Bishop wanted to argue that there was no way in hell that boat was still running on its original engine, but he let it go. He wasn't here to argue with the weirdo.
"Been out all day, have ya?"
The old man squinted his salty blue eyes at Bishop, looking the younger man up and down. Bishop didn't like the way the old bastard grinned at him.
"Been out for two weeks."
Bishop almost told him he smelled like it. "Well then, maybe you'd let me buy you a stiff one," he offered.
The old man's smile widened. "Now you're talkin' my language, buddy. Name's Beryl. Samson Beryl, but most folks call me Sam."
"Nice to meet you Sam, I'm Bishop. Most folks call me Bishop."
Sam nodded, the thin smile never leaving his cracked lips.
They went to a cantina Sam liked a little further inland on a hardly-traveled dirt road littered with stray chickens. Sam settled into a dark booth away from the bar after Bishop ordered a round of beers and two shots of 100 proof Mezcal for Sam. The old man drained both shots in a row and chased them with a swallow of beer. Bishop sipped his own beer while they made small talk about fishing, drinking, and Mexico.
He could still smell the rotting stink of the ocean on Sam, and it slowly began to ebb at his nerves. He had the guy. He knew where the boat was, he should call his boss and demand a plane ticket so he could get the hell out of this piss-poor country. What a multi-millionaire wanted with this old coot and his behemoth of a boat, Bishop could not even guess.
He continued to buy Sam drink after drink, shot after shot.
"What's wrong?" Sam eventually slurred at him. "You haven't touched your beer."
"I am in need of your services," Bishop said, "I understand you're the best fisherman who ever sailed the Pacific."
"That's right."
"You know the best spots, have a knack for pulling in monsters."
"Yep, Marlin, white sharks and the like, you bet."
"When's the last time you took a party out?"
Sam rolled his eyes back in thought. "It's been awhile," he reasoned. "Mostly fish for food these days, what I can't eat I sell."
"Can you take a party out this weekend?"
"Who?"
"Just me and some buddies of mine from the States who've been cooped up in offices too long." Sam eyeballed Bishop, said "sure, I don't see why not. I'll need the money up front of course, to cover fuel and chum."
"No problem, how much for a party of four?"
"That's five hundred a head, four-fifty if they got their own gear."
"Jesus, Sam. How much chum do we need?"
Sam leaned back in his chair. His weather-worn face seemed to unfold in front of Bishop as he smiled a yellow-toothed grin.
"How do you think I earned my reputation? Chumming is the most important aspect to how I fish. You wanna haul up a big boy outta his murky depths, you gotta entice him with a free meal."
"You're the expert," Bishop concluded, signaling for the bill. He counted out ten hundred dollar bills and handed them to Sam. Sam looked at the American money with indifference. "Here's half now, I'll give you the rest and a hefty tip tomorrow afternoon. Shall we meet at the boat? Same dock?"
"Sure," Sam said, suddenly sober. "Chum Bucket ain't going nowhere."
Bishop decided to make sure of that after he excused himself and left Sam, who went back to more heavy drinking. Bishop made the phone call on his way back to the docks. His boss praised him up and down, and immediately started kissing his ass, which helped take his mind off the ocean’s pervasive smell.
"Don't let him out of your sight," the boss urged, "go on the fishing trip as planned. We'll have a beacon on one of the guys so we can intercept you when you get out a ways. I'll even let you ride back with me in my chopper. Whatever you do, Bishop, I need the old man alive."
"What's so important about Beryl and that rusty boat? Does he know about sunken treasure? Submerged airplanes loaded with contraband? What?"
"It's a long story, Bishop. Aeons long. But yeah, let's just say the old man knows where something is. Something that several outside parties and I want a piece of."
With that, the boss cut him short and Bishop folded his cell phone and slipped it back in his pocket. He fingered the .45 for a second, checking the magazine out of habit. The waning moon made for a dark night, but as he neared the docks the stars grew bright in the black sky. One constellation shined brighter than the rest. Bishop lit a cigarette and spent a few minutes trying to figure out which one it was, for as a kid he was into stupid junk like astronomy. It wasn't Taurus or Orion, or any of the others he knew by sight. When the smoke played out he snuffed it on the dock and gave up, reminding himself to look it up later.
The Chum Bucket sat in the harbor like a tired warrior. Bishop's face grew into a permanent scowl from the smell. The hulking vessel still groaned and creaked like a sleeping giant as it rested. Bishop cased the dock all around the boat, knowing the best way to prevent Sam from fleeing would mean he'd have to board the Chum Bucket and hide until morning. The others would arrive in fifteen hours for the fake fishing trip. Fifteen hours, he thought, holding his nose shut. Piece of cake.
Once on board, the stench socked him in the gut. The Chum Bucket let him know he was trespassing; every move he made was accompanied by a sound as he searched the main deck and cabin before going below. It smelled too strong down below where the bunk beds were, so he came back up to the stern. Next to a rusty shark cage he saw the chum tank, and dry-heaved uncontrollably.
Footsteps came from the dock. It was Sam, staggering back to his boat. Bishop cursed under his breath and crept down the steps and hid in the darkest bunk. Sam hummed some old song, complete with a strange dialect Bishop could not recognize. He figured Sam was so tossed he was slurring different songs together, making it sound like a unique language.
"Ahh, there's my sweetheart," Sam said, patting the Chum Bucket's hull before he climbed aboard. To Bishop's favor, Sam did not go below, but fell asleep on the bench seat behind the helm.
Bishop listened to the old man's snores. He still fought the incredible stench, but as the night wore on, he found himself drifting off, unable to stay awake. Sam's snoring and the Chum Bucket's gentle swaying combined to make an odd, but effective lullaby. He never remembered nodding off.
*
Violent thunder rocked him awake.
Something was wrong. Dead wrong. The loudness that was somehow held at bay entered his head like a stampede and it took a few seconds for him to realize where he was. He was on the Chum Bucket. But the Chum Bucket was moving! The engine roared behind him, and his stomach recoiled as he tried to crawl from the cramped bunk and get to his feet. The swing door to the main deck was closed and locked from the other side. Bishop realized his gun, cell phone, and wallet were missing.
"Hey!" He yelled, but the boat's motor drowned out his voice. "Hey, goddamnit!!" He pounded on the ceiling with his fist. The engine quelled to a low throttle.
He heard footsteps shuffle overhead. The Chum Bucket still moved at a good clip, causing Bishop to have to hold the stair rail for balance. His stomach pleaded with him to do something or else it was going to erupt. The footsteps walked around to the other side of the door.
"That you Sam? Hello? Open this door!"
"Like hell," Sam hollered back.
"Sam! It's me, Bishop. Please, I crossed the line by boarding your boat without permission, I...I just needed a place to crash and..."
"Horseshit! Do you really think I'm a fool, Bishop?"
"No sir, not at all, you see..."
"You got a lot of passports and fake i.d.'s in your wallet, Bishop. Hell, you been all over."
Bishop began to feel fear. Not regular, trivial fear, like fear of his boss, fear of the feds, or fear of the sea. No, this was fear in its purest form, incomprehensible terror that came from nowhere and resided everywhere. It was the type of fear that paralyzes over-imaginative children on stormy nights and stops a heart from b
eating by its own sheer power.
"I knew what you were the second you opened your expensive mouth yesterday," Sam continued. "Why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?"
Bishop gave up. He was through lying. The Chum Bucket was hitting some rough water now, rising up high and slamming down hard. He could hear the furious waves smacking the bow and wondered who was steering if Sam was on the other side of the door. The fear made his voice crack.
"Ok, ok. You're right, Sam. I was just following orders, y'know, but the gun's for my own protection. I never intended to…"
"You need a whole hell of a lot more than a piss-squirting gun to protect you from who I'm taking you to meet," Sam yelled, on his way back to the helm. The Chum Bucket roared back to full throttle.
Down below, Bishop cursed and screamed and rammed his shoulder into the door until he grew exhausted. The engine's roar blared in his head. The dancing acids in his stomach boiled, and the ominous stench of rotting flesh raped his brain receptors raw. He puked himself empty, adding a new scent to the putrid. Hours passed and the sea-sickness consumed him, draining him of all his energy. Daylight faded into night. The Chum Bucket pushed on, and although Bishop had no nautical skills whatsoever, he knew they had to be way beyond the continental shelf by now, heading out to deep sea.
Bishop fell in and out of periods of weary sleep, forced upon him by the trembling sickness. He almost choked to death on his own vomit, but he managed to roll over in time. He hated the ocean, but it hated him better. Above on the main deck, he could hear Sam singing and howling like a hound. His mouth unbearably dry, Bishop lost track of time and passed out for many hours.
When he awoke the silence stunned him, and he bolted upright. The boat's engine was off and they were bobbing gently, as if drifting. He tried to clear his dry, bile-caked throat but it was impossible. Suddenly the door flew open. Blinding sunlight flooded in.
"Whew! Smell's like you're a land lubber," Sam laughed, pointing the .45 at him. "Get out."
Bishop staggered up the steps, trying to shade his eyes. It was mid-afternoon wherever they were. The sun blazed white heat overhead, but thick clouds were assembling farther west. Fear began to gnaw on his bones again when he realized there was no sign of land, or anything else, in any direction.
"That's a boy," Sam said, backing Bishop towards the stern. "Now open that tank."
Bishop did as he was told. The smell from the chum tank was more horrible than he ever imagined, almost knocking him to his feet. He screamed in terror at the sight of the tank's contents and immediately barfed up what was left inside him over the rail. It wasn't the smell or all the maggots crawling in the brine-soaked meat that pushed him over the edge of sanity. It was the gruesome fact that all the remains in the chum tank were human.
Sam chuckled, reached into the tank and pulled out an arm and tossed it overboard. Bishop winced when he heard it splash. "Now you do the same," he ordered, "empty it all, chunk by chunk."
Bishop refused to move. Sam fired the gun, whistling a round inches past Bishop's ear. "Hard or easy, quick or slow, it's your choice."
Reluctantly, Bishop began chumming the human remains into the sea, dry-heaving as he did it. Sam watched with interest, keeping the gun trained on him. The clouds from the west joined some clouds from the north, darkening the sky. The waves picked up, as did the swirling winds.
"You're about to learn why I'm the greatest fisherman on earth," Sam told him. "Did you know the Pacific Ocean covers over seventy percent of the entire planet? That's a whole hell of a lot of space, ain't it? No tellin' what lurks under all that water, huh?"
Bishop nodded dumbly.
"That's right," Sam continued. There was a far away look in the fisherman's eyes. Bishop thought about charging the old man and ramming his fist down his throat, but his feet seemed glued in place. The noxious fumes of death and decay drained every ounce of his energy.
"The key to a good day's catch is in the chumming, Bishop. Lesson number one."
"You're a sick person," Bishop croaked. "A sick old man, killing people for chum. Sharks don't care about what species the meat is."
"Ahh, but that's where you're wrong. We ain't fishin' for sharks. There ain't a shark around here for miles."
The clouds quickened their pace, growing mean and ugly. Bishop hoped a strong wind would come along and topple the old man. The Chum Bucket groaned against the rising waves.
"Sharks don't come around areas where they're the hunted," Sam said. "No, my unenlightened friend, what we're fishin' for eats giant sharks for breakfast. Put this on."
Sam threw the harness contraption at Bishop, who did as he was told. The harness was hand crafted and slipped over each leg, with a large, leather belt strap with metal rings on it that covered his torso. When finished, Sam ordered him to put on a pair of goggles and a small breathing apparatus.
"I'm not going into that water alive," Bishop declared. "No way, go ahead and shoot me."
Sam muttered to himself, and slowly turned to face the sea, speaking in a strange tongue. Bishop saw his chance to attack. He charged at Sam, aiming to push him over the rail.
Something invisible smacked him in the head, stopping him in his tracks. Sam bellowed a suggestive command and the Chum Bucket lurched forward, violently tossing Bishop against the cabin wall. He hit his head and lost consciousness.
When he came to the wind was furious. The sun was gone, blackened out by the meanest clouds Bishop had ever seen. The sea seemed to boil and churn. He realized Sam had fastened the goggles and oxygen breather on him, secured with layers of duct tape wrapped around his head and neck. Sam stood in front of him, no longer holding the gun. Bishop also realized a thick, steel cable was secured to the harness and heavy iron weights were tied to his feet and hands.
"It's the Upwelling," Sam hollered over the growing storm. Bishop saw that Sam's eyes were different, almost glowing beyond his pupils. "It blows the colder waters inland and allows the deep to rise, and He rises with it!"
Bishop tried to protest through the mouthpiece. Sam smiled and shoved Bishop over the stern with unnatural force. A strong flurry of wind caught him in the air and then he hit the water, screaming the whole time through the mouthpiece as the stale oxygen kept him from drowning.
Never a good swimmer, Bishop thrashed around until he gave up. The wide open vastness of the underwater world terrified him.
Above the surface, Sam fired up the Chum Bucket and opened up her throttle. The slack left the steel line and Bishop jerked towards the boat, breaking the surface for a moment before the weights pulled him back down. As the Chum Bucket gained speed with Bishop trawling behind it, he was pulled deeper and deeper into the dark blue. He peered through the goggles, alarmed by the silent immensity of the sea. His last sane notion was that they were not as far off the coast as he thought, because he could see the ocean floor below him.
Then he realized it was not the ocean floor he was looking at.
The thing rose from the darkest fathoms. There was no end to it. It was everywhere Bishop looked, following him like a monstrous submarine. The creature's glowing eyes stared at him with timeless rage as its squirming tendrils rose towards him like an army of serpents. Bishop frantically thrashed his head from side to side trying to rip loose the mouthpiece's binding, yearning for the saltwater to rush into his lungs, but it was no use.
At the very least, he closed his eyes from the approaching abomination and waited for the inevitable.
The Test Drive
By Mike Norris
“Peckerhead sumbitch!” Gale squashed the creepy crawler with a swat of his broad palm, spurting bug mustard into the rolls of his corrugated neck. Peeling the battered insect off his skin, Gale dangled the carcass up to the sunlight for a proper examination. Translucent as a scrap of onion skin, the spring-tailed little bugger clasped its wings perpendicular to its body like a lacy sail. “Peckerhead sumbitch tried to bite the hell outta me!”
“Aww, he wouldn’t hurt
nobody,” Maxwell drawled, fanning himself with a rumpled magazine. “He just buzzed up outta Dwarf Lake, lookin’ for a healthy mate. I guess he seen you an’ thought you looked pretty healthy.”
“That some kinda fat joke?” Gale eyed his lanky coworker with a twinge of suspicion tilled into his brow. “Look at the size of this damned skeeter and tell me he wasn’t gonna suck me dry!”
“That ain’t no skeeter, Gale. It’s just an ol’ mayfly.” Maxwell rose from the bench to pluck an identical insect from the porch rail of Amen Autos, where the bugs clung in shivering droves. An avid fly fisherman, Maxwell fancied himself the resident expert on aquatic bugs, and for that matter, on just about everything else.
“Yessir, this here’s a fine time of year to be a fisherman--or even a fish. You see, most water bugs live down on the muddy pond bottom right up to the very end of their lives, but then they crawl on out to do their matin’ business on land. Once they finish up romancin’, they all fly right back into the water to dump off their eggs. But what’s waiting for them once they get home is nothin’ but a fish feeding-frenzy.”
“Well,” Gale flicked his mangled specimen over the rail, “Messin’ with the wrong broads will get you in trouble every time. Won’t it now?”
“I’d reckon,” Maxwell snorted.
Gale and Maxwell stared out over their used car lot. Heat waves shivered over the domed backs of thirty-some automobiles, lazing in the sun like a herd of benign beasts. How long had it been since they’d sold one. Two weeks? A week and a half, at least. Nobody was buying anything, lately. It was too goddamned hot to spend money.
A blue-haired old woman had been shuffling aimlessly between rows of scalding vehicles for nearly half an hour. She paused beside a Cutlass and glanced pleadingly up to the two salesmen, parked comfortably on their porch.
Dead Bait Page 3