Seahorse

A whiskey bottle swished in front of him, bringing him back from his dark thoughts, and he lifted his aching head to meet Basil’s fretful gaze.

“You all right, Wyatt?” Basil asked as he set the bottle next to Wyatt’s glass. “Your mum troubling you again?”

Wordlessly, Wyatt took a sip, but winced as the whiskey met the cut gushing from his tongue. He loosened his shoulders, which had risen and grown rigid, and reminded himself that he wasn’t at home dealing with his mother—he was in his sanctuary, the Drunken Sailor. He breathed in the stale odour of old alcohol stains long soaked into the faded carpet and walls, pungent after so many years, and took comfort in the familiar dim lighting and background noise of the other customers chatting. “It’s nothing,” Wyatt said finally. “What were we talking about?”

“Lorelai is performing tonight,” Basil said with a grin. “Should be a treat.”

Wyatt resisted rolling his eyes.

It was not unusual for Basil to boast about a performer at the pub, but Wyatt had never seen him announce an act with such vigour. It amazed him that the Drunken Sailor attracted performers at all, with its lacklustre appearance and leaky roof, its tiles cracked from the harsh, salty gales. The windows needed an endless wash from the seagull muck, and the incoming tide flooded the car park without warning. Wyatt had been caught out a couple of times by this and had to sleep on Basil’s sofa. Basil didn’t mind even though his living quarters, over the pub, provided so little space.

“She must be a big deal, then. Which one’s her?” Wyatt twisted on his stool, glancing over the thin crowd. Men dominated, with a couple of women chatting in a corner. Wyatt scanned their bright, lipstick smiles, fishnet tights, and plunging necklines. He thought neither looked like they could play an instrument.

“Ah, she ain’t here yet. She usually comes once a month. Haven’t seen her in ages. She has an amazing voice. Spellbinding, I’d say.”

“Uh-huh.” Wyatt turned back to sip his whiskey, having momentarily forgotten about the cut on his tongue and chiding himself when the sting hit.

Basil chuckled. “You don’t believe me, I know, but wait and see. She’s got talent, and…” Basil’s gaze flicked up as he registered something behind Wyatt. “Lorelai! There you are. Good to see you.” He practically leapt from his stool.

Wyatt spun around and watched Basil stride to the weather-beaten entrance, where a raven-haired woman stood soaked to the bone with a guitar-shaped bag strapped to her back. As Lorelai beamed at Basil, the two women in the corner stood abruptly. Lorelai and Basil took no notice as the pair brushed past them, chatting nervously in their beeline for the door.

Too far away to overhear them, Wyatt gawked like a teenager. Basil had ranted about her singing ability, but failed to mention her looks. She was tall and curvy—just how he preferred a woman—and he could see, even underneath her navy blue raincoat, how generous her curves were. Fantasies immediately invaded, triggering his libido. His jeans grew uncomfortable. Her cobalt eyes swept across him, arresting his daydreaming. With just one glance, she pinned Wyatt to his stool, smacked her lips, and looked away.

Wyatt released his breath, his heart hammering in his chest. In an attempt to calm himself, he guzzled his whiskey. When Lorelai appeared at his side, he inhaled the drink through his nose, coughing and sputtering. Mortified, he hurried to grab another napkin to dab the whiskey dribbling down his face.

“Lorelai, this is Wyatt,” Basil said with a slight grimace. “He’s a delivery driver based further north.”

Lorelai nodded. A curl twitched on her rose-coloured lips.

Before Wyatt could utter a greeting, Basil led her backstage. Wyatt groaned. As he sat bemoaning his bad luck, his phone vibrated. He didn’t need to look at the caller ID to know who it was. Surely, his mother thought he had calmed down in the ten minutes since they last spoke. Teeth grinding, head roaring, he weighed up his options.

“Excuse me, everyone!” Basil’s voice boomed from the stage. “Put your hands together for tonight’s entertainment. It’s the lovely nightingale, Lorelai.”

Welcoming the diversion, Wyatt let his mother’s call go to voicemail. He could deal with her later, once he was good and drunk. Like a fish on a hook, he shifted his gaze back to Lorelai’s curves. She lifted her guitar strap over her neck, and he envied her instrument as she cuddled it close to her chest. She had stripped off her raincoat and taken to the stage in an ocean-blue silk dress with a wide, plunging neckline that revealed the glorious swell of her breasts. Wyatt imagined himself cupping and squeezing them. The thought drove him near to madness.

As if there were no hurry in the world, Lorelai trickled some slow chords then leaned into the microphone, her eyes falling on Wyatt, for whom all coherent thought halted. His mother and his injured tongue forgotten, he knew only Lorelai.

After a long silence, she strummed. The notes hummed, pulsated, pulled at something deep within Wyatt. Her mouth formed an O, and she sucked in an enormous breath.

What came out of Lorelai resembled no lyrics, no word formations from any language Wyatt recognized. Her singing—if it could be called singing—unleashed a violent assault on Wyatt’s ears. The noise was barbaric, savagely ripping through his eardrums, pounding into his head like an unhinged hammer and travelling down to his stomach in a nausea-storm. He pressed his hands to his ears to no avail. At some point he realised he lay on the floor, but he couldn’t recall falling from the stool, as vertigo had overwhelmed him and spiralled his world off its axis until spilt whiskey soaked into his jeans.

Lorelai’s cacophonous wailing continued with no end in sight, giving Wyatt scarce chance to breathe, let alone think. He plugged his fingers deep inside his ears, and for a fraction of a second he felt relief, but the noise continued to build, the screeching penetrating his brain until his eyes watered to the point that he thought they might be oozing blood. He stumbled to his feet like a drunk and headed, hunched over, to the exit.

No one moved aside. The crowd stood transfixed, enchanted by Lorelai’s performance, like mannequins, oblivious of their surroundings even as Wyatt head-butted anyone in his path. He caught glimpses of their faces and could have sworn that they were entranced, lovestruck, even, then realised it was more than that, deeper than that. They wore expressions of peaceful bliss, as if nothing could harm them and all their worries had evaporated.

Much as the scene unnerved him, Wyatt didn’t have time to suss it out. He needed to get out of there before the agonising clangour pulverised his organs.

But as he reached the exit, he saw Basil, body plastered to the wall, mouth open and drooling, his eyes glowing love hearts.

In desperation, Wyatt stomped on Basil’s leather loafer, something that—on any other night—would elicit a torrent of colourful profanity. But Basil didn’t so much as flinch. His friend was under Lorelai’s spell, and there was nothing Wyatt could do. Forcing down his guilt, Wyatt pushed through the door and collapsed. Cringing, he peeled his hands away from his ears. Lorelai’s singing, even muffled to a murmur behind the buffer of the door, still prickled like a knife’s edge. But this, at least, was manageable. He sighed in relief.

The wind and rain had died down, sprinkling a few drops then and again. In great gasps, Wyatt sucked up heaps of the clean, night air. Without the foggiest idea of what happened, he could only rationalise that someone had drugged him. But that didn’t figure, because no one apart from himself and Basil had touched his drink. And how did that explain the roomful of lovestruck zombies inside the pub? Every instinct told him to run, so he picked himself up off the pavement.

The Drunken Sailor car park was lit up by one spotlight and some fairy lights, and in the dim illumination, he saw the tide hadn’t yet breached. Confident he could make it out before the car park flooded, Wyatt relaxed a notch and patted his pocket, reassured to find his van key still there.

Then the same pocket vibrated.

Wyatt groaned as he pulled his phone out and saw his mother’s face on the screen. For a split second he considered answering, then realised how foolish that would be. Even if he managed to explain his current situation, she wouldn’t believe him and would whimper for sympathy and beg for forgiveness. His hand tightened around the phone, and he wished he could crush it to pieces. As he crossed the car park, he eyed the beach, fighting the urge to throw the device into the sea, disappear, and start anew.

By the time Wyatt reached his van, his phone had quietened—but somehow, everything was too quiet. He paused, hand in pocket, ready to grab his key, his ears registering the unsettling silence. With each wave, the sea inched inland, coming closer, hungry to drown the car park and its occupants. But even the encroaching tide was mere background noise to Wyatt’s increasing heartbeat.

Lorelai had stopped singing.

He fumbled for his key, cursing as it slipped from his stone-cold fingers and fell with a splash into the salty surf that lapped at his feet. It was not the time for things to go wrong. But when he looked down, he knew things had gone past wrong to very, very wrong. The water, less than an inch deep a moment before, suddenly swirled around his ankles.

Wyatt plunged both hands into the rushing water, grasping blindly at the tarmac below, hoping to feel the key’s metallic teeth. Focused on the task at hand, he didn’t hear the pub door creak behind him. He bit his injured tongue, but in his concentration, he barely felt the fresh pain. He exhaled desperately, then his hand grazed across something hard and he grasped it.

The key back in his possession, Wyatt rose to his full height and found, to his horror, the tidewater roiling above his knees. Time was running out. Fighting the current, he slogged to his van and was just unlocking the door when he glanced over his shoulder.

His stomach dropped.

A grinning Lorelai floated, gliding toward him against the rising tide. Repulsed, Wyatt shivered and turned away. Her smile, far from rekindling his desire, stretched unnaturally across her face. His memory flashed to a school visit to an aquarium, when a shark swam too close to the glass. Wyatt had looked into its black, dead eyes and shuddered—just as he did now—at the shark’s grin that wasn’t a grin at all, but a rictus.

Wyatt’s hands quivered as he struggled to fit the key into the lock.

“You can’t run from me, Wyatt,” Lorelai called from behind him, sounding much closer than she had just a moment before.

He spun round and held his key out like a miniature dagger. “Back off! I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“Ah, but you see, it’s all about you now.”

His eyes widened as she licked her lips, no longer a seductress but a ravenous beast. She closed the distance between them with alarming speed.

Wyatt’s throat went dry. He wheeled around and by some miracle his key found the keyhole, and he twisted it, unlocking the van. He flung himself inside and hurried to close the door, but she was there and the sea came with her, flooding into the vehicle.

They locked eyes for a brief moment before she leaned in and grabbed his legs. Wyatt kicked, terrified, helpless against her iron grip. She continued to smile even as she dragged him out of the van, plunging him into the rushing water. Gasping, Wyatt raised his head to splutter.

To his surprise, Lorelai’s grip loosened and she released him. He had just enough time to consider making another run for it when something wound around his legs, wrapping around and around, tighter and tighter. He shoved at the coiling pressure, but his hands met hard ridges, sharp and tough, like a shell.

“You’re mine,” she said with a bite.

He faced her, and his scream caught in his throat.

Her perfect rosy cheeks had sunk to the bone. Her head, once beautiful and feminine, had morphed into the head of a horse, resting atop a grotesquely elongated neck. Her once lustful skin now peeled off in dead, decaying flakes. Green mould covered her body in grotesque splotches. To his horror, her arms were gone.

Repulsed, Wyatt tried to look away, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the place where her arms should have been. There were no gaping holes, nothing indicating where the bones, arteries, and veins had been attached. Instead, her body curved, flawless with a new ridged shell-like armour. His skin crawled.

“You’re mine,” she said. “After so long.”

But her voice was no longer human, and her words, he realised, weren’t words at all. At last, wrenching his eyes from the ghastly sight of her body, he forced himself to look up, and saw that her mouth had shrunk and transformed into a tubular snout.

As he watched, helpless to stop, Lorelai’s throat puffed and stretched, and two transparent wings flapped at the sides of her neck. She snorted and dove, and, as she disappeared into the tide, Wyatt realised they weren’t wings. They were fins.

Suddenly, the things that bound his legs yanked him off his feet. His lower body breached the surface and he saw that it was her tail, wrapped around him. Lorelai pulled gently, moving against the tide in the direction of the sea and Wyatt’s certain watery death. His oxygen was depleting fast. For a crazy few seconds as his lungs burned, he wondered if his flesh would taste delicious.

~~~

Wyatt dreamed. Hands tugged at his limbs, cupping his cheeks, then something hot dove into his mouth, warming his freezing skin. It slid down his body, branding him, suckling him, escalating him into a passionate frenzy.

It was over in a flash, but his body continued to sizzle, still gripped by the erotic dream.

Wyatt blinked at the sky, where thick clouds had swallowed the moon. He sprang to life, rolling over to vomit out the sea. His tongue stung from the salt. As he heaved, his entire stomach emptied out until there was only yellow bile.

Dazed, he stared for a moment at the regurgitated remnants, unable to believe that somehow he was still alive. But as he tried to lift himself, he discovered his wrists and feet were bound. He tugged, but the ropes—this time, they were ropes—held tight.

“Don’t overexert yourself. You will need your energy later,” Lorelai said, as she kneeled and came into view, having returned to her human form. She patted his cheek.

Wyatt felt like puking again, but he gulped it down and licked his parched lips. “Why haven’t you—? Why am I not dead?”

“I told you. I’ve been looking for you for a long time. You aren’t food. You are more precious than that.”

Wyatt frowned and watched, motionless, as she reached out and pressed her palm against his belly. His blood ran cold at her touch.

“My song ensnares and enthrals every man—except one. A man who can hear my screaming soul,” she whispered. “You are extremely rare. A gift.”

There was a glint in her cobalt eyes, and inside him, something clawed at the walls of Wyatt’s stomach. He yelped then groaned as the pain dialled back.

“We sing to find such a man. Such a gift will ensure the future,” she said, appearing to be unconcerned at the pain exploding within him. The agony surged, then dialled back again, like the tide.

She wiped the sweat from his forehead, stood, and picked him up effortlessly, cradling him like a newborn.

Wyatt saw that they were on a raft, and land lay quite far off in the distance. Still, he thought, if he could swim for it, he might make it. The ocean lapped at the raft’s sides in a harmonious rhythm, beckoning, and he struggled against the ropes with every ounce of his remaining strength.

“I don’t understand why you struggle so much,” she said, her voice a purr. “It is an honour, surely, a wonderful sacrifice. You’ll be free of your responsibilities, free of your bothersome mother at last, dear Wyatt. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Let me go,” he yelled, even as the claws in his belly punctured his flesh. He clutched his midriff and when the pain subsided, he glanced down. There were no crimson slashes or stains, but his shirt had come undone and he could see his abnormally large, distended abdomen. His belly button had grown wider and deeper, like a gaping mouth.

“What the fuck have you done to me?” he cried, howling as the pain returned, piercing, pounding, giving him no chance to breathe.

“It’s time. Do not worry, Wyatt. Your labour won’t be long.”

“Labour?” he repeated, bemused, his face white.

As he registered the gravity of her words, Lorelai carried him closer to the raft’s edge. The black ocean beckoned with its whispering waves.

“I’m not a fucking seahorse,” he screamed, but it was too late.

Lorelai bent at the waist and jumped.

The water sucked them both under and rushed into Wyatt’s ears, snatching the last of his oxygen away. They sank fast, leaving a trail of bubbles behind. Lorelai held Wyatt in a sturdy grip until they reached the bottom. Breaking free, Wyatt tried to swim back to the surface, but managed only a few awkward strokes before Lorelai again captured him. His mouth opened in a silent, gurgling scream as she transformed into the creature. She curled her tail around him and lowered him back to the sand.

Wyatt’s abdomen raged as if full of bloodthirsty, scuttling, piercing crabs. His skin flamed and his bones ached. The coolness of the ocean couldn’t extinguish the scorching lava flooding his veins. He wanted to howl until his eyeballs popped. Every cell in his body screeched at him to rip and dig his fingernails deep into his stomach and pluck out whatever was causing his agony.

His back bowed, and a spasm jolted up his spine. Something slid out of Wyatt’s stomach, and as his eyes flickered, he glimpsed a tiny creature with ridged curves, paper-like fins, and a curling tail shaped like a spiral.

Wyatt’s abdomen hadn’t deflated. Instead, more claws scraped at his insides, and before he slept with the fishes forever, he had enough time to wonder how many of Lorelai’s sea spawn his dead body would birth.