The Saltwater Marathon (A Novella)

by Chateau, Jonathan

  I let out a laugh and then take a deep breath – and nearly choke.

  The air hurts my lungs. Maybe from the trauma of drowning?

  I take another breath and – holy shit – it really hurts. The bullet wound has healed. Pedro’s gold cross still dangles from my neck.

  Maybe God had something to do with me surviving after all. I give it a kiss, just as he had and shout, “I’m ok… I’M OK!”

  But even talking hurts. My breathing feels strained. I put a hand to my chest. My lungs feel like they are on fire. The air is starting to feel very… thin. A sense of dread fills me.

  What’s going on?

  I try to get to my feet, but can’t–

  “Easy, there baby.”

  That voice – it’s so clear. It’s not in my head. At least, I don’t think it is.

  “Go easy on those new lungs,” she says.

  Then I see her, swimming in the water – Sirena. She bobs up and down like a buoy.

  “Transformation was a little rushed. Been centuries since my last one.”

  “Sirena?” I say, again with painful effort. My chest feels like it’s caving in on itself.

  “We only last maybe twenty minutes above water, but I think you have been beached a little longer.”

  I’m struggling to breathe now.

  “That rogue wave smacked us both silly. Sent you further down the shore than I thought.”

  She disappears underwater, then comes back up and motions me towards her.

  “Now come on,” she says with a laugh. “Get your sexy tail moving before the tide changes its mind and leaves you stranded on the shore.”

  “Wait… what…” gasping now, “what are you talking about?”

  She grins, her eyes twinkling as she says, “Baby, open your eyes.” She tosses her body backwards and swims on her back, splashing up water in her wake – though not with her legs – but with her fish tail.

  A wave of panic hits me. My lungs squeeze like two fists. I try to get to my feet, but can’t. My legs feel tied together.

  What the–

  I turn my head as a gentle wave swoops over … my tail? From my waist to where my toes used to be, I’m a shimmering mess of sparkling scales. Ichthyosis vulgaris on steroids. Sirena’s disease.

  I begin to hyperventilate – or whatever it is that mermen do.

  Suffocate, maybe?

  Yes. I’m suffocating!

  “Baby, relax. Stick your head in the water.”

  I do, but it’s shallow. I take in half sand and half water – and I’m able to breathe?

  Dear God, what has she done to me?

  I push myself up again. Feels like I’m stuck in some kind of funky yoga pose – upward cobra, downward cobra, whatever. As I feel my legs – I mean my tail – wriggling in the warm water, I ask her, “What did you do to me?”

  “Saved you, my love,” she says as takes another quick dip underwater. When she resurfaces, she continues, “I made you immortal. Made you just like me.”

  I glance back at my tail again, horrified. Then I stick my face in the water, take a… breath… and then resurface. “So let me get this straight… that day you disappeared… you didn’t drown? And the tide didn’t take you? You just… swam away?”

  She giggles, and then, “Well, the reversion took a little bit longer than that, love, but essentially yes. Once I hit the water, the transformation sped up, and I swam away.”

  My gaze falls to the calm waves caressing the beige sand beneath me. The thought of taking seawater into my lungs is equal parts bizarre and disgusting, but thanks to Sirena, it’s my new normal.

  “I swam back to Pheia, but my heart still longed for you. So I came swimming back, calling out to you.” She takes another dip underwater and then comes back up, her voice giddy now. “Now after so many centuries of searching and waiting, I know that true love extends beyond the grave. You’re the proof. You came back to me. Brought flowers for me. Grieved for me. Bryan… you’ve shown me your true level of sacrifice. You didn’t have to come back to me, but you did!”

  As I suck in more water, my adopted ritual for living, a fire brewing inside me gets the wheels turning.

  “And now we can continue where we left off. Now we can finally have children, but have them in my world, and in my world, we live forever.” A smile spreads across her face as her tone grows more monomaniacal. “Can you see how wonderful this is? How perfectly our destinies have brought us back together?”

  I can’t say I’m really sharing in her fanatical enthusiasm, nor am I sure I’m seeing her vision for our future as my own.

  Instead I’ve come to realize that my own guilt, not love, tricked me.

  Brought me right back to her.

  But does it matter now? Now that I’m half man, half tuna.

  I dip my face in the water and when I come up, I ask, “And what about the feeding?”

  She hesitates. Then, “What about it?”

  “How did you know it was going to happen?”

  “Because… I did.”

  “Because you have some kind of amphibious sixth sense?”

  She says nothing, sinks underwater, then comes back up and smooths her hair like she’s in some kind of photo shoot–

  “Answer me, Sirena!” My lungs are starting to cramp. The anger isn’t helping. “You made a big fucking deal about it, so how did you know?”

  “Bryan,” she says in a voice that’s almost paternal, “please don’t curse at me–”

  “HOW DID YOU FUCKING KNOW?”

  “Because I initiated it!” As she screams I catch a glimmer of her serrated teeth. “I was pissed at you… and every other man who rejected me on this planet.”

  I guess Hell hath no fury like a mermaid scorned.

  “After what you did to me,” she says, “I wanted to wipe everyone out, ok?”

  “Well you did a fantastic job!”

  “I know now that I was wrong. I overreacted.”

  Understatement of the century.

  “But what does it matter, if in the end we’re back together?” she asks. “Let them have the earth, and we will have the sea.”

  This is a side of Sirena I never saw. A dismissive side. A selfish side.

  I feel little coals of anger, in the pit of my stomach, burning now.

  I feel betrayed.

  “Alright now baby, come on. Enough talk. We need to go.”

  All this time, I thought she was dead, but she wasn’t. She was manipulating me. Leveraging my regret and using it to control me. As far as the jelly-heads, they were just the catalyst. Her tools. Her pawns in a final litmus test of love – either they’d kill me or drive me right back into her arms…

  Whatever destiny decided.

  And it seems destiny chose the latter.

  “Baby, are you listening to me? Why are you just lying there? Let’s go.”

  Maybe she showed up on the beach that fateful day – fishing – fishing for a man like me.

  Fishing for a man who, even in his flaws, even in his infidelity, would still love her. Love her beyond the grave.

  A man who would show her a love as deep and vast as the ocean.

  “Seriously, what are you waiting for? You’re going to die if you stay there. Crawl towards me, baby. Come back to the water.”

  Yes, this is what Sirena wanted all along.

  All or nothing.

  “BABY!” her voice hits a shrill note right on par with those goddamn jelly-heads. “Drag yourself on down here before the tide rolls out and you dry up!” she says. “We wouldn’t want that.”

  Would we?

  Guess I’ve got a choice to make. Either I lay here and suffocate in the next few minutes, or I crawl to her and suffocate eternally.

  Either way, I’m screwed.

  Either way, I earned this.

  I hear the Prodigy playing in my head now. My power song kicks in. I think about the thousands, perhaps millions who’ve died. I think about Trevor. Stacy. And Pedro – a man
who gave his life to save me when I probably didn’t deserve it; knew me less than a few hours and sacrificed himself.

  I guess I’ve always put myself first. I’ve been just as selfish as Sirena. It took those jelly-heads to help me come to that realization.

  So I make my decision…

  And start crawling away from the water.

  “What are you doing?” she screams.

  I keep crawling.

  “Bryan!”

  I keep crawling.

  “Bryan, come back!”

  I keep crawling even though my chest is on fire again.

  “You don’t understand. They’ll eat you!” Followed by unnerving cries. “THEY DON’T CARE WHAT YOU ARE, THEY’LL EAT YOU!”

  Sirena reverted back into what she is, but I’m progressing into what I’ve always needed to be – a man who takes responsibility for his own actions.

  For his own mistakes.

  “BRYAN, COME BACK TO ME!”

  The Sirena I betrayed died on the beach that day.

  The Bryan she betrayed will die on the beach today.

  As I crawl back to the seawall, my lungs are steadily tightening up.

  I hear my power song blasting in my brain. Mentally giving me one last push. Drowning out Sirena’s incessant screams.

  Elbow over elbow, I drag myself through the sand, farther away from the water–

  I feel hooks dig into my back and I’m flipped over like a pancake, coming face to face with one of the jelly-heads.

  It wastes no time getting down to business. The vacuum tube unfurls above its head, it lets out a shrill scream, and just as it goes for my neck, I grab the tube with my hand and stuff Pedro’s cross inside.

  The jelly-head is sucking so hard, it breaks the necklace free from my neck, and I watch as the cross shoots up the vacuum tube and down into its chest. It twitches erratically, screaming and swinging its arms about. I yank on the tube like a leash, bring its face close to mine, and whisper, “That was for Pedro, asshole.”

  As I take my last breath, fish lungs totally collapsing, I close my eyes and release him. The last sound I hear, beyond Sirena’s distant cries, is the satisfying thud of the jelly-head’s body falling down next to me.

  FAITH AGAINST THE WOLVES

  Chapter 1

  The moon only gives enough light to outline something in the middle of the road.

  Something big.

  Can’t make it out for anything because those assholes back there took out both headlights along with putting about a dozen bullet holes in my windshield.

  I’m doing a hundred and sixty.

  At this speed, whatever that is in front of me will split my car in half like it’s the Red Sea.

  The silhouette grows at exponential speed–

  Cow.

  It’s a fucking cow!

  Brakes – I’m hitting them.

  Nothing.

  Pump them some more–

  Still doing over a hundred!

  “Shit!”

  Cow.

  Pumping brakes.

  Cow.

  “Shiiitttt!”

  COW!

  I make a hard right – into darkness.

  My world goes topsy-turvy.

  The windows explode. The car frame thunders. Everything inside the cabin goes airborne, pelting me from all directions. I’m screaming but can’t hear myself over the roar of the car hammering against the earth as it rolls over. The seatbelt is my only saving grace.

  Splash.

  The car comes to an abrupt halt.

  Something explodes in my face–

  Airbag deployed.

  The hot scent of a spent firecracker fills the air.

  Ears ringing. I bring my hands up. They’re shaking.

  How did I just survive that?

  No clue.

  The airbag has gone limp. I push it away, unbuckle my seat belt and start to move. I let out a groan as I peel myself off the seatback. My ribcage feels like I just took a cannonball to the chest.

  I pat myself down.

  Am I bleeding?

  Am I paralyzed from the waist down?

  Try to move my leg now. No luck. I wiggle my toes. Ok, so I’m not paralyzed, but it looks like my foot is trapped under the brake pedal. I try to pull it loose, grunting until I’m finally free. This movement wakes my ankle up. It screams at me. Seems it’s either broken or fractured.

  Now for the package?

  Did it survive the crash?

  I try to open the glove compartment but it’s stuck. I bring my good leg up, kick it open, and the package spills out. I twirl it around for a quick examination. It’s a four by four by four chest. Dark wood. Very plain. On the face, a tiny brass clasp still holds it shut. I’m surprised it never opened during the crash.

  What the Hell am I transporting?

  Duncan didn’t give me too many details about the chest’s contents other than it contained something that had to do with Jesus. He also warned me that if I opened it, I would be greatly disappointed.

  I normally make it a point to not open packages, even if I’m told what’s in them.

  Screw it.

  I almost died back there for this.

  And so I open it.

  Wow.

  This can’t really be what I’m transporting.

  Ok, maybe that’s just the packaging material. An odd choice for packaging material, but whatever. Maybe there’s something buried at the bottom.

  I stick my fingers inside and feel them tingle–

  My cell phone rings in my pocket. I’m amazed it didn’t break. Without looking at the caller ID, “Yes?”

  “Travis?” Sounds like Duncan.

  “Yes?”

  “You ok?” It’s Duncan.

  “Well let’s see… I’m parked in a ditch, my Mustang’s totaled, and I’m pretty sure I broke my ankle,” I say. “Other than that I am fucking fantastic.”

  “Ok, good. You’re cursing, so that means you’re ok.”

  “Define ok?”

  “Now do you still have the package?”

  I huff.

  I say nothing as I try the door. It won’t budge. The damage is so severe, it might as well be welded to the frame.

  “Travis, did they take it from you? Or do you still have it?”

  “Yes, I still have that stupid package... minus one custom 2014 Shelby Mustang!”

  Which is my own fault. I shouldn’t have ever used my own vehicle for this job.

  Or any.

  I know better. Looks like I’m getting sloppy in my age.

  Reading into my frustration, Duncan asks, “You opened it, didn’t you?”

  Out the window I go, landing feet first in nasty ditch water.

  Asks me, “Didn’t you have a rule about actually opening packages?”

  “Yeah, it’s a very loose rule. More like an excuse so that I can remain detached from the fanatical claims of my clients. You know this already, Duncan.”

  “Yes, I but I warned you that you’d be disappointed…”

  “And I made an exception, and I opened the box. Kinda wanted to know what the hell was inside considering my life flashed before my eyes just a few minutes ago.”

  “I would’ve just told you what was inside if you cared, but you said you don’t believe in the supernatural, so I simply warned you that you’d be disap–”

  “I know what I said, alright!”

  I hear Duncan let out a long sigh.

  “And while I don’t believe in fiction and fairy tales,” I say, “I sure as shit believe in near-death experiences! And man, oh man, did those guys want this stupid box. Now, you want to tell me who the hell that was that tried to take my head off?”

  Duncan sighs. Boy he hates cursing – part of that whole perfect Christian thing of his. “Where are you?”

  “I told you. In a ditch. In the middle of nowhere!”

  “Look, I know I haven’t exactly been forthcoming with all of the details – for good reasons – and
now you’re a little upset–”

  “A little upset? A LITTE UPSET?” It takes everything for me not to smash the phone against my car. “I’m livid. You didn’t warn me that anyone would try to fucking end me!”

  I picture Duncan wincing over the phone with each F-bomb. “Ok. I got it. I’m sorry, but you have to trust me, I will explain everything later.”

  “How about now? Who were those people?”

  A pause.

  “Who were they, Duncan?”

  Under his breath, “They’re called the Rift.”

  “And why the hell didn’t you mention them before?”

  “I had my reasons. You must understand.”

  “Yeah, I understand. What I understand is that they hit me with everything. Tore up my baby the way the Devil would use a can opener to get at his most beloved can of tuna.” I run a hand over my Mustang, my once mechanical beauty, now a jagged metallic boulder. “Then they came at me with some kind of electrified metal claw. A Taser on steroids–”

  “Yeah… we call that the Plunger.”

  I’m staring at the Plunger, which is still imbedded on the passenger side door. A charred black circle surrounds it.

  “Last I checked, plungers don’t fry paint.”

  Duncan says nothing.

  “These pricks clearly wanted this package bad, but how could this box have anything to do with Jesus?”

  “Look, you need to get going. You can still make the delivery if you tell me where you are–”

  “I don’t know where I am!” I pause. Take a deep breath. Center myself into my happy place. Wherever that is. “Hang on.” I pull up the map app on my cell phone. “I’m just west of Orlando. Near Clermont. Thirty minutes from the drop site.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Yeah, thirty minutes assuming I’m driving!”

  Something in the distance catches my attention – the rumble of several car engines fast approaching.

  “Great!” I say.

  The loudest of those engines has the distinct guttural purr of a 426 Hemi, the V8 heart of a certain black Plymouth Barracuda – the same Barracuda driven by the same prick that nearly killed me ten minutes earlier.