EL CHUPACABRA

A Puerto Rican horror finds its way to Glen Hartwell and the surroundings

24th March 2025 6:30 PM

Dakota Menzies, a thin, mousy blonde twenty-year-old, and Tyler Mannering, a tall, dark-haired man of twenty-one, were enjoying a roast Pork a L'Orange at the Mannering Pig Station, outside Harpertown in the Victorian Countryside..
"No one cooks Pork a L'Orange like your Aunt Flossy," said Howard Mannering, a tall, burly farmer with curly blond hair. At fifty-five, he looked at least a decade younger.
"Oh, nonsense, Howie, I'm no match for Deidre Morton over at Merridale," insisted Florence Mannering, a short, plump brunette with long curly hair. "She's a trained cordon bleu cook."
"You can't beat Deidre at Duck a L'Orange, no one can. But you've got her measure at Pork a L'Orange," insisted Howie.
"Well, I don't know," said Flossy, embarrassed.
"He's right, Mrs. M.," said Dakota, "this roast is smokin'."
"That means excellent," explained Tyler.
"Well, thank you, dear, but call me Flossy."
"Okay, Flossy, this is excellent."
"She's right, Aunt Flossy," agreed Tyler.
"You'll have to teach her how to cook it, Flossy, for when Dakota and Tyler get married," said Howie.
Caught unawares, Dakota almost choked on a roast potato and started coughing loudly.
Patting her on the back, Tyler said, "Don't startle her when she's eating, Uncle Howie."
"Sorry, but I know Jeanie and Ritchie are both starting to wonder when you're planning to get hitched?" asked Howie, referring to Tyler's parents.
"Howard!" said Florence, almost as embarrassed as Dakota and Tyler.
"I guess your parents must be wondering too, Dakota," said Howie, never knowing when to stop. "A good-looking girl like you, if Tyler doesn't get a ring on your finger soon, someone else might beat him to it."
A little raspy-voiced, Dakota said, "We are living together, Howard, so I'm not likely to run off with the first gigolo who comes along."
"Of course not," said Flossy, "she's not that kind of girl."
"Well, I didn't mean to imply ..." began, stopping at the sound of excited squealing from the pigs in the long shed, where they were housed at night.

The Chupacabra was sneaking slowly across the farmyard, toward the long, white weatherboard building, where the farm's pigs were housed at night. The creature could be mistaken for a man from a distance, but had short back legs and went on all fours. It had scales down its flanks, and reddish-brown fur on its back and underneath. It had glowing red eyes in a bulbous humanoid face. Its mouth opened seemingly impossibly wide to display long razor-sharp teeth, which it used to devour its prey, after first sucking out its blood with a forked tongue which has sharps cusps at the tips to cut deep into the animal.
Reaching the rear of the long shed, the creature leapt up onto tall plastic rubbish bins below a four-paned window and looked in. Red eyes glowing like beacons it could clearly see the pigs huddled together inside the shed. Although it preferred to eat goats, El Chupacabra would kill and eat any livestock, but shied away from tackling human beings.
Forked tongue swaying from excitement at the imagined upcoming feast, the creature leapt throw the four-paned window, which it had broken inwards with barely a tinkle. Certainly not loud enough to be heard from the farmhouse. However, it was heard by the pigs, who awakened, and seeing the Chupacabra backlit against the smashed window, began squealing in terror, and racing around, colliding like fat, pink Dodgem Cars.
Trying to ignore the frantic squealing of the pigs, El Chupacabra leapt down onto the nearest animal and latched on with the cusps in its forked tongue. Trying to ignore the pink, flesh Dodgem Cars which kept colliding with each other in the desperate hope of escaping the monster, the creature kept sucking the blood from its chosen victim. Then, retracting its tongue, it began to chew away great chunks of the juicy, bloodless pig.

Inside the farmhouse, they heard the squealing, and Howie said, "A bloody fox must be after our pigs."
He raced up to the gun cabinet in the lounge room at the front of the house and soon returned with two loaded rifles. Handing one to Tyler, he said, "Come on, Ty, we've got a fox to kill."
"Tyler, be careful," called Dakota, worried.
"You two, Howie," called Flossy. "And for God's sake, don't shoot each other!"
"Or the pigs," Howie said to Tyler as they raced out onto the deal-wood porch, then across the yard, toward the main door to the pig shed.

Inside the shed, El Chupacabra had devoured most of the pig and was wondering whether it should risk seconds, or whether the squealing pigs would alert the people inside the farmhouse.

"Carefully," said Howie, almost dropping the keys to the padlock as he tried to unlock it without making too much noise.
He pushed open the door and stepped inside, promptly falling over the frantic pigs as they immediately rushed out into the farmhouse yard.
"Stupid pigs!" cried Howie, dropping his shotgun and covering his head with his hands, as one by one nearly a hundred pigs raced across his back to reach freedom.
More careful than his uncle, Tyler, clicked on the light after the pigs had fled, to look around before entering the shed. For just a second, he saw the green, scaly flanks of El Chupacabra as it leapt back out through the window to take off at a lope across the farmhouse yard, setting the frantic pigs to flight again..
The creature stopped long enough to grab a second pig in its jaws, then took off like a cheetah toward the back of the farm, leaping metal fences as it came to them, until it was safely out into the forest. Where it could devour its second course in peace.

"Christ! Did you see that?" asked Tyler.
"What was it, a fox?" asked Howie.
"No, I'd swear it was a bloody crocodile."
"Don't be an idiot. We don't have crocs in Victoria, they're all up North, in Queensland or the Northern Territory."
"I saw green scales all along its left side," insisted Tyler. "Foxes don't have scales!"
"It might have been a large snake," suggested Howie as he climbed back to his feet.
"God help us if there are snakes that large! Besides, I saw it leap out of the window. Snakes don't have legs, and can't leap."
"Well, it can't have been a bloody Croc!" insisted Howard Mannering as they headed back toward the farmhouse.
"What about the pigs?" asked Tyler.
"Leave them till the cops get here," said Howie. "They can't escape the farmhouse yard."

Inside the farmhouse, Dakota sat at the table, while Flossy stood by the kitchen sink, trying to see outside the window.
"What happened?" she asked as Tyler and Howie returned.
"A bloody fox killed and ate one of the pigs. I think it was Bessie," said Howie.
"I'm telling you, Uncle Howie, it was a gator," insisted Tyler, "I saw green scales all down its flank."
"There are no crocs in Victoria!" insisted Howard Mannering.

Over at the Yellow House in Rochester Road, in Merridale, they were just sitting down to roast rock of lamb, with roast potatoes, roast carrots, roast pumpkin, plus various steamed vegetables, all lavishly garnished in lamb gravy.
"This looks fabuloso," said Sheila Bennett. A thirty-six-year-old Goth chick with black-and-orange striped hair, Sheila was the second-top cop of the area.
"Marvellous as always, Mrs. M.," said Terri Scott. Also thirty-six, Terri was an ash blonde and was the top cop of the area, plus was engaged to Colin.
"Thank you, girls," said Deidre Morton. A short, dumpy, sixty-something brunette, Deidre was a giant amongst local cooking circles.
"Magnifique!" enthused Colin Klein. A long-time crime reporter before working for the Glen Hartwell Police Department, Colin was a tall, redheaded Londoner, thirteen years older than his fiancée.
"It looks okay," said Tommy Turner, a forcibly reformed alcoholic, due to Deidre locking away his stash. "But be sure to pour some brandy over mine."
"Instead of, or as well as the gravy?" asked Natasha Lipzing. At seventy-one, the tall, grey-haired old lady had lived at the boarding house for thirty-six years.
"As well as, natch.," said Tommy. "It's a pity Deidre didn't think to make the grave with brandy in the first place."
"Not all of us want to get drunk when eating a lovely roast,' said Leo Laxman. A black Jamaican by birth, Leo was a nurse at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital.
"Well, you should, you might enjoy life more."
"I enjoy living just fine, Tommy. I've got a good job. I live here with Mrs. M.'s divine cooking. And I've recently started dating a beautiful nurse from the hospital."
"Not that gorgeous Topaz Moseley?" asked Tommy, wide-eyed.
"That's her," agreed Leo.
"Lucky bastard!" said all of the men at the table, except Leo.
Colin gasped as Terri elbowed him in the ribs.
"Watch yourself, lover boy," she warned with a grin.
"I'm all in favour of strong women," teased Colin, "but I wish she wouldn't keep beating me up all the time."
They were still laughing when Terri's mobile phone started ringing.
"Oh, no, tell them we all died of plague," pleaded Sheila.
"It might not be work-related," said Terri as she took her phone out of her jacket pocket.
"Yeah, and I'm Lord Lucan's granddaughter," said Sheila.
Terri listened for a moment, then disconnected and said, "That was Howard Mannering at the Mannering Pig Station outside LePage. He says a fox has killed one of his pigs and taken another one away."
"What does he want you to do about it?" asked Freddy Kingston, a tall, near-bald retiree. "You're not pest control."
"Don't worry, he says it's gone now," said Terri, "but he asked if we could stop by his farm tomorrow morning."
"After breakfast!" said Colin and Sheila together.
"I wouldn't have it any other way," agreed the ash blonde.

Around 8:30 the next morning, Terri's police-blue Lexus pulled up outside the chain-link fence around the farmhouse yard at the Mannering Pig Station outside LePage.
Despite having gone home with Dakota the night before, Tyler Mannering was at the farmhouse, along with Howard and Flossy Mannering, when the police arrived.
"So, a fox attacked two of your pigs?" asked Terri, trying not to sound as bored as she felt.
"No, it was a crocodile," insisted Tyler.
"Don't be a dingbat!" said Howie. "Where would a croc be able to live around here?"
"The Yannan River, maybe," suggested Tyler.
"Ty, the Yannan is so polluted that most mosquitoes die if they land in it," said Howie.
"That's an exaggeration," said Flossy, "but I doubt a croc could live there."
"The Gatermen did for a while," said Sheila. [See my story, 'The Gatermen'.]
"Yes, but they were some kind of bizarre freak of nature," said Colin.
"Besides, we killed all the Gatermen," said Terri.
"What are Gatermen?" asked Flossy Mannering, puzzled.
"Never mind," Terri hastened to say. "I'm sure they couldn't have killed your porkers."
"Not if they're all dead," agreed Howie. "Besides, it was definitely a fox."
"How do you know?" demanded Tyler. "You didn't see it, Uncle Howie, I did!"


2nd Segment: Goat farm outside LePage



3rd Segment: Sheep farm, outside Lenoak



Perhaps Sheila says that if it only eats goats, it would starve to death, since Aussies don't keep goats.
Colin corrects here, pointing out that there are some Halal butchers in Australia, particularly in the capital cities.

El Chupacabra, meaning "goat sucker" in Spanish, is a legendary cryptic or mythical creature from the Americas. It's said to be a vampiric creature that attacks and drinks the blood of livestock, especially goats. The first major reports of Chupacabra sightings came from Puerto Rico in the late 1980s and early 1990s
The descriptions of the Chupacabra vary, with some sightings describing a canine-like creature with a long, thick fur coat. Others have described it as a more reptilian or even human-like creature with glowing eyes and bat-like wings
The Chupacabra is often portrayed as a supernatural or supernatural-like creature. However, some view it as a natural phenomenon, perhaps a disease-ridden or mutated animal.
THE END
© Copyright 2025 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia