Wrath of El Pombéro

Said Pombéro (no relation to Pom-Bears) is a rapacious dwarf-like creature originally attested to in Guaraní culture - but of which legends have since spread across Argentina, Paraguay and Southern Brazil. It is described as a diminutive humanoid with black skin and hairy extremities, and is usually said to be a harmless trickster figure - but is sometimes also known to kidnap women and force them into having sexual intercourse, and to commit other such heinous acts. Of course, this wildly unpredictable entity is naught more than local folklore, right? Well - according to a testimony given by one Liliana Nieves - this allegedly-mythical critter is all too real, and extremely violent...

## Dark Forces in Barrio Santa Teresita

The community was already in a state of fear due to the recent appearance of a Aguara Guazú (maned wolf) in the area - which they had linked to the legendary werewolf-like monster known as the Lobizón. This general unease would reach a boiling point, however, when all hell broke lose in Barrio Santa Teresita...

Liliana's harrowing ordeal began on February 17, 2004 (the Tuesday before her story was told by the online news source *El Norte Digital*) when over 10 witnesses would concur that they saw a rain of stones fall onto Liliana's house - located '*at 31 and 0000 street in Santa Teresita*'. Although everyone could see the stones falling, nobody except Liliana could hazard a guess at who was throwing them. The terrified homeowner claimed that she saw something tearing mandarin and tomato plants out of the ground in her back-yard, and then caught sight of a person running away from the scene. Her husband and another unnamed man chased after the entity, leaving Liliana alone in the house with her sister-in-law, Norma Cordoba.

While the two women were alone, a brick suddenly hurtled into the roof. Liliana frantically called Norma over to where she was standing, saying that she could see another entity. Norma said that she caught her first glimpse of the creature when 'a shadow shot out toward the back of the property'. The shadow in question continued to pelt the house with debris until 4am, at which point Norma had a breakdown and was taken to the hospital.

The rampant poltergeist-like activity briefly eased up, with nothing happening on Wednesday leading the beseiged family to perhaps dare to assume that Tuesday's events were naught more than a cruel prank. This hope, however, would be dashed when the assault resumed on Thursday - this time with even more ferocity. Norma was in bed at the time, and Liliana and her husband were sitting outside on the patio when stones started to fall onto the roof again. Norma got out of bed, presumably terrified that her ordeal was about to repeat itself, and went outside to see that her other neighbours were all aware of the commotion. The rocky rain struck Liliana's house and neighbouring properties alike, and at this point a decent portion of the community was stood outside in their back-yards gawking at the phenomenon.

All the houses in the neighbourhood are linked by a common patio, filled with trees with branches that touch the ground. It was into this forested area that Liliana strayed in an attempt to locate the source of the stone-throwing - this was evidently a bad idea, seeing as she didn't reemerge for quite a while. Frightened, her neighbours started to call out to her and received no reply until a local man ventured out into the forest to find the missing woman. He was successful in this operation, but what he found was almost certainly not what he was hoping for. Liliana was sprawled on the ground suffering from what appeared to be the aftermath of a savage blow to her face, severely wounding '*part of her eye and mouth*' - leaving it '*all broken*'.

When Norma was asked about how Liliana described her attacker, she claimed that her sister-in-law had said that it was a humanoid entity about waist-height on her - and that it had '*covered her mouth, dragged her to the bushes and beat her*'. The creature apparently abandoned its hapless victim when it heard her neighbours calling for her, and was gone by the time they started searching for her.

When the community brought Liliana inside, she suddenly fell down onto the floor and begged her brother and neighbours to vanquish whatever it was that was grabbing onto her feet. Confused, the bystanders stood her back up only to watch her collapse back down onto the ground '*as if her feet were being pulled out from under her*'. This frightening force was completely invisible to Liliana's would-be rescuers, but they rained down machete blows onto the space around her anyway in the hope that they would hit the imperceptible assailant. Liliana was completely hysterical, desperately pleading with the bystanders to save her from this phantom attacker. The police eventually arrived and took Liliana away to the psychiatric ward of the Hospital 4 de Junio, where she remained until February 21st of that year.

It was roughly midday on that Saturday - the 21st - when deacon Dionisio Castagna of the San José Parish visited the village, speaking to and praying with the frenzied locals. He agreed to bless their homes, and didn't question whether the story was true or not - simply saying that they should '*strengthen their faith in God and reaffirm family ties*' in order to stay safe.

Mario Obregon, Liliana's brother, said that she would frequently say that the creature would appear and say that '*it wanted to take her away*'. Trying his best to help, Mario would stand in front of his sister and try to defend her to the best of his ability, but could never even catch a glimpse of the assailant. Liliana said that the entity would continually appear despite her brother's attempts to protect her. A neighbour apparently came onto the scene with a crucifix and started to pray, but this seemingly only angered the creature - it would attack Liliana even more viciously and frequently. This episode was what frightened the locals the most, seeing as it was clear to them that there was seemingly an invisible force that was trying to push and drag Liliana. She said that it was a '*little man, all black*' resembling an imp, and eventually the neighbours took her out of the house in an attempt to evade the entity, because it kept threatening to take her away into the forest and beat her.

According to a police report taken during the same period, a woman had been the victim of a brick attack on Friday (20th of February) at around 02:00am. Oddly, this is the same time as when the Aguara Guazú appeared in the neighbourhood. The police were dispatched the scene and apparently noted that there were brick shards on the ground near the site of the attack. An hour later, a deputy sheriff by the name of Aldo Fernandez led an operation to return to the site - and was alarmed to find that a large number of bystanders claimed to have seen the woman in question being '*lifted and thrown against the wall*' by an invisible force, apparently resulting in her being severely bruised and needing to be hospitalised.

## Chronology

Okay so as you can tell this is a very intriguing case, but the chronology of events seems to get a bit confused towards the end of the report. This is through no fault of my own, and this jumbled situation was present in the original source article. As far as I can tell, Liliana was attacked by the creature while out searching for the source of the stones, was brought inside where she was repeatedly pushed over by the entity - so much so that Mario stepped in to protect her but ultimately failed, leading to the community members taking Liliana outside to escape the threats of the creature. It was then that the police came. That's what I make of this, but I can see that other interpretations of the timeline might also be valid...

## Source

El Norte Digital - February 22, 2004. The specific article within this issue was found as the last case detailed on this website. My antivirus software says that ads were blocked on this page, and so you might need to do the same...