The Ferryman Institute

by Colin Gigl

  Charlie put his fingers to his nose, but instantly recoiled in pain from the contact. “I’m getting the sense that there are a lot of things I still don’t know the truth about around here.”

  “Perhaps,” Cartwright replied. “Whilst we’re on the topic of the truth behind matters, however did you know that Javrouche’s gun was empty?”

  “I’ve been wondering the same thing myself,” the dark-haired woman added. “With all due respect, that seemed like quite the gamble.” She removed her hand from Melissa’s right shoulder, and Alice could see quite clearly that it was covered in blood.

  “I didn’t. It was only a theory. It only occurred to me after reading Melissa’s note, which I didn’t see until she’d been shot and my hand happened to land on the key. Right before she was shot, she told me that we weren’t listed—me and Alice—and to be brave. It didn’t make any sense to me at the time, but after reading the note, it felt like that’s what she was driving at. If Javrouche was going to kill Alice, there would be another Ferryman here, or at the least, we would know about it on some level. So I started thinking, what if his pistol was the same gun from back at the Tick Tock Diner? If it hadn’t been reloaded since then, that meant six rounds had already been fired. Just now, Melissa was seven and I was eight. I don’t know much about guns, but that’s an old-looking one. I thought eight shots might be the most it could hold.”

  He’d arrived in front of Alice now and offered her his hand. She gazed up at him. “So,” she said benignly, “you decided that when I had the barrel of a gun against my head was the ideal time to play Dirty Harry?”

  He shrugged. “Do you want me to ask you if you feel lucky?”

  “No,” she said as he helped her to her feet. “The answer to both questions is no.”

  “Really?” he asked. “I’m having a hard time thinking of another person who’s gotten out of so many tight situations in such a small window of time.”

  “Ha-ha—you’re not funny.”

  Without warning, Charlie’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. His body lurched forward, collapsing in a heap.

  “Charlie!” she screamed as she threw herself on the floor next to him. She put her fingers to his neck. There was a pulse, but it felt weak. Someone else was soon kneeling across from her, and she was relieved to see it was Cartwright.

  “I–I don’t know what happened,” she stammered. “We were talking, he seemed fine, and . . . and . . .”

  She felt his hand on her arm, and he shushed her. “It’s all right, my dear, it’s all right. His body is in a weakened state—it’s simply not used to being mortal. Excess levels of fatigue are normal after such a process. I’m sure that, in concert with his loss of blood, just proved to be a little too much for him.”

  As if to confirm Cartwright’s point, no sooner had he finished speaking than Charlie began to softly whimper. The two looked down to see him crying quietly to himself.

  “Oh my God, Charlie.” She squeezed his hand. “We’re getting help for you right now. How badly does it hurt?”

  Charlie draped his arm over his eyes so they couldn’t see his face. His quiet whimpers moved on to a rolling sob. After a few false starts, he finally managed to speak. “It’s not that,” he said, voice hitching. “It’s just been so long since I’ve felt anything . . . the pain . . . just feels so damn good. And that’s just such a stupid, shitty thing to say, but fuck me, I missed it so much.”

  And that was when he completely lost it.

  Alice was momentarily taken aback. There was something about watching a grown man weep uncontrollably that she found inescapably heart-wrenching. However, she didn’t have the faintest idea what to do. How the heck was she supposed to comfort someone who’d lived the life Charlie Dawson had? With a look of mild panic on her face, she turned to Cartwright, only to find him looking thoroughly amused. He patted her arm twice, then stood up.

  “Omnia vincit amor,” he said in perfect Latin before he quietly and slowly walked away. The rest of the room watched from afar, seemingly content to let them have their moment.

  She turned her attention back to Charlie, who lay on the ground, his chest heaving with every racking sob that worked its way out. She let her hand drift over to his face, her fingers delicately stroking his head. “Shhhh,” she whispered. “Being alive is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?”

  It was, wasn’t it? She’d come to realize that, somewhere along the way. Sure, it had taken an unbelievable amount of luck for her to get there—the cascading set of circumstances that had led her to this point were brain-melting, to put it kindly—but she’d gotten there in the end. Life had shown her that it still possessed the capacity to surprise her, and that made all the difference. This was her fresh beginning.

  For Alice, that was enough.

  Alice would always remember that moment, even years and years on. The words left her mouth, and Charlie, still covering his eyes, coughed a half sob, half laugh. She felt his hand tighten, pulling her slightly closer. Then he began to vigorously nod his head.

  And that was when, without rhyme or reason, Alice somehow knew everything was going to be okay.

  CHARLIE

  * * *

  OUT OF THE DARKNESS . . .

  Charlie had a headache. It had been a long, long time since he’d been able to say that, and frankly, there was still a sick part of him that enjoyed it. He knew that would wear off soon enough, but for the time being, he welcomed it. He did, however, miss being able to breathe out of his currently swollen nose.

  He stood up behind his desk and winced at the lancing pain in his leg. With a slight limp, he began to wander slowly around the room. The space was smaller than he’d expected—he’d envisioned something more Oval Office when in reality it was more modest middle manager. To be fair, he got to keep his other office as well, so square footage wasn’t an issue, but still—it was the principle of the thing. A large, if plain, brown desk was positioned in front of the entrance, two comfortable blue chairs facing it. The walls were painted a very pale yellow, a subtle shade without being drab. Several bookcases occupied space along both the back and side walls of the room, but the walls were otherwise bare.

  For all Charlie’s gripes, however, the presidential office did have one thing that made up for all of its other failings, and then some: a window. To be more specific, it was a massive skylight that took up at least half of the ceiling, placed just where his eyes gravitated to when he settled into his high-backed leather chair. Beyond it was a view of outer space, and from what he understood, it always would be—a perpetual window out across the universe.

  He adored it.

  As Charlie stood beneath a drifting galaxy, he came to realize that it was the first time he’d really had a chance to study his new office. Melissa’s office. His brain made the connection automatically, despite his best efforts to keep that gritty reality locked away in some unreachable recess of his mind. She was gone. In one sense, the day-to-day management Charlie had found himself suddenly thrown into was a welcome problem, seeing as it was the perfect distraction from his thoughts. Now, idle for the first time in hours, he felt the memories he’d tried to avoid come rushing back in a torrent.

  * * *

  THEY’D MADE MELISSA comfortable in a spare room adjacent to the one Alice woke up in—a random tidbit Charlie learned after the fact. It was an all-too-familiar scene for Charlie, and to see someone he considered a friend be the center of it was heartbreaking. While it was true that she would have been transferring out anyway, given that she’d voluntarily passed on the presidency to Charlie, from what he’d heard, the presidential transition usually took upward of several weeks. Now, however, her departure time had been greatly accelerated.

  He wished he could say she looked perfectly serene, hooked up to the ventilator with its rhythmic hiss, but there was a touch of pain around her closed eyes that spoke to the contrary. An examination determined that the bullet had entered from her left side, passed through both her lung
s, and exited. How it missed all of her ribs was anyone’s guess. That was often the way of it, wasn’t it—an eighth of an inch in one direction instead of the other the only difference between still breathing and six feet down. The ventilator was essentially keeping her from asphyxiating, but it was only a matter of time before the internal bleeding proved too much for her body to bear. There was nothing anyone could do.

  When the ETD was a few minutes away, the few people who were in the room—the members of the Council and a handful of Melissa’s staff—began to pay their final respects. Although those with Ferryman Keys and Council members (who apparently didn’t need them, which explained an awful lot) would have been able to see her spirit after she passed on, it was agreed that Charlie would handle it like any other case: alone. Melissa had been an exemplary employee for the Institute, but that didn’t guarantee she’d be understanding in death. Everything for the good of the many, Charlie remembered thinking bitterly.

  The room emptied out, except for Cartwright, who stayed a moment longer.

  “It is rather remarkable,” he said quietly. “I believe as ageless, undying men and women, we have come to view death through a lens far removed from reality. I will begrudgingly admit to feeling detached, myself. Which is to say, I couldn’t understand your feelings when we last spoke out in the desert. It is strange, then, when it impacts one of our own . . . a stark reminder of the deep and profound sense of loss that accompanies death. Maybe that is what makes you such an extraordinary yet ill-equipped Ferryman.”

  With a stolen glance, Charlie looked over at his mentor. “How so?”

  Cartwright put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder and patted it gently. “Because maybe for you, every death is like losing one of your own.” He returned Charlie’s look with earnest, somber eyes. “How could anyone possibly acclimate to that?” Without saying another word, Cartwright squeezed his shoulder, turned, and left the room.

  Charlie stood, Cartwright’s words heavy in his ears. At this point in his life, he didn’t know what to think.

  He watched as Melissa’s blood pressure continued to drop, bit by bit. Finally, her pulse disappeared. There was no horrific alarm signaling nurses to come in, no doctors with defibrillators. It was a suffocating silence, with only the occasional pump from the ventilator punctuating the room.

  Moments later, she was standing before him. They looked at each other, neither particularly moving. Eventually, Melissa looked at her corporeal self with a sad smile. Charlie fingered his Ferryman Key, finding a modicum of solace in its gilded letters and familiar weight. Even now that he was mortal, the key still did its job.

  “I’m glad you took me up on this last assignment. It’s kind of a tradition, one president passing to the next, even if this transition isn’t exactly proceeding normally.” Though she was speaking to him, she was still looking down at herself. “I was a little worried you wouldn’t.”

  “Because I wouldn’t be able to handle it emotionally?” he asked.

  Her eyes lingered for a second more on the woman in the bed before she turned her attention to Charlie. “Yeah, something like that.”

  Charlie rubbed the back of his head. “Well, I appreciate the honesty.”

  After they lapsed into silence, Charlie spoke up again. “You knew the whole time what was coming, didn’t you?”

  She took a few steps away from her bed toward Charlie. “Did I win the Oscar for best female Ferryman in a lead role?” The casual enthusiasm Melissa displayed erased any doubt Charlie had about her mental well-being postlife.

  “Sorry,” Charlie said, “it went to Meryl Streep again.”

  Her laughter filled the room. “Jeez, they wouldn’t even give it to me posthumously,” she said. Charlie must have been wearing his heart on his sleeve, as she immediately remarked: “Come on, Charlie, don’t look like that. It’s only death.”

  He snorted and looked away.

  “Listen,” she said with the familiar managerial tone she used when things needed to get done. “I’m not going to stay here long. The more I draw this out, the harder it’s going to be for the both of us. You know it, I know it. So, a few important things. On the back bookshelf, there’s a section for some of my own personal books. Wedged in between The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and A Dirty Job is a binder. It’s for you. Unfortunately, I don’t really get to talk you through some of the things I’ve learned in my relatively short tenure as president, so I made a primer that will hopefully be an adequate guide to your new role. I’ll be honest, it’s kind of thrown together, given the short heads-up I had, but I hope it helps all the same. I included a letter addressed to Virgil, and I’d appreciate it if you gave it to him. There’s also letters to members of my staff. I put some instructions in there for them, just to get them along, but they’re all great, as I’m sure you’ll find out. You’re also going to need a new vice president, as I imagine Shira—she was mine—will probably want to try her hand at managing. The rest of my staff, you’re more than welcome to keep on board. That’s up to you.”

  When Charlie continued to avoid looking at her, she stuck her head into his field of view. “Hey,” she said, looking mildly concerned, “you getting all of this?”

  “Mmm,” Charlie said by way of reply.

  Melissa sighed. “You’ve done this a million times before, Charlie. I’m just the final drop of water in a very full bucket. One more job.”

  “You don’t get it,” he blurted out, his voice louder than he meant. “I treated you like crap—always running off, disappearing without telling anyone. You know, just generally making your life miserable.”

  Melissa eyed him carefully. “Let me ask you a question: Now that you know the truth about me and Virgil, do you honestly think I didn’t know where you were? Maybe on a few rare occasions I only had a vague notion, but realistically speaking? I always knew.”

  “That’s not the point. I was always selfish, and you’ve been nothing but selfless all the way to the end of your life. And now, here I am, standing around like an idiot because there’s nothing I can do to repay you. To borrow a phrase, it fucking sucks big, fat donkey balls.”

  With a measured grace, Melissa took a few steps closer. “So you feel bad because you think you’re indebted to me?”

  “No.” He thrust his Ferryman Key out in front of himself, and turned it hard. A familiar click echoed, but there was a sharp grinding undertone that followed it. “I feel bad because you were a friend—a really great one—and not only am I just realizing that, but now I’ll never get the chance to show you how much I appreciate it.” The invisible door slowly creaked open, revealing the blinding white light of the world beyond.

  Melissa’s focus was initially on Charlie, but as the door continued to gently slide open, her eyes wandered over. As the outpouring of light formed a veil across her face, Melissa’s eyes grew wider.

  “Oh God,” she whispered. “It’s beautiful.” She stared at it, unblinking, for several seconds before she wrested her eyes back. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t help but cast expectant glances in that direction every couple of seconds. Finally, she shook her head, as if forcing a thought from her mind, and steeled her gaze on Charlie.

  “Charlie, I didn’t do this to make you feel bad, but you are who you are. There’s not a whole lot I can say that will change that. But you finally have the chance to be happy now, and after all you’ve been through, without once complaining to me about how much this was eating you up inside . . . you need to take this chance. This isn’t punishment for me. I’ve been given more years than any person rightly deserves. I’ve seen it all, and now I get to go home. I’m not scared anymore. And to be perfectly clear, don’t you dare think for one second that I didn’t like being your manager. If I leave here with one regret, it’s that I never got to be a true manager to you and Dirkley. I think that really would have been a blast.”

  She walked past Charlie and stood in the doorway, her spirit almost completely enveloped by the light.
“Can I tell you one thing, as a friend, before I leave?”

  Charlie shuffled his feet and tried to look at her—the sheer intensity of the light forced him to shade his eyes with his hand. “Sure,” he said dumbly. Melissa seemed to be fading away, as if she was becoming one with the light.

  “I’m glad you saved the girl.” Her voice sounded distant now, like a person calling out from a moving train. “You want to pay me back for this? Then take good care of her. And Dirkley. And yourself.”

  He was barely able to make out the last words. He thought he could hear her say something else, but he couldn’t quite catch it, and so the words were lost in the space between the world of men and the world beyond. No sooner had she finished speaking, her silhouette now lost in the blinding radiance, than the door swung shut, filling the room with a loud SLAM.

  Then, something happened that Charlie had never seen before: his key fell to the floor with a clatter. He gingerly picked it up, noticing immediately that something was different. The word PORTHMEUS, one of the defining features of the key, was no longer engraved in the shaft. He knew instinctively that it was just another ordinary key now . . . and he was just an ordinary man.

  * * *

  WHEN CHARLIE snapped out of his reverie several minutes later, he found himself standing in front of the bookshelf Melissa had mentioned, the plain black binder she’d made clutched in his hand, half removed from the shelf. He’d had so many other things on his mind—what to do about the still missing Javrouche, how to break Melissa’s passing to Dirkley, what to do about everything involving the Council and their bazillion secrets—that he’d almost completely forgotten about the primer. Charlie pulled it from the shelf, then returned to his desk, dropping it on top with a meager thud. It was thinner than he’d expected, but as Melissa had said, time wasn’t exactly on her side when she’d put it together. He eased the cover open.