Chapter Text
Lunch time had just started when Jon found the body. The afternoon had already warmed to a considerable balminess, sun casting shimmering streaks over the lake—one of those days on which it is too hot to want to eat anything but slivers of melon (juice rolling down fingers and lips and chins and staining shirt-fronts or making little puddles in the dirt) or else cold water only. Jon had elected for the latter, ditching even the promise of the enormous fruit platter Tim Stoker had been working on since late that morning in favor of a long swim in the lake. It wasn’t often that Jon (or any of the counselors, for that matter) had a moment to himself, away from the needy call of campers wanting entertainment or explanations about some flora/fauna or plasters for scraped elbows, and he relished the opportunity to be alone with his thoughts.
On the shore of the lake, he could just hear the clamor of excited voices rising up from the dining hall back at camp, but individual conversations were muffled by the distance and the buzz of summer insects. Jon scanned the surrounding area three times before sliding out of his uniform shorts and shirt, folding them carefully and setting them atop a rock beside his shoes (socks tucked tidily inside), and walking down to the clear, glittering water. He was about to step in fully, cool water already whisking the dark hair at his ankles, when an object further down the shore caught his eye. He would realize later that he did not at first register it as a human body because of the way that it was twisted over on itself, limbs protruding at unnatural angles, half of it submerged in the shallow water, the other half gathering flies on the shore.
When the realization did strike, it struck with forceful panic, and Jon would have given in to the lurching impulse to vomit had his stomach not been entirely empty. Still, something compelled him to approach the thing, and so he walked in a half-daze over to where it lay and saw, then, that it had at one time been a camper. The body’s face was so distorted and—its eyes are gone! the voice of roiling terror screamed over and over once it latched on to that fact—uniform missing, so Jon could not have identified them, but it was clearly the body of a younger person. He stood and stared for a long time, his mind scrambling to accept the reality that this was a corpse, he was seeing a corpse.
In theory, Jon knew what to do. He read The Handbook for Camp Leadership cover to cover every year before the start of each summer session, even tested himself with flash cards sometimes to make sure he remembered the details. He knew the relevant passage by heart:
“In the event of a camper’s death, leadership must first notify emergency services. If emergency services are unavailable (for example, if you are hiking and do not have mobile phone reception) you must contact a supervisor via your handheld radio before performing resuscitative efforts. Disregard chain of command in all instances of death or possible death of a camper. Any person of authority is required to assist you in attempts at resuscitation.”
But to look at the thing (his mind still rejected the thought that this had once been a camper—who? they had called roll outside the cabins just that morning…) in front of him and apply the word resuscitation seemed absurd. What would emergency services do? What could they do?
Even much later, far removed from this time and place, with the opportunity for reflection, Jon would wonder why he called Sasha James, why her name was the first out of his mouth when he finally retrieved his handheld radio. He hadn’t thought of her, in particular. At lunch time, anyone with more authority would conceivably have been available. And yet, he called her, and she came, and he showed her the body.
“Shit,” she said. “Fuck.” But calmly, quietly, no sense of panic or even urgency.
“Its eyes are gone,” Jon said in a hushed and frightened voice, as if Sasha hadn’t noticed that already.
“Sometimes birds eat corpses’ eyes,” she said matter-of-factly, lowering herself to her knees to examine the body more closely. “What I’m wondering is how their arms are bending like that.”
“God, it’s…” A chill went through Jon, despite the heat of the day and the fact he’d put his uniform back on before Sasha arrived. “It’s horrible.”
Sasha hummed agreement, looking at the line between the water-logged lower half and the half on the shore. Bloat had already begun to form, and the skin of the corpse was waxy and pale. Jon had no idea what to infer about how long the corpse had been there based on that information, and considering Sasha hadn’t said anything about it, he guessed she didn’t either.
“We should tell Camp Director Bouchard right away,” Sasha said. “Do you know who it is, or… was, I suppose?”
Jon shook his head, then realized she wasn’t looking at him still, and said aloud, “No.”
“Everyone was accounted for this morning, weren’t they? I didn’t see anyone missing in the dining hall, but maybe Martin knows—”
A cold stab of certainty in Jon’s chest—“Martin shouldn’t hear about this.”
Sasha did look at him, then, frowning up at him, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand.
“Jon,” she said gently, “that’s sweet of you, but everyone needs to hear about this. Maybe not the kids, but all the counselors should know. And Director Bouchard. We can tell him first.”
She stood, looked back down at the body, a twisted, tired thing without explanation, and sighed. “That’s really awful.”
They had just begun to walk back to camp when Sasha turned around suddenly, grabbing Jon’s arm, startling him.
“Wait,” she said excitedly. “Take a picture of it first.”
Jon was taken aback. “What? With my phone?”
“Yes.” And then, seeing the confusion and uncertainty on his face, “Just in case any animals get to it before we come back again. We should document the condition it was in when we found it.”
“Okay,” Jon said, still feeling a strange reluctance writhing in his stomach.
“I’ll do it if you don’t want to.”
Sasha jogged back to the body and Jon watched her take pictures from several angles, at one point getting down on her knees in the rocks to capture as much of its underside as possible. When she returned to Jon’s side, clutching her phone to her chest, there was a little spark in her eyes that Jon didn’t care for, though he couldn’t name exactly why.
“The police might be able to use these,” she said almost to herself, swiping through the photos as they made the trek to Director Bouchard’s cabin.