Scurvy Stories: The Legend of Black Beard
“I’m more alive than before! I live on for all ages!”
Come all you young and old
See me die, see me die
Come all you young and old
You are welcome to my goal
And by it I’ve lost my soul
I must die, I must die
— Captain Kidd, sea song
After the ensuing chaos died down, Scudder approached Black Beard. “Black! Captain Black Beard!”
He turned, and Black’s matted hair was everywhere in a bloody mess. His emerald peepers were restlessly searching. He couldn’t believe Pearl was gone. His black fire. Gone forever.
“What do you want, lad?” Black asked, on the verge of a breakdown and near despairing. “I told ya to stop following me!” He screamed in fear but masked it with rage.
He had defeated the cult. He had defeated Denneson, the Fire-Breathing Dragon, but it didn’t matter. All of his accomplishments were futile and nothing compared to his grief. And now he was to pay.
Denneson’s cult followers screamed as they disintegrated like sand in the wind, dark dust for birdfeed. Black forced a chuckle but only for a minute because suddenly, the sun rose out of the horizon.
The first light shined, and then a cool wind grew into a raging cyclone of madness and fury. It swirled and tried sucking Black into it but then revealed the ghost of the Dreaded Pirate Robert Drefuse, beaming wickedly.
“Captain Black Beard,” the spirit spoke in a whisper. “Your time has come.”
“I defeated Denneson. I paid the debt, whether it be me or him.”
“Aye, Black, aye. You’re a clever one, fer sure. But the deal with these… dark debts and contracts is… well, they become… complicated.”
“I think I know what you’re sayin’,” Black said, almost agreeing with the ghost. He accepted his fate.
“And so in Denneson’s contract,” Drefuse continued. “If you kill him and his cult, then you, in turn, take his place.”
Black trembled and knew this was coming. Gilly Leggs warned him, but in his pride and rage, he didn’t fully understand what he had said at the time. Now the consequences were materializing.
The wind changed and dropped low. Black looked down at his left filthy rotten hand and his cut-off right stub. Then he shook and his parts began to shift and change.
All of a sudden, Black’s fingernails fell off and his skin began to shed. He screamed in horror as his hands became dry bones. His face shaved off the excess skin and he became a skeleton, a walking corpse, a zombie pirate.
Terrified and saddened for Black, Scudder screamed, “Black, no, no, no! Stop it!”
“Aye, who is this? A young pirate, eh?” Robert Drefuse sniggered.
Scudder with wide eyes held his face in terror. “Stop this! Why are you doing this, spirit?”
“This is the way of a pirate. This is the way you will walk if you continue down that road, lad. Witness the terror!”
Black was preoccupied with his transformation and so yelled in agony as he dropped to his knees. Clutching the sand, he raised it in his arms as his whole body crumbled. He bent over and slumped down and was motionless.
Scudder rushed over to him and tried to wake him, thinking he was dead.
“Captain! Black! Black Beard!”
“Don’t worry, lad,” Robert Drefuse laughed. “He’s only half dead.”
Scudder shook him again and then his back bent all the way. His legs were squished by the weight of his torso as he cracked his back. It sounded as if he had broken multiple bones. Then he lifted his torso and with the strength of his legs, rose like a mummy out of the sand and stood looking at Scudder.
His face was a skeleton but in the sockets, his green serpent eyes still glared with life. He chuckled and then started loudly to roar like he had just been woken from a very long nap. He was fully aware of his surroundings being agile and strong. He was mostly bone with some flesh left on his arms and legs dangling, but mostly his dark clothes covered his decayed body.
Then Black Beard rose and saw the bodies lying everywhere. Seeing the witch doctor’s staff, he walked over, picked it up, and raised it while he laughed joyfully.
“I’m more alive than before! I live on for all ages!” He raised it in ecstasy. He looked down at his stub where his hand was cut off and now a new skeleton hand had taken its place. Filled with greed, he laughed wickedly, exuberantly.
“Now, my Pearl! Now — now. Robert! Can I — can I raise the dead?” He darted to the evil ghost of Robert’s.
Drefuse grinned madly, “Aye.”
“I knew it. I knew it all along! That’s what my plan was. You hear it, lad? Ya hear that? I can raise me Pearl back from the grave!”
But as Black trembled with excitement, he turned, because he heard Drefuse chortling cruelly. Drefuse kept on laughing as he held his sides. Then he dropped to his knees and slapped his thighs, mocking Black.
“You really thought that?” Drefuse wiped his eyes. “Only those who want to come back you may raise. And only if the dark Master allows it. In this new life, you answer to him.”
“I answer to no one except meself!”
Shaking his head with amusement, the old ghostly figure said, “You’ll be alright, then Black. This life’ll fit ya like a glove. But your crew is yours to do with what you will. And the Lady Kraken you may sail as you please.
“Across vast oceans, across the Seven Seas, you go. Searchin’ and wailin’ in the night. Scarin’ sailors and bringin’ nightmares to the little ones. But when the wind comes, when the day is over, your time to leave a place will come and leave you must. For if you don’t, you shall be swallowed by the light, and be sent underneath.”
“Drefuse, I always hated ya,” Black said, relieved, finally getting it off his hairy chest. “You know that? I always wanted you to know that.”
“Aye, you stupid goat, I knew. And know this, Black: Darkness is comin’ and swift is the night wind.” And the spirit of the Dreaded Pirate Robert Drefuse slowly was caught up in the salty sea breeze, vanishing from sight.
Black then guffawed mightily and looked down at his hands, trembling with fear. But he couldn’t show any sign of fear. He couldn’t let Drefuse or his dead pirate crew or even Scudder know that he was petrified of his new body, of his new life, and a life without Pearl. He must go on, and walk the earth, sail among the dead waters, and journey to uncharted places.
Turning, Black gazed at his crew on the sandy shores. The sun now rising was heating everything like an unforgiving oven. His crew had changed and transformed into walking corpses, rotting in the hot rays.
Gilly Leggs yelled, enamoured. His skin was tawny, baked by the sun, his left arm held in his right as he looked through his golden telescope. Black could see he was not far off the coast.
Swerving at the wheel, Gilly sailed with his zombie men. He screamed happily from afar. “Captain! Captain! We’re the living dead! We are yours!”
Most of the Lady Kraken crew looked awful and miserable. Black could see they didn’t want to be damned for all eternity, and so laughed heartily to ensure everything was going to turn out well.
“Alright, ye seamen, ye men of the night, ye men who cause others to stir in their sleep, arise! Rise, I say! We are new men. Monsters in the night, souls who find no rest, beasts who prowl at sea, who haunt the evil in their dreams. I tell you, this is our new way.”
Even H. Wallace III came strutting up. His right leg was twisted and broken as he dragged it behind him like a ball and chain. He held his decapitated head nestled in his skeletal fingers, clutching it like spiders fondling their prey. He wore a despairing look. But what was he to do? His Captain, his Master, his cult leader was his best friend and who was he to defy his orders now that they were the living dead?
“Captain,” Wallace said, his yellow beard nowhere to be seen, shriveled up like his body, decaying, and half dead. “We are your crew. And we will follow you to the ends of the earth. Wherever they lead. Where you go, we go, Black Beard.”
Pleased, the zombie captain grinned. The other ugly and rotting corpse crew started to beat their breasts with their fists in a haunting rhythm, just like the Dragon Cult had.
Scudder looked afraid and saw in the distance the Green Barnacled Owl, Uncle Tumber’s pirate ship. He could leave, he could go back, but he wanted to talk to Captain Black Beard one last time. He gulped and stepped onto the pebbles of the sandy beach.
The melody of woe, the crew’s deafening tune, shook Scudder to his bones. He was rattled, but had to tell the ol’ Black Beard one last thing.
Black raised his staff as he beat the same rhythm in the air, just as the shaman had done. He shook his staff violently with his snake eyes filling with awe for the evil they produced. Then he felt his black coat being tugged yet again.
Scudder’s spine tingled as he looked into Black’s eyes, but it seemed the half-dead captain had forgotten their last terrible exchanges completely. He didn’t care and waited for Scudder to tell him what he so desired to say.
“Black,” Scudder began. “You don’t have to do this. You can still change. I know you want to. Pearl wouldn’t have wanted this.”
But Black smiled and patted his blond head. “Nay, little Scudder. You be wrong. I always wanted this. No one coerced me, no one twisted me hand. I’m here ’cause I wanted to be. But Pearl was my only love. My only thing. Worth more than any pretty penny can buy.”
“Captain but, but-”
“Scudder,” Black said, lifting his bone-dried hand up. “You can come with us. You can be the cook on my ghostly crew. You can live forever, Scudder. Live with me, sail with me. Adventure awaits, me lad.”
“Captain, that’s not adventure. That’s death out there. You said it yourself, worth more than any pretty penny. She’s still out there! If Roberts said she doesn’t want to come back, that means she’s alive somewhere! Pearl lives on.”
“But do ya think I’d care, Scudder?” Black said harshly. “Even if it was true, she don’t love me no more. She never truly loved me. We were always different, me and Pearl. But now I got my new pearl, the sea. She’s always there when I wake up. She never snores. She changes, Oh, does she change! But by Davey Jones, does she roar like a lioness! Causing mayhem and destruction to the poor sailor who crosses her! That’s my kind of lady.”
“Black, please, if I can just-”
“Lad, I know you don’t want to come ’cause you’re a kind soul. You’re pure-hearted. Not like me, my soul’s black like my beard once was and me hair,” Black said quietly.
“But I also know you want to go like a sick dog goin’ to his vomit. I know. But save it, lad. Save your breath for somethin’ that’ll matter. Save it for somethin’ your heart wants. Don’t waste it on me.”
“But Black…” Scudder began to cry. “I… I’ll miss you.”
“Aye, as will I, boy. As will I.” But Black didn’t crouch down or weep, for his heart was the sea’s and the sea’s alone.
“I… I,” Scudder faltered, wiping his blue eyes with his white sleeve. He had no more words to say to Black Beard, who winked and laughed, amused at his will to power.
“Maybe one day we’ll see each other on better terms. My time has come, for darkness is comin’ and swift is the night wind.”
Swiftly, as the Captain had said, he and his crew drifted in the air and floated across the emerald sea. Disappearing as they reached the Lady Kraken, it vanished as the daylight swooped in. The light brought its peace and radiance of warmth and dispersed all darkness in its path.
Scudder fell to his knees as he saw the three Green Owl ships close now. He heard George Tumber scream, “What in blazes was that? How did Black escape? Where’d they go? What happened? Scudder, is that you?”
Scudder looked down at the sandy beach and the surrounding jungle in the hot sun and salty wind. He couldn’t believe Captain Black Beard and his ghost crew now sailed across the Seven Seas haunting all those who dared come across them in the darkness of the night.
Scudder wanted so desperately to save Black from his curse. He didn’t wish that on his most hated enemy. But Scudder, being young, knew very little of a pirate’s life and the complex and changing world around him.
But he ran to shore, to the foaming waters, and jumped up and down, waving his pale arms, “Uncle George, over here!”
Cleda and Frank spotted him and pointed, showing the Terror Tumber. “There, uncle! He’s alive!”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Uncle George said, wiping his brow. “His mother would’ve had my head! We’re comin’ Scudder!”
The ships headed for him, anchored, and picked him up. As Scudder climbed the nets to enter, George’s green ghouls all hooted in victory.
Uncle George hugged him and looked him up and down, smacking his shoulders. “Good, all is well, Scudder! Your momma’s gonna be happy! Your dad might kill me, but either way, it’s good I’m only around holidays.”
After the three ships sailed away and the kids were escorted to their private quarters, the three reconvened in Frank’s cabin.
“What happened?” Cleda finally asked her cousin as they all lay down to rest on bunks, undisturbed by any crew member. “Did you talk with Black?”
“Aye,” Scudder said, echoing pirate talk. And he told them everything that occurred right down to Black, telling him he would miss Scudder as well.
Cleda wiped her eyes as Frank asked, “So, what’ll become of the Legend of Captain Black Beard?”
“What’re you saying?” Scudder asked, curious.
“Well, who’s gonna write it down? Who’s gonna tell the tale of Black Beard on stranger tides? Who’s gonna share the story of the merchant sailor who turned into a half-dead cult leader?”
“We all will,” Cleda said. Looking at each other, they laughed. Scudder then told them his whole expedition, sharing more stories of the sea to write and spread.
After they talked for hours into the late afternoon, Scudder finally went to his own quarters, which were large, unlike the Lady Kraken, and plopped on his bunk. He sighed deeply and gazed out from his window on the Emerald Owl, looking for any sign of life of the ol’ pirate called Captain Black Beard.
He longed to see him again and, as he witnessed the setting sun, he saw a glimmer of a ghost ship in the distance, sailing along aimlessly. No home, cursed for all time to wander the Seven Seas in search for nothing but hopelessness.
And sometimes if you are out in the deep ocean, if you look hard and desire greed, treasure, and power, if you want, you can see a shadow of the spirit of the cult leader, Captain Black Beard, smiling and urging you to board his eternal Lady Kraken.
But beware, for if he lets out his bone for you to grab, he’ll never let you leave his ghostly and ghastly pirate ship.
THE END.
