Chapter 2

During those next few nights, I was plagued by nightmares unlike anything I had experienced before. They were always so vivid, so real. They were always the same. At first, I was asleep in my bed, then suddenly those arms rose from the darkness around me, pinning me down and covering my mouth. I struggled, but they were so strong. The smell was the worst part. It was like old grass clippings and rotten fish mixed together. The next thing I knew, I was awake, retching with tears streaming down my face, certain that somehow that smell still permeated my room. I’ve experienced that same dream every night since diving into Badwater.

About five days after that first call, I received another about a body that had been found in the river. I wasn’t sure why they had called me. If the body had already been recovered, then there was no need for me to be there. However, the search and rescue worker on the phone was acting strangely and insisted that I come, so I headed to the river.

When I arrived there, I felt a chill run down my spine. The body was found almost exactly where the boy had disappeared. I approached the bank to see Moose and two others standing over a corpse. Their backs were to me, and I could hear one of them speaking angrily. He was practically shouting.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” It was Clyde, one of the other more experienced search and rescue divers. As I got closer, I saw that the third man was Ryan. I felt chills run down my spine. All three of the senior divers were in one place. I recalled the things Moose said to me last week as well as the knowing glances I’d seen those three share. Something was up. “Do you think it was him?” Clyde asked.

“I heard voices by the river last night,” Ryan said suddenly. The other two went silent and stared at him.

“The lures?” Clyde asked. His voice was hushed, and I could barely make it out.

Ryan nodded. “Almost definitely.”

“That breaks the agreement, though,” Clyde said. “He’s not supposed to use those anymore.”

“Well, he is, for whatever reason.” Ryan turned to Moose. “Any idea what’s going on?”

Moose started to respond when a twig snapped beneath my weight. The three older men whirled around to look at me. That iciness was still in Moose’s gaze, but I also noted a twinge of fear.

“About time you got here,” Clyde said from beside him, seemingly unaware that I had been standing there for a while. “We’ve got bad news.” He stepped aside so I could see the body more clearly.

My blood ran cold the moment I laid my eyes on it. I was already reeling from the conversation I had just overheard, and the sight of the body only compounded that confusion. It was Michael, one of the new search and rescue divers. He laid on his back in full scuba gear minus a mask. I moved forward and knelt beside the body. Michael was new to search and rescue, and he had recently attended a few classes I taught. Tears stung my eyes as I stared down at him. What the fuck happened?

As if in response to my silent question, Moose spoke up. “For some reason, he was diving in the river. We think he got swept up in a strong current and hit his face on a rock, knocking his air regulator off and causing him to drown. We haven’t found the regulator or his mask anywhere.”

I continued to stare down at the dead man in front of me. “Why was he in the water?” I asked.

The three men exchanged glances. “We don’t know,” Clyde said. “We think he may have been looking for that boy we never recovered.”

I knew they were lying. Michael was one of the most straight-edge divers I’d ever met. He would never break a minor safety regulation, let alone go diving alone in rough waters. It just didn’t add up. Additionally, there was another reason their claim didn’t make sense. Michael had been out of town visiting family on the day the boy went missing. Why would he come back if he wasn’t even there for the initial search? He wouldn’t even know where to look.

I refrained from arguing though. I didn’t want them to know I suspected anything. Clyde and Ryan were unaware I’d been to Badwater, assuming Moose kept his secret. From what I could tell, he had. They acted as they always had toward me.

Just then an ambulance pulled up. The others left me alone with Michael’s body while they talked to the driver. As I looked at the body, I realized something was off. There weren’t any contusions on his face. If the current had actually dashed him against a rock, there should at least be a bruise. But there was nothing. His face and head were completely unmarred.

At that moment, I noticed something else strange. A bruise peeked out from the neck of his dive suit. I pulled the rubber down to reveal a splotchy blue and black mark that circled his neck. It looked like he had been strangled. My thoughts immediately turned to those strange hand things I’d seen at Badwater. But if that’s what killed him, then why did they let him go? Was it a warning?

A deep sense of dread settled into my stomach. Something terrible was happening, and the older divers were in on it. The ambulance took Michael’s body away, and I returned home feeling drained. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything that day and only sat in cold silence. I slept fitfully that night, plagued by the nightmares I mentioned earlier.

Most of the next day passed in the same cold silence as the one before. I felt numb. The conversation I had overheard between the older divers kept playing over and over in my head. What did they mean by lures? Who was this him that they kept referring to?

I recalled what Ryan had said about hearing voices near the river. That must be the lures they had been talking about. As I sat there, my numbness faded and was replaced with anger. Michael was dead, and it had something to do with Moose and his secrets. It probably had something to do with those lures too. I grabbed my coat and headed out the door. I was going to see what Ryan had meant when he said he heard voices.

I wandered the riverbank for thirty minutes, hearing nothing but the sounds of nocturnal animals. I had spent most of my life around the river, but it was still creepy at night. However, after recent events, it had taken on a different darkness that weighed down upon me, exhausting me. I was about to head back when I heard something just out of earshot. It sounded like someone’s voice. The sound grew louder as I moved down the bank until I could finally make out what it was saying.

“Help! Please, I can’t swim.”

Instincts took over and I began to sprint in the direction of the voice. I eventually lost track of where I was and stumbled blindly through the underbrush, barely even using my flashlight and relying only on my hearing to guide me. Finally, the voice came from the water beside me. It sounded like a child. I was about to wade into the river when something stopped me in my tracks.

I listened to the voice carefully.

“Help! Please, I can’t swim.”

It was the exact same words, over and over again, like a record being played on loop. Even the tone was exactly the same every time. It didn’t sound right. They were yelling, but it wasn’t the cadence of someone who was scared. There was no urgency to their voice. While it was loud, bordering on a scream, the plea was almost monotone. Additionally, I couldn’t hear anyone splashing or struggling.

My heart pounding in my chest, I shined my flashlight along the river. That was when I saw it.

A face pressed out of the mud of the riverbank. Like the hands I’d seen, it was seaweed green and roots grew from its edges and into the surrounding earth. It was like someone had constructed a human head out of algae or moss. The mouth opened and closed, repeating the same call for help over and over again, while the rest of the face remained flat and emotionless.

My whole body shook as I stared at the thing. Just beyond it, in the water, two of those hands reached up from the shallows, grasping for anything and everything. A cold realization came upon me. Michael must have heard that thing’s calls for help and immediately dived in, only to find himself dragged under by those groping hands. This is what Ryan had meant by lures. I felt sick to my stomach as I watched the eerie face cry out for help.

The cries grew quieter and more spaced out until the face became completely silent. Then, without warning, it retreated back into the earth, burying itself in a thin layer of mud. I shuddered to think about that thing just beneath the surface. Then I realized that there could be more. Who knew how many of them were lurking just below me?

I sprinted back to my car, disgust driving me more than fear. When I got home, I sat up all night thinking about what I saw. I thought a lot about Michael and realized that things still didn’t make sense. If he had heard someone actively drowning and crying for help, he wouldn’t have had time to put a suit on and dive in. There’s no reason he would have had his gear in the first place. These thoughts churned within my mind for hours. I managed to get a little sleep just before sunrise but was woken by the nightmares once again.

That nightmare was the worst one yet. Just like last time, those hands reached up from the darkness and grabbed me, covering my mouth and pinning my arms to the bed. That sickening fishy smell turned my stomach, and my eyes began to water as I struggled against them. Then, two more hands rose up and held my eyes open. I watched in horror as a face protruded from the ceiling above me. It was like the one I had seen at the water, all green and mossy. Tears streamed down my face as I recognized the features - It was Michael.

“Why did you do this?” He said, cold black fluid dripping from his mouth.

I tried to respond but couldn’t past the hands that were clasped over my face.

“Why why why why...” Michael went on and on, his voice becoming raspier with every query. I laid there for what felt like an eternity while he stared down at me and asked why I’d done this to him.

I woke in a cold sweat, and, just like before, could have sworn that disgusting stench was still there. I began to think that it was all my fault. I should have heeded the warnings about Badwater. I don’t think I was the first to go there, but I was the first to see the truth of it and come back alive.

That place wasn’t just something spoken about amongst the divers. A number of local legends surrounded that part of the river. I believed one of them might have actually mentioned hands that dragged people to their demise. Growing up, kids would spread rumors and folk tales about Badwater and the river as a whole. As I got older, I assumed they were just stories that adults had made up to keep us away from the dangerous rapids. I now realized that wasn’t the case.