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His attention snapped back to me and he blinked a little too fast.
“Fine,” he said. “I’m ready.”
“All right. Three, two, one.”
Engaging my core, I slipped my gloved hands underneath Tyler’s body at the same time as Dad, and the corpse levitated inches into the air.
“He’s coming to you,” I told them. “Ready?”
“Ready.” They sounded more certain than they looked.
“Here we go,” I said.
My foot slipped a little on the rock and I grunted as my core engaged to keep me upright. With a gentle shove, Tyler’s body tipped onto the waiting hands of the scuba staff.
“Everyone all right?” I asked as Dad and I clambered down into the water alongside them.
Murmurs rippled across the water, but no concrete answers were audible.
The sooner we got this body out of the water, the less chance something would go wrong.
I quickly retrieved and donned my flippers, then swam around to the front of the convoy and held up my hand to support Tyler’s damaged ankle. Dad joined me on the other side.
“Nice and steady, let’s swim him back to shore,” I said.
Swimming with one hand and holding a body was no simple task, especially when trying to keep in sync with a convoy of others at my back. Slowly but surely, we swam the body safely back to the beach.
Upon seeing us approach, several police officers waded into the water to meet us, wearing the same levitation gloves.
“Hand him over, we’ve got him,” an officer said as my flippers found sand.
Quicker than I would have advised, the staff simultaneously shunted Tyler’s body toward the officers.
Tyler’s limbs held firm as the officers scrambled to arrange themselves in time. I held my breath as Tyler’s wet, sandy hair passed just inches above my face, and the pressure on my gloves released.
Without a look back, the officers waded back toward the beach with Tyler in their hands.
I breathed a relieved sigh. We had done it.
As we gathered on the sand in a group and took off our flippers, I cast a glance over at the officers. Tyler stared at the sky with his one eye for a final time, before the body bag zipped up around him.
“Well done, everyone,” I said, pulling the scrunchie out of my hair.
“Was that… good?” longtime employee, Paul, asked.
He was one of the company’s first divers over twenty years ago, his short hair and stubble now peppered with grey.
“It went smoothly even by professional standards.” I squeezed the water out of my hair. “Great job, guys. Let’s head on back and get cleaned up.”
I doubted anyone would want to get back into the water anytime soon.
“You did good.” Dad patted my back as the staff traipsed back toward the vans.
I shrugged. I’d done enough body extractions to know the drill by now. If I couldn’t have retrieved Tyler’s body, I wasn’t up to code in my profession.
We headed up the beach after the staff, but stopped dead as an agonised shriek pierced the air.
Iwhipped around at the sound of crunching sand.
