The Chupacabra (6 page)

Carmen's face remained serious.

“Mado should not have taken you there. He knows we are forbidden to go there.” She spoke vehemently, and Vanessa could see how upset she was. What was it with that house? Vanessa tried to keep her breathing even, reluctant to remember the sensations that had overwhelmed her that day.

“Why?” said Vanessa. “Tell me why, Carmen.”

“Could someone please fill me in?” Nikki bleated. “Please?”

“
Malvado
lives there now,” said Carmen quietly.

“Malvado?” Vanessa asked. “Is that one of the locals?”

“No,
malvado
means evil in Spanish,” Nikki said. “Now will you stop talking and tell me what happened?”

At that moment, Vanessa could not speak even if she had known what exactly had happened. Her throat and chest were constricted so tight that they pained her.

“A local, one of the Nahua, used to live in that house,” said Carmen. “I think he was the shaman—a good man. But he disappeared and then evil moved in.”

“Disappeared?” said Nikki, her eyes wide.

“When did that happen?” asked Vanessa. “When did he disappear?”

“About four years ago,” Carmen replied. “Just before we came to the ranch.”

Before they came to the ranch? Vanessa's mind was racing. Joseph had told her that the ranch had been in the family for generations. It wasn't adding up.

“And has anything else strange happened since then?” asked Nikki.

Carmen shook her head slowly.

“Well, that doesn't sound too bad. Maybe the shaman just moved somewhere else, maybe to a better house.” Nikki would always look for the sensible solution.

“That is what Mado says.” But Carmen was clearly not reassured. “Don't ever say to Mama that he took you there. Anyway, it's late. I think we need to get some sleep now.” Carmen was determined to bring the conversation to an end.

While lots of tribes used to be head hunters, the Amazonian tribe called the Jivaro are the only people in the world to have shrunk human heads. In their culture a shrunken head is called a
tsantsa
and has significant powers.

Back in her own room, Vanessa dug deep in her rucksack and pulled out her shrunken head. It was a strange thing to have, but it was one of her most treasured possessions. Its tiny face was wizened but in perfect proportion, and it was small enough to fit into
the palm of her hand.

Vanessa stared at the head, willing it to open its eyes and speak to her. The twine stitches across the eyelids and lips were a little grotesque, maybe, but the shrunken head fascinated her. It had originally belonged to her grandfather Todd—she called it Toddy, after him—and then to her mother. Vanessa had found it in the attic with her mother's Cryptid Files. It was like a good-luck charm for her, and she brought it everywhere, even to school in her bag, although she never showed it to anybody, not even to Nikki.

Usually holding it had the effect of calming her, of allowing her to think and sometimes even to find answers to impossible questions. She held it now, hoping it would inspire her to understand what was going on, but her mind was a frustrating blank.

“What's going on here?” she whispered to Toddy. Something was wrong. Was she the only one who felt it, or did others notice it? Izel certainly knew something. Frida, too?

Sometimes Vanessa tried to imagine the person whose head this had been. She wondered about his age, his tribe. Head-shrinking was done to paralyze the spirit of the dead, she knew, so that they could
not seek revenge on their killer. The Jivaro tribe, the people who made shrunken heads like this, had absolute belief in the power of the dead over the living, the power of the spiritual world over the physical one. Sometimes Vanessa felt as if she was caught somewhere between the two worlds herself.

A scratching noise startled her, and she sat up in bed, her heart fluttering in her chest. The whine that followed made her laugh, and she flopped back onto the bed again. She imagined Xolo lying outside her bedroom door. Guarding her. She felt safer with him there.
But safe from what?
she asked the head. No answer.

Then it struck her that there was someone else who knew what was going on in this place. Well, not exactly “someone” —Xolo. That dog had behaved strangely since she'd arrived. If only she could really talk to animals in the way that Armado teased her about.

Vanessa tucked the shrunken head under her pillow. She looked at her watch. It was two in the morning and she wanted to sleep, but her thoughts kept running in circles.

She imagined what her brothers Luke and Ronan were doing at home at that moment; where her dad
and his girlfriend, Lee, were. Lee had been a good friend to Vanessa since their visit to Loch Ness, and as a zoologist she knew a lot about animals. Maybe Vanessa should call Lee and ask her about the Chupacabra.

Her thoughts moved on to the shaman's house. Had Armado deliberately brought her there? Who was the shaman and where had he gone?

Sleep. She would have to get some sleep. She put her hand beneath the pillow and held the head again. Could it really be hotter? It certainly seemed to be. Were her own feverish imaginings infecting it? She threw back the sheet to cool herself down.

She didn't understand it! Why was the shrunken head not having its usual calming effect? If she didn't slow her mind down it just might burst into flames.

She could just imagine the headlines: “Irish schoolgirl sets bed on fire; ranch burns to the ground.” Or “Brain fever sweeps through central Mexico—locals suspect that
el diablo
is at the center of it all.”

Stop it!

She got up and washed her face with cold water and brushed her hair until the roots hurt. Then she lay down again and watched the ceiling fan above her
bed rotating slowly. She forced herself to think of embroidery, the needle making stitches—that would send her to sleep. It took a while, but finally her eyes grew heavy.

“I'm just imagining things again, Toddy,” she whispered sleepily.

Maybe not
, the head replied under the pillow, but Vanessa had already fallen into a deep, untroubled sleep.

On Wednesday 12 May 1996, in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas, 28 dead rams were found with puncture wounds in their bodies.

“Here they come,” Carmen announced as an army-style jeep scuttled and bumped down the track toward the girls. It was surrounded by a halo of red dust.

“Hop in the back there, girls,” Joseph shouted through the open window. Despite all his years living in Mexico, his Irish accent still came through quite strongly sometimes.

Once they were in, the jeep shot off at speed. Sitting in the middle, Vanessa felt a knobbly elbow dig painfully into her ribs from Nikki's side. She turned to her, about to protest, but her friend was surreptitiously pointing to Armado. He was sitting in the front seat beside Joseph. Nikki made a discreet driving motion with an imaginary steering wheel, and it took Vanessa a couple of seconds to realize what she was getting at. Of course, the wheel was on the opposite side of the car—and Armado was driving. Wasn't fifteen young to have a license, even in Mexico?

When Vanessa looked up again, she caught a pair of dark eyes in the front mirror watching her. She knew at once that Armado must have seen her making faces at Nikki, but she couldn't read his expression. Being caught like that made her temper flare, and she was tempted to tell him to keep his eyes on the road in the future. But a shout from outside broke their gaze, and the truck skidded to a halt.

Vanessa was horrified. It was the same mean face that had scared her at the kitchen window. Now that face was coming through the open car window, right at her. Vanessa reacted instantly, clutching Nikki's hand and shrinking back into her seat.

She prayed feverishly that he wouldn't get into the car. If he did, she would have to get out, and that would be very difficult to explain.

His long hair was tied back this time, but his dead eyes, oversized mouth, and disgusting teeth were the same. He smiled a cruel smile. He rested his long, skinny arms along the open window and leaned in. Vanessa looked away.

“Hey, Pablo.
¿Necesita usted un aventón?
Need a lift?” Armado asked.

They spoke for no more than twenty seconds, but to Vanessa it was agony. She held her breath, and the skin on her arms and neck prickled.

Pull yourself together
, she told herself sternly. The man was ugly and looked threatening, but he had done nothing except stare through a couple of windows. He was definitely creepy, but that wasn't exactly a crime. Vanessa looked around at everybody else. They didn't seem bothered.

Armado finally put his foot on the accelerator and sped off without Pablo. Vanessa's relief was so strong that she slumped back in her seat and closed her eyes.

“What's wrong, Vanessa?” Nikki asked.

Joseph turned in his seat, his large, ruddy face full
of concern.

“OK, Vanessa?”

Vanessa smiled at him, annoyed with herself at her overreaction. What on earth was the matter with her?

“Yes, I'm fine, honestly. I just got dust in my eye, that's all,” she said, rubbing her face to make sure that any suspicion of tears was removed.

Armado's eyes were trained on her once more in the mirror. How many pairs of eyes did he have, and did they always have to be watching her? She swallowed. The dryness of her throat made it difficult, but she had to ask.

“Who was that, Joseph?”

“Oh, that's Pablo, one of the oldest ranch hands. He's lived here for over thirty years.”

“Is he the one you said was good with horses, Armado?” Vanessa lifted her eyes to look in the mirror and was unreasonably disappointed that Armado was watching the road now.

“No, that is Cesar. Pablo is much better with machinery than animals,” Armado replied with a strange laugh.

“How do—” Vanessa started but then stopped as the car lurched violently, catapulting the girls along
the back seat to one side and summoning a chorus of screeches. The lurch out of the large pothole was equally violent, the wheels spinning furiously as the car found its way back onto the track.

“
Muy bien
. Well done, me boyo.” Joseph tapped his son proudly on the shoulder as Armado drove on calmly.

Vanessa and Nikki could not explain to Carmen quite why they found Joseph's remarks so funny. But the odd mix of Mexican and Irish struck them as hilarious, and they dissolved into a heap of giggles in the back seat.

For the moment, Pablo was entirely forgotten.

Jaime Cruz, a 21-year-old shepherd from Irapuato, Guanajuato, saw the strange beast several times between Ejido Curva de Juan Sánchez and the Colinas de Santiago district. It was no ordinary animal, he said, and was capable of extremely high leaps.

Once they reached the main road and were off the Martinez property, Joseph took over the driving. He drove much more slowly than Armado and didn't look in the rearview mirror at all.

The town of Guanajuato was wedged in the very
bottom of a deep ravine, like a small cherry stuck at the bottom of an ice-cream sundae glass. It was backed by huge, barren mountains and smooth, high cliffs which entirely dwarfed the town. The road wiggled its way down into the center, going underground for many miles.

The roads were narrow and busy, and their progress slow. It was hot in the car. The open windows were the only air-conditioning, and Vanessa found that her legs had stuck to the plastic seats. Why hadn't she worn longer shorts like Carmen or a dress like Nikki? She tried to shift in her seat but found she was stuck fast. It was going to hurt when she tried to separate her skin from it. She hoped it wouldn't make an embarrassing sound too.

Finally they reached the town center, and Joseph pulled up in the middle of the road. He turned in his seat, totally unfazed by the chorus of loud horns and beeps that started up from behind and provided the perfect cover for the unsticking of Vanessa's legs.

“Mado and I have to go to Don Arias for an hour, so we'll drop you guys off here and meet you in the Jardín de la Unión. You know where that is, Carmen.” At eleven o'clock in the morning the town was already
busy. Groups of very old women sat around on wooden benches. They had string shopping bags and were huddled in groups, talking, heads bent close. Vanessa could almost imagine the cauldron bubbling between them.

Vanessa spotted the sign first: “
Se vende helado.
” Ice cream for sale. Already too hot, they stopped in front of the extraordinary display of ice cream flavors that stretched the width of the glass-fronted shop. In Dublin, ice cream either meant a soft-serve cone from Teddy's on the seafront in Sandycove or a bar from the bottom of a freezer in the local shop. Here vats of different flavors were lined up side by side in endless rows. Carmen translated the flavors—squashed raspberry, vanilla with chips of Brazil nut, guava and sour cream, crushed mango with spicy ginger.

The girls chose their ice creams and sat down under an umbrella at the wooden table and chairs in front of the shop. Vanessa leaned back, nibbling at her orange and dark chocolate cone while Carmen and Nikki chatted away, their words drifting by her on the warm air.

Coming up a side alley onto the plaza, a group of guitar players dressed in velvet breeches were trailed by spectators. They were all singing.

More fancy dress
, thought Vanessa, remembering the bird woman at the airport. She had a beak. But of course it was a mask. It must have been.

“
Callejoneadas
.” Carmen laughed.

“What's that?” asked Vanessa. “The funny clothes they are wearing?”

“No,” said Carmen. “It is having a street party.
Calle
means alleyway, see?”

Nikki giggled. “It's a bit different from Dun Laoghaire or Dundrum, isn't it, Vanessa?'