VI. The Return of the Pillaging Dead Part III

D’anna pointed to one of the pictures. It was a skeleton in a black cloak holding a scythe in one of its bony hands. “That guy looks like Cain a little bit!”

“Ugh. He would think a cloak like that would be spiffy…” Majel groaned as she flipped to the next page. It was the Count sinking his teeth into a screaming woman’s neck. He looked considerably more… well, sane in the drawing, but still just as young. 

“Man, that bloke’s been around forever, huh…?” said Majel, flipping the page. On the opposite side, there was a picture of a skull, a banshee, and a rotting corpse. The corpse had some bits of skin missing and stared towards the reader with blank, white eyes; it was a zombie, a walks-around-and-eats-people kind of zombie.

“Wait a minute…” Majel squinted, sounding out the page’s header. “Kontrol Thaett Whitch Walks Yet ies Not Ahlive… Control That Which Walks Yet is Not Alive! Oh my gods! Do you know what this means, D’anna?” 

“It means we can finally get out of this awful fort! I’ll go get the Captain!” the elf raved. 

“No! It means we can finally be rid of Cai—!” Majel yelled, but D’anna was already through the door. “Godsdammit…” 

“Captain! We found something that could help us!” D’anna cheered, holding his hand as she led him into the vault.

“What is—wah, WHERE THE HELL IS THE TREASURE!?” he bellowed. 

“THIS is the treasure,” D’anna said as she gestured to the Nek-Roh-Gnom-Iee-Khan. “There’s a passage here in this book that can help with the zombies! Here, show him, Majel! Show him!” she smiled obliviously.

The cat glowered at her as she belligerently flipped to the page. “Right here.”

“Well? What does it say?” the skeleton asked. 

“It says ‘Control Zombies.’” 

Cain looked at her, unimpressed. “Then why is there a picture of a ghost and a skeleton next to it, then?”

Majel paused as she tried to come up with a reason. “Uh… what does a zombie turn into after a bit of time but a skeleton, and after that, a ghost?”

“Nice try, fleabag,” Cain said before grabbing the book out of her paws. He held it out of her grasp. “I’m supposed to be the controller, not the controlled! The Festering Wound is my ship and ye two are my crew and I’m the captain! Ya got that?!”

“How do you expect us to leave, then, Sawyer?” pressed Majel.

“Not with this!” The skeleton said, waving the book in the air.

Having reached the end of her rope, Majel swung her fist back and, gaining momentum as it launched towards Cain’s direction, punched him in the face. The impact knocked him flat onto the ground, falling into the middle of the cell.

“Ugggghhhh…” he groaned out. 

The surrounding zombies just stared at him as sat up.

“I oughta have ye walk tha plank fer that!” he yelled to Majel.

The zombies started to act up again, trying once again to reach into the cage.

“Cain! Give me the book NOW!” Majel huffed.

“Stand down, Mange-l, captain’s orders!”

Majel pounced on top of the skeleton and pinned herself on top of him. “Give! Me! The! Book!” 

“Get off of me, ya pampered housecat!” Cain gasped, refusing to let go.

Majel punched him in the face again.

“Auughhh!” he grumbled. As if by sudden command, the zombies stopped again. D’anna, who had been watching this entire scene unfold from the vault, noticed.

“Majel!” D’anna called out. “Punch him again!”

Happy to oblige, the cat’s fist drove into the captain’s skull for a third time.

“Majel… ahh… you… ugh… bitch…!” Cain groaned.

“Now look at the zombies!” D’anna yelled. Majel looked up to see a crowd of blank, white eyes looking at them. They had an almost confused expression on their face.

“Why are they doing that…?” Majel asked.

“It’s like, every time Cain wails in agony, they get really concerned!” 

“Cain, wail in agony again,” Majel said, lightly slapping his cheek. Or, where his cheek used to be. Cheekbone? 

“Fuck off!” He yelled.

"Do it or else I’ll make you do it!” Majel threatened, raising a fist towards him.

“Back off, the lot of ye!” Cain called out. The zombies stopped reaching into the cage. Not wanting to interfere, Majel slowly got off of Cain and crept back into the vault with D’anna. Satisfied, the skeleton stood up, dusted himself off, and looked back to his rotted compatriots.

“Well, well, well! Looks like you all finally care about ol’ ‘Sawbones’ Sawyer Cain afterall, huh?” 

“We don’t! We just wants the JUICY ONES!” One of them yelled. The rest of them gave an affirmative cheer. 

“They’re not on the menu!” Cain shouted. He scanned the horde in front of him. There seemed to be about two dozen of them in total. He smiled. 

“Trust me, ya don’t wanna eat those two. The cat’s got mange and the elf hasn’t had a bath since we set sail. But you know who would be a good meal, I bet? A navyman.”

There was murmur between the horde as they quickly touched-based with each other. 

“They’re a well-educated lot. All of them’s passed Tha Naval Academy in order ta serve for Her Majesty. Many would describe them as havin’... large brains.”

That got a pleasant reception.

“And they’re all well-fed, too. Three square meals a’day, if I’m not mistaken. Me crew and I come across these large-brained, well-fed individuals more often than we like… but a meager crew are we…” he said, gesturing towards D’anna and Majel. They weren’t undead, so the whole conversation sounded like a series of various guttural noises and groans.

“Can you understand what they’re saying?” D’anna asked.

“Not a word,” said Majel.

Cain continued. “So here’s the proposition I’m offering to ye all: join me crew and ye can get yer hands on as much Navymen as yer non-beatin’ hearts desire!”

Some seemed interested in the prospect, nodding with content. One of them tilted his head and sneered at him.

“And what if we don’t join?”

Cain raised his pistol and shot him right between the eyes. Blood splattered and he crumpled to the ground.

“Anyone else?” the skeleton asked.

There was a silence.

“…Good, good…” he smiled. “And one more thing! If any of you even so much as lay a finger on those two back there, I’ll cut off yer noggin’ and bury it on some deserted island, a deserted island I will take no effort in rememberin’. GOT THAT?”

The zombies nodded. Cain holstered his pistol and smirked. “Alright! Now, we won’t find any navymen just sittin’ here, can we? Here, one of you hold this fer me.”

Cain handed one of the zombies the Nek-Roh-Gnom-Iee-Khan so he could unlock the cell with both hands. The horde shuffled away from the cage as he opened the door. He walked through it, then motioned for Majel and D’anna to follow him. 

They didn’t budge.

“Don’t worry, I told ‘em to lay their hands off ye two…” Cain assured them.

“How do we know they’ll stick to their word?” D’anna asked.

“Refer to tha dead one on the floor,” he motioned. 

Always trusting of her captain, D’anna took the first steps out of the cage and hid behind Cain, resting a hand on her cutlass. Majel unsheathed hers as she followed the elf. Once they were all outside, Cain turned to the zombies.

“Empty out tha vault, take anythin’ else from tha fort that might be valuable, and bring it to tha ship! The sooner we set sail, the sooner yer next meal’ll be.”

The zombies began to crowd into the vault. Majel took a sigh of relief. 

“I don’t know what the hell you told them, but at least those maggot-eaten shamblers are gone now…” 

“Majel,” Cain asked, “is that any way to talk to yer crewmates?”

The new crew took some getting used to. The smell was particularly bad, but then again, the Rogers didn’t smell the best, either. Some of the zombies were a bit hard to look at, but that was nothing a bandana over the face couldn’t solve. Those whose hands and legs were eaten/hacked off were given hooks and peg legs. 

Cain liked how his new crewmates didn’t need to sleep, just like himself. That way, he could boss them around literally all of the time. 

The Nek-Roh-Gnom-Iee-Khan was safely secured in his quarters, right next to the Beheaded Navyman’s cage. He couldn’t harness its powers, since he was functionally illiterate, but at least nobody else could get their hands on it this way. 

With a larger crew and a small library of cookbooks taken from the fort, D’anna was allowed to take on the role of ship cook. Majel continued to be the First Mate, although she preferred the term “First Officer,” since “mate” was too intimate for her liking.

“Do you think I used too much garlic?” D’anna asked as she looked into her bowl of pork stew. 

“D’anna,” Majel said, resting a hand on the elf’s shoulder, “there can never be such a thing as ‘too much garlic.’”

The elf smiled at her. “Well, I’m glad you liked it. Originally this called for beef, but we both know that’s not happening…”

Majel shook her head. “Fish is better anyway. That’s my way of telling you, ‘more fish, please!’”

D’anna chuckled. “Speaking of, there’s a pilaf that I’ve been dying to try. It goes with some salmon, apparently.”

Majel smiled. “Remind me whenever we’re not being boarded by navymen and I’ll show you how to net.” 

Overhead, they could hear the thumping of boots, the repeated SHINGs of swordplay, Cain’s cackling laugh, and the guttural screams of navymen being eaten alive.

“…tell ‘em ‘Sawbones’ Sawyer Cain is back from the grave with a vengeance…!” they heard the skeleton bellow out from above. 

D’anna groaned. “Luckily, I don’t have to cook for the rest of the crew…”