by Michael West
There was no applause, no war cries. Poseidon’s children turned and moved wordlessly toward the tide and sank into darkness; they were the masters of that watery domain, and they had a long journey, a long search ahead of them.
Christine hoped the worst was now over.
A claw reached out to squeeze her talon, and her head jerked to the side. Jason. No matter what happened, he was always there for her. She was lucky to have his friendship.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Let’s find someplace warm. I’m sick of New England winters.”
•••
Barbara ran across the shoal, took Peggy’s webbed claw in her own, pulled emphatically. “Come with us.”
Peggy took a step forward, her mind crawling with questions and feelings. She remembered her dream, being a dolphin, the freedom she felt, and the thoughts she’d had after eating the lobster came once more to the surface, thoughts of swimming off into the void and deserting her old life.
Larry was gone.
The realization brought a tingling chill to the back of her skull, a chill that traveled to her shoulders and down the bumpy road of her spine, leaving her hollow and cold. If she returned to New York, if she had to look at his vacant chair, his blank canvases and paints gathering dust, his empty side of their bed... Going off with Barbara meant not having to deal with any of that; it meant there would be no danger of coming in contact with people they knew, having to tell them of Larry’s death over and over, having to relive this night again and again. She could just...go away.
She froze, reconsidering.
Wasn’t running away from your problems what brought you to Colonial Bay in the first place?
“We don’t have much time,” Barbara urged.
“I can’t.” Peggy swiped at her tears. “I need to go home.”
“Your home is with us.”
“No.”
“If you’re left behind, you’ll be alone, afraid.”
Peggy watched Poseidon’s children enter the surf. To them, she was a freak, an anomaly, a mistake. Her eyes shot across the reef to the human survivors, thinking the same. Either way, she would be alone, but in the company of men she could at least feel superior.
“I’m not afraid. I’m strong. Isn’t that what you told me? That wasn’t bullshit, was it?”
Barbara looked shocked. “N-no. But you’re young, and your abilities are still so new to you. You need someone to —”
“My mother died a long time ago. Don’t take her place.” Barbara shrank from the words like a dog struck by a rolled up newspaper; Peggy hadn’t meant for it to sound so cruel, but she needed to convince the old woman she would be fine on her own. “I won’t just automatically turn when the moon is full, right? I have control?”
“Well...yes, but —”
“Then I have control.”
The old woman’s smooth forehead furrowed, and Peggy could tell she was searching for more convincing words.
“Mother!” Christine waited impatiently at the water’s edge. “We need to leave...now!”
“You should go,” Peggy urged.
Barbara looked out to sea; when she spoke again, there was great sadness in her voice. “You’ll grow tired of playing human.”
“I was human for twenty-eight years. You never were. It might not be a problem for me.”
“Perhaps. But, if it does become a problem, come to us.” Barbara squeezed Peggy’s hands gently, then released them; she joined her daughter, and, together with Jason, they approached the waves.
“How will I find you?” Peggy called after them. “Where will you be?”
The old woman didn’t look back. “When the time comes, you’ll know.”
They dove beneath the surf and were gone.
Alone among the humans, Peggy watched as her long, powerful arms and legs turned stubby; her deadly hooked talons became flat, impotent nails. An itch spread across her scalp and crotch, replaced just as quickly by the tickle of sprouting hair. Finally, her skin thickened, grew opaque, obscuring the beautiful light within her body.
Peggy’s eyes moved from her own breasts to the gathering of refugees across the reef. Some of the men saw her and stared at her figure. Before the attack, Peggy would have felt a flood of mortified heat and tried to conceal her nudity; now, such thoughts did not occur to her.
•••
Carol chewed on her knuckle, watched as Brahm continue his work with Alan. “Will he be all right?”
“I’ve done all I can do out here,” the doctor told her. “I called for help from shore. They’ll be here soon.”
“What can I do?”
The physician grabbed her hand and pulled it to the wadded fabric. “Keep applying direct pressure. I need to check on the other survivors.”
She nodded, not looking at him, staring at the blood; wet strands of hair hung like black icicles to hide her face.
Brahm reached out and brushed them aside. “Hey, this could have been a lot worse.”
Carol cradled Alan’s head in the crook of her arm as her frantic eyes surveyed his injury. She pressed down hard on the wound to stop the bleeding, felt warmth between her fingers as the rag soaked up his life. How much blood could he loose? How long did he really have?
“He’s stable now,” Brahm assured her.
“Is he?”
“Yeah, he is. But I’ll come running back here if you need me.”
Carol looked up and tried to smile. “Domo.”
The physician returned her grin before moving away.
“Alan?” she whispered, rocking him back and forth. “Alan, can you hear me?”
His eyelids slowly slid open and he offered her the pitiful ghost of a smile; his words sounded as though they were rising through gravel. “I hear you.”
“You hang on. Help will be here soon. You hear me? You’re not going to die. You–”
“I love you,” he croaked.
She shook her head; her lip trembled violently. “Don’t you do this! Don’t you dare! You can’t just tell me you love me and then leave me here all alone! You have to stay with me! You have to–”
“I wasn’t saying good-bye.”
Carol’s body ached to cry; she bent down and pressed her mouth to his, desperately wishing her kiss held fairytale powers that would restore his health in a magical instant.
“Ai shite imasu,” she told him when they parted, then repeated it in English. “I love you. You understand? I love you. You were right about Hays. I’m so sorry I didn’t–”
Alan’s hand rose up to touch her check. “It feels really good, doesn’t it?”
Carol’s face sank into his palm, her tears ran over his fingers and down his arm. It did feel wonderful to finally tell him how she felt. Why had it been so hard to bring three simple words to her lips? She told him again and again, sometimes in English, sometimes in Japanese. She told him until the sound of far-off sirens silenced her and brought her eyes up to meet the horizon.
Carol saw no ships, but noticed that Poseidon’s children were gone. Only Peggy remained, her faint light illuminating the far end of the shoal. Miyagi watched as the creature shifted back into its human guise, then noticed something move in the water behind her. At first, Carol thought she was seeing the other creatures depart. When a shadow rose from the waves, however, she realized it was something else entirely.
•••
“Peggy!”
At the sound of her own name, she turned to see a large creature rise from the tide; it staggered forward and looked at her, its voice unmistakable.
Peggy stared back at it in disbelief. “Rembrandt?”
The beast nodded.
She broke into a run, pounded the surf. When Peggy reached Larry’s new form, she threw her arms around it, kissed the sides of his face, kissed the tip of his snout, then lingered on his toothy mouth.
“How do I look?” he asked when their lips parted.
“Incredible.�
��
“Liar. I must look like shit.”
Peggy ran her hand across the rough, alien terrain of his head. “How–?”
Larry’s elongated finger rose to her lips. “Does it matter?”
She shook her head and held him close to her, rested her cheek on his shoulder, whispered in his ear. “I love you.”
Larry held her tightly in his arms, never wanting to let her go.
•••
Red and blue lights lit the smoky horizon, boats, police or Coast Guard, maybe both.
Brahm moved toward Larry and Peggy. They would all need to convey the same story, and a damn good one at that. “Here’s what happened here tonight,” he said. “It’s total shit, but I think they’ll buy it, at least I hope they will. Even if they’ve got some doubts, it should keep us out of an asylum.” He ran his eyes across Larry’s animalistic form. “And if you can follow Peggy’s example and...change back, it’ll keep you out of the zoo. All right?”
Larry nodded. “Tell us what we know, Doc.”
“Nothing.”
They looked at each other a moment.
“Spend hours thinking that one up?”
Brahm elaborated, “We were at the Inn, the town blew up, and we swam out here.” He motioned to the crowd of survivors on the reef. “They can corroborate that.”
Peggy offered him a skeptical gaze. “And what happens when they start talking about fish people and ray guns?”
“We’ll say that we ran into the arsonist here on the reef. He’d wired himself to a bomb. Carol fought to disarm him, but he shot Alan and blew himself up.”
At the words “shot Alan,” Larry’s eyes flew to Miyagi, watching as she rocked the man in her arms. “Jesus. Is he — ?”
Brahm shook his head. “He’ll be fine.”
Peggy looked out at the approaching rescue strobes. “But will they believe all that?”
Brahm nodded with hopeful certainty. “It’ll make a lot more sense to them then werefish and alien weapons. The audience over there saw our archeologist friend fight Hays, saw him blow up. They can see Alan’s been shot. They’ll buy it.”
“I think we can remember the gist of it,” Larry said.
EPILOGUE
Sounds of thunder seeped through the walls of Black Harbor Medical Center, signaling the onset of yet another late summer storm. As Dr. Kyle Brahm walked toward the nurses’ station, he read the invitation in his hand. He didn’t want to read the card, but he couldn’t take his eyes from it.
You are cordially invited to an exhibition of fantasy art
by
Larry Neuhaus
Brahm wanted to get the experience of Colonial Bay behind him and move on, but, as the days since the fire became weeks, and the weeks months, he wondered if that were even possible, if he could ever forget what he’d seen and go back to pleasant dreams.
“Dr. Brahm?”
He turned and saw a nurse, Emily Hunter, standing behind him in the hallway. “Hi, Emily. What can I do for you?”
She started toward him, paused, then moved forward again. “Are they dead?”
Brahm stared at her blankly, wondering to which patients she was referring.
“You know,” she looked around, checked to make certain no one would hear, then whispered, “the fishpeople.”
Brahm looked at her in shocked wonder; when he opened his mouth, his voice was as meek and child-like as his answer, “The bad ones are, yes.”
Emily closed her eyes and exhaled as if she’d been holding her breath forever; she moved down the hall, patted Brahm on the back as she passed. “Thank God,” she muttered.
Brahm watched her disappear into a patient’s room.
What a strange new world.
•••
Dozens of paintings lined the gallery walls. All bore Larry’s distinctive signature. He strode through the swarm of critics and bidders with a confidence Peggy hadn’t seen in years. Everyone wanted to talk with him, to touch him, as if his talent could be absorbed through contact.
Peggy removed herself from the crowd, a sensuous sway to her step. She passed several canvases for which she’d modeled, locking eyes with her nautical reflections, then strolled on. A waiter passed and she took a glass of champagne from his serving tray, winking at him as she did so. The young man smiled, and Peggy felt his stare upon her as she slinked away.
She stopped in front of a large canvas, sipped from her glass as her eyes drank it in. A glorious beast held a paintbrush in its clawed hand; the brass title plate read, “Portrait of the Artist.” Peggy smiled, her admiration shifting to the sparkling diamond teardrop on her own left hand. The engagement ring was loose, but that was how she needed it; her fingers swelled when she changed, and she never wanted to take it off.
Her nostrils filled with her lover’s scent long before she felt his arms around her waist, his mere touch igniting a passionate blaze in her racing blood. Peggy let loose a muffled, guttural growl, too low for anyone but Larry to hear.
He pressed his lips against her ear and whispered, his breath a tickling breeze. “You know...the hotel has a pool.”
She licked her lips seductively. “Really.”
Larry nodded. “How ‘bout a late-night swim?”
“What if someone sees?” she asked coyly, not really caring if it happened.
Larry shrugged. “We wind up on the cover of the Weekly World News. ‘Fishpeople Found in Hotel Pool.’”
“Well...I guess we should give the Bat Boy a break.”
He kissed the nape of her neck. “Then it’s a date?”
“It’s a date,” she answered dreamily.
As she stood in Larry’s embrace, her eyes wandered to one of his nearby seascapes and found the veneer waves; they looked very inviting.
•••
Carol Miyagi laid her head on Alan Everson’s good shoulder; they stood on the deck of the research vessel Ambrosia, studying the waves as they rose and fell, passing their secrets. The water that witnessed the dawn of time was still with them, changing forms, becoming and then disintegrating, but always returning here to the sea. Her mind’s eye probed beneath these waves and into the vast depths.
Wondering.
Below the ship, beyond the reach of light, Atlantis lay hidden as it had for centuries. Before, it seemed empty and desolate, but now the ruins felt different, somehow haunted. On each dive, Carol found herself looking over her shoulder, expecting Barbara or one of the others to swim up to her, to protest what she was doing. Archeology was, and had always been, a kind of grave robbing.
“You’re thinking about them,” Alan said softly.
She breathed heavily. How long they’d been standing there, silently staring at the water, she couldn’t say; the sea was an endless blue void that paid no attention to the passing of time. “Aren’t you?”
He nodded at his slung arm. “I was wondering how long until I can get back in the water.”
“The doctor said it would be another week of so, didn’t he?”
“You could be finished down there by then.”
“It will never be finished,” she told him, her eyes still on the waves, transfixed. “And the money Hays gave us will be gone in another year.”
“What then?”
Carol opened her mouth to speak, then stopped herself, realizing she hadn’t given the matter any thought. “Then,” she said at last, “we go live with my grandmother in Tokyo and get some nice Yakuza to bankroll another expedition.”
“A nice who?”
“Yakuza,” Carol smiled slyly, holding back laughter; the Yakuza were the Japanese Mafia. “You’ll like ’em.”
Alan gave his head a resigned shake. “I’ve got to learn Japanese.”
Carol looked away from the ocean, her eyes moving to the handsome features of his face; his eyes, his nose, his lips. He was incredible. She found herself wondering if her father ever looked at her mother this way, if he’d ever found this completeness standing next to her; if he had
, the man never let on.
A stray lock of Alan’s hair blew in the ocean breeze. She reached up and ran it between her fingers.
“I’ll never make that mistake again.”
“What mistake?” Alan asked.
Carol blushed, realizing she’d muttered her thoughts aloud. “Not telling you how I feel about you.”
Alan kissed her forehead, held her close to him. In the serenity of that moment, Carol Miyagi realized she’d finally found what she’d been searching for her entire life, and, next to that, the majesty of Atlantis paled.
•••
Colonial Bay had been a poor substitute for Poseidon, and, while this sandy atoll provided only modest shelter, it was, for the moment, unknown to the world of Man. Christine DeParle glanced up at the stars, amazed by their vast numbers. It was beautiful, awe-inspiring, and she felt closer to her gods than ever before.
She laid on the beach, listened to the gentle music of the surf. From time to time, she would look around at her fellow exiles, would wonder fleetingly what thoughts crossed their minds. Christine wished she possessed Karl’s gift for words, wished she could make some grand pronouncement that the coming dawn would bring with it a new day for them all, but she would let the view speak for itself.
Jason held her close; she welcomed his arms around her, welcomed their comfort against the loneliness of the night. Two youngsters crawled along the water’s edge, their tails drawing long lines in the wet silt. She rubbed the crest of her swollen stomach, felt the child stir within, and smiled at the sky.
“Beautiful,” Jason said, stroking Christine’s dorsal fin with an awkward tenderness, and it took her a moment to realize he wasn’t speaking of the stars.
“Am I?”
“You certainly are.”
Christine shook her head. She didn’t believe it, just as she didn’t believe they were really safe. They’d bought themselves some time, that was all. How long before humankind reached out across the open sea, before Zeus met Poseidon and began the slaughter anew? Would it be within her daughter’s lifetime, her grandchildren’s lifetime? She looked over at her own mother, wondering if Barbara and Ed DeParle had the same fears back in Colonial Bay.