Blame this.
North Carolina Land Muskie – Google Docs
North Carolina Land Muskie
Esox masquinongy infernalis
This amphibious, unpleasantly giant (10 feet, 1,000 pounds), and amphibious fish is, fortunately, sufficiently different from the common North American muskie to prevent reproduction. And ‘fortunately’ is justified: certainly just about everybody in the world who knows anything about Land Muskies is prepared to do virtually anything needed to ‘prevent reproduction.’ Indeed, the legendary ‘black ops’ section of the Endangered Species Act reportedly authorizes a bounty for dead Land Muskies, no questions asked — or permitted.
Why both the mundane, and the Shadow Government hate? Because Land Muskies are thaumo-ecological menaces. Blame: oh, take your pick. Hippies or MK-ULTRA or Majestic-12 or nuclear tests or fluoridation or Beatlemania or Sid and Marty Krofft or milk subsidies or any of the various other attempts in the 1960s to Call Up What Ye Cannot Put Down; when you throw around half-understood magical energy, you get magical mutations. Simple as that. In this case, you get a half-ton vicious fish that can move around on land and even jump a respectable distance in the air.
And if that wasn’t enough, there are two more problems with North Carolina Land Muskies. The first is that they eat, well, everything (although their original diet was the humble lawn crawfish). One can eat a sheep fairly easily, in fact — and Land Muskies aren’t afraid of humans. Sure, maybe only one or two people get eaten a year, but it still happens. The second problem? Land Muskies are fairly toxic beasts. Their slime is not-fun hallucinogenic, their bite is simultaneously corrosive and septic, their flatulence attracts Africanized bees, and a Land Muskie’s very flesh is impregnated with a naturally-occurring occult substance that seriously interferes with ritual spell use. Fortunately, it’s easy enough to shoot one; unfortunately, half a ton of carnivorous amphibian fish-flesh can soak up a lot of bullets. The Department of Interior recommends a rocket-propelled grenade when hunting one. Or possibly napalm. Check the relevant hunting rules for your state.
If you’re wondering, by the way, why you’ve probably never heard of these things; well, there was a certain television comedy program back in the Seventies that tried to warn people en masse. But They got to the show, and made them make it about sharks. Same thing in the 1990s, only it was a movie company, and They had the writers change it to crocodiles. And then there’s been that recent series of annual direct-to-cable specials? Yeah, somebody was trying to warn about the Land Muskies again, and how a particular breed had come up with a peculiarly specific form of magical levitation. So They changed the monster, again; but nobody really understands Why they keep letting that company make sequels. It’s all probably part of a nefarious plot. Isn’t everything?
ZOMG. You’ve just described Magikarp Jump.