He woke gagging on warm salty water that shot from deep in his throat as he came conscious. Spitting it out and dry heaving, he could only concentrate on the sand of the beach he was lying on. His skin felt sunburnt and he was raw along a diagonal strip that went across his chest and into his armpit. He reached up and massaged a huge bump on the back of his head.

He couldn’t remember his name. He couldn’t remember anything… Where was he? He looked to his left and saw scattered wood and debris of all kinds. He looked to his right and gasped in shock.

As far as he could see were shipwrecks. He was in a vast bay of destruction. There had to have been hundreds of wrecks. He slowly made his way to his knees fighting off nausea, he definitely had a concussion. He looked over to the left past the junk that was blocking his view. MORE SHIPS! Some still looked to be whole while others were just blasted into scrap. He could barely believe his eyes!

He spotted something move out of the corner of his eye. It was barely sticking out on the other side of the junk scattered to his left. It was a foot! He scrambled back on his ass startled by the appendage. He grabbed a broken plank that was laying wet in the sand and crawled over slowly looking around the wreckage.

It was a man laying unconscious. His foot was moving with the tide that was barely coming in. The man’s face was half buried in the sand, but somehow seemed familiar. He had a bloody bandana on his head and a rough rope tied around his torso that had left a nasty, red, burn he could see that was under his shirt which was pulled up tangled around his shoulders.

He pulled up his own shirt and spotted roughly the same kind of rope burn. The man was a friend of his, he had to be. It seemed as if they were tied together and roughly tossed about seeing the rope burns on both of them. He dropped to one knee and flipped the man out of the sand which caused him to start coughing. Sand and watery muck came from his mouth. He opened his right eye and slowly brought up his hand to block out the sun. he whispered something that the man couldn’t make out. He leaned in down close. “Mac” the man whispered.

He sat back on his haunches, fighting for a memory. Mac… that was his name he could feel it... Mac. He heard another whisper and leaned back down. The man whispered again. “Mac… I did cheat at cards...”

Mac layed down next to the man utterly exhausted. He fought for anything that he could recall, but it was there just outside of his memory. He turned his head and looked at the man next to him. “I seem to have a concussion and can’t remember anything. I’m sorry but what is your name?”

The man turned and looked at him in confusion. “It’s the weirdest thing. My name is Sean. I can recall that, but nothing else except that you’re Mac and we were on a ship together. Nothing else… I’m lying here trying my damndest, but there is nothing. It's like a dream. I know we were on a ship, but I can’t even piece together what it looked like.”

Mac lifted up onto his elbows and shook his head trying to rattle some memory into himself. “More like we were on a ship...wreck together, but I can’t even remember that. Can you move? We are going to need fresh water very soon I think.”

Sean slowly sat up wincing as he did. “I think I have broken ribs. My left knee and ankle also have something wrong with them.”

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Mac stood and took a look around. He spotted a piece of rounded pole from an oar or something similar and trudged over to get it. From the left side of his vision he caught a glint of light that flashed off of metal. The bay was covered in a silvery mist making it hard to see very far, but his instincts told him that it wasn’t an illusion. A hint of alarm sounded off in his brain and he lowered himself and scooted back to Sean.

“I hate to have to say this, but I think we have trouble incoming.” He spotted a four foot limb of driftwood and crawled over and grabbed it. He gave Sean a look of confidence and said, “I get the feeling that we know how to defend ourselves. If it comes to it try and stay behind me. You’re in no shape for battle. I thought I saw movement back there. Let’s try and put some distance between that. Come on.”

He reached down and grabbed Sean’s hand and helped him to his feet. Sean gave a small yelp in pain, but gritted his teeth and nodded. “I can do this, lead on.”

Mac looked him in the eyes and nodded. Sean had a definite military look to him. He didn’t know how he knew this, but he felt it in his bones. The man was in his thirties if he was judging correctly. He had a lean muscular body and a military looking haircut with the sides trimmed down to the scalp. It was the eyes however that gave it away. He had a steely determination even in this precarious situation. It spoke volumes to Mac.

He turned and cautiously started making his way down the shoreline away from the movement he had caught. There was a huge galleon split in half about a half click from their position and it would make a good landmark and would definitely have places to hide if needs be. He glanced back at Sean who was struggling, but more or less keeping up.

As he was about to turn and keep going he caught a hint of movement tracking them. He couldn’t tell who it was, but it was moving in a jerking motion as if it was dragging a leg or something.

“Something is back there following us Sean. If you have it in you let’s pick up the pace a little bit. I want to make it to that ship and find us a defendable position. We can get our backs to something solid and I’ll make sure nothing gets past me!”

Sean didn’t reply but he glanced over his shoulder. He must have seen something because he immediately picked up his pace grunting with every step.

Within a few minutes the men had reached the ship. Mac was stunned by the size of the ship. It seemed unreal anyone could build something this big. It had to have been close to 250 feet long! It looked like there were ten below decks on it and he could see the remains of the mast that looked like someone had simply placed a huge tree on the deck it was so tall.

The vessel was cracked right down the middle as if an iceberg had shot out of the water and impaled the ship splitting it in half. There was a mountain of wooden debris on either side of the split and Mac wanted to head there. The wreckage was piled up in a small hill forming a vee next to the ship. It would make for a nice defensible spot funneling enemies into them if it came to that.

He jogged back to Sean and threw an arm under his left shoulder helping stabilize the man. “Found us a hidey hole. Let’s hide and see if anything shows up.” The two men made their way back into the wreckage and stopped finding a stack of smashed crates that formed a sort of open air room with a passage about three bodies wide.

Mac scanned the space looking for any hidden ways around the crates. He spotted one smashed open and went over to scan it’s inventory. “Sean come check this out. I think I might have found something useful!” He dug around and held up a metal rod around three foot in length with a rough balled hilt on the end of it.

“This looks to be a part for a weapon of some kind. A hammer maybe? This ship was a merchant vessel for sure. A crate full of weapon parts? Maybe we can find some swords or a bow!” He tossed the bar to Sean. “Much better than my rotting driftwood. Lets try to pry some crates open and see what we can find.”

He was about to move on to the next crate when Sean whispered in a shaky voice. “Mac go silent friend... I think we have visitors.”

Mac slowly popped his head up over the crate he was next to and took a peek around the corner. What he saw made his blood run cold.

Sean noticed him standing shock still and whispered, “What is it? What do you see?”

Mac looked back with confusion and fear in his eyes. “I can’t quite believe what I’m about to say, but we have big trouble headed right at us and they aren’t alive!”

Sean murmured back, “Not alive? Please tell me you’re joking...”

“I wish I was man. We have four zombie skeleton pirates headed dead straight at us!”