The Ferryman

by Christopher Golden

  Annette knew she ought to have been put off by the girl’s—the woman’s—forwardness, but she was too busy being enchanted by everything about her, including that brazen quality.

  “I think I’d like that.”

  The students at Medford High gave Janine all of three days to adjust to being back at the front of a classroom. By Thursday morning, whatever break they had given her in sympathy had eroded completely. She knew that part of that was her own fault; she had worked hard to convince faculty and students alike that she was doing just fine. They took her at her word that day. Seven students showed up without the brief essay assignment, two earned detention for talking incessantly in class despite her many admonishments, and one girl became hysterical for no apparent reason when Janine called on her.

  At lunch she broke up a fight between two junior girls that had something to do with cigarettes and slander. In her final class of the day, Andy Watkiss asked her straight out why she bothered to come back when half the kids didn’t give a fuck about school and only showed up because their parents made them.

  “You don’t really believe that,” she told him.“This is Medford, not some inner-city school. Most of you guys care even though you pretend you don’t. I came back for the ones who do.The ones who don’t can stay home as far as I’m concerned.”

  They all went quiet then, that last Thursday class. For the rest of the period they listened, and even participated.

  Janine was back, and each time one of her students asked a pertinent question, or expressed an opinion, she realized that she had missed it very much. Certainly not all of them were intrigued by their class discussions. Some showed absolutely no interest in most of what she said. But there were moments, sometimes entire minutes, when she had the attention of every single one of them. In those moments she discovered that teaching meant more to her than she had ever known.

  At three o’clock that afternoon, she met with Tom Carlson in his office. The principal of Medford High was a bearded, somewhat rotund man whom students thought of as a stiff, a stern and humorless commandant whose attention to even the tiniest of rules seemed both intolerant and intolerable to the young people in his charge.

  Fortunately,Tom Carlson was the principal and not standing at the front of a class. Janine imagined he had once been a perfectly horrible teacher. Carlson communicated very well with adults, but was completely incapable of doing so with teenagers. He was aware of it, too, which was perhaps his saving grace.

  When she rapped on his door a few minutes after three, he called out immediately for her to enter. Carlson stood by the windowsill behind his desk, a watering can in his right hand. With a smile, he glanced over his shoulder at her.

  “Hi, Janine. Have a seat, why don’t you? I’ll be through here in just a moment.”

  As though the plants were all delicate and exotic hothouse orphans, he sprinkled water in a gentle shower of droplets above each plant. Janine watched him as she slid into a leather chair facing his desk. She was fascinated by his obvious affection for those plants. She thought he probably talked to them. Probably communicated with the plants a lot better than he did with the students.

  Carlson set the watering can on the end of the windowsill, then stood back to gaze at his babies. He pruned a wilted leaf off one, a flowering thing Janine could not identify. Then, with a self-satisfied grin, he turned to regard her again.

  “Sorry. Once I start my routine, I’m always afraid if I stop I’ll forget I didn’t finish, and—”

  “It’s fine,Tom. No worries.” Content with the way her day had gone, and yet also tired from work and insufficient sleep, she settled more deeply into the chair, relaxing back into it with a catlike stretch.

  Carlson fixed her with a steady, sympathetic gaze. “You’re haunted.”

  Janine flinched. “What?”

  “Haunted,” he repeated, and nodded as if to underline the point. “It’s something in your eyes, in the way you walk around the halls. Not that I blame you, but you seem so far away. I haven’t audited your classes, but—”

  “Maybe you should,” she interrupted angrily.

  The principal blinked, taken aback.

  “It took some adjusting. Probably will take some more. But I had a good day today, Tom. All right, it took a couple of days, but I’m fine. I don’t think it’s fair to—”

  “Janine.”

  His voice was firm, but kind. It drew her gaze to his expression, and she saw the confusion and sadness there. Since her loss, Carlson had been nothing but sweet and helpful to her. Janine had needed his sympathy then, but at the moment it was too much. It made her feel vulnerable.

  Eyes pinched closed to hold back tears, she put a hand over her mouth and let her chin fall. After a moment, embarrassed, she opened her eyes again.

  Carlson got up from his chair and stepped around the desk. Despite his girth, he crouched beside her, his hand on the arm of the chair.

  “I probably chose my words poorly,” he began. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  She shook her head. “No, you’re right. This is ridiculous. The last thing you need is a teacher who can’t control her emotions.”

  Janine felt his warm, surprisingly strong fingers grip her hand. Reluctantly she gazed up into those sad eyes again.

  “Seems to me you’re doing an admirable job so far,” he said. “And in front of your class, that’s good. In here, though, you don’t have to hide your feelings. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re feeling, Janine. I’m glad you’re back, the students are glad you’re back, the other teachers are glad you’re back.”

  Hopeful, she offered a tentative smile. “I thought you were going to tell me to take more time.”

  With difficulty, he stood up and leaned against his desk, releasing her hand. “If you need it, you can take it. That’s what I was about to say.You do seem haunted by what happened to you. How could you not be? But it seems to me that you’re getting a handle on things. Unless you tell me different, I’m going to assume you can handle all your regular duties.”

  “I can,” she said quickly. Then, after a moment’s contemplation, she nodded slowly. “I can.”

  A broad smile spread across Carlson’s face. “Excellent.”

  Janine was troubled, however, and the man saw it on her face.

  “What is it?”

  She shrugged almost imperceptibly. “What you said. I feel like I am haunted, in a sense. By this image I had of the way things should have been.”

  “My dear Janine,” Carlson said sweetly, “that specter haunts us all. It’s the Ghost of Christmas Past, or something like it, I think. But I don’t think you have to worry about the other two spirits. I have a feeling you’re going to be just fine.”

  Janine nodded. “Me too. I have some good friends watching out for me, coaxing me along. Without Annette Muscari, I would’ve been lost.”

  “And I hear you’re seeing David Bairstow again,” Carlson observed.

  “Gossip hounds, all of you, I swear!” Janine cried. But she shook her head, amazed at how quickly word had gotten around. “We’ve been out twice.”

  “In five days, that’s pretty good.” Carlson waggled an eyebrow suggestively. “That’s nice, though. I always thought you two made a great couple. I’m glad that you had Annette and David to help you through this.”

  “And you, Tom,” Janine said softly. “You helped, too. A lot. Thank you.”

  He seemed stymied by her gratitude, and only nodded a bit shyly. “This school needs you, Janine.”

  “Not half as much as I need this school.” She stood up, went to the door, and then turned to face him again.

  “Glad to hear it,” Carlson replied. “Tell David I said hello.”

  “Will do.”

  Janine opened the door and stepped into the outer office. While Carlson’s inner sanctum was overrun by plants yet otherwise neat, the outer office—lair of the receptionist—was a vast array of in and out boxes, file cabinets, folders, and an
enormous jar filled with rolls of SweetTARTS candy. Janine had often wondered why SweetTARTS but had never remembered to ask.

  No one sat at the reception desk, but as she stepped out, past the Poland Spring water dispenser, a tall, thin man with wispy hair and a red tie and a rumpled suit stood up from a chair near the door to Carlson’s office.

  “Janine Hartschorn?” the man asked.

  A student’s father, she thought. But she did not recognize the man.

  “I’m Miss Hartschorn,” she replied, relying upon the school’s traditional formality within those walls.

  The man reached inside his jacket pocket and for some reason she stiffened. A breeze whistled through the slightly open window nearby and it sounded almost like crying. A child crying.

  He handed her a folded sheet of paper and, by reflex, Janine took it.

  His smile was like a shark’s.

  “A summons, Miss Hartschorn. Have a good day.” The man turned on his heel and marched stiffly out of the reception area.

  “What?” she whispered, mystified.The breeze from the open window slipped tendrils of cool air around her, and she shivered as she unfolded and read the summons.

  She forgot to breathe. The tears she had held back in Carlson’s office began to flow and she put a hand to her mouth again.A tiny grunt escaped her, the smallest of breaths, as though she had been punched in the gut. As if it burned her, she dropped the paper and took several steps back as it fluttered to the carpet. Her legs went numb and collapsed beneath her, and Janine found herself sitting in the middle of the floor. She cradled herself, rocking just a bit.

  “Bastard,” she whispered. “You evil bastard.”

  “Hey,” a gentle voice said.

  Janine glanced up, and Carlson was there, stroking his beard, his brow furrowed in profound concern.

  “What was that about? What’s happened?”

  “Spencer,” she said, and fought for breath, struggled to keep from hyperventilating.

  The clock on the wall ticked loudly, proof that she was still alive, that the world was moving on. Somewhere out the window, out in the parking lot somewhere, a car engine roared to life and the radio was up too loud. From the hallway, a girlish giggle.

  The words that came out of her mouth seemed so foreign to her, as though someone else were speaking them. Distant and hollow and metallic, the way it sounded if she tried to talk while underwater.

  “He’s suing me for custody of ... of the baby. It says I buried my son without his consent. He ...” She gazed up at him, the horror of it all dawning fully on her now. Nausea roiled in her belly and then vomit rose in her throat. Only with effort did she manage not to puke, but she could taste bile in the back of her mouth.

  “Jesus, Janine, how can he do that? The baby’s already buried.” Carlson gazed at her awkwardly, perhaps unsure how to help, or unwilling to admit that he couldn’t.

  Long, shuddering breaths escaped her and her whole body shook. The tears on her cheeks seemed to burn. She felt a lump inside her, but not in her stomach this time. Lower, deeper. Janine could feel the weight in her uterus, feel the distended flesh stretched across her belly, where baby David had once breathed and thrived, her blood his blood, her breath his breath.

  Hollow now. Hollow inside.

  Now he rested in the cold ground beside the bones of her father, who had held her in his arms when she was a little girl and told her it would be all right. He could never have known how wrong he was. She had thought, in some crazy way, that he would watch over his grandson now.

  But he was dead. Her father was dead, and her son was dead, and it was all she could do to keep her spirit from withering and decaying along with them, to keep her soul from becoming as hollow as her belly.

  “Janine?” Carlson prodded.

  Cold, empty, she turned her eyes up to him again. Her hand was across her mouth and nose as a mask, and she gazed at him over her quivering fingers.

  “Spencer wants to ... to dig him up. To ... exhume him so they can put the baby in his family crypt.”

  She threw up then, there on the floor in the reception area outside the principal’s office.

  CHAPTER 7

  The smell of popcorn.

  Janine sat in the passenger seat of an old Monte Carlo, just like the one her mother had driven when she was a girl. Through the car’s windows she could see the parking lot of the drive-in all around her.There were dozens of cars, each with dark figures inside, illuminated only by the softest glow of dashboard lights.

  Her window was down and the breeze swept in. Somehow she could not feel it.The sensation of her hair moving with the wind, yes, but not the caress of it on her face. It carried with it the smell of popcorn, however, and she found herself craving its salty flavor.

  With a grin of anticipation, she glanced toward the driver’s seat.

  It was empty, and she frowned, wondering why she could not remember who had driven her here. On the driver’s door, however, hung a speaker that was meant to pipe in the audio from the movie showing on the enormous screen.

  The screen. Had she even been paying attention to the movie?

  Only static issued from the speaker, and Janine grumbled with frustration as she realized she had no idea what movie she was at. Must have drifted off to sleep, she thought.

  The breeze blew the popcorn smell into the car again and, reminded, she climbed out. With a sense of determination, she slammed the car door behind her. In synch with the clank of metal as the door banged shut, the wind died.

  Janine glanced around and saw that the cars were now all empty. That soft glow from the dash still lit each vehicle, but there was no one within them. Just empty cars, all around, lined up and down the cracked, weedy parking lot.

  Static hissed from the speakers that stood atop metal posts. It occurred to Janine that people didn’t go to drive-ins anymore, that there were only a handful left in America. But there was this one, and it had plenty of business. Where were the people, though?

  Popcorn.They smelled the popcorn.The thought seemed to satisfy her, and she glanced across the lot at the concrete projection building where the concession stand windows were wide open, yellow light pouring out. Yellow like butter.

  A gust of wind blew up suddenly, and those yellow lights winked out as though they were the glow of flickering candles. The back of the parking lot was cast in darkness. An instant later, the row of cars farthest to the back went dark, all of them at once.Without the dash lights inside, they seemed almost to disappear, gobbled up by the dark.

  Then the next row.

  The darkness seemed to flow toward her.

  Janine shivered. The smell of popcorn came to her on the renewed breeze again, but this time her craving was gone, replaced by a revulsion that made the gorge rise in her throat.

  Anxiously, she stumbled back toward the car she had left. Though she had slammed the door, it hung open, awaiting her, beckoning her to the safety and warmth it represented, a haven from the encroaching dark.

  Static hissed from speakers all around.

  As though the eyes of the actors on the screen stared at her, she felt self-conscious and turned to gaze at the broad expanse of flickering black-and-white images that loomed above her. Jack Klugman and Tony Randall were on the screen. It made no sense, because that show was on television, or it had been once upon a time.Yet she loved them, and so that was all right.

  The only problem was she could not hear them, only the hissing. On the screen, the two men talked, lips moving without words in a kind of manic pantomime.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the blackness enfold the row of cars just behind her. A single pop, and all of them went dark.

  Janine ran, pursued by the hiss of static and the sickly sweet smell of popcorn. She slid into the car seat and yanked the door closed, and stared out at the big screen with the two men miming comedy, and she refused to turn around. Refused to look back at the darkness.

  Something shifted beside her and s
he turned quickly to look. The driver’s seat was no longer empty. A fat tub of gooey, buttered popcorn sat there, gleaming almost obscenely in the light from the car’s instruments.With a little chuckle at how silly she had been, Janine reached out and grabbed the popcorn. She rested the tub on her lap and ate a few kernels. It was heavenly, just as she had imagined.

  She stared at the silent screen and tried to read lips.

  The static on the speaker was interrupted by the sound of a baby crying.

  Janine flinched and turned to stare at it, but the speaker only hissed, and then began to jitter, to clank against the glass. Something shifted in her arms and she glanced down ...

  ... and a sweet sense of peace descended upon her, calming her nerves and soothing her heart. Her baby lay there, in her arms, eyes bright and gleaming. He suckled contentedly on her bared breast, squirming to get in closer to her body heat. As he fed, her nipple began to ache, but it was a good, pure feeling unlike anything else she had ever known.

  It was bliss. His eyes fluttered closed and the sucking slowed as he began to drift to sleep in her arms. Janine smiled and cooed softly, filled with a love she had never imagined.

  She closed her eyes.

  Her nipple burned. With a gasp, she opened her eyes quickly and stared down at the baby. His eyes were still closed, but he was not so peaceful now. He sucked hard on her nipple with lips that were blue and cold, his face pale white and frosted with ice.

  Janine tried to pull his mouth away from her, but his icy lips stuck to her frozen nipple. Her flesh tore as she tugged harder and she screamed.

  In a panic, she glanced around, desperate for help.

  She was nude inside a long, wooden boat, surrounded by nothing but churning black water. Alone and filled with dread. She wished that she did not know where she was headed, but was afraid that she might.

  The river rushed around her.The boat was swept on blindly into the darkness, only the lantern on its prow to light the way. Janine clutched the icy infant in her arms and began to weep.

  Long, slender fingers lay upon her shoulder.