1

“And this is why I don’t want to take you anywhere, Mina. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. It’s like you don’t even try to do anything right.” With that, Mina’s – now presumedly ex - girlfriend stormed off, slamming the door. It was one of those arguments that came from nothing; they’d been calmly making conversation about food and plans to eat out sometime this week, then it had just blown up.

When Mina da Costa found out that she had inherited the old family farm – two miles up a mountain by dirt track from the nearest two-lane road, which wasn’t even paved – she had been at the end of her rope. Trying to make it as an illustrator in the big city turned out to be really, really hard – and Mina had tried everything. Free work for local trading card game societies fed the soul but left her wallet (and therefore her fridge and stomach) empty when bills came knocking. The only spot of luck she’d had ended up being designing can art for a craft cider business, but they’d done their best to not pay her either. It had been forgivable for some not-for-profit comics or cards club to pay her in fried chicken shop vouchers and coupons for half-price tomatoes, but a real business ought to, at least in her opinion, fairly compensate the artists whose work helped to sell the damn cans!

It was an endurance crawl to get to the old house by public transport – Mina couldn’t afford a car, and who needed one in the city anyway? Things were different in the country, though, with one rickety old bus every few hours from the shabby little train station town that seemed to be in a state of interminable undeath. In the end, she had planned to walk up from the village in the foothills, but Old Aristedes – who was related to her, somehow, she just couldn’t quite remember on what branch – had insisted on driving her and her luggage up in his beat-up old station wagon. She vaguely recognised that car from photos of childhood holidays, when the whole family had come up into the mountains and piled into the old house. Great-great aunt Sara – Lady Sara, as the people in the village called her – had watched over them all, an endless succession of rescued cats on her knee while her knobbly, silver-ringed fingers made quick work of some unrecognisable crocheted … something. Whatever that thing was that she had been making, it had never been finished, at least in the time Mina had been going to the farm. Her parents had stopped taking her when she was a young teenager, after they split, and the other cousins had probably stopped too. The farm had occupied a half-mythic place in her mind, after that; a hazy, dreamlike paradise with huge pink flowers and trees older than anything in the synthetic world she’d spent her teen years in.

For all its hustle and bustle, the city was a lonely place: in the few hours that Mina had been back in the mountains, she’d realised that. Old Aristedes hadn’t seen her since she was twelve, but he’d picked her up from the bus stop entirely unprompted – God only knows how he found out which bus she was on. As they drove in the near-darkness along the gravel mountain road, he talked her ear off about his youngest niece’s new job at the garage in town and the state of the potholes on the main road (one of which had actually been so deep that Mina’s bus nearly got stuck and several farmers had to come rescue them). He’d also talked a lot about Aunt Sara and how her health had declined these last few years. Even though Aunt Sara wasn’t quite dead yet, just in hospital, and she hadn’t known anything about this until she’d had the call about the house transferring to her name, Mina felt painfully guilty. Once she got all settled down, she’d make something nice and visit her aunt so they could eat it together, and that would ease the knot of regret in her chest. Sure, there was the issue that Mina couldn’t cook anything more complicated than pasta or scrambled eggs, but she’d have to learn eventually. There wasn’t anywhere to get a takeaway from out here, and necessity is supposed to be the mother of invention, after all. When she confided in Old Aristedes about this, he’d ruffled her hair (which seemed a slightly reckless thing to do while driving on such a rough road) and told her that she’d figure things out.

“… and if not, you can come over for dinner tomorrow. It’s that lasagna you liked when you were a kid, the veggie one – Maria and the kids haven’t seen you since you were knee high to a grasshopper! I’m sure Sara has the trail on one of her maps, it’s only a half-hour walk or so. Anyway, there’s some Tupperware meals in the back seat for you, just in case. Sara would kill me if I let you go hungry!”

Mina caught herself smiling. Her city-honed introverted tendencies were telling her to just hole up in the house until her social battery refilled two to three weeks later, but if Old Aristedes’ kids were as talkative as he was, she wouldn’t even have to say anything all dinner. Plus, she could vaguely remember what his cooking was like, and that veggie lasagna sounded real good right now. When was the last time she’d eaten a home-cooked meal - in company, at that? She carefully avoided thinking about the actual answer to that question – it didn’t do to dwell on things. Thoughts were like quicksand; if you stayed calm, they wouldn’t suck you down.

The road began to look more and more familiar as they got closer to the house, passing the old chameleon-shaped letter box. Mina felt a little sick. Enough was the same for her to recognise it, but it all seemed … off. There was a sense of decay in the air, which made for an unsettling impression when combined with the smell of the rain-soaked dark earth.

The house was dark, the coral-painted exterior flaking from damp. When the pair went in, the old wooden boards creaking as they went, the lights wouldn’t turn on.

Old Aristedes let out a sigh.

“I’ll go boot up the generator – there should be candles in the kitchen drawer. Don’t do anything reckless, okay?”

As Old Aristedes walked off, Mina felt distinctly nervous. The candles and matches weren’t hard to find, although the damp air made it hard to get a spark, and she set off through the house. A morbid curiosity drove her all the way through and out into the old garden.

In a dark, muggy greenhouse, there was a small creature – something like a hairless dog – on the floor. At first, she thought it was dead, but then it moved. It bit her, right on the ankle. Mina let out an undignified shriek, nearly dropping the candle. The thing had teeth right out of a vampire film! What the fuck! There was blood everywhere. She felt a little lightheaded.

In that moment, the main house lights came on and Old Aristedes appeared behind her, as if out of thin air.

“I see you’ve met Sara’s newest project. Some little creature she picked up on holiday in Mexico a few years ago. That woman imprints onto the darnedest things, let me tell you.”

Mina was in shock. When the family talked about Aunt Sara’s rescue animals, they’d obviously focused on the normal ones – an endless stream of cats – while leaving out the fact that there was a goddamn chupacabra living in the garden, apparently. She’d watched enough late night cryptid documentaries to put two and two together, except instead of getting four, she’d ended up with a chupacabra.

With a calm and practised air, Old Aristedes put a weathered hand on Mina’s shoulder.

“Why don’t you go to bed, and I’ll come over in the morning and introduce you to the menagerie?”

As if sleepwalking, Mina let him lead her to the least run-down of the guest rooms and watched blankly as he walked away. This had been one hell of a day, and part of her hoped it was some weird dream – maybe she’d fallen asleep in the car – but the bite had felt too real for that.