Camp Monsters - Mini Monster: Chupacabra

Episode Date: August 5, 2020

We’re very excited to announce that YETI, known for their ridiculously strong and durable coolers, bottles, bags, chairs, and other much-needed outdoor gear, is this season’s sponsor.  To welcome YETI to our campfire, we naturally asked if they’d heard of any monsters prowling around their hometown of Austin, Texas.  They told us this story of a close encounter with a creature you’ve probably heard rumors about.  A nocturnal monster known to pick off livestock in a very vampiric way.  Do we believe the story?  Well, listen for yourself: do you?  Learn more about YETI. 

This is an REI Co-op Studios production. Welcome back to our mini-monster series. We here at Camp Monsters know that mysterious creatures are a year-round interest. So we're making sure that you have a new monster in your feed every month until our full season launches this September. And now, we're very excited to announce that Yeti, known for their ridiculously strong and durable coolers, bottles, bags, chairs, and other much-needed outdoor gear, is this season's sponsor.

You'll be hearing more from them in our full-length episodes later this year, and we're happy to have them join us around the Camp Monsters campfire, which in this case is in the form of their super-comfortable camp chairs, as well as a couple of Tundra hard coolers, whose primary purpose is to keep our food and drinks ice-cold, but also double as excellent fireside seats. If you're looking for gear that will last as long as your passion for the outdoors, Yeti has you covered.

To welcome Yeti to our campfire, we naturally asked if they'd heard of any monsters prowling around their hometown of Austin, Texas. They told us this story of a close encounter with a creature you've probably heard rumors about. A nocturnal monster known to pick off livestock in a very vampiric way. Do we believe the story? Well, listen for yourself. Do you?

Welcome to the Camp Monsters Podcast. Brian was a practical man, from a long line of practical people. You have to be practical to live alone on acreage out in the hot scrubland of central Texas, just beyond the furthest southwest outskirts of Austin. But it was land that Brian had known all his life, and it was peaceful most of the time. That is, until something started to happen to his goats. It was a strange thing. All of a sudden, one morning he came upon three of them, goats,

in a field not too far from his house, sat down together in a little circle on their haunches just like they were resting but they didn't move at all as he drove up in his little four-wheeled utility vehicle and as he got close he could see that there was no sign of life

but there were no marks of violence or attack either what was this his mind flashed to disease and he stooped to lift one of the poor carcasses into his utv to see if he could get it tested at the local agriculture extension he braced himself for the animal's weight. Even a smallish goat like this one is plenty to lift. But when he heaved, he was shocked at how easily the body moved, at how light it was in his arms. Like it was completely dried out, mummified, or...

Well, the Texas sun is very hot, but you couldn't dry a body out like this in the course of a single morning. And as Brian lay the carcass down in the bed of his UTV, he saw two little marks, two small bloodless holes in the animal's neck. And Brian, practical man though he was, couldn't help but wonder. Chupa Cabra. That's Spanish for goat sucker.

Brian had heard the rumors of the creature, the same rumors you've probably heard, that it was some kind of half-dog, half-lizard vampire that came by night to feast on livestock, sucking them dry with a single bite to the neck. Old Man Haney, Brian's nearest neighbor to the south, had been on a chupacabra kick for months, stopping Brian along the fence line or on the road into town to tell him about how there was a chupacabra living in the thickets along the little creek bed, coming out at night to prowl around Haney's house and torment him. Brian had listened politely, but kept in mind that before this it had been Bigfoot that old Haney had trouble with, and before that it was the devil himself that Haney'd seen at the bottom of an old abandoned well on his property.

So Brian had been skeptical, to say the least. But now... Back at the house and a few internet searches later, Brian knew all about the chupacabra. Unlike most legendary creatures, the chupacabra hasn't been around for long. No

early folklore, no accounts recorded by settlers long ago. The Chupacabra rumors appeared suddenly in the 1990s, beginning around a little town in eastern Puerto Rico called Canavanas. A flock of sheep were found dead, unmarked, except for two small puncture wounds in their necks. While the people of Canovanus scratched their heads about what had happened, a woman came forward claiming to have seen the creature responsible for the mysterious deaths. She described something like a hairless alien dog with huge red eyes that reared up on two legs and leapt off into the night when she spotted it.

She said it had dark, leathery skin and spikes down its back. She was laughed at, of course. Until more and more livestock in the area began to be attacked, and more and more people began to report sightings. By the 2000s, the story and the sightings had reached the mainland, mostly in Texas. People began to call in to the local police and animal control about a large hairless dog they had seen along a road or in of a mountain lion, with claws long and dangerous. Claws that scraped the paint off barn doors as terrified animals pressed themselves against the back walls,

quivering away from the creature outside. Well, all of that was a lot for Brian to swallow, even after his strange experience with the goats in the field. A mysterious vampire dog? It was hard for Brian not to roll his eyes. He was a practical man, and a firm believer that most things could be explained with some research and a little science. In fact, scientists had already explained away the chupacabra myth. The alleged monster was nothing more than a mangy coyote, inflicted with a parasite that caused their hair to fall out and their skin to grow leathery,

hunger causing their spine to stick out from their emaciated body like spikes. Nocturnal killer aliens that leapt like kangaroos? No. Basically they were just sick dogs, something Brian felt he could easily handle. With this in the back of his mind, he packed his UTV up for a couple of nights out on the land. He wasn't sure of the best way to catch these sick puppies, but decided he might as well start by camping out in the field where he'd found the goats. So, taking his dog Ryder, he drove off under the cloudless sky of a beautiful Texas evening.

When he reached the field, a worn-down old pasture surrounded by scrub oak, he found a small group of his goats already there. It was a pleasant enough place to set up camp, and as the sun crept lower in the sky, the temperature crept closer to pleasant. Brian had everything ready for the night just as it arrived. He watched the last of the sunset drain out of the sky, saw the pinprick of stars start to dot it. The forecast had called for another beautiful night, which meant that Brian was tent-free, something he thought was necessary given that the purpose of this expedition

was to catch whatever it was that was stalking his herd he couldn't do that from inside a tent brian settled down in his camp chair a very comfortable yeti camp chair with every intention of staying awake but it's funny how the quiet of an empty night can lull you. He was comfortable out here on the land. It was so warm and the starry sky was so bright. Even though he had poured himself a large coffee, it sat beside him, untouched, as he began to doze lightly. He wasn't sure how much of the night had passed when a low growl startled him fully awake. It came from his dog, Ryder, sitting just beside his chair in the darkness.

Ryder was anxious and alert, hackles up, staring off into the night, growling. Brian switched on his headlamp, swinging his head in the powerful beam left and right as he scanned the clearing. Nothing. Even the goats had moved off somewhere else, Just scrub oaks and shadows. Brian switched off the light, waiting for his eyes to readjust to the darkness. But the dog kept growling. And while Brian was still blinking away in the bright shadows of the light,

Ryder's growl turned into sharp yips, his alerting noise. He was warning Brian that something was coming closer, something that wasn't supposed to be there. Brian turned the light back on and swung his head around, scanning the darkness one more time. And his heart dropped. About fifty feet away from where he sat were a pair of red eyes. Not the white reflection he'd been expecting.

Deep, blood-red eyes, unblinking, staring right at him. And so much higher than where a dog's eyes would be these were four or five feet off the ground something enormous then or or something standing up on its hind legs whatever it was Brian wasn't scared of it that is he wasn't scared of it. That is, he wasn't scared until he saw the eyes begin to move, begin to bound toward him. Little jumps at first, then gathering into ever-increasing leaps that brought the eyes rapidly toward him until he began to make out the shape of the creature around the eyes. The shape not of a dog or a sickly coyote, but of something completely different.

Something that moved like nothing he'd ever seen before. The chupacabra. Brian stood up. He stumbled back over his chair. The creature was almost to him now, and Brian turned and ran as he'd never run in his life. He thought of jumping in the UTV, but there was no time. He'd never make it before the thing was on him. So he ran, blindly, away from camp with his dog Ryder at his heels. His ears were filled with his own breathing and with footsteps.

His own, and Ryder's, and and the strange, horrible bounds of the creature leaping after them. Was it gaining? Brian felt. He tasted that back-of-the-throat fear that burned more than his lungs,

more than his legs as they crashed through the brush, running faster than he'd ever known he could, almost flying through the tall brown grass and weeds. It's amazing what adrenaline can do. He was running for his life. And his instincts had been right. He was running without knowing it

in the direction of his house. The faint yellow light of the porch light shone now in the distance like a beacon. He had to make it to that light. He He had to make it to that light. He was going to make it to that light. He heard Ryder panting behind him, reassuring him. And maybe that assurance slowed him down.

Just slightly. Just for a moment. But a moment was all it took. Brian felt it above him at first. Something dark and heavy launching itself over the top of his head. He was too terrified and exhausted to scream as a large creature thudded down in front of him.

Brian dug his heels into the dirt, felt Ryder's body slam into the back of his cabs as he skidded to a stop. And there it was. This thing. This monster. It had landed on all fours, but as it turned to face him, it rose up onto its hind legs, squinting and snarling in the bright light of Brian's headlamp. Brian took it all in, the thick, gray skin with sharp spikes coming out of its paws and back, those huge red eyes sizing him up. The most terrifying of all were the fangs, long and white and sharp,

standing out against the snarl that stretched the creature's face. And when it sprang, there was nothing that Brian could do. He felt himself knocked over backward. He saw the stars in the sky above him and felt something catch at his throat. He struggled for his next breath, and when it finally came, it almost choked him with a sound like a tremendous snore. And it was that snore that woke him, with his head pitched over the back of his camp chair and his eyes opening from deep sleep onto the sea of stars above him,

and his heart racing from the incredibly vivid reality of that terrible dream. He sat up straight, looked all around him, then switched on his headlight and looked around some more. Relief flooded Brian and he smiled, even laughed a little bit, fell back in his chair and felt Ryder's warm breath on his dangling hand. He reached down to give the dog a pat. Then he pulled his hand quickly away, pulled his hand away and swung his headlamp in that direction, just in time to catch the light in those huge, blood-red eyes set in a terrible, leathery face.

If you like these mini-monster episodes, you'll like our full-length shows even more. Season 1 is available now, and Season 2, brought to you by Yeti, is coming in September of 2020. Please subscribe, rate, spread the word, and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. It's your support that keeps these spooky stories on the air. Our Mini Monster series is written and produced by Chelsea Davis. These sounds are engineered by the very talented Nick Patry from Cloud Studios. Our executive producers are Paolo Motilla and Joe Crosby. We got our Mini Monster facts this month from the BBC, How Stuff Works, and Wikipedia.

Links to our sources will be in our show notes, if you want to learn more about the chupacabra, and decide whether you believe in the mangy coyote story, or think it's something a bit more ominous? I'm Weston Davis. Thank you for listening, and see you next month.