Mythed Connections Read online

  Mythed Connections:

  A Short Story Collection of Classical Myth in the Modern World

  ~~~

  Michael G. Munz

  Seattle, WA 2016

  Copyright 2005, 2008, 2013, 2016 Michael G. Munz

  Other titles from Michael G. Munz:

  Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure

  The New Aeneid Cycle:

  A Shadow in the Flames

  A Memory in the Black

  A Dragon at the Gate (coming August 2016)

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  The Atheist and the Ferryman

  Snipe Hunt

  Playing with Hubris

  About the Author

  Foreword

  Welcome to Mythed Connections! The three stories in this collection are the result of my own amusement with the idea of what might happen if characters from Greek mythology were running around in our modern world. It was a thought that first inspired me in 2002 when "Playing with Hubris" was first written (though it wasn't published until another couple of years later when Nexgen Pulp picked it up). The concept eventually lea me to write an entire novel on the subject entitled Zeus is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure, which has won numerous honors since its original publication in July 2014.

  In a sense, these three stories can be considered prequels to that forthcoming novel, as I drew on aspects from each of them in writing it. Marcus from "The Atheist and the Ferryman" has a cameo. Hermes once again puts to good use his English accent and sense of mischief seen in "Snipe Hunt." But it's "Playing with Hubris" that lends the most: Apollo, always my favorite of the Greek pantheon, is a main character in Zeus is Dead. The café setting from the story has more than a few echoes in one of the early chapters in the novel. And, as for Thalia, well, just you try to keep a muse out of a book and see how well you do.

  Enjoy. And never mock old men in shacks on the shore of the Acheron.

  Or do.

  Your choice, really.

  —Michael G. Munz

  The Atheist and the Ferryman

  That cat was going to be the death of him, and Marcus was beginning to suspect it was intentional.

  "Faaaaagles!"

  His voice echoed around the stalactites that dripped lime from the cave ceiling. When no answer came, he continued forward with three questions in his mind: Just where did that cat think it was going? What was making that light ahead? And exactly how long had there been a cave in his basement without him knowing about it?

  A rocky step crumbled beneath his foot. He caught himself, tested the surface beside it, and then called out again. "Faaaagles!"

  Again, there was no response. What did he expect to hear, anyway?

  "Fagles," he muttered to himself. "Who the hell names a cat Fagles?" He moved on, flashlight clutched, feet cautious.

  His girlfriend, he reminded himself, named a cat Fagles. At least she didn't call it Fluffy or Mister Pookums. Marcus considered himself open-minded, but he doubted he could date someone who would name a cat Fluffy. He barely even liked cats, but when you're seeing a woman like Miranda, you put up with the cat.

  It naturally followed that if she asked you to take care of her cat for the weekend and it dashes into your basement when you try to give it its ear medicine, falls down a hole, and runs away, you go after it. Modern men made sacrifices for their women. That's the way it was, and now Marcus was trudging through a cave chasing after a woman's cat.

  There was a dirty joke in there somewhere, he realized.

  Yet where was that light coming from? There had to be a shaft ahead that let in some sunlight from the surface. That corner of his basement had always been a little too chilly. "Like a ghost walking through you," his superstitious grandma would've said. Now Marcus knew why. He'd have to block it up when he got back. That he'd never seen it before irked him to no end.

  He reached the bottom of the natural staircase and yelled again. "Fagles! Come on, you damned cat, get—"

  Marcus rounded a corner and halted.

  "What the hell?"

  It was easily the largest underground cavern he'd ever seen. (Not that he'd seen many, but it seemed impossible that anything larger could exist.) Hell, it seemed impossible that this one could, yet there it was. The source of the glow was still indiscernible but seemed to emanate from a point beyond the horizon marked by a range of cliffs. There appeared to be buildings there, though the distance and scarcity of the light made it impossible to tell their detail or purpose. Between the cliffs and the slope on which he stood ran a wide, meandering river that stretched into darkness on either side. A path, needlessly twisted, ran down to a small shack, a boat, and a dock along the shore.

  But, he realized, no cat. How fast could an animal that size run?

  He shut off his flashlight and trotted down the path toward the shore. Geez, anyone living down here stood a good chance of being barking mad. If they did see a cat, they'd probably eat it. How would he explain that to Miranda?

  Talk to the madman, or break his girlfriend's heart? He'd rather face the madman. Marcus moved to knock at the door.

  It opened before he touched it. A tall, gaunt man stepped out, robed in black and dread. Without a single acknowledging glance, he walked past Marcus toward the boat.

  "Um, hello," Marcus started. The man stopped to pick up a long, dangerous looking staff. "Ah, there's no need for that. I'm just looking for a cat."

  The man continued his steady stride toward the boat, climbed in, and turned to face him. The boat did not rock an inch.

  "I don't mean to bother you," Marcus continued, "but if you've seen it, you'd really help me out."

  The man stretched out an arm to point across the water in utter silence. Marcus waited for him to elaborate. All he got was an empty, chilling stare.

  "The cat went across the water?" Marcus tried. "Is that what you're trying to tell me?" This was absurd. Cats didn't swim.

  He took a few steps toward the man. "Can't you speak at all?" Frustration overpowered caution, and soon Marcus was directly next to him, as close as he could be without climbing into the boat.

  The robed man lowered his arm and turned to regard Marcus for the first time, revealing a weathered face wrapped in dreadfully pale skin. His eyes searched Marcus's face with irises that were nearly clear. He stood perfectly still.

  Hypnotically still.

  In fact, the old man hardly seemed to breathe at all.

  "Do you know," the man said at last, "how long it has been since I have seen a single living person?" It was a statement more than a question, and devoid of any relief that would imply the man wished a rescue.

  It still gave Marcus pause. "How long have you been down here?"

  The old man grinned. Slowly. "Oh," he answered, "long time." He stepped out of the boat with a grunt. "You . . . shouldn't be here, however. I would have told you sooner, but conversing with most people I see here is usually a waste of breath."

  "I thought I was the first person you'd seen in a long time?"

  The man shuffled away toward the shack. "First living person," he corrected. "The dead aren't usually worth talking to when I see them. Too many questions, always the same: 'Where am I?' 'What happened?' Gets tiresome. I'm not a tour guide; I'm a ferryman. And you," he suddenly turned, "shouldn't be here."

  Marcus blinked. "Hey, I've got just as much right to be here as you do. This cave's made my house drafty for who knows how long. You see dead people, huh? Right. I don't know how long you've been down here or what you think you're doing, but I'm plugging up that hole as soon as I get back."

  "There are other paths," the old man said. "Plug it. It matters not. Or perhaps it would make the dead angry. Who can say?"


  "Look, I don't have time to listen to your delusions. Just tell me where my girlfriend's cat went and spare me the quasi-spiritual crap."

  The old man stopped at the door to his shack. "You do not," he said, "belong here." With that, he shut the door.

  "Hey!" Marcus rapped on the door. "You never answered me about the cat!" He waited, but the man gave no response. "Senile old nut job," Marcus grumbled.

  Unsure of what to do, he walked back up the embankment and sat himself down on a boulder. Seeing dead people. Right. It was ridiculous. When you're dead, you're dead. No spirit, no afterlife, no Creator. Spirituality was nothing more than a con game, and the crazy old man probably really believed it. Hell, he lived down here. He probably did eat the cat. At the very least, it was likely in his shack with him. There was nowhere else in sight for it to go.

  "Fagles!" he called out again. "Fa—"

  He stopped in mid-yell as a group of people stepped out of the cavern entrance and made their way down the path to the shore. Each wore an expression of confusion in direct opposition to the purpose of their stride.

  Suddenly uneasy, Marcus tried to remain unseen as he watched them make their way down to the dock. As before, the old man left his shack and stepped wordlessly to the boat. They followed, boarding after him. There were six, and four of them handed the ferryman something that glinted in the dim, orange light. Was that gold? What kind of con was this guy running? Had all of those people come through his basement?

  Marcus waited until the boat had left the shore and then crept down to the shack. Inside it was dark and windowless but for a hole in the roof above a small fire pit. A candle burned by the door, and Marcus took it as he entered. It shone on little else but a poor straw mattress, a chest, and what appeared to be a trap door in the far corner. No clothes. No closet. No odds and ends. What did the man do down here?

  There was no sign of Fagles.

  Remembering the glint he'd seen, Marcus tried the chest. Was this where he kept all the spoils from whatever con he was running? Though it was locked, the weight and the sound it made when Marcus tried to move it made it quite likely. Marcus gritted his teeth as he recalled the evangelist hucksters who'd bilked his grandma out of her savings. He'd find Fagles, yes, but he'd find out what else was happening here as well.

  Then the light dimmed suddenly and Marcus looked behind him. The door was closed. Strange, he'd thought he'd left it open, and he didn't hear it shut. He crept back to it before he realized he had done so and opened it again. The door gave a labored creak. There was no sign of the old man or the boat. He had time.

  He slipped back inside with the intent of checking the trap door. If he found half-eaten cat remains, he was going to be very disturbed, but he more than half expected—

  Something moved.

  The sound came from the trap door—or near it, at least. It sounded again, a scratching that slid up the wall, back down, and then ceased.

  "Fagles?" he called. Damn, now he'd have to check.

  The trap door was heavier than it looked, but unlocked. Lifting it a crack yielded only the sound of lapping water below. He carefully pushed it up further until it rested against the wall and then leaned on it with one arm while holding the candle in the other. There was only the river below. His reflection stared up from the water. Candlelight flickered back at him.

  Then the flame's reflection vanished, and the face looking up at him was not his own.

  Marcus jumped, dropped the candle and toppled forward, off-balance, into the water.

  He woke to find his clothes soaked, his muscles aching, and his back flat on the worn rocks of the shore. With a groan at the stiffness wrapping his body, Marcus forced himself up to sitting and realized he was downstream of the shack. The old man's boat was back at the dock.

  How long had he been out? He couldn't even recall why he'd blacked out in the first place. There'd been a face. Yes, the face had startled him, and he'd fallen. He must've hit his head on the way down. Such an idiot. Smoke and mirrors, that's all it was. All part of the scam.

  A minute later, he was pounding on the door of the shack. "Hey in there! I want some answers!"

  "You were told. You do not belong here," came a whisper behind him.

  Marcus turned with a start. The ferryman moved quietly if he—

  He stopped in mid-thought. No one was there.

  The door creaked behind him. Marcus turned again to find the ferryman in the doorway.

  "Stop that," Marcus told him.

  "Stop . . . what?"

  "Stop, ya know, jumping around. Trying to mess with my head."

  "Jumping around?" the old man asked. He grinned languidly, eyes glazed. "I was in my home." The grin darkened, tightening into a frown. "You were in my home."

  Marcus stepped back. "Your home? You're using a path from my basement to get people here for this scam! I've got just as much right to be here as you do."

  "Your own sleep is the path to your nightmares," he replied. "Do you own your nightmares, Mister Shanks, or do they own you?"

  "Oh, no, don't you try to spook me! I'm not as gullible as those people who come down here and give you money! Who the hell do you think you are?"

  "I thought you understood. This is the river Acheron, and I am Charon, ferryman to the land of the dead."

  "Are you, now?" Marcus balked. "And, let's see, so that'd be Hades over there, would it?"

  "It would be."

  "You know, you don't look Greek."

  "I am not."

  "Oh, from somewhere else, then? No, don't tell me, I don't want to hear it. I can't decide what's more insane—that you're down here selling that story, or that people are actually buying it. What, someone on the surface hypnotizes people to think they're dead and then sends them through my basement to give you money for a ride?" It struck him as needlessly complicated, but there was probably some reason for it.

  "Not all have money. So few know to bring any nowadays, and in truth, I have no use for it. But those who do bring it . . . Surely you've heard that you can't take it with you? So I collect it from them. The clutter left on the shore gets to be quite dreadful otherwise."

  "Look, 'Charon,' or whatever, I want to know what you did to those people you took across the river, and I want to know where my girlfriend's cat is."

  "I took them across the river. Nothing more."

  "But how did you get them to come down here?"

  "Everyone crosses the river eventually. I did not 'get' them here. They are dead."

  "Right. And did you take Fagles across, too?"

  "Fagles?"

  "The cat."

  "I seem to remember a cat."

  "Across the river."

  "Yes."

  "Fine," Marcus said. "Let's go. I want to cross."

  "You cannot."

  "Aha!" he shouted. "I can't cross because I haven't been brainwashed yet, can I? Can't have someone thinking rationally see your scam? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, eh?"

  "You are not dead. It is not your time to see the afterlife."

  "Afterlife. Right. Ain't gonna work on me. Religion's just a way to consolidate a power base. This is the twenty-first century. God is dead."

  "Yes, that is what Nietzsche said. The look on his face was priceless, let me tell you."

  Marcus crossed his arms. "I'm not leaving until you take me."

  "I only run the ferry. I don't do the taking. That is Death's job. He hangs about here sometimes, and he gets uptight if I take the living across before he gets to them. Says it messes up the order, and order is his thing, you see. He's a control freak. If you ask me, he has a bit of a stick up his ass, but he does outrank me."

  Marcus stood his ground. "I'm not leaving here unless you take me across."

  The ferryman huffed and then stared at him as if considering. "You are not going to let it alone, are you?"

  Marcus shook his head.

  "Then it would seem I have little choice."

 
; "I'm glad we understand each other."

  "Oh," the ferryman bent down to pick up the pole. "Do we, now?" His gnarled grip tightened on the pole for a moment before he moved suddenly toward the boat. "Come."

  They boarded the boat, and Marcus made sure to sit facing him. The ferryman hefted his weight against the pole and pushed them off from the dock. "I want you to remember," he whispered, "that you requested this. Do not touch the water."

  Their progress was slow. The ferryman remained silent so that the only sounds were the lap of the water and the creak of the boat. The silence lengthened the minutes, and the old man's clouded eyes were fixed on Marcus and paid little heed to the piloting of the boat. Unwilling to turn his back, yet feeling a growing unease at meeting the ferryman's gaze, Marcus found himself searching for words to fill the silence.

  "Would you stop staring?"

  The old man grinned, eyes still fastened to Marcus. "Habit's force, I believe. As I said, I avoid speaking to the dead. They usually turn away if I watch them in silence."

  "I'm not turning my back to you," Marcus said.

  "You are not dead yet, either."

  "Exactly. I'm planning to keep it that way."

  "I merely state fact."

  Marcus stole a glance at the cliffs that rose against the approaching shore. Still too far. "So how'd you know what Nietzsche said if you don't talk to the dead?"

  "Most dead, no. But the philosophers are sometimes interesting. Musicians on occasion."

  "Musicians? Seen Elvis?"

  "Hasn't everyone?"

  "So he is dead, then."

  "Oh, quite. But still very nice to his mother, I understand."

  "Mm." Marcus rolled his eyes. "What about Nixon?"

  "I tend to row faster with a politician aboard. I may have set a record the day I took him."

  What do you know, Marcus thought, a psycho hermit con-man with a sense of humor. "Perhaps you should invest in a motorboat."

  "That was tried once."

  "And?"

  "It upset the dog."

  "I didn't see a dog."