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Craig Nybo

8

had attacked these particular sheep. Bones had been fiercely broken, almost ground, as if a huge predator had clamped its maw around the necks of the animals and whipped them about like toys.

Kurt crouched for a better look. He removed a pen from his breast pocket and used it to turn one of the mangled carcasses over. Its intestines unfolded from within its defiled rib cage, spilling onto the earth. Its sternum gaped open. Its heart had been eaten from its chest. Whatever had feasted on the animal had been ravenous and twice as violent as the other predators in its pack.

“You suppose they ganged up on these five?” Clay asked.

“Look at the teeth-marks.” Kurt pointed to a wound on the animal’s spine. “They seem to be the same pattern as the others, only…”

“Bigger,” Clay said.

“El chupacabra,” Buren said.

“I don’t want to hear anything else about el chupacabra. These sheep were attacked by wolves.”

“You need to warn the others, or I will—as if a warning would do any good,” Buren said, scratching under one of his sweaty armpits.

Kurt stood up and put a hand on Buren’s shoulder. “Buren, do you remember when you visited Pearlman’s, had a few beers, and told everyone about the time you were abducted by aliens?”

“I WAS abducted by aliens.”

“I believe that you believe you were abducted by aliens,” Kurt said.

“I was.”

“Whether you were or were not isn’t the point. The law is in charge of warning the people about imminent danger; you are not. I can’t have you drunk at Pearlman’s spouting off about this, is that understood?”

“You’ll have half the livestock dead around these parts.”

“That is my responsibility.” All Kurt needed was a liquored up right-wing wacko brigade wandering around the forest