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To whoever finds this letter, read my words carefully, for this is to be considered a warning. I assure you that everything I have written here is the truth. I wish things could be different, but this is the harsh reality, and you must learn of the terrible things that have happened here. I’m sorry, but I can’t allow this knowledge to end with me.
My name is Joseph Albright, and I’m a search and rescue diver. I’ve been doing this for twelve years now, and I’ve seen a lot of upsetting, even unexplainable things in my time. However, even my worst experiences as a diver pale in comparison to recent events.
Water search and rescue is often a depressing job. When someone gets lost in a forest, they can still be found alive days later. But when we get a call, it’s almost always body recovery. People don’t last long in the water.
I can’t tell you exactly where, as I don’t want anyone visiting this place and potentially unleashing its horrors, but I live in a northern territory known for its water sports. Fishing, kayaking, diving - whatever it is, our waters probably have a solid reputation for it. Despite that, this area isn’t a resort. The waters here are cold and oftentimes vicious. Search and rescue operations here can be grueling and not many stick with it. There are a few older guys who have been doing search and rescue longer than me, but I’m one of the most experienced around.
Like I said before, this job is more body recovery than anything, especially here. We save more live moose from the water than live humans. And when we get a call about a missing child...well, we’d be better off just giving our condolences to the parents. That’s just how the waters are here. Our small town has one of the highest drowning rates in the country, but we look anyway, and we usually find a body.
I’ve considered quitting many times in my career. Most people quit after their first recovery. In training, we try to emphasize just how much water can distort a corpse, but nothing can prepare you for the harsh reality. It’s not uncommon for us to find bodies bloated beyond recognition. Sometimes they barely even seem human – just disgusting, formless blobs floating like a nightmare among the weeds. A lot of divers don’t last long after seeing something like that. But I continued to do it after all these years. I figured if I didn’t then no one would.
This all began when I got a call about a missing boy. A man had taken his ten-year-old son fly fishing. At one point, the father managed to stab a hook through his finger, so he returned to his truck to get a first-aid kit. The boy was gone when he came back to the river only a few minutes later, presumably having fallen in.
When I first heard the story, I hung my head in silence for a moment. It had been raining heavily for almost a month now, and the waters were running faster than ever. To make things worse, it was unusually cold for the season. Several people had gone missing in recent weeks, and many of them had yet to be found. I had little hope of finding the boy alive.
Several other divers and I were at the site where the boy went missing within an hour, and a larger search and rescue team located a few towns over was headed our way. We talked with the father and even searched the forest for a bit, hoping that he had just wandered off. But eventually, we realized that we would have to begin searching in the river. I stared down at the icy torrent and felt a sinking feeling in my chest.
I knew the boy was gone as soon as I got in the water. The current was worse than it had ever been, and even I had difficulty navigating the freezing depths. We looked for hours in the surrounding areas and even expanded our search once the larger team had arrived. The boy was nowhere to be found. It was as if he had just snapped out of existence.
I was surprised. I hadn’t expected to find him alive, but I had at least anticipated finding a body. However, there was no trace of him. The sun got low and the air grew colder. We considered calling it off as nightfall approached and resuming the search the next day. But, just as I was about to return to basecamp and pack up my stuff, I discovered something.
There are a lot of creek beds and small tributaries around the river. Many of them have dried up as a result of encroaching vegetation or manmade efforts to divert the water. We usually don’t pay any attention to them. However, with all the recent rain, I noticed that one of the larger creek beds had begun flowing again. A surprising amount of water crashed through it, easily enough to carry a young boy.
The creek ran directly across a bend in the river, connecting it at two points. I followed it and realized that the boy could be located outside of our initial search area. Hell, that was an understatement. If he had gotten caught up in the creek, he could be over a mile away from where we were searching. As I approached where the creek reconnected with the main river, I felt a sinking feeling in my gut.
There’s a place in the river where not even search and rescue divers are supposed to go. It’s known as Badwater. This area lies on one half of the river and runs for about a hundred yards. It’s near a densely vegetated area, so we don’t often have to worry about people swimming there. But a lot of disappearances occur in the surrounding waters. Despite that, I’ve been warned not to dive there ever since I began doing search and rescue. Supposedly the undercurrent is so strong that even the most experienced swimmer would be swept away in an instant. “Don’t go near Badwater.” It was a mantra of the older divers.
The creek ended exactly in the center of the Badwater region. As I reached it, I stopped and chewed my lip thoughtfully. If I went back and reported this to the other divers, they would tell me to let it go. They wouldn’t let me dive there. But deep down I felt like the kid’s body must be tangled up in some weeds nearby. If only I could find it. I hated the idea of that boy being stuck down there, slowly bloating and rotting away while his parents sat at home wondering where their boy had gone.
Badwater didn’t seem to be that bad. I’d seen rougher waters before, but I knew looks could be deceiving. Just below the surface it could be flowing faster than I ever imagined, and I’d be swept away in an instant. Besides, I wasn’t supposed to dive alone. I almost turned back, but something made me stay. I stared into the river for a moment, thinking about the boy. Then I put on my gear and dropped into the icy waters.
The first thing I noticed was that the current actually seemed pretty weak. To my surprise, it felt weaker than the rest of the river. The water was extremely deep there, and I could see only blackness below as I dove. I kicked deeper and deeper, thinking that the current might pick up lower down, but the opposite seemed to be true. The water was almost completely still. I might as well have been diving in a pond.
I went even deeper and the water grew ice cold. Finally, green shapes materialized in front of me. I thought I’d finally reached a bed of weeds. But, as I kicked lower, the truth came into full view. I felt vomit come up at the sight, an odd and dangerous sensation when you’re diving.
Countless seaweed-green arms stuck up from the ground below. I thought I had come upon a trove of bodies, but, moments later, I realized there was more to it. The arms grew directly into the ground, roots spreading out from their base and digging into the sediment. It was as if someone had cut off hundreds of arms at the shoulder and planted them there. I watched as they clutched at the water around them like predatory animals. They varied in size and seemingly age. Grotesque baby hands sprouted near the bottom, and they opened and closed their fists hungrily.
It was then that I saw the boy. His eyes stared sightlessly ahead as those grotesque arms pulled his dead body downward. It seemed they had just gotten ahold of him. The arms yanked at him, burying him in the surrounding sediment. They pushed and writhed and squirmed until he was securely buried up to the chest. I stared in mesmerized horror.
That was when the other bodies came into focus. There must have been at least four more, all in varying stages of decay. Some were bloated beyond recognition, only bulky, white masses that protruded loosely from the riverbed. I once again felt vomit rising in my throat and swallowed it back down. The fucking hands were feeding off the bodies, using them like fertilizer.
The moment I clambered out of the water, I tore my mask and regulator off and retched. I couldn’t stop thinking about those disgusting bodies, those grasping hands. They were like some sort of carnivorous plant, yet they were so humanoid. I vomited again at the thought.
I frantically ran back to basecamp. I wanted to shout what I’d seen at the top of my lungs. I felt that everyone should know about those awful things down there. However, I knew they would all think I was crazy. At the very least, I would be chided for going into Badwater, and it’s not as if any of them would be willing to dive down there and corroborate my claims.
When I got back, I pulled aside one of the other divers. Moose was the most experienced person on our team. He’d been diving for over twenty years, ever since moving here. I told him about what I saw. When I finished, he stared at me in cold silence.
“I told you never to go near Badwater.” His voice contained an iciness that even his thick Louisiana accent couldn’t conceal.
“That’s what you’re concerned about?” I was incredulous.
He placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed tightly. “Don’t tell anyone else about this. If the others find out that you went into Badwater...” He trailed off and thought for a moment. “Well, it won’t be good.” He shook his head like a disappointed father.
“But what about those things?” I tried to keep my voice down, hoping no one would hear us. “How many people have died because of those fucking things?”
“Shut up,” Moose said. “We have an agreement. There’s a reason they only grow in Badwater. Don’t fuck this up.”
I started to say something, but the words caught in my throat. He was keeping something from me.
He sighed and I saw something like sadness behind his eyes. “Sometimes you have to decide between lesser and greater evils. Even the best possible decisions can still keep you up at night.” He went silent for a moment and only stared at me. “Don’t tell anyone about this. Maybe one day you’ll understand.”
He walked away after that and called off the day’s search. The next couple days passed in a strange haze for me. Despite knowing where the boy’s body was, Moose had the other divers continue the search until it was finally called off two days later.
It was during that time that Moose began to act differently toward me. Whenever we saw one another, he would give me a strange, knowing glance. There were two other older divers, Clyde and Ryan, with whom Moose often spoke. I began to notice how they spoke to each other in hushed tones, clustered in one corner or another, looking as if they were hiding something.
I wondered what he meant when he talked about the “agreement.” And what the fuck were those arm things I had seen? My blood ran cold when I thought about them, the way they moved, how they fed. I just couldn’t tear my mind away from them. However, I tried to ignore those thoughts and do what Moose had asked. Certainly, there had been a reason behind his actions. I had always known him to be a good man.
