Mind Hemorrhages: Dark Tales of Misery and Imagination

by Dane Hatchell

  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.

  The veins in Otis’ neck started to bulge, his face deepened red.

  “Fine. Great. Let’s go fishing. Let’s go catch some fucking fish so I can get out of this shit hole,” she said light heartedly to ease the tension.

  Otis relaxed a bit. “Now, I don’t want it to be like that. I want you to have some fun. I want you to have an experience of a lifetime.”

  “Oh, I’ve already had an experience of a lifetime,” she mumbled to herself. “Okay, yes, fishing, let’s go fishing. Give me one of those fucking beers and let’s go.”

  “Well, now you’re talking,” Otis reached in his cooler and tossed her a beer. He picked up the cooler by the handle and indicated for Sarah to leave out first.

  The two made it out of the building and on to the dock. It had been two days since Sarah had seen the sun. She had wondered if she would ever see it again. It was hot outside, but the breeze blowing in her face almost made her feel normal again.

  Otis pointed with the shotgun for her to get into the bass boat.

  As the boat left the dock, the sun reflected off something made of glass hidden behind the workshop, catching Sarah’s eye.

  She looked at Otis. “Say Otis, where’s my car again?”

  “It’s where you left it by the road. I’ll bring a spare and change your tire when I bring you back.” Otis never looked up at her.

  “Oh, that would be great,” Sarah said, her heart sinking. She was able to make out the rear of a vehicle hidden behind the workshop. It was her car.

  The two rode in silence down the winding bayou. Turtles bailed off logs and splashed into the water as they passed by. Sarah kept hoping and praying they would come across someone, just anyone. She had decided she was going to scream for help and make a swim for it if any opportunity presented itself.

  Otis slowed and shut down the engine as they came to some cypress stumps near the bank. A fallen cypress tree laid three quarters submerged underwater near the stumps.

  “Okay, we’re here.” He dropped anchor.

  Sarah looked around the boat and realized there weren’t any fishing rods. “Uh, what are we going to fish with?”

  “Your fist. You’re going to fish with your fist,” he said matter of fact, while opening a fresh beer.

  “My fist?”

  “Yeah, you know, fisting, stumping, hogging, whatever you want to call it. You’re going to catch a great big catfish on your arm, using your fist as bait.” Otis grinned. “Ain’t nuthin’ like live bait.”

  Sarah had no idea what he was talking about but decided that if she were going to make a move to escape this might be her last opportunity. “Okay, what the fuck do I do?”

  “Well, it’s not rocket surgery.” Otis let out a belch that echoed off the still waters. “All’s you got to do is get in the bayou and go over by that cypress tree by the bank. Feel around the tree and the bank a few feet under the water for a hole. When you find one, stick your fist in there and wiggle it about. If you do it right, a big ol’ flat head catfish will swallow your arm. Let him take it, and then grab on the inside of his gill and pull him out. I’ll come over and give you a hand, and we’ll get him in the boat.” He took another gulp of beer after his diatribe.

  Sarah thought that you had to be drunk, insane, or both, to do something like this for fun. Who in the hell in their right mind would stick their arm in a hole not knowing what could be hiding inside? But this was it. This was a chance he was giving her to get out of the boat and away from him. “Well, here goes.”

  She eased one leg over the side and then followed with the other. Otis leaned to the opposite side to keep the boat from tipping too far over. The water was colder than she thought it would be—it momentarily took her breath away. She was in up to her chest when her feet found bottom.

  “That’s it. Go on over and start feeling for a hole.”

  Sarah had a plan. She needed to get the fallen cypress between her and Otis, and then make a break up the bank. The bank was steep with plenty of brush and trees on land to shield her from flying shotgun pellets if he managed a shot.

  The trunk of the fallen tree’s roots were still partially growing into the bank. She would start there, and then swim underwater alongside the tree and get behind it. Then, make her move when she thought she had the chance. It was risky, but it didn’t matter. She knew Otis was not going to let her get out of this alive.

  She walked past the stumps and started searching for holes by the bank. The water was only up to her waist there and she was glad when Otis told her to try around the fallen tree.

  When she was about to the half-way point up the tree from the bank, the water was back up to her chest. Otis was looking at her with one eye closed. She wasn’t sure why. “I think I found a hole,” she called out.

  “Stick your arm in and pull one out,” Otis said in a ‘what are you waiting for’ voice.

  “Just a minute . . . I . . . think . . . AHHH!” Sarah disappeared under the water.

  Otis stood in the boat with his hands to his hips, waiting for her to
pop back up with a big catfish flapping on her arm.

  Sarah had held her breath while swimming on the bottom of the bayou, using her right hand to feel alongside the cypress. She was a competition swimmer in high school and still could hold her breath for over nearly three minutes underwater. Her hand came to the end of the tree, and she turned and swam on the backside, returning silently to the surface for air.

  Otis waited for Sarah to come up. But there was nothing, not even bubbles where she went under. He looked up and down the bayou as if he could find a clue as to what happened to her. He paddled over to midpoint of the tree and poked the paddle around in the water. “You stuck down there?”

  Sarah was now waist deep behind the fallen tree, she had moved to just a few feet from the bank. She was hoping to hear Otis get in the water to look for her. Then she would know there was no way for him to get her, and she could make her move.

  But, she similarly feared he would paddle the boat to her side, and decided she would make a slow crawl to the bank and then run for it. It was going to be all or nothing.

  Sarah moved one foot forward, and then as she moved the other, something latched on to it. She hit the water with a loud splash and went under.

  Otis heard the commotion from behind the tree, cranked up his trolling motor, and rounded it to the other side.

  The waves spread outward from the splash, but there was nothing there for him to see.

  Then a pair of arms came up out of the water with Sarah’s head appearing long enough to catch a few breaths before being pulled back under.

  “You bitch,” Otis mumbled. “You tried to get away and it backfired.” Otis shut down the motor and paddled to where she had last surfaced.

  The catfish had pulled Sarah under and had her trapped in some branches. She managed to kick herself free, but it came back and pulled her down again. Sarah’s lungs screamed for air, and in her panic, finally twisted her foot out of its mouth and escaped.

  Otis waited by the side of the boat. As Sarah’s head came up, he grabbed her by the hair and shoved it back down.

  Sarah slapped at his arms doing her frantic best to get him to let go. But he held fast.

  Otis looked in Sarah’s bulging eyes floating just inches below the water and laughed.

  So close to precious air; she could feel it with her hands, but it was denied to her lips. As she realized that he had won, and her life would soon be over, the fear of death left her face. Sarah’s eyes turned an evil gaze toward Otis. Her upper lip curled upward, and she wore the scowl of a beast ready to attack.

  Even through the beer haze of Otis’ reality, her death stare left him cold. He let go of her like she was an ember of fire and huddled to the side of the boat as far away from her as he could get. With shaking hands he grabbed another beer from the cooler and turned the bottom up until it was empty.

  Otis wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and took a deep breath. The bitch was dead. There was nothing to be scared of. He paddled over and lifted her into the boat. Her head flopped to the side, with her eyes staring up into the clear blue sky as she lay in the bottom of the boat. Her face now looked as innocent as a child’s.

  ***

  It was just past 10AM the following day. Otis checked his crawfish traps for the third time that morning. A large sack of the small crustaceans set in the middle of the boat nearly half-full. He was going to have close to two sacks total by the end of the run.

  The boat glided gently on the water as he paddled toward the next empty bleach bottle that bobbed on the surface. The bottle was attached to the trap that set at the very bottom of the bayou.

  Otis had made his own traps, as it wasn’t hard to do. First, he took a roll of chicken wire, folded it over in a two-foot cylinder, cut it, and tied the sides together. He constructed a funnel out of wire and attached that to one end. On the other, he cut a round piece and attached a hinge to make a door he could open and close. The crawfish could squeeze in the entrance to the funnel, but they could not exit from the same hole.

  Those tasty little mudbugs were not particular in what they ate either. Anything live and small enough that came along they could snag with their pinchers was a preference. Usually though, there was an abundance of dead meat that nature provided in the bayou, that was okay too. Chicken necks, turkey necks, fish heads, even cow pancreas called beef melt was used for baiting the traps.

  This morning, Otis used chopped up pieces of Sarah for bait.

  He killed another beer can and chunked it to the front of the boat with the others. He reached his hand under the next bleach bottle floating in the water, grabbed on to the rope tied to it, and pulled up another full trap of agitated, tail flapping crawfish.

  Otis positioned the end of the trap over the sack, opened the hinged end, and shook out another fine catch. This trap had one of Sarah’s forearms tied inside for the tantalizing tidbit, and just about all the meat had been completely eaten off. “Well little gal, at least you were good for something,” he muttered to himself as he placed the trap in the boat and finished the run.

  The first thing he did to prepare for a crawfish boil was to wash the slime and gunk off the little critters and put them in fresh water for a couple of hours to flush out the bayou water. Some people sprinkled a little salt in with it to get the crawfish to purge the last remains of what it had eaten last. Otis didn’t do that. He thought adding salt made the tails turn rubbery.

  He had one of those blue plastic kiddy pools he bought from the dollar store to purge the crawfish in. With a garden hose in one hand, a fresh beer in the other, he rinsed it out, dumped it, and then filled it halfway.

  He grabbed one of the sacks with his free hand, and it slipped from his grasp as he pulled. It weighed over fifty pounds and was too much for him to drag with one arm. Otis hated the inconvenience of setting his beer down. With three large gulps he finished it, and returned to the task at hand.

  He bent over and lifted the sack. His back strained from the weight, and he felt a little light headed from up righting himself so fast. The little sparklies and comets that painted his vision soon faded, and he dumped the sack of crawfish into the pool.

  The crawfish hit the pool with a splash, turning the water into a frenzied boil. Otis had never seen anything like it before. The crawfish flapped their tails forward, propelling themselves backward as they always do, but he had never seen them act so aggressively. Their ‘large for their size front claws’ were held high in the air as if ready to battle.

  Otis thought of two things that would help the situation: a twenty-pound bag of ice to cool them down, and a beer to cool him down. He made quick trip to his freezer for the ice and stopped by his mini-fridge for a beer.

  As he closed the door to the workshop, he turned and saw the crawfish escaping over the side of the kiddy pool. What the hell is this? he thought. The crawfish were as busy as a mound of fire ants. Stacking on top of each other and making a ladder that led over the edge of the pool.

  Otis dropped the ice, took a swig of beer, and started picking the crawfish off of the ground with his free hand, tossing them back in the pool.

  At least, that was what he attempted to do. The mud bugs latched onto his fingers and held tight as he tried to throw them back in. “Ouch, you little bastards! Let go!”

  His fingers were cut from claws digging in as he forcefully slung them off. Some of the claws hung tight, breaking away from the crawfish.

  Otis tried to down his beer to free a hand up when sharp pains stabbed into him on both of his Achilles tendons. He wore flip flops and no socks. A mass of crawfish now were all over his feet. The claws snipped little bits of flesh faster and faster as he went to his knees, frantically trying to brush them off.

  The other sack of crawfish fell on its side and the contents poured out in his direction.

  He looked like a man on fire trying to slap out the flames. The little creatures were relentless in their attack, tearing at any exposed flesh.

  Otis
felt like he had been stung by a thousand wasps, and decided to make a break and jump off the deck and into the bayou.

  He stood back up flailing his arms and took two steps before the searing pain behind his ankles brought him face down to the ground. His Achilles tendons had been severed, and he could no longer walk.

  The crawfish swarmed his back, tearing through his shirt, methodically making tiny incisions along his spine.

  Otis pulled himself up on his hands and knees. He moved his left arm forward to crawl for freedom. As it came back down, his palm slid from underneath him and he landed face down on the ground again. Otis tried to right himself back up, but he couldn’t move his left arm. He could feel the claws of the crawfish tearing at his flesh, but he had no control of his muscles.

  He put his weight on his right arm, but before he could get up, it too went limp. The crawfish had broken through vertebrae and reached his spinal cord, and cut the muscle control to his upper body. As if sensing success, the crawfish doubled their efforts clawing away at his spine as if guided by the hands of a surgeon.

  Otis tried to move his knees underneath him, but they didn’t respond either. Otis was fucked, and he needed a beer in the worst sort of way.

  The swarm of crawfish stopped their relentless attack as if someone threw a switch and said stop. They slowly crawled off of his body, and disappeared from his sight.

  Otis could still move his head from side to side, and closed one eye to focus on what was going on around him.

  The crawfish all gathered on his right side, and with a combined effort, slid between him and the ground, pushing him up. As Otis was lifted, more crawfish filled in the empty space, lifting his side higher and higher until Otis tipped over on to his back.

  He looked up to the sky at the hot mid-day sun, then down along his chest at the mass of crustaceans gathering at his feet.

  One of the larger crawfish separated itself from the pack, crawled up Otis’ leg, and came to a stop on his chest right below his chin. The tiny creature waved both open claws to the sky, signaling victory.