Just recapping the last chapter – it was a dream. A nightmare, sent by the Devil to taunt and torture Jack before he claims his soul. Chapter 36 ran in a similar vein. Jack has something like 4 days left to lift the Black Spot, or lose his soul, so he best get cracking… and not fall asleep again…
Jack woke suddenly to a pair of scarlet glowing red eyes.
"Argh! What the devil is that?" Jack yelled, scrabbling to a sitting position and sending the rough bed-sheets flying like billowing sails in a hurricane. Will looked over from his deep conversation with Elsey.
"It's a bat," he replied shortly, before turning his attention once more to his previous conversation. Jack blearily scowled at the bat resting on the open window-sill, regarding it warily with squinted, kohl-smudged eyes. For several brief seconds while Jack had been between consciousnesses, he could have sworn those red glowing eyes belonged to something other than a bat. Something more sinister…a ghoul…or perhaps a corpse, with an outstretched, beckoning hand…
"How long has it been here?" Jack demanded. Will turned sharply back to Jack. What an odd question. Then again, in usual social discourses, Jack couldn't be described as your stereotypical classification of a normal person.
"Shortly after you arrived from the pub. Elsey won't go near it." Jack regarded the bat perched innocently on the opened window-sill once more, with even deeper suspicion than before, if that was at all possible. Its red eyes were still fixated firmly on Jack's.
"For once, that girl actually possesses a shred of sense." He muttered to himself. Will watched his Captain with a sense of unease, but pinned Jack's odd behaviour down on the killer hang-over he must be suffering from at the present state. Jack regarded the bat suspiciously, Will regarded Jack warily and Elsey gazed at Will lovingly. The bat shifted slightly, its leathery wings rustling. Now all eyes were on the bat.
Quicker than Will would have thought any hung-over man could possibly ever move, Jack drew his pistol from under the bed-sheets, and without pausing further to aim, fired off a shot. Will winced as Elsey cowered in her chair, using the small table as a shield and squealing in fright.
"You killed it!" She cried breathlessly in a shocked voice, peering hesitantly over the table-top. Jack put the pistol out of sight once more, grimacing before he turned to address the frightened girl.
"One, I thought you hated the creature, so it's little skin off your nose. Two, that thing is neither a bat, nor dead."
All eyes cut once more to regard the ledge where the bat sat. Blood was trickling from the ragged wound in its little hairy chest, pooling in a small dark pool at the base of its clawed talons. The bat stooped down on awkwardly-folded wings and began lapping up its own blood, pointed tongue flashing and sharp fangs glinting in the weak dawn light.
"It's a Vampire bat." Will stated in astonishment.
"Nasty beastie." Jack added in dark agreement, producing some gunpowder from a small felt pouch from the folds of his jacket and carefully pouring it into his pistol, "Hells minion itself." In the distance a cockerel cried that dawn light was approaching. Jack jerked up in his bed, "What time is it?" He asked anxiously.
"Just on dawn. Six o'clock." Will replied in puzzlement. He had often witnessed Jack's outrageous and bizarre antics, but this was the cream of the crop.
"Bloody hell." Jack cursed and staggered out of bed, stumbling in the entangled bed-sheets. He hurriedly pulled his boots on, but half-way between struggling into his second boot, the Vampire bat gave a shrill shriek of warning. Jack threw his boot at it without further hesitation, knocking it off its perch and sending it spiralling towards the flag-stoned ground three floors down. Jack's left boot followed suit.
"Now look what you've done, you silly man." Elsey scolded, peering out the window to see where Jack's boot had landed. Jack looked as if he very much wanted to send Elsey flying out the window to join his boot and the bat, but was stopped from planning or undertaking any such action by Elsey's scream of alarm. "Look!" She shrieked, pointing at the light pink sky in horror, "Look at the sky!"
Will and Jack rushed to the window sill, Jack somewhat awkwardly with his drunken stumble and one boot. Set starkly against the crimson-tinged sky was a dark black cloud, moving towards the inn at a rapid speed that no normal storm-cloud could achieve.
"It's some kind of storm." Will mused.
"It's not a storm." Jack muttered darkly, stepping back from the window, "It's a message. They're bats. It's a colony of Vampire bats." As he spoke, the ear-splitting shrieks of the blood-thirsty bats could be heard, carried to the trio's ears by the light wind. Already the bats had flown so far Will could make out their glowing red eyes, like little pin-pricks of blood in the jet-black swarm.
"Got to run." Jack called, throwing open the door and bolting out, still wearing only one shoe, and an entangled bed-sheet snagged about his ankle trailing after him.
Crzywildchick804 – sorry if the last chapter confused you; I should have made it less in-the-air and ambiguous. It was just a nightmare. It meant nothing…or did it? (chuckles evilly) And can you PM me that poem again, because it didn't come through properly the first time? If that's okay with you, that is :)
Xthexstarlettex – yes, lots of intense moments coming up. Very exciting; soon you'll get to know exactly who the Lady of the Drifting Maiden is, and why she stalks Jack and the Black Pearl, plus what Alex is up to, and I'm trying to squeeze Anamaria in (she's actually been present in one of the last few chapters, but not referred to by name) and lots more interesting things.
DCoD – I hope your holidays will be great. Let me guess, you're going overseas or to another country like what Lonaargh did… all you lucky people… That's what sucks about being stuck on the only continent that's also an island; it's a bit tricky to visit another country. And I fixed up that typo. I apologise; I should have read the chapter through more thoroughly. The 'f' trips me up every time. I go to spell 'over' 'ofer' so often it's not funny. Have fun on your holiday:)
Apple-365 – That last chapter was probably the darkest chapter I've ever written, and to be honest, even I found it ewwy. Blergh…
Willowred – There you go; I saved Jack from the Black Friday and the Devil for you. Only to have him chased by a swarm of murderous Vampire bats who want to suck him dry in this chapter. With all the stress I've put him through, it's a wonder he doesn't have a grey hair on his head… Come to think of it, I don't think Captain Jack Sparrow can grow grey hairs. It's against all the laws of genetics.
Hippolytos: Wow, six reviews in one day! Now I almost have 200! Miracles do happen; when I first wrote this FF I never expected to gain any! In answer to your question, I would love to be a C2-staff-person, but I have no clue in the world what a C2 is. To me it looks like some scary Chemistry compound…I'm not very computer literate, am I? I'm a disgrace. But yeah, if you tell me what to do I'd be more than happy to be a staff-person.
In answer to your other questions, the transition between Chapter 41 & Chapter 42, you didn't skip a chapter. Time passed, Jack drunk a lot of rum, Jack got blind drunk, Jack lets Kristina (aka Jacquelyn Sparrow) sit in his lap, Jack got drunk some more. Cassie turns up in Chapter 23 and 24 – Jack's old bonny-lass. (P.S – Your review for chapter 41 made me laugh… hehehe…)
Lonaargh – Sorry if the last chapter made you a bit queasy. Lots of responses have told me perhaps that chapter was a bit too graphic. I wasn't too keen on it either. The dark chapters should be toned-down to the normal level for the rest of the FF :)