The Blood-Sucking Creature from Hell

Is there a connection among the various small, vicious, flying monsters that have terrorized unsuspecting people around the globe for decades? Here's what they look like and what they've been up to.The full moon rose above the mountain in the cloudless night, shining like a pale yellow lantern into the farmer's bedroom. But that is not what awoke him. It was the chickens. Their panicked cries had awoken him before, and it meant they were under attack. Wild dogs had gotten into the coop, the farmer thought, or perhaps a wolf.He leapt from bed, grabbed his shotgun from the bedroom corner and hurried outside. He checked the gun for cartridges as he jogged barefoot past the long, soft shadows cast by the moonlighttoward the chicken coop. The predator will die tonight, he thought, as he pushed open the small door to the coop.

He burst in and took aim. But he did not shoot. Instead, he froze, his senses overwhelmed by the sight before him. Several chickens lay dead in the dirt around the clawed feet of a creature the farmer had never seen before.This was no dog, no wolf. It stood on two feet at about the height of a small child. It had dark, scaly skin and a ridge of porcupine-like spines running across its head and down its back. In its short arms ending in sharp claw-like hands, the creature held a chicken to its mouth. It was not eating its prey, but seemed to be sucking the life from it. It turned to face the farmer, its red eyes blazing, and dropped the chicken to the ground. It hissed, baring its large blood-stained fangs. Then it screeched - an unearthly, terrifying noisethat drove the farmer backward into the doorway. The creature, with its front claws dangling, hopped like some mutant kangaroo toward the farmer. Dumbstruck, he stumbled backward out of the coop as the creature hopped past him with another deafening shriek.The farmer was knocked to the ground, and he could feel rough, scaly skin of the creature as it passed, and felt the warm, sickening smell of its putrid breath on his face. The creature sprung onto the roof of the coop, spread short, dark, bat-like wings, and with two bounding hops flew away into the darkness. It was only then that the farmer remembered he had his shotgun. He brought it to bear, but it was too late. The creature from hell had disappeared with one last shriek that echoed off the distant mountains. Although this might sound like some horror story fantasy, it is actually based on the eyewitness accounts ande......