What really happened to Gus: An homage...

It happened a few weeks ago, out on the front porch of Gus' shack. It was pretty near sundown on a hot, sultry, swamp-smelly night. I was in a cheap metal folding chair, and Gus was behind me with the scissors. Gus was, as well as a master storyteller and a capybara farmer, a damned fine barber as well. Because of his storytelling ability, his haircuts tended to take an unecessarily long time, which is quite possibly one of the main reasons why he never got far with that particular occupation. I didn't mind though. I liked his stories.

On this particular night, he was telling me the story of how he'd narrowly escaped death a few weeks before during a life and death struggle with a beast called the chupacabra. It was, as all of Gus' stories were, wonderfully entertaining, but complete bullshit.

Or so I thought.

I sat there as he cut and talked, cut and talked, and the sun was fading further and further into the night...and then, just when the darkness was at a point where I was wondering how Gus could possibly see enough not to clip off a good slice of my ear, I heard the noise.

It was a high-pitched sound, not unlike the squealing of a pig--coming from the woods, but far off somewhere. Gus, being all caught up in the story he was telling, seemed not to hear it. He raised his scissors-wielding hands and began to gesture wildly as he described the deadly chupacabra attack. I remember how low his voice became as he described the beast...

"...A hideous creature indeed. About the size of an orangutan, yet thinner and more reptilian. It vaguely resembled gollum, from the Lord of the Rings, but had a bigger head and two prominent fangs. But the eyes! I was mesmerized. Two large red orbs that seemed to glow..."

"Gus, I think it's getting too dark," I said, "maybe we should finish this haircut ins--"

And suddenly, there it was. The chupacabra, with it's ungodly red eyes, thick, lizard-like tale, and those huge, dripping fangs, was upon us. It leapt at me before I could react, and just before those razor-sharp teeth could rip into the soft flesh of my neck, I saw the shadowy flicker of metal. Gus had stabbed the creature in the side of the face with his scissors, saving my life.

The beast squealed ferociously, fell to his side, and Gus jumped on him. I fell off my chair and stumbled to the ground. Gus yelled at me, "Get my gun! It's on the--" but then the chupacabra began thrashing around, trying to launch the old farmer from it's scaly back. Gus held on for dear life--one arm around the beast's neck and the other bringing the scissors down repeatedly, trying to stab the wounded monster to death. There was no way Gus was going to be able to hold on much longer.

I ran into the house, trying to find Gus' shotgun. I could hear the beast squealing, although I could not tell if it was in pain or triumph. Gus was grunting with effort, and I looked frantically around the living room, which was, as always, a mess. PVC tubing, Tractor parts, a bucket of capybara feed, a large girdle--but no shotgun.

Suddenly I heard a loud thump outside, and the squealing of the chupacabra changed to a low growl. I grabbed the only thing I could find that looked like it might serve my purposes--Gus' prize possession, his ancient and rusty-keyed old 1906 Underwood typewriter, the machine that he had used to write all his stories and quips here on A2K--and went back out to see if I could save my friend.

Gus was lying on the wood floor in the corner of the porch, and the beast was drooling in front of him, ready to pounce. I held the bulky Underwood over my head, ready to throw it at the chupacabra. When Gus saw what it was that I had brought to use as a weapon, his eyes grew wide with shock and surprise. He shouted, "MY UNDERWOOD! NO, KICKY, NO!"

I hesitated. God help me, when I heard Gus' shout, I hesitated for just a moment. And in that moment of hesitation, the chupacabra pounced.

The crunch of bone beneath the heavy jaws of the beast was sickening as they ripped into his torso, but not as sickening as the bellow of agony that the old man himself let out. I will hear that sound in my dreams until my dying day, I'm sure.

I stood there, unable to move, Gus' Underwood still poised above my head. After what seemed like an eternity, the echoes from Gus' final agonized cry fell silent. The beast turned to me, Gus hanging from it's mouth like a large ragdoll, scissors still lodged in it's sinewy neck, and flicked it's tale at me in a gesture of dismissal. The chupacabra then simply bounded away.

After they disappeared into the din of the early night, I finally lowered the Underwood, black misery falling over me like a blanket. I walked back into the shack. I ever-so-gently placed the typewriter back where it had been on the table. I looked around at the empty house.

And after many heavy tears, I began to write.