The Siren
Published in HUGE zine, Ink 005.
Little Black Book
Written by Morgan Mack
When I looked up from the warm glow of my computer screen, I was struck by the darkness around me. I took off my headphones, the dead silence of the room outside of the tinny sound I could still hear surprised me, but it wasn’t totally unexpected. It was 9 p.m. on a Monday, not peak late work hours. It had been a long day; I’d had meetings in the morning and a few heated client phone calls, but that was it. Then it was just a matter of putting my head down, fingers to keyboard, and getting to work. I vaguely remembered people passing by, maybe on their way out, and the pings from my email getting less frequent. The empty office was no big deal—but when I looked out the window closest to my desk the bridge, usually crowded with traffic, was empty.
Then I heard the music. It was quiet as a whisper. I thought for a split second that it was my imagination. A phantom sound pulling on the threads of my consciousness. I blinked and found that I had moved. Not a step like I remember taking. But across the office to stand next to a window that faced the city. The glass was broken and bloody, and I became aware of a dull ache in my arm. The ache bloomed into a fiery burn. I was bleeding. A lot. But I didn't remember breaking the window with my bare fist. I panicked, wrapping my shirt around my arm to stem the bleeding. I glanced back at the window to see if there was a clue as to why I’d done what I’d done, and that’s when I saw it.
An innocuous-looking boat sitting in the calm bay between the bridges. It was white, pitted with dark spots. People were climbing over a makeshift pier made out of rocks and debris, then scaling the side of the boat to leap from the deck into the Hudson. The water on the other side of the boat was calm. There was no sign of anyone attempting to resurface.
A lone figure was on deck, watching the odd procession of people leaping off the large craft. Her eyes cut to me despite the fact that she shouldn’t have been able to see me at all. I was a dark speck in a dark window of a warehouse. But she was looking right at me.
She opened her mouth, and my last coherent thought was “I want to go for a swim.” My feet moved of their own volition. I think because of the pain in my arm I could only sort of think straight. But I was moving again despite my desperate want to stay put, and I rationalized swimming in the Hudson. Triathletes do it every year. I’ve heard the mussels have come back, which means the river is cleaner. It wasn’t till I’d reached the stairwell, that blessedly soundproof stairwell, that it hit me. It was a siren.
Those fictional, or not so fictional, women who crooned their way into men's souls and dragged them into the ocean to a watery grave. I’d read about them in the deranged writings of sailors lost at sea and who were later found alone, ranting and raving about how their ships were overtaken by women from the deep. Scientists debunked the sightings, saying they were simply dolphins, that water-starved sailors hallucinated women because what else would horny men see in the curve of a dolphin’s tale?
But dolphins look nothing like her. Then those notes echoed through my head again, unbidden, and though I couldn’t actually hear them—I could just recall their memory—the spell was back. I marched outside, joining the procession of people who were walking to their death without even thinking. I tried to fight the impulse, so I screamed. I begged and pleaded for someone to come save me right up until I hit the first part of the makeshift pier. I had to use my arms for balance, as my legs kept going on their own. I slipped across the rocks, and then I was at the side of the boat. It was made of skulls. My fingers dug into eyeholes as I climbed onto the craft, and I realized that my feet were fitted into the toothless mouths of what used to be people, and I let go on reflex. I didn’t fall, because the people who were fully under her spell were still climbing up any way they possibly could and kept me stuck to the side. I resigned myself to getting up the skull siding and on onto the deck with the others, till I stopped in my tracks—right in front of her.
She’d noticed that I wasn’t fully under her spell, and she wanted to see why. She didn’t say that—she didn’t say anything, but she was breathing roughly through wide open gills that lined her neck. She opened her mouth to and her throat made a rattling sound—as if she was parched. The she sang to me. Just to me, I could tell since the rest of the people on the deck kept moving—dropping one by one into the water—and I stepped across the deck to the siren.
Her eyes were the clear blue of the Caribbean ocean, which seemed at odds with her dark skin and tightly curled hair. Her lips were full and naturally tinged with pink. She was beautiful, just like the stories. I looked closer at the curls. Her hair was made of octopus-like tentacles coiled tight against her head waiting to lash out.
I drew closer, and her hair moved slightly as if there was a wind I was unaware of. Then I was in her grasp, a tentacle wrapped tightly around my wrist and she yanked me to her hissing. The sweet song from was gone and I could move again. I tried to lash out, but I was restrained by the rest of her hair. She leaned close to my face and made a clicking sound. I could tell she was saying something, though I had no idea what. Her spell dropped for a split second and I saw her true face. Her plush lips were thin and cracked. She opened her mouth to sing again, and all I could see were several rows of impossibly sharp teeth. I knew then, that I wasn't getting out of this. She let out a dry crackling sound, almost like a laugh, and let me go. She sang, turned back into the beautiful siren and sent me off in the same direction as the others.
I plunged into the ice-cold water and broke free of her hold. I resurfaced a few minutes later gasping for air, clawing for something to help me stay afloat. I hooked my arm around a body, but she sang again and that lifeless corpse moved. In one swift motion I was shoved back under the surface.
That’s where I live now. Right here with the rest of them. We follow her, clapping when she sings, and only remembering the final moments of our lives as we get others to join us. While we hold people, thrashing under the water, till they draw their last breath and become one with her, the siren of the deep.