Chupacabra

by Roland Smith

  “I … uh … Dr. Blackwood … uh …”

  “What?”

  “He … uh … he … the sweep.”

  “The sweep? What about it?”

  She spit the two questions out. He had never seen her angry. If he’d ever had any doubt that Grace was related to Noah Blackwood, that was gone now. Her rage was just like her grandfather’s.

  “We’re … uh … still in the middle of our … uh … sweep,” he said, managing to string out a partial sentence. “He wanted to make sure you were inside.”

  “And you thought kicking open the door and turning on the lights would be the best way to do that? Are you insane?”

  “I didn’t know which room was yours.”

  “So why not kick all the doors open until you found the right one? Why not scare Grace half to death? I’m going to talk to my grandfather about this in the morning. Get out! And turn out the light when you go!”

  Butch turned out the light and quietly closed the door. When he got outside again, he unclipped his radio, surprised to find his hand was shaking. His hands never shook. He took a couple of deep breaths before clicking the TALK button.

  “She was asleep,” he said.

  “Good,” Noah said. “I hope you didn’t wake her.”

  Butch glanced up at Grace’s window. It was dark. “She’s asleep,” he said, which probably wasn’t true.

  Hard to fall asleep when you’re mad.

  “Fine,” Noah said. “I’ll let you know when our experiment down here has run its course. Over and out.”

  Butch continued to look up at Grace’s window, wondering if she was watching him. He had a strong sense that she was. He thought back over the exchange in her bedroom. Something wasn’t quite right. In fact, something was wrong. The girl in the bedroom was not the Grace Blackwood that he knew. He’d never seen her really frightened, which could explain her reaction, but he didn’t think so.

  He turned the radio off and clipped it to his belt. He walked away from the mansion. He did not look back. He did not go very far.

  “Over and out to you, too, Noah,” Marty said without depressing the talk button — although he was tempted to, just to rattle both Blackwood and Butch.

  He was glad Grace had beaten Butch to the mansion and apparently saved the day — but from what, he didn’t know. He was happy Dylan was up in the vents trying to save his best friend. He was extremely pleased that Luther and Dylan hadn’t been eaten by the chupacabra, as far as he knew. What he wasn’t happy about was his role in this whole thing. As critical as opening doors and turning on lights was, it wasn’t doing much for him personally. He felt useless and underutilized. He had spoken to Dylan twice since Grace had run off, offering to switch places with him. Both times Dylan had passed, saying that the vents were actually wider on the second level and that he was making good progress.

  The only interesting room Marty had been into was what he decided to call the pig room. He wasn’t sure what they were being used for, but three miniature potbellied pigs were in it. He thought about letting them go so the chupacabra wouldn’t get them, but figured they were probably safer in their stainless steel cages than they’d be wandering around the corridor.

  Marty walked down the corridor, opened yet another door, kicked yet another towel into the jamb, flipped on yet another light switch, set up the ladder on yet another bench, opened yet another vent, climbed down, gathered his things, walked to the next door, slid the key card through yet another lock, opened yet another door, and started the whole boring routine again.

  Except this one ended with the chupacabra sticking its ugly face in Marty’s as soon as the vent dropped open.

  Marty fell backward off the ladder, sending a half-dozen beakers of chemicals flying across the lab. He tried to get up and run, but his legs were tangled in the ladder and a stack of towels and rags. The chupacabra continued to slither out of the vent as Marty struggled to free himself. It was gray, and horrible-looking, and much bigger than he thought it would be. In fact, as Marty stared in horror, it looked like the ceiling was giving birth to The Mummy, which was somehow more frightening than a genetically engineered monster. Marty finally got his legs untangled and managed to pull himself to his feet. He wondered if he should knock the chupacabra senseless with the ladder while it was wiggling out and vulnerable, or simply run out of the lab and slam the door behind him.

  “Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to help me out of here?”

  Marty stared up at the ceiling in complete shock. The Mummy, or chupacabra, could talk, and it sounded a lot like Luther Percival Smyth IV.

  “Jeez! Hurry up, you nose-picker. Get me down from here.”

  Marty was relieved on several levels, but he was not about to show it. That wasn’t how things worked between him and Luther. “You look like you’re decomposing,” he said.

  “Yeah?” Luther said. “You look like a custodian.”

  Marty grinned. The joke was kind of lame, but not bad under the circumstances. With all the rags stuffed in his pockets, he did look a little like a custodian. He climbed up on the bench and helped Luther out of the vent. The gray matter was dust sprinkled with rodent pellets, some of which got into Marty’s mouth, causing him to gag, to Luther’s delight.

  “Tell me about it,” Luther said. “My lungs are filled with that toxic sludge. It’s disgusting up there.”

  “I take back what I said about decomposing,” Marty said, choking. “You look like the Mothman.”

  “You know the rules,” Luther said. “You get one insult shot. There are no take backs. What’s a Mothman?”

  “It’s a cryptid,” Marty said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Noah had a couple of them in storage down here.”

  “Cool,” Luther said. “We’ll put the Mothman in our next book.” He went over to the sink and rinsed the dust off his head.

  “Now you look like a vulture,” Marty said.

  Luther ignored him. “You know I got kidnapped and drugged.”

  Marty nodded. “Got it on film.”

  Luther grinned. “It’ll go viral.”

  “They also sent a chupacabra after you.”

  “Why would they send a candelabra after me? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Choo -pah-cah-brah,” Marty said slowly. “It means goat sucker.”

  “Coat sucker? What’s the matter with you?”

  “Clean out your ears,” Marty said.

  “Huh?”

  Marty pointed at Luther’s ears, which were still the color of ash.

  “Oh.” Luther put his head back under the faucet and scooped half a teaspoon of gray goop out of each ear with his index finger. “Say something.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” Marty said.

  “Say that again,” Luther said, grinning.

  “Forget it,” Marty said.

  “So what have you been doing since I got abducted, heroically escaped, took out several of Blackwood’s cameras, and found you completely on my own?” Luther asked.

  Marty began to tell him, but he didn’t get very far. Dylan’s voice came over the radio.

  “Marty, do you copy?”

  In his excitement at seeing Luther, Marty had completely forgotten about Dylan. Before he could answer, Dylan started talking again.

  “I’ve found Luther’s track. He’s definitely been here. I think I can hear him crawling in front of me. I haven’t seen him yet, but he’s not too far ahead. Keep opening those vents.”

  “Don’t move,” Marty said into the radio.

  “What?”

  “Luther’s with me.”

  There was a long pause, then Dylan said quietly, “I guess that’s one of those good news, bad news things.”

  “Yeah,” Marty said. “Can you still hear it?”

  “Yep.”

  “Coming or going?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Do you have any idea where you are?”

  “Nope. I passed an open vent abou
t a hundred feet back. I don’t see any light up ahead.”

  “Then you need to move backward.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  Marty looked at Luther.

  Luther nodded. “He’s right. It’s kind of a one-way street up there. It’s a lot easier to pull yourself forward than it is to push yourself backward. He can do it, but it’s going to be slow, and going backward makes a lot more noise.”

  “So you’ve seen only one lighted vent?” Marty asked.

  “One,” Dylan confirmed.

  “Give me a second.”

  “I’ll give you all the time you want if you can get me out of this pickle without getting me mauled.”

  “I love that guy,” Luther said.

  “You ought to,” Marty said. “He was trying to save your life. Now shut up for a second while I figure this out.”

  Marty closed his eyes and walked … well, ran … through the rooms he’d been in, with his eidetic memory. Even though he hadn’t been up in the ductwork, he had a pretty good idea of how the vents ran from opening all the grates on Level One and a half dozen on Level Two. When he opened his eyes, he knew the direction Dylan needed to go.

  “You need to crawl forward,” he said into the radio.

  “That’s kind of counterintuitive,” Dylan said.

  “I know,” Marty admitted. “We’re going to get in front of you and draw the chupacabra away. Just a head of where you are, you’re going to come to a junction. You need to go right. With luck, the chupacabra is going to double back and go left, toward us.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “That memory thing of mine.”

  Luther gave him an eye roll.

  “You’ll take another right,” Marty said, ignoring him. “You’ll see a light. Drop down into the room and get out of there. We’ll find you in the corridor after we trap the chupacabra. Oh … and turn off your flashlight.”

  “Okay,” Dylan whispered. “Over and out.”

  Marty grabbed his ladder and rags and ran out of the room. The Mothman followed.

  Grace was standing on a chair.

  She had watched Butch walk away from the mansion from her bedroom window, wanting to flee as soon as he disappeared in the swirling fog, but resisting the urge. She was making herself wait for ten minutes before stepping off the chair. She wanted to make sure Butch was well clear of the mansion before she left and headed down below again. She looked at the expensive watch Noah had given her. The second hand had one more lap to go. She wondered if she should leave the watch behind as a message for Noah that she couldn’t be bought. That was the kind of thing the heroine always did in movies.

  I’m not a heroine and this isn’t a movie. I like the watch. I’m keeping it.

  She stepped off the chair.

  She had used the secret passage next to the pool and helipad to get into the mansion, and decided to leave the same way. It was closer to the service road than the front door, and there was more cover in case some of the surveillance had been fixed, or was will working. She hoped Butch would head down below right away. The thought made her quicken her pace. Noah, Yvonne, and the chupacabra were still hunting for Luther. At least she hoped they were. She had to get back below and help Marty. She ran by the pool and the helipad to the service road gate. Once again she swiped her key and squeezed through before it was fully open, then swiped her key on the other side to close it behind her. The gate was unclimbable. Like the levels below, the service area ran in a circle along the back side of every exhibit in the Ark. This way, the keepers could access the animal exhibits for maintenance and cleaning without the public seeing them. If an animal escaped from the back of one of the exhibits, or a holding area, the service road acted like a second cage, allowing keepers to wrangle the escapee before it got out into the public areas. It was a clever design. Because of the winding public paths, hidden moats, and electrified wires, the public thought the animals were running free in gigantic exhibits, but of course that was a lie like everything else Noah Blackwood was involved with.

  No matter how pretty you make it, a cage is a cage.

  She looked at the watch, glad she had kept it now. It would remind her of Noah’s cages for the rest of her life.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Grace nearly jumped out of her shoes. Butch had appeared out of nowhere.

  “What?” he said. “No spitting rage? Nice performance at the mansion. A little overplayed, but —”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Grace said, kicking herself for doing exactly what he was accusing her of. She had overplayed the role, and she should have realized it. “I tried to call my grandfather after you broke into my room, but there was no signal. Where is he?”

  “Busy.”

  “Take me to him.” She couldn’t very well use the elevator key around her neck that she wasn’t supposed to have in front of Butch. Once she got below she would figure out how to get away from him.

  “What are you really doing out here?” Butch asked.

  “I already told you.”

  “I think you’re lying,” Butch said. “I think you’ve been lying since the moment you got to the Ark. I saw you leave by the secret door near the pool. So Noah has secret passages in the house?”

  Grace said nothing, surprised that Butch didn’t know about the passages.

  Butch gave her his version of a smile. “You used the passage to your room before I got up there,” he said. “Where were you? How did you know I was going to the mansion to check on you?”

  “You’ve really lost it, Butch,” she said, and started to walk away.

  Butch grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back. She tried to get away, but it was useless.

  “You’re hurting me,” Grace said.

  Butch’s smile broadened and he tightened his grip.

  “My grandfather will fire you,” Grace said.

  Butch laughed, then said, “Your grandfather might have me killed, but he would never fire me. I’m much too valuable of an employee to be fired. And I’m about to get more valuable. Where’s Marty?”

  Grace was reevaluating her idea of going below with Butch. If she could keep him up top, Marty and Dylan would have one less person to deal with down below.

  She gave Butch a defeated look. “He’s waiting for me at the orangutan exhibit in Southeast Asia.”

  Butch loosened his grip, but he didn’t let her go. “That’s better,” he said. “Who else is here?”

  Grace didn’t answer. Butch increased the pressure on her arm.

  “Okay, okay,” she whined. “Luther was with him, but I think he must have left when the Ark closed, because we can’t find him anywhere. Marty just wants to find him and leave, but he can’t get out.”

  “How did you know Marty was here?”

  “He told one of the concession workers and she told me when I went in to get something to eat. I snuck out and met him a couple of hours ago.”

  Butch let up on his grip, but his eyes narrowed. “How’d you know I was going to the mansion to check on you?”

  “We overheard you and my grandfather talking on the path in Southeast Asia. We were hiding a few feet away when you got the radio call.”

  Butch let her go. Grace was surprised. She rubbed her arm.

  “Let’s go find him,” Butch said.

  “What are you going to do to him?”

  “I’m going to let him out of the Ark. What do you think I’m going to do with him?”

  “You tried to kill him aboard the Coelacanth,” Grace said.

  “Is that what he told you? No wonder you’re so paranoid. I didn’t do anything to him aboard that ship. All we were trying to do was get the hatchlings and you. We have nothing against Marty, or any of Wolfe’s crew. Not anymore.”

  “We still have to find Luther,” Grace said.

  Butch shook his head. “He left just before the Ark closed. You were right. We have it on the surveillance video. We were
surprised Marty wasn’t with him.”

  Liar, liar, pants on fire, Grace thought. You weren’t surprised at all, and you have no intention of letting Marty or Luther go. But first you have to find Marty. And I’m not going to let that happen.

  Butch stared at her as if he were waiting for something. The problem was that Grace didn’t know what that something was.

  “Why did Luther shave his head?”

  This was a test question. He was trying to figure out if she had seen Luther, which she had — on the surveillance video. But she wasn’t about to let Butch know that. “Luther shaved his head?” she said.

  “Like a cue ball with scabs.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t Luther.”

  “It was Luther,” Butch said, continuing to stare.

  Grace met his gaze. “Maybe we should call my grandfather and tell him what we’re doing,” she said.

  She was pretty sure he wouldn’t call him. Butch wanted Marty, and he was using her to find him. Blackwood wouldn’t want her anywhere near Marty O’Hara under any circumstances.

  “He knows what we’re doing,” Butch said. “Well, at least what I’m doing. He doesn’t know you’re looking for Marty, too.” He unclipped his radio. “You sure you want me to tell him?”

  He was bluffing. Grace was tempted to call him on it, but decided it was too big a risk. “I guess not,” she said, smiling shyly. “We’re going to Paris tomorrow. I’m sure he’s busy getting ready.”

  “Yeah,” Butch said. “There are a lot of loose ends to tie up before he leaves.”

  “What’s the deal with the phones?” Grace asked. It seemed like a logical question, and one that he might be waiting for. “Marty tried to call Luther, but he couldn’t get a signal.”

  “That’s a problem here,” Butch said. “It’s a pain in the butt. I think it has something to do with the fog.”

  Like fog has anything to do with cell signals! It was all she could do not to give him a humongous eyeball roll.

  “Let’s go find Marty,” Butch said. “I’m sure he’s worried about what’s taking you so long.”

  That was the only truthful thing Butch had said since he’d grabbed her. She was certain Marty was worried. She wished she could let him know what was going on.