The Ferryman

by Christopher Golden

  “I’ve been wondering about that myself, ever since you mentioned it,” the priest said thoughtfully. “The ghost, if ghost he is and not some manifestation of your subconscious—always a possibility—has not tried to harm or even harass you in any way.”

  “Then what’s he doing?” David asked.

  “Have you considered the idea that he may be attempting to warn you of danger? If there is a ghost in this, David, it sounds to me as if he’s on your side.”

  For several minutes, both men were lost in their thoughts, and the room was silent save for the Supremes on the radio.

  Janine shifted uncomfortably on the sofa in her living room. Her gaze flickered downward a moment.The expression on Annette’s face might have been comical if it had not been at her expense. It was Monday night. There were dirty dishes on the table from the dinner she had made for them, but neither woman moved.

  “You’ve got to forgive me, okay? Just trying to wrap my head around all this,” Annette said. “I mean ... you’re still taking the Zoloft, right?”

  Exasperated, Janine nodded.

  “Don’t get upset,” Annette chided her.“What do you expect me to say? You had this ... near-death experience, or whatever, then nightmares, and now, what? Hallucinations? Too strong a word, maybe, but maybe not. Janine, don’t you think you should talk to someone?”

  “You mean a psychiatrist.” She pursed her lips and sighed a bit.

  “Well, someone. I mean, there are things that can cause hallucinations, you know? Medical conditions. Chronic insomnia, for one.”

  “Brain tumors for another.”

  Annette blanched. “Hey. That’s not what I’m saying. I just think that for your own sake you should make sure that this is just your imagination and not something actually wrong with you. If you don’t want to see a psychiatrist, though, you should at least talk to David about it. I can’t believe you haven’t mentioned any of this to him.”

  Horrified, Janine stared at her. “How can I? God, Annette, we’re just getting things going again. What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey, I know I broke your heart, and you’ve kind of forgiven me, we’re working on rebuilding love and trust and, okay, having completely rocking sex, but by the way, I’m either a delusional, paranoid freak or I’m being stalked by some bogeyman from the afterlife’?”

  Annette shrugged, doing her best not to laugh. “That’d be a start. All I’m saying is, it can’t be helping things if you have all this shit in your head and you can’t even talk to him. He loves you, Janine. He always has. And for a guy, he’s pretty perceptive. Maybe he can help.”

  “Maybe,” she grudgingly allowed.

  It felt absurd to Janine to even talk about it, as though she were watching a film of someone else’s life. Yet this thing that had been haunting her dreams—and then appeared at the river’s edge—inspired a dread in her she could not escape. Thoughts of it, images of the Ferryman in her head, had begun to eclipse things that ought to have been far more important.

  The dreams she had been able to rationalize away, and she could ignore the chill feeling of being watched that came over her from time to time. But on Sunday morning, she had seen him. Spectral, in some way, but still substantial. Whatever it was, she refused to believe it was some sort of mirage.

  With a shuddering sigh, Janine smiled. “You know what? It would be a relief, to be honest, to find out it was all in my head. I just ... I haven’t been able to shake this feeling that someone’s watching me.”

  Annette leaned toward her, putting a comforting hand on her leg. “Janine. Listen to me. Someone was watching you. When he was killed, Spencer was across the street from my party, sitting in a parked car facing the door. You think that was some sort of coincidence?”

  “Maybe not,” Janine allowed. A chill ran through her again and she hugged herself. “But Spencer’s dead, Annette. He was a fucking bastard, but I thought I loved him, once upon a time. It’s just awful and creepy that someone murdered him with me so close by. So he was following me, all right. I thought I saw someone out in the yard the other night, and I’ve been kind of assuming it was him.

  “But what if it wasn’t?”

  Janine reached down and took Annette’s hand in hers as though she could somehow share in her friend’s warmth and strength. The world continued to roll on without any notice of her anxiety. Reality was inflexible. That ought to have comforted her, knowing that despite her eerie dreams, bizarre thoughts, and the fright she’d had on Sunday, everything around her remained mundane and painfully normal. David loved her, and though she still felt terrible guilt for having hurt him in the first place, she had begun to allow herself to love him again as well.

  There was comfort in his arms, and in his bed. There was shelter in her work and the faces of her students.

  But at home, at night, she was frightened.

  “Janine.”

  She did not respond at first, her gaze drifting, lost, to the darkness outside her window.

  “Hey,” Annette said, and gave her hand a squeeze.

  Janine finally looked at her, and in her friend’s loving eyes she found the refuge she sought.

  “Spencer probably was stalking you. But he isn’t anymore.You’ve had a lot of bad things happen to you in the last year, but good things are happening now. You can put it all behind you. It may take a while, but you can. And I’ll be here to help you every step of the way.”

  Janine smiled softly, sadly. “I don’t think I could do it without you,” she said, her voice hitching with emotion.

  With a sigh of relief, she leaned in and Annette opened her arms. Janine laid her head upon her friend’s chest, her mind awhirl with images from her dreams and the lone figure on the riverbank the day before. Annette held her gently and kissed the top of her head, and they fell silent for several minutes.

  Janine had hoped that having Annette there would somehow help her clear her mind, drive away the ghosts in her head. But the fear did not leave her.

  “It’s going to be okay. You’ll see,” Annette told her.

  “See, the thing is, that feeling, like someone’s watching?” Janine said softly. “Spencer’s gone, but that feeling’s still there. I can feel his eyes on me. He’s waiting for me, Elf. And he’s not going away.”

  Annette lived in a two-bedroom apartment above a hair and nail place in Medford Square.They had changed the name four times in the two years she had lived in that particular apartment, and she had a hard time remembering what it was called. Part of that was probably also because she had never actually gone inside.

  That night, her concern for Janine still lingering with her, she parked as usual in the municipal lot two blocks away and walked to her building. A sliver moon hung in the sky and stars shone brightly above. The night was clear and warm enough that it was possible for her to believe that spring was really here. No more freezing rain, no more reminders of winter.

  Her jacket was slung over her arm as she walked to the door that led upstairs to her apartment. The salon was long since closed, but someone waited in the shadows under the store’s awning.

  She hesitated, more deeply affected than she had realized by Janine’s fear, and what had happened to David.

  Then a smile blossomed on her face.

  It was Jill. She looked extraordinary, her long hair falling in a blond cascade across her shoulders and back. With her full lips and wide eyes, she looked like a porcelain doll. She was breathtaking. Part of that, Annette knew, was that though she was twenty-two, she barely looked that, and there was a part of her that felt wanton and indecent when she thought about the things she had done with this girl.

  Wanted to do, even now.

  “Hey,” Annette said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Jill smiled, her sensual lips parted slightly. “You said you thought you’d be back around ten. I thought instead of calling I’d just come by.”

  A flash of guilt went through Annette. It was almost ten-thirty.
“Have you been waiting long?”

  “Fifteen minutes. It’s a nice night, though. And you’re worth waiting for.” Jill seemed a bit uncomfortable then. “I hope it’s okay, me coming by. I wanted to surprise you.”

  Annette stepped in close, slid her arms around her lover, then let her lips brush against Jill’s, gently suggestive.“It’s more than okay,” she said.

  The smile on Jill’s face was conspiratorial, and urgent.

  Together they went up to the apartment. Annette turned the lights on at first, but the place was a mess. There were three pairs of sneakers in the foyer, jackets and skirts draped over chairs, videos piled on the coffee table. She turned the lights off again and with just the stars and moon and the lights from the street, they stood close in the living room and touched and kissed and caressed one another.

  Breathless, Annette pulled away. She went to the kitchen to retrieve several candles and a book of matches.Without a word she went to her bedroom. The bed was unmade, but otherwise it was clean and tidy. She placed the candles about the room and lit them. Dave Grusin was already in the CD player and she turned the music on. Sweet, soft jazz piano came from the small speakers.

  When she turned, her breath caught in her throat. Jill stood in the open doorway of her bedroom, completely nude. The gentle glow of candlelight flickered off her milky skin, made shadows around her small, perfect breasts. Jill’s eyes smoldered and she gazed at Annette intensely, no trace of a smile on her face now. Her hair was swept back, and she walked into the room without a sound.

  Annette uttered a tiny gasp as Jill came to her and kissed her, then began to undress her, her lips brushing tiny kisses on each newly exposed area.

  “Is Janine all right?” she asked breathlessly.

  The incongruity of the question was jarring. Annette blinked. “What?”

  “You said she was upset about something.”

  Jill kissed her throat as she removed Annette’s bra. Then she traced circles on Annette’s back, raising goose bumps. Her mouth moved lower, but she gazed up, waiting for an answer.

  “She’s spooked about ... her ex getting killed. She’s all right.”

  With a shy grin, Jill slid her tracing fingers around to caress Annette’s petite breasts. Then her mouth descended and Jill began to lick her nipples, slowly, teasing.

  Then she stopped. Again she gazed up at Annette, but now her face was a bit sad. “You love her, don’t you?”

  Annette stiffened. Her head was swirling with passion, her chest rising and falling quickly with her arousal, but Jill’s question seemed almost to cut her.

  “No, I ... She’s straight, Jill. She’ll never be anything but.”

  “So you can’t have her, but you do love her?”

  “She’s my friend.”

  As if Annette had not spoken, Jill let her tongue trail down Annette’s gently sloping belly and worked her fingers to unzip her lover’s jeans.

  “You don’t want her?”

  Jill slid the jeans down and she stepped out of them. Annette shivered as her young lover slipped her fingers into the waistband of her panties and began to slide them down as well.

  “No,” Annette said, feeling her legs grow weak. She reached out and ran her fingers through Jill’s long, silken hair. “I ...”

  Jill stood then and pressed her body against Annette’s, her breasts warm and her hands moving tenderly over Annette’s curves.

  “Prove it,” Jill whispered. “Show me.”

  Then Annette was lost in her arms, and for a long time, all thoughts of Janine were banished from her mind. Later, though, as they lay tangled together in bed, with Jill just beginning to fall asleep, her mind went back to her best friend. She felt a strange kind of guilt, there in the exhilarating aftermath of making love with Jill. Janine was profoundly troubled, frightened.

  Now, though she was not alone, Annette remembered her friend’s apprehension all too clearly, and a frisson of fear went through her with a shudder.

  The glow of flickering candles cast haunting shadows on the walls. Annette was suddenly, uncomfortably aware that the fear she felt was not merely for Janine, but now also, inexplicably, for herself. The feeling Janine had described, like malevolent eyes upon her; Annette thought she now fully understood what that meant.

  Not since she had been a little girl, afraid of the open closet door or the scrape of a tree branch against the window, had she felt the sort of unfocused dread that suffused her now.

  Jill’s breathing changed; she slept peacefully in the crook of Annette’s arm. It ought to have given Annette a kind of serenity. Instead it unnerved her even more.Though Jill aroused in her a lust and a sense of playfulness that she had never felt before, in that quiet moment she was ill at ease, as though a stranger slept in her bed.

  This was her place. Annette had never felt afraid in her own apartment.

  Until now.

  A myriad of regrets accompanied Ruth Vale on the long, lonely drive to Boston. Though she had tried her best to get away earlier in the day, her commitments at work could not be so easily circumvented. Meetings had to be rescheduled, fires had to be put out, and she had reluctantly agreed to go into the office for a few hours in the morning to take a look at the mock-up art for a new magazine campaign for a cosmetic company that was one of her biggest clients.

  It was after three o’clock before she got out of New York City. Ruth cursed herself all the way home. She had packed her bags the night before, and so they were waiting for her when she arrived. Larry was still at the office, and she called him before getting into the car, just to remind him that she loved him and to call her at the Parker House in downtown Boston if anything came up that required her attention. He promised that he would not allow the agency to disturb her, that the time up in Boston was for her and Janine. But Ruth knew that vow would last only until something truly important came up. She did not blame Larry, though. Ruth was sure he meant it when he said it. It was only that, for both of them, business had always been a little too important. The truth saddened her, but she had long ago resigned herself to it.

  By the time she hit the Merritt Parkway north into Connecticut, it was after five o’clock. She hated to drive at night, but there had been no way to avoid it unless she wanted to wait until the next morning. Shortly after seven, she stopped to eat dinner at a strip-mall steakhouse. Ruth could not bring herself to eat fast food, not at her age.

  The entire ride, she chided herself for not calling Janine first. It was unlike her to simply show up unannounced, and she doubted her daughter would appreciate the surprise. At the same time, she knew that if she called, Janine would tell her not to come. That was the thing she regretted above all else: that her little girl was hurting, and would not turn to her mother for comfort.

  The here and now was immutable. There was no going back to fix the mistakes she had made as a mother. But that did not mean she could ignore her child’s pain.

  It was a Monday night, so there was very little traffic on the road. She made good time despite her dinner stop. Shortly after nine thirty, she checked into the Parker House. The rooms were beautiful, as was to be expected given the cost and history of the grand old Beacon Hill hotel. There was a phone beside the bed, and after she had used the bathroom and washed her face, she lay on the thick, floral spread and stared at it.

  I should call. It’s too late to just go over there.

  After only a moment’s hesitation, she got up and left the room. Ruth had the overwhelming sense that her daughter needed her, and she was not going to be held back by the fear that Janine might tell her to go home.

  The drive to Medford took twenty minutes. Though Winthrop Street, where Janine’s building was situated, was a main road, it was quiet enough at that time of night. When she pulled into the driveway and saw her daughter’s car there in the gleam of starlight, a sigh of relief escaped her lips.

  She’s all right, Ruth thought.

  Part of her was tempted to just turn around, drive
back to the Parker House, and phone in the morning. But Janine would be at the school early, teaching, and they would not have time to speak until after the end of the school day.

  She parked next to Janine’s car, slung her purse over her shoulder, and stepped out. With a flick of her thumb, she armed the car’s alarm system and then dropped the keys in her purse.

  A light, warm breeze rustled the leaves of the trees at the edges of the property. The barn at the back of the house was dark, its open doors revealing only blackness within, unmitigated by the moon and stars.

  Ruth strode across the pavement, headed for the front of the house.

  From the darkness of the barn came a baby’s cry.

  Startled, Ruth frowned and turned to peer into the night at the ominous face of the barn. She was inclined to treat the cry as something born of her imagination, but then it came again.The whimpering of an infant curled out of the barn and reached out to her heart. Horrified, fearful for the child, Ruth started across the small parking area toward the barn.

  No doubt someone had abandoned the child, a drug-addled teenager, more than likely. Ruth was filled with righteous anger at the imagined mother, and also bitter when she considered the purpose of a God who regularly gave children to such women and yet had denied her lovely, intelligent daughter the joy of motherhood.

  Her wrath dissipated as she neared the barn. She peered into the dark recesses of that structure, and her footsteps faltered. It was as though the light of the heavens simply stopped at the entrance to the barn, as if it were somehow eaten by the darkness within. She knew what was inside—lawn mower, snowblower, yard tools, storage, and an old car of the landlord’s, among other things—but that abyss yawned open before her, and for an instant, the crying child seemed less important. Not her responsibility. Not when it meant going into that darkness.

  Then the cry rose higher, the infant’s voice ululating with fear and longing, perhaps hunger.