A Siren's Song

On a cool crisp day in the middle of fall, a man runs through the serene park just a bit outside of his apartment in an expensive part of Potomac, Maryland. The entire area was beautiful, filled with color but the people that inhabited the park and even the apartment were a bit uptight and closed off from one another. The man took this very day to decide to run through the adjacent park as it was something his late wife had always wanted to do. She had heard from their neighbors that there was a beautiful lake at the end of the path, so to honor her, he wanted to see it for himself.

“It’s been a year Norah, but I know you are with me, so you’ll finally be able to see this lake you always talked about.” The man briskly muttered as he ran down the gravel path in between tall oak trees.

His wife died of a horrible car accident a year ago to this day, making today particularly hard for him as she was ever-present on his mind. Since that dreadful day, he has been more or less a ghost himself. He was once the great and prolific writer, Liam Murphy, but since then, he hasn’t had the urge to write. Norah was his muse more often than not and now with her gone, his passion was gone along with her. His attention had waned in the year since Norah’s death, unable to focus on his ability to write another story or really anything. He had become a shell of his former self. Depression got the best of him, but today, he decided it was best to stop wallowing in his grief and celebrate his late wife.

The run, the fresh air running through his thick unkempt black hair all felt beautiful to him. It felt as if Norah was with him once more. His pace through the park had slowed as he wanted to enjoy it. He took in the trees, the air, the beauty of it all as would Norah. She always had a greater appreciation for the small things than he did, which helped make him a better writer in turn. He stopped at the side of the gravel path as he had a shoelace come untied. He sat at a black bench off the side of the gravel path that overlooked the park, there were a few people around a fountain in the center of the park that waved to him. He recognized them as they were his neighbors.

“Good morning, Paul.” Liam smiled and waved back as Paul was around a few other people that lived in their high-end apartment complex. Paul was the resident gossip king.

“Good to see you out and about!” Paul yelled back.

Liam finished tying his shoes and went back to his run down the gravel path. He knew he was getting closer to the lake. He understood the further he got down the path why Norah had always wanted to go for a walk down through here, especially during the fall as with the leaves on the ground it had such a stunning array of colors throughout. Thinking back to all the times he had denied, or broken promises to her when she had asked him to enjoy such a walk had made Liam a bit upset.

As Liam got closer and closer to the end of the path and the lake, the sounds of children playing on seesaws or swings all became very faint. He didn’t think much of it as his thoughts remained on Norah. He pictured her by his side as he walked further down the path, her bright smile made all the colors around them brighter and vibrant. He began to feel her warmth once again, something he hadn’t felt in a long time and something he had missed. He could have sworn that he had come to hear her voice once more. It was as if she was off in the nearby distance, at the end of the path singing their wedding song. Liam smiled, closed his eyes, and stopped to bask in her voice, even if it was his mind playing tricks on him, he allowed himself this moment to once again remember her lovely voice.

Liam took another few steps off the path and found himself looking out at the lake that Norah had spoken so highly of and was shocked by what he saw. It was incredibly foggy, but the familiar voice had grown much louder and not a single person was in sight. Although, through the fog, he couldn’t see much. He took a few tentative steps forward, closer and closer to the voice he had fallen in love with years ago. With each consecutive step forward the ground beneath him crunched loudly throughout the brisk air.

“Norah? Is that you?” He spoke softly, realizing the stupidity of his words, but the voice continued to get louder and louder.

Through the ever-present fog, he began to see the outline of a person underneath a breathtakingly beautiful tree overlooking the lake. The tree stood out even more amidst the fog that engulfed the entire area. Even though it was still in the middle of autumn, the tree was still holding on to its vibrant pink leaves. At the base of the tree were equally picturesque flowers, Liam thought that this must have been what Norah had always heard of before and wanted to see. He took a moment to enjoy them but the song was louder than ever and the outline of the person in front of him was no longer just an outline. It was now more of a sculpted figure that was twine-thin but familiar to him. Upon sight, tears began to well up and fall down his cheek. He could clearly see long blonde hair that seemed to shimmer in the dim light going down beyond her shoulders. He reached out to her, putting his hand on her shoulder to gently turn her to him.

“My god, Norah? I don’t understand.” He was overcome with emotion, staring at his wife. Time began to slow down as her face turned to greet him. He cherished every swing of her long hair as her head panned to the side.

Face to face with his late wife, he couldn’t bring himself to hold back tears anymore. The familiar wedding song that she had been singing to bring him closer to the lake was no longer echoing throughout the lake, all sound dimmed out as he looked into her marble blue eyes and the two smiled at one another. Liam’s brain knew this couldn’t be real in a million years, but he allowed it to be. The longing for his wife made it so. He leaned in to embrace her and held her tight in his arms and went to kiss her on the cheek. He kept finding himself in a weird mixture of laughing at the thought of holding her once more and crying as the realist inside of him began to question how crazy he had become.

“I have missed you so much, you have no idea.” Liam whimpered into her ear as he continued to struggle holding back tears. The distance he traveled to the lake made him slightly winded as well and he felt that the air was thick now as he was so close to the lake.

Norah smiled back at him and ran her hand softly across Liam’s cheek. He closed his eyes as she did so, but he noticed something was different. He opened his eyes and noticed something was off. It began to feel like a nightmare, not a dream where the two were back together magically. The smell in the air turned foul, even horribly rancid when she touched his cheek. He took a step back and felt his feet crunch something beneath them. His head felt heavy, as if he was almost drunk, even though he hasn’t had a single sip of alcohol in some time. The vibrant pink tree that they were once sitting underneath was no longer breathtaking, instead, it was dead and crows were perched on the top of it. The flower bed at the base was replaced by an empty flower bed that had human skulls protruding out of the ground. His wayward step backward that had caused a crunch, was that of him breaking a skull. Liam’s tears were now becoming more terrified as he came crashing down to the ground falling over his own feet as he tripped up on the flower bed. The figure that he believed to be Norah stood up in front of him and he was mortified by the sight in front of him.

“Is this…” The figure paused as it examined itself, raising its long arms up to her face in a way that it seemed to be admiring Norah’s beauty. “Not what you desire? It is your Norah?”

Liam shook his head side to side in disbelief, whatever this figure took her faint likeness as well as her voice. “You aren’t her. You’ll never be her. No matter how much I may wish you could be.”

Upon hearing Liam’s words the grotesque creature features turned as he rejected her. Its face changed from his lovely wife to that of a face filled with scales and long teeth protruding out from its mouth. Liam began to feel some of his courage and resolve restored, mostly replaced with anger that something could poorly attempt to recreate the love of his life. He rose from the ground, disgusted by what he stood across from. It had her face and her voice, but her hands were slimy, almost rotten away, and bird-like. Its lower half was replaced by a large tail of sorts as it helped support her as she stood tall above him. The fog that once inhabited the lake had been lifted revealing a place that wasn’t as beautiful as advertised. The lake itself was barren, trees all around were dead, and behind him, he found an iron gate that somehow through the haze he found himself in earlier, he got through. Even a sign on the opposite side read, “Do Not Enter.”

“A lot of good that does me now.” Liam spoke under his bated breath.

The monster began to slither toward its prey in disgust at how Liam had rejected her and swung its giant tail underneath his legs, pulling him in closer toward her. It hissed close to his face and Liam craned his neck away from it terrified of what it may do to him, but also knowing, in its clutches, his time had reached an end. He found solace in it, and any of his thoughts of fighting the monster faded as he was at peace with an end to his internal pain and the prospect of being with his lovely Norah once again. The monster let out a long hiss as its tail coiled around Liam as if the monster was a large snake constricting its prey. Liam struggled to breathe as the tail pushed harder and harder against his ribs until he ultimately let out the loudest yell he had ever produced. The monster’s head moved back, still while hissing, in a blink of an eye she bit down into Liam killing him instantly. Before its jaws ran into his flesh, Liam’s final thought and visions were of his Norah and all of her infinite beauty. Despite his grotesque passing, he went without a whimper or a worry but with a smile thinking of what he loved most.

The monster, meanwhile, slithered its way back underneath the dead tree overlooking the barren lake as the crows above it flew to Liam for a new feast that would join the rest of the poor souls that had entered this cursed place and met the same fate before the hideous monster that occupied it. The monster coiled up, happy with its meal but dissatisfied with its touch. Liam wasn’t satisfied with its ability to take on the shape of a lost loved one. It, however, didn’t stop it from enjoying its coming slumber till the next unfortunate visitor.

Back in the park, Paul, still talking with neighbors from the apartment complex, stopped as they all heard Liam’s scream echo through the cool air. Paul looked in the direction of where it came from, knowing he went down the path that he himself had told Norah about a year ago. It brought a cocky smile to his face.

“Hey you guys, did I ever tell you about this lake at the end of this path down here? It’s so beautiful.” Paul confidently spoke to his neighbors.