“There’s not a trace of pulse or breath,” Toby announced, “He needs CPR immediately.” Toby pressed hard against Sanders’ chest with his palms and administered mouth to mouth.
It seemed to go on forever. In the dank evening heat, beads of sweat appeared on Toby’s forehead as he compressed Sanders’ chest and gave him rescue breaths. After the first thirty compressions he administered thirty more. We watched, paralysed spectators, in the awful stillness. No sound of air escaped Sanders’ lungs and his chest refused to rise.
Ten minutes later Toby Andrews pounded Sanders’ chest with his fists in sheer frustration and admitted defeat. It was the first time I’d seen Toby lose control. He rose slowly to his feet, tears streaming down his face, sobbing in great gulps.
Sanders was dead.
PART TWO
PAPER
Chapter Four
“Nick and Nora, you lift the bottom half,” Wheeler instructed, “Toby and I will take it in turns at the other end.” It would be a long walk back to the canoes and it looked like Nora and I would be carrying all the way. “Get a good grip around his thighs, you two,” Wheeler continued, lifting Brett Sanders under the arms, “Toby and Georgia, clear the way ahead for us.”
“Can’t we get some help?” Georgia replied.
“Cell phones don’t work out here,” Toby gently reminded her.
We made slow progress and I was soon sweating profusely. I tried not to look at Sanders but sometimes I had to, and it wasn’t pleasant. Toby had closed the eyes of the corpse but the expression on Sanders’ face hadn’t changed. It was total terror; as if he’d been scared to death.
Eventually Wheeler allowed us a break when it became apparent we wouldn’t get back before nightfall. None of us said anything. When I picked up the right leg again, my hands slipped under the pants cuff. Despite the humid evening heat, Sanders’ skin was ice cold. Clammy, sticky coldness seemed to seep out of his dead pores.
We got to the river just as daylight was fading, placed the body in the bottom of Wheeler’s canoe, and took another rest. There was no more food so we simply sat on the dry, hard riverbank and watched the sun dip into the horizon. Wheeler soon stood up, wiped the sheen of perspiration off his forehead with his bandana, and carefully retied it. I sensed a statement coming.
“You’re all still in shock and coming to terms with this unexpected and inconvenient event,” he began. “Sanders looked fit enough, which means he must have had some kind of fatal seizure. He was probably taking steroids or something.”
No one spoke. It seemed as if Wheeler was blaming the victim.
“All we can do now is shape up and take care of the corpse until we can return it to civilization.”
Georgia piped up. “Things like this take time to sink in, Julius. We’re not all like you.”
“No need to be callous about it, Julius,” Toby added wearily, getting up. “Let’s get poor Brett back. We can talk about this whole thing later.”
Wheeler nodded grimly, obviously unhappy that his little speech hadn’t gone over as expected. His silent look said; I don’t care what any of you think.
Nora leaned close to my ear and whispered, “Wheeler’s pathetic.”
“I almost expected him to suggest burying Sanders right here,” I whispered back.
“If he’d packed a spade, he probably would have.”
We clambered into the canoe and picked up our paddles.
* * *
The current carried us quickly downstream and away from the meteorite site, or ‘the scene of the tragedy’ as Toby described it. Wheeler was obviously an experienced canoeist and had no trouble handling his canoe solo, with Sanders’ body lying in front of him. Toby and Georgia followed behind, then Nora and me at the back as usual, everyone’s backpacks stowed between the two of us. I much preferred our cargo to Wheeler’s. He kept well ahead, looking small in the big sixteen-footer.
I let the current do most of the work, enjoyed feeling the low sun warming my neck, and retreated into my private thoughts. My mind kept going back to the long, desperate minutes we’d spent trying to revive Sanders. I hadn’t been able to look away from his face the whole time, despite the horror of it. On and on Toby had tried, pumping and breathing and pounding and praying, and none of it had done any good. The rest of us had stood around, useless and helpless, anxious and hoping, and maybe even praying ourselves. An eternity of waiting in fifteen or twenty minutes, but never the slightest indication that life was coming back.
Afterwards I’d watched Wheeler’s face and thought he’d reacted oddly. He seemed surprised, of course, but not shocked like the rest of us. It was typical of him now to make crude comments about looking after a corpse. That had been callous, as Toby had said, but it was an attitude that seemed to come naturally to our boss. Nora said Wheeler was ‘covering for underlying insecurities’. Me? I thought he was a control freak and a jerk. Maybe the two were related, or something.
Wheeler liked to act the great, unsentimental outdoorsman, who didn’t hesitate to shoot a wild animal. If you didn’t need it for food, I thought that was wrong. Now he was treating Brett Sanders’ body as if it was just a big, heavy lump of dead meat. I thought that was wrong too, just like Toby and Nora did, and Georgia as well.
I realized I’d passed Toby and Georgia and was now boring my eyes into Wheeler’s back in the canoe close in front of me. My arms were aching from paddling. I looked at the undulating water, almost hypnotised, and felt dog tired.
My gaze lifted and rested on Sanders’ prone body. Wheeler hadn’t even tried to cover it. My eyes travelled upwards from the feet to the head. I nearly dropped my paddle in surprise.
Toby had pressed Sanders’ eyelids closed before we’d picked him up to carry him back, and they’d remained closed down at the riverbank. Now they were wide open again. He looked as if he was staring straight up at the indigo sky. I turned around and saw that Nora had noticed it too.
“Dehydration, or muscular contraction,” she hissed. She was the biology geek in our family.
I’d heard a phrase somewhere about what happened to dead bodies. ‘Rigor mortis’, that’s what it was. It must be that.
I considered telling Wheeler about it. Then a big, dark shadow swept over the corpse. I looked up and saw the broad wingspan and feathery white head of a bald eagle soaring away from us. Wheeler looked around, noticed us, and followed our gaze.
“Must have taken a fancy to my strange cargo,” he said, and turned away.
As I watched, the eagle made a broad circle and began to swoop down on us again. It came so fast, I ducked my head and raised my arms instinctively.
“It’s coming back!” I shouted.
Wheeler’s head tilted back, his eyes searching the sky, but the eagle was coming from behind us. The shadow on Sanders’ body returned and rapidly grew bigger. I ducked low.
The raptor landed on Sanders’ chest and began to peck with its massive yellow beak. A sudden horror shot through me as I remembered the open eyelids. Wheeler brought his paddle up out of the water and swung it at the bird. The paddle’s flat end smacked against the eagle’s right wing, sweeping it off Sanders and over the side of the canoe. It careened away at a sharp angle, flying low over the water. Its great hooked beak opened and shut, angry squawks piercing my ears.
It was all over in seconds. Looking down again, I saw a jagged cut on Sanders’ cheek and a thin trickle of blood running down the side of his face. His eyes were fine, thank God. But how could there be any blood at all? Sanders was dead, and corpses don’t bleed, do they?
Wheeler didn’t even check Sanders and began paddling away from us; his shoulders hunched low as if he was in a renewed hurry. Then he seemed to change his mind and pulled over to the bank and disembarked. We pulled in close and Toby held a flashlight up, improving the evening light. Wheeler soaked a rag in the river and wiped the blood off Sanders’ cheek, then pressed his thumbs on the eyelids and roughly reclosed them. He grabbed a tarpaulin from the
back of the canoe, tossed it over the body and bundled it underneath.
Nora leaned closer. “Not very respectful,” she whispered. I nodded and swallowed hard, thinking about how suddenly and unexpectedly Sanders had died. There was a sort of gloating about Wheeler’s response to this tragedy, almost as if he’d expected it. Almost as if he’d planned it.
“There, that should do the job till we get it home,” Wheeler said. He must have noticed the expressions on our faces. “Protect the goods, eh?”
* * *
It was pitch dark when we arrived back. This time Georgia held the flashlight in the boathouse while we tied up the canoes. Nora and I took the backpacks while Wheeler and Toby carried Sanders. They had to take the tarpaulin off to get a proper grip of him, so Nora and I walked in front.
We reached the house and Peterman opened the door.
“Here, take this off my hands,” Wheeler ordered.
Without replying, or expressing any shock at all, Peterman took the weight of the top half of Sanders and we went inside, where they laid the body in the hallway. Ned Mackie appeared, and his jaw literally dropped. It turned out he had previous experience with a sudden, unexpected death.
“Julius, you realise when we get Sanders’ body back to civilization and report the circumstances, there’ll be questions raised?” Mackie pointed out, “The media will make a big stink and plaster all our faces on the cover of the newspapers and the net. We’ll all get our fifteen minutes of fame.”
Wheeler didn’t look pleased at the thought. “I can’t have that,” he replied, “It’ll affect my companies.”
Mackie shrugged. “Well, it’s understandable, I guess, but police interviews are never pleasant. And you’ll all have to sign statements.” He stared at Wheeler. “Your lawyers can handle most of it.”
Wheeler looked even less happy at the mention of police. “Whatever killed him, there was nothing we could have done up there to save him. I’m not having any of this police stuff.”
Mackie patted Wheeler’s shoulder. “The autopsy will confirm that, and he probably has a medical history that’ll explain it. You have nothing to worry about.”
Wheeler looked unimpressed. “Hardly likely, considering he’s an ex-Olympian and an experienced hiker. My best bet is he was a druggie.”
Peterman covered the body with a sheet and the others gathered around the kitchen table to discuss what to do next. Nora and I slipped in behind them and stayed at the door.
Wheeler had already made up his mind. “First thing tomorrow I’ll call for the helicopter to come up and collect Sanders’ body.”
“It can take twenty-four hours for them to come, sometimes longer,” Peterman reminded him.
Wheeler gave Peterman an angry glare, as if the delay was his fault.
“Then we have to keep the corpse as cold as possible,” Ned Mackie said, “In this hot weather it will degrade pretty quickly.”
“Can we empty a freezer and put him in it?” Abby Mackie suggested, her face pale and drawn.
Wheeler shook his head. “Sanders is way too big to fit in. Even the freezer out in the shed wouldn’t hold him.”
“Sure about that?” Georgia asked.
Wheeler gave her a cold stare. “Yes, I’m sure. And both freezers are full of steaks anyway. It would all go bad. Fancy eating baked beans for the rest of your stay?”
“To the point, as always,” I whispered into Nora’s ear.
“Gotta have priorities,” Nora whispered back.
“We can’t leave the body inside the house,” Ned Mackie insisted, “There must be some way of keeping it cold.”
“How about submerging it in the river, down at the boathouse?” his wife suggested.
“We can’t,” Wheeler replied, “A large animal, and small ones with sharp teeth, would get at it. I’ll have enough to explain without adding bite marks or chewed limbs to the list.”
“Okay, it has to be kept inside,” Toby agreed, “But where? Where’s the coolest place?”
“How about the bathtub?” I blurted out.
There was a sudden silence, while eight pairs of eyes stared at me.
“Not a bad idea,” Wheeler said, and I breathed again. “The storage shed behind the house, that’s where we’ll put it. Isn’t there a big, ugly ornamental bath tub out there, Peterman?”
“Yes, indeed,” Peterman agreed, “You changed your mind about it when the house was being built.”
Wheeler grunted. “Then we’ll store it in that. Put the body in and fill it up with cold water from the hose, and bags of ice from the freezer. We can keep Sanders there until the chopper comes.”
“Sounds like the best we can do,” Ned agreed, “If Peterman can keep replenishing the ice it should keep the cadaver in reasonable condition for an autopsy.”
Wheeler frowned at mention of an autopsy. “Let’s get it done,” he concluded.
Toby and Peterman carried the body through the house and out the kitchen door to the shed while Marie got the tub down and filled it with water. Nora and I raided the freezers for ice. When we returned, Sanders was in the tub and water was sloshed on the hard, concrete floor. When the ice bags were added more water spilled over the edge into my shoes.
I was relieved when we were done, and Wheeler spread the tarpaulin loosely over the now well-filled tub. Its edges came out over the sides onto the floor and Peterman weighed these down with a few old bricks that had been lying outside near the door.
“There, even if any vermin get in, they won’t be able to get at the stiff,” Wheeler said.
Toby visibly winced at the language. “Are there rats and mice around?” he asked.
Wheeler nodded. “Of course, but don’t worry. Peterman has traps and poison all over the place.”
The gloom of the shed gave the covered mound a sad and depressing aura. As we stood around, Toby broke the silence. “Anyone mind if I say a prayer for the deceased and his family?”
“There’ll be time for that later,” Wheeler responded gruffly, and that was that.
Nora exited ahead of me and I was last out of the shed. My whole body was stiff and achy from tiredness and stress as I stood aside to let Peterman lock up. He pulled the door tight shut and the Yale lock clicked into place. He pushed the handle and the door wouldn’t budge a millimetre.
“Locked,” he said to no-one in particular.
We trundled indoors and went up the long flights of stairs to bed. Ten minutes later I was fast asleep.
* * *
The storage shed was stuffy, the air warm and humid in the summer night. But the ice around Sanders was not melting as it should have, and the water remained chillingly cold. A bird landed on the small skylight in the roof and flapped its wings against the grimy pane as it quickly flew off again.
Something stirred inside Sanders. A sound of sucking air came from underneath the tarpaulin.
Sanders’ eyes opened. His right fingertip fluttered.
Another twenty minutes passed. Then the tarpaulin was wrenched aside and heaped on the floor, bricks noisily tumbling on their sides like faceless dominoes. There was no-one in the shed to hear them, other than the figure rising slowly and steadily out of the bathtub, water dripping from his sodden clothes.
His movements were stiff, tentative, unpractised. He reached out his cold, white hand and twisted back the door catch. Then the arm paused in mid air. Sanders’ eyes, now sighted again but utterly without emotion, scanned the room. In the deep gloom his pupils dilated unnaturally to take in every glimmer of moonlight penetrating the grime covered skylight. His hand groped at the wall next to the door and grasped the long wooden handle of a heavy axe hanging there.
Moments later the spring-hinged door banged shut, relocking itself, and Sanders disappeared into the night.
Chapter Five
I stood outside the house and looked down. White skin, lots of it. I was completely nude, not wearing a stitch of clothing. But it was okay, of course I was nude; I always slept that
way.
It’s dark out here anyway, no one can see me.
But this was no typical ‘walking naked in public’ dream. I hadn’t had one of those in ages. No, this one was much worse.
There was something behind me. Not someone, but some thing. It was cold and clammy and dead. It shouldn’t be there. I sensed its evil presence and shivered but couldn’t turn my head.
My bedroom up above now seemed a million miles away behind the locked front door. I moved away from it, dew soaking my toes as I trod through the grass.
There was something I had to check, make sure was still there. What was it? Perhaps it was the canoes. I began to walk toward the river.
The low wooden shed lay quiet beside the ever-moving water. I kept walking, thinking about running, but I never got any closer to the shed. The faceless thing behind me closed in.
Why can’t I run away?
In my dreams I could always sprint like an athlete, tear across a playing field in seconds, and almost be flying. This was different. My legs were porridge, refusing to move.
All at once I sensed the pursuing thing about to spring. Even without seeing it I knew it looked like a man but was not a man. It was not walking, not even running, but descending on me like a panther leaping. The black air above me filled with its presence.
It was about to strike and crush me, a monstrous flesh boulder falling from the sky, and I was powerless to stop it. For a frozen eternity it hung inches above my head, ready to fall.
Now it was all around me like a swarming fog. I felt its cold breath then the colder touch of its mind. Prodding and poking, probing and penetrating. It was in me now, inside. It intended mind rape.
I woke, screaming. It took a long time for me to get back to sleep.
Uninvited Page 4
