Fresh Seafood
Recording by Scribe Ellison
The bridge into Sanctuary must have once been sturdy enough to drive over, back when automobiles could move on their own. Today it's collapsing, patched with scrap wood just wide enough for a brahmin to traverse. The river around the bridge has been dredged deep to create a barrier against any intruders coming up the road.
Underneath, scraps of chain link fence have been cobbled together into a square cage half in the water. My first thought was that it was for punishment, confining malefactors in the foul water would certainly be a deterrent to crime. In fact the cage is full of mirelurk eggs that hatch into…
"Dinner!" Shiloh Mason carols. "Get ready in case one gets past me!"
She unwires a well-secured metal grate and the hatchlings race for freedom on their many legs. The unpleasant splashing skittering sound of a full grown mirelurk is the same in their offspring. Shiloh catches one in each hand and while she dispatches them another one escapes between her legs. "Get it, get it, Scribe!"
I'm on the riverbank but well placed to skewer the little monster with my knife. I hold it up and take the one Shiloh killed in my free hand. She re-secures the cage one handed, the last hatchling alive and squirming in her other hand.
"They're better if they're reeeeeally fresh. Here, hold it under the plate behind the head, like this. Now we go drop them in boiling water, cut up the meat… Mom says they taste like shrimp, whatever those are. Are the fish good to eat in the capital? The fish here are too toxic, but you have that 'Project Purity' thing cleaning your water..."
I have to confess that we still can't eat fish either.