EL Chupacabra

Monster Wednesdays Post #2

Goats beware!

I wrote about Chupa today because my ten year old, who is very into art and everything weird, kept hounding me with drawings of the chimeric monster. Armed with his colorful portrayals, he has made it his business to try and convince every single adult that he has met this summer about the Chupacabra's existence.

[You can imagine how the skeptics look at me whenever he goes into one of his Chupacabra rants.]

This one is a little controversial because, regardless of the fact that it's legend is deeply rooted in actual facts, eye witnesses can't seem to settle the matter of it's appearance, the only constant being it's MO, that it drains its poor furry victims of their blood. Hence the given name, coined by puertorrican comedian Silverio Pérez, which literally translates to Goat Sucker.

It's first reported attacks date back to 1975 in Moca, Puerto Rico. Although, back then they nicknamed the sneaky beast, El Vampiro de Moca (Moca's Vampire). Most thought it was a joke and some even claimed that it was the work of a satanic cult.

It wasn't until 1995, when a different farmer woke up to find his goats or chickens killed every day, that people began to take it seriously. Well, as seriously as a nocturnal predator that fed on the blood of unsuspecting farm animals could be taken. As it's done with almost everything that goes wrong in the island, it was initially attributed to alien activity.

[Seriously? I'll let that one slide because Paul hadn't come out yet and they didn't know then what we know now, that aliens don't suck the blood out of the chickens, they eat them whole!]

I was just ten years old myself when the Chupacabra took over the news, monopolizing every story until everything was tied to it. It got to the point that if some rich old lady's poodles were found dead... ^gasp^ the Chupacabra did it!

But, the 1994 film adaptation of Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire had already shown us the truth behind the strange happenings. If people wanted to believe in weird looking alien monsters rather than a certain beautiful, yet tortured, immortal, that was their deal. I knew better.

Chupa's attacks have reportedly been centered on Puerto Rico, although Mexico and a few other countries in the Old and New continents haven't escaped the little devils unscathed.

This beastie has become so famous that even Scooby Doo decided to take a ride in the Goat Sucker's horror train with it's animated movie, Scooby Doo and the Monster of Mexico.

So if some idiot ever asks you where's Scooby, you know what to tell them. He's running from Chupa!

Another string of attacks began in 2004, this time in Texas. Unlike in Puerto Rico, a farmer was able to document the sighting and even found the dead something that had been terrorizing his livestock. It looked like a hairless cross between a dog, a coyote and a kangaroo with fangs so big that they would make even the most ferocious tiger proud.

As it always happens, the government stepped in and took the carcass for testing and concluded that it was just some kind of coyote-dog hybrid with mange.

[^cough^ conspiracy ^cough^]

If you've ever seen a dog with sarcoptic mange, you know that it's not a pretty sight.

Still...

 No one has ever bothered to try to explain why these so called “coyotes with mange” behave so alike whether they're in Mexico, Texas or Russia.

 

Also in 2004, the Syfy Channel funded an expedition to the Island of Enchantment (Puerto Rico) with the objective of finding tangible proof that would confirm the reality of the Chupacabra myth. They didn't find much and at the end, they were left with more fantastic stories that they'd bargained for, a whole new set of questions that would be left unanswered and a book.

 So, what is it?

^ominous voice^ The world may never know...

The Chupacabra can simply be a mangy coyote drawn out of the mountains by a seasonal drought, the hottest and most sensitive vampire to have ever walked the Earth or it may just be a blood sucking canine creature from outer space.

 

You decide.

[Tell you one thing, though... I'm certainly not farming any animals on the near future, just to be safe.]

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P.S. My debut novel, ShadowRiser, became available yesterday. Click on it's name to check it out!!!

Until next Monster Wednesday! ;)