The Ferryman (26 page)

The silhouette came back to him, the beard and white hair, that strong back and powerful build.

“Grandpa Edgar,” he whispered, the words like ghosts themselves as they slipped from his lips.

David felt weak, small again. Confusion rippled through him and tears sprang to his eyes. His grandfather strode to the top of the stairs with fury blazing in his eyes, his thick, meaty hands closed in massive fists.

“You little shit,” Grandpa Edgar said in a sneer. “Drop that goddamn thing right now and come on up here. You been nothing but a thorn in my fucking side since the day you were born. You soured it all. Now you've put your stink on my house, boy.
My
house.”

The undead thing pointed angrily at the landing. “Get your ass up here and take what's coming to you.”

It was not that absurd request that made David act, nor was it the fear of his grandfather, or whatever this revenant was that even now tried to intimidate him. It was the tone of his voice.

The same tone he had always taken with David.

Fury welled up within him from deep inside. His fingers tightened on the gargoyle.

“Asshole!” he roared.

Hand on the rail to steady him, he used all his strength to hurl the gargoyle at his grandfather's chest. It struck the dead man with enough force to make him stagger backward and nearly fall.The surprised look in his eyes gave David an almost perverse pleasure.

But he saw it for only a second. Then he was leaping down the stairs two and three at a time, and damn the risk of snapping an ankle. He leaped the last five steps to the foyer, lost control of his momentum, and his arms pinwheeled until he slammed hard against the heavy wooden door.

His grandfather shouted obscenities after him and David could hear two sets of feet pounding the stairs. They were both coming for him now.Themeli's face was crushed, but somehow he was up and in pursuit. David did not want to turn and see them, did not want to see what sort of damage his blow had done to the kid's face.

He worked the two locks, hauled the door open, and ran out, slamming it behind him. The moon and stars were bright above, and yet there was nothing beautiful about it. Tree limbs above and the house itself, outlined in that sickly yellow glow, threw creeping, insidious shadows.

Maggie. Themeli. Grandpa Edgar. David knew he was not safe, even if he escaped them now. There could be many more where they had come from. And that was the question, wasn't it? Where had they come from?

Charon's creations,
the ghost had said.
What the fuck was
that
all about?

Keys jangling, he pulled open the door to the rental car and dropped into the driver's seat. Then he reached to pull the door closed, and finally glanced back up at the house.

The ghost of Ralph Weiss stood on the front porch. The specter seemed almost to be grinning at him. Unable to stop himself, David smiled in response.

The front door opened. Wan light spilled out from within. David started up the engine and slammed his door shut, put the car into reverse. One last time he glanced up at the front porch.

The thing that was silhouetted in the open door was not his grandfather.

It was inhumanly tall, its face pale and lined like marble. Its eyes burned, even from that distance, and its long, thick beard was gathered by a metal ring perhaps six inches along its length. In its upraised left hand, the apparition held a heavy iron lantern whose light shone as green as its eyes.

David's mouth hung wide. The need to urinate had left him before, driven away by his terror. But that was nothing compared to this. This creature, this manifestation, whatever it was, seemed like a wound on the face of the world. Its presence seemed to suck at the available light with the power of the void, a black hole replacing the light it stole with the greenish taint from its lantern.

Upon the porch, the ghost of Ralph Weiss turned toward this phantasm, cowered, and screamed silently.

It raised its lantern and the ghost shuddered. The diaphanous mist that made up Ralph Weiss's spectral form took on the same verdant hue as that otherworldly light. Then, abruptly, the ghost was torn from the porch, sucked into the lantern, its mouth open in a silent scream.

David cried out in terror and grief, even as he reversed out of the driveway with a squeal of rubber on pavement.

As he raced off down Briarwood, he tried to blot the picture of the thing with the lantern from his mind, tried not to think about what price Ralph Weiss's soul might even now be paying for trying to help him.

As houses flashed by on either side of the car and other vehicles passed him on the road, the surreality of the entire episode began to unravel him emotionally.This was not merely fear, but a kind of terror he had never imagined. Everything he knew about the world was wrong. Whatever this thing was—demon, monster, walking nightmare—it was after him.Yet David had no idea why.

He had to run.

But he had nowhere to go.

 
Janine is submerged beneath the rushing waters of the river.Though it is dark above, she can see.The river carries her along and she drifts with it, arms outstretched as though she is flying.A smile spreads across her features.The current caresses her entire body, swaying her from side to side, teasing and touching her, arousing her.

 
The phone rang. Her eyes snapped open and she inhaled harshly, as though for a time she had forgotten to breathe. The ringing echoed in the room. Heart fluttering anxiously, Janine began to sit up, mind still in the midst of the transition from sleep to wakefulness. The spread was bunched down at the footboard and the sheet was wrapped around her legs. She had twisted around so much while sleeping that her blue cotton nightshirt was rucked up nearly to her breasts. Otherwise she was naked, and it made her feel vulnerable. The warm tingle between her legs, arousal left over from her dream, only added to that feeling.

As the phone rang a third time, she pawed at her nightshirt to pull it down. The ring was cut off as the answering machine down in the kitchen picked up the call.

Janine blinked as she reached for the phone, peering at her alarm clock. It was after twelve-thirty. Panic and anger warred in her briefly. That late, the call could only be something bad, or someone unpleasant.

“Hello,” she rasped into the phone.

“Janine. Gosh, I'm sorry to wake you. I'd never call so late, but I'm just ... I'm pretty worried.”

Still a bit disoriented from sleep, she did not recognize the voice at first.

“When did you speak to your mother last?”

She frowned. “Larry?” she asked. Then his tone, and the question, got through to her, and alarm bells began to go off. “Larry, what's wrong? What's going on?”

“Have you seen her today?” Larry pressed on, oblivious to her question.

“I haven't talked to her since last week. Maybe Thursday?” Janine said. “What's
wrong
?”

But there was a sudden silence on the other end of the line.

“Larry?”

He sighed heavily. “Oh, God,” Larry whispered. “Janine, listen to me. Your mother was worried about you, after what happened with Spencer. She was going to surprise you. Last night she drove up to Boston. She checked into the Parker House late, but according to the concierge, she left shortly after that, I assume to go by to see you.As far as I can tell, no one has seen her since. The hotel manager says the bed was not slept in. You're sure you haven't heard from her?”

There was a desperation in his voice that made Janine want to lie, but the urge was ridiculous. Her mother. Something had happened to her mother.

“Not since last week,” she repeated, a kind of numbness creeping over her. “Are you ... I mean, you're sure there's no mistake at the hotel?”

“I'm sure. I've already called the police but they won't do anything for another twenty-four hours. I could ... God, Janine,” he said, his voice tortured, “I could tell they were patronizing me, like they thought maybe Ruth was off having some torrid affair.”

It was the first thing that went through Janine's mind, but she would never have said it. She was not fond of her stepfather, but she certainly did not want to hurt him. Even if she believed her mother capable of such a thing, she would not bring it up.

“I'm sorry I woke you,” he said. “I ... I should have waited until morning. I'm just ... this is too much. Ruth would never just disappear without calling me first. I'm not stupid enough to think the idea of an affair is impossible, but I know this much: if Ruth were to do something like that, no way would she let it be discovered this way. Something's happened to her, Janine. I'm sure of it.”

“Mom,” Janine said softly. “Oh, God.”

No,
she thought.
Not now. Not one more horrible thing.

“I'm driving up there tomorrow, Janine. I'll go to the hotel first, talk to the police, and then I'll call you with an update. If anything happens, of course, I'll call right away.”

“Thank you,” she said, a bit hoarse. “I'll ... I'll talk to you tomorrow.”

Janine felt as though she were still asleep. Her hands seemed a bit swollen and her body felt awkward, as if she had detached from it somehow. Her mind had become a tiny thing, lost in the immense, dull, immobile cage of flesh that was her pale, quivering form. Her throat was dry, yet so were her eyes. She felt as though she were observing herself at a distance, and it surprised her that there were no tears in her eyes.

A twinge of pain cramped her stomach and she brought her hands to her belly and bent over slightly on the bed. She stayed like that a moment, then sat up again. Now she felt cold. Alone and helpless, just as she had so often in her dreams. Terrible things were happening in the world around her and yet she could do nothing to stop them, to influence the outcome, nothing even to slow the dark current that seemed to be carrying her along.

“Oh, Mom,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut tight, covering them with her hands.

When she dropped her hands and opened her eyes, she froze, her mouth open in shock, her breath coming in hitching gasps. The room was bathed in a dim green light.

Charon the Ferryman stood at the foot of the bed.

Dream and reality shifted and seemed to merge. Charon was a figure of hallucinations and nightmares, a mirage, Janine thought. Or she had never woken up at all. Though she had always thought she knew the difference between the tangible world and the subjectivity of dreams, all the skeins that tied her to what she knew were coming unraveled.

The Ferryman was so tall he nearly reached the ceiling. In his left hand he held the lantern that she had seen—when had she seen it?—clanking against the prow of his boat. A green flame flickered within, casting warped shadows through ancient, hand-blown glass. He stared at her with those eyes—enormous black pupils, rimmed with fire—each one a solar eclipse.

The air shimmered with the dream light, the death light from that lantern.

It isn't real,
Janine thought. And yet it was hyperreal. She felt the cold that seemed to emanate from him and she blinked away the light from the lantern. Her eyes could pick out every detail of the room around her, every chip in the paint, every uneven slant of a picture frame; just as she could also see each fold of his robe, and the bit of tarnish on the iron ring he wore in his beard.