by Tyler Wolfe
Finally, it was in position. I scooted back and set my feet against the bottom part of the corpse. If this went wrong, I was taking a swim with him and I didn’t want to do that. I braced myself with my back against the bench seat and took a deep breath. Here we go.
With all my remaining strength, I used my legs to lift and push the other end of the body up over the front end of the boat. All of my nights of running might not have fixed my temper, but they had made my legs lean and muscular. My muscles tightened as I pushed upward under the end of the body; the boat rocked, and for a frantic moment, I thought it was going to tip over.
The gruesome package then flipped over the front end of the boat and made a splash into the dark water. The cinder blocks thunking heavily as they hit. For a few moments, the boat rocked crazily, and I held on for dear life. “Oh shit,” I mumbled in a small, strained voice. “Oh shit, oh shit.”
Then, everything was still. The body was gone.
The boat was drifting in a small circle as a blanket of silence surrounded me. I held tight to the boat, my heartbeat returning to normal, then let out a long, shuddering sigh. It was done.
CHAPTER 5
Dark Thoughts
Once I could bring myself to move again, I leaned forward to examine my work. The body had disappeared into the pitch black waters below. I grabbed a paddle and plunged it in, thinking surely something would snag the tip, but nothing. I swirled it around, again, half expecting to hit the sunken parcel, but again nothing was there. I felt a thin wave of relief, even knowing that I wasn’t out of the woods yet.
In my mind I could see the weighted package quickly falling to the bottom of the lake, tiny air bubbles escaping as it slid downward—down to the fish and gators, down into the sucking mud. The sound of the splash as it had entered the water reverberated in my mind, but it was done, and he was gone. With the boat in the center of the lake, it was impossible for anyone to have heard anything. It was also becoming hard to see as a thick fog had begun to rise up. I’m in the clear.
Now it was time to head back, aching arms and all, and make sure that I was leaving everything the way I had found it.
I positioned the boat and began to paddle back to shore. My back ached from the unaccustomed dragging and lifting, and now and again my arms gave out on me. Periodically, I took breaks from rowing until the leaden ache in my arms receded and I could lift them again. The boat was lighter now and rowing should have been easier, but I was at the end of my strength.
I stopped for a brief moment and leaned back to rest my muscles. I stared up at the overcast night sky, thinking again about what I had just done. It was inconceivable.
I don’t kill people. I don’t even hurt people. How did this even happen?
Brooding on it wouldn’t fix the situation, and I knew I was too close to things right now to get any real clarity. The only thing I could do, now that the body was properly gone, was get home, clean up, and tend to my wounds. I needed to at least look after myself before I faced Zoe with my phony dog story.
It now seemed pretty comedic compared to what I had just experienced. I would just play that up, I decided, as I drifted along with the feeling slowly coming back into my fingers. I would tell an amusing story about a dog ruffing me up, conjure up the embarrassment from my pit bull experience, give everyone a good laugh...and maybe if I was very lucky, find a way to make my peace with the truth in secret.
What Zoe doesn’t know...and the world doesn’t know...can’t hurt her or me.
The breaks between bouts of rowing grew longer as I pushed myself as hard as I could, but came up lacking. A hundred feet from shore my arms gave out again just as a breeze parted the clouds of fog. I almost dropped my left paddle which forced me to rest one last time.
I laid back for a minute, just taking in the stillness and quiet, trying to use it to soothe my fears and my terrible, gnawing guilt. Part of me knew that I was a coward for trying to do so, instead of facing the music from my own conscience. I might not have meant to kill. I might never have even wanted to hurt anyone, but I had lost my head and gone too far. Now, a kid was dead.
Maybe I should have said something serious before I dropped him off. Maybe I should have been thinking about the wrong I did instead of thinking about saving my own skin. What did I say? “I guess this is your stop?” I couldn’t even treat it seriously while alone. What the hell is wrong with me?
But it wasn’t just my ass that was on the line now and there came the real dilemma.
This is the best course of action I have left. It may not be legal, or honorable, or right, but I’m not being given any viable alternatives besides this one. This whole ugly new path I had found myself on since that stupid kid had jumped me had very few options. Make everyone who loves me suffer. and then I die in prison—for something I couldn’t even help? That’s not an option. I’d have to be crazy to think it was.
Instead, I was hiding bodies and fabricating lies to tell my wife. I prayed that no one ever discovered either.
The night sky was cloudy above the fog, but a few stars were visible. It had never looked so pretty up there, or so lonely. I stared up, heart heavy, and felt like I was one of those isolated stars drifting in space. My hands may be clean, but my conscience will never be.
Strangely, my arms hurt less now, but the pain had shifted to my head.
Move your ass, you can sulk later. It was now a quarter after midnight, and I still had to get home and get cleaned up. I firmly grabbed onto both ends of the paddles and began rowing back to shore again as fast as I could manage.
Finally, the boat bottom touched land. I stumbled out onto the soggy shore and forced myself to drag the boat back to its rack where I put it and its paddles back exactly how I had found them. Okay. Drive home. Close the gate on the way out. And don’t do anything stupid. We’re almost home free.
I didn’t have very far to go, but I drove more carefully than I had since my driving test at sixteen, and with the same kind of nervousness churning my gut. I closed the gate and made it down the street without running into anyone. No further drama. Thank God.
I pulled in and parked in our garage, got the door down, and had to sit there breathing deeply for a while before getting out and preparing for phase two of my immensely messed-up night. Calm down. Focus. She’s not here yet. I probably have about half an hour.
As soon as I was in the door, I went straight to the laundry room and quickly stripped down. The cool, airy little house, with its cream walls, tile and wood floors, was a dark blur as I moved. I didn’t even turn on lights until I got to the room. My clothes stuck to me disgustingly; I yanked off my sopping hoodie and track pants and threw them right into the washing machine. Then I grabbed the t-shirt and shorts I had been wearing before and looked them over. The shirt was torn; it would end up a house rag, but I still had to get the evidence off of it.
Blood smeared the shirt and shorts; it was probably all mine, but it screamed “suspicious”. I soaked both items in stain remover before throwing them in with the sweat suit and piling in the rest of the dirty laundry on top. I added twice the usual soap and put it on an extra-long cycle.
I walked naked through the house to our master bedroom, creeping along quietly despite the house being otherwise empty. I passed our sleigh bed with its bleached wood and teal bedspread and went straight into the master bath. I closed my eyes before flicking on the light—then opened them to catch a first good look at myself in the mirror.
“Holy shit,” I gasped under my breath as I looked at my sweaty, bloody self in the mirror. I peeled off the gloves with a wince, and looked down at my torn-up hands...then back up at my reflection. That story had better be convincing as hell, because there’s no way I can hide all of this in summer clothes.
My dark brown hair was askew and spiked with sweat. My eyes were bloodshot and sunken, their pale blue irises standing out starkly against the red. I was covered in scrapes, smears of sweaty grime and developing bruises; and I held the a
rm I had injured at an odd angle as I tried to ease the aching muscle. Between that and the haunted look on my face, I looked like I had been through a war.
I’m almost out of time. I hurriedly stepped into the shower stall and pulled the door closed. The hard spray of the shower, which I usually enjoyed, stung my torn skin and battered muscles—but I didn’t dial down the shower head pressure. Instead, I stood under it, letting it hurt me a little as it ran.
I deserve it—the black thought rose from the depths of my mind to haunt me again not more than ten seconds into my shower. Suddenly, I was sobbing like a scared, guilty child again, so hard that I had to lean against the tiled wall for balance. “What have I done?”
I killed somebody. I didn’t mean to, but he’s dead! I killed somebody. Even in my own head my voice sounded like a weepy, scared young boy’s. My nose was running; my lips trembled. I rested my forehead against the wall and covered my mouth with my hand. I loathed myself so much in that moment. Then I pitied and loathed myself even more for that.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled into the spray, as if that mattered now. I was trying to accept the guilt and the responsibility. I wasn’t sure I could ever call myself a good person again after this...or at least, not for a long time.
I finished my shower, toweled off mechanically, and then tended to my wounds; spreading arnica cream on the bruises and covering the few really big scrapes. I had to bandage my palms too though my fingers were surprisingly unharmed. Working clumsily around the bandages, I pulled on a pair of sleep-shorts.
I stopped to swallow a cup of water, barely managing it around my nausea. I choked it down, aware of how dehydrated I was, and then climbed into bed.
As I flipped off the light, I heard the sound of a familiar car engine rumbling down the street. My wife’s old Dodge braked outside and pulled into the driveway. The garage door hummed and rattled open, and she drove inside. I closed my eyes, relief and guilt mixing inside of me.
Get the story straight. It was a dog. A big one. He just wanted to play. It’s no big deal.
I didn’t kill anyone.
A few seconds later, I heard our back door open. “Carter, sweetie?” Zoe called out. “I’m home!”
CHAPTER 6
The Big Lie
“Maybe we should call Animal Control,” Zoe said worriedly as she knelt on the edge of the bed.
She handed me the big bottle of sports drink she had fetched, and I nodded and took it, bringing it to my lips. With my headache finally easing and my eyeballs no longer itching, I chugged. It was a third empty, and on her strict orders I was working on draining it as fast as I could get it down. But a hard knot of queasiness still sat in my stomach and tightened my throat, forcing me to slow my gulps to small sips.
“I already warned the owner. If I see the dog around again, I’ll call animal control. He’s too big and fast to be loose in the neighborhood.” I sighed and let her pull me into a one-armed hug as I sat on the bed. She bumped my sore arm a little, but I didn’t complain. “I’m gonna call off tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll heal up in a day or two.”
“I still wish I had been here. Why didn’t you call me?” She ran a hand back through my damp hair. Normally her little, affectionate caresses were a heck of a turn-on, but right now I felt like I had spent half the night being run over by a trash truck.
“I didn’t want to worry you while you were on shift, you’re already dealing with enough over there. Besides, I had it under control.” I smiled at her reassuringly and slipped my fingertips up her back through her bar t-shirt.
“You know, we can afford a gym membership. There are no giant, loose dogs there.” That was a big hint. She looked at me pleadingly.
I smiled gamely. “Okay. If it bothers you that much. I could do without face-planting in the mud and getting stood on again.” And a good enough excuse to avoid that area from now on.
“Do you feel like you can eat? I scored a whole leftover pizza and some wings.” Her eyebrows bounced. We had cut back our budget for junk food since we were trying to save up for a down payment, so the greasy treats she brought from work were usually welcome. But not this time. I swallowed nausea at the thought of eating meat. It mixed with the memory of touching the boy’s dead flesh in a way that horrified me.
“No, sorry babe,” I muttered. “I took some painkillers already, and I’m not sure I have much of an appetite now.” Though I hadn’t swallowed a single pill. I wanted to feel the pain—in the moments when I could stand to think about it. I raised my eyebrows and forced brightness into my voice. “Tomorrow morning, as a horribly unhealthy breakfast?”
She laughed. “Cold pizza, breakfast of champions. You got it. It tastes better the next day, anyway.”
She insisted on staying with me until I fell asleep, seeming to sense that I was more upset and hurting than I was letting on. Mostly, I loved her intuitiveness, and her attentiveness. But right now, it felt terribly awkward, as if she had me under an emotional microscope at the absolute worst possible moment.
Fortunately, I dropped off to sleep from sheer exhaustion.
The next morning, I woke to more pain than I had felt since the last playground beating of my childhood. My arm throbbed, my back ached, every muscle was stiff, and my bruises had bloomed into sore red patches that hurt like hell when bumped. The scabs itched under their bandages, worrying me. There could be few circumstances riper for infection than handling a corpse.
And that line of thought just dragged me right back into the ugly reality of what had happened. The fight. The death. And me, hiding a body because I knew no one would believe I had never meant to kill that kid.
I rolled over stiffly to look at Zoe, her face relaxed in sleep. Her beautiful black hair was tied back in a thick braid and gleamed in the thin light of dawn. My normal life was right there, waiting for me to get back to it. I could heal up, get back to my routine, and leave this horror behind me.
Except...I couldn’t. Not really. I was all for the idea; it was the whole reason I had dumped that body. But even as I looked at my wife lying peacefully beside me, I felt as if a thin pane of very cold glass stood between me and the world—and worse, myself and my wife. It was the secret I had to keep now: that a corpse was at the bottom of the lake, and it was my doing.
I got up to scrub off in the shower again, I washed my scabbed and aching hands twice. Then I pulled on some sweatpants and went to check my phone messages as I sat on our overstuffed blue couch in the living room.
Bob was being a dick about me calling off. He didn’t believe that I had actually been knocked down by a dog and wanted “proof” of my injuries. I went into the bathroom and looked at myself: a black eye, split lip, swollen cheek and bandaged hands. I took a couple of very calm mirror selfies, resisting the urge to give him the finger in either of them. Five minutes later, he approved my leave and told me to take Monday too.
Four days off. Most of them to myself since Friday and Saturday were Zoe’s biggest nights. I probably needed it. I almost felt grateful.
But I knew that being left alone with my thoughts was going to be hell.
Still, I could find things to keep myself busy at home...once I healed enough to do anything. Right now the bandages on my hands hindered me more than I would have believed. They made surfing the Web for news hard, and I couldn’t do a lot of chores without covering and then changing my bandages. Worse was the itching that just wouldn’t go away.
There were no swollen areas, I wasn’t running a fever, and there wasn’t anything I could find caught under the skin. I ended up having to cover up most of my scrapes just to keep myself from scratching them, especially the ones on my hands. I tried to stay calm about it, but it just added to my growing list of “what ifs”.
What if they got infected? What if I had to go to Doctor Marsh, and he recognized my wounds weren’t consistent with my story? Would he be required to report it? I couldn’t remember the law about such things. I had never in my life anticipated facing this prob
lem before.
What if the bungee cords came unhooked somehow as the life under the water picked away at the package? What if the whole thing came undone?
What if someone or thing gets lost in the water and they bring in a dive team and find that poorly wrapped parcel of horror?
What if I had miscalculated, and the bundle was somehow visible from the surface?
What if someone had seen me? What if the kid’s family had already started a diligent search? What if they come knocking on my door?
What if the police start going house to house bringing in sniffer dogs? He was a kid, I thought as I anxiously sipped my first cup of coffee. He had to have a family. Someone had to be wondering where he was and why he hadn’t returned home. Someone had to end up grieving besides me.
If I could call it grieving. I knew nothing about it, and if he was still alive, I would hate him and wish for all sorts of things to happen to him. But he wasn’t. Maybe it wasn’t mourning. Maybe it was just plain guilt. But even that, I felt less than last night. In fact, it was fading so fast it alarmed me.
My fears crowded it out piece by piece as I anticipated my incredibly horrible luck from last night to continue. Part of me just couldn’t believe that the loss of a whole person could go unnoticed for long.
I was sitting at our breakfast table, which sat beside a row of narrow windows overlooking our back lawn. I still couldn’t eat. I had taken my vitamins and antihistamines with a glass of milk, but that was it. The idea of using my teeth on anything made me queasy all over again.
And I couldn’t take my eyes off the lake.
I kept checking out there, seeing if anyone was parked at the launch, if anyone was out boating...and if anyone stopped at the lake’s center. I looked for indications of anything bobbing on the surface, but there was nothing. A voice inside my head kept telling me to let it go, but I still caught myself checking again, and again, and again.
