The Last Ferryman’s Log

October had always been a month of endings. The air turned brittle, the leaves abandoned their branches, and the lake, once a glittering expanse of summer laughter, grew dark and sullen. I was sitting in the small dockmaster’s cabin, a single bulb casting a jaundiced glow over the scuffed wooden floor, while Marcus, a lanky guy from my class who I’d only ever nodded to in hallways, watched the empty berths through the smeared window.

His job was simple: sit here from dusk until dawn, ferry the occasional late-night boater to their slip, and log the comings and goings. But by October, the season’s last boats were hauled out, and the lake was a black mirror under a bruised sky. We’d been talking for hours, the kind of rambling conversation that fills the hollow spaces of a small town’s shared history. It was then, inevitably, that we touched on the subject of Ethan.

Ethan had died the previous summer, a drowning that the official report called ‘accidental,’ but which everyone whispered about. I’d been having dreams about him, vivid, oppressive dreams that left me gasping for air. I’d told very few people. But that night, in that quiet cabin, the words slipped out. Marcus listened, his face unreadable in the half-light. When I finished, he was quiet for a long moment.

Then he stood, walked to the corner, and picked up a thick, leather-bound logbook that sat on a shelf next to a rusted coffee can. He flipped through it, pages sticking together as if wet. ‘Ethan wasn’t the first,’ he said, not looking at me. ‘There were others. Going back decades.’ He pointed to an entry from August 1997. The handwriting was cramped, hurried. ‘Ray Callahan, 22, found floating near the south shore. Cause: unknown.’ He turned more pages. ‘Lisa Moreau, 17, July 1988. She was my aunt.’

The cabin felt colder. The light flickered. Marcus’s voice took on a hollow edge. ‘Every few years, someone goes out on the water and doesn’t come back. They always find them, eventually. But they’re never right. The face, they say, is always twisted into a smile. A wide, unnatural smile.’ I tried to laugh it off, but the sound caught in my throat. He looked at me then, his eyes dark pools. ‘Your dreams,’ he said. ‘What did Ethan want?’

I shook my head. ‘He just stood at the edge of the water, waving. Then he’d sink, mouth open, like he was screaming, but no sound came out.’ Marcus closed the logbook, his fingers lingering on the cracked cover. ‘That’s not a warning,’ he said. ‘That’s an invitation.’

I was about to leave, the weight of the night pressing on me, when the cabin’s radio crackled to life. A burst of static, then a voice, thin and reedy, like it was coming from underwater. ‘Dockmaster, do you copy?’ The voice was wrong—too slow, too syrupy. It took me a second to place it. It was my own voice, played backward, stretched like taffy.

Marcus froze. ‘Who is this?’ he called into the mike. The static grew, filling the small space, and through it I heard a sound I knew intimately: the soft, wet gasp of Ethan’s breath, just before he woke me from every dream. The light bulb swung, casting demonic shadows. The next transmission was the sound of someone… chewing. Methodically.

The radio died. Marcus and I stared at it, our breath fogging the air. Then, from outside, came the unmistakable sound of boat oarlocks creaking, rhythmically. Slap. Creak. Slap. Creak. A small rowboat slid into the lantern’s glow, but it was empty. Water leaked into the boat from a crack in the hull, and it was rocking gently, as if something had just stepped out.

I don’t remember running. I only remember the cold, and the lake’s surface shimmering with an unnatural iridescence, like oil, and the feeling of being watched from below. Marcus had grabbed my arm, pulling me away from the water’s edge. Behind us, the cabin door stood open, the light spilling out like a beacon to some unseen force. And in the doorway, impossibly, stood Ethan, dripping wet, his skin pale and bloated, his mouth stretched into a wide, glistening grin that reached his ears.

He spoke without moving his lips. ‘The ferry never stops,’ he said, his voice a chorus of drowned whispers. ‘I’m just the latest to take the oars.’ He gestured to the rowboat, now bumping gently against the dock. ‘Your shift is about to begin.’

Marcus’s grip went slack, and he took a step forward, his eyes glassy, fixed on the boat. I tried to pull him back, but my hands passed through him like smoke. He climbed into the boat, sat down, and picked up the oars. Ethan watched, his grin never faltering. Then he turned to me, and his eyes were the lake at midnight—empty, bottomless. ‘You’ll see him again,’ he said. ‘In October. On the water. Always October.’

I woke up on the shore, my clothes dry but my lungs burning. The cabin was dark and empty. Marcus was never found. The logbook on the shelf had a new entry, dated that night, in handwriting that could have been Marcus’s or Ethan’s: ‘Gave passage to the still one. He took the oars freely. The boat returns when the leaves fall.’

I moved away after that, tried to forget. But every October, when the air turns brittle and the leaves start to fall, I find myself drawn to the nearest body of water. And tonight, as I stand here, staring at the lake’s black surface, I see a rowboat drifting toward the shore. The oars move on their own, and in the boat sits a figure. It’s Marcus, and he’s smiling. He raises a hand and beckons. The water ripples, and beneath the surface, something vast and patient shifts. I step forward. The ferry always takes another passenger.