King of My Nightmare (King of My Nightmare, Book 1): Endless Horizon Pirate Stories

by Cristi Taijeron

  After all the struggles I had overcome in my lifetime, it seemed I had met my fate by shipwreck. With no hope in my blackening heart and no air for my exasperated lungs to breathe, I submitted my soul to the warm, but violent arms of the Caribbean Sea.

  Chapter 11

  How Many Graves

  Hearing surf pounding in the distance and birds chirping overhead, I pried my heavy eyes open and looked around. Finding my cheek pressed against cold, damp sand and my body soaking wet, I remembered what happened last night. But the beaming blue sky and sheer aqua waters were quite contrary to anything I’d recently witnessed. Maybe I died. Maybe this was heaven. The sight of wet and shiny palm fronds blowing in the gentle breeze looked rather heavenly. But no, my head hurt too badly for this to be anything divine.

  When I sat up—so sore I was hardly capable of movement—I saw Billy Barlow lying next to me, face down in the sand. There was a hideous gash notched into his bald head, and blood running down the rolls on his neck. He looked dead. We all had to be dead. There is no way anyone else could have lived through that shipwreck.

  I shook his shoulder, anyhow. “Barlow. Barlow. Are you alive?”

  He didn’t answer. This certainly was not heaven. It had to be Hell. Every small movement of my body reminded me just how violently I had been battered in the storm, but I continued to shake him.

  He started choking. The hoggish snorts and gags hit my ears like a choir of angels harmonizing in the clouds.

  “You’re alive!” I yelped, my eyes beginning to water.

  Spitting out sand, Barlow lifted his face from the ground. Sticky grains clung to his cheeks and nose as he hacked, “You’re damn right I’m alive. It’ll take more than a bitchy little squall like that to take me down.”

  Thrilled to hear him speaking, I hugged him like a happy ol’ fool. “Oh, we’re both alive. How in the world did we live? I remember drowning.”

  “You didn’t drown. I grabbed you and swam you to shore.”

  “You can swim?”

  He sat up and rubbed around the horrific gash on the side of his head. “Yes. I grew up by a lake and I learned at a wee age. It’s something every sailor should know.”

  “They should. I should. I would have died if you didn’t get to me. Thank you. Thank you so much for saving me. But what about the others? Can they swim?” My mind flashed over the memory of them all falling overboard and then sinking into the dark and violent sea. “Do you think any of them made it to shore?”

  “I don’t know any more than you do, Bentley. You just woke me up.” He spit some more.

  “Well, if anyone lived, they may need help. We should go find them.” I stood up, aching like I never had before. “And the ship. It can’t be gone, can it? How far did you swim?”

  “Not far.” He waved his hand toward the point. “Look, there’s some lumber washed up on the shore. Maybe it’s still in sight around that bend or something. Let’s go that way.”

  Rising to my feet, my bare feet, I looked down at them and said, “My shoes must have been ripped right off. What a shame. I worked so hard to afford those.”

  “Maybe you’ll find them floating in the bay.” Barlow fanned his hand around to showcase the drifting debris littering the otherwise pristine aqua waters.

  Trudging through the deep, wet sand, I realized how thirsty I was. “We’re going to need water.”

  “Aye. That we are. But the Lord only knows whose land this is and we should probably find weapons before we can safely search the interior.”

  “Whose land it is…” I slapped my forehead. “We have no idea where we are! This is awful. How will we find out?”

  “One thing at a time, my boy.”

  Rounding the coast, we set sight on the ship...well, part of it. She’d been smashed and battered against the shoals outside the reef. Taking in the sight of her busted masts, torn sails, and deck that was standing nearly vertical against the devilish reef that cast this fate upon us, I wailed, “She’s destroyed. Done. Wherever the hell we are, we’re stuck here. This nightmare keeps getting worse.”

  Barlow grabbed my shoulders. Holding me stiff, he growled, “It is not a nightmare, because we are awake and alive, and you need to get your wits about you. What little energy we have must be conserved to figure out where we are and what we can gather to survive. Now, are you going to be a crying little bitch or are you going to be a survivor?”

  Yanking free of his hold, I took a deep, calming breath, and then said, “A survivor.”

  “Good,” he shook his bloody head. “Because I don’t want to do this shit alone. The devil only knows what hell we may find among the wreckage, so let’s stay close.”

  Side by side, we combed the debris along the shore. Lumber and rigging lines, canvas shreds and pieces of crates and barrels all triggered the horrible memories of the ship busting to bits around me. I continued along the damp sandy shore, as to avoid the hot white sand between the ocean and the trees.

  Hearing a quiet cry coming from near a pile of crashed lumber, we rushed toward the sound. Drawing near, I saw a man, a living man, hunched over a seemingly dead body. It was Hubert Humphry who was crying, and on his lap lay a man so disfigured I didn’t know who it was. The face was smashed in and there was a hard slab of greyish meat stuck to the side of his head. Upon realizing that I had set my sights on the dead man’s brains, excreting from within his cracked skull, my empty stomached churned. Hunching over, hands on my knees, I threw up.

  While I gagged and heaved, Barlow knelt down with the doctor and said, “Ah, poor Clarence. God rest his soul.”

  Remembering the ring Clarence wore on his right hand, I peeked toward the dead man’s paw and saw it. Yes, this dead body belonged to Chef Clarence, the jolly, but superstitious ol’ cook who told us ghost stories that he believed as he filled our bowls with the soup made from his beloved grandmother’s recipes.

  The words blubbering out between Hubert’s wails were hardly audible, but as I heaved up more of my guts I was able to translate one of his cries. “Clarence didn’t deserve to die at all, let alone like this!”

  The pain in his voice reminded me so much of the way I cried when my sister died. I knew Hubert cared for Clarence. In fact, some of us joked about how they shared a bed ashore, but whether his tears were wept over lost love or a fallen brother, his pain was so heartfelt that my sympathy overrode my sickness.

  Lifting my sorry ol’ head, I wiped my mouth and decided to face my fears in order to help ease the doctor’s pain. Plainly remembering how awful it was gazing upon my sister’s dead face, I removed my wet and torn shirt and laid it over the dead man’s head. Hubert didn’t need to be looking at his friend all torn up like this. Plus, I didn’t think I could bear to take in the gory sight again. Attempting to comfort Hubert, I said, “Clarence is at peace with the Lord, now. As soon as we get settled, we’ll give him a proper burial.”

  “Proper?” Hubert screeched. “Here? Where the hell are we, anyhow?”

  “That we don’t know, yet,” Barlow answered.

  Hubert, who liked Barlow less than everyone else he didn’t like, yelled at the master carpenter, “Clarence was right! The navigator led us astray and now the Lord is cursing us for helping that crooked captain run a dishonest load!”

  Annoyed, Barlow barked, “There’s still no truth to that claim, Humphry.”

  “Ah, you’re just shielding it because you’re in on it! You both are!” He cast his crazed gaze on me. “That’s why the captain didn’t punish you for fighting Master Boa. Because you’re his little puppet. You both are! Clarence knew it and I knew it and now he’s dead. But I still know and I don’t want your help burying him. Get away from us! Away!”

  Warded off by his shrill tone, Barlow and I both backed away.

  Hands up, I said, “I can assure you that neither of us were in on any foul play. We don’t know what happened or where we are, but we’re going to do what we can to find out. And if you decide you want help with anything
, let us know.”

  Cradling Clarence’s covered head, Hubert wept over his body without again looking in our direction.

  Turning around, I lowered my head in sadness. Barlow showed no such remorse. “That craggy ol’ crank is going to have to stitch our wounds if he likes it or not.”

  Thinking of wounds, I looked at my arms, and now bear chest, and examined all the bruises and cuts covering my skin. The worst of which, was a cut running straight down my right pectoral muscle. It was so deep and jagged that I figured it would need to be stitched. “Aye, he’s going to need to help us.” My mind quickly flashed over the heavy workload I took on the very day after my grandfather died. “He’ll come around soon enough. For now, let’s see if there’s anyone else who needs help.”

  As the words left my lips, I spotted another body. This one was lodged between pieces of broken lumber lying on the shore. The limbs were so broken that it hardly looked human, but I recognized the coat as one who belonged to Boa’s mate, Jon Jones.

  “God rest his crooked ol’ soul,” Barlow grumbled as we walked by.

  I lowered my head in prayer as well, but seeing one of my antagonists in this state, left me feeling remorseful. What a shame it was to waste our limited existence bickering like we had. As my mind replayed all the hateful glances and grumbles passed between Jones and me as he taunted me from beneath Boa’s wing, I began to think about Boa. Where was he? Had he been drowned at sea, or smashed in the wreckage? I did not want to be stuck on a deserted island with the man who wanted to see me dead, but I felt like an evil hearted shithead for hoping he had drown.

  My moral dilemma was interrupted by the sight of another dead body. This one was face up, but the skin had been ripped from its skull. The eyes were still intact. Wide open, with no lids to shield them, the lifeless orbs looked ghoulish. Finding flies already laying feast to the exposed meat and blood within the carcass, I leaned over and threw up again. This time, there was nothing left to expel, so my stomach overexerted itself heaving up nothing but a tiny sample of spit.

  Patting my back, which rattled my throbbing brain and aching muscles, Barlow said, “You need to stop vomiting. It’ll dehydrate you and we’ve yet to find water.”

  He was right. Attempting to regain my composure, I stood back up and wiped my watery eyes as I asked between heaves, “Who is it?”

  Wandering closer to the fly ridden lump of flesh that once contained a life, Barlow casually announced. “It’s Dabney.”

  “Damn it,” I gagged. “So far we’ve lost our cook, the first mate, and a man who hated me.”

  “Hey, at least we have a doctor who still hates you.” Barlow laughed.

  Strangely eased by his untimely humor, I stood up straight and let out a delirious chuckle. “He hates you, too.”

  My crazed bout of laughter was distracted by the sight of movement on the ship. Someone was waving to us. I couldn’t tell who it was, but he was alive and the rapidity of his waving led me to believe he needed help. “Look. Someone is on the ship.”

  Staring at the wreckage, Barlow sighed, “Aye, and it looks like he’s calling for us. Let’s go see who it is and what he needs. But stay close. The tide could change in the blink of an eye and I don’t have the strength to haul your heavy arse ashore again.”

  Following him out into the water—wishing I had my shirt to shield me from the rays of sun that were reflecting off the water and beating on my skin from every angle—I said, “Thanks again for saving me. I owe you one.”

  “Two. You owe me two because you’re so heavy.”

  “Fair enough.” But in truth, I’d like to learn to swim, eventually.”

  “I’ll teach you once we have that kind of energy to burn.” He dipped down on one side and skipped his hand across the surface of the sheer aqua water.

  The bay that was now calm, clear, and shallow, glistened in the sunlight and reflected into my eyes so brightly I felt half blind as I tromped through the deepening water. By the time we reached the shipwreck, the water was up to my belly. The warm feeling reminded me so much of the way if felt when I fell in last night. With each step I took, flashes of lightning struck in my mind. As the water deepened around my torso, dark waves swelled in my memory, thrashing against my thoughts so violently I began feeling seasick from the turbulence.

  “We can climb up over here.” Barlow’s voice awoke me from my trance. Remembering that it was daylight and that I had somehow survived the wreckage, I felt relief for a second, but panic claimed my soul again when I set sight on the path he had chosen. Where he was tromping toward the ship, the sea floor deepened near the hull—most likely from where the ship had been beaten senseless during the storm. Beneath the ship’s shadow, I could see the sandy bottom of the gully through the water that had changed in color with its depths. I didn’t want to go in there. Not for a second.

  My lack of interest in entering the ship from this route deepened when Barlow flopped into the little pool that covered the upper half of his round gut. I was taller than him, so my head would be higher than his above the waterline, but I did not want to be that deep in the man-eating ocean, ever, ever again. Nor did I want anything to do with the ghastly fish that were swimming in and out of the surrounding reef, examining the barnacles embedded along the keel.

  “Over here,” the man onboard yelled to us, distracting me from my woes. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I looked up to see Peck’s blood splattered face grinning with relief. “You’re alive! You’re both alive!”

  Standing in the deathly little lagoon, Barlow casually responded to Peck, “Good to see you, too, Pecky Boy. Are you all right up there?”

  Peck’s happy face turned sad and his eyes filled with tears. “No. Yes. No. Well, I’m all right, but the captain, his arm is crushed and we aren’t strong enough to help him out of the pile he’s under.”

  Upon hearing that the captain was alive, and needed help at that, I temporarily forgot my fears and bolted across the dreadful pond and sprung up into the shattered timbers that used to be the sealed and solid hull of Autumn Moon.

  Wedged against the reef that did her in, she was slightly swaying on the tide, which made the path to the captain’s cabin a dangerous one. Scaling, crawling, and balancing across the broken beams and busted timbers of the ship, while also doing my best to dodge nails and splinters with my bare feet, I listened to her threatening groans and paid extra attention to every movement of the hull as it teetered. All along the way my mind was haunted by memories from the night before, and the god-awful visions I encountered today. I was also dreading what I may see ahead, but I did my best to keep focused on the mission as we scaled our way to the captain’s cabin.

  Reaching the main deck, where we quickly but carefully wandered across the slanted planks, I asked Peck, “Is there anyone else onboard?”

  “Dennel and Tennison are in there with the captain, talking to him to keep him awake, but other than that, I only found two dead sailors. Abel and Daniel.” He started to cry. “They’re so smashed up it don’t look right.”

  Thinking about how we would need to drag them ashore and bury them, I wriggled down the crushed gangway that led to the captain’s cabin.

  Afraid of what I might see in there, I took a deep breath and slowly entered the room.

  Setting my sights on Captain Burton, lying wedged between the collapsed bulkhead and the tilted floor, I leapt to his side. “Captain. You’re alive.”

  “Barely,” he groaned, arching his back off the floor.

  Upon further inspection, I saw that between the shattered timbers, his left arm was entirely smashed under a great gun that had busted loose.

  Taking his cold, clammy right hand, I said, “Humphry is alive on the beach. We’ll get him up here and see what he can do to help.”

  Hopping to my feet, I pulled Barlow aside. “We need to think of a way to get Doctor Humphry up here.”

  “You can’t allow him a choice in the matter.”

  “Me?” I winced
.

  “Well, he isn’t going to listen to me.”

  “Then why in the world would he listen to me?”

  Barlow raised a brow. “Because you’re the one man who has shown himself brave enough to stand up in the face of fear. And a milk-livered ol’ pansy like Humphry won’t want to take a beating like the one you served to the dreaded Boa Constrictor.” After pausing to chuckle at my pained expression, Barlow set his hand on my shoulder and stoutly explained, “Look, this bunch of men are decent fellows, but they are used to taking orders, and we have no time to figure out what odds they will come to without a leader taking charge. Boa isn’t here, Dabney is dead, the captain is down, and if you want to help him, you’re the one who needs to make that stand.”

  I had no interest in trying to lead this group of men—who didn’t like me much—but Captain Burton needed help, and I’d do whatever I had to do in order to allow him the service he was due. After taking a deep breath to gather the strength I needed to see this through, I suggested that Dennel stay with the captain and that Peck and Tennison come ashore with Barlow and me to begin the hunt for water.

  When everyone agreed, I grabbed an oar in case the need for a weapon arose, and led the descent to the bay.

  Reaching the shore, we found that Walsh, Rupert, and Smedley had also survived. Their battered and wet arses were now huddled together with Humphry, who was still holding Clarence’s dead body on his lap. Luckily, he had kept Clarence’s smashed face covered.

  Approaching the group who looked the least bit pleased to see me, I held my oar like it was nothing more than a walking stick and evenly addressed the urgent matter. “Doctor Humphry, Captain Burton is alive onboard, but his arm has been smashed and we need your help to save him.”

  The doctor sneered, “And what makes you think I would help his lying, cheating, devil beckoning arse?”

  His shitty response caused my rushing blood to boil. I was further angered when the men surrounding him booed in agreement. Judging by the tone of their insolent grumbles, it seemed that Hubert had convinced them of the things he knew as truth: Burton had teamed up with Jenson to run a crooked load, and the men at my sides and I, were in on the plans. And we didn’t have time for any of that. Struggling to contain the rage festering in my being, I pressed the issue. “You’re the only one here capable of the feat, and he may die without a doctor’s care.”