by Dan Glover
Summer's Mermaid
Books by Dan Glover
Philosophy
Lila’s Child: An Inquiry Into Quality
The Art of Caring: Zen Stories
The Mystery: Zen Stories
Apache Nation
The Lazy Way to 100,000 Twitter Followers
The Gathering of Lovers series
Billy Austin
Lisa
Allison Johns
Tom Three Deer
Justine
Yelena
The Mermaid series
Winter's Mermaid
Mermaid Spring
Summer's Mermaid
Short Stories
There Come a Bad Cloud: Tangled up Matter and Ghosts
Mi Vida Dinámica
Summer's Mermaid
Dan Glover
Published by Lost Doll Publishing
Copyright 2014
All Rights Reserved
All the characters in this story are fictional. Any resemblance to the living or the dead is coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1—Beast
Chapter 2—Home Again
Chapter 3—Taking Flight
Chapter 4—Dragons
Chapter 5—Karen and Pete
Chapter 6—Taboo
Chapter 7—Toulon
Chapter 8—Sickness
Chapter 9—Crossed Signals
Chapter 10—The Lady Speaks
Chapter 11—Sailing Away
Chapter 12—Hiccups
Chapter 13—Two Times
Chapter 14—Tribes
Chapter 15—Niall
Chapter 16—Luciana
Chapter 17—Losing Lily
Chapter 18—Solitude
Chapter 19—Magic Carpet Ride
Chapter 20—Death
Chapter 21—Star Dreaming
Chapter 22—Terroir
Chapter 23—Storms
Chapter 24—Infatuation
Chapter 25—Guilt
Chapter 26—Talking to Angels
Chapter 27—Fairy Tales
Chapter 28—Machines
Chapter 29—Fear
Chapter 30—Thief in the Night
Chapter 31—To the Rescue
Chapter 32—Once There Were Three
Chapter 33—Prisoners
Chapter 34—Switch
Chapter 35—Dreams
Chapter 36—Shining Kirk
Chapter 37—Lost in America
Chapter 38—Shadows in the Dark
Chapter 39—Tunnels
Chapter 40—Feeling Electric
Chapter 41—Hiss
Chapter 42—Monkeys
Chapter 43—Alone Again
Chapter 44—Missing
Chapter 45—Surprises
Chapter 46—Static
Chapter 47—Exposed
Chapter 48—The Plan
Chapter 49—The Attack
Chapter 50—Promises Broken
Chapter 51—Liar
Chapter 52—Trust
Chapter 53—Best Time
Chapter 54—The Letdown
Chapter 55—Defeat
Chapter 56—Hurt
Chapter 57—What Dreams May Come
Chapter 58—Hero
Chapter 59—Death in the Afternoon
Chapter 60—Sleepwalking
Chapter 61—Creation
Chapter 62—Endurance
Chapter 63—Salt
Chapter 64—Waking
Chapter 65—Salvation
Chapter 66—Old Bones
Chapter 67—Goodbye
Chapter 68—Troublemaker
Chapter 69—The Sundering
Chapter 70—Mirages
Chapter 71—Loss
Chapter 72—Decisions
Chapter 73—The Go-Between
Chapter 74—Spite
Chapter 75—Cows
Chapter 76—Choices
Chapter 77—Good and Evil
Chapter 78—Double Crosses
Chapter 79—The Healer
Chapter 80—Blush
Chapter 81—Before the Devil Knows You Are There
Chapter 82—News
Chapter 83—Disease
Chapter 84—Numb
Chapter 85—Little Conveniences
"I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and forbore, and bade me creep past."
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Chapter 1— Beast
He was the beast who had no name.
Whether he was ever born seemed an unsolvable mystery. The steely days and metal-clad nights did nothing to assuage the solitude he felt yet he had come to believe he was as alone as the sea that continually thrust her longings against the breakwater his minions built in order to keep the tumultuous waters at bay.
He was the thought while they were the action. They were the perfect team. Him, a broken man made whole by the machinations of his creations. Once sentenced to die, he had outlived the world that had shunned him and deigned him the unlovable. Unlike him, his tiny inventions would forever be bent upon becoming better.
There was a time when he desired to be more than a misshapen lump of flesh holding onto a purposeless life bereft of hope; at least he told himself so. He remembered a woman soft, warm, and pretty. When all hope had been lost of ever seeing another living human being, she appeared. In his madness to quench the raging fires of isolation he kept her against her will with hopes of forcing her love.
He was wrong.
The one moral thing he did was to let her go. He knew if she stayed she would become like him, hideous to behold, a monster without conscience. She would slowly succumb to the lure of metal whispering its promises into her ears as her life gradually ebbed away. He assumed her transition would happen quickly but again he'd been wrong.
Instead, it was he who changed. Day by day, his infirmities dissolved into new flesh heretofore unknown to him even in his former life. He had always been sickly and morose. There was never a time when illness and calamity did not seek to overwhelm the frailty he called his body. If not for the ragings of genius inside that poorly constructed frame, he would have perished ages ago.
Eventually all of humanity fell away leaving him and his marvelous metallic swarms of night the only heirs to a world cleansed of the constant clamor of beauty and righteousness where he could never find his niche.
He dreamed of dragons. Spreading wings of sand they seeped over oceans of water and across seas of time seeking out answers to questions still binding him to this life of pain and turmoil. Though upon waking he could scarcely walk across the room in his dreams he traveled across continents in a blink of an eye on clouds of disaster and branches of disgust forever looking for that one thing that would quell this hate that tormented him.
He should have gone with her when she asked.
Not an hour after she had gone, he'd rushed after her racing down to the harbor in an insane quest of going aboard the ship she promised was waiting there for her. He'd had enough of the endless pursuit of perfection that he knew would only end in his own demolition. He wanted to be a man again, not a creature void of form.
He was too late. She was gone along with the ship that held his salvation.
As he stood there peering into the black waters lapping on a beach pebbled with broken glass made smooth by the workings of the waves and listening to the night encroaching upon him he had called out over and over again willing her back to his side. He deserved another chance but when he realized it would not be forthcoming he resolved instead to become the very darkness that ruled all the hate and terror in the world.
The pain returned as did th
e sickness. He ignored all of it as he set out to rewrite the code which he had so painstakingly created nearly a hundred years ago. He realized now how limiting his thinking had been. In a world of humanity, it was only logical to seek for borders, to keep his tiny treasures from overrunning it all.
Now, humanity was nearly extinct. If there was to be hope, any expectations at all, it lay in his judgment and his alone. These creatures that had visited him were not any more human than he could lay claim to being. They had come like thieves in the night to steal what was his, to break into his home and make off with trinkets they treasured more than life.
These creatures were half fish. They reeked of the ocean. Their blood teemed with parasites that were far more formidable than his terrible and tiny shards of sand. Those freeloading leeches had been the bane of mortals and the harbingers of doom yet simultaneously had sustained the life of these people well beyond what any intelligent being could expect.
He hated them all save for one.
If that was going to be the future of mankind, then it was not only his right to exterminate them but his duty. He had to learn their weakness, however, if he desired to bring them all to an inglorious end. He knew whatever secret they sheltered was far superior to his.
Yet he had an edge.
Evolution worked to his advantage. In time, he knew his legions could solve any problem set to them. They would work tirelessly to the end of time if need be and beyond into that gray infinity of forever where only madness and hopelessness lay. By erasing the inhibiting strictures he had inadvertently instilled within them he knew the speed and spread of his masses of doom would quickly overrun not only this continent and world but the star system and later the galaxy itself.
He had a vision of an entire universe at his disposal, hundreds of billions of galaxies each themselves filled with hundreds of billions of stars and planets all brimming with his potent and irresistible magic machines having no need to breathe, no use of sunlight, and capable of existing even in the primordial cold that was and would once again be the singularity of time immemorial.
Whether or not his own consciousness survived mattered not. What was a thought, anyway? Nothing more than fleeting nonsense soon to be replaced with but another comedy of errors. His entire life had been composed of useless figments of imagination arising only in time to be devoured by the next moment.
His creations offered a permanency that was sorely lacking in the world as he knew it. They were the dust of which everything else sprang forth and they too were the dust to which it all returned. If indeed there was or had ever been a god it would stoop and bow to worship him rather than the other way around, for he had solved the age-old mystery of death that even a so-called omnificence being had failed to do.
If only they learned to talk, his nanobots could well become the perfect companions for a genius of his caliber. Only they had the capacity of understanding a thought process light years beyond anything the world had ever known. Einstein paled in comparison. The man was merely a tinker compared to he who would not only conquer the world, but space and time itself.
Looking into the bleak and lonesome night sky he foresaw the bright stars overhead turning a glittering silver as his hordes swarmed through the depths of interstellar space engulfing all that they came upon. Life meant nothing for it was weak and sickly while metal lived forever, strong and stout, ready to withstand eternity.
The dragons would be his salvation.
Swooping down from on high they would take their prize, his treasure, and deposit it at his doorstep. He had only to will it. Once he learned the secret of the Lake, he would be in a position to take what was and would forever be rightfully his. Only a genius of his scope had any hope of guiding time to its predestined end.
She would come to him and when she did, she would welcome death.
Chapter 2—Home Again
His wrists still troubled him whenever the weather changed.
Two centuries ago Alpin and Ena had lived in a crumbling Victorian mansion along with their many children situated on the north east coast of old Scotland on the Isle of Skye. Though Ena told him she preferred living at Orchardton Hall, she agreed to move away with him after he proposed marriage.
"We'll begin our own colony, my darling Ena... away from the trappings of the People and their endless squabbles."
When he was brought back to Orchardton Hall after being injured in a motorcycle crash that he scarcely recalled, he spent a week recuperating and another week listening to the bickering going on between the People. They were arguing over the three men who returned to Scotland on the Nautilus.
"You shouldn’t let such things trouble you, sweet Alpin, but I do understand your desire to leave here. I'll go with you as long as we're able to visit our old home every so often. I do not wish Catan to grow up not knowing his grandparents."
Alpin fell in love with the Isle during his stay last year. He remembered little of his accident, only that he was on his way back to Orchardton Hall after seeing sails on the horizon and how in love he was with Ena.
He'd been wrong to let her go. No... he hadn’t allowed her to do anything. It was his own uncaring attitude and meanness that had driven her away. Even after all the cruel things he had said and done to her, she had welcomed him home with an unmistakable love in her eyes.
Waking, he discovered he was home in his old bed. It was dark but a lamp in the hallway illuminated his bed through a half-opened doorway. When he made a move to sit up, pain coursed through his body. Raising his hands he saw plaster casts upon both his forearms from elbow to wrist. His fingers looked like swollen sausages.
The door opened up completely and Ena stepped into the room. At that moment he was sure he would never love anyone as much.
"So you are awake."
Her lyrical voice was a balm for his wounds, her touch magic.
"I think so... what are you doing here, my sweet Ena?"
"It's the middle of the night. We're maintaining an around the clock vigil on you, darling Alpin. Lady Lauren thought it best that you didn’t wake alone."
"What happened? How did I get these casts on my arms?"
"You had an accident. You've lost a lot of blood but Dr. Karen assures us you will make a complete recovery."
"How long have I been here?"
"You've been sleeping for three days. Karen told us not to be alarmed when you didn’t wake up right away, that sleep was the best thing for you."
"How did I get here?"
"You're very lucky. Grandfather Nate and Kirk found you lying in a ditch in the middle of a mountain forest. Your forearms were shattered and apparently you must have tried to set the broken bones yourself. You had sustained several serious and deep cuts. Dr. Karen said you are fortunate they found you when they did."
"How did they know where I was?"
"The beacon on your motorcycle went off and alerted Lady Lauren that something had happened to you. They homed in on the signal. When they found your bike, though, you weren’t around. If not for Chester, you would have died out there in the mountains. He found you and stayed with you until help arrived."
"Who is Chester?"
"He's sort of a pet. You'll meet him soon. Now I want to introduce you to someone else. Please lay back and rest and I will return shortly."
Though he felt he should rise, he instead did as she suggested. The simple act of talking left him drained. His eyes closed of their own accord. When he felt a soft weight descend upon his chest he believed he was dreaming. Opening his eyes, he saw a tiny white-bundled baby staring up at him with eyes full of knowing.
"Darling Alpin, please meet our son, sweet Catan."
"He's beautiful, lovely Ena. He has your gorgeous eyes."
"We thought you didn’t want to be with us. While I was away I thought about you constantly, Alpin. If you wish to be on your own, I understand. You should at least take the time to get to know your son, however."
"I was wrong, my lovely Ena.
I pushed you away. I'm sorry. I know I have no right to ask for another chance, but if you still love me, I'd like for us to be a family."
"You're still groggy from your long sleep. Don’t make any decisions now, darling Alpin. Let's give things a few days to settle down. And if you still feel the same way, yes, I'd like us to be a family too. Our little Catan needs both his father and his mother."
Alpin wasn’t sure what was happening to him but he knew he never wanted to leave Ena and Catan again. The baby gurgled and cooed and promptly fell asleep.
The mansion where they lived was only a stone's throw from their beloved ocean. The three of them went for a dip each morning. Though Catan was but two years old he was a strong swimmer rivaling even his parents in his tenacity for the salt water.
The first time the boy went swimming on his own sent Ena into a frenzied panic. They both thought the other had laid him down for his nap. When she went in to his room to check on him, he was gone. Alpin knew right away where the little guy went. Rushing to the nearby shoreline and diving into the surf Alpin located him within minutes.
"He's playing with a pod of bottle-nosed dolphins that seemed to be saying his name, darling Ena."
"Please don’t do this again, Catan. If you wish to swim, let us know. We'll go with you. It's too dangerous for you to go alone."
Alpin saw too much of himself in the boy. He recognized propensities from his own youth: acting without aforethought, spontaneity when patience would be better, rushing in where wise ones feared to tread.
Ena was the polar opposite. She was his anchor when he found himself adrift. He remembered resenting how Ena always seemed to know what she wanted while he struggled to find his identity and purpose in life.
He envisioned Catan suffering through years of uncertainties and hardships. He wished he could offer the boy council but he considered how all parents would desire to spare their children the suffering that they must endure to discover who they are and what they are destined to be.
Centuries passed him by like sweet summer days.
Winter was coming. As always, the cold played havoc with his wrists. Grandmother Lily once told him that they should spend the cold months at Orchardton Hall where her presence as a healer might lend succor to his wounds. Yet this time—these last three centuries alone with his family on the Isle of Skye—rivaled any real happiness Alpin had ever known.