A Fleet of Phantoms

The jungle seems to choke me as I run, every palm my worn leather boots take me past is glaring death my way.

I squeeze the grip of my machete tighter. My fingers ache but raw adrenaline spurs me on as I weave about the palmettos and tall grasses, praying the rounds of my pursuers would not find me. A voice as rough and gritty as a gravel road booms through the brush, “Fire at will! Bonus for taking him alive’s not worth shite if he gets away!” Anger now fuels my footfalls. It gives me energy.

Their flintlocks were lightning in the night. Dozens of momentary flashes tail me close, their thunder simultaneous and a sharp pain in my ears. The base of a great palm tree shatters at my side as a ball round strikes it, sending needles of wood through my leather vest and into my arm. I cry out in pain but keep my pace. I was almost to safety.

My spirits soar as a gap forms between gunshots, confirming my suspicions that the hunters fired almost in unison. I could see the single auburn flame in the far distance that marked my destination; a ray of hope amongst a night of terror and death that pulled me forward in spite of the odds.
“All you buffoons load your blasted weapons! We fire on three!” It was the voice from before; the rough one. Fear holds me tight in its grip. Roughly forty flintlocks wouldn’t be likely to miss if fired together, right? I think about how these men must have trained to use their weapons—from the hours of target practice to the many battles they’ve faced. ‘Nixon, you’re a weak and quivering mouse pretending to be a brave and powerful lion.’ The voice of Sparrow, one of the few people I can call a friend, echoes. I grit my teeth and press on.

“One!”

The torch creeps closer. I can see the dried section of wood the flame burns on.

“Two!”

I see the man holding it; a young and lanky fellow with tangled brown hair and a red strip of cloth wrapped around it.

“Three!”

I was supposed to make it to that man. I was supposed to be ten feet away at most before giving the signal. I knew right away that I surpassed that length at least five times over as I shouted, “BE MERRY LADS!” With all the bravado my lungs could muster. I couldn’t trust myself to make it.

Gunfire erupts not from behind me, but from patches of shrubbery and the tops of palms. The noise hits my ears as if it were a physical punch and I throw myself onto a hard bed of twigs and moist soil, cupping my hands over my ears as ringing overtakes them. Frantic screams and further gunfire penetrate my hands. I expect to feel the bite of a ball round any second, instinctively flinching in spite of none coming for me.

I feel ashamed at being so afraid and force myself to my feet, wet dirt clinging to my hands and clothing. The world is a blur of flashes at the ends of muskets and pistols, pain pulsing strong through my ears and arm, and screams. My eye catches the moonlight glint of a machete’s blade on the ground. It had been knocked away during my fall. I stoop to pick it up but something heavy—like a giant rock—strikes my back hard and I fall once more.

A man now stands over me; tanned leathers stretching tight around his muscular form. His left eye is sewn shut and a gnarly scar cuts down the side of his face.
“Holding a machete he was...” he mumbles to himself, the dry and raspy words barely managing to reach my ears. The man appears calm—like this is an everyday routine for him. I quickly realize that this person had just kicked me to the ground and my eyes widen upon drinking in the curved edge of a cutlass secured tight in his hand. Moonlight runs down the blade and I see my own horrified expression in the steel. The man leans into a knee and a wrinkly, yet somehow comforting, smile spreads across his battered face as he extends a great, meaty, hand to me, “I will help you.” His voice is genuine, even though his face looks like that of a monster.

Hesitantly, I put forward a hand to take his, but a gleaming shaft of metal pierces where the man’s heart should be. He looks down, expression hardly changing.
“Another time.” He says, falling to his knees and collapsing before me with a thud. I use the small section of time it takes the wiry, bare-chested, pirate to pull out his blade to reach my own weapon and raise it instinctively over my head. Steel hits steel and I find myself pushing against his thin cutlass with my life on the line. I wasn’t winning.
“We’ll fetch a good price for your head, boy,” the man rasps through gritted teeth, pushing the edge of his blade closer to my flesh. My arms wobbled and threatened to give way. “Thought you could knick from ol’ captain Harvey, eh? Thought you was clever?” Blood from his previous kill drips onto my skin. It feels oddly cold—like ice, even. The edge of his sword is only a few inches from my throat when pulls it away. Before I can even react, the pirate plunges the tip through my gut and I curl upwards after letting out an instinctive dull grunt.

My enemy yanks it out and a burning, the pain of which I could hardly bear, blazes through my abdomen. Just as he pulls back to deliver the finishing blow, a shot rings out that cuts past the pain and snaps me back to reality. The pirate drops like a sack of flour—a circle of crimson having budded on his forehead—face frozen in an anticipatory grimace. I let my head fall back to the ground. It burns so much. I could feel hot blood seeping into my clothing. A voice keeps me calm, though. A familiar gruff and distant baritone.
“Hang on, son. You did me well.” I feel two cold, stony, hands take hold of me, lifting me upwards with noticeable ease.
I whispered, “In my satchel, captain,” feeling drowsy all of a sudden. We were walking now.
“Aye,” said captain Kendel. “If ye make it through this you’ll be part of me crew.”

I let my eyes fall shut. For whatever reason, the last thing I remember hearing was, “Another time.” In a dry, raspy, tone.