Piracy: The Leah Chronicles (After it Happened Book 8)

by Devon C. Ford

  One of those men found himself reaching the first floor unscathed where his rapid, deep breathing was the only sound filling the echoing corridors. Noises behind him made him yelp in fear and point his rifle back down the stairs but relief that it was one of his own people washed over him.

  They exchanged a few quick words, deciding to get out of there and back to the boats, when the sound of pursuit from below reached them. Running down the corridor to escape and find another exit they took refuge by tucking into a deep doorway. The door behind them opened and a moment of stunned silence reigned as the two pirates found themselves looking at a pair of women, one fair and one dark with tattoos visible all the way up both arms and on her chest under the collar bones. They moved quicker than the women, raising their guns to shout and intimidate just as the screams started. They were forced to their knees and both pleaded as they clung to one another in fear.

  A sickening crack filled the room and one of the attackers clattered to the ground in a way that spoke of severe and unrecoverable injury. The surviving pirate spun to face the threat but was driven backwards to the ground as his rifle loudly discharged a pair of un-aimed bullets into the furniture in the room.

  Dropping the wooden stool he had used to break the neck and crack open the skull of the first pirate, Joshua Bucknor fell upon the other one like a demon unleashed. As the rifle was dragged out of his fingers and forced up his chest where the cold metal crushed his windpipe and stopped any air from getting into his lungs, the pirate’s eyes bulged unnaturally as he stared at his attacker and saw only bloodshot eyes above a beard and bared teeth that he half recognised.

  Pouring out every ounce of hatred and fear and terrible, crushing guilt he could muster, the American leaned all of his body weight into the weapon as tears and mucus flowed down his face and into the beard he hadn’t got around to shaving off fully. He heard screaming, only later realising that it came from his own mouth, as he forced the gun down again and again to the sounds of crunching until the limp body beneath him finally let him know that he had won.

  He had dreamed of doing that for years, even planned it once as a way to end his life by forcing them to execute him for murder, but he had never seen the plan through. Rolling off the body to look at the deaths he had just caused, Joshua cried aloud as the rest of the pain left him. Saved from their uncertain fate, Kate and Sera knelt beside him and both wrapped their arms around the damaged sailor, just holding him as he sobbed and screamed almost silently as though the pressure was too great to come out.

  Outside and below, rising above the other small sounds of the end of the fight, came the heavy clattering of the big machine gun pouring lead and murder out to sea.

  While You Were Away

  We woke with the dawn and set off fast for home, leaving a pair of the militia at the farms to bolster their defences until the situation had resolved itself. I initially argued against losing any more guns from Sanctuary, but the addition of just a single pair of fighters meant the world of difference for the farm and very little to us at the town.

  Nobody spoke much; breath enough to talk meant that the pace could be increased and as I set the pace it was pretty brisk. Reaching the gates before the sun had climbed high enough in the sky to offer any real heat I was first inside the walls and asking where Lucien was. My stomach churned and my head pounded but thoughts of personal comfort were abandoned when I saw the looks they wore.

  “We were attacked,” said the olive-skinned Spaniard guarding the gates, “in the night.” He looked drawn. Pale and tired as though he had been on duty since we had left the day before, which in truth he had been. I gave up asking them any more questions as I could tell by the smell that the fight hadn’t happened there. I took the direct route to the bay, skipping over the sand towards the sea wall and finding my way blocked by the rising tide which forced me onto the lowest edge of the sloped castle walls. Nemesis followed, splashing in the low water without regard as though she shared my unspoken fear.

  I saw bodies. Even from the distance I still had to cover I could tell that the bodies were both ours and theirs. Neil saw me coming and head me off before I got to the covered lines of corpses to throw off the blankets shrouding their faces. His left arm was in a crude sling and the sleeve of his shirt had been cut away to show a heavy dressing on the outer edge of his meaty arm, but my mind registered none of this; I showed no concern that one of my oldest friends had evidently been shot. Again.

  “Easy, Leah,” Neil said to soothe me. My eyes told him I wouldn’t take anything easy, not until I knew.

  “Where is he?” I demanded, my chin quivering and my voice starting to crack. “Where’s Lucien?” He didn’t answer me quickly enough so I sidestepped his girth and reached down for the first blanket which I tore back to expose the dull eyes of a dead pirate. Blood had dried as it ran from his mouth and my eyes ranged further down the body to see a series of neat holes through his chest beneath the dirty shirt. Next to him, in terrible juxtaposition, was the pale face of a French boy I had personally instructed in the use of the assault rifle that lay beside his body. His eyes were closed and his face seemed oddly untouched as though he just slept a very deep and still sleep, but further down I saw the bloody ruin of his legs where bullets had torn through his thighs to empty his body of blood in seconds. I stood, barely resisting the urge to kick the dead body of the pirate as though it would serve any logical purpose, and turned on Neil again.

  “Tell me,” I pleaded, tears running freely down my face as I begged him to break the news to me and not force me to pull back each blanket in turn until I found the broken body of the man I loved.

  Of the man who would be the father of my child.

  “He’s not here,” Neil said, his own voice thick with sorrow and anger, “I swear it.”

  “So where is he?” I demanded of Neil who shifted uncomfortably.

  “We don’t know. Nobody knows. We can’t find his… we can’t find him.”

  I swallowed, fighting down the rising bile in my stomach forced up by the emotions bouncing around my mind and body like a rocket. “Perhaps he fell into the water and…” Neil started, abandoning the train of thought as he watched me fall apart. I crumpled to the ground, kneeling beside the two bodies and sobbing out loud so that Nemesis, scared and unnerved by my display, whined and nudged me with her large muzzle where I hid my face in my hands.

  Boots approached and I heard a quiet exchange between Dan and Neil as Mitch ran towards his home shouting Alita’s name. Ash, similarly concerned by the sight and sound of me crying on my knees, came to push his wet nose under my hands as I continued to cry.

  “Missing,” I heard Neil say to Dan, “one of the militia saw him go down but his body isn’t here…”

  “Who saw what?” I snapped through my tears as I flew back to my feet in one single movement. “Did you say someone saw Lucien go down? Who? Where are they?” Both Neil and Dan lifted their hands to calm me down but I was having none of it. I turned on my heel and began demanding answers from the subdued militia members on the sea wall.

  “L’as-tu vu?Où est Lucien? Vite!” None of them answered and I felt shame that they looked down to avoid my anger. I wasn’t angry at them, not really, I was terrified that I had lost him. I continued shouting questions in English and French amidst the embarrassed gathering until Mitch jogged back to the position. He held no such regard for the dignity of the enemy dead and began pulling the remainder of the blankets aside until he found one with a gaping, ragged wound in place of his chest. To my horror, and to the surprise of everyone there, he dragged the body of the pirate out of the line and began kicking it like an out of control drunk in a street fight at three in the morning.

  “You wee bastard!” he bawled, and he kicked and stamped, his eyes wild and devoid of all sense. “You fucking bastard!” he roared until Dan, having seen more than enough, stepped in to stop the brutality.

  “That’s enough mate,” he said firmly but as kindly as he c
ould manage, pacing a hand on his shoulder. My eyes went wide as Mitch shrugged him off angrily and launched another kick at the dead man’s skull to bounce it around on the lifeless neck grotesquely. Dan, his own nerves frayed and his temper rising higher, tried again. This time he grabbed Mitch firmly by the thickly padded shoulder of his vest and yanked him off balance to bring his face closer.

  “I said,” he yelled, “that’s enough.” Mitch rounded on him, his face a rictus of uncontrolled rage as he drew back his head to throw it forward and connect the skulls of the two men. Stunned by the unexpected blow and the ringing sound of their heads banging together, Dan staggered back a pace and shook his head in shock that his friend had just cheap-shotted him so viciously. Friend or not, Dan stepped forwards and transformed into the person I had seen him become on more than a few occasions. He sidestepped Mitch’s wild haymaker, stepping under the arm and throwing his own up with an open palm to connect with the soldier’s chin. As this happened, Dan’s right leg had hooked Mitch’s and bent the knee to fold the Scotsman painfully back on himself onto the stone walkway. Dan held him there, chin pushed painfully upwards as the proximity of his upper body prevented the hands coming back to him, and the legs trapped underneath stopped any kicks.

  “I said that’s enough,” Dan shouted again, removing his hand and stepping backwards and up quickly to avoid any wild lashing out. Mitch floundered, trying to untangle himself and failing to do so quickly. For the first time I saw Ash step in front of Dan ready to protect him against one of our own.

  “Stop it, Mitch,” yelled Alita’s voice as she hurried towards us holding a bundle in her arms. “You silly bloody shite,” she called her man as she switched to rapid-fire Spanish to berate him better in her native tongue. Chest heaving and eyes pouring with tears of fear and adrenaline, Mitch eyeballed Dan for a second longer until the moment passed, evaporating to bring him back to his senses. He answered Alita in accented Spanish. He mumbled apologies, explaining that the one he was trying to kill a second time over had broken into his home where Alita and their baby were sleeping. It was clear to me that she didn’t need his help, given the state of the body even before Mitch had abused it, but I felt his pain; not being there to fight for other people was eating me up inside too, only my man was nowhere to be found.

  That realisation hit me again, interrupted briefly by the display of the enraged Scot, and that ton of bricks drove me back down to the ground where I cried again.

  ~

  “Mamon?” Adalene’s voice startled Leah from the doorway. “Why do you cry?”

  Leah wiped her tears away and sniffed with a small laugh. “Oh, I was just remembering something… difficult,” she told her as she reached out for an embrace. Adalene went to her mother smiling, pouring out her need to comfort others as though her heart held more than enough love for everyone. Leah held onto her tightly, even after Adalene released her own squeeze on her, and thought of the day that she would have to show her how to shoot a gun.

  The thought of her, of her little girl, going out into the dangerous outside world filled her with dread and she wanted to keep her shut up inside the walls forever. Leah knew that wouldn’t happen, and if she took after either her mother or her father in any way then keeping her contained would crush her spirit. Leah released her, standing to close the heavy book which had filled with her scribbled words far quicker than she had anticipated. She knew where the story was going, knew where it ended and what they all went through to get there, but the next part wasn’t her story to tell.

  Just as she had when she transcribed Joshua’s words, Leah called her dog and closed up the room she had adopted as her office, to go and find the man who could tell the next part of the story with the clarity it deserved.

  A Different Perspective

  I am no soldier, or at least I wasn’t until I found myself far from home with no family and no idea what was happening in the world. It took many years and some strange events to put me where I am now, but that is not all for here.

  I was a boy when it happened, but events forced me to become a man faster than the world before would have wanted. The time I first picked up a gun was only days before our little town, that we thought so invulnerable, was attacked. I never expected to go from school and boxing to explosions and gun battles in only a year, but that was where my life decided to go and I was just along for the ride.

  I was just a boy, but the young girl who came with the English people was younger. She never strayed far from the big man with his dog and I don’t remember ever speaking more than one or two words to her for many years.

  I tried my hand at fishing but found it was not to my tastes. I spent a year at the farm learning how they worked their fields but grew bored. When word was spread that they wanted fighters to be trained I took that chance and found I had a good skill with a rifle. I could hit targets at very long range, and somehow the complexities of the physics involved came easily to me, even if the words of the soldier who taught me did not make as much sense.

  I was given a new gun and sent up to the tower to keep watch over our small space and found that I enjoyed it. I thought I would miss other people, would feel isolated and alone, but in truth I liked being just slightly removed from everyone below. I spent some weeks back in the town when my time in the tower had to be changed, what they called ‘rotating me out’ which sounded strange to me, but I always looked forward to that long climb back up the rocky path to keep watch. When nobody watched me I tended to the graves of the people buried on the cliff top.

  When the time came for me to be called up, for me to be taken on an adventure thanks to my skill with a rifle, I had no idea the direction of my life would be so changed again.

  I say all of this not to waste the time of anyone who will read this story, but to hopefully let them better understand that I was not prepared for the world I found myself in that early summer night a decade ago.

  ~

  I had the high ground, and while the distance was a lot closer than I was used to it was impossible for me to miss. I fired in bursts, cutting down the men who were just shadows to me, lit up by the bright flames pouring from the ends of their weapons. All around me I heard the terrible noises of gunfire and bullets bouncing from the stones and I remember thinking that I could be hit by one of those bullets flying so randomly at any time. That made me speed up, made me try to achieve the goal quicker than I should have, and I amazed myself at how fast and professional my magazine changed must have looked.

  That vanity cost me, because the second time I changed magazines I was hit in my back and fell down to hit my head hard.

  I woke up when it was still dark and tried to keep as still as I could. I knew I was on a boat from the sounds and movements, and I knew I had been shot in my vest because my entire back felt like I had been kicked by a mule. My head spun which, combining with the movement on the water, made me vomit. I tried to do it as quietly as possible, to try not to move, but in case anyone has ever tried to wake up with the egg of a goose on their forehead on a moving boat and be sick without moving, it is impossible.

  I coughed and spat the acidic contents of my stomach down my front, forcing myself to sit up and gasp in a deep breath to cough again and try to get the rest of it out of my mouth and nose. They started shouting at me, very angry and one of them hit me in the head again with his gun. The blow was not hard, at least not hard enough to make me lose consciousness, but it hurt and gave me an excuse to lie back down and pretend to be stunned as a loop of rough rope was tied around my wrists.

  I kept my eyes closed and tried to think.

  I slowly felt down to my right hip and found the holster for my gun. It was empty, and I cursed myself for thinking that it would have been missed by these people. I still had spare magazines for the pistol I no longer owned, and I also had two spare magazines for my other weapon which was nowhere to be seen, but what I didn’t have was my knife.

  Forcing myself to stay calm and failing, my breat
hing stayed fast and deep as I bounced painfully around in the small boat. I couldn’t understand their words, but their tone made me think they had messed up very badly. There were only three voices in the boat that I could make out, and from what I could guess they were arguing amongst themselves. I stayed quiet and as still as possible, not having to wait long before the screaming engine stopped revving and just emitted a coughing chugging sound as the boat rocked back and forth in the water without the forward momentum it had previously. My stomach threatened to empty itself again and my head pounded like Satan himself was a blacksmith and my skull his anvil.

  More shouting and a noise I couldn’t place made me open my eyes to curse the lightness of the dawn sky as it brought a fresh stab of pain to my head. I closed my eyes again but in my mind I looked at the images of what I had seen. A wooden platform was being lowered to the water like the kind of contraption that would be used to paint the sides of tall buildings. Or the sides of big ships. A man was on it, skinny and dressed in dirty clothes like all of them I had seen and he carried the same kind of weapon as the majority of them did.

  He shouted at the men and they shouted back, none of them seeming to speak for them as a whole.

  Ils sont si mal disciplinés qu’il me fait peur, I thought to myself. They were so badly disciplined it frightened me.

  I kept my eyes shut and tried to listen, as Leah would say, between the lines.

  She said this when she did not know the language people spoke well enough and tried instead to read the tone of the conversation. She made me do it when she spoke in English with Mitch and he used the words that do not show in any translation dictionary I have ever found, and I realised in that moment what she meant.

  Now, listening between the lines of their shouted conversation, I got the impression that they had failed and the man on the rickety lift was unhappy about it. They argued that it wasn’t their fault. They blamed other people, perhaps, maybe even each other as their shouts grew angrier until two of the men in the boat stood to point their weapons at one another only a few feet above my face. I held my breath, willing my chest not to heave as my lungs tried to force as much air into my body as possible.