Chupacabra

***Chupacabra*** is the pilot episode of the thriller horror docudrama found-footage television series ***Lost Tapes***. It originally aired on October 30, 2008 on Animal Planet, and was directed by Douglas Segal.

## Plot

On July 5, 2006, the Ramirez family in Nogales, Mexico are celebrating their daughter Ava's 9th birthday, and receive two gifts from a relative in the United States: one is a video camera, and the other is a letter saying that they will be brought across the border into Arizona.

Ava's father, Carlos is excited about going to America for a trip and her mother, Maritza, asks if it is going to be dangerous, but her father says that it won't be. But her grandmother Rosa is concerned about the threats and dangers that they may encounter, including western diamondback rattlesnakes, bark scorpions, heat stroke and dehydration that she saw on the television.

Nonetheless, they prepare to leave for the border. Two days later, Ava says goodbye to her pet chicken Roberto and they are taken into the Sonora Desert by a hired smuggler and hide in his pickup truck but he suddenly stops at around noon, two hours away from the border: instead of fulfilling his part of the bargain, the smuggler forces them out at gunpoint and abandons them in the desert, taking their money and water with him. With few other options, Ava, Maritza, and Carlos must to try to reach the border on foot; Ava suddenly drops her camera without realizing it, but is reminded of it by Carlos. As she goes to retrieve the camera, she suddenly hears a fierce snarl coming from the brush, but makes nothing of it.

At about 8:30 in the evening, at the border area, they begin to hear growling and hissing from foliage nearby; this worries them, but Carlos tells them to ignore it. Suddenly, they are ambushed and pursued by a large unseen predator and begin running from it. Meanwhile, two American border-patrol agents, Tom Valentine and Martin Santino, receive a report that the family is trying to cross the border illegally and go to apprehend them; the same thermal images from an unmanned aerial drone that show them where the Ramirez family is also shows that their attacker is a strange, dog-like creature. When they arrive at the scene, following conflicting reports of three, then four, and then zero people in the desert, they discover two corpses: the bodies of Ava's parents. They at first attribute both deaths to either heat stroke or severe dehydration, but suddenly find both of their necks have three unusual puncture marks on them, and a mysterious lack of any blood. While Valentine reports the deaths via radio, Santino hears bizarre sounds coming from a nearby bush and goes to investigate.

Instead, he discovers Ava, who is terrified but unhurt, and hiding from her parents' attacker. As darkness falls, they take Ava to their car; Valentine tries to console her and acquire information while Santino searches the area for other possible survivors. He hears strange sounds coming from the darkness, and finds a dead black-tailed prairie dog and a dead raccoon, which have been drained of blood in a similar way. After a while, he runs back to the car, telling Valentine to join him so that they can track and destroy whatever that is making the sounds, knowing that it is unknown and extremely dangerous predator. They search in the dark of the brush, and are suddenly confronted by the creature, only seen as a pair of reflecting eyes and claws, and they open fire, before running back to their car just as backup arrives.

The agents' official report stated that the cause of death for Ava's parents was unknown, but noted the puncture wounds and missing blood. Ava was returned to her grandmother in Nogales, but was plagued by nightmares of the creature. The official report made no mention of any unknown animal, and whether or not it escaped or was shot dead by the border patrol agents remains a mystery. For Ava however, the encounter was all too real.

Clips in the episode also discuss vampire bats and the dangers of trying to cross the US/Mexico border, including heat and wildlife.