Anne followed his gaze, and understood the problem at once. She drew her cutlass, the ringing of the foreign steel mimicking the cry of the bell in a way that made Anne wince.
As the sound of the blade waned and Anne focussed her attention on the back room, she could hear a vile frothing as if of some beast coming from the depths of the storage.
"Step away from the storage room!" she shouted.
A half a heartbeat passed before a loud snapping came from the storage room, followed by stomping boots across wooden floorboards. Jules barreled into the main room of the store, knocking against the walls.
His eyes, both aware and not, both alive and not, trained on Anne in a strange half-focus as though he were only taking in the shape of her and the cutlass in her hand.
Anne tried to act first and stepped forward, planning to strike, but Jules moved more quickly than she did. He darted forward, moving like a trained fighter, and lashed out at her as he dodged her strike. Anne pulled back her shoulder and twisted away from the blazing-fast fist, avoiding the blow and repositioning.
Though his strength and speed were extraordinary, it was no replacement for proper training. He was a simple general store owner, not a fighter, and Anne had the training and the wherewithal to react to him.
Jules was wild, but hammered with a strength unparalleled. As each blow came Anne's way, and as she dodged just out of the way, she felt the force of each one. If any one of them made contact, bones would break.
William struck in the chaos, a fierce punch to the head knocking Jules back, but only slightly. Jules snarled, beast-like and feral, and turned his attention to William. Anne reared back and thrust her cutlass into Jules' stomach, gutting the portly man.
Were he a normal man, Jules would have doubled over in pain, but he kept fighting even as his intestines spilled out in front of him.
William faltered in the face of the walking dead man. Jules shot his fist forward. William pulled back, but too late. Jules' fist caught William in the left shoulder. A successive snap of several bones cracking broke through the tense air around them. William stifled a cry of shock and sliced his sword down and across Jules' head. The blade slammed halfway through Jules' skull and caught in the man's brain.
Finally, mercifully, Jules fell to the floor of the store. William held onto his blade as it fell with the dead man, stuck in the hard bone of the skull. He wiggled it free and backed away from the body, breathing hard. For a moment, William and Anne stared at the body together, along with several of the crewmates.
A noise outside drew their attention. The citizens of the hamlet were approaching the storefront en masse.
The din began as a small rap on the front doors but grew to a thunder of slamming bodies, breaking glass, and cracking wood. The six tall barrels at the front jolted forward with each second, teetering as though precariously perched on a precipice edge.
Instinctually, the crew rushed to reinforce the lifeless wooden barricade keeping them from the horde of hollow men and women on the other side. They pressed their large sailor's bodies against the curved planks, adding weight to them.
On the sides of the general store, the citizens attacked the glass windows and less secure wooden boxes covering them.
Anne, pushing with her might against the barrels in front of the door, could see through a small gap as they broke through the glass and grabbed at the boxes in their way.
Though the townsfolk had obviously lost their wits, there was some intelligence still working the gears in their minds. The men slamming against the doors were ramming in unison, and the others took down the ramshackle wall to access the interior. Blood stained the hands of those prying at the boxes through the broken glass, shards sticking out from long slashes running up their arms.
"Gunners forward!" she shouted through the synchronized slams. "Aim for the head or the heart!"
The brave souls who heard the call jumped up to the ledge holding the boxes and barrels against the windows. Victoria was one such soul, and she fired into the thick of the men and women coming at them. First, she aimed at those taking down their protection, and then she took aim at the men attacking the front doors.
With each shot, smoke filled the room and settled in the small space. It wasn't long before the air was thick with the remnants of the black powder. The smell was bad enough, but the worst of it was the choking and seizing it brought to the lungs, and the effect on one's vision.
Anne could manage her breathing better than some, but the thick grey mist overtook her eyes and made them water.
"Cease—" Anne coughed as the smoke entered her throat proper. It arrested her voice as her body forced it out. "Cease fire!" she managed after a laboured moment.
The gunfire stopped after a few more shots into the thick mass of bodies in front of the store, and though the crew stopped firing, it only stopped more smoke from accumulating. With no breeze, it lingered in the spaces between the crew's bodies, shifting and swirling with the small movements in a dance of air rarely seen.
A loud splintering noise split through the grunting on both sides of the store as one of the barrels burst open in the front. Its contents—potatoes buried in sand—spilled out in front of the double doors.
Suddenly, the synchronized slamming against the doors stopped, and there was a brief silence, a stillness of the air. At that moment, the silence closed in on Anne's heart and fixed it in place with an icy hand.
Just as suddenly as the silence came, it left again. The slamming didn't return, and instead, the wave of the hollow people outside the store rushed at the broken barrier. They punched and pulled at the weak spot, the chink in the armour, all hands and fingers prying and tearing at splinters and sand and potatoes. They smashed the wood to pieces inch by inch, creating an opening for the raging pile of people on the other side.
Anne knew it wouldn't be long for them if they stayed. "To the roof!" she shouted above the clamour, another cough of smoke choking the volume of her words. "Retreat!" she yelled as she led the charge up to the second floor of the store. Along the way, Anne grabbed an axe from the shelf.
The second floor of the store opened like an attic, with a hatch at the top of steep ladder stairs. Anne climbed first and held the door open for the crew to climb in more quickly.
The crewmates who had made it inside the store were uninjured, aside from the smoke lingering in the lungs. A few of the men coughed and took long and laboured breaths as they entered the storage room and climbed the stairs up to the second floor.
The only one injured was William, who was last up the stairs. He couldn't move his injured shoulder, but one could hardly tell if it slowed him any as he climbed the stairs like any other.
As soon as William was on the other side of the horizontal door, Anne planted her feet square as she held the hatch open with her hip. She lifted the axe she had pilfered from the storefront in both hands and slammed it down on the top of the stairs. The axe cut through the wooden beam a quarter way, revealing it to have an old, blunted edge.
Anne cursed under her breath and wrenched the axe free before tossing it aside. She pulled out the golden cutlass, the strange, ever-sharp metal made of the same ore as the bell, and it rang into the frigid night once more with its peculiar song.
Just as she pulled it out, the first of the citizens who had made it through the front of the store ran into the back room and began climbing the stairs.
Anne sliced the blade downwards at one of the hinges bolting the stairs to the top floor, and it cracked in half. The stairs went slightly uneven but still stood.
The man who was climbing only faltered a bit when his weight shifted beneath him, but continued his ascent.
Anne had no time to rear back for another strike; if she did, the hollow man would be on her. She pulled back and threw the hatch closed. The man's hand crashed upwards through the hatch, and he clawed at the boards.
William, who had stayed by her side, locked the hatch in place before the man could p
ush it open. It wouldn't do much against that abnormal strength, but each second counted.
Anne didn't waste a breath for thanks and ran to the second floor sleeping quarters. "To the roof!" she said as she pointed to two windows overlooking the front of the store. Her voice was almost back to normal without the smoke choking her throat.
The crewmates used their muskets to break the glass of the windows and clear the debris before jumping through. Anne turned around to watch the doorway to the second floor, her cutlass poised in front of her.
Slam! The hatch pulsed up with a loud thud and clank of the metal lock. Anne tensed and bent her knees. Slam! Another crack against the wood from below. Anne backed up, feeling the crewmates behind her thinning as they went to the roof. Slam! The pounding came with a creak as the wood strained to stay together. She gritted her teeth and shifted to holding the cutlass in both hands.
Slam! The wood broke open in two, one plank still attached to the lock as the other side flew open. The side that opened hit the wall and came back down on the head of the man at the top of the stairs, but he climbed through unabated.
"Anne!" Victoria called out to her.
Anne turned around and jumped out the nearest window in one motion. The shards of glass still attached to the frame cut through her clothes and sliced into her skin before she landed on the small roof on top of the deck. A musket shot rang out behind her just as she fell, the crack of the black powder coinciding with the crack of her shoulder against the wood.
Alexandre helped Anne to her feet, his typically placid eyes burning with that same volcanic rage she'd seen before but mixed with a pitying expression on his face. He felt sorry for the men and women attacking them at that moment, for the reason behind their unreasonableness.
Anne gripped his arm. "If you have time for pity, you have time to think a way out for us."
Alexandre glanced at her and then doubled back as her words hit him. He smiled, but there was none of the small warmth in it she had felt before she had gone to sleep. "Is it not obvious?" he said. "We must kill them all."
"How can we kill them when we can't even hold them here?" Victoria yelled over her shoulder at Alexandre as she shot into the window again.
"We won't have to hold them for long," William said at the side of the roof.
Anne joined him at the side of the roof and looked in the direction he was pointing. In the distance, she could see the shapes of twenty people advancing in the waning moonlight towards the town. They came in the direction of where they first landed, so chances were they were crewmates from the Queen Anne's Revenge.
And, if that weren't enough of an indication, Anne could make out another figure ahead of the pack running at blazing speeds towards them. The figure had a spear in one hand, and he was missing an arm.
As though challenging William's assertion, one of the entranced jumped through the window at Victoria. Victoria fell backwards, her musket braced between her and the crazed man on top of her. Victoria kept rolling back and kicked the man off the roof with her momentum. Anne watched as the man fell headfirst to the ground, his neck snapping violently to the side in a deathly contortion.
Before Victoria fell off the roof with the man, Alexandre caught her hand and pulled her to safety.
"Back away from the windows," Anne commanded. "There's too many of them. Kill them as they come onto the roof."
The musketeers moved away from the open windows and stepped back as much as the small space allowed. Another citizen climbed through the windowpane a moment later, and an iron ball met his temple. With the musket spent, the crewmate moved out of the way to allow another a better vantage point.
Anne glanced back to the road and saw Pukuh nearly at the centre of the hamlet. Anne called to him, and he looked up to their perch, losing a half step. Anne pointed to the front of the store.
"Fight them one on one. Aim for the head or heart."
Pukuh motioned with his spear in her direction and slowed his gait even further as he approached the corner of the general store's front deck. He lowered his stance as he glided towards the remaining enemies.
The twenty crewmates on his tail approached, weapons drawn. Noticing Pukuh's caution, they slowed to join him. Anne repeated her message to the newcomers before turning around to the rooftop battle.
The change in vantage point proved effective at managing the numbers, and before long the sounds of raging, entranced people dissipated, and the battle with them. When no more enemies jumped through to attack them, the crew risked looking inside.
After confirming it was safe and all the villagers were dead, Anne and the rest of the crew on the roof re-entered the second floor. They went down to the first floor where the other crewmates, along with dozens of dead bodies, awaited them.
The smoke of the earlier musket fire had abated, and Anne could see and breathe more freely. Blood splattered every wall and covered much of the items in the store. Twenty to thirty bodies lay in piles in each corner and out to the deck, blood and guts and brains pooling and oozing out of their now truly lifeless bodies.
The crewmates who had come to their rescue, including Pukuh, appeared winded, wounded, and confused as they looked over the bodies of what, to them, were ordinary farmers and housewives.
Before anyone could ask, Anne spoke up. "Everything will be explained in time. For now, I want to be back on the ship to rest. Questions can wait for dawn."
…
Anne awoke in the middle of her sleep for the second time that night, but this time it was not with the cracking sound of a pistol ringing into the night. It was with the warning of more to come on the horizon.
"Ship approaching off the port bow. To quarters!" she heard William shouting outside her door.
Before the inevitable knock came, she was out of bed and opening it to his startled face. Behind him, men were clamouring to ready the cannons and muskets for a ship battle.
Anne and William went to the weather deck, where Anne traced across the horizon towards the approaching ship. She pulled out a spyglass and saw a sloop heading for them. Dawn had broken, and she would have overslept if she had gotten enough sleep the first time. As it stood, she was burning the candle on both ends, twice over.
Anne wiped away the tired from her eyes, took a deep breath, and prepared herself for a battle of a different sort.
Amidst final preparations for battle, something strange happened as the sloop approached. It slowed to a full stop just out of range of the cannons, just close enough for her to see the name Whydah Gally on the side, and Anne could see its crew lowering a longboat into the water.
What sort of trickery is this? "Muskets to port! Hold steady," she commanded.
She watched the longboat as it slowly came closer and closer to the Queen Anne's Revenge. Before long, she could make out those in the boat, as well as the one at the head, standing tall and lean with a familiar pretty face and jet-black eyes.
Anne gasped and shook her head in disbelief. "Sam?"
8. Pirates and Thieves
Edward went to stroke his beard absentmindedly before he remembered he had shaved it off not a few days prior. His hands shook. The haunting feeling he so desperately wanted to suppress had returned. He took another drink from his flask.
"May I?" Herbert beckoned with his hand outstretched.
Edward, Herbert, and John all sat just outside of the alcove near the surgeon's room. Edward was sitting directly on the deck, his arms resting on his bent knees and his back against the wall of the room. Herbert was in front of him, leaning forward in his wheelchair, and John was to his left sitting on a tall box of cargo.
Edward took another swig and reluctantly handed it to Herbert, who took a generous portion for himself.
The crewmates who had gathered before at the sound of the gunfire had dispersed back to their eating or work above deck. Very few crewmates seemed surprised or even upset over the news that their captain had just executed Nigel, and the few that were didn't hold the feel
ing for long.
"You said she didn't rule this ship through intimidation," Edward mumbled. The words blurted out without his meaning to say them, and he regretted them at once. It was a childish accusation of a lie and felt more lash than a question.
John looked at Edward, knowing the words were meant for him. His face was stone, but his youthful eyes showed the pain of that lash. "And I stand by it," he said simply. "She saved your life, probably all our lives, by doing what she did to Nigel."
"And then she threatened us," Herbert chimed in.
"She told you the rules. I already told you that her word is law, that's the difference."
"And where exactly are these laws written?" Edward levelled John with a forceful gaze he hoped had the intended effect. After John was silent for a moment, Edward continued. "She rules on whims only she can know. Had he done something else that displeased her, she could have come up with some other law of hers to justify the act. How are we to know when we step on her toes?"
John rose to his feet and balled his fists. "Nigel was told to leave you be. He disobeyed that order. Or did you forget that?" John stared daggers at Edward in defence of his captain. He seemed almost a bit too invested. "Would you have done any differently were you captain and someone nearly killed a crewmate over a petty dispute?"
Edward glanced over at Herbert, remembering how he had punished him for disobeying orders. Had Herbert been more like Nigel, would he have killed him over it? He'd left Kenneth Locke stranded on an island to die, doing everything but pull the trigger—and he'd later regretted it when Kenneth came back as Cache-Hand. He'd also admonished Bartholomew Roberts for sparing Walter Kennedy.
John seemed to hit hard at Edward's sensibilities. He hadn't been as consistent upon reflection as he had hoped he had been in practice. In some ways, he had become harsher, and in others, more lax in his responsibilities.
Edward let out a sigh as he looked away from Herbert and stared at the deck. "I don't know what I would have done had I been in her position," he said. "Perhaps you are right, and perhaps I would have done the same."
Blackbeard's Family Page 11
