Two Demented Fish Tales Read online

  Two Demented Fish Tales

  *

  Live Bait

  *

  Revenge is Best Served Wet

  Dane Hatchell

  This story is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 Dane Hatchell

  Cover Copyright © P.A. Douglas

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this story may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

  From Severed Press:

  From Severed PRESS

  Other Titles Available from the Author

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  A Gentleman’s Privilege: Zombies in the Old South

  A Werewolf in our Midst

  Apocalypse³

  Club Dead: Zombie Isle

  Dead Coup d'État

  Dreaming of an Undead Christmas

  It Came from Black Swamp

  Lord of the Flies: A Zombie Story

  Love Prevails: A Zombie Nightmare

  Pheromone and Rotten

  Red Rain

  Soul Mates

  The Garden of Fear

  The Last Savior

  The Turning of Dick Condon

  Time and Tide: A Fractured Fairy Tale

  Two Big Foot Tales

  Zombies of Iwo Jima

  Zombie God of the Jungle

  Zombie’s Honor

  Table of Contents

  Live Bait

  Revenge is Best Served Wet

  Live Bait

  The sun beamed overhead announcing high noon. Otis Landry jiggled the fishing pole, hoping the bait would catch the interest of any turtles passing by. It had been forty-five minutes since his last nibble. At least the mosquitoes had called it a day. They were either full from draining him of blood or it was time for them to take a nap.

  The days catch so far would be enough to make a nice size sauce piquante for dinner, but Otis hated to waste bait. There was a good amount of it left on the end of his line, but it wasn’t as fresh and enticing as it had been.

  He grabbed another beer from the ice chest and delighted at the pop-spraying sound it made when he opened it. The cool beverage went down just as smooth and fast as the others before. How many beers had he had so far? He wasn’t sure. Either no beer, or no bait, would dictate when he would head back in.

  Lady luck had provided him with a carefree lifestyle when he had won the state lottery. After taxes, he still had a few million left over. Instead of living high on the hog with a new house and fancy cars in New Orleans, he chose to become a recluse and live way down at the end of the boot of Louisiana, near the small town of Empire.

  He bought an old shack on a bayou far from the main center of the little town. His main concern in life had become what he loved best: turning beer into urine, and fishing.

  The beer can’s bottom turned up and the last drop of liquid hit his tongue. Otis crushed the can in a microsecond and tossed it on the boat bottom. A childhood memory flashed in his mind when beer cans used to be made of steel and had no pop-tops. He had to pierce the top with a tool that left a triangular shaped hole on one side, turn the can 180 degrees, and make a smaller hole. The smaller hole allowed air to enter so the beer flowed freely out the can. Life was so much easier now than then.

  Otis lifted his pole to check the bait on the end of the line. The hook was still secure in the back of the little denim jumper, and there was some left leg remaining from the knee up and a whole left arm connected to the torso that could bait at least two more turtles by itself. Fishing had been more successful while the infant was still alive. That little bugger pitched a fit, slapping the water like a bug in distress. Hell, turtles loved eating a fresh meal. The kid might as well have said, “Eat me! Come and get it!” Those turtles swam over like they were in an Olympic competition, stretching their necks out as if first bite wins. Once they started feeding, it was easy to get the pole net under and pull them to the boat.

  Otis reached blindly into the ice chest and came back with an empty hand. The sun had begun to beam straight down on his head. There was no way he could last much longer without beer. He lifted the bait out of the water and into the boat, and then removed the little jumper with the bright colored embroidered flowers from what was left of the carcass.

  As he paddled his narrow pirogue down the murky bayou, he searched the muddy banks until he found an alligator warming in the sun. The gator resembled a four foot smiling log. Otis tossed the remains of the infant to the living fossil when he got within throwing distance, telling the gator that it owed him a favor.

  Years ago he met a man who grew up in South America where crocodiles were raised in farms. The man said if you feed the crocs fish, the meat tasted like fish. If you fed the crocs chicken, the meat tasted like chicken. If you catch a croc in the wild and the meat had an indescribable taste, don’t eat it. Enemies of the government were easily disposed of in such a way.

  His trip back to camp was quite picturesque. Large cypress trees with mighty moss covered arms reached to the sky. Their bare roots grew directly into the water.

  According to legend, Spanish moss was the beard of the bully Gorez Goz. As Gorez Goz climbed after a young Indian girl, his beard supposedly became tangled in the tree’s branches. The girl escaped, but the moss remained as a testimony of his failed effort to this day.

  Palmettos, ferns, and emerging blackberry stalks grew around water tupelo and red maples. All of which provided homes for indigenous birds and insects.

  Otis tied his pirogue to his new boat dock, one of the few excesses he had spent some of his lottery winnings on. The newness did take away from the quaint ambiance of the fisherman’s camp, but it was nothing like the eye sore of his 40 by 50 steel building workshop. Even though he had tried to camouflage the shop by choosing hunter-green for the color, it still looked like a nasty metal box amongst the cool, dark bayou forest.

  Otis took his burlap sack full of turtles out the boat and carried them into his workshop. After punching in his lock code, the alarm light changed from red to green. He entered from one of the standard doors on the side.

  The building was well lit with florescent lights hanging from the ceiling, giving off their yellowish glow, and low pitch buzzing sound. The walls were organized with everything having a place. There were a countless number of rods and reels, and hundreds, if not thousands of fresh and salt water baits. A welding machine/generator and a number of power tools were dedicated to one corner. A walk-in deep freeze and fish cleaning sink in the other.

  A six foot wooden bench was blatantly out of place near the middle of the building. A steel cable hung above it.

  Otis placed the turtles on the side of his fish cleaning sink and turned on the water. He pulled the sack open with one hand, and with the other, used a two-inch thick oak branch to prod the nearest turtle until it latched on to it with its powerful jaws. The turtle held tightly to the stick as if his life depended on it. With its neck stretched to the limit, Otis chopped it off with his Bowie knife, and beat the stick against a garbage can until the head let loose.

  “How you two gals doing?” he asked, while prying the shell off the first turtle. “Y’all’s about ready for some lunch?” Otis turned his head to the side giving them a jagged grin.

  “You’re sick. You’re just fucking sick.” A young woman with a creamy complexion and an athletic build stood dressed in a string of catfish around her hips and a necklace of brim around her neck.

  “Sarah, don’t,” the other girl begged. “He
might hurt us.”

  “He’s not going to let us go, Marie. He kidnapped us, and now has us wearing fish for some sick fetish he has. He won’t let us go until we’re dead.”

  Both women were handcuffed and chained to the steel cable above. They were free to move from side to side the length of the cable, which was not more than ten feet.

  “Now, now, don’t go jumping to conclusions,” Otis cleared his throat and spat out some phlegm. “I told you gals when I picked you up—cash, grass, or ass, no one rides for free. Once you work it off, I’ll let you go.”

  “Hey asshole, I told you I’m a Neurologist. I have plastic. I could have gotten you the cash. You’re so full of shit, sick motherfucker. What about, Marie? She was here two days before me. When are you going to let her go?” Sarah fumed.

  “So much education and yet such a foul mouth.” Otis fished another turtle out of the sack, cut through the neck, and frowned. “I don’t like women with foul mouths.”

  “I don’t like sick, motherfucking, asshole, pig shit eating sadists,” Sarah screamed, and broke into tears.

  “Sarah, stop.” Marie’s voice trailed off.

  “Huh, I could have just left you on the side of the road and let the gators get you,” Otis mumbled. He turned his head again and yelled back. “I’ve given you food and a five gallon bucket to squat on. Things could be a whole lot worse. Hell, Marie there can leave anytime she wants. Just ask her.”

  Marie turned her back to Sarah and then stared at the floor.

  “Marie? Marie, is that true?” Sarah asked.

  “When . . . when Otis picked me up . . . he made me an offer. He’s paying me five hundred dollars a day to . . . to play like this,” Marie said.

  The skin crinkled on Sarah’s forehead as her eyes widened. “What? Are you serious? Are you just as fucked up as he is?”

  “He paid me three thousand dollars up front . . . he . . . said that he would give me a thousand more if I could get you to do things with me.”

  Sarah’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sitting here half naked, wearing dead fish whose fins are cutting into me, stinking to high heaven, and you think I’d want to do something kinky for that sick son of a bitch?”

  “He said he’d pay you too.”

  “My god. I can’t believe any of this.” Sarah sighed.

  Otis finished with the last of the turtles and put the rest of the meat in a metal colander to drain. He wiped his hand on an old towel, opened a mini-fridge, and took out a beer. “Anyone thirsty?”

  “Water. I want water,” Sarah demanded.

  “Well, told you that I don’t have water. I got beer. You want some beer?”

  “Give me a damn beer then, you freak,” Sarah said.

  “Yeah, Otis. I’ll take one too.” Marie’s demeanor had entirely changed.

  Otis tossed them each a can, and kept a watchful eye on Sarah. He wanted to be ready if she decided to throw it back at him.

  Marie opened the beer, and drank it down without coming up for air.

  Sarah stared at her with her mouth open.

  “Otis, you got any smokes? Hell, you might as well get me out of these cuffs. She ain’t into this. You need to put her ass back on the road,” Marie said.

  “Uh, well, I guess you’re right. We’ve gone about as far with this as we can.” Otis carried a key ring on his belt. He pulled the keys off and unlocked Marie’s cuffs.

  “What? That’s it? Just like that? What about me? When do I get to go?” Sarah said.

  “I got to take Marie to New Orleans. I’ll be back later tonight, and we’ll see about getting you to your car tomorrow,” Otis said.

  “Let me go now!”

  “You’re in no position to tell me what to do,” Otis said creepily.

  “What makes you think you can get away with this?”

  “You mean the law? Haw! I bought the Sheriff and Judge the first week I moved here. They’ll never believe you, and might arrest you for drug trafficking or some other shit charge if you ever show your face back down here.”

  Sarah took a slow sip of beer and grimaced.

  “Of course, if you were willing to do a few favors for me I could let you go today,” Otis said.

  “You touch me and I will kill you, you sick perv.”

  Otis frowned as the sides of his neck turned beet-red. “Let’s go, Marie.”

  The two left the workshop. Otis reset the alarm, and told Marie, “Turn around and I’ll cut the fish line off. You can and go inside and shower.” As she turned her back, he pulled a blackjack from his back pocket and slammed it into the side of her head.

  * * *

  Marie awoke to the stars and the moon hanging in a cloudless night sky above, floating somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. She was lying on her back tied to a piece of plywood that had floats attached underneath. Her legs hung off the side, bobbing up and down in the water, feeling like they were on fire.

  A spot light from Otis’ Bay boat focused directly on her. The stinging sensation from her legs was from the numerous slices made by a box cutter. Marie became more aware of her surroundings as she gained consciousness and started to cry.

  Otis picked up the ancient telephone magneto off the boat floor. The wires led from the back of his boat, down the rope to the makeshift raft where they were attached to Marie’s ankles. He called out, “Marie, hush that crying now.”

  “What the hell are you doing to me? Get me off this damn thing before—”

  What came next out of Marie’s mouth was a combination of incoherent babble and screams of pain. Her upper body jerked against the ropes and her legs flailed about uncontrollably.

  Otis laughed to himself as he turned the crank and ‘dialed her in,’ sending 110 volts down the wires to her ankles. “Ain’t nuthin’ like live bait.”

  Another beer from the ice chest and he was ready for his ‘catch’ of the day.’

  Marie sobbed in despair, repeating a prayer her mother taught her years ago.

  It happened so quickly and unexpectedly Otis almost missed it. His head had been tilted back for a guzzle of beer when Marie’s leg from her left foot to her knee disappeared. A dark object went up and down in the water snatching it away.

  Marie gasped loudly, but immediately fell silent with a frozen expression of fear on her face.

  Otis let the beer fall to the deck as he scrambled to retrieve the harpoon. He made sure the coil of rope and attached floats weren’t tangled and positioned himself in the rear of the boat, ready for action.

  This time when the great bull shark came up, it bit Marie right across her tits, getting more than he bargained for with a mouthful of plywood and plastic. Otis steadied his aim and plunged the harpoon into its back, near the head of the ferocious fish.

  The shark didn’t care too much for the harpoon, and abandoned Marie, heading straight for the bottom of the Gulf. Otis moved quickly to one side as the rope attached to the harpoon uncoiled and zipped into the water. The floats attached to the rope followed one by one, putting the brakes on the two hundred pound eating machine.

  Otis decided that he would celebrate by having another beer while the shark played himself out.

  Poor Marie had seen her last fishing trip and her last day on Earth. Her body lay peacefully on her floating death bed. Otis thought about setting her on fire and giving her a proper Viking burial. But she was Cajun, and he was Irish, so he blamed that thought on the beer, and a recent movie he had rented.

  He was finishing the last gulp when the rope went limp on the boat bottom. He looped the rope around an electric wench and slowly started to reel in his catch. The shark gave sporadic challenges, at which times Otis would wait and let the shark tire. Before long, the gray monster of the Gulf cursed with a face only a mother could love, made it to the surface and floated by the side of the boat.

  Otis retrieved his revolver and took careful aim at one of the shark’s two heads before squeezing the trigger. The bullet slammed harmlessly into the water, missing the
target. So, Otis closed one eye and was pleased to see only one head this time. The shot rang out and the bullet hit. He powered up the wench and reeled the dead shark into the boat.

  First he cut the fin off the shark, and then the head and tail. He flipped it on its back, carved off the lower section, and removed the internal organs. Then, cut the shark body into equal size steaks and tossed them in the ice chest.

  Otis pulled in Marie’s remains and chopped her up into smaller pieces. Then mixed Marie parts with the shark leftovers and dumped them off the side. He wanted creatures of the deep to have a meal on him, and get rid of any evidence of Marie on board when he returned to land.

  * * *

  “I told you I took her back to New Orleans last night,” Otis said, handing Sarah a pair of cut-offs and a tee shirt. “Paid her the money and she waved goodbye. Hell, we’s going to do it again in a month or so. I’m just a lonely man just looking for some fun.”

  “Cocksucker, take me back to my car,” Sarah said, and pulled the shorts up.

  “Not before I take you fishing. We’s going fishing today, and tomorrow I’ll take you back to your car.”

  “If you’re going to let me go, let me go now. I’m not going fishing. There’s nothing you can do to make me go fishing,” Sarah said.

  Otis’ face stiffened. He gazed at Sarah with piercing eyes and pointed the sawed off shotgun toward the door. “Oh, we’s going fishing. We’s going fishing now.”

  The coldness in his voice grabbed her spine and chilled her to the core. Sarah was a strong woman and wasn’t accustomed to backing down to anyone for any reason. But this was different; she was alone with an insane person who could be capable of doing anything.

  Sarah wasn’t sure if Otis ever sobered up. He either had a beer in his hand or was on his way to get one. If she pissed him off too much, she feared he might kill her. He might kill her and not even remember the next day. Or, or he might get so shit faced that he might let his guard down, and she might have a chance to escape.