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Small Town Monsters

5

“I’ve been called out on wolf attacks before. In the winter they come down from the mountains and occasionally hit the higher herds, but they never pack in groups of more than six or eight. This looked like the work of maybe twenty.”

“I’m afraid to ask, but what was Buren’s take on the whole affair?” Hugh said, clamping his right hand down on the bench’s arm-rail to stop the shaking in his hand.

“He kept flapping about el chupacabra.”

Hugh laughed a gale of blasting chucks. “El chupacabra, in these parts? Never.”

Kurt shook his head and took another sip of his beer.

“I suppose the pack was led by Sasquatch himself,” Hugh said.

“Funny thing is, there were five animals mangled in a much more brutal manner than the rest.”

“Curious.” Hugh stretched his back. It popped twice like twin knots exploding in a fire.

“They were torn to shreds. Whatever got those five seemed like it was bigger than the other predators.”

“I have to admit: sounds like el chupacapra,” Hugh said.

Kurt smiled and looked over at the old man but didn’t see any sign of sarcasm. Then Hugh’s face broke into a youthful grin and he chuckled afresh.

“This town isn’t without its monsters. Although I tend to believe in them figuratively. But there are some, like Buren that put a lot of stock in the legends: el chupacabra, aliens,” Hugh said. Hugh fixed Kurt with a grave expression. “Even werewolves.”

Here we go again, Kurt thought to himself. It was hard for Kurt to trust old Hugh’s stories. So often he had listened to the old man unspool an amazing yarn, only to be duped at the end. Kurt decided to bite. “Werewolves, you say?”

“Yes, sir,” Hugh said. “There was a time when a werewolf stalked the woods about our quaint little town.” Hugh looked off into the lush of the forest, settling into campfire story-telling mode.

Kurt smiled, took another beer out of the cooler and