Short Story Competition 2020

2nd Prize - Jim Goodman with:

Siren

The wild flashing lights of the main strip, a quarter of a mile up the beach, danced in the distance across the surface of the rippling sea like a disco ball playing over oil. Here though, the primary illumination came from the pure light of the full moon skittering over the water, white on black. The sand, washed smooth by the falling of the tide, had been marred by the irregular tracks left by a man who until only moments before had been meandering his way back to his hotel. Now he lay propped on one arm in the sand; Hawaiian shirt undone to expose hot flesh to the night breeze coming from across the water.

His world gently undulated around him in rhythm with the sea. Ears still pulsing with the echo of bass from the nightclub, mixing with the sound of breaking waves like a slow cascade in his mind. What light there was leaving trails across his vision.

He was not sure how long he had drifted off, mind wandering but not sleeping. He knew that sleep would elude him until his jaw stopped its involuntary swing and the heat at the blurred edges of his vision subsided several hours later. The rhythmic beat of the music from the strip was still present in the air but another note, something infinity sweeter, had been his pull back to awareness. The sound of singing, a woman's voice, the foreign words adding a purity of sound that made it that much more beautiful.

Trying to locate the source of the song the man's head rolled and stopped - jerky movements made necessary by neck muscles that felt too weak to properly control the weight they bore - eyes swimming to catch up. They came into unsteady focus on the woman who's voice had buoyed his floundering mind back to consciousness, her steps light but deliberate as she moved across the sand towards the ocean. Dark hair billowed softly behind her as she walked; a long, white dress swirling around her legs in the breeze, giving fleeting glimpses of her figure as the air held it to her body.

He sat still, held captive by the spectral beauty in front of him, watching as her long fingers began to unbutton the front of her dress as she neared the waters edge. When she reached it she did not break her step as the cool water washed her bare feet, lapping at her ankles.
She paused, still singing, when the water caressed her thighs to look over her shoulder. Her eyes sparkling in the ghost light as they locked with his. The sudden connection between them causing him to lean towards her. With a gentle shrug she slid the dress from her shoulders, the fabric pooling around her on the surface of the water, exposing skin that seemed to glow in the silver moonlight. His breath quickened, blood rising. The faintest smile touched her lips as she raised her hand to motion him to her with a finger.

Her gesture drew him up on unsteady feet, wonder turning to hunger, even before his addled mind was able to fully comprehend its meaning.
Song expanding, she continued forward, her fingers trailing lightly along the waters surface. His eyes locked on the goddess before him he half stumbled to the water's edge and, without a thought, followed her into the sea.

***

The body had been washed ashore. Although there was genuine tragedy - children swept out or lost souls finding solace in the arms of the ocean - it was most often the wretched body of some tourist come to sample the night life, intoxicated with one substance or other from the common to the exotic.

Not this one. This one was hers. Her own.

Standing now - lost in the small crowd that had been slowly coalescing from members of the still sleepy Spanish town and the last of the hollow eyed revellers that had been arrested from their journey to a darkened room by the commotion – she fought against the bile threatening to rise in her throat.

She looked different, diminished; the power and poise she had felt under the light of the Moon just a few hours before had fled before the morning Sun. Her arms wrapped around herself and her gaze, peering from under her dark fringe, avoided contact with the eyes of the police. The dress was gone, hidden, replaced by shorts and t-shirt. Sea water had dried on her flesh, evaporated on the breeze of the previous night, leaving behind the gentle abrasion of salt. Its texture, a reminder, made her want to squirm and the taste of it on her lips sent a cold shiver down her spine.

The police held the couple that had found him. They were close enough that she could see their jaws twitching and their pupil filled eyes darting nervous glances. They looked more worried for themselves than for the dead man.

They did not know. That knowledge eased her a little.

Her nerves pulled taut once again as a tall man, black hair greying at the temples, approached the cordon. The officers standing guard moved out of his way, nodding in greeting. The man – a detective she guessed - stopped at the corpse, passing an eye over it while the other focused on his attempt to light a cigarette. The undulating breeze from the night before was stiffening, its strong gusts coming from across the sea, drowning out sound. It forced him to cup his hands around the lighter and turn away to snatch at the flame before it blew out. He took a deep drag, shaking his head at the body - lurid Hawaiian shirt open and bunched around the upper arms and shoulders - before a sigh billowed smoke from his nostrils.

She bit her lip as she studied the detective, his nonchalance giving her hope.

'What we got Perez?' The new voice, words clipped by the wind, came from a younger man in a suit sauntering over the sand to join him.

'Drowning.' Pérez answered, clamping the cigarette in the corner of his mouth before pulling on a pair of latex gloves and kneeling down..

'Tourist?'

Pérez nodded as he ran his hands over the pallid blue flesh, studying; face contorting as he tried to keep the whirling smoke from his eyes. After a moment he stood, turning to speak to the man standing next to him but the words were whipped away by a sudden gust. Her ears strained to hear their conversation, to know what they were thinking.

'...with some shit or other in his system.' The end of the sentence reached her as the gust died, flushing her cheeks with relief by its implications.

Gesturing the man to walk with him, Pérez took off his gloves. They strode towards her and despite what she had heard she felt her heart thumping in her ears, a cold dread settling over her like a shroud. She stiffened; unable to think, unable to flee. Seconds stretched. By the time she had regained control of her body the two men had passed her.

With an effort of will she followed, fighting against her own voice screaming in her mind. She had to know just a little more, to be sure she was safe.

'Either way, wallet's still on him and he's not been in the water too long, no marks or bruising... His lungs'll be full of water.' Pérez continued.

'Worth getting out of bed...' The tone of contempt evaporated along with the words on the wind.
She had heard enough; they had failed to comprehend. They never did.

Letting out a breath she did not know she held, relief flooded her and a smile touched her lips, feeling safe that her evolution was still obscured to those outside. She could feel it though, keenly, deep in her being. Sometimes rising to move just under her skin. Inevitable and accelerating.

She stopped in the golden morning light, allowing the two men to continue their sojourn unmolested, satisfied that she was hidden. The crowd was slowly dispersing around her as the scene lost its interest to them.

'...Siren...'

She had plucked the word from somewhere within the babble of passing people. The word thrilled her despite the fear it manifested in her chest.

The name was a whisper, one that was slowly growing, spreading. Formed by stories from unreliable sources; the ghostly woman in white with her exquisite voice seen some nights before a drowning. That story was cropping up in tiny articles in local press across the Mediterranean.
She was Myth.

Terror had gripped her the first time she had seen that name in print - greater than the terror she had felt after first singing the Siren's song - but with each story, as with each awakening, it grew less. Almost intoxicating anticipation now bubbled below the fear. One day they would all know and by then it would be too late, she would have become something more, something touching divinity.

***

She sings. The rise and fall of her voice, it's accentuation and elongation of the syllables, the manipulation of the verses' cadence captivating the crowd. Lifting them up with her, drawn to her with the echo of her voice.

The words are ancient, verses from Homer's great epic the Iliad, the song of the Trojan War and fall of Troy. On Zakynthos, amongst her countrymen, in a small bar tucked away from the bubble of tourists, most of the audience would understand and appreciate the words.

She feels the warmth of the setting Sun, its radiance penetrating deeper than her skin where It feels it too. The shudder of pleasure is not wholly her own, the sensation being pushed to the extreme tips of her nerves by what lay moving within.

Light skipping over the surface of the sea baths her in rippling golden light, casting the audience into silhouettes that move abstracted against the dying Sun. Night is not far off now, the full Moon - already starting its rise - obscured by the last of the Sun's light. It stirs within her, forcing her breath to deepen, blood tingling with rising anticipation. Fists held at her sides clenching and unclenching slowly.

Finishing the verse she pauses, forcing hands shaking from the buzz of adrenalin to lift her glass and sip. The crowd applauds; some standing, some calling to her - all in awe. None of these people would be chosen. When she could not hold It back any longer her sacrifice would be found from amongst those desecrating the town, same as always.

Placing her glass back down with both hands, she turns to sing again. For several moments she stands, her eyes lost in an ocean turned to blood by the reflection of the now red Sun.

Without thought she began to sing again - softly at first, her voice barely carrying over the chatter in the room. She sang from the Odyssey, sister to the Iliad, verses that told of Odysseus and his journey home from the Trojan war. She became lost to it, lost to the words, her voice building and expanding as she drew closer to the story of the song of the daughters of the sea. Her song.

The crowd silenced, enthralled by the new fervour in her voice. She is earning her name. The one that had been given to her as she travelled and sang. The one she had also claimed in secret. She could feel It swelling with her song, filling every part of her being, making her larger, more massive.

Siren.

About the author

Jim Goodman is from London but has recently moved to the Herefordshire countryside. Although he has been a horticulturist for his whole professional career, he has rekindled his passion for writing, enrolling on the Writer Bureau 'Short Story and Novel Writing Course' in 2019 and hopes to pursue a career in fiction. 'Family Meal' is the first piece he has submitted to a competition and is currently working on a novel.