Dispatches From the Frontier, Chapter II

posted on august 10, 2005, tags: dispatches, fiction

You're reading chapter two. Available chapters: One | Two

Marty charged one of the giant spiders, screaming like a banshee and swinging his arms in circles. It was a crazy plan and had no chance of working, but it proved a momentary distraction for Guido, who was about to sink his razor-sharp fangs into the webbed Latino. In that moment, the Welder burst forth from the kitchen, covered in spider entrails, and charged at Guido. While Marty punched one spider, the Welder began to burn Guido's legs with the torch while I crawled around on the floor pretending to be looking for something to use as a weapon.

Narrowly avoiding being stomped to death by Guido, I finally jumped to my feet and ran for the cache of snake poison at the far end of the mess hall. While I unlocked the cabinet, I quickly calculated my odds of survival: slim to none. Poison in hand, I ran back to the door and yelled to the Welder to stop burning Guido and help me unlock the door. He yelled back that his current priority was keeping the biggest of the giant spiders from killing us all, and that the snakes falling from the sky and hitting the deck of the ship didn't seem very important at the moment. I would have disagreed, but he's a very good arguer.

The Latino had finally worked his way out of the web and had fetched a chopping knife from the kitchen. He began to work on a few of the younger spiders, chopping legs off left and right, swinging the freed limbs and occasionally clobbering a spider with its own leg. At first he seemed determined to win the battle, but after a few minutes he just seemed to be enjoying himself. In fact, most of the spiders, including Guido, had stopped fighting and were simply watching with horror as the Latino ruthlessly beat his victims with their own appendages. We would have stopped him, but we feared for our own lives—the crazed look in his eyes and the large knife kept us at a measured distance. He tired of the carnage eventually and, with a truly devious laugh, tossed his knife aside and asked the Welder for assistance in opening the door.

By the time we made it back to the surface of the ship, the snake storm had died down. The occasional snake fell, but the worst of it appeared to be over and, luckily for us, most of the snakes had died. The survivors, holed up under broken barrels and in the Midget's mouth, were easily poisoned. Once they were all dead we began to sweep them off the deck and into the water. When the ship was finally free of the last snake, we picked up the Midget's disfigured body and wrapped it in some dirty cloth we found in a utility closet. The Latino said a quick prayer in rhythmic Latin and then we tossed the body overboard and observed a minute of silence.

Afterward, I started to mutter something about how the Midget would never be forgotten, but I was interrupted by a loud bang behind us. The bang was followed by another bang, then a splintering sound, then a splash, then some screams, then a few moments of silence in which I tried to repeat what I had started to say but was interrupted again by another bang. Frustrated by all the noise, I declared that I would not bother speaking over these rude interruptions and that, if anyone wanted me, I would be in my quarters. As I walked toward the stairs, a large, black cannonball exploded through the rail to my right, knocking me to the ground and shattering wood as it traveled.

As I screamed in horror, the Captain grabbed me by the shirt-collar and dragged me behind some barrels while yelling at his men to prepare the cannon. Only a moment later, another cannonball whizzed by us, smashing to hell the fort I had built with the help of the cook, Tillary, the morning before. I yelped at the sight of our work being destroyed, and the Captain told me to stop worrying about the fort and to make a dash for the ladder to the crow's nest. I wouldn't have done it, but he kept slapping me and telling me to do something useful, so on his command I ran across the deck to the ladder and began to climb sloppily as cannonballs whizzed by my face.

The crow's nest was smaller than I had hoped, and once inside I had a moment to finally realize just how high it actually was—and then another moment to regurgitate. From this vantage point, I could see our attacker: a large pirate ship made of dark black wood, with dirty, tattered, white sails and a row of five smoking cannon. I saw the pirates loading more balls and yelling at each other, and while I couldn't make out what they were saying, it was clear that they were angry.