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Carnage House

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The Murdering Mustelids of Milwaukee

by Nora B. Peevy

I DELIVERED MY my soliloquy with great fervor as Rosalind, when nearing the last line, my favorite, the audience, snacking on their street food from The Blue Bat Kitchen and imbibing their Tequileria samples, screamed. A bunch of the theatergoers shouted and pointed behind me. I stopped and turned. A bevy of otters had hopped out of the river and crawled towards us on the walkway. The theatergoers threw lobster bruschetta and clams at the mustelids as the raft advanced steadily, bloodlust in their eyes, their teeth sharp and forbidding. I and the rest of my troupe retreated behind a patio table. One of my friends took the umbrella and fended off the gang of otters, but more incensed, they charged the small crowd.

An otter leapt on a woman’s face and hung from her nose by its teeth as she screamed, the blood ran over her lips, dripping on her pearl necklace. She grabbed its sleek pelt and twisted. The otter came away with a chunk of her nose the size of a quarter, which it wolfed down with zeal as it turned on her date who cowered behind his menu. It leapt deftly over the menu and sank its teeth into the man’s carotid artery. Blood spurted over the Blue Bat menu and the lady’s glasses as she held her linen napkin to her nose.

One of the beasts shimmied up my hose to my shoulder and nipped off an earlobe, swallowing it like a shellfish. I screamed. All around me furry little monsters seeming so cute at the zoo, romping with rocks on their bellies, attacked with glee. Three otters tugged on a toddler’s hand until it severed, they wrestled for the meat while the toddler howled and gore spouted everywhere. Theatergoers puked in their street tacos and tuna tartar, the sour scent mixing with the alkaline gore of the blood flooding their olfactory senses. Mustelids ran down the riverwalk, sleek and oiled, with ripped, jagged, and half-chewed appendages in their mouths, their pups scrambling after, hissing with formidable teeth bared.

A brunette woman cowered underneath her table, dialing 911 on her cell. Minutes later, the police arrived as a group of kayakers in neon kayaks flew by with a frenzied horde of adorable furry murderers attached to their backs, ripping chunks of flesh from their necks and cheeks and clawing the whites of their eyes. The kayakers screamed, now blind and unable to see where they were paddling.

Maybe two hours later, the killer mustelids attacked further down the riverwalk, interrupting impromptu concerts and lovers strolling and admiring the lights of downtown. The night air filled with an oratorio of howls and shrieks, but those otters, man, those damned furry murderous beasts from hell were winning. The next day we found a kayaker smuggled a baby otter in their backpack to keep. The otter gang retaliated in revenge.

The lesson is this: Never piss off a raft of otters.

They will cannibalize your ass.


About the Story:
I was inspired by the river walkway in my hometown and thought attacking river otters would be hilarious.