16/96 Day 5: Agent 6523

Location: San Ysidro

Weather: Hot during the day, windless night. Moon nearly full.

The fifth night brought no peace. The farmers here avoid their fields after dark, but I pressed closer to the pens. I wanted to see it for myself.

At dusk, I checked the traps I set yesterday—empty. No signs of disturbance, no bait taken. But by the goat pen I found something chilling: a hen, dead, its neck marked by two punctures. No torn flesh, no scaTtered feathers, no blood. Just those neat wounds, like surgical entry points.

By nightfall the animals grew restless again. The goats bleated in short, panicked bursts, their hooves clattering against the wooden boards. I scanned with the infrared scope, and at 11:38 p.m. I caught heat—low, crouched, slipping between brush. It paused just long enough for me to glimpse the outline: small frame, but hunched, ridged along the spine. Its eyes reflected back a sharp, unnatural red in my scope.

I tried to close the distance, but the creature moved faster than I anticipated. It darted across the fence line and was gone in seconds. Only the silence of the desert remained, punctuated by the nervous shuffle of the herd.

Later, near 2 a.m., I heard it. A low, guttural sound—half hiss, half growl—coming from the scrub. Not a coyote, not a bobcat. Something else. It circled me just beyond the reach of my light. Each time I turned, the sound shifted, as if it were testing me.

I retreated to the barn before dawn. Sleep came in fragments, broken by the goats’ uneasy cries. I cannot shake the sense that this creature is not simply hunting livestock—it’s watching me, too.