Days passed with nothing to eat but disgusting fish pellets. Murder watched as unusually dressed men came and went, some of them wearing all white and some of them blue. At midnight on the third evening since the unfortunate incident involving a young woman being attacked by the ground, Murder awoke to the sound of glass shattering. He opened his eyes in a start to see a brick sliding to a halt on the floor just in front of his tank.

  The cracking and tinkling of glass being crushed underfoot drew Murder’s attention to the front of the store, where he observed a masked man ducking through a broken store window. The intruder walked to the reception desk and stopped at the open, empty till that was clearly visible from the street to prevent exactly this kind of break-in.

  “Suck my fuck you wasting-of-time bitch whores,” said the figure with a gruff voice through a thin face mask in a thick and slurring Eastern European accent. The incompetent intruder picked up the open till and threw it to the ground, where it landed with a satisfying bing. His gaze landed on the brick that sat next to Murder’s tank. The intruder picked it up and began gently tossing it up and down in one hand as if he was judging the heft of it. He eyed the two tanks full of water. The thin mask did little to hide the outline of a mirthless smile that crept over the man’s face like a venomous spider.

  “What’s he up to?” asked Murder.

  Spots and Dr Flibbles swam over to Murder at the top of the tank to get a better view.

  “Excuse me, we’re closed,” yelled Spots, but the man didn’t appear to hear.

  “You fuck with Dimitri, Dimitri fucks you back,” said the masked figure, presumably Dimitri. He rocked slightly and held on to the reception table for balance. Then he held the brick over his head as if he was ready to throw it and his voice took on a childish, mocking tone. “Eeny, meeny, miny… moe!” The intruder hurled the brick at the nearest tank; glass shattered, and the masked figure casually knocked over a few small items from countertops as he walked out of the store.

  Fish and water spilled all over the floor. Murder had a terrible sinking feeling as his whole world fell out from under him. The falling pool became a torrent that tossed him across the room, and two seconds later he was on the hard ground, exposed to the cold night air that blew in from the now broken front window. The torrent that had borne him along quickly spread and thinned, leaving only a few puddles in the low-lying sections of floor.

  This is not how I die, thought Murder. To die in battle was one thing, to die of old age having subjugated mankind and eaten the flesh of millions would be a preference, but to die gasping on a spa floor is no way to go for an incarnation of evil. If there is an afterlife, and Dr Flibbles would suggest that there is, then explaining all of this is going to be very, very embarrassing.

  Murder could see Spots floundering away a few feet in front of him. It looked like he was headed towards a slightly deeper puddle. Murder followed, and they soon came to a small dip in the tiles where the water was pooling just a little bit deeper. Dr Flibbles and two other fish were already there. They watched as the whole school, everyone they ever knew, lay writhing, flapping and gasping on the cold floor. Slowly the cacophonous applause of fish frantically clapping against the ground began to abate, replaced by a grim silence that hung in the air, occasionally swatted away by the final desperate struggles of a dying fish.

  Murder waited, feeling his puddle slowly foul and its oxygen slowly dwindle. Then, with the first rays of dawn, came hope. Sally would be there to feed them soon and she would surely move any survivors into the one remaining tank; it seemed so tantalisingly close yet so impossibly far away at the same time.

  Murder’s eyes began to feel heavy and he felt a cold, treacherous sleep slowly creeping up on him. He fought it, knowing that sleeping now would lead to death. He held on, slapping Spots and Dr Flibbles to keep them awake too, and then the sound of glass cracking and tinkling underfoot returned.

  Salvation, thought Murder. “Sally’s back. Here to save us.”

  “Sally!” all three fish called out in unison, but there was no response. From their island of fresh water in a sea of white tiles, they couldn’t see much towards the front of the shop.

  Murder listened more closely. The glass sounded different to when the intruder had walked on it. It sounded like it had a much lighter touch, and something about the timing was off.

  The sound of footsteps came again, followed by the sound of a fish slapping the wet-tiled ground with frantic desperation.

  The light and almost furtive footsteps drew nearer, and the sound of another fish’s tortured last moments sent a chill down Murder’s spine. A bloodied swim bladder flew across the room and landed in front of the three fish with a squelch.

  “I don’t think that’s Sally here to save us,” said Spots.

  “She’s finally gone mad,” said Dr Flibbles. “I knew it was only a matter of time.”

  A small white creature waddled into view on gnarled webbed feet that were missing most of their toes. It had a half-broken yellow beak, yellow eyes and gray wings.

  They watched as the seagull walked from fish to fish like a scavenger after a great battle, prying treasures from the dead and the dying, collecting gruesome trinkets of eyes and choice organs for their gruesome hoard. Seemingly dead fish sprung back to life for a final flailing moment as they were ripped open by the hooked upper beak and left to die. The seagull’s damaged beak made the going slow and messy, but the creature was persistent, voracious and getting closer.

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  Feathers were missing from around the bird’s yellow eyes, exposing a ring of diseased red skin that made the creature look mad. The blazing, hungry eye spotted the five fish in their small pond and approached with baleful purpose.

  The hideous bird stood over the puddle with the five surviving fish that wallowed in dread and about half an inch of water. Murder half swam, half floundered his way to the front of the group and returned the bird’s gaze.

  “If you want to eat them, you’ll have to come through me,” said Murder.

  The gull looked down at Murder, and regarded him quizzically. Or hungrily, it was hard to tell. Then without a word, the bird grabbed him around his midsection and tossed him bodily into the air. The seagull opened its gullet, ready to swallow the small fish whole.

  “You’ll never take me alive,” screamed Murder, who thrashed and bit at the air furiously.

  Then, instead of a gnashing beak or a suffocating gullet, Murder felt himself bounce off a furry head and land with a splash back in the puddle with the other fish.

  Murder looked up to see a set of jaws clamped around the bird’s neck, and a familiar furry face looking down at them.

  “Trying to hatch an escape plan are we?” Mr Whiskers asked, looking around at the scene of chaos. Broken glass, water damage, dead fish and fish guts everywhere. “How’s that going for you then?”

  “Where’s Sally?” demanded Murder.

  “Asleep in her bed, I imagine. I was on the prowl when I noticed the smashed window and thought I would come in to say hello to our very own Don Quixote – or perhaps David would be a more apt name for the diminutive giant slayer,” said Mr Whiskers.

  “What’s a diminutive giant?” asked Spots.

  “A misunderstanding, I’m sure,” replied Mr Whiskers, “but it would appear as though I underestimated you, and as a true connoisseur of chaos, I can appreciate talent when I see it.”

  “I've only just gotten started,” said Murder. “Today, the Happy Flowers Fish Spa & Salon; tomorrow, the world!”

  “If you two are done admiring one another, would you mind putting us in that tank over there?” asked Dr Flibbles, who sat swishing impatiently in his puddle.

  The cat took another look around at all the fresh fish on the ground. “Fine. But only because you have already laid out quite the buffet for me,” said Mr Whiskers.

  Then, one by one, the cat picked up each of the surviving fish in its mouth and dropped them in the remaining tank.

  “Another bloody immigrant. That’s the third one today. Go back to where you came from!” said Scratcher. Scratcher wasn’t quite the biggest fish in their new tank, but he did appear to wield his size with a violent stupidity that the larger fish lacked. “You wetbacks are nothing but water sponges, and stonerfish. And do you know what gets me really foaming? They’re not even whitebait.”

  “We can’t go back where we came from, and I think you mean sea sponges and stonefish,” said Dr Flibbles, who was trying to reason with the angrily protesting fish.

  While the fish looked occupied berating Dr Flibbles, Murder casually swam behind the loud fish and decided to return the hospitality.

  “I didn’t ask you to correct me, little fish. If I wanted to hear from you—Ouch!” Scratcher cried out in pain.

  With a quick motion, Murder tore at the scales on Scratcher’s back with his unusually strong jaw, managing to come away with a small chunk of flesh with a few scales still attached.

  “You forgot pet-eating cannibal,” mumbled Murder through a mouth full of flesh.

  A few hours after dawn, Sally returned to feed the fish. Seeing the state of the window and the floor, the best she could do for now was cover the window with plastic, sweep the broken glass, take out the dead fish by the bucketload and try to hold herself together.

  When the place was somewhat back to normal, sans one tank, Sally sat on the padded vinyl seat with her feet in the water and dripped salt water into the remaining freshwater tank, one tear at a time.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said Sally. She cradled her head in her hands, elbows resting on her knees. Mr Whiskers sat beside her and nuzzled for attention affectionately. “Karen is going to close the shop. I've spent my whole adult life in this shop, and now it’s over.” Sally wiped away her tears and sat up straight. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking down at the fish. “You’ll probably have it worse than me. Unless Karen finds a buyer for the shop, she will probably either just leave you here and let you starve or pour out the water and watch you all suffocate out of spite. I think she blames you for some reason, but I know it wasn’t your fault.” Sally’s voice started to falter. “Until she changes the locks, or until I find ten-thousand bucks to buy the business, I’ll come in and throw you some pellets every morning. That’s a promise, little guys.”

  Wiping fresh tears off her face, she stood up and breathed deeply for a moment. “God, look at me, talking to fish. I’m more upset about what might happen to you guys than I am about what happened to Deborah. Why am I such a fucking mess?”

  Murder felt the now familiar sensation of a memory flowing into him. He was a young woman, fifteen years old and sitting on the edge of a bed with her hands over her ears and crying. Her bedroom had posters of Oasis and Red Hot Chili Peppers blu-tacked to the wall. He couldn’t see them, but he knew both of the posters covered fist-size holes in the drywall beneath.

  There was a new car in the driveway – one of the big ones with a tray that was always kept pristine, like a display shelf for fragile masculinity. The car looked like it was worth more than her family could afford. She heard arguing through the thin walls. Her father had spent the money set aside for her on his new truck, and her mother was upset. Her mother cried, her father shouted. That was how most arguments went, but this time was different. This was the last argument they had before she ran away for the first time. She tried not to listen, but there are some things you can’t unhear.

  “She’s not smart enough for college. The only way someone like her will go anywhere in life is in the passenger seat of a truck,” her father had said all those years ago. The words still hurt to think about, like a wound that festered and never healed; they stuck with her, eating away at her.

  The memory faded, but a sadness lingered. Maybe she wasn’t the high priestess that Murder first thought she was, but she kept him alive and brought in fresh sacrifices every day before the incident. Something in Murder’s cold little heart had warmed to Sally, and Murder decided he would eat her last.

  “What’s a buck?” asked Spots.

  “A man’s wealth used to be measured by the number of cattle he owned, and a buck is a male deer,” said Dr Flibbles. “So either we need to come up with a king’s ransom in venison, or we need to find ten-thousand little green pieces of paper. Which, if The Price is Right tells me anything, is about a quarter of a brand-new car, or a really good washer-dryer set.”

  “Then our objective is clear,” said Murder. “We must acquire these bucks so that Sally can buy the store.”

  “Let’s do it!” cheered Spots. “To bucks!”

  “Mr Whiskers,” Murder called out. “Open wide and take us to the nearest deer farm. We have some wrangling to do.”