The River Calf

No one fished the Río Pudeto after dark.

But Lucía, a university student studying marine folklore, believed in data, not ghost stories. She came to Chiloé for a thesis on oral tradition—how myth survives in modern communities. So when she heard of the river where no one dared go, she dismissed the warnings as superstition.

At dusk, she hiked into the forest, toward the mouth of the river. As twilight deepened, the birds stopped singing.

She noticed something odd: the ground near the riverbank was gouged with deep claw marks. And in the mud—hoofprints, large and fresh, heading toward the water.

Lucía knelt to inspect them. That was when she heard the low, bubbling snort behind her.

She turned.

Half-submerged in the reeds, the Camahueto watched her. Its eyes glowed faintly green. A single horn protruded from its skull, fractured at the base and slowly regrowing.

Lucía couldn’t move. She watched as it opened its mouth—sharp teeth reflecting the moonlight—and disappeared beneath the surface.

The river surged.

She never spoke of it again. But she left Chiloé that same week, her thesis abandoned. Locals say she still wakes screaming, whispering about a calf with a horn that grows back no matter how many times it is cut.