By Joshua Vise – May 31, 2025

Published in Flash of the Dead – Reloaded by Wicked Shadow Press. Lulu: Paperback or EPUB

“Hey, Joe! Think fast!”

Joe turned in the direction of the voice in time to see an amorphous mass splatter to the barge deck at his feet.

“Jesus Christ!”

Joe kicked reflexively at the severed, bloated head, tearing a chunk of waterlogged flesh away from the scalp. The motion had robbed him of his balance, and he teetered for a second before falling ass-first to the deck himself. He hit hard, and it took him a moment to shake the stars from his eyes. When he finally regained his senses, he saw the head, still grimacing, at his feet, while the sounds of the guys’ laughter rang in his ears.

“Nice one, Joe!” guffawed Dave as he pulled himself up the barge ladder, his underwater welding kit in tow. The neoprene of Dave’s scuba drysuit squeaked as he climbed. The other members of the dive team approached the severed head, still chuckling at Joe’s expense.

“Ain’t that a fuckin’ ripe one,” said Bob, kneeling at Joe’s feet to peer closer at the chunky mass. With a gloved hand, he attempted to pull long, knotted strands of hair away from the face, only to find that they had embedded themselves into the head’s greyish, congealed flesh. Joe, still a bit provoked from Dave’s prank, couldn’t contain his disgust.

“What the hell are you doin’?” Joe fumed loudly as he got back to his feet.

“Relax Joe,” said Bob. “Just gettin’ a look at it.”

Bob prodded it with his finger, leaving a hollow in the cheek.

“No, I meant…” sputtered Joe as he turned to Dave. “What the hell are you doing with that?”

Dave, in the process of stowing his gear, didn’t bother to look up as he answered.

“Whaddya mean, Joe? It’s just a head.”

“Is it real?!”

“Yeah, it’s real,” deadpanned Bob as he further poked at Dave’s grisly discovery. “Got gold fillings in the back teeth.”

“Fuck you it’s real,” Joe spat at Dave. “You’re just fucking with the new guy again, ain’t ya? Like last week with the stalled motor.”

“Not this time, kid,” answered Dave, now fully out of his dive gear and pulling on coveralls over his thermal long underwear. 

“It’s river roast,” added Kevin, approaching Bob from the far end of the deck.

Being an underwater welder for Alton Water Freight and Barge required a lot from a person. Workers repaired and modified barges, operating immensely powerful arc welders in near-zero visibility, all while fighting against the deceptively fierce current of the Mississippi River. One wrong move or faulty ground could kill a man the same as being strapped into the electric chair. It was an extreme job, one that attracted a certain type of person. Joe’s coworkers embodied that mix of technical savvy and fearlessness that made them so good at their jobs, yet those admirable traits came with more than a touch of sociopathic baggage.

“What the fuck is river roast?” Joe asked. Kevin’s presence had cooled him down somewhat. Of all of his new coworkers, it was Kevin that he felt he could trust the most. At least, his sociopathy seemed the least threatening to him, even as Kevin knelt down and clasped the head the way a volleyball player might clench the ball before a serve. 

“So we’re just north of St. Louis, right? That means there’s nearly 200 miles of river between the headwaters and here. So when a body goes in the water somewhere north of us, it gets dragged across the rocks, and through tree stumps, and over any other crap in the water. Maybe it even gets snagged on something and sits there for months. That whole time, everything is just gettin’ softer and squishier.”

Kevin gripped the head in his palm and held it towards Joe, neck up. Joe took a step backward in revulsion.

“See the neck? How all the skin and meat and stuff is floppy? That’s just because he’s been in there long enough that the current just pulled him apart at the joints like a roast.”

He tossed the head indifferently to the barge deck, where it landed with a sodden thwack.

“And that’s how you make river roast,” said Kevin.

Thoroughly repulsed by Kevin’s explanation, Joe still felt it necessary to keep his disgust in check around his new workmates. He took a tentative step towards the head, before turning towards the dock.

“Uh, I’ll go call the cops. Tell them what we found,” said Joe, eager to get away from the head and the guys standing so nonchalantly around it.

“Woah there, buddy,” said Dave. His body stiffened, almost as if he was prepared to run after Joe should he continue to the dock and the offices beyond.

“Don’t go doin’ that,” said Bob, his features becoming tense like Dave’s had.

“Why not?” asked Joe. “Ain’t the cops gotta come out here and pick this thing up?”

“They’re right,” chimed Dave, less tense than before. “It’s river roast.”

“What does that mean?” Joe objected. “I still gotta…”

“Ain’t gotta do nothin’ Joe,” said Bob.

“What they mean,” began Kevin, the note of patience in his voice intended just as much for Bob and Dave as it was for Joe, “…is that there’s nothing that can be done.”

“But can’t they at least identify who it is? Like DNA or something?”

“It’s been in the river too long,” continued Kevin. “You’re not gonna help anyone by reporting it. That guy’s dead, and nobody will ever know who he was.”

“I don’t know…like dental records, maybe…,” Joe offered.

“What will happen, though, is that if you report what we found, the cops have to follow procedures,” Kevin pointed out. “And that will shut us down for at least 72 hours. That’s three days where we don’t get paid, and more if it makes us miss a deadline.”

“Believe us, Joe. This ain’t our first river roast,” said Bob as both Dave and Kevin nodded in agreement.

“So what do we do, then?” asked Joe hesitantly.

“Well, I believe an initiation is in order,” said Dave, an impish smirk crossing his face. He reached into his coveralls and pulled out a pair of work gloves, then tossed them to Joe, who caught them unthinkingly.

“Joe, welcome to your first river roast. All you gotta do is grab that thing by the hair, and chuck it over the side. Then you’re a member of the club.”

Joe wavered a moment as he studied the faces of the men across from him. When it finally became clear to him that he wouldn’t be able to worm his way out of this situation without losing face, he sighed and pulled the gloves over his hands. The three men let out a cheer as he bent down and picked up the head, holding it out to avoid the fluids still trickling from it.

“C’mon, Joe! Let’s see how far you can chuck it!” called Dave as Joe approached the water.

Just as he reached the edge of the barge, a column of water erupted upwards, engulfing Joe. The suddenness of the blast caught all of the men off guard, and they turned away, raising their arms to shield their faces as stinging droplets of water rained down upon the metal deck, the cacophony punctuated by Joe’s terrified screams that continued even after the initial explosion.

Joe’s body was never recovered, and the report on file with the St. Clair County police stated his official cause of death as an alligator attack. However, the report purposely left out Kevin, Dave, and Bob’s testimony, all of which was deemed to be beyond the bounds of reason despite their insistence that it was the truth. For once they had stopped shielding their eyes, they had each witnessed the headless body grip Joe tightly around his waist just before it submerged beneath the muddy, brown water.