This chapter is thanks to my dear friend jackfan2, she helped a lot in the forming of this little chapter, and in the writing of it, as a certain part is commandeered (with permission) from her own fabulous fic. Oh, and she beta'd it too. So actually, I think she's more to thank for this chapter than Moo is!!!
Chapter Seven
A human hand, pale and swollen with long thick-yellowed fingernails, hung off the table with a gnarled finger pointed towards the floor.
"What the hell is this place?"
"A school, actually." Jack stepped forward and ran a finger along the edge of one of the canvas sheets covering a table. Slowly, he pulled a corner back until he saw fine wisps of grey hair, then stopped. He could go no further than that.
Dead people were no mystery to either pirate. They both saw all kinds of death, death by sword, death by drowning, death by falling, and death by illness. Death held no fascination. This was entirely different though. This was no natural sight.
Anamaria stepped up, took the cover, and pulled it back the rest of the way. Beneath lay the upper half of a woman's torso.
The chest area looked cut away, as were the ribs, to reveal the intricacies of anatomy that lie underneath. They stared at the grisly sight until the full force of the smell hit them.
Anamaria stepped back towards the safety of the doorway. Jack did not move. His eyes locked on the woman's face, the skin seemed thick and darkened, shrivelled and dried up. But that wasn't all he saw.
He knew it wasn't real, but that didn't make it any less visible. The woman, the same woman who lay dead and dissected on the table, stood to the side staring at him with vibrant eyes. She was not beautiful, her hair hung shoulder length and greyed with age, her shoulders stooped forwards slightly, but her eyes were a deep and rich colour of brown. She didn't have to be beautiful; she was once a woman with hopes and dreams, a woman with a family.
She stepped around the table, closer to him. Her lips didn't move, but he heard the words in his head nonetheless. "They killed me for this." She swept a hand down and through the dead form on the table. "They'd have killed her too." Now she looked over to Anamaria, and Jack followed the gaze.
"This is what they would have done to me." Anamaria's very real voice sliced through the eerie silence, echoing what Jack already heard.
"Which is exactly why we should not be here."
The woman who was not there came even closer, and Jack had to take a hasty step back. The air felt cold and heavy where she stood, making it hard to breathe. Before he could move any further away, the world tilted.
The cold he felt in the room magnified tenfold. There were five tables in the room, but there were more than just that. There were people, twenty at least, and they all stood and looked to him for answers.
Morris Ettie stood among them, and his eyes held only accusation. "You were too late." He walked forwards, through the table in his way, and through the woman Jack first saw. He walked right up to Jack, and then right into him.
"Jack!"
Anamaria's face appeared above him. Above?
"Am I not standing?"
"No Jack, yer not." She placed a hand on his forehead, and her hand felt hot enough to burn as she touched him. "You fainted."
"Pirates don't faint."
"Then y' swooned, y' bloody daft fool. Whatever y' call it, y' went down like a load o' bricks. If I hadn'ta caught ya, you're head would be smacked open like a pumpkin right now."
"Pirates don't swoon." He concentrated on Anamaria, using her as an anchor to focus on. Everything felt off centre. The room at least no longer held as many bodies as it did before. Correction: it held just as many bodies as it ever did, but no longer seemed occupied by those that weren't there.
There was a memory of the woman standing there, and of his old acquaintance Morris Ettie rushing at him, but nothing after.
That must be where the sudden lack of consciousness took place.
Anamaria helped him sit up, and then stared at the floor. Strange behaviour, even for Anamaria. She brought the lantern closer, and stared at the floor even harder.
"Jack?"
"Hmm?"
"Are y' bleeding?"
He finally looked where she was looking, and indeed there was a nice little patch of something on the floor just under where his hand lay. The injured hand.
"Looks like it." The hand no longer hurt at least, it felt numb. He stood up, or would have if she didn't stop him.
"Let me see it Jack." She didn't wait for an answer. She took his hand, examined the palm of the glove and the blood soaked leather. Then she started taking off the glove.
Any feeling of numb Jack previously had scampered off to some far away place. She got only a small glimpsed of the mess underneath before he pulled his arm away and pushed her off him. "It's just a cut. You can see to it later." It was just a damned cut on the palm, nothing to get worked up about, wasn't like he never cut his palm before.
Not cut right to the bone at least.
"Y'll be no good t' us if yer dead."
"What?"
Ana stared at him and raised an eyebrow. "What?"
It sounded like a man's voice. Not Anamaria. The room obviously wasn't doing any favours for his sanity. "We're leaving." The off balance feeling remained as he stood up.
"We've got to do something about what's going on here, Jack."
"That's Norrington's business. Not ours."
Anamaria looked back to the tables, and Jack wondered if he might not be as alone as he thought in what he saw. "We can't leave 'em like this. It ain't right."
"They're dead, we're not." He stepped back out into the concealed hallway leading out.
"They might be dead, but that don't mean we can't do nothing about it."
Jack stopped. "Wrong. Firstly, it was I who said that to you. Secondly, don't twist what I say. Thirdly, I have done something. The Commodore is takin' care of t' matter, and it would go much better for us if we get out b'fore he comes in."
"What'll us being here matter for anything?"
"Pirates, Anamaria. That's what we are, and that's what these devils ain't. These're respected folk in Port Royal. Who do y' think there goin'a blame when it comes out where these bodies came from? Pirates, that's who. They're goin'a say they's had no idea of the whole thing and the mean pirates tricked them inna'it. An whadayathink that'll make us if we're here?"
"We'll be the pirates."
"Exactly." As he walked, the smell of the room lingered. He could smell it everywhere now, and he wanted nothing more than to get out of the damn house and breathe some fresh air.
"If you don't stop what's happening here, it will continue."
Again. That was not Anamaria. Jack spun around; the voice was so close to his ear it might as well have been inside of it. "It's not my problem." Jack muttered.
"It's yer people getting snatched, Sparrow. Pirates, dregs of society just like yer self and yer crew. Like your woman."
Jack raised a hand and warily touched his temple. Ignore it, he told himself and continued walking. Morris Ettie was dead, dead as in gone, and certainly not currently residing in Jack's head.
"Sloan will hang, but he'll be the only one. They may shut down the school, but that won't stop it from reopening someplace else. The man behind this will go free, and it will continue." The voice of Morris Ettie didn't grasp the whole death concept as well as it should have, apparently.
"I can't let the bastards get away with doing what they almost did to me." This time it was Anamaria.
Great, so the entire bloody universe was ganging up against him. "We're going back to the Pearl. Now."
"No." Anamaria said.
"No." Morris Ettie echoed.
"Yes." Jack took another step. A ringing started in his ear, a sound that went from barely there to all encompassing in a matter of a heart beat.
"No."
This wasn't fair. Not fair at all.