Perched behind Dave on the hood of the truck, I squinted into the dark. “Do you see anything?”
He raised the rifle, nestling it into his shoulder and peering through the night scope. “Not yet. Wait for the dust to settle.”
Movement caught my eye, the slink of a predator, barely more than a swirl in the haze. I pointed over his shoulder. “There!”
He swung the weapon around and searched through the scope. “Gotcha,” he whispered in excitement. Then I felt the tension in his body change. “What the hell?”
“What?” I demanded.
“I don't believe it.” Dave sounded thunderstruck, too amazed yet for fear. “It's real. Looks just like the stories.”
A gust of wind parted the dust, and two eyes, red as stoplights, glinted out of a nightmare shadow. It was four-legged like a dog, but with a thick tail and meaty haunches like a lizard. I saw no wings, but the creature was so indistinct in the dark, it was easy for my mind to shape it into what scared me most.
“You think you can get a picture?” Dave asked.
Camera. Duh. Picture of a lifetime and I was gawking like I'd never seen an unnatural monster before.
I scrambled for my bag, which fortunately hadn't been bucked off the pickup during the stampede. “I'm going to try to take a picture without the flash. Is it moving?”
“No. Just … watching us.” The slight tremor in his voice was his first sign of apprehension. That was unnerving in an ex–army ranger type.
To hold off my own nerves, I concentrated on my camera, tweaking the settings to accommodate the low light, worried about getting a picture before the thing ran away. Belly down on the hood of the truck, I braced my elbows to keep the camera steady in my shaking hands. Sighting parallel to Dave, I brought the red eyes into focus manually.
The whirr of the camera seemed unnaturally loud, and I realized that all the nighttime noise had disappeared. No nocturnal birds and no mosquitoes buzzing. Only Dave's breathing, almost as quick and scared as mine, and the low, steady pulse of the pump on the well.
I blinked to clear my vision, and in the span of that instant, the crimson spots vanished from the lens.
“Son of a bitch!” said Dave, lowering the gun.
No eyes and no shadow. My heart jumped against my breastbone, because as terrifying as the creature was to look at, it was much worse not being able to see it.
“Where did it go?”
“I don't know.” Dave scanned the pasture through his scope. I could sense the serious freak-out rising up in him. “It vanished. It was there, and then it just … wasn't.”
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
He took a deep breath, and seemed to take a firmer grip on his bravado. “It probably just dropped down behind that dune. That thing is real, and real things can't disappear into thin air.”
That was some screwy logic, but he was right in a way. Supernatural creatures have to adhere to supernatural rules; the trick is knowing what they are. If disappearing wasn't against this thing's rules, then re appearing might not be, either.
“We should get in the truck,” I said.
“Yeah.” Dave's distracted tone wasn't very reassuring. He climbed down from the hood, still aiming at the spot where the chupacabra had been.
“Seriously, Dave. A really bad feeling about this.” That was an understatement. My skin prickled with the certainty of immediate danger.
“Stay there,” he ordered, walking steadily toward the dune. “Get the shotgun out of the cab and keep it with you.”
Sure. Like I was going to stay back at the truck with the figurative womenfolk. Looping the camera strap around my neck, I slid to the fender and jumped down.
Before I even got my balance, a nightmare claw flashed out from under the truck. It wrapped around my ankle, and yanked my foot out from under me. I hit the unyielding ground and the air rushed out of my lungs, nothing left to scream with as razor-tipped talons ripped through the denim of my jeans. The thing dragged me across the ground, pulling me toward the shadows under the pickup, where red eyes gleamed in the darkness, and teeth like needles reflected the desert moon. I stared into the horrific maw of God knows what, unable to think anything except, Wow, I didn't see that coming.
16
I scrabbled at the dirt with my fingers, fighting for traction, a handhold, anything to stop the relentless force pulling me under the truck. Breath knocked out of me, I struggled to grab enough air to scream as my mind spun its wheels on the fact that I was about to get eaten by el chupacabra. El chupacabra. That was just so wrong. My captured leg was about to disappear into the darkness; I had to do something. Bracing my free foot on the bumper, I pressed until my thigh muscles shuddered. The grip on my ankle tightened and twisted, torquing my knee while sharp claws cut through the leather of my running shoe.
The pain wrenched a cry out of me and panic snapped loose, reason kicking in. I grabbed the strap that had tightened around my neck and pulled my camera to me. The light on the flash was green. Green was good. This creature had never shown up in the daytime. Maybe those huge red eyes were the reason why.
I squeezed shut my own eyes and hit the shutter button. Crimson flashed through my lids; the chupacabra let out a piercing scream and released my foot.
“Get out of the way, Maggie!”
Dave's voice seemed to come from far away. I shoved with the foot braced against the bumper, got clear of the tire, and rolled to my left. There was a shot, another inhuman screech, then the rush of a heavy body flying past me.
Another yell, this one from Dave. I crawled to the door of the truck, hauled myself up by the handle, and yanked it open. The cab light spilled over the scene. I saw Dave pinned by something the size of a huge dog, but with dark, leathery skin and spines running down its back. The beast's tail whipped back and forth as it tried to get at Dave's throat. He deflected the snapping teeth with the rifle, and his bent knee up against the monster's belly kept the back claws from slashing open his gut.
I grabbed the shotgun from the bench seat. Five minutes of instruction didn't qualify me for this, but I couldn't give my brain time to think more than one moment ahead, or my neurons would short-circuit on the impossibility of what was happening.
Reaching onto the dashboard, I pulled on the headlights, illuminating the scene. The chupacabra reared back with a shriek like the unoiled hinges of Hell. Hauling the shotgun in tight to my shoulder, I aimed and squeezed the trigger.
The blast tore out of the weapon, and I stumbled backward at the recoil. The shot ripped through the creature's side in a spray of dark droplets. I saw the thick hide blister and smoke. Then it was gone, moving faster than my eye could follow. If it had been a natural animal, it would have been dead, or dying. Maybe the fact that I could glimpse it at all was proof it was at least injured.
Tossing the shotgun into the cab of the truck, I hurried to Dave at a limping run. He lay on the dried grass, holding his shoulder with a bloody hand. His mouth was moving, but all I could hear was the ringing in my ears and the refrain of ohmygod, ohmygod running through my head.
“How bad is it?” I asked. His denim shirt was in tatters, covered with blood and black goo. It was hard to tell which was which. He said something I couldn't make out, but it sounded emphatic enough that maybe he wasn't about to die. “What?”
He grabbed me and shouted in my ear. “I just got attacked by a gawd-damn chupacabra. How do you think I am?”
“Bad?” I had to ask, because in between the moaning and cursing every time he moved, Dave didn't look nearly as freaked out as I was to have been grasped in the literal jaws of death.
“Are you kidding?” He grinned like a maniac. “I'm going to be a freaking millionaire!”
Adrenaline and elation got Dave as far as the pickup. I kept him talking about his plans while I bandaged the deepest of his wounds with the military surplus first-aid kit I found in the truck. It beat the hell out of the little one in my Jeep, and I was definitely going to
have to get one of those.
Forget a first-aid kit. The way my life seemed headed, I was going to need a whole new skill set.
“We'll pitch the story to everyone.” Dave sounded punch-drunk. “Get a bidding war going.”
“Sure thing.” I tried not to cringe as I tied a pressure bandage around a particularly deep gash, then looked at the pattern on his upper arm and over his shoulder. “Oh my God, Dave. That thing really bit you!”
“You're shitting me.” He craned his head to look. I'd helped him out of his shirt; under that his wifebeater was splotched with red. “Son of a bitch. Do you think it will scar?”
“I don't even know if this thing is poisonous. Or if it's going to transform you into another one, like a werewolf. Jeez, Dave.” He laughed, not taking me seriously. But at the very least he should have been worried about tetanus or rabies or the bubonic plague.
His head fell back against the bench, his adrenaline high fading, but not his big dreams. “I'll betcha I'll get on The Tonight Show for sure, now.”
“I've got to get you to the hospital first,” I said, checking to see if I'd missed any cuts that were more than superficial.
“First,” he said, grabbing the flashlight from the dashboard, “we gotta get out there and find that thing's sorry lizard carcass.”
“No way.” I put my hand on his chest and pushed him back. “You can't even stand up.”
“Sure I can.” He slid off the truck seat, and would have kept going, straight into a heap on the ground, if he hadn't grabbed on to me. I staggered under his lucky-not-to-be-dead weight and managed to get him back into the truck.
“Okay,” he wheezed, holding his bandaged shoulder. “Maybe we'll just mark the spot on the GPS so we can come back in the morning.”
“Great idea.” It was easier to agree than to point out that after the hospital was done stitching him up, I doubted they'd sanction another chupacabra hunt.
I buckled him in, then climbed behind the wheel, proud of my battlefield composure until I found that my hands were shaking too badly to get the key in the ignition. Resting my forehead against the steering wheel, I took a second to remind myself how to breathe.
Come on, Maggie. Sensible action. It was absurd to fall apart at that point. Not to mention impractical. What if Ol' Chupy came back pissed?
I couldn't dwell on that. I'd think later, in the safety of my motel room, about the way my weirdometer had redlined when the thing had grabbed me. There was weird, and there was bad, and then there was a whole other magnitude of worse.
It wasn't difficult getting to the hospital in Kingsville. Once I reached Highway 77, I simply turned north and kept going. The hospital was visible from the highway, four stories looming over a darkened neighborhood. I pulled in, woke Dave as gently as I could, and got him inside. The hardest part was convincing him he shouldn't mention el chupacabra to the ER staff.
A nurse in Saint Patrick's Day scrubs took charge and whisked him back to the triage area, exiling me to the waiting room with nothing to do but fret. At least there was a bathroom.
I washed my hands and face and checked my phone messages. Lots of texts from Lisa, of escalating worry, but when I called her back, there was no answer.
And still not a single message from Justin.
In the icebox of a waiting room, I found some coffee that had been on a burner too long. I wrapped Hector's denim loaner shirt tight around me, and tried to get comfortable. Before long, despite the subzero temperatures and a crappy cup of coffee, I dozed off.
At least, I assumed I slept, because one moment I was huddled on a polyester tweed sofa, trying to keep my teeth from chattering, and the next I was sitting in my Granny Quinn's kitchen, the smell of chocolate chip cookies warming me from the inside out.
“I am dreaming, right?”
Gran poured a dose of steaming amber-brown tea into a china cup and slid it across the table to me. “Unless you've developed a sudden talent for astral projection.”
“God, I hope not. I'm freaky enough already.” I reached for the sugar bowl and ladled in a teaspoon. I like my tea supersweet when I'm in shock, or possibly having an out-of-body experience.
I took a bracing sip before eyeing Gran again. She wore a light green sweater set—her signature color—and her bright red hair looked as though she'd just had it done. Except for the lines of experience traced around them, her green eyes were exactly like mine. Fitting, I guess, since I'd inherited the Sight from her side of the family.
“So is this really you?” I asked. “Or is it like a projection of my subconscious into the shape of you, because I need advice and comfort?”
She sighed in exasperation. “Must you overanalyze everything? You should think a little less and listen a little more to your instincts.”
“I always listen to you, Gran.” I grabbed a cookie and ate the majority of it in one bite. All my troubles were easier to contemplate in the familiar comfort of my grandmother's kitchen.
“Maybe that is why I'm here now,” she said, pouring her own cup of tea with unperturbed calm, “telling you what you already know.”
“So …” I let my inflection go up expectantly. “What do I already know?”
“The nature of the beast.”
Groaning, I sank my head into my hands. I was as bad as Lisa and Zeke—I wanted so badly to resist the obvious evidence, not to mention the knowledge in my gut. “What are the chances that I could be hundreds of miles from home, and stumble across a …”
I broke off, unable to say it out loud. But Gran didn't let me avoid it. “A what?”
“A chupacabra.”
“Why do you persist in calling it that ridiculous name? You know what it is.”
Outside the house, the wind rustled the trees, and I shivered. “Something Evil. Capital E.”
She sipped her tea. “It's always easier once you call a thing what it is.”
I searched her gaze, looking for answers, or at least reassurance. “Is this kind of thing going to keep happening to me, Gran? Am I some kind of magnet for everything weird and wicked?”
“I can't tell you what I don't know, Magdalena.” There was a tap against the window and I jumped. “It's just the wind, dear. Drink your tea.”
The china was painted with blue dragonflies. I raised the cup to my lips just as a clap of thunder rattled the house. My hand jerked and the cup fell from my grasp, shattering on the tile.
The tea spilled across the floor and collected in a warm, dark pool. Puzzled, I rose from my chair and went closer. The liquid had thickened, sinking into the floor as if the tile had become porous. Reaching out a hand, I touched the pool, and my fingers came away coated in crimson.
Blood. I rubbed it between my fingers, as a hand closed on my shoulder. With a startled cry, I jerked awake, striking out at whatever had me in its grip.
“Hey!” said Lisa's voice. “It's me!”
Wildly I looked around, trying to remember where I was. The waiting room walls, industrial beige. The smell of stale coffee. The rough texture of the sofa beneath me, and Lisa, standing in front of me in her date clothes, looking angry and relieved and pissed at the same time.
I ran my hands over my face and through my gritty hair. “What time is it?” The room was empty except for us. “Where's Zeke?”
“About two-thirty. He's talking to the doctor about Dave. Are you out of your mind?”
Trying not to grimace at the pins and needles of restored circulation, I uncurled from the couch. “You're going to have to give me a frame of reference for that question. It's been a long night, and in no way lacking in crazy.”
Her gray eyes darkened like thunderheads when she saw the shredded hem of my jeans. She pulled back the denim to expose some wicked purpling bruises.
“What were you thinking?” she hissed, strangling back her outrage. “What would I tell your mother if anything happened to you?”
I refused to be drawn into an argument. My emotions were as spent as my body, not
hing left but the dregs. “Anytime you're ready to get over yourself, that's cool with me.”
She drew a breath to snap back, then paused to examine her options: bitch pointlessly at me some more, or find out new information. “Fine.”
My brain caught up a bit. “How did you know I was here?”
“I didn't.” She sat in the chair catty-corner to me. “Jorge Gonzales was attacked, too. They brought him here, and Zeke and I came to meet them.”
Pushing myself straighter, I glanced toward the ER doors. “Is he going to be all right?”
“Don't know yet. Am I forgiven for flipping my shit when I saw you sacked out here, looking half dead, too?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
Zeke appeared in the doorway, his expression grim and tired. He saw us in the corner and headed over.
“How's Dave?” I asked when he reached us. “And Jorge?”
He rubbed his neck, as if trying to ease an ache. “Jorge lost a lot of blood, but he'll pull through. They're going to keep Dave overnight. As soon as it's light, we'll send a party out to find the carcass of the thing that bit him so it can be tested for rabies.”
“Rabies?” asked Lisa. I tucked the tattered end of my jeans under the sofa. After my talk with Gran, I was pretty sure disease wasn't a factor, and I had too much to do to be stuck in the hospital getting shots. “And what do you mean, carcass?”
Zeke nodded. “Rabies would explain why this animal kept attacking things it normally wouldn't. Carcass, because Maggie shot it.”
“Hold on,” said Lisa. “Maggie shot something? With a gun?”
“Shotgun,” I corrected automatically.
Zeke kept on target, which happened to be me. “I expected you to be the voice of reason, Maggie. Not join the ranks of delusion.”
“How can you still say anyone is delusional?” I was too tired for real anger, but I had to defend myself. “Forget the name, Zeke. There really is something out there. You saw Dave's bite, right?”