Chapter No. 45 Drunk with the Blood of Martyrs

"Are you sure that you want to continue?" Margaret asked a raven-tressed young woman in a red bikini. "Even with stepped-up security, I'm not sure that your safety can be assured."

The woman in the red bikini stared grimly at Margaret for several seconds before she answered. "I'm not going to buckle under. Kathy didn't, and I owe it to her. She befriended me . . . a lot of people here don't really like me. I'm not an Anglo."

Karen's frankness startled Margaret. Racial prejudice disturbs her even though she's a Daughter of the South reared in a time of deep-seated prejudice against any non-white race.

She flashed a soul-soothing smile. "The mermaids don't care."

"Yeah, you're right." Karen smiled reciprocally. "That's what I like about them. They're not prejudiced. They return my love without reservation." She paused for a few seconds to adjust a strap. "Besides, I have some questions that I'd like them to ask them."

"We all do . . ."

As if on cue, two blond heads and a red head popped out of the water. Their eyes surveyed the two women for several seconds in silence.

"Hi Mar-ga-reet! Hi Kar-en!" they sung in unison.

"Hi!" the two humans answered in like fashion.

The Galapagos male looked around. "Where is Kath-ee?"

Margaret swallowed hard. "The bad men . . . they took her."

Isaiah stared at her for a moment before he intoned: "We are sad. We love her."

"Why?" Karen asked him, tilting her head to emphasize her inquiry. "Why do you love her?"

"Be-cause she loves us. She is our . . . how do you say it . . . friend."

"Do you love one another?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Be-cause we are one to-get-her."

"Do you love the others--the new ones?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"They are of our kind."

Karen summed it up. "I see. You love one another because you are of the same species and you love us because we love you."

"Yes."

Karen glanced at Margaret and smiled before turning to Isaiah. "Do you have leaders--ones in charge?"

"Yes."

"Are your leaders male or female?"

"Both."

"What is the basis of the choice--the reason to be made leader?"

"Num-ber of cy-cles."

"So, you choose on the basis of experience?"

"Yes."

"How do you identify yourselves?"

Isaiah tilted his head so as to aim his ear at her, but he failed to answer.

"Do you have names?" Karen asked.

"No."

"How do you know who is who?"

"By the sound."

"They use vocal sounds," Margaret said. "That's how bats can distinguish their own echolocation projections in a cave full of bats . . . or how whales in a pod recognize each other."

Karen slicked her long black hair back out of her face. "Well, I doubt that we'll ever be able to pronounce their names."

Margaret laughed. The creature's face reflected no emotion.

"Not to change the subject," Karen said. "But, do you ever wonder what's out there?" She pointed up at the sky. "When you see the lights in the sky at night, do you ever wonder what they are?"

"Yes."

Karen's eyes widened. "That's it? What do you think they are?"

Isaiah paused to click before answering. "They are stars like our star."

"How do you know that?"

"It is logi-cal."

Karen and Margaret exchanged glances.

"How far away do you think they are--these stars?" Karen asked.

"Very far."

"How far is very far?"

That brought a blink to Isaiah's eyes. "We do not know. It is many times the star speed."

"The star speed?"

"The speed of the light from the star."

Margaret's eyes widened and her mouth dropped. "Good heavens!"

Karen turned to her. "This is what I thought. They know far more than we think they do. Lord knows what they've deduced from eons of--"

"Where did you come from?" Margaret asked Isaiah.

He stared at her for several minutes before he answered. "We come from the be-gin-ning."

"What is the beginning?"

"That which came be-fore."

"Before what?"

"The be-gin-ning."

"I think we're going around in circles," Karen said. "We're caught up in the inconsistencies of the language."

"You're right," Margaret said. "They can't really tell us everything they know because they're not proficient enough in our language."

"I think they're more proficient than we're aware of," Karen said. "We just don't know how to ask the questions."

Margaret sighed. "We don't even know what questions to ask them."

Karen squinched her nose. "I've got one more question."

Margaret gave her new protégé a confused expression.

Her new protégé looked at Isaiah. "Do you dream?"

She got a blank stare back.

"Do you remember seeing and doing things right after you wake up?"

"Yes."

"What do you dream about?"

"We dream of Sha-lom."

Margaret's right eyebrow rose. "Shalom? That's a Hebrew word. It's used as a Jewish greeting."

"It means peace," Karen said. "Doesn't it?"

Isaiah emitted a few clicks. "It is more than the ab-sence of vi-o-lence. It is har-mon-ee, un-i-tee, and whole-ness. This is why we dream of seas full of food, seas full of Sea Woo-man, seas with no un-nat-u-ral things, and a world full of or-der."

Karen and Margaret exchanged surprised looks.

"Fascinating," Margaret said. "I would have guessed that their dreams would be more in the realm of nightmares."

"Why is that?" Karen asked.

"Well, with all the sharks and orcas out there, I would think that they would be concerned about their safety."

"We have safe-ty in num-bers," Isaiah sang.

Karen and Margaret exchanged looks again, looks that expressed both surprise and fascination.

###

The room appears bleak, without much in the way of furniture or decorations. In fact, it is nearly empty. The walls are antiseptic white; even the floor and ceiling are white.
Is this a hospital?

No. No, it can't be. Someone strapped me onto a table, but it's not an ordinary table; it feels hard like metal. Maybe it's an operating table. God, how cold it feels on bare skin.

But, why? Why am I on this table? Are they going to operate on me? What's wrong with me? Why can't I remember?

I can't clear my mind. Everything's a fog.

Maybe this is a hospital.

How did I get here? Wait. It's coming back. Wait. Yes, I remember walking to my car and trying to get into it. I remember seeing a shadow reflecting in the car window. Then . . . then . . . I smelled ether.

Oh, God!

Why would they do something weird like this? Why didn't they just rob me or . . . or rape me? Maybe they did. I don't remember anything. I wished someone would tell me what's going on.

I can't seem to move. My ankles are pinned down. I don't know how they have my wrists tied. I can't see them.

Why am I here? I hate this.

After she awoke from the ether-induced sleep, Kathy lay there for what she thought to be hours. She had no idea of how long it actually was. There are no visible or audible reference points on which to base a time interval on. The room has no windows or clocks. The silence is maddening.

A door opened, allowing a bright light to flood the room, momentarily startling her. Two men dressed in white stood there in the doorway, back-illuminated with a glaring light. Their hair appeared white as snow, their faces gray and pale, and their eyes dark and without life.

Why are they just standing there?
They came in and quickly closed the door.

One of them flicked a switch and bright ceiling spotlights illuminated a naked female strapped to a gleaming stainless table.

The two men stared at her and it made her nervous. But their eyes were not the eyes of young men interested in looking at a naked young woman. Their eyes were the eyes of men exposed to the horrors of war. They seemed unmoved, uncaring, detached, as if they had seen their share of brutality and death. Their stares made her feel even more naked than she actually was, as if her very soul were being observed.

"Who are you?" She yelled, squirming around and fighting against her restraints. "Why are you doing this to me?"

No answer. They simply stood there staring at her as if they were studying her body.

She arched her back and flexed her muscles more violently, shaking and squirming like a trapped animal. All she succeeded in doing was making her large breasts jiggle.

The first man spoke to the second without turning to him. "Behold the teats of the harlot that suckled the Nero redivivus."

"Harlot? What are you talking about? I'm not a harlot, and I've never had a child. If you hadn't stripped me, my . . . my breasts wouldn't be exposed. God damn it! I hate being naked. It's indecent."

She tried again to free herself, straining, bucking, and twisting her body so that every muscle twitched and quivered.

One of the men pointed at her and said in an apocalyptical voice: "Now, woman, you will know how the animals that you keep feel."

"What are you talking about? I don't keep animals tied to tables."

"You keep them caged in tanks. You keep them naked. You conduct horrible experiments on them."

"You're out of your minds. Who are you?"

A brief but leering smile crossed the second man's lips. "We are the defenders of animal rights. We are soldiers in the war against animal cruelty."

Oh, God! They're nut cases.

She struggled against her restraints with more vigor. "What are going to do to me?"

The first man stepped over to a small table near the wall and picked up a large knife, a gleaming razor sharp steel instrument. "We're going to put you to the test so that you can appreciate how your animals feel when you torture them with your experiments."

Her face froze in horror, her eyes wide, her mouth agape. "What . . . what are you talking about. I'm not a biologist. I'm just a trainer."

The first man's face twisted with anger, his eyes glared with wrath. "You are a liar. You are Dr. Margaret Hauptman, a marine biologist working for the Pacific Institute of Oceanography, an institute of animal torturers."

"No! No! My name is Kathy Tuller. I work as a trainer for Marineland of San Diego. Margaret Hauptman is in her late fifties. Do I look like I'm even close to fifty?"

"We know that you're Dr. Hauptman because you work with the mermaids. You exploit them."

"What in the devil are you talking about? I've never exploited any animal. You're crazy."

The first man turned to the second. "I think we should see if she belongs to the beast, Hobbes."

"Yes, I agree, Calvin. Let's expose her evil. Maybe it will tell us if she really is a liar."

The man with the knife stepped over to the side of the table and held the instrument above her abdomen with the casualness of someone about to carve up a turkey. He smiled a sardonic smile.

His intended victim had anything but a smile. She cried--small murmurs, pleading squeaks as her chest heaved up and down from agitated, uneven breaths. She bucked wildly up and down, flopping like a fish out of water.

Her pleading cries had no effect on the knife wielder. He lowered the tip to a point directly below her sternum and then began a long slow incision down her abdomen to her pubis.

She screamed, a high-pitched squeal that reverberated from the antiseptic walls of this room of horrors with an ear splitting brilliance. Spots of blood spattered the knife wielder's white lab jacket as he intently continued his surgical exploration of his victim's innards, completely impervious to her screams and her thrashings.

###

The redheaded female took a deep breath before she inserted her mouthpiece, testing it to make sure it was functioning properly. She slicked her short hair back and adjusted her mask.

The night air was humid but not oppressive. A gentle breeze stirred a few leaves on nearby trees. A gibbous moon radiated a weak white luminescence on peaceful blue water. Good night for a swim.

Maybe.

After taking a deep breath and looking around to see if she was being watched, she stepped off the tank ledge and penetrated the depths with her stun gun held at ready. The weapon is capable of immobilizing a great white, more than sufficient to handle a mermaid. However, she had to have the element of surprise to succeed, and that was going to be difficult under the circumstances. Bubbles from her aqua-lung trailed up like a flag and her motions were less than stealthy. She hoped that her black wetsuit would more than make up for her other failings.

The water is murky and mysterious at night. Objects are difficult to make out against a fusion of gray and translucent blue. Shadows lurk in the near line of sight, but they are ephemeral and transient.

Her heart rate quickened when she spotted a dark shadow directly in her path. The mysterious form hung suspended ten yards away, slowly moving its arms in a treading fashion, almost as if it were teasing her. She aimed her weapon and squeezed the trigger. A small projectile with a sharp point trailed a thin wire behind it as it knifed through the water. The intended target avoided the projectile with a sharp flick of its powerful fluke. Re-arming the weapon required too much time. The female dropped it and made for the surface with all haste.

She never made it. Arms grabbed her and pulled her down, and her struggling was to no avail. She was dragged down to the bottom while squirming madly to escape. Their grips were too powerful, their swimming abilities too great. They took her into a tunnel that was half filled with water. When she surfaced in the dim light, her eyes were met with many alien eyes, impersonal eyes, staring eyes.

She had never seen a mermaid before--only photographs. They were much more impressive in the flesh, but they appeared more menacing than she had imagined. Their faces were far from humanoid, a fact that gave her a queasy feeling.

To make matters worse, her superior had assured her that a feminine gender would protect her from harm, but she had little confidence in his risky wisdom, especially now.

Two of the creatures pulled her up onto a ledge, removed her scuba gear, and secured her wrists and ankles with nylon cords, an action that increased her heartbeat to an alarming rate.

Another creature approached and examined her wet suit, rubbing its fingers slowly down the sides and fingering a zipper before slowly unzipping it. That action didn't surprise her, but when the creature began cutting the suit with a sharp object, her eyes widened in fear and she felt tingling in her hands and feet.

She screamed more from anticipation than reality. Her breathing rate had taken her to the point of hyperventilation and she began shivering. The creature stopped and stared at her for a few minutes before he screeched and chirped. Within seconds, another creature approached with a small container, a cup-like stone object, and handed it to the first creature. He paused and then positioned it at the human's lips.

The smell was interesting. A sweet smell, like a rose but more subdued and subtle. She took a sip and allowed it to wet her dry mouth.

Tastes smooth, a rich creamy milk, much sweeter and delicious than any milk she had ever tasted. She drank it freely, allowing the cool liquid to sooth her throat and refresh her mouth.

The world about her began to swim around like the scene in the viewscreen of a hand-held camcorder. Colors were more vivid despite the dim light. Her breathing returned to a more normal rate, perhaps even lower and shallower.

How wonderful. I can't seem to feel my body. It's as if I'm floating above the ground, not making contact. Just floating in a swirl of fog.

What's wrong with me?

Slowly, and with perfect precision, the creature surgically removed the suit and the bathing suit she wore under it. The action had little effect on the human. She even smiled.

Several adults moved closer to examine the naked body of their unwilling visitor. Their long tongues flicked out and played against her pale flesh.

She struggled briefly but then relaxed. Long sharp tongues probed her body, twisting around her neck and arms, swiping against her abdomen, slowly licking her breasts. Soon, blunt tongues joined in the examination, probing into her thighs, rubbing along her calves, and wiping her face. The probing instruments felt cold and moist, like reptilian tongues, but they did not revolt her. She felt stimulated by the licking of her bare flesh. The probings were erotic and she enjoyed them, pumping her hips in synch to the tongue strokes, rolling her eyes, pulsing her own tongue in and out, moaning in response to the warm tingling flush of wetness invading her portal of pleasure.

Her pleasure came to an abrupt end. The probing tongues retracted and their owners moved away. One of the creatures poised the sharp instrument that had been used to remove her suit above her abdomen. The sudden awareness of what it was about to do panicked her.

She whimpered. Her eyes, her entire face twisted with terror.

The instrument sliced through her flesh like a freshly sharpened scalpel, separating the skin of her abdomen like a surgeon's incision. Warm blood streamed from the wound in rivulets that trickled down her sides. When the unwilling victim felt the knife make new cuts near the original incision, she strained to see what was happening, but the gory scene was not what she really wanted to see. The creature was slicing away the flesh of her abdomen in narrow strips like a fisherman filleting his catch in preparation for frying.

But, this fisherman was not waiting for a cookout. It was eating her flesh raw.

She began to buck and shake, trying desperately to escape, but her actions were useless. She wanted to scream and yell but she was too groggy to do either. All she could do was watch the creature slowly, skillfully cut away strips of her flesh and give them to waiting hands.

She felt no pain. It was as if this was nothing more than a dream, as if she were unattached from her body and simply observing the creature continue its grisly work of butchering her body. She marveled at how easily it sliced sections of meat out of her thigh, impervious to the bloody mess that resulted. Soon, many alien faces appeared, and she watched them chew her flesh like diners enjoying a meal of chicken nuggets.

She had assumed that they would simply bite out hunks of flesh from their catches like sharks. How interesting. They do what no other animal has ever done: use sharpened tools to butcher their prey. How disciplined they are, waiting patiently for their portion. They almost seem civilized.

Eventually, the gory images began to darken. Her body began to convulse as the butcher made deeper incisions into her abdominal cavity, inserting its hands into the gaping opening, probing, pulling, and cutting. The last thing she saw was several small mermaids lining up to receive sections of her bloody intestines. They seemed to be happy with their meals, chewing and swallowing enthusiastically, allowing blood to stain their cheeks. Children are such messy eaters.

The other creatures silently watched their prey's convulsive thrashings. The grizzly spectacle of a meal preparation is part of the ritual. It has a long tradition.

The others moved closer but did not approach the new meal. This was not a mad feeding frenzy. They waited in patience while the Galapagos male carefully carved and sliced sections of meat from the warm body and gave it to each individual to slowly eat. In addition to sustenance, meals are a time for communication, a time for relating experiences and history. The tunnel was filled with the sounds of happy talk.

The oldest Micronesia female marveled at how many of these human creatures can be found near the beaches, how humans had become their favorite prey, and how they often waited out from shore for humans to wander out too far, sometimes in boats, and sometimes on strange flat wooden objects.

The eldest Micronesia male told of a time when they had obtained several humans by turning their boat over, how they had trapped them in nets, and how they had kept them alive for future meals by feeding them fish. He explained how the captured humans were unable to tolerate the cold and how they are unable to drink seawater and how they had to gorge themselves on them when it was obvious that they would not live long.

He also boasted of how he had pulled a plump human, a human sunning its body, from a beach and how his succulent prize had provided many in his group with food. He told how others of his group had used stealth to snatch humans from beaches and shores by slowly sneaking up on them and pulling them into the water.

The Galapagos female commented on how delicious the meat of humans was, the perfect blend of fat and tender muscle. She told of how she had eaten a female human before and how good that it tasted.

A Micronesia female said that she preferred the meat of human females because of their abundance of fat. She told of how she had snatched several fat females from near shore when they fell asleep. She especially liked females because of their fat breasts.

Another argued that human males were more delicious because they had fat bellies and big brains.

All of the creatures marveled at how great the numbers of humans are on the earth, and how they would never want for food because the quantity of these humans was constantly increasing much faster than the seals, sea otters, and other sea mammals. They all agreed that human meat was the meal of choice.

The little ones were not interested in the dull conversations of the adults. They made a game out of their meals by chasing after one another, stealing food, and making unrecognizable noises, often earning the ire of their elders. But the elders understood. They were once young themselves.

Mealtime is a happy time.

###

Margaret sat in the overstuffed chair just staring into some imagined horizon. She was listless, and the feeling wouldn't go away.

"Why haven't we heard from Stram? What's going on?"

"Look, Love. I don't like this anymore than you do, but we can't really do anything about it. We just have to wait."

"I can't quit thinking about it. I feel responsible for her."

"You shouldn't blame yourself. Kathy chose to work with the creatures. No one coerced her."

"But that's no reason for her to be kidnapped. Why don't they leave us alone?"

Eric shook his head. "They're persistent devils. That's for sure."

The phone rang. Margaret jumped up, but Eric answered it.

"This is Eric Hauptman."

His face appeared calm at first and then his lower lip began to tremble slightly, alarming his wife.

She stood up and hurried over to him. "What is it, Eric?"

Her husband bowed his head. "Yes. I understand. Thank you. Bye."

After returning the receiver to its base, he collapsed into a recliner, rubbed his hand down over his face, and then stared into space for a moment before he grimly turned to his wife. "Willis said that the police found a body of a young woman, a blond . . . the body had been mutilated and it . . . He's pretty sure that it's Kathy Tuller."

Margaret stared at him in shock before she staggered to the couch and fell limply into it. She sat there quietly for several minutes before tears began streaming down her face. Eric came over to her, sat down next to her, and tried the best he could to comfort her, but he knew down deep that nothing he could say or do would make a difference.

###

"Look at this," Willis said, pointing to the displayed image of a small hole in a chain link fence. "This is where she got in. She cut the hole with bolt cutters after she bypassed the alarm system." He turned from the video screen to look up at Anderson. "Pretty sophisticated. The breach never showed on our console."

"Why wasn't she seen by the operator on duty?" Anderson asked.

"That was Fisher. I don't know what happened. He must've been asleep at the switch."

"What happened to her?"

Willis pressed the play button. "Here is where she jumped into the water. She went in, but she never came out. To tell you the truth, I don't want to know what happened to her."

Anderson's eyebrows rose. "You don't think that the--"

"I wouldn't be surprised. The creatures knew that she wasn't one of our staff." He picked up a gun-like object. "We found this at the bottom. It's a stun gun designed specifically to operate under water. It fires a projectile attached to a wire and when it penetrates the target's flesh, it delivers a pretty hefty shock."

"She was trying to capture one of the creatures?"

"No doubt about it. But, I think she was in over her head, literally."

"That's three strikes for Stram," Anderson said, his face first showing satisfaction and then anguish. "Except in the case of the young trainer."

"That wasn't Stram's doing."

"Really! I thought they kidnapped her."

"They did, but another group took her from Stram's goons, some idiots going by the name of The Assembly of God's Creatures. They've arrested the leader and charged him with murder."

Anderson exhaled a long breath. "What next? These nuts are coming out of the woodwork."

"Crawling out from under rocks," Willis corrected him before he rubbed his neck. "I hope this'll end it."

Anderson stared out the main entrance with grim eyes. "I doubt it. I seriously doubt it."