Doc frowned, hefting his swordstick and pointing the tip at the dubious Mildred. “You should cease and desist with the eye-popping and lip-smacking. Such overblown exaggerated movements, Dr. Wyeth, make you look foolish, not I. Right now, you put me in the mind of a poor pickaninny forced to perform in the confines of an old minstrel show. I half expect you to break into an arm-swinging tap dance in hopes of being thrown a penny.”
J.B. snickered before reassuming his usual poker face. “That tears it! I like you better when you’re a moron,” Mildred said tiredly. “I’m amazed to hear myself saying this, but you’re less annoying when you don’t have a brain in your head!”
“Come on, now, what’s got into you, Millie?” J.B. said, reaching out a hand to lightly brush the back of Mildred’s plaited hair. “Ease up.”
The physician was having no soothing from her man, and she spun on one heel to make an exit away from the men and into the house. “Supposedly people are dying while we talk about evil spirits and freaks in vampire capes. I don’t have to stand around listening to this garbage. If I want to hear this crap, I can pull out an endless supply of moldy old Stephen King novels.”
“Go ahead, Doc,” Ryan said, sitting on one of the deep windowsills in the outer wall of the home.
The older man stuck a hand in one of the pockets of his coat and held the left lapel with his other, assuming a more formal stance before picking up the threads of his tale. “Blood, Ryan Cawdor, is the crimson elixir of the gods and their followers. The mortal blood of man has always been a liquid offering of significant value and importance to those who watch us from above…or below.”
“The gods have abandoned us, Doc Tanner,” Jorge whispered. “That is one answer.”
“I don’t believe that, and neither should you,” Krysty said.
Jorge drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Six months ago, a man riding a bicycle came upon a single chupacabras at the side of a road. Fearing for his life, he pulled a blaster-a 6-shot revolver- and fired at the monster. Six shots were unleashed, and the monster was not harmed.”
“Mebbe he missed,” Ryan suggested.
Jorge gave him an annoyed look, then refigured his handsome face into a wan smile. “At a distance of less than twenty feet, I can assure you I did not miss, Senor Cawdor.”
“Okay, fair enough. What I don’t understand is why you haven’t done anything about these muties sooner?” J.B. asked.
“As I said before to Senor Cawdor, there had been no reason. Our livestock was being attacked, but the occasional lost chicken or goat was an acceptable loss. Grupo, he stayed up night after night, his weapon held between his legs as he hid under a pile of straw and watched intently in his coop for the creature who had been killing his poultry.”
“What happened?”
“One night, Grupo found his murderer,” Soto continued, “and fell prey to the beast himself. His son found him the next morning, soon after sunrise, when he ventured out to collect the morning eggs. Like the other animals, his father had two puncture wounds on his neck. All of the blood had been drained from his body.”
“Grupo was the first. Many now think the chu-pacabras had been content with the blood of animals, until tasting the life fluid of man,” Jorge added.
“Uh-huh.” Ryan grunted.
“You do not believe me?”
“Didn’t say that. Seen enough in my time not to discount what anybody tells me, till I check the situation out for myself. You want to tell me mutie fruit bats or blood-sucking earthworms or even talking palm trees are running around Puerto Rico and tearing up the neighborhood, fine. I’ll take your word for it, but still want to see some proof.”
“As do I,” Mildred added, having rejoined the gathering.
“Proof,” the muscular man snorted, working his cheeks and coming up with a glob of saliva to spit it disgustedly. “You want proof, visit the cemetery. Ask for your proof from the recently departed dead.”