Fury of the Chupacabras Read online

  Attack of the Chupacabras

  and

  FURY OF THE CHUPACABRAS

  Raegan Butcher

  Necro Publications

  — 2016 —

  — | — | —

  ATTACK OF THE CHUPACABRAS

  FURY OF THE CHUPACABRAS

  All stories © 2016 Raegan Butcher

  Cover art © 2016 M. Wayne Miller

  LOC: 2016903997

  ISBN: 978-1-944703-05-9

  This edition 2016 © Necro Publications

  Book design, layout & typesetting:

  David G. Barnett

  fatcatgraphicdesign.com

  Assistant Editor:

  Amanda Schmidt

  A Necro Publication

  necropublications.com

  — | — | —

  Book 1

  Attack of the Chupacabras

  —

  Book 2

  Fury of the Chupacabras

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Author

  — | — | —

  Book 1:

  Attack of the Chupacabras

  — | — | —

  This is a true story.

  Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

  — | — | —

  El Paso, nestled in the far corner of West Texas, is home to Fort Bliss, the second-largest military installation in the United States, with a total of thirty five thousand troops. The base conducts live-fire exercises of nearly every type of army weapon. With so much military hardware moving in and out, a clandestine market for stolen armaments naturally developed, as unscrupulous entrepreneurs in Texas forged a lucrative partnership with the gun-hungry Mexican drug cartels across the border. The men employed on the American side to get the guns to Mexico were usually ex-soldiers who had become involved in the cross-border smuggling game while stationed at Fort Bliss…

  Texas, mid-morning, late August

  The temperature had been hovering in the triple digits for over a month, a record-breaking heat wave. Not even the crickets buzzed. Too damned hot. The scorching wind whipped across the tiled roofs of the houses cramming the arid plains to the east of Fort Bliss. Each house appeared identical: tan vinyl siding and white trim, with a two-car garage and patch of dead brown lawn in front.

  Inside the garage at 2541 Oakes Avenue sat a metallic-blue 1967 Chevrolet Impala with its four doors, hood, and trunk ajar. Empty crates of ammunition and boxes of bullets littered the floor. Two brothers sat crouched, loading ammunition into M-16 magazines, sweating in the unbearable heat.

  Joe Gifford, the older of the two brothers at thirty-six, had high cheek bones, full lips, a straight nose and a strong jaw, all of it topped with thick brown hair cut short in military fashion and presided over by flashing green eyes. He finished loading a magazine and handed it to his brother, whose arms were already full of the things.

  “This is the last of them.”

  His brother Keith, thirty-two, shorter, stockier and with the same dark hair and green eyes, climbed to his feet with the fresh magazines and walked to the trunk of the car. The divider between the rear seats and the trunk had been folded down, and hundreds of M-16 magazines full of bullets were stacked in the space there. Keith filled up the remaining space with the magazines, then took a glue gun, poured glue around the edges of the wall, and sealed it up with a thick line of glue. He stepped back to admire his work, and then looked to his older brother. “What do you think?”

  Joe stood up and looked it over. “Looks good, tight as a crab’s ass—and that’s water-tight.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nope.” Joe shook his head. “Let’s roll.”

  ««—»»

  The Gifford brothers had been born in Austin, Texas, the sons of John Gifford and Bebe Pemberton. Their parents had been professional gamblers, and the family moved often. John and Bebe had divorced when the boys were very young, and John died not long after from a rare type of cancer of the nervous system. Bebe took her sons with her as she worked at temporary jobs in Arizona, California, and Oregon, before returning to Texas.

  Joe Gifford dropped out of El Paso Central High School in the tenth grade. After a year of hitch-hiking across the country, he enlisted in the U.S. Army at seventeen just in time for Operation Desert Storm. The war was a cakewalk. He saw a tiny bit of action as a member of the 1st Infantry Division, the infamous “Big Red One,” or as the men themselves jokingly called it, “The Big Dead One.”

  Two years later he was in Somalia, “keeping the peace” as it was termed, being shot at by drugged-out teenagers with AKs for $800 a month. Soon after the debacle in Mogadishu, he decided to call it quits and join his brother in Texas. Petty crime was safer than serving as a gangster for capitalism, keeping the world safe for multinational corporations. From what he’d seen, war, despite the high-flown rhetoric about “freedom” and “democracy,” was nothing more than a huge scam, a vast and obscene money-making racket for the rich and powerful; he had no desire to be cannon fodder—fighting and dying for a bunch of bankers, politicians, and generals. He felt his time could be better spent stacking his own mountains of gold.

  As soon as he discovered how voracious the demand for contraband weapons was in Mexico—ironically due to their strict gun control laws—he wasted no time in securing a steady flow of armaments through his old pals at Fort Bliss.

  ««—»»

  Once he was behind the wheel and had the Impala tooling down the road, Keith glanced at his brother in the passenger seat beside him. Joe idly watched the road as he ran the zipper of his lightweight army jacket up and down.

  “I don’t trust these guys,” Keith said suddenly, still looking at his brother. “What’s to keep them from pulling a burn and killing us?”

  Joe stopped tugging on the zipper of his coat. “We’ve been doing business with Ramón for a long time. He’s always been cool.”

  “Yeah,” Keith agreed. “But now we’re dealing with his buddies in Mexico, not just him.” He nodded out the window at the passing scenery. “With all the shit that’s been going on south of the border these days…I just don’t know, man. I mean, they found ten headless bodies in a car lot in Juárez last week. The place has gone crazy.”

  Joe frowned, reached a hand to the dashboard, and punched the air conditioner to life. “Ramón’s being cool, cutting us in on the action so we can make more money, coming and going: guns and bullets going south, coke coming back.”

  “Just like Ollie North,” Keith cracked, and then added, “But we ain’t the CIA.”

  “Neither was Oliver North,” Joe corrected him. “He was with the NSA or something.”

  “Whatever.” Keith waved a hand. “You know what I mean.”

  Joe sighed. “Look, you put our guns under the hood, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So we’ll gun-up as soon as we cross the border. What’s the big deal?”

  Keith pulled into the parking lot of Toby’s Waffle House and parked next to a red Jeep Cherokee. A heavily built, middle-aged Mexican in khakis and a garish Hawaiian shirt leaned against the hood of the jeep, apparently oblivious to the hammering rays of the sun. He smiled and waved when they pulled up.

  Keith stuck his head out the window and called, “Hey Ramón, what’s up? How you been?”

  Ramón Esparza walked to the driver’s side and fist bumped Ke
ith’s hand. “Fast women, hard liquor, and pure coke,” he purred. “It doesn’t get much better than that.”

  As a teenager on the streets of Mexico City, Ramón had begun his criminal career by running petty street scams, selling fake lottery tickets and stealing cars. In the late 1990s, he was a getaway driver and then a bodyguard before moving into the cocaine trafficking business.

  He squatted down on his haunches so he could see Joe too. “How have you guys been? How’s business?”

  “Things are cool,” Joe said, and beside him Keith nodded and added, “Hopefully it gets better after this.”

  Ramón stepped back from the Impala and looked the car over with an appraising eye. “You guys got the stuff?”

  Keith opened the door and climbed out, followed by his brother. He walked to the front of the car and pointed. “There’s six M-16s under the hood, twenty pistols in the spare tire, and ten thousand rounds of ammunition loaded in magazines hidden in the back of the trunk.”

  Ramón whistled and clapped his hands together. “That’s going to go over real good with El Jefe.”

  Joe walked around the Impala to join them. “Is the cola lined up on your end?”

  Ramón nodded. “It’s all set. We get down there, give El Jefe the guns and bullets, and we get three keys of booger sugar to bring back. You guys stand to make a freakin’ fortune.” He held up his wrist and checked his Rolex. “Well, it’s almost noon, so let’s go while the border agents are eating lunch. Hopefully they’ll wave us through.” He climbed into the back seat.

  There are four international ports of entry connecting Ciudad Juarez and El Paso: Bridge of the Americas, Ysleta International Bridge, Paso Del Norte Bridge, and Stanton Street Bridge. Keith chose the Bridge of the Americas, as it was the busiest of the border stations, and they wanted to get lost among the crowds.

  The line wasn’t as long as they’d hoped, and it was only a few minutes before they rolled up to the booth. The border guard squinted down at the three men in the blue muscle car. The two Americans wore faded blue jeans and identical lightweight army jackets in three-color desert camouflage pattern. Ramón wore his gaudy Hawaiian shirt over khaki chinos.

  “How many of you are there?”

  “Just the three of us,” Keith answered pleasantly.

  “How long do you plan to stay in Mexico?”

  “Just today and tonight. We’ll be coming home tomorrow.”

  The official stared at them in silence, rolling a toothpick around in his mouth. Slowly, he removed it and used it to point at the Impala. “Pull over to the space next to the building, por favor.” He indicated the corrugated structure behind him.

  Keith smiled, his innards turning to jelly, and nodded as he slowly rolled away. “Shit, why didn’t he wave us through?” he asked under his breath. Beads of sweat popped up on his forehead.

  “It’s probably just a quota,” Ramón assured him. “They need to inspect a certain number of cars.”

  Joe pointed through the windshield. “Park as far from the building as possible. Make the bastards walk.”

  Keith twisted around to look at Ramón. “Did you tell anyone we were coming?”

  Ramón shook his head. Keith turned back around and gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white, teeth clenched. “I don’t like this.”

  He pulled the car into a parking space at the far end of the building. They sat and waited as the heat waves shimmered from the asphalt and the sweltering wind blew hot gritty dust through the open car windows. Keith watched in the rear-view mirror as a door in the building opened and a chubby man in uniform slowly ambled toward them.

  “Let me do all the talking,” Ramón said quickly. “If he asks you any questions, I’ll answer, if he insists, just give him yes or no answers, no conversation. Got it?”

  The two Americans nodded. The border guard, a paunchy man with a drooping moustache, reached the Impala, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and leaned down in the driver’s window.

  “It’s damned hot today. For why did you make me walk all the way over here? Why didn’t you park next to the building like everyone else does?”

  Ramón leaned forward. “We’re sorry officer, this is my friend’s first time driving down here and he didn’t know where he was supposed to park.”

  The guard stepped back and scrutinized the car. “Are all of you Americanos?”

  Ramón shook his head. “I’m a Mexican citizen. I live here in Ciudad Juárez. My friends are both Americans.”

  The guard stared at him, and then leaned forward and peered at Keith and Joe. “Get out of the car. Show me your identification and open the trunk.”

  As they slowly moved to obey, Ramón whispered to Keith, “Leave the keys in the ignition; pop the trunk from here.”

  Keith pressed a button on the dashboard and the trunk popped open. They climbed out and followed the border guard to the rear of the car. He scowled at them and thrust out his hand. “Let me see your identification.”

  They handed him their licenses. He flipped through them slowly. “Where are you going?” he asked without taking his eyes from the cards.

  Ramón spoke up. “I’m just going to show my friends around the city, do some shopping, eat dinner. They’re going home tomorrow.”

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “My friends are car mechanics. I sell scrap metal and used cars.”

  “Show me your hands.”

  Ramón held out his hands and the man reached over and felt them. He frowned. “These are awfully soft hands for someone in the scrap metal business, señor.”

  Ramón lifted his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I buy and sell. I don’t actually handle the metals.”

  The guard returned the cards and then moved closer to the open trunk. He looked at the two identical gym bags and pointed to them. “Whose are these?”

  Ramón pointed to Keith and Joe. “They belong to my friends.”

  “Open them.”

  Joe pulled out the bags and unzipped them. The guard looked inside and rummaged around. He saw extra clothing, underwear, socks, and some fresh shirts.

  “Do you have any prohibited items such as firearms, drugs, pornography, or livestock?”

  “Of course not officer,” Ramón huffed indignantly. “We are honest, tax-paying, god-fearing, hard-working men.”

  The guard pursed his lips and extracted a nightstick from his belt. He casually tapped on the floor of the trunk. Tap, tap, tap.

  Nothing.

  He tapped his stick on the side of the trunk. Tap, tap, tap.

  Nothing.

  He tried the other side. Tap, tap, tap.

  Nothing.

  Then he tapped his stick on the back wall of the trunk—a loud metallic thunk, followed by the clatter of ten thousand bullets, sizzling like a horde of angry rattlesnakes.

  The guard slowly swung his gaze from the car to the three men. Ramón, Keith, and Joe stared back at him with eyes the size of dinner plates. Keith’s heart fluttered under his ribs like a moth brushing against a light bulb. Joe tensed and waited to see what happened next. Ramón cast a quick glance at the building. He saw no other border agents. He cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Sir, are you a religious man?”

  The guard hooded his eyes and nodded. “I am Roman Catholic and Apostolic.”

  “Do you go to church?”

  “Sí, every Sunday.”

  Ramón smiled and indicated his two companions. “My friends and I are good Catholics too, however, last weekend we were unable to go to church because our car was broken and the church is very far away.”

  The man regarded him somberly. “It is not good to be far from God.”

  Ramón returned his solemn look. “We know that. We were wondering…if we gave you a donation, if you could place it in the poor box of the church when you go this Sunday. We would greatly appreciate it. We would do it ourselves, of course, but the press of business limits our time.”

  The man stared at hi
m. Keith held his breath. Joe watched, ready for anything. After what seemed an eternity the guard held out his hand.

  “I would be happy to make a donation on your behalf.”

  Ramón smiled and pulled out his wallet. He peeled off several one hundred dollar bills and pressed them into the man’s hand. “Here, please put this in the poor box and we will pray for their salvation.”

  The man stared at the money in his hand and then looked pointedly at the open trunk of the Impala. “The people here are very poor indeed. This won’t go far.”

  Ramón added three more bills to the pile. “Surely this will feed even the hungriest.”

  The border agent smiled. “Yes, this will help feed the poor. It is not good to be stingy with God’s children.”

  Ramón barked with forced laughter. “We wouldn’t dream of being stingy!”

  The border agent pocketed the money and slammed the trunk shut. “Welcome to Mexico, gentlemen. I hope you have a pleasant stay.”