Sons of the Tide (mlm)

Chapter 21: Bloody Beach

Caleb

Caleb was relieved to find there was a large travel trunk under Joseph's bed. That meant he didn't have to take the body out the window in his bare hands to get it to the beach. He pulled the trunk from under the bed and placed it beside the body, then picked it up. It was warm, still, and blood spilled from the bullet hole in his head.

Caleb tried to ignore the blood dripping down his arms as he folded the man's knees to his chest and made him fit into the trunk. Thankfully, he didn't have to break any bones to get him inside properly. Once the body was closed into the trunk, he found some towels in the attached washroom and mopped up the blood, which had stained the wood in the middle of the puddle. To cover where the stain was, he had to move the bed.

He moved the bedframe from having its head and side against a corner to only having the headboard against the wall, effectively covering the drying stain in the wood. He moved the bedside table between the bed and the wall, then moved toward the window and swung the thing panes open. It was a big enough window for him and the trunk to fit through.

He couldn't take a huge trunk down the stairs after gunshots had been shot, and he himself was covered in blood. He'd have to climb down the side of the building to avoid prying eyes. The window faced the beach, and the entire town was laid out toward its front, so no one would see him climbing out the window.

Caleb grabbed the trunk, barely grunting at its weight thanks to the small frame of the corpse, and headed to the window.

Climbing down the side of the building was a balancing act between holding himself onto the metal grate that helped vines grow up the side of the wall and keeping the trunk from slipping out of his grip.

Once he was near enough the ground, he risked dropping the trunk in hopes it would land safely. When it smashed into the dirt, the lid busted off its hinges and the corpse spilled out of it. "Dammit."

Caleb climbed the rest of the way down and quickly shoved the body back inside the trunk, placed the lid on top, and lifted it from the bottom to keep it from opening. Walking to the beach took all of five minutes, and Caleb was sweating by the time he found an area blocked by lush trees and bushes enough to bury it.

He set the trunk on the ground, then looked around for something he could dig with. When his eyes landed on an old tool shed with a broken rowboat and some ripped nets, he smiled. There had to be a shovel or a hoe he could use to dig.

Sure enough, he found a rusted shovel with a wooden handle inside the rotting shed. Digging would be much easier if he didn't have to use his hands.

He found a soft spot in the sand, far from the water, and started digging. It took a few hours to get a hole deep enough that hightide couldn't uncover it, and by the end Caleb had to throw the shovel up and claw his way up the sides to get out himself.

He carefully put the body in the hole, feeling slightly bad for his awful grave, and started covering him in sand. It was hot, with not a cloud in the sky, and he was drenched in sweat by the time he had the body covered and was patting the sand down with his shovel.

He threw the shovel on the ground when he was done and went to find a rock. When he found a rock with a flat surface, he sat beside the newly-covered grave and used his unusually strong nails to carve an image of crossbones on it. He was burying a man he didn't know, the least he could do was give him a headstone. Even if the stone was placed face-down, so the crossbones weren't visible to a passersby.

He stood up, frowning at the sand chaffing on his skin, and decided he needed to wash off. Besides, it would be dark soon and the ocean was right beside him, so he wasn't going to waste time going back to the inn to bathe.