Anne knew it wouldn't be long for them if they stayed. "To the roof!" she shouted above the clamour, another cough of smoke choking the volume of her words. "Retreat!" she yelled as she led the charge up to the second floor of the store. Along the way, Anne grabbed an axe from the shelf.
The second floor of the store opened like an attic, with a hatch at the top of steep ladder stairs. Anne climbed first and held the door open for the crew to climb in more quickly.
The crewmates who had made it inside the store were uninjured, aside from the smoke lingering in the lungs. A few of the men coughed and took long and laboured breaths as they entered the storage room and climbed the stairs up to the second floor.
The only one injured was William, who was last up the stairs. He couldn't move his injured shoulder, but one could hardly tell if it slowed him any as he climbed the stairs like any other.
As soon as William was on the other side of the horizontal door, Anne planted her feet square as she held the hatch open with her hip. She lifted the axe she had pilfered from the storefront in both hands and slammed it down on the top of the stairs. The axe cut through the wooden beam a quarter way, revealing it to have an old, blunted edge.
Anne cursed under her breath and wrenched the axe free before tossing it aside. She pulled out the golden cutlass, the strange, ever-sharp metal made of the same ore as the bell, and it rang into the frigid night once more with its peculiar song.
Just as she pulled it out, the first of the citizens who had made it through the front of the store ran into the back room and began climbing the stairs.
Anne sliced the blade downwards at one of the hinges bolting the stairs to the top floor, and it cracked in half. The stairs went slightly uneven but still stood.
The man who was climbing only faltered a bit when his weight shifted beneath him, but continued his ascent.
Anne had no time to rear back for another strike; if she did, the hollow man would be on her. She pulled back and threw the hatch closed. The man's hand crashed upwards through the hatch, and he clawed at the boards.
William, who had stayed by her side, locked the hatch in place before the man could push it open. It wouldn't do much against that abnormal strength, but each second counted.
Anne didn't waste a breath for thanks and ran to the second floor sleeping quarters. "To the roof!" she said as she pointed to two windows overlooking the front of the store. Her voice was almost back to normal without the smoke choking her throat.
The crewmates used their muskets to break the glass of the windows and clear the debris before jumping through. Anne turned around to watch the doorway to the second floor, her cutlass poised in front of her.
Slam! The hatch pulsed up with a loud thud and clank of the metal lock. Anne tensed and bent her knees. Slam! Another crack against the wood from below. Anne backed up, feeling the crewmates behind her thinning as they went to the roof. Slam! The pounding came with a creak as the wood strained to stay together. She gritted her teeth and shifted to holding the cutlass in both hands.
Slam! The wood broke open in two, one plank still attached to the lock as the other side flew open. The side that opened hit the wall and came back down on the head of the man at the top of the stairs, but he climbed through unabated.
"Anne!" Victoria called out to her.
Anne turned around and jumped out the nearest window in one motion. The shards of glass still attached to the frame cut through her clothes and sliced into her skin before she landed on the small roof on top of the deck. A musket shot rang out behind her just as she fell, the crack of the black powder coinciding with the crack of her shoulder against the wood.
Alexandre helped Anne to her feet, his typically placid eyes burning with that same volcanic rage she'd seen before but mixed with a pitying expression on his face. He felt sorry for the men and women attacking them at that moment, for the reason behind their unreasonableness.
Anne gripped his arm. "If you have time for pity, you have time to think a way out for us."
Alexandre glanced at her and then doubled back as her words hit him. He smiled, but there was none of the small warmth in it she had felt before she had gone to sleep. "Is it not obvious?" he said. "We must kill them all."
"How can we kill them when we can't even hold them here?" Victoria yelled over her shoulder at Alexandre as she shot into the window again.
"We won't have to hold them for long," William said at the side of the roof.
Anne joined him at the side of the roof and looked in the direction he was pointing. In the distance, she could see the shapes of twenty people advancing in the waning moonlight towards the town. They came in the direction of where they first landed, so chances were they were crewmates from the Queen Anne's Revenge.
And, if that weren't enough of an indication, Anne could make out another figure ahead of the pack running at blazing speeds towards them. The figure had a spear in one hand, and he was missing an arm.
As though challenging William's assertion, one of the entranced jumped through the window at Victoria. Victoria fell backwards, her musket braced between her and the crazed man on top of her. Victoria kept rolling back and kicked the
