Fibrous chunks of flesh disintegrated under my fingers, floating away from the rolling carcasses. Shadows danced wildly across the cows, making them look as if they were surging around the pit, fighting not to drown.
“Oh God, oh fuck.” I gagged.
The meat hook sunk slowly into the liquid muck to my left.
“Let’s go! We don’t have all night!” Junior shouted hoarsely, cupping his hands over his mouth.
I thrust my chin toward the sky, anything to keep the thick water out of my mouth. My arms thrashed desperately at the hook, managing to wrap my fingers around the smooth, curved metal. I grabbed the cable with my other hand and pulled myself somewhat out of the water.
Things twisted and squirmed all around me. I felt something moving in my right nostril and forced myself to stick a finger in there and dig out whatever it was. I pried it out and caught a quick glimpse in the erratic light of a squirming maggot on the end of my finger.
“Let’s go!” Junior hissed.
I took several quick, shallow breaths, and flicked the maggot away into the darkness, then locked my lips together and rolled the nearest steer over. I gritted my teeth and sunk the hook into a meaty shoulder of the carcass.
“Get out of the way!” Junior shouted through his cupped hands.
I reluctantly let go of the cable and paddled backward. Bert reversed the winch and the generator began reeling the steel cable toward the back of the truck. The dead steer was slowly lifted out of the water, its neck hanging at an odd angle and its eyes staring blankly at me. Streams of dark water ran off the matted hair as the light followed it up.
I clung to a basketball-sized rock sunk in the wall and kicked away another carcass, rotten to the bone.
I looked up just in time to see the steer’s shoulder muscle split in half with a wet, ripping sound. The carcass dropped back into the pit, landing on me like a freight train and driving me under the surface. This time, panic took over completely. My world got as dark and muffled as a nightmare; I could hear only thick, liquid sounds and my own frantic heartbeat. I fought my way to the surface, twisting, clawing, and kicking at the water and the soft meat.
My hands found the rock again and I managed to pull my head out of the water.
Junior hollered through cupped hands, “I said a fresh one, dumbshit!”
Bert giggled and lowered the hook once again. Pushing away from the rock I grabbed the hook, then lifted my head and shoulders out of the water, kicking away some of the more rotten cows. There. There’s one.
I half kneeled on one of the carcasses and raised the hook above my head. Thick warm water trickled down my neck. Then I brought that sucker down with all the strength I had, sinking the hook, deep this time, into the neck of the dead steer.
I heard the winch begin to whine above me. The steel cable grew taut and began to lift the second steer out of the water. Junior followed the carcass with the flashlight. It spun slowly in midair, front legs jutting stiffly away from the body. I hung onto the rock in the pit wall, watching the splayed rear legs being pulled from the water. Then the light was gone completely, leaving me in total darkness.
“Get the light down here!” I shrieked. “Please!”
Junior hissed down into the pit, “Quiet! Quiet!” I heard the winch’s whine change pitch, then a dull thud as the steer landed in the back of the truck.
I kept kicking the rotten cow corpses away. Something brushed against my hand. Something that wasn’t just floating along the surface. Something that moved on its own.
It wasn’t a maggot; it felt too big. I shrieked and slapped at the water. “There’s something down here!” I screamed.
“Shhhhhh!” Junior hissed. “Shut up!” He angled the light down into the pit, revealing the choppy surface of the water.
I felt a stabbing pain in my right palm and I screamed again, jerking myhand out of the muck. A thin, gray tube was attached to the webbing between my thumb and forefinger. As I watched, the thing undulated, like it was swallowing, and it slid a half inch deeper into my hand. I could feel it inside, squirming, chewing on muscles and tendons. Screaming, I ripped the thing away with my free hand.
“Shut the fuck up!” Junior shouted hoarsely.
The hook bumped my head. I grabbed it, shrieking, “Something bit me!” I wrenched my gaze toward the truck but could see only the dim sky, the flashlight, and Junior’s silhouette. “Up, you stupid motherfucker!”
The hook started to rise. I clung grimly to it, pulling my knees up to my chest. It rotated slowly as it rose, and I was pulled sluggishly away from the surface of the pit, slowly spinning in midair. I blinked slime out of my eyes and glanced down.
The dead steers were gently rolling in the small waves I had created with my kicking. Long, gray things darted about, squirting across the surface between the carcasses.
“Oh, shit,” Junior whispered. I hoped that he had seen whatever those gray things were, but his eyes were fixed on the horizon. “It’s Slim.” He killed the flashlight. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
The hook finally reached the edge of the pit, but I was holding on with both hands so Junior grabbed the back of the truck to give himself some stability, then reached out with his other hand and grabbed the cable. He pulled me toward the edge.
I blindly shot my leg out, dug my shoe into the mud, and lurched toward the truck. I fell hard, gasping for breath. Junior immediately nudged me with the toe of his cowboy boot, keeping an eye on the distant light. “Let’s go. We don’t need Slim out here, nosir.”
I grabbed the trailer hitch and rose to my knees. I looked down into the darkness of the pit and tried to flex my hand. A twisted hole bled slightly in the webbing by my thumb.
Junior kicked me in the butt. “C’mon. Let’s go. Get in the back. Don’t need you stinking up the cab.” I felt myself lifted from behindand thrown into the truck, landing on top of the carcass with a wet, hollow thud. I rolled off the steer and pushed myself back against the cab with my feet. Junior slammed the door and started the truck. I drew my knees up to my chin and kept working at making a fist, over and over, making the wound bleed more and more and more.
The truck lurched up the hill and we rumbled off into the night.
CHAPTER 11
The truck bounced and swayed up the pitted gravel road that led over the low foothills. We were headed down the back end of Road E toward the Sawyer house. I’d never been there, but I knew where the house was. Everybody knew where the house was; everybody knew because it was a place that you stayed away from. Even the mailman refused to come all the way out here. Instead, he dumped the mail into a bucket out on the highway.
Thunder rumbled softly to the west, but the air was dry for the moment. A cool night wind had dried the thick, scummy water on my skin, leaving a filmy, greasy residue behind. The truck jerked violently to the left, plowing through a deep puddle, and I rolled with it, bracing my foot against the wet, matted hair of the carcass for support. The steer lay stiffly on its side, legs jutting straight out, and rocked slightly with the motion of the truck. Then we were over the top of the foothill and shuddering down the other side into the deep hollow where the Sawyer brothers lived. I pulled my eyes away from my bloody hand and twisted around so I could see through the two-inch gap in the wooden slats.
The weak headlights splashed over a tangle of old fig trees that hadnever been pruned. A quagmire of rotten figs blanketed the ground beneath the trees. As we got closer, I heard a low buzzing fade in and out. It took me a moment, but when a wasp landed on the steer and crawled around, I realized what was causing the buzzing. I had never heard or seen wasps out at night before, and it made my skin crawl.