The Mermaid
The Mermaid
You put down your drink and the bar doors swing open with an angry roar. You look up and your jaw drops. You've never seen someone so beautiful. Long golden hair, big sea blue eyes and a mouth meant for smiling. She's the girl of your dreams. And she's also soaking wet. She looks as though someone's thrown her in the river. Just as you’re about to stand up and approach the lady one of the very drunk regular’s sways towards her, clearly as entranced by her beauty as you are. Unfortunately, he isn't so subtle about it. “Ayyyy laaady. Your beeauutiful. I wanna 'ave you in my bed. Was your name?” The lady opens her mouth to speak but all that comes out is a strange ethereal noise, almost like the song of a whale. “You wha' love. Speak Eenglishhhh” the drunk slurs as his comrades in foulness ooze off their stools and slide towards the pair. If they weren't so obscenely drunk they'd look like predators surrounding their prey. As it is they make a terrifying sight.
The lady opens her mouth and that strange whale song pours out again while her perfect eyebrows leap up and down like neatly trimmed mad marsh hares. She can't speak English you realise. That same realisation has apparently dawned on one of the Neanderthal drunkards. “She ain't one of us. She don't belong her. She's a foraigneer. Get outta here bitch!” he suddenly roars, seizing a glass and throwing it at her. It misses, but barely just and you’re out of your seat and moving across the counter before you’re really aware of what you’re doing. There's a fire extinguisher standing sentry by the nearest wall and you seize it as the drunken mob go in for the attack.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Really, hitting people over the head with a fire extinguisher is a bit like playing drums you reflect as you smash another drunkard’s head in. Two lunge for you, and backed against the counter you open fire with the nozzle. That's enough to get the remaining drunkards’ attention off the lady and onto you. Which is just as well for the lady. She looks as though one more blow will finish her off. “Go! Get out of here!” you yell at her, praying that she can understand you.
The last you see of her is a pink blur shooting through the doorway like a frightened animal as you roll over the counter and topple behind the bar.
After chucking what seems like half the bar at the drunkards, you lose the fight. You’re forcibly ejected from the bar and tossed into the river to drown. And drown you almost do, until she appears like an angel of death. She places small, strong, green?! hands underneath your armpits and pulls you up so that your head is above the surface of the water. You can see the bar, vibrating with crude greasy music, no doubt coming from the Neanderthals inside. You don't feel like getting out of the water and staggering home. All of a sudden, your body begins to move, pulled by the lady who is a lot stronger than she appeared to be. But why didn't she fight back at the bar then, you wonder.
You don't have time to ponder that question long, as you’re pulled under water again. You panic for a moment, wondering if the lady is going to have her own try at drowning you. Then you see it. A tail where the lady's legs should be. A deep blue, glistening mermaid tail. She's a mermaid. There's a real mermaid dragging you through the water. You’ve heard of them but you’ve never seen one before. Thanks to humans they’re incredibly rare and dangerous in water. 'Oh bloody hell you'd better not be hallucinating' you think as you struggle not to open your mouth and screech. 'You've rescued a bloody mermaid!'
You start to feel faint and, as if she can sense it, she hauls you up for a cold air induced slap in the face. “Holy shit you’re a mermaid!” you exclaim as soon as you can talk, “I’ve never…”, you’ve never seen a living mermaid with your own eyes before. The lady's head surfaces and she nods gravely then puts a finger to her lips. 'Right, don't go screaming that to the whole bloody world' you think.
Suddenly she lets you go and vanishes. You panic, thinking that now you have discovered her secret she's going to leave you to drown in the deepest part of the river. Then you spot a ladder clinging desperately to the nearest wall and scramble up it so fast your already battered limbs complain loudly. You’re never going near the river again you promise yourself as you look around to find out where you are. Next time you come down here you might end up meeting a giant squid.
You stand up and shiver away, realising that where she's dropped you isn't far from home. A few days later, after you've managed to convince yourself that the beautiful lady turning out to be a mermaid was simply a concussion induced dream, the daily newspaper topples through your door. You pick it up, unfurl it with one hand and drop your juice in shock. On the front page is a head shot of the lady who rescued you. She's dead. She was murdered. You race through the details of the case and your stomach begins to churn. She was attacked by something, something that from the police description was definitely not your average peckish or irate animal. And there's more. She was found downriver, her legs, or what was left of them, submerged in water and covered in something green and scaly that appeared to be a part of her. “Oh, bloody hell. It was real” you gasp. The lady really was a mermaid. She really did rescue you, you realise. And you never thanked her. And now she's dead. You’re going to go and talk to the police today, you resolve, and make sure that her body is sent out to sea, where she belongs. And if you can, you’re going to try and find the thing that killed her. It needs to be stopped, before it kills anyone else.
Published 31st May 2017