Twisted Little Things and Other Stories (30 page)

One of the bald men from the ferry stumbles, and he's immediately whipped until he starts walking again.

As the figures on horseback get close, I realize that the horses themselves have very little skin, with their ribs exposed to the air. The riders, wearing dark robes with hoods that cover their faces, are carrying long silver spears topped with a kind of half-moon blade, and a couple of them are carrying what appear to be small stone tablets. They watch as the figures from the ferry walk past, and then they follow as the figures' tattered clothes start to fall away. At the last moment, however, one of the horses stops again, and the rider turns to look directly at me.

I duck down, but it's too late. I saw his bare, skeletal face, and he saw me in return. I wait, trembling with fear, and a moment later I spot something high up in the sky. It's some kind of bird, although its dark wings are huge, and when it passes across the sun it actually blocks the light for a moment. Once it's out of sight, I turn back toward the fair-lead, but I don't dare look over the side again, not yet, in case that skeletal face is still looking up at me. Trying to stay calm, I put two fingers on the side of my neck and feel that my pulse is racing. I take a series of deep, calm breaths in an effort to slow the madness, but the opposite is happening: my heart seems to be pounding so fast, I can feel it hitting the inside of my ribs. Turning, I'm about to look toward the ferry's bridge when I realize that something is moving nearby. I look up and see that a black crow has landed on the railing and is looking straight down at me with beady, unblinking eyes.

In the distance, a loud, heavy bell starts to ring out.

Chapter Eight

When I was a little girl, my grandfather taught me to recognize the stars in the night sky. He told me that no matter where I went in the world, the familiar stars would remind me that I was never really
that
far from home. Right now, however, shivering on the deck of the dark ferry as night draws in, I look up at the stars and realize that I don't recognize any of them. All the constellations seem new tonight.

Somewhere, the bell rings again.

I don't know how long I've been here, huddled down and too scared to move, but it must have been many, many hours by now. I still haven't dared to look back down at the jetty, but at least no-one seems to have come to check on me. I can still see the skeletal face of the figure on horseback in my mind's eye, and I'm convinced that if I look again, he'll still be there. The crow is gone, at least, although every few minutes I hear noises in the darkness, as if something is scuttling around on the deck. A while ago, I thought I caught sight of a large beetle passing through a patch of moonlight, but I figure I could just as easily be losing my mind.

With a trembling hand, I hold my phone out and tap the screen to record some sound. There's no signal, of course, but I feel I might as well use it to get some proof that this place is real, just in case I ever make it back. As the bell rings again in the distance, I try to keep my hand steady, before finally stopping the recording. I try again to call Rob, hoping against hope that suddenly I'll have a little signal, but the line is dead. I try a couple more times, before slipping my phone away into the waterproof pocket on the side of my wet-suit.

Moments later, I hear something rustling above, and when I look up I realize there's something dark in the sky, something with huge wings passing once again over the boat. As I draw my knees up to my chin, trying to stay warm, I keep running through the list of possible explanations for everything that has happened so far. Maybe this is smuggling operation g one wrong, or some kind of government conspiracy, or...

Deep down, I'm scared that maybe I died earlier when I was underwater, and everything since then has been part of my final moments.

Whatever's going on, I can't just sit here forever.

Getting to my feet, I peer through the fair-lead again and see that although the onshore fires are still burning, there's no longer any sign of anyone. All the figures from the cargo hold walked along the path toward the burning forest, and since then no-one has come near the ferry. Unable to see much on the dark deck area, I keep hold of the railing and make my way back toward the bridge, figuring that I need to learn the truth. When I get to the bridge and look inside, I see that nothing has changed: the broken cupboards are still scattered all over the floor, where I left them, while the navigation wheel is completely still. Hitting a button on the side of the flashlight, I shine its beam around the dark bridge, but I already knew there'd be no-one here.

If someone on the shore spots the light and comes for me, I guess that's just how things are going to be. I'm too tired and thirsty to hide anymore. I want to know where I am.

“Hello?” I call out.

Silence.

“What do you want from me?” I ask, trying to keep my frustration under control. Heading to the door at the rear, I look back down into the dark corridor. There's still no sign of anyone around, but I refuse to believe that this whole ferry is completely automated. “Hello?” I shout. “My name is Sophie Carpenter! Why don't you just come out and tell me what you want?” Close to tears, I aim the flashlight ahead as I hurry down the stairs and then make my way along the corridor, while banging a fist against the walls. I know I should be more careful, but I'm starting to panic and I just want to know what the hell I'm dealing with. “Come out! Show your face!”

Reaching the stairwell I was at earlier, I shine the torch around, but of course there's still no sign of anyone. I take a step back, feeling as if I'm filled with a sense of impotent rage.

“Just tell me what this is all about!” I shout. “I just want to -”

Suddenly someone grabs me from behind and clamps a hand over my mouth.

“Quiet!” a voice hisses in my ear. “Don't say another word!”

***

“Mark, what the hell are you doing?” I ask a few seconds later, reaching out and putting my arms around him. “I thought you were dead!”

“Keep your voice down,” he hisses, pulling away and then grabbing my hand before leading me quickly along the corridor. “What the hell's wrong with you? Why were you making all that noise?”

“I was just trying to get someone to answer me -”

“In here!” he adds, interrupting me as he pulls me through a doorway and into a small cabin on the ferry's starboard side. Closing the door, he grabs the flashlight from my hand. “At least you found this. I found yours, but it was all smashed up.” He pauses, with a wild, slightly manic look in his eyes. “I'm sorry I crept up on you, I just had to get you to shut the hell up. Do you seriously want that
thing
to get angry?”

“What thing?” I ask. “Mark, I don't even know if any of this is real!”

“Where have you been?” he asks. “What happened to you after we split up?”

“My tanks got damaged,” I tell him, “and then when the ferry...” I pause for a moment, as I realize that the entire thing sounds completely unbelievable. “Where are we?” I ask finally. “Did you see the people in the cargo hold? They were floating around earlier but they were still alive, and then they went straight back to the hold as soon as the ferry came up, except...” I wait for him to reply, hoping against hope that he might have an explanation. “Either I'm losing my mind,” I continue finally, “or we're in the middle of something completely insane. I've tried coming up with explanations, but I'm all out.”

“It's real,” he replies, hurrying past me and looking out the window for a moment. “I thought I was dreaming at first, but now I can tell. Whatever this place is, it's definitely real.” He turns to me. “Have you talked to him yet?”

“Talked to who?”

“The captain.”

“What captain?” I ask. “There's no-one on the bridge, there's -”

“There
is
someone on the bridge.”

“No,” I reply, “Mark, I would have -”

“There's someone on the bridge,” he says again, more firmly this time. “He's in the chair by the wheel, and sometimes he gets up and makes adjustments, but mostly he just sits there. You can't see him when it's too bright, but he's there. When it's dark, if you get close enough...” He pauses. “Haven't you seen him at all? Not even once?”

“I...” Pausing, I realize that he's serious. “There hasn't been anyone on the bridge when I've been there,” I tell him, even though I'm already starting to doubt myself. “I swear.”

“He's there, alright,” Mark continues, heading to the door and pulling it open, before pausing as if he's listening for any hint of movement. “He's old, his skin has almost wasted away. You can see through his bare ribs. Every time he moves, his bones creak. The first time I saw him, I thought I'd lost my mind. I thought I was imagining it all.” Leaning out into the corridor, he quickly looks both ways before pulling back and closing the door again. Finally, he turns to me. “He's in charge of this thing.”

“Mark -”

“I've seen him!”

“But...” Pausing again, I try to work out what we're supposed to do next. “Did you ask him what's happening?”

“He ignored me, but...” He puts a hand over his eyes for a moment, as if he's close to cracking up. “I'm not imagining this, Sophie. It's all real.”

“What happened to you after we got separated?” I ask.

“I went down to the engine room,” he continues. “I lost contact with you, but I figured it'd be okay for just a few minutes. There were bodies floating down there, but I ignored them. I was taking a look around when suddenly everything seemed to shudder. That was when the ferry started to raise itself and -”

“That's impossible,” I reply firmly. “It can't have raised
itself
!”

“And then it set off on this course,” he adds. “Don't you think it's odd that not
one
helicopter has come to check on us? This ferry slips through the world unseen, Sophie. I don't know why it sometimes becomes visible for brief periods, or why the storm last night caused it to run into trouble, but for the most part this thing doesn't show up on any radar screens, it doesn't even get spotted by other vessels, not unless it happens to run into them. Do you realize what that means?”

As the ferry's hull creaks again, I realize that I don't want to vocalize any of the crazier ideas that are churning at the back of my mind. Despite everything, I'm still hoping to come up with a rational explanation.

“I heard you shouting earlier,” he continues, his voice trembling a little, “but by that point I was just trying to keep out of the way and avoid being spotted. Then when we reached this place...” He looks out the window again. “I think those people in the hold were dead, Sophie. I think this is their final journey.”

I wait for him to continue, but he seems lost in thought. “That's impossible,” I say eventually. “You're reading too much into it.”

“Stop saying that,” he mutters, turning to me. “If you have a better explanation, let's hear it.”

I open my mouth to argue with him, but no words come out.

“How much do you know about Greek mythology?” he asks.

“Mark -”

“The Styx was a river of the dead,” he continues. “Another was called Acheron, which isn't that dissimilar to Aspheron, so maybe there was some bastardization along the way.”

“Mark -”

“Listen to me!” he hisses with the insistence of a madman, as he grabs my shoulders. “I'm not saying that
all
the stories about the Styx are true, I'm just saying that maybe they're based on a kernel of truth, and maybe that kernel of truth is the place where we're docked right now.”

“Mark, you can't just -”

“Look out the window,” he continues, forcibly turning me around, “and tell me that the land out there couldn't be the place where dead people go.”

Staring out the window, I watch for a moment as distant fires continue to burn under a night sky filled with unfamiliar stars. I want to argue with Mark, to tell him that his ideas are crazy, but at the same time they actually seem to fit in with what I'm seeing. I'm not ready to accept that this is some land of the dead, or that the canal is actually the river Styx, but I can't bring myself to dismiss the whole thing yet, not as I watch dark shadows passing across the landscape, and not as that infernal church bell tolls once again in the distance. All I know for certain is that I'm standing here on this ferry, looking out at a place that shouldn't exist.

“The man I saw on the bridge,” he says after a moment, “might be Charon.”

I turn to him.

“The ferryman who took the dead to their new home,” he continues, his eyes filled with a kind of wild passion, as if he truly believes what he's saying. “Did you see any coins? Did any of the dead have a coin with them?”

“Mark -”

“It's just little pinpricks of sense,” he adds. “Tiny little parts of the story that add up, while the rest...” His voice trails off, and for a moment he seems lost in thought again.

Turning to look back out the window, I realize I can see a figure standing on the jetty. Although I can't see the figure's face, I feel as if it's staring straight up at me. A moment later, another shadow passes across the land, and this time it's followed by a faint patch of moonlight that reveals the figure's face.

It's her.

It's Mary Sullivan, the little girl from the boat all those years ago.

“No,” I whisper, staring down into her dead eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you see?” Mark asks.

I stare into Mary's eyes for a moment, before turning and heading to the door. “I have to go to her,” I tell him. “I have to -”

“Stop!” he hisses, grabbing my wrist. “Go to who?”

“It's her,” I continue, trying to get free of his grip. “It's Mary Sullivan! It's the little girl from the cruiser!”

“Sophie, be reasonable -”

“Reasonable?” I shout, turning and pushing him away. “It's your fault we're on this boat in the first place! If I hadn't listened to you, I'd still be at home! I'd still be alive, or... I wouldn't be on this thing!” There are tears in my eyes now, and I feel as if I'm close to another breakdown. “I'd be at home, in bed, next to Rob, living my boring life and not caught up in all this madness!”

“We have to stay calm,” he continues, following me out into the corridor. “If this boat heads back the way it came, that means we might be able to escape once we're back in our world! There's a lifeboat on the main deck, Sophie, we can use it to get away!”

“Then let's go!” I hiss, pulling free from his grip and heading out into the corridor. Using my flashlight to find the way, I hurry forward, only to hear Mark coming up behind me.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“I'm going to her.”

“And then what?”