The Lost Phantom

[SEAKING23]

I know i'm just kidding... lol. I'd probably enter with all the females on the Shadow king drooling and bowing, and everyone else bowing down and handing rum bottles.

[The Stealthy Pirate]

i take it your not going to tell us who it is? 0.0

[Tiberius Fireskull]

Okay mates, I have another chapter ready for you... I don't feel that it is all that great, but I hope you enjoy anyone. For those of you that are bad with setting changes, this one goes back to the mysterious man in the prologue. Enjoy!

Chapter 6: Fearing the Impossible

It had been several days since the man encountered the strange, red orb. After the encounter, he had found a way to climb onto the roof of the building that looked like a tavern, and he slipped through a hole in the roof. He had spent the last week or so hiding in there, surviving on the food rations stored in the tavern. That strange being had traumatized him, and it had taken a while for him to recover from it. He dared not venture outside, in case he met with that thing again, and perhaps it wouldn’t be as neutral next time.

He did; however, end up leaving, but only because the food supplies in the tavern had been used up by him. Before he left, he looked around the tavern for a weapon of some sort, so that if he did encounter those beings again, he wouldn’t be unarmed. Although a regular weapon may not work on them, it was better than nothing. After a bit of digging around, he was able to equip himself with a long butcher’s knife and a pistol. He did a few practice moves with the dagger, and instantly he knew that he had used one before. He jumped around the tavern, slicing imaginary enemies, getting the instincts back into the front of his head. Cut, swipe, eviscerate, coup, gouge, backstab, stab, and then finally, spinning around, he threw the knife directly across the room, so it was spinning on its side, and sliced off the top of an unlit candle.

The man smiled as he retrieved his dagger. He double checked that his gun had ammo. It was a tri-barrel, and he couldn’t find extra ammo. That meant he had three shots with it. Hopefully those would be enough.

He stood in front of the door, leading to the outside of the island. He backed away from it, and took a deep breath.

“Ahhh!!!” the man cried as he charged the locked door. He slammed into it, letting out a massive grunt, and the doors flew open. He collapsed to the floor, breathing heavily. He stood up and moved his arm, expecting it to hurt agonizingly. But too his great surprise, it felt just like it did before. He remembered feeling the contact when he smashed into the door, but now that he thought of it, it hadn’t hurt, and it wasn’t hurting now.

“Very odd…” he said worriedly. He took a look at his arm, and then started walking. He wasn’t sure where he was going quite yet, but he just had a feeling inside of him, telling him where to go. He walked across the island, through ruined towns and rocky wastelands. He passed a few little shacks that had been destroyed, like most of the buildings he had seen before. He walked for quite a while, stopping a few times for a few minutes to make sure he wasn’t being followed, and once or twice more for food. Eventually, he walked through a little natural rocky archway, and found himself on another stretch of beach.

He walked out onto this little back beach, and looked at his surroundings. He was on a slightly elevated area, perhaps fifteen or twenty feet from the ocean below. Lining the little cliff was a picket fence, mostly untouched. Behind him was a massive cliff of black stone, just like all the other rock on this island. Looking out at the ocean, he could see massive flocks of ravens flying out above the sea a distance away, but there were so many that he could faintly hear their cawing. The beach stretched a ways down the island, before making a slight bend, making the rest of the beach hidden behind the cliff.

The man started walking down the beach, taking precautions to make sure he didn’t get snuck up on. He looked at the sky, and gaped. He was sure that when he had left, it had been close to noon. He couldn’t have walked more than two hours, and the sun was getting close to setting.

That’s very strange, he thought. But then again, everything on this island is strange. Time must work differently on this island, with days shorter and nights longer.

He began to pick up his pace, even though he didn’t know where he was going. His hand tightened around the hilt of his gun. All of the sudden, he heard an animal’s shrieking from behind him. He whirled around with his gun drawn, and fired a warning shot. Everything became quiet all of the sudden. And then, the shriek came again, as a massive fiery object charged at him from the sky. The man hit the ground and the object flew over him. He quickly got up to face whatever it was. Staring him in the face was one of the most unnatural things he had ever seen.

It was a bat. A simple looking bat, even though it seemed to be enraged at the man. Its little eyes burned with hate, but that wasn’t the only burning part of it. The bat’s whole body was engulfed in flame, but it seemed almost natural for the bat. It seemed to normally have this inferno around it. The man would have stared at the strange creature more, but he didn’t have time. It shrieked and charged at him again, faster this time. Before the man could raise the gun to fire, he was slammed in the chest by the bat. Now that he thought of it, it was much larger than a regular bat, and much stronger too.

He gritted his teeth and got up. He held out the gun, and before the bat could charge again, he shot it, square in the head. The inferno around the bat flew outward a few feet as the bat fell to the ground dead. The man looked at the dead bat. The bullet had gone through its head and out its backside, a clean hole straight through it, blood pouring from either end.

All of the sudden, he felt a little tingling on his chest, and looked down to see that his clothes were slightly burnt. He cried out in shock, but not in pain. For some reason, it wasn’t hurting, just like when he had busted down the door. He dropped to the floor, depleting the little flames of air, and putting them out. He stood up, now completely confused. He wasn’t feeling pain, and when he took a look at his bare chest, he realized he hadn’t even gotten a mark!

“What the hell is going on here…?” he muttered to himself as he walked away from the bloody bat. After walking for another few minutes, he ended up right next to a very strange little mechanism. He observed it briefly, and realized that it was an elevator. A cable stretched from the roof of a little box, big enough for one or two people, all the way up to the top of the cliff, at least a few hundred feet up.

He walked inside the elevator box, and saw a little lever. He pulled the lever, and the box jerked, and started moving upward along the cable. The man grabbed hold of some railing and waited as the elevator took him upward. He gulped and gripped his gun tightly. It was dark now. The days really were short on this island, just as he had thought. After about a minute, the elevator stopped at the top of the cliff, and the man carefully stepped out onto the rocky ground. Before him was another small path, winding through massive stone cliffs and into the distance.

A loud noise broke the silence. The man turned around to see that the elevator was heading back down, hundreds of feet below him.

“No, no, no, no, NO!!” he screamed. He watched helplessly as his only means of getting back down left him behind. Soon, it was all the way back down at the bottom, motionless.

“Damn it!” the man cursed, he angrily turned around and cried out again. Standing in front of him was a person, somewhat. He looked like what the red orb had looked like when the person materialized out of it, except this one was orange, not red.

Ghost. That’s what the man’s mind told him. He slowly backed away, but stopped quickly when he realized that he was just inches from the cliff. He pulled out his gun, and before the ghost could do anything, he shot it square in the chest. The ghost doubled over, with his hands clutching his chest. He held that position for about a second before standing back up. The man tried to fire a second shot, but he was out of ammo. He cursed as he threw his gun aside and drew his knife. He cried out and brought the knife down on the ghost, but before it landed, the ghost grabbed the man in a grip like steel.

“Ahh!!!” The man cried out. The ghost twisted the knife from his arm, leaving the man without a weapon. He couldn’t go anywhere now. In front of him was the ghost, straight behind him was a fall to certain death. The ghost grinned evilly, his red eyes glowing with hate. Then, he thrusted the knife straight into the man’s chest.

He grunted with the shock of the blow, and watched as the ghost walked away, moving through a rock and out of sight. The man stumbled backward from the shock of the stab, clutching the knife. He took a step back, but didn’t touch the floor. Before he could regain his balance, he fell, and plummeted down the cliff, to the rocky ground, hundreds of feet below him.

The world seemed to almost slow down around him as he fell. All he remembered was fear, and all he thought about was why he had to die like this, in some strange place, not knowing who or what he was. He could feel the ground getting closer, until finally, he slammed into the ground. His eyes were sealed tightly shut, bracing for death. It never came.

He opened his eyes, and sat up. He had fallen, and he was at the base of the cliff, but he was unhurt.

Impossible! he thought to himself. A fall like that should have broken every bone in my body!

He felt his body parts, and to his astonishment and relief, they were all still present and intact. He ran his hand down his chest, and jumped as he felt the dagger buried in his chest. All of the sudden, he realized that he still wasn’t feeling any pain at all. He pulled the dagger out of his chest, and watched as the gouge it made healed up in just a few seconds. He had been stabbed in the heart, and fallen hundreds of feet onto stone, but he hadn’t gotten a scratch. Something was out of place. What was the cause of this?

“All this time I’ve been so close to death,” he said to himself. “When it looks like I can never die…”

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There you have it mates! Don't worry, just a few more chapters of that horrible suspense. Questions? Comments? Concerns? Praise? Rum? Rum would be nice.

[Captain Sharktooth]

Yay! Another great chapter!

[SEAKING23]

Woot!
epic chapter!

[The Stealthy Pirate]

Great Chapter Davy!

[Tiberius Fireskull]

Okay okay guys, no more suspense... well, there is a bit more... but you get some questions answered now!

Chapter 7: The Red Fog

Witchdoctor Dan had been “working” on the two brothers for about a day and a half now. It was currently the afternoon of the day after they had come across the floating planks that had littered the sea. He had taken the two brothers under the deck and they hadn’t been seen since, although some crewmates talked about strange screams and noises coming from the room. God knows what Dan was doing to the two.

The voyage continued on as regular. The seas were clear as far as the eye could see. Nothing but that beautiful blue tone that the sea always had in the Caribbean. That afternoon, Witchdoctor Dan came up to Davy as he was watching his crew work. The man looked exhausted, grumpy, and hungry, but accomplished.

“Well Captain,” Dan said. “It wasn’t easy, but I may have fixed them.”

“Very good!” Davy said, clasping his hands. “How did you do it?”

Dan grinned, “Some things are better left unknown… would you like to see them?”

Davy nodded, and Dan took him down into his room. His room was strange, to say the least. There were strange bottles and jars littering the furniture everywhere, leaving no place to sit except a little chair in the corner. There were several shrunken heads hanging on the walls, glaring at Davy with their evil, beady eyes. The place was in complete disorganization. He noticed that there was a little bookshelf in the corner, with several very thick books. He couldn’t read the titles, but he figured they probably had to do with voodoo and other witchdoctor-like topics. In the back of the room, on the floor, were the two brothers. They had been cleaned up, but they were tied up with ropes and gagged in the corner.

As Davy and Dan came in, they started making noise through their gagged mouths and attempting to hop up and down. Davy raised an eyebrow.

“Dan,” Davy said carefully. “Why are those two bound and gagged?”

Dan shrugged, “Why not?”

Davy shook his head and chuckled, then approached the two brothers with his battle dagger. At the sight of it, the two brothers’ eyes grew wide with fear, and started shouting as if they were being murdered.

“Shut it!” Davy snapped. “I’m going to cut the ropes ye dogs!”

Instantly the two brothers calmed down, and let Davy cut the ropes. In a few seconds, they were standing up, breathing normally, and stretching.

“Good God!” said the one in the purple jacket. Now that he was cleaned up, he looked older than the other one. “What the hell was that?!”

“Gentlemen, or pirates if ye be,” Davy said politely, as was his way when meeting new people. “I am Captain Davy Fireskull, and you are currently aboard the Shadow King, a pirate vessel manned by the mighty Shadow Sorcerors crew. We are a crew that is unlike most other pirate crews that sail the Caribbean. We are able to harness the powers of voodoo and use them to our will. I will have Dan here explain it to ye in further detail very soon. We found you two floating in a lifeboat in a sea littered with planks of wood that were once a ship, and we are curious as to what happened to you and your ship, your names, and what you were doing in this area, so close to Raven’s Cove.”

“Wait a moment,” the younger one said. “What’s Raven’s Cove?”

Dan grumbled something, probably insulting the young man’s ignorance. Davy paid no heed and continued on.

“Raven’s Cove,” he said. “Is a strange island. It is where the dead rise in the form of ghosts. It is a mysterious island that is on few maps, and that those that do know about it try to avoid. We; however, are on a straight course for it. The reason will remain unknown to you until you have officially joined our crew, if you do that is.”

“Well, to answer your questions,” it was the older one that answered. “I go by Sharktooth.”

“Aye,” the younger one said. “And my name is Vingshiblomayorgen.”

“Beg pardon?” Davy asked, puzzled.

He repeated the name, and Davy’s frown grew bigger.

“Pirate Guy!” Sharktooth interjected. “Just call him Pirate Guy…”

“Very well Sharktooth and Pirate Guy,” Davy said monotonously. “Now, could you tell us what happened to your ship?”

“I don’t remember exactly…” Pirate Guy said slowly. “It’s all just a blur in my memory. I just remember some strange ship attacking us, with lots of fog. It was really powerful…”

“Our ship was a regular frigate, a good ship,” Sharktooth added. “But I remember it taking us down in just two or three broadsides! Incredibly powerful. I don’t remember at all what it looked like, though. I just remember lots of fog, and screaming, and this strange howling.”

“Howling you say…?” Davy said. He scratched his small beard.

Is it possible that… Davy thought to himself. No, impossible. It can’t be. I’m over thinking this…

“Thank you mates,” Davy said, lost in thought. “Dan, give them the lecture on voodoo. Try not to do anything to them.”

“I’ll try my best Captain Fireskull.”

With that, Davy left the cabin, and headed back above to help the crew out. It was currently early January, so the days were slightly shorter, and the nights were longer, so by now the sun was only about two hours from setting. As soon as he stepped outside, Dog Gunmorgan approached him.

“Davy,” he said. “Raven’s Cove is in sight.”

“Is it now?” Davy answered, pulling out his spyglass. He walked to the front of the ship, where he had a clear view of the sea ahead. Sure enough, the form of a black, rocky island loomed in the distance. If Davy looked carefully through the spyglass, he could see little dots moving around the island, the ravens the island was named for.

“We should be there in a few hours,” Dog stated.

“Good, I suppose,” Davy muttered. The truth was that Davy was quite nervous. He knew about Raven’s Cove at night. It was a very dangerous place. He had been hoping that it would come in sight tomorrow morning, but apparently the wind at their backs had been a bit stronger than he expected.

Should we turn back? Davy wondered. No, I’m being paranoid. We’ll be fine.

“Onward then!” Davy announced. “Once we enter the cove we can send a small party of us on foot.”

“Aye, aye Captain Fireskull!” Dog said, before walking off.

The rest of the afternoon passed, and Raven’s Cove got closer and closer. Davy all of the sudden was filled with a feeling of dread and fear. He could sense that something was not right with the island. Something stranger than usual. He couldn’t tell what though. He shifted his vision away from the black island, and looked out westward, opposite the direction of Raven’s Cove. He noticed that the sun was just about to set. He always loved to watch the sun set. He didn’t know why, but it was just something he enjoyed doing. Perhaps the reason was that he and Billy used to love going down to the docks when they were young children to watch the sun set with some of their sailor friends. Davy smiled as the yellow orb dipped beneath the horizon, ending the day, and beginning night. And then everything went wrong.

All of the sudden, Davy realized that it had become quiet. He turned around to look at his crew. They were still working, but it seemed as if they were in a different world from him. They were silent, and were moving as if they were moving through water, in slow motion. Davy looked at the water beneath him, and it too seemed to be moving very slowly. Puzzled, he looked over towards Raven’s Cove, and what he saw he would never forget.

A little less than a mile away from the Cove, was a small patch of fog. Not regular fog that hung over the water naturally, or the green fog of Jolly Roger, but a red fog. The small patch of fog slowly grew until it was a massive cloud of it, menacingly hanging over the water. But that wasn’t it. As soon as it grew, Davy could see a shape emerging from it, and then he figured out what had attacked the Invincible, destroyed Sharktooth and Pirate Guy’s frigate and left all those planks.

The form of a ship slowly emerged from the red mist, but no ordinary ship. It was a massive Ship of the Line, possibly even larger than the Shadow King, but it wasn’t exactly solid. It was misty and cloudy, not a solid ship of the Earthly world. When Davy looked at it, it reminded him of Joanna in her Rage Ghost form, when he had been stranded on Raven’s Cove. Except this was an entire ship, like a ghost ship. Its tall masts held long, tattered sails, and its figurehead was that of an undead Conquistador.

Once it was about halfway out of the mist, it felt like a massive gust of wind blew by, and time seemed to return to normal, and sounds returned to the world, but not for too long, because once the crew saw what was emerging from the fog, they’re chatter died down once again. That was when the howling began. It was the howling of tortured souls, cursed to be trapped on this Earth forever. The screaming and howling from the ship, likely coming from a ghostly crew, made the hairs all over Davy stand straight, chilled his bones, and made him clench his teeth and seal his eyes.

Davy cried out, putting his hands to his ears, but it was no use. The sound was in his mind, not his ears.

“Davy!” Sam cried, running towards him. He was wincing, but was determined to speak. “What the hell is that thing?!”

“That,” Davy said, between clenched teeth. “Is what wrecked the Invincible. What destroyed that frigate. It’s a ghost ship. Something that seems so horrible and dangerous that even Hell couldn’t keep it!”

“What are we going to do about it?!” Sam cried out in fear. “We can’t fight it!”

Davy looked at the horrible ship. It had fully emerged from the original cloud of fog, but another cloud of fog still followed the ship’s ghostly silhouette. It had set its course, and was coming straight towards the Shadow King. Fear welled up inside of Davy as he looked at the massive ship sail towards them at speeds that could leave a Navy War Sloop far behind. He glanced towards his crew, who were now frightened. They all were pointing at the ghost ship and talking to each other with nervous looks on their faces. Davy had to get control of this soon.

“Davy,” Kate said. She had come up to him. “Those rumors we’ve been hearing. The ones about strange ships. I think they’re true, but I think there’s more to it than just this one ship. We need orders if we are going to survive this thing. Now.”

Davy snapped out of his trance and nodded.

Fighting that thing is impractical, Davy thought. It’ll kill us too fast. At the speed it’s going, we can’t outrun it. And there’s nowhere to hide… unless…

Davy looked towards the opening to the cove of the island. It was just big enough for the Shadow King to fit through comfortably. Looking at the approaching ghost ship, it may just be too wide. It was risky, but it was their only hope.

Davy turned back towards his crew. They were bickering now, and starting to yell at each other in fear. It was complete chaos. Davy held out his hand towards Sam, who handed him his gun. Davy fired three shots in the air in quick succession, and the crew fell into silence.

“ALRIGHT MATES!!!” Davy bellowed. “Looks like we have a major problem here! But I have an idea! Full sail to the Cove!!!”

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Comments please!

[Captain Sharktooth]

Haha, some suspense and questioned were answered. But I must know more! Hurry with the next Chapter mate haha!

[Jack Shipsteel]

"Vingshiblomayorgen."

That was priceless!

Excellent as usual Davy, although, why your sailing full speed towards Raven's Cove, I can't possibly tell...

[The Stealthy Pirate]

... Did you read the story Jack?


Great Chapter Davy!!

[Jack Shipsteel]

I read it, but how is he supposed to have time to hide and/or dock with the island with a ghosty ship after him?

[Tiberius Fireskull]

Thou shall findeth out.

[SEAKING23]

Woot! EEEEEEEPPPPPPIIIIIICCCCCC

[Tiberius Fireskull]

I'll be working on some of my story tomorrow on my plane ride... I have five hours of flying... I'll try to use maybe two of those hours to write. Expect one to two chapters in the next few days.

[The Stealthy Pirate]

Maybe the mysterious man is Dan's sucessor? Uh-Oh.