Red Sand by Ronan Cray Page A

wrestled a white tipped reef shark. Had she known before she got it into her basket, she would have screamed.
    Emily still wore Howie’s shoes, double laced around the ankles. The rubber soles protected her from the razor sharp volcanic rocks, but they fit so poorly that she fell often. By the end of the morning her feet wrinkled like prunes.
    Twice Emily slipped on wet rocks and got tangled up in the net. Each time the two men on shore cursed her in the coarse language of sailors. Spiny fins scraped her hands and arms. The sun burned every inch of exposed skin. Spray from incoming waves splashed salt in her eyes.
    All morning, Dumbo wouldn’t stop singing. He sang the same song, over and over, a catchy little jingle from decades past:
     
    Yum yum bumblebee, bumblebee tuna…
    I love bumblebee, bumblebee tuna…
     
    After ten minutes, she couldn’t get it out of her head. When she walked out of earshot, she found herself humming it. It echoed in her skull.
    Marvin seemed to tune it out, but it drove Eddie crazy. Eddie told Dumbo to stop, once. He looked like he wanted to add a threat but then reconsidered. Marvin looked up at him. “No, man. It’s all he’s got. He’s a one note kind of guy.”
    Not long after, Emily heard Eddie humming it to himself, then cursing under his breath.
     
    Halfway through hauling in the net, something in the water caught her eye. She brought her hand to her forehead. What appeared to be a white log bobbed just off the end of the bay. It was too big to be a fish.
    “What is that?” She pointed it out to Marvin. He didn’t look up at first, blatantly ignoring her. Finally he rolled his eyes in her direction with exasperation and then rolled them out to sea. Riveted, he tapped Dumbo on the arm and pointed.
    “It’s a body,” he said. “Probably floated in from your ship.”
    Now she could make out white colored clothing. It must have been one of the staff. Horror chilled her. Who was it? How did the body float all the way over here?
    “Well, don’t just stare at it. Go get it.” Marvin pointed at Emily and then at the body.
    “What?! I’m not touching that thing.”
    “Go get it,” he said again. “We need it. For fertilizer.”
    She knew what he meant. Whenever she closed her eyes she imagined the remains of Max on the compost heap. Mason shielded her eyes when she passed Max, so, technically, she had never seen a dead body before, much less touched one.
    “I can’t. I can’t. There’s no way.”
    Eddie didn’t offer to help.
    Marvin shrugged, striding out along the rocks with Dumbo in tow. They waded into water up to their hips, each taking one end of the body, and rolled it up on shore. Rooting around in a supply pile, Marvin found a large, black plastic bag. He held it as Dumbo tilted the body up into the bag. They waved Eddie over. “Take this in to the farms for compost.” Eddie, who didn’t seem to have high spirits in the first place, took the bag. He pulled it like a sledge back across the Flow. 
    Emily stared. Who was it? Was it the Captain? She’d had dinner with him, when was that, three nights ago? Three nights ago she’d been eating dinner, laughing, enjoying her prize. Now she was digging bodies out of the ocean and picking salt out of her fingernails.
    Emily reached for her bottle of hand sanitizer. The plastic throat gave a tiny gasp. Empty.
     
    Once Dumbo pulled the net in they had to help drag it back out. As she and Eddie pulled, the White Hairs inspected it for tears. There were quite a few, cut up or unwoven when the fish struggled. The men had nimble fingers and a few plastic bags handy. If it was a simple tear, they pulled a stick out of the fire, held the flame to the net, and allowed the plastic to melt together. If the hole was too large for that, they took new plastic bags or bottles out of a heap beside them, tore the bags into strips, and wove new strands. This they attached, again by burning. Plastic was the most useful item on the