Vicious Fishes
by Daniel Ruefman
White light from the full moon cast long fingered shadows along the trail ahead of Eddie Dovishaw. A black vinyl cargo bag was slung over his shoulder as he trudged toward a secluded bank along Lake Guyasuta. He never quite understood why Mr. Skinner, his boss, always sent him out here to dunk these packages, when the concrete footings of any random construction site in the city would vanish the contents just as well, but he never bothered to ask. The money was good and he liked visiting the lake. It reminded him of those fieldtrips he went on as a kid, when his elementary school classes toured the fish hatchery and ate their lunches in the pavilion near the spillway. He remembered standing on that bridge, casting the crumbs from his brown-bag lunch into the dark water below, where a writhing mass of fish congregated, mouths gulping air. Then there was the thrill of the frenzy every time anything touched the water.
At night, Dovishaw heard the lake before he saw it—the familiar slapping of hungry fins in the shallow inlet he favored for these jobs. He wondered how many fish there were; how many schools trawled its depths, searching for an easy meal; or was there just one monstrous school, moving between this spot at night, and the spillway by day? Had he trained them, somehow? Could they be trained, these mindless mouths? He didn’t know.
The trees parted like a stage curtain, revealing the narrow path down to the water’s edge. He let the bag drop, a soft, sickening thud against the damp earth. In the distance, the lake lay placid, a black mirror reflecting the stars in the distance, but here, the water of the inlet writhed. The black mouths sang a silent chorus—like they had when he was a child—calling him to feed them. Dovishaw chuckled at the memory, as he pulled a packet of saltines from his pocket, broke it open, and held one cracker between the tips of his fingers. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he cast the cracker into the pool before him. It spun like a ninja star against the dark water and the entire pool lurched and boiled, vanishing the cracker in an instant. Dovishaw waited a few moments for the fish to settle again, then he chucked the second cracker, and once again watched as it was swallowed up by the frenzy.
The thrashing school sent water surging against the bank, carving away pebbles and chunks of mud from beneath spot where Dovishaw stood. As the disturbed earth made contact with the water, the inlet erupted with renewed vigor.
“Alright, alright,” Dovishaw muttered, turning back to the black cargo bag. “I’ve got more for you. Lucky for me, you greedy bastards’ll eat anything.”
The churning water continued slamming into the bank as Dovishaw grasped the zipper and began to peel it open, but before he could retrieve what lay inside, the world shuddered and Dovishaw felt the earth melting beneath him. He froze, a cold knot tightening in his gut, and glanced over his shoulder at the thrashing fish. Then, all at once, the ground let go and the piece of bank he was stooping on fell away.
He scrabbled for a hand hold, his fingers clawing at the ground as he slid back, seizing on an exposed root. The earth plopped into the water, sending the dark mass roiling mere inches below him. Dovishaw huffed a ragged, terrified gasp as he brought his other hand around, grasped the root, and struggled to pull himself once more onto solid ground. But the thunderous thrashing in the water drowned out the subtle crack of the roots in his grip. Just as he was about to haul himself back onto the bank, the roots snapped and Dovishaw crashed into the water. The fat well-fed bodies grated against him like sandpaper, as he plunged through and disappeared beneath the frothing surface of the lake.
Two days after Dovishaw went missing, Tony Banister’s third grade class lined up on the bridge over the spillway along the southern shore of Lake Guyasuta. Like many of his peers, Tony clutched a bag of stale bread and peered through the chain link railing at the unnatural congregation of fish that had gathered there to be fed. One-by-one, his classmates chucked individual slices of bread over the side and he watched captivated as the fish writhed. One of his classmates emptied a full loaf over the side, and the entire class whooped as the surge of activity sent undulating waves radiating out in all directions.
Something in those waves drew his eye then. A tangle of something dark and unidentifiable was tangled in the corner where two concrete sections of the dam came together. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he thought he might be able to hit it with some bread—just for kicks.
He withdrew a few slices, wadded them into tight balls. The first fell well short. The wind he thought. The next one overshot, ricocheting off the concrete, and vanishing into the feeding frenzy. Tony adjusted again, brow furrowed in concentration, and this time, bullseye.
The bread ball sailed and landed right on top of the dark thing bobbing there in the water. His target moved then, jostling, rocking, and finally turning over, revealing the bloated, gray, half-eaten face of Eddie Dovishaw.
Tony dropped his bag of bread on the bridge and gaped at the horror. The jaw of the corpse twitch-twitch-twitched, until it finally open opened. His classmates must have seen then, because a chorus of screams reverberated over the spillway. Not wanting to see, but unable to look away, Tony watched as a fat fish slid from Dovishaw’s mangled mouth and gave chase to the bread ball gulping it down in one, just before it was pulled over the sluicegate and into the river beyond.
BIO: Daniel Ruefman is a widely published author of poetry and prose. To date, his works have been featured in more than 100 periodicals, including The Barely South Review, The Blue Mountain Review, Chapter House Journal, Dialogist, FLARE: The Flagler Review, Gravel Magazine, The Hamilton Stone Review, Minetta Review, Red Earth Review, SLAB, and Thin Air Magazine, among others. When not writing, he teaches the craft at the University of Wisconsin -- Stout. To learn more Daniel and his work, please visit www.danielruefman.com or follow him on Instagram or Blue Sky @RuefmanWriter.