Legions of the Christmas Legend

In these last moments, thoughts—she was all the time curious, were of a peculiarity which, in mercurial behavior (the time it took her to go up the stairs), went from nameless to strange to the macabre of a mysterious. Does this have bad omen written all over it—or what?

I presume everybody has heard of a somewhat, more discrete people than us. Still, that significance hardly explains what made us kin to an old horror—the Dracula’s clan. Too, you need to know we are kin by blood. We don’t have linkage by blood, though, the way you think. I use the colloquial ‘somewhat more discrete,’ rather than just saying isolated—because up and until now my peoples have been nonexistent. Perhaps, ‘linked but was missing at one time’ would have been a better acknowledgment for familia El Chupacabra. Surely, its sobriquet would make more alarms go off for most anyone if known as vampyre. The first transitional occurrence went on upstairs in this very house. I like to say it is where we produced the second coming of the blood-sucking kindred. I am matriarch; right now, my name is insignificant.

Overlooked and troubled—just plain angry, you could say—which is what made me go upstairs. Upset, yes, you could say I was upset, which was why I left the living room and at the same time doing my best trying not to give away my ‘hole card.’ Daddy has these neat little quips—from back in the day—slang words his parents used, I’ve picked them up and use them from time to time. Ma’am would get on me for using them, starting with the word: Child blah, blah, blah…. Anyway, I had to get away from them; I just had to; ‘Get out from downstairs! Go anywhere! Go upstairs!’ all that came to mind as my body, getting up—as I mentioned, left the living room. Mommy, daddy and Mr. Haley, were driving me crazy with their El Chupacabra mess.

By the time I had gotten upstairs to my bedroom, I felt weak. Truly I did, that is before my head felt queasy and dropped down—it would have been better if it fell off my neck. I just could stroll inside, making it out of the hall, through the doorway, to the other side of my bed. I could feel myself grow limp and droopy before I fell, flaccid, and numbed face down on the floor. My white petticoat, hot pink dress, white pantyhose and all must have gotten wet. It took a while for me to figure how. We all went onto the wooden freshly waxed floor, becoming sticky and wet. I came to and found myself face down on the waxed floor partially covered—with me draining blood, on the window side of my bed. One thought came to me before this fall happened, which took too long to push out of me, it had to have drug itself out of me. With the words I realized I left the living room because I felt curious about some unknown something.

So far one explanation is down and there are two more to go.

Suddenly she noticed there was tension—it loomed over her—what she noticed most was that she couldn’t talk, it heaped upon her soul. All emotions withdrew all else which came over her—more of her irreproachable self than irritable brain—stilled her, froze her, will to do anything for a moment. Some rill of passion slid up her tummy, her heart, her lungs, this incredible icy gash hunched her shoulders for a pithy moment, then she felt it in her esophagus, and then her throat; words left an impression on her throat until it when taut—then she held the phrase in her mind. Unable to get it out of her mind—reminiscence of some old nightmares roamed from just inside her forehead back to just inside the kitchen hairs on her neck. O’ yes you might as well say everything in her growing pitiful brain tightened—more than her throat—it was as if some scarlet rose circle of sanctity loomed over her as its thorn scrubbed her head while pushing vines’ pointy spike into her brain. Dawdling were the words of coming premonition: No wonder. Her unknowing disorientation, its sudden peen came just after the pain—then, was when, she fainted.

I froze. I must have known or sensed somehow that Christmas came back. That had to have been what it was; I, in an excited state, had run the rest of the way from the doorway and plopped down on the floor behind my Princess bed; Christmas was still hopping, trickling splotches of blood, as if trying to drop things out of him. All of the blood appeared to be dribbling heavily from between his legs. His hop, more of a hobble-hop then, made me laugh (inside myself), when it shouldn’t have; as he came over near to me than he had before he slowed. I felt my eyes widen, then, feeling that and having seen the distressed look on Christmas’s sad smile, I cringed as I crunched my eyelids. Yet after then was when strange things began happening.

Chapter II: Mr. Haley Comes to Cry

Christmas had just died. I had wiped my mouth with hands, and tongue, while looking in the mirror. I licked my last finger clean and called out, “Daddy!”

“Daddy,” I said.

Then I screamed, “Daaaadyyyyy!” I wanted to ask him about my newly born puppies. Calling him and getting no response, reminds me of how I used to call him when Christmas was not curled in his pallet-bed, especially this time of year in the morning; and come to think of it, he was not there yesterday either. I had reminded daddy of as much yesterday, when I was sitting beside him. I worried about this situation as I did those other times, but this last time I worried only a little.

While thinking about going down the stairs to fetch him. It seemed like he was not going to come up; I also thought about how ‘poorly and pallid,’ -- daddy’s words, my dog had been, which came about as reason to take him in, those few years ago. Well there was that and to try to cure a bad case of mange, and… because he looked a bit crippled, -- no, it seemed more than that; he looked deformed because his front legs appeared shorter and feebler than the back. Yet, the worst was the dog’s appearance -- the mange; I remember hearing daddy say “Isn’t that dog’s arse dragging just a bit on the ground;” but otherwise he looked and acted just like a good dog baby.

This dog has always had full mouth of real sharp cone shaped pointed teeth. When in view -- his mouth open, it all always appeared strange. Daddy watched him walk; he spoke about how, a lot of the time, the dog would hop around, “I think we made a mistake,” daddy would tease, “this dog acts just like a kangaroo.”

So, sometimes I would say that too, although I ain’t never for a long while gonna see a kangaroo, white or otherwise.

Anyway, we thought we had cured him of the mange; but we hadn’t; we just thought we did; he would always go back to dragging his “arse” after a few months. It appeared to me he always looked sickly, with his “arse” -- daddy’s word, dragging so close to ground you couldn’t see daylight seep from down under. Well, most the year this dog appeared that way.

I called him Christmas because it was a little after that time daddy found him. He told me – actually, it was on Christmas day, 1984. He gave me Christmas on "Dia de Reyes," 1985.

Wait! Over the past few years my reason changed for calling him that, because this time of year he looked his best; I’d say “So Christmas is here again, at last.” Although Christmas would run off, but as I hoped…, yet and then it was more than I knew; he would be back in a few days. He always came back, of course. Besides, daddy said he would. Christmas, he always, when he came back, looked better than ever, -- and this, the fourth year running almost found me praying because it had been so long, longer than usual, when he left. However, when he was well, I really loved the shiny color of his Albino coat.

Daddy sat in a chair he called by some French name -- many use the name now, so as to explain the way other things look, fauteuil -- meaning it has open arms. My chair to the desk in my bedroom, he called the same thing; but it didn’t look the same. ‘Come into my fauteuil arms baby,’ he would say to mommy or me too sometimes. He loved that word, I think sometimes, more than he does mommy, herself. As years went by, sitting in it everyday, it got old, became less fluffy and open arms grew more haggard than used to be; he always sat in it and I, right next to him on the floor while he read the newspaper. Yes, fauteuil armchair, -- that is what he called it -- or something like that.

Now daddy didn’t jump or turn and look down, with that extended holler of ‘daddy.’ (That is why I figured he wasn’t going to come running up the steps with my screaming.) Actually, he paid me no mind. I couldn’t ever believe it, although he did it all the time and then he would say something to mommy about what he read in the newspaper. And…, “Honeyyyy,” he would say; yet this last time, just about the time she turned around… Mommy, said “O’ hi Mister Haley!” thinking that is why he called her.

Her cheeks went high, and into an under-glow blush of auburn red. It shined through her pecan tan face; everyone could see she had a big beautiful white smile. “I wondered what their commotion was about; I didn’t hear you come in; have a….”

Grumpy Mr. Haley came in, ‘dragging overalls and all’ as daddy would say. He plopped down on the duo-fold, which we called a ‘do-fold,’ before mommy could get in another word. We mostly used it for when mommy’s sister came, so she would have a place to sleep. I had to keep Christmas up stairs when she stayed. It unfolds to a bed. Now, since her sister seldom comes by anymore, -- it hardly gets unfolded. He waved his hand as vigorously as he shook his head for nobody to speak.

We were buying a piece of land from Mr. Haley; and after daddy built this house we are in, -- he, Mr. Haley, thinks he can just come in whenever he wants just like it is his own. Daddy got to saying this, a lot, ‘So what! We haven’t missed paying him, so why does he think…,’ mommy would calm daddy down before he would finish – sometimes with a kiss on the lips. He fussed mommy said because Mr. Haley drops in so much; “Daddy things it is too much,” she said to me.

“Needless sayings” mommy would say, “Your tirades don’t amount to being about nothing, even less than a hill of beans, Mister Hellian.” Mommy called daddy that all the time, -- Mister Hellian; but our last name was Hailison. For some reason daddy added an ‘N’ to the name; said it sounded more American that way.

Daddy didn’t like him coming in ‘dragging overalls and all’ and doing that -- plopping down thing. On many an occasion he would bring his tirade to mommy, saying also ‘I don’t like him invading my privacy like he does.’ He didn’t say anything so boldly this time because Mr. Haley appeared so outdone when he came in the house. Anyway, when he did, mommy would just do that Mrs. Cleaver smile; and then she would begin humming some religious thing saying nada… something, something, nada… this and nada… that; and she would go back doing just whatever it was she was doing. Because, by then, daddy had went and calmed down.

“The whole herd is dead, again.” Our neighbor Mr. Haley blurted his outcry. There is no telling what it was; that was ‘heard?’ why ‘again?’ and, or, what in the devil was he talking about? Yet his crocodile tears were so big and heavy that his mustache uncurled at the ends. My baby sister, five, called them ‘crackadown tears.’

“My whole herd…, it appears to be blood-sucked dry -- to the bone, skin lain hollow-like as chicken shell evidence from an egg sucking dog; what am I going to do now? This makes the fourth Christmas in a row where I haven’t been able to sell my cows to market come the sprig of spring.”

Chapter III: The Letter

Before going any further let me carry you back those four years; actually five, to the last few days my family spent in Puerto Rico through Christmas, 1985. We came here to Coleman Texas right after ‘New Years’ and ‘Three King’s Day,’ because mommy wanted to have baby sister in the United States, and not in Puerto Rico. I had barely remembered, myself, what happen, but daddy tells very detailed and animated stories about us not leaving until after ‘Three King's Day celebration’ and so I remember the time vividly too, and we didn’t leave until he said. Mommy didn’t care much for it, she told me; but daddy… for daddy it was the days of days. Mommy said, “Here, they celebrate the Three Wise Men, Melchior, Gaspar and Baltazar.” She would continue with, “They are the ones who used the star of Bethlehem to travel by; they brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.”

Anyway, before my becoming Americanized, that day I got the majority of my presents. So, that must have been why, I was glad we waited. Mommy told me how she and daddy celebrated with a special Rosca or sweet bread, baked for eating on the sixth, of January ("Dia de Reyes"); mommy said such a thing was in parts of Mexico too. She told me, a small doll is, representing the Christ child, baked into the dough. “The figure embodies,” she said, “the hidden away baby child from Herod's army.” And she goes on story telling the story…, she said “That was the first year daddy didn’t cut the bread, and it was because we had to leave.” She said, too, “The one who cuts bread gives a party on February 2nd, Candlemas Day,” or Día de la Candelaria, proffers tamales and atole (a hot, sweet drink thickened by corn flour) to everybody coming to our house as a guest.

We chose Coleman because mommy had folks in Texas; her closest sister lives in Abilene, about 80 clicks north-west. I had been used to using kilometers while in PR, and never got out of the habit. We never see mommy’s sister anymore, -- well, really, not much any more… especially after mommy had baby sister. I don’t think daddy liked mommy’s sister; or either it was her sister didn’t like my dog. She was always saying something like, “That dog just don’t seem right somehow, them front legs, its teeth, that dragging behind, damn if something don’t seem right.” Daddy said, “Ain’t nothing wrong with that dog woman, its your imagination.” Then she would say, “You show dhat thang is a da’owg?”

Well, I remember the look on daddy’s face when he gave me my present that day. The longest day I live nobody will have to remind me about that; oh, it was such a big grin and so was mine. He asked me what I wanted to name it; I said how about ‘Jesus’, I wasn’t but five, it was the only name I remembered that I knew then besides my own. He smiled and said how about ‘Christmas’, my heart went to glee and I said, “Yes! Yes! that is it! Christmas!” He was white, puny, deformed and so small; daddy said he thought it was a white, grey hound. He saw it running in and out of a box on the corner of a street in town and kept it hid until ‘Dia de Reyes.’ I woke up and there he was hanging in daddy’s hands about five centimeters from my face. His big red eyes -- as if he hadn’t had any sleep, large, needlelike teeth filling its grinning mouth, spiny curve curled the length of its back, his deformed paws and front legs.

Daddy said to mommy “Sad wonder, they gave him away.” Just then, Christmas gave a strange noise and nipped me; I remember now, even though his teeth broke through both sides of the skin of my nose, there was this quick pulling or pulsing sensation inside my head. I thought nothing of it then because daddy pulled him away so fast, I really had to think to remember the feeling, but it was there; yet, I was so happy then I didn’t worry with it.

When we got to Texas, there was a letter waiting for us at my mommys sister’s house. We didn’t get there until the middle of April, so the letter had been there for a while. Mommy’s sister was worried and really beginning to wonder what had happened to us. Mommy explained it was the dog, and because of the mange epidemic, there was some question of whether we could bring “Christmas” into the U.S. “But,” she said, “Mr. Hellian worked it all out; and here we are safe and sound; -- baby, daddy, mommy, the one on the way and Christmas.”

“Christmas!” said her sister, “Christmas has come and gone gull.”

Mommy said, “Christmas is the dog, I was telling you about child. Don’t get so huffy.” Sister quieted down, looked at the dog and frowned.

“Iz an ugly mutt; I done know y’…” I interrupted, just before daddy paddled my behind, and then he privately at smiled.

“It’s not a mutt, it’s a white greyhound. His name is Christmas and he is my dog, and I got papers to prove it… See!” That was when I got my paddling.

Auntie said, “Still an ugly mutt to me.” Christmas gave what appeared to be her growl, showing her his teeth with that smile of his. “EEEEeeeuuuu, child; are you sure that dog is safe.”

Mommy, “The U.S. government seems to think so; and Hellian argued that point vehemently.”

“Still gull…;” and her words trailed off.”

The letter was for daddy from his brother, it began by telling him he hoped he had arrived safe. In the letter, there was also stuff about what had been happening around Canóvanas, San Juan, Bayamón, Guaynabo and Carolina, -- that cinco city area of the north, since we had left.

He wrote: Brother, -- It is good you left when you did. If you had not, maybe that mangy dog of yours, weak as it was, would be dead too. After the holidays, in late February after everything settled down, there was a really, bad uproar here. I am sure it is not true but it is said, or so it seems, all the major farms had found most their livestock dead, in the barns and in the fields. It is like something or someone had a real party, and it was better than ours was. I saw many of the livestock and they were just skin and bone. Let me tell you what I mean by skin and bone… skin and bone. All the internal organ of the chickens, sheep, cows -- I know you understand -- were gone: nothing but skin and bones left. No blood was in the paths leading to the pastures or back out to the main roads. No blood was even tricking from the stock, everything inside the animals was gone. Not a leg or head separated from any body of any dead stock, all was in one piece, yet hollowed out. None of the stock appear to give anything a fight; all just lain there -- having given up their bodies; some, I am sure for months.

But here is the stranger thing; there was no meat (muscle laying as sarcous) under the chicken feathers (unruffled) just skin and bone. No veins, no brains, no arteries, no eyes -- pupils are gone. Nothing is under the skin but bone and nothing is in a seen eyehole but air. Or, under the skin of sheep wool, cowhides, or pigskin; nothing but skin and bone. No maggots, the flies did not even bother the carcasses -- they just flew on by, there was no smell to them; not even a buzzard was round.

One farmer said he found some buzzards in his chicken coup quiet and still alive; the black birds outside it were all dead and drained of everything inside them from head to feet. I could not believe that; I am going this afternoon to see it after I mail you this letter. He said he could not even shoo the birds out the coup. They shivered but would not move from there spots, otherwise. Most everything else at his ranch was stiff as a board, every single one was, but evidence of foul play was only in what laid, skin and bones. Hundreds of them, -- no, thousands, I am betting was sucked dry during the holidays. Brother, what are we to do. Nobody has died yet, other than the animals; but, -- have mercy, what are we to do. You are the brains in this family; so, I should not have to say what everybody else is saying, -- but, brother it is El Chupacobra time. So, soon as you get this write me.

Chapter IV: Cow, Sheep and Goat Sucking
(El Chupacobra Syndrome)

The signed letter, ‘Con amor, Hermano,’ sent a month before, sat alone on the hall table without any follow up, and nobody had heard anything from him since.

Sweat could have been rung from daddy’s shirt, and it wasn’t hot yet anywhere in Texas. Curiosity in me wondered what was in the letter. Finally, daddy smiled as sweat like tears rolled down his face, and he said, “Nothing important. Brother just wanted me to know everything there was okay,” he went on, “and if we arrived safe. I’ll write him and tell him all is well.”

Mommy said, “Let me see that letter!” Daddy handed it too her, smilingly, “This ought to all be Greek to you.” Yet and overtly knowingly, with a nasty snoot of a nose sniff, she snatched it but she couldn’t read it, it was all in Spanish. “He don’t speak too much English and don’t write no English at all;” daddy lied; uncle just didn’t write that letter in English. He comes from a well-to-do family; he told me so, a long time ago.

“So what else does it say Mr. Hellian.” Mommy knew the same thing as me, yet didn’t dispute him.

“That is all.” He said, easing the letter from her hand. “You now how we are; how does that Jim Brown song go….” He thought, “Talking a lot but saying nothing.”

Mommy says “No, it is ‘Talking loud and saying nothing,’ Mr. Hellian. You know that.”

Daddy says, “Well, you know what I mean…, he uses a lot of words and all he meant was ‘Hello’.”

More or less that was all there was to say this first time we, as a family, first came here to Texas.

Now, there was Mr. Haley, who came and cried on my parents shoulders. “Well, Mister Haley, what seems to be the problem?” Mommy is sounding ‘Like some psychoanalyst, in an office with a group of divorcees, commiserating about…’ he would trail off, again, daddy’s words. I don’t know what it means but also saying under his breath, ‘Are there any sexual problems.’ He would do that mope mouth thing and stretch nose with crossed eyes. I would laugh; mommy would look around -- see nothing -- wave her hand like swatting at a fly, and then continue. “How can we help Mister Haley?” Daddy mocked her every step of the way; and me, I turned my head to cover my mouth and quietly smirk.

Here it comes… the usual ‘come-back’ for Mr. Haley:

“I don’t know.…”

Mommy says, “Well, you have to have some idea. Tell us what all has happened. I’ll trade you a cup of coffee; cream and sugar? Hellian?” Questioning his name meant did he want any; response was nod and smile. “And, if you will, tell us from the beginning, start back three years ago, and we’ll… no, I’ll see if anything makes sense. Okay?” She had been all the time looking down, preening fur balls -- I think -- periodically shifting her head up -- and fluffing her loosely hung Christmas skirt a little, while sitting in her armchair. Mommy the detective; daddy did his two plaid cap trick and his reading glasses. Mommy was “So picturesque.” Mr Haley didn’t smile or look up, even then, with daddy sitting as in his open armed picture of Sherlock Holmes. Mr. Haley just hid his eyes with his head down. He sniffed, but just a couple of times; then let out a faugh, gave a little sigh; and all during his first words to mommy.

“Okey-dokey,” Mr. Haley said humbly.

Smiling, mommy said, “Wait! Coffee” She got up, rushed to the kitchen, and was back in a flash. Her skirt waved as if strong winds blew through the house all the way. How she didn’t get anything on that white shiny blouse of hers, I’ll bet I’ll never know. She passed coffee, cream and sugar on a tray all around; frowned at daddy while giving him his and then took hers and sat down, crossed her legs, daddy leaned back acting in that Sherlock Holmes self-important way. Mr. Haley sniffed and slowly drank his coffee; if I had known I would have thought that mommy spoiled and catered too much to Mr. Haley. Daddy didn’t seem to pay any attention.

There was little to no movement by the adults after that, at least for a while. I looked at mommy and looked at mommy, and looked and looked again at mommy. She never got the message (‘Where is my coffee,’ I thought). I got up, she said to me “Coke in frig baby, get yourself one; bring your sister some apple juice.”

I did, delivering a disappointed: Okay!

“It all started the next year after your family moved here (pause); not that there wasn’t something (pause) strange going on before then, but that next year things became really serious.”

Mommy leaned back, crosses her legs, gets comfortable, in her papasan chair now and says “What kinds of things before went on; you know, those less serious things.” Daddy looked around, found a Holmes pipe, and put it in his mouth; and, oh what a sight.

“Some eggs went empty and I had to shoot my best watchdog. Let me tell you something, never! Never! Let dogs eat raw eggs; you do, they will never stop.” He looked over at me very hard, then said, “Dang…, egg sucking dogs, ain’t nothing like’m.” I knew what he really wanted to say and it wasn’t ‘Dang!’ He continued, “Then the year yawl moved in, I went and bought me another dog, I was going to buy one anyway, a sheepdog, full-growed. I won’t say that it looked like the sheepdog did, or that he did it, but some of the… (Sigh) the sheep had babies. I won’t say what they looked like.”

Mommy said, “Mister Haley! If you are not going to say what you thought the dog did at least tell us what was strange about the sheep’s babies.”

“No, I can’t… I had to kill all the babies; they even acted as if they couldn’t die. I had to tear them apart limb by limb. Ooops!” He looked over at me, again. “I didn’t mean to say that; I just cain’t say.”

Mommy: Mister Haley? Mr. Haley: No Ma’am! Mommy: Mister Haley. Him: No’hmm, ah-ah, no I just cain’t do it, cain’t say it. Her: Mister Haley, please! Daddy’s head and my head, both moved as if a ping-pong match was going on… their battering was just that fast. Bong, -- Ping, -- Bong. Him: O’ no, awh-awhhhuh! Her: Come on Mister Haley, it’s all right, the young’n her knows about the birds and the bees.

He hesitated a long time. Daddy’s eyes got bigger and bigger, his lips tighten, thinned, disappeared and then pruned out like a kiss, egging Mr. Haley on. Mommy’s face went from one thing then to another, it because suspicious and then withdrawn, unforgiving and then forgiving; he finally said, “Okay…. They looked like a sheep crossed with a dog; some from the front and some from the back. As I said, I killed them all. That was why I was so upset, that year, my nerves, the nightmares, there were so many of them things; and at Christmas time… I thought ‘Killing animals at Christmas time…. Have you ever seen mangy animals born? It’s a sight, I can tell you, especially for sore eyes. O’ the blood, the body parts were everywhere. I made a compost to burry them all in, and grew hot pepper the next year over the spot, the best year ever for them. But there just weren’t enough… (he looks at me) Dang…. What else was I to do? That was why I acted the way I did. Them… D--- (he hesitated again) whatever they were….”

“Sheepdogs…” Daddy finally said something “And I wish I had known. I would have bought one off you. You did seem strange though.”

Mommy uncrossed her legs just for a moment to give that smart look to daddy, ‘Mister Hellian!” That was all, mommy said. Daddy went back to pretending to smoke the pipe, or rather moving it in and out of his mouth with his hand less contemplatively, -- like he was pulling it out of his mouth, more in haste than he had been doing. “I get the picture Mister Haley, you can stop with that year there; what happen the other two years.” Like any good armchair detective mommy kept things on track and flowing.

Mr. Haley gave his first grin, laid back the first time in the du-fold in comfort and went on, “Well… the second year, there was more of the same. That years crop of farm stock, gave similar results, but I tried goats, instead of sheep. I figured by them having horns there would be more protection; but h… heck (he took quick glance at me) matters had gotten worse. Now there were the same foot prints as were before…”

Mommy, her body shot up, interrupted with “What! Footprints you didn’t say anything about footprints!”

Mr. Haley, sat up a little, just for emphasis, I think… “I didn’t think you wanted to hear about them you said that was enough of that year.”

Mommy: “Yea but… what did they look like?” Daddy: “Isn’t that like a woman to…” Mommy: “Mister Hellian…!” Daddy shut up, purposefully, immediately; I don’t know how he did it but he popped his lips, it sounded just like a cork coming out of a wine bottle. Then smiled in his most fake chagrin, as mommy would put it ‘there ain’t no shame in that man.’ Mr. Haley: “Yawl please.” Everything calmed.

Mr. Haley, leaned his back to the relax mode on the ‘du-fold.’ He put his right forefinger over his mustache, portraying shied reference, his eyes went down, then up, then down again while speaking. “Yes… (this appeared to be a response to daddy – it wasn’t) O’ yes now, I remember. Both times there were footprints, and this second year they were a bit bigger too; toes, by bout a half inch or so. We took casts both year and compared.

Chapter V: Christmas is dead

Mommy uncrossed her legs, leaned quickly forward, spread her legs and bounded about with her shoulders weaving like some anxious athlete and said, poking her basketball player head, weaving with her elbows on her knees as if looking at the big five-man press, “We! Who is this, we? What is this: We…! Business…?”

Daddy is the “We! Business;” everything Mr. Haley told, daddy all ready knew. To get into how daddy knew, I would have to tell about his job, which I am supposed to know nothing about. I would also have to tell how daddy just happened over to Mr. Haley’s house, which, I am supposed not to know either. However, I do know all this; I don’t know how I know…, but I do… know.

Mr. Haley doesn’t say who this ‘We!” is, he just goes on talking like the question was never asked. “Could I get another cup of coffee?” Mommy looks around and everybody had drained cups or bottles, even she; with apologetic words, she rose to go for more coffee with the wind at her heels.

“Oh, by all means.” The men smiled, daddy more verbosely that smugly, handed mommy’s tray the cup and she said too “Now Mister Haley, now wait till I get back before you carry on with that account of yours.” Mommy wasn’t gone long, she breezed back in the room we were sitting in and gave new cups of poured coffee, smiled, gamed smiling amenities to Mr. Haley. And told me “Dear, you can get some juice or water if you like, but no more soft drinks for you. Mister Haley…?” She weaved the back of her hand in conjunction calls to both of us; go on… go on….

I went to get juice and he settling more into comfort, “From all indications,” he continued, “whatever did damage to my does, whatever killed my bucks, was a quadrapedal animal…” I heard mommy, and thank goodness the kitchen frig was right in the doorway and swung away from the kitchen entry, say: Umm-humm. Mr. Haley: That year it was still smaller than a small deer. Moreover and again, mommy: Umm-humm. Mr. Haley going on: We found.… Rather the dirty fur on the ground represented a light color once, I’m sure. However, by the time…, I looked at it; it was too weathered, ruined and too discolored really to know the original color. The babies, borne in half the time it normally takes for a doe, that is why I know now, rather than after Christmas. At one time, I thought of that disease… it starts or goes to some toxemia. I thought it was that; the poor does, I couldn’t help them didn’t know nothing in time.

“Now let me tell you each kidding born was like a devil.” (Mommy, I thought was going into shock, in my thinking back [and now I laugh about it a little, don’t know why] her eyes got big, pupils dilated, body tensed, heartbeat speeded up.) “Really! They were devils. They seemed to be like Beelzebub’s children. Their little horns, their heads, almost like a dog’s or humanistic in a way -- it was the way their eyes was set in front of their head, I think; short front feet, almost like three little fingers, their hind feet longer, like they were going to stand upright at some point. Their feet had the shape of the footprints we, I mean, I found, but, way smaller, and still hoofed like a goats foot. Strange, I tell you… strange. Kilt them all, the little bloodied devils made compost, out of them like a witch’s nasty brew. O’ the yelping, it was strange; hard to kill them little buggers. Yet, I had too.”

Mr. Haley sat back relaxed, which increased while he spoke. Daddy’s pipe was popping in and out of his mouth, sounding like a popgun. I thought mommy was going to faint, with the imagination she has, but she didn’t although she did look worried, and it had grown employing more wrinkles on her forehead all the time. I could feel sprockets twisting each other in her mind while Mr. Haley spoke Her “u-huh’s” became more transfixed, her eyes’ hue lightened like a different or varied lights, from time to time, had been shining on them or like somebody had changed her contact lenses. Yawl, mommy didn’t wear contacts, but that was the way it appeared to me. All had gotten quiet, Mr. Haley started to open his mouth… mommy’s body language motioned him to not go there. She was doing some serious thinking.

However, its day, that time, really, has long past: It’s too late to think now mommy: Too late! The surly damage, -- it, and I am sure, already is prepared…. Something unthinkingly came to me: And Merry Christmas.

I remember how I sat back, with my back against the warmth of the fireplace, on the floor with my legs crossed, the juice sitting in front of me. I picked it up to sip from every now and then, sitting… sitting… sitting… and they never knowing really… what all this is really, about. I remember them not even thinking about Christmas, where he was at…. Still, I remember how daddy said: He came back before, baby; he’ll come back again. I remember, and don’t know why, thinking: He is all ready back, daddy, staring you in the face and you don’t even know it. Somewhere around then I was getting tired of them

Mommy knew better than to ask about last year and what happened; it would have been too horrible for even Mr. Haley to tell; I saw the sweat popping as if bullets shot onto his forehead when he got close to the end of telling about the goats. Wondering how much he should say, I remember the continued appearance of popped like popping corn sweat; as he leaned back trying to strike calm, Mr. Haley wiping the sweat from his upper lip too – it seemed to drip between the crevasse of his lips, just below his mustache. He pretended to have coffee splashes and wiped. ‘No, Mister Haley it is not coffee you are wiping,’ he could not fool me. They did not even think about Christmas, not then -- anyway. And the little girl in me couldn’t think about me, but she was started in her emotions.

Let me explain it this way: Christmas came but once a year… to me; but o’ no, not any more, Christmas is dead now. Christmas died up in my room. She came back, last year, Christmas Eve; and now on this anniversary something special is has happened. Mr. Haley came by this New Years to complain about all those cows of his, by then daddy had changed his mind about Christmas and was calling him not a Greyhound but a Great Dane. He went to…, no, rather daddy called his immigration friends and got the papers changed to say so. He was so proud of himself, -- but little did he know.

That quadrapedal animal grew to be the size of a dear, with arched Greyhound back, three long finger-likened toes, it got so it had to hop around like a kangaroo more often than not; therefore, its hind legs were way, more muscular than the front. Starting to tune Mr. Haley out, I heard him trying to be clinical. He also spoke about: When on hind legs the front legs were free to grab at other animals; though not as strong as the hind legs, the front leg paws were still strong enough to choke an animal to death. The front legs when used, mainly outside of feeding, were for balance and changing directions at ‘the drop of a hat.’ Its coat sparkled all the time, and still snow white in color. When on all four, it had the dashing speed and agility of a wild mountain cat.

Chapter VI: The Pups; Revisited

Accordingly, the question becomes what I have to do with all this; well…, for me it started when I first got Christmas. That very morning of the ‘Three King's Day celebration’ (or Dia de Reyes); and oh what a glorious morning it was. The thing about that first morning, while of Christmas nipping at my nose, was how glad daddy was with it in his hand. He had never seen me so happy. Neither did he know that my insides had felt a slight tempting suasion, something emotional, which in close simile could measure the dared balance of another kid. It came as a kind of suction of my insides; even my inner being wanted to just jump, --no, leap and soar out through my nose. Its five years later the process is complete but then, it said “Come on, I dare you.” I didn’t know what that meant.

As each year went on my dog would come up to me, every Dia de Reyes and do the same thing until that fifth year, then the ‘I dare you’ was not necessary. Yet, unlike the cows, the goats, and the sheep, with their insides sucked out bloodlessly through their nose…. Now I know the roomers about the two or three puncture marks on or about some animal’s, usually livestock, necks. Those things, though true when we first come here are hardly the more serious cases now because the blood and innards of humans are so much… more… well… sweeter. None of my babies will ever go that route if I have anything to do with it -- and I do; and I have learnt them not too. That thing of my ancestors, they had to learn to read you humans before your conquering, to figure and conclude your sensibilities. However, with the knowledge of my ancestors in me, and what I found out from that dear, sweet tasting child, I know I can walk among you all, safe and without fear of capture.

On that fifth Holiday Season, I had just returned from my wonted ‘Animal Prowl;’ my child, in her bed sleep. Nobody in the house was up. The last thing I always do is nip her. Oh, I have learnt so much but this time was unusual, feigned…. She had faked being sleep; I am sure because she, what I had found out to be sure, that she, with her quiet self, learnt much too. With her last sleep from the night, that early morning napping… feigned, she tasked me when I nipped the bud of her nose. I gave in to her. She took all my life force out of my body; I was like a rag doll in her hand. Yet, I found when humans take life force, it is unlike us; the force becomes shared mentally, not mentally and physically consumed. There life force is not like animals; perhaps that is why the temptation is so strong: you are so sweet. Between them and us, we are only fulfilling a fate when, all innards, -- veins, arteries, sarcous (all flesh under the outer layer of skin and muscle) blood, brains, gristle (or cartilage), inner organs &c. are suctioned out from under the skin. We do not get our fill until all is gone, what is left is bones and outer shell of the body, any orifice is left empty, like eyes and mouth. Humans are so sweet, O’ you are so sweet, so sweet, like baby candy, so sweet…. Mmmmm. Anyway, you do not do that; you just take the life force, when and if you inherit the power of consumption.

She found I was pregnant, although I had impregnated many animals, -- but not her, never her…. Nevertheless, the cows, the sheep, the goats, -- yes, and her daddy and Mr. Haley killed them all. So I got a hold to a bull of the last crop and before I sucked him dry, we exchanged sexual favors. I told the bull something, -- we never fought; farm animals are so docile, -- never fight, just give up their little ghosts gladly. I told the bull, -- it was, he was just like being among the walking dead, he was fucking dead and didn’t know it -- I lied and told the bull I would not take his ghost if he would do this one thing for me. He did, cheerfully, and then he found out that I lied. That bull, after we ‘made love’ was the dear, almost sweet as any human. Yet, I had to have him completely for my evolution to be complete, but I was gentle, so gentle I was. He was gone quickly, it was sad; the bull became a part of me and did not know it. I swilled, swaggered and negotiated every bit of softness and red liquid of forever out of him until the bleeding wound stanched itself; leaving nothing but skin and bones and a few air holes.

Though pregnant, the little girl, -- and maybe that is why she did not suck me insides out, because I was, but kindness is her trait, -- she took me as if into her womb and borne me inside herself; and yet, she let me have my babies. As she took, to share my life force, she could see into my eyes as I into hers; she knew everything I knew. Said she would care for them as if they were her own. She would see that they always had a good home. In addition, I saw to it that she did; she found humans for them all. After knowing all that, that was when I had the three darlings; then I died shortly after giving the last one “la leche de la madre.”

I remember my first thoughts in this young vibrant body “Merry Christmas to all, and might all your pet puppies become human as you.” I should try to call daddy again. The last baby finally fell out and they would need to feed soon. This time I used a little power of persuasion.

“Daaaaa… O’ look daddy, look….”

“O’ baby! Christmas died? Honnnn!” He started to call momma but I stopped him.

“Yes daddy but look.” Daddy walked over to me. He had been just inside my bedroom doorway; and so in order to see the puppies, he had to come around the bed to where I was sitting on the floor. He saw not three but four puppies in my lap.

“I knew something was strange, so Christmas was a he-she.” He smiled, “And you cleaned up all the blood and everything all by yourself.” I hid my smile. “I’m so sorry baby, I heard you calling but I just didn’t.…” He bent over and picked them up. One bit him on his neck, as he rubbed one of the puppy’s fur against his face another bit him on his nose.

“O’ daddy…!” I smiled… looking at him, I know he did not see the slyness in my face.

Daddy said “Ohhh!” and smiled. “This little bugger nipped me on my cheek and this one on my nose.” The smallest trickle of blood fell from daddy. I stood up, he leaned over and gave me a hug too, and I licked both the spots.

I was getting emotional here and tears almost starting to flow. I backed away from him, clapped my hands with show of a quick sharp elated emotion. While pointing to the one that bit him on his nose, I said; “You can have him daddy, that one is yours; Merry Christmas!”