***
The demon saw the fish silently bobbing in the water and knew an easy meal was in store. It struck the dead fish hard and ran with it for a moment. When it was certain the fish would not move it chomped down with its powerful jaws. Suddenly, a painful stick in the corner of its mouth startled it. Then came a tug and this set the demon in to a fit of panic. With a strong tug, it felt the pressure on its mouth disappear. It swam away, slightly confused to what had just transpired.
***
“I have to refine my methods,” Robert said.
“You mean use some new bait?” Vince asked.
“Nah, the bait is fine. But I need some stronger line and some bigger hooks. I’ll re-rig at the village and we’ll be ready for tomorrow.”
***
“Hello and welcome back,” Robert said as he smiled at the camera. “Yesterday, the elusive tiger fish won the first round, but I can assure you, he will not win today. I have re-rigged my gear with a stronger line, steel leaders, and these,” Robert said as he held up a deadly looking treble hook. The three needle sharp points gleamed in the sunlight.
“If anything gets their mouth on this, they won’t be getting off.”
The camera bobbed lightly, as Leo did his best to hold in a laugh. Vince gave him an ugly look.
“One of the problems yesterday was that I could not get the bait where I needed it to be. Today we’ll fix that,” Robert said as he gestured toward the water.
Sitting in one of the small boats was a Pygmy. In his hand, were three lines, all with large catfish attached.
“My friend here will put the bait in place. Then, all we need do is to wait for the strike.”
No sooner had he finished, the strike happened.
A bloodcurdling scream exploded into the air as the man and his boat were tossed upward. The man hit the water with a loud splash.
“Jesus Christ, Leo! Get all of this!” Vince yelled as they ran to the shore.
The man’s head was visible and his small arms were paddling quickly toward the shore, which unfortunately was more than one hundred feet away. Suddenly, his head jerked back and a scream escaped his lips. The scream was cut off as his mouth filled with water and soon the man disappeared under, never to resurface again.
All of the men stood on the shore. A stunned expression was splattered across their faces.
“Jesus, Leo, you can quit filming.”
***
Later that night, Robert was not in a good mood.
“Fuck this, Vince! I’m out of here!”
“C’mon, Robert, we can’t give up! These people need you!”
“No, what these people need is to stay out of the water and stop feeding a goddamn killing machine! This isn’t what I signed up for!” Robert said, as he walked out of his tent toward the communal fire.
He sat down and buried his head into his hands, a sign that he had been defeated. Suddenly, he felt a presence. Looking up, he noticed Eshe sitting next to him. She stared directly into the fire, her eyes unblinking and her body motionless. Charles also walked up and sat on the other side of Robert. Then Eshe began talking. She looked deep in the fire and spoke rapidly, the tone of her voice carrying loss and unimaginable emotional pain.
“She is speaking to her husband. She sees him in the fire,” Charles whispered.
Suddenly, Eshe’s tone became angry. She spoke at the fire with hate as her voice got louder and the pace of her words quickened. Suddenly, she spit into the fire and walked away.
“What was that about” Robert asked.
“She said that only she knows how to kill the demon in the water. Any more attempts by you will result in the demon taking your soul.”
“Well that’s certainly comforting.”
Robert stood up and walked back into the tent. Vince and Leo were involved in a game of cards and his sudden arrival surprised them.
“All right, I’m back in, but we have to try something else.”
They spent the majority of the night hashing out a new plan.
***
“Hi, I’m Robert Whilde, and I am done fucking around.”
Leo looked at Vince.
“We can edit that out,” Vince said.
“Today, we will use new bait. You see, this monster has acquired a taste for human flesh. Now, I obviously can’t fish with a piece of human, but I can get the next best thing,” Robert said as he plunged a hook into the side of a freshly slaughtered piglet.
“I will have the rod attached to me the entire time. When it’s hooked, I will reel it in close, and when I do, my buddy Vinnie-Baby will seal the deal.”
The camera swung in Vince’s direction and he was seen cradling a large hunting rifle.
“We aren’t fucking around this time,” Robert said as he walked toward the river.
Robert let out a lot of slack, and picking the piglet up like a football, heaved it into the river with all his strength. The piglet hit the water with a loud splash. He tightened his drag and Vince helped connect the rod to the holder that was attached to Robert. Robert braced for a fight. He wouldn’t have to wait long.
***
The demon felt the splash and was immediately drawn to it. It poked around the odd creature that was floating in the river, unsure of what to make of it. Suddenly, the scent of blood drifted to its nostrils and the familiar scent caused a predatory surge in its primal mind. It shot forward and grabbed the animal, thrashing it in the water. Its focus was so intently on its prey, that it didn’t notice the painful stick in its boney jaw.
***
Robert felt the line run. He tightened and set the hook. On the other end, he felt a weight that he had never felt before. The fight carried on for thirty minutes with Robert reeling in and the fish taking off, erasing his progress. At the hour mark, a large fin broke the surface.
“Shoot it!” Robert yelled as Vince took aim.
Vince took aim and his bullet clipped the fish’s fin. Robert could feel the frenzy on the line as the fish was in full panic mode. The fish made a powerful surge back. Robert stepped forward to stand his ground. However, his foot met with a patch of slick grass. Robert felt his leg pull out from under him as he fell on his backside. Then, he felt himself being pulled into the river. The cool water slapped his face as he was violently tugged into the deadly river. In the distance, he could hear Vince and Leo yelling. He came to an abrupt stop and it took only a few fleeting seconds to realize the deadly predicament he was in. Robert turned to the shore and began paddling wildly. He could feel the line had gone slack, which meant the fish was probably heading his way. He was only a few yards from the shore when he turned back and saw the fin had broken the water. Attached to that fin was a powerful, large body. Perched on the body was a mouth full of razor teeth. Robert closed his eyes and prayed the end would come quickly. A real fitting end, he thought. Keep filming, Leo. You don’t want to miss this.
Suddenly, a shrill cry and a splash forced him to open his eyes. In the water, wading toward him was Eshe. In her hands, she held a cassava loaf filled with the meat of the venomous puff adder. The fish turned its attention away from Robert and went at Eshe. As its mouth reached her, she shoved the loaf deep down its throat. The fish bit down hard, severing her hands. Eshe screamed as she fell back in the water.
The fish began to swim away when the poison began to take hold. The highly toxic venom coursed through the fish and seized its heart. Within seconds, the fish began to spasm. A minute later, its heart stopped beating. The fish came to a stop and slowly rolled over on the water’s surface.
Robert swam over to Eshe and carried her shore. He laid her on the shore as the others gathered around. Her dark skin had become an ashen gray and her teeth were chattering. Fresh tears streamed down her eyes as blood pooled on the dirt from the stumps that were her hands.
“Asya,” she whispered, and Robert was certain that he saw a smile on her face as she closed her eyes and died.
“Jesus, Leo. You can stop filming
now,” Vince said.
***
That night, both Eshe and the fish were fed to the fire in a ceremony that was both to forgive Eshe of her sins and to banish the demon back to hell. The flesh of the fish wasn’t to be eaten, for to all of the Pygmies, it was a devil, not a fish. Vince had objected the entire time, but his pleas to keep the fish for a museum fell on deaf ears. Robert was allowed to briefly study the fish and take pictures. The final length of the fish was over nine feet. Robert didn’t have the resources to weigh it.
Robert sat and watched both Eshe and the fish disappear in the flames. Vince sat next to him, still pissed off. Leo filmed the entire ceremony.
***
It was two months later and Robert sat in his dimly lit office, thumbing through a recent copy of Extreme Angler. This time, Robert was on the cover kneeling next to the monster tiger fish. A caption read: Is Robert Whilde back?
Damn good question, Robert thought.
The loud ring of his phone wrestled him out of the article he was reading.
“Hello, this is Robert.”
“Mr. Whilde, this is Mark Lalas of The Adventure Network. We have been looking to add an extreme fishing show to our fall lineup. After seeing the show you and your crew put together in catching the tiger fish, we think you would be perfect for us. Can we set up a meeting?”
There was silence as Robert struggled to find his words.
“Mr. Whilde? You there?”
“A meeting sounds great. Let me give you my agent’s number.”
After a few minutes of conversation, Robert hung up the phone. He walked over to his bar and poured himself a fresh drink. This was something he could drink to, he thought as he smiled and toasted the air.
The Brotherhood of the Needle
S.T. Gulik
The Ukiuqalaaq lifted his hands to the sky and crinkled his eyes at the horizon as if trying to see past the North Atlantic and beyond the illusion of sky to the farthest reaches of space. Tom did the same, trying to ignore the pointy teeth of the arctic wind as it tore through his flesh like a school of piranha. With very few mundane exceptions, Tom did his best to avoid ritualistic behavior. A few years back, he had seen a documentary about the aging process that had explained how peptides and things were conditioned by repetitive behavior and ever since, he tried to do something a little different every day. Things didn’t get much more different than this.
He wondered what it was about wrinkly red people that gave them the ability to make the silliest things seem as tangible and important as what you had for breakfast. The men who had formed a circle around them made the sign of the goat with their fingers and watched as he tried to regurgitate all the gobbledygook that he’d been required to memorize. They looked like something off an old Beavis and Butthead episode. Ever respectful, Tom ignored his impulse to shake his head in disapproval. It was all so damned silly.
“Aalla aananaak! Nipijuq ungatinga kajjarnaktuq! Qangurtuq uuktaujuq.”
At the Ukiuqalaaq’s sign, everyone raised their right hand in the air, made a fist, and punched their left palm as hard as they could.
“A-aaq!”
They crossed their arms over their chests and looked down.
“Inniartuq ijigiijutijuk. Qimirruartuq sila. kajjarnaktuq! Ikajurutijuk.
The elder picked up a long black rope, which had been on the ground when they arrived, and tied it around Tom’s waist. He raised his hands to the sky again and clapped the way only a red man can. Everyone snapped their index finger towards the sky, and then lowered them slowly to point at the rope. They began to chant.
“Aqqarpaa! Aqqarpaa! Aqqarpaa! Aqqarpaa!”
He was sliding into the icy waters of the bay before he could register what was going on. Some unseen force had hold of the rope and it was reeling him backwards into the deep. He had never felt such extreme discomfort. The initial jerk had stolen his wind. The shock of the arctic water was nibbling away every tiny speck of warmth that hadn’t already been consumed by the wind and his lungs were screaming, burning, demanding air that he had no means to provide. Panicking, he filled his lungs with dirty salt-water and screamed it out at the uncaring wall of green as if Aquaman might be vacationing in a nearby sea cave. His thoughts were raving like a drunken midget.
“That fucking Udo! This was probably his idea of a joke. I should’ve known his proposal was too good to be true.”
He should have known better than to trust the men in funny hats who passed their time chanting gibberish at the sea. Unfortunately, he had always been fascinated by secret societies with their secret handshakes and mysterious decals. He had actually been excited when he had been informed he would have to join the Brotherhood of the Needle to make the contacts he would need to carry out his assignment. Up ‘til now he’d thought everything was going just fine. It didn’t seem right for them to kill him this way without even letting him know what he’d done.
The green murk was suddenly full of glitter and light. The cold gave way to a cottony cush, like he was the meat in a heavy pillow sandwich. He figured drowning in icy waters wasn’t such a bad way to go. At least, he would have an interesting story to tell at the great sock hop in the sky. If he got in, that is. He was beginning to think he should have devoted more time to the subject.
Then, with an unexpected splash, he found himself dangling several feet in the air above the very spot where he had been snatched. The rope cut into his guts, forcing out what felt like gallons of icy water and debris. He gasped for air, screaming and drooling like a feral child with its leg caught in a trap. The thick black rope slowly swiveled this way and that as if it were trying to show him the ordeal was over by pointing out the chortling of his chums. Eventually, the level of oxygen in his blood returned to normal and he realized what had happened.
The angaju came forward, cut him down while the others elbowed each other, and made jokes in that stupid language of theirs. His first impulse was to pull out his pocketknife and plant it squarely between the old man’s eyes, but he refrained. He wasn’t going to let petty emotions diminish his standing with the upper crust of Nunavut, so he forced a smile and laughed along with them.
As always, Tom tried to focus on the positive. Negativity never did anyone any favors. The way he saw it, he had passed the initiation, earned his rope and ring, and best of all, these eccentric Eskimos were all his brothers now. With their assistance, he could achieve any goal he set for himself. Well, any goal that had to do with the far north. It was a start anyway. And it wasn’t like they’d done it in the middle of winter. It was June and a comparatively lovely forty-five degrees out. To them this ritual was probably no worse than being pushed into a swimming pool on a hot summer’s day.
Everyone gathered around and made the goat sign with their fingers again. Oddly, of all the weird stuff these guys did, that thing bothered him the most. He had seen most of the guys in church at one time or another. Why would they use the same sign antsy teenagers use at heavy metal concerts to show their allegiance to the devil? It was especially creepy given all the references to “the ones from the deep” and the imagery of needles, nails, icicles or whatever, which adorned all of their paraphernalia. Worst of all, he had made the mistake of asking a friend to translate the spiel that they rattled off at the end of every meeting. He did not like the answer he had been given.
“I would rather have my stomach opened up for the seals than betray the trust of my brothers. I would rather the teeth of a polar bear tear me apart, than share one word of what I have learned. Great providers, ones from the deep, aid me in my silence that I may continue in the great work.”
When the spiel was over, he went to the Ukiuqalaaq and clasped his hand firmly. Inuit or not, these were businessmen and he had learned long ago that a well-plied handshake was worth its weight in gold. The others lined up, congratulated him, and then wandered off in all directions.
When the others had all gone, the angaju, a man named Arrluk, slapped him on the back and led him back to
the limo. As he walked around to the side with the working door, Tom caught a glimpse of the polar bear shaped license plate and smiled. He felt silly for thinking they were going to kill him. They had picked him up at his cabin in the country’s only stretch limo and driven him the three minutes to the pier. Inuits were way too nice to be participating in ritualistic sacrifice. He figured that whatever basis there was for the formation of the brotherhood had likely been swallowed up by time and all that was left were the silly traditions they used to haze the new guys.
He climbed onto the cushy leather seat and wrapped himself in the towels and blankets that had been provided. Arrluk came in behind him, closed the window to the front, and poured them each a double scotch.
“You did well. Many foreigners have been tried before, but few have endured with such grace. You should have seen the look on your face though. I took picture with my phone. Look.”
Arrluk pulled out his iPhone and showed him a picture of his expression shattering as his feet left the ground. It was actually a pretty great picture. If he hadn’t been sworn to secrecy regarding the details of the order, he might have put it on this year’s Christmas card or at least posted it on Facebook. Oh well, obeying a few silly rules was a small price to pay for the connections that he was making at the lodge.
“Priceless. Do you always take pictures at these things? I’d love to see some of these other guys’ reactions.”
“No, I can’t let the others know about this. They would look down on me for making light of our traditions. Also, I only recently upgraded to a phone with good camera.”
“What do you care if they look down on you? You’re the second highest ranking member.”
“Rank is of no importance. One who betrays is a betrayer and must be punished.”
“So, if it’s such a big deal, why did you do it?”
Arrluk grinned and pointed at the picture. “How could I resist? You looked like you were about to shit yourself. I thought you would appreciate the humor. Your people are not so strict with your traditions. I’m tired of the way my people do things. I like your ways better. I was born into this position, raised to take my rightful place as Ukiuqalaaq one day.”
Dead Bait 3 Page 6
