It has been a week since my mother was killed at the dolphin show, and Sally went missing.
Dad and I have set up a routine of sorts. If I am to be completely honest, it’s not terrible, and I feel terrible for writing that. But it’s so much more quiet without Sally and my mother.
I wonder if they will ever find Sally, but I don’t think so. None of the missing ones have been found. And there has been no trace of Aqua, Loli, Silver, Marina, Dolly, and Pegasus ever since they vanished, presumably into the ocean which is barely 200m from the dolphinarium. Some people say they saw them go in, but they’re not sure, and perhaps not surprisingly enough, nobody was hanging round recording on their phone. They sent in some boats equipped with maritime devices but they said they couldn’t find anything. In my opinion, they didn’t try very hard to find anything, and given what happened, who can blame them?
Let me tell you the story from my point of view- after all I was there when it happened.
Sally had asked we visit the dolphin show for her birthday. I had been once before a few years ago, as part of schoolfriend’s birthday party- it is a bit of a drive from out place, enough to make it a fun day trip. Dad had to work, so Mom took us. We sat amongst the crowd- I had forgotten how bright blue the water of the pool was, and how harshly the sun gleamed off it. And the noise. There was a lot of loud music, and talking, and songs, and people in shiny glittering swimming costumes doing tricks in the water. Finally, the MC dressed in white glittery swim suit and standing on a sort of island in the middle of the pool yelled into the mic:
“Aaand the moment you’ve all been waiting for you! Here they are! Raise your voices and clap for! Aqua! Loli! Silver! Marina! Dolly! Aaaaand! Pegasus!”
The crowd obediently went wild. I cringed back- I hated loud noises. Sally was whooping so loudly that I wanted to push her into the bright blue water of the huge dolphin pool. Oh- swimming through a sort of watery entrance corridor, they swam into the mains pool in a row, six blue-grey beasts arching through the impossibly bright water.
The dolphins neatly circled the pool. The MC bellowed into the mic “Aren’t they beauties! Look at them! And they all have their own personalities. You better watch out for Pegasus over there - he has a temper!”- he pointed at the last dolphin who had swum out, with odd little white patches where wings would be. “And sweet Silver- where’s my darling Silver- here she comes- oh I love her so much, what a sweetheart” and he gestured at a dolphin a slightly lighter shade of greyish-blue than the others. “Look at her go! Now watch! Here she comes, straight through the hoop!” One of the swimmers dressed in bright fuchsia held out a golden hoop, and Silver jumped though. Pegasus seemed to change mid-course, and he did a u-turn and broke away from the ranks, swimming right up to the audience. For a split-second, in a moment of complete clarity, I saw a look of fear and confusion on the face of the fuchsia swimmer as she turned her head, following Pegasus.
The crowd went wild for the dolphins’ tricks, as they leapt high and twisted. Pegasus rose in the water, facing the crowd and open his mouth wide, showing off his rows of sharp teeth. Two or three of the others swam up to him. Sally gasped and fell silent- in fact silence seemed to ripple through the crowd. A huge splash of water rose, almost like large wave, and Pegasus and the rest seemed to vanish from sight.
My head hurt. Another spray of water went up and everything became damp and gross. And there was a cry and weird electric noises from the mic- the haze of droplets and the glaring sun made everything hard to see- but I felt the first prickles of pure fear.
My vision cleared – just after I heard Sally and my mother scream. And then I saw it clearly- Pegasus leaping on the island and smashing the MC to the ground with a swipe of his tail. Blood splashed on his white suit and trickled scarlet into the bright blue water. And then- something else happened.
The other five dolphins shook off their riders into the water, and jumped out on land, all of them at once. Thick short strong legs opened up under their sleek bodies and they began walking on all fours, very fast, towards the audience. People were screaming and scattering. The dolphins were among them, their wide laughing mouths open and shut, emitting hoarse cries. I tried to run away but I got tangled up with bloody Sally -she was always somewhere where she shouldn’t be- and I fell- a second later I heard Sally scream higher than I had ever heard as she was dragged off me.
I rolled down further under the bench I had been sitting on, smelling the wet pool water on the concrete, pushing myself against the benches. I could see people’s legs running, and glimpse the thick legs of the land-bound dolphins among them. I saw them take people, holding them like rag dolls in their mouths, their heads smashing and their legs and arms dragging against the wet concrete ground, back to the pool, leaving trails of slimy blood. The shrieking and noise was awful, much louder than the music and chatter of the MC.
I don’t know how long passed by. The screaming died down. I couldn’t see any more movement, or hear any sounds except human whimpers. Cautiously I came up from under the bench.
I couldn’t see Sally, but my mother’s still broken body lay close by, her limbs all twisted up funny. Other bleeding bodies were scattered around, some still, some twitching. More humans were floating calmly in the bright blue and scarlet pool, including the bodies of some of the swimmers, in their spangled suits. There was no sign of the dolphins.