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I HEAD TOWARDS THE sheriff’s office receptionist and I hear a tapping. The sound is coming from behind a closed door and transforms from a tapping to a knocking. Soon enough that knocking becomes banging and the door flies open.
In truth, I’m really not surprised to see Yanka fall out of the closet and land on top of the deputy, both of whom have their pants down.
“Yanka, I need your car,” I tell her.
“What the hell happened to you and Blue? And what the fuck are you wearing?” she asks with a bug-eyed face. “You all disappeared and the second Athena and I made it back to shore, we were arrested. Then Darius, the public defender, showed up to get us released and—” Yanka looks down and smiles at the deputy, who smiles back.
“I got it,” I tell her. “I don’t need those details, but we do need to get to Blue before the sheriff locks him up and throws away the key.”
Yanka reaches down to pull up her tight leggings. “How did you all survive down there? After you both jumped in, neither of you came back up. We waited for hours. We thought the two of you must’ve drowned or got eaten by a shark. I didn’t believe a word of anything Athena was spouting until the deputy told me they found you. Now, I’m not so much a skeptic, but tell me the truth. What happened?”
“What happened is everything Athena said is true and we need to go save Blue.”
The deputy, struggling to pull up his pants and red from embarrassment, proclaims, “You can’t go after John Doe—”
“Especially dressed like that,” says Yanka sarcastically.
“Will you focus, Yanka? Where’s Athena?” I ask.
Yanka brushes her blonde hair back with her hands into a ponytail. It’s a sign; she’s going to help me. “Athena already took my car,” she says.
“Listen to me!” shouts the deputy as he tucks his shirt into his pants. “The sheriff is on a rampage. He didn’t even take me with him because he’s got it in for John Doe. The sheriff doesn’t want anyone standing in his way when he goes to collect the stranger. And if this stranger you all keep protecting gives the sheriff any trouble in any way, the sheriff is not going to hesitate to drop some heavy shit on John Doe’s ass.”
“Take us where the sheriff is headed,” I tell the deputy.
“No,” he says, “I’m already in enough trouble from John Doe’s escape. There’s no evidence pointing to the three of you, but I know you all had something to do with it. That was my responsibility, so I have no doubt I’ll be out of a job soon and living on the street like our homeless stranger or a lost dog.”
Yanka’s eyelids flutter. “If that’s really the case, you can always stay with me.”
The deputy turns red again. “I can?”
“Sure,” Yanka replies. “If you’ll be out of a job with nowhere to go, I’d be happy to take you in.”
I roll my eyes and interject. “Yes, Yanka will be happy to take you home when you become a stray dog, but you have to help us save Blue first.”
“I don’t know,” replies the deputy, fidgeting with his holster.
“If you help me and Shelley, I’ll take you home tonight,” Yanka wantonly adds.
The deputy glances down at Yanka’s enormous tits. “My car is out front,” he says.
Before we leave, I stop at the front desk to collect the coin, which was placed in a large yellow envelope, and we get into the deputy’s police car headed towards the coast. The three of us each take note of the approaching storm as lightning flashes, illuminating the gray sky at half-second intervals. The patrolman’s radio cracks in loudly, alerting us to the sheriff’s actions.
“Deputy, this is dispatch. We have a 10-24 suspicious person on scene near the marina and a 10-50 sheriff needs assistance. Do you copy?”
The deputy picks up the radio. “Copy that dispatch. Report sheriff’s status.”
“Possible 10-1 officer in distress. The sheriff is failing to acknowledge radio contact. Do you copy?”
“Copy that, dispatch. I’m headed to the marina now.” The deputy hangs up the radio. “Listen,” he says to us, “I don’t know what’s going on, so when we get to the marina, you two are going to stay in the car.”
“You mean we three!” I say and point out the front windshield.
We glare out the window at Athena off the side of the road waving her hands as a flurry of gray smoke wafts from Yanka’s car up into the sky.
The deputy pulls up to her and as Athena gets into the backseat with me, it starts to rain.
“What the fuck did you do to my car?!” cries Yanka.
“I didn’t do anything!” Athena whines. “It was struck by lightning while I was inside and to be totally honest, I would think you’d be more thankful I’m not dead.”
Yanka rolls her eyes as the deputy presses on the gas.
“And what the hell happened to you?” asks Athena, squinting her eyes at me. “What’s in the envelope and what are you wearing?”
I open the envelope and allow the coin to slip into my hand as I yank up the red tube top.
“I was right, wasn’t I?” asks Athena. “He’s exactly what I said he is.”
I look at her ebullient face; I don’t know what she’s seen or what more she knows about merpeople, but this is the moment she’s been waiting for her whole life. I know what it means to want the truth, to have validation for the things you believe.
I grab Athena’s face in my palms and look her straight in the face. “Yes. You were right.”
Athena closes her eyes; a single tear drips from the corner of one eye leaving a salty trail down her face and into her mouth where I know she can taste the evidence bringing her closer to her lifelong conquest. She takes my hands off her cheeks and reaches for the coin then slips the chain over my head. “You have to keep it on,” she says. “Don’t ever take it off,” she mutters and I nod.
There’s something more that happened to Athena, which motivates her. It is something beyond a possible sighting of a merman. There’s something going on with her, but as I’m about to ask her the deputy brings the car to a halt.
“You three stay here. You understand?” the deputy instructs, throwing on his hat and skipping out into the pouring rain beneath crackling thunder and lightning.
We gather towards the center of the vehicle to see if we can get a look beyond the fogging windshield painted with images blurred by heavy rain.
“I can’t see anything,” I say and get out of the car. Within seconds, I’m soaked. Rain flies about in every direction—down over my eyes, up into my nose, and sideways to spout in my ear.
I hear men yelling and I run towards the sound. Running past a fallen tree, I can’t believe my eyes. Blue is diving in and out of the water next to the sheriff’s car, which looks smashed in the front and is half under water. The deputy is frantically skipping about up to his knees and pounding at the glass with the sheriff, who looks to be unconscious, inside.
I sprint down the sandy steep slope of the marina’s borders where tire marks are left from where the sheriff’s car slid off the road, over a pier, and into the water. When my feet reach the water, they feel heavy and I can’t seem to walk or swim fast enough, even with all of the adrenaline pumping in my body, towards the front of the sheriff’s car facing the beach.
Lightning strikes the ocean not far from where we are and I hear a voice yell at me. “Go back! Go back, Shelley!”
My heart stops—it’s Blue. He’s made his way onto the hood of the car. He’s naked, using his legs, and yelling to me.
“Shelley, get back!” shouts the deputy who has managed to climb up to the hood of the sheriff’s vehicle with Blue. “Get back!” the deputy warns Blue. “I’m going to shoot the window.”
Blue dives into the water and the deputy pulls out his gun, firing into the windshield. The glass crumbles into thousands of pieces as water begins to seep in.
“Fuck!” the deputy cries out, reaching through the open window trying to free the sheriff. Blue gets back up on the hood and both men are frantic, attempting to wrench the sheriff free. He’s clearly stuck as the car takes on more and more water as it sinks.
I watch in horror as the car goes down until the deputy is treading water with only his head visible. I swim out to him.
“Shelley! Go back to the car,” shrieks the deputy as his head dips beneath the surface to look for the other two.
I plunge my head under, barely recognizing the silhouette of the vehicle and Blue’s body—he’s still trying to free the sheriff under the water.
Coming back up to the surface, the fresh rain mixed with the salt water fills my eyes and mouth. I take a deep breath and then clamp my mouth as I try to swim down to the car. Swimming as low as I can get, I realize it’s too deep and swim back up.
The deputy, hardly able to stay afloat due to his uniform and boots, yells, “Ah, fuck!”
“They’re both still down there,” I tell him. “We have to try again.”
“Go back to the fucking car!” he cries and, although I cannot see his tears mixed with the rain, his face is so wrinkled I know he’s crying.
I duck my face back down into the water, but this time I cannot see them—no sign of the vehicle, the sheriff, or Blue.
I pop my head back up above the surface of the water as both the deputy and I tread next to one another. Rain pours straight into our eyes. I close my eyes and take one more breath of air, as much as I can hold, and dive into the water again.
I use every bit of kick I can to propel myself downward until I see Blue. Swimming towards him, I see he freed the sheriff so I help pull the sheriff by his collar, dragging him with me as I kick us both towards the surface.
As soon as I pop up, the deputy takes a hold of the sheriff, talking to him as he swims the unresponsive man back to shore.
I put my face back in the water, but I don’t see Blue. I try to swim back down again, but I’m so exhausted I can’t. Reaching the surface once more, I just breathe.
I take a moment. I look up at the gray sky then look back into the water. I still don’t see him. I can’t find Blue.
On the shore, Yanka performs CPR as Athena and the deputy watch. I should swim back to them, but I don’t want to. I look for Blue once more then I look to the open sea and swear I can hear it calling me; it sounds like my mother is calling me as she had often done when I was little to come play with her. I can’t help but cry.
As I lift one arm to swim towards the open ocean, a voice asks, “Where are you going?” I turn around to see Blue’s head above the water. “Land is this way,” he says.
