Read Online Bottled Abyss by Benjamin Kane Ethridge - Free Book Online

face stricken with surprise and terror, and all at once Herman dropped down on the man, and with the momentum of that fall, something exploded Herman’s right eye and drove so deep inside his head he couldn’t vocalize alarm.
    Fiery pain from his body eclipsed the cave. Forgotten memories surfaced, then drowned.

    Shaking, his mind in turmoil, his spirit in ruins, the Ferryman slid the shattered end of the oar out of the big man’s eye socket. How had the oar broken? It was made of the River. That meant the waters had receded again, weakened—
    His only chance for three days grace had left in a lightning second.
    “No!” He threw the oar into the darkness. It made a lonely clatter as the big man’s body slumped over.
    The Ferryman swept the bottle from the ground, uncorked it and knelt before this victim. In all his nether-life, he’d never been attacked. Everything had happened so fast that the event was dreamlike. He had only paused for a few minutes to calm his mind with the Chant of Nyx, and in that momentary lapse of time, breaking from all his pacing and swearing and teeth gnashing, the big man had come at the least fortunate moment, to actually catch the Ferryman unaware.
    In the frantic moment, he didn’t even know the oar’s shattered end had become so lethal; the Ferryman had lifted it reflexively as the big man fell on him.
    Please don’t be completely dead, he thought in a panic. Please.
    He took a fistful of the big man’s thick black hair and pulled his head back. The red crater where the big man’s eye had once been gave the Ferryman another pang of regret.
    The gray waters of the Styx poured from the bottle, so little left, yet still so vital…it filled the bloody puncture wound and flowed over the man’s face.
    The Ferryman waited for the eyes to open, for the chest to rise and fall, for the coin to come up from the throat.
    But a scarred voice broke through his feverish hope.
    “You know it’s too late, Charon. He crossed over without pay. That is the way now. He is gone.”
    The Fury stood in the darkness, its shark’s head hovering there, a scene from a maritime nightmare.
    “You leave me alone, traitor!”
    “Traitor?”
    “To us, to yourself,” the Ferryman spat. “We could have had worth again.”
    “Regardless, the man is dead. He cannot help your schemes any longer.”
    “Bah!”
    The Ferryman would not admit that, but it was now that he understood his own true intentions. The Fury had been correct. He wouldn’t have settled for another coin. He wanted more than that. The big man was going to be his conduit to the outside world.
    Now time was just about out.
    He looked at the man’s hulky frame. Not all his blood was dead yet. There was a chance he could take him outside to the same area the dog had bled—there was a hatchet. Some of the blood could be freed to hopefully find that last drop of Styx . Not a foolproof plan, but the only one available at this point.
    Glancing into the darkness, he found that the Fury had vanished. Good. Didn’t need him around to distract.
    He’d have to get the big man outside somehow.
    The Ferryman took the man by his thick wrists and tested his weight. It wasn’t surprising that he couldn’t move the body. Besides a rope and an oar, the Ferryman had never lifted much of anything.
    Something stung in his arm as he tried to pull the big man again. The gash from the hatchet had almost completely closed now but there was still the lingering brackish scent of river water and fish. The Ferryman had never been damaged in such a way, so it was somewhat fascinating to study the innards, which also bore a reminder that he was indeed alive in this world, for however long that would be. The outer cavern already appeared to have closed-in on itself, the wide fan of sunlight on the stone floor now pale and rod shaped.
    He reevaluated the body again and snapped his rough fingers as it suddenly came to him. Hope renewed, he was happily off into the