Driftwood

Something foul washed upon the shore. A crowd had gathered by the time the I made it to the coastline. Scattered about in a loose semi-circle, a dozen or so people all stood, staring at the beached thing.

It wasn’t giant, but it was large. A fisherman I recognized, “Apostle Paul,” stood nearby, the width of the thing nearly reached the tops of his shoulders, making it maybe four feet wide. It was maybe three Apostle Paul’s long, putting it around 15-17 feet long. Maybe the size of a large shark. Not remarkable at all- Until you really thought about it. This shoreline bordered the Great Lakes. Nothing nearly this big had ever been documented within the lakes. The longest fish caught in Lake Mackinak was a sturgeon, which at it’s largest was shorter than seven feet.

At first glance, the beached thing looked like a shark, or maybe a smaller whale, but the longer you looked the faster the guise fell apart. It’s skin was a mottled green, it’s eyes a piercing orange, and it’s fins covered in strange bulbous barbs. It looked venomous, predatory. This was something that stalked smaller prey.

As I approached, the stench grew thicker, coating my throat in a heavy oily air. From my new vantage point, I could see dozens of small parasites covering the creature. Thin tendrils burrowed into the underbelly, giving the impression of a thick dark hair. The tendrils flailed wildly, as if they were unaware that they were out of water, obsessed only with burrowing further into the fish. I stepped closer to make out their shape, to try and understand if they were as foreign as the creature they were attached to.

That’s when I noticed that the beached thing was still breathing. Its eyes flicked around, focusing on the faces of the fishermen and observers. Its steely gaze fixed me, as I was the closest. At first, I felt pity for the thing. It was confused, injured, and in a hostile world. But the longer we exchanged glances, I realized that it was not helplessness in its stare, but hatred. It saw us, and knew what we were, recognized that we’d given up on it.

I thought perhaps I was just feeling superstitious, when Apostle Paul said “I feel it too. The malevolence.“ I took a step back, no longer wanting to be the closest prey. Incapacitated or not, this was a predator.

The beached thing breathed a heaving sigh, and flexed its fins. I recoiled, fearing it’d fire poison at us from its barbed fins. Instead, it clenched its muscles, and a dozen small hisses emanated from across its body. The parasites jerked, and became stiff, and hung taunt. The dozens of wiggly hairs now looked like black needles. The fish’s skin shimmered, the dulled mossy green shimmered, as if rich emerald.

We all stood in awe, transfixed by the alien experience. Each movement, and response seemed familiar and sensible- The creature didn’t move in strange or unexpected ways, but something about the whole of the experience felt… Uncanny. As if we shouldn’t be seeing the exhibition before us. Perhaps it was an unfamiliar animal intelligence, the knowing in the predator’s eyes, the impossibility of the beached thing and the parasites it brought.

It’s mouth opened, revealing rows of long needle like teeth. On its tongue, pinkish white foam formed, and dribbled down its lips, and onto the sand. The sand hissed and steamed where the foam landed. The beached thing looked at me again, and I swear I saw the corners of it’s mouth turn up into a wicked smile.

Then the stench grew thicker, the air that had become tolerable after acclimating suddenly became grating again. The beached thing jerked, frantically swinging its body, slapping its tail against the sand. In seconds it slither across the sand in a large arc, coming further inland, then turning sharply and heading towards the ocean. It came a rallying towards me, and Apostle Paul. I turned to leap out of the way, but it was too late.

Dozens of sharp needle teeth crisscrossed, and pieced through my shin. The beached thing thrashed, the force of its jaw and jerking dislocated my knee, and tore the lower half of my leg off. Before I fell to the sand, the beached thing had propelled itself into the water and disappeared, leaving behind only a trail of burning spiddle, and a large imprint of where it lay.

By high tide, all traces of it’s attack were gone - Save for the brackish smell that still hangs in the air.