Siren

She was here. He could almost hear her screams, faint and echoing. He had solved the mystery, spent 15 years finding her, and knew unequivocally that he would save her.

The mystery of “Nikki Abernathy” (the name he heard when he was told the story at a sleepover when he was 11) was a tragic one: the story told at campfires and slumber parties was one of a young woman bearing intelligence, charisma, and beauty, from an unknown town, moving to the metropolis to make it on the screen and be famous.

Her flaws were that of naiveté and gullibility, sadly. She was seduced by sweet words and false promises from an unscrupulous and depraved man, and was subsequently drugged, beaten, raped, and murdered. Her body was dumped in a pond, to be forever forgotten. But if you were by the water on a cold, lonely night, melancholy living in your heart, you could hear her crying for help. If you were brave enough to approach, you could see her just below the surface, pleading for rescue.

Those he spoke to who knew the myth along his travels for the truth always claimed it was a woman in their town. Sometimes, the story was different. She was a girl named Nikki Abernathy; she was a young woman named Maggie Jones, trying to save her father from the men looking to kill him; she was an old crone named Olga Kozluk, trying to make a deal with a demon for eternal youth and beauty. There were countless others. No matter the name or circumstances of the story, they all followed the same plot: woman wants to accomplish something, falls victim to lies and betrayal, dies horribly, and her body is discarded in a pond, where their spirit can still be seen and heard late at night, trapped under the water. Some were unfortunate victims; others were evil, deserving of their horrible fates.

But he found her. The real Nikki Abernathy. She wasn’t evil, and she didn’t deserve what happened to her.

Her name was Anya Petrovic. Like the royalty she was named after, she was from Montenegro. She was smart, funny, talented, and beautiful. She could have become anything she wanted. She decided to become an actor. Upon reaching adulthood, she moved to St. Petersburg, in the hopes of becoming an actress and model. She was relatively successful, becoming a local celebrity, appearing in ads and television commercials (a couple of them international). At just 22, she felt she had an impressive enough resume to travel to America, and make a name for herself.

She arrived in New York, going by her new showbiz name (she was Rhiannon Taylor now), confident that she would be one of the lucky ones.

She wasn’t. Not at first, anyway. For the first few months, it was less than a beggar’s market; the more well-known talent agencies didn’t care about her local work (and a couple of thirty-second TV spots weren’t enough to peak their interest), and the roles they could get her were, as her friends back home put it, “demeaning roles without substance, and would be forever typecast in”. The smaller agencies shared in her vision for her career, but they unfortunately didn’t have the clout to get her pushed into auditions for the more prominent roles she actually cared about, and wanted to play. Theatre directors were dismissive of her, saying that her accent wasn’t what they were looking for.

Until one night, while waiting tables at some greasy spoon in Brooklyn, close to giving up on herself, did a dreamy young man give her his card, kindness in his eyes, and told her that she “had something special”.

She got a couple of pretty good roles from him, too. It was all indie, but that was okay for now, he told her. She was “building an American resume”. She was establishing new connections, creating new relationships. It was all going to pay off in the end.

He and his business associates were playing a long con, though. True, they had a couple of serious connections, but only for the sake of their cover story. If their victim asked an agency about them, she would be told that they were legitimate. Besides, if you let the dumb bitch believe you can get her filet mignon (like getting her a couple of leading roles right off the bat), you can make her eat tripe for a while, and like it.

Which is what they did. After landing her first couple of roles, parts started getting smaller, paid less, and came sporadically. They told her that it would start getting better, that she would start getting roles that would end up elevating her career. It was only a matter of time, they assured her. Until those parts started coming their way, maybe she could do something… a little more salacious and risqué. There was always work, and it paid decent.

“A lot of actors started out this way, and even though they’ll never admit it, it’s true”, they told her. “You have to show them that you’re serious”, they said. “You have to show them that you want it.”

So here she was, about to shoot her first fetish scene. This was to be the twelfth adult scene she shot for them. She wasn’t proud, and she cried and vomited after every one she did so far, but if this was what she had to do to make a career… so be it.

She was told that this would be it. They let her believe that they had gotten some calls about her, and big studios were interested, and wanted her to read for a couple of things. It wasn’t big parts, they said, but it was for studios. The possibilities… so, just swallow your self-worth one more time to do this last scene, and you can have some money to tide you over.

She could do it. She would make herself do it. Her agent was a good man, and got her some good work. At least, in the beginning. He would do it again. He believed in her, so she was going to believe in him. She was willing to prove her commitment, and if this was the way it had to happen…

So be it. She trusted him.

It was more than she bargained for, in the end. The long con was finished; this was 1978, and sometimes… unfortunate things happened.

But the scene they shot? Amazing. Exactly the snuff film their client asked for.

It was known that she spent time in St. Petersburg, so her murderers thought it best to take her body somewhere near a place she used to live. They felt bad; they truly didn’t intend for things to go as far as they did. They just exploited these silly girls to make a quick buck and occasionally get their dicks wet. They didn’t know they were capable of actually killing someone, even if it was an accident. She died an undignified death, and they felt obligated to do something to make amends and receive absolution.

Through pure determination and luck, her body was taken to Siberia. Once there, her lifeless husk burdened with weights, she was left to sink to the bottom of a deep pond.

The particular pond turned out to be in a quaint little village near lake Baikal in Siberia.

He should have waited until spring, but once he figured out the truth behind the lore, waiting was something he couldn’t bring himself to do.

Although, now that he was here, actually experiencing this invasive, soul-defeating cold of -26 at 4:30 in the morning, he was thinking maybe he could have waited a few months. Fuck it, though; he was already here, feeling like a fool.

What was he even supposed to do, now that he was here? Just call out to her? “Hey, Anya? It’s me, Richard Smith. You see, you’re the real story behind an urban legend I heard as a kid, and… well… I felt for you. Now I’m here to help. Stupid, right?”

Why was he doing this? What did he think he was going to accomplish? What, solving a Scooby Doo case and going to where the body’s been submerged? What was that going to do? Was he suddenly expecting her spirit to rise from the frozen depths, thank him for a job well done, and go to heaven or something?

God, he was stupid. Naïve and stupid. And cold. He needed to go home. He’d been walking the perimeter of the pond for the past hour, and nothing had happened.

While walking the perimeter a final time, lamenting the time and money lost on this foolhardy expedition (and the relationships that suffered and ended because of his weird obsession with a girl that died over 40 years ago), he slipped and fell. It was then that he saw her.

She was looking up at him through the ice, pounding her fists, silently screaming for rescue. He tried breaking the ice by stamping it with his foot, but it was too thick. She began moving towards the center of the pond, beckoning him to follow.

He did, finding himself feeling more and more compelled to do so. As he was following her, he heard the ice beginning to make crackling noises beneath his feet. He stamped down. Again. Again.

The ice broke, his foot sinking into the freezing water, almost falling in, but he stopped himself just short of doing so. As he lay there, he saw a hand pop up from the hole he created.

He crawled over to the hole, yelling, “Hold on! I’ll get you out.” He brought his fists down upon the ice, making the hole big enough to pull her out.

A hand popped up again. He grabbed it.

And eventually pulled out a beautiful, 24-year-old European woman. She was obviously dead; her skin was as white as the snow and ice, her lips a disturbing shade of blue. Yet she was drawing breath (or trying to; she was on all fours, coughing and retching, expelling 43 years’ worth of water from her lungs). He looked at her, freed from her icy, watery prison.

He felt so sorry for her. What she could have done with her life; what she could have been. At least she was free now. Her soul could find the peace it was so heinously denied.

What he didn’t know was how much she had changed. It was true: her soul was refused peace. Her spirit was stuck there, unable to do anything, save grow more and more bitter and resentful, as her body slowly rotted to nothing but bones in the water. Her resentments and bitterness grew, until the dark parts of her soul made her something more than she was in life. She was now someone who would control those to get what she desired: vengeance.

She stopped sicking up water. She looked at him, her grey blue eyes penetrating him, making him her little thrall. “Oh, Ricky! You saved me! Thank you!” She began crawling seductively to him.

“H-How did you know my name?” he whispered, dumbfounded and hypnotized by what was happening.

“I heard you; I felt you”, she said, getting right next to him, looking him dead in his eyes. She could see him succumbing to her. She bit her lower lip. “I can’t believe you found me!” she said, close enough that he could feel her cold breath on his lips. “Thank you! I love you, Ricky!”

What is happening? How? And… why do I feel myself falling for her? he thought. Why can’t I stop myself? This is crazy.

“Oh, god, Ricky! I love you so much! Kiss me!”

I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But I don’t care. I want it. I want her. I’ll do anything for her.

They kissed deeply. He swore undying fealty. He was hers.