The Ferryman

by Christopher Golden

  As a single guy in his early thirties, David found it awkward whenever he ended up at something like this. Lucas was a good kid, but most of the grown-ups there were married with children of their own. When he had a girlfriend, it had made him feel less out of place.

  Today he planned to grin and bear it. Geoff and Lily were just about the only people from his high school class with whom he had regular contact, and he liked them both a great deal. They had the money to live in Winchester, but had managed to avoid adopting the attitude many of the town’s residents seemed afflicted with.

  The Kentons’ house was a traditional brick New England home with a detached garage and a modest yard. Even the house itself was not as enormous as one might expect given the expense of living there. But it was in an old-money neighborhood and it backed up to the lake, with cement steps that went down from the backyard right to the water.

  No playing football back there. Not unless you wanted to swim for the ball.

  Perhaps a dozen cars lined the street on either side of the road. David found a spot three houses down. Most of the cars he passed on the way up to the house had child safety seats in them. With a small sigh, he tucked his present for Lucas—a LEGO submarine—under his arm and rang the bell.

  When the door opened a wave of chattering voices swept over him. Warm, seductive aromas wafted from the house, and David’s stomach rumbled. Though most of her friends probably would have had something even as small as a kindergarten birthday party catered, Lily Kenton liked to cook, and she did it very well.

  “Dave!” Lily cried as she opened the door.

  As usual, she looked wonderful. Lily was always perfectly coiffed, even if she had been cooking since the day before. Her dyed-auburn hair was cut in the latest style and her clothes never seemed less than brand-new. But David had known her most of her life; Lily’s nearness to perfection was not some affected persona, but a notch away from obsession that she had been dancing around since childhood.

  “You look great,” he said as he stepped inside to give her a quick squeeze. “Smell great, too. Or is that lunch?”

  Lily’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Nope, it’s me.”

  “Rrrowrrr,” David growled.

  She whacked him on the arm, then led him down the front hall and into the massive kitchen. Women sat at the table and leaned against the counter, most with coffee mugs or wineglasses in hand. Children shouted happily and zoomed by. Lily and David had to step over toys as they moved amongst the gathered friends and neighbors.

  “Most of the guys are out back,” Lily told him. “Lunch will be ready in just a few minutes. There’s beer back there, or can I pour you some wine?”

  “I’m good, thanks.” David held up the present and raised his eyebrows.

  “Table in the living room,” Lily told him.

  He nodded, wormed his way through the women in the kitchen, and found the table where Lucas’s presents had been deposited. A handful of kids were playing with a wooden train set on the floor, but for the most part, they ignored the presents. David was impressed. He had the vague idea that at six, no matter if it had been his own party or someone else’s, he would have been tearing at the paper to get a peek inside.

  There was an enclosed porch on the back of the house with a door that led outside. Half a dozen guys, including a couple he vaguely recognized, sat in some older furniture, watching ESPN. One of them, whose name David thought might be Anthony, acknowledged him with a nod and a manly grunt. David nodded back, but he had never mastered the art of manly grunting, and so remained silent.

  He finally found Geoff in the backyard tossing a Nerf football around with Lucas, half a dozen other kids, and another one of the dads. Geoff spotted him immediately and tossed the Nerf. David caught it and threw it to the kids.

  “Lucas!” he shouted, adding a bit of drama to his voice.

  The ball bounced off the boy’s head and rolled across the grass. Two other children got into a tug-of-war over it, and a couple of the other fathers on the back lawn had to break it up.

  Geoff shook his head as he walked over.“Nice going,” he said, with a backward glance at the shouting kids.

  “Not my fault your kid can’t catch,” David teased. But he said it low so that Lucas would not hear. It was one thing to give Geoff a hard time, another entirely to scar his son for life.

  With a chuckle, Geoff flipped him the middle finger, low to his chest, out of sight of the kids. “Want a beer?”

  “One beer wouldn’t kill me.”

  Together they walked over to the two wide coolers that were propped against the back porch. Geoff reintroduced David to several people he had met at Lucas’s last birthday. For the most part, when he saw the Kentons, it was just him, though for a while it had been him and Janine.

  Just the thought of her made David smile.

  “What’s the grin for?” Geoff asked as he pulled a pair of Bass Ales from the ice.

  Caught, David shook his head. “Nothing, really. Just ... I saw Janine last week.”

  “No shit?” Geoff fished a bottle opener from his pocket—indispensible at such gatherings—and popped the caps off both beers. “What’s she up to?”

  A bit reluctant, David nevertheless caught Geoff up on Janine’s recent tragedy, and the visit they’d had on the previous Saturday. Geoff was a guy’s guy, for the most part, but the sorrow on his face when he heard about Janine’s baby was not feigned. He had a good heart. That was why David had worked at maintaining the friendship, despite how differently their lives were turning out.

  “Lily’s going to be crushed if you start seeing Janine again,” Geoff told him.

  In the midst of a swig of beer, David almost choked. He lowered the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why? She liked Janine, I thought.”

  “She did. But she’s got this friend from her book club that she wants you to meet. Samantha. I was against it, I want you to know.”

  David raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Geoff snickered nastily. “Nothing. She’s completely smoking. I just didn’t want you to end up having sex with her because then I’d be jealous.”

  They both laughed.

  “Well, now I want to meet her,” David said.

  He made a show of glancing around, enjoying the chance to remind Geoff of the benefits of free agency. Though personally he thought people who were happily married were about the luckiest people in the world, it assuaged a certain amount of gloom that went with being single whenever he was able to take advantage of married guys’ natural inclination to feel like they were missing out on something.

  “What was her name again?” he taunted. “Samantha? Like on Bewitched ? I like that.”

  “Fuck off,” Geoff muttered.

  David continued to glance around the backyard. A few of the mothers had come out onto the lawn now, but it was still mostly dads and the children. The Nerf was missing and in its place was a game of tag accompanied by giddy shrieks from the kindergartners.

  Lucas streaked across the grass, attempting to avoid being tagged. As David watched the boy, a figure in his peripheral vision drew his attention. He looked up.There, across the lawn, just at the edge where the earth was shored up by a concrete wall and steps led down to the lake below, stood Ralph Weiss.

  With the bright sun above, he seemed almost gray, silhouetted there at the far end of the property with the lake spreading out behind him. A cold wind rippled the surface of the water.

  Paralyzed, David stared, unable to speak or even breathe. His eyes felt dry, burning.

  Geoff stepped in front of him, cutting off his view. “Check it out. Here she comes with Lily. I told you she was going to play match-maker.”

  David tilted his head to one side and looked past Geoff. Lucas had been tagged and was now “it.” Another boy had fallen and his father rushed to pick him up.

  There was no one at the edge of the lake.

  “What the hell?” David wh
ispered.

  He set off across the lawn without hesitation. As he walked he glanced left and right; he studied the faces of the adults in the yard. Ralph Weiss was dead. He knew that, and doubted it not at all. David Bairstow did not believe in ghosts and he did not want to believe he could have been hallucinating, so he studied those faces closely, hoping that one of them would look even a little like Weiss. Enough to have suggested it to his subconscious.

  None of them resembled the dead man at all.

  Where the Kentons’ property ended there was a six-foot drop, reinforced by concrete, down to the lake. The water lapped against the retaining wall, flowing over two of the steps. There were no boats in the water, nothing at all save a kayaker all the way on the other side of the lake. It was still early in the year for sailing.

  David stared out at the lake for a long moment. Then he was startled by sixty pounds of human child colliding into him from the side. Panic surged through him as he nearly lost his footing. Both of them would have tumbled over the edge and into the shallow water if he had not thrown himself sideways just then.

  “You’re it!” Lucas Kenton cried out joyfully.

  David laughed and ruffled the boy’s hair, then set him aside and climbed to his feet. Then he reached out, tapped Lucas on the shoulder, and fled.

  “You’re it!” he called back.

  Lucas shouted that it was no fair, but he was laughing so David thought that was all right. By the house, Geoff and Lily stood with a knockout redhead who looked much younger than any of them. Silently he cursed himself as he realized how rude it must have seemed, his just wandering off like that. As he approached, Lily whispered something to Geoff, and he felt guilty.

  “Sorry about that,” he told Geoff. “Just thought I saw some hawks across the lake. They’re ... really interesting.”

  Geoff frowned. “Never took you for a bird-watcher.”

  But Lily brushed it off, obviously glad for any excuse to give her friend that was better than he-saw-you-coming-and-ran-like-hell. “I’ve never noticed hawks back here before,” she said. “I’ll have to keep an eye out. They are beautiful birds.”

  The redhead was even more stunning up close. She had green-blue eyes and a sweet smile. Her hair was braided in the back and her oval glasses gave her an intellectual air that David found very attractive.

  “Hi. David Bairstow. I’m not usually such a flake.”

  “Yes, he is,” Geoff put in.

  “Samantha Kresky.” She held out a hand and he shook it. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “All of it bad, I’m sure,” David replied.

  It was mild flirtation, but he was on autopilot.This was what Geoff and Lily expected of him, and he wanted to be polite. But his mind was elsewhere. Even if he were not still half in love—maybe more than half—with Janine, he was still rattled by what he thought he’d seen a moment ago, illusion or not.

  It was not as though he could tell his friends that, for just a moment, he had thought he had seen a dead man standing on their lawn. It had been someone else, he was sure, and his mind had superimposed the suggestion that the figure looked like Ralph Weiss. After all, the man was on his mind. His funeral had been the week before, and both Geoff and Lily had also been taught by him.

  But in that moment when the illusion had held, it had more than unnerved him; it had sent a chill through him that he still felt.

  The conversation went on, and David made every attempt to be pleasant, but his eyes were drawn, again and again, to the place where the ground fell away and the lake began. He could almost still see the figure standing there, like the spots a quick glance at the sun left upon his vision.

  Clouds began to gather in the early afternoon. By the time Annette picked Janine up, the day had turned gray and chilly, almost as though the beautiful morning had been an accident God now hurried to make up for.

  To Janine’s mind, God had allowed far too many accidents of late. She tried not to think much about the Almighty, however. When she did, it pissed her off. As far as she was concerned God was a sadist, and that was the end of that. He had provided her with friends like Annette and David, but that was about the best she could say about Him.

  The car was mostly quiet on the way to the cemetery. Janine had felt a vague sort of unease since she had woken up that morning, but even more so after the conversation with her mother. It was the last thing she wanted to talk about. Life went on, or so people said. That was what she wanted. For life to go on.

  Yet she was not willing to pretend that she had never carried the baby inside her, that it had not existed. Her loss was part of her now, the baby still with her, in a sense.

  It seemed only right to visit him. Already she felt guilty about the days that had gone by without her doing so. Those days seemed like one long night to her, a restless night where twisted, disturbing dreams came too often to visit. Some sweet dreams, too, but those were the exception. She had stayed in the house, mostly, going out only to the store, speaking on the phone only to Annette and her mother and to Tom Carlson at the high school.

  The entrance to Oak Grove Cemetery came into sight.

  Her father had been born and raised in Medford. His parents were buried at Oak Grove, and when he died, he had been laid with them. Janine’s aunts had been kind enough to offer to let her bury the baby in the family crypt, and to give her the place that had once been intended for her mother.

  “It’s sweet of you to take me,” Janine said.

  Annette nodded. “It’s no problem.”

  Her smile was only halfhearted, though, and Janine frowned. “You all right?”

  As though surprised by the question, Annette pushed a lock of her short hair behind her ear, and shrugged.“I’m good. Just ...” She rolled her eyes. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”

  “Not if it’s bothering you.”

  Annette turned through the cemetery’s gates, then glanced over at her. “Considering where we are and why we’re here? It’s stupid.”

  Janine glowered at her.

  Finally Annette sighed. “It’s just ... I saw Melinda last night.”

  “You guys are getting back? That’s great!” Janine said, trying to be encouraging, though she had not been overly fond of Annette’s last girlfriend.

  Annette kept her eyes straight ahead, slowly guiding the car up into the wooded hill at the back of the cemetery.

  “I saw her at a bar.With someone else.Very much a couple.”

  Janine’s heart sank. “Oh, Elf, I’m sorry.”

  But Annette shook her head. “It’s nothing.” She put the car into park. “I think about why we’re here, and I feel like a moron, not to mention heartless, for even letting it get to me.”

  Janine reached out and squeezed her friend’s hand. “I appreciate it. But just because I ... just because this happened, that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to hurt.”

  When Annette looked up, her eyes were moist. “Just gets lonely sometimes.”

  “Trust me, I know.”

  Janine squeezed her hand again, then opened the door and began to climb out.

  She was half-in, half-out of the car when she saw a man in a long coat standing over the Hartschorn crypt. His coat flapped in the wind; his hands were jammed in the pockets.

  The world fell silent around her.The rumbling of Annette’s engine, the wind rustling mostly bare branches above, the sound of her own heartbeat; it all went away.

  Janine stood up and stared at the man. A memory, or just the ghost of a dream, skittered across her mind like a squirrel darting into a tree for safety. Her lips felt cold.

  Then the man turned.

  It was Spencer.

  Fury replaced dread within her. Her fists bunched as she glanced around and spotted his car a little farther up the hill. With her teeth gritted together, she strode across the lawn toward him. Spencer noticed her immediately, and he stiffened, eyes wide.

  The sight of her made him nervous. Janine was glad of that.


  “Son of a bitch,” she whispered as she marched across the ground, still hard from the winter.

  “Hello, Janine,” Spencer said. He kept his expression neutral, and just waited.

  Without pause, she slapped him. Her palm stung, and the noise of the blow echoed down the hill. Spencer rolled with it, eyes crimped with pain, and he swore under his breath as he stood up straight again, his hand over the red splotch on his cheek.

  “You feel better?” His voice was like his expression, dead, hollow.

  The corner of her mouth twitched up. “Not by half, but I liked it. Enough to do it again.”

  He retreated half a step.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  Spencer lowered his hand. An angry red welt had risen on his cheek. He shook his head just slightly. “What do you think I’m doing here? You wouldn’t return my messages, so I called the hospital. They told me where he was buried.”

  Janine pursed her lips, bitter. “Assholes.”

  “They had to tell me. I’m the father.”

  Bile rose in her throat and her breath came faster. She narrowed her gaze and, despite the burning in her eyes, commanded herself not to cry.

  “You’re nothing.You don’t belong here.”

  Spencer’s eyes grew hard. He straightened up even further. He put on the face he always used for clients, his fuck-you-I’m-in-charge face, and slid his hands back into the pockets of his greatcoat. Like the suit beneath it, there was neither spot nor wrinkle on the expensive fabric.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way, Janine. All right, I’m a shit. I didn’t want to be a father. But I never stopped loving you.”

  Of all the things he might have said, that was the last one she expected. Janine laughed at that. It started in her gut and just came rolling out, hard enough to make her bend over slightly.Tears came to her eyes now and she wiped them quickly away. She was dimly aware that she might be hysterical, but did not care.

  Spencer stared at her for a few seconds, then shook his head, turned on his heel, and headed for his car in long, stiff strides.