The Ferry Read online

  “Jump!” Mark shouts. “For God’s sake, get off that thing!”

  I hesitate for a moment, as the ferry makes its way further from the lifeboat. I know I should follow Mark, but there’s a part of me that wants to stay on-board and try to talk to the captain, and maybe even find out where he’s going next. I turn and look back toward the bridge, and for a few seconds I swear I can see his skeletal face again, watching me through the glass, maybe even waiting for me. Before I can make a decision, however, the ferry hits another large wave, and the force is enough to dislodge me from the railing. Turning, I fall forward and start to plummet down until, finally, I crash into the rough sea and plunge into the depths.

  Frantically trying to tread water, I look up and see the vast bulk of the ferry passing almost directly overhead. A moment later, I spot the lifeboat as well, and finally I realize that I have to go to Mark. Swimming back up through the turbulent water, I break the surface and reach up to the side of the lifeboat, only for Mark to reach down and pull me on-board

  “Where is it?” I splutter, getting to my feet and looking around, only to realize that there’s no sign of the ferry. “Where did it go?”

  Mark turns, and clearly he has no idea. “It was there just a moment ago.”

  Turning again, I realize I can see a hint of land on the horizon. We’ve arrived just a few miles from where we left.

  Chapter Nine

  “Where is everyone?”

  As soon as I drop the oars and jump out of the lifeboat, I can tell that something’s wrong. The trailers are still in place a little way from the shore, but there’s no sign of anyone at all and a kind of hush seems to have fallen over the land. There should be a team here from London by now, the whole area should be buzzing with activity, and yet as I make my way toward the nearest trailer I realize the entire scene is eerily quiet. Even the seagulls have shut up and left.

  “Be careful,” Mark says as he hurries to catch up.

  “There!” I shout, pointing at a figure slumped on the grass near one of the trailers. Racing over, I crouch next to him and see that it’s one of the rescue workers, but he’s unconscious and even before I put a hand on his forehead, I can tell that he’s got a fever. Glancing over toward another of the trailers, I see that Mark has already found another ill man. It’s as if people just fell and dropped.

  We spend the next few minutes searching for someone who can still talk, but everyone is sick. We find Louis Cole slumped at one of his laptops, and David Stratton is in the main trailer, with his phone still in one hand. Hurrying over to him, I tilt his head back and gently tap the side of his face, hoping to find out what’s happening.

  “Can you hear me?” I ask, forcing one of his eyes open. When he doesn’t reply, I check his pulse and find that although his heart-rate is erratic, he’s still alive.

  “Carter’s dead,” Mark says as he comes to join me. “Everyone else is in various stages of sickness.”

  “When the living and the dead mix,” I whisper, thinking back to the things Eileen Shaw told me the other day, “a terrible plague will erupt.”

  “What was that?” Mark asks.

  “She was right,” I continue, feeling a wave of cold panic in my chest. “I should have listened to her right from the start!”

  Hurrying past him, I head to the medical trailer, but sure enough there’s no sign of the survivor who was pulled from the sea shortly after the ferry sank. Stepping back out onto the grass, I look around for a moment before spotting Eileen’s house in the distance. A few seconds later, light briefly catches something in one of the windows, and I realize she’s watching us through her binoculars.

  ***

  “I warned you,” she says as she lets us into the house. “I told you, these worlds shouldn’t mix and you didn’t listen!”

  “Where is he?” I ask, hurrying past her until I reach the front room and see the survivor laid out on one of the sofas. He looks sicker than before, but unlike the people down at the base camp, at least he’s still conscious. “How did he get here?”

  “I brought him,” she replies. “I was watching it all unfold from up here. I saw people getting sick one by one, and then I saw this man stumbling out of a trailer. I went down there and fetched him in my wheelbarrow. You might think I’m just a delicate old thing, but I can get a move-on when things are tight. I’ve always been good in a crisis.”

  “Everyone at the site is sick,” I tell her as I head over to the sofa and look down at the survivor. His eyes are closed, but after a moment they open slightly and he looks up at me. “I think they’re dying. How do we fix this?”

  “I don’t know if you can,” Eileen continues. “It might be too late, but perhaps there’s a chance if you get that poor soul to where he’s supposed to be going. If you put things right, the plague will end, or at least it won’t spread.”

  “And where do you want us to take him?” Mark asks. “Where is he supposed to be going?”

  “The ferry,” I whisper, kneeling next to the sofa and looking into the survivor’s eyes. After a moment, his lips move and he starts to whisper something, and even though I don’t understand a word that he’s saying, I can tell that he’s in pain, maybe even scared. Turning to Mark, I finally realize what we have to do. “You saw what happened to all the others on the ferry. We need to take him back to them! That’s where he belongs.”

  “You want to go back on that thing?” he asks incredulously.

  “We don’t have a choice!”

  “Did you see him?” Eileen asks.

  I turn to her.

  “Is he still there?” she continues, with tears in her eyes.

  “Who?” I ask.

  “My poor…” Pausing, she seems on the verge of breaking down. “My poor brother, all those years ago… According to the old texts, those who meddle with the ferry’s work are doomed to take Charon’s seat on the bridge as penance. Is he still there?”

  “He…” I look over at Mark, and I can see the shock in his expression. When I turn back to Eileen, I can’t help feeling that she seems heartbroken. “I saw the captain,” I tell her. “He’s still there.”

  Heading over to the table, she picks up a framed photo and holds it out to me. “Was it him?”

  “I really don’t -”

  “Please!”

  Taking the photo, I see that it’s old, showing a young woman and a slightly younger man. It takes a moment before I realize that the woman must be Emily, back in the 1950s, and the man must be her brother George, smiling at the camera with a broad, confident smile. Just as I’m about to hand the photo back to her, however, I realize that the man’s jacket looks familiar: on the shoulder, there’s the same pattern that I remember seeing on the scraps of thread that still clung to the captain’s bones. I look at his face and try to imagine the skull beneath the flesh.

  “You don’t need to answer,” Eileen continues, as tears run down her face. “I knew he’d still be there. He got too close to that thing, too arrogant, so it took him. That’s why I wanted you all to stay away from it!”

  “But we have to get this man back,” I reply, trying to stay calm as I look down at the survivor. “If we don’t, the plague will spread, won’t it?”

  “You don’t have much time,” she tells me. “It might already be too late.”

  “But we have to try.” Hurrying back to the sofa, I reach down and put my hands under the survivor’s body, before slowly lifting him up and heading to the door.

  “Are you serious?” Mark asks.

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “Wait,” Eileen calls after me as I carry the survivor out into the hallway.

  I turn and look back at her.

  “If you see my brother again,” she continues, wiping tears from her cheeks, “tell him… Tell him I’ve been watching all these years. Tell him I never forgot about him. Tell him I always watched, every time he came past the bay.”

  ***

  Finally, after an hour of hea
ding southwest away from the Cornish coast, I slow the dinghy and then switch the engine off, bringing us to a halt on the gently bobbing sea. I look around, but the scene feels so desolate, I simply can’t imagine the ferry suddenly looming upon us and scooping us onto its deck, which means we might be too late. I look toward the horizon, hoping to spot a faint dot heading this way, but there’s nothing. Checking my watch, I realize that all I can do now is wait and hope.

  “Now what?” Mark asks from the other end of the lifeboat.

  “We wait,” I tell him. “What else can we do?”

  “Do you really believe everything she said?” he continues. “I mean, no offense, but how would she even know all that stuff about the ferry?”

  “She studied it,” I point out. “I think people have been studying it for centuries. Most of them had the sense to keep away.”

  “But the boat itself, that can’t have been going for centuries. Do they just pick a new ferry every so often?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “And what about -”

  “I don’t know,” I reply, trying to stay calm in the face of his constant stream of questions. I keep glancing around, watching the horizon for any sign of the ferry returning. “I don’t know how any of this works, I just know what I’ve seen with my own two eyes. You saw it too, remember?” Looking down at the survivor, I pause for a moment. “Are they coming for you? Is that how it’s supposed to happen? Will the captain try to pick you up, no matter what? Or does it not really matter that much? Will he just leave you behind?”

  To my surprise, he whispers something.

  “What was that?” I ask, leaning closer.

  He whispers again, but I still don’t understand. In fact, something tells me that there’s no way I could ever understand. It’s as if the dead have their own language, and there’s an impenetrable barrier that keeps me from understanding him. Maybe that’s how things should be.

  “I’m trying to help,” I tell him, speaking slowly and clearly. “I thought…” Pausing, I look back out at the sea all around us, before sighing. “I thought they’d come for you. I thought the ferry would want to pick you up again.”

  He replies, his voice sounding clipped and urgent. As he continues, I can’t help wondering whether there’s some filter between us, something that’s preventing us from understanding one another. And then, finally, he reaches up with a bony hand and touches my arm.

  “What?” I ask, leaning closer. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Sophie!” Mark shouts suddenly. “Get -”

  Before he can finish, the dinghy bucks up on a series of rougher waves, almost as if -

  Turning, I see the ferry bearing down on us at full speed. I reach out to start the motor, but it’s too late: the ferry’s prow smashes into us, capsizing the dinghy and sending us crashing into the water. Plunging beneath the surface, I instinctively start swimming down and away, desperately trying to ensure that I don’t get hit by the ferry or by debris from the dinghy, but when I start swimming back up I realize that my arms are starting to feel more tired than ever. The vast bulk of the ferry is directly above me and there’s a tumultuous swirl of debris all around, but I feel as if getting back there is no longer so important. Falling still, I simply watch the light as it dances on the surface of the water, and I let myself drift. I feel as if I’ve spent my whole life fighting the current, but now all I can do is let it take me.

  After a moment, I realize a cloud of blood is rising up from the side of my face, filling the water.

  ***

  The ferry creaks, and when I open my eyes I find that I’m back on the bridge. Night has fallen once again, and the only light comes from the moon, which is filling the deck with an ethereal blue glow.

  Again, the ferry creaks, and this time I instinctively reach out and put a hand on the wheel, before giving it a slight turn. Somehow, I feel as if I just put us back onto the right course.

  For the next few minutes, I stay completely still, struggling to keep my thoughts alive. It’s as if my mind wants to sink back down into the darkness, but finally I force myself to look around. A few old bones are glinting in the moonlight near my feet, and after a moment I realize that the bones of the ferry’s captain must have collapsed, and now I’m in his seat. I try to think back, to work out how I got here, but the last thing I remember is being in the water, and then there was blood, and then…

  I wait.

  Nothing.

  Suddenly I realize that my mind is slipping away again. It’s so hard to stay conscious, and finally I stop fighting. I start to close my eyes, letting my thoughts drift into darkness.

  “Sophie?”

  I don’t know how much time passes, but eventually someone starts calling my name. Despite everything else, I still know that it’s my name.

  “Sophie, are you here?”

  Forcing my eyes open, I find that my head has nodded forward and my hand is on the wheel again. I try to sit up, but the effort required is huge and I can barely muster any strength at all. Finally, I see that there’s a figure silhouetted in the doorway with the night sky behind him, looking in toward the bridge, and I realize I recognize the voice I heard a moment ago. It was…

  I wait, but the name won’t come to me.

  “Sophie?”

  He steps forward, looking around the bridge as if he can’t see me.

  “Here,” I whisper, my voice so low that I can barely hear it myself. I can’t hear myself breathing, either, but that doesn’t seem to matter, not anymore. The creak of the ferry is comforting, like a new kind of heartbeat.

  Not hearing me, the man makes his way past the wheel and stops again, still looking around as if he doesn’t know that I’m here. It’s as if he can’t see me at all.

  “Sophie!” he calls out. “Where are you?”

  “Here,” I whisper again, trying to be a little louder this time. “Mark,” I add, finally remembering his name. We were on the lifeboat together, just before it was destroyed by the ferry, and then…

  I don’t remember what happened next. How I got here, how I got into the seat by the wheel…

  Nothing.

  “What have you done with her?” Mark continues, taking a step toward me. As he leans closer, I can finally see his face as a hint of moonlight catches his profile. “Where -”

  He stops suddenly, his eyes widening as he stares straight at me.

  “Sophie?” he asks, his voice filled with shock as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing. Reaching out, he puts a hand on the side of my face, but his touch is cold. “What are you doing here? How did you…” He looks down, as if he’s suddenly noticed the bones on the floor. “Sophie,” he continues, turning back to me, “how did you end up in the chair? Sophie, talk to me! What the hell are you doing?”

  I open my mouth to say something, but I still feel too weak.

  A moment later, without even thinking about it, I reach past him and adjust the wheel slightly. We were off course. I can’t let that happen. For a moment I feel a tug of panic in my gut, but it quickly passes when I hear another reassuring creak from the ferry’s hull.

  “Sophie,” he continues, with a hint of panic now, “for God’s sake, say something! We need to get off this boat!”

  Again I open my mouth, but again no words emerge. I have to find the strength from somewhere, I have to talk to him. I try to take a deep breath, but there’s a sharp pain in my chest and all I can manage is a faint gasp.

  “There’s no lifeboat,” he tells me. “We used the only one last time, so I don’t know how we’re going to get away. Maybe I can make something, maybe I can find a way, but right now I need your help. Sophie, come back to me!” He nudges my shoulder. “Sophie, say something!”

  I open my mouth, and this time I’m able to find just enough strength to get a few words out.

  “Help me,” I whisper. “Get me out of this chair.”

  “What?” he asks, leaning closer. “I couldn’t make out what yo
u said.”

  “Help me,” I say again, mustering a little more volume this time. “You have to… help me…”

  He stares at me for a moment. “Sophie,” he says cautiously, with fear in his eyes, “I don’t know what you’re trying to say, but your voice… It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Help… me…”

  Taking a step back, he seems confused. “You sound like… Sophie, what language are you speaking? You sound just like the…”

  “Help,” I whisper again, starting to feel frustrated by his failure to hear me. “Mark, you have to help me, you have to -”

  I try to lean forward, but the effort is too much. Sitting back, I feel a strange, loosening sensation on the side of my face, as if part of my skin is starting to fall away. A moment later, something soft lands on my lap, and I feel a cooler breeze against my left cheek and temple.

  “No,” Mark whispers, stepping back as if he’s horrified by what he’s seeing. There are tears in his eyes and his whole body is trembling, as if he’s finally losing his mind. “Sophie, please, no…”

  I want to call out to him, to make him understand, but my mind is already sinking again and the sense of panic is passing. All I know is that I have to keep the ferry on course, and that I have to collect the next batch of passengers and take them to the river, and then I have to let them off so they can be taken from the shore. This is my duty now, it’s my penance for interfering. The sickness will have ended on the shore, I feel certain of that, but someone had to take the old captain’s place. One day someone else will do the same for me, and then I’ll finally be able to go down to the shore and find peace, maybe Mary Sullivan will be waiting to forgive me, but for now I have a job to do.

  Ignoring Mark as he lets out the cry of a madman, I lean back in my seat. Looking straight ahead, I see my reflection in the window at the front of the bridge. Most of my face is gone, with just my skull staring back at me.