My House of Horrors

The fisher was not dumb. To prevent an accident from happening, he tied the rope to the boat. If there was a problem, the people on the bank could pull the boat back. “You two stay at the bank. If I raise a large light, start pulling the rope.”

He turned on the fishing light that he carried with him. With a deep breath, he jumped into the boat. The water was dark, and no one could see what was hiding underneath it.

The body rocked with the boat. The fisher sat down slowly, placed the fishing spear within arm’s reach, and held the light between his legs. Then, he picked up the paddles.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Zhang Dabo watched over the rope, worried that this might be a one-way trip for the fisher. If the fisher ended up being fish food, that would truly be a sad ending.

“Some fish will become more active at night, and the King Fish only takes the bait at night, so it means that it is this type of fish. Dragging this out will only make the situation more dangerous.” The fisher forced himself to calm down. He held the paddles with both hands and slowly edged away from the bank.

“This guy sure is seeking death.” Chen Ge rarely had that comments for others. He was not good with water, so if it was him, he definitely would not have picked this time to get the bobber. He was not afraid of ghosts, but looking at the rippling water, he had an indescribable fear.

This was an instinct. There was a voice in his mind reminding him that there was something hiding in the water and the dam was dangerous, so he had better stay away. The fisher drifted away from them, and unfortunately, the bobber was carried away by the current deeper into the lake. Initially, it was only eight meters away from the bank, but now, it was more than ten meters away.

The fisher sat facing away from them. He put down his concern and focused on paddling. The boat slowly moved to the bobber. The dam was eerily quiet. On the bank, Chen Ge and Zhang Dabo watched the fisher with bated breath. Both of them had seen the King Fish; they knew that there was a monster in the dam.

Night had fallen, but there were no stars in the sky. The sky was covered up by clouds, and the water in the dam was equally dark. The sky and the water were like an open maw, and the fisher was slowly moving into said maw.

“Almost there.” Sitting on the boat, the fisher kept his eyes on the luminous bobber. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to not look around. “It should be fine; the King Fish was spooked, so it will avoid the boat. Before, when the police came to salvage the bodies, it avoided them.”

The fisher convinced himself internally as his hands moved faster.

The surroundings were too quiet. The only sound was that of the paddles hitting the water, but that sound made the fisher strangely agitated.

“The bobber looks like it’s still floating forward. This current is not beneficial to me, but thankfully, the rope is long. I only need to collect it before the rope is pulled taut.” The rope was tied to the rope on one end and the pier on the other—it was like a lifeline.

Probably due to the current, the distance between the man and the bobber did not close. The boat moved further away, and slowly, Zhang Dabo realized that something was wrong. “He’s already more than ten meters away from us, but the longest rope inside my storage is only ten meters long. Did he tie several ropes together?”

Zhang Dabo pulled on the rope that was sinking into the water with confusion. He pulled on it, and there was not much resistance.

“Not good!” he screamed while pulling. He realized that the end of the rope had been cut!

“Come back now! The rope has been bitten off!” Zhang Dabo panicked and yelled at the fisher. Chen Ge did not expect this development. He looked like at the end of the rope. It was uneven, and it did not look like it had been cut by knife but felt more like it was bitten off by something.

“To be able to bite through the rope in such a short amount of time, this King Fish is not weak.” Chen Ge touched the edge of the rope. Probably because it was soaked in water, it gave off a weak fishy stench. He examined the cut closer and realized that there were many bite marks around the rope edges.

“This doesn’t look like it was bitten off by one fish but by a school of fish.” Chen Ge felt that the bite marks were weird, but he could not put his finger on it. Zhang Dabo was still calling for the fisher’s attention, but the man did not seem to hear it.

“What’s wrong with him?”

Just as Zhang Dabo was all flustered, the fisher finally reached the luminous bobber.

“Two meters left!”

The fisher was facing away from them, and he did not turn back. In his mind, the rope connected his boat and the pier, so when the rope was pulled taut, it would stop the boat from moving forward. Since he could continue moving forward, it meant that he was less than ten meters away from the bank.

“Come back!”

There was some noise coming from behind him, but the fisher ignored it. He kept his eyes on the bobber.

One meter left.

He leaned toward the front of the boat and raised the fishing light. The light shone on the water. It was then that he realized that the bobber was still moving forward, and the way that it was floating was different to the natural current. In fact, it felt like something was holding the bobber from below the surface and pulling it forward.

The fisher looked at the bobber, and he had a strange thought in his mind. Was the bobber being used by the King Fish to bait him? The custom-made bobber was right before his eyes—the man did not hesitate and raised the fishing light. The light cut through the water, but there was nothing around the bobber.

“Just a fright for nothing.”

The man held the light in one hand and used his other to reach for the water. Just as he was about to reach the bobber, the water around the boat started to bubble and rock. Then, with the shine from the light, the man discovered a shadow right beneath the bobber charging up at an impossible speed!

The King Fish!

The fisher ignored the bobber and went to grab the fish spear, but when he got the spear, the shadow in the water disappeared again. “Where did it go?”

Before he could catch his breath, the small boat shook like something was trying to topple the boat.

“It’s under the boat!” The fisher squatted down to lower his center of gravity. The light that had been left by the front of the boat tipped and slid into the water. “F*ck!”

The man saw the light drop into the water. Without hesitation, he grabbed the luminous bobber from the water and turned back to the bank. “Quick! Pull me back!”

When he turned around, he realized that he had already floated a very long way from the bank. The bobber that he held in his hand was connected to the fishing line and the line was tangled with black hair that was reeking with a horrible stench.