LAST WEEK: River visited the morgue.
Read last week’s installment here. See all installments here.
Chapter 94
River
San Francisco — 1985
The Ferryman
Another night at Bert’s. River, Pamela, and Thanatos sit at the counter. River feels Jackson’s absence like hunger. In a corner, Jackson’s partner is sleeping with someone new. In front of the new policeman, a donut drips white frosting topped with colorful round sugar bits. It makes River slightly nauseous. Maybe that’s why Pamela never eats, he thinks. If I had to look at that stuff every night, all night, I might stick to juice, too.
River wants to be alone with Pam. He wants to tell her of Lisa and of his descent into the morgue. He wants her to comfort him, and yet he is afraid. Apprehensive that she might not believe him. Fearful that telling her will make it all true. Words spoken aloud, thoughts shared, gain weight and reality. River isn’t sure he is ready for that. He half hopes he’s deluded. Perhaps it would be better than finding out that the world conceals white fangs and corpses smelling of sweet gardenias.
Thanatos happily mouths some of River’s flourless chocolate cake between his gums. At about 3:30 am, Thanatos unravels his long frame. He stretches.
“Well,” he says, “pleasure as always. Thanks for the cake, River. See you tomorrow, Pam. You take care.” He peers keenly at her from under bushy eyebrows. Nodding at River, he lifts his empty six-packs and pushes out into the night.
“I’m real tired,” River says. “Think I’ll be going, too.” He hurries into the dark after Thanatos. The old man is almost out of sight. He moves with amazing rapidity for someone so aged.
Huck lifts off River’s shoulder, cruising overhead. River can barely keep Thanatos in sight. He tries to be quiet, but he is gasping, his breath coming in raspy inhalations. His side aches.
When he rounds a corner, Thanatos is gone. Again. River sighs.
He hears a faint “caw.” Looking into the orange neon sky, he sees a glossy shape moving like an arrow overhead. River grins.
Following Huck, he arrives at the entrance of a blocky, white, stately building. Steps lead up to a metal door. A sedate sign reads, The Quiet Dignity Coma Care Residential Facility.
River pulls on the door. It’s locked. On the side of the building, a fire escape dangles. Gingerly extending his arm, River catches the end of the ladder and swings himself up. He dangles four feet above the pavement. The escape creaks. River holds his breath, as though that could silence it.
Carefully, he puts his foot on the end and climbs a few steps. The ladder sways.
How on earth can they get coma patients down this thing in the event of a fire?
Reaching a window ledge, he peers in. He sees a white room, spare, sterile, and spotless, metal beds in neat rows. The sheets are hard, crisp, baby-blue rubber.
Still bodies lie in the beds. Old men, ancient women, and a few immobile small children. Their arms are punctured with needles, connected to clear latex tubes. Some of the tubes feed them fluids, sugars, and electrolytes. Some drain away their blood. The blood is being pumped into small glass bottles. River has seen bottles like these before, glimpsed them in Thanatos’ six-pack carriers, watched Mike and Pamela drink their ruby fluid. River shudders as he scrutinizes the bodies. Their chests rise calmly and regularly—up and down, up, and down, like tides.
They are alive.
Thanatos enters carrying cartons of empty bottles. He twists the tubes of blood, stopping the flow with shiny white bands of silk. He replaces the full bottles with empties. He then loosens the threads, letting blood fill the bare vials with life.
Suddenly, he stiffens. He looks slowly around. River holds his breath. Thanatos walks toward the window: River has been spotted. He has no idea what Thanatos will do. He cannot reconcile the amiable old man who loves chocolate and saves peanuts for Huck with this gaunt figure, draining blood from the living. His mind is too filled with fear, his body too filled with adrenaline to imagine consequences.
But Thanatos stops by a bed before he reaches River. Tucked beneath white sheets, the body is motionless. The steady tide of breath has ceased its gentle cadence. Thanatos gently opens the corpse’s mouth. From his pocket, he removes something round and flat. It is silver, edged with gold. Reverently, he places it in the mouth. He presses the jaws together, fastening the coin between still lips.
“Safe travels,” he murmurs.
Chapter 95
River
San Francisco — 1991
Small Time Gods
River slides down the fire escape, landing so hard he knocks the breath from his chest. He crouches in the street, inhaling and exhaling slowly, deeply, deliberately, trying to fill his lungs and still his heart. Then he races through the dark streets toward home, shoes sliding on mist-damp streets. Night fog tugs at him with tiny wet hands. Huck silently glides above, barely visible.
The moon is full, glowing above the foggy dark, the mist pulses with light. A howl rises out of the dark. It tickles the hair on the back of River’s neck. It throws him backward into memory. He is lost, a child alone in the dark. He is walking to Bert’s, feeling a body’s impact from behind. He is seeing a long wolf face narrow into a man’s.
His apartment, solid, tangible, rising out of the shadow like a beacon, has never looked so welcoming. As he fumbles with his key, two bony claws grip his shoulder. River screams, yanking the door wide and leaping inside. The claws release him and Huck glides onto the counter, fluffing out his wings and shaking water from his feathers.
River exhales shakily. “Damn, Huck, I hate it when you do that!”
Huck squawks indignantly, droplets of water fly off his wet feathers, disappearing into the light like falling stars.
River locks and bolts the door. Though damp with fog, he’s hot from running and flushed with fear. He sinks into a chair, burying his head in his hands, shaking.
After a few moments, he walks into the compact kitchen, turning the oven to 350 degrees. He peels four brown spotted bananas, mashing them up with sure, strong fingers. The rich fragrance of fertility and earth fills the room.
He combines two cups of all-purpose flour for stability, baking soda to cleanse bloody memory, and salt for solidity. He stirs them into a mixture as smooth as life isn’t, adding butter, brown sugar, and eggs. As a final touch, he drops in a handful of walnuts and a dash of hope and pours the batter into a square glass pan, setting it in the oven to bake.
His mind, emptied by shock, slowly begins to fill with uninvited images.
He sees Pamela, beautiful and shining in the night, feels her cold, cold hands and tastes her spearmint-cool breath. He swallows, the air catching in his throat like betrayal. Ever since he found Gabriel in the field, River has been cut off and alone. Separated from humanity by a knowledge that he didn’t even realize he possessed, a perception deep within his bones. An understanding that though fairy tales may come true, they are written in blood and lies.
Then love had waltzed in unannounced and unexpected, even though it had never been invited. It unpacked its bags as if it meant to stay. But now fear and sorrow have followed, moving in before he’s even had a chance to shut the door. He had trusted Pam. He had loved Pam. He loves her still. But tonight, River has seen the skull beneath the skin. He cannot close his eyes. He cannot close his mind. He has seen things he cannot forget. They have become part of his memory. The distance between his feelings and reality stretch before River like an undiscovered country.
Pamela, his Pamela, has been a lie, her very being an untruth. She is a creature of nightmare, a ghoul, a horror story. She is a tale told around night fires. A fear made manifest. River, who has never once been nostalgic nor wished for childhood’s return, suddenly wants time to go backward. He wants to return to a dark night when, taking refuge from an unreasoned chase, he meets an elfin waitress for the first time. He wants to know less and understand more.
River weeps. His tears scorch tiny holes in the carpet as they fall. Acrid smoke rises from each cavity, masking the scent of burning banana bread.
He breathes, in and out, deeply, slowly, steadily, calming himself. River raises his head, seeing the antiquated encyclopedias he’d gotten at Mike’s. He’s unaware of the scorching bread, even though black smoke has begun to wrap wispy tendrils around the oven door. He wanders to the desk and pulls out Volume XX, letting it fall open onto his desk.
“Thanatos: In Greek mythology, Thanatos (Greek: Θάνατος (Thánatos) was the daemon personification of death. He was a minor figure in Greek mythology, often referred to, but rarely appearing in person.”
A small-time god, River thinks. An absence of light rather than the presence of darkness.
Where do old gods and vanquished monsters go, these creatures born from fear around a night fire? Do they wither under the fluorescent reality of a light bulb, or do they linger in the imagination, leaving an after-image burned onto the retina? Do divinities and demons wander from era to era, fears made manifest across epoch and distance? Werewolves and Greek Gods and …what then, is Mike….? is Pamela? River shudders. He cannot, even in his thoughts, bear to link the two of them.
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” A continuous high-pitched shriek shatters the quiet.
“Shit!” River leaps up from his desk and rushes to the oven, yanking it open. Black smoke rushes out, filling the apartment like spirits from Pandora’s Box. River turns off the oven and opens the window to the night, without even wondering if hope, too, might escape into the darkness.
Watch the author read this week’s installment in the video below:
NEXT WEEK: Thanatos has always been a ferryman to the dead. He waits for souls on the banks of the river Styx. If they have a coin for payment, he’ll row them across. If not, they’re forced to wander the shore for one hundred years. But the dead are in no hurry. They have no shortage of time. A hundred years isn’t even a blip in the sea of eternity.
Edited by Mitchelle Lumumba and Sophie Gorjance.
E.E. King is cohost of the MetaStellar YouTube channel's Long Lost Friends segment. She is also a painter, performer, writer, and naturalist. She’ll do anything that won’t pay the bills, especially if it involves animals. Ray Bradbury called her stories “marvelously inventive, wildly funny and deeply thought-provoking. I cannot recommend them highly enough.” She’s been published widely, including Clarkesworld and Flametree. She also co-hosts The Long Lost Friends Show on MetaStellar's YouTube channel. Check out paintings, writing, musings, and books at ElizabethEveKing.com and visit her author page on Amazon.