at his keyboard.

To: Reginald J. Haversack

United States Senator (R-Minnesota)

Dear Senator:

I know who you are. For almost three decades, you may have fooled the constituents of your state and deceived your slow-witted cadre of Washington D.C.’s inner loop. My extensive research into your family’s genealogical tree has led me to the startling discovery that you are indeed directly related to Vladimir Lenin. My investigation has discovered that in 1903, during the gathering of the Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in Brussels, your maternal great-grandmother was involved in a scandalous liaison with the father of modern Socialism. The infamous encounter occurred in a men’s bathroom stall after the cocktail social at the end of the conference where your great-grandmother was the unfortunate loser of a Russian drinking game that loosely translates to “Pass the Babushka.” The game is similar in nature to the children’s card game “Slap Jack” except that the base halves of Russian nesting dolls are lined up smallest to largest in front of the participants and filled with vodka. The loser of each round is required to drink the contents of the dolls in one shot, progressing from the smallest doll to the largest. Your great-grandmother apparently mistook the game for “Slap King,” losing eight consecutive rounds in less than thirty minutes. Lenin, the fiend, took advantage of the poor, helpless woman and never called her back, as he had promised. Your illegitimate grandfather was indeed born in Duluth, Minnesota, after your great-grandmother immigrated to the United States, as your Senate biography states. However, your Senate biography does not discuss her taking the last name of Haversack to avoid the embarrassment and shame of her bastard Marxist progeny. Why do I inform you of this now? It’s quite simple, really. After your recent lambasting of the current administration’s policies as “Insidious Closet Socialism” was unanimously lauded by your conservative colleagues and hence has become the latest Republican Party rallying cry, even gracing the cover of the latest edition of Newsweek, I feel certain that the details of your direct genetic link to the greatest of the Socialists would lead to vociferous ridicule and your inevitable impeachment. Senator, I am willing to keep this ignominious fact hidden from the world on one condition. As Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and current member of its Education Committee, you have significant influence over funding decisions. Given that no current accredited university in this country offers educational programs in cryptozoology, I ask you to wield your policy-making prowess and require all future state university funding to be contingent on immediate establishment of undergraduate and master’s level curriculum regarding the study of unknown and mystical creatures. The need for qualified cryptozoologists has never been more imperative. Yetis, Loch Monsters, and other cryptids are facing urgent habitat issues stemming from the exponential increase in the burning of fossil fuels. My own research indicates that here in Texas we may soon face a catastrophic infestation of chupacabra as the vampire-like creatures migrate north from their historic feeding grounds into the heart of the southwestern United States, bringing their bloodsucking terror with them. Immediate funding for the establishment of these programs is needed to allow for better understanding of this growing threat to our country. Senator, as you must do your part, we all must do our part. Myself, I’m willing to graciously accept assignment as head of the Cryptozoology Department at the University of Texas at Austin, as soon as the coming semester. Of course, I would expect adequate financial compensation, immediate tenured status, around-the-clock access to the Central Intelligence Agency’s computer network at Langley, Virginia, with “Top Secret” security clearance preapproved, and a monthly car allowance with a reserved faculty parking space near the main door. Additionally, my class load would need to be scheduled for evenings only, as I’m not an early riser. If you do not comply with my demands, I will have no choice but to approach my extensive network of media contacts with the sordid details of how you, Reginald J. Haversack, the spawn of Lenin, have infiltrated the Republican Party.

El Barquero had been in his car for nearly five hours since leaving the farmhouse outside Piedras Negras. After crossing the border, he flew along the roads leading northwest toward El Paso. It was a little past noon, and he was still a hundred miles or so from El Paso when he reached the town of Marfa, Texas.

Pulling up to a rundown house on the edge of town, he parked his car in back and went to the sliding glass door at the rear of the small house. He tested the door to see if was locked. It wasn’t. Slipping inside, he paused in the dingy, sparsely furnished living room and listened for noise. The sound of heavy snoring mixed with tejano music came from a bedroom down the hallway. Stealthily approaching the door, he pulled a black semiautomatic pistol from his back waistband and screwed a short sound suppressor from his pocket onto the barrel. Pointing the gun into the room, he used his free hand to gently open the door. Peering inside the dark room, illuminated only by the light that filtered in through a thin dirty piece of cloth nailed to the wall to act as a shade across a small window, he spotted his informant passed out on a thin, stained single mattress on the floor. He was splayed out on his back, wearing only a pair of white boxer shorts and a blue T-shirt pulled up over his belly, an empty bottle of tequila rising and falling on his chest as he deeply inhaled and exhaled, wheezing on the way up and snorting on the way down.

El Barquero slowly crossed the room and turned off the music coming from the clock radio that rested on a board propped up by two cinder blocks next to the bed. Aiming the gun at the man, El Barquero carefully raised his leg and used the tip of his boot to kick the bottle of tequila off the loudly snoring man’s chest and against the wall. The shattering of glass as the bottle exploded on the wall woke the drunken man, who sat straight up and found himself staring directly down the barrel of the silenced pistol that nearly touched his nose.

“Jesus Christ!” the confused and panicked man stammered. “I was going to call. I swear it! I swear on the Holy Mother, I was going to call!”

“Shut up, Memo,” the giant man said calmly. “Did you tell the Padre it was me?”

“No! I never said nothing! Please, Barquero,” Memo pleaded as he scooted himself back against the wall, the sound of glass crushing beneath him as he tried to distance himself from the gun and the man with fire in his eyes.

“Memo. Look at me, Memo. What did you tell the Padre?”

“Please, Barquero,” the man begged as he fought back the tears welling up in his eyes. “Please.”

“Tell me, Memo,” El Barquero said as he deliberately thumbed back the hammer on his pistol. “Tell me what you told him.”

“God, no,” the crying man squealed as he held his hands in front of his face and curled into a fetal position. “I wouldn’t…I didn’t…just please…please.”

“Look at me, Memo,” El Barquero said as he used the suppressor of his pistol to push the terrified man’s hands away from his face. “Look at me, Memo. There you go. How did he know?” he asked reassuringly.

“I swear,” the bawling man sobbed. “I don’t know.”

“How did he know!” the imposing man in black roared at the top of his lungs.