Horror story, Something is stealing animals.
Short Story : Something is stealing animals.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark ( Horror Story)
By Prabir Rai Chaudhuri . All Copyright Reserved 2018
I live on a ranch near La Piedad, Michoacan. My father is a rancher, we mainly raise pigs, but we also have goats and some cows.
Many people believe that in rural areas, far from big cities, interesting things do not happen, and although most of our life is very quiet, sometimes we witness strange things, like the story I am about to tell.
It is common to have occasional casualties among the livestock, either due to illness or because a wild animal is roaming around, but this is always easy to solve and we have never had many casualties.
During a storm, it happened that at least one pig a week began to disappear. It was very strange, because they took the entire animal and only left a blood stain on the trail. When a coyote or a wild cat attacks a farm animal, it usually leaves more clues, and sometimes we even find the corpses not far from the ranch, and that is when we organize to hunt the predator.
On that occasion, we were exploring, looking for any trace of the missing animals. We did not go out looking just once, but several times.
We began to believe that some criminal was stealing our cattle, and that perhaps even the cowboys were in on the thefts.
My father decided to hire a closed-circuit camera service and place them in a place hidden from the workers. We kept the location of the cameras secret; only my father, another trusted worker and I knew where they were.
Several nights went by, during which we had to rotate the location of the cameras, because the cattle did not always disappear from the same place, and the cameras did not focus on the place where the cattle disappeared, but they did record some strange sounds.
So after several failed attempts to film the cattle thieves, my father's trusted man decided to set up a camp somewhat hidden from the ranch and carry out raids at certain hours of the morning.
So we did, setting up a tent near a hill. We took lanterns, several rifles and some knives.
We were very alert the first night, we were afraid we would have to face armed men.
At around three in the morning, we looked into one of the corrals and saw a pig being dragged away. I shined my light in the direction of the animal to see what was happening, while my father and the other man aimed their rifles.
When the light reached the silhouette of those who were taking the animal away, we were shocked.
They were two beings, they seemed like a strange mix between human and animal, something similar to a puma , only without ears and walking on two legs.
My father fired, but because he was nervous he missed, which made the strange beings let out a strange sound, while they increased their speed. At that moment the other man who was with us also fired a shot, which hit the pig right in the head, which began to squeal.
We didn't manage to catch the thieving creatures, but we did manage to wake up several of the workers, who soon appeared with lamps.
Several of the men, after hearing the description of the beings we saw, began to say that we were being stalked by nahuales and that it was necessary for us to locate their hiding place, catch them in their human state and eliminate or cage them.
I swear, if I had not seen those beings with my own eyes, I would say that everything the workers said was simple superstition, but given the obvious, we believed them.
So we decided to go in search of their hiding place. The older employees said that we should not look for a cave, but rather a cabin or a house in the distance, because these beings can maintain a normal life as human beings and another in which a spirit takes over them, managing to transform them into their animal essence.
My father listened in detail to what his worker told him; it seemed that the man had extensive knowledge on this subject, apart from the fact that he mentioned having gifts of clairvoyance.
We decided that the Lord would guide us in the search for the lair of the nahuales, because he assured us that he could find the place, thanks to his gifts.
At first I doubted the man, because thinking about what he said, it was possible that some of the workers were even capable of transforming into nahuales. But the way he guided us made me change my mind.
We came across several paths that we didn't know about. They were routes that one doesn't usually take because it is so difficult to get through. This is because there are many ravines or the trees are very close together, which makes it difficult for trucks to get through.
We got several dogs to use as protection as well, since we didn't know what we were going to face.
Along the way we found pieces of pig skin, blood and even some entrails.
We followed the trail of pieces of meat up a hill. We climbed up and from above, in the distance, we saw a property.
It was a small house with a fence around it, it looked more like a giant cage. This place was outside my father's property, so we couldn't enter without having problems, however, the man who was guiding us said he was sure that this was the place of the nahuales.
We decided to stay on the hill to see if anything strange was happening in that house.
It was barely dark when we saw several black dogs coming out of the house, followed by a man in strange clothing.
He approached and opened the gate for them, the dogs came out desperately, thinking that they would attack us, we started to run before the slopes of the hill began.
We ran for a long time, until we jumped over one of the ranch's perimeter fences. We crossed them and saw that two of the dogs were still following us.
Two of the men did not hesitate to shoot them. One of the dogs fell to the ground, while another, instead of being scared, bit the man who had guided us to the fenced house. Another worker hit the dog with a shovel, then the dog ran back the way it came.
We focused on treating the man's wound, which was very serious since it wouldn't stop bleeding, and we forgot about the dead dog behind the fence.
They tied a bandage on the man, but he wouldn't stop bleeding, so they had to take him to the hospital. We returned from the hospital very late, and fortunately the man came out well, although they had to give him a rabies vaccine.
The next day, two workers ran to talk to my father, they wanted to show him the dog's corpse.
I was also a gossip.
Behind the fence, there was something that did not look anything like the dog we saw at night and although you can't see very clearly at night, what was on the floor was not even similar to the black dog we killed.
It was a kind of dry skin free of hair, it maintained certain features, such as the elongated snout, four legs, but the size was not like that of a dog, it was much larger, it looked too strange.
The creature made the workers nervous, who preferred to burn the body and I agreed too, I couldn't stand to see something so horrible.
They built a bonfire right there and as the fire burned, we heard a dog howling.
Days passed without any animal disappearing.
One night, a worker started shouting to everyone.
We all set out with lamps, shovels and some rifles towards the pig pen. We arrived just as a pig was running back into the pen, squealing, with a horrible wound in its belly. We were able to save the animal, but we were unable to shoot the nahual.
The man who had been bitten by the nahual returned. He advised us not to continue hunting them, since we did not know the number of creatures hiding beyond the groves.
He told us that instead of hunting them, he would teach us how to perform a series of protections and rituals.
The first thing we did was to place several scissors in the shape of a cross around the bars. He also gave us some amulets inside some cotton bags.
After that, we were never attacked by any nahual again.
Some time later, we went to check the place where the little fenced house was. We found it all destroyed, all the meshes were cracked.
We entered the house, it stank of dead animals.
We saw the corpses of several animals, mostly farm animals, and the remains of some of the pigs that had been stolen from us. But there was no trace of the corpse similar to the one we burned next to the corral. Maybe it had died somewhere else, I don't know, the fact is that we never saw those beings roaming our land again.
Copyright © 2018 Prabir Rai Chaudhuri
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