Paradise Cursed Book Description:
Captain Cord McKinsey, a pirate
cursed in 1716 for doing a good deed, now operates his schooner, the Sarah
Jane, as a cruise ship. Doomed to remain effectively ship-bound and within
the Caribbean waters, Cord, 34, has often reinvented himself and his ship over
these near 300 years.
Though long despaired of ever
breaking his curse, he becomes entwined in solving similar problems for
passengers, problems that require extraordinary solutions. When his new
Jamaican first mate, Ayanna, confesses she has been cursed by a Bokor, Cord
agrees to help her locate a powerful shaman.
But the Bokor’s plan is more
heinous and far-reaching than anyone suspects. The lovely Ayanna fails to
mention that her mind and body are changing, taking form as a ravenous reptile.
Even with the help of a psychic passenger, Cord may lose the people he cares
for as well as his ship, the only square footage on land or sea where pain is
not his constant companion.
Chris Rogers, best known for her
novels of pure suspense, has previously confined any supernatural excursions to
short stories featured in her Death Edge anthologies. In Paradise Cursed, Rogers gives imagination full rein to explore life’s
darker mysteries.
Chris Rogers Bio:
Chris became a writer the easy
way: She read voraciously and filled blank pages with drivel until her fingers
cramped and her brain defected. Eventually, she learned to craft a decipherable
sentence. Author of the Dixie Flannigan series, Bitch Factor, Rage Factor, Chill
Factor and Slice of Life, Chris has published stories and essays in, among
others, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Writer's Digest.
While continuing to explore the
literary venue, Chris inevitably embraced the creative form of paint on canvas,
which allows her narrative flair and graphic origins to unfold in unison. While
creating new canvases, she also participates in the design of her book covers.
Her paintings can be found in private and corporate collections.
Links:
Website: http://www.chrisrogers.com/
Paradise Cursed Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Cursed-Chris-Rogers-ebook/dp/B01BGY0QZ2
The Caribbean Sea
1691
“Cord! Cord
McKinsey!” I heard Mum calling my name just before her arms gathered me into
her skirts. Then she screamed for my da. “Jonathon!” Clutching my hand, she ran
for him, stumbling over quoiles of rigging, dodging the robbers and sailors
fighting around us.
My mum was one of those women who
never seem to age, as pretty at thirty-two, my da said, as she was at sweet
sixteen. “A grhá mo chroi,” Da called
her, “love o’ my heart.” On the deck of the H.M.S.
Transport, Mum’s beauty bore the sailors a dangerous distraction, which
perhaps was why I, before anyone, saw the grappling iron tumble aboard.
The first mate was hailing the Dutch
ship, other mates taking up push poles. Exactly nine years old—first day of
November being my birthday—I didn’t actually know the name of the four-pronged
hook, but I knew sure enough about ships and swords and flags. I knew the
schooner flying the Dutch colors was passing rudely near to our starboard prow
when the hook came flying onto the Transport’s foredeck, plunking down a hair’s
breadth from my left foot.
I also knew about pirates. When
gangplanks slid across connecting our two ships, men skittering over like huge
scrabbling rats against the dusky orange sky as the Jolly Roger flew up the
pole, I knew to be frightened.
The sight of my Da always brought
comfort... his warm strong hand, the crackle of his crisp white shirt, odors of
tobacco, coffee, and sometimes, but only at night when he tucked me into bed,
the sweet fragrance of rum. I spied him on the port side, the sun’s remnants
turning his carroty hair crimson.
He was waving a cutlass about.
Da didn't own a cutlass, did he? But there it was, and there also
in the blood-red glow of the lowering sun stood a man taller and broader than
any I ever had seen. A scraggly beard hung to his chest. His skin was pocked,
his nose red-veined and bulbous, but it was the glitter in his eyes that nailed
my feet to the deck.
Captain Richard Stryker—I recalled seeing the pirate’s picture tacked up
in the London shipping office when we boarded for the trip to Jamaica.
Stryker’s glittering black eyes fell on my mum, and a hungry look spread the
pirate’s rubbery lips, revealing yellow-black teeth crowded in all directions.
“Leave off there!” He sprang in front of us.
Mum halted, pulling me close.
Peering frantically about, I spied Da's cutlass arcing high as he rushed up
behind the pirate.
As quick as he was ugly, Stryker whirled and thrust out with his rapier.
Mum screamed. I stumbled backward, stiff with the sight of my da’s face wrenched
in surprise a second before it went dull and lifeless. My eyes smarted. My
stomach felt suddenly as liquid and turbulent as the sea that roiled around us.
Stryker raised a booted foot and kicked Da’s body off the end of his
sword.
Then he
returned his frightful gaze to my mum. A snaky tongue flicked out to lick his
rubbery lips.
Still screaming with heartache and fear, Mum backed away, pushing me
behind her. Too terrified not to learn what was happening, I craned around her
skirts to see.
Stryker sheathed his sword, closing the distance in two strides as his
long filthy arm reached for her. When his hand locked on her throat, all the
anger in me took over and I charged at him, yelling, shoving and kicking.
Scarcely glancing down, Stryker clubbed me. His meaty fist knocked me
across the deck as easy as swatting a beetle.
My ears drained of sound. A gray curtain clouded my spinning brain, and
my stomach heaved up everything inside, but I staggered to my feet.
Stryker had twisted a hand through mum’s yellow curls and was drawing her
to him, pulling her face toward his ugly maw, mum struggling in his grip like a
robin flapping at a dragon. Suddenly, she stopped fighting and smiled. Her
clawed hand raked down his face.
The pirate roared. He thrust her away, touching a hand to his wounded
cheek. When it came back bloody, his entire body swelled with fury.
A cheer for Mum’s bravery rose in my chest—and froze—as the waning
sunlight flashed on Stryker’s rapier.
“No!” I lunged at him. Slamming my entire body into Stryker, I felt no
give, as if the pirate’s boots had bonded with the ship’s deck. “No! Bloody
no!”
His free hand smacked hard against my ear, knocking me down again. Head
ringing, I scrambled to my feet, yet even as I slammed against his bulk, Stryker’s
thin blade sliced through Mum’s stomach and ripped upward with an eruption of
blood.
His laugh exploded in my ears. Looming in the darkening sunset like a
specter, his laughter full of dark slimy crawling things, the pirate turned his
glistening black eyes on me.
Yelling every blasphemy I’d ever heard, I kept slamming into him until
Stryker’s big hand grasped me by the collar, choking me as he lifted me to eye
level.
“I think I’ll keep yer, lubber mite.” Amusement rolled out of him on a
breath of rotted fish. “If yer don’t make a decent cabin boy, yer’ll make a
fine stew.”
25 Years Later
Thundering
around us like cannon fire, the storm of the century split the churning night
sky, releasing a torrent, slicking the deck of the Spanish brigantine, soaking
my new wool coat and faltering my step as we battled a crew too bloody stubborn
to give it up. Wind and sea threatened to turn the captured ship into flotsam.
Regaining my footing, I dipped my
head against the watery onslaught and headed athwartship, where the Spanish
captain was giving Stryker a go. Captain Stryker, still as large and mean as a
raging bull, was backed against the bulkhead, having himself a rousing good
time. But I wanted an end to it.
I shoved past a skirmish near the
mizzen. Feeling the slice of a blade, I jerked erect, and a hard gust knocked
off my hat.
Furious, I slashed my cutlass across
a man’s neck, bashed another in the head with its hilt, felling them both.
Raking a fresh glance at the captain, I decided he could hold his own and to
the devil with ’m, if not.
“Titam
gan éiri ort, Cap’n.” A thousand times since being forced to serve old
Stryker, I’d muttered the Irish curse, may
you fall without rising. I’d likely mutter it a thousand times more before
the lout’s demise.
The vessel’s prize was rumored to be
gold as well as provisions, and our stores aboard the Sarah Jane were running pitifully low. But I despised this type of
engagement, every sailor and pirate hacking at every other. I much preferred
scoping out a ship under false colors, sliding alongside the bow to render
useless their side guns, then hoisting the Jolly Roger so the blokes would know
who they were dealing with. Leery of being tortured, a smart captain would hand
over the booty nice and easy like.
But Stryker loved to fight, the
bloodier the better.
I scooped up my hat from the deck
with the curve of my cutlass, slammed it back on my head, and sliced the gut of
a lubber coming hard at my face with a marlinspike. Then peering about through
the curtain of rain and seeing we had near finished off the crew, leaving only
a few passengers to deal with, I sought out the cargo hatch and lowered myself
to the hold.
A prize indeed. Gold and silver nuggets. Precious gems. The Spanish
American mines must be producing nicely.
Next I checked out the ship’s stores. Vegetables looked none too fresh,
but there was fresh water, coffee, tea, and I was glad especially for the
latter items. Water aboard the Sarah Jane
had become so rank that the crew was lacing it high with rum to the point of
being sodded out of their heads. That was a sure way to the gallows. Just ask
Anne Bonny and Calico Jack.
Chewing on a stick of sugarcane, I
returned topside.
The storm had worsened. The sea
galloped and lightning shattered the night sky in all directions. It was time
to end Stryker’s bit of fun, snatch the spoils and take leave.
In a flash of lightning I spied his
bulky form on the fo’c’s’l and fought my way forward. Between rounds of thunder
came the sharp report of a pistol.
I halted.
Not one of our guns. None
aboard the Sarah Jane had seen a
speck of powder in weeks. Another lightning burst revealed what was happening,
yet I doubted my eyes.
Stryker was down.
A woman stood over him brandishing a cutlass straight and true at his
face. She looked wild with fear, her wet hair swirling in the raging wind like
banshee locks.
“Captain!” I hoped to distract her.
“Get over here,” Stryker yelled back. “Gut this wench!”
No, I took no pleasure from killing women. When I reached
Stryker’s side, I spied the flintlock pistol at her feet, the one she’d used to
blow a hole in the captain’s shoulder, knocking him down. Next she must’ve
grabbed a cutlass from a dead sailor. But now fear froze her from finishing the
job.
Stryker’s rapier lay useless near the grasp of his stricken hand.
Keeping a pace away from her, I resorted to my preferred method of
settling a problem: reason. “Lady, you may cut out his eyeball, sure enough,
but I will hack off your arm before you can run, so—”
“I said kill her!” Stryker growled.
Lightning crackled. In its glow I saw the woman’s terror had gone far
beyond reason. Her eyes never leaving the captain’s face, she clutched the
cutlass with both hands, working up courage for the killing blow.
Then she shifted her gaze briefly to mine. Looking in those eyes I knew I
could gentle this woman if left alone with her.
“Captain, while I settle with this wench, you should take a look in the
cargo hold.” I forced a light tone, hoping to diffuse the situation or at least
to divide her attention. “Feast your eyes below on the booty we’ll be taking
away.”
“McKinsey, you niddering mouse—!”
Thunder drowned the last of Stryker’s words, and in the lightning that
instantly followed, I glimpsed a small boy hiding behind the woman’s skirts.
“Captain! There’s a lad.” Another roll of thunder.
The woman flinched backward, shifting her cutlass toward me.
Fast as a snake, Stryker reached across with his good hand, grabbed his
rapier and lurched to a half crouch, ready to lunge.
“No!” I stepped between his out-thrust arm and the quivering mum.
Already into his thrust and crazed with fury, Stryker drove upward.
The rapier's thin cutting tip vanished—I felt the sting of it. Then the
sword's fiery trail blazed through my belly.
Lightning struck the blade, turning it and the ship and the sky around me
into a bright-hot, glowing, shattering ball of fluorescence.
PRESENT DAY
In languid
Jamaican waters, the Sarah Jane
awakened from a long slumber. Sunlight warmed her deck, and warmed the blood of
men soaked deep into her crevices. Drifting on a swell, she felt the tug of her
ancient anchor, its line taut but straining with time. A food-seeking snook,
followed by smaller, feistier fish, slid past her hull.
Within her bowels, upright sentient
creatures stirred about, including her old friend, cursed these many years and
perhaps a better man for it. But the captain’s presence alone would not have
awakened her.
Two younger souls bearing the
special energy approached and would soon walk her decks, one fresh and
untested, the other bold, sinister, a more threatening presence than any of
late. Yet masts remained staunchly upright, companionways open. The dark dance
had not yet begun.
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