4
(Thirty Minutes Before)
I t was one in the morning.
In one hand, Blake gripped the keys to the arcade for dear life, and in the other he held his cellphone.
Anxiety coursed through him as he paced outside the doors to the castle arcade, watching for signs of life inside.
He’d called his manager Lovepreet several times to make sure this was okay, since her uncle owned the park, as well as several other Water Zones throughout the state.
The last thing he needed was to be arrested for trespassing.
The owner was a notorious jackass about the strict set of rules he imposed upon his employees.
“My sister and I practically used to live there growing up,” Lovepreet had assured him. “I let people in all the time to grab stuff they left in the staff room. Just be sure to shut off the alarm like you usually do in the mornings and reset it before you leave.”
“And it’s okay if I go into the water park?” Blake triple-checked.
“Yeah, once you disable the main alarm it’ll turn off all the sensors in the park, too,” Lovepreet told him.
“I hope you find your Hydro Flask, B—those things are so darn expensive. Not to be a jerk, but if you left it in the park and nobody brought it to the lost and found, someone probably snatched it.”
“It’s fine, thanks for lending me a hand,” Blake told her. “Have a good one.”
What he hadn’t told Lovepreet was that he’d be bringing Celeste along with him, but he assumed it was okay.
After all, Blake didn’t know what kind of insane polyamorous nonsense his friends got up to in the staff lounge after closing, but it was probably a lot more illegal than what he was doing at that moment.
Blake’s head twitched to the entrance of the parking lot as he heard tires crunch over the loose grit of the asphalt.
An aging white Camry decorated with a myriad of holographic cryptid stickers rolled into the lot, parking under one of the buzzing streetlights.
The car throbbed with the bass of a hyperpop song which was cut off before Celeste stepped out of the driver’s seat.
“Ew, you work here?” were the first words out of their mouth. “Why? Don’t you have a degree? A determined racoon could do this job.”
“You knew that I work here.” Blake scowled over at them as they crossed the parking lot to the front of the castle. “I need the money—and it’s a lot harder of a job than it looks! Most minimum-wage jobs are.”
“Hard? Tch,” Celeste made a great show of flipping their icy blonde hair. “Try doing psychic warfare with your cousins over changing the TV channel.”
“I—” Blake had no idea how literal Celeste was being, but a talking waterpark decoration was enough weirdness for one day. He didn’t have the mental fortitude to handle psychic battle cousins on top of everything else.
“The hell are you doing getting on my case?” Blake growled in place of granting Celeste’s insane statement any further thought. “Didn’t you use to come here?”
“Yeah, when I was six ,” Celeste scoffed. “It was a lot nicer back then.”
Blake had to agree—Water Zone had seen better days back when it had first opened sometime in the aughts as Slide Palace.
These days the facilities were safe (…probably), but the structures on the golf course and the castle itself needed a little tender love and care.
However, in Blake’s opinion, the only things that required immediate attention were the tacky, peeling murals inside the birthday rooms…
and the Laffin Sal animatronic. That thing needed to be destroyed for the good of humanity.
Blake switched on his phone’s flashlight and headed for the castle doors, Celeste following along behind him. After fussing with the aging locks, he stepped inside, approaching the wailing alarm on the side of the staircase and disarming it.
It was always weird being inside the near-silent arcade.
Without the cacophony of the cabs and screaming children charging up and down the aisles, everything was wrong.
The only sound in the building came from the distant demo gameplay from the metroidvania platformer in the back that no one knew how to shut off properly—it was somehow worse than if it had been completely quiet.
Blake guided Celeste through the heart of the arcade and to the back doors that led to the waterpark.
“This place is disgusting,” Celeste complained, folding their arms over their chest with aversion. “How do you not come down with pink eye every other week?”
“You should see the guy that has to clean the ballpit,” Blake joked. Celeste laughed as they rounded the prize counter. “I’ll let you know that thing gets shat in on a bi-weekly basis.”
Celeste retched performatively as Blake unlocked the doors. They stepped out into the balmy summer night, the air heavy with the content croaks of the frogs that lived in the mini golf ponds. Some of the work lights in the water park were still on to help deter vandals.
“So why do you think the pygmalion decided to show himself to me now?” Blake asked Celeste as the two strolled along the dark silhouettes of the water slides.
Celeste shrugged, “Hard to say—maybe he didn’t have anything to say before. Maybe yesterday you were in the right state of mind to hear him.”
Blake frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
“Eeeh,” Celeste shrugged again. “It’s kind of difficult to explain. My mom would say some sentimental shit like: ‘sometimes our hearts aren’t ready to receive certain messages from the universe’. My mémé would say that sometimes your head’s too far up your ass to hear.”
Blake chuckled as they rounded the slides and arrived at the kiddie pool. He stared at the merman, hesitating to approach.
“How do we know if I’m going to be able to hear him this time?” he asked.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. I have my ways,” Celeste said with a cryptic smirk. They glowered down at the splash pool below the pirate ship. It wasn’t full by any means, but water still puddled in the center. “I’m wearing bootlegs.”
“Great. I have no idea what that means,” Blake told them, kicking off his slides and trudging into the water.
“It means that my shoes will dissolve if I look at the water wrong,” Celeste huffed, peeling off their sock-like sneakers and setting them aside with particular care. They hesitated at the edge of the water, frowning down at it with a suspicious glare.
“Don’t worry, there’s enough chlorine in here to kill a small animal,” Blake told them, approaching the large slide below the aft. “Unless someone runs out and actively takes a crap on your foot, you’ll be fine.”
“Doubt it,” Celeste grouched before following him with measured steps. They looked up at the fiberglass merman. “Good morning.”
Like magic (and maybe it was magic, what did Blake know), the merman’s features came to life.
Under the cold hum of the work lights, Blake could see a purple and blue blush diffuse over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.
Marin uncrossed his arms and gave a languid stretch, peeling his torso away from the aft of the pirate ship.
“Good morning,” he responded, blinking sleep out of his deep black eyes. “It’s pretty early, isn’t it—oh, it’s you.”
He stared down at Blake, surprised. “You usually don’t come around this time of night—and you’ve brought a friend. Have we met?”
“A long time ago you harassed me for a churro,” Celeste told him, still sounding a little pissed about this twenty-year-old incident. “I’m Celeste, I’m an associate of Blake’s.”
“‘Associate’?” Marin raised an eyebrow; Blake noted that there was a sizable scar that ran through the middle. Whoever had sculpted the cast had put a great amount of care and detail into it.
“They know about this sort of stuff,” Blake told him. “Like spirits and magic. So I looked them up to give me a hand.”
“You could have just asked me what I was,” Marin responded, pulling a bit of hair off of the boat and beginning to braid it.
“I…” Blake hesitated. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I uh. I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating or not.”
Marin smirked. “Am I really that pretty?” he asked in a teasing tone.
Yes , Blake thought, fighting back a blush. Great. Now the haunted merman was flirting with him. He’d always appreciated the figurehead for the craftsmanship, but now that Marin was real , there was no denying how handsome he was.
Blake had never been good at processing flirtations to begin with—he found that he tended to crumble into a flustered, mumbling mess at the slightest provocation. He had no idea how to handle it.
Blake cleared his throat, trying his best to overcome his embarrassment. “Celeste says there’s a way for us to make sure you’re not a demon or a ghost or something.”
“Again, you simply could have asked.”
“How would I know if you’re lying?” It was Blake’s turn to arch an eyebrow.
“I guess that’s true,” Marin shrugged, completing his braid. He dragged the tip over his upper lip like a paintbrush. “I don’t actually know what I am, to be honest.”
Blake turned to face Celeste, “Okay, go ahead.”
“Hm?” Celeste turned to him, looking surprised. “Oh no, I’m not getting myself entrenched like that without being paid extra. You have to do it.”
“Why me?!” Blake balked.
“You’re the one that wants to make sure it’s not a demon,” Celeste said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Why would I care if it’s out here eating the souls of gen alpha? I don’t even like kids.”
“You are miserly and absolutely heartless,” Blake deadpanned.
Celeste shrugged. “I never claimed to be anything else.”
“So how much would it cost?” Blake asked.
Celeste laughed. “More than you have, honey.” They grew thoughtful, pressing a manicured finger to his lip, “Unless you let Ryan and me have the apartment to ourselves for a few days…”
“Forget it.” Blake glowered at them. He was not making promises on Ryan’s behalf—especially when it came to all this hocus pocus hoopla. “I’ll do it myself. What do I need to do?”
Celeste sighed in disappointment, folding their arms over their chest. “I guess it would be easiest for you to get up on the ship. Try to get to the very edge so you can bend over and reach its face.”
Blake nodded and scaled the slide below Marin. Clambering up onto the edge, he walked out onto the piece of fiberglass that jutted out from the front of the boat where Marin was carved. The merman leaned out into midair, peering up as Blake laid himself down over the bowsprit.
“Okay, now what?” Blake asked.
“Cool,” Celeste responded with a great amount of nonchalance. “Now you just need to kiss it.”
“WHAT?!” Blake and Marin cried in unison. Celeste looked up at them, nonplussed.
“That’s the only way to check,” they shrugged. “A normal possessed object wouldn’t have the same reaction to getting kissed that a pygmalion would.”
“And what kind of reaction am I looking for?” Blake asked, fighting back the heat that threatened to envelop his cheeks.
“An interesting one,” Celeste answered with a mysterious smile. “I mean, unless you’re not… you know.” They raised their hand before letting their wrist go limp. “Sorry, I kind of assumed you’re queer, given your friend group.”
“No, you were right on the money.” Blake confirmed.
He hedged a glance at the handsome merman and promptly deflated.
It wasn’t like he was a stranger to kissing, or even to sex.
He was twenty-four years old, for Christ’s sake.
But kissing a stranger—even if it was a fiberglass merman tacked onto a kiddie pool pirate boat—wasn’t exactly at the top of his to-do list.
“Look, I’m not going to do it if you don’t tell me what’ll happen.”
“Fine,” Celeste shrugged. “Enjoy all the dead kids floating around when that thing turns out to be a demon and goes feral.”
“ Really , Celeste? Not funny. He hasn’t hurt anyone since this place has been built,” Blake said. Even Marin looked pissed at the insinuation. “Why would he start now?”
“I’d never eat a child,” Marin insisted, folding his arms over his chest in offense.
“Maybe it’s like Pennywise and it wakes up every so often to feed,” Celeste teased, fluttering their fingers like they were telling a spooky story.
“I’m not kissing him,” Blake insisted.
“Why not?” Marin asked. Now he looked offended for different reasons.
“Because I don’t know what’s going to happen!” Blake insisted.
“I won’t bite,” Marin teased.
Great, now they’re both peer-pressuring me , Blake thought, hanging his head in defeat.
“Look, you’re the one who agreed to meet me out here in the middle of the night,” he said to Celeste. “Wouldn’t it be a waste of your time not to tell me?”
“ You’re the one paying me . And currently you owe me…” Celeste told him, taking out their phone to check something. “Forty-three dollars and fifty-two cents plus travel fees.”
“ You drove less than two miles! ”
“Might I remind you that gas is six dollars a gallon ? Just kiss the damn thing so I can get back to binging Suits .”
Blake continued to glare.
He didn’t like the way that Celeste had started referring to Marin as a thing and not a person .
He may have been made of fiberglass, but even Celeste had explained that if Marin was a pygmalion, then he had a living soul.
It was clear that Celeste had no regard for his personhood, let alone the merman’s potential plight—unless it made them money.
And the longer they stayed cagey about the details, the more cash they could wring out of Blake.
“Exploitive asshole,” he hissed through grit teeth. “ Fine .”
He leaned over the bowsprit and faced Marin. The angle was odd, but they could easily touch lips if they both turned their heads.
“Well?” Blake hedged. Marin blinked at him before he adopted that mischievous smile.
“Well?” he repeated, voice soft and sweet. “Are you going to kiss me or not?”
“Only if you’re okay with that,” Blake replied, shifting his weight from side to side.
“I would be fine with that,” Marin told him.
Flushing, Blake turned his head, brushing up against Marin’s cheek. Although it looked soft and warm, it felt like the rest of the boat—a little bit squishy and damp. Blake wondered how sanitary this was going to be.
As Marin turned to face him, Blake closed his eyes and pressed their lips together.
It was exactly like he imagined it would be—the cool, sculpted fiberglass surged against his mouth and for a moment Blake wondered if he actually was having an extended hallucination.
But without warning, Marin’s mouth began to change.
Where it was once sturdy and sculpted, it became warm and pliant, lips splitting as he gasped.
There was a ripping noise akin to someone tearing off a bandaid and Marin surged into Blake—and then away from him as he fell onto the slide with a hollow thunk and slid down into the half-drained splash pool.
Celeste stared down at the now very alive merman face-down at their feet, wincing.
“Well, I didn’t think that would happen.”