Terror Tales

THE WRECK OF THE CONARY

BY DAVID BROWN

     Sunlight brought in a new day. I raised my head and gazed out at the horizon, perfect and empty. I was alive; the only one apparently in which I felt no disgrace. I was breathing, and that was what was important. It had been a barmy night, and the storm had been the worst I could remember. For anyone to survive, it was a miracle. But for me, my survival showed how tough I am. It took everything I had to will my muscles to motion.

The Conary had been a stout ship, but God and the reef had made her show her worth. She had lain heavy in the water with the stores and bounty, which we had taken from the Spanish frigate, Burlandin. They said she couldn't be taken with her forty-four guns, but we showed them. I stood on what was left.

Turning I found myself only maybe a hundred feet or so from the shore. A gull screamed as it flew overhead while I stood alone absorbing the fact that everything was gone—all the gold and even all the jewels to Davy's locker—gone. Overlooking I could see the ship's timber had run abroad on a coral reef, and now it was surrounded by floating debris and stores. I checked myself. I had my pistol, but my powder was wet and useless. All I had for defense was a short poniard and my marlin spike, my sword I had left below. I surveyed the waves moving in around me as I jumped into the water and made my way to the sand. Little to nothing advantageous had washed ashore—some broken crates, some timber, and the moon sail were the lot. I gazed out wondering if anyone else was alive, but nothing rose above the breaking tide.

I remember there had been a beautiful lamenting song in the storm, a song that had carried through the gale. It was so alluring, so sweet, so delicate, and filled with so much melancholy that, I'll admit, it drew us into the shore. This coastline, though I must add, we did not see nor did we know it existed. There wasn't supposed to be any island in this part of the Caribbean, which meant that this one was most likely and unfortunately uncharted. Searching next to a reef, I found a barrel of rum. Thanks be to the gods. I pulled it from the water, and she was full. I sat on the shore and began tapping the barrel. What now? I'm not one to do nothing. I had been there only moments and already felt like I was floating around with no anchor and no focal point.

Suddenly I heard a familiar voice behind me. It was Tom Bitter, a boatswain's mate from the Conary, rising from the foliage.

"I thought I was alone. Damn good to see you, Gideon," Tom announced as he dropped to the shore beside me. Looking out at the horizon, a mist was beginning to build out at sea.

"What do you say? Another storm, Tom?" I inquired.

"Yeah maybe so. Nothing like last night though," he said, rising to tilt the barrel. I watched as more went into the sand than in his mouth.

"Watch it, damn you. That's a lot!" I yelled.

Looking back toward the sea, the mist was growing, quickly thicker and thicker, swiftly closing the gap between it and the island. We rose to our feet watching this strange occurrence that no longer looked like a storm.

"What the hell is it"? Tom said as long thin tendrils of mist slowly began to flourish and whirl above and across the sand. The horizon was gone, lost within the denseness of the billowing mist. It seemed like it was alive the way that it glided and curlicued around us.

"What the... Tom look!" I said, pointing toward the mist.

Tom turned and there in front of us deep within the mist, a grey shadow began to darken. It became larger and darker until it became almost completely clear as the mist receded from its bounds. It was a ship, a frigate no less, and a big one too, with her name clear and bold across her broadside—The Queen Anne's Revenge. But that's impossible! She was supposed to have gone down twelve years ago off the Carolina coast in the Americas. Then a flat-bottomed bateau appeared from the mist, carrying two oarsmen and one other darkly figure. The skiff slid a sharp end against the sand.

The chaos of life is a wondrous thing that captures the casual observer. It was in this moment when he appeared. He stepped from the vessel boldly dressed in full corsair attire. Bristles roughly braided reached down across his broad but precursive figure. His pinnacle hat, black as sackcloth, had a skull and bones embroidered white across the front. His long buttoned coat was adorned with two sets of flintlocks and cutlasses across his chest. We stood our ground, but the sight of this man caused honest reservation and questions. Could this be him? The one I had admired the entirety of my days—Edward Teach—Captain Blackbeard. It was a black day in my memory when I read of his demise.

"Landlocked are ye? Aye, be ye honest or unscrupulous buccaneers?" He said with a hollow but bold tone and a bit of swagger.

"I am what I need to be," I said without reservation.

"Aye, a bilge rat if need be, I am sure! A surprise I have you and your shipmate."

"What? Are you taking us off this island?" Tom asked.

"Take ye with me? No. We won't be sailing side by side today lad." He billowed as he reached within his coat and pulled out a scroll. He handed it to me, and I opened it.

It's a map!

"That be a map of this island," he said.

"The X?" I asked. "What is there?"

"That be yer surprise" He turned and climbed back aboard his craft.

"You can't leave us here!" Tom shouted.

"Aye, but I can, and I will. Seek and ye shall find your due surprise," he said laughing as he diluted into the mist. In only moments the bateau, his ship, and the mist were all gone.

Tom grabbed the map from me and stared at it. "What do you think it is? Did he say, treasure?"

"I don't know," I said, "but it is our only course. So we'll find what it is."

We spent the next two and a half days following the map. Coming upon the shore of the opposite side of the island, night was heavy upon us, so we fashioned some torches. We set them beside the location and began to dig with our hands and my poniard.

Deeper we went. We were at good man's depth when we finally hit something. It was a chest or a crate of some kind. We began to quickly uncover it. Excitement was rising in our blood. Grabbing the planks, we pulled but they wouldn't budge. We would have been in a panic if it hadn't been for the constant conversation of the treasure and what we were going to do with it. Prying at it with limbs and rocks, we beat on the box in attempts to loosen the nails. Suddenly the box burst open, throwing us back against the dirt walls we had created. There within the box lay the rotting corpse of the one I admired the most, Captain Blackbeard.

His gravid ammonia ridden body—with eye sockets in his skull blacker than any night—unexpectedly rose from the makeshift coffin. His long boney fingers reached out and pulled us both inside the coffin. Then the lid shut tight. We could hear the deafening sound of dirt filling itself back in on top of us, even over our own screams and somewhere in the blackness, a thunderous voice cried out laughing. Surprise!