Day 731

When they found the first body, an infant's head gripped tightly between their hands, they began to search the river. Sniffer dog teams scoured the banks for any washed up remains only for the dogs to go mad, howling at the river non-stop until they were well away from it. No matter what part of the river they were taken to they just shrieked, like none of the team had heard from a dog before. Like they were utterly terrified of the river despite being fine with any other source of water.

Their next plan was to send divers down, perhaps the rest of the infant had been caught up in weeds or whatever trash had been thrown down there by the uncaring townsfolk. Each of the five divers had a camera attached to their masks and one to the rear of their oxygen tank, in case they missed something in retrospect. Armed with nets, thick gloves and enough rope to keep them all tethered together, the team set off.

They relied on the small floats attached to the rope to guide them along, trying to move as little as possible to keep the camera footage as clear as possible. Whatever helped to find the rest of that poor, helpless baby and put its small body to rest.

It mostly worked, the cameras recorded their entire thirty minute venture in varying shades of brown and grey until the divers had to surface and warm themselves away from the spring-chilled waters. In spite of the mud they managed to still stir with their deliberately slow and sweeping movements the footage showed more than the team would ever admit to seeing.

From the first camera, through the sound of moving water and slow, steady breaths came the faint sounds of crying, the kind of stuttered wails that infants are so well known for. Those wet, heaving cries seemed to echo around the camera like the source was circling the diver, moving closer and further at random. The rear camera captured tiny, bloated toes flickering around the very top of the screen.

The second diver's front camera showed nothing but the flipper-clad feet of the diver in front moving lazily up and down as they gently moved forward. The rear camera showed strange swirls in the mud they stirred up with their movements, almost looking like the dumpy face of a baby, always scrunched up like they're wailing to match the cries heard in the background, same as the first.

The front camera of the third diver had the loudest recording of the crying infant, this time joined by several others all fading in and out and gasping for breath in between their plaintive cries and whimpers. Whenever the diver's hand moved into frame it was being held by a much smaller, dismembered one. The rear camera showed several pairs of tiny hands clinging to the flippers.

From the fourth camera (aside from the crying, a constant in all of the footage taken) it could be seen when the first car wreck was spotted. A drunk driver had come off at roughly this point several years ago and the vehicle was never recovered. This time as the diver drew closer he saw what looked to be a bloated baby, crawling along the dashboard and out of the broken windshield. As the diver focused elsewhere, turning away from the wreckage, the rear camera showed the infant swimming straight for them, podgy mottled arms outstretched, mouth wide open and taking in deep, gasping breaths.

Finally the fifth diver, the one who stayed closer to the surface to keep an eye on the rest of the crew and scour the shallower waters. The only one who would admit to there being anything unusual in the river, one who still heard the crying when he was near the river. The one whose cameras had a higher vantage point on the whole situation for safety reasons. The one who called the dive off for "cold water" as his footage showed a dozen infant bodies in varying states of decomposition and dismemberment circling the crew below him and darting behind him, gripping his flippers and trying to pull him down to the same level as the other four.