The Last Ferry

Marta had worked the night shift at the ferry terminal for twelve years. It was a quiet post, mostly dealing with the occasional lost tourist or the early morning commuters who’d missed the last boat. The terminal itself was an old, rust-streaked building that smelled of salt and diesel, and the only sound at night was the constant groan of the mooring lines against the dock. She’d grown used to the solitude, the way the fog rolled in off the bay like a slow tide of grey.

It was just after two in the morning when the radio crackled with a frantic voice from a boat out in the channel. A small skiff had run aground on a sandbar, and the caller was shouting about something in the water. Marta called the coast guard, but they were busy with a distress call further up the coast. So, against protocol, she took the launch out herself. The fog was thick, and the beam of the searchlight cut through it like a knife, revealing nothing but the churning dark water.

She found the skiff high and dry on the sandbar, but no one was aboard. The engine was still warm, and a pair of rubber boots sat neatly on the seat, but the owner was gone. Marta called out, but the only answer was the slap of water against the hull. She was about to leave when she saw a shape in the water a few yards away—a pale, bobbing form. She pulled alongside, and an old man in a tattered raincoat was clinging to a piece of driftwood. His face was gaunt, and his eyes were milky, as if he’d been in the water for days, but he was very much alive. He said nothing but just let himself be pulled into the boat.

The man shivered as Marta wrapped him in a thermal blanket. He didn’t speak, but he pointed towards the far shore, to where the old ferry terminal stood derelict on an island, long abandoned. Marta knew the place. It had been closed for decades, after a ferry sank there in the 50s, killing over a hundred people. The man’s hand trembled, and he pointed again, insistent. On a whim, Marta turned the boat towards the island. As they approached, the fog thickened, and the air grew cold, despite the summer night. The man’s breathing was shallow, and his lips moved as if in prayer.

The deserted terminal loomed out of the dark, its windows boarded, its dock rotten and half-collapsed. Marta cut the engine and let the boat drift. The man rose, staggered to the bow, and pointed down into the black water. Peering over the edge, Marta saw something glinting just below the surface—a braided rope of white and gold, trailing from a rusted cleat on the dock. She pulled on it, and it came loose easily, ending in a small, waterlogged velvet bag. She opened it. Inside was a silver locket, tarnished but still recognizable, with a faded photograph of a woman in a wedding dress.

Marta felt a sudden chill, and the man let out a low moan. She turned to ask him what he knew, but he was gone. The boat rocked, and she was alone on the dark water. The only trace of him was the wet footprints leading to the bow, and the locket in her hand. When she returned to the terminal, the coast guard was there, and they searched the bay. But they found no trace of the old man, no skiff, nothing. The next day, Marta matched the locket to a newspaper article about a drowned bride from the 1958 disaster. Her family had never been able to find her body. And on the anniversary of the sinking, every year, a man in a tattered raincoat would come to the old terminal, looking for his wife. Marta never took the night shift again, but she kept the locket, and sometimes, in the fog, she thinks she can still see the man standing at the end of the pier, waiting for a boat that will never come.