Chapter 6: The Ghost Granny’s Secret

Strictly speaking, Soul Ferrymen are outsourced temps for the underworld’s lowest-ranking reapers.

We’re like gig workers for the dead—no benefits, no 401(k), just a never-ending to-do list. The real reapers hardly bother with us, unless we screw up big-time.

Though insignificant in the cosmic hierarchy, our work is highly organized, with strict group management and a scientific performance evaluation system.

Derek always jokes about our "Ferryman app"—track your souls, log your mileage, upload photos for bonus points. Even the afterlife has gone digital.

Our main workflow is like this:

First, when someone dies, their info is flagged at the county clerk’s office. The system sends out a ping, and the nearest Ferryman gets the call—like Uber, but with more existential dread.

When a person dies, their record is first canceled at the local county clerk’s office.

We Soul Ferrymen escort the soul to the City Judge for registration, then hand it over to the Soul Ferryman leader.

The leader then delivers all the souls to the underworld’s reapers.

The reapers escort the souls to the underworld, where envoys tally their merits, then hand them to the judge, who decides which of the Six Paths of Reincarnation they’ll enter next.

Sometimes I imagine there’s a giant DMV in the underworld, everyone waiting their turn, taking a number, listening to elevator music that never ends.

As for the big names—Yama, Saint Peter, the Grim Reaper—those are legendary figures, not beings Soul Ferrymen like us ever meet.

Derek swears he saw Death once at a Comic-Con in Cincinnati, but he’s full of stories.

If a Soul Ferryman performs well, they can become a leader.

A leader who excels can, after death, become a full-fledged reaper—an official employee in the underworld, remembered by the living.

Over the years, I’ve worked hard—delivering pizza by day, collecting souls by night—well-liked by both leaders and ghosts, with a very high merit score.

I’ve got plaques for "Fastest Collection Time" and "Most Courteous to Lost Souls." My name is etched on a black marble slab somewhere in the underworld’s breakroom.

For several years in a row, I was awarded "Gold Medal Soul Ferryman" and "Top Ten Most Inspiring Soul Ferryman" at the annual underworld conference.

Last year at the Midwest convention (held in a Holiday Inn ballroom—ghosts love the free coffee), I won a trophy shaped like a tiny paddleboat. Old Hank, our district manager, gave a speech about the future of soul collection in America.

Last year at a team-building event, the Midwest Soul Ferryman leader, Old Hank, even toasted me, saying with the aging population and falling birth rates, our line of work had a bright future, and he thought I had the makings of a reaper.

Old Hank is a legend among Soul Ferrymen and is about to become a regular underworld employee. Before leaving, he recommended me to the reaper envoys.

The next year, I was promoted to leader of Maple Heights District.

On the day of my promotion, I discovered Derek was my direct subordinate.

Soul Ferrymen value the separation of the living and the dead. Although I’m Derek’s superior at night, during the day we live as ordinary people.

We have a rule: no talking shop at brunch, no ghost business during daylight. It’s like we live in parallel universes, only crossing paths when the sun goes down.

Soul Ferrymen rarely meet; if they do, they pretend not to know each other and can’t have material dealings among mortals.

Unless something extraordinary happens.

Derek was clearly a bit shaken to see me show up so suddenly today.

He put down his energy drink, eyes darting around, like he expected the room to start spinning.

I’d scolded him at last night’s Monday meeting.

We’d had a blowout over his "side hustle"—moonlighting as a ghost hunter for YouTube clout. He nearly let a poltergeist slip into the middle school.

He’d been fooling around with an Instagram model who wore a cross necklace, nearly causing a major supernatural incident and almost losing years off his own life.

He’s got a weakness for trouble and pretty faces—never a good combo in our line of work.

If I hadn’t protected him all these years, his lifespan would already be in the negatives.

He owes me, and he knows it. That’s why he didn’t bolt when he saw me walk in.

He thought I was here because of yesterday’s incident and started apologizing again.

He babbled, “I swear, Caleb, I’ll keep work and play separate from now on. No more cross jewelry, no more TikTok seances—promise!”

I told him that wasn’t it—I needed to know why my girlfriend’s family’s lifespan had been stolen.

He sobered up fast, sitting straighter. The party vibe in the room vanished.

The hospital where Natalie’s incident occurred was under Derek’s jurisdiction.

Derek checked the Book of Life and Death on his phone.

He tapped a few times, the phone’s glow reflecting in his nervous eyes. The Book looked like a boring spreadsheet to anyone else, but to us, it was the most powerful artifact in Ohio.

Natalie and her mother were indeed set to die within three days, with the manner of death listed as a "blind box" violent death—five stars for suffering.

Derek whistled low. “Man, that’s harsh—never seen five stars before. That’s, like, Texas Chainsaw level.”

But the lifespan records were all normal; nothing unusual showed up.

The audit log was clean—no edits, no suspicious transfers. But we both knew records could be forged if you had the right connections to the other side.

I felt uneasy—this Ghost Granny really knew how to cover her tracks.

If the Book didn’t show the transfer, someone had rewritten fate at the source. My skin crawled. Who the hell was I up against?

So I told Derek to summon Ghost Granny’s soul for questioning.

He hesitated, shifting in his seat. “Caleb, you know the rules. I can’t just yank someone who’s still breathing.”

Derek hesitated.

He twiddled his thumbs, looking for a loophole. “She’s not on the death list, boss. We could get written up for this.”

We Soul Ferrymen can only detain souls who are due to die; we can’t just detain a living old woman at will.

Not unless you wanted the underworld’s HR breathing down your neck for eternity.

I told him to make an exception—just two questions, and I promised not to rough her up.

I leaned in, voice low. “I’ll take the heat if it comes to that. I just need answers. Please, Derek.”

I’d helped Derek earn merit before, so he couldn’t refuse such a small favor. He went to check Ghost Granny’s data.

He owed me too many times to count—bailing him out of reaper audits, covering his late-night screwups. He grumbled, but did as I asked.

But as soon as he checked, he realized something was wrong.

His face went white as the screen flickered. The club’s music faded into silence. “Uh, Caleb… you better look at this.”

That Ghost Granny had died before the founding of the United States.

He turned his phone so I could see. Her death date: 1776. She’d been dead since before the country even existed. And somehow, she was still walking around, cursing anyone foolish enough to cross her path.

Dead since 1776, and still out there hunting for more years. My blood ran cold. Some debts, it seemed, never died.