Upgrade

By Susan Cornford

It was a quiet day in the Underworld, so Charon lazed back, smoking a cigarette and gazing out over the waters of the Styx, a view of which he never got tired. Startled from his reverie, he gasped and scrambled to his feet. Standing right next to him was a new client, an alive client. “What are you doing here? You’re not dead yet! Wait—on second look, you are dead.” Charon shook his head back and forth, with a look of puzzlement on his face.

The newcomer smiled broadly, revealing long, sharp fangs. He held out his all-too-solid hand for the ferryman to shake. “How do you do, Mr. Charon? I’m Archibald Bartlett, Esquire, at your service. My boss needed to send a vampire, so I can report back.”

“What do you mean ‘report back’? This is definitely a one-way ticket.”

The vampire motioned to the low stone wall where Charon had been sitting, “Let’s have a seat, and I’ll explain it all to you. My boss has been talking to your boss, Mr. Hades, with a view to upgrading this service. You know, bringing it into the twenty-first century.”

Charon had just started to sit down again, but he jumped back up, his hands balled into fists. “Hang on! I’ve been doing this for thousands of years and never one complaint! You don’t want to mess with something that has so much tradition behind it.”

The vampire moved his hands as if he were patting a nervous animal. “Now, we’re not saying that there’s anything wrong with your work. But a bridge would simplify the crossing and there wouldn’t be any interference with travel during storms.”  He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I’ve heard the water can get pretty churned up when Mr. Hades loses his temper.”

Charon shook his head again, feeling like he’d just been punched on the jaw. “A bridge? Across the Styx? You’ve got to be insane!”

“No, I’m just an award-winning civil engineer who specializes in bridges.” He gazed around as if mentally plotting the distance from one bank to another. “Yes, I think a cable-stayed bridge would fit in here just perfectly.”

Charon continued to shake his hoary locks and beard. “But, what about me? I’ll be out of a job!”

The vampire patted him on the shoulder. “No, no! People will still have to pay a toll to cross the bridge, and you will be the collector. Just think! It would be much more comfortable sitting in a nice, dry booth rather than rowing your boat back and forth in all kinds of weather, wouldn’t it?”

He stared at Charon as if expecting a reply, then he leapt to his feet and said, “Come on, let’s go look at the other side, so I’ll have a better idea where to anchor the cables. I’ve even brought you an obol.” He reached into his pocket and handed over a glinting coin. “I hope you don’t mind gold,” he said as he hopped into Charon’s skiff.  “Silver was obviously out of the question for me to handle.”

Despite his multiple concerns, the ferryman took up his habitual position and began to row. The vampire looked out toward the other side and Charon saw him, muttering to himself and making notes in a small notebook he’d taken from one of his pockets.

But, as he rowed, Charon’s eyes fell on his ferryman’s pole. It was made of good, solid wood and was quite sharp at the end. He could feel the strength in his arms from millennia of rowing across the river and back.

Shipping his oars, he decided it was time to find out if all those stories about vampires with stakes in the heart were true.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Susan Cornford is a retired public servant, living in Perth, Western Australia. She/her has pieces published or forthcoming in 365 tomorrows, Ab Terra Flash Fiction 2022, AHF Magazine, Akashic Books Fri-SciFi, Altered Reality Magazine, Arzono Publishing Presents The 2023 Annual, Frost Zone Zine, Fudoki Magazine, Granfalloon Magazine, HalfHourToKill.com, Theme of Absence, The Were-Traveler, and Wyldblood Magazine.