Mermaid for a Day

16

I willed myself to clutch onto the sides of the truck bed for my dear life. Jacob was up in the driver's seat pressing hard on the accelerator, so hard I felt like he was pushing it down, as we were speeding past the security officers' cars that mingled with the sirens of the California Highway Patrol, to the point he could punch a hole into the floorboards of the truck cab. It was like going on a ridiculous roller coaster that you couldn't get off of even if you wanted to with all your heart.

I was screaming as my tail fin began to fly from the bag of ice it had been chilling in to the window, as my brother swerved the vehicle between lanes and through trailing cars, but Damien grabbed before it could have lost on the tire trampled asphalt freeway. He glanced to me looking through the rear window that separated him from me, his soul mate with a severed tail fin, with a face that simple was focused on me getting what I needed.

As two cars pulled up by the sides of the pickup, one a security vehicle and the other a squad car with sirens blazing, my brother pushed down on the gas pedal until the thing itself looking like it would crack from the massive amount of pressure Jacob was putting. The truck made a large leap ahead of the cars make them one hit the accelerator just like a mad man trying to follow us down with the driver, the security officer, looking more like an animal than a human being. Then it happened.

The driver face, as well as, the man next to him, turned fiery red as horns rose from the sides of their heads. They were demons, fiery demons, hunting down the three of us, who consisted of a mutilated mermaid and two mermen, and they looked like they were going to have us for lunch. The CHP officer driving the squad vehicle looked at the scene, and with what looked like instant shock, he slammed his break making him skid down the road until he came to complete stop, which was when a semi-truck came in from behind him and crashed blocking the rest of the officers from reaching us.

The demon officers behind were now furious as they began going into roaring road rage. They hit rear-end of the bed sending me into the air and slamming into the window. My tail started to bleed violently as the arteries broke within stump I used to call my tail. I shrilled in pain that was desensitizing me as my vision went numb. My eyes blurred as the curtain of darkness fell over them leaving blind.

One more hit like that and I would be laying there without slightest amount of consciousness to support my mind. I would simple be knocked out cold. I could hear the officers growl like ravenous beasts staring down at a dripping hunk of juicy meat. The feeling of being stared at came swiftly upon me with pressure to get away from these creatures who made me feel like a mongrel mutt in the presence of the intelligently evil energy spread upon the three of us.

Their power was unbearable. Like fire spreading through the air burning everything that was alive in my soul. My body grew extremely weary and the connection felt from my tail fin being held in Damien's hand with their tips caressing the sawn off piece of my body. It all went away. The fiery aura left me stranded unable to hear or see, but I could feel the grasp from hands like pins and needles being struck into my skin.

I wanted it to stop. To let go of my rescuing convoy would mean momentary relief, but utter failure to succeed in making it home with Damien to Aquaria. It was like the atoms within me were splitting apart about rip the fabric of my very existence to shreds. I held on despite the pain as it smother my mind in an unimaginable undermining wave of destruction. My thoughts were being invaded by images of my mother being tortured by these demons.

I tried to shut out the thoughts the best I could, but they surrounded my mind in a tactical advance of interrogation and annihilation united in goal to destroy me. I was without will as my mind slipped into the cracks. The car behind us made one final impact into the rear of the truck before I felt my brother sped off onto a winding road twisting from side to side. The blacked out world around me sent me into my unconsciousness after the shock of being hit in the bed of the vehicle struck me leaving me knocked for the moment.

As soon as my unconsciousness encased me like my soft comforter at home with its homey feel and inviting, my vision returned as I returned to the real world facing the ongoing scenery of the California coast with its bends and curves in the winding road. We had gotten off of the freeway and onto deserted road along shoreline running parallel with freeway for the moment from what I could see.

We had gone on a detour to who knows where, but the tour across the beaches made me want to jump out of the truck and into it. The only problem is that my tail fin laid separated from me in Damien's as he secured it with constant care for it to not fly out like last time. Speaking of which, the demon security officers were gone and Jacob had slow the truck as if he was having a comforting joyride in the now beaten up pickup.

I was stuck here in the bed of the truck like before, but now I was pretty much on a tour. Just gazing out the ocean as we drove along the edge of its foreseeable grip. It was nice. I was a finless mermaid on a tour. How quaint?

B@\Fm