Author: Mosh Note: You may not archive, re-post, or alter any of my stories without my permission. Please contact me first. Thanks! |
He wondered if he would ever be rid of it. The echo. His own voice drifted on the salt air, sneaking through the gap at the bottom of his cabin door, haunting him, taunting him. The ship creaked as if trying to break free of the ice that held it still, moaning and groaning under a pitch black sky. Hook wondered if it was day or night. It was really hard to tell; the clouds were always dark and stretched out, blocking the universe from view. Smee hadn't been in for three days, which was uncommon, though Hook had been feigning sleep the last time his Bo'sun had visited and had heard him mutter something about the stench. Though food was sparse, a plate of grilled fish and forest fruit appeared outside the door three times a day (or night, possibly), and apart from that, Hook either slept or studied maps, longing for the endless crystal waves in both his conscious and unconscious mind. There was no hope of setting sail, not since... well, not since the boy had left. Another reason to hate him all the more; even in his absence he was still there to hamper Hook and his crew. Wretched child. From far off a seagull cried dismally, no doubt searching for something to eat, a near pointless quest. And then it came again, fainter this time: "It's time to teach you a lesson... time for... retribution." Hook pinched the bridge of his nose and dug the tip of his iron hook into the table top, scraping a gash through the polished wood. "Curse this island," he sighed. "Although, this island is already cursed, so what difference could I possibly make?" "Time to punish you... for all the wrongs you've done..." called the voice, his voice, though it couldn't be his voice, for he was there in his cabin and the voice was coming from... The forest.
* * * * * * * * * *
With little concern that Smee or any of his other dogs would be along to check on him any time soon, them having retreated to the lower quarters where the frost bite couldn't reach their fingers, Hook stole off his ship, shrouded in a thick cloak and wolf-fur lined boots. The wind threw near invisible shards of icy frost at him and whipped his hair around his face, obscuring his vision even more. The sand crunched like glass under his steps as he floundered almost blind towards the black wall of trees in the distance, and the sloping rocks that led out of the bay were so slippery he had to scramble most of the way, cursing. Once under the shadows of the trees he lit his lantern and listened. After a while, beneath the howl of the wind and crack of frozen branches, he heard it again. "Nothing but a failure... good for nothing... well, nothing but this..." And so he followed his phantom voice, this impersonation, weariness overruling the slight fear in his heart, dulling it. Onwards. "Do not fight me..." said his voice, from deep inside the forest. "Where are you coming from?" Hook wondered aloud, picking his way through the lower branches, catching his sleeves on icicles that broke off and scattered like diamonds on the hard earth. This is foolish, he thought. What foolish path have you put yourself on, James Hook? Could it not be your own mind playing tricks on you, after so many hours of solitude? He moved deeper along the winding network of trails and pathways cut by the beasts that stalked the woods in search of food, deeper as his confusion and frustration grew. The path seemed familiar, though Hook couldn't tell where it led. He bore on as his face started to burn from the cold, a shiver setting in his bones that made his teeth chatter. "Now you feel... the pain..." He quickened his pace, the sound coming from straight ahead of him, much louder now. He drew his pistol, the lantern hung across his hook and extended in front of him. "Boy..." Boy? Hook crashed through the last few trees and into an empty clearing - a place he now recognised, though he hadn't been there since the day Pan left and he certainly hadn't thought he'd ever have any reason to return to it again.
* * * * * * * * * *
"I have been waiting for this moment for longer than I can remember." "I have been waiting for this moment for longer than I can remember," the boy echoed, in an exact mimic of Hook's voice. "Childish games will not save you, boy." "Childish games will not save you, boy." "Stop it, Pan." "Stop it, Pa-" "Silence!" Pan laughed mirthlessly, a bruise blossoming beneath his left eye. "Silence!" he roared, and laughed again. His small knife lay a few feet away, useless to him now. Hook had the boy by his neck, caught the moment he had returned to his home, sans his Lost Boys. Where they were, Hook didn't care, though he knew Pan had been to the nether world again, no doubt taking his precious Wendy home to safety. Perhaps his little band of idiots had stayed there, abandoning him after all. "It's time to teach you a lesson. It's time for retribution." "Well, go on then," the boy finally said. "Kill me. I'm bored already." There would be no sunshine when the time finally came. Pan's impetuous soul would be snubbed out like a candle flame between Hook's fingers, or in this case, beneath Hook's body. But for now the heat beat down on Hook's shoulders from above. He hated the sun, the burn and stifling thickness of the air. It put him in a bad mood. "Ah but Pan, to kill you right now would be rather boring for me, and since I have the upper hand..." "Didn't you die?" Pan asked through gritted teeth, his face turning beet red as the captain's hold tightened slightly. "I swear I saw you eaten up by that crocodile. And to think - I was going to thank it on my return." "It takes more than a crocodile to finish me off!" "Funny," Pan mused. "I could have sworn you near soiled your underwear at the sound of a ticking clock-" Hook squeezed the thin neck to shut Pan up. It had taken a lot of fighting and pain to escape the beast this time, but unlike before, he would no longer be hunted by that relentless ticking resounding around the crocodile's belly as it stalked him. The thing lay with a hole in its neck through which Hook had cut and crawled, in the shallows of the Lagoon. Now the defiant fire in Pan's bulging eyes dimmed with confusion and disbelief. "How?" "It tried to swallow me whole," Hook said. "It didn't count on me latching onto its throat with my hook and cutting my way out. And neither did you. Always clouded by your arrogance, Pan. Your biggest downfall." He dragged Pan over to the tree stump, sat down and pulled the boy across his knees. "Time to punish you for all the wrongs you've done." He delivered one hard smack to Pan's backside, followed by another, and another, the sound the only thing in the still of the trees. He couldn't seem to stop, even when his own hand starting stinging. He ripped the boy's shorts in half and exposed his red-raw buttocks, small and rounded, twitching. And he started striking Pan again, and eventually the boy stopped squirming and trying to get free. He hung across Hook's lap like a rag-doll. The captain doubted the boy could feel the steady stream of blows to his numb, bruised skin anymore. Hook's face was dripping with sweat by the time his hand finally stilled. It hovered in the air, as if prepared to start up again for a moment, then he let it drop. "All you've ever done is cause trouble. You're a failure; you couldn't even face growing up and taking responsibility for your reckless actions. And where does that leave you?" Hook didn't wait for a response. In truth, he didn't think Pan would be capable of speaking. "Good for nothing." The boy wriggled on his lap, his soft belly brushing Hook's groin. "Well, good for nothing but this, I suppose." He took Pan on the forest floor, outside the previously hidden entrance to Pan's home under the ground. The tree moved and swayed in the summer breeze, as if pleading for this despoilment to stop, but Hook paid it no heed. This was the ultimate punishment; spoiling the one person who clung so desperately to the mask of innocence, the mask of a boy. "You'll never feel what I feel," Hook rasped into the boy's ear, as he held him down and untied his breeches. "You'll never know what it is to be a man. But you'll feel me, you'll feel what you're lacking." It was over quickly. Afterwards, Hook stood up and straightened his clothes, leaving the boy on the ground. "Now you feel the pain I endured when you took something very important from me, as I have from you today." He brandished his hook over the boy, but Pan was face down and couldn't see. "Never cross my path again, boy." Why did he not kill the brat, he wondered to himself after. Part of him figured the lesson came in the boy remembering every moment. News arrived the next day that Pan had fled the island, and all of Neverland by the look of it, as storm clouds rolled in on them like angry giants and the first snow started to fall.
* * * * * * * * * *
Hook stood beneath the weathered tree in the darkness and quiet and remembered that day, staring at the worn patch on the ground where many a child's foot had trodden while entering and exiting their tree house. And where a man had spanked a boy raw before taking a little something back for his own injury. A silky, echoing laughter rose from all around. His own laughter, humourless and low. Phantoms. Echoes.
* * * * * * * * * *
News that Pan had returned to the island reached the ship countless moons later. The ice cracked and the ship broke free, rocking dangerously on the water, and for the first time in as long as the crew could remember, they saw blue coloured sky. "He's back!" Smee burst into Hook's cabin. "Cap'n! Wake up, cap'n!" "I am awake, fool." Hook dragged his tired head from his table top and shivered as the sun broke the clouds and flittered through the windows. Smee looked older and more haggard than Hook had ever seen him. Exactly how much time had passed, he wondered. Could it be... years? Nevertheless, he rose and sharpened his hook. And as he walked the deck and looked towards the forest he wondered whether he would meet the boy again soon, or if he would finally meet the man. ~fin~ |
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