KRAKEN

A Goliath Squid has washed out of the Yannan Riv. and into Lake Cooper & is eating divers!

Barbara Cadbury and her husband, David, were part of a troop of half a dozen scuba divers who were determined to explore Lake Cooper outside Harpertown in the Victorian countryside. It was late July, which would usually be Hellishly cold in Victoria; however, the state had had a very mild winter so far in 2025, so the scuba team saw no reason to put off their curiosity until November.
Lake Cooper was an inland lake which snaked for kilometres, requiring a lot of investigating. However, it was stocked with often exotic fish when the Yannan River overflowed and met up with the lake. The Yannan led right back to the Tasman Sea, where all kinds of exotic, and often deadly fish were sighted. Just recently, a massive devil fish [see my story, 'The Devil Fish'.] had been killing people in the area, until killed by Terri Scott and the local police. Hoping not to find anything that exotic, still, the Cadbury Team hoped to find exotic marine life to study and photograph. Their exploration was partly for pleasure, but partly for research for their Master's Degrees in Marine Biology.
"Something tells me we're going to find something massive in the lake today," enthused David Cadbury, the leader of the team. A tall, lean, raven-haired man.
"As long as we don't find another Devil Fish," teased Barbara, a tall, leggy blonde with a wicked sense of humour.
"I'm fairly certain that the cops swept the river for any more after Terri Scott killed the one terrorising the place recently," said David, as usual, not realising when his wife was teasing him.
"But the Glen Hartwell Police don't have a mini-sub," teased Helena Menzies, Barbara's younger sister, "so they can't have searched it too thoroughly."
"And they don't have the money to hire divers to check it out," continued her husband, Virgil, a tall, thin, redheaded man.
"Are you lot having a go at me!" demanded David.
"No! No! No!" they all lied, shaking their heads.
"But we might," said David's sister Tina Lewis, a tall, chesty brunette, David's younger sister.
"Yes, respected team leader," said her husband, Eden, a medium-height, dark-haired man.
"Show him some respect!" said Barbara sternly. Then, between laughter, but not too much."
"Thank you, honey," said David.
He tried to pinch her on the backside, but found that it was impossible through her black and yellow-striped wetsuit.
"Okay, let's go searching for Devil Fish," teased Helena as they headed toward the water's edge. She pulled on her scuba mask and turned on her oxygen as she started into the cold but not freezing water. "The water's fine, come on in," she tried to say through her mouthpiece.
"I think she mumbled that the water is fine," said Barbara. After adjusting her mask and starting her oxygen, she started into the water also.
"We're not gonna let the sheilas beat us to any great marine discoveries, are we blokes?" teased Eden, starting after the two women.
"No way," agreed Virgil, starting forward also.
"So, it's a war of the sexes, is it?" asked Tina, starting forward after them.; Then, calling back to David, "Hey, team leader, you're coming last."
"It isn't a race," insisted David, before starting after the others.
At first, the water was a bit cold, despite their wetsuits; however, in time, their bodies adjusted to the low temperature.
Swimming along in the surprisingly deep lake, they came across a variety of Tasman Sea fish: Pacific bluefin tuna, Chilean jack mackerel, blue grenadier, and Pacific saury. All of which they snapped pictures of with their undersea cameras.
Barbara was enjoying the adventure until something twice the size of her swam within centimetres of her. Looking terrified, the leggy blonde backpeddled until David came up to her and wrote on his underwater writing boards, 'It's just an Indo-Pacific Sailfish. They're harmless.'
Barbara nodded and breathed out to clear any water from her mouthpiece, before tentatively swimming across to the large fish, perhaps 3.6 metres (11 feet) in length. She snapped off a number of pictures of the great blue and white fish.
What a beauty, she thought, now that she knew that she was safe around it.
Perhaps because of its great size, the sailfish was not concerned by Barbara swimming around it. Also, as the fastest fish on earth, capable of travelling up to fifty-five kilometres an hour, it could easily escape most potential predators. After a few of minutes, though, the sailfish got bored and accelerated out of sight around the serpentine lake.
Come back! Barbara wanted to shout, but was unable to. After a moment's hesitation, she started after the sailfish, even though she couldn't hope to catch up with it.
After a few minutes, she came face to face with something that looked like a large white shield, perhaps forty centimetres in diameter.
What the firk? Barbara wondered.

Over at the Yellow House at Rochester Road in Merridale, they were sitting down to another of Deidre Morton's divine meals.
"What treasures are you serving up to us for lunch today?" asked Sheila Bennett. A Goth chick with black-and-orange striped shoulder-length hair, at thirty-six, Sheila was the Chief Constable of the BeauLarkin to Willamby area.
"My world-famous meatloaf, with mashed potatoes and gravy, carrots, cauliflower with white sauce, and your choice of peas or beans," said Deidre, a short, plump, sixty-something, and a trained cordon bleu chef.
"Sounds fabuloso," said Terri Scott. An ash blonde, the same age as Sheila, Terri was the Senior Sergeant of the area and was engaged to Colin.
"Yum, yum," said Natasha Lipzing. A tall, thin, grey-haired lady of seventy-one, Natasha had lived at the Yellow House for more than half of her life.
"No one does meatloaf like Deidre," enthused Freddy Kingston, a tall, stout, balding retiree.
"As long as she put plenty of rum in the gravy," moaned Tommy Turner, a forcibly reforming alcoholic, a short, blonde retiree.
"No, but feel free to pour your tot of rum over it," advised Deidre.
"I wouldn't mind a tot of rum," said Terri.
"Me too," said Leo Laxman. A tall, thin Jamaican, Leo was a nurse at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital.
"Three tots of rum, coming right up," offered Deidre.
"Oiy! Oiy! Oiy!" called Tommy.
"He really is getting good at those bird calls," teased Natasha.
"Just who buys that rum?"
"I do, at the Glen Hartwell Mall," said Deidre.
"With the money that I give to you."
"Most generous of you," teased Leo.
"It's bad enough that you limit how much of it I can drink, without handing it out free to everyone else."
"It's not everyone else," said Terri, "only you, Leo, and I like your rum."
"Sarky blonde cow," said Tommy, not impressed.
"You should arrest him for that, babe," teased Colin Klein. A tall redheaded Englishman, he had worked for thirty years as a top crime reporter before retiring to take up work with the Glen Hartwell Police Department.

Mesmerised by the large white circular object, Barbara Cadbury treaded water for a moment, staring at the forty-centimetre diameter eye suddenly opened to reveal a soft-ball-sized black pupil.
What the fuck? Barbara thought, in her last moments of life, before the Kraken turned on its side to reveal its huge, beaked mouth to its prey.
I think it's a colossal squid, Barbara thought, marvelling at the four-metre wide creature. Wow, what a beauty, it must weigh easily five hundred kilos. And look at those incredible tentacles. I wouldn't like to be on the receiving end of those.
Ignoring the danger of the massive tentacles, as the Kraken rounded upon her, Barbara started snapping off pictures of the creature.




THE END
© Copyright 2025 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia