Dreams Like Cement Shoes

A Short Story

Dreams are like cement shoes. TBI Special Agent Angela Muñoz sat at the edge of the boat, uncomfortable in her wet suit. Fall overboard, and they’ll pull you right to the bottom. The Butler Bridge spanned the border of Carter and Johnson Counties, its concrete deck supported by metal arches and concrete piers. It was an old design, one that the ancient Romans would have recognized, though steel had replaced stone, and a drab coat of green paint protected the metalwork from the elements. The boat rested under the bridge, a good 80 feet above them, as she ran through her dive checklist. Diving alone meant added risk, but if the game warden’s story was correct, the body of a murder victim lay below, and that was sufficient reason to bend the normal safety rules. Just don’t screw it up, she thought. After what happened in Florida, you can’t afford any mistakes. Hamby and Leonard attached the rope that tethered her to the surface, and she plunged into the water.

Photo by I.am_nah on Unsplash

She worked the counties of Tennessee’s jagged northeastern point, with most of her caseload centered on the interstate corridor that connected Knoxville and Chattanooga to the mid-Atlantic. There had been a decent amount of culture shock for a Miami girl, but the work was little different from Florida – ordinary investigative drudgery spiced with occasional moments of excitement. Until yesterday.

“This is Deputy Todd Hamby, Johnson County Sherriff’s Office. We got a lead on a missing person, and I need your help.”  

The surface receded above her, and Muñoz continued to descend as Hamby and Leonard played out rope from the surface. Rose Campbell had been twenty-one years old, a full-figured girl with honey blonde hair who had dropped out of college in her junior year. She moved to South Carolina and worked a string of odd jobs before returning home six months later. Family says that she gave no reason for leaving and none for coming back, but she seemed happy and talked about going back to school. Then one day, she disappears again. That had been three months ago, and until last week, there had been no hint of Rose’s whereabouts.

She winced as a dark shape flitted past. Muñoz had been a public safety diver in Florida and the reaction was an involuntary reflex, the result of diving in too many alligator-infested canals. No gators here, she thought, just a few monster catfish. Hamby had teased her about giant fish as they motored to the bridge. “The ones that live in the deep water? They grow six, seven feet long. Just leave them alone, and they probably won’t bother you … Probably.” The fish made another pass, and whatever it was, it was awfully large.

The lead originated with Leonard Volpe, Johnson County’s game warden. Two nights ago, Leonard had busted a poacher, and the miscreant offered information in exchange for leniency. “That missing girl? I know where she is…” The poacher was a drinking buddy of one Paul Shepherd, a never-quite-was musician who played the college bars all winter and worked the Atlantic coast during the summer months, mixing country music, classic rock, and Jimmy Buffet covers for beachgoers. Shepherd owned a lakeside cabin in Butler, and as far as Muñoz could discern, had no association with Rose Campbell. At least, not until two nights ago.

“Our informant claims they got drunk together at the end of Knob Hill Road, and Shepherd started crying… said that he used a little johnboat and put her into the water under Butler Bridge.” Muñoz found online footage of a show in Tybee Island, and there she was – gyrating near the front of the stage as Shepherd, shirtless and flashing a crooked smile, wielded a black Stratocaster. He’s a good-looking man, Muñoz thought.  Did he pick her out of the crowd that night, or did they know each other already?

The boat, a flat-bottomed craft of about eight feet, lay on the lakebed at an angle, its aluminum hull precariously tilted against the concrete piling. They visited Shepherd’s cabin yesterday afternoon, and a deathly stillness had fallen as she walked up the path to the front door. Muñoz had taken note of the closed curtains, the empty boat dock, the unused truck in the driveway, and had been certain, without knowing why, that Paul Shepherd had been absent for weeks. She had observed the dock from the walkway, noting the coil of rope, the empty cement bag, the dark flecks on the wood that might have been blood, before retreating to Hamby’s truck – they had no warrant, and a closer search risked tainting any evidence that they found. In the deeper water beyond the dock, a dark shape circled just under the surface, moving with a grace reminiscent of a mermaid. The thought made her smile, for she had loved mermaids as a child. A mermaid. A pretty girl who was put in the water, she thought, and the smile faded.

The current caught her, and Muñoz bumped the aluminum hull. Her arms and legs thrashed uncontrollably, and her pulse hammered in her throat as the boat fell away, revealing what lay beneath.

Paul Shepherd must have been dead for a week, for his face had discolored to a mottled purple, and the skin of the hands had sloughed away in the current. Expanding gas had bloated the torso, and the body, freed of its enclosure, floated upward until it reached the limit of the rope that entangled the feet. Sightless eyes returned her frightened stare, and the mouth opened in a perpetual scream as Muñoz forced herself to breathe slowly, to focus on her job. All right… He came to the bridge – for what reason, we don’t know yet – and the boat upended. Maybe he panicked as it went down and got into the rope as he tried to get away. Whether he was connected with the disappearance of Rose Campbell, we’ll probably never know –

Something grabbed her foot.

Muñoz jerked involuntarily, gasping deeply through her mouthpiece, and bounced off the concrete piling as she was pulled down. Her air tanks were knocked askew as she struck bottom, and thick clouds of sediment obscured her vision as she lashed out at the fingers that encircled her ankle. In an emergency, she was supposed to give three hard pulls on the rope, but her movements were slow and clumsy now, and her body was the link in a gruesome tug of war between the boat above and the monster below. If the rope snapped, Muñoz realized, she would be dragged to her death. The hand worked upward to her belt, her arm, her shoulder, as Muñoz fumbled for the dive knife at her belt. Her left arm was crossed protectively over her torso, and her fingers, slow and clumsy, grappled reflexively with her attacker as the blade came free. She had a brief impression of lidless eyes and needle-sharp teeth, then the knife thrust upward and outward and she was free, the rope pulling her to safety as the predator vanished into the darkness of deeper water.

They hauled her onto the boat, and Muñoz lay on the metal deck. Her stomach did a slow barrel roll and she wanted to cry, but she was a professional, and she allowed the panic to subside by slow degrees until she was able to stand upright. She pointed to the concrete piling.

“Paul Shepherd is dead. I’ll call for a dive team to retrieve the body. They’ll need at least two… no, make that three people, and –”

“Muñoz?” Todd Hamby stared into her eyes, his face pale. “What the hell happened down there? Something dragged the boat for a good twenty feet.”

“I guess you were wrong.” Muñoz nudged the game warden with one elbow as she forced a tired smile. “Those monster catfish are meaner than you thought.”

Leonard Volpe did not return her smile, and she followed his gaze to her own left hand, still clenched into a tight fist. Her fingers slowly opened, and they stared in wonder at the fistful of honey-blonde hair that fell to the deck.

“Tell me again,” Leonard said, as Muñoz thought of dead men and mermaids and dreams that sank like stones. “What happened down there?”

“I don’t know.” The lock of hair lay on the deck, as dead as the corpse hidden beneath the surface. “I just don’t know.”

A very special thanks to Scoot for the writing prompt that inspired this story and to Daniel W. Davison for the idea of monster catfish. If you aren’t familiar with their work, you should hop over to both sites for more great writing.