by Ike Hamill
“Tell me everything,” Liz said.
Alan glanced at Joe.
“Joe, go work on your homework in your room,” Liz said.
“Awwww,” Joe moaned. “But it’s Friday.”
“And you won’t have a chance to do it Sunday because we’re going to the Grasso’s for dinner, remember? Just go upstairs,” Liz said.
Joe slammed his book shut and grabbed his paper. He stomped down the hall.
Alan leaned against the counter and rubbed his forehead. He started slowly—first telling Liz about the idea of the trip and how they’d found their way to the pond. She pushed herself up and sat on the countertop as Alan described the discovery under the cloud of flies. Alan pulled his plate from the microwave and put it on the table. He sat in front of it, but pushed it away as he told of the body and then the climb to the cabin.
“That’s when I called you,” Alan said. “We went back to the culvert, got the deputy, and took him back up to the pond. We were too heavy—the boat got stuck with three of us weighing it down—so I had to get out and pull the boat past a couple of the shallow spots. That’s how I got soaked through.”
“Take off your pants. I’ll go get you sweatpants or something,” Liz said.
“It’s okay. I’m dry now,” Alan said. He slumped down a little.
Liz jumped down from her perch and opened the fridge. She handed Alan a beer.
“Thanks,” Alan said.
“So?”
“We found the same spot right away. The grass was still flattened and the flies were still there, but the body was gone.”
“Gone? Where did it go?” she asked.
Alan shrugged. He picked up his fork and moved some of the food around on his plate. Liz had gotten takeout from the terrible restaurant down at Kingston Lakes. Alan jabbed at the mashed potatoes. A clump stuck to his fork.
“So there was nothing there?”
“No, there was something. It looked like a skinned gopher or maybe a beaver. I’m not sure. It was in the same spot as where we’d seen the body, but it was like a fresh kill. I mean, it should have been clear that the smell wasn’t coming from that thing. It was all bones and organs. The cop just eyeballed us. We kept telling him what we’d seen before. The purple thing didn’t even have a face. I’m not sure it was human, but it certainly didn’t look anything like the skeleton that was lying there. Then he asked if we’d been drinking or enjoying any drugs that afternoon.”
Liz sat down.
“That’s crazy,” she said. “It was gone?”
“Yeah. Then Bob suggested we go up the hill. When we were up on the hill earlier, we saw a lot of bodies out there.”
A car came up the driveway, splashing the barn with its headlights.
Alan jumped up from his chair and ran to the window. He exhaled his relief.
“It’s Bob,” he said. He watched his friend park near the Cook House and then cross the driveway. Alan went over to the hall and flicked on the shed lights. Bob appeared at the door a few seconds later.
“Hi, Bob,” Alan said.
“Hey. I just wanted to confer. Oh, hi,” Bob said when he spotted Liz.
She stood and held out her hand.
“I finally get to meet my husband’s new playmate,” Liz said with a big smile.
“Nice to finally meet you,” Bob said. He took Liz’s hand in both of his and smiled.
“Have a seat, Bob,” Alan said. “You want a beer?”
“Thanks, but I better not,” Bob said. “They’ve still got a cop car down on the Mill Road. I don’t want to have another encounter with the sheriff’s office today.”
Alan grunted. The three took seats around the kitchen table.
“Back upstairs, Joe,” Liz said over her shoulder. The boy had been peeking around the corner. He ran off and they heard his feet pounding up the stairs.
“I was just telling Liz about our day,” Alan said. “So we took the deputy up the hill and we showed him all the little trampled spots you could see around the pond. And the dark shapes were still there. You couldn’t really see what they were, but you could see them in the center of each little ring of grass.”
“Wait,” Liz said. “When you saw the body the first time, up close, you didn’t take a picture or anything?”
Alan shrugged.
Bob said, “Didn’t think of it.”
“So we’re up on the hill, and we show him the bodies. He had binoculars. He looked and said he couldn’t tell what the shapes were,” Alan said.
“At this point, we still thought he probably believed us,” Bob said. “So when he radioed in the location, we thought everything was in control.”
Alan nodded.
“It took forever. Hours,” Alan said. “He just stood there. I was freezing because my pants were soaked from jumping in the water to get the boat over that snag. And Bob was all muddy, too. The deputy just stood and waited. We sat down—he wouldn’t let us leave.”
“Under what authority could he detain you?” Liz asked.
“This guy was serious, Liz. We weren’t asking any questions,” Alan said. “Anyway, the game warden finally arrived in one of those inflatable boats. They had another boat with a dog in it. Those guys started tromping around and they finally told us we could go. But by then we kinda wanted to stick around to see what they found, you know?”
“Of course,” Liz said.
“They wouldn’t let us,” Bob said. “Practically ran us off.”
“What?” Liz asked.
“Official police business,” Alan said. “We were hampering their investigation. They said they’d call if they needed anything more from us. The one guy looked at our IDs and then they sent us on our way.”
“So you don’t know if they found anything?” Liz asked.
“Yeah, right,” Alan said. He stood up and took his plate to the sink.
“They got back to the culvert almost at the same time we did,” Bob said. “They were loading the boats back on their truck while we were still there.”
“So they didn’t even search?” Liz asked.
“They said they did,” Alan said. He returned to the table and took his seat again. “They said they searched and didn’t find anyone. That was just one of the wardens talking—the deputy wouldn’t tell us anything. We told him again what we’d seen. He said something about coyotes.”
“Coyotes?”
Alan nodded.
“He said there’s a pack back there. He suggested that we might have seen the pack,” Bob said.
“But what about the bodies you saw from the hill? What about the smell?”
Alan shrugged.
“We kept asking questions until they ran us off,” Alan said. “I dropped Bob off where he’d parked at the dam and I brought the boat home. By the way, remind me never to try to drive that boat home in the dark again. That trip was hairy.”
“They were still there when I went home, and like I said, there was still a car there just now. I don’t know what they’re doing,” Bob said.
“Probably making sure that nobody else goes upstream until they finish covering up all the evidence,” Alan said.
“Evidence of what?” Liz asked.
“Who knows?” Alan asked. “That’s the point. There’s something strange going on over there and they don’t want anyone to know about it. They also asked us if we took any pictures. At first I thought maybe they wanted to see what we’d found.”
“No,” Bob said. “I think they wanted to make sure we didn’t have any photos. They seemed ready to confiscate our phones if we had any pictures.”
“You guys are paranoid,” Liz said. “If they didn’t find anything there, what would they be covering up?”
“I think they’d already covered it up,” Alan said. “They hid everything while we were going back to the culvert to pick up the deputy.”
Bob didn’t say anything.
“What a crazy day,” Alan said.
“Are you sure we can’t
offer you anything to drink, Bob? Maybe some dinner?” Liz asked.
“No, thank you though. I should get going. I just wanted to make sure you got home okay and see what you thought of all that,” Bob said. He stood up. “I’ll see you soon, Alan.”
“Okay,” Alan said.
“Nice to meet you, Bob,” Liz said.
“You too,” Bob said with a smile.
“I’ll walk you out,” Alan said.
Out in the driveway, Bob paused as he opened the door to his SUV.
“Might be worth taking a hike back there in a couple of days,” Bob said. “Just to see what’s up.”
“A couple of days? I thought maybe we should go over there tomorrow. I can use the aerial maps online to get a location for that pond and then we can go in from the road down near Strickland’s place,” Alan said.
“I’m afraid the sheriff might still be out there tomorrow,” Bob said.
“They’d have to leave a car somewhere then, right? If we see a car along the road anywhere, we won’t go in. It’s an easy walk from here.”
“Okay, what the hell,” Bob said.
X • X • X • X • X
“I like your friend,” Liz said as Alan came back to the kitchen. She sat at the table in the glow of the little light hanging from the brick wall. “He seems nice.”
“Yeah. Bob’s a good guy,” Alan said. “We should have him over for dinner sometime. Joe would probably like hearing about making movies. He used to be fascinated by that stuff.”
Liz nodded.
“You want me to save your dinner?” she asked.
“No, thanks. I can’t eat anything,” Alan said. “I keep thinking about how that body looked. The bruises on its skin, they almost looked tie dyed or something. It looked so weird. Have you ever seen those big horses with the spots on them?”
“I don’t think so,” Liz said.
“They’re draft horses and they have these really subtle spots. I guess it’s almost like a giraffe, but without as much contrast.”
“You’re not making sense,” Liz said. “Were the spots subtle or bright? You said it looked tie dyed.”
“I don’t know what I’m saying,” Alan said. His shoulders slumped. “It was almost a regular pattern, but the thing was purple and yellow. It almost looked like an eggplant in some places, but then others it looked, I don’t know, dead and washed out.”
“And you don’t know what kind of animal it was?” Liz asked.
“No,” Alan said. He shook his head. “No idea. When I saw the legs, I was sure it was a person—a man, in fact. But the arms were weird, and it didn’t have hands or a face.”
“Sounds awful,” Liz said.
Alan leaned back against the counter in front of the sink.
“It really was,” Alan said. “I told Bob we’d go hike in to that same spot tomorrow so we can see what’s there.”
“Not tomorrow,” Liz said. “Tomorrow we have soccer all day. Then on Sunday someone signed us up for apple picking in the morning, remember? And then we’ve got that dinner at your son’s friend’s house?”
“Oh god, I forgot all that,” Alan said.
“I can’t always be the one on top of everything, Alan,” Liz said. “At some point you have to take up some of the slack here.”
She stood up and crossed her arms.
“I know, Liz,” Alan said. “Jesus, cut me a little break, would you? I’ve had a long day.”
“And, unfortunately, I’m going to have a long night trying to finish all my Friday afternoon work from home—where it takes me twice as long to do anything—because my husband was out late with his bestie,” Liz said.
She had a razor-sharp sense of humor that sometimes masqueraded as anger. Alan studied her face for the signals. Her eyes were squinted slightly. The right corner of her mouth turned in a particular way.
“You’re lucky you’re pretty and thin,” Alan said. “Because you’d never make it very far on your personality.”
Liz walked over to him slowly. She wrapped her arms around Alan’s neck and pressed her hips into his.
“When I get done with my work, I’m going to come upstairs and you’re going to make it up to me,” Liz said.
“What? Make what up to you?” Alan asked. He put his hands on his wife’s hips. She ground into him. “I was detained by the authorities today. It wasn’t my fault.”
“So you’re saying you don’t want to make it up to me?”
She pressed even harder into him. Alan felt himself stir beneath her touch.
“I never said that,” Alan said.
“Good.” Liz said. She kissed him and then pulled away. “I’ll be up in an hour or two. You better be cleaned up by then.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Liz walked out through the dark dining room.
X • X • X • X • X
“Dad?” Joe called from his room.
Alan had just set his foot on the top step. He pulled himself up with a grunt.
“What’s up?” he asked from Joe’s doorway.
His son sat at the little desk positioned under the window. With the desk light on, the window might as well have been painted black—nothing was visible through the panes.
“Can you tell me what happened today? You found a body?”
“It’s really nothing to be worried about, Joe,” Alan said. He revised his story down to its elements and then told Joe an easier version. “It was just some animal that I couldn’t identify, so I called the game warden.”
“Oh,” Joe said. “What did it look like?”
“It’s hard to say. I think it had been dead awhile,” Alan said.
“Was it gross?”
Alan nodded and frowned.
“Oh,” Joe said. “The kids at school talk about migrators. They said that this time of year the migrators are out there.”
“You mean like geese and stuff, moving down from Canada to go to warmer climates for the winter?”
“No,” Joe said. “They’re not like that.” Joe shook his head and then picked up his pencil again. He spun it between his fingers.
Alan moved over to the bed and started to lower himself down to sit on the edge. He thought better of it when he remembered his pants. They were dry, but still dirty from the day.
“How’s your schoolwork coming? Do you enjoy your classes?”
“I guess. I’m almost done with all my homework for the weekend. Mom made me work on it as soon as I got home. Do you think I could sleep over at Pete’s house next weekend?”
“I thought we decided that sleepovers made more sense during vacation,” Alan said. “Your mom hardly gets to see you during the week. It’s not really that fair to her if you’re gone for half the weekend.”
“I know,” Joe said. He turned back to his desk. “Can I watch TV?”
“You said you’re almost finished. Why don’t you finish your homework while I take a shower and then we’ll both go watch TV?”
“Okay.”
CHAPTER NINE
Hiking
OCTOBER 14
THE DAY was damp, and overcast, and cool, but Alan was sweating under his thin jacket before they even plunged into the woods. He unzipped it and considered taking it off. The jacket was brown and his shirt underneath was white. He kept it on. A bright white shirt might advertise their position to anyone else in the woods.
Alan stopped and wiped the sweat from his brow. He shifted his camera bag to the opposite shoulder.
“I don’t understand,” Bob said. He showed his phone to Alan. The display was blank with the exception of two dots.
“No data,” Alan said. “You’ve got GPS signal, but the maps come from the network and your phone isn’t connecting. See? No bars.”
“Of course,” Bob said. “What is it with these woods and bad reception?”
“Geographically, we’re in a hole,” Alan said. “Look, we just have to make those two dots meet and we’ll be at the pond.”
Bob no
dded. He led the way. Bob didn’t seem winded or sweaty at all. He had the same absurd 1950’s pants on—the ones with the cuffs rolled up to reveal the flannel lining—but instead of the red and black shirt, he work a t-shirt covered by a black shell. He was half vintage hunter and half modern jogger.
Their path led them down a sharp hill, even deeper into the geographic hole. They jumped over a little creek and climbed the bank on the other side. The bed of leaves made it impossible to move quietly through the woods. Bob climbed a log and tried to scout a better path.
“Let’s stay on top of this little hill. It will be easier than going down into those lowlands, I think. The bushes down there look thick.”
Alan shrugged. He was content to follow Bob’s lead.
After another fifteen minutes of hiking, Bob spotted the cabin. He pointed and they headed for the building.
“Score one for technology,” Alan said.
“Half. I’ll give tech half of a point. We still don’t have a map,” Bob said.
“We should circle around,” Alan said. “Make sure there’s nobody down there or anything.”
“It’s been three days,” Bob said.
“I know, but still.”
They approached the cabin slowly, walking a wide circle around the building before they closed in. Once they reached the little cabin and looked inside the windows, they crept towards the hill, looking for signs of life near the pond.
“There’s still a couple of trampled spots down in the grass,” Bob said, “but I don’t see any of the black shapes. Do you?”
“No,” Alan said. “Maybe we can get close enough to the edge there to look for footprints or something. I don’t know. Maybe we look for signs that someone took the bodies away?”
When they heard the voice behind them, both men dropped into a low crouch. They spun to see the source.
“You’ll be lucky if you don’t get shot,” the man said. He was old. He wore a red cap with a brim. It looked like a baseball cap on steroids. He had a deeply grooved, saggy face that had a casual acquaintance with a razor. Tufts of gray hair perched over his sad eyes. It matched the little hair they could see on the parts of his head not covered by the cap. He wore blaze-orange overalls that straightened the curves of his plump body. The old man scratched his chin with swollen fingers. His other hand held the barrel of a shotgun. The butt rested on the ground.