THE GREEN MERMAID INN

Investigative reporter Mervyn Morse stood outside the quaint country pub, whose ivied walls made it look more like an old country manor house than an inn. He looked up at the intricately painted picture of a green mermaid, complete with a long scaly tail, which hung above the doorway outside the public house.

Walking across the gravel path, he pushed open the heavy oaken door and stepped into what would have been a typical English Country pub, if only it weren't in the Victorian Countryside. A long bar ran the length of the pub at the front. Overhead on the front wall were the typical nautical-looking barometer and for no apparent reason a ship's wheel. The floors and walls were all bare timber, buffed to a high gloss.

Behind the bar stood the owner, a huge bearlike man of perhaps fifty, and his slightly younger wife, Gladys Cosgrove. A raven haired beauty, with a more than ample bust, she was one of the two points of popular interest in the country inn.

The other point of interest was at the rear of the pub, past the nine round, plastic-covered bar tables. Toward the rear wall was a roped-off area. Behind which ran a two-metre wide wooden bench, a metre high, and five metres long. Upon the bench sat a large tank, an oversized aquarium. The tank was full of saltwater, with the usual greenery, and a tube bubbling oxygen into the tank. Above the tank was a steel lid, suspended from an overhead pulley.

Within the tank swam a beautiful Asian-featured woman, emerald-green, topless, and sporting a scaly green tail. Far more realistic looking than the painting outside the public house. Mervyn Morse ran a hand across his bald head, a habit he still had from the days when he had long golden hair.

He looked perplexed, thinking, What the ...? He had expected to see the usual carnival scam, where a long air hose, disguised as seaweed, ran the length of the tank. So that from time to time the mermaid could inconspicuously take a mouthful of air, by sucking upon the seaweed tube. But there was no sign of such a contraption in this tank. The only plant life was small leafy plankton at the bottom of the aquarium.

For the two minutes that seemed like ten minutes or more, Mervyn watched the mermaid (his right hand remaining upon his bald pate until his elbow began to ache and he unconsciously lowered it), the mermaid continued to move about the large aquarium. Making no effort to go down to the plankton. Upon the sides of her long, swanlike neck were a number of gill-like slits, which she appeared to be breathing through.

At first Mervyn had been livid when his rag, the Melbourne Explorer, had sent him to the countryside to investigate what he assumed was an obvious fake. He had intended to do as little journalism as possible; taking it instead as a paid vacation. But now he was enthralled, and for the first time ever had kind thoughts about his managing editor.

"Beautiful, isn't she?" said the burly barman, who introduced himself as Kev.

Startled, having not heard the big man approach, the reporter held out his right hand and introduced himself. "Yes, yes she is," he agreed. "Is she real?"

"See for yourself."

Despite her appearance, Mervyn was still half convinced that the mermaid had to be a realistic rubber or cloth dummy. However as he skirted the bar tables, walking toward the rear of the pub, he started to half believe that perhaps she was real after all.

As he stood just outside the rope, two metres from the tank, the green mermaid suddenly spun around to face him, and gave him a mischievous wink with one beautiful blue eye.

Come To Me! she seemed to be saying to the reporter, as she tongued her cheek suggestively like an online porn star.

"Look out!" called the barman, as Mervyn Morse grabbed the white rope guard and started to step over it. "Those ropes are there for a reason!"

Yes, to scam the beer-buying public! thought Mervyn as he stepped effortlessly over the rope and walked forward until he was less than thirty centimetres from the aquarium itself.

"Stop!" warned Kev, loud enough so that everyone in the public house turned to look toward the rear of the pub. Behind the bar beautiful, busty Gladys gasped and held a hand up to her face.

Come to me! Mouthed the gorgeous mermaid, drawing the journalist inexorably toward her. And potentially to his doom as she had gulled so many men down the centuries.

"Come back!" shrieked Kev, as he and a dozen burly farmhands raced across the polished wooden floor toward the mesmerised reporter.

Without looking back, Mervyn Morse grabbed the pulley chain as Kev and the others reached the ropes ringing the table.

Come to me! Mouthed the beautiful death-bringer one more time.

"Yes! Oh, yes!" said Mervyn aloud. He started to work the pulley chain to raise the steel lid of the glass tank, as the mermaid swam toward the very top of the aquarium, as though racing to meet a lover.

Instead of a beautiful green woman, though, what broke the surface of the tank and started to climb out, looked like a two-metre tall hunchback bear, with a flip-top mouth that revealed hundreds of knitting needle length teeth, its body covered in thousands of ugly lethal brownish spines, with which to impale its unsuspecting victims.

Whereas the mermaid had been silent underwater, it now gave off a hellish, squealing snarl.

"Shit in a handbasket," said the terrified reporter. Stepping back in horror, he fell over, an action which saved his life, as the spindly creature struggled to climb out of its watery confinement.

"Get back, dammit!" cried Kev. Then to the farmhands: "Get him out of there!"

After a moment's hesitation, two farmhands knelt down, being careful to crawl as low as possible under the ropes. They managed to grab the journalist by the arms and despite his struggles, dragged him to the other side of the roped-off area. And to the imagined safety of the counter at the other end of the inn.

"Help him to a stool!" cried Kev. Stepping over the rope, he grabbed the pulley chain and struggled with it. Somehow it had stuck, refusing to budge.

"Come on!" shouted a terrified farmhand, Geoff, a tall surprisingly thin man for a farmhand, with a long gash down his left cheek. Which far from detracting from his looks, made him more appealing to many women.

"Got you!" said Kevin Cosgrove as he finally yanked the cable loose, hurriedly lowering the steel lid onto the tank.

With one spiny leg out of the glass tank, the sea bear looked as though it might try leaping to freedom. Then as the steel lid swung down toward it, the creature suddenly dropped back below the surface of the water. Where it instantly transformed, resuming its appearance as a beautiful blue-eye, green-skinned mermaid.

"Oh Lord!" cried Mervyn Morse, almost hyperventilating. "What the Hell happened?"

"It tried to lure you to your death," explained the barman.

"But that thing ...?" said Morse, looking at the beautiful mermaid, who was again probing the inside of her cheek suggestively with her tongue, now simulating giving a hand job with her right hand.

"That's what it really looks like," explained Kev. "Somehow saltwater allows it to shape-change into an attractive shape which it has used to lure many gullible males to their deaths down the years."

"So underwater it's safe?" asked Mervyn.

"Absolutely," agreed Kev. A catastrophic error that would cost him his life before the night was out. For the creature could not shape change like a mythical werewolf or vampire, it was always a super powerful spindly hunchback with hundreds of razor-sharp fangs. But under saltwater, it could affect the minds of people watching it to make them think that it resembled a beautiful green mermaid.

"Normally it won't attack people," explained Kev. "And the steel lid keeps it locked away safely, so it's all right to allow gullible tourists, most of whom are certain it's a phony, to look at it."

"Doesn't hurt your sales, either," guessed the journalist.

"That's true," agreed Gladys, moving away to serve one of the thirsty farmhands.

"It's not strong enough to push up the lid, then?" asked Mervyn Morse, still shaken by his near encounter with death.

"Not in its mermaid form underwater," said Kev, again making a fatal assumption. "But when we captured the creature, it was in its monster form and picked up a steel tanker container and threw it at my cousin, George, crushing him to death. Poor George.

"But in mermaid form it's relatively safe," said Kev, handing Morse a pot of Victoria Bitter. "On the house. You look like you need it."

Relatively safe? thought Mervyn. Relative to what?

Gulping down the cold amber fluid, the journalist asked, "What was this place called before you captured that ... that thing?"

Flushing, in obvious embarrassment, the burly barman said, "The Dead Man Inn."

"It still seems appropriate," said Mervyn.

"I didn't have the heart to call it that, after my cousin was killed by that monster."

Finishing his beer, Mervyn said, "Well, I'd better be heading off."

"No, no, you're too shaken to drive," protested Gladys Cosgrove, "you'd better stay here for the night."

"On the house," explained Kev. "We can't charge you after what almost happened to you."

"Well ..." said the reporter, not entirely sure if he wanted to sleep under the same roof as the beast that had almost had him for its dinner.

But Kevin and Gladys insisted, with encouragement from Geoff and the other farmhands. So, finally, Mervyn gave in and handed Kev his car keys to get his suitcase from the boot, while Gladys escorted him upstairs, having to hold onto him since his legs were still a little shaky. Normally the close proximity to the beautiful, busty brunette would have excited the reporter. But now he was too nervous and just eager to get upstairs, away from the creature in the glass cage.

Despite his fears, after climbing into bed, Morse fell asleep in ten minutes or less. His sleep was tormented though by dreams of the bristly hunchbacked monster chasing him through the inn, clambering over the bar, smashing bottles, destroying the barometer, pulverising the round wooden tables into little more than matchsticks, destroying the aquarium which had been its prison for years, ripping the metal chain to bits, and tearing the six-centimetre thick steel lid into two.

Finally, to Mervyn Morse's relief, he awakened from the nightmare. Yet he could still hear the crashing and smashing from outside his bedroom.

Grabbing a thick tiger-patterned dressing gown from the end of his bed, Mervyn hurried into it, then stepped out onto the landing where he saw the landlord, Kev, his wife, Gladys, and Geoff, who also stayed over, heading towards the stairs to toward the pub, where the shattering sounds were emanating from.

"What's up?" asked the journalist. But all three turned toward Mervyn and shushed him.

Walking as quietly as possible over to them, Mervyn followed the other three, who were all carrying military-style torches. They inched down the stairs, clinging to the wall as much as possible until they reached the ground floor, where their torches displayed the inn in total disarray. Just as in Mervyn's nightmare, the aquarium was smashed to pieces, and the tables were reduced to kindling. Even the sturdy oaken bar was reduced to rubble.

"What the Hell!" asked Kevin rhetorically, stepping tentatively off the bottom step, and into the pub, followed by Mervyn Morse, and the others.

"Let's go back upstairs and ring for Danny Ross, suggested Gladys, her vast bosom heaving in terror.

Reaching the phone at the bottom of the stairs, Kev held it up to his left ear, then said: "Phone's dead."

He continued into the darkened inn, saying, "Stop there, Gladys." Giving the best, and last advice of his life.

Gladys Cosgrove backed up the stairs a little, allowing the three men to proceed into the pub.

"Can you see it?" asked Geoff.

"No, there's..." said Kevin Cosgrove, his words turning to a shriek as the spiny hunchbacked creature leapt out of the darkness.

"Eeeeeee ...." shrieked the beast, sounding like Dame Nelly Melba doing her party piece -- a high note capable of shattering glass.

Startled by the hellish shrieking, Kevin stood rigidly still, until the creature grabbed him, and in an instant broke the barman's back, making him shriek in agony.

"Nooooooo!" screamed Gladys as the monster ripped her burly husband limb from limb, then effortlessly ripped his head off his neck.

That should be impossible! thought Mervyn. Just how strong is that thing?

"Keviiiiin!" shrieked Gladys Cosgrove before fainting onto the stairs.

Before Mervyn or Geoff could come to their senses, the beast had grabbed Geoff and ripped him into shreds, like so much tissue paper.

"Come on!" cried Mervyn, racing across to the still mainly unconscious bar lady. Grabbing her by one arm the journalist dragged the brunette to her feet and half led, half carried her up the stairs. Until suddenly Gladys became too heavy for him to pull-carry anymore.

Looking back, Mervyn saw that the sea bear had hold of her legs, trying to rip her out of the reporter's grasp, to drag her to her death. For a moment the two of them, man and monster, engaged in a tug-of-war with Gladys Cosgrove. Then:

"Oh, Jesus!" preyed Mervyn Morse as the mermaid began devouring Gladys's midriff.

Unaware that he was still carrying the severed top half of Gladys, Mervyn charged up the stairs. After looking about wildly for a few moments, he sped down the thin corridor.

At the end of the hallway was a large ornate window. Without hesitation Mervyn Morse raced straight through the sealed window, dropping Gladys's top half, as he fell to the ground one storey below.

Not caring if he died in the fall, the reporter thought, Sooner that than being devoured alive, or ripped to pieces by that fiend!

The journalist hit the gravelled ground with a crash knocking himself unconscious.

When he awakened an hour later, Mervyn was in an ambulance, on his way to the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital.

At the hospital, after being treated for his injuries he was interrogated by two policemen. Danny "Bear" Ross, nicknamed due to his huge frame and barrel chest, and Terry Blewett, a shorter almost anorexically thin man with black, stringy hair.

To his astonishment, the two officers made it plain that they thought that he had committed the mayhem at the Green Mermaid Inn.

"They were torn limb from limb. And the pub was almost reduced to matchsticks!" protested Mervyn.

"During an insane rage an adrenaline rush can give a person superhuman strength for a brief time," explained Bear Ross.

"That's ridiculous!" insisted Mervyn. "Besides the barwoman, Gladys was partially devoured. Did you find any human remains in my stomach when it was pumped," demanded the journalist. Recalling with distaste his stomach being pumped.

"Well ... no," admitted Bear sheepishly.

"Then get out there and kill that thing, before it slaughters other people!" demanded Mervyn Morse.

Despite being used to giving orders, not getting them, the two policemen sheepishly did as they were told.

"That's telling them!" said Thomasina Madigan a short fat, kindly woman of fortyish, who was the Nurse in Charge (formerly known as a matron) on this shift.

For the next two days, Mervyn lay in the hospital bed, watching the nurse's channel on the overhead TV. It's eight or ten documentaries were replayed repeatedly 24/7 until the journalist was able to repeat much of them by heart.

On the second day, he received another visit from Danny Ross and Terry Blewett. This time to tell him that he was no longer a suspect.

"How come?" asked Mervyn, pleased, yet surprised.

Danny and Terry exchanged a look, then Terry said, "There's been another massacre, at a public house in nearby Willamby. Seven people were torn limb from limb. The pub completely destroyed."

"Five survivors verified your account of the creature that committed the devastation," said Bear Ross.

"Oh," said the journalist. Pleased that he was off the hook, but dismayed that more innocents had died.

"It isn't easy, but we're managing to keep it under wraps," added Terry.

"You're covering it up?" demanded Mervyn, "you should be shouting it out, warning the people that a psychotic monster is on the loose killing people."

"This is a farming area, we can't afford to have everyone hiding inside," said Bear Ross, realising how lame it sounded, even as he said it.

The next day, despite the protests of the doctors, who wanted him to stay there another day or two, Mervyn Morse discharged himself from the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital, then took a taxi back to the Green Mermaid Inn to collect his car. Despite it being roped off with security tape he was allowed to remove his car from the parking lot.

Getting into his battered red and blue Ford Capri, he drove into Daley township. Which was little more than shops and twenty or so houses. It mainly catered to the farms outside the township.

Stopping at a bank-cum-newsagency he purchased the morning editions of three newspapers and took them back to his car to sit to read them.

He only had to skim through them, to see that none of the papers contained anything about the mermaid. They all stated that a maniac had massacred the people in the two inns. Without explaining how a lone maniac had wrought the level of destruction perpetrated against both public houses.

"They are covering it up," he said aloud. "More people will be killed if they keep doing that."

Without hesitation, he went around to the office of the Daley Chronicle and told a bemused chief editor what had really happened at the Green Mermaid Inn.

Realising that the editor had no intention of publishing his crazy-sounding story, he tried three more papers, until the editor of the Willamby Truth, a paper notorious for publishing everything except the truth, agreed to publish the story.

"We'll print it on the front cover ... right next to our latest UFO story," said the editor cheerily, making Mervyn shudder as he thanked the man and turned to go.

He settled in for the night at a seedy no-star hotel in Willamby, hoping that the cockroaches that blatantly ran across the mildewy grey carpet within centimetres of his slipper-clad shoes, wouldn't keep him awake all night. However, he soon fell asleep after getting between the dirty sheets.

An early riser by nature, the reporter was finishing dressing around 6:45 AM, when a hammering came on his hotel room door. Surprised, he opened the door to see a red-faced Bear Ross holding the morning edition of the Willamby Truth in one hand.

"Did you do this?" demanded Bear.

"Of course," said Mervyn unashamedly. "The people have the right to know that they're in deadly danger."

"Right, cuff him," said Bear, and before the reporter had time to react, Terry Blewett had advanced into the small bedroom to handcuff Mervyn Morse."

"What's the charge?" demanded the journalist as he was led, none-too-gently away.

"Sensational yellow journalism which could cause a panic and lead to people dying."

As they bundled him down the stairs, Mervyn insisted, "The people have the right to know ... Besides, since when has yellow journalism ever been a crime in Australia? Virtually all of the rags in this country are guilty of it from time to time."

"So you admit that it was just to promote yourself and whatever sleazy rag you work for?" demanded Terry Blewett.

"The Melbourne Explorer ..." started the reporter, stopping as he realised that he would be lying if he said that it wasn't a sleazy rag. Instead he said:

"My paper doesn't sensationalise weird legends, instead we debunk them."

"Maybe you decided to try a new angle," suggested Terry, almost throwing him into the rear seat of the white Ford Fairlane. "Anything to sell more papers!"

A few minutes later, still protesting, Mervyn Morse was led across the lawn toward the police station in Mitchell Street, Glen Hartwell. Inside, he was hurried into a small barred cell at the rear of the station.

"What am I supposed to do in here?" demanded the journalist.

"Here, read this," said Danny Ross, handing him the Willamby Truth, before heading back into the front office, out of sight of the holding cell.

By the time that he had finished reading the paper, Mervyn had had a surprisingly tasty lunch, then dinner, and was ready to go to sleep. If his aching back would allow him to fall asleep on the hard wooden plank that doubled for a bed in the small holding cell at the back of the police station.

Again he dreamt of the green mermaid wreaking mayhem, destroying property, and ripping people physically apart. But this time his nightmare was set in the Mitchell Street police station. He saw the huge wooden desk in the front room ripped apart. Terry Blewett was disembowelled. Bear Ross, all one-hundred and fifty kilos of him, lifted high and thrown out through the station window to land on the overgrown grass outside. Filing cabinets were reduced to tinder, metal chairs were ripped apart, and a large message board was ripped off one wall and torn into small pieces.

Again Mervyn awakened to find that the shrieking and sounds of destruction continued into his waking state. He heard gunfire in the front office and called out: "What's going on?"

Hearing more screaming he realised that it could only be the mermaid-monster, and assumed that it was killing everyone in the front office.

He heard a straining, rending sound, and then the heavy door between the outer office and the cells was ripped off its hinges and hurled back into the office, causing more screaming.

Which Mervyn Morse ignored, since the spindly sea bear had lumbered into the holding cell area and was heading toward him, with an evil lopsided leer on its ugly face.

Grabbing the bars to his cell, the monster ripped the door away from its hinges and threw them toward the back of the holding area. The beast started into the cell, smiling cruelly, as a voice called out:

"Get down."

Instinctively Mervyn leapt to the cold concrete floor of the cell, as two police officers he did not recognise, a man and a woman, raced into the holding area and opened fire on the beast with pump-action shotguns.

Although the shotguns failed to kill the beast, as Mervyn had hoped, it staggered toward the back of the holding area.

"Quickly," said the policewoman, an attractive redhead, signalling the reporter.

Needing no more encouragement Mervyn, raced out of the cell on his hands and knees, into the front office. As in his nightmare, it was splattered with kindling and human body parts. Terry Blewett lay dead on the wreckage of the shattered desk, his intestines hanging out of his rent stomach, his head pulled away from his neck.

"Go! Go! Go!" shouted the redhead from the holding cell.

Not needing to take in any more horror than he already had, the reporter did as instructed and raced through the office and out onto the front lawn. Where he saw Bear Ross, only a year away from retirement age, dead, his back broken.

Then hearing more shotgun blasts and a woman's screaming from the holding area inside, Mervyn started at a run to the police station car park, where he was relieved to find his Ford Capri.

"Shit!" he cried, finding that the car doors were locked. Using his left elbow he shattered the side window on the third attempt, wincing at the pain in his elbow as he reached inside to open the car door. Reaching under the driver's seat, he rooted around for a few moments before finding the small bag which contained his spare keys.

"Yes," he said in relief as he slipped into the driver's seat, cursing as he sat upon some tiny shards of window glass. Not bothering to brush them off him, he turned the key and started the car down Mitchell Street, with the intention of driving as fast and as far away as possible from Glen Hartwell and the monster that slaughtered people there.

Catching a brief glimpse of the sea bear through his rear-view mirror, Mervyn looked back and saw that the monster, now splattered in blood, was in hot pursuit of his car. Unlike earlier, instead of running on its back feet only, now the sea-bear was loping along on all fours, doing a good job of trying to catch up with the Ford Capri.

There was no sign of anyone chasing the monster! So he assumed that all of the police, including the beautiful redhead, had been killed.

Changing up to fourth gear, he headed away from Glen Hartwell as fast as his Capri would take him, grateful that the motor was in better repair than the chassis.

It was three days later that Andrew Braidwood and Paul Bell, police officers from neighbouring towns, located the shattered wreckage of Mervyn Morse's red and blue Ford Capri. The car, reduced to small shards of metal, was splattered with human blood. But there was no trace of the journalist, who was never located.

THE END

© Copyright 2023 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia