Chapter Two - Things Can Always Get Worse
“You know what they don’t teach you in the military, son? Things can always get worse.”
- Jon Mason
When I broke through the haze of unconsciousness again, I couldn’t see anything but a dim light shimmering through the fibers of the bag (a potato sack?) my head had been shoved in.
My shoulders screamed in protest, wedged beneath me at very uncomfortable angles beneath me, my hands bound together behind my back by handcuffs, my legs wrapped tightly in a cocoon of cloth. So, being half mummy, half scarecrow, and unlucky through and through, I wished somebody would just come and put me out of my misery.
My first thought was that I might be part of a political kidnapping, but then after thinking a while, that seemed very silly.
“Uhnn-” I groaned. The warm blood still pouring from my nose in a steady steam told me I hadn’t been out very long.
Almost the exact moment I realized the vehicle had stopped moving, somebody hit me once more, and I found thoughtlessness again.
#
I was moving. I became sure that I was moving when my head was slammed into the side of a doorframe, which told me somebody was carrying me; most likely that man who had assaulted me earlier when I had bent down to try and pick up a coin.
I still had the potato sack over my head, and my mouth was full of blood. Yummy.
“Put him down,” an unfamiliar voice came from some unknown corner of the room I had been carried into. I couldn’t quite place whether the owner was a man or a woman. The high pitched, nasal voice could belong to either.
My captors don’t know the definition of “put.” They didn’t put me down, no, I was dropped off the man’s shoulders. I landed on my back, all air being forced out of my lungs, leaving me sputtering on the floor. My limbs twisted beneath me, joints popped when I landed, which at least made me realize my arms and legs were free to move again. I had been too focused on trying to figure out where the hell I was to have realized this previously.
Gasping to catch me breath, I only succeeded in sucking the potato sack to cover the slit in the duct tape over my mouth. I began coughing.
A hand reached down untied whatever had kept the potato sack on my head and pulled it off my head. I was blinded by the sudden blight light above me, and before I could get my bearings, the other hand reached down, grabbing a corner of the tape and tore it off in one swift motion.
“Yergh!” I choked, trying to yell, cough and breathe at the same time. At least I got the first breath of fresh air I’ve had since… who knows when.
I pulled myself up into a sitting position, still coughing, my nose still bleeding. I carefully pinched it between my fingers, trying to halt the flow of blood. With the other hand, I tried to wipe some of the blood off my face, still trying to adjust to the sudden change of lighting.
“Why’d you break my nose?” I sputtered, my words coming out as “Why’b ‘oo break my nobe?”
“Because you struggled,” said the tall black man, crossing his arms in front of his broad chest, still holding the potato sack in his one hand. He leered down at me through tinted lenses, his shaved head gleaming in the artificial lighting. His voice was surprisingly clear. The way he spoke showed he had had a good education.
Like you wouldn’t have? I wanted to say, but I decided against it. I didn’t want to start a fight. Especially not with that guy.
“Hello, Robe,” the other voice came again. I turned, cupping my nose between both hands, trying to assess the damage while getting a glimpse of the owner of the other voice.
What came into view was a stout, chubby, middle aged man with a balding head, a few wispy strands of hair sticking out from beneath the black bowler hat perched on top of it at a crooked angle. He stepped closer, his shoes clicking against the hardwood floor before he stepped onto the Persian rug, which muffled his footsteps.
The pair loomed over me, but I was more intimidated of the bowler hat man with the pink lensed, round glasses than of the other man. They both wore suits, and I should have been more afraid of the tall man in his professional looking suit than of the short man in his pink and white pinstriped suit, mismatched red and green socks. His ringed, gnarly hands were clasped over the head of a bejeweled cane. Only a colorblind man would ever dress like that.
“Hello, Blackbird,” he nodded in my direction. No, it wasn’t the man’s appearance that scared me, but rather the heavy air he carried about him, like he was some sort of mafia overlord.
What had I gotten myself into this time? My day was just getting better and better.
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here's chapter two, and Robe and Meester Dwhite make their appearances ^-^
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Crybaby Boy
Mystery / ThrillerI believe in coincideces, but not in mass. Once coincidence, yes. Two, that's already a sure sign of bad things to come, and I'd know that bad things don't come in threes. They come by the bucket, by the truckload. I guess today is just another o...
