rantings of a bald man

The Journey

A  bright spark of pain ignites in C’s unconsciousness,  firing up his neurons and bringing him back to the world. Slowly his eyes open and he leans forward which brings a dull ache in the back of his head. He tries to stand but cant move, his eyes focus enough to show his arms tied to a heavy chair.
“What the fuck?” he moans.

He sits back up straight causing his stomach to turn inside out with pain, his eyes fill with tears and when finally he opens them he sees three men in front of him.

One is sitting in a chair and the other two flank him. They are dressed in typical Bouncer uniform, cheap black suits at least a size to small and shaven heads which appear to be permanently creased in a frown as if just breathing takes up to much of their limited thinking power.

The man in the middle is different his eyes sparkle with intelligence and amusement, he is dressed in jeans and a shirt and puffing happily on an expensive smelling cigar.

He breaks into a big smile when he sees that C is awake and nods in greeting.
“Whats your name?” he enquires politely.

“C, my name is C. Where the fuck am I?”

“I really doubt your dear Mother called you C son, now again whats your name?”

“Carlton ok! And I aint your son. Now…where…the….fuck…..am…I”

“Carlton eh, no wonder you like to be called C” he jokes. “Where you are is not as important as who your with”

“Ok, ok who are you, and what do you want?” asks C resigned to the fact its not going to be good news.

“My two associates are not important, I on the other hand, well my name is Larry, but everyone knows me as Mr Fletcher you may have heard of me?”

C pales at the name, everyone knows  Mr Fletcher around here he is known as fuck you up Fletcher. Head of the local family and without doubt  a nightmare.

“judging by the look on your face you have heard of me. That’s good we don’t have to mess about any more”

He stands up and moves closer to C. “I have a problem, let me explain. You belong to the local gang or crew whatever you call yourselves these days, doesn’t matter.  What does matter is your getting out of hand, pushing your luck and people are not happy, so they have come to me to help deal with this situation and your going to help me Carlton.

He squats right by C and blows some cigar smoke into his face.
“This is whats going to happen and it will happen so please don’t embarrass yourself by pleading or begging ok?  I am going to cause you a large amount of pain and its going to be done in a way that every one can see. You will be a walking warning and an example of what will happen to anyone should they  get out of hand”

He goes back and gets his chair placing it next to C on a small table he places a variety of knives, clippers and a small drill.

“Off you go” he dismisses his bodyguards and as they leave he locks the door.
“So C, just me and you, This is not personal remember that” He picks up an old cloth “Gag C? it does not matter if you scream no one will hear you “ he shrugs “up to you”

C looks him in the eyes and shakes his head negatively . “Good man” says Fletcher “If you change your mind as we proceed just let me know”

He sits down ad takes one of C’s fingers in one hand, with another he selects a small set of clippers.
“Now Carlton you might want to brace yourself”
C does his muscles bulging and straining against the rope tying him.

“I like you Carlton so I am gonna go for your little finger” and with that Fletcher cuts of C’s little finger at the base.
At first nothing then the pain hits him in waves, he does not shout his teeth grind together and his jaw feels like it will lock together but he does not shout. C does not want to look but is drawn to examining the space where only seconds ago his finger was. He barely stops himself from vomiting when he sees a white nub of bone amidst a small but steady stream of blood.

“There you go son, well done” praises Fletcher. C just looks at him with wide eyes filled with pain and adrenaline.

“So next” states Fletcher as he re lights his cigar. “Same on the other hand?  Or something different? Its gotta be seen after all”

C cant bring himself to speak, he is still partly in denial foggy with pain and disbelief. He just sits waiting for whatever it is Fletcher decides to do to him.

Fletcher has picked up a scalpel blade and runs his thumb along the blade to test its sharpness. “Here we go son, you going to have a scar but the blade is sharp so it will heal well”

He leans in closer and closer, his hand is completely steady C notices, and then pain a sharp burn from under his ear across hid cheek and to his lip. He feels his warm blood running down his face and neck collecting in the hollow of his collar bone.

Fletcher steps back to admire his work, he cleans his scalpel on C’s jeans and places it back amongst his tools. “Well Carlton so far so  good, ladies like a scar son, so that might be doing you a favour when its healed”

“Time for a break, well for me anyway, I am going for a piss, back soon”

As soon as Fletcher turns away, something in C snaps, the thought of more to come has him terrified and  angry. He strains again at his binds,  a fresh stab of pain shoots through his hand missing a finger, but he notices that his blood and sweat have allowed him a small amount of movement.  He keeps twisting his wrist each movement causing fresh agony, but he realises its working he has movement, and his hand is now slightly under his hand. He twists it around to were his finger used to be and almost passes out from the pain.

He feels like he is making some real progress and almost bursts into tears when Fletcher reappears.

“Sorry about that  son, now here we go again I was thinking and your not going to like this but which one of your eyes would you like to loose?”

He reaches once again for his scalpel and re takes his seat. “Now son this going to be hard but I really recommended you keep as still as you can”

He cups C’s face in one of his hands in the other the scalpel gets closer to C’s eyes. C moves his head as much as he is able while desperately ignoring the agony in his hand tries to pull it free.
He can see Fletcher becoming increasingly irritated and slightly disappointed, his hand  realises C’s face briefly so he can grab him by the throat. As he does C manages to slip his hand free and throws it up to protect his eye. He screams partly in surprise he is free and partly at the burning agony in his maltreated hand.

What happens next is a blur to C a clash of hands and arms and then he is sprayed in hot crimson blood, he can smell, taste it and feel it as it sprays across the room and his face. Fletcher staggers back both hands clutched at his neck where the blood has slowed to a steady stream. He collapses back onto the floor unmoving.

C is frozen for what seems like an eternity but is merely minutes. The smell of Fletchers bowels opening in his death bring him to some resemblance of sense.

With a shaky  hand burning  with pain he scrabbles for a sharp implement and begins the process of freeing himself. Legs shaking he stands over the corpse of Fletcher and forces himself to search through his blood covered jeans.  He grabs his wallet, cigars and lighter. No car keys shit! But wouldn’t a man like him have one of those new types with the fingerprint recognition?

As he performs the grisly process of snipping off a finger he is amazed at not only how hard it is but how he feels quite bad for doing it. When its finally finished he pockets the finger and begins to figure out how to get out alive.

After a quick search he figures his only hope is the small window in the toilet, not sure if he can fit he knows his time is short. Soon the two bodyguards will be wondering what’s taking their boss so long.

It’s a very tight if not impossible fit to get out so C decides the only possible way is to take off his clothes, throw them out of the window. Lubricate himself as much as possible with the soap and pray he does not get stuck.

Its cold in the room, looks like its been snowing outside and he begins shivering through cold, blood loss and shock. He covers himself as much as possible in the expensive smelling soap, breaks the glass of the window as quietly as possible and throws his clothes out into the winter night.

Getting through the broken window takes much more time and pain then C had hoped, at one point his shoulders appear stuck fast and the soap seems to be drying out quickly in the winter night. Biting his lip so he does not scream he manages to scrape them through, he cant help by cry out in pain and shock as his bleeding naked body lands onto the snow.

He grabs his now ice cold and wet clothes and dresses as quickly as he can.  His trainers seem to take an eternity to put on over cold wet feet, finally he is dressed.  He is free but knows that is just the beginning, what know? What the fuck know?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 10:07 am. It is filed under Ideas for my first novel and tagged with novel ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.