The Ferryman Institute

by Colin Gigl

  Suddenly, he was beginning to get the feeling that Alice was having a little too much fun with this. Not that he minded, necessarily—it was better than her fighting him every step of the way—but he did find it slightly disconcerting that she abruptly seemed such a willing participant in their newfound adventure. Then again, her actions hadn’t followed any predictable pattern up to that point, so maybe this was the new normal.

  “No,” Charlie said, leaning back into his seat, “because that’s when I became a Ferryman.”

  “Ohhh, how mysterious. And how did you ‘become’ a Ferryman, exactly?”

  Charlie felt his lips tug into an uncomfortable line as he fought off a knee-jerk reaction to grimace. “Long story,” he replied.

  Alice tapped the plastic clock in the middle of the console. “I’m assuming you’re going to take the Lincoln Tunnel, whether you know it or not, and we’ve got about thirty minutes until we get there. How about you try me? I’m a good listener, too.”

  There was a tone of hopefulness in her voice that Charlie found surprising. Be that as it may, it didn’t seem right to be sharing so much about himself—that just wasn’t how things worked. It was his job to know about his subjects. Having the roles reversed just didn’t feel right.

  “I’m not a big fan of bringing up the past,” Charlie said.

  “And I’m not a big fan of being kidnapped by immortal strangers, but beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. I think I’m owed this story.”

  “You really want to know, huh?”

  “No, me and all my other Ferryman friends were just talking about it the other day. Of course I want to know. Come on, keep your hostage happy, Charlie.”

  Charlie. It was, he realized, the first time she’d used his name. Whether that was a good thing or not, he had no idea. It also occurred to Charlie that only one other person knew that particular story—the same person who was presently and inconveniently not answering his phone.

  With a final, drawn-out sigh that signaled his admission of defeat, Charlie began. “It happened on what was supposed to be my last whaling expedition . . .”

  CHARLIE

  * * *

  WHITE WHALE

  We’ve lost the mizzenmast!”

  The explosive cracking of the timber was all but lost in the roar of the tempest, the rain splattering across the deck in a near-impenetrable curtain. Massive waves barraged the deck, rolling over the ship with such force that they’d already claimed the lives of two sailors who couldn’t find purchase anywhere before being carried off into the sea. The wind swirled and danced like a vengeful Roma, blasting into the sails of the foremast and mainmast until they snapped at their riggings, the cloth pulling taut with explosive snaps that rang out like musket fire.

  The crew was working in nearly impossible conditions to bring the sails in, having already lost the third sail. The mizzenmast had snapped about halfway up its length, sending it careening down into the black void of the ocean.

  The Canterbury had been caught off guard by the sudden turn in the winter weather. Though the clouds had been ominously gathering in the distance, the captain, Barnabas Shipley, had decided to press onward, convinced they could outpace it in the middle of the Atlantic. During the night, however, the storm had arrived, an assassin in the dark.

  The foremast rigging had been secured, and the mainmast was just about there. The first mate, Crowley, threw his voice into the raging gusts. “Come on, Dawson, ye whoreson dog! Get that knot tied!”

  Charles’s legs had gone numb minutes ago—he was using all the strength he could muster to keep his body wrapped around the spar. His fingers, also moving without feeling, fumbled with the ends of the rope. Even with his eyes well adjusted to the darkness, the lashing rain made seeing a difficult prospect. He just needed to tighten the last knot, and the sail would be secure.

  As his fingers moved with automatic precision, his thoughts drifted back to London, back to home. He could hear Crowley bellowing below, but another gust of wind carried the words far across the ocean waves. Charles liked the first mate; tough, crass, and fiercely loyal, the man had more than proved his worth aboard the vessel. Captain Shipley, on the other hand . . .

  “Dawson!” boomed Crowley’s voice.

  With a final, fierce tug, Charles finished the knot. “It’s done!” he cried. A rogue wave—nearly impossible to spot in the gloom of night—slammed into the side and set the ship shuddering. Charles nearly lost his grip as the ship rolled slightly to starboard, but he held on. He waited for the whaler to right itself before clambering down into the netting. The ropes were slick with freezing spray, and Charles struggled to get any solid hold as he descended. Carefully but gracefully, he worked his way down until the deck floorboards were underneath him once more.

  “There’s a good lad!” roared Crowley. His voice went silent as another gaping wave rolled across the face of the ship, knocking men off their feet and sending others scrambling. When the water had slid off the sides of the deck, it was Crowley’s laughter that broke through the fury around them. “Well now, who fancies a voyage with Davy Jones tonight, eh?! Which one of you devilish lot brought this cursed storm upon us?! Come now, I’ll have no liars!”

  The ship’s carpenter, Stevens, yelled over the bedlam: “You should check with your own son-in-law first—perhaps he hasn’t been treating your precious flower as delicately as you would!”

  Charles, exhausted from the battering he’d taken having been exposed to the full brunt of the storm, still managed a wry grin. “You’re an evil man, Mr. Stevens, casting me into the fire like that! Isn’t having our esteemed first mate as a father-in-law punishment enough?!” Gallows humor at its finest, he noted miserably, but both Crowley and Stevens found the gem of laughter in it as well.

  Elizabeth had appeared in Charles’s life five years ago, when he’d made port at Howland Dock after another successful expedition. When he first laid eyes on her, she was standing nervously by herself, waiting patiently in a dress too fine to blend in with the chaotic rabble of merchant vessels. He watched her closely from aboard the Manitoba, his heart slowly being reeled in by her gentle beauty. Finally, as he departed the ship, Charles worked up the courage to approach her.

  “Excuse me, miss? Are you lost? I couldn’t help but notice that you look a bit out of place here,” he’d said, with the best manners he could manage after several months at sea. The compliment was implied.

  She smiled at him warmly—a smile that immediately crystalized in Charles’s memory, bound to be remembered for centuries to come—and said, “I couldn’t help but notice the same of you. You look a bit sissy to be a sailor.”

  It was not the way Charles planned on starting a bright and wonderful romance, but so it was.

  After a dutiful combination of persistence and dry sarcasm, he managed to convince her to meet several days later. When he’d arrived at her house, he quickly figured out why she’d been waiting at the dock earlier that week. Standing outside, dressed exponentially more elegantly than he’d ever been on the ship, was Oliver Crowley, the first mate of the Manitoba.

  Despite every misgiving Charles had upon laying eyes on Crowley’s hulking form that day, he learned quickly that Elizabeth was as witty as her father was boorish—a trait Charles found wildly endearing. The courtship proceeded smoothly, and a year and a half later, the two were wed. Charles took up work as an apprentice cartographer, pursuing his fascination with maps, and the two lived happily for several years. They’d been unable to conceive a child, but it was something they were working at, God bless them.

  Except it was never to be.

  One day, Charles’s father-in-law came around looking for a competent ship hand to complete the ranks of a new vessel, the Canterbury, which was preparing to set sail for the Atlantic. Elizabeth pleaded with her husband not to go, repeatedly stating she had a bad feeling about the business. Her father could shove off, for all she cared. However, Charles knew something she didn’t. Around the shop,
he’d gotten wind that Mr. Crowley had placed a rather sizable investment in a ship—the Lady Lucifer—that had disappeared somewhere off the Cape of Good Hope. Though Crowley would never openly admit it, the man was desperate for work. If he couldn’t fill the crew of the Canterbury, there’d be no expedition, as it was late in the season to be whaling already. Charles couldn’t turn him down.

  Now, however, with the fierce gale cutting the ship into pieces, he desperately wished he’d listened to his wife.

  “If I didn’t need the pair of you scullies to see to it that this ship doesn’t carry us all straight to hell, I’d throw you o’erboard myself!” barked Crowley. “Now get below deck, both of you—no reason to make any more widows tonight!”

  With narrowed eyes, Charles surveyed the deck. “Where’s Shipley?!” he yelled over the wind.

  Crowley said nothing initially, instead looking at Stevens. “Our gallant captain,” he finally said, “has decided his expertise is best served from his cabin. I have been left in complete command until the end of this ‘mild weather.’ ”

  Stevens spit on the deck. “If this is mild weather, then I’m the bloody Prince of Wales. A pox to the bastard!”

  “We’ll see it through, God willing. Keep your wits about you and your sinful thoughts far from your heart.”

  “Aye,” Charles said. Crowley lifted the door for the two to go down. “Wise men first!” Charles yelled to Stevens, even though he was standing mere feet away from him.

  “A true gentleman you are, Dawson. Wish I could say the same about your father-in-law!” the old carpenter called back as he ducked below the ship’s deck. Charles laughed and looked over to see Crowley’s reaction.

  Instead of the first mate’s squat face, he was greeted with a wall of black water.

  The wave pounded Charles into the wooden floorboards as his body was swept across the deck. For an eternal few seconds, he tumbled underwater until he slammed into the ornate railing. His back cried in pain as the hard wood abruptly stopped him. His hands flailed in the darkness, grasping for anything to hold on to, but his already depleted fingers slid over everything they managed to touch.

  Suddenly, he was weightless.

  A firm tug on his arm nearly tore it out of his socket, but it arrested his fall. Finally given a second to catch his bearings, Charles realized he’d been flung over the rail on the complete opposite side of the ship. It was only a tremendous grip that was keeping the ship hand from plunging into the frigid water below.

  “Hold on now, I’ve got ye, I’ve got ye!” Crowley yelled as he held on to Charles’s left wrist with one hand. His other hand, wrenched around the back of a nearby cannon, was the only thing keeping the two from barreling into the sea. From between the banisters in the rail, Charles could make out Stevens and another man, Dawkins, racing up from below deck.

  Charles said nothing—his feet pawed at the side of the ship as he tried to find some sort of purchase to propel himself back up. He looked up desperately into Crowley’s eyes, each one standing out against the vivid darkness of the storm. Stevens wrapped his arms around Crowley’s waist and tried to pull him back, bringing Charles up as well, but with no surface to steady him and the ship rolling to and fro, Stevens only managed to stabilize the first mate. Dawkins raced to an errant rope that was dangling over the side and worked to rein it in.

  The feeling had left Charles’s hand long ago. His strength was already gone. Unless someone could pull him up, he realized, he was done for.

  “Don’t you dare let go, Dawson! For the love of God almighty, don’t you dare let go!” Crowley bellowed down at him. Dawkins was rushing back with the rope, preparing to fling it overboard.

  The wave smashed into the side of the ship and plucked Charles from his dangling position in midair. His body receded with the wave, back into the ocean. The sheer intensity of the freezing water stole the air from his lungs and ripped like knives at his skin. A newfound instinct to survive coursed through Charles’s body, and he kicked with all his might until he breached the surface. He whirled around, looking for the giant whaler fighting through the sea. The oppressive rain made it difficult to see anything. After a few seconds, he spotted its hulking shape behind him, perhaps a hundred yards away—the current must have whisked him off. A half dozen or so small lights emerged across the deck, the lanterns flitting like fireflies as ship hands searched for Charles in the sea.

  Despite the burning in his arms, he rallied his limbs, and with stroke after well-practiced stroke, he powered toward the ship. He wasn’t the best swimmer on the crew, but he was no slouch, either. The fire in his muscles was slowly being replaced by a deadly numbness, but still Charles drove on.

  He swam without stopping, his mind only daring to think of his next stroke. After what felt like five minutes, he moved to tread water, hoping that he wouldn’t have to go much farther to get into range of the Canterbury’s ropes. He looked up.

  The ship was a fraction of its size, the lantern lights now floating like distant embers as Charles found himself even farther away than he had been only moments ago.

  He knew it now in his heart: he was a dead man. It wouldn’t be long before his limbs would lose what remaining strength they had in the frigid water. His head would sink below the waves, his last breath fighting to last endlessly. He would drown soon after, another sacrifice to Davy Jones.

  He was utterly alone. Inside his head, his teeth chattered uncontrollably.

  A glint of bright white light flashed in his periphery. His stiff limbs struggled to turn his body in its direction within the violent current. With a final effort, he managed to swing his body around to find the source, hoping it might be an unseen ship nearby. But as he finally came around, Charles gasped, inhaling a mouth of seawater instead.

  Sitting in front of him, floating in midair above the waves, was a door. The entrance opened to an almost blindingly white hallway beyond, and what looked to be another door far off in the distance. A grinning man was perched in the entrance, his legs dangling just beyond the tips of the waves. He sat, absentmindedly stroking the Vandyke beard below his slightly curved mustache. He seemed like a man borne out of the past, but given the circumstances of his appearance, it was hardly the least peculiar aspect of the situation.

  I’m either dead already or I’ve swallowed too much water, Charles thought.

  He was so stunned that, for a moment, he forgot to speak. Almost immediately, though, he regained his senses and yelled, “Help me! Please!”

  The man’s eyebrows arched dramatically at the sound of Charles’s voice. “What ho, good fellow! Can you truly see me?”

  “Yes!” Charles’s head was plunged under a wave. His clothes were getting heavier by the second. He popped back up sputtering. “I don’t know who you are, but for the love of God, please, help me!”

  The man clapped in delight. “Marvelous! I suspected you had something special about you, and it would appear my suspicion has been proved correct. Unfortunately, I must ask in the name of complete diligence: You are not presently deceased just yet, are you?”

  Another rough wave rolled over Charles’s head, but he fought against it. “No, but if you don’t do something, I will be!”

  The man checked a pocket watch, then laughed quietly, or at least it looked that way—it was tough for Charles to hear over the roar of the ocean. Yet much to his surprise, he had no trouble discerning the man’s next words. “Very well. My name is William Henry Taylor Cartwright the Fourth, though Cartwright will do well enough, and I am a Ferryman—an attendant to the souls of the departed. It is entirely possible for me to preserve your life, Charles Ronald Dawson, but it will not come without a price.”

  “Help—!” Charles began, but his words were cut off as water poured into his mouth, the rest of his statement reduced to a fit of coughing and sputtering.

  The man stood up in the doorway. Despite Charles’s struggles, he continued his explanation unabated. “Immortality for your service to the Ferry
man Institute. That is the covenant I offer. But I warn you, sir. This gift should not be accepted if you possess even the slightest of doubts about this opportunity. You will work until the Institute deems it sufficient. Nevertheless, I proffer you this choice, to guide the spirits of this world to their next life. Do you accept?”

  Charles tried to answer, but couldn’t get his mouth above the waves. His arms lethargically pushed through the water as he willed them for one last thrust. He didn’t want to die—he couldn’t. He was so young, his life was so promising, there was so much to do . . .

  “Do you accept?!” roared Cartwright, his eyes glittering with excitement.

  Charles’s head sank below the water. There, swallowed as he was by the ocean, he saw Elizabeth. Her smile. Her eyes. Heard her laugh, whispering like traces of moonlight. Felt her lips, teasing his neck. Saw her as no one had or would ever see her, as only a man on the brink of death can.

  He needed to see her again. If that meant following this stranger into something Charles still didn’t quite believe, then so be it. Whatever it took.

  With one last agonizing push, Charles threw his body above the churning sea.

  “Yes!” he cried before his body sank again below the surface.

  He had lost all of his strength. The ocean had stolen it, replacing it with a paralyzing cold that seeped into every pore of his body. The surface slowly floated away from him, the cacophony of the storm muted beneath the calm water. He drifted downward, slowly, slowly downward toward the bottom of the sea.

  Without warning, a strange sensation rippled through his body. The iciness disappeared from his limbs. His lungs, which moments ago had burned with the agony of a man on his last breath, suddenly ceased to ache. Energy flooded back into his arms and legs.

  He was alive.