A Bribe For The Ferryman

by D R Cartwright

  Eventually, after they finish, I hear them approach the bathroom door. They stop outside and I prepare myself. I’m still going to slip out of the room. I’m going to find out who’s been having an affair with my wife. And when I see the horrified look on my wife’s face as she sees me, I’ll feel pleased. I hope she throws up, maybe staggers back, hits her head and causes herself an injury. Or even death. I wonder if she’ll come back as a fly, her new life being spawned from her old one.

  “Are you ready?”

  It’s a male voice, the bastard thief himself.

  “It’s not going to be nice in there.”

  “I know.” My wife’s sweet, sweet voice now runs thick with poison. “But I need to see. I need to know my reaction so I can make it look real.”

  They fall silent. The door handle below me rattles and then turns. Slowly, the door opens. Seeing a gap, I lift my wings and fly through. The adrenaline I feel at my release is over-whelming. I fly across the landing, buzzing round and round, feeling free at last, and then I remember my wife. Turning back, I land of the wall opposite the bathroom door. I see them both. Both are dressed in robes, my wife in hers, her lover in mine. I feel sickened by the sight; angered and insulted. First he steals my wife, then he has sex with her in my bed, and then he wears my robe! My wings buzz again in anger.

  I watch as numerous other flies seize their escape route and fly out. They fly past me without stopping. My wife steps closer to the bath, covering her mouth with her hand against the stench. Then she dubiously pulls back the curtain. She doesn’t scream. The sight of my body doesn’t come as a surprise to her. But she lets out a whimper, steps back and then turns to her lover. He envelopes her in his arms, allowing her to bury her head in his chest.

  I buzz.

  That should be me comforting her. She should be burying her head in my chest.

  As a fly, I begin to wonder whether my reactions have been slowed. It suddenly occurs to me why the sight of my body didn’t surprise her in the way that I had expected, and why she didn’t scream – this time in horror as opposed to pleasure.

  She knew I was there.

  She knew I was dead and that I had been left in the bathtub to rot.

  She knew!

  “Come on, let’s get dressed and get this over with.”

  Her lover turns to lead her out of the bathroom, and within an instant I know who he is. James Baker, my colleague at work. I feel like an emotional rollercoaster as every emotion boils inside me; shock, horror, anger, sadness, hate – love. It surprises me that I still feel love for my wife. I suppose it’s a strong emotion that doesn’t just fizzle away after something happens. It’s the emotion that fixes relationships after they threaten to break.

  I wait on the wall as the pair dress. When they emerge from my bedroom, I’m slightly relieved to see James in his own clothes again. My wife just looks as tantalising as she always does, with her tussled hair. Then I remember what made her hair so tussled, and my wings give another quick buzz in anger. I can still smell the stench of sex lingering on them.

  I’m passed unnoticed, and I watch as they make their way down the stairs and into the lounge. It’s only then that I follow, letting my wings carry me down the stairs and into the lounge. There, I perch on the wall again and look upon the couple with hate and intrigue.

  How did you know I was there?

  I watch my wife as she picks up the phone and dials a number. When someone answers, she asks for the police. “It’s my husband,” she says in a weak, trembling voice. “He’s dead!”

  After the phone call, James paces the room.

  “You remember the plan? You’ve been away. When you tried to contact your husband to arrange for him to pick you up at the airport, he doesn’t answer his phone. You’re stranded, and so the only thing you can think of doing is calling me. I drive down there, pick you up and drop you back here. You offer me a coffee in gratitude, and because I’m a close friend I accept, and then you go to the bathroom, and that’s when you find Jason.”

  My wife stands from her seat and steps over to him. “And then when this is all over, we’ll move away together. We’ll live somewhere where it’s sunny, and we can forget all about Jason.”

  No! Why does she want to forget about me!

  “A happy ending. You and me.” He pushes her against the back of the sofa, kisses her passionately. She raises her hand and strokes his face, raising her leg high up on him. “I can take you right here right now,” James moans as he looks down at her.

  My wife moans in disappointment and smiles. “Soon, my love,” and then the two part. “The police are on their way. I need to look like I’ve been crying.” She rubs her eyes, reddening them, and then forces her tears to come. She was always good at pretending to be upset. “I’ll just be glad when this is all over. I’ve never killed anyone before.”

  Again I gasp in horror but fail. My eyes fall to her hands. Yes, I know them. Her right hand is the one in my memory. It was the hand holding the knife!

  My wife murdered me!

  Now I can’t stop myself. My wings lift me from the wall and I fly at full speed in her direction. ‘I can’t believe you killed me’, I hear myself wanting to yell as I speed passed her. I’m so close I feel as a single stray hair brushes against my wing. She seems startled at my attack, hearing me buzz by but not being able to see me.

  I turn in mid air and head back for another attack. ‘Bitch! I’ll kill you’, I scream again. This time she raises her hands and hits out at me.

  “Stupid fly won’t leave me alone,” she complains. I can feel James’ eyes following me as I swoop in once again.

  I hate her! I hate them both! She killed me, and I’m going to make sure that she doesn’t get away with it.

  How long has it been going on? I ask her as I speed passed. How many times have you had sex in my bed? How many times have you waited for me to leave the house before you snuck James in to screw you? Have you even felt the slightest bit of guilt over what you were doing? I treated you good, god-damn it! I loved you!

  I speed passed her one last time before fatigue gets the better of me. I am drained and upset. I need to stop and get my head around what is happening.

  She had been sleeping with my colleague; they had conspired to kill me off – with the defence job that I was working on I had made myself many enemies. It could have been anyone – and then they were going to move away together and live happily ever after with me completely out of the picture. I hate them both for doing this to me. She could have just left me! I would have still been alive now! How could she!

  One thing I know for sure, I’m not going to let them get away with it. I can hear police sirens approaching. When they arrive I’m going to make damn sure that they find out who murdered me. They won’t get away with it.

  A movement catches my eye. I look up in time to see a rolled up news paper coming my way. I recognise the hand that’s holding it. It’s the same hand that held the knife. It belongs to my wife. I buzz again in anger. She’s killed me once – I won’t let her kill me again.

  Thwak . . . !

  RIP

  Darkness.

  It was everywhere; black, solid, constricting.

  She blinked her eyes, wondering if they were actually open. The assumption that as soon as the lids lifted light and colour would come flooding in was stumped. Her lids were open, her eyes wide, but there was no light, no colour. Just blackness, thick and menacing.

  It confused her.

  Why was there no light? Why wasn’t she seeing anything?

  The side of her head throbbed, a pain that cut across her skull and down her neck. Squeezing her eyes shut against the darkness, she hissed in agony. What had happened? Why was she hurting?

  Now was the time to move. Her pounding head needed feeling, needed holding, and her fingers needed to search for blood. The head was a fickle thing, and it didn’t take much of a blow for the skin to split and rip and for the blood to flow. She needed to check
.

  Her limb felt heavy as she lifted it, meaning to reach up, her fingers wanting to stroke through her blonde hair, but her efforts were wasted as her knuckles wrapped against something hard, shaving skin. She grunted with shock as she raised her other hand and ran them both over the roof that sat only inches above her. And it didn’t end there. It was on either side too, boxing her in. It felt rough to the touch with tiny sharp bits that splintered her fingers.

  Where the hell was she?

  Why couldn’t she see?

  Panic began to grip its dirty fingers, its claws piercing skin, and a tightness enveloped her chest. She couldn’t breath. Her lungs couldn’t draw air. She began to thrash, her legs kicking against the tight confines, her twisted, clenched hands pounding and her head whipping from side to side as a scream rested in the back of her throat, prevented from coming forth by lack of oxygen.

  As if her head was suddenly emerging from a watery surface, her gaping mouth drew in a deep breath, filling her lungs, and then expelling it in a loud scream that vibrated off the walls of her confines.

  Silence greeted her.

  She screamed again, her voice forming a single word; ‘help’.

  Again, silence.

  Her heart pounded in her chest, a pounding that seemed to deafen her, a pounding fed by fear. If it continued pounding at this rate, would it give out? The thought frightened her just as much as her strange, dark prison. Maybe she was destined to die here, but if she wasn’t, it would be a shame to die from a heart attack brought on by nothing but paranoia. But was it just paranoia? She was trapped in a small confined space with nothing but the darkness and the silence to keep her company.

  Where the hell was she?

  Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes – at least she thought she had – and forced herself to calm down, to relax and fight the panic away. There had to be a reasonable explanation. Someone had put her here, therefore someone knew where she was. She needed to gain control over her fear and think. She needed to remember what had happened. She needed to remember why her head hurt so much and why she was here.

  She needed to think.

  * * *

  Sixty.

  The red speedometer pin wavered across the numbers, increasing as it went.

  Sixty-five. Seventy.

  “So what did you say to him then?” Rachel’s voice asked over the beat of the music and the roar of the road passing beneath tyres.

  Beth shrugged, her fingers gripping on the steering wheel of the car. “Like I said to the last guy. If you want a piece of me, you have to earn it.”

  Rachel chuckled and flipped the passenger sun visor down to inspect her makeup in the illuminated mirror on the other side.

  “I don’t go with just anyone. People need to realise that. I’m not some cheap slut who likes to try a bit of everything that’s on offer. And I’m damned if I’m gonna let men treat me that way, either. No, if they want me, they have to prove it and earn me. That way I know they’re the real deal and they’re gonna treat me as I deserve.”

  Seventy-five.

  “Is he gonna be there tonight?”

  Beth took a quick glance at her twin sister. If it wasn’t for the fact Beth had chosen to dye her hair a brighter shade of blonde, the pair would have been identical; blue eyes, rouged lips, tall, slim, the perfect model in many people’s eyes. One alone was enough to draw attention, but when they were together the stares were continuous. This didn’t bother them at all. In fact, Beth thrived off the attention, flirting wherever she went and enjoying being the focus of a hunt, but she never let any man catch her. In this she was picky, but her flirtatious ways had earned her a small reputation as a man-eater.

  Rachel, on the other hand, was the opposite of her twin. She couldn’t deny enjoying a night out on the town and enjoying some of the attention that the twins received, but she didn’t relish in it like her sister. She didn’t flirt as much and certainly didn’t share her sister’s reputation, despite the fact she had had more partners than Beth.

  Eighty.

  “If he is then he gets a chance to win me over.” Beth flashed Rachel a knowing grin and then looked out at the empty road ahead. The sun had disappeared a while ago, the rolling fields around them now sitting in shadow. Their destination was ten miles away but the valley they were driving through made it easy to believe they were in the middle of nowhere, that civilisation was non-existent. The empty road felt eerie, with no other lights in front and nothing showing in the rear view mirror.

  Eighty-five. Ninety.

  Rachel laughed, expecting another night that would help her sister earn her reputation. It was just as well that her sister wasn’t the only person she knew there.

  Ninety-five. A hundred.

  There were no lights, no warning sign. The car was sitting on the edge of the road and it wasn’t until they were close enough to see it in their own headlights that they realised it was there. A car, maybe broken down, maybe someone taking advantage of an empty road and relieving their bladder, but whatever reason, the sight leapt at them from the shadows.

  Beth screamed and yanked on the wheel, intending to turn the car onto the second lane of the duel carriageway and off collision course with the stationary vehicle. Rachel’s own identical scream echo around the car as it jerked to the right. The movement should have been smooth but there was something horribly wrong with it. Tight gripped hands began to fight for control but Beth knew she had lost the moment the wheel was turned.

  The car spun sideways, forced onwards by the hundred mile an hour speed, and as gravity met with that force, it lifted the car from its tyres, spinning it over and over. The sound of crashing metal filled the night, silencing both screams.

  * * *

  Beth looked down at her twin sister’s fragile, lifeless form on the hospital bed. She looked a wraith of her former self and it wrenched at the hole that gaped in her heart. Somewhere outside her mother wailed, comforted by her older brother. The sound of her grieving mother wasn’t new to her ears. She had heard a lot of it when their father died nine years ago, but she never expected to hear the awful sound again. Lightning never struck twice. Two people in one family couldn’t be stripped from life in their prime.

  It couldn’t happen. Life couldn’t be so cruel, but as she looked at her sister’s pale face, she felt doubts in her belief.

  Her sister was dying.

  The heat of the room and the stench of hospital disinfectant should have made Beth feel queasy. She remembered standing next to a hospital bed, looking at her father and not understanding what was happening but knowing that she didn’t like the stuffiness or the smell. The combination of both always managed to stir up painful memories from her childhood, however today she was numb to it. Today anything could happen and she would be oblivious. She wondered if she’d ever be aware of anything again. Was Rachel taking that part of herself to the grave with her? Was she to be incomplete without her sister?

  Pain gripped her chest, her heart breaking, but numbness and disbelief kept it at bay.

  Rachel couldn’t die. She just couldn’t. She was sleeping, that was all. Any minute she would wake up and smile the smile they both shared. She would get the twinkle in her eye that mirrored her own and say hello in her usual manner. And if she didn’t then Beth would just have to reach forward and wake her. She was always a light sleeper. It wouldn’t take much to rouse her.

  She took a step forward, her feet feeling like blocks of concrete, and as she reached out she realised her hand was trembling. She hadn’t noticed it before. Her left arm had been injured in the accident and was restrained in a cast but that was nothing compared to the internal injuries that Rachel suffered during the accident. The hours spent down in theatre trying to repair her had been to no avail, and they were informed shortly after of Rachel’s chances of survival. The doctors weren’t hopeful.

  Beth clung to hope though. She believed that same bolt of lightning that struck nine years ago couldn’t possibly fin
d them again. Rachel was going to pull through and bounce back to her normal, joyful self, despite what the doctors said.

  She would.

  Beth knew. She felt it.

  Her trembling fingers inched closer to her sister’s shoulder. Any second now Rachel would open her eyes. Any. Second. Now.

  Beth’s fingertips pressed gently against Rachel’s shoulder. Her sister’s eyes remained closed. Tears blurred the image of Rachel’s still form. She had expected her eyes to open, was certain they would, and when they hadn’t the first pang of disappointment and grief hit through her numbness.

  She pressed down on to her sister’s shoulder. Her fingers felt bone under her hospital gown and she pushed. This should have woken her up. It usually worked but today it didn’t. Rachel remained still.

  She drew in a deep breath.

  Was Rachel actually going to die? Was she really leaving her? Beth had told herself that her sister would pull through so many times she eventually believed it to be true. Even as the doctors turned off her life support, she never thought for a minute her sister would actually go. She wouldn’t. The bond between them was too strong to be broken. Rachel couldn’t abandon her. She would want to stay. She would fight – but as Beth’s fingers felt the coldness of Rachel’s cheek she realised something was wrong.

  Her skin felt unnatural. It didn’t belong to her. It belonged to a dying person.

  She gave her first sob since being told of her sister’s fate. Rachel was too far gone to pull through now. She was going.

  “Oh Rachel,” she said, tilting her head to one side as she looked down at her sister’s placid face. Even her lips were paling. She was looking more and more like a person with minutes left to live. Tears rolled down her face as she raised her hand and brushed it over Rachel’s lank blonde hair.