"How could they leave me all alone in the middle of nowhere?" Abner murmured under his breath when he noticed that his caravan was gone without a trace. " Maybe I shouldn't have gotten into a fight with that man."

Only now did Abner realize that the man might have been the sheriff's son, thus explaining his current predicament. Still, he wasn't sure if he would have behaved any differently if he had known the truth.

His icy breath warned him that he needed to do something quickly or he would freeze to death. Still, there was more to the chill that infused every part of his body. Something otherworldly.

Being a grown man, a cowboy, meant he wasn't afraid of worldly dangers. However, the otherworldly ones were a whole different matter.

The chirping of insects combined with a distant howling of the wolves seemed to set the scene perfectly for something horrible to happen. Thus, Abner couldn't stop his heart from picking up speed and his eyes from fearfully scanning the darkness.

Every vague outline, every strange shape, seemed far more ominous than ever before. The worst of all was the sense of being watched, of being hunted.

"First you hear a rattle, then a snarl, and it comes with a chill that makes your breath icy. Then you begin to hear footsteps coming closer and closer," Abner's mother used to say.

That he was experiencing all those things as he remembered the cautionary words didn't help him feel any better.

The rational part of his mind was telling him that it was just another cold night filled with animals, but his hands were still shaking as he moved them to pull out the two pistols hanging on his hips.

The loud sound of a twig breaking made him whip his head in that direction. Yet, there seemed to be nothing there. There was only tumbleweed and rocks. The same things that were there when he went to sleep, lulled into safety by the low murmurs of people who were excited about reaching their destination. It was another day's ride on the wagon before reaching the first settlement, and Abner was sure he could make it on foot. Especially having in mind that he had enough supplies with him to do just that.

That was if he survived the night.

"But do not try to escape! For the chupacabra marks its prey upon sight and hunts it down till the end of time," his mother's words echoed in his mind.

Those words sounded haunting at that moment, contrary to how he felt when he first heard them. Still, it was easy to be excited and daring when he was safely tucked in his bed by their mother.

Now that he was all alone, a day's travel to any settlement, things didn't seem as exciting.

It was eerie. Terrifying even.

"If it is something as impossible as a chupacabra, what am I supposed to do about it?" Abner thought to himself as he pointed the guns in the general direction of the noise.

A low snarl came from nearby, and Abner quickly turned just in time to notice small red dots focused on him. They appeared to be looking into the depths of his very soul. For a second, he was too terrified to run or fire his guns.

He had fought men and beasts, but creatures of legend were a bit more than he was prepared to accept, let alone deal with.

Abner lit a match with shaky hands, and it almost fell to the ground when he saw what was looking at him, what had seen him.

A huge dog-like animal with spikes sprouting out of its back, long ears, and glowing eyes was circling him, getting ready to pounce.

"I am an idiot," Abner said as he quickly dropped the match and got a firm grip on both of his guns.

Allowing the chupacabra to see him by lighting the match and possibly follow him for the rest of his life was the stupidest mistake he had ever made. But he had to see. He had to know what he was dealing with.

Before he could clearly aim between the two glowing orbs, the beast pounced on him, its razor-sharp teeth biting into his chest as acidic liquid drooled out of the monster's mouth.

"Oh hell, no. You aren't turning me into dinner! That's not how I die!" Abner said, breathing heavily.

Then he found enough common sense. Thus, he put his gun, the one he still held in his right hand, to chupacabra's forehead and quickly pulled the trigger while it was preoccupied trying to rip him to pieces.

Because he fired the gun so close to his ears had made him temporarily deaf, and he was splashed with a lot of blood, but other than that, he considered himself lucky. Fortunately, the blood wasn't as acidic as the slobber was, so he wasn't too badly injured.

"Get. Off. Me," Abner said as he pushed the enormous beast off his body.

Only then did he notice that there was still some slobber left on his chest, and it continued to burn more painfully than he thought possible. Thus, he reached for his sack, got one of his shirts, and used it to wipe off the toxic liquid. The moment he did so, the shirt started burning up, and he had to toss it aside as quickly as possible. Still, it was relief that his body wasn't the one that caught on fire.

In the light of the fire, Abner could see a more gruesome sight than he expected. The beast's head was shattered into tiny pieces, and its inert body was covered in a mixture of its own blood and Abner's blood.

"That's not good," Abner said, noticing for the first time that he was bleeding.

He proceeded to take another piece of clothing from his possessions and put pressure on his jagged wound, which didn't appear as bad as he assumed. Considering the monster's dog-like appearance, he expected that it had torn through his flesh, but all it did was puncture two holes in his body.

"I guess rumors about it being a bloodsucker are true," Abner murmured.

Then, he did his best to gather his things and move away from the lifeless carcass.

He knew he was probably making a mistake. He should probably keep still and put pressure on the wound. However, he was all alone with no help coming, so he chose to do something about it while he still had the strength, while he still wasn't completely drained of energy to at least try to save his own life.

As he stumbled down the road, Abner couldn't help but think that his mother was wrong. Chupacabras weren't that scary, as they could be killed like any other living being with bullets.

"Abner! Oh, dear God, what happened to you?" an angel asked him as he was about to fall over sometime later, which felt like an eternity of walking.

Squinting in the dark, Abner managed to recognize the familiar shape even though there wasn't much light. After all, she was the one for who Abner did what he thought he had to do, for whom he got into a fight.

"I won," Abner said triumphantly as he fell into her arms, unconscious.

                                                                            *****

Meanwhile, some way off Abner's location, away from the kind woman putting him in her wagon and caring for his wounds, a strange thing was beginning to happen.

The body of the chupacabra rose to its feet. Slowly, its head started picking itself up, remaking itself into what it was before, with an added ugly scowl that now decorated its face.

Once even the ears were back to exactly how they were, the creature spat out the bullet and started running towards its prey. The prey was naive enough to believe it had escaped it and even more foolish to show itself to chupacabra's sight.

Now the hunt was on, as chupacabra licked its lips and started pumping its strong legs, not needing any time to figure out where its prey had gone. It always knew.

It always found its prey.

It never left anyone or anything alive.

After some time, it reached a hill beyond which it could hear human voices, and without having to look or smell, it knew exactly where its prey was. It could already see it in its mind's eye, lying inside the woman's wagon while she treated its wounds.

"You'll be fine," the chupacabra heard the woman say as it stalked closer to its new victims.

"What happened to you?" the woman asked as the prey opened its eyes.

"Chupacabra?" he murmured with reverence and fear.

The monster smiled with its huge row of teeth glistening in the moonlight.

"Don't be ridiculous. There is no such thing," the female said with worry.

"There is, and I killed it," the prey said proudly.

"Well, now I know that's not true," the female said.

"How so?" the male inquired.

"The less known part of the legend is that the Chupacabra can't be killed by any mortal weapons," the female said.

As the male got up with a sound of pain, his eyes going wide, the chupacabra pounced.