DICING WITH DEATH

A FISHY TALE

DICING WITH DEATH

The winch groans and the boat shudders. The net must be full of fish. I pause the motor to idle, and peer over the aft. Two huge eyes stare back, rows of sharp teeth gape and snap, tentacles reach. A Kraken! I hit the release and abandon the net and its catch.

Heart pounding, I turn away as a tentacle slides up and over the side. Without immediate action we will be wrapped in its rage and sucked under. I toss the hand-held emergency chainsaw to Bobby. “Cut its leg off before it comes onboard,” and I race to the galley. I grab the large cooking oil container and with a quick glance I check Bobby’s progress with the chainsaw. He’s slicing his way through the tentacle., the blood pooling at his feet. I run down the portside pouring oil on the gunwales, across the aft and up to Bobby, just as the tentacle parts and the creature drops back into the sea. The water swirls and the foam churns, streaked pink with blood. We watch, as more tentacles reach around the boat, searching for a grip, but the oil makes the sides too slippery. The suckers can’t hold. The more it tries, the more the oil spreads. Finally, retracting its limbs, it sinks out of sight.

I put the engine into gear and the boat lurches, gathering speed, leaving the monster in our wake. Its sawn-off tentacle flaps on the deck as if still attached by an invisible thread to its owner. It continues to twitch, not stopping until we reach the safety of the breakwater.

What a terrible day. We’ve lost our catch and the net. That’s more money than I can afford, but we’ve escaped being drowned by the Kraken.

We tie to the jetty and begin the ghastly job of cleaning up the blood, oil and fish, Bobby jokes we can have giant squid rings and chips for dinner, but even the locals are loath to eat Kraken rings.

Once clean we retire to the waterside pub, and are sitting in the late afternoon sun, reliving our adventure, when the water begins to disappear from the harbour. At first, we think it’s a tsunami sucking the water out, and the boats sink onto the mud.Then through the breakwater comes the Kraken, towering with rage, its legs waving like giant loops of spaghetti, with suckers. It bumps the stranded boats as it undulates over the harbor bed, with the torn stump of a shortened tentacle protruding. It looks painful.

I know what it’s come for: revenge - and its hunting for its body part. We run for high ground. The whole village empties in the time it takes the Kraken to crawl its way up the slime covered launching ramp and drape over the waterside cottages. Like eating small fish, it crunches and crushes its way along the harbor’s edge, smashing buildings as it goes. Dry land doesn’t seem to worry it and for a while I wonder if it will climb the hill.

“Where did you put the bloody tentacle?”

“On the deck. Wish I’d dropped it at sea, except no one would have believed our story without it.”

I nod. He has a point. Grandad told tales of Kraken caught in nets. Not everyone believed him, and seeing one in the flesh is worse than anything he described.

“Let’s hope it finds the damn thing,” and we collectively hold our breath and watch its continued trail of destruction. Rage drives it. Fury whips its limbs. Only the stone church defies its destructive path. It glares up the hill. I swear it can see Bobby and me, and we lie flatter than ever into the turf.

An eerie cry rents the air and makes our ears ache. I lift my head just high enough to see. It’s found its missing limb. Cradling it against its body the Kraken moves through the refilling harbor, but not before it wraps several tentacles around my boat and squeezes. I hear my livelihood splinter as the spine of my boat is snapped like a bone being broken.

I note the personal threat. My days at sea are over.

THE END

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