THE CRYPTID MENAGERIE, Part III

There were three other exhibits here, two behind glass.

The first one behind glass held a pair of white shapes, hiding in a cave of Ice. Harsh wind blew past it. The shapes were shaggy, the fur almost a foot in length. Sanderson motioned to another Guard to do something; he did.

He went over, flashed a few lights, and woke up the sleeping animals.

The biggest one was eight feet tall, not as bulky as the Sasquatch were. The head came to a sharper point at the top, and the face of the bigger one had a beard. The foreheads had no slope over the eyes on either of them, unlike with the Sasquatch. The other - the female - was six feet, and it held in its arms a small, nursing infant.

“Holy Hell,” Alva said. “They look almost human.”

Indeed they did. In their dark faces he saw a sort of humanlike understanding, some measure of sympathy. Like in a Baby Chimpanzee’s eyes. Not a man, but close.

From deeper in the fake cave, a smaller shape walked forward on unsteady legs.

Alva focused, and saw it was a goat. A Tahr, specifically. A kind native to only the Himalayas.

It stumbled to see what the commotion was, and the Yeti Patriarch leaned over with its long, muscular arms gently pet the creature. Attempting to calm it, it seemed.

“These ‘ere are the Yetis. I love ‘em. Easiest beasts Sanderson here has. Y’can walk right up to ‘em, nothing happens. Not exactly affectionate, but I don’t need an albino Chewbacca slobberin’ all over me, thanks.”

“No wonder nobody ever sees ‘em. They’re so shy.”

Sanderson turned to the Hunter, who smirked. She let out a laugh and continued to wear a grin for as long as Al looked at them. He thought that maybe his parents would be like that, if only they got along.

In the next space was a mock-up of a Midwestern roadside, complete with a thick cornfield. It had once been used for Zebras or Gazelle, judging by the wide space and fertile soil.

But now it was thoroughly American. And its occupant lost no time in making himself known.

Out of the field, a huge, amorphous black shape lunged out of the cornfield, straight to the bars. It had been hard to tell what it was, but it was clearly attracted to lights.

A car was planted near the end of the place the beast was kept in, and its lights were on – another work of one of the guards.

The Huge thing, halfway between a vertebrate moth and a horned owl, flapped manically around the car. It remained silent, but scratched and clawed at the glass to no effect. 

Trying to get in, apparently.

“Turn them off. Before it gets itself killed.”

When the guard did so, it was almost like he’d turned off a switch on the creature itself. It stood perfectly still, its eyes aglow like the lights of a firefly. Its feathers, if that’s what they actually were, were as thin and fine as cat fur. Its wings looked almost like a cloak as it simply stood and stared at them, either contemplating them or nothing at all.

“Mothman. A man-sized horned owl, pitch-black and obsessed with lights. Will likely build a lot of nests on bridges, cause a lot of vehicular damage, and generally be a bit of a nuisance to anyone who comes into contact with it. The ultimate pest. Especially considering how sick one gets when they actually touch it – Salmonella, Lyme’s Disease, Typhus, Spotted Fever…” She stopped to take a deep breath. “…West Nile…I mean, you name it, Mothman’s got it. Better to cement its status as the Omen of Death.”

“Don’t remind me,” the Hunter muttered, and showed Al his arm. There were a dozen injection marks in it, near the elbow. “Those’re all the vaccinations I had to get for an animal I barely interact with.”

Al just nodded and turned to the last enclosure, ready to sprint like a deer right out of this building.

The last exhibit was cold, thick with the trunks of pine-trees. A still pond with lilly pads in one corner. Some tall grass around the rim of the pool.

LEEDS DEVIL was the inscription besides the cage, along with a very bad black and white drawing of an animal too absurd to be real.

Yet within that same enclosure, behind a black, wire mesh, was something remaining perfectly still.

Its neck was long, thin and serpentine. Its eyes were an alarming red with small, black pupils. Each one was almost three inches in diameter. Its head was long and thick. He would’ve said it was horeselike, but he recalled an animal he’d seen in a Zoo years ago that was closer in description. A Hammer-headed bad, it was called. But this thing was too massive to ever pass for a standard Hammer-headed bat. He focused, remaining sure to stay back from the mesh, and saw that beneath the thing were two long, thin legs. Besides those legs were a pair of wings that hung down, like a Vulture’s; they were leathery and black, like a bat’s. But no bat stood seven feet high and had such huge wings. No bat had that same long, thin neck. Even the ones with ugly horse-heads.

Its long snout was lumpy with calluses.

When one of the Guards placed his gun over his shoulders, it twitched its head, like a bird would do.

It didn’t stop.

The movement was horrible, but much worse was the end of its snout.

Bright, red, glistening lips exposed its yellowed teeth. Long. Sharp. Lethal. If it was to snap its head down on somebody, that person almost certainly would’ve been killed.

Sanderson sighed.

“Turn on the lights. Show him.”

One of the Guards walked over to a patch on the wall. Opening it revealed a series of lighted buttons. He pressed one.

What became revealed in the light was a monster so awful Alva wished he had never known such a thing could have ever possibly existed.

It let loose a bloodcurdling, diabolical shriek. It was the single worst thing Alva had ever, or would ever, hear.

It was built like a stork, only its neck was serpentine in its movement. Its wingspan must’ve been almost fourteen feet, at least; each wing the same creepy finger-membranes that all bats had. Its bare skin on its head, wings and legs were a leathery black, except for its lips, which were the same vibrant red as its eyes. Its furred body and neck was sleek, steel gray with the exception of another dark red patch on its chest.

When it leapt back into the trees, he saw its feet had two thick, calloused claws; halfway between a bird-foot and...

“Like cloven hooves,” he said aloud. “The feet…”

“Perfect for disembowelment,” Sanderson said, admiring the slender Demon-thing. “The mouth is perfect for tearing, too, in case its feet miss.”

He nodded.

“What does it hunt?” He asked.

He saw the Big-Game Hunter smack himself on the forehead and run it down his tired, stressed face.

She chuckled.

“Unwary hunters. Campers. Fishermen. Anyone who can’t get away, really. I suppose it could bring down a Deer, too, if it was slow enough.”

He looked back at the thing, which now stood at the very end of the enclosure.

What he saw next almost struck him dead.

From behind the Seven-foot Nightmare he wished he never saw, something moved.

His mouth dropped. Another one – a three-foot tall, white-furred version of the same one that had just been startled – was standing between its parents legs. It was shaking, like a frightened deer, blinking its eyes one at a time like an incredibly stupid farm-animal.

“Mother of God,” he said to himself.

“I’m on the camp that the last thing this world needs is more of those, but I do have to admit the little bugger’s an awkward sort of adorable.”

Alva looked at him and saw him hold his index finger and thumb an inch apart.

“Juuuuuuuust a little.”

He remained speechless.

The infant Leeds Devil advanced a little, each long leg bending and planting a foot cautiously forwards.

When it got as far as the Adult would permit it, it bent its snake-neck downwards and pushed it back.

“Better than to let it near those dangerous humans,” Sanderson said. “It’ll be a bad day indeed when some poor campers stumble upon the Jersey Devil’s Nest.”

Alva felt the Big-Game Hunter tap him on the Shoulder, and let himself be led away.

He needed time to get over the fact that such a horrible monster could be nothing more than a simple animal.

On his way to the next building, he struck up a little conversation with the Hunter.

“So,” he asked. “How much is she payin’ ya to keep these things in line?”

“Nowhere near enough, kid.” He laughed an honest laugh, and Al let out a nervous one, as he didn’t know if he would live to see tomorrow.

“It get bad ‘round here?”

“Occasionally,” the Hunter Shrugged. “Eight deaths in the year this place has been here. Six of ‘em in the past four months.”

Awkward silence.

“Jesus,” Alva said.

“It’s rough, but it’s a goddamn job. I worked in animal control in Oz for eight bloody years, hunted in the Outback my whole life. This is the best money I’ve ever gotten for it. Really, it’s amazing what ya can get used to.”

Alva laughed, shook his head.

“Reminds me of the Flintstones. You know what they always say: ‘It’s a living.’”

* * *

When they were outside, the Hunter asked to stop and have a Cigarette. Sanderson told him, none too kindly, to be quick about it. When He asked to sit down, Sanderson unleashed another string of maddened curses at him.

“Gee, big guy’s smokin’ and the chick over there is nuts. Yep,” He nodded with a synthetic smile. “Typical family trip to the Zoo.”

The Hunter laughed, showing some chipped teeth. “Yeah, well, I’d rather not be here either.”

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing.” Al said, looking up at the now cloudy night sky. “It’s amazing to think all these things, Bigfoot, the Jersey Devil, could be here. It’s fantastic. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Seriously. The word doesn’t exist for this emotion. Awe comes a little close, but that’s not it.”

The Hunter nodded. “It ain’t easy, but it’s a job. Best one I’ve ever had. In terms of money, at least.”

“I thought you said…”

“Yeah, yeah, no matter how much it is it still ain’t worth the trouble. But six-fifty K a year sure beats anything I’ve had before.”

“Six-fifty K?” He asked.

He blew a plume of smoke into the air.

“Sixty. Five. Thousand.” He clarified.

“Damn. I’d be impressed, but I’m beyond feeling by now.”

They both laughed.

“Had my left arm caught in a six-foot Croc’s mouth, got kicked in the chest by a Cassowary, got stung by a Platypus. But none a’ that compares. Not by a long shot.”

“Y’know, as a little kid I was obsessed with…”

“A lil’ kid?” The Hunter looked at him with a puzzled, squint-eyed look. “How the Hell old are you now?”

“O.K., fine, fine. As a littler kid, I was obsessed with stuff like this. Bigfoot, Mothman, stuff like that. I mean, Holy Hell. To think it’s all real, it’s all really out there – Goddamn. Puts you in a different place, doesn’t it?”

He blew a smoke ring. Nodded.

“It is what it is, mate.”

“Well, you have my sympathies. Though to be honest, I wouldn’t do it even for six-fifty million. After what that…”

“Thunderbird?”

“Yeah, that thing. After that thing, I don’t wanna see any animals ever again. I might just have a panic attack the second I see a hummingbird tomorrow morning.”

The Hunter laughed again.

“What’s your name again?”

“Alva. Friends call me Al or Keel, depending on how old  they are.”

“Well,” he said, throwing his cigarette down to the ground and crushing it. “I’m Shuker. Outback Hunter, Animal Control. Nice to meet ya.”

They shook hands, both half-heartedly.

“O.K., now that your smoke-break’s over, c’mon then. We’ve got more important things to do.” Sanderson said, motioning to them.

And with that, they were off to the next building.

The next house was cylindrical. Labeled AQUARIUM.

One exhibit was a tide-pool, full of water. In it, swimming from one end to other, either annoyed or bored or both, was a massive, smooth-skinned, honest-to-god-really-really-there, Sea Serpent. The mane, the three-fingered and webbed feet on strong forelimbs, the smooth black-brown skin.

After a few circles, it would reach the front end of its body out of the water’s surface and spit water into the air like a fountain. It made a terribly loud, throaty roar when it did so.

“Otariidae Egede. Mammal, like a Sea Lion. Mane, water-spitting, big eyes for dark depths. As deep as 2,000 to 3,000 feet. Up-and-down undulation, like all aquatic mammals. This one’s a juvenile, only about twenty-five feet. As an adult, it should reach sixty to seventy-five. If we’re lucky? Maybe eighty. Takes to cold oceans like Antarctica, Norway and Alaska quite nicely. Should be released in a few weeks or so. Now that’ll be fun, too – it eats anything smaller than it is. Has a tendency to ram boats and, hopefully, to sink them. Won’t that be a headline…” She looked at the Serpent, lovingly. Alva and Shuker looked at each other, both of them sensing she was speaking more to herself than to them.

Shuker leaned in to whisper to Alva.

“Monster took down two people, too. One of ‘em fell in while feedin’ the bastard a Seal. Both of ‘em tried swimmin’ away, the Seal was faster, and it went for the easier prey. Cracked his ribcage like nothin’. Dragged him down to drown him. The other guy tried to go in and save him, but the thing took his legs off. He bled to death before we got ‘im out.”

“Holy Hell. Can you imagine it when it’s fully grown? It could break right through a small boat and just pick off everyone who fell out.”

He nodded. “Yeah.” He looked at the monster, swimming around swiftly despite its size. 

“Yeah, I can imagine.”

Sanderson shook her head, still grinning. Paying no attention to any of her employees, or her involuntary guest. “Come along now.”

One of the exhibits they passed was labeled ‘Mussie’, and in it he saw a nine-foot long, maroon, smooth-skinned serpent. Its eyes were blank and white, and its mouth was a circular, sucking organ. It turned to him, briefly, and sucked on the glass between them and the cold, black water. He saw its mouth was full of hollow fangs. A second one joined it, this one a bit bigger – maybe twelve feet. 

When they latched on to the glass their eyes extended on ten-inch stalks, moving to and fro. Maybe in some dim attempt to figure out what was between them and their observers.

“Mussie, the Vampire Mollusk. Seizes other animals and constricts them, sucking blood out of their heads and necks. Would be unfortunate to be a swimmer who came across one, indeed.”

There were two more exhibits – one being behind a door, the other being besides the door.

The one besides the door held a seal-like animal, this one sunbathing. It lifted its head at them on a ten-foot neck. It flared out of its tube-like nostrils, each a foot long. Behind this neck was a large, ugly hump, probably for fat storage. Its eyes were black, and from nose to tail it was twenty feet long. Its tail had two flippers, close together, and when it saw them it let out a loud, short noise. “Halfway between a bark and a roar,” Alva noticed, and just as he did the beast dove head-first into the murky, green water in it’s tank. When undulating, it appeared to be a serpent. After a little bit, it became still and raised its neck to see if they’d gone. When it saw they hadn’t, it released the same roar-bark and dove back down, undulating here and there in a futile attempt at escape.

“Megophias Coleman, Ogopogo. Giant Pinniped. Seal, if you don’t know what that means. Utterly terrified of humans. One of the very few of Sanderson’s pets that isn’t mean as a Viper or nuttier than a Schizo Jackrabbit,” Shuker said, smirking. “Easy to feed, too. Only eats fish. Pukes when cornered as a defense mechanism. No idea how it gained that trait.”

Alva wondered what he meant by ‘gained that trait’, considering it was likely an evolved feature and not a learned one, but he didn’t say anything.

She motioned one of the Guards to open the door. When he did, Alva felt the harsh cold blow back over him. He asked what the Hell they had in there.

Sanderson grinned.

“You’ll see.”

Inside, the final aquarium exhibit was at a sort-of dim light, like very late dusk or very early dawn. Bitterly cold and windy, on their side of the enclosure the air was flowing loud and heavy over them. The tide in the pool moved in the same direction.

In a pit maybe twenty feet deep and sixty wide were blocky-looking platforms, topped with green grass like the Scottish Highlands.

“Formerly a Seal Exhibit. The climbing rocks have been treated to make them more palatable to the animal we have here.” Sanderson said.

And walking, lightly, through the grass, nibbling at it and blinking its blank, black eyes, was a doe.

She perked her head up, startled, and held herself still.

The exhibit was cold to the point where her breath to be visible, a light steam emerging from in and out of her wet nose.

From the cold, black depths, another spray of steam began to rise rhythmically out of the water; just above the surface. A pair of knobby horns, each a little over a foot long, stood behind the breaths which now, either by coincidence or design, were inhaled and exhaled in rhythm with the deer.

Alva had the unpleasant sensation that this animal was not long for this world.

Silently, gently, and very slowly, from behind the doe, something emerged. A long, glimmering ebony neck, seeming to grow from the very water itself like a plant or a tentacle, slid upwards, over the deer.

He saw its eyes, unusually large and a reflective lime-green, above a maw of needly white teeth. The full length of its neck was almost twelve feet.

What terrified him more than the oily, ebon skin and knobby horns and teeth was its complete and total silence. Like a Dragon out of Hell, it slithered through the air and to the as-of-yet unaware deer that only sensed its presence enough to remain perfectly still.

In onyx majesty, the Loch Ness Monster held itself like a statue, breathing gently and opening and closing its mouth at short intervals. Its fangs were needly and interlocked when it closed its mouth like a zipper. A pair of humps rose up out of the water behind it, more ragged looking. Like the animal was shedding.

It may have stayed in that position for hours. He couldn’t tell.

With a sudden recoil, the beast sprang backwards and then forward. It lurched up out of the water on a pair of legs that ended in webbed, clawed feet that dug into the ground and planted it there.

Its jaws snapped shut around the doe’s back with a sickening crack. The animal kicked and thrashed its legs, but the silent serpent held on. It shook its head from side to side, tearing flesh and digging into bone.

When the doe stopped struggling, only panting and occasionally spasming and slowly bleeding out, the Loch Ness Monster began to pull itself back into the waters.

The deer kicked a bit, perhaps trying to harness what last bit of strength it had in a futile attempt to wrench itself free of the predator.

That was not to be.

The deer was dragged into the small body of water, and after a brief uprising of bubbles and wakes, the water had finally become still again.

“An amphibian. Nessiteris Urodela.” Sanderson said. “It eats only once two weeks to a month. Can hide up to 650 feet down and just lay still there, absorbing oxygen from the water like all amphibians. Which, of course, would be why Sonar never finds it.”

Al nodded.

“How big is it?”

“Fully grown?” The Hunter said. “About thirty feet. Weighs maybe half a ton.”

“I just can’t believe how stealthy it was.”

“Yeah,” Sanderson said, proud. “It’s an adaptation that allows it to hunt better, especially at night. Dogs and Sheep are more common prey than Deer – or at least, they will be, once it’s released.”

“Released? Are you…”

“It’ll be explained at the end, Al. Come along now.”

* * *

The next building was labeled REPTILE HOUSE. It was square, dark and brick.

Inside it was heated to almost 100 degrees. Or at least Al felt that way.

“Jesus Christ, It’s like a Sauna in here,” he stated. “What’s this place for?”

Shuker shrugged. “The Tropical species.”

In one cage were two clearly different animals.

One was a flat-faced bat with a pig-like nose, beady eyes and needly teeth, hanging from a branch. It stretched its alarmingly red wings briefly, exposing its white-furred body. Alva saw that from tip-to-tip its wingspan must’ve been almost eight feet. The other was also a bat, but with big, disc-like red eyes set on a long, broad and fleshy snout. When it snapped its jaws, its teeth clacked together. They interlocked like cage bars. This one, silvery-grey, stretched its wings. Twelve feet, Al guessed.

“Ahool, Vietnam. Orang-Bati, Indonesia. Ahool goes for boats, fish and occasionally children. Makes good speed on land. Orang-Bati eats other airborne animals and can only hang from trees or in caves. They leave each other alone, so we just keep them in the same place for convenience.”

Besides that one was a mock-up of an Australian Billabong, twenty feet or so below a glass window. The glass plate was ten feet high, stretching from floor to roof. Alva had the unpleasant sensation there was nothing there, and if got too close to the glass he might just fall through.

In the pit were a fair number of dead, bleached white trees, cracked like ancient bones. Reaching up as though to pull down the sky. Crystal-like, reflective, calm waters. Thick foliage around the rim of the pond.

And, in the pond, two shapes, drifting lazily like Crocodiles. One was seven feet, the other thirteen. And both were covered in reddish-brown, shaggy fur, at least two feet long. Each one had a pair of long, pointed ears at what Al assumed were the front ends; the bigger one remained perfectly still, while the other kept flicking them. Kicking up water and generally disturbing the serenity.

The other one drifted towards the shore, breathing only occasionally from unseen nostrils very close to the ears.

With a sudden start, the littler one jumped up a dead tree and seized it with a four-clawed, grayish-blue paw. Its head, Al now saw, was something like a wombat or a pig. Wet nose, black eyes to the sides of its head, and roughly triangular snout-shape.

The main difference were the four, large fangs with the snarling animal was trying to use to break off a branch of the tree.

“Why search for the Bunyip?” Shuker remarked. “At’s an old Aussie sayin’ my Grandpa used to say. Now I know the answer.” He laughed. Alva nodded, still looking at the animals. “The answer: because it’ll kill you, ‘at’s why. That one – the Calf – was practicing hunting. Its mother, already a skilled predator, can snatch remain still for hours; snatching up anything in the water or anything on the shore. Like a drinking Kangaroo, or a woman washing her clothes. The juveniles, past a certain point, start snatching birds off branches. More often than not it just breaks a limb, dragging its prey down and drowning it. Very crocodilian, though it’s a mammal closer to a marsupial than any kind of reptile.”

Sanderson interjected.

“Australian Aborginal Tribes have a version of this thing for each person, seems like. Water Demon, Lake Dragon, any kind of synonym for ‘big bad water-thing’ is in their lexicon somewhere.”

The ‘Calf’ snapped off a branch and arched up, submerging with its ‘prey’. He shuddered for a moment, afraid that he might soon end up in this tank and have one of his limbs broken like that same branch.

Then, without warning, a strange sound echoed within the building. It was not the loud, horrible roar of the territorial Adult Bunyip, lurching up out of the water towards the pig carcass that a handler had just been dropped into its home.

It was the sound of Alva laughing.

On land, the Bunyip was a ridiculous, ungainly beast. Its rump was bulbous and covered with shaggy hair, as was its whole body. It walked on four short, clawed legs; its head swinging from side-to-side, its ears perking at the sound of moving plants and dropping meat. Its nostrils inhaled and exhaled, absorbing the scent of the corpse. And, opening its ugly, four-fanged mouth and letting out another low and terrible roar, it lurched over, grabbed the body, and dragged it back to the body of water where it spent most of its time.

When Alva saw Sanderson giving him a look of red-face, unbridled anger, he tried to pipe down. He put his head in his hands and shook it, refusing to believe this idiotic looking creature was a maneater.

“You wouldn’t think it was funny if we’d dropped you in there! You goddamned, stupid – ”

She raised a hand up to smack him across the face, but Shuker stepped in front of him.

“Terry, come now,” he said, softly. “People often think the same of Hippos, and they bring down more people than Crocodiles normally do. He’s just a boy, be reasonable…”

Rich people, Shuker knew, are often not reasonable.

“He’s being unreasonable. I think I have an idea of how this tour’s going to end…”

The child was suddenly stone-faced, hoping for the slim possibility this might raise his chances of survival.

Sanderson grinned at him. That same crack in her sanity that had shown before was showing now.

In another enclosure – another one of primarily murky water and thick, green Jungle – was a gigantic monitor lizard, devouring the carcass of what looked to be a Rhino. It recalled a Komodo Dragon, but its skin was slick and red with brown stripes and markings. Its tail thrashed from side to side as it dug into the Rhino meat and continued to tear chunks out of it, gurgling and growling.

On its head was a frill that appeared to be either fleshy or cartilaginous.

“N’yamala. Mokele-Mbembe. Jago-NiNi. Whatever you want to call it, there it is. The forty-foot Monitor of Cameroon. The Crackpots said it was a living Dinosaur, the Scientists said it wasn’t real at all.”

Sanderson laughed as the monster looked at them, perhaps wondering in some dim way what they were and why they were there.

“This should quiet both of them.”

She pointed toward the end of the Hall.

“Onwards we go. To my personal favorites. This is the last stop in this building, and then you’ll get your explanation.”

Shuker rolled his eyes. In his head he called her a name he’d actually never spoken aloud, and one he’d only heard his father say once in an enraged fight with his mother.

The final cage was labeled “Chupacabras”.

Alva had some knowledge of what a Chupacabras was, but he’d heard so many descriptions that he could never guess what the real animal might be like. Surely, it couldn’t have all the characteristics that witnesses had given it. Surely, it had to be exaggerated in some ways, right? After all, Gorillas and Giant Squids had been made absurd fantasy-creatures prior to their actual discoveries. He was sure this creature couldn’t be as outlandish as the Terror of Central American Folklore. Though he may only have been trying to convince himself.

The Chupacabra’s Area was a mock-up of the American Desert. The Sonoran, his grandmother had called it. White flowers – Peniocereus, he remembered. Some Small Cactuses. A patch of thick Burro-weed the corner, a trio of dead or artificial trees on the opposite one. An indigo bush, a few creosotes.

Finally, he noticed an opening in the ceiling for feeding. A small river ran through the middle, and at that river a pale-skinned, batlike animal was drinking calmly.

This ‘Bat’ walked on four legs, occasionally standing to survey the area with its massive, pointed ears. Its eyes were huge and black, its mouth a maw of blade-like teeth. Its fiddling hands were equipped with long, bony fingers. Its wet, red nose was leaf-shaped, like a pig’s. But most upsetting of all were the manic spines on its back, which flicked up and down like a bug’s wings with each rasping breath it took.

Its skin was filthy and even from a far distance it reeked of carrion. Its panting ribs, as though it was hyperventilating. One of them – the biggest one – had a more pronounced forehead, sickeningly like a baby’s and with light, yellowish-green stripes running vertically across its face. Its eyes reflected back red, and it was colored a rough, slate grey with mottled black parts on its back under its quills. When it stood, it was maybe five feet high.

The other two, sleeping near the trees, were only four feet high standing. One of them had gotten up to see the human observers and, finding nothing about them particularly interesting, had gone back to sleep; crossing its neck with the other one like a Lion. They had smaller quills, and less protuberant foreheads. Their skins were much lighter, a dull white. Without a dark red in their leaf-shaped noses or stripes on their foreheads. Their eyes, too, reflected white.

But that made them no less upsetting to look at.

The bigger one, which He deduced was either a male or an adult to the other females or juveniles, lunged when it saw them. He didn’t jump back, those his eyes did widen. It reached its thin, tightly-muscled forearms through the bars, letting out a horrible roar and drooling from its bony fangs. Its claws and fingers reminded him of a man’s hands, though its hind-legs were long-ankled like a Kangaroos.

“Chupas,” Shuker said. “I hate the Goddamn Chupas. They are the most irksome, vicious creatures ever to come into existence; artificially or otherwise.”

He stored away the comment about artificial beasts in his subconscious for later and mulled over how the animal had sprinted towards the bars.

“Reminded me of a Vampire Bat,” he said. “The way it leapt, it…”

“That’s because it is a Bat. Desmodus Bataar.” Sanderson said. “One adapted to take the role of a pack-hunting land predator, like wolves or Lions.”

“We used to have another male in there,” Shuker remarked. He had a disgusted look on his scarred face. “I liked it better. More cooperative. You could walk right into the goddamn cage and throw down a carcass and he’d just leave ya be. Then we introduced that one and, well…”

“He’s just hungry,” Sanderson said. “Animals have only instincts, Shuker. You know that.” She shot him an icy glare.

He snorted. “I know that’s what she tells me, but she’s never been alone with those goddamn monsters.” He whispered to Al, who nodded Nervously.

She dispatched a pair of the guards, who left into a door besides the Chupacabras Cage.

As they moved in front of the big male, it moved with them to the side of the cage. It began to wail and howl now that it could no longer see them. The other two remained still, but stood up and turned their milky-white eyes to him.

From above the Chupacabras, the goat was lowered in a small cage. One of the handlers lowered the cage, while the other held his Tranq gun steady, presumably in the event the other handler fell in.

The male was still at the corner, panting and drooling. The two females were still perked up, focusing on him.

The Goat stumbled out its cage awkwardly. The empty, wire kennel was brought up and the hole in the ceiling closed.

“It’s been drugged,” Sanderson whispered. “Those horns could break their ribs open or twist an arm. They can bring them down in the wild, it’s just precaution we take to keep them in fine condition.”

The goat ruffled through a small fern patch and all of the alien, bulbous heads turned like birds, twitching and rasping.

The goat blinked, tried to remain still.

The big male leapt into a patch of grass, almost totally hidden but for its pointed ears and quills. The spines rose and fell with its breath, miming the breeze blowing through the patch of green in which it hid.

One of the two females moved backwards in a primate-like fashion, seeking cover behind a tree. She looked between the branches only sparingly, attempting to avoid detection by her prey.

The third Chupacabras simply advanced slowly, a limb at a time; its shoulder-blades and spikes rising like the hair on a cat’s back. Stealthily, it advanced towards the Goat. And, clearly frightened and trying to avoid detection, the Goat gently backed up. Trying to avoid what it had no way to run from.

Each time it backed up, it slid along the wall of the enclosure towards the grass patch. With each step it took away from the advancing female, the male in the grass advanced forwards.

Scenting or sensing the big male in the grass, the doomed creature attempted to distance itself from the grass and the approaching female.

The other female emerged from between the trees, blocking off its only exit path.

The prey bleated, and its end had come.

The Big Male leapt from out of the grass and onto the goat’s back; it used its giant hands to grapple with the horns and snout and brought the creature down on the ground, kicking up dirt.

The big male wrenched back its striped, red eyed head, bore all its thin, smooth teeth; and ripped into the soft meat of the Goat’s throat.

He heard its neck break as it wrenched its antlers and snout in two different directions, pushing down on one end and pulling up with the other. Its jugular opened, blood flooded the soil and stained it black.

The two females leapt onto its belly and slashed it with their long, scythe-like talons, tearing it open and spilling its innards.

When it had finally stopped convulsing, they had dug down into the softer, spilled organs and began to consume them. They did not function like more…conventional predators, He saw. Like bats, they sliced openings in the organs they held in their disturbingly human-like fingers and lapped the escaping fluids. It reminded him of a documentary he’d seen on vampire bats. They sliced and licked, their saliva stopping the blood flow.

“Like Bats,” he muttered, barely connected to the reality in front of him. “Like bats, slicing and draining…” It occurred to him that the big male was the one drinking blood from the felled animal’s neck, while the other two focused on other fluids.

“They don’t eat the actual meat,” Shuker said. “They siphon the fluids and eat the soft organs, since their teeth aren’t able to snap bones like, say, a Wolf’s.”

Al forced himself to look away as they began eating the organs they’d pulled and made warbling, birdlike sounds. The last thing he saw was one of the females and the male licking each other’s faces clean.

“That female is pregnant,” said Sanderson proudly. “She had an offspring she carried on her underside, before we introduced this male…after he took down the former alpha, he made sure to take down his offspring, too. Established himself fairly nicely, as you can see.”

“Yeah, I just wish I could unsee.” Said Alva, his voice flat.

She glared at him. Glaring seemed to be all she did, he thought.

“You and me both, brother.” Said Shuker.

“Now, for the explanation I promised you.”

Out of the warm ‘reptile house’ and back into the building they came from. The biggest one.

The last one on her tour, and, as far as He could tell, possibly the last one he would ever enter.