Siren Song

Siren Culture

Fuck...Peter Pan was right all along.

The hush of the radio vanished and the leaders of our group signaled for a stop. We assumed defensive positions and listened to our own hearts stutter and cry for a safer place. Young Dakota crouched against the cave wall across from me, but he did not quiver or lose focus. The night vision was nowhere close to perfect and yet I could tell the boy's eyes lacked fear and whispered strength. I could not let fear endanger these warriors. Cowardice here was betrayal en masse.

"Sergeant Courin," the disembodied voice reached out low and steady. "We detect a movement ten meters ahead. Large but not unstoppable." Courin replied with orderly commands reinforcing the need for swiftness and finality. I repositioned my footing and soundlessly found myself in a crooked cut-out of the cave wall away from the others. My hand made careful contact with a wall.

Secret outcropping?

My thoughts died quickly with the voice. A haunting echo dipping low and high made a slow walk towards our party. I was out of sight, so unable to see her being. She was the monster and the men were defenseless against the senseless song. The words were nonsense but the message clear: come close, submit to her prowess, and die.

I itched to charge out of my hovel. Her song grew stronger and the quick clatter of guns and Tasers on the stone floor suggested the men really were submitting. I felt the words, but not the influence.

Why? Because I can't see her? I need to wait this out a bit more.

Her footsteps fell softly in long strides and the glide of feathers over bones, debris, and rock lent music to her voice. Tall and fierce, her shadow passed over my secret place and drunken men under her spell followed suit toward the cave's gaping entrance. When her sound seemed distant enough I peered beyond my hiding place and moved deeper into the cave with caution. It was an utter guess but I suspected these creatures lived alone in each cave for their own reasons.

Further inside the confines of chilly walls and crunching footsteps I found our fears piled out of the way. Corporals Black, Myrlling, and Clarke were of the corpses. Nothing of flesh or feature remained, but their shredded suits were enough for confirmation. I switched to normal vision and shown the flashlight upon the room. It was spacious! The walls slopped up high and wide perhaps a hundred feet in every direction like a sphere. There existed a disturbingly large pile of the deceased, and a separate pile of plumage and fur – skins, as well – probably for sleeping. Pictures and patterns staining the walls made the greatest impact on my next decision.

Images sketched either delicately or brutally in blood trashed the walls. Animals in life running from the chase and dying at the hands of winged women ruled every surface. More than once an enraged, or perhaps excited, drag of claws interrupted a drawing. More than once, the drag of claws distorted what looked like men succumbing to their song. And they were not necessarily keeping these men for food. The monsters had them in their grips above the ground and the men were falling beyond the edge of the mountainside.

They're giving us watery graves.

I bolted for the exit of the tomb. The cold of the wintery happenings infiltrated my suit just enough to create discomfort but not near enough to distract. Further onto the mountain range, northbound and hazy with snowfall, the vague forms of swaying men followed the feathered thing. Even having only heard the words hushed from within a hidden alcove I knew the temptation to follow her. But I had resisted...and that gave me an idea.

I switched off the headset's connectivity and became almost entirely deaf to the outer world inside my helmet. The microphone needed to remain active for this to work. I began the trudge through the snow trenches as swiftly as possible. If I lost sight of my men I surrendered this war and any funeral in this place sounded like shit.