Trent couldn’t believe his eyes. He shut them, rubbed them, and then looked again. Lying right there in the middle of Moon Rock, a giant rock structure that sat right outside in the ocean to the west of Sandcastle, was a woman. A possibly naked woman. It looked as though she was bathing in the small pool of water that slowly evaporated when the tide was low and left a lot of beautiful seashells of creatures that washed in with the tide and got stuck there.

He readjusted his cap to protect his eyes from the light of the sun and headed the way of the rock. Most of the time people didn’t bother trying to climb the rock. For one, it was a dangerous climb, and then if you got stuck on the rock and the tide came in you could get swept out to sea. Of course, there was always the shortcut to the top of the rock, but no one ever dared use it after a group of kids got trapped inside the natural tunnel and drowned.

Trent didn’t care. He knew that after the high tide the night before, it would be low for the next few days. As a surfer, he followed the moon calendar so he could ride the waves or go surf fishing when the tide was low, which he had planned to do today until he noticed the naked woman on top of Moon Rock.

Standing by the trunk of his car, he changed into his wetsuit but left his board and fishing rod. He grabbed his underwater camera and headed off down the parking lot and down the trail on the side of the cliff. This area was a little cove off the main beach of Sandcastle. The State of California called it Ice Beach because of the endless amount of icicle plants that lined the hills but the residents called it Hunter’s Beach because of the great Moon Rock where hunters of sharks and fish would sit for days waiting for their prey.

He tiptoed into the cold surf then dog paddled to the side of the giant rock until he reached the point where the tunnel began. An almost immediate cold water pressure headache pierced his brain as he dove in and descended as quickly as he could swim to the opening of the tunnel. He turned on his underwater flashlight and swam inside. As he began to swim upward, something grabbed onto his foot. Thinking it might be a tangle of seaweed, he kicked at it and looked down because whatever his foot met with didn’t feel like the slimy texture of seaweed.

Puzzled, he stared at the face of a woman with blood pooling from her nose. She screamed something at him and then squeezed her nose shut while turning in the other direction. About out of breath, Trent figured he could go up for air and come back down but as he met the top of the water for a quick breath and looked down, she was gone. He shook his head thinking it might have been just an illusion caused by the lack of air in his brain and began to climb the inside of the big rock.

He grasped the edge of each protruding rock, praying that his grip would hold as he stepped onto the next step. He was never comfortable doing this as he knew a boy who broke his neck climbing this same structure. It was off-limits to the public for good reason, but he had to know more about this woman sitting on Moon Rock so he continued his climb. On the last step he grasped onto the rock on the top but it was covered in moss and sea slime. As he tried to firm his grip, his fingers slid. A million thoughts slipped into his mind and he felt himself fall backward knowing he would die on his way down or drown after breaking a limb but then, out of nowhere, a firm hand grasped his wrist and pulled him up out of the hole with amazing strength.

Trent forced his eyes open while trying to catch his breath he held for the scream that waited for the fateful fall. When he opened them, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen stood before him. With the sun glowing on her white skin, it looked almost translucent and grey. She stood there staring at him with her breasts covered in purple Gorgonian sea coral and a string of pearls attached to larger sea fans covering her lower extremities. She was, in all meaning of the word, perfect.

“Thank you,” he managed to say between breaths.

She just smiled and continued to lay back down in the sun. She wasn’t in the water pool as he thought she was. She picked a spot right outside of the natural pool and basked in the heat. The wind picked up and released her long white hair as it flowed around her body. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

“I’m Trent,” he said as he sat down in the spot next to her. “What’s your name?”

She turned her head and looked at him. Her irises were white like pearls and without the almost lavender edge of the circle they would almost blend in with the whites of her eyes. He stared, mesmerized by her beauty, and then noticed under each breast she had three cuts along her ribcage on either side. He reached over to touch one and she slapped his hand away.

“Are you ok? Does it hurt?”

The woman laughed with a strange cackle and with every breath, the six lines in her flesh opened and closed like little mouths. She rolled over closer to him, running her fingers along his wetsuit looking more confused than he did.

“Ah, the wetsuit. You haven’t seen one before?” he said as he pulled down the zipper and peeled the rubber from his torso.

The woman jumped back a little then pressed her hand on his warm skin feeling his heartbeat. She then pulled the wetsuit off of his arms and upper body marveling at his chest and arms. He smiled when she pressed her lips on his neck and pulled back.

“Wait a minute. I don’t even know you, shouldn’t we at least know a little about each other first?” he laughed.

The woman rolled her eyes at him and seemed to pout, although he could barely tell with her full lips. She held up a finger and pointed at the water then shook her head no. With sad eyes, she looked down at her legs and feet then shrugged.

“You’re beautiful,” Trent said, pulling her up close to him. “There’s nothing wrong with your legs. And I love your clothes, they look like they’re almost made out of coral.”

“Ow!” he said, pulling back. Trent looked down and noticed new scratches across his chest that were beginning to ooze a little bit of blood. “Is your suit really made out of coral?”

As he examined the crustaceans lying across the woman’s breast, he noticed they were moving with her every move. He touched one, pulling on it just a little and she let out a small squeal of pain. When he pulled the shell off she cried out as it pulled off a little bit of her skin.

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” he said, shocked.

The woman shook her head in seeming disappointment and grabbed the coral from his hand then reattached it to her suit. It latched right back on and became a part of her breast once again. She inched closer to him as he slowly backed away but before he could protest, she sat on top of his hips and kissed him deeply.

Trent felt her tongue probe into his mouth and coughed at the foul taste of the ocean and stale fish. He pushed her off of his body sending her into the pool of water next to them then watched as her body began to shudder. Gray scales appeared on her perfect skin and over her parted legs that now seemed stitched together. Her feet flared out into a large, green feathery fin similar to the tail of a male betta tank fish.

Seemingly angry and even through the scales, still full of beauty, she pushed herself up with two strong arms and hissed at him. Trent crawled backward on all fours staring at her mouth filled with jagged teeth.

“What the fuck are you?” he screamed out, half aroused yet trembling in fear. He had a choice, to either jump off the edge into the shallow water where he might break a leg or his neck or run for the tunnel and pray he didn’t fall. He chose the latter. With his wetsuit hanging off of his torso, he ran for the tunnel but was flung back when she grabbed onto the swinging rubber arm and pulled.

He stumbled backward and fell next to the woman. She held her finger up to his lips and made a hush sound. She licked the wounds on his chest then looked at him with big, sad eyes. Shaking her head, she dove back into the ocean where he watched her swim away.

Later that night, after sitting on Moon Rock for hours too scared to even move, Trent made it home to his beach house. Since he was a lifeguard on the beach, he owned one of the only homes allowed down at the water level. It was more of a shack than anything as it could be destroyed at any time if they ever had a tsunami caused by a large earthquake, which, surprisingly has never happened. The high tide just barely reached the bottom of the shack due to its stilts buried deep into the sand but on most nights, it was safe.

Trent collapsed on his bed after tossing his wetsuit into the bathroom. He still wasn’t sure if it wasn’t a dream he had while sitting on the rock. Perhaps he had fallen asleep in the sun after the long climb in the tunnel to the top of Moon Rock. But then the scratches were still there and now they were hurting more than before. He squeezed at the scabs releasing some water, pus, and blood.

“Yuck,” he said as he got up and made it to the bathroom. The first aid kit was hanging right where it should be. As a lifeguard, he knew to make everything easily accessible in case of an emergency which this moment he considered high on his list of disasters. He held the urge to scream as he dabbed the alcohol and then peroxide along the oozing wound. Then he applied antibiotic ointment and covered the scratches with a large piece of adhesive and gauze.

As Trent hadn’t eaten for hours since his light breakfast of Cornflakes, he was starving. He absently called up his favorite Mexican place where Petra answered.

“Hey Trent, what can I get for you?”

“What are you freaking psychic, Petra?”

“No, I just know your number you order so much food. Is it the usual tonight? Carne Asada with a huge super burrito?”

A little shocked at himself, Trent declined the offer. “No, no. I’m craving something different tonight, Petra. How about a double order of fish tacos and shrimp quesadillas? With a pitcher of margaritas?”

“Hot date tonight?” she laughed into the phone.

“No, I’m just really hungry. Unless you’d like to have dinner with me?” Not only was Trent extremely hungry, but his hormones were off the charts. Petra wasn’t really his type but after what he dreamed about earlier he seriously thought about changing his love of blondes.

“Oh Trent, you know my husband wouldn’t like me dating some hot young stud half my age, right? We’ll have it ready for you soon. Say half an hour?”

“That would be great. You’re wonderful, Petra. Put it on the city’s tab, would you?”

“Of course,” she said and hung up.

30 minutes later, while Trent waited for his food, he also wondered why he felt so ill. How anyone could feel so hungry and yet ache so bad in the gut baffled him. He figured it was just because of how hungry he was. His vision had blurred as well. Everything looked fuzzy around him. Perhaps there was some kind of toxin in whatever had scratched him. He went back into the bathroom and removed the homemade patch from his wound. It looked like it was healing faster than he predicted but wait, no! Upon a closer look, the scab looked like scales.

He peeled off a piece of the scab and inspected it with his blurred vision. It was gray and green with a bit of iridescence. He began to peel another one off, but this one was attached better to his skin than the last. With a grunt of pain, he yanked off the strange scab and held it up to the light. Fresh blood dripped from the part of the scale that was in the wound and it too looked like a large scale from a fish.

The scrapes all had these strange scale patterns around them. Could some kind of a strange creature be growing inside of the wound? As he picked at the rest of the scales, the pain became greater and bloodier. The crimson liquid dripped from the freshly opened wound, pooling on the ground between his feet into a small puddle of ocean water that dripped from his wetsuit. As he accidentally stepped in it, the liquid absorbed into a scrape he got on his big toe that happened climbing the tunnel. He felt a tingle up from his toes and throughout his leg and ultimately into his spinal cord and brain.

Trent screamed in pain as sprouts of scales began covering his backside, forcing their way through the veins around the spinal cord through the skin. As though someone drug a piece of glass under his pecks, he watched as three jagged slices appeared simultaneously under each side of his ribcage. Looking down in horror at his transforming body, he watched as scales popped out of places they didn’t belong.

He tried to take a step out of the bathroom but realized that his legs had fused together when he touched the water dripping from the wetsuit. Trent fell forward to the ground, crying out in pain as his face thudded against the floor. He tried to wiggle his toes and move his legs but they didn’t work as they once did. Instead, he pulled himself to his bed in the middle of the shack, hoping it was either all a very bad dream or that the lack of water would turn him back to some form of human.

With his strong arms built from lifeguard swimming exercises, he pulled himself into the bed and covered his legs with the blankets. Moments later as he dozed off, there was a knock at the door.

“Shit, the food!” he yelled and peered under the blanket noticing that his legs hadn’t changed back yet.

“Are you okay in there, Trent?” Petra knocked again.

“Yeah, come on in, the door is open,” he said as his stomach growled in pain.

Petra walked in and put the bag of tacos next to his bedside. “You look like shit, Trent. You’re green and God, your skin. What happened?”

“I’m just not feeling well, Petra. I think I’m coming down with something,” he said as he grabbed one of the tacos from the bag. Opening his mouth as wide as he could, he pushed the whole taco inside when he heard Petra scream.

“Your…your teeth,” Petra managed to let out as she began to walk backward toward the door.

Not able to stand up, Trent fell out of bed and began pulling himself on two arms toward the woman. She stared at him as the sheet fell from his waist, exposing a long fish-like tail with fins. Her fingers fumbled with the doorknob but it was covered in some kind of slimy film. The moment she was able to grasp the knob and turn it, it was too late. Blood squirted from her calf as Trent bit into her leg with rows of sharp, jagged teeth. Petra fell to the ground and kicked at the thing crawling toward her.

He tore into the muscle on her leg, ripping it to shreds while shaking his head like a shark. Blood splattered on his face and torso as he continued to gnaw on her thigh and hitting the femoral artery. When the rush of blood gushed into his mouth, he cried as he pulled himself away from her shaking body. She stared numbly at the wall as her life soaked into his shag rug.

Her body bounced as someone tried to push open the door behind Petra. Frozen in fear of who might have heard her scream, Trent didn’t move except to feel his face. He knew he was busted feeling the sticky warmth of human blood on his cheeks, chin, and inhuman teeth. Her body bounced once again then fell over to the right. In burst the strange woman from Moon Rock, walking on two human legs.

“You’re a very bad man!” she scolded Trent in what sounded like shrieks and whistles, but he could strangely understand everything she said.

“What are you?”

“I’m what you men call a mermaid. I was stupid for going on that rock, but I too was once human and miss the warmth of the sun basking on my legs and body. Come with me or you will die here.”

She picked him up with her inhuman strength and carried him to the beach as she walked into the water, she dropped him in. He watched as her legs transformed again and soon became one long fishtail like his. He wiggled his tail and began to swim after her and grabbed her when he caught up. At first, he wanted to strangle the mermaid for what she did to him, but her beautiful eyes under the water called to him.

Together they swam to the depths of the ocean.