The Lost CreepyGrams - CAN I KEEP IT?

 

Here is another unpublished CreepyGram (a short horror story of 365 words, a two minute read). This is another escapee from The CreepyGram Chronicles, not appearing anywhere else before this. 

CAN I KEEP IT?

Muata walked home from school. This far out in the reservation, there wasn’t much traffic. He was lost in thought.

He almost didn’t see the creature on the side of the road nearly stepping on it. It was black with light brown spots, but hairless. It kind of looked like a bear cub, but it had a cat-like body. It’s head and eyes were large, almost too large in comparison to the rest of it. It had many sharp teeth and long claws.

Muata thought it was dead. He bent down to look at the thing. It twitched.

Muata jumped. There was a connection almost immediately between him and the animal. It was as alien and alone as he felt.

Muata put his backpack down, opened the zipper, and rifled through it. He found his brown paper lunch sack. He had saved half a peanut butter sandwich and hadn’t touched his juice drink. He grabbed the latter.

He then bent down again, careful not to put fingers in harm’s way. Muata gently squeezed the cherry flavored juice into the thing’s open mouth. The effect was nearly instantaneous.

The creature swallowed. It rolled and sat up. Muata squirted more of the sugary drink into its mouth.

The thing came alive. It began to run and jump, circling Muata. He laughed.

It stood still only long enough to drink the remainder of the juice box. He tried to follow it up with the rest of the peanut butter sandwich, but the animal would have none of it. Muata left it on the dirt just in case it changed its mind later.

Muata closed his backpack, throwing it over a shoulder. He resumed his walk homeward. The creature followed.

Knowing the thing was wild, Muata tried to shoo it away. The animal thought it was playing, ducking back and then running forward in a series of jumps. Again, Muata laughed.

Before he knew it, Muata was home. “Mom, can I keep it?” he asked.

Deyna looked at the baby Chupacabra. Though she was somewhat afraid of it, she saw how happy it had made her son. He had been so lonely since his father left.

“Sure,” she said.