Pirates & Ghosts Short Stories, page 1
This is a FLAME TREE Book
Publisher & Creative Director: Nick Wells
Project Editor: Laura Bulbeck
Editorial Board: Catherine Taylor, Josie Mitchell, Gillian Whitaker
Thanks to Will Rough
Publisher’s Note: Due to the historical nature of the text, we’re aware that there may be some language used which has the potential to cause offence to the modern reader. However, wishing overall to preserve the integrity of the text, rather than imposing contemporary sensibilities, we have left it unaltered.
FLAME TREE PUBLISHING
6 Melbray Mews, Fulham, London SW6 3NS, United Kingdom
www.flametreepublishing.com
First published 2017
Copyright © 2017 Flame Tree Publishing Ltd
Stories by modern authors are subject to international copyright law, and are licensed for publication in this volume.
PRINT ISBN: 978-1-78664-556-2
EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-78755-246-3
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The cover image is created by Flame Tree Studio, based on artwork by Slava Gerj and Gabor Ruszkai.
A copy of the CIP data for this book is available from the British Library.
Introducing our new fiction list:
FLAME TREE PRESS | FICTION WITHOUT FRONTIERS
Award-Winning Authors & Original Voices
Horror, Crime, Science Fiction & Fantasy
www.flametreepress.com
Contents
Foreword by Sam Gafford
Publisher’s Note
Blow the Man Down
Christine van Antwerp
Forsaken
Erica Barnes
Here There Be Monsters
Brad Carson
Requiem for a New World
Adrian Chamberlin
Ocypete
Margaret Collins
The Secret Sharer
Joseph Conrad
Huitzilopochtli, God of Human Sacrifice
Denzell Cooper
The Red Rover (chapters I–IV)
James Fenimore Cooper
The Open Boat
Stephen Crane
Man Overboard!
F. Marion Crawford
The Screaming Skull
F. Marion Crawford
J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement
Arthur Conan Doyle
Stuck Velvet
Sophie Elisabeth Francois
Heavy Weather
Philip Brian Hall
The Ghost Pirates
William Hope Hodgson
The Derelict
William Hope Hodgson
The Odyssey (book XII)
Homer
Over the Side
W.W. Jacobs
Captain Rogers
W.W. Jacobs
Curse of the Paisley Witch
John A. Karr
A Matter of Fact
Rudyard Kipling
Singers
John Leahy
Dionea
Vernon Lee
Dagon
H.P. Lovecraft
Shine like the Sea’s Deepest Secrets
Kathryn McMahon
The Ghost Ship
Richard Middleton
Four Years
Jacob Moger
The Gold-Bug
Edgar Allan Poe
Salvage
Jennifer R. Povey
Umibozu
M. Regan
Treasure Island (part I)
Robert Louis Stevenson
The Game of Games
Jeremy A. TeGrotenhuis
The Buried Boat
Russ Thorne
The Sea Raiders
H.G. Wells
Past the Shallows
A.R. Wise
Echo the Damned
Nemma Wollenfang
Biographies & Sources
Foreword:
Pirates & Ghosts Short Stories
Since the first Man gazed upon the ocean, he has feared it.
That vast, unchartered realm has haunted his dreams and inhabited his nightmares. Ancient maps warned of places with strange animals and unknown dangers. To the first sailors, creatures such as whales and octopi must surely have been considered monsters. Nor were all the dangers caused by those leviathan dwellers of the deep. With the rise of sea-travel, Man quickly became one of the deadliest marauders on the waves.
Small wonder, then, that the sea should become such a potent part of world literature. Beginning as early as Homer’s Odyssey, the sea was a place where death could come swiftly from any number of causes including capricious gods prone to easy insult. Surely, Homer’s Scylla and Charybdis are among the earliest (if not the earliest) depictions of sea monsters in literature.
When Man began to take to the oceans in large wooden ships, the true literature of the sea was born. Although some tales would seek to romanticize this adventure, the most powerful versions were combined with the terror brought by storms of unceasing ferocity, pirates crazed with blood lust and treasure greed, and the confrontations with creatures.
In ‘The Secret Sharer’, Joseph Conrad tells of a young captain faced with an ethical dilemma which could result in the life or death of another. Eventually, his solution places his own ship in danger of sinking and killing all aboard. Using his years on the sea as inspiration, James Fenimore Cooper is credited as being one of the writers to create the genre of ‘sea novels’. His novel, The Red Rover, is an adventure tale about the eponymous pirate as seen through three characters including a freed black sailor. Cooper’s unstereotypical depiction of black characters was revolutionary when published but it is his passages depicting life at sea that bring the novel to life.
Personal experiences like Cooper’s (who served for years in the U.S. Navy) lend the fiction an overwhelming amount of verisimilitude as also seen in the ‘The Open Boat’ by Stephen Crane and the sea fiction of William Hope Hodgson. Crane, the survivor of a shipwreck, turned it into a short story of dread and helplessness as four men try to stay alive while fighting the sea and their feelings of being abandoned by God. Hodgson, who went to sea at the age of thirteen and rose to the position of Second Mate, was left with a hatred of the ocean and that life which resounds through the bulk of his greatest fiction. In his short story, ‘The Derelict’, and his novel, The Ghost Pirates, Hodgson portrays the terror of being isolated in the ocean and faced by unnamable horrors.
From H.P. Lovecraft to Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle and the many other authors represented here, the sea has not lost its power to inspire and terrify. At night, Man’s thoughts still return to the ocean and the horrors that still wait above and below its waters.
Sam Gafford
Fiction author, writer, and biographer of William Hope Hodgson
Publisher’s Note
Fear, greed, envy – powerful forces in the minds of many, but at sea the consequences can be truly terrifying and deadly. In this special collection of nautical tales, you’ll navigate through treacherous waters to discover bloodthirsty pirates, buried treasure, deathly fogs, perilous rocks, ghostly ships and eerie monsters lurking beneath the waves. In the hopes of showcasing a really great variety of stories, we’ve included such classic authors as William Hope Hodgson, master of the supernatural sea tale; Joseph Conrad, a writer of many maritime escapades; and H.P. Lovecraft, some of whose terrifying ancient deities dwelt in the ocean. It’s also our aim to bring to light some lesser known but very enjoyable tales, as well as including authors who you might not have associated with these themes.
We are always thrilled by the response to our calls for submissions, and once again we’ve had a wonderful range of stories to explore. From exciting adventures to mysterious hauntings and the dark places man will go when pitted against nature, there’s a great mix of contemporary fiction to be found within these pages. It’s always incredibly tough to narrow down the final selection, but ultimately we chose a collection of stories we hope sit alongside each other and with the classic fiction, to provide a fantastic Pirates & Ghosts book for all to enjoy.
Blow the Man Down
Christine van Antwerp
Will got up from his hands and knees, stretching as he chucked the holystone back into the bucket of filthy water. He looked around him grimly. They had been out on the open waters for more than three months and nearly half the crew had either succumbed to scurvy or were well on their way. Was this it for him? Was he the next to die?
Unbeknownst to Will, Captain Grayson had been watching him closely that morning back in London as he delivered Mrs. Hudson’s groceries. He had helped himself to two loaves of bread and three biscuits from her shopping parcel, wrapping it in a napkin before stashing it safely underneath the steps of her front porch. After the elderly woman had said goodbye and closed her door, Will kneeled down and retrieved his loot, rather pleased with himself as he hungrily shoved a biscuit into his mouth. Crossing the street
, Captain Grayson had closed in on him, grabbing hold of the back of Will’s collar before forcing him into an abandoned alleyway. Will was informed that he could either accompany Grayson to the nearest Constable, who would’ve ensured he be hanged for his petty crime, or Will could join the Captain’s crew of bandits at sea. Will had, regrettably, chosen the latter.
At first, he was excited. Going on adventures, wreaking havoc and searching for long forgotten treasures seemed to be what he was born for, not the dreary life he found himself living in gloomy London where he barely survived on the morsels he could manage to set his hands on. Besides, he had become quite good at nicking things and Will figured that his talents were the main reason that Captain Grayson had recruited him in the first place.
The real life of a pirate, however, proved to be much darker than the light-hearted fables they were told as children. These were vile, malnourished and violent men, having no respect for anything or anyone except their Captain. Will was bullied, spat on and ridiculed on a daily basis, being nothing more than the ship scrubber and so-called Scallywag. In the entire time that he had been at sea, they had not encountered a single ship and the chance of their survival grew slimmer with each passing day as their food supply became critically low. Life at sea had proven to be treacherous and their demise, imminent. Had he known that a while back, he would have gladly chosen a quick death at the gallows.
Will sighed deeply as he looked up at the sky. The night was bleaker than most; almost foreboding as the air seemingly grew more thick and sombre by the second. He grabbed his bucket off the deck and emptied its contents into the ocean, wiping the sweat from his brow as he listened to the black waters, breaking against the ship.
“Scrubbed the whole deck, have ye?” Captain Grayson’s rough voice asked from behind him. Will swung around, coming face to face with the large, beefy man.
“Yes, Captain.” Will answered.
“What’s this, then?” Captain Grayson asked, lightly grabbing hold of Will’s jaw, turning the boy’s face sideways as he inspected his bulging, bruised eye.
“And whose handiwork be it?” The Captain asked, dropping his hand from Will’s face.
“Becker, Captain.” Will answered, looking down at his feet as his cheeks flushed red.
“Ah.” Captain Grayson answered. “No matter, then. He’ll be dead in a week or two anyway, with the whole lot of us following if we don’t find food soon.”
“Yes, Captain.” Will answered dully.
“Well, go on then.” The Captain said. “Ye done ye job for today. Off to bed or whatever ye do when ye ain’t moppin’ vomit off me deck.”
“The skies look dark, Captain.” Will said, ignoring the Captain’s orders.
“Aye.” Grayson agreed grimly, turning his head up to the skyline. He turned back to Will, nodded his head and walked off to his cabin.
Will laid on his back in the cabin he shared with three other crew mates, listening to the creaking of the wood against the current as the water rocked the ship. He had never before felt so completely abandoned. Being born into an orphanage, he was used to loneliness and had grown accustomed to it, but it was nothing compared to the dread that had been accompanying him the last few months. This was different. This was complete desertion.
“Land ho!”
Will sat up in his bed, wondering if his mind was playing tricks on him.
“Land ho!” the faint voice called again.
“Did ye hear that?” Nelson’s voice asked within the darkened cabin.
“Land ho!”
“It be only Rogers, drunk off his arse,” Tully answered, agitation clear in his voice. “Be quiet, I’m tryina’ sleep.”
“Land ho!” Rogers called again.
What if Rogers wasn’t merely drunk? What if they had indeed neared land?
Will got out of bed, rushing out of the cabin as he made his way to the upper deck.
“All crew on deck!” Captain Grayson ordered as a few dozen men rushed to their posts.
It was true! They were heading for land!
Grayson rushed towards him, grabbing Will by his shoulders. “Where be the rest of ye cabin? Get ’em! Get ’em now!”
By morning, the ship had docked at the small island. The crew were celebrating, drinking and digging their fingers into the sand, grateful to at last be able to walk on solid earth.
Will, on the other hand, had no idea why the men were as ecstatic as they were. It was an island in the middle of nowhere. They still weren’t in civilization. There were no other people around. There were no shops they could visit or brothels they could frequent, the latter being something that Will, an inexperienced eighteen year old, had been very much looking forward to.
“Gather ’round.” Grayson commanded and the men lined up in front of him. “Now, listen up. No man goes off on his own. Rogers and Will, the two of ye are comin’ with me to search for food and fresh water. The rest of ye, stand and guard the ship. We set sail in three days.”
“Why doth the baby get tho do all the explorin’, Capthain?” Becker, a short, bony man with sagging skin and thinning hair, protested. By his slurred words, Will reckoned that he had either lost more teeth since he had last seen him, or he was drunk again. This being Becker, it was probably both.
“So the likes of ye can’t go knocking the boy down again.” The Captain answered and the crew laughed, Becker soon joining in.
“QUIET!” Grayson shouted and a deathly silence befell the group. The Captain stared at Becker for a few seconds, then hovered over him.
“Ye think it be funny, do ye?” Grayson asked. “Hurtin’ what little remains of ye crew?” He pointed to Will. “Ye think for one moment that that boy couldn’t beat ye arse to a pulp? ’Cause he can. He can, but, unlike ye, the boy has sense.” He flicked Becker’s forehead with his finger. “Who do ye think’s gon’ man the ship if we carry on turning on each other? Ye gon’ man her on ye own, Becker, are ye?”
Becker remained silent, gulping audibly as his face flushed of colour.
“ANSWER ME!” Grayson yelled and little droplets of spit hit Becker’s face.
“N-no, Capthain.” He stuttered.
“We can’t afford LOSING A SINGLE MAN!” Grayson screamed into Becker’s face once again, lowering his voice when he continued: “I’ll tell ye one thing, though. I can afford to lose a dead man walkin’ such as yeself. Scurvy’s already had most of ye. What’s remainin’ ain’t that much to work with. I’m only wastin’ food on ye. Be best that ye remember it.”
The Captain turned around, flinging three large sacks of cloth at Will.
“For the supplies.” Grayson explained as he made his way towards the trees. “Come on then, ye two.”
Rogers looked at Will before following their Captain into the unfamiliar territory.
The island consisted of thick, nearly impenetrable jungle, with thousands of insects that zoomed around their heads endlessly. The two older men took the lead, cutting a path through the shrubs and leaves as Will followed with their bags of fruit and berries, occasionally having to climb up a tree to retrieve it.
By nightfall, a burning sensation, courtesy of the heavy sacks he was balancing, had started up between Will’s shoulder blades. As they neared a small clearing, he was grateful when Grayson said that they were going to be setting up camp.
After making a fire, the three men went in search of leaves and twigs to make themselves a bed for the night. They all shared a pineapple for dinner and headed off to bed.
Despite the fact that he was utterly exhausted, Will could not drift off to sleep. His body was bruised and sore; his skin itchy from the dozens of insect bites on his arms, legs and neck. If only he could get back to London. If only he had not taken the loaves of bread. If he could only go back. He would stop stealing. He would clean up his act. He would make something of himself, the honest way.
Will sighed in frustration, rolling onto his back as he watched the twinkling stars in the dark sky. He thought back to Mrs. Stewart, the frail, old woman at the head of the orphanage. She used to tell them stories of the world; about how nothing was impossible and that, if they ever felt hopeless, all they had to do was to wish upon a star and all their dreams would come true. He used to believe that. He used to search the skies each night before falling asleep, but, as the air grew colder and the leaves dampened his clothes beneath him, Will was afraid that there would never fall a single star ever again. At least, not in his lifetime.
