Chupacabra

by Roland Smith

  Marty popped his head out the door and called across to Grace, “Did you hear that?”

  “They’re on channel nine!” Grace said, coming out of the room opposite him. “It’s lucky we weren’t talking on the radio before we found out.”

  Marty had been thinking about luck and being smart as he propped open doors, mostly because propping open doors was turning out to be the most boring thing he had ever done. He was reevaluating his “I’d rather be lucky than smart ” quip, thinking that it would be better to be smart and lucky.

  “I think you should switch your radio to channel three so we can stay in touch with Dylan,” he said. “I’ll keep my radio on channel nine so we can listen in on what they’re saying.”

  “Smart thinking, Marty,” Grace said.

  He could count on one hand the number of times Grace had used his name and the word smart in the same sentence. It felt pretty good.

  Grace unclipped her radio, fiddled with the dial, then depressed the TALK button. “Dylan, are you there?”

  They waited. Dylan didn’t answer.

  “Maybe he hasn’t switched channels yet,” Grace said.

  Yeah, and maybe he’s being devoured by the chupacabra, which they obviously just put into the ventilation system, he thought, but didn’t share this with Grace.

  “Try him again,” he said.

  “Dylan?” Grace repeated.

  No answer.

  “We almost have all the doors open on this level,” Marty said. “Let’s keep going while we wait for him to answer. We need to get down to Level Two.”

  He swiped a card through the lock of the nearest door. It didn’t work. He swiped the second card and the lock clicked open. He handed the lanyard to Grace, stepped into the room, and switched on the light. In the first two rooms they had both made the mistake of letting the doors close before they could grab something to prop them open. Grace had to let herself out, then had to let Marty out. It would have been funny if the situation wasn’t so deadly. Grace had the idea of using dirty laundry to block the doors. It had worked well, except for the wasted time running back and forth to the laundry room to grab more laundry. Marty stuffed a lab coat under the door, hauled his stepladder in, set it on the bench, clambered up to the vent, and hesitated.

  What if the chupacabra is waiting on the other side of the vent, looking at me right now?

  He answered his own question.

  I hope it is waiting so I can trap it in here.

  He undid the latches, the vent flopped open, and nothing scary jumped out at him. He was almost disappointed.

  Almost.

  He jumped down and did a quick search of the room for anything they might be able to use. So far, in the other rooms, he’d found a couple of flashlights; a length of rope; a folding knife; and two cans of soda, which he drank. The Ark workers didn’t leave much hanging around when they went home for the night. What he was hoping to find was a sawed-off shotgun, a box of grenades, or a machine gun. So far, no such luck.

  He grabbed the stepladder and was reaching for his stack of laundry when Grace came in with a big smile on her face. She was holding the radio in her hand.

  “I’m with Marty now,” she said.

  Dylan’s scratchy voice came over the speaker. “Sorry I didn’t answer the first time you called. I had the radio in my pocket and I couldn’t get to it. It’s kind of tight in here. I actually got stuck for a while, which was a little nerve-racking. Anyway, I’m carrying the radio in my hand now. I heard Noah talking to that other guy. Was that Butch?”

  Grace clicked the talk button. “No. I don’t know who that was. It definitely wasn’t Butch.”

  “So it’s three against four, or three against five if you count the chupacabra. That’s not good.”

  “Are you okay?” Grace asked.

  “It was a little hard, until I got the hang of it, but I’m okay now. The only tracks I’ve seen belong to mice and rats. If Luther was on this level, I think I would have seen his drag marks by now. I just passed a shaft or duct that goes down. I’m going to backtrack and try to get to the second level. Are you just about done with the doors? I’ve seen some of the lights. Believe me, it’s a welcome sight in this dank place.”

  “We have three rooms to go,” Grace said.

  “Have you checked if the keys open the elevator?”

  “One of them does. The other two are for the doors.”

  “That’s a relief. I wouldn’t want to go to Level Two without you being there. Hey, Marty, Grace told me about keeping channel nine open so we can listen to the bad guys. Smart.”

  Marty tried not to blush, but failed. “Let me talk to him,” he said. Grace handed the radio to him.

  “You sound kind of tired,” Marty said. “Why don’t you drop down into one of the rooms here and I’ll take your place. I’m a little smaller than you, and I’m rested.”

  “I appreciate the offer, and I might take you up on it after I’ve crawled around the second level for a while. There’s sort of a weird logic to the duct and vent layout. I suspect it’s going to be the same on every level. I don’t know if I could explain it to you. It’s kind of an intuitive thing. If we switched places now, you’d have to waste a lot of time figuring out what I’ve already figured out. Just get down to Level Two and get those lights on and vents open. I can’t tell you how uplifting those lights are. It’s like a Christmas tree on Christmas morning. Knowing you can jump into that lit room anytime you want is good for a hundred more feet of crawling.”

  Marty was about to argue the point, but thought better of it. “See you on Level Two,” he said.

  Grace was staring at him with those robin’s-egg-blue eyes, as if she were reading his thoughts. There was a time when they could read each other’s thoughts. He wondered if she could still do it.

  “He’s right,” she said quietly.

  “I know,” Marty said, handing the radio back to her. “I’m just worried. For all we know, the chupacabra might be heading right for him. This isn’t really his fight.”

  “It is now,” Grace said.

  • • •

  Nine smelled the musky scent of rats and mice, the sharp sweat of a human, and something else he had never smelled before. Something powerful and strange. Repugnant yet compelling. Delicious. Dangerous. But not nearly as dangerous as the woman with the box he had left behind. But she was never behind. She lived in his head. In his fur. She was buried deep in his muscle and bone. No amount of scratching and licking could rid him of her. He dreamed about her when his eyes closed. Fearful dreams … Stop! He would stop when he wanted to go. Go! He would go when he wanted to stop. Sleep! He would sleep when he wasn’t tired. Wake! Right! Left! Fast! Slow! Dig! Climb! Hide! She was slow and weak, but she had the box. She watched him, but not nearly as much as he watched her. He knew her better than she knew him. In the room he had smelled her fear. The sour scent of her terror overwhelmed the fear of the other two humans. He was about to move when — Sleep! — it went dark. He awoke in another steel crate that seemed to have no end. The sweating human seemed to be traveling in the direction of the dangerous smell. Trails of loose wires lined the path. Nine tasted the coppery ends. The human had bled. Nine licked the dried salty blood. Hunt! Fast! The commands shouted in his head. He hated the woman. He hated the box. He wanted to kill the woman. He wanted to drink the woman’s blood. But he could not. She was commanding him. She was inside his head. Hunt! Fast! Hunt! Hunt!

  Noah, Butch, and Yvonne had gone down to Yvonne’s office on Level Three to watch the hunt on a bigger screen. She had a way of hooking the box up to her twenty-one-inch computer monitor. Butch had stayed with them for about thirty seconds, then left them there. He had no desire to watch a hunt. He needed fresh air, he needed to get away from Yvonne Zloblinavech and her little freak show. But mostly, he needed to hunt, not watch something else hunt.

  Luther’s going to meet a grisly end. Glad I won’t be there to see it. If I didn’t despise him so much, I mi
ght feel sorry for the kid.

  Butch shook off the thoughts. He had more important things to think about. Namely, Marty O’Hara. If he could tie up that loose end for Noah, there was a good chance he would be on his way to Paris in a few hours. He wasn’t looking forward to spending any more time than he had to with Yvonne, but anything was better than spending time with Mr. Zwilling. He felt a chill go down his spine at the thought of it. Zwilling creeped him out even more than the chupacabra.

  The elevator door opened and he stepped out into a thick fog. A cold, steady breeze was pushing it in from Puget Sound. It would delay Noah’s flight if it didn’t clear by sunrise.

  Marty O’Hara is somewhere in this fog. Confused, cold, vulnerable, and all mine.

  The elevator disappeared back into the ground. Butch stood in the swirling fog, letting his eyes adjust to the dark, listening for noises that didn’t belong. He knew the sounds of the Ark so well. The lion’s roar, the chuff of the tiger, the grunt of the hippo, the crocodile’s bellow. Marty had gotten the better of him twice now. In the Congo, he had snuck up behind him and split his head open with a tree branch.

  A tree branch!

  Butch still couldn’t believe the kid had gotten the drop on him like that.

  And then aboard the Coelacanth …

  Butch shook his head in wonder. He had tossed Marty over the side of the ship. He had seen the terrified expression on his face when he dropped. Then a few hours later he saw Marty on deck, goofing around with Luther as if nothing had happened.

  I’ll have to ask him how that happened before I kill him. Professional curiosity.

  He climbed over the rail, deciding that the best hunting technique under these conditions would be walk, stop, listen, and stalk. By now Marty would be moving. He wouldn’t have seen anyone in hours. His guard would be completely down. He would have already searched the perimeter and realized there was no way out.

  He’ll be back probing the center by now, wondering if Luther was hiding inside the Ark or had left when it closed, thinking that Marty had split. Gets confusing when you hunt with others.

  Butch smiled. This was exactly why he preferred to hunt alone. Friends and partners always got you in trouble. You spent more time thinking about them than your prey.

  He walked fifty paces down the path, stopped, and lis —

  “Butch?”

  The radio! He cursed himself. He should have turned it off, or at least plugged in the earpiece. He fumbled to get it off his belt before the impatient and loud Noah Blackwood started to shout —

  “Pick up, Butch!”

  The shout was loud enough to wake every animal in the park. Noah might have just as well announced over the Ark’s loudspeakers that Butch was hunting Marty.

  “I’m here,” Butch said quietly, hoping Noah would get the hint.

  He didn’t.

  “Where?” Noah shouted.

  Butch turned the volume down as low as it would go. “Up top. Southeast Asia. Have you finished the … uh … experiment?” They were careful when they used the two-ways, just in case some ped outside the park was scanning radio frequencies.

  “We’re working on it. What are you doing up top?”

  “Looking for … uh … intruders.”

  “I want you to go to the mansion.”

  “Why?”

  “Check on my girl.”

  “You said she was asleep.”

  “I want you to make sure everything is … uh … secure.”

  Meaning Noah wanted to make sure she was still in bed and probably had a bad feeling that she wasn’t. Butch had a bad feeling, too, but it had nothing to do with Grace Wolfe. It had to do with Marty. He could cause them a lot more trouble than his cousin, who seemed perfectly content to be with her rich grandfather while he showered her with gifts and spoiled her rotten.

  “You want me to go into her … uh … room?”

  “How else would you make sure?”

  “She’s probably asleep.”

  “If she wakes up, say something about the sweep.”

  “The sweep?”

  “This is getting tedious, Butch. Just check and get back to me.”

  “Why don’t you just send —”

  “He’s not here. Just check on Grace!”

  Butch wasn’t going to actually say Mr. Zwilling over the radio, which he and Noah commonly did, because nobody knew who Mr. Zwilling was. It was a test to see if Yvonne, who was no doubt standing right next to Noah, knew about Zwilling. Noah cutting him off meant that she didn’t.

  She doesn’t know about Paul. She doesn’t know about Zwilling. Noah doesn’t trust her. Yet.

  “I’ll check on Grace,” Butch said.

  • • •

  “I have to go,” Grace said, pulling the door keys off the lanyard and handing them to Marty. They had just gotten to Level Two.

  “Wait a second!” Marty said.

  “There’s no time,” Grace said, slipping the lanyard over her head. “I have to be in bed when Butch gets there.” She started for the elevator. Marty followed her.

  “This is a bad idea,” he said. “He’ll beat you to the mansion.”

  “I know a shortcut,” she said.

  “Who cares if they know you’re there or not? They’re going to find out in a few hours anyway.”

  Grace slid the key through the elevator lock. “Timing,” she said, stepping into the car. “If I don’t get back, everything will be ruined. It has to do with the emails. I’ll explain later. Turn on the Christmas lights for Dylan.” She tossed her radio to him. “I won’t need this. I’ll be back.”

  The elevator door slid closed on a stunned and angry-faced Marty O’Hara. Grace regretted leaving him like that, but there really hadn’t been time to explain. If she wasn’t in her bed, Noah would wonder where she was. He’d return to the mansion. He would go to the third floor and find the bedding gone. He would check his computer and know that someone had tampered with it. He might discover that he had sent the episode of Wildlife First that would turn into Wildlife Last if it aired. The elevator stopped on the first level. She sprinted down the corridor to the animal service elevator, hoping the key card worked. It did. She stepped out into the fog on the keeper service road. The road was cleverly hidden from public view, and provided a much quicker route to just about everywhere in the park, including the mansion. Butch was on the public path, which twisted and turned and switched back on itself, giving the illusion that the Ark and the animal exhibits were much bigger than they actually were.

  Illusion, she thought as she sprinted down the road toward the mansion. Noah Blackwood is an illusionist. A wolf in sheep’s skin. A shape-shifter. The Ark is a mirage. It’s all smoke and mirrors….

  She reached the restricted path leading up to the mansion. It was blocked by a heavy gate, opened by the same key card that opened the mansion. She pulled the card from her pocket, swiped it through the slot, and squeezed through as soon as it was wide enough. She sprinted up the path and came around the corner just in time to see Butch lumbering up the steps to the porch. At the top he paused and turned around, almost as if he could sense her. She dove behind a statue of Noah Blackwood surrounded by a dozen adoring endangered species. She had never been this close to the sculpture before. In the dim light, she saw that the animals looking up at him could all be found in the cube on the third floor. There was a bronze plaque on the bottom that read: WILDLIFE FIRST! COMMISSIONED BY DOCTOR NOAH BLACKWOOD TO HONOR ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL.

  Great and small, and stuffed up on the third floor, Grace thought. Who commissions a statue of themselves?

  Butch continued to stare out into the night, then turned around and walked through the front door. Grace hesitated, then sprinted across the manicured lawn.

  • • •

  Butch switched on the light in the foyer. He didn’t know how Noah could stand this place. It looked more like a movie set of a home rather than a real home. Nothing was out of place. There wasn’t a speck
of dust anywhere.

  A cockroach would starve to death in here.

  Of course, Noah’s private quarters on the third floor were a different story. By the looks of them, Noah did the cleaning up there himself. It actually looked lived-in. Butch had never had this verified, but he thought that Noah’s private taxidermist, Henrico, was a frequent guest. The cube where Noah kept his beloved collection didn’t have a fingerprint on it. There had to be a secret door for Henrico to get the animals into the cube from below. And if there was a secret door inside the cube, there was bound to be a door in the cube leading to the private quarters. Butch suspected Henrico was invited up to discuss future projects while Noah had him polish the glass.

  Butch had been up on the third floor many times. He wondered if Yvonne had been invited up there. He hoped not. He turned on the light over the antiseptic staircase, which looked like no one had ever tread on the carpeted risers.

  This time of night, the mansion was usually crawling with house cleaners. Noah didn’t like to see them, so he had them come in when he was asleep. Same for the cooks. Meals were prepared the night before and set out in the dining room by the concession manager just before Noah wanted to eat. If the manager made the mistake of being seen by Noah, there would be a new concession manager serving up the next meal.

  Butch was halfway up the stairs when he realized he didn’t know which room Grace was using. There were several bedrooms on the second floor. This was going to slow down the ridiculous errand unless he got lucky.

  He did not get lucky. The first two bedrooms were empty, as was the third, but it wasn’t enough that they were empty. In order to determine that Grace wasn’t using the rooms, he had to search the closets and dressers for her things.

  Why am I wasting my time opening empty drawers? Marty’s outside, not in here!

  By the time he got to the fourth bedroom, he was thoroughly disgusted. He threw the door open and flicked on the lights.

  Grace let out a bloodcurdling scream. Butch stumbled back through the door in shock.

  “Sorry … I … uh … sorry … I …”

  “What are you doing in here?” Grace shouted.