Ghost River, Jon Coon [ebooks online reader TXT] 📗

Gabe cringed at the contact and closed his eyes, even though it was too black to see anything. “It’s okay, pal, you’ve been here long enough.” Gabe sent up a lift bag as a buoy and called to Jim on the com, “I’ve got him. Send me the stretcher and the body bag.”

“Roger that. See your buoy. The boat’s on its way.”

The basket stretcher with rolled lift bags and white body bag dropped beside him. He found the body bag, unrolled it, and positioned it in front of Charlie. As he lifted the body away from the rebar, he felt movement. He was startled and froze. Something brushed past his arm and then slid past the side of his head. Charlie’s body twitched, and again Gabe could feel something tugging. Large fish, probably catfish, were attacking the body, pulling away flesh where the dry suit had ripped open.

Gabe shouted at them, which did no good, and pulled the body away. The fish pulled and shoved to get it back. He was hit in the head by something with the strength of a large animal. He got back up and pulled Charlie away from whatever was going bump in the night.

Through his gloves, Gabe could feel the spongy, bloated flesh, which slipped through his grasp. From experience, he knew subdermal fat becomes soapy after prolonged submersion, loosening skin to the point that even slight pressure will cause it to peel or “deglove,” coming off intact and leaving the subdural tissues exposed like the frogs he’d dissected in high school. He was thankful he was working in water so dark he couldn’t see. This is the part I hate. Who in their right mind would do this? Even for your best friend? Come on, Charlie, let’s get this over with and call it a day.

Gabe moved to his knees with Charlie lying in front of him. Gabe opened the bag and gently tried rolling the body into it. Rigor had stiffened the joints.

“Help me out here, pal,” Gabe said, and gently forced the arms to lay beside the torso and fit in the bag.

“Okay, let’s go home.” He zipped the bag and unrolled the lift bags on the stretcher. He turned on the air tanks and filled both bags less than half full. On the way to the surface, the lift bags rapidly expanded as Gabe controlled the ascent by pulling the dump valve lines sending air rumbling to the surface above. Two team divers were waiting in the inflatable boat. When Gabe surfaced, he told them, “Don’t open the bag. It’s bad.”

The boatmen retrieved the body with solemn dignity and took their lost brother to shore. Gabe waited on the surface while the men in the boat lifted Charlie’s body out of the water. Then he removed the Aga mask, flushed it, replaced it, adjusted the dry suit hood so that the mask resealed, and then retightened the five legs of the rubber spider. He took two deep breaths, dumped the air from his back-mounted buoyancy compensator and submerged back into the dark water.

Onshore Carol saw Gabe surface with the stretcher. When she tried to get up from her folding chair, her strength failed. She sobbed, staggered forward, and dropped to her knees. One of the other wives caught her and knelt beside her, holding her hand and quietly talking to reassure her. Carol had vowed to Gabe there would be no more tears. She gritted her teeth and mustered the strength to get back on her feet.

By the time the boat brought the stretcher to the beach and the waiting ambulance, she was able to thank the men who carried Charlie ashore and lifted him onto the gurney. Carol put a hand on the bag and bowed her head. She paused as though bracing herself for what was to come, then reached for the zipper. Jim passed Gabe’s umbilical to another team member and quickly stopped her.

“Carol, don’t. Gabe says it’s pretty bad.”

“I’m a nurse. Trust me. I’ve seen worse. I want to—”

“No. Later if you have to, but not now. Gabe’s orders.”

“Okay. Later.” She laid a hand on the body bag, then squared her shoulders and walked back to the other wives.

Submerged, alone, hanging on the line, Gabe felt sick. Images of catfish tearing away Charlie’s flesh were gut-wrenching. He remembered a New York diver who had worked body recovery at the sight of a plane crash saying, “I’ll never eat crabs again. I can’t even look at one without wanting to heave.”

One less ghost in the river. Charlie was on his way home, but then why did the river still feel so alien? Charlie had said, “We’re not alone.” Had he meant the girl was still there? Divers had covered every inch of the bottom they could get to. Had she been caught in the steel and forced out of reach in a hidden pocket beneath the bridge rubble? Charlie and the river were telling him something wasn’t right. He shut his eyes, not that he could see anything anyway, and prayed for Charlie and his family. The worst was over, but the pain lingered, and his heart felt broken.

Jim’s voice broke the silence, “You okay?”

Jim pulled, and Gabe ascended back to the boat and gratefully dropped to his bench where Jim began removing the gear. With the weight of the suit removed, he and Randy sat warming themselves with hot chocolate. “Show me what you found,” Gabe said.

Randy produced the detonator and small battery pack from the towel he’d wrapped it in immediately after surfacing.

“Cute,” Randy said, “Never seen anything like it for underwater use. Battery would last years, and it only takes a little juice to set off a cap. Most of the old plunger blasting machines only put out fifty amps. Whoever made this knew what they were doing.”

“One of those got Charlie.”

“Sure, and it might have gotten us too if you hadn’t given me a heads up.