"Siren" by Fáinche Ní Dhuibhne
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Siren
by Fáinche Ní Dhuibhne
So there we were, the wind stealing the words from our lips before we’d even had the chance to catch them, his hair tangling like a grape vine down the nape of his neck, dewdrops of water glistening in the strands. Gulls screamed below us, riding the air currents in a way that made me believe in symbiotic synchronicity. Waves roared and crashed, foam spraying the jagged rocks that jutted out from the seabed. I shivered in anticipation.
“See there?” he yelled, pointing down from where we stood on the cliff’s edge.
I tentatively crushed a plume of heather to get a better view. Blinking away the salty air, my stomach dropped. The couple walked, stooped against the wind and rain, hands shoved in their weathered hiking-gear pockets.
“The usual?”
He pushed his lips out in thought and I fought not to think about how they felt in the hazy grey morning between the sheets.
“Aye. Let’s see how the form is first. Probably be done by tea time.”
After a laborious trek down the cliff to the hidden cove, my lungs were tight and burning and the sweat dripped down the small of my back. I chanced a glance in his direction - cheeks flushed, skin a vibrant tan, dark eyes sparkling and alive. My gut pulled in desire and uncertainty as we carefully picked our way along the smooth pebbles that rolled and rocked with every gentle wave. Stalactites protruded through the gloom like canines in an open maw, the darkness thick and foreboding. I hesitated, fumbling in my pockets for my earbuds. They were dead, but they’d do the trick.
“Coming?” He asked without turning.
I passed through the jaws and again felt that awful shimmer. My brain lifted from the base of my skull and my vision blurred momentarily. After a few deep breaths, the worst of it passed, but a sheen of blue and purple still hugged the edges of my vision, like a polaroid held over an open flame. The cave exploded in vivid colour before shattering into a kaleidoscopic dance. Stepping around saltwater puddles, a crab scurried out of view underfoot. I was momentarily distracted by its heavy pincers.
“I’m not…” I trailed off, catching myself after opening my mouth.
He turned from the final threshold; a small opening we would have to squeeze through.
“You say something?” He asked, a flash of concern in those brown eyes. He gestured to his ear - his were muffled too. Anxiously, I took one earbud out to make sure I’d placed it in properly, and in that second I heard the unmistakable sound of a tail slapping the water. I shoved it back into my ear, goosebumps rippling across my skin.
****
I don’t know how long it’s been here. Forever, maybe.
Barnacles and seaweed adorned its monstrous humanoid face like jewellery. Its milky-white, wide-set eyes were reminiscent of the blank stare of a drowned man, its mottled blue skin bloated and pustule. Black blood seeped from the new wound on its forehead; lest it get too rowdy. Chains rattled silently and it opened its mouth in what I could only assume was a cry. Fins sprouted from the elbows and along its spine, all the way down to what once must have been a magnificent and powerful tail.
My vision became so vivid I could see each sheen and spiral of the scales that formed from the underarms of its atrophied limbs to the swollen stomach. It was shacked around the neck, wrists, and two sections of its emaciated tail - some parts of the rusted metal had melted into the flesh. The pond it lay in was small and had been shrinking every year. The smell was unbearable. Weak blue light struggled through the cavern, illuminating the broken bones that hadn’t yet decomposed. I couldn't bear to look at the empty sockets.
“Aye, it’s about time for another. What do you think, big lad?” He said and poked the creature under its limp arm. It flinched away. “I could get them quick with the rifle and then drag them here. Make sure you tie them good and tight, not like”-
The memory of chasing after a screaming woman, sand kicked into my mouth, scraping my skin.
“I’m - I can’t do this anymore!” The words pushed themselves out without my consent. I closed my eyes and instinctively covered my mouth, as if I could cram them back in. A long second ticked by in which I thought I could make out a rattling wheeze from the creature.
“What?” he exasperated.
I heard the chains fall from his hands and the muffled steps towards me.
“For God’s sakes,” He said something else that I couldn’t catch, and then “Look at me” when I refused to answer.
My head thudded painfully on the slick cold wall as he shoved me against it, forearm tight against my throat.
“Don’t be fucking stupid,” he hissed, at the same time I felt prickling caress along my thoughts, simultaneously boiling and freezing.
Suddenly everything dimmed, the colours muted. My eyes slid to the creature and I realised my earbud had been knocked out of my ear. Its milky white eye creased in what I could only imagine was a smile. The last thought that I felt was originally my own was simple: fuck.
I watched what happened next like it was a silent film.
I smashed his head in with the rock, like cracking an egg on the frying pan. He went down with a thud before exhaling and muttered something unintelligible. The creature crawled forwards slowly after I’d smashed the metal off. So slowly that I wondered if it would make it at all- it gasped and dragged itself, struggling to hold the weight of its elongated body. I turned and made my way out of the cavern, thinking of the creature’s thin syringe-like teeth piercing through those brown eyes.
Mechanically, I filled my pockets with smooth pebbles. The water is cold.