The Mercenaries’ Tale – 1.12 Doug’s Hangover
Darkness so thick it was almost tangible enveloped the world. It weighed heavy, blocking out everything until it felt like being encased in a thick layer of cotton wool. Everything beyond the veil of darkness felt faraway, as if the sounds on the edge of sensation were hurling themselves across the great yawning chasm of time to be heard.
There were screams. Anguished and pain filled wails that ran chills up the spine and pierced the eardrum like a dagger. There was laughter as well, someone enjoying the screamers’ torment. Shouts in a foreign language rose with the laughter, ushering in new screams to replace the ones that were unceremoniously snuffed out.
A spark in the dark saw the enveloping blackness becoming tinged by red flame. The clinking sound of a chain grinding against its anchor filled the air as someone shouted for the screamers to be left alone. This triggered more laughter, the clinking becoming more frantic as another screamer fell silent. The flames were becoming more intense now, the black becoming a sea of crimson.
Something shifted within the fire, two beautiful cerulean eyes opening up and boring into those that looked into them.
“Time to get up, Doug. You have so much left to do…”
The tingling sensation of awareness crept back into Doug’s head, bringing with it the resonating pain of a body finally telling its brain that perhaps it overdid itself a little bit last night. This prompted Doug to attempt to translate the echoing aches inside his head into words.
“OoooooUrrghhhaaaggghh,” he said aloud to the world, followed by “guh”.
Everything was black. It took a few minutes for him to realise that it was due to the fact that his eyes were closed. He considered opening them, but the darkness was comforting and it seemed like too much effort. He gave it another couple of minutes.
Amidst the ceaseless throbbing, his brain began to take in what his senses were telling him. He couldn’t remember what happened last night, only blurry images of smiling faces and glasses being raised to lips. His head was lying back on something hard, so he was lying somewhere. The coldness of the air and the shifting breezes on his face suggested to him that he hadn’t made it back to his room. His mouth was unresponsive, being perfectly dry and begging for liquid to rejuvenate it. A probe of his tongue around his lips only revealed that his tongue was only there to occupy his mouth for the moment and the lack of any sensation from it meant that it had practically hung a ‘gone to lunch’ sign on itself until the feeling in it returned at some indeterminate point in the future. Tentatively patting his hand around, he felt smooth varnished wood at his fingertips, until he placed his hand in something cold, wet and sludgy.
Well that was just great. He’d have to open his eyes now, just to see what was dripping from his fingers. He cautiously opened them, only to slam them shut again to guard against the piercing light.
“Ergh,” he said.
He tried again, more successfully this time. He was looking at the sky. It was blue and cloudy. Good so far. He blinked several times to regain focus. He was definitely outside.
“Alright Doug, you’re a tough bastard. Let’s do something dangerous. Try sitting up,” he muttered to himself. He shifted awkwardly on to his elbow and tried to hoist himself upright. A tide of nausea swept across his stomach and he quickly slid back into a prone position in defence. He waited to see what his stomach would do, and for a moment there was a sudden rush of activity in his oesophagus.
He burped quietly, slightly relieved that it was only air and not anything more slushy escaping his mouth.
“Let’s try again. Take two. Come on mate, you can do it,” he coached himself. He tried lifting himself up again, getting further this time. Now upright, he looked around. He was on a wooden deck. Off to the right was a set of doors leading to stairs back into the ship, and the entire area was fenced off with a railing. Doug had no idea where he was in relation to his room, or anywhere else for that matter.
He looked around his person, patting his pockets for all the items that matter. His cigarettes and wallet were both there, which was fortunate. His gun holster, however, was worryingly empty. Realising that he was patting wet thin sludge on to his person, he wiped his soiled hand on the deck and flicked off the residue from his jacket.
On the deck next to him was a half-empty bottle of something green. He dragged it closer with his hand and looked at the label.
“Belemian Quakerjuice. 100% organic,” he read aloud. “Well, fuck.” Against all his body’s advice, he stuck the bottle to his lips and drank down a couple of mouthfuls. He tossed the empty bottle away and it skidded, rolling away on the not completely level decking. “Hair of the dog,” Doug reassured himself.
On the other side of his person he found a puddle of slime, presumably the puddle of goo he’d stuck his fingers into. Green and brown, it was decorated with small indefinable chunks. Doug identified the puddle as his lunch from yesterday, and he grimaced as he wiped his hand off on the deck again, just for self-reassurance.
The bottle he’d thrown away stopped abruptly under the wedge of a foot. There were five other feet joining this one, all wearing polished Italian leather shoes. Doug hoped that they all weren’t joined to the same person, but right now he’d believe just about anything.
“There he is,” one of the pairs of feet said. “Told youse guys I’d found him up here.” Doug didn’t pay the feet much notice as he hauled himself forward and up on to his own feet, which was quite a feat in itself given the way his brain was whirling his sense of balance around like a hula hoop.
“Don’t mind me guys. Just had a bit too much to drink last night,” explained Doug, patting himself down and checking to see if there was any puke on his clothes bar what he’d already absent-mindedly rubbed on to himself. It looked like he’d gotten off lightly. The six feet and their owners walked towards him.
“You look a bit rough,” said one of the owners of a pair of the feet. Doug took a look at the rest of the people who owned the feet, and saw that along with the fine Italian shoes came fine Italian suits and ties. Three young men dressed to the nines – one in black, one in blue and one in beige. The one in the middle patted him down and then gently patted him on the face the way gangsters liked to do, a sort of patronising gesture that was supposed to make them look menacing.
“You oughta take more care of yourself, Mr. McCracken,” he said. Both of his friends smiled. One of them fondled the rings on one of his hands while the other cracked his knuckles. Doug grinned stupidly.
It took three seconds for Doug’s expression to change to that of realisation while his brain pieced together everything the best it could while pounding like a drum from alcohol abuse. Italian suits. Gangster-like gestures. The fact they knew his name. Cracking knuckles. Brass rings that looked very much like they were welded together.
“Oh shit-” was all he could say as the Dalminetti gangster in front of him punched him in the gut. He curled up and staggered around, partly from drunkenness and partly from shock. The three suits laughed as they surrounded him.
“We’re gonna make you pay for what you did to Jimmy,” Doug heard one of them saying, as if from far away at the end of his brain’s rotating kaleidoscope of thoughts. He was in a haze of pain, but it was being overridden by the lingering sense of queasiness he’d had since waking up, the queasiness now turning into full blown sickness as his stomach curdled and bubbled. Doug was only vaguely aware of the suit with the brass knuckles winding back his fist in preparation to crack him upside the face, because it was the last thing on his mind-
Doug threw up, unleashing sticky vomit into the face of the black suit like a pressurised water hose. It lasted for about five seconds. Doug wiped his mouth on his sleeve and noticed that all three suits had stopped laughing, stunned by the display of gastric intensity. The black suit covered in puke was still processing what had happened to him, wiping sticky lumps from his eyes. Doug grinned.
“Fuck!” spat the sticky gangster.
“If it’s any consolation, I’m feeling a lot better!” stated Doug, casually launching himself into a dropkick on Sticky’s chest, throwing the man backwards across the deck. As Doug hauled himself off of the floor, he thrust his head upwards into the blue suit to his right’s chin, then sidestepped and grabbed the back of the man’s head with his hand. The stunned suit didn’t resist as Doug rotated his centre of gravity, bringing the gangster’s nose down on the railing with a crack.
“Sorry about that, here, let me give you a hand in getting a better look at the cracking view we’ve got up here,” said Doug, placing his arm under the suit’s crotch and lifting his leg, attempting to heave the suit over the railing. He was interrupted by the third suit with the knuckle dusters landing a blow on his back. A dull but deep pain echoed through Doug’s already sore body, and for a moment he wondered if the dusters had chipped his spine, the only consolation being that the impact had probably been dulled through the leather of his jacket.
“You fuckin’ wait your turn, asshole!” he yelled, throwing the leg in his grasp over the rail and focusing on the knuckle-duster gangster. The blue suit yelped as he clung on to the railing for dear life, erratically scraping his legs against the wall below in a desperate attempt to find and gain a foothold. Now giving the beige suit his full attention, Doug dodged the deadly brass-encrusted right hook and replied with a blow of his own to the suit, who shrugged it off. With only one arm and distracted by the thumping in his alcohol abused head, Doug lacked the counterweight to put energy into punches.
With knuckles’ next jab, Doug had enough energy to move low and bring himself into a tackle around the beige suit’s midsection. Lifting with all his might, he ran forwards and let the suit fly backwards on to the deck, skidding across the slimy puddle of Doug’s lunch from yesterday. Doug whirled, heaved the blue suit’s leg back over the railing, on which it had been gaining purchase, and then let the blue suit taste his knuckles a couple of times. The suit dangled by the railing with one hand. Doug playfully thumped it a couple of times and then tried to pry the fingers from the rail with his one hand, unsuccessfully.
“Fuckin’ come on mate, play the game,” muttered the merc under the suit’s pleas and screams. Doug leaned down and sank his teeth into the back of the man’s hand. The screaming suddenly decreased in volume as the suit plummeted into the beyond. Spitting out a chunk of hand (while thinking that it hadn’t been the worst taste in his mouth this morning, in fact it had been the only discernible taste in his mouth this morning), he turned back to the beige suit picking themselves off of the deck. Doug pelted across the deck, howling a barbarian scream, leaping into the air a metre from the suit. His knees crash-landed the suit under them and, pinned, the suit couldn’t do anything to resist as Doug laid into his face with a barrage of one-fisted blows.
Thirty seconds later, puffing and panting, Doug searched the now bloodied and unconscious suit’s pockets, found a wallet and stuffed its monetary contents into his jacket. He stood up, tossed the wallet back on to the prone suit, and wondered where the other suit covered in his stomach acids had disappeared to. The black suit answered his question by emerging through the doors to the deck, slightly de-pukefied having since wiped quite a lot of it off.
“There you are!” greeted Doug. “Tell you what, I’ve got a banging headache, mate. Why don’t you piss off and go tell your friends that you were beaten up by a one-armed man with a hangover?”
“Why don’t you tell ‘em?” sneered the thug. A crew of seven suited men pushed through the double doors on to the deck behind him. Some were carrying guns. Doug groaned. He fished in his jacket for his cigarettes, and pulled one out of the carton with his teeth.
“I’m guessin’ it’s a bit too hopeful that those are fancy novelty cigarette lighters you’re all carrying and that maybe one of you can offer me a light?”
Post by Sean Patrick Payne | November 9, 2013 at 12:00 pm | The Mercenaries' Tale | No comment
Tags: alcohol, Dalminetti Mafia, Doug McCracken