Gary could still see it—the sharks swarming. The sea—blood red, churned to froth with snapping jaws and severed scales! And that chomping—he could all-but hear it, crunch, crunch, crunching away in his ears.

  What choice did he have, though? There was no way they could sell those tiny fish, and he couldn’t just leave them on the beach, littering the shore.

  And by the time Gary had discovered the problem, the fish were dead.

  He tried his best to rationalise the slaughter. They did a similar thing to bobby calves in the dairy industry. Horrific, he’d called it. But that was then. And this was now.

  And now that entire industry was falling apart at the seams as Even Madder Cow disease wreaked havoc across the country. Screeds of inedible, unmilkable cows rampaged at random, with no signs of stopping or even slowing down. Perhaps that was why no one questioned Gary’s unusual catch or his methods of delivery.

  He’d brought two truckloads of fish to yesterday’s meeting—plus, a Honda Civic’s worth of snapper, and a motorcycle sidecar packed to the hilt with kingfish. By the time they actually made it to the buyer, the Civic smelt like an open grave, and the sidecar-riding kingfish had adopted an eerie, judgemental stare.

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  Still, the buyer took every fish they could throw at him with the promise of payment the following morning.

  It was late morning. Gary refreshed his phone. Nine hundred and ninety-nine refreshes and counting. The money was still outstanding.

  Okay, maybe the bank was slow. Maybe payments took longer on a Thursday. Or maybe—NO! He was going to pay—he had to!

  The thousandth refresh proved equally fruitless. Nothing. Still bloody nothing.

  But then, on the thousand and first try—BOOYAH! There it was. A staggering, inconceivable amount of money. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The most Gary had been paid in a single hit was, what, two thousand max?

  He didn’t expect the wave of guilt. Or the thought of his mother watching as he gazed in awe at the money. The blood money.

  She’s not bloody watching, thought Gary, who wasn’t a spiritual guy. She’s dead, he told himself, and dead is dead. It wasn’t a consoling thought and did nothing to improve his mood.

  Gary groaned and flicked to his notifications, desperate for a distraction. And there it was—his punishment.

  His aging face, plastered across the internet. His panicked eyes, the crow’s feet that lined them.

  The lighting was cruel—the meme crueller.

  The Caption in Bold:

  “Mum Says I’m Definitely Not A Loser!”

  But the man Gary saw was, without a doubt, a loser.

  “Fuck you,” he whispered, resolving never to be that guy again. That worthless waste of space. That fucking nobody.

  He exhaled slowly, locked his phone, and set it face down on the table.

  No more second-guessing. No more shame.

  The fishmen had fame.

  Gary Graves would have power.

  The ocean was his for the taking.