James Axler – Stoneface

There was no sign of a struggle, and he knew, as uneasy as his sleep had been, the slightest odd sound would have snapped him awake. He saw by the lightening sky a few footprints in the hard-packed earth around Doc’s tent, which led toward the riverbank.

Ryan started to walk in that direction and hadn’t gone far when he heard laughing voices over the rush of the current. Though he couldn’t make out the words, he identified the tones as belonging to J.B. and Doc.

Realizing he’d been holding his breath, Ryan released it in a sigh. He slowed his pace.

Then he heard the scream.

Chapter Four

An insistent bladder had prodded Doc awake in the predawn darkness. Stumbling from his tent, he passed J.B. and Zadfrak sitting around the dying campfire, drinking cups of coffee sub. J.B. gave him a one-finger salute as he went into the shadows to urinate.

He was more awake by the time he returned to the fire. Knuckling his eyes, he asked, “Have you been up all night, John Barrymore?”

“Just since midnight, when I spelled you. Got at least an hour till sunrise. Why don’t you go back to bed?”

Doc stifled a yawn and sat down next to Zadfrak, reaching for the coffeepot. “I believe I shall tarry here a moment.”

“We’re thinking about trying to catch a mess of trout for breakfast,” J.B. said. “Zadfrak says there’s some rainbow in the river.”

The old man nodded eagerly. Fishing was one of his passions. “Sounds very much like a plan. I am certain everyone would rather have fresh fish than beef jerky broth.”

“Let’s go then,” Zadfrak said, getting to his feet. He covered his mouth, coughed, hawked, then spit into the embers.

Doc fetched a rod and reel and tackle box from the storage compartment of the wag. The black sky was turning gray, so they were able to negotiate the path Zadfrak led them down.

The river’s current wasn’t particularly fast, and the bank gave way to a fifty-odd foot curve of mudflats. Doc affixed a lure to his line and carefully picked his way out across the mud. Neither J.B. nor Zadfrak seemed inclined to join him.

The earth squished beneath Doc’s feet, but he barely sank into it more than ankle deep. Reaching its edge, he cast the line as far as he could toward the center of the rushing water. He had only begun to reel it back in when the line quivered with a strike. Over his shoulder, he called, “I’ve made contact, gentlemen!”

Zadfrak stumbled and slogged out across the flats to join him. “Play him some, old man. Don’t let the bastard run into the deepwater.”

Doc didn’t reply, though he found a backseat fisherman as irritating as J.B. probably found a backseat driver. Zadfrak kept up a steady stream of advice, encouragement and an occasional burst of profanity.

The pole bent at a forty-five-degree curve, the line was taut and Doc strained against the pull. His shoulder muscles began to ache, but he kept on playing out slack, reeling it back in and working his way to the left.

Finally, after about six or seven minutes of struggle, Doc landed the trout with Zadfrak’s help. The fish was, as Doc proclaimed it, a genuine whopper.

The rainbow trout was at least three and a half feet long, weighing upwards of forty pounds. Doc and J.B. let out whooping laughs, with Zadfrak clapping his hands in spontaneous applause.

“To hell with breakfast,” J.B. called from the bank. “‘Take us two full days to eat that whale!”

Doc shifted his position, finding some solid footing so Zadfrak could remove the feather-bedecked hook from the trout’s mouth. Suddenly the mud heaved beneath the old man’s feet with a convulsive shudder, and a spray of water and slime flew into the air.

Stumbling and slipping on the slick surface, Doc lost his balance and fell with a splat. In the watery sludge in front of him shone two cold, white-encircled black eyes, each the width and breadth of his outstretched hands. Less than a foot from his face, a huge rubbery-lipped maw with a shovel-shaped underjaw opened with a liquidy, slurping gasp.