River Corpse // Fiction by Sandra Dawn Titcombe
RIVER CORPSE
As I lay there decomposing, I was conscious of the smell of rotting flesh. Flies were buzzing around me, laying their eggs. There would be maggots soon, eating what was left of me. My organs had already been removed by the criminal gang who dumped me here. I was deep in the woods, in a shallow grave, covered by leaves and branches. I lay waiting for someone to discover my body before I was rendered to bone. No one would miss me. My family died years ago. There had been no one to keep me on the straight and narrow and stop me sharing my time with lowlifes whose only ambition was to sell organs for cash in a foreign country. Now I was their victim.
I had been in Colombia for three weeks when I met my demise. It was my first time there. The crime boss, Maximiliano Guerrero, was evil and not to be messed with. He was much more sinister, unforgiving, and violent than those I had worked for in Pakistan and India. His subjects were also victims of sex or labour trafficking, making them the most vulnerable of individuals and willing to do anything for money. I did not deserve to die at the hands of Guerrero’s men. No one dared cross him, but I foolishly fell in love with one of his trafficking victims, Emilia, allowing her to escape his clutches. She would be waiting for me at a secret location near the Venezuelan border. That night, four of Guerrero’s men pounced on me in an alleyway and brutally tortured me to reveal her whereabouts. I was determined to stay strong. Rather than beat me to death, Guerrero ordered his sidekick, Alejandro, to carefully gouge out my organs while I was still alive to at least make one million US dollars from me. I soon fell unconscious in agony, never to recover.
I had no recollection of what happened next or how I got there, but in the distance, I could hear running water, a gentle stream, even a waterfall. My nostrils sensed the damp, earthy smell surrounding me, and my remaining flesh was suddenly chilled by the breeze picking up. I was imagining that I had returned to my homeland—a quiet town in the English countryside, surrounded by woodland, with friendly walkers unknowingly passing by me, waiting for their dog to sniff me out. Bright flashes and rumbling, followed moments later by a loud thunderclap, shattered the tranquillity of my grave and woke me from my imaginary thoughts. Here in the Colombian forest, I was more likely to be sniffed out by a wild cat—an ocelot or even a jaguar, pouncing to deliver its powerful bite to my brain and share me with its offspring.
Suddenly, down came a deluge of rain that seemed to go on for days. With groundwater levels rapidly rising, I felt myself beginning to move. At first sideways, but without warning, an incredible force of water spun my body around and transported me into the watercourse. No longer an innocent stream, the torrential rain whipped the tributary into a raging river and carried me downstream at breakneck speed, crashing my body into protruding rocks and boulders as it forced its way through a series of rapids. I plunged headfirst fifty metres down a cascading waterfall. If I were not already dead, I doubt I would have survived such an ordeal. But as quickly as my journey had begun, the river began to slow down as it widened into the basin. I found myself calmly floating again and settling against a muddy bank, shaded by trees. Surely there would be a passer-by to discover my body now.
It was not the sort of passer-by I expected. Moments later, I felt an intense grip on my left leg as I was dragged underwater like a ragdoll and twisted into a barrel roll. Spinning around like I was trapped in a kaleidoscopic vortex reminded me of a recurring nightmare I had as a child. It could only mean one thing. I had found myself in the Orinoco River, and one of its infamous residents had decided I would make a tasty snack. Would this attack on my remaining soul be any worse than the first attempt to annihilate my being?
He was a giant but could not swallow me whole as I had hoped. Instead, I was ripped apart—first my left leg, then my arms one at a time, followed by my right leg. He really struggled with my overweight torso but got it down his gullet eventually, until only my head remained. That too he quickly devoured. Over the next few hours, my flesh and bones met with their fate. Stomach acid dissolved all of me until I had disappeared with no trace left in this world.
Finally, I ceased to exist.
R.I.P.
Sandra Titcombe is a retired NHS worker who has recently taken up creative writing with her son to improve their mental health. She lives in Bradford on Avon.
