Still Life

When I got the call from the sheriff, the case had already been a month old. A kayaker had seen the submerged vehicle from the surface of the water on a particularly clear day, and reported it immediately. And now it was my job to go down there and find out anything I could about what happened.

It was a small town that didn’t appeal to tourists much, so when people went missing it was usually a big deal. But when the mayor held a town meeting and everyone was accounted for, people began to grow curious. Even more questions arose as there were no reports of either stolen cars or even new hotel guests. On paper, it seemed that nobody else should have been here, and yet there was still a car in the lake. Nobody could quite understand it.

It was a shame the car wasn’t discovered any earlier, as each day the scene was underwater translated to about a week on land. By now, if there were any bodies, they probably wouldn’t be recognizable. Of course, that depended on a lot of factors, like the temperature of the water and whether or not any fish or other creatures could get into the car and feed on them, but in the middle of summer, at the bottom of a sunny lake, it was safe to say that they wouldn’t look good.

I loaded up my diving gear on the old, rotted out dock, and was just about to dive when the sheriff’s truck pulled up to the parking lot. His shades held a nice glint from the blazing sun above, and he was chewing as always. He came out with some papers, but looking at his face I could tell it was nothing important.

“It’s a weird case, Michael. And I’m not sure if I like it.”

“Yeah, I don’t get it either. Did you find any missing persons around?”

“Not a single one. That’s what bothers me the most. Nobody has been missing within a hundred miles of us, and yet this big city car is just sitting in our lake. I don’t much get it.”

“Can’t say I expected it either, Sheriff.”

“Well, just listen: if there is somebody in there, then that means they’re probably from the city up north. Now, why they drove all the way down here, I don’t know, but if you do find anyone, you can’t go throwing your own evidence in there. Just snap some pictures and get out. If there’s people in there, they’ll pay to get the car pulled out.”

“Yeah. Got it.”

He walked away, probably excited that we might be dealing with a “real” case. As soon as his truck started to pull away, I got ready to get into the water. I was already feeling pretty burnt up on account of the sun blasting on my wetsuit for 30 minutes, so I expected the water to feel nice and cool.

However, I hadn’t expected it to be this cold. It was frigid. It felt like I was diving in November. My entire body had tensed, and my eyes had shot wide open from the pure contrast in temperature. This wasn’t going to be an average dive.

The lake here was as regular as they came; mossy rocks and logs covered the bed, and the water was tinted bright green with the beautiful pattern of sunlight scattering across the rocks. Everything was algae covered, and large boulders scarcely dotted the lakebed. There were no sounds, save for my own breathing. It was a peaceful scene.

The car was already in view; a black, sleek looking thing. I began to descend downwards, and the entire lake bed began to stretch. This caught me off guard; I had been to the bottom of this lake countless times, yet with each push towards the bottom I made, the bottom of the lake fell away at almost the same rate, like I was caught in a fish-eye lens. I began to swim harder, kicking my flippers as hard as I could to make it down. And before I knew it, I had hit the rocks at the bottom of the lake. Looking back up, I could now see that I was hundreds of feet down in what was supposed to be a fifty-foot deep lake.

The car was now right next to me; a black BMW with shiny silver rims that still shone in the sunlight even at this depth. The lighting hadn’t changed a bit, even despite how far down I was. And for that matter, my oxygen levels weren’t too bad either. Everything was acting like I hadn’t even descended, except I felt like I was too far down. And maybe I was.

Looking inside the car, I could confirm that there were two bodies; a man in the passenger seat with a tuxedo that could have come from the 80’s, and a woman driving with a full wedding gown, complete with headdress. They looked like the definition of “half-dead”; their skin was extremely pale and soft, but not bloated from the water absorption as I expected. Their eyelids had been nibbled off by fish, and they now looked like props with their full eyeballs jutting out from their heads. Their skin was actually extremely sullen, to the point where I could see the veins and tendons of their faces jutting through. The necks were the worst, with the various arteries poking out, almost pulsing due to the water moving around them.

I knew I should probably be scared, but I wasn’t really; more creeped out than anything. But, I was a man with a job to do, so I put that first. I snapped photos of the car and its shiny rims that should have been covered in algae by now. I snapped photos of the bodies and their oddly sunken skin that made no sense to me. The silence was what was really killing me; these two bodies were just sitting there; I expected nothing more of them, they were dead, and yet I still had the weird feeling that they would be moving… somehow.

I reviewed the pictures I took. The rims came out clear and the car was easily identifiable. That was good. But when I looked at the pictures of the cab and the bodies, they were too blurry to identify anything. I couldn’t tell, but I thought I saw their heads looking in different directions with each one. The window had blurred everything too much, though. I had to take some more.

At this point, I wanted to test my superstition. I felt uncomfortable, but I knew it was unreasonable. So, I stared at the bodies. The only sound I could hear was my rhythmic, metallic breathing. They didn’t move. They just stared toward the windshield, like they still had a destination in mind.

I still wasn’t satisfied. Picking up a small rock at the side of the car, I gently tapped it against the driver’s side window. Each knock held the hint of a scrape behind it.

Tch, tch, tch. No response.

The only thing left to do was take a clean picture of them from the front and side, and get the hell out of here. I made my way to the front of the car, and was unsettled by how they were staring. Their bulging eyes just stared straight ahead. Nevertheless, I took my pictures, and they seemed to come out pretty clean. No trouble from them this time.

I swam over to the passenger side, and I saw that a little minnow had been eating at the husband’s neck. It was kind of cute, save for the fact that it was eating a human. The top third of this window was slid open, allowing fish to come and go as they pleased. I took a photo of the bodies from this side, and swam over to the driver’s side again.

Looking at the photos again, the same issue had occurred; while the top third of the frame was fine, the window had completely blurred out the bodies and cab. It was almost intentional, like they had been blurred after the pictures were taken. I didn’t get it, but I knew there was only one way to solve it; I had to open the door.

My breathing was a bit faster now, but I had to do my job. Every fibre of my being was telling me to swim up, but I couldn’t. There was a reason they paid me to do this. I calmed myself down a little bit, and I gripped the door handle.

I pulled it half-open, and watched as the wife’s body twisted towards me. Her eyes were now piercing through mine, and I froze. My heart started to beat hard, sending shivers through my veins and ice through my hands. Her hair spread up and out like the softest fan I’d ever seen, and even her hands rose, exposing bony fingers attached to corroded tendons.

With the last of my strength, I swung the door completely open, and her arms flew around me. I felt small arms grasp around my neck, and her eyes were only inches away from mine. Her jaw unhinged, and I heard something that I had never expected:

“welcome home.”

Then she pulled me into the cab and slammed the door.