The Merman by Carl-Johan Vallgren

Author:Carl-Johan Vallgren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus

I just managed to turn off the light and get out through the back door before Tommy’s brothers turned up. I recognised their voices in the darkness. They were standing in front of the hut arguing about something. One of them had a torch in his hand and was gesticulating wildly, making the beam point in all directions. I lay down in the grass behind the hut; it was tall enough to conceal both me and my bike.

After a while they stopped talking and unlocked the door. The lamp inside was switched on and a faint chink of light shone through a crack in one wall. Then I could hear their voices again, both agitated, and the back door burst open. I could see their silhouettes against the light. They looked round in every direction, talking agitatedly to each other, went back into the hut and came out again with another torch.

I wondered why I hadn’t got out of there while they were unlocking the door. There was nothing stopping me, and they wouldn’t have noticed anything until I was long gone. Instead I lay flat on the ground and felt the cold penetrating through my clothes.

One of them was searching by the dock, peering into the boats and checking behind the huts. The other one went down the asphalt path towards the covered moorings. I didn’t dare move a muscle. From inside the hut came the rhythmic sound of the creature’s tail fin, three thumps, pause, three thumps, but harder now, a sound filled with terror. I wondered whether they had noticed the steel cable was gone.

After a few minutes they returned to the hut. One of them shone his torch over towards the grass where I was hiding. ‘They’ve got to be nearby!’ said the other.

‘Did you see if they took anything?’

‘No, but there’s a whole load of water on the floor.’

My heart was pounding. Why did they think there was more than one person? And what is there to steal inside a fisherman’s hut? Soon they would look around more closely in there, checking that everything was in its proper place.

It felt like somebody had injected ice-cold water straight into my body when they went back into the hut. My school bag! I’d forgotten my bag with the keys in there. My name was written on the address label; the lock picks and my exercise books were inside. It was lying in plain view on a folding chair. But I didn’t have any more time to think. A scream came from inside. Somebody was shrieking in pain.

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