taking on water. The front hull crumpled like aluminum foil and the bottom half of the ship was practically ripped off.
“Why?!” the formerly ecstatic sailor screamed. “You worthless, senile, evil old man! Why did you drag us to the Arctic Circle to chase an iceberg?!”
“Because it’s coming!”
“What’s coming?!”
As the men were scrambling without direction – some to the lifeboats, some to begin pumping water, some to bathrooms to vomit in rage and fear – there came a haunting melody of clicks and whistles on the wind.
“What was that?” whispered various members of the crew.
The siren called again, and again. Each time it sounded louder, stronger… closer.
“To the life boats!” one audacious young man bellowed. “Take all the weapons and rations you can carry!”
“Save me!” Captain Rehab blubbered. “Don’t let her take me!”
“Sorry, but Captain goes down with the ship,” sneered the sailor. He shoved Captain Rehab back into the bridge and jammed a piece of metal into the locking mechanism, holding it fast in place.
The good captain screamed and begged, but the men continued on their plight of abandonment.
The ship capsized. Water broke through the glass of the bridge windows and cascaded in. Rehab hadn’t been a terrific swimmer when he had all of his God-given appendages. In his current condition, he wasn’t exactly an Olympic athlete.
A life-saver that had been mounted on the back wall of the bridge floated within grabbing distance. He latched onto it like a drowning rat. Eventually after the bridge filled up, the buoyancy of the device allowed it to skitter along the ceiling until it came close enough to the window. Rehab scrambled through, holding the donut of survival, and floated to the surface.
He broke the barrier between oxygen and ocean, gasping for breath in the water that was only a few degrees above freezing. He cried out to his former crew to save him, but the words barely escaped his throat.
She was coming.
Adrian saw her love and remembered how he didn’t do so well surviving in the water. She pushed herself to swim faster and harder, calling out her proclamations of love for him as she closed the distance.
All he heard were hell screams.
Looking the other way from the sea creature that came for him, Rehab saw something else: a dorsal fin slicing through the water. If he had been able to translate the Oceanic language to English, he’d have known it belonged to a shark named Tim.
Strong hands with wicked nails wrapped around his chest from behind and hauled him out of the water and onto the flat surface of an iceberg. The dorsal fin came close and slammed into the floating mass, sending a shudder through it.
“It’s ok, it’s ok,” Adrian said. “I have you, my love.”
Unfortunately, this did little to reassure Rehab as clicks and hissing are often not interpreted as being tender to us humans.
“For the love of God help me!” Rehab screamed to his shipmates as he reached back a hooked hand. “Shoot! Shoot!”
The report of a rifle rang across the artic.
Blood gushed from the hole between Rehab’s eyes.
“A mercy,” the sailor who pulled the trigger whispered. “It’s better than you deserve, you lunatic.”
It took her a moment to realize it, but Adrian slowly gathered that her play thing was dead. While she shook and quaked, his remaining leg dipped into the freezing waters. Powerful jaws latched on and snatched him out of her grasp.
Bent on revenge and filled with incomprehensible rage, Adrian dropped below the surface. Not understanding the concept of a firearm, she blamed the shark named Tim for her lover’s demise.
With supernatural strength, she grabbed the shark by the jaws. His teeth cut furrows and lacerations into her hands, but she didn’t care. This ended now.
There was a cracking and popping sound as Tim thrashed in the water. For the first time in his life he felt the sensation of being utterly powerless. With a mighty war cry, Adrian ripped him in half at the jawline. The lower jaw she tore off to keep as a memento.
Tim descended into the murky depths, half the monstrous fish he was a moment ago. Adrian watched as her beloved Captain Rehab sank to the bottom of the ocean alongside.
In a dinghy nearby, the surviving sailors were just beginning to decide how to get back to civilization. There was a momentary break in the survival plans as they were deciding if anyone would believe their story.
“Call me Ishmael…”
“Kevin, shut up!”
Before the debate could go any further, a beige whale named Frank rammed their boat like a missile launched from the dark void of the ocean. He’d been following them for weeks and relished this opportunity. They died from exposure and he went on his happy way. The hole in his side had thankfully healed, but still left a nasty scar…
Months passed. Adrian had wondered back south after having found vengeance for her love (or so she thought). She spent most of her time crying on the tiny island where she had first dressed his wounds after his initial encounter with Tim.
One day as she lay on the sandy beach, weeping her bitter tears of sorrow, something washed ashore.
It was a bottle. Inside was a letter on beautiful parchment paper. Though she clearly didn’t speak the English language, she could read it just fine for the sake of plot convenience.
“The Revolution has begun. If you’re on the side of good, gather your friends and join us in the harbors. Her tyranny ends now. Signed, the Blonde Assassin.”
She thought about this for a moment. She might not be able to rid the world of all of these disgusting creatures, but she’d gladly help them kill each other.
Besides, maybe Rehab had a brother she could find.
Aroused, blood thirsty, and maybe a little confused, Adrian swam off into the sunset to join the battle. She sang her screeching song with every burst above the waves.
The Little Mermaid Who Loved Too Much Page 2