Legal Note: I do not own any of the characters associated with Pirates of the Caribbean. I do not have any legal right to use them or any other proprietary words originating from these movies. This story was done just for the fun of it. Not for profit. If you like it please tell me. If you don't like it please tell me why with particulars but not excessive detail.
Summary: What could be worse than the ghost of a pirate? Captain Teague knows. In answer to the Halloween challenge on the Black Pearl forum.
The Ghost of Shipwreck Cove
The fire burned low in the stone hearth. The windows rattled gently in the night wind coming off the harbor. Rain was due. The nights here could get chill in the winter months but this fire was not meant to warm the room so much as to provide light. The firelight and that of a lone candle suffused the room with its shelves of dusty books, maps, scrolls and charts, serving only to alleviate the gloom not to banish it. The custodians of the library at Shipwreck Cove had not been in this room for months, driven off by fear of that which they did not understand. Now the Keeper of the Code having returned after a protracted cruise sat with his guitar, a bottle of madera and his dog keeping vigil in the lonely hall. None but he dared to enter here after sunset. Only he would dare to face what was sure to come this night or the next, or the next. For three nights he had sat in this same chair keeping watch. Staying ready.
A movement at the corner of his eye caused him to raise his head but it was only Keys the former jail house dog rolling onto his belly to stare fixedly at the darkened doorway. A low wind moved through the room disturbing motes of dust and stirring the candle's flame. The temperature dropped in spite of the fire. Teague shifted his eyes looking to see what the dog had. There as little more than vaporous mist was the shape of a man. Teague narrowed his eyes and lifted his glass to his lips taking a casual drink. As he continued to stare at the figure it moved into the room beginning to take on sharper features. It was as the two old gentlemen of fortune had described it. Tall and lean in shape wearing a tricorn hat and long frock coat, a sabre at its side. Faintly as if from a great distance Teague could hear the thudding of boots as the thing crossed the hard old decking that served as the floor of the library. As it came closer to the fire it let out a moan and coalesced into a man. Albeit a dead one with a horrible wound in his chest just below where the collar bones met. His skin was fish belly white. His sunken eyes clouded as with cataracts. He pointed at Teague an accusing finger. Keys growled, a sound low and harsh.
"Ezekiel Cutter," Teague breathed. "I know you. Dead these three years."
The ghost favored the Keeper of the Code with a baleful glare.
"Dead, but not gone," it rasped, phantom blood dribbling from its mouth.
"Aye," Teague acknowledged undaunted. "Not gone. Come to haunt them what you betrayed."
"Betrayed?" The ghost's laughter slithered through the silent room. "We're pirates, Teague. Back stabbing, pox ridden sons of whores. Betrayal is part and parcel of what we do. I was wronged! You! You wronged me, Teague. It's you I've come to haunt and so help me I shall not leave you a single night's rest until you join the company of the men you've slain."
"There's a special place in Hell for betrayers and mutineers, Zeek." Teague set aside his guitar and rose from the chair to look the spirit in its dead eyes. "You're over due for that port, I think."
"Aye." Cutter agreed. "But I'll not be goin' there afore you. From this night onward you'll be seein' me. Every night until I have justice!"
"You had justice, Zeek," growled the Keeper of the Code his voice every bit as dead as that of the specter before him. "Turned on your own. Broke your oath. I went easy on you with a clean shot."
"I did no more than any other man!" wailed the ghost. "You yourself have turned on them what trusted ye. How was I different?"
"Aye. I've turned on those who trusted me but I never broke an oath." Teague turned to stride to the table where the candle flickered. "This is the Codex Pirata." He lifted the heavy tome from the stained and much abused oak table. "You swore an oath to keep to the Code and you broke it. You betrayed the Brethren to our enemies. Not just a single pirate but all of us. You placed your hand upon this book, this very page, and swore to abide by its words. The words handed down to us by Morgan and Bartholomew. The words that all pirates live by. And you gave us over to them that would destroy us!"
"You were my friend," the ghost of Ezekiel Cutter moaned. "You shot me."
"I'm no man's friend," Teague growled back. "The others would have drawn and quartered you or buried you neck deep in the sand and watched as the crabs came for you. They would have kept your skull and hung it from a yardarm as a warning."
The ghost regarded Teague for a long moment then spoke, "That's all passed and I'm past caring. I'll have my vengeance. I swear it!"
"If that be your final word on the matter, I've no choice," Teague replied. "Leave now and we call it quits."
"Leave?" the ghost laughed. "Nay, not I, Teague. I'll drive you and all the Brethren from this island afore I go. I'm not afraid of you anymore. I'm dead. What else can ye do to me?"
From the shadows at the end of the table Teague dragged a small ship's bell in its frame. He stared directly into the ghost's eyes as he rapped it once sending a clear chime into the still night.
"By bell," Teague intoned.
"By book," Teague said setting his palm flat on the open Codex.
"By candle." Teague said with a glance at the guttering flame. "I'll drive you out."
"You can't," the ghost rasped. He sounded more sure than he looked.
The Keeper of the Code narrowed his eyes and gave the spirit a frosty smile. "Ezekiel Cutter, in the name of them you betrayed and the oath you broke I condemn thee."
He rang the bell once more, louder this time.
"The bell has been rung," Teague said. He glared into the dead man's face with a cold fire burning in his eyes and slammed the book shut with a resounding boom that shook the room and echoed down the passage. "The book is closed."
The ghost shuddered as if caught suddenly by an unexpected gale. He looked wildly about and then back at Teague with widening eyes. His mouth moved but no words came. Teague took up the candle from the table, holding it at arms length so that he was looking through the flickering flame. Suddenly he upended it and drove the flame into the surface of the table extinguishing the light and snapping the candle.
"The candle is snuffed." Teague did not look away as the ghost wailed in terror and despair. Fingers of night slithered in from the surrounding shadows and latched onto the dead pirate. Screaming in torment Ezekiel Cutter was torn apart and dragged into the darkness. As his last frantic cries dwindled away the room grew slightly lighter and warmer. The air was fresher yet laced with the scent of candle wax and old books. Silence fell. A peaceful silence into which the notes of a guitar began to flow. Teague sat once more before the fire listening to the rain patter on the windows and to his snoring dog while he strummed a solum melody. He wondered how many other men he would have to kill twice.
A/N: Bell, book and candle was a ceremony used in the Catholic Church to excommunicate persons who had committed particularly grievous sins. It is sometimes referenced in popular culture as a method for exorcising entities. The two ceremonies are quite different and not closely related. In the case of Captain Ezekiel Cutter he is not being exorcised. He is being cast out of the Court of the Brethren which removes his right to be in Shipwreck Cove. In my interpretation of the aftermath it leaves the spirit of Cutter vulnerable to those powers that administer punishment to the dead.