1 The Bank of the River (15 page)

“Too far,”
Steven said, taking a step backwards. “Here.”

Roy stood
next to him. “Yes, it’s the strongest here. This is it.” He took the shovel and
stuck it through the water and into the ground as a marker.

“Damn, I
wish we’d brought more light,” Steven said.

“I need to
move the lantern closer to this point on the shore,” Roy said. “That will help
some.” He turned and walked out of the water towards the spot where they had
left the lantern.

Steven
remained at the shovel. The feeling in his chest was new and unusual, and a
little disconcerting, because anything in your chest feels like it might be a
heart attack. He lifted his feet and replaced them, trying to see what the
ground under the water was like. It felt firm. He walked a little to the left
and right, to see if the ground felt different after he stepped off the grave.
It didn’t.
Things have had plenty of time to settle,
he thought.

 Roy
returned with the lantern and now that it was only ten feet away things looked
better, but he still wished they had stopped at a sporting goods store and
invested in lights they could strap to their heads, like miners. Using a hand
to hold a flashlight while out in the water began to seem like a disadvantage.
Roy joined him.

“So what do
you think is the best way to approach this?” Steven asked.

“Not sure,”
Roy answered. “I guess dig, and move each shovelful of dirt two or three feet
away before you drop it back into the water, so it doesn’t float back into
where we’re working.”

“How will we
know when we’ve reached him?” Steven asked.

“We’ll have
to use our hands,” Roy replied.

A chill went
up Steven’s spine. It was creepy enough to be in the cave, let alone digging up
a body. But to not be able to see it, and to have to feel into the dirt to know
if you’ve reached it wasn’t exactly how he imagined things playing out.

“Let’s get
started,” Roy said, grabbing the shovel. He dug into the ground and pulled the
shovelful up above the water level, where Steven shone the flashlight on it. The
camping shovel was smaller than a regular shovel, collapsible, designed to
easily fit into a backpack, and its blade was half the size of a normal shovel.
It didn’t bring up much, and what it did bring up looked like muck. Roy took a
step to the side and dropped the muck back into the water. Then he took another
shovelful and did the same thing. Steven saw the water around their feet become
cloudy with the dirt they were stirring up.

After a
dozen shovelfuls Roy bent over and sunk his hands into the hole he’d created
underwater, to feel around.

“Anything?”
Steven asked.

“Nothing.”

“Here, let’s
trade off,” Steven said. “You conserve your strength.”

“I’m fine,”
Roy said, taking another shovelful. “I’m good for a few more inches.”

Roy dug
another dozen shovelfuls and dropped to his knees to check the depth again. He
shook his head. “If Ben went six feet, this is going to be more challenging
than I thought,” he said.

“How deep
are you now?” Steven asked.

“I’d say
between six inches and a foot,” Roy replied.

“It’ll be in
the next foot,” Steven said confidently, fine tuning the sense he felt in his
chest. Roy looked at him.

“You’re
sure?” Roy asked.

“Aren’t
you?” Steven replied.

Roy smiled
at him. “That’s my boy!” he said, digging another shovelful.

The next few
minutes passed silently, Steven alternatively watching the spot where Roy was
digging, and watching Roy for signs of weakness. Roy was breathing heavy, but
not slowing. Twice he dropped to his knees and checked into the water with his
hands.

Suddenly Roy
stopped, holding the shovel but not proceeding. Roy had a concerned look on his
face.

“What?”
Steven asked.

“It’s
moving!”

“Under the
water?”

“Under me,
under my feet. I can feel movement!”

“Dad, get…”

But before
Steven could finish warning Roy to move, he saw the hand emerge from the water,
grasping at Roy. Roy jumped back and fell into the water.

“The
shovel!” Steven shouted to Roy. “Use the shovel!”

The fingers
on the hand were flexing, stretching, more testing their muscles than reaching
for anything. The skin was stark white. Roy took the shovel and aimed it at the
hand. He struck it with the blade, but it didn’t cause any damage.

“Use the
shotgun!” said Roy. Steven handed the flashlight to Roy, and Roy kept it on the
hand while Steven swung his backpack off his back and in front of himself. He
rummaged through it, retrieving the sawed-off shotgun. He swung the backpack
around onto his back, and aimed the shotgun at the hand.

“No, no,”
Roy said. “Get right up next to it!”

Steven moved
in closer, and placed the barrel of the shotgun about an inch away from the
hand. He looked up at Roy, and Roy nodded approval. Then he pulled the trigger.

The sound
reverberated inside the room and he heard the splashing of hundreds of pellets
hitting the water. He was temporarily blinded by the flash from the gun. When he
recovered his sight there was no hand above the water.

“Reach under
there and see what we’re dealing with,” Roy said. “The bulk of him must still
be under earth, or he’d be up by now.”

“I thought
you said the water was going to protect us,” Steven said.

“Apparently
it only dampens the mental side of it,” Roy said. “It’s not going to stop him
from clawing his way out if he can.”

“I wish
you’d have brought that up when we were planning this,” Steven said, becoming
frustrated.

“We need to
expose part of him, the head, the torso,” Roy said. “Keep the extremities
buried. Burn his core.”

“Well, how
the fuck are we going to do that, when we can’t see what we’re doing!” Steven said,
exasperated.

Roy replied
calmly. “Reach in and feel where things stand.”

“Here,”
Steven said, handing Roy the shotgun. “Do not shoot me while I’m doing this.”

Steven
dropped to his knees next to where he remembered the hand emerging, and slowly
slipped his fingers under the water. After moving them around a little, he
found the stump of the arm. It moved when he touched it, bouncing back into his
fingers, and he yanked his hand from the water in response.

“Found it,”
he said. “Took the hand off at the wrist. It’s moving on its own.”

“You gotta
follow that arm down,” Roy said, “and feel how much is exposed and how much is
still buried.”

“Fuck,”
Steven said. “Fuck, this is not how I thought this would go!”

“Like I told
you,” Roy replied. “Things don’t always go as planned. No second guessing. Do
it.”

Steven reached
under the water again, searching for the arm. He found it, and held it for a
moment. There was no heat from the flesh, just the disturbing movement as the
arm tried to wrestle free from his grip. He let it go and felt toward the
elbow, which is where he ran into ground. He felt around, and could not locate
the upper arm. “Only the part from the elbow on was out,” he said to Roy.

“Good,” Roy
said. “What about around it? Anything else exposed?”

Steven
widened his search a little. His fingers were beginning to get cold. He pressed
them into rocks that felt like ridges.

“Might be
ribs,” he said.

He moved his
hands further and found only dirt. The other side of the body was still
covered. “The other arm is still underground,” he told Roy.

“Move up,”
Roy said. “See if you can find his face.”

Steven
walked his fingers up from the ribs, and felt them slowly recede into the dirt.
Then his fingers brushed the chin. He felt along the side of the head. His
fingers were moving through less than an inch of dirt, and the movement of the
water was removing much of what remained.

“The face is
nearly exposed,” Steven said.

“Good. Wait
a second,” Roy said, shifting his backpack. “Here, take the gun, will you?”

Steven
removed his hands from the water, and Roy handed him the shotgun. Roy looked
through his backpack, and removed a plastic baggie containing two thin rods. He
handed the baggie to Steven, who took it.

“I want you
to insert these into his eyes,” Roy said.

“You’ve got
to be kidding!” Steven said, looking at the contents. The two rods were
actually wooden sticks, about three inches long. They were bent a little, like
twigs from a tree. On each stick, one end had been roughly sharpened to a point
with a knife.

 “No, I’m
not,” Roy said. “Here, give me the gun back.”

Steven
handed Roy the shotgun and got back down on his knees. He removed a stick from
the baggie and reached down into the water again, trying to locate the chin. He
found it, then let his fingers move over the mouth and nose until he found an
eye. Silt from the dirt still remained, but Steven could feel the eyelid
opening and closing. It sent a chill down his back.

He took one
of the sticks, and moved the sharp end down under the water, towards the eye.
When he had it in position, he looked to Roy.

“Just shove
it through?” he asked.

“Yup,” Roy
responded, “make sure it pierces the eye, not slip around it.”

Steven
closed his eyes, a move of self-preservation, and pushed. It slipped. He moved
his other hand under the water to hold it in position, and pushed again. This
time he felt it pierce through, and it sunk rapidly into the body. When it
wouldn’t go any further, he removed his hands. As he was preparing the second
stick, he thought to himself,
this is smart. Even if he is able to free
himself before we can finish, he’ll be at a disadvantage.
He suspected Roy
had additional reasons he wanted the sticks inserted, but this was good enough
for Steven.

As he was
lowering the second stick into position, he felt a larger movement, and the
water began to shift. Wondering what was happening, he pulled back.

“No,” Roy said.
“Get the other eye. Quickly!”

Steven
didn’t have time. In front of him, the corpse rose, sitting up from its grave.
Water poured from the body. Roy kept moving the light from Steven to the body,
making it hard for Steven to see the body completely, but the shock of it
caused him to fall back into the water, pushing himself away from the corpse.

All the
features were intact, even the hair. As they both watched, the jaw opened, and the
corpse seemed to suck in air. Then its undamaged arm reached up and removed the
wooden stick from his left eye socket.

“The
shotgun!” Steven yelled from his prone position. Roy stepped forward toward the
body, raised the shotgun, and fired. The recoil took him off guard and he lost
his footing under the water. He fell backwards, taking the flashlight and
shotgun with him. Steven got to his feet, and recovered the flashlight, but the
shotgun was somewhere under the water near Roy, who was on his back. He went to
him and lifted him up. Roy was clearly in pain.

Steven shone
the flashlight toward the body. The shotgun had taken away the other arm to the
shoulder, but the torso and head remained. The corpse did not rise past a sitting
position.
He’s still buried below the legs,
Steven thought.

The
remaining eye opened, and focused on Steven and Roy. Steven knew the eye
instantly – same as the ones he’d encountered at his house in what seemed like
an eternity ago. This was Lukas.

“Quick, the
flares!” Roy said. Steven began removing them from his backpack, and Roy stuck
the flashlight between his legs as he searched his backpack for the blowtorch.

They felt
the air around them thicken.
Just like the hallway,
Steven thought.
This
is the environment he works in. This is how he turns it to his advantage.

Both Steven
and Roy froze when they heard Lukas speak.

“You won’t
finish before I use you up,” they heard. They both turned to Lukas, unsure if
they had heard it in their minds, or if the corpse had actually spoken it.

Steven
removed the first flare bundle from his backpack. “Light it!” he said to Roy.
Roy had removed the blowtorch, and was clicking the igniter. He prayed it would
ignite having been dampened when Roy fell in the water. It popped twice and
then blew to life. Roy thrust the flame toward Steven, who held out the bundle
for Roy to light.

Three-quarters
of the flares were lit when Steven saw Roy move the flame away. He glanced up
at him, and knew right away that something was wrong. His father was staring
blankly to the side, his hand slowly lowering the flame. Then he dropped the
blowtorch into the water completely, the flashlight fell from his knees, and he
fell back into the water.

“Dad!”
Steven screamed, and in an instant, he entered the flow between Roy and Lukas.
He felt the cold knife enter him and slide up to his skull, much more quickly
this time than last. He turned to look at Lukas. He was very much alive,
looking strong and healthy despite the damage to his arm and hand. He had an
amused look on his grotesque face, like he was enjoying what he was doing.
No
doubt this is all about retribution now,
he thought.
We’ve ruined his
body, his plans for eternal life are fucked. Now he just wants payback.