The Flood

         Just before noon, on an intensely hot day during the seventh month of the flood, Christopher caught the most unusual fish he had ever seen. Indeed, more than a fish it resembled an enormous black tadpole or a truncated eel, and as he reeled the creature in through the third-floor bedroom window of his farmhouse, Christopher saw that it had the face of a human being. The fish grimaced and prodded with a thin, gray tongue at the hook that pierced its cheek and from which it now hung helpless and frightened as Christopher regarded it curiously. Seizing the fish at the midpoint of its body he stretched his free arm toward the floor and groped for the broom handle that he used to club whatever he managed to pull out of the deep gray water that covered the Kansas countryside.

         The fish - whose eyes had until now been shut tight with pain - began flailing its whip-like tail and straining to curl its body and head in the direction of whatever the man was reaching toward. Christopher - his hunger having overcome his wonder at the strange, pitiful creature - lay the fish on its side on the wooden floor and tightened his grip on its tubular body.

         As he raised his club, fully intending to put the unnatural thing out of its misery and quickly fill his belly with it, Christopher hesitated, fingering a scar in the broken broom handle with his thumb for several seconds. The fish clenched a perfect set of pearl-white and disturbingly baby-like teeth, and a faint whimpering squeaked out from between them.

         "Please," it said.

         Christopher suddenly bent forward, lowering his club and placing his ear close to the gaping mouth. The tail, which was covered in several rows of short, dull spines, slapped the floor, spattering a small puddle that had gathered on the wood and throwing droplets of saltwater into Christopher's hair.

         The fish fell silent as Christopher listened, though it continued to writhe under his grip, slapping its tail even more vigorously. Christopher straightened himself and, after a brief moment, released his hold on the fish. Now unrestrained, the fish struggled with renewed violence, frantically bending its body nearly in half. Christopher rose and stepped slowly out of the room, closing the moisture-warped oak door behind him, pausing momentarily to listen as the creature grunted and wheezed and threw its body from one spot on the floor to another.

...

         The aquarium stood on an antique night stand in a corner of the attic. Reaching it meant first moving several pieces of heavy furniture, among them a decrepit kitchen table that had been severely chewed by a family of squirrels that Christopher had subsequently trapped and devoured.