Don't Go Home Before Seven

For three years Caleb has fished the river without landing a single real catch, until a homeless man on the bank tells him he has been feeding them all for years and offers one warning in return: his wife is cheating, and if he goes home before seven tonight, he will die. The stranger vanishes, and at that same instant Caleb's float goes under, a thirty-five-pound fish bending his rod into a horseshoe.

Marty nets the monster, the whole bank gathers, and Caleb's phone starts filling with messages from Claire Holden, the wife of his next-door neighbor, Bryce, claiming he stabbed her and begging him to come back. He takes them for a scam. His wife Lauren calls, warm and gentle, saying she is staying with her mother, Diane, and urging him to go home, shower and call her once he is inside.

Caleb says he is going home. He does not. A trophy this size deserves a parade, and the tackle shop, a traffic officer and a roadside barbecue stand all have to see it first.