Officer Zero Case File #3: The Siren (story)

\/\/ Story below and also in .doc format at the bottom \/\/

_____________________

It's not often that death and luxury go hand in hand, as a hard-nosed detective I know that better than most. Then again, asa hard-nosed detective, can you blame me for taking what enjoyment I can out of this investigation?

Yep!An all expenses paid trip on one of the sea's fanciest and most elite liners: Not. Bad. At. All!

Under any other circumstances this could be a journey of a lifetime. For an increasingly unsettling number of young men however, this journey has become their last!

37 young men in just over 2 months, every single one of them vanishing out of their beds on this ship. Victims or tragic accidents? Unlikely; each one has disappeared leaving nothing but a thick, crusty glaze of salt (for notebook: Sea-salt?)in the ruffled mess of their bed spreads. Not a trace besides.

I know what you're thinking; Ithought of that at first too: young men, crusty bed-sheets... Yeah, it's a humorous thought, except that salt seems to be all that's left where people used to exist.

Imagine, if you will, a cabin bed mattress indented with the shape of a grown man lying there. Now imagine that indent filled with glistening white powder, nothing else but a faint whiff of the sea.

Thirty seven disappearances... What a strangenumber; I've wracked my brain over this, but it doesn't add up! It doesn't link up with the number of crossings (despite only one victim being reported at most per crossing) nor any kind of anomalies being reported in the ship's logs.

What am I missing? Hmm...

'Excuse me, sir?' With a start I snap my head towards a smartly dressed waiter addressing me here amongst the polished metal and lights of the exclusive onboard restaurant. He spares me a slightly embarrassed, but professional smile.

'Your Langoustine, sir.' He concludes with an almost cliché french accent and artfully lays what can only be deemed a “cultured portion” of well-presented food before me. 'Bon appétit.'

I relax, maybe I'm being too intense about all of this. Yeah, I should at least enjoy my meal; before the waiter can turn I raise my hand in what feels like a rude gesture in such a setting. 'Anything else, sir?' He politely reacts.

'Yes, I see there's a piano. Is there a show tonight?' I ask, intrigued to discover the kind of entertainment to be expected in such a swanky joint.

'Oh yes, sir. The truly marvelousSimona Van der Zee is playing tonight, sir. She is simply to die for!' He stresses with almost palpable excitement, the stern and horrified look I spare him is clearly lost on this lowly waiter. Of course he wouldn't be in the know...

'Yes... Thankyou...' I almost drift out of the conversation and look down to the finely prepared shellfish before me. I'm definitelyover-thinking this!

I take a moment to enjoy the exquisite cuisine as my eyes are drawn to the window and the lapping of the waves outside the monolithic vessel; half drifting off I'm fooled by a particularly large wave splashing in the dark.

For the briefest of moments my mind is tricked into seeing a splash so big it could only be caused by a person falling in... or leaping out? Ohhh boooy,I definitelyneed to relax! I need to... to... That's her?

Death, luxury, fine dining; all of it is suddenly so far from my mind. A woman has entered the dining room, a woman I would try to describe except I'm not sure I have the words for the task.

This must be the pianist the waiter told me about, Simona Van der Zee, so perhaps his description is most apt here: to die for!

Everything around her appears bland and colourless as the deep blue pencil dress that hugs her figure glitters with each rhythmic stride she takes. Her movements are entrancing like the dancing waves outside and I find myself swept up in them like the tide.

She simply commands attention, her luscious coral hair like a beacon drawing attention to a woman that makes my mouth hang open in awe... Just who is she?!

I'm here to do a job, I'm not on this tub to fawn over such a striking figure of womanhood and yet somehow... She's all that matters, everything outside of her silhouette has become meaningless. I watch her slide onto the piano stool as the food in my mouth goes cold while I sit here, slack-jawed.

She looks at me, meeting my eyes with her own and I see something: a look in behind those pearls like something animalistic and ravenous. A single glance and she makes my stomach tie in a knot, a slight pucker of her lips and my mind does the same!

She runs her fingers over the keys and draws breath. What follows is an experience that will change me for the rest of my life, but right now I don't know that.

I don't know that in a few short hours, in a moment of ecstasy and agony still to come, I will be asking vital and disastrous questions of myself. For now, her voice changes everything.

'~Beeee...~'She sings the first note and my heart seems to stop, '~miiine!~'

The food... I expected the food in such a place would be exquisite, but somehow it carries a depth and subtlety I've never before appreciated.

The lighting... soft and yet perfectly soothing puts me into a dream-like state.

The simple, but ornate chair beneath me... Have I everfelt such comfort?

I don't know what's happening, but I feel like I'm as light as a feather; as if I'm floating in a state of blissful comfort, I feel like I can treat this fine dining hall like my own home.

I felt so uptight just a few moments ago, so out of my element... Then she started singing. The first notes of her crooning song have taken me to a place I simply couldn't have prepared for.

Now I am staring... Straight at her, watching every subtle movement of her fingers and the way her lips shape to form the notes. I feel so happy and relaxed, with not the slightest hint of shame in my behaviour.

If I was of sounder mind, I might stop to think about what I'm doing, but I'm far beyond common sense. Is this how addicts feel, I wonder? Light, airy, in total comfort with the world around you?

But what is it? Something in the food? Maybe too much wine? It couldn't be... her song?Yet as she continues to sing in perfect key I find my head spinning faster and faster as if I'm about to pass out!

The world blurs, the hubbub of the restaurant falls silent and even the lighting seems to focus all on that one figure sat behind the piano with shadowy eyes and glowing lips.

Our eyes meet again; this time I'm done for!

The natural recourse might be to turn away and blush, but instead I stare deeper and deeper into her eyes until I see the depths of their pearly brightness.

Those eyes glow like lighthouses in the fog, brighter and brighter until they're all I can see in the dark. The next thing I know, I'm elsewhere.

I'm above deck, on the sun-deck despite this being the dead of night; when did I get here? Howdid I get here?!

'Sooo...' I turn to see the source of the voice, it's her!Simona Van der Zee, the hypnotic pianist and she's stood right next to me, a glass of water perched between her fingers as she leans in.

'You feeling a little more... Sobernow?' She whispers into my ear as she brushes up against me, her hand sliding down my body to reach my hips.

'Oh but we're just getting started!'I don't even flinch as I realise how she has exposed me so. Nor do I react to the silk-like touch of her seemingly sequinned dress as I realise they aren't sequins.

A part of me wonders if they could reallybe scales. They glistenlike scales, they feel like scales, but why would her dress be made of scales?

'You like my dress?' She purrs into my ear and I find myself nodding uncontrollably. 'Good... and yes, it's justlike you're thinking.' I hear her laugh gently into my ear as she presses even closer to me.

'Every time I step on land they get a little stronger, with every new addition to my collection my control over their form grows... Just like my control over youand the men like you!'

She is saying things that I know should make sense to me, that should trigger some kind of response, but instead I just nod against her as she manhandles my almost comatose form.

She has a presence about her like she is something and someone I can't possibly understand. Something almost alien to a land-dweller like me. Land dweller... what do I meanby that?

'~Cooome with meee...~' She softly sings into my ear and I am once more lost in her presence, my body heavy and my mind cloudy.

Here it comes again... I'm falling into her arms, her powerful but slender arms that seem to catch me with an embrace so warm I feel comfortable fainting for her.

In the bar? How did I get back down here?!This is all... so confusing!I don't even remember why I'm on this ship, but as I look up woozily from my half-finished beer I see her once more.

'So you're a detective come to investigate the disappearances aboard this ship, hmm?' Simona asks in a low voice with a tone mixed between curiosity and disappointment.

'Yes.' I respond without even thinking, 'I was tasked with learning how more than thirty men could simply up and disappear from their beds without a trace besides a salty residue.' Why am I telling her this? It's supposedto be secret!

'Ohhh?'She asks with a gentle giggle, 'A salty residuethey're calling them?' She asks, something wicked in her voice while her low eyelids speak to a hunger I thought I glimpsed earlier but now I see for sure!

'I hadn't even realised I'd gone past thirty...' She off-handedly admits to responsibility for the disappearances. Somehow I don't find myself surprised, disgusted or even vindicated; all I feel is adoration.

'Thirty seven to be exact, my Mistress.' Why am I calling her that?!Why can't I control what I'm saying? Or anything I'm doing for that matter?! It's like I'm a prisoner trapped in my own body; yet again I am content with this...

'And here I thought I was showing restraint!' She laughs at her own admission, seemingly unafraid of anyone overhearing or judging her. 'If you've been sent to investigate, however...'

I watch her mood shift, her sharp and inescapably beautiful features reshaping into something utterly evil that cuts through to the pit of my soul. '-that means the game is just about up!'

She sits back in her chair and pushes out her chest as if to draw my eyes down to her cleavage, a perfect divide that swallows me up like a whirlpool; I am drawn in, leaning forwards against my will.

'That being the case...' The world around me swirls, the lights smudging towards her chest as the world seems to be swallowed up in the black hole of her supernatural appeal, '-I finallyget to cut loose!'

'~I'll taaake yooouuu~' She sings as she does just that: I am spaghettified, my mind blended as she absorbs me once more into her world of sheer, hypnotic domination.

I rub my fingers over the table in front of me, collecting residue; as I lift my hand I gaze at the crispy white powder now coating my fingers. What is this? Salt?

I refocus on the table and see the thick dusting of white across its surface; beyond that the lounge carpet, once ornate and red is now covered in a thick sheen of glistening white particles like snow.

My head is spinning as I look around, my ears thrumming with the din of male voices as I look around the lounge filled with what seems to be only men.

They are chatting, drinking and making merry but in amongst this a single figure stands out as the focal point of almost every set of eyes: sheis here, naturally.

I watch Simona waltz elegantly away from a table that seems to have no-one there besides a single figure that turns to a puffy white cloud and parts around her as she walks through it... What isgoing on?!

I'm probably not the only one thinking it, but even those sat at my table seem to be as calm in this situation as I am. 'Wooow...'The guy to my left exclaims with a thick Dutch accent, nodding his head as he does.

'You can say thatagain!' Responds the man to my right, German by the sounds of it. We're all watching as the woman in the blue scaled outfit (for notebook: that's no outfit!)approaches another table by the window and talks to a man seated on the near side.

'It's truly amazing...' I myself add to the awed conversation, not a thought in my mind to disagree with the consensus. Collectively, we watch Simona reach out her fingers and tilt the man's head back as she ushers him to stand.

'Here goes another one!' The Dutchman says rather excitedly as she pulls the man in by the chin and links lips with him. 'It's...' He seems lost for words as we watch the man turn pale, his skin pulling tighter and tighter over a matter of seconds. '-incredible!'

Like a bag of bones, he is thinned out with little more than a kiss and then, as if collapsing under the force of her inhalation he pops like a balloon filled with flour. Tiny, shredded fibres of his clothing flutter amongst the crumbling pillar of salt.

'Woah-ho-ho-hooo!'I exclaim, raising my glass as I watch a man become little more than powder before my eyes. Why am I happyabout this? Why can't I even raise the desire to be appalled?! She literallyjust killed a man!

'Ahh!'Simona sighs and wipes her lip with a single finger. 'I do lovehaving a drink with you boys!' She says jovially and the remaining men on that table raise their drinks to toast that!

She turns her back to the table and slides back onto it, perched on the edge. She relaxes and casts her head back, laughing, 'Who elsewants to get me a drink?'

The three men stand, seemingly eager despite probably knowing as well as I do what awaits them. She looks to the one seated across from her most recent cloud and gestures with her head.

On command he walks to the near side of the table where her long, powerful legs splay and snap shut around his hips. I find myself leaning to the side to see around the side of him as she pulls him in tight with a sickening, cracking sound.

He falls limp as if his legs suddenly don't work, bracing the table with his hands so that his broken lower body no longer matters; meanwhile the seductive singer leans back and slides her hands into the other men's pants.

'Drei für einen!' Our German colleague celebrates the show she's putting on as the thirsty man-eater arcs her back and tenses.

We watch in amazement as the men on either side lift into the air while the man closest to us doubles over backwards when she squeezes ever harder! It sounds like crunchy leaves being crumpled under her foot but deeper and more spine-chillingly human.

I see his face, decorated with joy until he begins to dry out; his face warps to surprise, then doubt, then abject fear.

Before he can express any more his face loses its strength as he's atrophied like a sundried raisin; he falls in half, scythed in two between Simona's legs.

Like a huge handful of dust emptied onto the floor, he spreads like a cloud across the carpet and settles in his new form as a part of the upholstery.

I find myself staring up the scale-encrusted form of the woman with hands full of salt as yet more high-quality sodium spreads onto the tables and chairs where she's drained the other men through her palms.

I watch the light dance over the gorgeous scales across her body and on the backs of her hands as she wrings them out, scattering the once virile things they were as salt dust.

Now that she's looking at me I take a few moments to consider how she has changed: the gorgeous coral coloured hair I first saw is still there, but now flowing in the air as if she's underwater.

Where it meets her forehead now a few scales form a point between her brows. Those same kinds of scales trace around her face to her fin-like ears then down her neck to where they part, revealing her human skin.

What was once a deep blue sequinned dress is now a tapestry of elegant scales covering just enough skin to maintain some modesty while presenting a scintillatingly suggestive mixture of skin and scale.

She looks deep into me with those glowing white yes, cracking a wide smile to show sharp, carnivorous teeth and a long, slender tongue that flicks out to lap at the salt in the heavy air.

'Making any progress on your investigation, detective?' Simona asks, knowing full-well she has this – and me – fully under control. Her voice carries to me over the hubbub of the room as if she were stood right next to me.

She rises elegantly and swaggers towards us; all three of us watch her perfectly hewn hips sway side-to-side with hypnotic, mesmeric regularity. With every snappy swing of her hips she flicks the now thick coating of man-salt from her faultless scales.

'All those poormen...' She puckers, feigning sympathy as she arrives at our table, looking radiantly perfect in a world buried under the dried out remnants of her purification.

'-disappearing from thisvery ship...' She reaches her hands up and gently strokes the hair on the heads of the men either side of me.

'-somehow turned to nothing but salt!'She enthuses and while I never break eye-contact with her, I hearthe *poof*sounds on either side of me; I feel the dusting of sodium that cakes me in bone-dry powder as my comrades disappear.

'Whata mystery!' She concludes; I smile knowingly and she smiles too, flashing those deadly teeth. 'But if it's just salt,maybe they're somehow having all the water and nutrients taken from their bodies and that's allthat's left?'

Is thathow she's doing it? 'Now whocould dosuch a thing and how much power she could gain from each, well that I simply don'tknow...' She leans forwards and her eyes once more draw my unblinking focus.

'But she's probablybecome so powerful that nothing on the land will be able to stop her!'She proclaims and it sounds unbearably hot the way she does so. 'And you know...'

She leans in close, so close I can smell her sweet breath, like a sea-breeze and the only source of fresh air in this heady, saturated environment.

'-she probablywants to keep one special man as a celebrationpiece for when she's done!' She purses her lips and once more I surrender to her will, losing my mind to her voice once again. '~intooo the deeepths~'

Where am I now? Also: why is it dark and why am I lying down? I strain to lift my head, but everything aches and as I do so I feel the weight of something not quite like clothing pushing down on me.

I manage to shake my head and regret it with a groan; a groan that lets the stuff covering me trickle into my mouth. My natural reaction to the intense taste of salt is to cough and splutter, sitting up in a hurry.

Allof that was a mistake! I feel deeply drunk but also thirsty. It's only when I'm fully sat up that I realise quite how deeply I've been buried beneath the produce of Simona's conquests.

I look around the room and see nothing but white, I recognise this place... I think. The shapes of the lumps buried beneath the salt drifts suggests this is the lounge and I'm right in the middle of what might be termed the dance floor.

'What... happened?' I ask with another groan. I seem to be the only one here, surrounded by a world of white; the thought alone that I might be the last one alive makes my whole body shudder.

'I did... naturally!' I hear behind me and spin to look towards what seems to be the bar itself; beer taps jutting out from a particularly wide mountain of the white stuff confirm my suspicion.

My head might be spinning, but I recognise the voice, a voice that makes my head spin even more than the ridiculous amounts of alcohol in my system.

I must have reached the level of intoxication where I see things that aren't happening because it looks very much like every single beer tap opens itself.

Maybe that did just happen, because now I hear liquid; I see beer or at least I think it's beer... No, it's clear and beer doesn't move with a mind of its own through the air like it's being controlled by witchcraft.

I blink, blink some more and squint as I hold my head in disbelief; I'm watching streams of liquid pour from drinks dispensers and fuse into a floating, womanly figure.

The see-through phantasm of femininity throws out jets of water from her hands to blast away the debris and sits on the suddenly clean bar-top. She looks like a ghost: completely translucent and refracting the light like a living pool of water.

That water grows dark blue then hardens; scales form and skin underneath until a few moments later I find myself staring into hereyes... Simona Van der Zee... The one responsible for all of this!

'Hi!' She smiles wickedly and I can see the final changes she's made: Her form is still coated in a licentious meeting of aquatic and terrestrial materials but her head sports a pair of what I can only term horns while I see numerous fins and additions that make it clear what she truly is.

'Are you... a mermaid?' I ask only to hear her laugh, head rolling back where she comfortably sits atop the bar.

'A mermaid?! Please...' She scoffs, 'I guess that might be a term your people would have for us, but we prefer to call ourselves Sirens!' She smiles proudly as she proclaims her true identity.

'We...? There are... more of you?' I ask, staggering forwards as the boat (and my head) rocks; her expression turns dark, furious perhaps. She steps off the bar and swaggers towards me, crunching the thick residue underfoot.

'There were!' She sneers, grabbing me by the chin with a power that frightens me; her webbed fingers are smooth like the rubbery wet skin of an orca.

'Then your people started destroying everything!' She sneers, this close I can feel her fury and see it in her fierce eyes as she stares into my soul. 'I'll let you hear this because you won't reach New North City with me...'

She releases me with a shunt and I stagger backwards, falling into the soft, snow-like mattress on the lounge floor.

She throws out her fingers and fires water from their tips; the force is enough to lift her off the ground as the water swirls through the air, scooping up the salt to form a seat.

I watch in awe as she creates an ornate throne out of water-logged salt crystals and gently sets herself down upon it, queen of a realm of the dead and desiccated.

'Once we numbered in the thousands, tens of thousands perhaps.' She begins, a look of pain etched on her face and oozing through every word. 'We lived in such peace and tranquillity for millennia, eachof us!' She clarifies.

'So you're...' I ask, gawking as I rise to my knees. She raises a hand and beckons me in with a finger as she parts her knees upon her throne. I know what is expected of me, but should I crawl through the thick salt dust to reach her?

'Three thousand, four hundred and twenty seven years old... Though by your standards I might as well just be twenty seven, right?' She smirks arrogantly as she looks down on me.

'~Doooown belooooow~' She finishes her siren song and my restraint abandons me, my mind surrendered as my body moves of its own volition; I crawl like a dog to her feet.

It's only when I reach her throne that I realise she has sculpted trenches below her seat, perfectly formed to fit my knees and lower legs. I shuffle in and she grabs me by the head. 'This is the last thing you'll ever do.' She explains, craning my head up to look her in the eyes.

'So before you perish I just want you to know that as the strongestof my kind, I will make your kind pay for what they have done!' I nod against her strength. 'Aren't I deserving of at least that?' Again I nod, I feel sorry for her and her kind, but I'm still not in control.

'Of course I am!' She answers for the pair of us and slouches back into her throne, wrapping her slippery, wet thighs around my head and pulling me into the depths of her hips.

'I have already destroyed countless of your invasive drills and mining machines, but more keep coming...' She continues as I feel her rock-hard, rubbery groin slide up my face.

'The seas keep getting more toxic, everything is fucking dying!'She thrusts and breaks my nose with a thickening crunch.

'My patience has run out!' She anger skull-fucks me with each stressed word 'And the elders who stopped meare also! dead!' I can feel my head smushing and deforming as I take her vigorous, supernatural lunges. I don't hateit, in fact she's making me enjoy even this!

'So now!' She exclaims with an impassioned pant, 'You die!' I feel them, the edges of her razor-sharp scales inside my skull where she's all but posted my mangled face into her folds, 'Too!'She explosively finishes and everything turns white.

I already can't see, my whole face nothing but slop, but when she squirts, though I hear the pump of her juices, all that follows is white noise.

I think I am dead, I might well be dead, but something remains; it's enough to feel my body withering as my final thoughts now come to me.

“I realised it was her hours ago... So why did I do nothing when I still perhaps could have?!” I think as my thirst grows and the pain with it, “How have I failed so miserably at my task?!” So... So thirsty! And I save my most pertinent question until last: “Is this how it all ends?”

I become nothing more that grains of salt in a sea of white. Now... I'm no longer able to vouch for what follows, but you know as well as I did what happens next:

A figure rises above what remains of the entire ship's complement. She strides towards the window and looks out as she cracks a wicked smile.

There, rapidly approaching, are the lights of the great metropolis. So, heads up, New North City: The Mistress of the sea is about to weigh anchor.