Don’t Assault a Woman with Dead Pirates for Friends

***Trigger Warning: Mild Violence.***

She was an easy target: A woman walking alone down the street. He sneered as he watched her. Some women were just so stupid about their personal safety. Well, he would teach her a lesson.

Billy Cartwright pushed away from the SUV he’d been leaning on and began following her, not even bothering to tiptoe. This sidewalk ran along right next to Broadway, a four-lane one-way boulevard which served as the major south-bound artery out of the downtown Denver area. It was impossible for her to hear him with all the cars and trucks passing by. 

Billy understood why someone might want to take a walk. Bright sunshine slanted down on them, and only a few light clouds floated in the sky. A cool breeze ruffled his unkempt dark blonde hair as he walked. Sundown wouldn’t come for an hour, and it was warm enough right now that both of them wore tee shirts, jeans, and tennis shoes. 

Her clothes were cleaner and in better condition than his, though. The local business owners wouldn’t mind seeing someone like her walk into their stores. They wouldn’t tense up and start following her around like they did when Billy walked in. 

He spat to the side and kept following. They were always suspicious of him. 

Billy followed her past the glass doors of a hobby store and stepped around the people entering and exiting. The doors had floor-to-ceiling windows on each side — too many potential witnesses there. 

Farther down the sidewalk, the windows that faced Broadway were all paneled in smoked gray glass and blocked from the inside by seven-foot-high shelving. They passed two businesses with windows looking out onto the street, but both were closed for the day. 

Now was the time. 

Billy quickened his steps, causing him to make too much noise. The woman tilted her head. He didn’t care. No one was going to stop and help her. If they saw something happening, they were either driving too fast to stop, or they didn’t care, didn’t want to get involved. 

That was city life. People preferred to remain indifferent to other people’s problems, grateful they weren’t the victim. 

Billy gathered himself to pounce, then slammed his foot back down onto the pavement as he jerked to a sudden stop. He’d been pursuing a lone, middle-aged woman, yet out of nowhere, a group of men now stood blocking the sidewalk. 

He stared. These men were like nothing he’d ever seen before. They had a funny, grayish, see-through quality about them, as though they weren’t actually there. Like shadows or apparitions. 

And the woman had already turned and gone on her way, disappearing around a corner. 

He counted eight of them. They wore long, thigh-length coats with fancy trim at the cuffs and down the front, and tricorn hats. Their pants were loose fitting, some with stripes, ending just below the knee. He saw long socks and buckles on their shoes — and were those strings of seaweed wrapped around their bodies? 

Their skin was blotched and mottled in patches of gray and green, and swollen, as though they’d been underwater for a long time, and four or five of them had something black hanging out of their mouths. Billy caught the scent of rotting meat, and with a sudden wave of nausea, he realized those black things were their tongues. 

These men were dead.

Billy didn’t stay to ask questions. He turned and ran — right into the middle of Broadway, which fortunately was experiencing a lull in traffic. Reaching the other side of the street, he kept on running. 

He ran across an open lot between a Safeway and a Costco. Failing to look before dashing across the feeder road, he caused a woman with two children in the back seat to stomp on her brakes to avoid hitting him. He stumbled over a speed bump, then crashed into a fence protecting a construction site. 

Billy cursed under his breath as he ran along the two-lane road toward the boulevard. But here, he had to stop and wait for the light to change. Slowing to catch his breath, he joined a group of people waiting for the walk sign. 

He slid between them, seeking refuge in numbers. A quick glance around showed him the shadows were growing longer and darker. Suddenly, his whole body shivered as goose bumps sprouted on his arms. Looking around, he spotted a shadowy figure peeking out from behind a nearby tree. 

He jumped, then causing the people next to him to turn and stare. He cleared his throat, offered a weak smile, and jammed his hands into his pockets. He turned his gaze back on the road, hoping the lights would change soon.

Across the street offered only a small lot with a 7-Eleven and a restaurant on his right. The strip mall on his left was just as small. Walking fast and looking ahead, he realized the residential area beyond would provide more places to hide.  

Act cool, act cool, he kept telling himself. They’ll give up. He walked another block, then started darting between the Victorian-era houses. Twice he paused and concealed himself behind a bush or a shrub, checking in every direction before moving again. 

Reaching the next alley, Billy ducked one last time behind a green metal dumpster. He doubled over, panting and wiping his forehead, and let himself rest against it. Surely he’d gotten far enough away from them now. He wiped his forehead again. His body still felt cold despite the sweat from running. He glanced around.

The paved alley had a small cement canal in the center for drainage. More green metal dumpsters ran down the side of it, placed next to the garages or back gates of each house. The alley was narrow — barely wide enough for one car to get through — and trees overhung it in spots, casting oddly shaped shadows, making it even darker. 

The skin on the back of his neck prickled. He was being watched. 

But Billy stayed behind the dumpster, waiting until his breathing came easier. If he had to run, he needed to be fresh for that. Suddenly, he flinched. Was that bones rattling on the pavement as if blown about in the breeze? He looked around frantically, then frowned. 

Bones? He thought. Where the heck did that come from? He whipped his head from right to left, peering around the dumpster. A few pieces of trash skittered by. He sighed with relief even as another shiver ran up his spine. 

Now, from a couple of houses nearby, he heard people — arguing, watching TV, clattering dishes. That last sound made his stomach growl, and suddenly, all he wanted was to be safely ensconced on his couch, microwave dinner at hand, playing video games.

Dude, quit being a wussy. He straightened up. Mugging that gal for a few extra bucks had seemed like a nice way to end the day, but now he was in something that he couldn’t see a way out of. Then it occurred to him: His own apartment was only two blocks away. Hardly a challenge to get to.

Billy smiled and shook his hands out, readying himself for the final, short trek. He pictured himself closing his door and shutting the world out, then throwing something in the microwave while he unboxed and hooked up the PlayStation 5 he’d stolen from someone’s living room yesterday, along with that stack of shrink-wrapped games. 

Grand Theft Auto 5 was one of them, he knew. He couldn’t wait to play it. No other sounds came from the alley now. Certain that he’d ditched whatever or whoever those horrible apparitions were, Billy stepped out from behind the dumpster to finish walking home. 

An icy breeze blew down the back of his neck and shirt in an instant, and Billy pivoted on one foot. There they were: The pirates — he had no other word for them — looked like they’d stepped straight out of a Disney movie. They smiled, showing their rotted teeth and black tongues. Their grayish forms blocked his path. 

With a mewling sound, Billy turned to run in the other direction, but froze again. More of them stood in a row at the other end. How many were there? He frantically whipped his head from one group to the other, then heard a whimpering sound arise. With a flush of heat, he realized he was the one making it. 

“Join us,” a deep, nasally voice said from somewhere in the back of his head. Another whimper burst up from his chest. He thrust out his arms, attempting to push them away from him, and ran right through them to exit the alley. 

How can they know where I am? Billy thought as he raced down one block before turning into another alley. Even now, he hoped to confuse them, but he didn’t dare linger again. He ran through this second alley, then turned onto his street.

Everywhere, the shade of the trees hung, dark and brooding, over the sidewalks as the sun went down. He shuddered away from them, his mind inventing a smiling dead pirate lurking behind each one. His apartment was on the first floor of a converted Victorian. 

Never had the thought of being safely inside felt so good. Billy took one last gasp of air as he sped up the front stairs of the house and tore open the foyer door. Letting it slam behind him, not caring how it annoyed the neighbors, he grabbed his keys from his back pocket and let himself into his apartment.

Billy slumped against the inside of the door after it closed, sweat pouring from his forehead as he took deep, panting breaths. Gradually the familiar dimness of the room and the soothing closeness of the walls calmed him. One last time he dropped his head to catch his breath. The ticking of his wall clock brought him around.  

“You freaking pansy,” he said. “What a big, freaking baby! There’s nothing there. Quit acting like such a baby.” 

Billy made himself straighten up and walk into the kitchen. Through an opening in the wall over the sink, he could see into his living room. His threadbare couch and newer TV sat beside the single window, which he’d covered with a black Raiders banner. Billy felt himself relaxing. He liked it dark inside, and that banner suited the purpose perfectly. 

He took a step toward the sink — and flinched. Something had moved in the living room. His eyes searched, but stopped at that banner. It had changed: A skull and crossbones had replaced the helmeted head, and a red tear drop fell from an empty eye socket. 

He blinked, and the image changed back. 

Billy staggered backwards and bumped into the stove. He tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry, and his tongue stuck to its roof. He dove for a cup he’d left on the counter, poured some water, and gulped it down, then he looked back at the banner. Everything appeared as it should. 

I’m turning’ into a freaking wussy, he thought as he sucked down another glass of water. He slammed the cup down on the counter. 

“Freakin’ pansy,” he grumbled as he headed for his couch. “There’s nothing there.” 

Two steps out of the kitchen, he heard footsteps outside his front door. He stopped. He didn’t want anyone to know he was home, especially if they just wanted to yell at him about that slammed door. Hearing nothing more, he turned and made his way more cautiously into the living room. 

He had just reached the couch when he thought he heard movement outside his front door again. He leaned on the couch, staring back at the door, but nothing happened.

“Shit,” he grumbled, then threw himself down on the couch.

He picked up the box with the PlayStation in it and tore off the shrink wrap. Behind him came a sliding sound, then a thunk. He jumped, then turned to look over his shoulder: His favorite poster, an earlier version of Grand Theft Auto with a girl in a bikini bottom, had fallen off its nail and landed on the floor. 

Billy stared for a moment, every hair on his arms standing up. Then he let out a long, controlled breath, and forced a shrug. Nail must’ve come loose. He went back to opening the PlayStation box. 

An icy breeze whooshed through his hair. Hunching his shoulders, he darted a glance around the room, and let out a small gasp. The skull and crossbones were back, but as he stared at them, the picture flickered. It made him think of a really terrible movie special effect as first one face, then another, then another formed on the banner, then moved out to float in front of him. 

But it wasn’t a movie effect. The faces grew in size until they were as large as a human body. He realized suddenly that he had dropped the PlayStation and was cowering against the armrest of the couch, but he had no memory of having moved. 

Somehow he gasped out the question, “What do you want from me?”

The shimmering started again, and the faces shrank and grew bodies: Leering eyes peered out from their mottled, blotched, mangled skin as the apparitions grinned at him.  

Billy swallowed, and said in a hoarse whisper, “Get out of my house.”

Their ghostly laughter made a horrible, rattling sound, as though every tooth in their mouths were loose. 

A white feather bobbed in one’s tricorn hat, and Billy’s wild stare focused in on him. This one carried himself like a leader. “No, Billy,” that leader said, “we will never leave you alone. Not until you are truly repentant for trying to attack our friend.” 

Billy’s mind went blank. “Your friend…?” He blinked, and the room seemed to swim. “You mean that stupid woman walking by herself on Broadway?”

Suddenly, the surrounding air swirled and turned arctic-cold. The dead men pressed in around him. Billy yelped. He whipped his head from side to side, but they had him cornered on his couch. Their laughter sounded like it came from a tunnel — or a cavern. It echoed and grew around him as their faces, laughing and leering, moved in. 

Hands gripped him, lifting him off the couch. He tried to cling to it, but they wrenched him loose. Then he tried to fight them off, using every skill he’d learned from the last few years, but every kick or punch went right through them — and yet they latched onto him like iron weights. 

Then the leader put his face in Billy’s, and Billy gagged as the scent of rotten meat engulfed him. 

“That ‘stupid woman’,” the leader said, “is our descendant. We swore an oath upon our release from purgatory to forever protect our descendants. As payment for your attempted attack upon her, and for your past crimes, we are taking you there now, where you will forever dwell between heaven and hell.”

“What crimes?” Billy strained uselessly to pull away, and gagged again. “I’m just tryin’ to earn a living like everyone else!”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” the leader’s tongue clicked hollowly inside his gaping mouth. He shook his head, and looked down at the stack of games and the PlayStation. 

“Yeah, so I steal, so what?” Billy said. “I need money. No one’ll give me a job.” 

The pirates growled as the leader’s mouth stretched into a sneer. 

“There is always a choice,” the leader said. “You think you deserve luxury, and have chosen a life of crime. Already you’ve moved from petty theft to assault. Soon your crimes will escalate, as you imagine yourself left behind. So now we take you to where your only path to freedom is true repentance.”

He leered down at Billy one last time. “You will have nowhere to go, and nothing around you. And only when you are truly sorry will you at last find your freedom.” 

Billy felt the pirates lift him into the air and begin to carry him, and he writhed uselessly in their grip. As they pulled him toward the banner covering his window, the skull in its picture grinned at him. Visions swirled around him, showing him robbing and assaulting, and laughing afterward. 

“No!” he tried to yell. “They’ve done that, to me! I’m just tryin’—” But his words stuck in his throat. No one could hear. No one would care. 

Suddenly, the pirates stopped. Billy felt them fling his body into the air. 

He landed in a vast, gray nothing. Everywhere he looked was formless and colorless. The pirates had vanished, but his apartment, which he couldn’t remember leaving, no longer surrounded him. Billy screamed, but no sound came out of his mouth. 

The place he’d called home was gone forever. 

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More shenanigans to come on the MockingOwl Roost! Take a look at these next: 

• Seafaring Pirates Special – A magazine issue dedicated solely to pirates–both on the sea and elsewhere!
• When I Became a Modern Woman – A poem of growing into womanhood.
• The Last Honest Corsair – A pirate-themed poem.
• Winner! – Fiction that takes us to the sea.

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