Catfish in the Cradle

by Wile E Young

  I chuckled to myself; maybe it would be better that way.

  Luc figured that they would have already found the nearest channel marker at the end of Kitchen Creek. The two game wardens took point and guided us around Potter’s Pass, heading back towards Government Ditch and more civilized areas.

  I wiped the tears from my face and joined Luc and Gideon on deck, checking the gun cabinet before I went and selected a nice ten gauge shotgun. The gun could dislocate the shoulder of a two-hundred-pound man if held wrong, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  Neither of my companions said anything; just nodded.

  “We’re close maybe a few hundred yards,” Luc whispered.

  The rain had stopped; Luc took it as a bad omen. “They’ve swollen the river enough to get in easy reach of the houses. No use maintaining a working that powerful.”

  The motors rumbled through the eerie stillness. The mist remained to cover the world, but without the rain I felt naked outside, the shadow of every tree in the fog a monster ready to strike.

  “Should be around here,” Gideon whispered staring down at the map and throttling back on the motor.

  “Think we found it!” Larry hollered, earning him an urgent whisper from Luc who gripped the deck rail something fierce.

  “Quiet yourself.”

  The two game wardens were close enough that I could see the look of distaste cross Larry Knowles face before Desmond put a warning hand on his partner’s shoulder. He calmed down.

  The channel marker hung slightly askew close to the river bank. Placard on the side was 171.

  Had to hand it to the late Jean Phillipe; his craftsmanship had been superb. The carvings and runes, while both alien and terrifying, had a flowing beauty to them, unmarred by graffiti or vandalism of any kind. Couldn’t help but admire it. Never had been a fan of art but this thing evoked feelings of awe.

  The cypress moss hung around it like a veil. The salvinia present near the rest of the bank didn’t dare creep further. Whatever power was in this thing keeping it free of any muck.

  “Can we tie off to it?” Gideon asked. Luc nodding in return. I helped tie us off while Luc disappeared inside, Desmond and Larry anchored close by scanning the water for anything out of the ordinary.

  Even after a heavy rain and the fog there should have been more noise: frogs, distant alligators, and at the very least a few birds.

  Instead there was the silence.

  Luc reappeared, carrying a satchel that he had no doubt pilfered from Gideon’s closet. “Catch!” He lobbed a pair of red mojo bags over to Desmond and Larry. “Put them on, and when the shit really hits the fan clutch them tight and recited the Lord’s Prayer.”

  Neither of them protested, to their credit. Maybe like me they just went along with the madness. Larry rolled his eyes but did as he was told.

  Luc sat three candle holders at equal distance in front of him and on both sides. “Grady, would you mind?” I stepped forward and he handed me the candles, passing his rifle off to Gideon before sitting cross legged in a circle.

  Each candle had been carved. My eyesight was still recovering and I had to squint, but I reckoned that each one looked like a miniature version of the channel marker in front of us.

  “Sympathetic totems,” Luc muttered, seeing my confusion. “Helps me work through all three of them over distance.” He sighed as I placed each one in the holders, lighter in hand. “They’ll be coming once I start this, and once I do, there isn’t any interruption if we want this to work.”

  I lit the first candle. “How exactly is this going to work?”

  Luc smiled a devil’s grin. “Never explain the magic, Grady Pope, or else the magic goes away.”

  There was a rumbling in the air when I lit the last candle, a peal of thunder that echoed across the lake. Luc began chanting, words in languages I couldn’t grasp echoing on the air.

  “You boys best be ready. It’s happening now.”

  Desmond heeded Gideon’s words, cocking his rifle and scanning the water diligently while Larry lounged against the console.

  The sound of boat motors came drifting through the fog, still far out yet but getting closer.

  “I’ll take the top.” I nodded at Gideon as he climbed the ladder to the roof of the boat, laying down flat and aiming his rifle towards the fork off our starboard bow.

  Nothing had appeared yet, but the whoever was out there throttled back on their motors. If it was the members of the cult, they were running silent now, probably worried that we were close by and would be able to hear them coming.

  Three speed boats and a party barge emerged from the mist, each one crewed by three or four people who shouted in alarm when they saw the Minute Mother.

  I cocked my rifle and waited. Earl Ray’s voice came drifting across the channel. “Grady Pope, I know you’re over there. Give us the Cajun and we won’t be causing you boys any harm!”

  “Get fucked!” I yelled back at him as loud as I could.

  Desmond reached out and flicked on the matching red and blue sirens that bathed the mist in the duel colors. “Now you boys need to calm down. We don’t take threats like that lying down.”

  I could see my former friend on the deck of the party barge, a rifle held at his hip while the rest of the men aimed at us warily. All of them looked sick, like they had eaten something that disagreed with them. Miss Franklin, Nate Biers, Sue Ray, people I had known for years ready to murder us for greed.

  “This ain’t either of you fellas’ business. Best motor on out of here before you both see something that’ll give you nightmares the rest of your life…”

  Neither game warden moved, both of them sweeping across the crowd warily.

  “We don’t want to harm y’all, but we’re under a time clock. They need Robichaude dead… help out and there might be a little something in it—”

  A long dulcet tone echoed through the trees and mist, loud enough to drown out Luc’s chanting.

  I’d heard that deformed sound before, and my grandson pushing his thoughts on me had provided understanding.

  It was a war horn.

  They were here.

  Earl Ray’s barge rocked as something massive passed beneath it, creating a wake and sending the men grasping for leverage. One bastard wasn’t fortunate and went tumbling off the side.

  A Primordial Deep Folk, all ten feet of tooth and scale, erupted from the water and caught the unfortunate man in its jaws like a massive bass taking a water bug. A bright red splash of blood as the guillotine teeth came down on the man’s torso. His keening wail of agony reached a crescendo, ribs poking through his chest as his throat filled with blood. The Deep Folk reached up and with a twist ripped the gurgling head of the man from his neck, splattering the boat underneath with gore. Most of them screamed and fell to their knees, averting their eyes as their master revealed itself in its terrible glory.

  Larry stared in abject horror at the thing scant feet away from him while Desmond looked grim.

  Another one rose from the deep, and another.

  Vi’hocta himself rose last, towering above the others, fifteen feet of muscle and scale. Dark eyes scoured the assembled boats, mouth opening in sucking gasps.

  Drumbeats and bellowing horns echoed through the woods as the deformed children came shambling through the brush and bobbed to the surface of the water. Savant Huber, arm hanging askew, his bloated face split with a grin of triumph, hobbled at the forefront, vestigial gills uselessly tried to breathe as he spit a warbling hiss in our direction.

  “Grrraaddddyyyy.”

  Dozens of them lined the shore, each of them clad in rags or nothing, malformed genitals swinging each way as a few made crude gestures at us.

  Then there was a mighty roar, and a fifth primordial Deep Folk rose from the water. It was smaller than the rest, barely gracing seven feet, but its foul hide didn’t bear the story of scars and ritual marks the others did.

  I knew my grandson when I saw him.

  Sm
aller Deep Folk appeared out of the water, the ones who were direct descendants from their primordial sires, and even they displayed deformities. The warbling croaks and growls echoed all around us, overlying Luc’s chanting.

  There wasn’t going to be a fight; it was going to be a fucking slaughter.

  Larry clawed at his eyes, mewling obscenities; Desmond gritted his teeth but never let go of his weapon. Good kid. If we survived this, I was sure going to see we had a beer at Johnson’s Ranch.

  The cultists bowed as Lincoln approached them. The five primordial monsters backed away letting their messiah approach.

  “My lord we are your humble—”

  Earl Ray didn’t have time to whore himself out any further before my grandson stabbed the spear he carried through the man’s chest. Bits of heart and bone exploded out of his back while Lincoln reached a webbed hand inside him and pulled the man’s entrails out in a steaming pile. In a swift motion he pulled the spear free and tossed the silently gasping man into the waiting maws of his compatriots, who tore into the flesh with wild abandon.

  Bits of blood and sinew flew everywhere, and I saw Larry collapse to the deck, vomiting. The cultists began screaming as the gigantic fishmen tore into their flesh, desperate gunshots giving way to agonized screams.

  The message was clear: we don’t need you anymore.

  I didn’t feel pity as I watched these men and women die badly. Teap what you sow and all that. Did feel fear though, fear about what these things would do after they had devoured their erstwhile followers.

  Didn’t have to wait long.

  One of the candles had burned quick, the wax pooling at the bottom of the holder.

  Lincoln turned around and gestured towards us with the spear, pressing a horn that had been carved from ancient oak to his lips and blowing a long, mournful tone.

  The half-breeds charged forward, and I fired the ten-gauge directly into the first one to hit the water. The thing’s putrid chest exploded as the buckshot tore out its insides. It dropped to its knees, mouth opening and closing before a few of its fellows brought it to the ground and proceeded to devour it.

  I heard a shot behind me; one of the ten-foot monsters roared in pain clutching its eye, a useless pulp of black muscle and blood running down its face.

  Ducking a chunked spear and firing in return, I grinned as a half-breed’s good arm was torn off in bloody shards of bone and scale.

  Larry screamed and fell on his back, scrambling to get away. He fired his rifle and the shot went wide, failing to hit any of the half-breeds hopping onto his boat, rocking the vessel and causing Desmond to lose his balance. Larry desperately tried working the bolt on his rifle, the half-breeds stalking closer.

  One of the primordial ten-footers ducked through the water and rushed forward, flippers propelling it like a missile underwater, rising in wrath and hoisting the boat onto its side, sending its own spawn toppling into the river. Desmond lashed out and grabbed a railing just in time holding himself steady as Larry went sliding off into the water.

  The Deep Folk swarmed like piranhas; the game warden floundered to the surface, struggling to reach for the mojo bag around his neck.

  Poor bastard never had a chance as one of the water-bound monsters thrust a spear into his chest and began twisting. Larry’s agonized wail reached my ears as his insides were torn from their places, bones widening and cracking in explosions of marrow. The monster hoisted him out of the water, rotating him on the spear like a pig on a spit as its smaller kin leapt from the murk and took great heaving bites from his flesh. A leg severed at the ankle, then the knee, a chunk of his side exposing bleeding organs and shattered bone.

  When his wail quieted to dying gasps, the monster dropped him back in the water, the rest of his body becoming an easy meal for its compatriots.

  The half-breeds had made it to the boat, climbing the hull close to Luc; I pumped shot after shot, killing a few and injuring others. A few dove back into the river to avoid my shots.

  Savant Huber glanced at the hoodoo man and his candles… two had burned down.

  I hadn’t been counting my shots; didn’t know if I had another in the chamber or not, but neither did the mockery of a man standing in front of me.

  “You can’t… stop us…” His croaking voice caused my stomach to roil, and I aimed the shotgun at his face oblivious to the sounds of slaughter all around me.

  Huber’s mouth plopped open in a wet gurgling roar and he rushed the hoodoo man. I pulled the trigger, praying, and was rewarded by the bark of the gun and Savant’s head exploded in a shower of brain matter and bone. He fell twitching to the deck as the spent shell fell smoking onto the ruined carpet.

  There was a splashing sound and I turned to find Lincoln stepping easily out of the water onto the deck, gesturing with his spear, half-breeds following in his wake.

  The game warden boat capsized, and I saw Desmond dragged beneath the waves.

  I let my rifle drop limp at my side. Gideon was still firing, but we had lost. Never knew that we could have won in the first place.

  Out of ammo and out of time, I clutched the mojo bag around my neck. “Do what you have to do, boy.”

  Lincoln warbled a war cry and took three giant leaps, wrapping his hands around my neck.

  Thought my neck was about to break; couldn’t breathe. My fists pounded against my grandson’s flesh; might as well have been punching iron.

  My vision was turning red and my lungs burned.

  “Our father… who art in heaven…” I gasped out.

  There was a crack of thunder and Lincoln dropped me like a stone, screeching as he fell back.

  The Mojo bag around my hand burned against my neck.

  Think my opinion of magic was turning around.

  Didn’t have much time to recover as a shadow loomed over me and I turned, aiming as Vi’hocta’s hand closed around my waist and lifted me into the air.

  Heard Gideon scream, but I couldn’t see him, twisting in the wet grip as hard as iron.

  My eyes hurt to see the beast this close and twin streams of blood erupted from my tear ducts as Vi’hocta screamed something at me in its warbling tongue.

  Couldn’t understand a word but the message was clear: I’m fed up with your shit.

  Barely had time to gasp out “Our—” before he started squeezing. The air exploded out of my lungs and all I could do was gasp and say my goodbyes. Hoped Luc and Gideon could finish what we had started. Had done my best, put the hurt on.

  Was looking forward to death.

  I was practically unconscious when I heard the roar of pain. It cut through the blackness like a scalpel.

  Pain shot up my entire body as I hit the deck; pretty sure I cracked a few ribs.

  Vision was hazy, but I saw almost black blood tinged with silver pumping out of Vi’hocta’s leg from the spear jutting from it.

  Lincoln stood defiant, his back close to Luc’s own.

  “Gram… pa…”

  Good boy.

  Vi’hocta roared in defiance and shuffled forward.

  The last candlewick extinguished as a rumble peeled the air. Luc finished chanting and stood facing the monster, unafraid. “That’s quite enough of that.”

  The half-breeds immediately began gasping for air as they clawed at their necks. Most of them that were still on the shore or on the boats toppled back into the water. The small Deep Folk immediately dove, and the four primordial monsters screamed incoherently as they pawed at their gills, raking bloody lines down their own flesh.

  Lincoln’s thoughts drifted into mine, a little magic going a long way. Luc had poisoned the air. It burned them, and it was burning him now.

  Vi’hocta still stood on the deck, grasping at his gills as great gouts of blood erupted with every breath and ran down to the deck. He reached for Lincoln, who dove off into the water. Luc strode purposefully toward the fifteen-foot monstrosity, his hands twisting in ways I didn’t understand.

  Vi’hocta swiped at the C
ajun hoodoo man. The monster was slow, sluggish; Luc easily avoided the swipe and stabbed an iron nail into its webbed hand.

  Wanted to move, wanted to help my friend, but I could barely breathe and every twinge of muscle brought fresh agonies.

  Had to give the old monster credit. He was literally bleeding from the neck but took the time to remove the iron nail and drop it to the deck before going on the attack again.

  Gideon fired into the thing’s shoulder; he was bleeding profusely from five talon marks across his belly, deep enough that I could practically see his stomach. His skin was pale as ice, hands moving clumsily, struggling to reload and fire another round as Vi’hocta staggered towards him, each step punching holes through the Minute Mother’s deck.

  Luc avoided the sweeping tail and scrambled for the iron nail rolling across the deck towards the water.

  Gideon fired the bullet, barely piercing the monster’s chest, collapsing on his back as he clumsily attempted to avoid the monster’s retaliation.

  The monster looked like it was on its last legs. The blood was spilling out of its gills fast and every step was taken with a stagger. Its fist rose in the air and Gideon raised his rifle in a vain attempt to save himself.

  The balled flesh of muscle and claw broke the rifle like it was a twig and smashed into Gideon. He gave out a gurgling cry… died instantly as his ribs shattered and his organs were pounded to a pulp. The monster didn’t stop as it gave out a warbling hiss and continued mashing the dead man over and over again.

  We were sinking. I saw water begging to pool on the deck as we listed to the side. Luc was scrambling, looking everywhere for the nail that Vi’hocta had pulled form his hand.

  It was rolling towards me.

  Gritting my teeth and hauling myself to a sitting position, I reached out and grabbed it, gasping out Luc’s name as he hastily snatched it from my grasp. The hoodoo man reached into his pocket and produced a mojo bag staring at the monster’s back as it finished off Gideon.

  “Just as I have pierced your hand, I pierce your heart.”