Rule 37 - Koi

The unlucky ones, or I guess, the lucky ones, as we were still alive, stood in a circle over Blane"s body, waiting for Marisol to return. I looked around the group. Chitra, Grace, and Beth huddled together. Chitra and Beth were breaking down, while Grace held strong. Her eyes were cold and uncaring. Andrew kept sniffling and wiping his eyes but tried to keep his emotions in, while Mitchell sobbed openly into Mattias"s shoulder.

"Who do you think wrote the note?" I asked, trying to keep my mind off the fact that we were waiting for shovels to bury a body.

My eyes swung to Grace again. She glared at me.

"I already told you it"s not my mom. She barely leaves the house these days."

There was a loud rustling from behind us, and we turned to see Marisol coming back with her arms full. It wasn"t until she reached us that we saw she was also carrying a backpack. In her arms, she had four shovels and a large machete.

Mattias hurried over, snatching the weapon from her. "Where the fuck did you get this?" he hissed, staring down at it.

"It"s Uncle Carlos"s. I found it in the garage."

"Why did you bring it?" Chitra asked.

"Protection," Marisol replied smoothly. It was oddly suspicious. Why not a more modern weapon, like a gun or a hunting knife? Not a fucking machete. "Are we doing this?" she asked.

"Yeah." Mattias shook his head and handed back the knife. He took the shovels instead and handed one each to Chitra, Grace, and Beth. He then turned to the men. "Alright, let"s not make this a sexist thing, okay? You are the strongest people here. Grab a limb."

I didn"t want to touch him, but the ever-looming threat of now having two murders pinned on me convinced me to grab one of Blane"s legs and lift.

"Where are we taking him?" Mitchell asked, holding the other leg. "Why not just bury him here?"

"This is a path, someone would see the grave," Grace answered. "We need to go deep into the woods and far off the path where no one would go."

"I know a place for a body." I glared at Marisol. She shot a nervous glance at me and then glared back.

Andrew sighed. "Maybe we should take him to the park?—"

"No!" Mattias blurted. "Two accidents resulting in death in four days? The park would be closed down so fast. I already had to shovel out some bank just to get them to pass this last time. No, we"re going into the woods."

Marisol and the other girls led the way. The sun had barely gone down, and the heat from the summer"s day was still upon us. Sweat poured from my head and drenched my clothes. We had to stop a few times to drop Blane and wipe our palms and brows. Each time, I felt a more nauseous. Blane"s head bobbed as we went. His neck dripped blood and occasionally gurgled. The first time it happened, Mitchell dropped his side and screamed.

Finally, we reached a spot Marisol deemed right. It was deep into the woods. The girls cleared out the branches and leaves and we dropped him near the clearing as they began to dig. I leaned back against a tree and let my body sink down. I was exhausted, sweaty, and covered in dirt and scratches. I glanced around the area. Everyone shared the same grim, exhausted expression.

"This is wrong. This is fucked up," Mitchell said. "We can"t just keep covering up these murders and hope the murderer goes away."

"He"s right." Chitra paused in her digging to tear off her hoodie and toss it. "I"m not going to be the next one dead."

"It"s crazy how you had no issue with murdering just two weeks ago," I said. Everyone froze except for Mattias, who looked confused.

"What are you talking about?"

Marisol kicked my boot. "Nothing. He"s just mad that he"s not back at camp having a little spit roast with Swayze and Domino."

I was too tired to fight, but I did enjoy making everyone worried that I"d tell Mattias of Marisol"s plan.

"I could use the money, but this ain"t worth it," Chitra said, breaking the silence. I remembered her saying she needed money before when she"d made the original deal with Marisol. Could it have been her to stab Ruth and kill Blane? No, she"d been with us at the fire tonight.

Unless she had an accomplice.

"This is going to take all night!" Beth let out a cry of anguish and tossed her shovel. "He"s fucking huge!"

"What if he wasn"t?" Marisol asked. Everyone paused to hear her out. She lifted the machete. "I may have had a different motive for bringing this."

Nobody moved as she stormed over to Blane"s body and raised the weapon over her head. She swung down and it made a sickening slicing sound as it slid into his arm, right under the shoulder.

Everyone let out various screams or shouts of utter dismay. Marisol stood up and wiped her brow.

"What? He"s already dead. Honestly, it might be smarter to bury him in pieces in random places. What do you think?" She looked to Mattias for support. He stared for a long time at the body, before finally moving.

"Yeah, let"s do it. Make a smaller hole, we"ll break him down."

Mattias stood, holding Blane"s arm while Marisol lifted the machete and struck down again. It took her nearly a dozen times before it finally separated from his torso.

"Fuck, can someone give us a hand here?" Mattias shouted. No one moved so Mattias turned and pointed. "Mitchell, it"s your turn. Get over here and take something off this fucking thing." I"d never seen Mattias so angry before, especially at Mitchell, of all people. Mitchell stood, and with shaky legs, went to Blane"s body.

"I"m going to be sick," he said.

"Fine, go throw up and then come back and remove his foot," Marisol quipped.

Mitchell fled into the trees. We could hear him retching. He returned and took the blade, with tears streaming down his face. "I don"t know if I"ll be any good at this." He swung down, catching Blane"s ankle. Blood spurted out, splashing him in the face. Mitchell gasped and then steeled his face. "Let"s fucking do this."

He swung again, this time with more force. "I never really liked you. You were a chauvinistic asshole. You pushed me into the fucking wave pool, you sick piss-loving motherfucker!" One last slice and Blane"s foot fell to the side. Mitchell grabbed it and then slammed it back onto the ground. "Okay, that felt kind of good. Who"s next?"

No one moved, too stunned by his outburst. Knowing that I"d eventually have to take a turn, I stood and went to them, taking the machete. I wasn"t trying to sit here and hack away at him, so I put all my strength into my first swing. His hand came off with a loud crack of the bone. I could feel every piece of muscle, bone, and vein that I cut through.

I looked up at the group surrounding me. "He was kind of an asshole."

The more people that took turns, the easier it became. The less human Blane became. While I knew deep in my soul that this was fucked up. That despite Blane claiming he had no one to look for him, surely someone would care that he was gone. Maybe it was mob mentality, trauma bonding, or simply self-preservation, but we all took turns hacking him apart until he was in twenty or so pieces.

Marisol pulled her backpack off and brought out trash bags. She handed them off to us, ordering us to take one part, put it in a bag, and seal it. It almost felt like picking up litter, making sure to get all the pieces. Once we were done, we were ordered to pick up the bags by their drawstrings and start following her. Every fifty feet or so, someone with a shovel would dig down and we"d drop a bag in.

While I couldn"t be sure, it felt like time was going faster now that we only had to dig small holes six feet down, rather than one large one. Finally, we dropped the last bag in and Beth covered it with dirt.

"Give me your clothes," Marisol said to us.

"What? Why?" Chitra asked.

"Because they are covered in blood, dirt, and guts. I"m going to burn them." Slowly, we all undressed, leaving just our bras and underwear. She stuffed them into bags and we walked out of the forest nearly naked.

"It"s Camp Frisky, a group of people in their underwear is nothing," Mitchell snickered. Everyone began to chuckle lightly. It felt as if this evening, what we did had broken us completely. We shouldn"t be laughing, but here we were.

We reached camp and parted ways, dipping into our respective cabins. I went to mine and creaked the door open. I didn"t want to wake Domino and Swayze up, but it was clear by the sounds coming from the darkness that it wasn"t an issue.

"You want to go again? I"d love to take you one more time before he gets back."

The anger I"d held back for hours rose and then exploded.

"Too late, asshole."