The Rivers Styx

by Nick Porisch

Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:

A steam-powered riverboat paddled through the confluence of four narrow, blood-red streams that met to form a single wide, powerful River.

Robert L. Malcolm, a goatee-wearing software engineer is his early 30s, tumbled head over heels through one of the scarlet creeks. He slammed his hip into a boulder, bobbed to the surface for a desperate gasp of air, and sank back into the creek’s throes. If he’d been in any state of higher reasoning, he might have been struck with the fear of a water moccasin’s stinging bite or a gator’s fiery chomp, but his mind instead was occupied by a single, unending scream for oxygen and, to a lesser extent, calmer waters.

His second wish was answered when the creek’s churning current spat him into the slow, unstoppable flow of the River. He righted himself and pulled his head above the surface. The River’s grip pulled him downstream, but it was at least calm enough that he could tread water and take stock of his surroundings while he gulped air into his lungs.

The River matched the color of smashed red velvet cake. White froth mixed with muddy, hematic water and amassed around the thick roots of bald cypress trees along the shore.

Bald cypress, Robert thought. We don’t have that in Michigan. Or dogwood, or buckvine, either.

He looked up at the sky. It was masked by dark, heavy smog. A sickening orange glow radiated above the treetops flanking the river and a layer of ash coated the cypress bark. The air was thick and hot. Robert deduced that, wherever he was, some kind of large-scale wildfire must’ve been raging nearby. That would account for the glow, the ash, the strange shade of the River’s waters.

With these essential observations complete, Robert’s attention turned towards what he had previously been able to ignore, the imminent threat of snakes, gators, and other aquatic predators with sharp teeth. Something brushed the soft meat of his calf, and he thrashed.

“Oh, fuck!” he shouted. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” It brushed his leg again. It was circling.

He set his eyes on the densely wooded shore and tried to swim towards it, but with every stroke, the River’s current bore him back to its center with what felt like inverse effort. His muscles burned, and the predators surrounding him tightened their circle. He took a deep breath. Warm tears coated his cheeks. He prepared for whatever fate this damned River had determined for him.

Then he was in the air above the River and swinging in a wide arc.

He plopped down on the deck of the riverboat, and the Ferryman unhooked the end of a long pole from the collar of Robert’s polo shirt. Behind the Ferryman, black clouds rose from the riverboat’s smokestacks. “Hey there, pilgrim,” the Ferryman said and set down the pole.

Red droplets fell from Robert’s drenched hair. “Where–where the fuck am I?” He blinked water out of his eyes.

“You’re down South, boy. Way, way down South,” the Ferryman said. “Where ya from?”

“Lansing,” Robert said.

“Michigan?”

Robert nodded.

The Ferryman smiled. His teeth were black and rotten. “So, yer a Midwest boy.”

Robert nodded again and took a closer look at his sudden savior. The Ferryman was tall and thin. He wore a vest with polished brass buttons and a white, puffy dress shirt. A squat cap with a leather brim sat on his head, and a waxed mustache obscured his upper lip.

“Listen, boy,” the Ferryman said, “I’m gonna give ya somethin to help me keep track of ya.” He pulled a card from a rumpled deck in the pocket of his trousers and pinned it to Robert’s shirt, right over the stitched alligator.

Robert looked down at the card. It was the Jack of Spades. The Ferryman offered his hand and pulled Robert to his feet.

“C’mon, let me introduce you to the others,” the Ferryman said and climbed a set of stairs to the boiler deck.

Robert paused and approached the boat’s railing instead. The glow of the fires seemed to intensify further downstream, in the direction the boat was moving. He looked towards the back of the boat, where the great paddles of the stern wheel propelled it towards its destination.

Something wriggled in the back of Robert’s throat, and his stomach tightened. He coughed, but the writhing thing failed to dislodge. He opened his mouth as wide as he could and stuck his fingers inside, past his teeth, past his tongue, past his uvula, until he found what he was looking for. He pinched it and pulled it from his throat.

He held the squirming creature in front of his eyes. It was a long, fat maggot. Robert’s hand convulsed and flung it overboard. It plummeted downwards and disappeared into the froth along the boat’s hull.

The Ferryman clapped his hand on Robert’s shoulder. “Let’s go, pilgrim,” he said. “They’re all waiting for you, and there ain’t nothing down in that water ‘cept snakes and gators.”

The Ferryman led Robert up the stairs to the boiler deck. Despite its name, the boiler deck was actually above the ship’s engines and was instead home to a large, mostly empty gambling hall. The hall was quiet except for the tinny, hollow sound of a gramophone, the clunks of the machinery below, and the small talk of three individuals seated at a faro table near the room’s center. The heat in the gambling hall was sweltering, and Robert immediately felt sweat form under his arms and behind his ears.

“Hey there, boys!” the Ferryman cried. His voice reverberated through the empty space.

The three men at the table turned towards Robert and the Ferryman as they approached. The men varied only slightly in build, grayness of hair, and expression. They wore differing shades of polo t-shirts, and each alligator logo was covered by a Jack of a different suit. All of their faces were, more or less, that of Robert L. Malcolm.

“They’re… me,” Robert mumbled.

The Ferryman shrugged. “Same card, different suit.” He pulled a chair out at the table for Robert. “Found a Spade to complete your set, boys.”

Robert hovered next to his chair without sitting and leaned towards the Ferryman. “Could I get a drink?” he asked.

The Ferryman nodded. “Of course.” He stepped away from the table.

Robert sat down. The other Roberts–of Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs–nodded in his direction simultaneously. “What’s your sin, Spades?” Hearts asked and sipped from a glass of whiskey.

“What?” Robert asked.

“Your sin,” Hearts repeated. “I mean, no sinners got just one, of course, but we all got one that stands above the rest. At least, that’s how it seems. Me, I couldn’t keep my hands off the ladies, y’know. Even after I had a gold band on my finger. Just couldn’t get enough, you get it? I’m thinking all those nights that I came home smelling like a good fuck and found Lisa waiting for me on the edge of the bed, bawling and crying and shit, that was what bought my ticket aboard the SS Shitstain with you fine gentleman. A failure to be faithful.”

The Ferryman returned with a glass of whiskey identical to the other three on the table and set it in front of Robert.

“You look young, Spades,” Hearts said. “You even met Lisa yet?”

Robert nodded and knocked back his drink. “We met at school,” he said.

“Any kids?” Diamonds, the oldest one, asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “A girl.” Clubs watched Robert closely, swirling his drink around in his glass.

“That’s nice, Spades,” Hearts said. “Lisa is a sweet girl. I think I loved her, at least a little. She was sweet.”

“You ain’t got fuckin’ right, Hearts, talkin’ about her,” Clubs growled.

Hearts laughed and eyed down Clubs. “All I said was, she’s a sweet girl. She’ll head North to the pearly gates while you burn down here with the rest of us bastards. I mean, what’s the real disrespect, running around on her now and then or doing whatever it is you did to bring you here for all eternity? I wasn’t great to her in life, but you aren’t being so great to her in the afterlife, either.”

“I should fuckin’ kill you,” Clubs said.

“Won’t do any good here,” Hearts said.

“Cool it, guys,” Diamonds said. “You’re making us look bad in front of the new guy.”

Robert twisted towards the Ferryman, knocking his empty glass onto the carpeted floor in the process. “What the fuck is going on? Where the fuck is this boat going?”

“We’re going to the end of the River,” the Ferryman said. “A port town called Orisha Iku.”

Hearts burst into laughter and slammed his glass down on the table. “It’s Hell, motherfucker!”

Robert looked at the Ferryman again. “Can I have another drink?”

The Ferryman stepped away once more.

In the baking heat of the gambling hall, the four Roberts compared and contrasted their life stories. Diamonds lived in New York City and had developed an app that made him a millionaire. Clubs was a trucker who lived alone since his Lisa was killed by a drunk driver years earlier. Hearts lived in Michigan and lived the life closest to Robert’s own experience, albeit with a much stronger penchant for infidelity.

After the conversation wrapped up and the men parted for the time being, Robert stood at the bow of the ship with Diamonds. Robert watched the orange glow on the horizon grow, and grow, and grow. The air was denser with smoke and ash the closer they got to Orisha Iku, and Robert’s polo was soaked with sweat. He raised his glass to his lips, and the brown ichor singed his throat.

“The Ferryman is dodgy when we ask questions,” Diamonds said, “but we figure there must be some kind of multiverse, y’know? Not a true multiverse with infinite dimensions, but just a few hundred thousand or something like that, and only one, singular Hell. We think the four of us died simultaneously across our Universes, and that’s how we ended up on the same boat.”

“I don’t remember dying,” Robert said.

“You will,” Diamonds said and looked out ahead of them. “Passing between worlds, especially suddenly, is a shock to the system, and things get foggy. But it will come to you.”

Robert nodded. “What was your sin?”

“Greed, I suppose.” Diamonds chuckled. He picked a flake of paint from the railing and tossed it into the water. “I made an app that calculated health insurance rates. It could predict when a poor sucker was going to die down to an 18-month window. Made me a fortune. Then, one day, somebody didn’t like their rates and stabbed me outside of my office. I died on the sidewalk, 23 years before I was supposed to.”

“You all seem pretty honest with yourselves,” Robert said.

“Nothing to do down here except self-reflect.”

“Reflection was never my strong suit.”

Robert coughed and felt his stomach muscles cramp. He reached under his shirt and ran his fingers over the flesh between his ribs. It felt soft, like the rind of a rotting fruit. He pushed his index finger into his skin and it punctured straight through the mushy membrane.

He retched and black bile shot from his mouth onto the deck.

“You’re decaying, son,” Diamonds said. “Better get used to it.” He lifted his shirt. Where, in another life, the flesh of his abdomen had been, there was nothing but a mass of twitching, black organs held together by sinew and encased within his ivory white ribcage.

Robert retched again.

A horn sounded from the pilot house on the top deck and Diamonds lowered his shirt. “Meal time,” he said.

Robert finished the whiskey in his glass and followed Diamonds back into the gambling hall.

Inside, some of the games had been moved aside to make room for a large dining table made of dark hardwood. The gramophone still filled the room with ghostly melodies from another time and world.

The table was set with four plates, each covered by a brass cloche. Hearts and Clubs sat on one side of the table, and Robert and Diamonds took the chairs opposite them. The Ferryman poured them wine, and Robert drank his in a single gulp.

“Well, Spades,” Hearts said, “I think I’ve got a guess as to your sin.” He mimed slugging from a big bottle.

Robert’s hand shook as he set his glass back down on the table. By now, his head was beginning to churn and swim the way he had when he was pulled through the creek’s current into the River. The Ferryman refilled the glass and took his position at the head of the table.

Clubs’s eyes flicked towards Robert and stayed on his lips as the fresh wine stained them red.

“We are fast approachin’ our destination, boys,” the Ferryman said. “It won’t be long till we’re docked in Orisha Iku. Yer lodgings there have already been lined up, so rest easy for the remainder of our journey.”

The Ferryman rested his hand on Robert’s shoulder.

“Go ahead, boy. Drink up.”

The men uncovered their plates. Discs of black pudding sat on top of a bed of cabbage and boiled potatoes. Diamonds and Hearts took their forks and plunged them into the food, but Clubs remained focused on Robert. The Ferryman stepped back from the table and watched them.

Robert sipped his wine.

“So, drink’s your sin,” Clubs said, “but how’d that death bell of yours finally, actually ring?”

“He doesn’t remember yet, Clubs,” Diamonds said through a mouthful of blood sausage.

“You drown yourself in booze? Suffocate on your own vomit?” Clubs stared at Robert. “Take your keys and drive the wrong way on the Interstate?”

“Jesus, Clubs, I’m trying to eat here,” Hearts said.

“He doesn’t fucking remember yet,” Diamonds said again.

Robert coughed, and bile splattered across his table setting. The spray, it looked like… well, it almost looked like… “I did it myself,” Robert whispered.

Clubs’s lip twitched. “Speak the fuck up.”

Robert wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I killed myself. After… Oh, God….” Tears began to stream from his eyes. The Ferryman grinned.

“Can’t we just enjoy our goddamn food?” Hearts asked.

Clubs leaned across the table until his hot breath stung Robert’s face. “After what?” Clubs asked. “You can tell me, Spades. You had a daughter, right? Was her name Sophie?”

Robert didn’t say anything.

“I didn’t, but I would’ve. I should’ve, but my pregnant wife was crushed inside her sedan by a drunk in a pick-up. A drunk like you, Spades. So, be honest, why’d you do yourself in?”

Clubs’s pink-rimmed eyes bore into Robert’s forehead. “Cool it, Clubs,” Diamonds said.

“Tell me.”

Robert avoided Clubs’s gaze. “They were both in the backseat and I… I’d driven like that before and–”

Clubs roared and lunged across the table. He knocked Robert backwards to the ground and slammed his knuckles into Robert’s temple. The decaying bone crumbled like wet sand, and Robert’s eye popped from its socket.

Diamonds put his hand on Clubs’s shoulder, and Clubs shook him off, then pounded another blow to Robert’s stomach.

“Fuck it. Let them work it out.” Hearts took another bite of his food.

Robert’s hand found a wine glass on the floor and smashed it into Clubs’s head. Clubs wailed in pain, and glass shards jutted from his face. Robert slid out from under Clubs’s weight and sprinted for the exit. Clubs climbed to his feet and took chase.

The Ferryman watched with glee.

Robert stumbled out of the gambling hall. The air was choked with black smoke and the distant howls of eternal suffering. He descended the stairs to the lower deck and ducked into the ship’s boiler room. Clubs followed a few steps behind.

“I never got to hold my daughter in my arms, and you destroyed yours!” Clubs screamed.

Robert navigated through the grinding gears and steaming pipes of the boiler room. He tried to shove his dangling eyeball back into its place, but it flopped back out and swung on the optical nerve. He made a weak gasp.

“I’ll tear you to fuckin’ pieces, Spades. Over and over and over and over,” Clubs said.

Robert slipped behind a bank of heavy machinery and found himself facing the ship’s massive, white-hot incinerator. A cast iron poker stuck out of the incinerator’s maw. Robert pulled it out and held it like a spear.

Clubs approached, slowly and inexorably. “You really are in Hell now, motherfucker,” he said.

Robert gritted his teeth and charged. He rammed the fire poker through the center of Clubs’s polo shirt until it pierced through the other side and blood boiled on its scorching surface.

Clubs growled, and Robert let go of the poker. He backed up until he was cornered against the incinerator.

Clubs pulled the poker from his chest and threw it aside, then jerked forward and grabbed Robert by the neck and arm. He contorted Robert and forced him to his knees so that his face was inches away from the flames.

“This is for Lisa and Sophie,” Clubs said and shoved Robert’s head into the incinerator.

Robert screamed as his decaying flesh melted from his face. His eyes popped like boba pearls, and the blood in his arteries evaporated. Clubs pulled him back out, and Robert slumped to the ground; where his face had been only charred, blackened bone remained.

Robert’s teeth chattered, and the remnants of his tongue strained to create sound. “I’m… sorry…” he mumbled.

“Who the Hell are you apologizing to, Spades?” Clubs asked. “There’s no one down here but you, yourself, and I.” He bent down to grab Robert by the shirt collar again.

Outside, the boat’s horn blared. “Alright there, boys,” the Ferryman said.

Robert and Clubs turned towards his voice.

“Don’t worry, you can do this all you want once you’ve disembarked.” The Ferryman turned and walked back towards the boiler room’s exit.

Clubs spat on Robert, then followed after the Ferryman.

Robert felt the burned remains of his face with his fingertips and touched the hollow recesses where his eyes had been. He took a deep, shaking breath, then got to his feet and exited the boiler room.

Robert joined the other three men on a dock outside the riverboat.

All around them was the great, flaming city of Orisha Iku. Flayed bodies hung from the streetlights, and the never-ending, sorrowful moans of the damned echoed through every alleyway. Not far away, the River emptied into a vast, boiling sea that stretched to the horizon. Haggard, tortured souls crowded the streets, fighting, beating, terrorizing one another, and every single one had the face of Robert L. Malcolm.

“I suppose when they said, ‘Hell is other people,’ they weren’t entirely accurate,” Hearts mumbled.

The boat’s horn sounded again, and the Ferryman leaned over the railing as the boat began to return upstream. “So long, boys!”

Diamond and Hearts walked, warily, towards the cursed streets of Orisha Iku. Clubs looked at Robert and smiled. His mouth was full of maggots.

“I think we’re going to have some fun here, Spades.”