Chapter Fourteen: "What They Really Are"

Tortuga-

It was dawn, and Jack was proud to say that everyone in his little group was up and ready to go….everyone, that is, except for Megan. She was up, oh yes, no doubt about that, but the ready to go part was something she was no where near.

Jack waited outside the girls' door as Jenny and Alexa tried one last attempt to get Megan out of her "lair".

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Megan cried as the sound of curtains swishing open was heard. "Oh," she moaned. "my achin' head!" she piled the pillows and pulled the blankets up over her head to block out the daylight. "I'm not getting UP!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, causing her head to hurt even more.

"Why not?" asked Alexa as Jack sneaked in. Megan's reply was to hiss like a vampire.

"What was that?" Jenny asked as Jack crept closer to the bed.

Just as Megan hissed again, Jack threw back the covers and tossed up Megan's pillows. "Turn off the Sun!" she yelled desperately, flailing her arms about. Jack just shooed them away and lifted Megan up and carried her out of the room with her swung over his shoulder.

Jack carried her down the steps to the tavern below, followed by a giggling Jenny and Alexa. They found will paying the owner of the Inn.

"I've got her, Will!" Jack called, drawing stares from around the bar. Will took one look at the still protesting Megan and shook his head.

"I paid." he informed Jack.

Jack opened his mouth to reply as they walked outside, but Megan - who was still bent on hiding from the Sun - kicked Mack in the head, causing him to yelp in pain and his hat to fall off.

Will smiled and quickly turned his laugh into a cough as Jack glared at Megan's legs on the side of his head.

Alexa picked up Jack's hat and gave it back to him.

"Thank ye." he said gruffly as he shoved it back onto his head.

"We obviously forgot to tell you something last night, Jack." Alexa commented.

"And what would that be?" Jack asked, resuming their trek to the docks.

Jenny and Will stifled a laugh (a/n: Will knows cos Jenny and Alexa told him in the morning).

"If Megan goes through Hell, she's willing to share it with those certain people who bother her."

Jack rolled his eyes as the girl on his shoulder finally stopped flailing to get a breath. "Oh, now you tell me." he murmured.

Jenny smiled as Megan resumed her protesting. "You put me down, Jack!" she cried. "You're nothing but a STUPID…FAT…HOBBIT!" Megan grabbed her head in pain.

"Oh, me achin' head!"

The Black Pearl (Last night, continued)-

"Thanks to ye, we have the final piece."

The girls stared nervously at the pirate. "And the blood to be repaid?" Elizabeth question softly.

Barbossa grinned. "That's why there'd be no sense in killing the three of ye…yet." He turned to Alex. "Apple?" he asked, handing her the one from earlier.

Alex scowled and knocked it out of his hand. Barbossa stepped back, shocked.

Christie jumped out of her chair and headed to the door of the cabin. She was followed closely by Alex and Elizabeth, but they were cur off by the Captain.

"Christie!" Alex screamed.

Christie turned around and saw her friends cornered and knew there was nothing she could do about it.

"Arr!" Barbossa laughed at Alex and Elizabeth's feeble attempts to get away from him. He came around to meet the girls on the other side of the column, but to his surprise, Elizabeth stabbed him in the chest with her knife.

Alex cheered as Barbossa stared at the piece of cutlery in his chest - before pulling it out. Alex screamed and dropped her knife.

Christie tried to rush over and grab Alex to pull her away, but Barbossa stopped her.

"I'm curious," he stated casually. "After killing me, what was it you were planning on doing next?"

Christie decided that now was a good time and grabbed Elizabeth and Alex's hand and the three of them burst out of the door. Alex and Elizabeth screamed at the sight before them, but Christie just stared.

The crew was out on deck, doing their chores, but that wasn't the scary part.

They were all skeletons - that was the scary part.

Christie suddenly noticed that she was gaping at the pirates alone. She looked desperately around and saw Elizabeth stuck in this thing some pirates were pushing, and Alex was "sword fighting" with another skeleton using a mop. She ran to help Alex, but a couple of the pirates grabbed her and tossed her up in the air to one of the pirates swinging on the rigging above them.

"Alex!" Christie screamed as she flew through the air.

Alex knocked her skeleton's head off before looking up. "Christie!" she screamed back. She jumped up so she was in the way of Christie and the swinging skeleton. As they swung back towards Alex, she grabbed Christie, startling the pirate and causing him to fall off of his rope.

The two girls heard a scream and saw Elizabeth to be suffering the same fate as Christie had just been through.

Christie and Alex started to rush over to help the young lady, but they were both grabbed by the former swinging pirate. They turned around to face their enemy's decaying and disgusting face.

Alex, who hadn't dropped her mop while catching Christie, smacked the side of the pirate's face. He let go of both Christie and Alex in shock, allowing the girls to puch him down some stairs that led below deck.

The girls wiped their hands, satisfied, but not before the ran for cover with Elizabeth under the stair by Barbossa's cabin.

Just then, the monkey decided to "drop by' for a surprise visit, causing all of the girls to scream and for Elizabeth to run for shelter back in the cabin.

But Barbossa caught her and forced her to look at his crew.

"Look!" he barked. "The moonlight shows us what we really are." He turned Elizabeth to look at him. "We are not among the living so we cannot die, but neither are we dead. Too long I've been parched with thirst and unable to quench it. Too long I've been stavin' to death and haven't died. I feel nothin'. Not the wind on my face, nor the spray of the sea, nor the warmth of a woman's flesh."

Elizabeth gasped as the had Barbossa used to reach for her turned skeletal.

"You best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner! You're in one!"

The pirate pulled out a bottle of wine, bit off the cork, and downed the drink as he stepped into the moonlight. The drink spilled all down his bare ribs, dying his shirt a dark red.

Elizabeth, Alex, and Christie ran into the cabin, and Barbossa slammed the doors shut behind them, and the girls could hear him laughing, and the crew joined him.

"What are you laughin' at? Back t' work!"

A/N: yet another chapter finished! Yay! R&R, folks!