Authors: Amy Cross
In the distance, a loud, heavy bell starts to ring out.
When I was a little girl, my grandfather taught me to recognize the stars in the night sky. He told me that no matter where I went in the world, the familiar stars would remind me that I was never really
that
far from home. Tonight, shivering on the deck of the dark ferry as night draws in, I look up at the stars and realize that I don’t recognize any of them.
Somewhere, that bell rings again.
I don’t know how long I’ve been here, huddled down and too scared to move, but it must have been hours by now. I still haven’t dared to look back down at the jetty, but at least no-one seems to have come to check on me. I can still see the skeletal face of the figure on horseback in my mind’s eye, and I’m convinced that if I look again, he’ll still be there. The crow is gone, at least, although every few minutes I hear noises in the darkness, as if something is scuttling around on the deck. A while ago, I thought I caught sight of a large beetle passing through a patch of moonlight, but I figure I could just as easily be losing my mind.
With a trembling hand, I hold my phone out and tap the screen to record some sound. There’s no sign, of course, but I feel I might as well use it to get some proof that this place is real, just in case I ever make it back. As the bell rings again in the distance, I try to keep my hand steady, before finally stopping the recording and slipping my phone away. Moments later, I hear something in the darkness above, and when I look up I realize there’s something dark in the sky, something with huge wings passing once again over the boat. As I draw my knees up to my chin, trying to stay warm, I keep running through the list of possible explanations for everything that has happened so far:
First, this could be some kind of people-smuggling operation. Perhaps I became disorientated earlier, perhaps I missed some change of course, and we’re simply at a rendezvous site somewhere on the Atlantic coast, or maybe even up toward Iceland or Greenland. The ferry is operated remotely because the people running this thing don’t want to get their hands dirty. It’s a high-tech operation, in which case I doubt they’d be too happy to find that someone like me has ended up aboard, and…
Swallowing hard, I realize that possibility is looking less likely now.
Second, it could be a government experiment. I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist, but I know various governments have their own secret programs, and at least that would explain the resources that have been used to set this thing up. Maybe those bald passengers were political prisoners, brought here so they can disappear from public view? Or maybe this whole thing is some kind of secret test facility? Hell, at this point I’d even be willing to consider the possibility that aliens are involved.
In the distance, a voice cries out and is then quickly cut off.
Third, I might be on some kind of ghost ship. Again, I’ve never believed in anything so outlandish, but I feel as if maybe I’ve stumbled over some kind of threshold and entered an entirely different world where the dead take a boat journey to some dark, eternal place. I never thought the afterlife would be a big rocky desert with a canal running through it, but right now I can’t rule anything in or out. The survivor back in Cornwall wasn’t breathing, I know that for sure. Maybe none of them were breathing.
Or fourth, maybe
I’m
dead too. I remember drowning earlier, and there was a moment when I felt certain I was going to die. It seems suspiciously miraculous that at the last moment, the entire ferry rose from the depths and righted itself, spilling out the water that had filled its corridors and leaving me gasping for air. In some sick and crazed way, everything that happened since I was in the air pocket might all be taking place in my mind, either as a genuine experience of the afterlife or, more likely, as a last burst of activity from my synapses. Maybe this is all taking place in the dying milliseconds of my brain’s life. In some ways, that prospect is actually a little comforting.
Whatever’s going on, I can’t just sit here forever.
Getting to my feet, I peer through the fair-lead again and see that although the onshore fires are still burning, there’s no longer any sign of anyone. All the figures from the cargo hold walked along the path toward the mountains, and since then no-one has come near the ferry. Unable to see much on the dark deck area, I keep hold of the railing and make my way back toward the bridge, figuring that I need to learn the truth. When I get to the bridge and look inside, I see that nothing has changed: the broken cupboards are still scattered all over the floor, where I left them, while the navigation wheel is completely still. Hitting a button on the side of the flashlight, I shine its beam around the dark bridge, but I already knew there’d be no-one here.
If someone on the shore spots the light and comes for me, I guess that’s just how things are going to be. I’m too tired and thirsty to hide anymore. I want to know where I am.
“Hello?” I call out.
Silence.
“What do you want from me?” I ask, trying to keep my frustration under control. Heading to the door at the rear, I look back down into the dark corridor. There’s still no sign of anyone around, but I refuse to believe that this whole ferry is completely automated. “Hello!” I shout. “My name is Sophie Carpenter! Why don’t you just come out and tell me what you want?” Close to tears, I aim the flashlight ahead as I hurry down the stairs and then make my way along the corridor, while banging a fist against the walls. “Come out! Show your face!”
Reaching the stairwell I was at earlier, I shine the torch around, but of course there’s still no sign of anyone. I take a step back, feeling as if I’m filled with a sense of impotent rage.
“Just tell me what this is all about!” I shout. “I just want to -”
Suddenly someone grabs me from behind and clamps a hand over my mouth.
“Quiet!” a voice hisses in my ear. “Don’t say another word!”
***
“Mark, what the hell are you doing?” I ask a few seconds later, reaching out and putting my arms around him. “I thought you were dead!”
“Keep your voice down,” he hisses, pulling away and then grabbing my hand before leading me quickly along the corridor. “What the hell’s wrong with you? Why were you making all that noise?”
“I was just trying to get someone to answer me -”
“In here!” he adds, interrupting me as he pulls me through a doorway and into a small cabin on the ferry’s starboard side. Closing the door, he grabs the flashlight from my hand. “Thank for taking this, by the way. I found yours, but it had been smashed.” He pauses, with a wild, slightly manic look in his eyes. “I’m sorry I snuck up on you, I just had to get you to shut the hell up. Do you seriously want that
thing
to get angry?”
“What thing?” I ask. “Mark, I don’t even know if any of this is real!”
“Where have you been?” he asks. “What happened to you after we split up?”
“My tanks got damaged,” I tell him, “and then when the ferry…” I pause for a moment, as I realize that the entire thing sounds completely unbelievable. “Where are we?” I ask finally. “Did you see the people in the cargo hold? They were floating around earlier but they were still alive, and then they went straight back to the hold as soon as the ferry came up, except…” I wait for him to reply, hoping against hope that he might have an explanation. “Either I’m losing my mind,” I continue finally, “or we’re in the middle of something completely insane. I’ve tried coming up with explanations, but I’m all out.”
“It’s real,” he replies, hurrying past me and looking out the window for a moment. “I thought I was dreaming at first, but now I can tell. Whatever this place is, it’s definitely real.” He turns to me. “Have you talked to him yet?”
“Talked to who?”
“The captain.”
“What captain?” I ask. “There’s no-one on the bridge, there’s -”
“There
is
someone on the bridge.”
“No,” I reply, “Mark, I would have -”
“There’s someone on the bridge,” he says again. “He’s in the chair by the wheel, and sometimes he gets up and makes adjustments, but mostly he just sits there. You can’t see him when it’s too bright, but he’s there. When it’s dark, if you get close enough…” He pauses. “Haven’t you seen him at all? Not even once?”
“I…” Pausing, I realize that he’s serious. “There hasn’t been anyone on the bridge when I’ve been there,” I tell him, even though I’m already starting to doubt myself. “I swear.”
“He’s there, alright,” Mark continues, heading to the door and pulling it open, before pausing as if he’s listening for any hint of movement. “He’s old, his skin has almost wasted away. You can see through his bare ribs. Every time he moves, his bones creak. The first time I saw him, I thought I’d lost my mind.” Leaning out into the corridor, he quickly looks both ways before pulling back and closing the door again. Finally, he turns to me. “He’s in charge of this thing.”
“Mark -”
“I’ve seen him!”
“But…” Pausing again, I try to work out what we’re supposed to do next. “Did you ask him what’s happening?”
“He ignored me, but…” He puts a hand over his eyes for a moment, as if he’s close to cracking up. “I’m not imagining this, Sophie. It’s all real.”
“What happened to
you
after we got separated?” I ask.
“I went down to the engine room,” he continues. “I lost contact with you, but I figured it’d be okay for just a few minutes. There were bodies floating down there, but I ignored them. I was taking a look around when suddenly everything seemed to shudder. That was when the ferry started to raise itself and -”
“That’s impossible,” I reply firmly. “It can’t have raised
itself
!”
“And then it set off on this course,” he adds. “Don’t you think it’s odd that not one helicopter has come to check on us? This ferry slips through the world unseen, Sophie. I don’t know why it sometimes becomes visible for brief periods, or why the storm last night caused it to run into trouble, but for the most part this thing doesn’t show up on any radar screens, it doesn’t even get spotted by other vessels, not unless it happens to run into them. Do you realize what that means?”
As the ferry’s hull creaks again, I realize that I don’t want to vocalize any of the crazier ideas that are churning at the back of my mind. Despite everything, I’m still hoping to come up with a rational explanation.
“I heard you shouting earlier,” he continues, his voice trembling a little, “but by that point I was just trying to keep out of the way and avoid being spotted. Then when we reached this place…” He looks out the window again. “I think those people in the hold were dead, Sophie. I think this is their final journey.”
I wait for him to continue, but he seems lost in thought. “That’s impossible,” I say eventually.
“Stop saying that,” he mutters, turning to me. “If you have a better explanation, let’s hear it.”
I open my mouth to argue with him, but no words come out.
“How much do you know about Greek mythology?” he asks.
“Mark -”
“The Styx was a river of the dead,” he continues. “Another was called Acheron, which isn’t that dissimilar to Aspheron, so maybe there was some bastardization along the way.”
“Mark -”
“Listen to me!” he hisses with the insistence of a madman, as he grabs my shoulders. “I’m not saying that all of the stories about the Styx are true, I’m just saying that maybe they’re based on a kernel of truth, and maybe that kernel of truth is the place where we’re docked right now.”
“Mark, you can’t just -”
“Look out the window,” he continues, forcibly turning me around, “and tell me that place out there couldn’t be the place where dead people go.”
Staring out the window, I watch for a moment as distant fires continue to burn under a night sky filled with unfamiliar stars. I want to argue with Mark, to tell him that his ideas are crazy, but at the same time they actually seem to fit in with what I’m seeing. I’m not ready to accept that this is some land of the dead, or that the canal is actually the river Styx, but I can’t bring myself to dismiss the whole thing yet, not as I watch dark shadows passing across the landscape, and not as that infernal church bell tolls once again in the distance. All I know for certain is that I’m standing here on this ferry, looking out at a place that shouldn’t exist.
“The man I saw on the bridge,” he says after a moment, “might be Charon.”
I turn to him.
“The ferryman who took the dead to their new home,” he continues, his eyes filled with a kind of wild passion, as if he truly believes what he’s saying. “Did you see any coins? Did any of the dead have a coin with them?”
“Mark -”
“It’s just little pinpricks of sense,” he adds. “Tiny little parts of the story that add up, while the rest…” His voice trails off, and for a moment he seems lost in thought again.
Turning to look back out the window, I realize I can see a figure standing on the jetty. Although I can’t see the figure’s face, I feel as if it’s staring straight up at me. A moment later, another shadow passes across the land, and this time it’s followed by a faint patch of moonlight that reveals the figure’s face.
It’s her.
It’s Mary Sullivan, the little girl from the boat all those years ago.