by James Cherry
The doctor opened the sandwich and examined the contents. Someone had put a slice of onion on his sandwich. He hated onions. He threw the sandwich down into the charred remains of the campfire in disgust.
Ayako muttered, “Just a second Doc.”
She put the finishing touches on another sandwich and moved to the doctor’s side. After handing it to the doctor, she put her hands on her hips and turned to glare at Marty.
The doctor examined the sandwich and noted, with satisfaction, that it contained no onions. He looked up at Ayako. “I thought you knew I hated onions.”
“I know you do. I did not put it in your sandwich." Waving one hand in Marty’s general direction, she continued, "Marty distracted me while I was making your sandwich, he must have placed the onion in then." She shrugged in apology to Doctor Burch and shot Marty another glare that would curdle milk.
Marty, being no glass of milk, merely waved and smiled.
The doctor wolfed down the ham and cheese sandwich in record time. Not even bothering to let it settle, he stood up from his seat and took one last swig from his glass of water.
He waved at Ayako and said, “Well, thank you for the sandwich and drink, but I have to be going now. Got to get all the data collected from the terminals." Taking a step towards the truck, he added, "I will meet everyone back at the stakeout spot about dark. Get some rest everyone."
He waved cheerfully to no one in particular and turned to Bo. Gently, he placed a hand on Bo’s shoulder and whispered softheartedly, “I will be okay by myself, get some rest.”
“I will go with you,” Bo stated flatly.
The doctor shook his head in resignation and grinned, “Have it your way. Come on."
He knew it wasn’t worth arguing with Bo.
Picking up his pack, he slung it over his rumpled and dirty shirt and said, “I don’t think you'll need that gun Bo, we'll be back before dark.”
Bo picked up his shotgun, which never strayed far from his hand, and checked the chamber. “I always go prepared as you never know what might happen out there. What if our truck breaks down, and we get caught out in the dark?" With that said, Bo chambered a round and stood at the ready.
Doctor Burch nodded and turned to the truck. Marty was standing next to the SUV with his shoulder pack on, apparently ready to go. He didn’t feel like arguing, so he merely nodded to Marty and jumped into the driver’s seat.
Marty began climbing into the front passenger side but a low growl from Bo prompted him to change his mind. The doctor laughed as Marty quickly reversed gears and crawled into the back seat. Bo quickly took his place next to the doctor and fastened his seat belt.
Marty leaned forward and said, “Geesh Bo, I think you need to sleep sometime. You are getting crankier and crankier.”
“I need to be in a defensive position in case we come under attack. I can’t do much from the back seat now can I?" Bo retorted.
“Whatever." Marty waved a hand in Bo's face. "Let’s go, Doc. I want to see what kind of data the other terminals collected last night," he continued in a more mischievous voice, "You know, the real reason I'm coming along is to make sure you don’t alter the data." As if an afterthought he added, "I guess you can call me the control in your experiment.”
Bo surprised Marty with his rebuke, “Actually, I was thinking of other words to call you, such as pest, annoying, immature, asshole . . .”
The doctor grinned as he cranked the truck. He really hated to interrupt Bo, since it was a rare treat to hear him chastise Marty, but they had work to do.
The doctor said, “Please boys, not now. I'm just plain worn out, and I have a headache the size of Texas. I don't want to hear any bickering. I just want to get this data and get some sleep.”
Marty sighed and said, “Okay, Doc, I won’t say another word to that butt licker." He sat back in his seat and wiggled around as he attempted to find a comfortable spot.
To his credit, Bo didn’t even flinch at the insult. He remained silent in obvious respect to Doctor Burch.
Chapter 4
Doctor Burch slowed the SUV as the gravel road ended at the edge of a large field. He eased the vehicle off the road and maneuvered between a pair of scraggly junipers in order to gain access to the grazing area. He immediately spied the first of four terminal units that he had placed around the field.
The doctor pulled alongside the first unit and hopped out of the truck. He turned and leaned through the window to look at Marty.
“Hand me the laptop.”
Marty looked up from his handheld game and rolled his eyes. He retrieved the laptop from the seat next to him. “Here,” he growled and thrust it towards the doctor.
“Thanks,” the doctor replied easily.
Undaunted by Marty’s attitude, the doctor strode up to the terminal and attached his laptop through a USB port. With a few keystrokes he downloaded the data into his laptop. Once the data was retrieved, he reset and re-armed the terminal and examined the battery power indicator. He smiled with satisfaction as he noted that the battery was at sixty percent and it would not have to be recharged until the next day.
He quickly scanned the data, looking for any signs that the terminal had been tripped. According to the data, nothing had happened in this area the night before.
Closing his laptop, the doctor wound the USB cable around the laptop and returned to the truck. Easing the SUV through the waist high grass, he drove along the edge of the field until he spotted the second terminal.
Using the same process, he downloaded the data from the second terminal and examined it with a trained eye.
Nothing.
He sighed and closed his laptop. The next two units would probably yield the same results.
***
Over the next few hours, they managed to check almost all the terminal units and found no pertinent data. As he awaited the final download, Doctor Burch looked at his watch. July 11, 4:59 P.M. Hopefully, the night would again be dark enough so there might be some activity by the creatures. With the overall data, which he had collected thus far, it was obvious the chupacabra only moved on the new moon. This would be their last chance before they would have to abandon their trip until the next new moon.
The download finally terminated and the doctor half-heartedly scanned through the lines of data. A data anomaly caught his eye and he pulled up the file. He had captured a radar contact signature at 3:08 A.M. Sweat popped up on his brow as he nervously clicked on the icon to load the film footage. As he indexed to 3:08 A.M. and started the footage, he let out a breath in awe. “Good lord, what is that thing?”
Marty hopped out of the SUV and lazily leaned over the doctor's left shoulder so that he could see the thermal image on the screen.
He beckoned rapidly to Bo, “you have to see this!”
Bo jumped off the hood of the SUV and quickly moved into place at the doctor’s right shoulder and stared down at the video.
His hand shaking with excitement, the doctor pointed at the screen. “Watch this Marty!” He restarted the video feed.
Marty rolled his eyes as the thermal image of a cow slowly moved across the screen. “It’s called a cow,” he said. He started to turn away but the doctor grabbed his arm.
“Watch!” Doctor Burch pleaded.
The image of a large flying creature suddenly darted into the picture from high above and landed on top of a panicked cow.
The details of the creature were obscured by pixilation due to its rapid movement as it attacked the terrified cow. What could be discerned was that it was at least six feet in length with a wingspan of at least twice that. The body was snakelike with four legs sticking out from the bottom of the tube-like body.
The image became even more distorted and blurred as the cow bucked and turned like a rodeo bull attempting to dislodge a cowboy. The creature's head suddenly shot downward into the vicinity of the neck area.
The doctor turned to Marty. “What do you think of that?”
As if
unimpressed, Marty replied, "It appears the creature is not homeothermic but is rather poikilothermic."
Bo’s face wrinkled in confusion. He asked, "Marty, what did you just say?"
Doctor Burch intervened, his gaze fixed upon the monitor, "Homeothermic basically means warm-blooded. All mammals and modern birds are warm-blooded. Our bodies maintain a constant temperature. Poikilothermic means a creature has to rely on the environment and behavior to regulate body temperature…”
Bo finished, “in layman’s terms, Cold-blooded."
The doctor nodded in agreement.
Bo asked, "So, how can Marty tell all of that from a thermal picture?"
Marty answered, "Had this creature been homeothermic, its heat signature would have shown up as various shades of bright yellow. This particular creature does not seem to generate heat within its own body. The dark reds attest to that fact."
The doctor’s mind raced with theories. He compared the creature to modern birds as far as its shape and wingspan were concerned, and concluded there were no known birds of that size and configuration alive, or known to have ever been alive.
He also observed the creature appeared to have four legs. Modern birds and bats had wings, which evolved from legs. Thus, they only had one pair of legs and one pair of wings. This creature has two pair of legs and one pair of wings. This would mean that somehow this creature evolved with three sets of legs and one pair turning into wings at some point.
The cow, which had continued to leap and turn in an attempt to dislodge the creature, was finally taken to the ground. The snakelike head, which had been clamped to the cow's neck in a vise like grip, finally released. The head rose up and suddenly darted down into the cow’s neck. The impact was so vigorous that the blood, which shot from the neck, appeared on the thermal image as a jet of red and orange much like lava spewing out a volcano.
A large bull darted in front of the camera obscuring the view. As it cavorted nervously in place for several moments, its movements exaggerated the red and yellow heat signature, causing the glowing screen to flicker as if it were on fire. When the terrified bull finally moved off in a mad dash, the flying creature was gone.
The only remaining image on the screen was the faint glowing red image of the downed cow in the center of the field.
Doctor Burch followed the line of sight of the camera lens. He hadn’t seen the body of the cow when they had entered the field but should have had he been paying attention. The carcass had to be close.
He leaped to his feet and plunged into the knee high grass. Dashing off in the direction that the camera was pointed, he hopped over obstacles as if he were an Olympian leaping over hurdles.
***
Marty glanced at Bo with a bewildered look. "Just what was that all about?" Catching sight of the doctor, he chuckled at the sight of the portly man running and jumping across the field.
Bo shot off after the doctor without answering.
Marty sighed and shrugged his shoulders to no one in particular. He took off after Bo in a slow trot so that he could find out what all the fuss was about.
***
As the doctor neared the halfway point of the field he stumbled upon the body of the cow. The corpse was lying stiff, the legs sticking straight out, horizontal to the ground. The body was cold with eyes frozen wide in fear. As with other cattle corpses at the first site, this one only had the signature wound as well.
One bite mark in the neck.
“You find her, Doc?” Marty called out as he trotted up behind the doctor.
The doctor replied, “Would you look at that wound.”
Marty suddenly jumped, as Bo seemed to appear out of nowhere beside him. He turned to Bo and scolded, “Good lord, make a little noise next time so you won’t scare the shit out of me again. Do you always have to be so damn quiet?"
Bo looked on with a stony expression on his face. "I was standing right next to that bush, you ran right by me," he said and without saying another word he stepped closer to the cow to take a look.
Doctor Burch held up a hand and said, “Please Bo check the area around the cow for any of the creature's tracks. Hopefully, it left a footprint or something from which we can obtain a cast.”
Bo obeyed without a word and began to slowly search the sandy ground around the body of the cow.
The doctor moved carefully to the wound on the cow’s neck. He pulled out an ink pen from his front shirt pocket and probed the bite wound. As his pen probed deeper inside the bite, he hit something solid.
“Marty, do you have any tools with you that I can use to extract this object from the wound?”
Marty perked up with interest and he asked, “You think it’s a tooth Doc?”
“I hope so,” the doctor replied. “Then again, it may just be a bit of the cow’s bone which was sheared off in the attack.”
Marty dug around in his pack and managed to find a small set of forceps. He handed the forceps to the doctor, who immediately began to dig around inside the wound. He yanked hard and a small white object shot out of the wound and into the grass behind him.
“Nobody move,” the doctor directed. “Marty, did you see where that object went?”
Marty shrugged and pointed to a grassy area. He replied, “Somewhere in there I guess, I only got a glimpse of it."
The doctor dropped to all fours and began to crawl around on his hands and knees as he gingerly searched the grass.
“Marty, Bo, help me out here. The object flew into this grass. We need to find it.”
Marty and Bo immediately dropped to all fours and started to search the grass surrounding the doctor. It was Bo’s keen eyes that spotted the object.
“Doctor, here is something. It may be what you are looking for.”
Doctor Burch let out a whoop as he picked up the object with the forceps. He looked up at the wondering eyes of his companions and showed them what he had picked up.
Cradled in his forceps was a large tooth, which was curved and sharply pointed, such as that of a predator. It was covered in blood, but was obviously white in color, with very sharp and tiny serrations on both the front and backside. At about two inches in length it could pass for a tooth from a lion, tiger, or perhaps a crocodile. However, it was obvious from the serrations that it was no feline or crocodile tooth.
Marty grabbed the doctor’s hand and pulled the tooth closer to his face to get a better look. He said, “The tooth looks much like a large reptile tooth, much larger than any reptile currently known to be alive. It is very similar to a dinosaur tooth such as the raptor, Deltadromeus agilis.”
The doctor nodded in agreement and said, “I believe we have discovered a new species and here is the proof.”
“Doc, I found a track, right before you called for my help. It may be of interest to you,” Bo said as he pointed at the ground near the head of the cow.
The doctor blinked and looked up at Bo. He looked back at the tooth and then at Marty, apparently lost as to what to do next.
Marty shook his head in amusement as he retrieved a small zip-lock bag from his pack and he held it out to the doctor.
Doctor Burch was momentarily transfixed by the bag and it took him a moment to realize what Marty was offering him. “Sorry, this revelation has me a little addled. This tooth is the proof I need to confirm a new species exists. This could be the proof I need to vindicate myself to the scientific community," He said as he excitedly grabbed the bag from Marty and dropped the tooth inside. He carefully closed the bag and with his free hand began patting down his pockets.
“Where is my damn pen,” Doctor Burch asked no one in particular.
Marty cleared his throat.
The doctor glanced up and saw that the young man was holding out a permanent marker. “Thanks,” he said as he accepted the marker.
With shaking hands, he wrote some catalog numbers the date and the time on the outside of the bag. After he was satisfied the evidence was correctly marked, he took one last look at the to
oth and unceremoniously shoved the bag into his pocket.
The doctor proceeded to Bo’s location and looked down. To his astonishment, embedded in the soft sand was a perfect imprint of a large birdlike footprint. Three toes were forward facing with one toe to the rear.
The doctor didn’t waste any time. He reached behind his head for his backpack, and grasped only air. Perplexed, he began another quick pat down as if his backpack had suddenly fallen into one of his pockets.
Marty laughed and said, “Doc, you left your backpack in the SUV.”
The doctor’s face reddened and he sheepishly replied, “Can you run back there and fetch it for me?”
Marty hesitated. “Why me?” he asked.
“Already on my way,” Bo called as he sprinted through the grass.
The doctor took a deep breath and slowly let it out. His eyes moistened over as he attempted to stop the flow of tears. This was his big find, his moment of truth. This was his vindication to the entire scientific community.
As if reading the doctor’s mind Marty said, “Doc, don’t get all worked up. You haven’t proven anything yet.” He patted the doctor on the back. “A tooth, a print, and a blurry video feed aren’t exactly enough proof to convince the world.”
The sudden realization snapped the doctor back into reality. He looked at Marty through bleary eyes and replied, “Damn it kid, do you always have to spoil my moments?” But he knew Marty was right, he needed more proof. He needed to capture one of the creatures.
Bo skidded to a stop in front of the doctor and held out the backpack. The doctor accepted it and began to rummage around inside the main compartment. Not finding what he was looking for, he first unzipped a side compartment, then the front.
Frustrated, the doctor flung his pack down and growled, “Where the hell is my damn digital camera?”
Marty laughed and reached into his pocket. “Sorry, I was playing with it earlier.” He held the small silvery camera out to the doctor.
The doctor snatched the camera and glared at Marty. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you had it?” he demanded.