“Come back now, you hear,” Fantasia yelled to Avery as she blew him a kiss. “Forgot the rest, ’cause Fantasia’s the best! Ain’t that right, Big Lou?” she asked as she lifted her denim mini skirt to reveal her lack of panties. Smiling seductively, Fantasia Velvet flashed the enraged trucker her man goods.
The traffic noise along the now busy highway woke El Barquero from his restless slumber. He placed the pistol he had slept with on the nightstand next to the motel bed. Sharp pain throbbed in his side where the shotgun blast had partially impacted. Leaning forward on the bed, he gingerly probed the area where the sutures had closed the buckshot wounds. Standing up from the bed, he walked into the motel room’s small bathroom and removed the bandages from his midriff. Examining the puncture wounds, he made sure the sutures had held. Assured they were still in place, he rebound his midsection with clean gauze and bandages.
Turning back into the motel room, he scooped up his black clothes and put them on. Pulling a thin black leather jacket from his rucksack, he slowly put it on. He felt the sutures pulling as he slipped his arms through the sleeves. Zipping the jacket halfway up, he checked himself in the mirror to make certain the wound and bandages didn’t show. El Barquero walked to the motel room’s closet. Opening the door, he stared for a moment at the dead man resting on the floor, his brown sample case still sitting in his lap. El Barquero reached behind the man and pulled his wallet from his back pocket. Taking the few bills he found, he tossed the dead man’s wallet back into the closet and closed the door. Gathering his silver case, rucksack, and plastic bag containing the used towel and bandages, now stiff with dried blood, he placed them on the bed. He retrieved his pistol from the nightstand and tucked it into his waistband. Finally, he took the two curved hand scythes from his rucksack and tucked them into his belt in the small of his back. El Barquero threw the rucksack over one shoulder and picked up the bag of waste and silver case full of money and headed to the door. Pulling the curtains aside, he glanced in both directions down the second-floor outdoor hallway. Throwing the security chain and lock, he made his way for his car. He still had a shipment to retrieve.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Showdown
Avery’s rental car rattled down the rutted gravel drive on the outskirts of Tornillo. The car’s stiff, temporary spare tire was doing little to absorb the bumps. Pulling to a stop outside a cinderblock building with a corrugated metal roof, he viewed the Southwest Texas Revolutionary Armed Confederate Border Operations Militia sign out front. Ignoring the sign’s warning that survivors will be prosecuted, he shut off the car’s engine and gathered his autopsy reference manual and antique scalpel. Placing the scalpel in his fanny pack, Avery made his way to the front door, squinting his eyes against the dust and sand blowing in the gusty Texas wind.
“Private Zulu!” Avery yelled over the wind as he pounded on the headquarters’ front door. Getting no reply, he tried the door handle. It was locked. Checking his watch, Avery realized it might be several more hours before Private Zulu showed up. He didn’t feel like waiting. Avery looped his way around the building past three orange ATVs that appeared to have been attacked by a rogue graffiti artist wielding a black shoe polish applicator. Climbing over the scattered debris and weaving past several abandoned oil drums, he checked for another way in.
In the back of the building, he located a ragged window screen that appeared to be loose. Pulling the screen from the windowsill, he pressed the sliding glass windowpane upwards. It was unlocked. Hurriedly, he opened the window as wide as it would go. It was just enough for the portly Avery to wedge himself through. Looking around, Avery spotted two wooden pallets. Stacking them at the base of the window, he stood on them as he tried to climb headfirst through the open window. Leaning in and holding the heavy autopsy manual out in front of him, he squeezed his upper body through the opening. When he was halfway through, the fanny pack resting underneath his bulbous gut caught itself on the windowsill. Not able to slide forward anymore with the fanny pack anchoring him in place, he tried extracting himself backward from the window, but holding the heavy manual in his hands, he found he couldn’t move that way, either.
Beginning to panic, as the awkward position was making it increasingly difficult to breathe, Avery realized he had no choice but to drop the large book into the room and use his hands to pry himself free. The book landed in the room with a thud as Avery used his hands to rock himself back and forth, his pudgy face beginning to turn scarlet from lack of oxygen. On his third try, Avery felt himself finally tipping forward. With one last swing, he somersaulted into the room, landing with a loud thump on the floor. Avery lay there until he got his wind back. Climbing to his feet, he picked up his book and went to search for the light switch. Clicking on the light, he noticed the room was bare except for a few closets on one side of the room. As he went to explore the rest of the vacant headquarters, he placed his reference manual on a rectangular folding table in the building’s main room.
“Okay, Private Zulu,” Avery mumbled. “Where the hell is my damn chupacabra?”
Avery noticed a doorway that appeared to lead to some kind of mess hall. Entering the kitchen area, he found a large refrigerator next to a walk-in deep freeze. Avery opened the refrigerator, praying that his precious cargo would be there and not frozen solid in the deep freeze. Immediately, the enormous bundle of silver duct tape taking up the entire bottom shelf of the fridge caught his attention.
Lifting the stiff, heavy bundle, he carried it into the main room and set it on the table. With nervous anticipation, Avery removed the scalpel from his fanny pack and began to cut through the overlapping layers of tape. The antique scalpel, with less than a razor-sharp edge, took considerable effort on Avery’s part to pierce the multiple layers of tape and blue plastic ground cloth underneath. Eventually, Avery was able to open an eight-inch slit in the bundle. Pulling the parcel’s wrapping apart with his fingers, he gazed in rapture at the skull of his elusive chupacabra. Stiff with rigor mortis, the animal’s lips had receded to reveal fearsome-looking fangs. A grotesque tongue hung out of the side of its mouth. Avery’s eyes widened as he examined the creature’s smooth dark skin and canine skull that matched all the research that he’d done on chupacabras over the preceding months. Convinced he had just reached one of the greatest peaks in cryptozoology, Avery punched his hand in the air, pointing his scalpel to the heavens above.
“Kiss my butt, Darwin!” Avery exclaimed. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” he cried as he did a ridiculously poor version of the cabbage patch dance. “Yes, baby! Yes!”
“No,” replied the sinister, deep voice from behind him. Avery froze. “Turn around,” the menacing voice ordered. Avery slowly turned and faced the biggest, most evil-looking man he had ever seen. Avery trembled at the sight of his dark eyes. It didn’t help matters that the incredibly muscular man was pointing a silenced pistol at him.
“How did you get in here?” Avery asked.
“The same way you did,” El Barquero replied. “Now, where’s the shipment?”
“The what?” Avery nervously replied.
“From last night in the desert,” El Barquero said as he leveled the pistol directly at Avery’s face. “Three bundles, wrapped in burlap.”
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. I’m not a member of this militaristic fraternity,” Avery stammered. “I’m just here to pick up this specimen. It’s a very significant scientific find. One of a kind.”