Prologue
The man watched as the pump did its job and the murky water of the old millpond receded. Objects from the bottom began to appear; some strange things, a small microwave oven for instance, and of course the usual assortment of the ordinary and the everyday. A few tires made themselves visible as well as one or two buckets and rusted cans.
“Hey Mac,” the first man said to his partner, “Tell me again why we’re pumping out this pond?”
“Don’t you ever listen? The guy that owns it wants to fill it in so he can build something here. Since he got rid of the old mill a couple of years ago, this is the next step.”
“Oh yeah, I remember now.” The two men were silent for a couple of minutes until the man asked, “Mac, what’s the weirdest thing you ever dug up?”
The second man glanced over just briefly, before turning his eyes back to the pump. “Jack, we ain’t really diggin’ anything, but I know what you mean. There was a car over at Smith’s a couple of years ago. Thank God nobody was in it.”
“I sure am glad we don’t have to drain that whole damn swamp over there,” Jack offered, pointing toward the marshy area to their left, across the road. He continued watching the level of the millpond recede; the water being pumped out and being conveyed across the road by a large hose, into the swamp.
“Hey, how about be sure nothin’ big gets pulled in,” Mac advised, pointing to the nozzle on the end of the suction hose. “We can’t let nothing happen to that impeller ‘cause I can’t afford to buy a new one right now. You hear?” he said over the noise of the pump.
When he got no response, he looked back toward the other man, Jack, who was staring open-mouthed at the pond bottom exposing itself. “What the hell is that?” the man questioned, pointing toward an object just now making an appearance from under the water.
Mac looked at the object for just a moment before yelling, “Jack, turn off the pump, turn off the damn pump.”
“What is that?” his partner questioned again as he ran to the dredge pump to shut it down. He hurried back to where the older man stood, still looking into the shadowy water.
“Oh shit, it’s a kid or at least what’s left of it,” he answered, as both men stared at the small skeleton which had been exposed by the receding pond level.
Cattail Creek, North Carolina
Monday, March 5th, 2018