Jing was tossing chum into the water, but I paid it no mind. I needed to stop for a moment and think about how we were going to either escape or kill that bog creature. The dynamite could do it, but we needed a way to use it without blowing up the entire fishing camp with us in it. A well-placed gunshot might also do it, but I’d need to be able to see the damn thing. Its weak spots were its mouth, eyes, underbelly and between the plates of shell. Ain’t no way I could get between the pieces of shell, and I highly doubt old Goliath would be rolling over to show his belly like a dog anytime soon. It was his mouth, or his eyes… But to be honest, even if I hit it there was a big chance all it’d do is piss him off even more than he already was, and there was most certainly not gonna be more than a single chance for a shot like that one.
The dynamite was our best bet, and that definitely, definitely, definitely wasn’t just my great desire to watch things explode saying that.
Then, as I thought, I felt weight shift behind me. The entire fishing camp dipped at one side in a very unpleasant way. I got to my feet as I flicked my cigarette into the water. “Jing!? What the hell was that!?”
“You made him very angry! I cannot calm him down!” Jing yelled as he moved closer to us with an empty bucket of bait.
Logan was already up, and this time holding a stick of dynamite that he had drained half the powder out from, along with the tarp that came with the crate. He walked right to Jing and snatched the metal bucket from his hands, then kept going to where the giant crawdaddy was breaking the supports. “I’ve got an idea. A bad Jesse kind of idea.” He said as he dropped the stick of dynamite in the bucket.
I caught up with my brother as he wrapped the bucket in the tarp, making sure to keep the fuse peaking through the folds. “We can’t start throwing dynamite into the water or this whole thing is going down, but this will keep the blast to a minimum.”
Logan held out his hand for my lighter, which I gladly obliged, especially since time was running out before the support gave out. Maybe we were brothers after all. One thing was uncertain in my mind, though. “There’s no good way to aim that. I doubt that’ll kill it. Stun it at best, but then he’ll just be back angrier next time.”
Goliath the crayfish was still furiously snapping a support beam in half while we talked, but he would soon surely go back down into the water. Logan grimaced as he thought about our options. Before we could decide exactly what to do, though, Goliath finished snapping the beam in two, sending one half of the boardwalk crumpling onto itself. We immediately had to hold our footing as the entirety of the floor on the other end fell into the brown water. Now we either went down a set of stairs into the water, or we slid down a ramp right to the same place.
Luckily, the wooden boards were so broken apart already that it was easy to find a handhold. The crate of dynamite slid past Jing, allowing me to grab it with my free hand. Once I made sure that was safe, I looked back to Logan. He was very concernedly watching the water below us, because ol’ Goliath hadn’t given up.
If he was a creature that big, I guess it meant his brain had to be a bit bigger as well. He was still a mindless creature, but when prey was on a silver platter, he knew it. I also had a sneaking suspicion he was able to keep a grudge.
The giant crawdaddy pierced out of the water, grabbed the end of the boardwalk, and jostled it around. His free hand was waiting for the entire thing to sink or for one of us to slip. There was no more running. If we didn’t kill it, it was us going in the pot of water.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Jing yelled out. “In times where there seems to be no hope, you must-“
“Shut up!” Logan and I both shouted back in unison. We needed to make work of the crustacean bastard, and fast. Logan’s idea was good using the bucket to protect us from the blast, but it didn’t quite work… It did give me an idea. Logan’s most idiotic idea paired with my most idiotic idea. It was perfect.
I took a full stick of dynamite from the crate and threw the rest as far as I could in the opposite direction from us and the crawfish. We only needed one with what I had in mind. “Alright, Logan! I have a plan! A very bad plan!”
The boardwalk was getting both steeper and further into the murky brown water. Logan kept his eyes on the man-eating crawdad as he responded. “I’m open to anything at this point!”
“Throw your stun trap, then give me the lighter!”
Logan didn’t wait for me to even finish what I had to say. We had seconds to spare, and we both knew it. My brother held the bucket under his arm and lit the fuse with his free hand. As quickly as you would ever see a man move, he tossed the lighter to me, grabbed the bucket with his free hand, and threw it directly at the crawfish. We were about ten feet up, but the bang was definitely going to be hard on the two of us either way.
The tarp shone bright white for a second, then it flew off and revealed the cloud of fire inside. The sound of the explosion in the bucket sounded like a thunderclap, and the part of the tarp that got the brunt of it was completely turned to ash. The bucket itself flew right back at us, crashed against the boardwalk, and spun wildly into the air.
Goliath veered back in shock as the explosion splashed across his armored face. Part of me hoped that the bucket alone would be enough, but the shell seemed barely hurt. The crawdaddy itself was certainly pissed as hell. In any case, he was stunned, which meant it was my one opportunity.
Logan had an idea to keep us safe by putting the dynamite in a steel bucket, but we needed something more precise. Something that could definitely find the son of a bitch’s weak spot. Military grade titanium, perhaps?
I let go of my handhold and began sliding down the ramp, grasping the stick of dynamite as tightly as I could with my metal arm while I lit the fuse with the other. This is such a stupid idea, and that’s coming from me.
The crawfish was too shocked to grab me with its pincers as I pushed against the boardwalk and jumped into the air. I had only one shot, and a very little target.
If the dynamite exploded out in the open I was definitely a goner, which was why I was going to borrow Goliath’s armor. His pincers tried to stop my fist from entering his mouth, but the metal was able to break through it. I was shoulder deep in the crawdad’s gullet with only a moment to spare. I closed my eyes as I prayed. God, I wasn’t ready to die again.
My metal arm rattled as a squishy sound mixed with an explosion that you could feel in your sternum rumbled. I could feel the blistering heat as a small bit of fire escaped through his mouth and washed past my face.
Hot, wet, and sticky substance started to rain down all around me as I slowly opened my eyelids. I was hoping it would be flame broiled crawfish, and not chunks of me. By the time I regained my wits, I found out that somehow I turned out to be in one piece. Goliath, on the other hand, was raining from the sky. There was almost nothing left except for the enormous helmet shell my metal arm was now stuck in.
“Holy shit!” I shouted. I looked back to Logan with the biggest grin known to man. He was absolutely shocked. Jing just silently mouthed words in a state of both confusion and mania.
Logan slid down to me as my smile slowly faded. Something terrible had occurred to me. He looked at me worriedly. “Are you ok? Are you hurt?”
I went from looking at him to the distance, numb with apathy. “I just exploded a giant man-eating crawdaddy by punching it in the face, and no one will ever believe me…”
Logan looked at me and smiled himself, then he began to chuckle. “Well at least you’ve got two hundred dollars to show for it.”
“Actually…” Jing chimed in. “I will need you to take financial responsibility for the state of my fishing camp.”
I looked back at the now half-demolished buildings. The only thing that cut through the silence was a large section of the boardwalk collapsing into the water.
Goddamnit.