The Ferryman Institute

by Colin Gigl

  On the eighth day, Claude stirred, his course of action finally decided. He bathed quietly, taking his time in the tub, running over every detail in his mind as he soaked. When he’d finished, he shaved off the chaotic layer of patchy facial hair that had sprung up and put on his finest suit. Only then did Claude emerge from his office and proceed directly to Ferryman Affairs. He gathered a collection of forms, eyes seeing but not truly comprehending, and filled them out, one by one, until he arrived at the final paper. You acknowledge that you will be legally bound by this name henceforth (subject to appeal by a review board), read the sheet’s final paragraph, and that all Ferryman Institute documentation will be transferred to this name. If you consent to this agreement, please present your new signature below.

  It was one of the few things Claude had determined with clarity during his mourning. He once again found himself in need of a new beginning, a symbol of his new path. The answer had arrived unexpectedly, springing to life in his mind without any prior thought—had he been a religious man, it would have been tempting to call it divine intervention. It was a name, born out of two from the only story he’d ever loved. The young street urchin, raised on the streets of Paris in poverty, and the man of the law, bound so deeply to it that he’d take his own life before breaking it.

  With a final flourish, Claude signed the name that would now become his own. The one the entire Institute would come to know in the years to come.

  Javrouche.

  * * *

  THE INSPECTOR sat motionless in his solid oak chair, hands folded neatly together in front of his face as he waited for news on Dawson. The initial recon unit consisting of two pursuit vehicles had failed, with one of the vehicles reported as utterly destroyed. He was unconcerned. The recon detachment was, in essence, little more than a diversion anyway. As Dawson approached the tunnel, the plan would enter phase two. There was no entrance or exit to the tunnel Javrouche had not covered. It was the perfect ambush.

  So, with only time to pass, he sat and waited, staring at Renoir’s painting of Monet, listening for the approaching footsteps of justice.

  ALICE

  * * *

  TO LIVE AND DRIVE IN NJ

  The look on Charlie’s face said it all, really. Getting them to the Lincoln Tunnel had taken a backseat in his mind, replaced by a million thoughts that Alice would never be privy to. She had questions all her own—even more than she’d had a couple of hours ago—but Charlie seemed to have left for lunch, please come back in an hour. Nevertheless, she tried him.

  “So if my memory serves me correctly, Cartwright was the name of the guy who made you a Ferryman, right?” she asked.

  He nodded. “And my most trusted friend, too. At least, I think he is. Or was?” Charlie shook his head. “I’m not really sure anymore.”

  “That’s a weird thing to not be sure about.”

  “Well, it’s a weird situation now. It seems he’s not the man I thought he was . . . and I mean that quite literally.”

  “Oh.” Alice wasn’t quite sure how to react to that, so she said nothing.

  The car rolled on in silence. For once, the quiet didn’t bother her, perhaps because her thoughts were elsewhere, busy being absorbed by particular questions that were bothering her. Like just about everything else that’d happened so far that night, these, too, were questions she hadn’t been expecting. Unpredictability was the new norm, evidently, and life had forgotten to cc her on that.

  When did she start caring so goddamn much about this crazy situation she’d somehow become a part of?

  Why was she upset that it hadn’t been Cartwright on the phone?

  Why was she suddenly so invested in what this guy—this mysterious, ridiculous guy with his mysterious, ridiculous story—was thinking?

  These couldn’t be normal questions, not under her circumstances. Sure, she’d told him she still wanted to die, but her feelings didn’t necessarily follow that same desire anymore. It was funny an hour ago when she was ironically diagnosing herself with Stockholm syndrome. Not anymore.

  Was it because it made her feel important? That was an interesting thought, and the more she rolled it over in her brain, the more it took on some sense. Clearly there must be a reason Charlie was going through all this trouble. Maybe there was something special about her after all?

  There was something else, though—more specifically, something about Charlie. What did sportscasters always call it? Intangibles. Something that couldn’t be measured in numbers or stats. He was just . . . different, and like it or not, that intrigued her. It was like he was looking through the world rather than at it, like he could see the same gray world she did, but could also somehow see where all the colors belonged . . .

  . . . and how beautiful it would look with them in it.

  “I’m sorry,” Charlie said suddenly, “about all of this. You shouldn’t be in this mess, and it’s my fault that you are.” He hesitated, maybe wondering if he should continue and ultimately deciding not to.

  In the pantheon of things she hadn’t expected this man to say, Alice would concede that those words were near the top. For a moment, she fell into old habits as a line of sharply snarky retorts queued up in her head. But they didn’t feel right, not in that moment. She’d relied on them so much over the past few years that they felt as natural as a crutch. That wasn’t quite right, though—it was more like a mask. How can I be sad when my rapier-sharp wit is this honed? her witticisms said to the outside world. But it was a disguise she hid behind, too afraid to show how beaten down she really felt because she was just too damn proud.

  No. She was too afraid.

  She tried to look through Charlie the way he seemed to with her, in a way that she hoped would somehow give her access to his mind. Who was this man, really? Why had he saved her? Why him? And why her? So many questions, and no answers. Not knowing . . . that was another annoying thing about life she wouldn’t have missed. Bang. Should have been easy. Should have been . . .

  He remained a closed book to her. But in searching the Ferryman to her left, Alice found something in her own mind she hadn’t expected to find. It was the truth, inexplicable though it was. Lying there at the bottom of her mind like Hope had in Pandora’s box, she found her reply.

  “Don’t apologize. I hate to admit this, but in a really bizarre way, it’s been kind of . . . fun.”

  Was it terrible to think that, somewhere in that sadistic brain of hers, she was enjoying this? Maybe not on the same level as, say, riding Space Mountain, but enough to be noticeable. Was that really a bad thing? Weird and probably not healthy, sure, but bad?

  She closed her eyes. There was fear waiting there, just behind her eyelids. A fear that this would all be fleeting, that at some point minutes, maybe even seconds from now, she would lose this feeling, never for it to return again. She tried to savor it anyway.

  “You all right over there?” Charlie asked, concern woven into his voice.

  “Yeah,” Alice said, eyes still shut. For the first time in who knew how long, she meant it.

  CHARLIE

  * * *

  BOTTOM OF THE HELIX

  Who was this girl, and what had she done with Alice? She was smiling softly, Charlie noted out of the corner of his eye. How could anyone in her position possibly seem so content at a time like this? There was only one explanation. I did it, he thought. I’ve broken her. She’s finally gone off the deep end.

  “You sure you’re all right?” he asked, not certain if this was a road he really wanted to start down, but morbidly curious nonetheless.

  Her voice never faltered when she answered. “No,” she said, “I think there’s a good chance I’ve completely lost my mind, but I’m going with it for the time being.”

  At least they were on the same page as far as sanity was concerned.

  They took the exit for the Lincoln Tunnel, Charlie slowing down only enough to keep the Jeep from pitching over in the fairly steep turn. It was a half mile to the entrance, whic
h meant a mile stood between them and what Charlie hoped were answers at the Institute. With everything that had happened so far, he felt nothing could surprise him at this point.

  Which was exactly when the pair of glaring headlights burst into life behind them. They blazed just outside the rear windshield, so close they might as well have been in the backseat. Though it was tough to see, given their sheer intensity, Charlie would have bet the house that it was the second black SUV from earlier.

  Alice turned in her seat, shielding her eyes from the beams. “Man, what did you do to piss these guys off?”

  “Forgot to send them Christmas cards last year,” he quipped automatically. He took the Jeep into another steep turn, hoping that he wasn’t going too fast. The hook continued to sharpen as they entered the aptly named Helix that led to the tunnel’s entrance. The wheels cried in protest as the cars pushed the laws of physics, racing around the giant curve like dueling vehicles in an automobile ad.

  “Interesting. I would have figured Ferrymen were more of a Festivus crowd.”

  He peeked over at her. “You are being scarily calm about this situation right now, and it’s kind of freaking me out.” Sad but true. Her newfound Zen-like attitude was off-putting, to say the least.

  Alice shrugged. “I’ve been watching you drive. I’ve got faith.” She paused. “Please don’t make me regret saying that.”

  A quick glance in the mirror confirmed that the SUV was tight to their bumper, Charlie doing just enough to hold their lead. However, even with his nose in front, he didn’t want to take this particular chase into the tunnel. There were too many variables, too many things that could go wrong. He needed a plan B.

  As they finished coming around the ring of the Helix, Charlie noticed a small, coned-off section between the leftmost and middle tube of the Lincoln Tunnel’s three entrance/exits—two reserved for entering and exiting New York respectively, the third switching from one to the other based on time and traffic. It looked to be an official area of sorts, complete with two parked utility trucks, probably for emergency crews to clean up any accidents or breakdowns that might occur in the tunnels. Behind the area was a simple white garage door. It looked like it could fit a small truck comfortably, but not much else. Though Charlie didn’t know much about the architecture of the tunnel itself, he suspected there was some form of connecting passageway inside from one end to the other, be it for maintenance, ventilation, or otherwise. If they could get inside . . .

  Charlie had concocted a lot of crappy plans already that night. This one, however, took the shit cake.

  Already in the far left lane, Charlie quickly slammed on the brakes and yanked the steering wheel hard to the left. “Hold on!” he yelled as the car demolished the first cone. A crescendo of wailing came as the car tipped onto two wheels and spun 180 degrees. With a tremendous crash, the rear passenger side of the Jeep slammed into the front end of one of the parked service trucks, immediately stopping the car. The other SUV was completely caught out by the maneuver and flew into the entrance of the tunnel, its own brakes howling. Though it disappeared from view, the sound of two cars meeting at high speed reverberated from inside the tunnel moments later.

  Charlie immediately looked over at Alice. To his relief, she was already undoing her seat belt.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She seemed a bit shaken up, but overall looked no worse for wear. “So, the next time you plan on deliberately crashing my car, do you think I could get a—I don’t know—one-second heads-up? That half second was just a little too short.” She popped open her door, jumped out, and made a beeline for the garage door.

  Charlie quickly unbuckled his own seat belt and followed after her. “So I’m assuming yes, then?”

  As he hurried to the door, Charlie realized that the middle tube of the tunnel was currently serving outbound traffic. The sound of a droning car horn drifted out, the way cars do endlessly after they’ve collided with something, and Charlie had a good feeling he knew what that something was. Just as he started to pat himself on the back for another perfectly executed bit of Charlie Dawson genius, two men wearing body armor—members of the Ferryman Institute’s detention unit, no doubt—burst out of the tunnel with their legs pumping furiously. It didn’t take Charlie long to figure out who they were chasing. He pulled up next to the entrance door where Alice was standing, her breath coming in short huffs now.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  Charlie looked at her quizzically. “Um, we open the door?” His mind was already trying to figure out how many seconds they had until the guards arrived.

  “Let me rephrase that.” She tried to push open the door. Nothing happened. “It’s locked. What the hell do we do now?”

  Admittedly, Charlie hadn’t accounted for that possibility. In his glorious plan B, the door opened easily from the outside—where he currently was—and locked even more easily from the inside—where he currently wanted to be.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Charlie muttered under his breath.

  He could hear the shouting now over the steady clamor of the car horn. “Dawson! You’re under arrest! Stay where you are!”

  “Charlie,” Alice said, emotion creeping back into her voice, “we need to do something!”

  The Ferryman jumped down from the small landing in front of the service area door to the large garage door next to it. “Yup,” he called back, “I couldn’t agree more.” The men from the detention unit were rounding the corner of the tunnel. Charlie crouched down in front of the garage door before sliding his hands as far underneath as he could.

  Charlie licked his lips. Here goes nothing.

  He put everything he had into trying to lift the garage door. His body shook under the tremendous force, yet the door didn’t budge. Alice jumped down beside him, but he was so focused on the door that he barely noticed. Charlie stopped, readjusted his position, and tried again. “Open sesame, you stupid piece of shit!” he yelled as he poured every ounce of strength into lifting.

  The detention unit officers closed the gap with each pounding step. It wasn’t going to be enough, they were going to run out of time, they were going to—

  Suddenly, the door rose up three feet. Charlie lost his balance, accidentally toppling backward in the process. A mustached face poked out from under the opening of the garage door.

  “Quickly now,” Cartwright said.

  Alice apparently didn’t need to be told twice as she scurried under the door. Charlie looked over to his right. One of the officers was sprinting, a look of cold determination frozen on his face.

  “Charles!” barked Cartwright from under the door.

  Spurred into action, Charlie quickly scrambled to all fours like an ungainly bear cub. The lead officer dove at the Ferryman with outstretched arms. Charlie tucked and rolled as fast as he could through the small opening.

  Just when Charlie thought he’d cleared the door, his body came to an abrupt stop. Charlie whipped his head around and found himself staring into the eyes of the detention officer who’d gotten ahold of Charlie just below his biceps.

  The rest of Charlie was inside the garage—only his arm was pinned down against the ground, half in, half out. Charlie tried to wrench himself free but only managed to cause the officer’s grip to slip down to his wrist. The other officer closed in, clearly aiming to slide underneath the door.

  Then, with a dramatic crash, the garage door came careening down to the ground.

  Cartwright stood over Charlie as he swiftly locked the door. A loud thud resonated from outside the door, followed by the sound of a fist pounding against it. “They’ve locked us out!” came the muffled voice from the other side.

  Charlie lay there, unmoving.

  “Cut that one a little close, don’t you think?” he said to Cartwright, an amused smile tripping over his lips. For that brief moment, the accusations disappeared from Charlie’s mind. It was damn good to see Cartwright again. There was also the small matter of him pulling Charl
ie and Alice straight out of the fire, which certainly didn’t hurt the man’s reputation.

  The moment was short-lived, however, only partially because Alice chose the next second to start screaming.

  “Charlie, your arm!” she shrieked, visibly cringing as she pointed.

  Charlie looked down. Sure enough, his left arm from the elbow to his hand was gone. A tiny portion of his jagged stub poked out from beyond his rolled-up sleeves, the bone in his forearm jutting out a few inches.

  He held it up to his face, then shrugged. “It’ll grow back,” he said.

  She looked at him, her face a mix of wonder and disgust. “Wait, what?” she asked.

  This should be fun, he thought.

  Within seconds, the end of the Ferryman’s left arm began to stretch like a sentient piece of taffy. Muscle fibers lengthened, braiding together at the ends as they became long cords. The open wound closed off immediately, leaving behind a completely inconspicuous nub. A small bubble began to form at the end of his reconstituted arm, growing outward from his wrist. When it was about the size of a fist, it suddenly sprouted five thin outgrowths, which almost instantly began to flex into fingers. Charlie opened and closed his hand several times.

  He caught Alice looking at him. Both her hands were covering her mouth, and she quickly turned away, gagging. After a few dry heaves, he could hear her mutter, “Ugh, gross.”

  A clap drew Charlie’s attention. Cartwright stood with his hands pressed together, looking just as he always did, his twirled mustache finely spiraled in on itself. He bowed to them both.

  “Please accept my sincerest apologies for the rather precise margin of timing. I assure you I had every intention of arriving sooner, but tonight has been a rather chaotic night.” Charlie opened his mouth to speak, but Cartwright was already walking to a back room. “This way, if you please. I have the utmost faith in that door, but I’m afraid it shan’t hold our undesirable guests forever. I believe a smattering of privacy would be most welcome indeed.” He opened the door and beckoned the pair in.