u/OrganDetonator-001

The subtle click then ‘swoosh’ of one of my cab’s back doors woke me from my sleep. The shuffling of someone clambering inside followed suit. My eyes drifted towards the rear-view mirror, and from there I glimpsed it. A humanoid shape; a passenger blurred by the murky partition screen. The colours beyond the glass gave me an awful impression about what was lurking back there, and the smell now permeating throughout the cab helped confirm my suspicions—It’s another cadaver, and it's even more rotten than the last one.

Like a splatter painting of hazel browns, pale yellows and a whole assortment of reds. Its grotesque outline grew larger as it heaved what remained of itself closer. I kept myself from turning around, and from blinking, as I watched the damned thing intently from the mirror, as best as I could anyway. Its breath, laboured and drawn, quickly fogged up and further blurred the screen. Then with its hazy, red stump of a right hand, the corpse tried to wipe the rancid dew away: only to smear its own blood and loose flesh all over the glass.
In doing so, its already obscured form was concealed behind a seeping crimson veil. 

A silence wafted inside the cab along with the thing’s stench–The twin signs of death and decay. The following seconds felt like hours as I fought back tears and the sensation of my throat being clawed out every time I had to breathe. Must’ve looked like some sort of mimicry, the way I had to slow my breaths to a crawl to avoid the pain. 
It was then, as a stream began to flow from my tear ducts and I held back a gruelling cough, that its voice began to worm its way into the back of my head—first, it was as if both a gurgle and an exhale were combined into one noise and were now competing with each other for volume, then the words exhumed from its depths became coherent. A gut feeling told me exactly what it was going to say before it even uttered the first letter:

“The… dock… Go… Now…” 

I nodded as I slid the gears into first and drove off.

—

The fog stretched on and on, and on further still. As did the road. The cab’s headlights, with their warm, incandescent glow, pierced the sea of mist, revealing the grizzled and withered tarmac beneath, but their light only travels so far and as it tapered off some few metres ahead, I acknowledge the certainty of one thing in particular: That the road will continue to stretch on, as will the fog clinging to it and my cab like barnacles clasping onto a ship’s hull. And yet, I must drive on. I must deliver to him. Or else.

Gurgles, exhales and finally words soon drifted to me from the back once more, and like before, I knew what it was going to say: “Have… You… Seen… Him?”

My eyes darted towards the mirror; I saw the faint traces of a silhouette, lurking behind the veil of blood. 
“I have. You will too, when we get there”, I responded.

The silhouette lurched closer, closer, so much so in fact, that its distorted outline focused into a human imprint, as it pressed against the screen and its own vertical puddle, feeding its growth with a fresh delivery of blood: It wanted the next words unearthed from its throat to be as clear as possible.

“The… boy?.. You’ve… seen… him?... He… was… with… me… before… He’ll… be.. At… this… dock?”, it uttered.

Another silence wafted in, one that not even the slight, beating hums of the cab’s engine and the breeze from my open window could contest. Tension began to constrict my neck like an invisible serpent.

“Perhaps, but I must apologise. I thought you were talking about someone else.”

I hear it lurch forward again. Squeaking and squelching reverberates behind me. Its right eye, vacant and expectedly lifeless and dull like the fog surrounding the cab, diffused the red waves through force and met my own in the mirror. It wanted to see me.

“You… mean… the… Ferry… Man?..”  The corpse asked, pulling away slightly but not enough for any sense of reprieve. 
A few “clinks!” clattered simultaneously onto the partition screen in the moment that followed. Bone coloured rectangles had broken out amongst the top of the smear this time near where its eye had been: Teeth. Some wobbled, some remained firm as they were dragged slowly down the glass. Others broke off; descending pitifully from the blurred maw and onto the no-doubt soaked carpeted floor, like tears of mouldering calcium. It was testing the glass.

“Yes”, I replied.

Blinking in this moment, felt like a death sentence. A punishment, in which the cadaver would have all the time it needs to burst through the screen and inflict its form upon my body. But try as I might to refrain from the brief act, the stench flying past me and out the window, like the putrid breaths of someone post-vomit, along with the sheer strain pulling on both of my sockets forced my hand. 
My eyelids closed for a mere second, perhaps less– An eternity of lying in wait, nervously waiting for the sound of glass shattering and those awful teeth colliding with my flesh. The sensation of them peeling open again was a subdued bliss. 
I was spared, for now, but still my head remained fixed onto the guillotine, so to speak…

The scraping of the thing’s teeth mercifully ceased. It left the screen with its brutal impression; a myriad of marks and the crooked, trailing paths of its saliva through its own blood. I tried to clear my worries and focus back on the road. The tarmac crumbled, and bits of it scattered into the surrounding malaise as the cab tore onward, like a loyal, worn steed.
These crackles and pops of the road were my signals of progress, that still I was moving forward, that this infinity did in-fact have an end, or at least a point where the strain would lift and I could rest, temporarily; I clung to them, so, so tightly, but they were soon joined but a less-than favourable sound as the corpse lashed my ears with its tortuous utterances again.  

“The… Ferryman… I… know… not… of… him… yet… something… is drawing… pulling… me… to..wards him. Tell… Me… More”, it orchestrated with its drawn-out death rattle.

“L–like I said… You will see him soon enough… I–I am… forbidden from revealing more than that, I’m afraid.”

“Nrgggghhhh…” The corpse released in response, though in its state, annoyance and acceptance were difficult to judge.

—

I am not sure how much time passed since it last spoke to me. I prayed that its mouth would remain closed and hidden for the remainder of the journey: I was surely mistaken, but before that, in this grace period of uncertain length, I continued to listen to the churning of the road beneath me: Harsh, brittle, but nourishing to my fortitude, my will to stay the path and complete this delivery. 
Almost as a gift, though never could it be, I then heard his bell toll.

A series of soft phantasmal ‘dings’, beckoned me far ahead, and far deeper within the grey expanse. The corpse didn’t react or shuffle closer, for only I could hear them. Each toll was louder than the last, like drops of rain coalescing into a puddle whose splashes were distant but drawing closer—as was his voice.

“I’ve grown curious. Ask my questions, courier. Now.”

My eyes darted to the rear-view mirror, and I awaited the corpse to press up against the screen as the first question poured out from me.

“W-Who is the boy… you mentioned earlier?” I asked, praying that it was audible enough so that I wouldn’t have to repeat it.

The corpse lent forward. The screen sparing my eyes from the full view of it was splayed and fully soaked through now. Blood reds had sheened and coagulated into a hideous orange. A few sturdier teeth and loose arm flesh had stuck to the glass in their descent, sticking out like islands amid a sea of leprous fluid. The thing’s shadow ‘presented’ itself, and I received its answer.

“A… dear… friend… of… mine…”

The bell tolled once more. The Ferryman demanded more of me. 

“It’s holding something close to its chest. Pry it from them.”

I enacted his wish, though this is a path I struggled to walk, I asked the corpse: “Could you please… elaborate?”

The wet slap and sloshing of the cadaver’s tongue onto the screen, like a snake testing the waters before a swim, sent shivers down my spine. 
“Why…”, it replied back, its teeth chattering ever so slightly.

“I was… curious. You asked about him earlier, and I assume he’s… someone close to you? Your son or maybe your sibling, a nephew or cousin perhaps? Am I wrong?”

The corpse spent a second taking in one of its arduous breaths. Though this one seemed less like a painful, necessary act and more a spontaneous function, brought on by nostalgia.

“No… He… closer… to… me…”, it breathed in again before continuing 

“He… is… a… delight… one… I… wish… to… partake… in… wherever… I… go…”

“Interesting. Now ask it the other one.”

I likewise took a deep, strenuous breath, with the stench contorting my lungs and ribs but I needed something, anything to keep me afloat as I asked the corpse, “How… How d-do you feel?”

The sloshing of tattered, rancid meat sliding up the screen filled my ears. So did the sound of the blood being wiped off the glass and cascading onto the carpet. My eyes were filled by something much, much worse. The thing had used its less mangled left hand to clean the screen, and almost miraculously, the original blur was also lifted, and I was cursed with my clearest view of it thus far. I saw the thing’s true face.

Its skin clung to its form like loose rags, what little of it remained that is. Most of its body bore only the ‘framework’ and ‘structural support’ so to speak. Bones exposed to the elements and putrescent muscles worked in tandem to give the corpse its ‘corroded collage’ appearance. 

Out from its mouth of sore gums and few teeth, crawled a reply: “I… feel… better… than… ever…”

Just two poignant bell tolls occurred this time. To myself alone.

“I’ve heard enough, my choice has been made. I await you, courier, and your passenger. Do not keep me waiting”, spoke the Ferryman.

I slammed the accelerator down, tearing up through the gears like a hurricane plucking leaves off a tree. The cab, before a stalwart force drilling through this infinite fog at a reasonable pace, now a great bullet shot straight through its innards.

I heard the corpse smack into the partition screen. I guess it didn’t have its seatbelt on.

Gurgles, exhales, words gnawed at my ears, this time with something else wriggling beneath the surface. A sweltering mix of anger and confusion. 

“YOU… THIS… DOCK… SOME..THINGS… WRONG…”

Both its hands hit the glass with a meaty thud. Its lone sliver eye stared daggers into mine, as if trying to gouge it through sheer will alone.

“I… HAVE… NEVER… BEEN… TO… THIS… PLACE… YET… I… KNOW… IT… LIKE…IT… WERE… AN… OLD… HOME…”, it took a long breath before continuing.

“THE… FERRY.. MAN… WHO… WHAT… IS… HE?” 

I had to think of something, fast. Something to appease both sources of tension weighing heavy upon me. “He’s like a… a middleman, an intermediator. I-I work for him. You’ll see when we—”

“TELL… ME… NOW!” Another thud shook the cab. This time I heard a crackle slither alongside it. I saw what it came from. First, I thought I imagined it; a nightmare scenario flashing before my eyes as strain was further wrought upon me, but a few blinks placed this vision firmly in reality: The screen now had a crack. “OR… I’LL… CRAWL… THROUGH… THIS… GLASS… AND… USE… THE… SHARDS… TO… BLEED… YOU… DRY.”

Any fearful reaction I could give was minimal as terror had already sapped my muscles of all their energy, say for my hands and right foot, frigid and bound to the pedal and steering wheel respectively. Time slowed to a snail’s pace once more, as I thought on what to tell the corpse. Some things are best expelled before they can fester, I reasoned.

“This place, this fog, this cab; are all just the start of a long, long journey. One you and every other passenger must take. At the dock, you will meet the Ferryman as all have done before you and all will do after, and then the next step will begin. For better or for worse.” I responded and for a reversal of the drive so far, it seemed my words had wreaked havoc over the cadaver. The mist swelling around in its bagged, sloping eye began to clear, foretelling a long lost emotion, drowned ages upon ages ago in the life the corpse once had, now resuscitated through the words it heard and the look I saw on its near-skeletal face.

“S-Stop… The… Car… Please…”

“I am sorry, but I cannot, for the good of us both.”

For the fleetest of moments, I thought it took my words to its shrieveling lump of a heart– but the resounding gargle and the shattering that followed quickly rescinded that idea. It happened so fast; the small, but many scratches from all the shards littering the back of my neck, the wet paper-ish skin of the corpse clinging to my windpipe, its gaunt but still viscously strong muscles cutting off its intake. Like the partition screen before it was reduced to pieces, my vision blurred.

“I… TOLD… YOU… TO… STOP”, the corpse growled, its grip tightening.

Numbness crept along my veins, loosening my fingers from the steering wheel. I wisped them backwards to try and pry the cadaver's hand off of my neck: at first contact, my fingers pierced his hand, just below the knuckle. Loose skin dispersed and fluttered like flags in a low breeze, whilst my fingertips collided with the taut muscles and bone beneath. I scratched, I pulled, I yanked, I filled my nails with as much fetid hand meat as possible, yet it was to no avail. It still had me held tight in its clutches.

“LAST… CHANCE… STOP… THE… CAR…”, the thing granted me a reprieve from the strangling, releasing my windpipe a tad, enough for me to take a small breath. Enough for the torment to continue.

“Ok… Ok… I’ll stop it. Just… take it easy.” I took my foot off the accelerator and feathered the brake pedal, shifting down the gears in the process, the cab’s speed started to decline. Pleased with this, the cadaver eased its clutch on my throat further; the air, rancid and clogged with pestilence might it be, had never felt better to breathe in. 
I’d tried to keep eye contact with the corpse using the mirror, but it was only now that I noticed that something was building up in the corner of its single eye. Thick, though brighter and far more transparent than its blood; the corpse was weeping.

It’s not uncommon to see in this profession; after all, you're carrying an enormous weight and yet when the chance arrives to finally drop it from your shoulders, you must bear the impact it has on your passengers first hand. No matter how brave, no matter how defiant they are, realising your time has come is a weight that none can bear; it will condense you, it will contort you ‘till your base self is all that awaits the end.
Some sob and beg, crying out to deaf ears, or most often, ears that refuse to listen. Whilst others stare into their second death, still as a statue gazing out to a blank horizon, no coming of the next light. A few, like the corpse, fall somewhere in between; they struggle against me, as if it were my choice to bring them to him. But all things must meet the Ferryman eventually, and his choice, for you, for your destination, is made long before that happens.  

Caressing the leather of the passenger seat, I was in luck. I felt the jagged edge of a shard of the partition screen, about the same size as my index finger, perfect for what I had planned. I held eye contact with the cadaver a little while longer; tears streamed down its face in globules of grief and turmoil. My hand wrapped round the shard and it dug deep into my palm.

“I’m sorry…” I said plainly, before jamming the pointed end straight into the cadaver's weeping eye. A chunky concoction of blood and tears spewed over my shoulder, spraying the dashboard with a sickening ‘splat!’

The cadaver shrieked and wrenched itself backwards. I'd hurt it, badly, but could not kill it. The only way out lies at the end of the road, not here within the cab. I used the interval to course-correct and slam the accelerator, gear after gear I shot through ‘till I hit the fifth and final one, upon which the cab took off as if it were a starved wolf chasing the first deer it's seen in days.
“Almost there… almost… there…”, I repeated to myself, the wind blasting every inch of my body, diffusing the smell of decay I’d no doubt grown used to unwillingly. 
A sound much like the tearing of an envelope enunciated itself behind me, I looked up to the mirror as soon as I’d heard it and caught the heels of the corpse fling forward—right as the awful thing sunk its slabbed teeth into my forearm.

Searing pain coursed throughout my arm; I wriggled and bashed the thing’s skull but it remained latched to me, its molars and dull incisors puncturing my veins, releasing their contents all over the seat.
Though the Ferryman is the only exit from this featureless, grey void; and though the pain that brought one to this place becomes nulled; fresh pain is left as is: wicked and excruciating. 
‘An added flavour…” he calls it…

I gritted my teeth and came to terms with the fact I would have to endure the corpse’s feast just a minute more. A matter of seconds spent in agony so I could deliver myself to salvation. “I’m almost there, I’m almost there… I hear it. The bell. It’s getting closer.”

Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding.

With each toll, weight was slowly added to the blanketing fog till itself blanketed the cab like snow. The cab’s wipers were laboured but precise, pushing the heavy fog aside as if it were a horse’s tail whipping flies away. This newly-formed blizzard still had some ways to go before I was in the clear; however, I was reminded of this as the corpse felt for my upper arm. It held onto my bicep with its needly fingers, before tearing its head back; ripping a great chunk out my arm, the meat crashing into the headliner as it was tossed. 
I could easily count the number of worn, pallid rocks loosely defined as the thing's teeth from my seat. Five remained rooted, two from the top jaw, and three from the bottom. Four stuck out like stalagmites lining the floor of a living cave—The gnawed threads of my forearm.
I screamed. The cadaver gurgled, though no words followed. Several shards glimmered down its torso from where it’d lumbered over the glass to bite me. I realised just in time what it was about to do, as my other hand caught its head before the thing could take another bite. Its open mouth billowed vile breath straight into me, the awful smell regained its control; I grimaced, slowly losing the struggle to force its head back. But then I heard it. Clearer than ever. Closer than ever.
The bell tolls.

Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding.

Something unseen by either myself or the cadaver, pressed my foot down on the brake pedal. Hard. 
In the abrupt halt, I was slammed into the steering wheel whilst the cadaver was flung through the windscreen—landing just in front of the dock’s walkway. 

Sheets of snow/fog glistened in the headlights, as did the ice cloaking the first stretch of the enormous river the dock was nestled on. Reflected over each was the spray of blood and bits of windscreen, forming rubies on the white shore. Slowly, I rose from the wheel, head slick and partially stuck to the foam coating the steel which I had to pull it from. 
I saw the corpse meters ahead of the cab, already back on its feet. Staring not back at me, but rather what lied upon the end of the dock. A tall figure towering some 3 or metres above, wreathed head to toe in black—deeper, darker than any mere shadow, like the lowest pit of the universe was yawning, revealing itself to eyes unfit to see such primordial splendour. It was the absence of everything, and it started to spread. Creeping straight towards the corpse, who trembled in awe of its presence, knees clicking and buckling as they bent, lowering the thing. The gore pooling down and breaking off its body, rose as steam in the rigid cold, floating towards the black like candle smoke at the entrance of a cave.

This abyss was a familiar sight for me, so I thought about how I’d inadvertently spared the corpse from seeing this terror beyond; though, I was sure it could still sense him: The Ferryman.
He spread two of his onyx limbs outward. One held a long wooden oar, the other a pristine bell made of brass, inscribed with countless sigils and runes. 
The oar pointed to a rather quaint canoe on the Ferryman’s left; it had a deep red interior, but stranger to some would be the myriad of tiny holes covering it all, and the lack of river water spurting through any of these holes. The corpse obviously couldn’t see this, but I doubt it would care at that moment. For it was dead-focused on the Ferryman’s right; as just past where the bell dangled from his void of an arm, came the worried murmurs of a young boy–blonde and pristine as opposed to the thing that was seeking him. The boy sat on the seat of another canoe, this one a more typical oak brown.

“Sam… Is… That… You?...” hope blossomed in the corpse’s voice. It began limping towards the boy, who shuffled further away along the canoe’s seat with each step the thing took. “I’m… Here… It’s… Going… To… Be… Okay… Now.”

The oar was lowered, blocking the corpse from taking any more steps. 
“Your seat is on the left. Jakob.” said the Ferryman. 

The corpse–or Jakob I should say, but referring to something in such a state with a regular, normal sounding name feels wrong–stood in silence, still as can be for a couple of seconds. Processing. Knowing. And then, at last. Accepting. 
It staggered to the left canoe, and took its seat in the middle. 

I climbed out of the cab, gripping my tattered arm in case it decided to at last tear away from me. He made me watch the first few times–The departure of passengers. I saw it happen through the gaps of my fingers and even through the fearful mirage of my tears. After I stared, wide-eyed, appalled; and then, eventually fascinated. 
A glimpse at what is to come. The next step of the journey.

Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding.

Another series of bell tolls from that ancient bit of brass. The corpse, and only the corpse shrieked. It sprung from its seat, or at least tried to; its torso shot upward, but its lower half was completely stuck to the seat. It couldn’t perceive why, and that was my fault. It had no idea what all the holes lining the canoe were. It couldn’t possibly understand that–It was caught in the jaws of something hungry. Something that was always hungry.

Like a beartrap brimming with retracting teeth in a multitude of layers–the canoe snapped shut, muffling the screams of the corpse. Oily and leathery skin broke up from the still river; a tiny glance at the passage to bellow, before the canoe/mouth dove down under the surface. Dragging the corpse from this place and taking it to the next, never to be seen again by the likes of myself. 

I shuddered despite trying not too, as always.

I looked to the right and saw that the Ferryman and the boy, Sam, had already started sailing away from the dock. Sam appeared calmer than before, as if he was tired from a long day and had finally earned the time and found a place to rest. The cold didn’t seem to bother him; a breeze blew his blonde, appearing to caress him like a mother’s hand. I believe I saw him smiling faintly before he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

The Ferryman rowed side to side before letting the canoe ride the slight current of the river downstream. In the far distance, a tiny golden light shone brilliantly. The canoe was perfectly aligned with it. 
“There is more to collect, and to deliver, is there not, courier? Back to your vehicle, I will await your return, as always.” the Ferryman said.

I nodded, though it was probably more of a slump caused by my still-throbbing head. 

I got back into the cab, my entire body tense with pain. Shattered and drained of all sources of energy. I closed my eyes, falling deep into sleep, like little Sam out there on the river.

—

A subtle, familiar click then ‘swoosh’ woke me some time later. The shuffling of someone or something climbing inside followed suit. My eyes first wandered to the windows, seeing the boundless fog once more outside. The docks, Sam or the Ferryman were nowhere to be seen. Then my vision drifted to the rear-view mirror, and from there I saw it: The partition screen, fully repaired, with not a scratch or crack to speak off; I noticed the windscreen had been replaced too, and was likewise spotless. Strangest of all, was that my arm had also been ‘repaired’, in-fact all evidence of the corpse had been seemingly erased. Teeth and all.

It was then that the shape behind the screen became impossible to ignore. Its outline grew closer until a clear human outline appeared behind the glass. A repulsive shade of moldy blues and greens. Its smell helped confirm my growing suspicion: It was another cadaver, and it's even more rotten than the last one…

The subtle click then ‘swoosh’ of one of my cab’s back doors woke me from my sleep. The shuffling of someone clambering inside followed suit. My eyes drifted towards the rear-view mirror, and from there I glimpsed it. A humanoid shape; a passenger blurred by the murky partition screen. The colours beyond the glass gave me an awful impression about what was lurking back there, and the smell now permeating throughout the cab helped confirm my suspicions—It’s another cadaver, and it's even more rotten than the last one.

Like a splatter painting of hazel browns, pale yellows and a whole assortment of reds. Its grotesque outline grew larger as it heaved what remained of itself closer. I kept myself from turning around, and from blinking, as I watched the damned thing intently from the mirror, as best as I could anyway. Its breath, laboured and drawn, quickly fogged up and further blurred the screen. Then with its hazy, red stump of a right hand, the corpse tried to wipe the rancid dew away: only to smear its own blood and loose flesh all over the glass.
In doing so, its already obscured form was concealed behind a seeping crimson veil. 

A silence wafted inside the cab along with the thing’s stench–The twin signs of death and decay. The following seconds felt like hours as I fought back tears and the sensation of my throat being clawed out every time I had to breathe. Must’ve looked like some sort of mimicry, the way I had to slow my breaths to a crawl to avoid the pain. 
It was then, as a stream began to flow from my tear ducts and I held back a gruelling cough, that its voice began to worm its way into the back of my head—first, it was as if both a gurgle and an exhale were combined into one noise and were now competing with each other for volume, then the words exhumed from its depths became coherent. A gut feeling told me exactly what it was going to say before it even uttered the first letter:

“The… dock… Go… Now…” 

I nodded as I slid the gears into first and drove off.

—

The fog stretched on and on, and on further still. As did the road. The cab’s headlights, with their warm, incandescent glow, pierced the sea of mist, revealing the grizzled and withered tarmac beneath, but their light only travels so far and as it tapered off some few metres ahead, I acknowledge the certainty of one thing in particular: That the road will continue to stretch on, as will the fog clinging to it and my cab like barnacles clasping onto a ship’s hull. And yet, I must drive on. I must deliver to him. Or else.

Gurgles, exhales and finally words soon drifted to me from the back once more, and like before, I knew what it was going to say: “Have… You… Seen… Him?”

My eyes darted towards the mirror; I saw the faint traces of a silhouette, lurking behind the veil of blood. 
“I have. You will too, when we get there”, I responded.

The silhouette lurched closer, closer, so much so in fact, that its distorted outline focused into a human imprint, as it pressed against the screen and its own vertical puddle, feeding its growth with a fresh delivery of blood: It wanted the next words unearthed from its throat to be as clear as possible.

“The… boy?.. You’ve… seen… him?... He… was… with… me… before… He’ll… be.. At… this… dock?”, it uttered.

Another silence wafted in, one that not even the slight, beating hums of the cab’s engine and the breeze from my open window could contest. Tension began to constrict my neck like an invisible serpent.

“Perhaps, but I must apologise. I thought you were talking about someone else.”

I hear it lurch forward again. Squeaking and squelching reverberates behind me. Its right eye, vacant and expectedly lifeless and dull like the fog surrounding the cab, diffused the red waves through force and met my own in the mirror. It wanted to see me.

“You… mean… the… Ferry… Man?..”  The corpse asked, pulling away slightly but not enough for any sense of reprieve. 
A few “clinks!” clattered simultaneously onto the partition screen in the moment that followed. Bone coloured rectangles had broken out amongst the top of the smear this time near where its eye had been: Teeth. Some wobbled, some remained firm as they were dragged slowly down the glass. Others broke off; descending pitifully from the blurred maw and onto the no-doubt soaked carpeted floor, like tears of mouldering calcium. It was testing the glass.

“Yes”, I replied.

Blinking in this moment, felt like a death sentence. A punishment, in which the cadaver would have all the time it needs to burst through the screen and inflict its form upon my body. But try as I might to refrain from the brief act, the stench flying past me and out the window, like the putrid breaths of someone post-vomit, along with the sheer strain pulling on both of my sockets forced my hand. 
My eyelids closed for a mere second, perhaps less– An eternity of lying in wait, nervously waiting for the sound of glass shattering and those awful teeth colliding with my flesh. The sensation of them peeling open again was a subdued bliss. 
I was spared, for now, but still my head remained fixed onto the guillotine, so to speak…

The scraping of the thing’s teeth mercifully ceased. It left the screen with its brutal impression; a myriad of marks and the crooked, trailing paths of its saliva through its own blood. I tried to clear my worries and focus back on the road. The tarmac crumbled, and bits of it scattered into the surrounding malaise as the cab tore onward, like a loyal, worn steed.
These crackles and pops of the road were my signals of progress, that still I was moving forward, that this infinity did in-fact have an end, or at least a point where the strain would lift and I could rest, temporarily; I clung to them, so, so tightly, but they were soon joined but a less-than favourable sound as the corpse lashed my ears with its tortuous utterances again.  

“The… Ferryman… I… know… not… of… him… yet… something… is drawing… pulling… me… to..wards him. Tell… Me… More”, it orchestrated with its drawn-out death rattle.

“L–like I said… You will see him soon enough… I–I am… forbidden from revealing more than that, I’m afraid.”

“Nrgggghhhh…” The corpse released in response, though in its state, annoyance and acceptance were difficult to judge.

—

I am not sure how much time passed since it last spoke to me. I prayed that its mouth would remain closed and hidden for the remainder of the journey: I was surely mistaken, but before that, in this grace period of uncertain length, I continued to listen to the churning of the road beneath me: Harsh, brittle, but nourishing to my fortitude, my will to stay the path and complete this delivery. 
Almost as a gift, though never could it be, I then heard his bell toll.

A series of soft phantasmal ‘dings’, beckoned me far ahead, and far deeper within the grey expanse. The corpse didn’t react or shuffle closer, for only I could hear them. Each toll was louder than the last, like drops of rain coalescing into a puddle whose splashes were distant but drawing closer—as was his voice.

“I’ve grown curious. Ask my questions, courier. Now.”

My eyes darted to the rear-view mirror, and I awaited the corpse to press up against the screen as the first question poured out from me.

“W-Who is the boy… you mentioned earlier?” I asked, praying that it was audible enough so that I wouldn’t have to repeat it.

The corpse lent forward. The screen sparing my eyes from the full view of it was splayed and fully soaked through now. Blood reds had sheened and coagulated into a hideous orange. A few sturdier teeth and loose arm flesh had stuck to the glass in their descent, sticking out like islands amid a sea of leprous fluid. The thing’s shadow ‘presented’ itself, and I received its answer.

“A… dear… friend… of… mine…”

The bell tolled once more. The Ferryman demanded more of me. 

“It’s holding something close to its chest. Pry it from them.”

I enacted his wish, though this is a path I struggled to walk, I asked the corpse: “Could you please… elaborate?”

The wet slap and sloshing of the cadaver’s tongue onto the screen, like a snake testing the waters before a swim, sent shivers down my spine. 
“Why…”, it replied back, its teeth chattering ever so slightly.

“I was… curious. You asked about him earlier, and I assume he’s… someone close to you? Your son or maybe your sibling, a nephew or cousin perhaps? Am I wrong?”

The corpse spent a second taking in one of its arduous breaths. Though this one seemed less like a painful, necessary act and more a spontaneous function, brought on by nostalgia.

“No… He… closer… to… me…”, it breathed in again before continuing 

“He… is… a… delight… one… I… wish… to… partake… in… wherever… I… go…”

“Interesting. Now ask it the other one.”

I likewise took a deep, strenuous breath, with the stench contorting my lungs and ribs but I needed something, anything to keep me afloat as I asked the corpse, “How… How d-do you feel?”

The sloshing of tattered, rancid meat sliding up the screen filled my ears. So did the sound of the blood being wiped off the glass and cascading onto the carpet. My eyes were filled by something much, much worse. The thing had used its less mangled left hand to clean the screen, and almost miraculously, the original blur was also lifted, and I was cursed with my clearest view of it thus far. I saw the thing’s true face.

Its skin clung to its form like loose rags, what little of it remained that is. Most of its body bore only the ‘framework’ and ‘structural support’ so to speak. Bones exposed to the elements and putrescent muscles worked in tandem to give the corpse its ‘corroded collage’ appearance. 

Out from its mouth of sore gums and few teeth, crawled a reply: “I… feel… better… than… ever…”

Just two poignant bell tolls occurred this time. To myself alone.

“I’ve heard enough, my choice has been made. I await you, courier, and your passenger. Do not keep me waiting”, spoke the Ferryman.

I slammed the accelerator down, tearing up through the gears like a hurricane plucking leaves off a tree. The cab, before a stalwart force drilling through this infinite fog at a reasonable pace, now a great bullet shot straight through its innards.

I heard the corpse smack into the partition screen. I guess it didn’t have its seatbelt on.

Gurgles, exhales, words gnawed at my ears, this time with something else wriggling beneath the surface. A sweltering mix of anger and confusion. 

“YOU… THIS… DOCK… SOME..THINGS… WRONG…”

Both its hands hit the glass with a meaty thud. Its lone sliver eye stared daggers into mine, as if trying to gouge it through sheer will alone.

“I… HAVE… NEVER… BEEN… TO… THIS… PLACE… YET… I… KNOW… IT… LIKE…IT… WERE… AN… OLD… HOME…”, it took a long breath before continuing.

“THE… FERRY.. MAN… WHO… WHAT… IS… HE?” 

I had to think of something, fast. Something to appease both sources of tension weighing heavy upon me. “He’s like a… a middleman, an intermediator. I-I work for him. You’ll see when we—”

“TELL… ME… NOW!” Another thud shook the cab. This time I heard a crackle slither alongside it. I saw what it came from. First, I thought I imagined it; a nightmare scenario flashing before my eyes as strain was further wrought upon me, but a few blinks placed this vision firmly in reality: The screen now had a crack. “OR… I’LL… CRAWL… THROUGH… THIS… GLASS… AND… USE… THE… SHARDS… TO… BLEED… YOU… DRY.”

Any fearful reaction I could give was minimal as terror had already sapped my muscles of all their energy, say for my hands and right foot, frigid and bound to the pedal and steering wheel respectively. Time slowed to a snail’s pace once more, as I thought on what to tell the corpse. Some things are best expelled before they can fester, I reasoned.

“This place, this fog, this cab; are all just the start of a long, long journey. One you and every other passenger must take. At the dock, you will meet the Ferryman as all have done before you and all will do after, and then the next step will begin. For better or for worse.” I responded and for a reversal of the drive so far, it seemed my words had wreaked havoc over the cadaver. The mist swelling around in its bagged, sloping eye began to clear, foretelling a long lost emotion, drowned ages upon ages ago in the life the corpse once had, now resuscitated through the words it heard and the look I saw on its near-skeletal face.

“S-Stop… The… Car… Please…”

“I am sorry, but I cannot, for the good of us both.”

For the fleetest of moments, I thought it took my words to its shrieveling lump of a heart– but the resounding gargle and the shattering that followed quickly rescinded that idea. It happened so fast; the small, but many scratches from all the shards littering the back of my neck, the wet paper-ish skin of the corpse clinging to my windpipe, its gaunt but still viscously strong muscles cutting off its intake. Like the partition screen before it was reduced to pieces, my vision blurred.

“I… TOLD… YOU… TO… STOP”, the corpse growled, its grip tightening.

Numbness crept along my veins, loosening my fingers from the steering wheel. I wisped them backwards to try and pry the cadaver's hand off of my neck: at first contact, my fingers pierced his hand, just below the knuckle. Loose skin dispersed and fluttered like flags in a low breeze, whilst my fingertips collided with the taut muscles and bone beneath. I scratched, I pulled, I yanked, I filled my nails with as much fetid hand meat as possible, yet it was to no avail. It still had me held tight in its clutches.

“LAST… CHANCE… STOP… THE… CAR…”, the thing granted me a reprieve from the strangling, releasing my windpipe a tad, enough for me to take a small breath. Enough for the torment to continue.

“Ok… Ok… I’ll stop it. Just… take it easy.” I took my foot off the accelerator and feathered the brake pedal, shifting down the gears in the process, the cab’s speed started to decline. Pleased with this, the cadaver eased its clutch on my throat further; the air, rancid and clogged with pestilence might it be, had never felt better to breathe in. 
I’d tried to keep eye contact with the corpse using the mirror, but it was only now that I noticed that something was building up in the corner of its single eye. Thick, though brighter and far more transparent than its blood; the corpse was weeping.

It’s not uncommon to see in this profession; after all, you're carrying an enormous weight and yet when the chance arrives to finally drop it from your shoulders, you must bear the impact it has on your passengers first hand. No matter how brave, no matter how defiant they are, realising your time has come is a weight that none can bear; it will condense you, it will contort you ‘till your base self is all that awaits the end.
Some sob and beg, crying out to deaf ears, or most often, ears that refuse to listen. Whilst others stare into their second death, still as a statue gazing out to a blank horizon, no coming of the next light. A few, like the corpse, fall somewhere in between; they struggle against me, as if it were my choice to bring them to him. But all things must meet the Ferryman eventually, and his choice, for you, for your destination, is made long before that happens.  

Caressing the leather of the passenger seat, I was in luck. I felt the jagged edge of a shard of the partition screen, about the same size as my index finger, perfect for what I had planned. I held eye contact with the cadaver a little while longer; tears streamed down its face in globules of grief and turmoil. My hand wrapped round the shard and it dug deep into my palm.

“I’m sorry…” I said plainly, before jamming the pointed end straight into the cadaver's weeping eye. A chunky concoction of blood and tears spewed over my shoulder, spraying the dashboard with a sickening ‘splat!’

The cadaver shrieked and wrenched itself backwards. I'd hurt it, badly, but could not kill it. The only way out lies at the end of the road, not here within the cab. I used the interval to course-correct and slam the accelerator, gear after gear I shot through ‘till I hit the fifth and final one, upon which the cab took off as if it were a starved wolf chasing the first deer it's seen in days.
“Almost there… almost… there…”, I repeated to myself, the wind blasting every inch of my body, diffusing the smell of decay I’d no doubt grown used to unwillingly. 
A sound much like the tearing of an envelope enunciated itself behind me, I looked up to the mirror as soon as I’d heard it and caught the heels of the corpse fling forward—right as the awful thing sunk its slabbed teeth into my forearm.

Searing pain coursed throughout my arm; I wriggled and bashed the thing’s skull but it remained latched to me, its molars and dull incisors puncturing my veins, releasing their contents all over the seat.
Though the Ferryman is the only exit from this featureless, grey void; and though the pain that brought one to this place becomes nulled; fresh pain is left as is: wicked and excruciating. 
‘An added flavour…” he calls it…

I gritted my teeth and came to terms with the fact I would have to endure the corpse’s feast just a minute more. A matter of seconds spent in agony so I could deliver myself to salvation. “I’m almost there, I’m almost there… I hear it. The bell. It’s getting closer.”

Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding.

With each toll, weight was slowly added to the blanketing fog till itself blanketed the cab like snow. The cab’s wipers were laboured but precise, pushing the heavy fog aside as if it were a horse’s tail whipping flies away. This newly-formed blizzard still had some ways to go before I was in the clear; however, I was reminded of this as the corpse felt for my upper arm. It held onto my bicep with its needly fingers, before tearing its head back; ripping a great chunk out my arm, the meat crashing into the headliner as it was tossed. 
I could easily count the number of worn, pallid rocks loosely defined as the thing's teeth from my seat. Five remained rooted, two from the top jaw, and three from the bottom. Four stuck out like stalagmites lining the floor of a living cave—The gnawed threads of my forearm.
I screamed. The cadaver gurgled, though no words followed. Several shards glimmered down its torso from where it’d lumbered over the glass to bite me. I realised just in time what it was about to do, as my other hand caught its head before the thing could take another bite. Its open mouth billowed vile breath straight into me, the awful smell regained its control; I grimaced, slowly losing the struggle to force its head back. But then I heard it. Clearer than ever. Closer than ever.
The bell tolls.

Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding.

Something unseen by either myself or the cadaver, pressed my foot down on the brake pedal. Hard. 
In the abrupt halt, I was slammed into the steering wheel whilst the cadaver was flung through the windscreen—landing just in front of the dock’s walkway. 

Sheets of snow/fog glistened in the headlights, as did the ice cloaking the first stretch of the enormous river the dock was nestled on. Reflected over each was the spray of blood and bits of windscreen, forming rubies on the white shore. Slowly, I rose from the wheel, head slick and partially stuck to the foam coating the steel which I had to pull it from. 
I saw the corpse meters ahead of the cab, already back on its feet. Staring not back at me, but rather what lied upon the end of the dock. A tall figure towering some 3 or metres above, wreathed head to toe in black—deeper, darker than any mere shadow, like the lowest pit of the universe was yawning, revealing itself to eyes unfit to see such primordial splendour. It was the absence of everything, and it started to spread. Creeping straight towards the corpse, who trembled in awe of its presence, knees clicking and buckling as they bent, lowering the thing. The gore pooling down and breaking off its body, rose as steam in the rigid cold, floating towards the black like candle smoke at the entrance of a cave.

This abyss was a familiar sight for me, so I thought about how I’d inadvertently spared the corpse from seeing this terror beyond; though, I was sure it could still sense him: The Ferryman.
He spread two of his onyx limbs outward. One held a long wooden oar, the other a pristine bell made of brass, inscribed with countless sigils and runes. 
The oar pointed to a rather quaint canoe on the Ferryman’s left; it had a deep red interior, but stranger to some would be the myriad of tiny holes covering it all, and the lack of river water spurting through any of these holes. The corpse obviously couldn’t see this, but I doubt it would care at that moment. For it was dead-focused on the Ferryman’s right; as just past where the bell dangled from his void of an arm, came the worried murmurs of a young boy–blonde and pristine as opposed to the thing that was seeking him. The boy sat on the seat of another canoe, this one a more typical oak brown.

“Sam… Is… That… You?...” hope blossomed in the corpse’s voice. It began limping towards the boy, who shuffled further away along the canoe’s seat with each step the thing took. “I’m… Here… It’s… Going… To… Be… Okay… Now.”

The oar was lowered, blocking the corpse from taking any more steps. 
“Your seat is on the left. Jakob.” said the Ferryman. 

The corpse–or Jakob I should say, but referring to something in such a state with a regular, normal sounding name feels wrong–stood in silence, still as can be for a couple of seconds. Processing. Knowing. And then, at last. Accepting. 
It staggered to the left canoe, and took its seat in the middle. 

I climbed out of the cab, gripping my tattered arm in case it decided to at last tear away from me. He made me watch the first few times–The departure of passengers. I saw it happen through the gaps of my fingers and even through the fearful mirage of my tears. After I stared, wide-eyed, appalled; and then, eventually fascinated. 
A glimpse at what is to come. The next step of the journey.

Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding.

Another series of bell tolls from that ancient bit of brass. The corpse, and only the corpse shrieked. It sprung from its seat, or at least tried to; its torso shot upward, but its lower half was completely stuck to the seat. It couldn’t perceive why, and that was my fault. It had no idea what all the holes lining the canoe were. It couldn’t possibly understand that–It was caught in the jaws of something hungry. Something that was always hungry.

Like a beartrap brimming with retracting teeth in a multitude of layers–the canoe snapped shut, muffling the screams of the corpse. Oily and leathery skin broke up from the still river; a tiny glance at the passage to bellow, before the canoe/mouth dove down under the surface. Dragging the corpse from this place and taking it to the next, never to be seen again by the likes of myself. 

I shuddered despite trying not too, as always.

I looked to the right and saw that the Ferryman and the boy, Sam, had already started sailing away from the dock. Sam appeared calmer than before, as if he was tired from a long day and had finally earned the time and found a place to rest. The cold didn’t seem to bother him; a breeze blew his blonde, appearing to caress him like a mother’s hand. I believe I saw him smiling faintly before he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

The Ferryman rowed side to side before letting the canoe ride the slight current of the river downstream. In the far distance, a tiny golden light shone brilliantly. The canoe was perfectly aligned with it. 
“There is more to collect, and to deliver, is there not, courier? Back to your vehicle, I will await your return, as always.” the Ferryman said.

I nodded, though it was probably more of a slump caused by my still-throbbing head. 

I got back into the cab, my entire body tense with pain. Shattered and drained of all sources of energy. I closed my eyes, falling deep into sleep, like little Sam out there on the river.

—

A subtle, familiar click then ‘swoosh’ woke me some time later. The shuffling of someone or something climbing inside followed suit. My eyes first wandered to the windows, seeing the boundless fog once more outside. The docks, Sam or the Ferryman were nowhere to be seen. Then my vision drifted to the rear-view mirror, and from there I saw it: The partition screen, fully repaired, with not a scratch or crack to speak off; I noticed the windscreen had been replaced too, and was likewise spotless. Strangest of all, was that my arm had also been ‘repaired’, in-fact all evidence of the corpse had been seemingly erased. Teeth and all.

It was then that the shape behind the screen became impossible to ignore. Its outline grew closer until a clear human outline appeared behind the glass. A repulsive shade of moldy blues and greens. Its smell helped confirm my growing suspicion: It was another cadaver, and it's even more rotten than the last one…

The subtle click then ‘swoosh’ of one of my cab’s back doors woke me from my sleep. The shuffling of someone clambering inside followed suit. My eyes drifted towards the rear-view mirror, and from there I glimpsed it. A humanoid shape; a passenger blurred by the murky partition screen. The colours beyond the glass gave me an awful impression about what was lurking back there, and the smell now permeating throughout the cab helped confirm my suspicions—It’s another cadaver, and it's even more rotten than the last one.

Like a splatter painting of hazel browns, pale yellows and a whole assortment of reds. Its grotesque outline grew larger as it heaved what remained of itself closer. I kept myself from turning around, and from blinking, as I watched the damned thing intently from the mirror, as best as I could anyway. Its breath, laboured and drawn, quickly fogged up and further blurred the screen. Then with its hazy, red stump of a right hand, the corpse tried to wipe the rancid dew away: only to smear its own blood and loose flesh all over the glass.
In doing so, its already obscured form was concealed behind a seeping crimson veil. 

A silence wafted inside the cab along with the thing’s stench–The twin signs of death and decay. The following seconds felt like hours as I fought back tears and the sensation of my throat being clawed out every time I had to breathe. Must’ve looked like some sort of mimicry, the way I had to slow my breaths to a crawl to avoid the pain. 
It was then, as a stream began to flow from my tear ducts and I held back a gruelling cough, that its voice began to worm its way into the back of my head—first, it was as if both a gurgle and an exhale were combined into one noise and were now competing with each other for volume, then the words exhumed from its depths became coherent. A gut feeling told me exactly what it was going to say before it even uttered the first letter:

“The… dock… Go… Now…” 

I nodded as I slid the gears into first and drove off.

—

The fog stretched on and on, and on further still. As did the road. The cab’s headlights, with their warm, incandescent glow, pierced the sea of mist, revealing the grizzled and withered tarmac beneath, but their light only travels so far and as it tapered off some few metres ahead, I acknowledge the certainty of one thing in particular: That the road will continue to stretch on, as will the fog clinging to it and my cab like barnacles clasping onto a ship’s hull. And yet, I must drive on. I must deliver to him. Or else.

Gurgles, exhales and finally words soon drifted to me from the back once more, and like before, I knew what it was going to say: “Have… You… Seen… Him?”

My eyes darted towards the mirror; I saw the faint traces of a silhouette, lurking behind the veil of blood. 
“I have. You will too, when we get there”, I responded.

The silhouette lurched closer, closer, so much so in fact, that its distorted outline focused into a human imprint, as it pressed against the screen and its own vertical puddle, feeding its growth with a fresh delivery of blood: It wanted the next words unearthed from its throat to be as clear as possible.

“The… boy?.. You’ve… seen… him?... He… was… with… me… before… He’ll… be.. At… this… dock?”, it uttered.

Another silence wafted in, one that not even the slight, beating hums of the cab’s engine and the breeze from my open window could contest. Tension began to constrict my neck like an invisible serpent.

“Perhaps, but I must apologise. I thought you were talking about someone else.”

I hear it lurch forward again. Squeaking and squelching reverberates behind me. Its right eye, vacant and expectedly lifeless and dull like the fog surrounding the cab, diffused the red waves through force and met my own in the mirror. It wanted to see me.

“You… mean… the… Ferry… Man?..”  The corpse asked, pulling away slightly but not enough for any sense of reprieve. 
A few “clinks!” clattered simultaneously onto the partition screen in the moment that followed. Bone coloured rectangles had broken out amongst the top of the smear this time near where its eye had been: Teeth. Some wobbled, some remained firm as they were dragged slowly down the glass. Others broke off; descending pitifully from the blurred maw and onto the no-doubt soaked carpeted floor, like tears of mouldering calcium. It was testing the glass.

“Yes”, I replied.

Blinking in this moment, felt like a death sentence. A punishment, in which the cadaver would have all the time it needs to burst through the screen and inflict its form upon my body. But try as I might to refrain from the brief act, the stench flying past me and out the window, like the putrid breaths of someone post-vomit, along with the sheer strain pulling on both of my sockets forced my hand. 
My eyelids closed for a mere second, perhaps less– An eternity of lying in wait, nervously waiting for the sound of glass shattering and those awful teeth colliding with my flesh. The sensation of them peeling open again was a subdued bliss. 
I was spared, for now, but still my head remained fixed onto the guillotine, so to speak…

The scraping of the thing’s teeth mercifully ceased. It left the screen with its brutal impression; a myriad of marks and the crooked, trailing paths of its saliva through its own blood. I tried to clear my worries and focus back on the road. The tarmac crumbled, and bits of it scattered into the surrounding malaise as the cab tore onward, like a loyal, worn steed.
These crackles and pops of the road were my signals of progress, that still I was moving forward, that this infinity did in-fact have an end, or at least a point where the strain would lift and I could rest, temporarily; I clung to them, so, so tightly, but they were soon joined but a less-than favourable sound as the corpse lashed my ears with its tortuous utterances again.  

“The… Ferryman… I… know… not… of… him… yet… something… is drawing… pulling… me… to..wards him. Tell… Me… More”, it orchestrated with its drawn-out death rattle.

“L–like I said… You will see him soon enough… I–I am… forbidden from revealing more than that, I’m afraid.”

“Nrgggghhhh…” The corpse released in response, though in its state, annoyance and acceptance were difficult to judge.

—

I am not sure how much time passed since it last spoke to me. I prayed that its mouth would remain closed and hidden for the remainder of the journey: I was surely mistaken, but before that, in this grace period of uncertain length, I continued to listen to the churning of the road beneath me: Harsh, brittle, but nourishing to my fortitude, my will to stay the path and complete this delivery. 
Almost as a gift, though never could it be, I then heard his bell toll.

A series of soft phantasmal ‘dings’, beckoned me far ahead, and far deeper within the grey expanse. The corpse didn’t react or shuffle closer, for only I could hear them. Each toll was louder than the last, like drops of rain coalescing into a puddle whose splashes were distant but drawing closer—as was his voice.

“I’ve grown curious. Ask my questions, courier. Now.”

My eyes darted to the rear-view mirror, and I awaited the corpse to press up against the screen as the first question poured out from me.

“W-Who is the boy… you mentioned earlier?” I asked, praying that it was audible enough so that I wouldn’t have to repeat it.

The corpse lent forward. The screen sparing my eyes from the full view of it was splayed and fully soaked through now. Blood reds had sheened and coagulated into a hideous orange. A few sturdier teeth and loose arm flesh had stuck to the glass in their descent, sticking out like islands amid a sea of leprous fluid. The thing’s shadow ‘presented’ itself, and I received its answer.

“A… dear… friend… of… mine…”

The bell tolled once more. The Ferryman demanded more of me. 

“It’s holding something close to its chest. Pry it from them.”

I enacted his wish, though this is a path I struggled to walk, I asked the corpse: “Could you please… elaborate?”

The wet slap and sloshing of the cadaver’s tongue onto the screen, like a snake testing the waters before a swim, sent shivers down my spine. 
“Why…”, it replied back, its teeth chattering ever so slightly.

“I was… curious. You asked about him earlier, and I assume he’s… someone close to you? Your son or maybe your sibling, a nephew or cousin perhaps? Am I wrong?”

The corpse spent a second taking in one of its arduous breaths. Though this one seemed less like a painful, necessary act and more a spontaneous function, brought on by nostalgia.

“No… He… closer… to… me…”, it breathed in again before continuing 

“He… is… a… delight… one… I… wish… to… partake… in… wherever… I… go…”

“Interesting. Now ask it the other one.”

I likewise took a deep, strenuous breath, with the stench contorting my lungs and ribs but I needed something, anything to keep me afloat as I asked the corpse, “How… How d-do you feel?”

The sloshing of tattered, rancid meat sliding up the screen filled my ears. So did the sound of the blood being wiped off the glass and cascading onto the carpet. My eyes were filled by something much, much worse. The thing had used its less mangled left hand to clean the screen, and almost miraculously, the original blur was also lifted, and I was cursed with my clearest view of it thus far. I saw the thing’s true face.

Its skin clung to its form like loose rags, what little of it remained that is. Most of its body bore only the ‘framework’ and ‘structural support’ so to speak. Bones exposed to the elements and putrescent muscles worked in tandem to give the corpse its ‘corroded collage’ appearance. 

Out from its mouth of sore gums and few teeth, crawled a reply: “I… feel… better… than… ever…”

Just two poignant bell tolls occurred this time. To myself alone.

“I’ve heard enough, my choice has been made. I await you, courier, and your passenger. Do not keep me waiting”, spoke the Ferryman.

I slammed the accelerator down, tearing up through the gears like a hurricane plucking leaves off a tree. The cab, before a stalwart force drilling through this infinite fog at a reasonable pace, now a great bullet shot straight through its innards.

I heard the corpse smack into the partition screen. I guess it didn’t have its seatbelt on.

Gurgles, exhales, words gnawed at my ears, this time with something else wriggling beneath the surface. A sweltering mix of anger and confusion. 

“YOU… THIS… DOCK… SOME..THINGS… WRONG…”

Both its hands hit the glass with a meaty thud. Its lone sliver eye stared daggers into mine, as if trying to gouge it through sheer will alone.

“I… HAVE… NEVER… BEEN… TO… THIS… PLACE… YET… I… KNOW… IT… LIKE…IT… WERE… AN… OLD… HOME…”, it took a long breath before continuing.

“THE… FERRY.. MAN… WHO… WHAT… IS… HE?” 

I had to think of something, fast. Something to appease both sources of tension weighing heavy upon me. “He’s like a… a middleman, an intermediator. I-I work for him. You’ll see when we—”

“TELL… ME… NOW!” Another thud shook the cab. This time I heard a crackle slither alongside it. I saw what it came from. First, I thought I imagined it; a nightmare scenario flashing before my eyes as strain was further wrought upon me, but a few blinks placed this vision firmly in reality: The screen now had a crack. “OR… I’LL… CRAWL… THROUGH… THIS… GLASS… AND… USE… THE… SHARDS… TO… BLEED… YOU… DRY.”

Any fearful reaction I could give was minimal as terror had already sapped my muscles of all their energy, say for my hands and right foot, frigid and bound to the pedal and steering wheel respectively. Time slowed to a snail’s pace once more, as I thought on what to tell the corpse. Some things are best expelled before they can fester, I reasoned.

“This place, this fog, this cab; are all just the start of a long, long journey. One you and every other passenger must take. At the dock, you will meet the Ferryman as all have done before you and all will do after, and then the next step will begin. For better or for worse.” I responded and for a reversal of the drive so far, it seemed my words had wreaked havoc over the cadaver. The mist swelling around in its bagged, sloping eye began to clear, foretelling a long lost emotion, drowned ages upon ages ago in the life the corpse once had, now resuscitated through the words it heard and the look I saw on its near-skeletal face.

“S-Stop… The… Car… Please…”

“I am sorry, but I cannot, for the good of us both.”

For the fleetest of moments, I thought it took my words to its shrieveling lump of a heart– but the resounding gargle and the shattering that followed quickly rescinded that idea. It happened so fast; the small, but many scratches from all the shards littering the back of my neck, the wet paper-ish skin of the corpse clinging to my windpipe, its gaunt but still viscously strong muscles cutting off its intake. Like the partition screen before it was reduced to pieces, my vision blurred.

“I… TOLD… YOU… TO… STOP”, the corpse growled, its grip tightening.

Numbness crept along my veins, loosening my fingers from the steering wheel. I wisped them backwards to try and pry the cadaver's hand off of my neck: at first contact, my fingers pierced his hand, just below the knuckle. Loose skin dispersed and fluttered like flags in a low breeze, whilst my fingertips collided with the taut muscles and bone beneath. I scratched, I pulled, I yanked, I filled my nails with as much fetid hand meat as possible, yet it was to no avail. It still had me held tight in its clutches.

“LAST… CHANCE… STOP… THE… CAR…”, the thing granted me a reprieve from the strangling, releasing my windpipe a tad, enough for me to take a small breath. Enough for the torment to continue.

“Ok… Ok… I’ll stop it. Just… take it easy.” I took my foot off the accelerator and feathered the brake pedal, shifting down the gears in the process, the cab’s speed started to decline. Pleased with this, the cadaver eased its clutch on my throat further; the air, rancid and clogged with pestilence might it be, had never felt better to breathe in. 
I’d tried to keep eye contact with the corpse using the mirror, but it was only now that I noticed that something was building up in the corner of its single eye. Thick, though brighter and far more transparent than its blood; the corpse was weeping.

It’s not uncommon to see in this profession; after all, you're carrying an enormous weight and yet when the chance arrives to finally drop it from your shoulders, you must bear the impact it has on your passengers first hand. No matter how brave, no matter how defiant they are, realising your time has come is a weight that none can bear; it will condense you, it will contort you ‘till your base self is all that awaits the end.
Some sob and beg, crying out to deaf ears, or most often, ears that refuse to listen. Whilst others stare into their second death, still as a statue gazing out to a blank horizon, no coming of the next light. A few, like the corpse, fall somewhere in between; they struggle against me, as if it were my choice to bring them to him. But all things must meet the Ferryman eventually, and his choice, for you, for your destination, is made long before that happens.  

Caressing the leather of the passenger seat, I was in luck. I felt the jagged edge of a shard of the partition screen, about the same size as my index finger, perfect for what I had planned. I held eye contact with the cadaver a little while longer; tears streamed down its face in globules of grief and turmoil. My hand wrapped round the shard and it dug deep into my palm.

“I’m sorry…” I said plainly, before jamming the pointed end straight into the cadaver's weeping eye. A chunky concoction of blood and tears spewed over my shoulder, spraying the dashboard with a sickening ‘splat!’

The cadaver shrieked and wrenched itself backwards. I'd hurt it, badly, but could not kill it. The only way out lies at the end of the road, not here within the cab. I used the interval to course-correct and slam the accelerator, gear after gear I shot through ‘till I hit the fifth and final one, upon which the cab took off as if it were a starved wolf chasing the first deer it's seen in days.
“Almost there… almost… there…”, I repeated to myself, the wind blasting every inch of my body, diffusing the smell of decay I’d no doubt grown used to unwillingly. 
A sound much like the tearing of an envelope enunciated itself behind me, I looked up to the mirror as soon as I’d heard it and caught the heels of the corpse fling forward—right as the awful thing sunk its slabbed teeth into my forearm.

Searing pain coursed throughout my arm; I wriggled and bashed the thing’s skull but it remained latched to me, its molars and dull incisors puncturing my veins, releasing their contents all over the seat.
Though the Ferryman is the only exit from this featureless, grey void; and though the pain that brought one to this place becomes nulled; fresh pain is left as is: wicked and excruciating. 
‘An added flavour…” he calls it…

I gritted my teeth and came to terms with the fact I would have to endure the corpse’s feast just a minute more. A matter of seconds spent in agony so I could deliver myself to salvation. “I’m almost there, I’m almost there… I hear it. The bell. It’s getting closer.”

Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding.

With each toll, weight was slowly added to the blanketing fog till itself blanketed the cab like snow. The cab’s wipers were laboured but precise, pushing the heavy fog aside as if it were a horse’s tail whipping flies away. This newly-formed blizzard still had some ways to go before I was in the clear; however, I was reminded of this as the corpse felt for my upper arm. It held onto my bicep with its needly fingers, before tearing its head back; ripping a great chunk out my arm, the meat crashing into the headliner as it was tossed. 
I could easily count the number of worn, pallid rocks loosely defined as the thing's teeth from my seat. Five remained rooted, two from the top jaw, and three from the bottom. Four stuck out like stalagmites lining the floor of a living cave—The gnawed threads of my forearm.
I screamed. The cadaver gurgled, though no words followed. Several shards glimmered down its torso from where it’d lumbered over the glass to bite me. I realised just in time what it was about to do, as my other hand caught its head before the thing could take another bite. Its open mouth billowed vile breath straight into me, the awful smell regained its control; I grimaced, slowly losing the struggle to force its head back. But then I heard it. Clearer than ever. Closer than ever.
The bell tolls.

Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding.

Something unseen by either myself or the cadaver, pressed my foot down on the brake pedal. Hard. 
In the abrupt halt, I was slammed into the steering wheel whilst the cadaver was flung through the windscreen—landing just in front of the dock’s walkway. 

Sheets of snow/fog glistened in the headlights, as did the ice cloaking the first stretch of the enormous river the dock was nestled on. Reflected over each was the spray of blood and bits of windscreen, forming rubies on the white shore. Slowly, I rose from the wheel, head slick and partially stuck to the foam coating the steel which I had to pull it from. 
I saw the corpse meters ahead of the cab, already back on its feet. Staring not back at me, but rather what lied upon the end of the dock. A tall figure towering some 3 or metres above, wreathed head to toe in black—deeper, darker than any mere shadow, like the lowest pit of the universe was yawning, revealing itself to eyes unfit to see such primordial splendour. It was the absence of everything, and it started to spread. Creeping straight towards the corpse, who trembled in awe of its presence, knees clicking and buckling as they bent, lowering the thing. The gore pooling down and breaking off its body, rose as steam in the rigid cold, floating towards the black like candle smoke at the entrance of a cave.

This abyss was a familiar sight for me, so I thought about how I’d inadvertently spared the corpse from seeing this terror beyond; though, I was sure it could still sense him: The Ferryman.
He spread two of his onyx limbs outward. One held a long wooden oar, the other a pristine bell made of brass, inscribed with countless sigils and runes. 
The oar pointed to a rather quaint canoe on the Ferryman’s left; it had a deep red interior, but stranger to some would be the myriad of tiny holes covering it all, and the lack of river water spurting through any of these holes. The corpse obviously couldn’t see this, but I doubt it would care at that moment. For it was dead-focused on the Ferryman’s right; as just past where the bell dangled from his void of an arm, came the worried murmurs of a young boy–blonde and pristine as opposed to the thing that was seeking him. The boy sat on the seat of another canoe, this one a more typical oak brown.

“Sam… Is… That… You?...” hope blossomed in the corpse’s voice. It began limping towards the boy, who shuffled further away along the canoe’s seat with each step the thing took. “I’m… Here… It’s… Going… To… Be… Okay… Now.”

The oar was lowered, blocking the corpse from taking any more steps. 
“Your seat is on the left. Jakob.” said the Ferryman. 

The corpse–or Jakob I should say, but referring to something in such a state with a regular, normal sounding name feels wrong–stood in silence, still as can be for a couple of seconds. Processing. Knowing. And then, at last. Accepting. 
It staggered to the left canoe, and took its seat in the middle. 

I climbed out of the cab, gripping my tattered arm in case it decided to at last tear away from me. He made me watch the first few times–The departure of passengers. I saw it happen through the gaps of my fingers and even through the fearful mirage of my tears. After I stared, wide-eyed, appalled; and then, eventually fascinated. 
A glimpse at what is to come. The next step of the journey.

Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding.

Another series of bell tolls from that ancient bit of brass. The corpse, and only the corpse shrieked. It sprung from its seat, or at least tried to; its torso shot upward, but its lower half was completely stuck to the seat. It couldn’t perceive why, and that was my fault. It had no idea what all the holes lining the canoe were. It couldn’t possibly understand that–It was caught in the jaws of something hungry. Something that was always hungry.

Like a beartrap brimming with retracting teeth in a multitude of layers–the canoe snapped shut, muffling the screams of the corpse. Oily and leathery skin broke up from the still river; a tiny glance at the passage to bellow, before the canoe/mouth dove down under the surface. Dragging the corpse from this place and taking it to the next, never to be seen again by the likes of myself. 

I shuddered despite trying not too, as always.

I looked to the right and saw that the Ferryman and the boy, Sam, had already started sailing away from the dock. Sam appeared calmer than before, as if he was tired from a long day and had finally earned the time and found a place to rest. The cold didn’t seem to bother him; a breeze blew his blonde, appearing to caress him like a mother’s hand. I believe I saw him smiling faintly before he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

The Ferryman rowed side to side before letting the canoe ride the slight current of the river downstream. In the far distance, a tiny golden light shone brilliantly. The canoe was perfectly aligned with it. 
“There is more to collect, and to deliver, is there not, courier? Back to your vehicle, I will await your return, as always.” the Ferryman said.

I nodded, though it was probably more of a slump caused by my still-throbbing head. 

I got back into the cab, my entire body tense with pain. Shattered and drained of all sources of energy. I closed my eyes, falling deep into sleep, like little Sam out there on the river.

—

A subtle, familiar click then ‘swoosh’ woke me some time later. The shuffling of someone or something climbing inside followed suit. My eyes first wandered to the windows, seeing the boundless fog once more outside. The docks, Sam or the Ferryman were nowhere to be seen. Then my vision drifted to the rear-view mirror, and from there I saw it: The partition screen, fully repaired, with not a scratch or crack to speak off; I noticed the windscreen had been replaced too, and was likewise spotless. Strangest of all, was that my arm had also been ‘repaired’, in-fact all evidence of the corpse had been seemingly erased. Teeth and all.

It was then that the shape behind the screen became impossible to ignore. Its outline grew closer until a clear human outline appeared behind the glass. A repulsive shade of moldy blues and greens. Its smell helped confirm my growing suspicion: It was another cadaver, and it's even more rotten than the last one…

The subtle click then ‘swoosh’ of one of my cab’s back doors woke me from my sleep. The shuffling of someone clambering inside followed suit. My eyes drifted towards the rear-view mirror, and from there I glimpsed it. A humanoid shape; a passenger blurred by the murky partition screen. The colours beyond the glass gave me an awful impression about what was lurking back there, and the smell now permeating throughout the cab helped confirm my suspicions—It’s another cadaver, and it's even more rotten than the last one.

Like a splatter painting of hazel browns, pale yellows and a whole assortment of reds. Its grotesque outline grew larger as it heaved what remained of itself closer. I kept myself from turning around, and from blinking, as I watched the damned thing intently from the mirror, as best as I could anyway. Its breath, laboured and drawn, quickly fogged up and further blurred the screen. Then with its hazy, red stump of a right hand, the corpse tried to wipe the rancid dew away: only to smear its own blood and loose flesh all over the glass.
In doing so, its already obscured form was concealed behind a seeping crimson veil. 

A silence wafted inside the cab along with the thing’s stench–The twin signs of death and decay. The following seconds felt like hours as I fought back tears and the sensation of my throat being clawed out every time I had to breathe. Must’ve looked like some sort of mimicry, the way I had to slow my breaths to a crawl to avoid the pain. 
It was then, as a stream began to flow from my tear ducts and I held back a gruelling cough, that its voice began to worm its way into the back of my head—first, it was as if both a gurgle and an exhale were combined into one noise and were now competing with each other for volume, then the words exhumed from its depths became coherent. A gut feeling told me exactly what it was going to say before it even uttered the first letter:

“The… dock… Go… Now…” 

I nodded as I slid the gears into first and drove off.

—

The fog stretched on and on, and on further still. As did the road. The cab’s headlights, with their warm, incandescent glow, pierced the sea of mist, revealing the grizzled and withered tarmac beneath, but their light only travels so far and as it tapered off some few metres ahead, I acknowledge the certainty of one thing in particular: That the road will continue to stretch on, as will the fog clinging to it and my cab like barnacles clasping onto a ship’s hull. And yet, I must drive on. I must deliver to him. Or else.

Gurgles, exhales and finally words soon drifted to me from the back once more, and like before, I knew what it was going to say: “Have… You… Seen… Him?”

My eyes darted towards the mirror; I saw the faint traces of a silhouette, lurking behind the veil of blood. 
“I have. You will too, when we get there”, I responded.

The silhouette lurched closer, closer, so much so in fact, that its distorted outline focused into a human imprint, as it pressed against the screen and its own vertical puddle, feeding its growth with a fresh delivery of blood: It wanted the next words unearthed from its throat to be as clear as possible.

“The… boy?.. You’ve… seen… him?... He… was… with… me… before… He’ll… be.. At… this… dock?”, it uttered.

Another silence wafted in, one that not even the slight, beating hums of the cab’s engine and the breeze from my open window could contest. Tension began to constrict my neck like an invisible serpent.

“Perhaps, but I must apologise. I thought you were talking about someone else.”

I hear it lurch forward again. Squeaking and squelching reverberates behind me. Its right eye, vacant and expectedly lifeless and dull like the fog surrounding the cab, diffused the red waves through force and met my own in the mirror. It wanted to see me.

“You… mean… the… Ferry… Man?..”  The corpse asked, pulling away slightly but not enough for any sense of reprieve. 
A few “clinks!” clattered simultaneously onto the partition screen in the moment that followed. Bone coloured rectangles had broken out amongst the top of the smear this time near where its eye had been: Teeth. Some wobbled, some remained firm as they were dragged slowly down the glass. Others broke off; descending pitifully from the blurred maw and onto the no-doubt soaked carpeted floor, like tears of mouldering calcium. It was testing the glass.

“Yes”, I replied.

Blinking in this moment, felt like a death sentence. A punishment, in which the cadaver would have all the time it needs to burst through the screen and inflict its form upon my body. But try as I might to refrain from the brief act, the stench flying past me and out the window, like the putrid breaths of someone post-vomit, along with the sheer strain pulling on both of my sockets forced my hand. 
My eyelids closed for a mere second, perhaps less– An eternity of lying in wait, nervously waiting for the sound of glass shattering and those awful teeth colliding with my flesh. The sensation of them peeling open again was a subdued bliss. 
I was spared, for now, but still my head remained fixed onto the guillotine, so to speak…

The scraping of the thing’s teeth mercifully ceased. It left the screen with its brutal impression; a myriad of marks and the crooked, trailing paths of its saliva through its own blood. I tried to clear my worries and focus back on the road. The tarmac crumbled, and bits of it scattered into the surrounding malaise as the cab tore onward, like a loyal, worn steed.
These crackles and pops of the road were my signals of progress, that still I was moving forward, that this infinity did in-fact have an end, or at least a point where the strain would lift and I could rest, temporarily; I clung to them, so, so tightly, but they were soon joined but a less-than favourable sound as the corpse lashed my ears with its tortuous utterances again.  

“The… Ferryman… I… know… not… of… him… yet… something… is drawing… pulling… me… to..wards him. Tell… Me… More”, it orchestrated with its drawn-out death rattle.

“L–like I said… You will see him soon enough… I–I am… forbidden from revealing more than that, I’m afraid.”

“Nrgggghhhh…” The corpse released in response, though in its state, annoyance and acceptance were difficult to judge.

—

I am not sure how much time passed since it last spoke to me. I prayed that its mouth would remain closed and hidden for the remainder of the journey: I was surely mistaken, but before that, in this grace period of uncertain length, I continued to listen to the churning of the road beneath me: Harsh, brittle, but nourishing to my fortitude, my will to stay the path and complete this delivery. 
Almost as a gift, though never could it be, I then heard his bell toll.

A series of soft phantasmal ‘dings’, beckoned me far ahead, and far deeper within the grey expanse. The corpse didn’t react or shuffle closer, for only I could hear them. Each toll was louder than the last, like drops of rain coalescing into a puddle whose splashes were distant but drawing closer—as was his voice.

“I’ve grown curious. Ask my questions, courier. Now.”

My eyes darted to the rear-view mirror, and I awaited the corpse to press up against the screen as the first question poured out from me.

“W-Who is the boy… you mentioned earlier?” I asked, praying that it was audible enough so that I wouldn’t have to repeat it.

The corpse lent forward. The screen sparing my eyes from the full view of it was splayed and fully soaked through now. Blood reds had sheened and coagulated into a hideous orange. A few sturdier teeth and loose arm flesh had stuck to the glass in their descent, sticking out like islands amid a sea of leprous fluid. The thing’s shadow ‘presented’ itself, and I received its answer.

“A… dear… friend… of… mine…”

The bell tolled once more. The Ferryman demanded more of me. 

“It’s holding something close to its chest. Pry it from them.”

I enacted his wish, though this is a path I struggled to walk, I asked the corpse: “Could you please… elaborate?”

The wet slap and sloshing of the cadaver’s tongue onto the screen, like a snake testing the waters before a swim, sent shivers down my spine. 
“Why…”, it replied back, its teeth chattering ever so slightly.

“I was… curious. You asked about him earlier, and I assume he’s… someone close to you? Your son or maybe your sibling, a nephew or cousin perhaps? Am I wrong?”

The corpse spent a second taking in one of its arduous breaths. Though this one seemed less like a painful, necessary act and more a spontaneous function, brought on by nostalgia.

“No… He… closer… to… me…”, it breathed in again before continuing 

“He… is… a… delight… one… I… wish… to… partake… in… wherever… I… go…”

“Interesting. Now ask it the other one.”

I likewise took a deep, strenuous breath, with the stench contorting my lungs and ribs but I needed something, anything to keep me afloat as I asked the corpse, “How… How d-do you feel?”

The sloshing of tattered, rancid meat sliding up the screen filled my ears. So did the sound of the blood being wiped off the glass and cascading onto the carpet. My eyes were filled by something much, much worse. The thing had used its less mangled left hand to clean the screen, and almost miraculously, the original blur was also lifted, and I was cursed with my clearest view of it thus far. I saw the thing’s true face.

Its skin clung to its form like loose rags, what little of it remained that is. Most of its body bore only the ‘framework’ and ‘structural support’ so to speak. Bones exposed to the elements and putrescent muscles worked in tandem to give the corpse its ‘corroded collage’ appearance. 

Out from its mouth of sore gums and few teeth, crawled a reply: “I… feel… better… than… ever…”

Just two poignant bell tolls occurred this time. To myself alone.

“I’ve heard enough, my choice has been made. I await you, courier, and your passenger. Do not keep me waiting”, spoke the Ferryman.

I slammed the accelerator down, tearing up through the gears like a hurricane plucking leaves off a tree. The cab, before a stalwart force drilling through this infinite fog at a reasonable pace, now a great bullet shot straight through its innards.

I heard the corpse smack into the partition screen. I guess it didn’t have its seatbelt on.

Gurgles, exhales, words gnawed at my ears, this time with something else wriggling beneath the surface. A sweltering mix of anger and confusion. 

“YOU… THIS… DOCK… SOME..THINGS… WRONG…”

Both its hands hit the glass with a meaty thud. Its lone sliver eye stared daggers into mine, as if trying to gouge it through sheer will alone.

“I… HAVE… NEVER… BEEN… TO… THIS… PLACE… YET… I… KNOW… IT… LIKE…IT… WERE… AN… OLD… HOME…”, it took a long breath before continuing.

“THE… FERRY.. MAN… WHO… WHAT… IS… HE?” 

I had to think of something, fast. Something to appease both sources of tension weighing heavy upon me. “He’s like a… a middleman, an intermediator. I-I work for him. You’ll see when we—”

“TELL… ME… NOW!” Another thud shook the cab. This time I heard a crackle slither alongside it. I saw what it came from. First, I thought I imagined it; a nightmare scenario flashing before my eyes as strain was further wrought upon me, but a few blinks placed this vision firmly in reality: The screen now had a crack. “OR… I’LL… CRAWL… THROUGH… THIS… GLASS… AND… USE… THE… SHARDS… TO… BLEED… YOU… DRY.”

Any fearful reaction I could give was minimal as terror had already sapped my muscles of all their energy, say for my hands and right foot, frigid and bound to the pedal and steering wheel respectively. Time slowed to a snail’s pace once more, as I thought on what to tell the corpse. Some things are best expelled before they can fester, I reasoned.

“This place, this fog, this cab; are all just the start of a long, long journey. One you and every other passenger must take. At the dock, you will meet the Ferryman as all have done before you and all will do after, and then the next step will begin. For better or for worse.” I responded and for a reversal of the drive so far, it seemed my words had wreaked havoc over the cadaver. The mist swelling around in its bagged, sloping eye began to clear, foretelling a long lost emotion, drowned ages upon ages ago in the life the corpse once had, now resuscitated through the words it heard and the look I saw on its near-skeletal face.

“S-Stop… The… Car… Please…”

“I am sorry, but I cannot, for the good of us both.”

For the fleetest of moments, I thought it took my words to its shrieveling lump of a heart– but the resounding gargle and the shattering that followed quickly rescinded that idea. It happened so fast; the small, but many scratches from all the shards littering the back of my neck, the wet paper-ish skin of the corpse clinging to my windpipe, its gaunt but still viscously strong muscles cutting off its intake. Like the partition screen before it was reduced to pieces, my vision blurred.

“I… TOLD… YOU… TO… STOP”, the corpse growled, its grip tightening.

Numbness crept along my veins, loosening my fingers from the steering wheel. I wisped them backwards to try and pry the cadaver's hand off of my neck: at first contact, my fingers pierced his hand, just below the knuckle. Loose skin dispersed and fluttered like flags in a low breeze, whilst my fingertips collided with the taut muscles and bone beneath. I scratched, I pulled, I yanked, I filled my nails with as much fetid hand meat as possible, yet it was to no avail. It still had me held tight in its clutches.

“LAST… CHANCE… STOP… THE… CAR…”, the thing granted me a reprieve from the strangling, releasing my windpipe a tad, enough for me to take a small breath. Enough for the torment to continue.

“Ok… Ok… I’ll stop it. Just… take it easy.” I took my foot off the accelerator and feathered the brake pedal, shifting down the gears in the process, the cab’s speed started to decline. Pleased with this, the cadaver eased its clutch on my throat further; the air, rancid and clogged with pestilence might it be, had never felt better to breathe in. 
I’d tried to keep eye contact with the corpse using the mirror, but it was only now that I noticed that something was building up in the corner of its single eye. Thick, though brighter and far more transparent than its blood; the corpse was weeping.

It’s not uncommon to see in this profession; after all, you're carrying an enormous weight and yet when the chance arrives to finally drop it from your shoulders, you must bear the impact it has on your passengers first hand. No matter how brave, no matter how defiant they are, realising your time has come is a weight that none can bear; it will condense you, it will contort you ‘till your base self is all that awaits the end.
Some sob and beg, crying out to deaf ears, or most often, ears that refuse to listen. Whilst others stare into their second death, still as a statue gazing out to a blank horizon, no coming of the next light. A few, like the corpse, fall somewhere in between; they struggle against me, as if it were my choice to bring them to him. But all things must meet the Ferryman eventually, and his choice, for you, for your destination, is made long before that happens.  

Caressing the leather of the passenger seat, I was in luck. I felt the jagged edge of a shard of the partition screen, about the same size as my index finger, perfect for what I had planned. I held eye contact with the cadaver a little while longer; tears streamed down its face in globules of grief and turmoil. My hand wrapped round the shard and it dug deep into my palm.

“I’m sorry…” I said plainly, before jamming the pointed end straight into the cadaver's weeping eye. A chunky concoction of blood and tears spewed over my shoulder, spraying the dashboard with a sickening ‘splat!’

The cadaver shrieked and wrenched itself backwards. I'd hurt it, badly, but could not kill it. The only way out lies at the end of the road, not here within the cab. I used the interval to course-correct and slam the accelerator, gear after gear I shot through ‘till I hit the fifth and final one, upon which the cab took off as if it were a starved wolf chasing the first deer it's seen in days.
“Almost there… almost… there…”, I repeated to myself, the wind blasting every inch of my body, diffusing the smell of decay I’d no doubt grown used to unwillingly. 
A sound much like the tearing of an envelope enunciated itself behind me, I looked up to the mirror as soon as I’d heard it and caught the heels of the corpse fling forward—right as the awful thing sunk its slabbed teeth into my forearm.

Searing pain coursed throughout my arm; I wriggled and bashed the thing’s skull but it remained latched to me, its molars and dull incisors puncturing my veins, releasing their contents all over the seat.
Though the Ferryman is the only exit from this featureless, grey void; and though the pain that brought one to this place becomes nulled; fresh pain is left as is: wicked and excruciating. 
‘An added flavour…” he calls it…

I gritted my teeth and came to terms with the fact I would have to endure the corpse’s feast just a minute more. A matter of seconds spent in agony so I could deliver myself to salvation. “I’m almost there, I’m almost there… I hear it. The bell. It’s getting closer.”

Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding.

With each toll, weight was slowly added to the blanketing fog till itself blanketed the cab like snow. The cab’s wipers were laboured but precise, pushing the heavy fog aside as if it were a horse’s tail whipping flies away. This newly-formed blizzard still had some ways to go before I was in the clear; however, I was reminded of this as the corpse felt for my upper arm. It held onto my bicep with its needly fingers, before tearing its head back; ripping a great chunk out my arm, the meat crashing into the headliner as it was tossed. 
I could easily count the number of worn, pallid rocks loosely defined as the thing's teeth from my seat. Five remained rooted, two from the top jaw, and three from the bottom. Four stuck out like stalagmites lining the floor of a living cave—The gnawed threads of my forearm.
I screamed. The cadaver gurgled, though no words followed. Several shards glimmered down its torso from where it’d lumbered over the glass to bite me. I realised just in time what it was about to do, as my other hand caught its head before the thing could take another bite. Its open mouth billowed vile breath straight into me, the awful smell regained its control; I grimaced, slowly losing the struggle to force its head back. But then I heard it. Clearer than ever. Closer than ever.
The bell tolls.

Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding.

Something unseen by either myself or the cadaver, pressed my foot down on the brake pedal. Hard. 
In the abrupt halt, I was slammed into the steering wheel whilst the cadaver was flung through the windscreen—landing just in front of the dock’s walkway. 

Sheets of snow/fog glistened in the headlights, as did the ice cloaking the first stretch of the enormous river the dock was nestled on. Reflected over each was the spray of blood and bits of windscreen, forming rubies on the white shore. Slowly, I rose from the wheel, head slick and partially stuck to the foam coating the steel which I had to pull it from. 
I saw the corpse meters ahead of the cab, already back on its feet. Staring not back at me, but rather what lied upon the end of the dock. A tall figure towering some 3 or metres above, wreathed head to toe in black—deeper, darker than any mere shadow, like the lowest pit of the universe was yawning, revealing itself to eyes unfit to see such primordial splendour. It was the absence of everything, and it started to spread. Creeping straight towards the corpse, who trembled in awe of its presence, knees clicking and buckling as they bent, lowering the thing. The gore pooling down and breaking off its body, rose as steam in the rigid cold, floating towards the black like candle smoke at the entrance of a cave.

This abyss was a familiar sight for me, so I thought about how I’d inadvertently spared the corpse from seeing this terror beyond; though, I was sure it could still sense him: The Ferryman.
He spread two of his onyx limbs outward. One held a long wooden oar, the other a pristine bell made of brass, inscribed with countless sigils and runes. 
The oar pointed to a rather quaint canoe on the Ferryman’s left; it had a deep red interior, but stranger to some would be the myriad of tiny holes covering it all, and the lack of river water spurting through any of these holes. The corpse obviously couldn’t see this, but I doubt it would care at that moment. For it was dead-focused on the Ferryman’s right; as just past where the bell dangled from his void of an arm, came the worried murmurs of a young boy–blonde and pristine as opposed to the thing that was seeking him. The boy sat on the seat of another canoe, this one a more typical oak brown.

“Sam… Is… That… You?...” hope blossomed in the corpse’s voice. It began limping towards the boy, who shuffled further away along the canoe’s seat with each step the thing took. “I’m… Here… It’s… Going… To… Be… Okay… Now.”

The oar was lowered, blocking the corpse from taking any more steps. 
“Your seat is on the left. Jakob.” said the Ferryman. 

The corpse–or Jakob I should say, but referring to something in such a state with a regular, normal sounding name feels wrong–stood in silence, still as can be for a couple of seconds. Processing. Knowing. And then, at last. Accepting. 
It staggered to the left canoe, and took its seat in the middle. 

I climbed out of the cab, gripping my tattered arm in case it decided to at last tear away from me. He made me watch the first few times–The departure of passengers. I saw it happen through the gaps of my fingers and even through the fearful mirage of my tears. After I stared, wide-eyed, appalled; and then, eventually fascinated. 
A glimpse at what is to come. The next step of the journey.

Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding.

Another series of bell tolls from that ancient bit of brass. The corpse, and only the corpse shrieked. It sprung from its seat, or at least tried to; its torso shot upward, but its lower half was completely stuck to the seat. It couldn’t perceive why, and that was my fault. It had no idea what all the holes lining the canoe were. It couldn’t possibly understand that–It was caught in the jaws of something hungry. Something that was always hungry.

Like a beartrap brimming with retracting teeth in a multitude of layers–the canoe snapped shut, muffling the screams of the corpse. Oily and leathery skin broke up from the still river; a tiny glance at the passage to bellow, before the canoe/mouth dove down under the surface. Dragging the corpse from this place and taking it to the next, never to be seen again by the likes of myself. 

I shuddered despite trying not too, as always.

I looked to the right and saw that the Ferryman and the boy, Sam, had already started sailing away from the dock. Sam appeared calmer than before, as if he was tired from a long day and had finally earned the time and found a place to rest. The cold didn’t seem to bother him; a breeze blew his blonde, appearing to caress him like a mother’s hand. I believe I saw him smiling faintly before he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

The Ferryman rowed side to side before letting the canoe ride the slight current of the river downstream. In the far distance, a tiny golden light shone brilliantly. The canoe was perfectly aligned with it. 
“There is more to collect, and to deliver, is there not, courier? Back to your vehicle, I will await your return, as always.” the Ferryman said.

I nodded, though it was probably more of a slump caused by my still-throbbing head. 

I got back into the cab, my entire body tense with pain. Shattered and drained of all sources of energy. I closed my eyes, falling deep into sleep, like little Sam out there on the river.

—

A subtle, familiar click then ‘swoosh’ woke me some time later. The shuffling of someone or something climbing inside followed suit. My eyes first wandered to the windows, seeing the boundless fog once more outside. The docks, Sam or the Ferryman were nowhere to be seen. Then my vision drifted to the rear-view mirror, and from there I saw it: The partition screen, fully repaired, with not a scratch or crack to speak off; I noticed the windscreen had been replaced too, and was likewise spotless. Strangest of all, was that my arm had also been ‘repaired’, in-fact all evidence of the corpse had been seemingly erased. Teeth and all.

It was then that the shape behind the screen became impossible to ignore. Its outline grew closer until a clear human outline appeared behind the glass. A repulsive shade of moldy blues and greens. Its smell helped confirm my growing suspicion: It was another cadaver, and it's even more rotten than the last one…