Written for a short story contest with a 1000-word limit on the theme ‘Cat Got Your Tongue’.
It happened up at Lingua Lake, just past the state line. I always liked to fish there ‘cus it was so outta the way, never got half as busy as the local places do, not even in the summertime. Kinda place a fella could actually hope to have something to show for himself after three hours knee-deep in freshwater. And even if you didn’t, hell, you could do worse than that kinda scenery. Natural, undisturbed, far enough from any damn highways or motels or other man-made crap to notice the difference, and you could see it in the catches. Taste it in ‘em, too.
That was until some moron decided to dump his pet catfish there. At least, that’s what the scientists figured it must’ve been that started the whole business. My buddy Eddie’d tell you he even caught the fella in the act while he was driving up one night, shifty-looking guy Eddie had never seen around before or since, who made a break for it soon as he realised he wasn’t alone. But Eddie’s always telling tales outta school. I was only ever there in the daytime, and I never saw any catfish. But we all noticed the change in the water.
They put the details in the paper, though I doubt it wasn’t no headline news for anybody except me and maybe Eddie: CATFISH DEEMED INVASIVE SPECIES AT LINGUA, in tiny letters somewhere near the funny pages. The way the researchers had it figured, one way or another some catfish had got into the water and got busy where they didn’t belong. Now they’d been eating up practically everything, but worst of all, they’d taken out the frogs. See, normally tadpoles feed on algae, and without any new frogs, the algae was growing outta control. Too much algae and the whole bloom dies out, then as it decomposes, the bacteria sucks up all the oxygen from the water so nothing at all can live there, and the whole ecosystem goes. Fishermen call it a red tide. The wonders of nature, huh?
But the scientists had a plan to help, and this is where it gets weird. You’ve maybe heard of that cute little parasite that swims through a fish’s gills, gets into its mouth, and bites off its tongue so it can live in there and feed off the sucker’s vital fluids. Well, it turns out the fellas in the lab had designed a special kinda version of this thing that worked exclusively on catfish. They’d been biologically or genealogically or some-kinda-ogically engineered to live real short, track down a catfish like a heat-seeking missile, suck out its blood all in one big gulp, and then bite the bullet themselves.
The paper said they wanted to introduce the parasite into the water that week, and that the whole thing should take no more than a month to pay off, tops. Until then, Lingua Lake was off limits. They were calling their little Frankencritter cymothoa silurus, but all it meant to me was a whole summer having to fish at one of the local lakes all the tourists and amateurs went to, probably including the jackass who started off this whole mess after getting in over his head trying to populate his home aquarium.
Still, my mother raised herself a law-abider, so I did what I was told and waited, checking the paper every day for the go-ahead that Lingua was back open for business. First a month went by without a word, then it was six weeks. Meanwhile I was hankering for some R & R back at my favourite spot like you wouldn’t believe. It got so I didn’t even want to fish at all if I couldn’t do it there. After two full months and still no word in the paper, or any other damn place I could find, for that matter, I told myself the hell with this, and took the truck back up to Lingua Lake the very next morning.
When I got there, it looked like Eddie must’ve had the same idea I did, ‘cus his beaten-up old Dodge was parked in the usual place. Course I’d been hoping to be on my own, but Eddie wasn’t such bad company, and I thought it might even be nice to see him again and do some catching up.
In the distance, the water seemed like it had cleared up again, no more of that telltale red scum all covering the surface. But when I got closer, things didn’t look so good. Eddie was lying face down by the lakeside, his torso hanging half off the pier, right arm underwater, probably still holding onto his rod.
I ran over fast as I could, calling out his name, only I’m damned if I know why because I could already tell what the deal was. A person looks one way alive and another way dead, and Eddie looked the other way.
When I got to the body, I saw how pale his skin was, and for a regular summer morning he was damn near ice cold. There was a hefty coat of blood crusted round his right ear, and when I turned him over I saw there was a whole lot more around his mouth and all down his front. He was stiff all over, and his jaw had locked open real wide; poor fella looked like he was still screaming. That, or old Eddie was trying to show me the worst part: the raw, bitten-off red stump where his tongue used to be.
I ran right outta there and back to my truck, thinking I could use the CB radio to call for help, I guess, even though Eddie was way past needing any of that. I pulled the transceiver up to speak, and that was when I felt it. Just before the pain came in, I could feel that unmistakable feeling, that squirming, clickety crawling movement of something working its way into my ear.