Fiction Fragment Friday
This story is actually a sequel and let me tell you it is one I NEVER imaged I would ever write. I would say I have no words, but I had about a thousand of them for this story. I started with a sentence that popped into my head. Some of my favorite stories have been ones where I had a weird concept to start them off and just leaned into explaining it. Well as this weird concept got fleshed out I needed motivation and an ending. That was where it twisted into a sequel. No more clues though, you have to wait until the end to see what it is a sequel to.
I don’t normally pick up hitchhikers, but I knew that a mermaid on a unicycle had to have a story worth hearing. Now I know what you must be wondering. How does a mermaid pedal a unicycle? Well, this mermaid was woman on bottom and fish on top. I’m sure that created a huge list of additional questions. Well now you can understand why I pulled the car over to the side of the road to offer her a ride.
“Hey, you need a lift?”
She looked at her scaly thumb held out. “I’m not holding this thing up for my health.” Yes, this reverse mermaid had arms with fins along them and one giant fin on her back. Even more impressive though was that the fish mouth moved perfectly with her words. I had seen high budget science fiction movies with less convincing costumes than hers. Once again, I was reminded of the passion a cosplayer could put into their art.
As impressed as I was, I couldn’t help but think her response to someone offering her a lift was extremely rude. The curiosity outweighed my annoyance though, so I hit the button to unlock my doors. “You can put the unicycle in the backseat.”
“Thanks so much. I really appreciate this.” She didn’t take any care tossing the unicycle in telling me that it held no sentimental value for her. I watched carefully as she slid into my passenger seat. The fin on her back folded to the side pressing up against her. She did struggle with the seatbelt a bit, but got herself fastened in.
The fish scales blended to skin so seamlessly I couldn’t tell for sure where the prosthetic and make-up ended and the actual skin began. Also, no she wasn’t naked so just get your head out of the gutter now. She had a cloth bikini on top and biker shorts on bottom. I was taken aback at her lack of shoes though. I certainly wouldn’t walk along the side of the road without something protecting my feet.
“So, where you headed?” I figured that would be a safe starting question that might answer some of the things I was wondering about.
“Las Vegas. “
That made sense. If she wasn’t heading to San Diego, then Las Vegas was the next most likely place for a convention. This made me wonder why she didn’t have any luggage though and didn’t wait until she got there to put the costume on. It was almost six hours away after all. “Some kind of convention out there?”
“Probably. Always a convention or conference from what I hear. Not really my scene though. Too many gawkers.”
“What does take you out there then?” I knew it was way too direct a question, but I just couldn’t help but ask. She was wearing a reverse mermaid costume and yet didn’t want people looking at her. That just didn’t make any sense at all.
She pointed to the back seat. “Well, that thing until you picked me up. Not gonna lie I was getting a bit dehydrated already. How far do you think you can take me?”
“Well, it just so happens I’m heading to Vegas myself, but I need to make a stop in San Bernardino first. If you don’t mind a 30-minute delay, I can take you all the way there.”
“Really? Thank you so much.” She was excited and the gills on her neck fluttered with excitement, and she tried to reach over to hug me. I say tried because she moved too fast and choked herself on the seatbelt when it snapped tight.
“You, okay?”
Her voice came back a bit pained. “Yeah, just not used to these things,” she said as she pulled on the seatbelt.
“Don’t take many car rides?”
“You could say that. This is my first time in a car.”
“Really. How is that even possible?”
She looked at me and I could see she was weighing just how much she could share. “We don’t really have them where I come from.”
“Where’s that Atlantis?” I asked with a chuckle. She didn’t return my laugh and instead got very quiet. That was when I started to get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “You’re not from Atlantis, are you?”
She fidgeted in her seat, and I realized that I had let a bit of anger slip into my tone when I said the name. She isn’t him I told myself. Even if she comes from Atlantis, she isn’t the one who destroyed my life.
“Uhm, not exactly. More of a suburb of Atlantis.”
Despite it glaring at me in the face the whole time it wasn’t until that moment that I finally accepted she wasn’t a cosplayer. She wasn’t wearing a costume at all and now she looked extremely scared. I could see tears forming in the corner of her fisheyes. “Hey, hey, hey it’s ok. No need to be scared. I’m sorry about my reaction. I just had a bad encounter with someone from Atlantis a year ago.”
“You and me both. Damn con man tricked me out of a coral-carved surfboard that’s been in my family for generations. He was supposed to win some stupid tournament and split the winnings with me. Instead, he hopped on the first bus to Vegas. It’s taken me a year to track him down.
“You don’t say. He wouldn’t by any chance be a Vampire, would he?”
“How did you know?”
A smile came across my face. “Well little lady my name is Noah ‘Backbreaker’ Minnow. Let me tell you how I got second place in the Twelfth Annual Northshore Big Wave Invitational. After that we’re going to get your family board back, and me some vengeance.” We drove off into the night forming a friendship forged in mutual hatred of a certain Glittering Vampire Surfer From Atlantis.
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