The Chupacabra

Stories from the desert...

Vol. 1 – When the Sun Fades

Moonlight on a high desert ridge.

An Errand at Midnight

By Z. Toad

Clarence Dawson, being a good husband, rolled out of his plush recliner so he could drive across town on a Saturday night and get his wife some sushi. This was no small example of marital fortitude, because although he had run hundreds of errands he had never done it so late, when the city lights and the black streets seemed forbidden to all but the young. Even during times of sickness, he had somehow avoided those late medicine runs that are among the most common of fatherly sacrifices.

He yawned as he crossed 700 South, bound for the only grocery store still open. Before arriving, a few cars had passed him, their lights glowing and shining through his windshield, making him squint. Police lights flashed in the distance, down Creek Road. While his eye was drawn to them, a boy on an electric scooter crossed suddenly in front of him, causing his heart to jump.

“Do you think you could go and get me some sushi?” his wife had asked him earlier, careful to time her request for a commercial break. He was watching a rerun of the Phoenix Suns and the Knicks. “I’m so hungry now. This cold has been terrible. I couldn’t taste a thing for a couple of days but it seems to be back now. I want something that tastes good and the wasabi might help too.”

“You have been really sick,” said Clarence. “Sicker than I’ve seen you for a while.” 

He looked over at her as she sat on the couch. She was still in her robe and looking gaunt with a pile of tissues close by, her eye sockets drawn in and a red patch of skin under her nose. Despite the game, he wasn’t immune to her wishes, however spontaneous or seemingly unreasonable they might be. So he got into his Toyota 4Runner and went out into the night. 

When he reached the store, he parked and went inside and was surprised at how bright it was. A few workers even smiled at him while rolling pallets and stacking boxes of cold cereal. It wasn’t busy inside, and there were few customers except for a small group of giggling teenagers, and a couple of staggering men who appeared to be young fathers. Clarence fought off the inclination to wander, because he usually did wander whenever he went shopping. He didn’t like being rushed by anything.

“Can I get two of those California rolls,” he asked the portly, aproned man behind the deli counter. The sushi didn’t look as fresh as it should, he thought, but it wasn’t really surprising being just shy of midnight.

“Sure thing,” said the worker. “Late night snack, I take it?”

“Oh, yes, for the wife,” and he chuckled a bit. “She’s off her normal schedule and you know how cravings can be. It’s about as daring as we get these days anyway.”

“Well, it sounds exciting enough for me,” said the worker, marveling to think that a man of Clarence’s age might have a pregnant wife. What was this talk about cravings? Still, working nights at a downtown grocery store had taught him that anything was possible when it came to human beings.   

Clarence paid at the deli and went back outside. The lights of the parking lot pushed against the dark sky and he was grateful he could see so well and find his car so easily. He texted his wife and started back. While pulling out onto the road, he realized the trip had been much quicker than he expected, with the light traffic and the empty store and the surprisingly helpful deli worker. It had only been the better part of 20 minutes and he already had accomplished his mission.

“I wonder if you can see Venus tonight,” he thought, and tried to look upward from the driver-side window. He had started back the same way he had come, but decided to take advantage of the extra time and go along the outskirts of the city. Sidewinder Road ran along the east end of town and then dropped into the outskirts, where the streetlights became farther apart and the Mojave Desert stretched out to the south and west in a series of low empty hills. He rolled down his window and rested his arm on the door to let the night air fill his lungs and rustle his hair. It was unexpectedly energizing. It wasn’t tiring at all being out at night. If anything, there was a kind of electricity, a thrill he hadn’t felt in years. 

He passed the Black Hill and a few lonely dirt pull-outs where teens went to park and make out. He passed a couple of cars facing the desert with their lights off. The stars sparkled and he could see Venus, as clearly as he’d ever seen her. He stopped in one of the empty pull-outs and turned off his engine and lights. Now, the stillness of the desert was magnified, and Clarence absorbed it, allowing it to reduce his thoughts below the sound of the crickets.

In fear of losing himself to sleep, however, he decided to drive on, backing out of the gravel slowly and proceeding south. He was nearly to the subdivision turnoff, when he crossed under a highway overpass and saw headlights coming down a lonely offramp toward him. As he began to pass the offramp, his heart jumped as he noticed that the headlights weren’t slowing. Then, in an instant, the vehicle ran the stop sign and crashed into Clarence broadside at high speed. 

It could’ve been just another deadly crash late at night involving someone innocently trying to get home. The two cars met each other in what would have been a crash. But nothing actually happened. There was just a kind of passing through, a meeting of lights without the required physical or mechanical destruction. Clarence nearly passed out from fear, of course, but he was able to brake and slow his car, coming to a stop just past the offramp. The headlights had been coming straight for him, much too close for him to make any changes in his speed or steer away for that matter. It seemed the other car had simply passed through his car, like a night breeze.

Exactly opposite from him on the other side of the road, Clarence saw the older white Chevy pickup truck stopped with its brake lights still on. Incredibly, it seemed undamaged too. Clarence got out and began to walk back to the location of the encounter, to make sure there wasn’t another vehicle in the ditch or something. He looked his own car over, but there were no signs of damage. As he got closer to the old white truck, he saw that it was making a u-turn and coming back toward him. And as it got within about 25 feet it stopped, and Clarence could just make out the driver from the side glow of a nearby street lamp. Clarence took four more steps toward the truck and saw that the driver had turned on a dome light, partially illuminating the cab. 

The face inside was pale, with eyes that seemed sunken into dark sockets. It was a bald man, older, with a thin neck. His right hand strangely covered his mouth as he looked at Clarence. The man wasn’t moving or saying anything. Clarence wanted to call out to him, to ask him what had happened, but he stopped himself. Something about the pickup driver made him feel very cold. And there wasn’t really any need for words anyway. The vehicles had obviously not made any contact. Was there really anything to say?  

For a time, the two of them looked at each other. The strange driver was still in the truck and Clarence was standing in the middle of the dark street. The eyes of the mysterious driver still couldn’t be seen, only dark circles inside a pale oval. At one point, the headlights turned completely off and Clarence could see even more clearly inside. The face was chilling, in fact it was even more disturbing in the pale street lights. 

“Go away then,” Clarence finally yelled. “If you want to say something then say it, otherwise leave me alone.” He was surprised at himself. Nothing in his life was much about conflict, only his movies and occasional spats with his boss at work. The face in the truck didn’t respond. The window didn’t roll down, but instead seemed to darken, eliminating any sure outlines. In the cool desert wind, Clarence shuddered and turned to go back. 

“There’s no damage to him or me, so I’m getting the hell out of here,” he thought. “No need to even call the police. He opened his car door and got back in. He made his own u-turn and began to head back along the dark road, determined to reach the lights of the neighborhoods and forgetting about stars. He drove faster now. There was nothing around him against the blackness of the desert. Only moonlight, it seemed, cast any illumination on the road beyond the headlights. Then, as he neared the turnoff back to town, he thought he caught a glimpse and outline a few hundred feet back. When he realized what the shape was, it seemed to fill his rearview mirror. It was the silhouette of a pickup truck, devoid of headlights, speeding toward him, neither on the highway nor completely off of it. It seemed unconstrained by the lines of the pavement, not quite hovering but apathetic to physical laws. 

Clarence let out an uncontrollable croak and gripped the wheel, pushing the accelerator to the floor as far as his nerves and the confidence in his driving would let him. The pickup stayed close, still in darkness. Clarence wanted desperately to reach the first streetlight, the first edge of any subdivision he could find, to give him a greater picture of his pursuer.

“Damn this darkness,” he said to himself. 

Soon he reached the first sign of newly poured curb and the first green porta-potty alongside the pavement. Then there was a lone streetlight, a dumpster and some heavy equipment parked near the frame of a new house. Never before had he been so grateful to see signs of development. He had always considered it excessive and repulsive, this quest to push everywhere with sprawl, in a place with such finite resources to begin with. How could it be sustainable–this blind thirst attracting men who only want money, greedily encouraging people to live in places never meant for habitation? 

But these were only high thoughts in retrospect. Luxuries. They did not occupy his mind for long, because they could not. Only the dark outline of the pickup behind him and that face–the face he could almost make out inside the driver seat because it seemed to have a luminescence of its own, independent of earthly light. Those dark, sunken eyes on a backdrop of pale light, now hovering above the steering wheel like a dim flame over hot wax. 

Clarence was somehow holding it together, even though he had little experience with this kind of acute stress and desperation. He wasn’t really sure how to get home from where he was. Most of the roads were new and the greater lights of the city were still some distance away. He swerved after nearly striking a parked car that was just over a small hillcrest. He mostly wanted to miss it, but another part of him felt like a deer in the grips of a predator–knowing he could no longer run or fight and wanting to just give in. The stranger was not giving up. Had Clarence been sure it was actually a human, he would have stopped again and confronted whoever it was, but now he wasn’t sure. Anyone driving without lights in such dark streets would probably have crashed by now. And no one could have known these new streets so well as to drive them nearly blind. 

What path had he actually crossed, back at the lonesome overpass, when the lights had seemed to pass through him? And why was he being followed? 

Finally, he reached a street that was vaguely familiar and he turned down it, accelerating as much as he dared, not concerned about the police; they would be welcome now. But, of course, this time his speeding went unnoticed, and it was still shockingly matched by the dark truck. He bounced a few times, going over dips at one point, clacking his teeth together and sending sparks behind the car. 

Then, when it seemed he was about to sail off into the darkness in an uncontrolled blur, he reached the first full intersection and a gas station. He stopped in the flood of parking lot lights and waited, tired of running, tired of questioning himself. He turned to face the roadway behind him, but there was nothing. He could see the cashier inside the store, watching closely, at what Clarence was doing. With his hands still shaking, he sent a text to his wife. 

“I’m on my way back, but had to take a little detour that got kind of crazy. I’ll be there soon.” He crept to the edge of the parking lot, just far enough to see down the black road he had just escaped from. There was nothing parked as far as he could see.

When he reached his own neighborhood, Clarence found some relief. Still, he checked each parked car as he passed, comparing each against the image of the old pickup which was still vivid in his mind. But before he could reach his driveway, he noticed a vehicle parked in the circle directly across from his home. He could’ve just turned away from it and gone inside, but something made him swing his headlights around to take a closer look. And then he could see it, the terrible form of the pickup, blacked out in front of his neighbor’s house. 

Never in his relatively long life had he felt such a deep and sudden terror. His thoughts detached from his body and seemed to float above him. In the direct line of the headlights, he could see clearly the hideous pale face, with eyes like empty pits, the flannel shirt with the hand, no longer covering the mouth but instead exposing a crowded row of teeth stretched between thin lips. 

There was no explanation for how the figure had found this place without some prior knowledge or supernatural capability. He had to address it, then and there. The driver’s window of the truck was rolled down now and Clarence aimed right for it, mashing on the accelerator. Fear had taken over–a fear he had never known, and there was no experience from which he could draw on to control it. The SUV sailed across the cul-de-sac reaching a velocity beyond the possibility of reduction in the distance that remained. 

How the sound that followed did not awaken any neighbors would forever be a mystery. It was only as daylight emerged that the first neighbor, going to take his garbage to the street, saw the SUV, buried deep into the living room of the house next door. The tail lights of the 4-Runner were still glowing dimly amid the lumber and hanging shards of stucco and drywall. 

When the officers and fire trucks arrived, they had to enter through the front door as the wreck was so tightly wedged between the walls. Thankfully, the owners of the home were gone on vacation. Clarence was found, stiff and still in the driver seat, crushed by the impact with a load-bearing beam. Sushi was scattered on the front seats. On the lawn, a clean, straight set of tire tracks led a path directly over the curb and sidewalk. And the pavement in front of the house was perfectly clean.     

Desert Holly

It was a lonely freeway offramp, high in the foothills, above the vast and scorching rim of the Mojave Desert. I had pulled over to let the dog take a piss, nearing the end of an eleven hour drive from Denver to Las Vegas. I wanted nothing less than to be standing there in the withering heat, eyeing mummified animals, fetid diapers, empty beer cans and broken car parts. The dog was taking his sweet time, sniffing at things he shouldn’t and wandering too far into the foxtails and prickly pears. Part of me wanted to let him go–let him learn from his mistakes. The other part knew those “mistakes” would only end up all over the interior of my car. 

“Come on Bruno, get back here,” I said, pulling on the leash. He had been sniffing something despicable inside a sagebrush. “Do what you gotta do and let’s get out of here.” He was the kind of dog who liked to push buttons. He must have known I was feeling pressed for time, and it was as if he wanted to make the most of it. At last, he found a decent clump of grass and lazily lifted his leg. 

It’s hard to believe I didn’t see her at first. I must have been too focused on the menagerie of waste at my feet, or too worried about the dog. She was probably watching us the whole time, and I only caught a glimpse of her while I was loading Bruno back in the car–just the slightest movement from behind the bushes. I turned just in time to see those fierce, wild-looking eyes, staring into mine. 

She appeared to be in her thirties, but they must have been hard years judging by the tired lines on her face. Her skin was baked and she was wearing a stained gray sweatshirt with matching sweatpants. It wasn’t until later that I remembered she hadn’t been wearing any shoes. At the time I was simply stunned to see another human being in such an extreme environment–without any outdoor gear or recreational purpose. There was no way of telling how she got there. I had seen people just like her on the downtown streets of Denver, but this was inconceivable. 

We made eye contact only briefly before she quietly retreated behind the brush.  I looked around to see if there were any cars or homes nearby, but I could only see distant spires of rock, surrounded by a moat of terrible-looking vegetation.

I locked Bruno in the car and made my way toward her. “Hello,” I called. She was sitting on a boulder now. She had a small dusty backpack next to her, not enough for any real amount of food or clothing. “Are you okay? What’s your name?”

She said nothing, but shook her head faintly from side to side. She had short, black hair that was specked with debris. There were scratches on her forearms, more than likely from fighting her way through the scrub. 

“Can you tell me your name?” I asked again, trying to get her to say something. Still she didn’t answer but only looked at me. I could see the wool blanket she had been sleeping on, tucked inside a cove of bushes that was completely hidden from the road. She was very thin, but not obviously malnourished. 

I went back to my car and retrieved a water bottle, but when I offered it to her she only looked at me stone faced, and then firmly said “No.” My arm dropped with the weight of confusion. Here we were, in a place where everything was designed for either defense or survival–the grass was barbed, the cacti were vicious, the snakes were deadly and the ant hills teemed with nasty little pricks–and this woman, obviously and utterly alone, wearing clothes fit for a Saturday morning on the couch, was turning down my water bottle? We stood staring at each other. To the west, a long slope descended from the barren cliffs. All around us were impenetrable thickets of desert holly and bone-dry creek beds full of ankle crushing rocks, the refuge of black widow spiders and rattlesnakes. It was nearly 108 degrees, and the dirt between the desperate plants was like powder. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders, look her in the eyes, and tell her she was going to die out here, under the orange sky, among the diapers and used condoms and empty bottles of antifreeze.

I stepped back to make sure my car was still there. Sweat was dripping into my eyes and down the middle of my back. In the light of early dusk, I could see Bruno inside the car, his eyes in a dull gaze. He wasn’t even panting, and his ears were fluttering softly in the cool air from the vents. 

“Can I at least give you a ride?” I said, becoming more insistent. “I can’t help you if you don’t want me too.” She was standing up now and facing me, with her arms at her sides and her fists balled up. I went back to my car, determined to call for help. She had to be rescued, even if it was against her will. She was obviously not in her right mind, and I wouldn’t have her death on my conscience, no matter how badly I wanted to get to Vegas. I waited for thirty minutes, just around the corner from her camp, not wanting her to know my plan. I kept a close eye on her blanket, the corner of which I could still see clearly. 

When an officer arrived, we approached again but were surprised to find she was gone. Only her blanket remained. I looked around frantically, but there was nothing else besides the stillness of the desert and the sunset going down like the edge of a flame, slipping away beyond the high, dark crags.