The Last Ferry to Meridian

My father, Arthur, passed away in October, after a long battle with a degenerative nerve condition. The disease had slowly robbed him of his mobility and his speech, leaving him a prisoner in his own body. We moved him from the city to a small coastal town called Windhollow, hoping the sea air would ease his suffering. The house we rented was an old Victorian perched on a cliff, with a rickety wooden staircase that led down to a private beach. It was there, in mid-September, that he had the accident.

A home nurse visited daily to help with his physiotherapy, and to keep him safe, we had to lock the dog, a hyperactive beagle named Gus, in the backyard. One afternoon, a sudden squall blew in from the ocean, and the nurse asked me to bring Gus inside before he got soaked. I found the back gate had blown open, and Gus was nowhere to be seen. I raced down the cliff stairs, calling his name, and found him at the water’s edge, barking at the waves. I scooped him up and hurried back, but as I reached the top, I saw my father lying at the bottom of the stairs, his leg twisted beneath him.

He had tried to follow me, despite his unsteady gait, and lost his footing on the slick wood. He was conscious, but in agony. The nurse called an ambulance, but the town’s only ambulance was out on a call miles away, so we had to wait. I knelt beside him, holding his hand, watching the rain mix with his tears. He couldn’t speak, but his eyes said it all: he was terrified. The ambulance finally arrived, and we rushed him to the small local hospital, where they stabilized him and told us he had fractured his hip. They planned to airlift him to the mainland the next morning for surgery.

That night, the storm intensified. The hospital was a cramped, old building, and they put my father in a private room at the end of a dim corridor. I stayed with him, listening to the wind howl and the rain pelt the windows. Around midnight, he began to cough, a dry, sputtering sound. I called the nurse, who came in and listened to his chest. ‘We need to get him to the mainland now,’ she said, her face pale. ‘The air ambulance can’t fly in this weather, but the ferry might still be running.’ She explained that there was a night ferry from the nearby port of Mirehaven, and if we could get him on it, they could meet an ambulance on the other side.

We loaded my father onto a gurney and into an old van the hospital used for transport. The nurse, whose name was Elara, drove, and I sat in the back, holding my father’s hand. The road wound through the dark, rain-lashed countryside, and I could see the lights of Mirehaven in the distance. When we arrived at the ferry terminal, the dock was deserted. A single ferry, the ‘Meridian Star’, was tied up, its lights glowing eerily through the mist. An old man in a yellow raincoat stood at the gangplank, his face weathered and unreadable. ‘Last ferry to Meridian,’ he croaked. Elara nodded, and we wheeled my father aboard.

The ferry was small, with a passenger cabin that smelled of diesel and salt. There were no other passengers. The old man, who introduced himself as the captain, said we had to leave immediately because the storm was worsening. He helped us secure the gurney, then disappeared into the wheelhouse. The engine rumbled to life, and we pulled away from the dock. I looked out the window and saw the lights of Mirehaven fading behind us, swallowed by the black water.

Within minutes, the sea turned violent. Waves crashed over the deck, and the ferry pitched and rolled. My father’s breathing became labored, and his skin took on a grayish pallor. Elara and I tried to keep him comfortable, but I could see she was worried. ‘This is not right,’ she muttered. ‘The crossing should only take twenty minutes, but we’ve been going for an hour.’ I walked to the window, trying to see land, but there was only darkness. I went to the wheelhouse and found the captain staring at a compass that was spinning wildly. He looked at me with hollow eyes. ‘We’re not going to make it,’ he said. ‘The Meridian Star doesn’t run in this weather. I don’t know why I said it did.’

I rushed back to my father, and as I knelt beside him, I noticed something strange. The ferry’s lights flickered, and in the dimness, I saw wet footprints on the floor, leading from the door to his bed. The footprints were too small to be the captain’s or Elara’s. And they were fresh. I followed them with my eyes, and they ended at my father’s side. He was staring at the ceiling, his mouth open, and I realized he was trying to speak. I leaned close, and he whispered, ‘She came back.’ Before I could ask who, the lights cut out completely.

When they flickered back on, the captain was gone. The ferry was dead in the water, rocking gently. Elara was frozen by the door, her face ashen. ‘She’s here,’ she said. ‘Who?’ I demanded. ‘The woman from the beach,’ Elara said, her voice trembling. ‘I saw her on the beach when we were loading. She was at the water’s edge, watching. And she followed us.’ I ran to the window and saw a shape in the water, just beneath the surface, keeping pace with the ferry. It was a woman, her hair streaming like seaweed, her eyes glowing a pale green. She raised a hand and pressed it against the window, leaving a smear of salt and slime.

The ferry lurched, and I was thrown to the floor. When I got up, the shape was gone. My father was convulsing, and Elara rushed to him, trying to calm him. I looked out the window and saw the silhouette of the ferry dock, but it was not the dock we had left. It was a derelict, rotting pier, with no lights. The ferry bumped against it, and the engine sputtered to a stop. The captain’s voice came over the intercom, crackling and distorted: ‘Welcome to Meridian.’

I helped Elara wheel my father off the ferry onto the pier. The storm had stopped, and the air was still and cold. The town of Meridian was a ghost town, its buildings crumbling, its streets half-swallowed by sand. We found an old hospital, its doors creaking open. Inside, the lights flickered, and we saw the nurse from the town hospital, the one who had called the ambulance, sitting at a desk, writing in a ledger. She looked up, and her eyes were black. ‘You should not have come,’ she said. ‘She’s been waiting for you.’

I whirled around, but Elara was gone. My father’s gurney was empty. I ran through the corridors, calling his name, but the only answer was the sound of dripping water. I burst through a door and found myself on the beach, the same beach where my father had fallen. But now it was night, and a woman was standing at the water’s edge, my father’s limp form in her arms. She turned to me, and her face was a hollow, eyeless mask. ‘He tried to leave me,’ she said. ‘But you brought him back.’

I woke up in the hospital, the real hospital, a doctor shaking me gently. ‘Sir, you fell asleep,’ he said. ‘Your father is stable. The air ambulance arrived this morning.’ I was in the same small hospital, but the storm had passed. I looked out the window and saw the sun rising over the calm sea. My father was sleeping peacefully in his bed, and I let out a sigh of relief. But then I looked at his hand, resting on the blanket, and saw a strand of dark, wet seaweed wrapped around his wrist. And I knew the truth: we had never left the Meridian Star.

I never spoke of that night to anyone. My father recovered from his surgery, but his condition worsened, and he passed away six months later. On his deathbed, he looked at me and whispered, ‘I saw her again.’ I didn’t ask. To this day, I cannot look at the ocean without seeing her face in the waves, waiting.