THE POND DEVIL: THE INVESTIGATION

(from a novel in progress)

It used to be that a ranger only had to worry about campers. People have always died in the bush, whether because of the elements, or wildlife, or their own folly: not enough food; tainted water. Sometimes we’d have to track a bear that got the taste for human flesh. There were also fires, big fires that lit up the night light dawn—but you knew that your problems were natural.

Now, we’ve got gangsters dumping bodies, armed men guarding hidden patches of marijuana, illegal hunters coming in for thrills or to ship bear testicles to rich Chinese epicures, kids from the city picking mushrooms and dying in hallucinatory fits, choking on their own vomit. I’ve even busted a father-son team trying to cut down a five hundred year old hemlock, one of the biggest trees in the park, just for kicks. I don’t try to understand that. Rangers used to only carry a rifle—if anything. Now, when we go into the bush, we take automatic pistols and shotguns loaded with slugs. This ain’t the same job it used to be.

*          *          *

“Sucked dry,” the Sheriff said to me. All they were was skin clinging to bones, with small, even puncture wounds covering their entire bodies. The man had a red welt the size of a dinner plate on his back, the woman had one on her stomach. They each lay in their separate heaps—eyeless, sticky fleshbags.

“I bet the brains are gone too,” the Sheriff said.

A canoer had reported the bodies. It was at least a two day paddle from civilization, so we came in by float plane. The pilot asked what we were checking out, and when I told him, he opted to wait in the cockpit.

“I can’t figure out all the holes,” I said. “The big circles, you know, they almost could be from a giant leech. But the holes?”

“Looks like they were gone over with a drill. Some sick hick with a drill and a measuring tape. I saw something like that once, in Timmins.” The Sheriff was a little younger than me, with a clear and simple small town face and cropped blonde hair. He kept putting more and more gum into his mouth.

“A drill in the bush?”

“Sure,” the Sheriff said. “Probably brought extra batteries.”

“What do you think about the circles?”

“Damned if I know. We pay forensics for that kind of shit.”

We walked around the campsite. It had rained heavily the night before, erasing all signs of animals and people from the forest floor.

The tent was shredded rags, the couple’s things strewn about. A rental canoe was off to the side. Their food bag still swung from a tree.

“Good campers,” the Sheriff said.

I took our little rowboat back to the plane for the body bags.

“Wanna help?” I asked the pilot.

“No thank you, Ranger,” he said, shaking his head. He looked very pale.

Me and the Sheriff pulled on gloves and started putting their things in bags.

“Let’s save the bodies for last.”

When the campsite was clear, we started walking through the woods. Several meters from the campsite, I saw an old, aluminum canoe, huge holes rusted into its bottom.

“Hey Bill!” the Sheriff shouted. “I got something!”

I followed his voice to the bone pile. Old bones, new bones. Big and small.

“We’ve got a real sick fuck on our hands,” he said.

I picked up a stick, poked around.

“What do you reckon they are, Ranger?” the Sheriff asked.

“This looks like part of a rabbit,” I said pushing aside a small one, “and this here looks like the ribs of a bear. This could be a trout, And this,” I said, “this old splintery one looks like a human femur.”

“Jesus. You get many people missing out here?”

“Some,” I said.

“Jesus.”

“Whatever killed that couple didn’t do this.”

“You mean ‘whoever.’”

“Right.”

“Well, how’s that, Ranger?”

“Whatever killed the couple sucked them dry. It didn’t want their skin. These bones are picked clean. Something’s been eating out here. You can see the teeth marks. Something’s been killing, and something else is enjoying scraps. Talk about symbiosis.”

“Sim-bi-what? You saying this is a queer killing?”

“No,” I said.

“You think these here bones are from the same culprit?”

“Maybe. What do you think, Sheriff?”

“I just don’t know,” he said crossing himself. “By god, I just don’t know.”

We collected the bones, looked around the island a little more, found nothing, and rowed our gruesome cargo back to the float plane. The pilot looked at the black body bags and clear evidence ones and gagged, then opened his door and puked into the lake. The Sheriff helped me put the bags on the plane—bones in flesh, shifting like sand—and we flew back to civilization.

 

 

Copyright © 2010 by Daniel Shawn Otis