Chupacabra by Smith Roland

Author:Smith, Roland [Smith, Roland]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2013-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

Grace sat down behind Noah’s massive wooden desk. She didn’t know what kind of wood it was, but it was beautiful.

And knowing him, she thought, expensive.

It was also impeccably neat. The only things on the polished surface were a phone, a computer monitor, a track pad, and a slim keyboard. She hit the computer’s on button, thinking that the computer would be password protected. But to her surprise the screen came to life with dozens of files, folders, and icons. She scanned their titles, then moved the cursor to a large icon marked COLLECTION. She clicked it, expecting something to appear on the screen. Instead, the lights above the desk started to dim and the black cube began to glow. She stood and approached the glass. By the time she reached it, the cube was fully illuminated. And what Grace saw was both beautiful and horrible. She was suddenly reminded of a conversation between Wolfe and Laurel Lee back on Cryptos Island. It seemed like a lifetime ago but had really only been a few weeks. She remembered every word of the exchange:

“Noah Blackwood is a collector,” Wolfe had told Laurel Lee. “His parks are nothing more than holding areas so he can make money off the animals before he harvests them.”

At the time, Grace thought Wolfe was exaggerating. Looking at what lay beyond the smoky glass, she knew she had been wrong. She was standing face-to-face with her grandfather’s sick harvest. She circled the cube with revulsion and a certain amount of fascination. It was filled with dozens of extinct and endangered animals — all of them beautifully preserved, all of them extremely dead. She paused in front of the Tasmanian wolf, or thylacine, which she had overheard Wolfe telling Laurel Lee about. The species had been extinct for more than seventy years. She was staring at the last one that had ever drawn breath. In the diorama next to it was a Caspian tiger pouncing on an ibex.

Sickened by what she’d already seen yet unable to look away, she quickened her pace around the cube, but the display of the giant panda stopped her cold. Something bothered her about it, and it wasn’t that it had been harvested in its prime. There was something strange about how the taxidermist had posed the panda. It was looking down at its chest, holding its paws up as if …

“Oh no!” Grace gasped.

As if the panda is holding a cub up to nurse it.

There were three panda cubs, two males and one female, at the Ark. Grace had wondered what would happen to the “extra” male. Now she knew. The odd male would be harvested and added to Noah Blackwood’s twisted collection.

She hurried back around to Noah’s desk and clicked the COLLECTION icon. The lights came back on in the office and the cube went dark.

Out of sight, out of mind, she thought, then realized this wasn’t true. There are things that, once seen, cannot be unseen. Noah Blackwood’s collection was one of these.

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