I made you all a promise, so here goes. This story is a couple years old and is NOT professionally edited, so yes, within you will find plenty of offenses against the English language. Sorry. However, it's one of my favorite pieces. There is a definite Keene influence to the story as you will see but I hope enough of my voice comes through. I originally wrote this for Permuted Press' MONSTROUS anthology but it failed to make the final cut. I did however receive some kind words from the editor about its potential. Anyway, enough blabbering. Take it for what it's worth. A bit of something to peruse while you enjoy a cup of coffee or a beer.
One last thing. The story has some adult language and gets a quite gory by the end. If there are any youngsters out there peaking over your shoulder just beware. THANKS!
THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
Old Gus entered T.J.’s at the end of the second period. The Leafs were up three nothing over the visiting Senators, which was as good a sign as any the shit was going to hit the fan that night. Watching the game at the bar had become a tradition since my wife Carol was murdered. Before that, my Saturday evenings were spent at home, reading or watching a movie on the television with my sweetheart at my side.
“Kicking ass and taking names, boys!” Earl whooped.
“Having a hell of a game, eh?” Dwight said.
“Damn straight.”
Earl and Dwight were Saturday night regulars at T.J.’s. They would watch the Leaf game before heading out on Coe Lake to do some night fishing.
“They still have twenty minutes to lose it.” I added.
“Shit Ben, ‘fuck you know ‘bout hockey anyway?” Earl shook his head and winked at Dwight and slammed back the rest of the Labatt Blue he was drinking.
Dwight giggled like a little school girl. It was almost sweet.
I sighed and slowly sipped my Jack on the rocks. Behind the bar T.J. shook his head and rolled his eyes and went back to refilling the peanut bowls.
It was obvious Old Gus was upset about something. When he came in he looked all around as though making sure it wasn’t infested with vampires or space aliens. His eyes were stretched wide as though something had put the scare on him.
Old Gus was a bit of a hermit, living on his own in the woods outside of town in a run down shack for a house. His hair and beard had taken on the piss colour I always associated with the unwashed, which fit since you couldn’t get within ten feet of him without feeling like you had suddenly stuck your head in a toilet. I’m not sure how old Old Gus was but it was old, older than the rest of us that kept the seats warm at T.J.’s.
“What’s up Gus?” T.J. had asked the man, instead of, “Go home and come back when you have taken a bath.” which to me would have been more appropriate.
Old Gus went to a table at the back of the bar, as far from the rest of us as he could get. Suited me and my nose just fine. I just think a man should bathe regularly if he intended to enter a public place.
T.J. served him his regular poison; some piss of a beer called Centurion Red. Mostly he just stared at his shaking hands for the next hour.
I couldn’t help wondering what had put such a fright in the man.
When the game was over T.J. switched the channel over to wrestling. “You boys thinking they’ll bite tonight or what?”
“Shit yes, Teej.” Earl grinned, lighting up a cigarette, despite the fact it was against the law.
T.J. chuckled. “That so? What makes this week any different.”
“We got special worms.” Dwight giggled.
“Special worms? What in the hell is that supposed to mean?” T.J. asked.
“They’re blessed.” Earl tried saying with a straight face, smoke leaking out the corners of his mouth.
“Don’t tell me you jack asses went and had the Father bless your worms?”
Earl started laughing so hard his face went beat red.
Dwight smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Figured it couldn’t hurt none, eh.”
Even I couldn’t resist a tiny smile. Earl and Dwight might be dumb as shit but they were worth a laugh and this old man needed that after what happened to Carol. The two of them had stood by me through it all, and though we had not been tight before her death, we had since bonded like brothers.
The sound was like a gun shot.
I damn near spilled my Jack all over my shirt. Earl snapped his head towards the noise and cringed. He had a nerve that pinched on him if he moved his neck too quickly. “Damn fuck!” he growled kneading his neck with both hands.
Old Gus had somehow snuck up on us, which is unbelievable since he smelled like dog rolled in piss. One of his bony hands lay flat on our table and I could see it had been months since he’d clipped his nails.
He starred at us with a look of horror.
“’Hell’s the matter with you man?” Earl blustered.
“You planning on going out on the lake tonight ain’t yah?” he said.
“What’s it to yah?” Dwight asked.
“There is something in the water!” Old Gus almost shouted.
“Fish, you asshole.” Earl grumbled.
The old coot’s eyes blazed with fire. “I saw it when I was walkin’ along the shore.”
Earl grimaced, “What are you talking about?”
“I mean what I mean.”
“Mister, I think you’ve had too much to drink.” Dwight said.
T.J. came around from behind the bar looking annoyed. “That’s enough Gus. Leave the boys alone.”
“I saw what I saw. There is a monster in Coe Lake!”
Earl belted out a laugh, “A monster? In Coe Lake?”
“Laugh all you like but heed my warning. Don’t go out on that lake this night.”
“What did the monster look like?” Dwight asked, barely able to hide his grin.
The old mans eyes glazed over. “It was as big as a Greyhound bus. Bigger! Its mouth was huge. I could have walked right inside. And its breath was like death itself!”
I smirked because I thought Old Gus’ breath smelled like death itself.
Earl and Dwight were chuckling.
“There ain’t nothing so big in Coe Lake.” T.J. said honestly. “What you’re describing sounds like a whale or something.”
“Was no Godsdamn whale!”
“Well what the hell was it?” T.J. snapped.
“A monster I told you!”
“Maybe it was the Giant Mekang Catfish.” Dwight snickered.
Earl turned his head and stared at Dwight. “The king what fish?”
“A giant catfish was caught on the Mekang River in China a few years back. Nine feet long and almost six hundred and fifty pounds.”
Earl starred at Dwight like he was seeing him for the first time. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“It’s true. I Googled it.”
“You “Googled it”? ‘Fuck is a Google? Sounds like something the ladies at Foxy’s perform in the back room.”
“Shit, Earl, when you gonna join the twenty first century and buy a damn computer?”
“Computer shit. We’re talking about lake monsters and you’re bringin’ up sexual positions.”
Dwight rolled his eyes. “When I was a boy I heard a legend about a giant catfish in Coe Lake. It used to tip boats over and shit.”
Earls face scrunched up like he’d just tasted a turd. “What the hell are you talking about Dwight?”
T.J. was nodding his head. “Yeah, I heard that too, Dwight.”
“Don’t tell me you believe this shit Teej?”
T.J. shrugged.
“Maybe it was Loch fucking Ness, then? No, no. It was Opogogo!”
“It’s Ogopogo, dipshit.” said Dwight.
“Whatever.” Earl crushed his cigarette in the ashtray on the table.
Old Gus shook his head and waggled a finger at us. “Don’t listen to me! See if I care. I warned yah, so I did!” He went back to his table at the back of the bar.
“He’s a crazy bastard.” Earl muttered and stood up. “Well boys?”
Dwight looked up. “What do you think you’re doing Earl?”
“What do I think I’m doing? What the hell does it look like, Dwight? The fucking hockey game is over. We got some fish to catch.”
Dwight shook his head. “You heard what he said. There’s a monster out there.”
“You’re shitting me, right Dwight?”
Dwight grinned, “Yeah, I am!”
Earl and Dwight laughed and headed for the door. “Hey Benny, yah coming or what?”
Our rods and blessed worms were in the bed of Earl’s pickup. We headed down Main Street to the docks.
It was like walking along a brown and dried up corpse. All but a few of the business had relocated to other towns. In their place they left boarded up windows with spray painted graffiti by the artistic youth that still prowled these parts. The once proud Maple trees that lined the street were nothing but wooden skeletons.
It used to be a nice place to live. There was a time not so long ago when people came here on weekends to swim on the lake, do a little fishing and shop in the antique stores. There used to be all kinds of craft shops and even a damn fine used book shop.
It all ended when the bike gang rolled in on their Harleys, as did my Carol’s life.
The official story? Carol was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I lay awake some nights wondering if the Sheriff was aware how wrong that was.
It had been a hit. Not on Carol, but the guy entering the sandwich shop as she was leaving it. His name was Hendrix, leader of the local chapter of the Devil’s Fist and newest town resident. He lived. Carol did not. Wrong place at the wrong time.
Dwight’s boat wasn’t much, some old wood and a tiny motor but it floated. Earl brought along a thermos of his homemade whisky and we took turns taking shots as we made our way out onto the lake. It tasted like shit.
Let me explain something right now. I’m not one to spook easy but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I was a bit nervous about being on the water. Old Gus was convinced he had seen something in the lake. Maybe it wasn’t a monster but it didn’t mean he hadn’t seen something.
I didn’t say anything back at T.J.’s but Old Gus’s story got me thinking about the research facility housed on Snake Island. It had caused a big rumpus back when it first broke ground out there. No one liked the idea of having a science lab so close to town. People were afraid they would release some virus, Ebola or worse. But after a few years people stopped talking about it and soon most forgot the place was even out there.
No one in town knew what it was they were researching. A few years back I overheard two men discussing the cloning of fish. I thought it was bunch of science fiction mumbo jumbo. Sitting in Dwight’s boat I couldn’t help wonder if the two things were connected.
What if they really were cloning?
What if they were doing more than cloning fish?
When we reached the usual spot we killed the motor. A few minutes later we were casting our blessed worms into the chilly water.
“That was a hell of a game tonight.” Earl said.
“Sure was.” Dwight agreed.
We talked about the Leafs, and fishing, and the good old days before our bellies got round and our hair thinned.
“Ho!” Dwight gave his rod a quick yank. “Boys I think those blessed worms really work!”
Dwight’s fishing rod was curled like a frightened dog’s tail.
“That’s it Dwighty! Reel that sucker in!” Earl cried out.
He pulled on his rod and reeled his line in, grinning like an eager kid in a candy store. He whooped with joy as the fish came to the surface. It looked like he’d caught a nice sized Rainbow Trout. “Hot dog! Would you look at it!”
“A five or six pounder, Dwighty!” Earl said.
As the fish broke the surface it wiggled franticly, desperately tying to escape.
That’s when the wave hit the boat. Earl fell back, landing on his butt, cursing his mother or someone. Dwight landed right on top of him.
I was the only one that saw it.
You wouldn’t believe it if you didn’t see it. It was like Old Gus said. Only bigger. It shot out of the water, its mouth open wider than a subway tunnel. It had a set of teeth on it that would have put a great white to shame. Each triangular tooth was at least a foot and a half long, and as sharp looking as a butcher’s knives. Its eyes were the size of tractor wheels, and I swear to Mother Mary the slimy scaled bastard was looking right at me when it swallowed the trout and Earl’s rod before slipping back beneath the surface of Coe Lake.
“Get the fuck off me Dwight!” Earl hollered.
“Give me a second here Earl. Can’t…give me a hand would yah Benny?”
I was still starring at the spot where the monster had been. When a man sees something like that he has to reboot his whole system, from top to bottom. I think I’m a lucky man my old ticker started up again. A fright like that kills men my age.
I reached over and pulled Dwight off of Earl.
“Dwight, you fat bitch!” Earl got up off the bottom of the boat, muttering and breathing hard.
“You OK, Benny? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Dwight observed.
“We have to get off the lake.” I said. “Get the motor started.”
“What the hell are you talking about Ben?” Earl snarled.
“Didn’t you see? It was the goddamn monster!” I damn near screamed. I wasn’t in the mood for Earl’s shit. I wasn’t going to see my life end because some half wit redneck thought I was nuts. “Start the motor Dwight!”
“Sure thing Benny.” Dwight nodded his head and moved to start the engine.
I scanned the dark water, afraid that I would see a swell of rolling death coming our way. The fish could have swallowed the entire boat had it a mind to. I wanted off the lake five minutes ago.
The engine coughed and came to life with a burp of smoke.
“Now hold the fuck on there, Dwight! What the hell are you doing?” Earl asked.
Dwight shrugged his shoulders.
“Turn that shit off. We ain’t done fishing! Benny, you’re acting like a nut job. There ain’t any monsters in this lake! There is no Ogopogo. There is no Loch Ness monster! There is no goddamn big fo…” Earl never finished.
The boat was slammed from beneath.
As I was pitched backwards, I saw Dwight and Earl and all the crap in the boat soar over my head.
The water was freezing. It felt like being stabbed by a thousand needles all at once. It sucked the breath right out of me. Everything was dark. Panic seized me. I struggled to right myself and battle to reach the surface. Just as I thought I would drown my head broke the surface. I gasped, sucking in a lungful of cool air.
I twisted around searching for Dwight and Earl.
They were swimming toward Dwight’s over turned boat.
The fish was moving towards them like a dark torpedo.
I wanted to shout a warning but at that moment I had no breath. My chest was hurting like a son of a bitch and I figured I was having a coronary.
It swallowed Earl. One second he was there and the next that great big mouth yawned wide and sucked poor Earl in.
Dwight continued moving towards his boat, his face contorted with fear and exhaustion. I called to him, but I don’t think he heard me over his own laboured breathing.
I floated there, treading water, battling for each breath, wondering where the hell that big mother had disappeared to. It had gone under after eating Earl, and God forgive me, but I was hoping the redneck had satisfied its hunger.
Dwight managed to haul himself halfway out of the water, gripping the underside of the boat.
“Earl?” he shouted. “Where are you Earl?”
“He’s gone! The fish got him!” I gasped.
“Oh God, Benny! What are we gonna to do?”
I knew what I was going to do. I was going to swim to shore. It was only a hundred yards or so and I figured I could make it.
“Think you could swim it, Dwighty?” I asked.
His face was a mix of pain and sadness. He looked old and pathetic, hanging there on bottom of his boat. I figure I looked about the same, but I wasn’t hankering to become fish food.
“What about that thing? It’s gonna get us Benny. I don’t wanna die. Oh God I don’t wanna die!”
“It’s not gonna leave us alone, Dwighty. Way I figure it, that thing’s too large to come close to shore. If we can just get most of the way we should be OK.” I explained.
My legs and arms were starting to feel like they were made of cement, not to mention I was freezing.
“Oh…OK.” Dwight stammered. His eyes were as big as golf balls, darting around the dark surface. He slipped down into the water and began to swim toward me. I have never seen a man look as terrified as Dwight looked right then.
“That’s it Dwight.” I said and slowly rotated toward the shore. “We’ll be alright. It’s just a little ways.”
I thought a lot about Carol in those five or so minutes it took to swim the distance. I thought about how much I missed her and how unfair life could be. There she was, minding her own damn business in a town she has lived in most of her life. A peaceful town. A quite town. Then under God’s blue sky she is taken from me in a storm of bullets and there ain’t a goddamn thing I can do about it because I’m a sixty seven year old man and sometimes justice doesn’t serve the old and innocent.
I realized how hollow my life had become in the years following her murder.
Well, I knew that if I died, at least I would see my Carol again.
The bottom of the lake gradually came up to meet my feet and I let out a long sigh of relief as I trudged toward dry ground. Yeah, it would have been alright to see my Carol in Heaven, but I wasn’t in any rush to be eaten by a mutant fish.
“How are you doing back there, Dwighty?” I called over my shoulder.
I reached the shore and plunked my butt down on the bank. I felt like I had run a marathon ten times over. Every single muscle in my body felt like it had been assaulted by a psychotic sumo wrestler. I could definitely see a visit to the doctor in my future and plenty of bed rest; not to mention good bit A535.
I was glad to be alive.
Poor Dwight was no where to be seen. It must have got him somewhere along the way and I hadn’t noticed.
I was so tired I don’t think I would have budged from that spot on the shore if the scaled mutant hadn’t showed its ugly face again.
I started to cry. It seemed the best time, seeing as how no one else was around to see me do it. I cursed the fish, and I cursed the gun toting criminals who took my Carol. You could say I cursed God himself, and you could say that was why what happened next, happened like it did.
When I was done swearing at the heavens, I noticed the bugger just off the shore, not moving at all, just staring at me with it’s huge dark eyes. We stared at each other for a long minute, it looking at me and me looking at it. A couple of cowboys preparing for a showdown. I don’t know if it was lamenting the one that got away or just waiting for me to get back in the water.
When I decided I’d had enough I got to my feet, picked up the sharpest stone I could find, and I threw it at the son of a bitch.
Shit, I didn’t expect to do it harm. I didn’t expect to hit the bastard.
But I did.
Right in the eye.
Its huge body thrashed, splashing around in a mad frenzy.
I laughed and shook my fist at it. “Take that you rotten cunt!”
The s.o.b. charged.
I took a step back because its sudden advance was startling, but in truth I knew it couldn’t get me on the shore.
Only it kept coming, charging at me like a bull and I was a matador.
I expected at any second it would get itself stuck on the bottom.
It got closer and closer.
I took another step back.
What I was seeing was impossible. More and more of the fish became exposed to the cool night, until I saw its four legs beneath its belly. Muscular, green, scaly fish legs.
“Shit!” I stumbled backwards on to my butt, rolled over, and scrambled away.
The son of a bitch wasn’t ten feet back, its monstrous gaping mouth full of teeth like Godzilla’s, eyes full of the blackest hunger for some geezer meat.
I hauled ass best as an old man can.
It was the trees that saved me. As bad as the fish wanted me, the woods along that part of Coe Lake grow thick. It was tough work for little old me to make my way. It was even harder for mutant Moby Dick, but that didn’t stop him.
I reached town with about a thirty second lead. I could hear the bastard busting through the woods behind me as I charged down a dark alley toward Main Street. As I turned the corner, I heard it roar behind me like some kind of lion king. How does a fish roar? I don’t know but that’s what it did. I don’t know how a fish has legs but that mutant did. And Old Gus was wrong; it was a lot bigger than a Greyhound bus. It was more like a fucking submarine. A submarine with legs and teeth.
I intended to run for T.J.’s, but when I saw the bikers out front of Foxy’s I knew exactly what I was going to do.
Did I plan for what happened next? No, but you might say it was God’s way of evening the score.
I can’t imagine what those long haired, burley, tattooed, leather jacket wearing, gun toting gangers must have thought as I hobbled towards them, soaked to the bones and a look on my face like death his own self was on my heals.
“If it ain’t Benny Allgood!” hollered a ganger named Slim.
I headed right for them.
“Looks like the old man went for a swim!” guffawed a nasty bugger named Inch.
There were seven or eight of them out front, leaning against their Harleys, smoking and drinking.
I was looking for Hendrix.
He was standing beside the door into Foxy’s, his arm around a stripper that looked no more than fourteen. He looked up when the others started laughing.
He turned his head my way, gave me the up and down, a grin growing on his scarred face. “What do you want Allgood? I thought I told you never to come around here?”
They were all looking at me, and I suppose that’s why they never saw it coming.
“This is for Carol.” I gasped.
I socked the bastard right in the mouth. Goddamn right I did.
“You just signed your death papers old man.” Slim said.
He and Inch grabbed me.
Hendrix spit some blood and, to my satisfaction, a tooth, onto the sidewalk. “You feel better now Mr. Allgood? Thinking it was about time you exacted some revenge for that dead bitch of yours?”
From within his leather coat he pulled a big shiny gun.
He placed the barrel up against my forehead.
“Go ahead!” I gasped. “Your kind is good at killing innocent people Hendrix.”
He smirked. “Give my regards to…” He never finished that sentence.
His eyes darted up to something over my shoulder.
Shouts and gunfire erupted all around me.
“What the fuck?” Inch shouted and turned, letting me go in the process.
Slim released my other arm so he could pull out his gun.
I turned around and backed away, my eyes glued on the scene unfolding in front of me.
The giant fish stomped one of the gangers into the ground, an ugly cud named Snake. His red guts ejected at high speed from his mouth. Next, it ate a shit heal called Dusty. He screamed like a baby when those huge teeth ground him to minced meat, his blood raining down on his fellow gang members.
The fish roared under the barrage of bullets but never slowed down. It batted a man named Cole across Main Street, and through the front window of a realtor’s office.
“Motherfucker!” screamed Inch, emptying his gun at the giants head.
Blood irrupted from the creatures wounds.
It roared, spraying the street with bloody spittle and bits of flesh and crushed bone, before biting Inch right in half.
The door to Foxy’s crashed open and more gang members rushed out, weapons drawn.
“Kill it!” Hendrix shouted as he reloaded his gun.
The fish swung its head, knocking bikes and gang members against Foxy’s brick wall. Some were killed instantly, while others writhed on the ground with broken bones and crushed skulls.
Hendrix unloaded his fresh clip on the fish.
Its left eye exploded like a black balloon filled with red paint.
“Ha! Take that you over sized trout!” he shouted seconds before the monster charged him.
Hendrix dropped his gun, turned and ran in my direction.
I don’t know if he saw the smile I had on my face the moment before he died but I like to think so.
The fish engulfed him, those massive teeth closing over the gang leader like an iron maiden.
The fish stood over me while it chewed its food, Hendrix’s blood dripping down on me from above.
I was too tired to move, too tired to care if I lived or died. If that bugger wanted to finish me off, eat me like an after dinner desert, so be it. I would much rather go in my sleep than be eaten by a mutant fish but if that’s how it was going down, that’s how it was going down.
I was done.
The fish swallowed Hendrix, and then leaned over me. The way its teeth were exposed, blood stained and deadly, it seemed to be smiling. “Gotcha now” that smile said.
Its mouth yawned wide and darkness descended.
I suppose at that moment the big G-man decided I’d had enough, or maybe he just wasn’t through fucking with this old man yet. Of course, that sort of suggests I’m tied up in the rest of what is happening out there, which sounds as crazy as a loon’s fart.
The bear snatched the fish up off Main Street like it was in some river up north.
It towered over the town, at least five hundred feet tall, with two heads and claws as long as telephone poles. It ripped the fish in two sending undigested bodies splashing down on to the street like candy from a busted piñata.
I thought the adrenalin well was dry. I was wrong.
The giant two headed bear scared me and so did seeing Earl and Dwight cartwheel through the air, their heads exploding against the ground like watermelons.
I ran for T.J.’s bar.
T.J., Old Gus and I went into the basement and waited out the destruction of our town.
We got mighty drunk that night.
T.J. had a radio we took down with us. We turned it on and what we heard sounded like the end of the world.
A frantic reporter was describing the destruction of Canada’s capitol city. The Parliament buildings had been levelled by a creature she described as a giant ape with bat wings. Another reporter told of a flock of huge black birds with human heads descending on Toronto. Reporters out of New York City were describing a behemoth with giant tentacles raging forth from the harbour, sinking ships and destroying buildings.
By dawn we couldn’t get anything on the radio. I had a good idea what that meant but I kept it to myself. If this was the end the others would figure it out soon enough.
Amazingly T.J.’s bar was the only building not levelled.
As we stood looking at what was left of the town, we heard sounds in the distance that made my mouth go dry. I thought again about the lab out there on Snake Island and wondered if scientists were to blame, or if this was God’s doing. My gut told me it was neither one.
The noises stopped for a few moments and then started up again.
I decided to go back into the basement and have another drink and wait.
For what only God knows.
THE END
For the record Brenda, my love, didn't like the end-of-the-world ending. But I love the idea of giant flying apes!
and one for myself, so we could read it together. 
is no exception. It's filled with a plethora, yes plethora, of murderous, backstabbing reprobates, the very grunge of society and tosses them together like a salad of rotting weeds. It's really quite nasty!
this massive beast can grow to great heights and bloom multiple heads, like a giant serpent or Cerberus, the three headed dog that guards the gates to the underworld. 
, and took lots and lots of questions, before signing.
by Suzanne Collins continues the suspenseful tale about Katniss Everdeen and the people of District 12.
, Katniss finds herself back in the deadly Hunger Games, only this time she's in against some tougher competition. This time Katniss must battle to the death past winners of the Hunger Games.
hits shelves on August 24, 2010.
is not quite reached that legendary status, it's getting quite a lot of noise, which is surprising given its about the end of the world and vampires. Then again, even Oprah got behind THE ROAD. 
by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo Del Toro. The sequel comes out this fall and I give it kick ass approval!
). The boy is Kodi Smit-McPhee of THE ROAD. The young girl, the vampire, is Chloe Moretz, from the very cool KICK ASS and DIARY OF A WIMPY KID.
