The red in the river

The river flowed red between the autumn leaves, and no one seemed to want to look upon it. Isaac shifted uneasily with his arms tucked across his chest, and Max and Mark stepped away with their backs to the scene. Whatever had happened upstream, it was definitely not good. Isaac glanced at the others, but they refused to meet his gaze; it seemed this one was on him.

He stepped cautiously over the ground, each step crunching crisp underfoot. The sun was setting at the bottom of the valley, and everything around him seemed to glow gold, red, orange, and brown; he absently thought how beautiful it really was. It shook him to note that the beauty he was commending came from the decay of the nature around him, and soon the trees would be bare, the sky grey and the air a damaging cold. With a heavy heart his eyes swayed to the maroon tinge spiralling through the river to his right. As he walked, its width and colour thickened.

Darkness gathered around him and still he was walking, until in the hazy half light ahead he saw a shape sprawled across the rocks in the centre of the river. Ah, so there it was. He slowed somewhat; after such a build up, after taking one for the team, his reluctance was really starting to kick in. What if it was someone he knew? What if the person who had done it was still around, watching?

As he drew closer, his heart started to rage in his chest; it was definitely the shape of a person. It seemed as though they had been thrown, with their limbs splayed out over the rocks; the blood seemed to be coming from a wound in the head. From what he could see it was a man, wearing what appeared to be a black tuxedo. They were face down, the head almost underwater, so he could not see if he recognised them or not.

He waded in and checked for a pulse, with the attempt being met with a silence that confirmed death. Isaac did not do anything else to the body, but simply waded back out onto the other side, and sat himself down onto the earth. Forensics would kill him for this – there could have been clues, tracks or footprints where he was perching. But for christ’s sake, there was a man dead. He would sit himself down, because he was human and he had a heart.