The Best Thing Since Botox

Plot Challenge: zombie fish

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

The Best Thing Since Botox

By Plot Roach

Mark looked at the dead fish that ringed the small man made pond and swore beneath his breath. He had told Dave not to use the industrial strength bug killer anywhere near water sources, and once again the man had ignored him. He kicked one of the fish nearest the edge, looking down at the corpse. It surprised him that the scales were peeling away in sections and fluttered against the wind like the pages of a tattered book. He noticed the mouth gaping, still trying to live, despite the lack of water.

They must have jumped out to try and save themselves, he thought. Like people who jump from a burning building, taking their chances with death and fate as they fall to the ground. Wait a minute, he thought, it shouldn’t still be alive. He reached down and grabbed the fish, pulling it off in sections, as the body had plastered itself to the ground as it dried in the sunlight. He gagged and swallowed hard while looking at the pieces of fish that were left in his gloved hands. And remarkably, they continued to move, especially the gaping mouth.

What the hell could have caused this? He asked himself. He looked to the other fish and noticed that they, too, were still somehow ‘alive’. He pulled his walkie talkie from his belt and called over to George, one of his men. “Tell Dave I need to take to him as soon as he gets back from lunch.” He set the fish down on the ground next to one of its writhing companions. “And bring me a couple of big buckets.”

Moments later, Mark emptied the pond and put the contents into the back of one of the company vans. He would interrogate Dave a to which chemicals had been used, but in the meantime he wanted to study the fish a bit better. He made a promise to the owner of the property to replace the fish out of his own pocket. So this little exercise in the ‘unnatural’ better be worth it, he told himself.

At home he put the fish back in water. The ones that were still in good shape began to swim around. The ones that were little more than parts and pieces lay where they settled, but continued to move. When he added fresh goldfish, they were devoured instantly by the residents of the tank. Yet they ignored any manufactured fish food he added by hand. And when he reached in to retrieve a moving fish part, they swarmed him and began sucking on his hand.

It startled him more than anything else. After he jerked his hand away from the melee, he noticed that they had left his skin smooth. They had eaten the calluses off of his palm and fingers that had built up over the years from his job as a landscape maintenance worker.

What the hell? He thought, comparing both hands. A fish that can breath in air and in water is weird enough, but what do I do with this? He took a specimen to a friend, Fred, who taught high school biology and made a hobby out of studying odd animals.

A few days later Fred returned the creature to him, stating that it was neither alive nor dead.

“How can that be?” Mark asked. “It’s still moving?”

“Well, it has very little brain function, and none of its major organs move with the exception of the digestive track. You’ve got a zombie fish on your hands.”

“So what do I do with it?”

“Make them into pets, I guess. It would finally be one that kids couldn’t kill -unless they chopped it into pieces.”

“No. The pieces still move.” Mark admitted.

“Incredible.”

“No, Creepy.”

“I have an idea…” Fred said. And went on to describe and idea he had while listening about his wife’s day at a day spa.

“They use these special fish to eat the bunions and crap off the bottom of women’s feet. It feeds the fish and performs the pedicure for the women, so everyone wins. But they stopped doing them when PETA complained that they put the fish in hot water for the comfort of the people, when the fish needed cold water to live in.”

“But these fish don’t even need water, much less care about the temperature…”

“Exactly. All we need to do is perform a few experiments, to make sure that we can make more fish. And that the pedicure is safe for humans.”

“Who do we get to volunteer for that job?” Mark asked.

“Leave it to me.”

Fred paid a homeless woman to sit with her feet in a plastic kiddie pool while the two men watched closely as the fish fed upon her. The fish only ate the first few layers of skin before turning away from the human host in search of something else to consume. They paid her and sent her on her way.

Fred called Mark the next day, telling him that later that night she had snuck back in and submerged her entire body and let the fish feast upon her.

“It took years off of her life.” Fred explained.

“She was only a half step and a banana peel away when we found her.” Mark said.

“No, you don’t understand. She was sixty when she began the treatment, and now she looks about thirty.”

“How the hell did that happen?”

“I found her the next morning, alive and well, but fully transformed. She openly admitted to doing it on purpose because she liked the way it felt when the fish fed upon her. She said that ‘It tickled and then everything tingled.’ When I examined her body, I found that the fish rejuvenated everything that they had touched.”

“And this means?”

“We’re sitting on the best thing since botox.”

A few days later, their shop opened in the mall. Women lined up around the store and almost to the parking lot in order to procure a pedicure and perhaps a bit more. It was said that they could perform miracles at “Turn Back The Time Salon”, and everyone (including the fish) were just dying to give it a try.