Menace of the Fishmen

-over. Repeat, this is Home Base, anyone still alive out there respond, over. Repeat-

Flanders Taggart stirred where he lay, the metallic voice pulled him from the brink. His eyes shot open, registering a world that was half cloudy sand and half clear blue, sunlit sky. He was wet and shivering; the skin under his soaking drysuit was clammy and damp with moisture. Through a groggy malaise, he heard the steady rushing whoosh of crashing waves someplace behind him above the rapid thudding of his heart.

He was on a beach, that much was clear.

What happened? He thought. Last he remembered, he’d been aboard the USCG Blackstone patrolling around the Gulf of Maine on a routine Buoy repair mission. Everything beyond that was a blank.

An oncoming shape crashed his train of thought. His vision, still blurred, could only make out fuzzy details. Whatever the thing was, it was big, dark, covered in jagged edges, and coming at him with alarming speed in a strange gait.

It may have been a little over a foot away from him by the time he launched out his right arm. Numb and still tingling from the paralysis of unconsciousness, his gloved hand awkwardly smashed into the oncoming thing in a kind of reverse judo chop. A bolt of pain shot through his hand clashing into the strange thing. He felt a thrumming, vital heat coming from it despite his own cold. Despite his pain, the thing tottered over.

He brought both hands under his chest, pushed himself up onto his knees, and dared to close his eyes as he wiped the sand off the left side of his face. Vision clearing, he looked down at the thing on the ground.

He laughed.

The oncoming thing was some kind of crab. It certainly looked huge from where he’d been, but not laying on its back -or perhaps its head?- with its eight thick legs kicking at the air and the orange tips of its huge claws grasping helplessly at nothing. Blue highlights flashed on each limb before ending at the soft white of its segmented underbelly.

It was a pathetic sight. So much so that he shrugged before reaching down under it and flipping it over. Feeling its strange heat, still vivid through his wet gloves, unnerved him. Once done, the crab skuttled toward him and angled its yellow, stocked eyes up until they looked into his.

“What,” he said, feeling the need to break the sheer surreality of the moment. “Is there something on my face?”

It didn’t say anything back to him, although it wouldn’t have surprised him if it had. Instead, it just went on staring up at him with its stocked, indecipherable eyes.

-Repeat, If there’s anyone alive out there-

He turned away from the blue crab and looked for the source of that metallic voice. His eyes widened.

“What in the Hell…”

Perhaps twenty feet ahead of him was a crater so large and deep that an artillery shell may have impacted it. The sand surrounding the hole was covered in boot prints and other indented shapes he couldn’t decipher. Bits of bronze glints and chipped, bone white shards were scattered everywhere.

Being a former infantryman turned Coastguard Diver, Taggart knew the glints to be spent shell casings, the bits of white however…

Looking at the ground around him revealed even more glinting, bronze bullets. He picked one up and gasped seeing that the 9mm round was flattened into a mushroom shape as if it had collided with steel. Dropping it, he saw other bullets of all shapes and caliber’s, each tip was flattened like the rest.

The bullet he’d dropped landed on an imprint in the sand like the ones near the crater. At first glance, it almost looked like a footprint, although it was far too large and misshapen to be a human foot. If anything, it was shaped like a diving flipper. A really big and really sharp one at that.

Unnerved, he looked about further, hoping to see something he could use. There were no weapons lying on the beach. No bodies either. Just more craters, bullets, and weird indentations in the sand.

-over. Repeat, this is Home Base-

The noise pulled his focus up to the hill of sand overlooking the battle-torn beach. Poking over the hill was a giant dark shape that clicked familiarities’ relief in his mind.

“Oh,” he said, feeling a small grin show on his face. “Thank ‘God’.”

Standing proud over the hill was the distinctive crucifix sitting atop St. Michaels Cathedral; a centerpiece of the small coastal town of Yarmouth villa. He’d never gone to the church himself, he wasn’t a religious man, but he’d certainly looked up at that giant cross anytime he rolled through town for a burger and a beer.

Still in Massachusetts after all. Strange.

A blocky outline to the left of the cross pulled his attention.

“Well, look at that.”

It was a poorly parked jeep sitting on the hill overlooking the beach.

-over. Repeat, this is-

A jeep with a radio. Old school by the sound.

Legs trembling beneath him, he slowly rose to full height. On his way through the beach, he turned around for no reason. Once again, he saw the blue crab still standing on its eight legs.

It wasn’t alone.

Six more had joined it.

Each of them watched him with their alien, stocked eyes.

It turns out that “Home Base” was a military installation fifty miles inland. The voice on the other end of the line belonged to some military hard ass named “Masters”. Taggart was used to the type but didn’t care for them. He’d asked what was going on, but “Masters” wasn’t giving. All he said was “Get on route 114 and avoid all major cities and bodies of water. Over.”

Thankfully, the jeep had enough fuel for the trip along with a map he used to guide him. He drove through Yarmouth Villa. Like the beach, it was a battle torn hellscape. There were no fires, but every building had broken windows or cracked walls. Flattened bullets and cars lay strewn through the streets like discarded toys. He even saw a destroyed tank and a crashed helicopter while driving down main street. The only thing that bugged him was seeing Mrs. Parr’s Dinner reduced to rubble.

She made a hell of a good burger.

Oddly, the only untouched building was St. Michaels Cathedral.

Just as it had been on the beach, there were no weapons or bodies.

Following the map -and “Masters” instructions, although he hated to say it- he’d driven most of the way on route 128 before turning onto route 114. As ordered, he steered clear of any cities or towns, but all the ones he had to drive through were trashed the same way Yarmouth had been. No weapons, bodies, or people either.

He’d drove straight on route 114 for over twenty miles when he hit a military checkpoint and met his first people in lord knew how long.

The two soldiers treated him oddly for what he was expecting.

Seeing what he had, he figured there’d been some kind of nuclear war or virus outbreak, but the two soldiers in the checkpoint wore no gas masks or radiation gear. They also simply opened a large gate covering the road and waved him through.

Once done, he was ordered to leave the jeep and jump into another vehicle.

He did as ordered. Following that was a standard debrief and body search. He was thankful to get out of squeaky drysuit and put on a shirt and some pants. He was also handcuffed.

Eventually, he was brought into a low-lit room that housed only a metal table and two chairs. Two unseen guards followed him into the room; one shut the door behind him, the other forced him into a chair, and then backed out of view.

“Flanders Taggart.” Said a familiar voice from the dark. It sounded a lot clearer without the metallic crackle.

“Aye sir,” he said, looking about the room for who may have spoken to him. This “smoke and mirrors” military business was grating on his nerves.

“Wasn’t asking.” Said Masters. “I’ve been looking into you since we got off comms, ‘Mr. Taggart’.” There was an incredulous tone in the voice that made Taggart’s heart skip a beat. “Army infantryman turned Coastguard diver turned…”

There was a long pause.

“Fishman?” said Masters as he stepped out from the shadows. The man’s appearance fit the dramatic entrance. Tall, square jawed, tanned, and hard faced with a blonde crew cut and large black eyepatch covering his right eye, Masters looked like a man pulled right off a pulp novel cover.

Masters’ left eye was a greyish blue dot that shot cold daggers across the table.

Taggart could only furrow his brow.

“Excuse me?” he said.

Masters leaned forward and placed his tanned, hairy knuckles on the table. With a sigh, he said “Cut the shit.”

“I’m sorry sir, I have no idea-

Masters lowered his head, revealing a prominent patch of tan scalp poking through his short blonde crew cut. He looked up again, reached down, and placed a handgun on the table.

He sat down across from Taggart with a cold grin cutting across his stubbled face.

“You’re looking pretty good for a dead man.” Masters said.

“What.”

“Oh,” said Masters through a false mask of confusion. “You didn’t know that you were pronounced dead two weeks ago?” His tone was so casual that Taggart could only stare.

“Oh yeah,” said Masters, still as casual as a bar room sit down. “You and the rest of the crew of the USCG Blackstone went missing three weeks ago. Up and vanished without a trace. A modern-day ghost ship!”

Taggart said nothing.

“It just so happens that a week afterward, the Earth was hit by a solar storm so strong that the aroura borealis could be seen from every part of the globe. That knocked out all internet, satellites, and fucked us all back into the stone age. Given the global panic, you and your crew were forgotten about. Hate to break it to you like this.”

Taggart’s eyes widened.

Despite the incredulous tone, Masters’ cold silver gaze never left his. The man didn’t even blink. His face remained stern and hard as stone.

“Oh, you’re probably wondering about the towns you saw, hm? Well, that night, amidst all the chaos, hidden powers decided to step into the light. Did they teach you Divers about the Sea People during your snorkeling lessons?”

What the f-

“’Fishmen’.” Masters said in that infuriating casual tone with a wry grin. “Believe it or not.”

The rest of Masters’ words barely registered to Taggart’s ears.

Something about the Navy torpedoing some place in Massachusetts called Satan’s reef back in the forties. This pissed off some group of “N.H.E’s” -Non-Human-Entities- and it turns out that this group was only one of many.

“In the decades since,” said Masters. “These ‘Sea People’ have been just ‘chomping at the bit’ to get some payback on all us land walkers. Who’d have thought it would be our own Sun that gave them the chance?”

Taggart felt a chill creep up his spine. Part of him wanted to dismiss it all and say he’d been bamboozled by some lunatic group of military fanatics. But the other part of him kept going over all the shit he’d seen since he woke up.

Thinking about that raised other questions.

-I woke up on a beach. NEAR the ocean… Weeks after I’d “died”-

“Fishmen?” he moaned out after a while. He was feeling nauseous now.

“Yep. Big eyes, sharp claws, webbed hands, the whole business. They took out every major coastal city in days and basically own all of Florida-

Taggart threw his head back. He let out a low moan that turned into a powerful, cackling laugh.

-I see them now the Eyes the Eyes the Blue Crabs on the beach and the women in the-

Masters had rounded the table, grabbed Taggart’s collar, and reeled his hand back.

The sound of the punch was like a whipcrack in the room. Taggart felt fresh blood flowing out of his nose like water.

“IS THIS FUNNY MOTHER FUCKER!?” Masters roared; his left eye blazing. “WHAT HAPPENS TO THE PEOPLE THEY TAKE?!” Masters punched him again.

Taggart felt new memories and sensations clambering up his spine.

“WHAT THE HELL HAPPNED TO MY WIFE YOU SON OF A BITCH!?”

-Come join us in the lake dark brother show him where his woman is-

He twisted his head towards Masters. By then, his vision had changed. The world around him seemed angled, alien, and unpleasant in ways he couldn’t explain.

He locked his changing gaze with Masters left eye. The steely grey-blue orb first narrowed before widening into a look of sheer panic.

“HE’S ONE OF THEM!” Shouted Masters. “SHOOT THE BASTARD!”

Head lolling, his world spinning, he surveyed the room.

-let him know let him see let him hear her-

“You want to know what happened to your wife, Major?” he said as he looked at the ceiling.

“What?” said Masters. By then, he’d grabbed the handgun off the table and had it pointed at Taggart’s head. Hearing mention of his wife made him hesitate. It would cost hi.

“JESUS! LOOK AT HIS ARMS!” this shout came from a new voice; probably one of the soldiers guarding the door.

Given the circumstances, the change came quickly. There was pain in it for him for sure, but the physical pain didn’t hurt as much as hearing the crucified man’s name.

Either way, it didn’t save any of the men in the room.

He lashed out with limbs now far longer than his human arms had been. His giant, webbed hands smashed into one of two men guarding the door, knocking him into the other and rendering both unconscious.

Despite the increased length of his limbs, he was on Masters before the man had even realized what was happening. He knocked him out like the other two, taking the time to whisper in a dark promise in his ear though his new set of thin, long lips.

“You’ll see her again,” he said. His words now came out as a gurgling hiss that strained his new throat. “Don’t worry funny man, you’ll know where we take our prisoners…”

He dropped Masters to ground, ripped the room door off its hinges, and awkwardly rushed for the set of Bathroom’s at the end of the emptied hall.

“Flood the building Acolyte,” Cooed the voice of his dark master from within his mind. “Give us a new foothold on this accursed land mass! The rest of this state will follow!”

He went from stall to stall in every bathroom, knocking every sink off the wall and tearing every toilet from the ground. Each shot out a fountain of rejuvenated water. More so, he saw other sets of webbed hands popping through the holes he’d created. Beneath each was a set of glowing eyes that looked up at him with a warmth he’d never felt in his old life.