Vampire Mermaids of the Deep

For years, I have been obsessed with mermaids; ever since I was a young lad and attended a ghost walk down in the southern region of the U.S., they were all I ever thought about. This pirate named Terry told a tale of an older fisherman taking a beautiful mermaid from the sea – without mother earth’s permission – and he paid for his mishap. Luckily, the mermaid made out okay but that story stuck in my head.

Just last year, I was on a boating trip with some close friends of mine. I cannot tell you where this was, as I don’t want to break a pact my friends and I made with each other. This wonderful creature popped its head up right where we were fishing and it had startled me in the best possible way. Honestly, I thought I had been dreaming.

The gigantic boat shook and the next thing I knew, I was sinking to the depths of the ocean floor. The creature I had seen from the stern of the boat I was on had followed me the entire way; she was smiling, but like a child that was about to make a bad decision.

A few other merpeople came to my rescue but the original creature became very territorial all of a sudden. She had changed color – from an aquatic silver to bright pink – and her face morphed into an ugly shape. The next thing I saw was that she grew fangs and cryptic claws, and attacked the other merpeople within an instant. The creature hacked-away at the necks and tails of her supposed merfolk; blood was leaking everywhere around me and what a sight it was. The overall scene reminded me of Jaws.

My sailor’s bracelet had caught on some calcified seaweed so I thought I was stuck at the bottom of this nautical nightmare and was about to become the next victim of the vampire mermaid.

Little did I know that my friends were frantically searching for me; they sent two of the four remaining crew down to find me, but they were eaten alive. Somehow, I got myself out of the horrific predicament – I took a healthy, deep breath and swam back to the boat where this all began.

I was pulled-up onto the boat by the safety net around the side; my friends and I, right then and there, decided to forget about what we all had witnessed that day in the middle of nowhere.

– Bryce