El Chupacabra

By Ellen Gomez

 Five female college students on vacation in Mexico take refuge from a storm in an old house. The owner reluctantly agrees to put them up, warning them of the dangers of El Chupacabra, who is on a cycle of rampage through the town. Scoffing at the local legends, the young women defy the warnings of the old man, deciding to test their luck by continuing their journey through a seldom explored tract of land.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jul 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201908249

Book preview

EL CHUPACABRA

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CARL CREED

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EL CHUPACABRA

ONE DARK PARTY

Chapter 1

My name is Hector, and I was born in Vieques, Puerto Rico. Doctors there were doing research by injecting people with cancer, and my father was one of them.  I was born shortly in before he died in 1932, but not before the changes in his body were passed on to me.  My mother told me that as soon as I cut teeth she caught me draining a mouse in the middle of the night.  As long as I can remember, my body craves blood when night comes.

I have two extra teeth, you see:  they are like a snake’s fangs, hidden in the roof of my mouth.  They only drop down when I am feeding.  I can drain a steer in less than five minutes, with just two puncture wounds.  I found out that I can drain people, too.

My mother moved back to her father’s home after my Dad’s death, and fortunately for me my grandfather was a butcher.  After my mother and grandfather understood that I needed blood to survive, he provided me with blood from the butcher shop so I wouldn’t have to kill animals. 

That was my real problem, you see.  I love animals, but can never have a pet.  When I was twelve I found an injured rabbit one morning and smuggled it to my room without my mother knowing.  I was going to nurse it back to health and keep it as my own.  I figured as long as I had the blood from the butcher shop, there shouldn’t be a problem.  All day longed I claimed I was working on a book report in my room, when in reality I was taking care of my rabbit.  That evening my grandfather brought me a supply of blood from the shop and set it in my room.  I went to bed, with the rabbit hidden under my covers.  I would drink the blood when I awoke, as I had been doing for as long as I could remember, and everything would work out.

That night, though, it didn’t.  It was the first time I remember having my body taken over by some deep power.  When darkness fell, I didn’t even reach for the blood.  I reached for my rabbit.  I fought with all my might to not sink my teeth into it, but I was not strong enough.  When it was drained, and the power withdrew, I screamed.

My mother ran in, but my grandfather quickly pushed her aside.  I fell to the floor weeping, holding the dead rabbit to my face and drenching it with tears.  My grandfather closed the door and put his arm around me.  I can still feel his beard against the side of my face as he wept with me.  We sat together in the floor until dawn. 

The next morning he told my mother that it was time for her to let me go.  He was going to take me to the home of a wealthy friend who lived in a remote, isolated part of Mexico.  There I would have a large area to roam and learn to control my disease (as he called it).  My mother wept, but I tried to act the man and hide my emotions.

I never saw her again.  Nor did I see my grandfather after he left me in Mexico.  I understand why he did what he did.  He was protecting me and my mother.

My grandfather’s friend, Senior Luis Chavez, owned a very large plantation in an isolated jungle area deep inside Mexico.  It was bordered on three sides by a river, and on the third side by an incredibly thick expanse of trees.  Senior Chavez was a practitioner of the dark arts, and owed my grandfather a favor for sparing his many years ago when my grandfather still lived in Mexico. 

Senior Chavez was feared by many, and his employees were used to strange sounds and unusual sightings on his plantation.  They also knew never to venture out of doors when it grew dark.  This proved to be a good place for me.  Senior Chavez announced that I was his nephew that day my grandfather left me.  He treated me as a son, and worked hard to help me figure out how to control my disease.  However, this was not out of the goodness of his heart.  I was more like a grand experiment for him. 

While there in the jungle, I learned to hunt and feed on animals.  It wasn’t until my thirtieth year that I tasted human blood.  Senior Chavez had tricked me to see how I would react.  I am pleased to say that when I did begin to hunt humans, he was my first victim.  It would be ten years before I killed another.  I inherited his fortune at his death, and one good gift he gave me was business sense. I was able to build upon his fortune, and traveled extensively.  I finally returned to a small house in a rural area of Mexico where I planned to die, if only I could figure out how.

Chapter 2

Gabrielle was the unofficial leader of our group.  She was sociable, outgoing, and loved attention, and always tried to organize our fun down to the last detail.  Our little group gravitated toward her, I think, because she was assertive and aggressive – so we didn’t have to be!  Her main fault, as far as we were concerned,