Revelations

Six weeks after their awakening in the modern world, The Buccaneers find their new lives somewhat of an anti-climax. After all the furore and vows to fight injustice, everything just grinds to a disillusioned halt. But when a fighter jet screeches across the sky above them and destroys a ship in a terrific and frightening explosion, they realize this new world is a violent and dangerous place. Heading for the arctic circle to retreat from the aggression they have witnessed, they embark on a series of adventures where finally they start to make a difference in the new world. But many strange and peculiar events keep occurring that are mystifying and defy all logic. What is it about the unworldly fog that keeps assisting them in times of danger? Why does the past and future of those they meet on their voyage suddenly change? And why does a person who is murdered, suddenly appear alive and well again? By witnessing our world through the eyes of four people from 300 years ago, we are shown just how cruel and selfish mankind has become. But is there hope for the future and what does their revival mean for everyone today? All they can do is follow the path laid down for them and ultimately to seek out the truth.

Chapter 1 – The Fires of Hell ‘You are clear to go,’ the tinny voice confirmed in his headset. Keying in the remaining coordinates into his console, Luke pulled at the yoke making the jet climb higher and then moving it sideways he rolled the aircraft to the right, setting off in the direction of the target. Luke Banister had been in the RAF ever since leaving school. All he ever wanted to do was fly. Being up above the clouds gave him a sense of freedom and he felt a tranquil peace when soaring across the heavens. The irony was, though, that although he felt personally at peace, the same certainly wasn’t true of his intentions. Luke had been a jet fighter pilot for just over three years and to begin with flights had been routine scout missions, but now with the ever increasing threat of war, training had become more intense. The mission he was currently engaged in was an exercise to seek out and destroy an enemy ship. The Navy had provided a vessel that had been decommissioned and set for the scrap yard. The target ship had been floated out into the middle of the North sea, several miles off the north west coast of Scotland and it was Luke’s task to find it and sink it using his onboard missiles. The fighter jet screeched across the sky in pursuit of its target and Luke kept a watchful eye out of the flight deck window as he scanned the ocean below looking for any sign of the ‘enemy ship.’ Suddenly he saw something in the sea ahead of him. It was too far away to see what it was. The object was pale in colour and hard to make out against the light blue of the water, but something was obviously there. Luke assumed the object was some kind of boat or ship, but was it the target? This part of the sea was not used very much by other shipping lines and was therefore the ideal place for such a training exercise and as Luke was to use live ammunition, there was little chance of anyone getting caught up in the explosion. The object, therefore, had to be his target. Luke kept his eye steadily on the tiny, odd patch floating on the ocean ahead of him, and he watched it grow bigger as he raced towards it. Unexpectedly, he saw another object in the water several miles ahead of the first one. ‘There can’t be two targets.’ he questioned. This was surprising as there shouldn’t have been any other ships in the vicinity. Luke checked the coordinates on his onboard computer and the readings suggested the second object was the intended target, not the first. Luke had been trained to think and make decisions quickly as it could be a matter of life or death in certain wartime situations. He reasoned that the first object was not close enough to the second one to cause it any damage in the impending bombing and so decided not to abort the mission and carry on. ‘The first ship wouldn’t be harmed, but it will give them quite a shock,’ he chuckled to himself. ‘Besides, they shouldn’t be there, should they,’ he thought. Luke thought the first ship was probably some local fishermen who had either drifted off course or were chasing a large catch. In any case they were in no danger. Luke opened the throttle and the jet roared towards the target. His eyes were now firmly on the second vessel as he flew towards it. He thought no more about the first ship as it was not important, and he had to focus his attentions on the intended target. As he was preparing to fire the missiles, the plane flew low over the first ship and Luke was slightly taken aback at what he thought he saw. It wasn’t a ship; it was a strange fog that just hung over a small area of the ocean. Luke didn’t have time to analyse it properly, but as he flew over the mysterious patch of fog, he thought for a split second that he saw the mast of a three hundred year old sailing ship, complete with the jolly roger flag flapping in the wind! He shook his head and dismissed the ridiculous idea from his mind. He had a mission to complete which required all his skill and judgement. Luke pressed the button and the missiles streaked from the under carriage of the plane and within seconds the abandoned Royal Navy ship erupted in flames with a loud explosion. As the smoke a flames subsided, the only thing visible was the top part of the ship sinking beneath the waves. Luke Banister didn’t see that though, his plane had long passed and with the mission completed, he was making his way back to base. Anne Bonny, the famous eighteenth century female pirate stood on the deck of The Kingston, their pirate ship, as it casually sailed in the north sea some miles off the coast of Scotland in the twenty first century. It was early in the morning and whisps of fog hung around the deck. It had been several weeks since they had ‘awoken,’ as she called it. She was deep in thought, going over those first few hours when they had found themselves back on their ship and alive again. It had been a confusing and traumatic time for them all. She remembered the first moments of their new life and the ghoulish chrysalis that had borne their new bodies. She shuddered at the grotesqueness of it all and the deep routed feeling of revulsion as she pondered who or what had caused this unnatural resurrection. Anne gazed out across the calm, still waters of the North Sea and watched the ghost-like clouds as the gently floated across the morning sky. A watery smile briefly broke the sternness of her expression as she thought about them all struggling to remember who they were as their newborn bodies began to mature at an alarming rate. Then there were the ridiculous assumptions the others had made whilst their memories were still dormant. They were just as preposterous as the events themselves, especially with Jack. Fancy believing she had helped them all escape the hangman’s noose with a sleep inducing potion. At that thought she let out a stifled laugh and tossed her mane of jet black curly hair over her right shoulder. The others were still fast asleep in their cabins, oblivious to the thoughts that constantly ran through Anne’s mind. She could not fully accept everything that happened, and as she had so many unanswered questions, the danger was, she could become obsessed. The idea that some humans could be born again three hundred years after they had died was impossible to comprehend, but the idea that she had been raised from the dead before she’d actually died didn’t make any sense. It was clear that Jack, Mary, and Jock had been restored from the point after they had originally died and there was an odd chronology about it. But for Anne, she had recollections of living to the ripe old age of about 82, but here she was, alive again, with the body of a forty year old. Why? It wasn’t logical. Besides, nothing like this had ever happened before, well at least not in her time. There were never any reports of dead people coming back to life, except of course in fictional tales and religious teachings, but in reality? No. It didn’t happen, it was unnatural and therefore something or someone had caused this happen. It was then the memory of the episode in the tavern leapt into her mind. When they went ashore in search of provisions, they had found themselves in a modern inn. That was where they discovered television. It was an amazing device, unlike anything from their time, but although it was technology much more advanced than anything in the eighteenth century, they understood that it was an advancement of telegraphy. Anne suddenly felt a chill run through her bones and not the chill of the morning air, but a thought struck her. Had these people of the twenty-first century learnt how to revive the dead? Had they developed their science to the point they could achieve such a possibility? The idea made her blood run cold because if the assumption were true, it meant that the people of today were devilish and inhuman. The dead must stay dead and anyone who dabbled with changing that was guilty of necromancy. Anne didn’t dismiss the unknown with ignorant suppositions that it must be down to ‘witchcraft,’ she was more intelligent than that. She knew there had to be a logical explanation, but for now, she had no idea what that logical explanation was. Hearing a noise behind her, she turned to the direction of one of the doors that led to the interior of the ship. A man in his late forties lumbered onto the deck. He had long shoulder length hair, which was tied up in a pony tail at the back. He had a short dark chin beard that was neatly trimmed, and he wore a long dark brown coat which he clasped closed at the front. ‘Mornin’, Jack, said Anne, in a cheery tone. But Jack didn’t answer. He just plodded across to her and stood by her side gazing out to sea. John Rackham had been a notorious pirate captain in his day, or at least that’s what the history books claimed. In reality he had never been one of the most brazen pirates, chasing after Spanish men of war ships. Instead Rackham had contented himself with raiding smaller crafts that sailed much closer to the shore. In his day he had been known for his flamboyant dress and had earned the nickname, ‘Calico Jack.’ It was a name that had stuck with him and even now his small crew called him, Jack. Anne had been his lover all those years ago, albeit their relationship had been a tempestuous one. In recent times though, since their re-awakening and becoming more aware of their past, long before they were pirates, they had all found a part of themselves that had been lost to them for many years. This reawakening of their past emotions had brought Anne and Jack much closer together. They stood together in silence just gazing out to sea, comfortable in each other’s company. After several minutes, Jack broke the silence and asked what they should do now? The first few days of their new lives was filled with all sorts of activity, from struggling with memory loss to going ashore and meeting the people of the 21st century for the first time. Then there was the true or imagined encounter with Davy Jones, along with all the other strange episodes they’d experienced. But then everything just ground to a halt. They had been fired up to set sail and fight injustice and they were elated at the prospects of adventures, like they had been all those years ago when they were pirates, But now, they were just drifting in the North sea with nothing to do. Jack was never one for inactivity and would always find something to occupy himself and his crew. There was always the prospect of a raid, or revelry ashore where they would find a deserted island and set up camp. They would hunt wild boar and feast on the sweet meat while drinking far too much rum, wine, and ale. They would sing songs and amuse each other with tales of piracy and the stupidity of the British Navy. Jack consoled himself with those memories of those far off days and he was starting to wish he had stayed dead. What was the point of all this if all they were to do was drift aimlessly about with no purpose. ‘What’s the plan for today, Anne?’ Jack asked wearily and then answered his own question with, ‘Nothing, I suppose!’ Anne was just as disappointed as Jack over the lack of activity and seemingly loss of purpose that had settled upon them like a dark, brooding storm cloud over the past couple of weeks. She knew, however, that something would present itself soon enough and in the meantime, they just had to wait for the right moment. This did nothing to lift Jack’s spirits, in fact his mood grew more sombre. He plonked himself down on one of the barrels that were scattered about the deck and just sat there gloomily mumbling about not being worthy of this new life. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Jack! Snap out of it!’ Anne chided. ‘There is nothing we can do for the present, just wait patiently for something to happen.’ It didn’t help, though. Jack just felt miserable and in a way he seemed to be enjoying being miserable, or to Anne at least. She had never known him to be like this in the past and reasoned it was that they always had something to occupy them. She didn’t know that Jack would very often fall under these moods, but he’d used to be very good at hiding it. Anne was anxious for things to happen, and she didn’t enjoy all the hanging around just waiting, either, but she tried to keep herself busy. Casually she walked towards the bow of the ship and then turned as if a thought had struck her, and she wanted to tell Jack. As she turned and looked at him, a shock of horror past through her soul. As she stared at Jack, just sitting on the barrel, the whole left side of his body seemed to fade out of existence. His left arm, chest and stomach were gone! She blinked and he was whole again! Letting out a strangled cry of, ‘Jack!’ she ran to him, but he just looked up at her as if she’d gone mad. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, puzzled by her actions. ‘You! She choked, ‘you!’ ‘Oh for goodness sake, I’m not feeling up to your japes. Just leave me be.’ Anne stopped there and said no more for fear of making Jack’s mood worse. But what was it? She pondered. She hadn’t imagined it. A part of Jack had faded out of existence for a split second, and it worried her, it worried her deeply. ‘Mrs Walters said she was extremely relieved now that her cat, Timmy, had been returned to her, safe and well.’ Angus McTavish spoke the words slowly and clearly as he read from the newspaper in his strong Scottish brogue. As he spoke, his long main of red hair seemed to crackle with excitement and the whiskers of his beard fluffed up with pride. ‘Excellent!’ said Mary, as she ran her fingers through her short cropped, spikey blonde hair, ‘You’ve come on leaps and bounds over the past couple of weeks and I’m proud of you! ‘Are yer?’ he beamed delightedly at the praise. Jock, as he was affectionately known, had never learned to read having been taken away to sea as a cabin boy at the age of seven. As the years passed he had never really found it necessary to learn. But after their trip ashore to find provisions, Anne had thrown a newspaper at him so he could see for himself the kind of world they now found themselves in. Anne had been in a foul mood at what she had discovered about the modern world, and she had forgotten Jock couldn’t read. He had been slightly hurt by her actions, although he understood she didn’t mean to insult him. When he thought about it afterwards, he decided it might be a good thing if he were able to read, especially now they found themselves in this new world. He asked Mary if she would teach him as Mary had been educated as a child by her mother who believed a good education would mean she had a better chance of securing an officers role in the merchant navy. Although she’d been educated. Mary Read suffered other tragedies in her life. She had been forced by her mother to assume the identity of her dead older brother so her mother could continue to receive her allowance from her mother in law.