“Ugly way to croak,” Jak spit.
“Let’s make sure nobody else gets nailed by that rad blasted thing,” Ryan said.
The companions quickly formed a firing squad beside the fish’s head. But before they could shoot, the man in the fish skin vest jumped in front of the raised muzzles, waving his hands. “No, no!” he shouted at them. “No lead! The metal will put a curse on the meat.”
With that, the village leader scrambled onto the fish’s head, using the net’s mesh for hand and footholds. He was joined by another man who carried an ironwood club and a three foot long bone sword. The leader took the sword and knelt down, feeling around on the fish’s forehead with his fingertips.
“What’s he doing?” Dean asked.
“He’s looking for the seam in the skull,” Ryan replied. “A weak spot in the bone.”
The village leader found what he was searching for. He positioned the sword point against the skull, dropped his hands below the skin wrapped grip and nodded to the second man, who raised the club and struck the pommel of the sword a mighty blow. The impact echoed sharply off the riverbank’s trees, and the serrated blade sank in a foot.
The great fish didn’t seem to notice.
But when the man dealt it a second blow, driving the sword in another foot, the animal went berserk, humping up and heaving its body against the net, its long, fleshy whiskers curling and cracking like bull whips. The man struck again with the club before the fish could throw them off. On the third whack, the blade slipped in to the hilt, the mutie catfish’s eyes went dead, and its entire length began to quiver.
The villagers sent up a cheer and began preparations for the butchering. After untangling the net, several of the strongest men pried open its jaws, propping them wide apart with an ironwood stake sharpened at both ends. One of the men crawled inside the yawning mouth. Using the tip of his knife, he cut the lining of the throat away from the surrounding bone and muscle, and then disappeared into the dark cavity of its body. After a few minutes passed, he stepped out of the mouth, covered in blood and pulling the free end of the throat lining behind him.
The other villagers joined in and they began dragging the guts out of the catfish, five feet at a time. As they gave the empty, pale gray tube of muscle the heave-ho, it stretched down to the size of a man’s arm. On the third pull, the tube caught on the far side of the stake. Redoubling their efforts, the villagers managed to free it.
The cause of the hang-up popped out onto the mud.
Inside the opaque gut lining was a blue-dark bulge easily as long as a man.
“Is it a person?” Dean asked, awed. “It looks like a person!”
The village leader immediately stopped the proceedings and using a borrowed sword, hacked through the gut tube in a single swipe. Covered in slime, a hairless, earless, mottled blue head peeped out. Its gaping jaws were lined with rows of needlelike teeth, its beady eyes had been turned the color of milk by the fish’s corrosive digestive juices.
“Mutie eel,” Jak pronounced, matter of factly. “Big un.”
The eel’s jaws snapped shut like a bear trap.
It was blind, but it sure wasn’t dead.
The headman could have easily lopped off its head, but he just stared at it, sword at his side. The eel, sensing freedom, shot out of the fish’s gut, frantically sidewinding for the defenseless women and children clustered on the bank. The women and children could have scattered to safety, but they didn’t. They stood there. Waiting.
Whether the eel intended them harm or just wanted back in the river, Krysty reacted at once. Stepping between the onrushing animal and the innocents, she raised and fired her Model 640 Smith & Wesson. The .38-caliber slug hit the eel square in the head, knocking it down, but not out. It writhed in the mud, toothy jaws snapping. Krysty gingerly pinned the thick neck to the ground with her boot heel, leaving the tail end free to slap and churn. Kneeling down, she held the muzzle of the revolver against the side of its head and snapped the cap. The coup de grace cratered the eel’s skull and sent a plume of blood, brains and bone fragments splashing into the river,