The Ferryman Institute (8 page)

“I've seen this before. I remember this painting . . .” Charlie waited patiently while the man's thought process began to coalesce. “And that TV with the shitty remote. I know this room. This is Mount Sinai. I had those chest pains—when the hell was that? A week ago? Two weeks ago? They brought me in here, ran some tests . . .” He began to speak, his low voice rolling along, but quieter, more contemplative than before. “This isn't a dream. I'm dead, aren't I?” he finally announced.

Charlie gave a slight nod of affirmation, but said nothing.

It was at that moment that the gravity of the situation appeared to dawn on Mr. Jack Sanders. The spirit gazed straight ahead, eyes fixed on the blue rowboat trapped in the middle of an otherwise barren hospital wall. Charlie had seen that thousand-mile stare too many times to count. Like a soldier newly returned from war, it was the look of someone trying to understand something completely beyond them. Death was such an abstract concept right up until the point when it wasn't anymore.

After nearly ten seconds of silence, the late Jack Sanders gently ran his fingers through his newly revitalized hair. “I'll be honest,
I don't feel very dead. Just . . . different? Tough to find the right words; my brain feels like it's only half there.” The painting finally relinquished its hold on his attention, and the spirit was again looking at Charlie. His eyes seemed to be probing the Ferryman's physical appearance for answers, but were coming up woefully empty. “Mr. Dawson, was it?” he asked.

“Just Charlie, please.”

“Right, right. Now, Charlie, I must admit, I find myself slightly confused and maybe that's just because dying has a way of muddling up your head. I can't really say, seeing as this is my first time kicking the bucket and all. Either way, I guess I'm dead, or so it seems. Funny thing is, the two of us are standing here talking like we're waiting on drinks at the bar.” The expression Jack wore was mostly neutral, but there was more than a hint of something—was it suspicion?—running beneath his eyes. The spirit hesitated. “How do I put this . . . ?”

“Am I an angel?” Charlie offered the question without any indication as to what the answer might be. The question caught the spirit slightly off guard, which was its intended effect. That said, Charlie was impressed by how little Mr. Sanders's expression actually gave away.

“The thought had crossed my mind,” Jack answered. “I'm not much of a God-fearing man, to be perfectly honest, but I did put some stock in there being a heaven and a . . . well, a what-have-you. And, with all due respect, you don't exactly look like any angel I've ever seen. The pictures in church made y'all seem a little less business casual.”

The smile came earnestly, brought on by Jack Sanders's remarkable frankness. It had been quite some time since Charlie had been treated to someone whose attitude was so forthright. As for his question, well, that was one any Ferryman dealt with all the time.

“Simply put, no, I'm not an angel. Or from the other place, for that matter. I'm a Ferryman.”

That brought out a rather befuddled look from Charlie's assignment. “A . . . Fairy Man? Son, I don't even have the foggiest idea what on God's green earth you are talking about. Assuming there is a God, and that this is his earth.”

“Semantics,” Charlie stated matter-of-factly, as if that explained everything, then reached inside his jacket and withdrew the Ferryman Key from his pocket. He felt the engraved letters underneath his fingertips, ever present. “As for my title, I'm a
Ferryman
. As in the boat, just like in the painting over there. It's my job to escort you to your afterlife.”

The neutral expression that had been the hallmark of Charlie's early conversation with Jack Sanders was quickly being replaced by one of, at the very least, mild bewilderment. “Charlie,” he began, “I'm not gonna lie to ya, this is more confusing than when I tried to do my own taxes.”

“All in due time, Jack, all in due time. Just bear with me,” Charlie said. “A Ferryman is basically a guide. What I have in my right hand is a key. It's a very special key. This key will open a door for you and you alone that will take you to your afterlife. We say
your
afterlife because, frankly, we have no idea who, what, or where is on the other side. What we do know is that this door is unique to you. We've had some time to test that out, so trust me on it. Now, on the other side of that door could be Jesus, Buddha, L. Ron Hubbard, Gozer the Gozerian—honestly, we don't know. Likewise, any or all of them could be sipping lemonade in heaven or Elysium or Avalon—it could be anywhere or anything. I've tried more than a few times to see for myself, but all I ever see is white light.”

As he was speaking, Charlie's fingers wrapped themselves
around the gilded key. When he finished, he held it out in front of him, the large letters engraved on its side glinting in the fluorescent light. He pushed the key forward through the air, stopped, and twisted it dramatically to the right. A loud
click
echoed through the room. As the Ferryman Door opened a fraction, blades of light began cascading out. Charlie looked over at Jack Sanders, who, for the first time since dying, looked genuinely taken aback. “Really bright white light, I should add.”

The room went silent as both men seemed to give the moment its due. The light that radiated in the air from the open door wavered ever so gently, like sunbeams viewed from underwater.

When Jack spoke again, he had regained most of his former composure. “So you're sayin' . . . that I could be going to heaven, after all? Or I could be goin' somewhere else . . .”

There was no point sugarcoating with Jack Sanders, and Charlie knew it. “I'm sorry. I couldn't even begin to tell you,” he replied.

Jack seemed less than thrilled by the response. “What's stoppin' me from staying put, right here, then?” He held out his arms to indicate the room they both stood in, then seemed to think better of it. “Well, maybe not here in this room, exactly, but I'm sure you catch my drift.”

With a slow cadence, Charlie marched across the off-white tiles and approached the spirit, stopping just within arm's reach. “Nothing,” Charlie said. Then, with a burst of movement, Charlie lunged forward, as if to grab Jack's wrist. However, the Ferryman's hand passed clean through. As Charlie stood there, his hand sticking through the spirit's arm like they were auditioning for a Casper the Friendly Ghost remake, he looked Jack directly in his eyes. Gone was Charlie's Coltrane smile, replaced by a look of stern compassion.

“I can't force you, Jack. No one can. That's why my job is so important. I have to convince you to make one of the hardest walks you'll ever take based on nothing but my word and a door.”

The spirit returned the look. “So why should I go, then?” he asked. Gone was the hint of bravado, but the stoicism in his voice remained.

Charlie withdrew his hand and shrugged. “Why shouldn't you?”

“Because I don't know what's waiting on the other side.”

Charlie took a step backward toward the door. “Isn't that why you should go?” He took another step.

Jack hesitated. “I don't think you understand, son.” The irony of being called
son
by Jack despite being nearly two hundred years his senior wasn't lost on Charlie. “I've done things I'm not proud of . . . things I regret. What if I don't like what I find on the other side?”

It wasn't hard to guess what things a World War II vet might have done in service to his country, but in the gleaming light of an unknown future, Charlie always imagined the deeds, no matter how justifiable they seemed during life, suddenly lost their sheen. Cartwright had taught him that with death came insight and perspective. The deceased who were most hesitant about stepping through were the ones who saw all their mistakes and misgivings with new clarity. The ones who stepped through with no reservations had convinced themselves of their own righteousness long, long ago. There were exceptions to that, but it was a rubric Charlie saw more and more truth in after every case he closed.

“Let me shoot straight with you, Jack. The form you're in right now—your
spiritual form
, let's call it—is not meant for this world. That feeling you described as being out-of-body? That's not gonna go away. It's like an itch you can't scratch that will only get worse,
and while it doesn't cost everyone their sanity, it gets to almost everyone eventually. In essence, you become a ghost. As the years go by, little by little, bits and pieces of you slowly just fade away, until you cease to exist. No afterlife, just nothingness. You simply disappear. Or that's our theory, anyway. That part's been a bit tough to prove, but we've seen enough anecdotal evidence of it throughout the years.”

Sanders blinked. The look of incredulity on his face spoke the words before he did. “You're being serious right now, aren't you?”

“Well, we have a more official term than
ghost
, but yeah.”

“And you tell people that, and they don't walk through that door?”

“Some people leave their physical self with very real and very tough regrets. You can't rationalize emotions. There are things that can motivate a person beyond their own promised happiness, I can assure you of that.”

The Ferryman took a few more steps toward Jack's door until he was right in front of it. With the slightest nudge, he propped the opening further. The radiance that poured out of the door flooded over Charlie. To him, it was just dazzlingly brilliant light, but he knew that wasn't the case for Jack. The Institute never recommended opening an afterlife door all the way in case the subject didn't like what they saw, but Charlie rarely did what the Institute recommended anyway.

“While I freely admit that I don't know what's on the other side of this door, something tells me there are a few people waiting for you who've missed you dearly. I can think of a son and wife, in particular. But what I can assure you of, with one hundred percent certainty, is that you won't find them here. Ever.” Charlie drew a deep breath. “I think it's time to go, Jack.”

There was a breathless moment as Charlie scrutinized Jack's
face, waiting for some form of reaction, before the spirit's eyes went wide.

“My God . . . ,” Jack said, his voice barely registering above a whisper. Charlie turned to the door behind him and looked, hoping to see something. But like every time before, he was greeted with nothing but that blinding light.

“Amazing, right?” Charlie said. He hoped the expression on his face didn't look as fake as it felt.

Jack took two slow steps forward so that he was standing in front of the Ferryman. A hint of amusement tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You're a terrible liar, son.”

Charlie stepped out of the way of the door. “Eh. It pays to be bad at some things.”

“I'm sure,” Jack replied. He moved to take a step forward, but stopped. “I wasn't going to ask if you were an angel, ya know.”

“Really?” That genuinely surprised Charlie. He had been sure that was Jack's question.

Jack Sanders shook his head. “No. It was obvious you weren't from the get-go. Charlie is a damn stupid name for an angel. Everybody knows that.”

Charlie shrugged, but with a little laugh. “I guess it is.”

The ethereal form of Jack Sanders took one more look around the room. His eyes lingered on the muted television, the patterned tiled floor, and, finally, the small blue rowboat. He turned back to Charlie, who stood patiently next to the door. “Thanks, Charlie. Hopefully we'll run into each other again someday, somewhere,” the spirit said.

Before Charlie could help himself, he said, “Yeah. I hope so, too.”

With that, his assignment strode with confidence through the white light. As Jack crossed the threshold, the light began to dim
and, as if by some hidden automatic motor, the door began to swing closed.

A pang of jealousy briefly flowed through Charlie as the radiance slowly disappeared, the outline of the door with it. He stood alone in the hospital room for a few moments longer, his gaze stuck on the blue rowboat.

Eventually Charlie turned his attention to the clipboard in his hand. Near the top of the page, in the upper right corner, was a small check box with a label. It read:

Assignment successfully ferried

Charlie watched as a large check appeared in it, just like it had thousands and thousands of times before. Then, he headed home.

W
e're talking six easy cases in a row, Dirkley. What are the odds on that? I haven't had six easy cases in the past hundred years, let alone the same day. Has anyone been outside recently to check if the world is ending? I think it might be.”

Charlie sat perched on the end of Dirkley's desk as his navigator finished the form with a small flourish. Jack Sanders had been the hardest of the bunch so far, and even that was easy by Charlie's standards.