Migrators (15 page)

“On that we agree,” Alan said. “Hey, is that your culvert?”

Bob turned and looked in the direction Alan was pointing.

“I don’t know,” Bob said. “See if we can get closer. It looks like the water is pretty low.”

“We might have to pull the engine and paddle,” Alan said. He steered towards the little side stream that wound towards the culvert. From what he saw over the side, the water was plenty deep for the prop.
 

The boat stopped with a hollow thunk from underneath.

“Hold up,” Bob said. Bob moved to the bow seat and rolled up his sleeves. He leaned over the side and reached into the water. The boat shifted as Bob lifted a downed limb and pushed it off to the side. With the way clear, Alan engaged the motor again. Bob had to clear another branch before long. Alan killed the engine as they approached the big culvert.

It was a giant cylinder of steel, but it was about half filled with water. It looked like the boat would fit through if the two men ducked down.

“What if there’s a snag in the pipe?” Alan asked.

“Pull up the engine and we’ll push the boat through from inside the pipe. If we get stuck then I’ll go over the side and free us up,” Bob said.

“If you can fit,” Alan said.

Bob slid to the deck of the boat and pulled at the inside of the culvert. Alan tilted the engine and then lowered himself down.
 

“Tight,” Bob said. His voice boomed in the pipe.
 

Alan laughed. “This is where nightmares come from,” he said with a chuckle. It was at least ten degrees cooler inside the pipe and sticks scraped at the hull of the boat like clawing fingernails. “How long is this thing?”

“I think we’re about halfway through,” Bob said.
 

Bob gave a shove and the steel zipped by above their heads. The top of the outboard threatened to scrape on the culvert and Alan had to push the boat down deeper into the water to clear the lip. They were through to the other side. Weeds encroached, leaving them a tiny passage up the little creek. Alan lowered the prop and they motored upstream. With the landscape passing by so close on either side, it felt like they were going at an incredible speed.

“So if that culvert took us under the Mill Road, then we must be headed up towards the beaver pond,” Alan said.

“Not quite,” Bob said. “We’re west of the stream that has the beaver pond. This stream goes to a different pond.”

“Oh,” Alan said.
 

The stream curved left and Alan understood. They would be staying south of the Colonel’s property and the path that Alan sometimes took when he walked to Bob’s house. This stream was fed from the backside of the hill that the Durham Road crested. After a few more sweeping turns, the stream opened up. The motor bumped on the muddy bottom near the mouth of the stream and then they hit deeper water. The pond was almost a circle and looked to be about fifty yards in diameter. Alan guided the boat to the center of the pond and then killed the engine.

“This is nice,” Alan said.

“Yeah, quiet,” Bob said.

To the west, the hill rose. On the other three sides, the pond was bordered by marsh and eventually grew up into forest in the distance.
 

“Who owns the land?”

“That way belongs to Strickland, I think. North belongs to nobody—the town owns it. To the west and south we just came through a wildlife management area. It’s controlled by the state.”

Alan turned as they heard a train whistle from the south.
 

“I never knew this was over here,” Alan said.

“I hear it’s good fishing. You should bring Joe back here,” Bob said.

“How deep is it?” Alan asked. He leaned over the side of the boat.

“Pretty deep, but don’t go in. It’s a leech pond.”

“Ugh,” Alan said. “You ready for a sandwich?”

“Absolutely,” Bob said. “You have something to drink in there?”

“Of course,” Alan said.

It was so quiet, it seemed like Alan could hear every tiny little noise. He heard the water lapping at the side of the boat as they rocked slowly. He heard the crinkle of Bob’s cellophane and the crunch as he chewed his sandwich. He could even hear the bubbles popping in his soda as it sat on the bench next to him. At the shore, a crane stalked on its pencil-thin legs and then stabbed its bill into the water. The bird came up with a fish. It ate the fish as Alan took a bite of his sandwich.

After he finished eating, Alan lowered himself down to the bench, lying with his head on his rolled-up sweatshirt. Bob moved to the bow, where he leaned back and propped his arms on the rails of the boat. The thin October sun was almost hot. The shiny boat felt like a frying pan.

“What a day,” Alan said.

Bob grunted his agreement.

“I heard a strange rumor on TV yesterday,” Alan said.

“What was it?”

“Some people have jobs. Can you believe that? What a waste of a day it would be to go work in some office.”

Bob chuckled. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back to feel the sun on his face.

“Don’t taunt the gods of unemployment,” Bob said.

From the hill, they heard a raspy bark. Overhead, a cloud passed in front of the sun. Alan opened his eyes just as the cloud moved by and the sun burned tiny floating streaks across his eyes.

“So your brother-in-law brought you here?”

“Yeah,” Bob said. “He had traps set up in the woods over there. Illegal, I’m sure. He didn’t believe in laws.”

“Classy.”

“Fortunately, he didn’t catch anything. Those leg traps he set were brutal looking. Two of them were sprung. They had blood and fur on them. I hate to think what happened to whatever set them off. Maybe they were eaten by predators or they chewed off their own leg to get away.”

“Gross,” Alan said. “Does that actually happen?”

“I don’t know,” Bob said.

They floated and dozed in the sun. Alan woke when a fly landed on his head. He waved it away, but it returned and settled on his nose.

“What’s that smell?” Bob asked.

“It wasn’t me,” Alan said automatically. He suddenly knew what Bob was referring to. Alan pushed up and blinked to clear his eyes. “What is it?”

“That’s what I asked,” Bob said. He was waving his hand. There were flies buzzing around his head as well.
 

“Smells like death,” Alan said.

“Fish,” Bob said. “Rotting fish.”

“No, roadkill,” Alan said.

“Worse,” Bob said.

Alan nodded. He wrinkled his nose and looked to put the motor down. Bob waved at the air. A cloud of flies was settling around him.

“Hand me that paddle,” Alan said. “It’s too shallow for the motor here.”

Bob handed the paddle and Alan pushed it down into the water. When it hit the muddy lakebed, oily bubbles rose from the shallow water.

“Ugh—that’s even worse,” Alan said as the smell hit his face. He pushed and the boat moved west along the bank of the pond. He tugged at the paddle to free it from the mud and the boat slid closer to the shore.

“Alan. Look.”

Alan looked up to see what Bob was pointing at. Near the edge of the water, he saw a place where the grass had been flattened. Above the spot, the air was thick with a swarm of flies. Bob rose to a low crouch in the boat to get a better look. He swiped at the flies and the boat lurched underneath him. Bob came down hard on the metal seat.
 

“There’s something dead over there,” Bob said.

“A deer or something?” Alan asked.

“No,” Bob said. “Something with bare skin. I don’t know. It might be a person.”

“What?” Alan whispered. He jabbed the paddle down into the muck and pulled his end of the boat towards the shore. Alan stood. The flies swarmed to him. One bit him on the back of his neck. Alan slapped at it. He saw the the curve of a knee. The skin color was wrong. It looked mottled and purple, like a bruise. Around the darkest patches, he saw rings of yellow. Alan pulled at the grass, beaching the boat in the thick weeds. He tore out clumps of grass in his effort to drag the stern of the boat close enough to see.
 

“What are you doing?” Bob asked.

Alan had one foot over the edge of the boat. He was testing his weight on a clump of marshy grass. The footing was unstable, but Alan pulled himself out of the boat.

“We should call the police, Alan,” Bob said. “You could be contaminating a crime scene or something.”

“So call them,” Alan said. “I just want to see what it is.”

Alan reached out and grabbed a scrubby sapling. He pulled himself out of the boat and stuck his left foot down onto a soggy mat of weeds. He rose slowly, not trusting his balance. Alan saw where the leg connected to the torso. A fly landed on his eye and got caught in his lashes as he blinked. Alan wiped his eye with the back of his hand. He saw both legs. The feet were stuck down in the mud. The body was face up. Alan’s eyes moved quickly past the genitals. The testicles were crawling with flies and the penis was flopped over to the side. It was long and smooth and looked bloated. The belly was smooth. He saw neither belly button nor nipples. The arms were tucked in close to the torso and the hands were turned up towards the armpits. He saw no fingers—the hands ended with tapered flaps of skin.
 

Alan’s eyes landed on the the thing’s head. He waved at the flies, but couldn’t look away.

“Shit—I don’t have any signal. It’s a person, right? Is it a person?” Bob asked.
 

“I,” Alan began. A fly violated his mouth and buzzed on his tongue. Alan spat. He still didn’t look away from the thing’s head.
 

“I don’t know,” Alan said.

Back in the boat, Bob banged his way over the seats. With each step, the boat wanted to pull away from the shore. Bob clutched at the grass.

“What do you mean? You don’t know? What do you see?”

“I don’t know,” Alan said.

Bob tried to climb onto a stump of grass and his foot slid off. His leg plunged into the mud. He tugged it free. His leg was covered in smelly mud.

“Fuck,” Bob said. He got to his feet and steadied himself on Alan’s arm. “What the fuck?”

“It doesn’t have a face,” Alan said.

Bob and Alan stood, staring at the body. Bob’s hand moved in slow motion up to his face. He pressed his glasses tighter to his skull. He waved at the flies.

“We’ve got to call someone,” Bob said.

“Yeah,” Alan said. He spat again. He still tasted fly.

X • X • X • X • X

“Should one of us stay with the boat?” Bob asked.

“No way,” Alan said. “Is someone going to steal it? Come on.”

They parked the boat on the west side of the little pond and pulled it to shore where the trees came all the way down to the bank. Alan tied the
 
boat to a small tree and put out his hand. Bob grabbed Alan’s hand and stepped carefully to shore. He left a big greasy slime of mud in the boat from his soiled leg.

The two men climbed the steep hill, grabbing branches and rocks to pull themselves higher. Bob held his phone out in front of himself, constantly checking for signal. They stopped climbing and Bob tried to dial a number. He shook his head.

Alan was looking behind them, through the branches to the pond below. He tapped Bob on the shoulder. Bob turned to see. The little pond looked perfectly round from their vantage point. A stream joined the pond at the bottom of the hill, and then continued on at the far side. On the right side of the pond, they could see the flattened grass and the dark shape mostly hidden there. That’s not what Alan was pointing at though. He was pointing even farther right. There Bob saw that many more flattened areas of grass. In each little circle was another dark shape.

“Oh, shit,” Bob said.

“Let’s go higher,” Alan said.

As they climbed, the hill became less steep and they walked upright through a thick blanket of leaves. Alan tried his phone—his showed less bars than Bob’s and neither phone would place a call.

“I can’t believe we don’t have service,” Bob said. “We’re not that far from my house and I get reception.”

“It’s spotty around here,” Alan said. He was out of breath. “I get decent bars at the house, but none at the dock. You never know.”

Bob picked up his pace and Alan saw why—there was a log cabin up ahead. It was small—no more than twenty feet wide—and the windows and door were just dark holes in the face. Bob climbed the stairs to the porch. He knocked on the frame of the door hole.

“Hello?” Bob asked.

“There’s no wires going to this place,” Alan said. He was circling wide to the right. “I don’t think it has power or a phone or anything. It’s probably just a hunting lodge.”

“Well if we keep heading west we should hit your road, right?” Bob asked.

“Yeah, eventually,” Alan said. “I don’t know how deep we are in the woods, but yeah.”

Bob looked at his phone again.

“Oh!” he said. Bob hit some buttons on his phone and then held it to his ear. He gave Alan a thumbs-up and nodded.

Alan approached and stood near the porch. He looked at his own phone—no bars.

“Hi,” Bob said into his phone. “My friend and I were out in the boat and we think we found a body.”

Alan heard chatter, but couldn’t make out the words.

“Yes, I mean it’s definitely some kind of animal. It might have been decayed or something. It looks human, I guess. My name?”

Bob gave the operator more details and Alan circled the cabin. He saw no signs that anyone had inhabited or maintained the place in a long time. The sides were covered in moss and looked like they might be more rot than wood. The roof was a patchwork of cedar shingles. He didn’t see any gaping holes up there, but he doubted that the roof would provide much protection from a hard rain. When he returned to the porch, Bob was disconnecting from his call.

“They said we should take the boat and go back to the culvert. They’ll meet us there,” Bob said.

“Can I use your phone? I should call my wife and ask her if she can be home for Joe. Who knows how long this will take,” Alan said.

“Sure,” Bob said. He handed his phone to Alan. “No signal on yours?”