The Last Ferry to Hollow Creek

My first real job out of nursing school landed me at the Ponderosa Pines Rehabilitation and Geriatric Center, a sprawling, moss-draped complex on the edge of the swamp. The building had the stale smell of antiseptic and boiled cabbage, and the residents were a motley crew of the broken and the forgotten—former fishermen with tremors, old women who muttered to the ceiling, and a few who had seen too much of the world and retreated into their own minds. I worked the 2 to 10 shift, and on my third day of orientation, the late hours already felt like a descent into a different kind of darkness.

Around 9:30 PM, I was finishing charting when a CNA named Brenda rushed over, her face pale under the fluorescent lights. ‘You need to come quick—Mrs. Ellison is losing it. She’s talking about a flood and a little girl, saying they’re packing to leave.’ I knew Mrs. Ellison—a frail, white-haired woman who usually sat by the window, rocking and humming. I figured she was sun-downing, that evening confusion that hits dementia patients. ‘I’ll handle it,’ I said, trying to sound confident. But as I walked toward her room, I noticed the other nurses exchanging glances, and one of them whispered, ‘Not her. Not again.’

I found Mrs. Ellison standing in the middle of her room, clutching a worn, empty suitcase. Her eyes were wild, and she was talking rapidly to the air. ‘We have to go now, before the water comes. The little girl is waiting at the dock. She knows the way.’ I tried to soothe her, to guide her back to bed, but she grabbed my arm with surprising strength. ‘You don’t understand, dear. When the little girl shows up, it means the ferry is coming. And when the ferry comes, someone leaves on it. It took my husband, it took my sister, and it will take you if you don’t watch out.’

I managed to get her settled, and she fell into a fitful sleep. But as I left her room, I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. Brenda caught up to me, her voice low. ‘Look, you’re new, so I’ll tell you. Mrs. Ellison is one of the old ones. She’s been here for twenty years. And every time she says that—about the little girl and the ferry—someone ends up dead within a week. It’s not just her dementia. We all know it.’ I laughed it off, attributing it to overactive imaginations, and went to finish my shift.

The next night, I was in the med room when I saw a small figure in the hallway—a little girl in a yellow raincoat, holding a paper boat. She vanished around the corner. I followed, but there was no one there. The residents were all in their rooms, the doors shut. I mentioned it to the night nurse, and she turned white. ‘You saw her?’ she asked. ‘We’re in trouble.’ Before she could explain, an alarm rang from Room 114—Mrs. Ellison’s room. We rushed there to find her unresponsive, her face peaceful but pale. She had passed in her sleep, a slight smile on her lips, clutching a photograph of a young girl on a dock.

The next weeks passed in a blur. I tried to put the incident behind me, but the little girl kept appearing—at the end of hallways, in the reflection of windows, and once, I saw her standing beside my car in the parking lot, pointing toward the swamp. I asked the other nurses, but they would only shake their heads and mutter, ‘She’s the harbinger. She’s the one who leads the ferryman.’ I started researching the history of the facility. It stood on land that was once a ferry crossing, where a tragic accident had taken the lives of a family, including a little girl, during a flood decades ago.

On a rainy Thursday evening, as I was walking to my car, I saw the little girl again, standing at the edge of the swamp, her yellow raincoat glowing in the twilight. She waved at me, then pointed toward the water. I heard the distant sound of a foghorn, and a ferry—an old wooden one—materialized out of the mist. It was lit by lanterns, and on its deck stood shadowy figures. The little girl smiled, and I realized that she wasn’t pointing at the ferry; she was pointing at me. The ferryman on the deck raised his hand—the same gesture Mrs. Ellison had made that first night.

I didn’t go back to Ponderosa Pines after that. I quit, moved across the state, and tried to forget. But sometimes, when it rains, I hear a foghorn in the distance, and I see a little girl in a yellow raincoat standing at the foot of my bed, pointing toward the door. And I know that she’s not lost. She’s waiting for me to join the others on the last ferry to Hollow Creek.