The Ferryman Institute (21 page)

Four years of creative writing practice at one of the finest English departments the United States college education system had to offer whirred into action.

Raccoon came through the window. Happened to be cleaning my gun for kicks. Startled me and fired at it, but it escaped. Bullet must be somewhere in the backyard. Sorry, long day, wasn't thinking.
Play Mom card. Done and done. Flimsy, but not bad for two seconds' notice. She turned toward her bedroom door.

It was closed.

The sound of a door slamming shut caused her to whirl around. Behind her, the clearly frazzled face of Charlie Dawson once again greeted her.

She screamed.

It lasted for a good five seconds, which Alice found impressive, given how easily she became winded these days. It was the little things in life.

“I thought you left,” she hissed.

“Surprise. Guess it's your lucky day,” Charlie said with all the monotone enthusiasm of a root canal patient. “So, random question: You have a car, right?”

The sheer randomness of his question completely threw Alice. What was originally self-righteous indignation sputtered into a confused “I mean, yeah, but—”

“Good, I'll drive. Also, do you have a cell phone? I'm going to need to make a call while we're on the road.”

“I'm sorry, but what are you—”

He walked over to Alice and put his hands on her shoulders. There was a distinct look of urgency in his eyes. “I know how absurdly
cliché this is going to sound, but I don't have time to explain. That's the cliché part—not having time to explain. Whatever, you're smart, you know what I mean. True or false—you're alone in the house right now? I'm assuming true based on what you were about to do half an hour ago, but maybe you're indifferent about doing that sort of thing with people around.”

Alice had no idea what was going on. It was like her mind had simply said,
Fuck this shit
, and caught the last train to Clarksville. Honestly, she wasn't sure she blamed it. Plus, who needed rational thought, anyway? Complete and utter mental fantasy was where things were at nowadays.

When she failed to provide anything by way of answer, Charlie seemed to read between the lines. “I'm gonna go with true. In that case, we need to make sure no one comes back here. This is where they'll come looking for me first.”

Alice forcefully stomped her feet, which jogged some of her mental faculties. “Stop! Just . . . stop!” She was desperately trying to get a grip on things.

“Hate to say it, but that's not an option. I've already wasted too much time feeling sorry for myself. We need to get moving.”

Alice looked at Charlie, his calm if slightly pensive face an undecipherable mix of emotions. “What do you mean,
we
? Why do you—”

“Look, I promise you two things. One: I'll explain everything in the car. Two: what's happening right now is very, very real. Now, I need you to trust me.” He offered his hand to her while she was still sitting on her bed.

This isn't happening
, she thought.
Right?
Might as well test the waters. “You're not real,” she said. Now that she'd said it out loud, she felt a little stupid. What was he going to say back:
Shucks, you caught me
, then disappear? Well, a girl could hope.

“I am the realest unkillable random stranger you will ever meet. The problem here is that the people who will be trying to find me—and, rather unfortunately, you—are just as real and unkillable. I don't know how much time we have, but I know we're wasting it.” He reached out his arm. “Come on. We need to go.”

Alice sat perfectly still on her bed as Charlie stood there in front of her. With a haggard sigh, he looked around the room.

“That your purse?” he asked. He pointed to the medium-sized beige Coach knockoff sitting next to her desk.

“. . . No?” she ventured.

Charlie walked over to it and scooped it up.

“Hey! Put that down!” Alice yelled.

He opened the main pouch and frenetically searched through it. Her car keys jangled as he pulled them out. He then found her cell phone hiding in plain sight on the corner of her desk, threw it unceremoniously inside the bag, and proceeded to zip the whole thing shut. Finally, he strode over to Alice and, with a smooth motion, hoisted her up on his shoulder.

She felt the blood rush to her head as her world flipped upside down. “Oh my God! Put me down!
Put me down!
” She pounded on his back, tore at his hair, and scratched at any exposed skin she could find. Her captor didn't so much as flinch.

“I think you're forgetting the magic word.” The purse looked ridiculous hanging from his shoulder, but maybe being wrong side up had something to do with that.

“
Please!
” she begged.

“Better, but still no,” he said serenely, and left the bedroom.

Alice tried to break free, but she was already weak from another night without dinner (in her defense, no one ever said you couldn't kill yourself on an empty stomach). The best she could do was wiggle about as he quickly carried her down the staircase. Her
hair acted like a curtain and obstructed her vision, but she could tell they were headed to the front door. Just as they reached it, Charlie stopped. Alice continued to wrestle against being taken against her will, but her efforts were having little—okay, who was she kidding—
no
effect.

“Let. Me.
Go!
” She pounded against his back with renewed vigor. “I am not that fucking girl from
King Kong
!”

“Fay Wray?”

“Do you honestly think I know who the hell Fay Wray is? And why do
you
know that?”

“I saw it in theaters when it first came out. Great thing about being invisible all the time is that you never have to pay for a movie.” Since his return, Alice noticed, his voice hadn't risen above being glibly sardonic. The true implications of his statement only occurred to her a few seconds later.

“Wait . . .
King Kong
came out like a hundred years ago. How old are you, exactly?”

He paused for a moment. “Old enough to wish I was only that old.”

Her body was being jerked around as he examined the room for something. A bit of whiplash later and he'd apparently found what he'd been looking for. After three short
beep
s, Alice quickly realized it was the cordless phone next to the living room couch.

Alice struggled some more, her thrashing growing desperate. She was getting increasingly light-headed, what with all the blood pooling in her cranium, but he was remarkably strong. Or she was remarkably weak. Tough to tell, really. She could hear the phone ringing faintly through the speaker in the phone before it clicked.

The feminine voice that answered sounded tinny and distant, but it was instantly familiar. “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

This is it! This is my chance! “Help me!”
she screamed as loudly as she could.

“Listen,” Charlie calmly said in the receiver, but with the slightest hint of terror in his voice, “my friend Alice has been badly hurt—”

“No! I'm fine! He's lying! He's kidnapping me!”

“—to the point where I think she's getting a little delusional. I'm rushing her to the hospital now. She's bleeding profusely out of the side of her head. Also, I think there might be a gas leak here, so you should keep everyone away from this address. Could blow any second.”

“Please! He's taking me!”

The voice on the other end of the phone sounded very startled, not that Alice blamed her. “Sir, can you please—”

“No,” Charlie interrupted smoothly, “I can't wait until help arrives. I'm leaving now, otherwise she might not make it. Please trace this address and send help as quickly as you can.” Alice heard another
beep
, and the call was gone. “Maybe it's me, but if I didn't know any better,” Charlie said, “I'd say it seems like you're not very grateful that I'm trying to save your life.”

“Grateful! Are you shitting me? You're kidnapping me!” Alice yelled. Maybe there was a cop nearby and someone would be there soon. Her vision blurred slightly and the dizziness began to kick in. Just when her sight began to tunnel, Charlie plunked her down on the couch. He held both her arms tightly against her sides, preventing her from moving.

“Listen to me.” His voice had taken on a slightly forceful edge. “Your life is in danger, all right? That may not mean anything to you right now, but it does to me. I'm being chased by other Ferrymen—people just like me—for all the wrong reasons. Well, some wrong reasons. Anyway, my team is going to be torn limb
from limb for helping me. Until I can figure out how to clear this up, I need to get you someplace safe, because if I leave you here, they will hurt you—that much I can promise. With the cops and other emergency personnel around, they won't touch your family, but they still might go after you. If you're gone, the police are more likely to keep everyone here under a protective watch. I don't want anybody else getting involved in this, least of all your family. We're taking your cell phone with us and I promise you can contact them as soon as it's safe.

“Now, as compelled as I feel to just take you for your own good, I'm not going to. I realize that I'm putting you in a ridiculous situation, but someone important to me recently told me something that's suddenly starting to make sense. This is your choice, Alice: come with me or stay here. It's your call.”

God, it all felt so real . . . his expressions, the force of his hands against her arms, the warm breath that played across her face. The light in his emphatic jade eyes danced frantically as he searched for an answer in hers.

He let go of her arms, but extended his hand again for her to take. “Care to take a chance on a complete stranger?”

This was real. At least, it seemed that way. Was it, though? God, this was confusing.

Without thinking, she nodded slightly.

“Good enough.” He removed the purse from his shoulder and set it in Alice's lap. She gingerly took hold of it, only to be whisked away as soon as she had a decent grip on the handle.

Alice didn't know what to do. She had to admit, his little impromptu speech sounded rational, albeit in a completely irrational sort of way, but when push came to shove, she was still letting herself be kidnapped. Even so, what could she do? He was certainly stronger than she was and apparently impervious to destruction.
That limited her options for escape somewhat drastically.

Yet even as she told herself all that, a voice whispered in the back of her head:
But then why did you agree to go with him? Do you want to trust him?

She ignored it.

They shot through the front door and into the street. Alice's two-door silver Jeep Wrangler (her mom had nicknamed it the Silver Surfer before passing away) was parked neatly next to the curb. Charlie began pressing buttons on the keyless entry, then almost ripped the driver-side door off as he yanked it open. Alice numbly settled in the passenger seat. Her mind was in a bit of a haze. Dream? Reality? Dream? Reality? Which was it?

“Wait, time out,” she said as some of the shock began to wear off. “Why are you driving?”

“Because I know where we're going.” He searched the area around the wheel for the ignition, without much success. “I thought that'd be pretty obvious.”

“Said every man in the history of forever. Have you even driven a car before, Mr. King Kong?”

“Sure, plenty of times. Well . . . I've never driven a regular car before,” he said. “Race cars, on the other hand, I've been behind the wheel on more than a few occasions.” The SUV roared to life as he turned the key in the ignition.

“So that's pretty much the same thing, I think,” she said. Actually, Alice had no idea if that was true or not.

Charlie stared at the Jeep's shifter. He tried to put the car in reverse but overshot it. “I guess I should warn you,” he said nonchalantly as he missed again, putting the car back in park, “I wasn't very good at it, but then again”—he missed again, sending the car into neutral—“I wasn't really trying to drive in the conventional
sense.” Finally, he had the car in reverse. “It was more of a
how horrifically can I crash?
type of thing. It's what you do when you're bored and can't die.”

“Oh.” Alice put on her seat belt.

On the plus side, if this was real life, it didn't appear that she was going to have to suffer through a long stretch of it. In fact, it looked like she was going to die tonight after all.
Hooray for small favors.

“Good thing you put on clean underwear, right?” That charming but increasingly irritating smile again, which she caught out of the corner of her eye.

Alice began to mockingly laugh, then suddenly stopped. “How the hell do you know I put on—”

The words in her mouth quickly transformed into a howl of abject terror as Charlie reversed the Jeep, smashing into the car behind them. Without even hesitating, he threw the car in drive and took off down the street, the sound of burning rubber their exit song.