Mexican Bloodsucker

This story was told to me by my great grandmother when I was a kid. She hated how far I always walked alone and one day told me why.

My grandma lived in a tiny village type town outside a little city in the mountains of Central Mexico. She said she would walk everyday down the mountain and to a small store where she would buy the newspaper for the village men to share. The store owner lived in the top floor of his shop and was always very sweet to her.

One day her father told her she couldn’t walk to the small city. She learned that a neighbors goat had its blood drained from its neck through a finger size hole. Until the men of the village could find the animal responsible, she was not allowed to leave.

Weeks went by with more and more livestock dying the same way, one large hole and the body drained of all its blood. Village men would take shifts over the animals but never saw a hint of what was causing the deaths.

Then one morning a woman was found in her bed with the large hole and empty veins. My great abuela knew this woman and told me how nice a person she was, but her husband had a bad temper. The men blamed him for the death of her and the livestock, saying he made a pact with the devil. They took the husband and caged him with a guard always around.

The attacks stopped. The husband was hanged outside town and my great grandmother was allowed to visit the store again.

My great abuela then told me the secret she had held for more years than I’m alive. She was sleeping on the floor of her families 1 bedroom hut when her father yelled. She opened her eyes and saw a long writhing shape coming through the roof into the hut and directly above her mother. Her father had either been awake or woke up and yelled, grabbed a machete from near the bed and hacked at the object. It fell to the floor near my great grandma. She saw it was a tongue with a large finger size hollow barb at the end of it. Her father made them promise never to tell what happened for fear that the men would blame him or believe him a liar.

The next day my great abuela was sent on her usual errand to collect the newspaper. When she arrived at the store the shopkeeper was not his usual self so she tried to ask him whats wrong but when he opened his mouth she saw a crudely severed stump where his tongue should have been. My great grandmother never told anyone or returned to the shop.