Sample from Jimmy Catfish - Mungo is Gaffed & Speared

Secret Cape Cod Lake - photo by Bill Russo

by Bill  Russo 

Somewhere on the island of Cape Cod is 

a hidden lake (pictured at right) where Cisco da Silva sought refuge after his sailing ship was nearly wrecked in a Northeast Gale.  The vessel survived, but the badly injured Cisco was forced into retirement in a tiny cottage on the shores of the lake.  When he moved in, he had no idea that the serene waters in front of his home had horrors in them.  Terrors far worse than anything in the stormy Atlantic Ocean.  

Sample from the book:

Here's a sample from Chapter 9 of Jimmy Catfish - The Beginning and The End - the hero of the tale has made his way into the eerie waters of The Brack in his 13 foot double-ended rowboat.  When the surface of the slate gray water is broken by the heads of the giant catfishes, he begins blindly throwing whaling spears and gaffs at them.  After the battle, the leader of the catfish is gravely wounded.  This sample begins with the fish, named Mungo by the locals, trying to get to his lair on the floor of the lake........

      Suffering intensely and bleeding from the spear wound and the gaffs, the big fish escaped from the boat and desperately swam through the brown, fresh water, where no catfish had ever swum before. Somehow, it made it back to the more hospitable environs of The Brack.

In agony, the huge fish struggled to reach the deepest part of the choppy waters. The catfish began to slowly rotate his fin across the grooves of his shoulder. The intense cat-speak that emerged was heard all the way through the cloudy boundaries of The Brack and even halfway through the adjoining waters on either end of Codfresh Lake.

Like the sound a finger makes running through the teeth of a comb, it varied in pitch from low to high and kept getting louder. After a moment, the wounded catfish leader heard an answer to his frantic cry.

Steady, rhythmic drumming sounds radiated from all directions toward the giant creature. The drumming intensified as scores of catfish answered the frenzied summons. Swimming to his side, they formed a circle around him.

Among the human population of Codfresh Lake, the catfish leader was highly feared by the small number of locals who had seen him. Anse Peckins and a few hunters and fishermen had witnessed the massive cat stalk and take down full grown stags. They had named him "Mungo."

Cunning and highly intelligent, the assembled catfish of Codfresh Lake knew full well that some of their number had died in the day's battle and more were badly wounded. They vowed that they would kill Cisco, who they thought of as 'the monster in the boat'.

Mungo's second in command, a young catfish the others thought of as 'Sky' for his ability to jump the furthest above the water's surface; was in fear for the leader's life. Blood wept from a jagged hole where his eye used to be. Two long metal gaffs protruded from his side.

Sky was aware that a gaff has a barbed end that when pulled out makes the wound even worse. Yet instinctively he also realized the horrible shafts could not be left in.

He resolved to pull them out. Just as if they could understand Sky's comb-speak, four of the bigger cats crowded around Mungo to hold him steady.

Grasping the end of one of the gaffs with his rows of jagged teeth, Sky pulled as hard as he could. Slowly the steel spine inched out of Mungo's flesh, the barbed hook painfully tearing up the leader's insides. Even with his superior strength and size, Mungo was not able to remain conscious during the brutal extraction.

With one last gallant wrenching of his body, Sky finally tore away the dreaded hooked pole and tossed it into the sediment. Mercifully, Mungo remained senseless and the second gaff was yanked out more quickly.

The leader of the catfish lay still, more dead than alive. He was breathing, but it was forced and labored. Four elders surrounded him, pushing their lifeless Chief to the very bottom of The Brack. They burrowed out an indentation and placed him into it. Heaping a cocoon of sediment and sand over his body, they left only his head exposed.

Read Jimmy Catfish on Amazon Kindle.  It's free for members of Kindle Unlimited. 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XH8XY9Q