Excerpt

1

NIGHT HUNT

Jack Tremens spotted a tiny white blip flash across the black screen on the instrument panel. "Did you see that?"

The pilot shook his head.

Jack turned around in the co-pilot's seat. Miguel Walla was leaning forward in the rear seat, staring intently at the screen. "It's not one of them."

"You sure?"

"It was running on all fours."

"Are we close?" Jack asked the pilot.

"We're just about there." The pilot pushed the yoke forward and they flew precariously low over the desert nightscape.

A minute later the skids touched down on the rock-covered sand.

Jack grabbed his gear, opened the side door, and climbed out. He waited until Miguel stepped down then signaled to the pilot.

The chopper lifted off and banked toward a butte where the pilot was instructed to wait for an hour before returning to pick them up unless Jack summoned him sooner with his miniature two-way radio tucked in his ear.

Once the helicopter was gone, the night around them became eerily quiet.

Jack pulled his watch cap down around his ears. "Why is it the desert can get so damn hot during the day and be so frigging cold at night?"

"Be happy we're not in the Gobi," Miguel said.

Jack thought back to their time in the Mongolian desert where they endured a week of sweltering heat trekking across the burning sand in search of an elusive specimen that dwelled underground.

One evening Jack and Miguel had stayed up late getting drunk on Arkhi, Mongolian vodka made from fermented cow milk yogurt, and later passed out in their tents.

Luckily, Jack's full bladder had gotten him up in the middle of the night. Stumbling out of his tent, he'd fallen facedown in six inches of snow. Jack rousted Miguel and they built a fire to stay warm as during the night the temperature had dropped to below freezing due to an extreme climate change.

It seemed ironic that a night of binge drinking would actually save their lives.

Jack and Miguel took a moment to put on their night vision goggles.

"Like being on another planet," Jack said, scanning the green imagery of flatland dotted with barrel cacti and scraggly shrubs.

"Full of crazy creatures," Miguel said.

"Yeah."

Both men wore side arms: Jack a Colt .44 Magnum revolver and Miguel, his .357 Desert Eagle semi-automatic pistol. They hoped they didn't need to use the weapons, as they had come specially outfitted to capture their intended prey alive.

Jack carried a Remington pump shotgun loaded with rubber dum dum bullets, which at a distance had adequate stopping power, but he knew at close range were still lethal so he had to be careful.

Miguel's weapon was a high-tech stun gun on a long pole with a battery pack and a regulated charge with a maximum of 200,000-volts.

"You know, Dr. McCabe said it doesn't matter whether it's dead or alive," Miguel said.

"I know what he said. But how do you properly replicate one of these things if you don't know what makes it tick?"

"You just want to impress Professor Howard."

"Maybe. So what if I do?"

"Just nice to know in case you get us both killed."

"No one's getting—" Jack paused and put his hand up to his ear. "It's the pilot. He's picking up targets, south of us. Maybe coyotes."

Miguel had his finger pressed on his earbud. "But not the four-legged kind."

They crouched and scampered for cover behind a large bush.

Jack peered between the branches with his night vision goggles and scanned the desert for anything that moved.

A thermal image of a man appeared, running across the rugged desert floor. He was wearing a backpack and carrying a plastic water jug. A woman came into view lugging a tote bag.

Soon there were more of them, all weighed down with rucksacks, each struggling to keep up with the rest of the illegal immigrants having crossed the border.

They looked like invading aliens in the green glow.

"Mules," Miguel whispered.

Jack counted three men with assault rifles—armed cartel thugs—wrangling the frightened people. He turned and looked at Miguel.

Miguel shook his head.

Even if they intervened, they were clearly outgunned. There was nothing Jack and Miguel could do but wait until they passed. Hopefully there wouldn't be another group right behind.

When the drug traffickers were far enough away, Jack pushed a button on his wristwatch and the crystal lit up. "We have forty-three minutes before our ride comes back." He looked at Miguel. "A case of Coronas if this works."

"It will." Miguel unzipped a duffle bag all the way. He reached inside, pulled out a small piñata shaped like a goat, and placed it on the ground.

"Weren't you supposed to send that for your daughter's birthday?"

"I was but Maria says Sophia is now into unicorns," Miguel said, reaching back into the bag. He took out an MP3 player and a plastic bottle. He handed the media device to Jack.

Jack had been skeptical when Miguel had first proposed the idea of using a dummy, but figured it was worth a shot. He knew they couldn't bring a real goat, as it would have cried the whole time once it sensed danger.

Besides, he'd seen what those things could do to a live animal and it was pretty gruesome.

Miguel unscrewed the cap off the plastic bottle and poured a thick liquid over the piñata. "The goat blood should draw them out."

"Time to set the trap." Jack placed the digital audio player on the ground under the cardboard goat then turned it on.

A distressed kid blatted for its mother from the tiny speaker.

Jack and Miguel snuck over to a nearby bush to wait.

It took only ten minutes for the ruse to work.

The creature that lurked out of the darkness was nearly four-feet tall and stood on two legs.

Fish eyes gaped from the egg-shaped head. Its mouth was open like a deep round bowl, revealing needle-sharp teeth.

The neck was taut and its shoulders were hunched on a lean torso, bony knobs running down its spine to the base of its serpentine tail.

At the end of each front arm was a two-claw appendage.

The hind legs were slightly bent at the knees, but then the limbs formed into hocks and withers like a dog; each foot having three bird-like talons.

The chupacabra looked especially creepy in the green imaging.

Jack watched the creature sniffing the air, drawn by the scent of the blood as it moved stealthily toward the bogus goat hidden behind the shrub. He waited until the thing was close enough and stepped out from the concealment.

The chupacabra spotted Jack and turned to bolt.

Jack fired the shotgun.

The rubber bullet struck the creature in the shoulder.

It stumbled forwards, but stayed on its feet.

Jack ratcheted another dum dum into the chamber and shot it again, hitting it squarely in the middle of the back. This time it fell to the ground, kicking its feet and screeched like a cat that had just had its tail pinched under a rocking chair.

Miguel rushed up and shoved the tip of the stun gun into its chest and gave it a sharp jolt of electricity.

The chupacabra jerked convulsively for a few seconds then went rigid.

"Jesus, Miguel."

"Don't worry. I set it for half charge."

Jack leaned over the ugly creature to confirm it was alive and was relieved to see it was still breathing. He picked up the media player, turned it off, and slipped the device into a side pocket of his cargo pants.

Miguel rolled out a thick canvas bag on the ground that resembled a body bag and had air holes in the fabric. He pulled down the long zipper.

Jack and Miguel picked up the chupacabra and slipped it inside the bag. Miguel closed up the zipper and fastened a small padlock so it couldn't be unzipped.

Jack spoke into his two-way radio and told the pilot they were ready to be picked up.

They took off their night vision goggles and gazed up at the stars.

"Beautiful, eh? Kind of reminds me of—" Jack paused when he heard something in the bush behind him. He tucked the butt of the shotgun into his shoulder and aimed at the source of the noise, which sounded like a frantic pack of Pekinese shredding apart a newspaper.

Miguel switched on his flashlight and shined the beam behind the bush.

Four hunched chupacabras shrank away from the light and vanished into the night.

The only pieces left of the piñata were the head, a single leg, and a few tattered strips of paper and cardboard. The hungry bloodsuckers had eaten every scrap of paper mache that had been covered with blood.

Miguel looked at Jack and laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"Sneaky bastards went and ate the candy."