We need to toss her out in a blur.

  Grab on hold and throw her out of here!

  (Narrator)

  I’d tread lightly, if I were you, Mr. De Vere.

  (Man with raven who just flew off his shoulder)

  Don’t worry, Mr. Narrator, of this lass I’ve no fear,

  Listen you, you should know, I’m Guy De Vere,

  And you can’t punch my friend in the ear,

  You had better make light and get out of here,

  These are my—

  (Chorus)

  OUCH! AGAIN! Wow. That had to hurt,

  (Rod)

  There’s our Guy De Vere, sleeping in the dirt.

  (Raven, circling in the air above Guy)

  Nevermore.

  He’ll walk. Ha.

  Nevermore.

  (Narrator)

  Doctor Ponnonner, please take care their ills.

  (Dr. P.)

  I’ll try. I’m guessing they’ll both live,

  But I’m going to need more than Brandreth’s pills.

  (Narrator)

  Berenice, we know you’re mad, we get it, we do,

  So, I am very apologetically asking of you,

  This group can only handle so many adventures,

  So please go – I’m making my sincerest overtures.

  (Recently unshrouded figure)

  You folks are weird, but I’ll give you a break,

  And leave you with one of my new favorite gestures.

  [Recently unshrouded figure who knocked out two gents, reaches into robe, pulls something out and inserts it into mouth]

  My favorite new toy: ivory dentures.

  How do you like my new pearly whites?

  (Chorus)

  We’re blinded­—Blinded—They’re just too bright!

  (Recently shrouded figure who pulled down shroud, knocked out two gents, and then inserted her dentures)

  Then I’ll be off, but don’t you forgets,

  With my new teeth – now I bites!

  [Pause for technical difficulties as partially enshrouded figure exits.]

  [Several members in the chorus swoon and are escorted into fresher air.]

  (Narrator)

  Ok. Ok. Ok. Let’s try it from –

  (Voice from Chorus)

  Hey who are you anyway?

  (Narrator)

  What do you mean? I’m—the narrator.

  (Voice from Chorus)

  Yeah? Well from where?

  (Narrator)

  Why I—well—

  (Rest of Chorus)

  Yeah, who are you? Where are you from?

  (Narrator)

  Me? You want to know where I’ve been!

  I was at the House of Usher,

  I saw it fall into that tarn gutter,

  At the haunted palace, I went through that door,

  I’m the one who got rid of that odor,

  You all think that I’m tolerant, patient, and humdrum?

  Well, I’m the one who escaped from that pit AND the pendulum.

  I’ve seen Cthulhu—

  (Voices from the Chorus)

  Ca-tha-who?

  (Narrator)

  Uh, of course, I meant El Dorodo,

  With instructions from my copy of the Necronomicon.

  (Chorus)

  He’s putting us on!

  What’s your name?

  (Female voice from the crowd)

  It’s really quite tame.

  Come on honey, don’t be so doom and gloom.

  (Narrator)

  Aww heck. Why now, Ulalume?

  (Ulalume)

  Honestly, hon, you think your guys can top my gals? You’re as smart as a brick.

  And just as thick.

  You are a good artist, a great painter, you betcha,

  But you really do miss what’s right in front of ya.

  Think about it honey, you know why I came,

  Come on, go on, tell ‘em, your name!

  [Pause]

  (Narrator, after taking a deep breath)

  It’s Pickwick. Richard Upton Pickwick.

  [Longer pause]

  (Voices from the Chorus)

  He’s a LOVECRAFT CHARACTER!

  [Extended pause for mayhem, disarray, men exiting the crypt]

  [Ulalume gives gentle hug to narrator and speaks as she is exiting]

  (Ulalume)

  I’m going back to my tomb, catch some moon rays on Lake Auber.

  Then me and the girls are getting together,

  Some fishy-looking person, came over,

  Kind of weird, Called himself, Howard Lover?

  Anyway he kept saying trouble’s coming from a bad-ass invader.

  Some cat named Azathoth, and his lackey, Yog-Sothoth,

  But don’t worry. Me and the gals, we’ll take care of ‘em both.

  Sorry honey, but stick to painting, of that, you’re so capable.

  Oh, and I did leave you a roast duck out on the table.

  —Love ya.

  [Ulalume exits, stage right]

  [Rod and Narrator, sitting near the podium, alone in the crypt]

  (Rod)

  Mr. Pickwick, it has been very long day,

  Maybe the truth is we really are fey.

  You tried, you made, a truly noble effort.

  In that I hope you take some comfort.

  You sought to get us to drink from that silver cup.

  And—

  (Narrator)

  Hey, Rod?

  (Rod)

  Yes?

  (Narrator)

  Just shut the @!#* up.

  The Museum of Endless Summer

  ~ Paul Jessup

  Daria loved the feel of mermaid skin, pinched between her fingertips. Rustle, rustle, the soft music of dead leaves on an October path. Not too hard, though, she didn't want to break the skin, or crack the bones in half. It could be bad luck, you know, to defile a mermaid corpse like that. Even though her mom always said that eating a bit of the flesh would be good for you, she did not want to try it. It just all felt wrong.

  The Museum of Endless Summer held over thirty-eight mermaid mummies in total, their dusty old bones propped up on taxidermy display throughout the building. It was crouched in an old lighthouse, no longer functional, near the edges of the great lakes.

  She'd been surprised when they first came here, about twelve years ago, when she was only five. She thought the lake was the sea, the gray towering waves, the beaches coated in the skeletons of fish. Seagulls danced about on the air, and in the winter the waves froze like ice giants guarding the world from the oncoming storm. Lighthouses like theirs crowned the edges of the lake on the state side, barely working anymore. There was no room for lighthouses in the modern world near the end of time. No room for mermaids, either.

  They'd all died long ago, before Daria was even born. Every once in a great while their corpses washed up on the beach for scavengers to find. Some would bring them here, and dad would try his best to taxidermy them up and get them looking nice once again. He never enclosed them in glass, he didn't like that idea at all. Let the ghosts breathe, he said. They need every bit of freedom they could get.

  Her parents had been worried that she would be scared of the mummies when they first moved in and started work as caretakers of the museum. But oh contrare, Daria was a strange girl, wasn't she? She loved the mermaids, and set about naming them and becoming their very best friends. At night, she dreamt of playing games with their mermaid ghosts. Dad never understood, but mom completely got it. She seemed proud of her little mermaid girl.

  If only, if only. She wished she were braver, then she could join them beneath the sea without fear of drowning. Maybe then she could figure out where mom went, all those years ago.

  Mom’s bedtime stories hung around in Daria’s mind long after she left them both behind. Stories of cities beneath the waves, calling out to her, telling her to come and find them. These stories always scared Daria a little, unnerved her, the way her mom’s face would light up with a manic glow, her eyes wide, her teeth chattering. “They would sing to me, in dreams and waking hours, sing so sweetly and so light.”

  And then her mom would sing that drowned song, and Daria would hide under the covers, trying to muffle the half-whispered words. A la, a la, to love beneath the waves, a la, a la, to feel the lake in the heart, a la, a la, to give back to the blade, a la, a la, to drink the stars and the dark . . .

  Chills even now, thinking about it in odd moments in the middle of the night. Hours when she couldn’t dream, and she swore she heard the soft haunting whisper of the same song. Though not her mother’s voice this time, no, a chorus of voices, all raspy and ragged. It came from the edges of the museum, followed by the sound of creaky boards and old footsteps.

  The first time she heard this at night she thought mom had come back, maybe. That maybe everything would be all right and normal once again?

  But no. She went and explored the whole museum, with shaky cellphone in hand scattering artificial light across the mummies and the plush mermaids and t-shirts they had for sale, and found nothing. No source of the song, no bodies moving about, creaking the floorboards, no mother, nothing. Save for some small water-logged footprints that might’ve been there before, she wasn’t sure. They didn’t seem fresh? They probably weren’t.

  Ever since then she just laid there at night, listening to the ghosts sing her mom’s old song, and let the sense of melancholy and loss wash over her until she slept.

  “New bodies, new bodies, look at all these new bodies! Quite the haul we have here, wouldn’t you say, Dar my dear?”

  She woke up all groggy eyed to see her dad with iron hooks in hand, dragging large rotting corpses of mermaids. So many! She wasn’t even sure they would have anywhere to put them right now. Seagulls cawed over the sound of the lake waves behind him, as he pulled yet another one up and slapped it on the same pile of corpses as the others. The air smelled damp with lakewater, a bright fishy scent that clung to the beaches in spring.

  “How long they been out there, you think? These seem older than the others, less fresh.”

  Dad nodded and brought in the last one. “You got me. The lake gives up the dead on its own terms and timeline, the waves doling them out bit by bit. We always get a few new ones when it thaws out after winter, but this is a bit more than usual.”

  “I’d say.”

  “Still, got my work cut out for me now. A few of these are pretty far gone and will require a bit of creative reconstructing. A little bit of toothpaste here and there, some wire and some paper mache would do wonders.”

  “Yeah, but where are we going to put them? I don’t think we have much room anymore, do we?”

  Dad laughed. “Naw, we don’t, we don’t. But we do have a few buyers who’ve been sniffing around, looking for the odd curio or another. Something they can brag about to their rich friends, oh look I’ve got an honest to goodness mermaid! That kind of thing.”

  “I thought you were against selling them.”

  “I was, I was. But Dar my dear, my love, my heart, times are tough. Not as many tourists coming through like they used to, and money’s a bit tight.”

  “Oh.”

  “I know, I should’ve told you sooner, but, hey. Things are better now, aren’t they? Look at this brilliant haul, I’m going to make some phone calls in a bit and get the ball rolling. You all right watching the front desk for a bit by yourself?”

  She nodded. Of course she would be all right. Of course.

  The front desk was a usually such a boring affair, and today was no different, it seemed. It was the wrong time of day for this kind of work, the wrong time of year. The tourist season had been over for awhile, and already the promise of winter stretched across the skies in long gray clouds. So, you could imagine her surprise when the bells chimed and front door opened, and a boy appeared there, framed in the archway. His skin was pale and almost blue, and he shivered as he walked. His eyes had a transparent gray look to them, like soft mist or stormclouds. His hair had a similar color to his eyes, and his hands were steepled as he walked, like he was praying. As he moved water dripped from his body, every bit of him soaked, leaving soggy footprints behind.

  She was mesmerized by this strange boy. He was ten, maybe eleven years old? Each footstep painful, the way his face grimaced and his body trembled. His hands never changed position, not even once. As he walked, she heard him muttering something under his breath over and over again.

  “They're still singing, and they're getting close . . . too close . . .”

  And she couldn't help herself. “Who's singing?”

  “The mermaids. A song for their red king, who dreams under the lake.”

  Did he say dead king, or red king? She couldn't tell, and part of her knew better than to ask. Mostly because she did not want to know the answer. Instead, she moved out from behind the register, and walked slowly forward. The soggy footprints looked familiar. She felt a chill run up and down her spine.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Nothing. Who are you?”

  And then he collapsed.

  Dad was busy in his workroom the entire time, so Daria had to move his body all by her own lonesome self. It was easier than she thought it would be. He was very light, as if he had no bones or muscle tissue in his body at all, and it was just a hollow cavity filled with sawdust. She knew leaving him there would be wrong. What if they had other customers? But also . . .

  He freaked her out more than a little bit. Which she knew was not a nice thing to say. If mom'd been here, she would've yelled at her for even thinking such a thing. Still, she didn't want him there, moaning, eyes fluttering, crawling half conscious on the floor. Touching him was weird and gross and somehow sticky. Like flypaper. And lifting him up eerily painless. Later on, after she placed him in the bathroom tub, she quickly changed out of her clothes and threw them in the washing machine. She then cleaned herself as best as she could with a loose towel, some soap, and water from the sink.

  She wasn't going to go in the tub to shower off. Not with him in there. He smelled like the lake, all seagull and fishbones.

  She tried to go and see Dad, to let him know about their new visitor. After all, what if he goes to take a piss or something, and sees him? Wouldn't he be surprised? But his work room door was locked, and when she knocked, she didn't get a response. Not even a solo grunt telling her to go away, nothing. That was odd. Very unlike dad! He was always open to her coming into the work room. Some days, she would just wander in and watch the mummification process. It was disgusting and fascinating at the same time.

  A lot of the mermaids they'd found on the beach have been dead for awhile, and fairly well preserved. Most of what he did involved reconstruction with toilet paper and putty, and cutting away the rotting bits or decaying bits. There was something pleasing to this, watching him rebuild the corpse from scratch using base materials.

  But no. The work room, which was further down the beach and a little to the left in the woods, was padlocked. The windows were locked, too. And he'd placed blankets over them, so no one could see inside. She knocked on the door, knocked on the windows, no response.

  She was worried about him, but decided not to think about it. Thinking about it was a painful thing. What if he was dead? A heart attack in the middle of work? What if?

  No. She did not want to break into the work room just to find his body flat on the floor, attracting flies and the scent of death. No.

  Later on in the evening hours, when the sun bruised the sky with deep purple reds and oranges, she went back up into the bathroom to check on their visitor. He was sitting up in the tub now, dripping water from his body. He looked like he was still submerged somehow, as if the lake had seeped into his pores and under his skin. His eyes were wide, and it looked like the face of someone drowning.

  “Don't trust the one with your mother's face.”

  She had to stop mid-stride and say, “Huh?”

  “She's not who you think she is. She is the daughter of the dead king dreaming.”

  Dead king, or red king? He must've said Red King Dreaming, how could a dead king dream? Dead things are just dead things, inert, unable to move or dream. If they could dream . . .

  Oh no. Then all the mermaids here were dreaming and for some reason that scared her more than anything else.

  She ran out of there, she couldn't talk to him anymore. Not after hearing that, and thinking that unsettling thought, that all the mermaid corpses were dreaming here at the Museum of Endless Summer. What could they be dreaming of? Did they dream of her? Did they dream of dad? Were they good dreams?

  No. She knew for a fact that the dead did not dream good dreams. They were always nightmares. After all, it only made sense. How could you dream anything else when you're dead? She ran and kept on running, back down to dad's workroom, hoping against hope that the door was open, and he could hug her and comfort her.

  She needed that more than anything else right now. To hell with bills and stress and money. To hell with the end of the world, to the lake, to the mermaids, to everything. She just wanted to be anywhere else with him. Just the two of them against the world. But, no. He was gone, lost in his work, and not letting her inside.

  Please don't be dead. Please still be alive.

  When she came back inside, and tiptoed up the stairs, and went past the open bathroom door, she held her breath. The sunset colors painted the room the color of blood through the open windows, and carried with it the distant cries of seagulls over the lake. She didn't want to look inside, see that creepy boy telling her terrible things. And yet . . .

  She had to look. She peered around the corner, moving her head in, just a brief moment. So subtle her movements, she could dart away if he saw her. She couldn't see the tub just yet, so she moved her head in closer, closer. Still nothing, no sounds from the bathroom at all except the steady drip drip of a leaky faucet. She leaned in closer, and what if he saw her first? No. Closer. Come on. He can't hurt you, he just a little drowned boy, a thing from the lake. No more a threat than the mermaids, and the mermaids never scared you before today. And yet . . .