The three workers have all come over beside me. Their excited
bursts of started but stilted observations have ended. We’re standing, the four of us, in front of the water; three people are in it: it’s like we’re all pairing up for a social but with one person left over. The occasion demands quiet, each of us unwilling to say anything to break the silence building between us. More dirt slides into and mixes with the water, turning it cloudy brown.
One of the bodies sinks back out of view and disappears. The other two are drifting towards us, swimming without movement.
I’m not about to jump in and pull them out. I’d do it, no doubt there, if the bodies were flailing about. But they’re not. They’re dead, have been for maybe a long time. The situation may seem urgent but in reality it isn’t. Both are face down, and both appear to be dressed, and not badly dressed either. They look as though they could be on their way to an event. A funeral or a wedding.
Except for the ropes. There are pieces of green rope attached to the bodies.
The digger driver keeps squinting at the two corpses, as if his eyes are tricking him. The truck driver is standing with his mouth wide open and his hands on his hips, while his assistant keeps glancing at his watch as if this whole thing might push him into overtime.
‘We need to haul them in,’ I say, even though both bodies are nudging against the bank now.
I had planned on staying dry today. I had planned on seeing one dead body. Now everything is up in the air.
‘Why? They’re not exactly going to go anywhere,’ the truck driver says.
‘They might sink like the other one.’
‘What are we going to grab them with?’
‘Jesus, I don’t know. Something. A branch, maybe. Or your hands.’
“I’m not using my hands,’ he says, and the other two nod quickly in agreement.
‘Well, what about rope? You gotta have some of that, right?’
‘That one there,’ the truck driver says, looking at the corpse closest to us, ‘already has some rope.’
‘Looks rotten. You gotta have something newer in the truck, right?’ I ask, and we all look over at the truck just as we hear it start.
The caretaker is sitting in the cab.
‘What the fuck?’ the driver asks. He starts to run over to it, but he isn’t quick enough. The caretaker gets it into gear and pulls away fast. The coffin isn’t secure; it slides across the edge and hits the ground but doesn’t break.
Tley, come back here, come back here!’ The guy keeps running after the truck, but the distance quickly grows.
‘Where’s he going?’ the digger operator asks.
‘Anywhere but here is my guess.’ I pull my cellphone from my pocket. ‘You got some rope in the digger?’
‘Yeah, hang on.’
I phone the police station and get transferred to a detective I used to know. I tell him the situation. He tells me to sober up.
Tells me of course there are going to be bodies out here in the cemetery. It takes a minute to persuade him the bodies are coming up from the depths of the lake. And another minute to convince him I’m not joking.
‘And bring some divers,’ I say, before hanging up.
The digger operator hands me the rope. The truck driver is back; he’s swearing as his partner uses the cellphone to call their boss for someone to come and get them. I tie an arm-length branch around the end of the rope and make my way down the gently sloping bank, intending to throw the branch just past the nearest corpse to bring it closer, but it turns out the slippery grass beneath my feet has other ideas. One moment I’m on the bank.
The next I’m in the water.
My feet are submerged in mud, the water up to my knees.
Something grabs my ankle and I lever forwards, my arms slapping the surface next to the corpse before I start sinking. I pull my legs from the mud, but there is nothing to stand on. This lake is a goddamn death trap, and now I know why it’s full of corpses.
These people came to grieve for the dead and ended up joining them. The water is ice cold, locking up my chest and stomach and cramping my muscles. My eyes are open and the water is burning them. There is only darkness around me, compounded by the silence, and I can sense hands of the dead reaching to pull me deeper, wanting me to join them, wanting fresh blood.
Then suddenly I’m racing back to the surface, my hand tight around the rope that is pulling me up. I kick with my feet. Point my body upwards. And a second later I’m right next to a bloated woman in a long white dress. It looks like a wedding dress. I push away from her, and the three men help me onto the bank. I sit down, gasping for air. Both my shoes are missing.
‘Goddamn, buddy, you okay?’