A Bribe For The Ferryman

by D R Cartwright

  “You’ll be alright with that.”

  The time had come.

  Next and last item on the table to be used was the cheese wire. He picked it up and unravelled it. Despite her voice being muffled, he knew Terry was pleading, was screaming, and trying to persuade him that she wanted to live. It was all delusions though, induced by the fear of the unknown. This was why they could never take that final step and end their own lives. This was why he had a job to do.

  He stood behind her and placed the cheese wire around her neck. She had struggled, had screamed, gurgled, but death was swift. His job was done. As the wire was removed, peeling away from the skin it had sunk into and allowing a thin flow of blood to trickle over her throat, he stepped away and picked up his camera.

  The shots were perfect and he knew they would make a fine addition to his memorabilia, but before he added them, he needed to place Terry’s body in its final resting place with the others.

  The lake.

  The job had gone as smooth as the others, if not smoother, despite the heaviness of Terry’s body. As he walked backwards along the wooden jetty towards the shadows of the boat house, he couldn’t understand why, for someone so small, she weighed so much. Her fight for life must have been strong enough to follow through after death, he thought as he entered.

  The illumination from the moon shone through the other end of the boat house, reminding him of the rope that he had laid out earlier that day. One end was tied to an old iron drain cover that he had acquired from the building site he worked on during the day. For this purpose, he needed something heavy to keep the bodies weighed down. The last thing he wanted was for one to come loose and float to the surface to show everyone what had happened.

  Once they were down there, they were there permanently.

  Old drain covers were perfect for the job.

  Picking up the other end of the rope, he tied it around the body’s ankles, ensuring it was tight, then he rolled the body close to the edge.

  The water lapped gently under the jetty as if excited and expectant of the gift that was about to be shared. The sound reminded him how quiet the night was and he relished in the shadows.

  Bending down, he lifted the drain cover, struggling against its weight, and balanced it on its side. With a skill he had practiced numerous times over, he manoeuvred the iron slab to the edge, then, holding his breath in anticipation, he dropped it in the water.

  The blackness below engulfed the iron with a ferocious hunger, the water splashing up to envelope it and pull it down, hauling the rope with it. It uncoiled and tugged on Terry’s ankles, swivelling the body round and pulling it over the side.

  He watched with a look of satisfaction on his face as the woman he had made love to in the back of his car not so long ago began to disappear for good over the edge, sliding passed his legs and giving herself without argument to the murky depths of the lake. They always went easily, so why did they have to put up so much struggle in the first place? Why couldn’t they just believe when he told them it was what they wanted? For jobs that didn’t go as smoothly as this one, things could have been so much easier.

  Something nudged his foot. He looked down and in the moonlight he saw as Terry’s hand whipped around with the force of the pull. Only it didn’t just nudge his foot. Fingers outstretched, reached up and curled around his ankle. He felt the tightness of their grip and gave a gasp.

  She was dead! She couldn’t take hold of him!

  A shriek erupted from his throat as a yank pulled him off his feet. He fell back, his head slamming against the wood planks of the jetty. As his mind recovered from the daze, he realised he was being dragged. Whimpering, his arms waved about, his frantic fingers trying to find something to grip onto, something he could use to pull himself back, but he couldn’t find anything – and then it was too late.

  The coldness of the water stunned him. He could have kicked out at the gripping hand had he considered it, but the shock of the icy water stumped all thought process. He screamed, feeling as the lake filled his mouth, and thrashed against the grasp as he was pulled to the bottom.

  All through his descent he couldn’t stop repeating that same thought. She was dead! Terry was dead! He had killed her, just like he had killed the others. How could this be happening? He needed to get her hand off him.

  Then he kicked. He kicked at the hand, he lashed at the water, he wiggled and struggled, but the hand’s grip remained. And then it wasn’t alone. A second tugged at his trousers, pulling him lower before clutching his leg, followed by a third that gripped the waistband of his trousers.

  Horrified, he looked about him as more hands gripped, and then saw the shadows. They were everywhere, surrounding him, reaching for him with maimed and bloated fingers outstretched. They pulled him close, hands pressing against his chest, tugging on arms and pulling him deeper, and he struggled, screamed, swallowed more water.

  Faces peered at him through the streaks of the moonlight, some recognisable, some bloated wrecks that had suffered the torments of the lake, screaming silent screams as they thrashed about with him, the remainder of their hair billowing with the current. But each shared one feature. Each stared with eyes of silver, the payment that had been given to them for the Ferryman.

  But they were dead! They couldn’t do this! They were all dead!

  He gave one last scream, thinking that he couldn’t die here. He didn’t have payment. The Ferryman wasn’t going to come for him – but he didn’t have a choice.

  Death came swift.

  Fly on the Wall

  Ah, to breath the sweetness of fresh air again is such bliss. As I rise up after struggling out of my confines, I feel free and refreshed; reborn almost. I stretch my limbs, reaching for the sky, and it feels like I’m floating. The sensation is exhilarating. The breeze brushes past every tiny hair on my body, bringing feeling and life. I love it, and I’ve never felt so alive! Everything feels new; everything feels different. Even the world below me seems different – distant somehow.

  Too distant.

  I look around me. I’m so high up. Too high up. Panicking, I veer into the nearest thing and take grip. Sitting on it, I catch my shocked breath.

  What’s going on?

  I look down and see my bathroom below. It looks huge compared to how I’m used to looking at it, and I can’t quite figure out what’s wrong. It looks so different. Everything looks so different, and I’m so confused and scared. I don’t like it.

  A smell wafts up to me. It’s sweet and sickly and I want to feel disgusted by it, but for some unknown reason I don’t. Surprised, I inhale a deep breath. The rancid smell should be making me retch, but it’s not. Amid its sour aroma is something so very sweet and spicy, with a hint of something familiar to it. It smells tantalising and so very appealing.

  I fight the urge to find its source and smother myself in it.

  But then why would I want to do that?

  I’m still so very confused.

  Reaching up, I go to run my hand through my hair, but stop. What is this? It’s no hand! And my arm! What’s happened to it? It almost appears insect-like. How can this be? What’s happening?

  I turn my head back. Behind me I see a large, blue bulbous body with six skinny legs protruding from it. And from my back grows two large, transparent wings. I can’t believe it. This can’t be happening! But then I flick a wing. It has full feeling. I can feel every transparent fibre. I can feel every pulse of blood running through its veins.

  My god! I’m a fly!

  Looking back down, feeling sickened by the sight of myself, I realise then that I’m sitting on the light shade on the ceiling of my bathroom. Horrified, I try to grip the surface tighter with fingers that I no longer have. Panic begins to boil within me and I can feel myself swirling out of control. But if I do, if I even move an inch, would I fall? I can’t chance that. Struggling, I regain control of myself, calming my panic. There has to be a reasonable explanation for all this. I can’t have just t
urned into a fly.

  I try my hardest to think back, to recall the memories that lay hidden in the blankness of my mind. I can hear a vague argument, can hear yelling and shouting, but I can’t make out the words. I can feel the residue of a long ago anger that still rages within me. What happened? Then I see the beautiful face of my wife, her expression so sad.

  Oh, god, how I love her!

  My heart yearns for her, to hear her sweet voice, to feel her touch, and the softness of her body close to mine. I used to think that we would be together forever, but now I’m a fly! My head swims with confused horror! If only I knew what was going on!

  A draught blows. I feel it catch a wing, lifting it. I try to grip the light shade, but can’t. The draught takes me. I plummet from the ceiling. I want to scream with my descent but as a fly I have no voice. I want to yell my fear of falling, yell at the ever-approaching floor, and my ever-approaching death, but I’m denied. I am a fly.

  But flies have wings. As if instinct, as if I know already how to do it, I open them. They move fast behind me, and I can feel my muscles contract with each movement on my back. The constant motion would have been tiring for me, but this body was designed for such things.

  I am a fly and I can fly.

  But how am I a fly? I still don’t know, and I’m dazed. It feels only just a moment ago that I was the defence layer, Jason Kemp, a man with a beautiful wife, a lovely home, but now I am an insect. The blankness in my head is killing me, and I wonder if this is maybe all a dream – a very bad and very real dream.

  With unsteady wings, I take myself down to the sink and land. I need to sort my head out. Everything is moving too fast. But as I sit and ponder, that sweet, tantalising smell taunts me. What is it? I look around. It’s definitely coming from my bathroom. If my forehead were capable, I knew it would be frowning, that my eyebrows would be joining in the middle with only deep creases to separate them. I never remembered there being this smell in my bathroom! Curious, I look around the room, trying to pinpoint the smells location.

  It was coming from behind the shower curtain.

  The smell that should have disgusted me fed an urgent hunger inside. Maybe this was why flies are always attracted to rubbish. The want within them is too strong to ignore. Before I can stop myself, I raise my wings. They buzz behind me and I find myself lifting. The instinct of a fly has over-taken me.

  With easy movements, I glide through the air towards the shower curtain. Behind it I know sits my bath. I wonder what could be in it that smells so alluring.

  I round the curtain.

  The sight that greets me sends my wings in an uncontrollable spasm of panic. Horrified, I fly into the shower curtain and grip it, sitting on it. I stare at the ceiling above, too afraid to look down, but I have to see it again.

  Slowly my six legs ease me round so I can see what is lying in my bathtub. I can hardly recognise the face, but I don’t need to recognise it. I know who it is.

  It’s me!

  The corpse of my former self lies huddled in the bath tub below. I’m still fully clothed, wearing the same clothes I had been wearing before my memory blanks out. My eyes are open, staring at the opposite wall but not seeing it, and my usual creamy complexion is no longer plumb and healthy. It is pale, and my lips are black. I can tell I’ve been lying here for a while.

  But that’s not the only sight that shocks me. I feel sickened by the amount of blood that I’m coated in, that has smeared up the white tiles on the wall, and that coats the bath below me. It’s my blood, and there’s so much of it. I don’t even have to fly down and touch it to know that it is dry blood, and I realise this is where the smell is coming from. Rotting meat. It’s repulsive but so alluring to me. I fight the urge to fly down and land on it.

  Then I see it; movement in the gapping hole in my chest. The hole was made by the kitchen knife that sits bloodied on my stomach, and the hole is full of life – but not my life. Maggots. Hundreds of maggots squirm and wiggle within me. I want to cry out at the sight. They are feeding on me. Flies are breeding in me.

  And then I realise where I had come from. I had been one the first eggs to hatch in my decaying body, and I had eaten and wiggled my way inside until I had grown and changed into the fly that I now am.

  My new life was created inside my old one.

  I feel sick.

  Another memory flashes through my mind, filling in part of the blank. I remember the pain of the knife as it first sunk into my chest. The first strike didn’t kill me. I remember looking down at it, my hands rising to feel it, and I see the third hand holding the handle. It was someone else’s hand, and it belonged to the person who had thrust it into me. It belonged to the person who had killed me.

  My god! I had been murdered!

  Through my ever increasing shock, I try to recognise the hand in my mind. I know it. It’s familiar to me, but I can’t think who it belongs to. There are still many blanks that need to be filled.

  Then another thought dawns on me.

  I know the hand. I recognise it from someone I had spent hours with when I was still alive. I know it is a person who has spent many happy hours inside this very house; someone who was close to us. My killer could still be here. He could, as we speak, be preying on my very wife. She could be the next innocent victim!

  Raising my wings, I lift myself away from the sight in the bathtub and swirl round and round the light shade on the ceiling in frustration. I need to get out! I need to find my wife! I need to tell her that I have been murdered! I need to warn her that the killer could be after her! I need, I need . . .

  . . . but I can’t.

  I am a fly, and I’m stuck in this room until someone opens the door or the window. Only then can I get out.

  I’m stuck.

  * * *

  I don’t know how long I have waited. I know at least two days have past by. I sit on the light shade. It seems to be a favourite spot for me. From here I can see the entire bathroom. The smell of my decaying body grows stronger everyday, and even though the fly in me is longing to go down there, I resist. I can’t feed or do other fly-things on my rotting corpse. I just can’t.

  And no longer am I alone. The maggots squirming inside my body are changing. New flies join me everyday. They are very lively. They are feeling the same exhilarating feeling I felt when I first rose into the air – feeling free and reborn. Only these are proper flies and are able to continue with their joy. They even fly back down to the bathtub, feed and breed, laying more maggots inside me. I can’t join them. I can’t even look at them. They don’t pester me while I sit here. They happily leave me to myself, and its here that I have stayed ever since I realised that I had been murdered.

  I feel trapped.

  A sudden noise echoes from the other side of the bathroom door. A bang; a door closing; voices. I hear steps coming up the stairs, the voices getting louder. I recognise one voice. It’s my wife. I feel relieved to know she is back. I feel excited! I’ve longed to see her this whole time.

  But then I remember what lays in wait for her in here. Oh, she will be so distraught to find me and to see the state I’m in. Will she be strong enough to cope with it?

  The excitement I feel for her coming in is replaced with dread. She can’t see me like this! She can’t know the state that I’ve been allowed to get in! Lifting my wings, I fly to the door and land at the top. I have a plan. As soon as the door opens, I’ll slip out and stop her from entering. Whoever she is with can enter and discover me. If they’re a good friend, they won’t let her go in and see. She can’t see me.

  “We’ll look in a minute,” I hear her voice say from the other side of the door. “I don’t want to know just yet. I have other needs to satisfy.”

  The voices pass. The dread I feel diminishes slightly and is replaced with relief. They’re not coming in yet. But they soon will.

  As I sit on the top of the door waiting, I wonder who she is with. Who has she brought up stairs – and where has she been?
I remember the state of my body when I first saw it. I knew I had been lying there for sometime. Why hadn’t I been discovered yet? Why has it taken her so long? Confused, I continue to wait and listen.

  I didn’t have to listen very long. Her screams soon echo through from the next room into the bathroom. My blood turns cold and panic fills me. Her screams continue, and I begin to scream in my head. It’s the killer! He’s killing her! She’s screaming for help and I can’t do anything!

  I lift myself from the door and zip around the room, only to land again in the exact same place. I need to get out! I need to help her! I need to stop the killer from murdering my wife!

  Then it occurs to me.

  As her screams continue to filter through the door, I realise that these are not screams of horror. They aren’t screams of fear as she gazes upon a murderer in attack mode. They are screams of pleasure.

  Pleasure!

  I attempt a shocked gasp but fail. My wife is having sex in our bedroom! Noisy, whorish sex! What in hell is she doing? I shake my head in disbelief. No, it couldn’t possible be her. She wouldn’t do that, but then I recognise her erotic moans. She used to make the exact same sounds when I made love to her. It was her!

  I’m filled with images of the many erotic times we shared; remembered the feel of her body close to mine; the feel of sweat on our skin, and the heat as she squirms against me. I feel like crying. My wife is cheating on me and I’m listening! I can hear everything! I’m like a fly on the wall.

  I am the fly on the wall . . .

  I hang my head in despair. I feel so confused. The wife I love so much is having sex with another man in our bed. Does she even know where I am? Does she even know I am dead?

  My despair soon turns to anger.

  How can she do this to me? How can she cheat on me? And in our bed! My wings buzz on my back.

  I spend just under an hour sitting on the door listening to my wife scream, moan, giggle and then scream again. I hear a second voice with her, hear their moans, and I find the sound more repulsive than the sight and stench of my own rotting corpse. I wish I could block them out, but I can’t. I have no choice but to listen. Voyeurism was never one of my things.