“Shriveled Dead Things”

“The chupacabra — the name, Spanish for “goat sucker,” for the animal’s reported eating habits, the vampiric puncture wounds found on the necks or chests of its prey — is a relatively new legend, which I think makes it just slightly more suspicious for reasons I can’t quite explain but which have something to do with having too much familiarity with the historical setting into which it was born. (It’s the same way with religions, for some people. If you had relatives whose names you know and who were around and living when it all got started, doesn’t it just seem less authentic somehow?) 1995? I remember 1995. It did not seem an especially mystical year, or anything like one that could give birth to a new strain of folklore that could last for decades or more. But then, maybe I was too busy with the fourth grade to notice.”
 — Katie Heaney, not content with Yeti-hunting in Minnesota, has turned her hand to chupacabra-hunting…in Minnesota. Maybe all those people are so nice because they are terrified that if they put a foot wrong, they will be eaten. And now, the private collections of cryptozoologists.