My name is Reid Holt. I'm an exterminator based out of Des Moines, Iowa. Have been for a few years now. It's not glamorous work but it pays, Mike's a decent boss, and the van comes with the job which is more than I can say for most things in my life. Fun fact about me: I have a degree's worth of student debt and no degree to show for it. Started school for zoology, didn't finish due to family problems, and ended up eventually removing animals from buildings for a living.

  It was Monday morning, my day off, and I was crossing the Principal Riverwalk bridge just after grabbing my usual from Daisy Chain. Light roast, heavy cream, raw sugar, little honey. The latest book from an author I like had released and I'd grabbed it from the shop around the corner. A good enough reason to be outside.

  I felt the wind kick up as a jogger passed without making eye contact. I glanced out toward the water the way you do when you're not really looking at anything in particular.

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  That's when I saw it.

  Something breaching quietly, moving with the current. A large sail-like dorsal structure first, dark and ridged, leading back toward a long sleek form just under the wake. A shape that didn't match anything my brain had a file for.

  I turned to look directly at it.

  Nothing. Just the river. Just the light reflecting off the surface.

  I stood there with my coffee halfway to my mouth.

  Huh.

  "You're just seeing things, Reid," I said to nobody in particular, rubbed one eye, and kept walking.

  I found a shaded bench facing the water and cracked the book open. The words were there. I was reading them technically. But some part of my brain had stayed back on the bridge, turning over what I thought I'd seen. The shape of it. The way it moved with the current instead of against it. Something about the sail reminded me of a Spinosaurus dorsal, which was insane, or maybe the fin of something very large that had come up for air and thought better of it.

  I looked around. Virtually nobody out. I pulled a disposable vape from my pocket, JCY OG in drippy font on the side, and took a few quiet pulls before setting it on the bench beside me.

  I looked back at the river.

  It looked like it always did.

  I turned back to my book and read the same paragraph three times before giving up and just watching the water instead, just sipping on my coffee in the afternoon sun.