A commercial diver scanning the murky depths of the Mississippi discovered a wall of sealed 1970s school lockers chained to the riverbed.

But when he pried the rusted doors open, the nightmare hidden inside left him shaking in pure horror.

The Mississippi Delta doesn’t bury its secrets in Earth.

It swallows them in a thick suspended slurry of silt and thyme that the locals call gumbo mud.

A substance so dense it can preserve a bootprint for a decade or strip the paint off a Cadillac in a month.

Frank Liry knew the taste of that mud better than he knew the taste of a home-cooked meal these days.

At 58, he was a man composed of scar tissue and debt, his joints aching with the phantom bends of a thousand ascents.

His bank account drained by the long losing war his wife Sarah had fought against pancreatic cancer 5 years ago.

He was a commercial diver, a bottom crawler, the guy you called when something valuable fell into water, too black and too toxic for the recreational crowd.

But today, suspended 40 ft down in the opaque current beneath the Rattlebone Bridge, Frank wasn’t looking for treasure.

He was looking for cracks.

The Rattlebone, a rusted iron spine connecting two forgotten parishes, was slated for demolition.

Frank’s job was the pre-demo structural survey, checking the pilings for scouring or debris that might deflect the explosive charges.

It was the kind of low bid government contract that younger, hungrier divers avoided.

The visibility was zero, absolutely zero.

You couldn’t see the gauges on your wrist.

You couldn’t see your own hand if you pressed it against your face plate.

You dove by touch, a blind man in a hurricane, walking your fingers over concrete and rebar, building a map in your mind.

Coming up on pylon four, Frank.

The voice of Miller, the topside foreman, crackled in his earpiece.

The audio was tiny, filtered through the static of the comm’s line.

Currents picking up.

Don’t loiter.

Copy that, Frank grunted, his voice thick with the helium oxygen mix.

Though at this shallow depth, he was breathing straight air.

He adjusted the inlet valve on his Kirby Morgan helmet.

The heavy brass and fiberglass bucket felt like a second skull, a comforting weight that separated him from the hostile river.

He drifted in the darkness, his gloved hands trailing along the rough barnacle encrusted surface of the concrete piling.

The river pushed against him, a relentless, muscular force.

He kicked his fins, fighting to stay close to the structure.

His tactile inspection was routine.

Check for exposed rebar.

Check for significant cracks.

Check for thud.

Frank’s knee slammed into something hard.

It wasn’t the piling.

It was distinct, metallic, and sounded hollow.

A dull, resonant clank that vibrated through his wets suit.

Snag? Miller asked from the surface, hearing the impact.

Yeah, something large at the base, Frank said, stabilizing himself.

Feels like flat metal.

Might be a car chassis.

Ignore it unless it’s touching the concrete, Miller said, his tone board.

We’re behind schedule, Frank.

If it’s not structural, it’s not our problem.

Frank knew he should listen.

He was being paid by the piling, not by the hour.

But the shape felt wrong.

He reached out, his thick neoprene gloves running over the object.

It wasn’t the curved, crumpled geometry of a wrecked car.

It was perfectly flat, a wall.

He moved his hand up.

It was vertical, standing upright in the mud.

He traced the edge, a sharp 90° corner.

He swam to the left, his hand never leaving the surface.

Another corner, then a gap, then another flat surface.

“It’s not a car,” Frank murmured mostly to himself.

“It’s a box, a big one.

” He unclipped his heavyduty dive light, though he knew it was feudal.

He held it inches from the object and clicked it on.

The particulate matter in the water reflected the light back instantly.

a wall of swirling brown fog.

But in that fraction of a second, close to the object, he saw a flash of color.

Green, industrial, institutional green and something else.

Chains, thick, heavy gauge industrial chains were wrapped around the object, binding it tight.

Frank followed the chain with his hand.

It was cold, slick with algae, but underneath the slime, the steel was taut.

Someone hadn’t just dropped this here.

They had sealed it.

He moved further along the row.

There wasn’t just one box.

There were dozens.

A wall of metal units stacked two high and six wide, all lashed together with chain and sinking slowly into the silt.

Miller,” Frank said, his voice tighter now.

“I’ve got a massive anomaly here.

It’s sitting right against the footer of pilein 4.

It’s chained down.

” “Chained?” Miller paused.

“Like a boat anchor? No, like a containment system.

It’s a wall of metal lockers, maybe 20 ft long.

” “Lockers?” Miller laughed a harsh staticfilled bark.

Probably some school dumped their renovation trash in the 70s.

Forget it.

Frank moved to pile in five.

Frank hesitated.

His glove was resting on a padlock.

It was a heavy brass master lock.

The shackle thick and corroded, but still holding the chains in place.

Wide chain trash.

You dump trash.

You don’t secure it.

Frank.

Miller’s voice hardened.

I said, move on.

We blow this bridge in 3 days.

I don’t care if it’s Jimmy Hoffa’s Cadillac down there.

Unless it’s explosive, leave it.

Frank let his hand linger on the padlock for a second longer.

A strange cold sensation prickled at the base of his neck, unrelated to the river’s temperature.

It was the feeling of being watched, or perhaps the feeling of standing in a graveyard with the lights out.

moving to five,” Frank said, lying.

He didn’t move.

He took a mental snapshot of the location, measuring the distance from the piling with his arms span.

He felt the rivets on the metal doors, vents, louvered vents near the top of each unit.

He turned off his light and kicked away into the blackness, leaving the silent green monoliths alone in the dark.

The surface world was blindingly bright and oppressively hot.

When Frank climbed the ladder onto the rusty barge, the humidity hit him like a physical blow.

He unlatched his helmet, taking a deep breath of air that smelled of diesel, dead fish, and river mud.

Miller was sitting in the shade of the crane cab smoking a cigarette.

He didn’t get up.

You check five? Yeah, clean.

Frank lied again.

He stripped off his harness, the heavy tank clanking against the steel deck.

That debris at four, though, Miller, it’s big.

If you blow the footing, that metal’s going to become shrapnel.

It could cut your demo lines.

Miller sighed, flicking ash onto the deck.

You looking for a salvage bonus, Lery? Is that it? You think there’s gold in some old high school gym lockers? I think it’s a hazard, Frank said, wiping sweat from his forehead with a rag.

And I think it’s strange.

Who chains up garbage? People who don’t want it floating back up, Miller said, eyes narrowing.

Look, Frank, I know things are tight for you.

I heard about the lean on your truck, but chasing ghosts in the mud isn’t going to pay your bills.

Finishing this survey will Frank stiffened.

The mention of his financial ruin was a low blow but accurate.

He was three months behind on the mortgage for the small bungalow he and Sarah had bought 20 years ago.

The medical bills from her treatments were gone, paid off by liquidating his retirement and selling his good boat.

But the interest on the loans he’d taken to keep the business afloat was drowning him.

“I’m just doing the job, Miller,” Frank said quietly.

“Good.

Then get back in the water after lunch and finish the Southside.

” Frank sat on the edge of the barge, eating a lukewarm sandwich wrapped in wax paper.

He stared at the brown water swirling past piling four.

The river was deceptive.

On the surface, it was lazy, almost peaceful, but underneath it was a chaotic, crushing force.

He pulled his phone from his waterproof case and dialed a number he knew by heart, though he hesitated before pressing send.

“Hey, Dad.

” Ma’s voice answered on the second ring.

It was crisp, professional with the background noise of a busy lab.

Maya was 30, a public health researcher in New Orleans.

Smart as a whip and twice as stubborn.

She had her mother’s eyes and Frank’s inability to let things go.

“Hey, Mayay,” Frank said, using the childhood nickname.

“Catching you at a bad time? Just running some cultures.

What’s up? You okay? You sound heavy?” “I’m at the Rattlebone job,” Frank said.

“Found something weird.

Weird like a two-headed catfish or weird like a dumped car.

Weird like a wall of industrial lockers chained together and sunk at the base of a bridge piling.

Frank said Miller wants me to ignore it.

Says it’s trash lockers.

Ma’s voice changed shifting from daughter to scientist.

Sealed padlocked and wrapped in heavy chain.

Big heavy gauge stuff.

It felt deliberate, Maya.

It didn’t feel like dumping.

It felt like hiding.

Any markings? Couldn’t see.

Visibility is zero.

But I saw a flash of green paint.

Looked old.

70s style.

Dad.

Maya warned.

If it’s sealed, it could be chemical waste.

Illegal dumping was rampant back then.

Barrels, containers.

If they chained it, it might be buoyant, which means it’s not full of water.

It’s full of something else.

That’s what I’m thinking.

Frank said, “If Miller blows the bridge and cracks those things open, you could have a hazmat situation.

Or worse, if it’s PCBs or industrial solvent, it’ll poison the Delta for miles.

” She paused.

“Don’t open it, Dad.

But don’t let them blow it up either.

You need to report it to the EPA.

Miller will fire me if I call the EPA, Frank said.

And I need this check, Maya.

I really need it.

There was a silence on the line.

Maya knew about the money.

She sent him what she could, but she had student loans and a life of her own.

Then find out what it is without opening it, she suggested.

Is there any way to see inside? Not down there, Frank said.

But I might be able to get a better look if I go down on my own time with the big light.

Maybe scrape some mud off.

Be careful, Maya said.

The current at Rattlebone is a killer.

I know, Frank said.

I love you, kiddo.

Love you too, Dad.

Call me when you surface.

Frank hung up.

He looked at the water.

The river was hiding something, and Frank Liry had never been good at leaving a puzzle unsolved.

It was the same trait that made him a great diver and a terrible businessman.

He finished his sandwich.

The bread tasting like ash in his mouth.

He wasn’t going to wait for the EPA.

He was going to look.

The sun had set, turning the sky into a bruise of purple and black by the time the crew boat left for the marina.

Frank stayed behind, claiming he needed to repair a seal on his compressor.

Miller left him with the night watchman, a guy named Old Man Callaway, who spent 90% of his shift sleeping in his truck.

At 2 a.

m.

, the river was silent except for the slap of water against the steel hull of the barge.

Frank suited up.

He didn’t use the umbilical this time.

Too much noise, too much setup.

He strapped on a set of double tanks, a redundant air supply for a solo dive.

He clipped a pair of heavyduty bolt cutters to his belt.

The splash was minimal.

Frank slipped into the water like an otter.

The darkness at night was identical to the darkness at day, only colder.

He switched on his primary light, a high lumen LED cannon that cut a narrow milky tunnel through the silt.

He descended the anchor line, his breathing slow and rhythmic.

Inhale, hiss, exhale, bubble.

He reached the bottom at 42 ft.

He finned over to piling four.

There it was.

In the focused beam of the light, the anomaly was even more imposing.

It wasn’t just a row of lockers.

It was a carefully constructed block.

Two rows of 10 lockers back to back, welded onto a steel sled and wrapped in chains that were as thick as his arm.

The green paint was bubbled and flaking, revealing rusted steel underneath.

Frank hovered in front of the center locker.

The padlock was a solid lump of corrosion.

He took the bolt cutters.

It was awkward underwater.

You had no leverage.

He had to brace his feet against the locker face, the silt swirling up around him in a blinding cloud.

He fit the jaws of the cutter around the shackle.

He squeezed nothing.

The rust had fused the metal.

He took a breath, gritted his teeth, and put his entire body weight into the handles.

He felt the muscles in his shoulders scream, “Crack!” The sound was shockingly loud in the water.

The shackle snapped.

The chain fell away, drifting lazily to the mud in slow motion.

Frank floated back, letting the silt settle.

He reached out and grabbed the handle of the locker.

It was a simple lift latch mechanism.

He pulled.

It was stuck.

He braced his foot again and yanked.

With a groan of tortured metal, the door shrieked open.

A plume of dark, oily fluid billowed out, instantly clouding his vision.

Frank recoiled, instinctively checking his regulator.

Was it toxic, acid? He waited for the cloud to disperse in the current.

He shined his light into the locker.

It wasn’t empty.

It was packed floor to ceiling.

rows of glass jars.

Frank moved closer, wiping the slime off the face of the nearest jar with his glove.

It was a large specimen jar, the kind you’d see in a laboratory, filled with a cloudy yellowish liquid.

He brought his light right up to the glass.

A face stared back at him.

Frank gasped, inhaling sharply.

He choked, coughing into his regulator, a spasm of pure primal panic seizing his chest.

The face was small, gray, and perfectly preserved.

Eyes closed, mouth slightly open in a silent scream.

It was a human fetus, late term, maybe seven or eight months, floating, waiting.

Frank scrambled back, his fins kicking up a storm of mud, his light swung wildly, illuminating the other jars.

A hand, a severed human hand, dissected to show the musculature floating in amber fluid.

A heart, gray and dead, suspended by threads, a cross-section of a human head.

There were hundreds of them.

Thousands, if the other lockers were full, it wasn’t trash.

It was a cemetery.

A mass grave packed into high school lockers and drowned in the swamp.

Frank felt the bile rise in his throat.

The claustrophobia, usually a distant, manageable fear, came roaring back.

The lockers seemed to loom over him, the green doors looking like the gates of hell.

He felt like the spirits of the things in those jars were leaking out, swirling around him in the dark water.

He needed to get out now.

He inflated his BCD vest, ascending too fast.

He checked his dive computer, forcing himself to slow down.

Don’t blow your lungs out, Frank.

Don’t die here with them.

He broke the surface, gasping, ripping his regulator from his mouth.

He dry heaved over the side of the barge, the sound echoing in the silent night.

The stars looked cold and indifferent.

He pulled himself onto the deck, shivering violently, not from the cold, but from the horror of what lay 40 ft beneath his boots.

Frank didn’t sleep.

He sat in the cab of his truck as the sun came up.

The image of that small gray face burned into his retinas.

He had called Maya at 4:00 a.

m.

She was already on her way driving up from New Orleans.

He had also called the sheriff.

Sheriff Big John Landry arrived at 7:00 a.

m.

cruising in a dusted SUV with a lukewarm coffee in his hand.

He was a man who had seen everything the swamp could offer.

Gators, bodies, drug drops, and remained unimpressed by all of it.

“So, let me get this straight, Liry,” Landry said, leaning against his cruiser while Frank paced.

You went diving off the clock, broke open a sealed container and found pickled babies.

Specimens, John.

Human specimens, Frank said, his voice shaking.

Hundreds of them.

It’s a damn medical school or something.

Or it’s a bunch of possums and jars in the dark played tricks on you.

Landry spat.

You know how the nitrogen gets you.

I wasn’t narked.

Frank snapped.

I have photos.

He held out his phone.

He had taken a GoPro down on the dive.

The footage was grainy, green, and terrifying.

Landry watched the screen.

He squinted.

When the face in the jar appeared, the sheriff stopped chewing his gum.

He watched it again.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Landry whispered.

He looked up at the river, his eyes wide.

That’s That’s a person.

It’s a lot of people, Frank said.

A car pulled up, tires crunching on the gravel.

It was a beat up Honda Civic.

Maya stepped out wearing her field gear, cargo pants, boots, and a heavy jacket.

She looked fierce.

“Dad,” she said, hugging him hard.

She smelled like coffee and sanitizer.

“Are you okay?” “I’m breathing,” Frank said.

John, this is my daughter, Dr.

Maya Liry.

She’s a public health specialist.

Landry tipped his hat.

Ma’am, Sheriff.

Maya nodded, wasting no time.

If my father’s description is accurate, we have a biological hazard level four.

Formaldahhide is carcinogenic.

If those jars break, we’re looking at massive contamination.

And we have the issue of the remains.

remains,” Landry repeated, testing the word.

“Right.

” “Well, I can’t call the coroner for a thousand jars.

I need to call the stadies.

” “Do it,” Frank said, “and tell Miller he’s not blowing anything up today.

” Miller arrived 10 minutes later, red-faced and screaming about schedules until Landry showed him the video.

Miller turned pale and went to sit in his truck, making frantic phone calls to his insurance company.

By noon, the Rattlebone Bridge site was a circus.

State police, EPA, FBI, and the coroner’s office.

A yellow perimeter tape fluttered in the breeze.

Frank sat on the tailgate of his truck with Maya.

They were looking at a laptop.

Maya had enhanced one of the frames from Frank’s video.

“Look at the door,” Maya said, pointing to the screen.

“Beneath the rust, there’s a decal.

” Frank squinted.

It was a faded shield logo, barely visible.

St.

Jude’s Medical College, Anatomy Depth.

St.

Jude’s, Frank said.

I remember that name.

It was a big teaching hospital in Jackson back in the day.

closed in 74, Maya said.

Tap and keys bankrupt.

There was a huge scandal about funding embezzlement.

So, where did the bodies come from? Frank asked.

Anatomy cadaavvers, Ma said, her voice grim.

Back then, unclaimed bodies from the state, homeless, indigent, prisoners were donated to science by law.

The silent teachers, they called them.

And when the school closed, Maya brought up a digitized newspaper article from the Clarion Ledger dated August 1974.

Steve Jude’s closes doors, assets liquidated.

It says here, “The biological assets were disposed of in accordance with state sanitation laws by Bayou disposal services.

” Maya read.

Bayou disposal.

Frank scoffed.

Let me guess.

A guy with a barge and no scruples.

Exactly.

Maya said.

Incinerating biological waste is expensive.

It costs thousands.

Dumping it in the swamp cost the price of a chain and a padlock.

They stole the disposal money, Frank realized.

And dump the bodies.

and they’ve been down there for 50 years, Maya said, looking at the water leaking.

The recovery operation began the next morning.

Because of the precarious position of the lockers, the FBI needed a diver who knew the site.

They didn’t have a specialized underwater forensics team within 300 m who could handle the zero viz current.

So, they hired Frank.

$100 an hour plus hazard pay.

The FBI agent in charge, a stern woman named Agent Halloway, told him, “I’ll do it for costs,” Frank said.

“Just get them out.

” He didn’t want the money.

He felt a strange responsibility to the people in those lockers.

He had disturbed their sleep.

He had to bring them into the light.

The barge crane groaned as it took the weight.

Frank was in the water guiding the straps.

“Easy up, easy,” he called over the comms.

The suction of the mud was incredible.

It didn’t want to let go.

The cables sang with tension, vibrating like cello strings.

“She’s breaking free,” Frank yelled as the mud finally yielded.

The locker block rose.

Breaking the surface was the worst part.

As the lockers cleared the water, the pressure equalization caused several of the rusted jars inside to burst.

A slurry of dark brown fluid and glass poured out of the vents.

The smell hit the riverbank instantly.

A mixture of sweet chemical rot and ancient decay.

The crowd that had gathered on the levey gasped.

People covered their mouths.

Among them stood Elias, the old fisherman.

He was 70 years old, a man who had fed his family from this spot since he was 20.

He watched the dark fluid drip from the lockers into the river.

“My God,” Elias whispered, tears streaming into his white beard.

“We ate from here.

My grandkids ate from here.

Frank climbed onto the barge as the lockers were swung onto the deck.

The FBI team, dressed in white Tyveck suits and respirators, moved in.

They used hydraulic spreaders to open the doors.

It was exactly as Frank had seen, but in the daylight, it was more tragic than terrifying.

The monsters Frank had feared were just people.

The jars contained disjointed lives.

an elderly man’s head, a pair of lungs black with coal dust, and the babies.

Row after row of fetuses, likely stillborns or miscarriages donated by charity hospitals.

Agent Halloway, a technician shouted from the third locker, “We found records.

” Inside one of the units, protected by a metal ammunition box that had been welded shut, was a stack of files.

They were damp, but the plastic lamination on the index cards had saved them.

Maya rushed forward, flashing her credentials to get past the perimeter.

Frank followed.

“These are the donor cards,” the technician said.

“Names, dates of death, causes of death.

” Maya started flipping through them.

She was looking for patterns for evidence of the crime.

John Doe, 45.

Jane Doe, 22.

She read.

Wait, some of these have names.

She froze.

Her hand stopped on a card near the back of the stack.

Frank saw her shoulders stiffen.

What is it? Maya turned the card toward him.

Her face was pale.

Name: Tobias Liry, do 1928.

Dod Feb 12, 1973.

status indigent unclaimed transferred from Charity Hospital.

Frank felt the world tilt on its axis.

He grabbed the edge of the table to steady himself.

Tobias, Frank whispered, “Uncle Toby.

” Frank’s father had a brother, Tobias.

The family story was that Tobias had been a drinker, a drifter.

He had left town in the early 70s and never came back.

Frank’s dad had spent years looking for him, writing letters that were returned unopened.

They assumed he had died in a ditch somewhere or started a new life in California.

Frank’s dad had died wondering.

He wasn’t a drifter, Frank said, his voice choking.

He was sick.

He died in the charity ward.

And because no one claimed him within 48 hours, Maya said, her voice furious, they sold him to the school.

And then they threw him in the swamp.

Frank finished.

The abstract horror of the crime vanished.

This was personal now.

That wasn’t just biomass in those jars.

That was his blood.

Mr.

Liry Miller, the foreman, had walked up.

He looked nervous.

Look, this is all very tragic, but the demo schedule, if we can just move these things aside, we can still blow the pilings tomorrow.

Frank turned slowly.

The rage that filled him was cold and sharp.

You want to blow it up? Frank asked.

You want to scatter my uncle across the bottom of the river? Your uncle? Miller blinked.

Look, I didn’t know.

You’re not blowing anything, Frank said, stepping into Miller’s space.

Not until every single one of these people is out of the water.

If you touch a detonator, I will personally drag you down there and chain you to the piling.

Miller backed off, hands up, but the river wasn’t done with them yet.

That afternoon, the sonar boat picked up a shift.

The removal of the first block of lockers had destabilized the mudbank.

We have a second set of lockers.

Agent Halloway told Frank pointing to the monitor deeper and they’re moving.

The disturbance had triggered a slow motion underwater landslide.

The second stack of lockers, maybe another 20 units, was sliding down the slope toward the main channel of the Mississippi.

If they hit the channel, Frank said, studying the map, the current is 5 knots down there.

It’ll tumble them, break them apart.

If they break, Maya added, thousands of gallons of formaldahhide and biological waste go directly into the main water intake for the parish water treatment plant 3 mi downstream.

We need to secure them.

Halloway said now before they slide over the drop off.

The crane can’t reach that deep.

Frank said, “Not from here.

We need to attach lift bags, float them up.

It’s 60 ft down.

” Halloway said and sliding.

It’s a suicide dive.

Frank looked at the monitor.

He thought of Tobias.

He thought of the little face in the jar.

He thought of Elias’s eating poison fish.

I’ll do it, Frank said.

Dad, no.

Maya grabbed his arm.

It’s unstable.

If that pile shifts while you’re rigging it, it’ll crush you.

I know the knot, Maya.

I can do it fast.

Frank, you’re tired, she pleaded.

Let them bring in a Navy team.

They’ll be here tomorrow, Frank said.

Those lockers go over the edge in an hour.

He looked at his daughter.

Toby is down there.

I’m not leaving him.

The dive was a nightmare.

Frank descended into the sliding gloom.

The visibility was worse than zero.

It was negative.

The mud was churning so thick it felt like swimming in concrete.

He reached the sliding block.

He could feel the vibration of the metal scraping against the riverbed.

It was moving slowly but picking up speed.

He had four large lift bags.

He needed to chain them to the corners of the locker block and inflate them.

He worked by feel, his hands moving frantically.

He looped the chain through the rusting eyelet of the sled.

Click.

One attached.

He swam to the other side.

The locker block lurched, tilting dangerously.

Frank was slammed against the side, his tank banging against the metal.

He gasped, fighting the urge to panic.

He got the second chain on.

He moved to the front.

The slope was steeper here.

The lockers were groaning, the metal twisting under the stress.

He attached the third bag.

As he reached for the fourth point, his umbilical, the hose supplying his air, snagged on a jagged piece of rusted rebar sticking out of the mud.

He pulled, stuck.

The lockers slid another foot.

The umbilical pulled tight.

It was pinning him to the lockers.

If they went over the drop off, he was going with them.

“Frank, your heart rate is spiking.

” Maya’s voice screamed in his ear.

She was running the comm’s top side.

Abort.

Get out of there.

Snagged.

Frank grunted.

He couldn’t reach the snag.

It was behind his head.

The lockers tipped.

The angle increased.

He was sliding.

He had seconds.

He reached for his knife.

He couldn’t cut the umbilical.

That was his air.

He had to cut the rebar or free the hose.

He twisted his body, dislocating his shoulder in the effort, reaching back blindly.

He felt the hose.

He felt the rebar hook.

He didn’t try to unhook it.

He grabbed the rebar with his gloved hand and pulled.

Adrenaline is a hell of a drug.

Frank roared into his mask.

The sound a primal scream of exertion.

The rusted iron bent.

The hose slipped free.

Frank kicked away hard.

He triggered the CO2 cartridges on the lift bags.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! The bags inflated instantly.

The buoyancy overcame the gravity.

The slide stopped.

The lockers groaned, hesitated, and then began to rise.

Frank watched them go, large yellow balloons dragging the dark sarcophagus toward the light.

He hung in the water for a moment, weightless, nursing his throbbing shoulder.

It was done.

The class of 74 was graduating.

The funeral was held two weeks later.

It was the largest gathering the parish had seen in a decade.

They couldn’t identify everyone.

Records were lost and DNA from formaldahhide soaked tissue is difficult to recover.

But they identified enough.

They buried them in a mass grave in the town cemetery.

A beautiful plot under a massive live oak tree.

A granite monument was erected.

Here lie the silent teachers, forgotten by a man, remembered by God.

Frank stood in the front row, wearing a suit that was a little too tight in the shoulders.

Maya stood next to him, holding his hand.

They had found a separate small box for Tobias.

Frank’s father was buried in the next plot over.

Frank placed a hand on the fresh earth.

“Found him, Dad,” he whispered.

“He’s home.

” “Miller and his construction company were under federal indictment.

The bridge demolition was delayed 6 months for environmental remediation.

The Bayou disposal Shell Company was traced back to a former state senator who was now facing charges of fraud and desecration of remains.

After the service, Frank and Maya walked down to the riverbank.

The water looked different today.

Cleaner.

The sun sparkled on the surface.

So, Maya said, kicking at a stone.

What now? You going to dive the demo job when it starts back up? Frank shook his head.

No, I think I’m done with the mud.

Mayay sold the compressor yesterday.

Really? She looked surprised.

What will you do? I got a check.

Frank said the FBI hazard pay plus the reward for reporting the illegal dumping.

It’s substantial.

It paid off the house, paid off the loans.

He looked at the river one last time.

I was thinking, he said, “You always talked about starting that environmental consulting firm, testing water quality, tracking pollution.

” Maya smiled.

“Yeah, that’s the dream.

” “Well,” Frank said, putting his arm around her.

I know a guy who’s really good at finding things people want to keep hidden underwater.

And he’s got a boat.

Maya laughed and the sound was light and free, drifting over the water that no longer held any ghosts.

“Partner,” she asked.

“Partner,” Frank said.

They turned their backs on the Rattlebone Bridge and walked toward the truck, leaving the river to flow on, silent and clean, all the way to the sea.