The Weight of Guilt

James had never seen the fog lay so low across the lake at the edge of town. Had he been so inclined, he would have considered it almost supernatural the way the whisps of air clawed at the mirrored surface. It did not part when he pressed through it, it was so dense. He could see only a metre in any direction, the rest of the water shrouded in a heavy grey. The cold bit at his exposed face and hands, and his breath was visible when he exhaled with effort; even though the water was still, the journey out into the middle of the lake was a long and exhausting one.

The row boat creaked with each push and pull of the oars. It was old, to say the least. It had been a permanent feature of the short dock which was built out at one edge of the lake, and James did not recall ever seeing anyone use it before since he moved here as a child. Specks of mossy green mould crawled between the damp nooks and cracks of the wood, and the tip of the rotted bow had crumbled in his hand when he leaned against it to cast off. But it let in no water, and was more than sturdy enough to carry its two passengers.

"How long will this take?" the glass-eyed figure across from him asked, though his lips did not move.

James refused to look at him, and fixed his eyes instead on the wood between his feet. "I don't know, Bart. Not much longer," he replied into the abject silence of the fog.

"It would have been easier to bury me. If you'd have dug a hole deep enough, no one would have ever found me. Now you're out here on your own, can't hardly see your hand in front of your face." Bart's voice echoed between his ears. It had lived there for the past three days, a maddening hum which dogged his every waking moment.

"It would have taken too long. And the ground is too hard at winter, would have taken me days. No one will find you out here." James still did not look up, and he spoke the words into the bottom of the row boat.

"Will the stones be heavy enough? It took you longer to pick them out than it took you to kill me," Bart laughed, his tone mocking.

James peered up from the wood to check that the two stones were in fact still there. He had secured one around each of Bart's ankles with a dozen turns of rope and three knots. They were heavy enough. Hell, he had near put his back out pulling Bart out of the trunk of his car once they were secured! They would drag him down, no problem. He was certain of it.

"They'll do just fine," James assured himself.

"You can't even look at me, can you." That jeering inflection had not left Bart's voice.

"I can," James claimed. He just did not want to anymore.

"Do it then,” Bart taunted, like it was a childish dare in the school yard.

"No." James had no cause to. He knew too-well what Bart looked like by now.

"Look at me, boy. You owe me that much." Bart’s voice had dropped an octave, no longer ridiculing, but commanding.

He had a point, James contested.

James begrudgingly lifted his head. Bart was laid across from him, jammed between the rear seating and the row boat's stern. His head was fallen lopsided onto his shoulder, so the gaping wound at his temple where he had hit against the counter was fully visible. The torn skin was pale now, and the blood had dried to a dark red crust down the side of his face and neck and in the collar of his shirt, towards the nametag that read "Bart" which was still fixed to his chest. His entire face was that same shade of grey, all the colour having drained from it. His eyes had remained wide open since that night; even though James had shut them more times than he cared to count, whenever he returned to check on Bart they were always open again. They stared at him across the short length of the row boat, a faded blue which was dead to the world but which to James was alive with a fierce abhorrence.

With a damning reproach.

James had not intended to kill the man. He had gone into the gas station to rob it, but that was all. It had gone so well a dozen times before, but when Bart fought back and James pushed him away... The sound of his skull cracking down on the wood had haunted what little sleep he was afforded the past three nights, and he had always awoken in a cold sweat.

"You're really going to go through with it, then? You're going to leave me in the lake, for the fish to eat me?" Bart asked with sour disdain.

"I am. I've no other choice." As he lay wide awake again the previous night, James had decided that he would drop the body in the lake. It was the most straightforward, fastest way to dispose of it. The weather had forecast fog - not such dense fog as this, but fog nevertheless - which would hide the journey across the lake from any onlookers. And once the body was in the water, once it had disappeared beneath the surface, never to be seen again, James would be free of the spectre of this man.

It had to work. It just had to.

"Coward." Bart spat the words at him. "You killed me, and instead of confessing you're going to drop me in there."

"Shut up," James muttered. It was not his fault Bart had died. He was old enough to know that he should have let him take the money in the cash register and leave. If he had just done what the others had done every other time, James would have made enough to see him through to the end of the month and Bart would have gone home later that morning to his wife or his children.

My God: his wife, his children...

“They’ll never know what happened to me. It will haunt them for the rest of their lives.”

“I know what you’re doing. It won’t work.” James shifted his eyes to the bottom of the row boat again, and he focused on the back and forth of the oars in the water, and the incessant drag against them which caused his arms to burn and ache.

Eventually James pulled the oars out of the water, and he let the row boat come to a natural halt. Was this the middle of the lake? If not, it could not have been far off. He peered over the edge into the inky black water below, into an abyss which must have been hundreds of fathoms deep – whatever a fathom actually was.

It would swallow Bart whole, and drag him out of James' life, out of his mind. He would finally be able to sleep then, without that voice ringing around his head.

"It's time," James announced.

"You don't have to do this.” Bart was pleading with him now. “Just take me back. Take me back and call the police. Tell them it was an accident. Tell them you didn’t mean to hurt me. They’ll understand. I can be buried then. I can be with my family again one last time.”

“I’ve already told you, I don’t have a choice.” That was not a lie. James would not go to prison. Not again.

“James, please. Have a heart. Do the right thing.”

James leaned forwards and placed both his hands on Bart’s soiled gas station shirt. If nothing else, the bitter November cold had stopped him from decomposing in the trunk of his car. Quite the opposite, James could feel his frozen flesh beneath the fabric, ice cold against the tips of his fingers.

“James, don’t…” Bart began to sob. “Please.”

James took two handfuls of the shirt, and he hoisted Bart towards him. He was a dead weight, and James had to reposition himself against the bottom of the row boat so that he did not topple overboard as it rocked from side to side, disturbed by the movement.

“You won’t get away with this,” Bart whispered in his ear when James pulled him near. “I won’t let you, you sonofabitch.” They were angry words, spoken with a plain disgust.

“Goodbye, Bart.” Pivoting the man on the edge of the row boat, James counted: one, two, three, then he pushed Bart forwards. The body tumbled over the side and into the water, and James was surprised when it made only the softest of splashes.

When the water settled, Bart was left bobbing face up on the surface, his eyes still wide open. “James, I’m cold. Let me back in the boat,” he begged. “Let me back in the boat, and I’ll leave you alone. I won’t torment you anymore. Just let me back in the boat.”

James did not respond. He was already in the process of lifting the first stone onto the edge of the row boat, and cursing himself for picking such hefty boulders. With great effort, he balanced the first one on the wood. He held it there with one hand and tried to lift the second in his free arm, but it was too heavy, and the edge of the row boat too narrow, and it was rocking from side to side again with the momentum of this ordeal.

“James!” Bart called out to him.

Suddenly, the first stone slipped overboard, and it hit the water with a much grander splash. James clambered to the side of the row boat, but the stone had already disappeared, and with it Bart had been pulled out of sight beneath the surface.

The water settled again, and the world around him fell still.

James exhaled, and he sat back into the row boat.

Bart was gone. It was over.

That fleeting spark of instant joy was swiftly snuffed out when James realised that Bart had left behind him the long length of rope which was tied to his other ankle, and that the second stone was still in the row boat. He pulled the rope back towards him and inspected the sodden break, and saw that the bonds had frayed and snapped somewhere in the middle.

Would the single stone be adequate to keep Bart submerged?

Of course it would. It was heavy enough. James had picked the first stone for that exact reason, the second being merely for added assurance that this plan would not fail.

Even so, James did not immediately grab up the oars and begin the long toil back towards the dock. Instead, he stayed out there, sat perched against the edge of the row boat, for… well, he could not have said. He stared down into the water where he had last seen Bart before the stone pulled him under, watching for any sign of the man emerging from the depths. He lost all feeling in his hands and feet, and began to tremble in his thick woollen overcoat and denim jeans. The fog settled in even closer so that he could hardly see the surface of the lake anymore. But still he did not move, his gaze fixed on the water, a heavy knot binding tighter and tighter in the pit of his stomach.

Bart did not reappear, though, and after what must have been hours out on the lake James finally allowed himself to give up on this distress, and he toppled back onto the front seat of the row boat. That knot loosened, and he felt relief fill his body. He closed his eyes, and was absorbed by the complete tranquillity of what was now early morning out on the middle of the lake. He was so tired, he could have fallen asleep right there in the bow of the row boat.

“Is that it, then?” a familiar voice said from nearby. James opened his eyes and sat bolt upright, and he stared at Bart who was sat in the seat at the stern of the row boat. “You must be relieved.” There was no hint of sarcasm in his delivery.

“No,” James breathed. “You can’t… You’re…” He gestured at the water’s surface. “But I… How?” He looked back at Bart. The wound was no longer there at the side of his head, and his shirt was clean of blood; he looked just as he had when James first entered the gas station, a man in the middle of a graveyard shift, counting down the seconds until he was allowed to go home.

“I did warn you, James. I did warn you that I wouldn’t let you get away with this.” Bart shrugged his shoulders in a matter of fact manner.

James dropped his face into his hands, and he let out a long, guttural groan which started at his feet and fought its way up through his entire body and out of his mouth. “You’re not real. You’re not!” Hot tears stung at his eyes. “You can’t be…”

“And yet, here I am.” Bart leaned forwards: “What an unfortunate predicament you’ve found yourself in.”

James raised his head and screamed into the fog. Tears streamed across his frozen cheeks, and he wailed aloud into the endless silence. He had been so certain that this was the answer, that this would liberate him of the phantom which had haunted him ever since the gas station. And now he was out of ideas. The prospect of going back into town and confessing, of going back to prison, was too much. He would not – could not – do it: not again.

Without so much as a rise in the timbre of his voice, Bart spoke: “So, what’s next?” James met his gaze, and Bart raised his eyebrows with what looked like genuine intrigue. “You can’t stay out here forever. Unless…” Bart’s eyes flickered to the water, and then back to James.

“No…” James was openly weeping.

“I fail to see any other option.” Bart’s voice remained composed.

James looked down at the stone in the bottom of the row boat, and the length of rope still attached to it. Bart was right, he knew: there was only one way he would ever be rid of the man, only one way he would ever free himself of the torment which had gnawed away at his insides for the past three days. He had known it all along, if he were truthful with himself, had known that this excursion out across the lake was no more than a delay to the inevitable.

James stood up, and he took the rope in his hands.

“There’s a good lad,” Bart applauded.

The rope was stiff after being left to dry in the cold air, and James had to bend it back and forth before it would allow him to shape it to his will.

“Take your time. You want to get it right.”

He draped it across his neck like a scarf, and the rough fibres scratched at his frost bitten skin. He then looped the rope around, and left it loose so that he could breathe but tied it in such a fashion that he would never have been able to undo it with his numb fingers.

“Almost there.”

The rope secured, James bent to pick up the second stone in his arms. It seemed not as heavy as before, as if the weight had lifted from it now that he had decided how this would all end.

“It’s for the best.”

James looked down at Bart. Despite his words of encouragement, a look of utter indifference played across his face as he watched on.

James turned towards the water. He reached his arms out, and held the stone over the surface. But he was unable to let go, his hands wrapped tight around it.

He could not do it, could not commit to this final act.

He sensed a presence at his shoulder.

Bart’s voice whispered in his ear: “Here, let me help you,” and James felt a pressure swell beneath the stone.

With that, the stone tipped out of his hands. James heard it hit the water, then the rope drew tight around his neck and he was dragged forwards behind it over the edge of the row boat.

A second later, the surface of the water settled as if it had never been disturbed, and the empty row boat rocked to a standstill. Around it, the first signs of faint winter sunlight broke through the fog, and in the soft serenity of the morning it began to lift from the lake.