Merman 5
“Can I check with my wife? I need to run some figures with her.
Three or four days—I’ll get back to you.”
John’s handshake lingered warm in Dave’s palm.
For a moment, it felt too long, too heavy.
When Dave blinked, the pressure changed.
The hand was no longer warm—it was iron, biting into his skin.
His wrists were tied to a hospital bed.
The air turned sour, antiseptic and decay choking his lungs.
White walls pressed close.
A nurse leaned in, her lips moving, nonsense spilling from her mouth.
Then the sting—her palm across his face.
Blood.
The taste filled his mouth. He coughed, eyes watering.
He realized he was naked.
Raw naked in front of this strange nurse.
An aging doctor entered with two more nurses.
The red swastika on his armband burned against the sterile white.
“You’re an American,” he rasped. “Here, in Nazi land? How did you get in?”
Dave’s voice cracked. “I don’t know.”
The doctor nodded, and another slap landed.
His lip split again, blood dripping.
“Who are you working for? The Americans? The Soviets? How many are you? Where?”
Another strike.
“I’m not working for anyone. I don’t know why I’m here! I don’t know anything!”
The Nazi doctor wrote some things on his pocket notebook, “In a second, I’ll get back to you”
Dave cried, throat raw. “Can you just tell me what’s going on? Why am I here? Who are you?”
The nurse lifted her hand for another blow—
—but the sound that followed wasn’t a slap. It was gunfire.
Three cracks split the silence. The doctor fell.
The nurses crumpled, red spreading across the white tiles.
“Dave!” Eddie stormed through the smoke, pistol still smoking.
Knife flashing. “We gotta go—now!” He slashed the cords at Dave’s wrists.
Dave staggered upright. “What’s going on? Why are we here?”
“What do you mean why are we—
——————————————————————————————————————-
The words fractured, echoing. “—we here?—we here?—we here?”
When Dave looked again, the white walls were gone.
Rough timber and dust replaced them.
He and Eddie sat at a makeshift pub table, everything was dusty,
glass and chatter clinking around them.
Hooves thundered past as men on horseback cut through the haze.
Dave gripped the table. “Where are we?”
Eddie smirked over his mug. “Told you not to drink too much of that horse piss.
We’re still we’re we are, It’s 1212, silly.”
Something fluttered in the corner of Dave’s eye.
A black pigeon swooped low, landing on the table.
Its head tilted, beady eyes fixed on him. Dave’s face drained of color.
“Not now,” he whispered. “Not again.”
Dave blinked—Eddie was gone.
————————————————————————————————————-
Across from him stand John once more, after giving the wooden deck a jump or two,
John, calm as ever, gave Dave a slight nod, sunlight seeping around his shoulders.
“Tell you what,” John said, sliding his hand forward,
“if you can send me the figures for the renovation, I think I can convince my wife.
I’ll get back to you. Unless of course, this place gets sold”
The words struck Dave like déjà vu. He reached out—
—but the hand he clasped wasn’t John’s.
——————————————————————————————————————
Scales shimmered, slick and cold beneath his touch.
A pulse like ocean tides thrummed in his grip.
The wooden deck and John dissolved. And Eddie in the pub at 1212,
and the clinic in Nazi, Germany that got messy. They’re now just memories.
Walls rippled like water and fell away.
Dave was back in his bedroom. Sheets damp.
The smell of salt in the air.
The merman’s body pressed down on him, eyes glowing like lanterns in the deep.
Outside, Eddie’s car roared past in a fleeting blur.
The merman lifted Dave’s legs, whispering the same words John and the Nazi doctor had said,
But the Merman’s voice was smooth, comforting, soft as surf: I’ll get back to you.
Dave froze, breath shallow, his gaze locked with the creature’s.
Anticipation knotted in his chest.
And then he felt him.
Getting back at him with an intensity of the waves
hitting the coral rocks that the summer sun had bleached.
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