Every day, a 70-year-old retired woman bought a fish from a familiar vendor every morning for a month straight. One day, the vendor decided to follow her, and when he saw where she was releasing the fish, he called the police.
Part 1: The Strange Guest at the Harbor
The harbor town of Blackwood, Maine, is a place where the frost erodes everything, from the pier’s beams to the trust between people. Arthur, a fifty-year-old fishmonger with sun-tanned skin and hands scarred with age, has stood at this pier for thirty years. He knows the habits of every wave, every seagull, and especially every customer.
But Eleanor is an enigma that troubles him.
Eleanor, 70 years old, a widow living in an old, isolated mansion on the cliff. Every morning at exactly 6 o’clock, when the first fishing boats arrive, she appears. She always buys the same large, fresh bass, its eyes still bright blue.
“The same bass, Eleanor?” Arthur asks, his hands quickly wrapping the fish in newspaper.
“Yes, Arthur. It has to be fresh. It doesn’t like stale stuff,” she smiled, a pale smile, her eyes always gazing vaguely toward the dark pines behind the town.
This went on for 30 days. Arthur began to calculate: An old woman living alone couldn’t possibly eat 30 large bass in a month. She didn’t have a cat either, and her neighbors said that smoke never rose from her kitchen. Arthur’s curiosity turned to unease when he noticed a strange, foul smell clinging to the money she gave him—not the smell of sea fish, but the smell of a swamp, the smell of decay.
Part 2: The Follow-Through Fog
On the morning of the 31st, after Eleanor left with the bundle of fish, Arthur decided to close his stall early. He quietly followed her thin figure, maintaining a safe distance in the thick fog of Maine.
Instead of heading toward the cliffside villa, Eleanor turned onto a path leading deep into the Devil’s Swamp—a dark, stagnant body of water that locals avoided because of legends of the missing.
Arthur hid behind an old cypress tree, his heart pounding. He saw Eleanor standing at the edge of the dark water. She took out the bass, but not to release it back into the wild. With a small knife, she meticulously cut the fish into small pieces, then whispered strange words:
“Come and eat, son. I got the best fish in the harbor today. Eat so we can talk.”
She dropped each piece of fish into the water. Immediately, the surface of the swamp bubbled. Something large, dark, and slimy rose to the surface. Arthur held his breath. It wasn’t a fish, nor a crocodile. It had the shape of a human arm, but long, pale, and covered in rough scales.
Arthur, trembling, pulled out his phone, dialing 911 with ragged breaths. “Police… come to the Devil’s Swamp… Eleanor… she’s raising a monster down there!”
Part 3: Climax – The Truth Under the Water
Fifteen minutes later, Sheriff Miller and his three assistants arrived. They found Arthur crouching under a tree, his face pale, pointing toward the swamp.
Eleanor stood there, eerily calm. “You’re a little early,” she said, her voice as cold as the sea breeze. “It hasn’t finished eating yet.”
“Eleanor, stay away from the water’s edge!” Miller yelled, his hand on his gun holster. “What are you raising down there?”
The police used grappling hooks and large nets to search the bubbling water. When the grappling hook pulled up a heavy object, the entire police team and Arthur were stunned.
It wasn’t a monster. It was a large, rusty iron cage containing the nearly decomposed body of a man, his head and hands wrapped in strange, stark white bandages. Horrifyingly, the body was connected to a crude breathing tube leading to the surface.
“It’s not a monster!” Eleanor cried as the police pulled the cage ashore. “It’s my son, Thomas! He’s alive! He just needs to be fed!”
Part 4: The Twist – The Fishmonger and the Sleeping Crime
When forensic experts examined the body in the cage, a shocking truth was revealed. The man was Thomas, Eleanor’s son, who had disappeared in a mysterious shipwreck 10 years earlier. But he hadn’t drowned. He had been murdered and chained to this cage to be submerged in the swamp.
Eleanor had discovered the cage a month earlier thanks to the receding swamp water. The grief had driven her mad; she believed her son was still alive in the form of a “water creature” and needed to be fed daily.
But that wasn’t all.
Chief Miller looked at the iron cage and noticed a familiar symbol in the bottom corner: a distinctive anchor tattoo etched into the steel. He turned to look at Arthur, the fishmonger.
“Arthur,” Miller said, his voice full of suspicion. “You said she was raising a monster because you saw something surfacing, right?”
“Yes… yes,” Arthur stammered.
“But the forensics say this body died 10 years ago. The thing that ‘surfacing’ to eat Eleanor’s fish was the giant electric eels that live in this swamp. They crawled into the cage through the gaps to eat the flesh and the fish she threw down.”
Miller moved closer to Arthur. “The question is, why is this cage here?”
“Do you have the code and markings for your fish shop? And why is the only key to unlock this chain found in your jacket pocket right now, when we’re searching you for your statement?”
Part 5: The Extreme Climax – The Loop of Conscience
Arthur collapsed. Ten years ago, he and Thomas had argued over a consignment of smuggled goods from the sea. In a fit of rage, Arthur had knocked Thomas down, chained him to a fish cage, and thrown him into this swamp, believing the secret would be buried forever.
He never imagined that, ten years later, the blind kindness of a poor mother would be the very thing that brought his crime to light. Eleanor bought fish from the very man who killed her son to feed his soul in the swamp. Every fish Arthur sold in the past month was a step closer to the gallows.
“She chose your shop,” Miller said as he handcuffed Arthur, “not by chance.” In her frenzy, she kept saying that his fish tasted like Thomas’. It turned out he was the one who had been carrying that ‘taste’ for a decade.
Eleanor watched the police car carrying Arthur away, her hand still clutching the last piece of newspaper wrapping the fish. The Devil’s Swamp returned to silence, but this time, the mournful cries of the fog had an explanation. Arthur would pay for the 30 days of the most dedicated “service” of his life—a dedication that led straight to prison.
Arthur sat in the defendant’s chair, his face gaunt, his hands, once capable of deboning thousands of fish, now trembling uncontrollably. He watched Eleanor ascend the witness stand. She was no longer wearing her tattered, mud-stained clothes. She wore a dignified black dress, her back straight, her eyes sharp as razor blades.
“Mrs. Vance,” the prosecutor began. “You have been buying fish from the defendant for 30 days. Can you tell the court why you chose Arthur’s shop?”
The courtroom fell silent. Eleanor paused for a moment, then took a small glass vial containing a dark brown liquid from her handbag.
“Because Arthur doesn’t just sell fish,” her voice was calm and chilling. “He sells forgetfulness. Ten years ago, on the night Thomas disappeared, Arthur came to see me. He gave me a kind of potion, saying it would help me sleep soundly in the midst of a storm. I’ve been drinking it for the past ten years. That potion has clouded my mind, making me believe my son is still out at sea.”
Part 2: The Twist – The Network of Frost
The courtroom erupted in commotion. Arthur shouted, “This old woman is crazy! I only wanted to help her!”
“You helped me by poisoning me?” Eleanor turned to look Arthur straight in the eyes. “Until a month ago, when I ran out of the potion and couldn’t get more because you said the supply was cut off. When my mind started to clear, I found myself standing before a swamp. I saw the cage. And I realized something more terrible than my son’s death.”
She turned to the judge: “Sir, Thomas wasn’t the only one down there. Arthur turned the Devil’s Swamp into a dumping ground for the entire town’s smuggling ring. There are at least three other cages down there, containing those who dared to stand in the way of the alliance between him and… Sheriff Miller.”
Part 3: The Climax – The Double Betrayal
The room fell into a deathly silence. Sheriff Miller, who had been standing guard at the door, suddenly turned pale. He was about to reach for his gun holster, but FBI agents had already emerged from the side doors of the courtroom, their guns loaded.
“We’ve been scouring the swamp for the past 48 hours, based on the map Mrs. Vance provided,” an agent stepped forward. “We found not only remains, but also shipments of methamphetamine and weapons wrapped in fish skins, hidden in fish cages with the same serial numbers as Arthur’s shop.”
It turned out Eleanor wasn’t insane at all. She had feigned madness for those 30 days to mislead Arthur, making him believe she was just a senile old woman raising a “monster.” Each morning she bought fish, she was actually observing Miller’s patrol schedule and Arthur’s sneaking out to the swamp to check on the “goods.”
She used those 30 fish to lure the eels and scavengers, causing them to thrash violently whenever someone approached, creating the illusion of a “water creature” so Arthur wouldn’t dare go near Thomas’s cage to inspect it closely.
Part 4: The End – The Ocean’s Judgment
Arthur and Miller were led away, much to the astonishment of the town. Blackwood was not just a peaceful harbor; it was a den of crime exposed by a courageous old mother.
As she left the courthouse, Eleanor gazed out at the ocean. She picked up the old vial of medicine and tossed it forcefully against the rocky outcrops. The vial shattered, the poisonous liquid washed away by the waves.
“Eleanor!” Arthur cried as he was shoved into the guard carriage. “Why did you wait ten years to act?”
Eleanor didn’t turn, she only spoke softly enough for the wind to carry her words: “Because I needed ten years to make sure that when I dragged him down, he would never be able to rise again. Thomas has waited long enough.”
She walked away, her thin figure fading into the Maine fog. The Devil’s Swamp was finally filled in, but what it left behind would forever be a reminder: Never underestimate a mother with nothing left to lose, for she can transform a deadly swamp into the most sophisticated trap in the world.
