The care and feeding of strange beasts

If Frank had known he’d be contributing to the upkeep of a bloodsucking monster, he might have declined to be a financial supporter of the zoo. At the very least, he might have yielded to his five-year-old daughter’s choice of animal.

The zoo was Georgie’s favorite weekend destination. Today they had started their visit on the ‘Plains of Africa’, where deer and antelope ambled aimlessly and chewed their cud. Georgie chewed the soggy edge of her paper snow-cone cup. ‘Tiger time?’ she said hopefully.

‘Check out the horns on that kudu,’ said Frank, knowing it was a futile effort.

Georgie crunched the raspberry-flavored ice. Her jaws moved rhythmically up and down. ‘Cool horns,’ she said around the mouthful of ice. Her mouth was ringed with magenta from the snow-cone. ‘But not as cool as tigers.’

‘You look like a vampire,’ said Frank. He felt around in his pocket for a Kleenex and handed it to her.

Georgie swabbed at her face. ‘Okay. How about now?’

 ‘Not really,’ said Frank. The red dye had dried. ‘You’re a messy eater.’

 ‘I mean, can we go see the tigers now?’

The path to Asia, where the tigers lived, cut across Central and South America. Apart from the solitary jaguar, the beasts of the Caribbean and the Amazon held little interest for Georgie. But today she halted, staring at the creatures in one of the enclosures.

Two of them were grazing, one was sitting in a ridiculous splay-legged position and the rest were basking in the sun. They were as big as a large dog, with mallet-shaped heads and small, piggish eyes. Their front legs were shorter than their hind legs and had toes instead of hooves. They looked a bit like big brown guinea pigs.

‘Those are weird,’ said Georgie.

Frank agreed: they were weird-looking. Not scary-weird, just disconcerting. Big, angular hind legs, stubby front legs, little ears, no tail. The face of a beaver, or maybe a mule or a deer, or a kangaroo. ‘They’re called cappy berras,’ he said, guessing at the pronunciation of the word on the sign. ‘As a species, they are neither rare nor threatening. Threatened,’ he corrected himself. He glanced at Georgie. ‘Okay. Tiger time.’

As a frequent zoo visitor, Frank regularly received requests for money, with a choice of ways he could donate.

‘Would you like to sponsor a zoo animal?’ he asked his daughter at suppertime. ‘Help pay for feeding it and taking care of it?’

Georgie looked up from her plate, her eyes alight. ‘Do we get to keep it?’

‘No, but we’d get a picture of it and regular updates.’

‘A tiger?’

‘How about something different?’ said Frank. ‘The tigers have lots of sponsors already.’  

‘Like what?’

‘How about a capybara?’

‘A what?’

‘Remember those weird-looking South American animals?’

‘Oh. Yeah.’ Georgie gnawed at a chicken wing. ‘Do they eat chicken?’

Frank knew the answer, having read the sign at the zoo. ‘No, they’re herbivores. That means they only eat plants.’

His answer was met with an uncomprehending stare. ‘Why?’

Frank explained about different kinds of digestive systems. Georgie said capybaras must be really boring animals, like cows.

As that was the extent of Frank’s knowledge of capybaras, he enlisted the help of YouTube after supper and cajoled Georgie into watching some videos. The first one started with a bunch of capybaras standing in a shallow river. ‘The capybara is the world’s largest rodent, weighing up to 125 pounds,’ the narrator said. ‘They are placid and sociable creatures.’

‘That means they’re easy to get along with,’ said Frank.

‘Like cows,’ said Georgie, the words heavy with disdain.

‘Capybaras are excellent swimmers,’ the narrator declared, even though the animals were just standing in the water looking dopey. ‘They can stay underwater for up to five minutes.’

‘See, that’s not boring,’ said Frank.

Georgie gave him a look of incredulous scorn.

‘They won’t be boring once they start swimming,’ Frank persisted.

‘Tigers can swim too and they’re never boring.’

The video ended with the capybaras still standing there.

Georgie said, ‘Are we done?’

‘Just one more,’ said Frank.

He was in luck. A video with no pretensions to scientific merit showed a line of capybaras filing solemnly up steps and sinking chin-deep into a steaming pool, accompanied by a song about a hot tub party. Georgie was riveted. She sat there silent and goggle-eyed for the entire three minutes and twenty-eight seconds.

‘There you go,’ said Frank. ‘As cool as tigers?’

‘No. But they’re awesome.’

The sponsorship package arrived in the mail a few days later. The letter congratulated Frank and thanked him for his assistance with ‘food, toys for enrichment, veterinary and other costs associated with keeping a chupacabra’.

Frank smiled. They need a proofreader, he thought. That is one heck of a spelling error. He drew the second page out of the envelope.

Frank laid the piece of paper on the table in front of him, repulsed. Somebody has a sick sense of humor, he thought.

But it wasn’t worth making a fuss. Better to call the zoo and pretend he hadn’t received a sponsorship package. He looked in the envelope again, but it contained nothing else. He didn’t mention any of this to Georgie, but she had apparently forgotten about the capybara anyway.

After a couple of days, Frank made his phone call. The person to whom he spoke apologized for the package having gone astray, promised to send out another one, and thanked him again for his generosity. Frank asked whether the package would include a picture of the animal.

‘Yes, of course.’ A pause. ‘Oh. Not in this instance, I’m afraid.’

‘Why not?’

‘Some animals’ eyes don’t adapt well to light so we don’t photograph them. I’m sorry.’

‘But we saw them. They were outside, in broad daylight.’

There was a silence. ‘You saw them?’

‘Well – yes,’ said Frank. ‘Capybaras are not like, bats or something.’

There was a longer silence.

‘Hello?’ said Frank. ‘I sponsored a capybara, didn’t I?’

‘I’ve got you down for a chupacabra.’

‘Ha ha. Cute.’ He waited for the staff member to laugh, but she didn’t. ‘So, you’ll put it in the mail tomorrow?’

‘Yes. We’re very grateful for your financial support, especially since you’re sponsoring one of the less well-known animals.’

‘Yeah, tell me about it. My daughter wanted a tiger,’ said Frank.

This time she chuckled politely. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Saige?’

Frank said no and that he looked forward to receiving the information about the capybara.

‘Chupacabra.’

‘Okay, it’s a joke. I get it,’ said Frank. ‘Now could you please change your database to the name of the animal that I actually sponsored.’

The staff member said she’d double-check the details before sending out his replacement package.

Frank received nothing more in the mail. After sending an e-mail and getting no reply, he decided to take his lunch hour to make inquiries in person.

The staff member in the zoo’s business office, a pretty-faced young man named Domenic, said he’d have to get his manager’s authorization to change the sponsorship.

Frank was losing patience. ‘I didn’t pay real money to sponsor an imaginary animal.’

‘I can assure you, it is not imaginary.’

‘Perhaps you’d like to show it to me.’

‘All right. Come on, then,’ said Domenic, looking peevish and put-upon, and off they went to Central and South America.

A small knot of people clustered around the periphery of a fenced-off area, which Frank didn’t remember from his last visit. The fencing was made of sturdy-looking steel bars in a cross-hatched pattern, the openings barely big enough to see through.

Frank nudged his way to the front of the crowd, put his face close to one of the interstices and peered in. No animals could be seen, only a cave-like rock structure at the opposite end. ‘What are we looking at, exactly?’ he said to the woman standing next to him.

‘The chupacabra! Didn’t you see it on the news?’

‘No, and I don’t see anything in there.’

‘I don’t either,’ she admitted. ‘I hope it’ll come out of its hidey-hole.’

‘How long have you been here?’ said Frank.

‘Oh, about forty-five minutes.’

Frank made his way back to Domenic. ‘Good job. It takes a certain skill to get people to pay to be pranked.’

‘You can think what you like,’ said Domenic, his voice chilly.

‘What I’d like is what I requested and am paying for by regular direct debit,’ said Frank. ‘And you’d better not be planning to put up a plaque with my name on it as a sponsor of a nonexistent animal.’

Frank heard nothing further but he did start getting sponsor newsletters. Each issue usually contained a mildly interesting article about some animal. To his annoyance, the newsletters also contained extensive coverage of the elusive chupacabra. A column titled ‘Chupacabra Watch’ reported the number of visitors to its enclosure each week, and there were regular notices of special chupacabra events: a film about Central American ecosystems, a raffle to win a cruise to Puerto Rico, a guided tour of the zoo’s nocturnal animal exhibit. None of these events actually promised a glimpse of the chupacabra, but they unfailingly drew dozens of people, sometimes upwards of a hundred. Feature stories sprang up everywhere. The word ‘chupacabra’ became a teenage catch phrase, uttered with a guttural snarl. By the time the news of its escape broke, the chupacabra was a local celebrity.

The only undisputed facts were that bars of the cage were bent and unidentifiable animal tracks were found nearby. The rest was speculation.

If the public was alarmed, Frank was exasperated. When his ex-wife mentioned the escape as she was dropping Georgina off, he put a finger to his lips and gave her a meaningful look. Once their daughter was out of the room she asked him how they were supposed to keep it a secret since it was all over the news?

‘You have a point. I guess it’s an opportunity to explain the difference between fact and fiction,’ said Frank.

‘The media don’t think it’s fiction,’ said Pat.

‘This whole place has gone crazy,’ said Frank. ‘There is no such thing as a chupacabra. It’s a publicity stunt. The zoo must be desperate for money.’

‘Why are you so angry?’ said Pat.

Three days later, a gazelle was found, exsanguinated.

Until collected by a veterinary pathologist, the bloodless body lay in the farthest corner of the enclosure and visitors were diverted away from the exhibit. A zoo spokesperson told reporters that the other antelope were ‘definitely spooked’, but upon questioning admitted that the keepers had reported no unusual behavior.

‘Surely they get used to the occasional death in there,’ said Frank. ‘Animals die of old age. Or they get diseases.’

‘All of its blood was gone,’ said his friend Jim. They were sweating and panting side by side on their respective machines at the gym, gazing upward at the television. ‘None left in the animal, none on the ground around it. What kind of disease does that?’

‘Hey, Jim, maybe somebody was lying,’ said Frank. ‘Did anybody outside the zoo see the body?’

‘Maybe something got it,’ said Jim.

‘Like what?’ said Frank. ‘Vampire bats?’

‘Yeah, maybe vampires. That’s what I’m saying.’

‘They’re not vampires. They’re just bats,’ said Frank. Jesus, sometimes Jim could be dim. ‘They live in South America and drink the blood of livestock.’ Jim was looking at him skeptically. Frank told him to Google it.

Before they saw each other again, however, another zoo animal was dead, it too drained of blood. This time it was a goat in the children’s petting zoo.

The news media went into a feverish uproar and the zoo launched a public education campaign. ‘In the wild, antelope and goats eat grass,’ said the avuncular narrator as the camera panned over a herd of wildebeest. ‘In turn they are eaten by lions, jaguars, or—’

‘Chupacabras?’ Frank said aloud. He had started watching the news obsessively.

‘—other predators.’ The paid advertisement was strategically aired just before the news, and the news this evening featured an interview with the zoo’s assistant director, a wispy blond-haired woman who looked like she needed a blood transfusion herself.  The journalist asked her whether public safety was a concern.

‘No. It hasn’t left the zoo.’

‘How would you know that?’ said Frank to the TV. ‘Couldn’t it have left and come back later?’

‘But what about visitors to the zoo?’ said the reporter.

‘There is no danger to the public. We have measures in place,’ the pallid bureaucrat replied. ‘Trained professionals searching twenty-four-seven,’ she added before the journalist could press her. ‘Also, the chupacabra is a nocturnal animal and the zoo is only open during the daytime.’

Frank laughed.

The program’s voice-over narration stated that zoo attendance had not suffered; indeed, it had gone up.

‘Where did the chupacabra come from?’ the reporter asked.

‘They are native to the Caribbean islands and throughout Central and South America.’

‘But where did this one come from? Was it captured in the wild?’ the reporter persisted.

‘We do not take animals from the wild. The Metropolitan Zoo is a nonprofit organization funded partly by the city and partly by donors, including our sponsorship program.’

‘You didn’t answer the question!’ Frank yelled at the TV.  Then he fired off an e-mail requesting they cancel his sponsorship.

It was impossible to keep Georgie from hearing about the chupacabra. Frank did his best to explain that it was a myth, like witchcraft or werewolves. Georgina wasn’t buying it. The gazelle and the goat were dead, weren’t they? ‘Sucked dry!’ she said, with a little too much relish for Frank’s liking.

By the time the third fatality took place, the media had started asking why the killings were only happening inside the zoo. If the chupacabra could get out of a steel cage, surely it could get over a fence or walk out the front gate.

‘You’d think it would be easy to catch if it never leaves the zoo,’ said Pat. She had come to pick up Georgie.

Frank had the 24-hour news channel on. He had some unpleasant suspicions about what might have happened to the gazelle and the goat.

‘Maybe that’s what it’s thinking,’ said Georgie.

Pat and Frank looked at her. Pat said, ‘That’s what who is thinking?’

‘The chupacabra. Maybe that’s what it’s thinking about the other animals.’

‘Have you got your stuff ready to go, honey?’ Frank said. Then to Pat, ‘Sorry. She shouldn’t be watching this, I know.’

‘Don’t beat yourself up,’ said Pat. ‘We can’t protect her from reality.’

‘But this isn’t reality,’ said Frank. He looked back at the TV.

‘—a species from South America that many have never heard of,’ the announcer was saying.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Frank impatiently. ‘You mean an imaginary species.’

‘Calm down, Frank,’ said Pat.

‘They are highly social animals and live in groups of ten, twenty or up to a hundred,’ the announcer went on.

She’s not talking about the chupacabra, Frank realized.

‘The zoo’s population numbered nine. Now …’ The journalist paused, looking soberly into the camera. ‘There are eight.’ The program cut to a video clip of the capybaras.

As usual, Georgie wanted to visit the zoo on Saturday. As usual, Frank said okay.

‘Dad, can we see the chupacabra first?’ said Georgie while they were standing in line.

‘No.’

‘Why.’

‘You know why, Georgina,’ said Frank. ‘There is no chupacabra. It’s a made-up animal. Like a dragon.’

‘Daaaad. There are no dragons at the zoo!’

Not yet, thought Frank. They’re probably saving the dragons for next year.

As the line inched forward, Frank could see a group of people standing near the zoo’s entrance, but not in line. They were holding signs: KEEP WILD ANIMALS WILD.  RAGE AGAINST THE CAGE. The people in line weren’t even looking at them.

Georgie asked Frank what they were doing.

‘Some people think zoos are cruel, Georgie,’ said Frank. ‘They’re protesting because the zoo keeps wild animals locked up.’

‘Why?’

‘They believe it’s wrong to take them away from their homes and put them in a zoo.’

‘It’s wrong?’ A troubled look started to form on Georgie’s face.

‘Not everyone thinks it’s wrong,’ said Frank. ‘Other people think zoos are the best way to protect animals.’

‘Protect them from what?’

‘Bad people who hunt animals. And people who move in where the animals live and build houses and cities and then there’s no room for the animals any more.’

One of the signs said FREE THE CHUPACABRAS! As they drew closer, Frank caught the eye of the young guy holding it. ‘That’s a joke, right?’ said Frank.

The protester was clearly pleased to be spoken to. ‘No, not at all.’ He lowered the sign, eager to talk. ‘If they hadn’t locked them up to begin with, they wouldn’t have escaped. They wouldn’t be here at all.’

‘I thought there was only one chupacabra,’ said Frank.

Georgie said, ‘No you didn’t, Dad. You said there are no chupacabras.’

The protester smiled at Georgie, then glanced at Frank and decided not to say anything.

‘But seriously,’ said Frank. The line wasn’t moving very fast. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe zoos are bad. But let’s put that aside for the moment, okay?’

The young man looked unsure. ‘Okay.’

‘Whatever you may think of zoos, they’re supposed to be educational, right?’ said Frank. ‘They’re supposed to teach us facts. Not fantasy. Why aren’t you protesting against the hoax?’

‘What hoax?’

‘There, is, no, chupacabra,’ said Frank, enunciating the words very carefully.

‘That’s right,’ the young man agreed. ‘It got out.’

‘No, it didn’t,’ said Frank, his voice rising. ‘There is no chupacabra in the zoo and there is no chupacabra out of the zoo. You’re either gullible or complicit.’

The protester frowned and hoisted the sign again. ‘Everybody waiting to get in here is complicit in animal exploitation.’

A tremor of fury shook Frank’s body. His arms were straight by his sides, but his hands were curled into fists. The protester stepped back, looking anxious all of a sudden.

‘Dad?’ said Georgie in a small voice. ‘We’re here.’ They had reached the admission window.

Frank turned his back on the protesters. ‘Two please, one adult and one child.’ He was ashamed of himself for getting so angry in front of his daughter. ‘Where would you like to start today?’ he asked her, trying for a light and cheerful tone. ‘Big cats?’

‘I don’t care,’ said Georgie. She didn’t look at him. She’s too little to understand, Frank thought with a spasm of remorse. I just want her to grow up to be rational, and most people are irrational.

‘Honey, I’m sorry I got so mad at that guy. It wasn’t very nice of me.’

He had said ‘I’m sorry’ to Pat many times when they were still married. He got angry a lot, though not at Pat. He got angry when other people were being unreasonable. Pat was tolerant of other people’s unreasonable behavior. She forgave them for being stubborn and stupid. She also forgave him the first few thousand times he got angry at unreasonable people.

Georgie still didn’t look at him, but she said, ‘Can we go see the night animals?’

The nocturnal animals building was not too full today and they could see into the glass-enclosed habitats without having to wait for people to get out of the way. Georgie was watching a lemur and Frank was trying to spot the elusive bush rat when he felt something brush against his legs. He stepped to one side to allow the person a better view, but when he glanced behind him there was no one there.

Then his daughter shrieked. It was a shriek of pure terror.

The sound gripped his heart and squeezed, made him gasp for breath. He wheeled and lunged, swinging for whatever was menacing her. The only lights in the building were blueish-colored ones behind the glass, designed to illuminate the animals without disturbing them. ‘Georgina!’ She was here a second ago.

‘Dad!’ It was a sob but she was right next to him again.

Frank grabbed her by the shoulders and propelled her towards the exit. When they emerged into the light he dropped to his knees, to her eye level. ‘Georgie honey, are you okay?’ He put his arms around his daughter and hugged her close. The possibility that she was not okay was one that he would not allow himself to contemplate. ‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know.’ Her voice was muffled in his shoulder. ‘It was hot and it smelled bad.’

Frank released her from the hug. She wasn’t crying or even sniffling. ‘What smelled bad?’

‘The hot thing.’

‘Hot? How was it hot?’ said Frank, baffled.

‘Like a fan,’ said Georgie.

‘But fans blow cool air.’

‘Like if there was a fan in the oven. And it stuck me with a fork,’ she added.

‘Where did it stick you?’

‘Here.’ Georgie pointed to her leg.

Frank couldn’t see a puncture, scratch, or mark of any kind. ‘Does it hurt?’

‘No,’ Georgie admitted.

Frank turned her around and examined her from head to toe. Her leg looked just like her other leg. He brushed her hair back gently with his hand. Her neck was unblemished.

‘You know what I think?’ said Frank. ‘I think somebody sneaked up on you and scared you.’  

‘Who?’

Good question, thought Frank. People don’t generally sneak up on little kids, breathing hot fumes and poking them with a fork. ‘Maybe somebody bumped into you by accident. It was dark.’

Georgie wasn’t buying it. ‘It was the chupacabra! It was trying to get my blood!’

‘No, sweetie. There is no chupacabra. It’s not real. Nothing is trying to get your blood.’

‘What about vampires?’

‘Vampires aren’t real either.’

‘Was it you, Dad? Trying to scare me?’

 ‘Of course not. Do I smell bad?’

She gave him a weak little smile. ‘No.’

‘Shall we visit the tigers?’ Don’t show her how scared you were, he told himself. Don’t let her know you slipped for a second and almost – almost – believed in it.  ‘Or we can just go home. It’s okay if you’ve had enough for today.’

Georgie raised her chin and looked him in the eye. ‘I don’t want to go home. I want to see the tigers. And the capybaras.’

‘Then let’s go see some big cats and big rodents,’ said Frank. He was proud of her for being brave, even if there wasn’t anything to be afraid of.

The rest of the afternoon passed without incident. Georgie seemed to have forgotten all about her traumatic experience. Frank hadn’t forgotten. He had plenty to say to the zoo and this time it wasn’t about the sponsorship, although he still hadn’t received an acknowledgement of his request to cancel it.

The Visitor Information building was close to the zoo’s entrance and exit gates. ‘I’d like to stop in here for a minute,’ he said to Georgie.

 ‘Can I stay outside and play?’ There was a small playground near the building with a couple of swings and some rides in the shape of animals.

‘Yes, just don’t go anywhere else.’

The information officer was a broad-shouldered man whose uniform and demeanor gave him a distinct resemblance to Smokey the Bear. His tag said his name was Sam. ‘How are you doing today, sir?’

‘Fine, thanks. See that little girl?’ said Frank, pointing out the window. ‘That’s my daughter. She loves coming to the zoo, and she loves tigers.’

‘Aw, that’s great,’ said Sam, his smile widening into a grin.

‘Can I ask you something, Sam?’

Sam said of course, that was what he was here for.

‘It’s about the chupacabra,’ said Frank.

The grin faded. ‘Yes?’

‘Clever idea. Letting it out was a stroke of genius.’

Sam’s smile disappeared completely. ‘Oh whoa, whoa,’ he said, putting his hands up in a ‘stop’ gesture, which Frank ignored and kept talking.

‘Tell ’em it’s there, then if no one can see it, tell ’em it’s out roaming around. Let the suspense build. Wait a couple of weeks, then tell ’em it’s been captured and sent back to Puerto Rico. Right? I’ll bet that’s what’s supposed to happen next. Because people won’t keep coming to see something that nobody’s ever seen.’

Sam started to speak. Frank said, ‘I’m not done yet.’

Sam said, ‘I apologize.’

‘Now suppose I told you my daughter believes she had an encounter with it this afternoon.’

Sam exhaled. It was a soft release of breath, not quite a sigh. ‘Where?’

‘You don’t seem too alarmed,’ said Frank.

‘Where?’ Sam repeated. ‘Where did she think she saw it?’

‘She didn’t see anything. She said she felt something.’

‘Sir, it would be helpful if you could give me a little more information.’

‘Okay,’ said Frank. ‘We were in the nocturnal animals building and somebody brushed up against her. Or there was a draft.’ He decided not to mention Georgie’s description of a ‘hot thing’ that smelled bad and stuck her with a fork. ‘Whatever it was, it frightened her.’

‘You think it was the chupacabra,’ said Sam.

‘You and I both know there is no chupacabra.’

‘But—’

‘Excuse me. My daughter was terrified. She’s only five years old but she’s not afraid of the dark and she’s not afraid of real animals. If she was afraid of real animals, we could talk about it. We could do some research, learn the facts. But you guys and the media have made her scared of something that doesn’t even exist.’

Frank followed Sam’s gaze out the window. Georgie was riding one of the fake animals – the tiger, of course.  

‘I’m really sorry your little girl was upset,’ said Sam, still looking out the window and not at Frank. ‘There have been other complaints. We’ll be making an announcement in the next few days.’

‘An announcement,’ said Frank. ‘What sort of announcement?’

‘To clarify. There was never any danger to visitors, our animals, or the public. No one is at risk, okay?’

‘Let me get this straight,’ said Frank. ‘You’re admitting there was a hoax.’

‘I’m not at liberty to comment.’

‘Come on.’

‘All right,’ said Sam, meeting Frank’s eyes again. ‘Yes. The marketing people made an error of judgment.’

Yes! thought Frank, vindicated but slightly astonished. He had never doubted that the chupacabra was a fabrication, but he’d also never expected the zoo to own up to it. He also felt a distinct sense of relief, though he wasn’t sure why. ‘I don’t want to know what really happened to those animals, do I?’

‘Oh no, no,’ said Sam, shaking his head vigorously. ‘You are way off base there, sir. The antelope was sick and had to be euthanized. And the goat was old.’

Frank still had questions. He briefly considered asking to speak with someone further up the chain of command. Then he decided to drop it and take Georgie home. If the zoo was finally ready to put an end to the chupacabra, good riddance to it.

Outside, he heard something rustling in the lower branches of some shrubbery beside the building. He squinted into the afternoon sun, glimpsed movement. There was something in there, under that bush, and it was too big to be a squirrel.

Probably just birds.

He started walking toward the playground. Then he glanced back at the shrubbery. Georgie was playing and paying no attention to him, and there was no one else around. 

Feeling slightly foolish, Frank crouched down and peered under the bush. The rustling had stopped.

For a second he thought he saw light reflecting from red eyes, like the eyes of a possum. Then he blinked and the eyes disappeared. He strained to see but there was no detectable movement. If he had a long stick, he would have swung it around under the bush to see if it struck anything.  

He imagined the thing hurtling straight toward his face, snarling, its mouth open with slimy strings of saliva swinging juicily. Its warm breath smelled horrible, like rotten meat.

Frank stood up and brushed off the knees of his pants. There’s no chupacabra hiding under that bush or anywhere else, he told himself. There will be no chupacabra here next time either. My daughter was not, is not, and never will be in danger of chupacabra attack.

He turned his back on the shrubbery and walked back to the playground with slow, deliberate steps.

Georgie saw him coming, dismounted the fake tiger and ran toward him. Frank held out his hand. ‘Ready to go?’

‘I’m hungry.’

‘Okay, let’s go. Hey!’ said Frank, as if a great idea had just occurred to him. ‘Next time we could go to the aquarium instead of the zoo for a change. What do you think? We could see animals that live in the water.’

‘Tigers?’ 

‘No tigers and no capybaras, but lots of fish. There’s one called a tiger shark.’

‘Chupacabra?’

‘Nope,’ said Frank. ‘You won’t see a chupacabra. You know why?’

‘Because there’s no such thing as a chupacabra,’ said Georgie. She didn’t sound entirely convinced, Frank thought, but it was good enough for now.

Credits

Moody forest, by Carter Baran on Unsplash

Capybara icon by Phạm Thanh Lộc from the Noun Project

Citation

Please cite as: Miller, L. Elaine, ‘The care and feeding of strange beasts’, It Could Be Words (blog), 31 October 2021, https://it-could-be-words.com/the-care-and-feeding-of-strange-beasts