The gun men began to look all around them.
Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. The air itself seemed to press against them heavy, suffocating, alive. Their eyes watered. Their throats tightened. Their hearts pounded in their chests like caged animals.
All the members of the crews were bleeding out of their eyes.
Thick, dark blood trickled from their tear ducts trailing down their cheeks, dripping from their chins, staining their black suits. Drool came out of their mouths thick, yellow, uncontrolled pouring over their lips, wetting their shirts, pooling on the deck beneath them.
They screamed in pain.
The sound was horrible a chorus of agony that echoed across the water, that drowned out the cannons, that silenced the storm for a single, terrible moment.
Some of them began itching their bodies over and over again. Their fingers scratched at their arms, their chests, their faces tearing through cloth, tearing through flesh, tearing through everything that stood between them and the madness that consumed them.
Some pleaded for forgiveness.
One repeatedly hit his head on the floorboard CRACK, CRACK, CRACK each impact splitting the wood, cracking his skull, spraying blood across the deck.
He shouted out loud.
"Son! Please forgive me! Forgive your father!" His voice was raw, broken, desperate. "I know this may not be enough. Please, son stop crying!"
He cried.
"It's my fault that you died of hunger."
He looked around at the chaos, at the horror, at the nothing that surrounded him and seemed to find something only he could see.
"But here..." He broke off a piece of the wooden floorboard. "I know it will make you feel better."
He started chewing on it.
The wood tore through his mouth splinters piercing his tongue, shards cutting his cheeks, chunks lodging in his throat. He continued to cry as he swallowed the chunks of wood.
His throat was pierced by it.
He died while crying.
There was a man who began to eat himself.
He smiled a wide, terrible, toothless grin and laughed.
"HAHAHA! Look! We have great bounty! A full harvest!"
He gestured at the empty air around him.
"There is much to eat! It's almost as if it's unlimited!"
He tore out his fingernails.
One by one SNAP, SNAP, SNAP he ripped them from his fingers, tossing them into his mouth, crunching on them like brittle bones. He did not feel the pain. Could not feel the pain. The fear had taken that from him.
He tore the foreskin of his palm.
The skin peeled away wet, red, glistening and he shoved it into his mouth, chewing with the same terrible smile.
He continued from there.
Going to his fingers.
He tore them off one by one CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH each digit separating from his hand, crunching between his teeth, disappearing into his throat.
He slowly devoured his own body.
Another person jumped into the sea.
His body splashed into the dark water and was immediately torn apart by the monsters that waited below. His scream was cut short. His blood spread. His memory faded.
For different members of the crew, each of them had a different horror they faced.
One of the gun men saw everything that went on.
His face was pale. His hands were trembling. His eyes were wide with a terror that had no bottom, no end, no escape.
He couldn't even bear to hold his pistol anymore.
It clattered to the deck the sound lost in the chaos, lost in the screams, lost in the madness.
He stuttered, his voice barely a whisper.
"D-dev-vil." His lips quivered. "Y-you're a d-dev-vil."
Gareth rushed him.
His body moved fast, fluid, inevitable and his fist slammed into the man's face.
CRACK!
The gunman's head snapped back. His body flew through the air tumbling, spinning, crashing against a crate of explosives. He lay there, stunned, bleeding, dying.
Gareth straightened.
He wiped the blood from his knuckles.
Then, from the wooden boards behind him, four more gunmen in suits emerged.
They rose from below deck climbing through the hatch, spreading across the deck, surrounding him. Their faces were hard. Their eyes were cold. Their hands were steady.
They had not been affected by the fear.
Yet.
All the gunmen raised their pistols.
BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.
Bullets flew spinning through the air, screaming toward their target, filling the space between them with lead and death.
Gareth dodged.
His body moved twisting, bending, flowing each bullet passing by him, missing him, tearing through the air where he had been a moment before.
He used his sword to cut through some.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
The blade sliced the bullets in half splitting them, deflecting them, sending them spinning harmlessly into the deck.
Then he raised a single board plank from the ground.
He took a deep breath.
He cut up the board plank into many pieces.
His sword moved fast, precise, mechanical slicing the wood into fragments, into splinters, into fine dust. The pieces hung in the air for a moment suspended, waiting, ready and then he blew.
WHOOSH!
The dust exploded forward filling the air, obscuring the vision of the enemy, turning the deck into a cloud of wood and shadow.
The gunmen coughed. Their eyes watered. Their aim wavered.
Gareth rushed forward.
He targeted one of them.
The gunman saw him a shape in the dust, a shadow in the fog and fired.
BANG!
The bullet shot toward Gareth.
Gareth did not dodge.
He collected the bullet with his shoulder.
THWACK!
The lead slammed into his flesh tearing through skin, burying itself in muscle, painting his coat red. He did not cry out. Did not stop. Did not slow.
He threw his sword.
The blade spun through the air end over end, gleaming in the storm-light and pierced the gunman from underneath the jaw.
SHLIK!
The man's eyes widened. His mouth opened. Blood poured from the wound, dripping down his neck, pooling in his collar.
He fell.
Dead.
Gareth grabbed a hold of the gun he had.
A pistol black, heavy, loaded. He tucked it into his belt.
Then he saw the second gun that the man had tucked away.
A smaller pistol concealed, hidden, ready.
Gareth smiled.
"Perhaps..." His voice was calm, almost conversational. "...it is because my name is not known through these seas."
He looked at the remaining gunmen.
"That to engage in battle with me... and to underestimate me..."
His smile widened.
"...is death itself."
He looked at the guns in his hands.
"Guns, huh?" He turned them over, feeling their weight, testing their balance. "Well..."
He raised them.
"...time for a switch up."
His eyes cold, calculating, ancient fixed on the gunmen.
"I will show you how to be a true gunman."
He paused.
"You really underestimate this weapon."
Gareth smiled.
The guns gleamed.
And the sea roared.