Flashmaster (Short Horror and SciFi)

Fishing

Jerry sat in a blue folding chair, on a wooden dock floating in a largish pond, and dozed. He had a fishing pole loosely clutched in one hand and an empty beer bottle in the other. At his side a small cooler kept another eleven bottles on ice and a dirty, red tacklebox lay open.

Around him a fine, hot summer day shone on yellow, grass covered hills and insects buzzed to and fro. On a hillside not far off to his left, a half dozen black and white cows stood chewing their cud and flapping their ears lazily.

A gentle tug on Jerry's line woke him. He hadn't had a bite all morning. The tug repeated and he yanked to set the hook. He reeled enthusiastically, but while heavy and somewhat difficult to reel, the fish didn't fight back much. Strangely, he felt an odd sensation of dis-ease as he reeled. He'd had the feeling before but he couldn't put his finger on where. As he got his quarry up close to the edge of the dock, he reached in and snagged it with his net.

At first he thought he had caught a catfish but something didn't seem right, so he dumped the fish onto the wood of the dock. It lay there listlessly. It was short and squat with discolored grey and purple splotches. Its skin seemed to be translucent as if made of gel. It gave him an inexplicable pit in his stomach. Gently, he put his tennis shoe on the thing's side and grabbed the hook protruding from the its whiskered upper lip. He pulled but the hook didn't let go. He added a little more pressure with his foot, and a thin stream of whitish liquid ran from the thing's mouth. Repulsed, Jerry grabbed the pliers out of the tackle box and yanked the hook out quickly. He kicked the fish back into the water and it swam out of sight.

Jerry looked at his hook and sighed. Something here wasn't right. He thought about packing up his yellow Toyota hatchback and going home. He also thought he was acting like a fool. He sat back on his folding chair, rebaited the hook and cast it out. He was just reaching for another beer, when a fierce tug hit his line. He grabbed the pole with one hand and yanked back. Out in the water, his line took off to the right at tremendous speed. Jerry dropped the unopened beer bottle and gripped the pole with both hands. As suddenly as it started right, his line ran back left, cutting a tiny fan in the water. For a few seconds Jerry struggled with the fish but something still wasn't right. Now the line was moving too fast.

"Oh," he thought, "I'm having that dream where you catch creepy fish." Immediately the fishing line went limp and he was again reeling dead weight, heavy dead weight. As it got close, he could see a shape swimming under the water, an ominous shape with a long snout and paddle feet, not very fish like at all. With rising fear, he reached into the tackle box for the cutters and snipped the line. The shape vanished back into the murky dark.

Jerry stood up and looked around. The day seemed so real. He could hear the lap of small waves against the dock and there was a damsel fly dancing with the tip of his pole. He even remembered that Mike was supposed to come out after work and they were going to grill hamburgers.

"Wake up!" He told himself. Nothing. He pinched himself hard. It hurt plenty but didn't wake him.

"All right." He said, speaking out loud. "I'm not afraid of any dream." The world seemed unchanged by his assertion.

Defiantly, he sat down and began rebaiting his hook. He noticed the liver he was using was wet with blood and becoming sticky, very real and undream like. Out in the water there was a disturbance as if something were churning up the bottom. He cast his line right into it.

He was rewarded with an immediate hit and began reeling. This time whatever he had was huge. It appeared first as a great, gray green lump where his line entered the water. It quickly grew into an oblong mound of pond moss, patches of scales, and dozens of milky white eyes. Even from where it was far out in the water, Jerry could smell the stench of the pond bottom emanating from it.

Slowly the thing opened its mouth, a gigantic toothless maw, and Jerry could see his fishing line running into it.

"Come on!" He shouted in horror and defiance. "Come on!" He could see long, stringy tentacles hanging inside the mouth, but he kept reeling.

As the thing got near, Jerry realized it was so big it could almost swallow the entire dock. He also continued to worry that everything seemed so real, but he was committed. "I'm dreaming!" He shouted at the thing as the tentacles in its mouth began to slide up the edge of the dock.

The top edge of the mouth, with its thick blubbery lips passed over his head and he was cast in shadows. It was cool and clammy inside. His fishing pole made a click sound as the last of the line reeled in.

"I'm dreaming!"

One of the tentacles slid slowly over his shoulder leaving a slimy trail that tiny, clear worms squirmed in.

"I'm dreaming!"

With a loud "Whump!" the huge mouth fell shut. The creature lay still for a second, staring with unblinking eyes at the day around it. Then it slid back into the water leaving a large, wet crescent where the ice chest, the chair, the tackle box, and the man had been.

The cows, disturbed by the shouting and the loud noise, wandered off to the far side of the hill.

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