A Bribe For The Ferryman Read online

  A Bribe for the

  Ferryman

  By

  D R Cartwright

  A Bribe For The Ferryman

  © 201 2 by D R Cartwright

  Jacket art © 2012 by D R Cartwright

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  This collection first published in the UK, 2012

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, printing, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations used in critical articles and reviews wherein the author is properly cited.

  This collection first published in the UK, 2012

  This Kindle edition published in the UK by NHWC, 2012

  Acknowledgements

  There have been too many people who have supported me throughout my unsociable days of writing to list individually. You all know who you are; my husband, family, friends, my writers’ circle – oh, and my cat for keeping my lap warm during chilly evenings. A huge thank you goes out to every one of you :)

  Black Lake

  This one was heavier than the others. It was as if she refused to be dragged down to the boat house, despite being dead.

  Puffing through gritted teeth, he heaved the body by her feet, gripping her skinny ankles in his large hands. He wondered, with the amount of pressure that he was applying, if they would snap. It wouldn’t make any difference if they did. It wasn’t as if she could feel pain anymore, or that she needed her ankles in fact. She was dead. She’d never stand again.

  The moonlight lit the way as he followed the path that lead across his back yard to the jetty. The large black structure of the boat house stood silhouetted against the sparkling ripples of the lake beyond. Despite its darkness, the jetty still disappeared into the gaping doorway that seemed blacker than the night. And he was counting on it being dark. It was this darkness that would conceal his deeds. He couldn’t have spectators in this game.

  He stepped down a step as the path declined with the grassy descent to the lake. He didn’t slow his pace, and didn’t worry as the woman’s skull bounced and cracked against the concrete as she followed. He was past caring what damage happened to her. He had done what he needed. All that was left now was to place her in her watery grave with the others.

  He thought back to his evening. Everything had gone to plan for him, everything falling into place. Fate had looked out for this girl and had brought her to him. A perfect client. What was her name? Terry? Terresa? Maybe Terresa and Terry for short. He couldn’t remember exactly. It wasn’t something he took in when she told him. He never intended to remember.

  The club was busy as usual. There were plenty of people who would make perfect clients but none asked to become one except Terry. She had come up to him. She had asked for it to happen – not in so many words. She never expected to die, had even begged before he began working. She didn’t want to die. None of them did, but they still approached him, wanting what he had to offer.

  He was careful when choosing a client. He never took anyone who didn’t want to go. Those who minded their own business in the club, who went about their own good time and paid him no attention were obviously those who had a sense about things and who wanted to live. Those who approached him, who made conversation and often flirted, had an underlying wish to meet their maker. They no longer wanted to live but had yet to recognise the truth. He merely saw this and helped them along their way. That’s all he was doing. He was a messenger from God, so to speak. These poor souls were trapped and needed help to be released. He was helping them, that’s what he was doing. A service.

  A job.

  And with jobs, he understood that sometimes they needed to be spiced up in order for the mind to remain interested and connected. If it grew bored of the task that needed to be done then the job would suffer for it. The results would be tacky, messy, and in this field of work, the consequences of a job not done well could be disastrous. If it reached the point where the specimen managed to escape and flee, all hell would break loose.

  You needed to go in full of heart and with a determination that you were going to see it through to the end, ensuring a perfect finish.

  So he added a twist.

  He added fun and creativity.

  He always ensured the end results were crisp and fine, but the path he chose to take he had filled with added fun. It’s what he looked forward to most.

  So Terry had approached him. She had walked passed him numerous times, first making eye contact, next giving a small smile, followed by a tantalising finger in the mouth that was her way of letting him know that she was interested. After raising an eyebrow and smiling back, acknowledging her advances, getting her to approach was easy.

  She had been a sweet girl, not long out from the comforts of her family home. Eighteen? Twenty at most. She couldn’t have been any older. She had blonde hair but where it parted at her scalp, a line of tiny black roots screamed as a reminder of her original colour. This was evidence that she was ready to go with him. To dye your hair, in his opinion, showed that you were unhappy with your appearance, thus trying to improve it with colour in a bottle. He saw this as one of the first signs of a deep rooted depression, one that was on a sure path to self-destruction. This was where he came in.

  Her smile was innocent and wanting, and her lips were plump. He watched as she pressed them against her glass each time she took a sip of whatever concoction she had ordered from the bar. Did he want to press his own lips against these? Yes, he did. Did he want to press his own lips elsewhere? Definitely. His eyes wandered down to her rounded breasts. They were large, more than a handful, but then he considered them against the size of her frame. She was only a small person, and a narrow frame often allowed the breasts to seem larger than they were. The same size on a larger person never looked as big – or as appetising.

  His mind wondered.

  Yes, his lips wanted to kiss the skin hidden beneath her top. Yes, they wanted to take in the nipple and lick and entice. His hands wanted to explore, to stroke, and maybe venture lower. He imagined what she would look like naked, and the thought stirred movement in his trousers.

  But what would happen if she didn’t want to?

  Well, it was too late for that.

  The whole enticing-finger-in-mouth-body language that she had given him had opened that gate. There was no closing it once it was open.

  During their conversation, he had nodded when he was supposed to, had smiled, had laughed. He even offered his own opinions to make their conversation two-way. This was to rouse a sense of security in them, to make them see that he wasn’t a weirdo to be frightened of. It was his way of instilling attraction. It was his way of making them like what they saw on the outside. What was on the inside he kept hidden under lock and key until later. He didn’t want to reveal that part about himself too soon. To do so would ruin the entire job.

  He had hoped, purely for ease, that she would suggest continuing with their evening once they left the club, to continue ‘getting to know each other’. Her willing to be led off somewhere by him would make his job so much simpler, as opposed to trying to persuade her and then having to resort to forcing her with premature violence. Premature violence was a possible cause of affected results. He wanted to try and avoid that where possible.

  Luckily for him, she did offer herself. She was the one who suggested they go elsewhere. She was
the one who wanted them to get more intimate, despite having only just met. She was the one who wanted to die.

  However, she did not want to go back to his home.

  This was a set-back – not a major one, but a glitch nonetheless.

  Instead, he had offered the back seat of his car. She was happy with this arrangement. She didn’t know where he lived which meant he could drive her as near as possible without her knowing – and there were numerous little lanes and secluded areas around the lake where he could park up.

  This he did.

  Terry was eager to continue getting to know him. She was the first in the back seat, slipping out of her tight jeans and her underwear. Before he had even manoeuvred himself round, she was strewn across the seats in the typical, sacrificial position. He took full advantage of this, stroking soft skin, kissing areas that longed to be explored with more than just hands and fingers, and then taking the leap and thrusting himself deep. She had cried out in ecstasy, and he felt glad to have given her one last climatic experience before she left this world. He tried to do this with most of his clients before he took his own pleasure. It was the least he could do, merely out of sympathy and compassion than enjoyment. They never understood this.

  As his own climax approached, his time for work neared. He disguised his actions amongst the throws of passion, something he considered quite clever, and he manoeuvred his long fingers round her neck. At first she was okay with the new hold, realising that the moment was nearing when you had little control over what the body done and felt, but as the fingers tightened their grip, a look of worry emerged over her sweaty features. As the climax began to take over, the fingers tightened and the look of worry was replaced with horror. With his own explosion came the explosion of a soundless scream, the voice unable to pass the tightness of his hold.

  He thrust deep as his climax peaked.

  As it passed, with him embedded as deep as he thought possible, he lay transfixed, spent and breathing hard. Sweat trickled over him, caused by his erotic exertions, and he wanted to lay and savour the moment for just a little longer.

  Terry lay still beneath him. She wasn’t dead. He had made sure he hadn’t taken her constriction that far, but she was unconscious. This was to make things easier for him. It meant he could bind her up and get her home without too much fuss or struggle. He hated struggle. It was unnecessary.

  Climbing from the backseat, he dressed himself before setting to work on the girl and pulling a coiled rope from the boot of the car. He left her naked as he bound her. There wasn’t enough time to respect her modesty, and he didn’t believe it would make much difference now. She would soon have other things to worry about as opposed to her nudity – and even those things would seem obsolete as death approached.

  With her hands and ankles bound, he climbed in the car and drove home. His house came with a garage on the side and a door inside that led straight into the house, allowing him to drag his victims in unseen. He set about doing this once he had parked, and dragged the girl into what he liked to call his ‘prep room’. The room was bare of carpet and furniture except for a table and a wooden chair with armrests. A sheet of plastic lay across the floor, ready to capture any blood should any be spilt, and the chair stood on top in the centre.

  He dragged the girl in, his hands under each arm. With a groan, he lifted her into the chair. She moaned as her head swung back. Untying her bonds, he reapplied them, securing her to the chair before she woke. He knew it would happen any minute now.

  And he hadn’t been wrong. As Terry’s dazed eyes fluttered open, he stepped up to her. Before she had a chance to recollect what had happened and what was happening, he tore off a strip of duct-tape and applied it across her mouth. Her moans were muffled, her nostrils flared with her rapid breathing, and he took delight in watching her bare chest heave with each frantic breath.

  Her eyes glared at him, her stare filled with terror and hate, and all he could muster in response was a smile.

  Turning his back on her, he headed towards the table. An array of belongings had been arranged across it, belongings that he had placed with precise care in their positions; a scrap book, old, fat and full of his memorabilia; a pair of scissors that glinted under the light of the bare bulb; a bottle of superglue; a roll of clear tape; a coiled cheese wire; a Polaroid camera and two silver coins. He ran his fingers over the cover of the scrap book.

  Terry moaned behind him and struggled against her bindings. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  He smiled and reached for the Polaroid camera.

  “Just a few pictures, my love. Just a few so I can capture this moment forever.”

  He lifted the camera and pointed it in Terry’s direction. Tears were streaming from her eyes now, and she gave a muffled scream as the picture was taken.

  Still smiling, he waited for the stiff picture to slide from the camera. After, he gave it a little shake and studied it. The naked form of Terry glared back, her terror captured forever on a square piece of card. Turning it, he showed her the results, feeling impressed with himself. He had never taken photography lessons but his pictures always came out pleasing.

  Placing the camera and photo on the table, he picked up the scrap book and took it over to Terry.

  “These are my memories,” he said as he knelt beside her. She tried to shy away from him but her bindings were too tight. Her breath hissed through her nose. “You’re not the first girl to sit in that chair. Each one wanted what I offered them. Each one wanted death. Their pathetic lives were pointless and they knew it. They wanted an end, and they came to me for it, just like you did.”

  Terry glared at him and then shook her head.

  “But you did. You came to me. You sensed I had the power and the ability to offer you what you could not do yourself – an end, peace, eternal sleep. Those who want to live never speak to me.” He passed his attention back to his scrap book. “I know what it’s like to be alone and sad. I know what it’s like to want an end, and taking that final step is never easy. I tried it once but couldn’t. Then I realised why. I had been stopped by a higher force. They wanted me to help them. They told me that there were thousands out there who wanted what I wanted but couldn’t bring themselves to do it. They wanted me to help them, to end their lives for them. I’ve been tasked with it, you see. That’s why I do it. And that’s why I keep memories of everyone I kill, to remind me of those people I have helped, who have been given the one thing I was denied. A way out.”

  He opened the cover of the scrap book with care, as if it were antique and likely to fall apart if not handled properly. It wasn’t that the book was old. It was still intact with every page still held firmly in place, but it was the one thing he cherished most and he treated it with respect. He stroked it and caressed it like he had done not so long ago with Terry’s body.

  At seeing the images taped on the first page, Terry let out another muffled scream and struggled violently against the rope. The chair jumped on the spot as she moved.

  He laughed at her attempts and then passed his attention to the first woman he had ever killed. She had been a handful. It was his first time and he was unsure what he needed to do. Now he knew though. Experience had taught him that.

  Next to the image of a brunette woman tied to the same chair as Terry was the picture of her naked, battered and bloodied corpse. Terry began to panic over this.

  “Shush,” he said to her, his voice deep and soothing. “You needn’t worry. You won’t suffer like she did, poor thing. I now know what I’m doing and so you won’t suffer her tortures.”

  After that he showed her every page, talking her through every victim with fond memories, despite her panic, her screams, her tears. To him, the sound of her was music to his ears. It was a symphony orchestrated just for him, the songs of death. He loved listening to it, but after a few hours, he knew the time was coming for her to sing her final melody. He couldn’t listen to her all night.

  Placing the scrap book back on the
table, he picked up the scissors and approached her. Taking a lock of her blonde hair, he snipped at it.

  “For the book,” he informed her, meaning to add it with the other locks of hair he had gathered.

  He wrapped it in tape to keep it together, placed it next to the photos he had taken, and then picked up the superglue and the coins.

  “Have you heard of the Ferryman?” he asked as he stepped back up to her.

  Terry shook her head.

  “The Ferryman is believed to come at the point of death to take you away to wherever it be you’re destined to go. Years ago, when someone died, they used to place a coin over each eye as payment for their journey. They believed that without payment the soul was cursed to wander the earth forever, lost and alone. I’ve never wanted any of my clients to suffer after death. This is why I’ve always let them go with coins for payment.”

  He held the silver coins up. The sight was supposed to reassure Terry, but instead it inflamed more panic.

  “I did come across a problem, however. You see, I have a special place in the lake where you all go, and I didn’t know how to give you payment once you go in. The coins could be lost, and then what? You’d be cursed and lost. Then I came up with the idea of superglue. Amazing, this stuff is.”

  Passing his attention to the little bottle, he unscrewed the lid and then squeezed the clear gel on one side of the coin.

  “To by pass this problem, I thought I could glue the coins to your eyes. That way you won’t lose your payment for the Ferryman.”

  Terry moaned and struggled as he stepped behind her and locked her head in his arm. Reaching over, he placed the coin over one eye, pressing it against her soft flesh until it was stuck firm. She attempted a scream and struggled harder, her head pulling against his hold, and he smiled with kindness as he repeated the process and glued the second coin to her other eye.