Midnight Mischief

Something woke me up in the dead of night. My hammock swayed back and forth as the ship rolled over waves. Everything seemed quiet here belowdecks. What had woken me up? A half memory of my dream lingered behind my eyes. I had been on a long walk, and had just ended up in a forest that wasn’t on my map. I had smelled someone baking bread in the woods and I was searching for it, but that’s when I had started from my sleep with a sudden sense of dread.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. I rolled from my hammock onto the cool wood of the deck. My eyes had adjusted to the dark so I made my way to the stairs without much trouble, even though it was pitch black in the crew quarters. What I saw above on deck was even stranger than I could have imagined.

The sails were all set at full strength but I couldn’t see anybody aloft. Nobody was on deck. I almost shouted, then thought better of it. There was mischief afoot. I jogged lightly over to the wheel. My bare feet made hardly any sound on the wood. The wheel was lashed in place with a short length of rope and a few clever knots. Where were we headed in the middle of the night?

I walked back up to the prow, my heart beating faster from the movement and from the fear that was growing in my chest. It was foggy. I couldn’t see very far ahead. Suddenly a ship loomed out of the grey mists. The deck was swarming with crew members, the ropes were a mess, the sails were ragged… and there was a black flag flying! I fell backwards from the railing in shock.

I leapt to my feet, breathed in deeply to sound the alarm as loud as I could yell, and then felt a hand on my mouth, felt a knife slide into my back.

“You shouldn’t be up here, Mr. Sykes.” I couldn’t tell whose voice it was. The knife tore across my neck, and the mutineer shoved me overboard. I hit the icy water with a slap, just in time to hear the iron hooks of grappling lines clank onto the deck above me. I choked and spluttered in the water, then sank beneath the surface.