Chasing the Chupacabra by Hank Edwards

Author:Hank Edwards [Edwards, Hank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hank Edwards

Chapter Eleven

Cody kept low as he broke from the cover of the woods and hurried to the barn, Oliver following close behind. They pressed their backs against the weathered boards of the farside of the barn out of sight of the house. A few of the goats bleated in their pen, and he could hear chickens clucking from somewhere nearby as well.

“Now what?” Oliver asked, his voice low.

“Now we sneak around to the back doors of the barn and hope Lucia hasn’t posted a guard behind the house,” Cody replied. “Let’s go.”

They moved quickly and quietly along the side of the barn to the corner. Cody eased his head out to peer around the corner. A figure stood close to the fields that now lay fallow, and his heart pounded as he pulled back behind the barn, barely holding in a gasp.

“What is it? Were you spotted?” Ollie asked.

Cody frowned at him without replying. Something about the figure had looked odd, and Cody risked another quick look, then let out a sigh of relief. It was a false alarm. The figure he had thought might be a cop was, in fact, a scarecrow, looking more than a bit worse for wear after standing outside all winter. Other than the scarecrow, the coast was clear, and both he and Oliver slipped into the barn without raising an alarm.

They stood just inside the doors, looking around the empty space. Cody called in a loud whisper, “Demmy?”

Demetrius and Agatha stepped out of a horse stall, and Demmy said, “We didn’t know if it was you or Lucia’s Stormtroopers.”

“What’s going on?” Oliver asked, walking up to Demetrius and giving him a hug, which Cody noticed Demmy seemed a little uncomfortable with. Then Oliver stuck out his hand to Agatha. “Oliver Berridge.”

“Agatha Tisdale.”

“Ollie works for the Parson’s Hollow Herald,” Cody explained, and earned a glare from Oliver.

“You say that like it’s a liability,” Oliver said.

Cody shrugged. “Just making sure we’re all aware of the fox in the henhouse, so to speak.” He looked at Demmy. “Why are we hiding in the barn of the house that Lucia just slipped up and called a crime scene?”

“Reed Wilkes is missing,” Agatha said. “I came by to talk with him some more about the sightings and found his house in shambles, blood on the floor, and Reed gone.”

“Sightings?” Oliver repeated, looking between Demmy and Cody. “Blood? What the hell have you two gotten involved with now?” He looked nervously from one end of the barn to the other. “This isn’t another werewolf case, is it?”

“Wolf man,” Cody and Demmy corrected at the same time, and they shared a brief smile before Demmy explained to Ollie what had transpired so far in their latest case.

“Jesus, what do you think it is?” Ollie asked when he had finished.

“We’re not sure,” Cody replied.

“A chupacabra,” Demetrius said, right on the heels of Cody’s response.

He frowned at Demetrius. “A what?”

“A chupacabra,” Agatha said. “It’s a creature based on Latin folktales. Also known as a goat-sucker.

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