"What
do you do with a drunken sailor, what do you do with a drunken
sailor, what do you do with a drunken sailor earl lie in the morning?"
That
refrain from an old sea chantey was the only part of the song
that Ned Tatum remembered from his days in the navy over twenty
long years ago and he sang it repeatedly as he drunkenly stumbled
down the street towards his private space beneath the overpass
a few blocks ahead.
Life
had not been kind to Ned since his wife had left him a few years
ago after finally realizing that he loved his bottle much more
than he loved her. She had tried in vain to do something to salvage
the relationship but all her pleas to him went either unanswered
or unheard, as he was constantly drunk or working very hard on
becoming drunk.
Ned's
youth had slipped away from him as easily as the upturned bottle
of cheap booze that he constantly carried with him flowed down
his throat.
At
forty-four, Ned was a shell of his former self and his face bore
the character lines of a man forty years his senior. Thin to the
point of emaciation and because hygiene wasn't high on his list
of priorities, what teeth he had left were rotting in his gums
and anyone that he happened to encounter soon moved upwind of
him out of fear of being overcome by his stench.
Ned
did have his good points though. He was a true friend to his fellow
unwashed and unwanted neighbors that shared the small area that
he called home and was always willing to share what little he
had with those that had less then he.
As
Ned stumbled down the dark street towards home and the companionship
of his peers, he failed to notice the even darker shadow that
paced his every move. Had he been more aware of his surroundings
and had his ears been attuned to the sounds of the city that were
not city sounds, he would have picked up immediately that he was
in serious danger and perhaps could have done something about
it then.
That
wasn't the case on this particular night though and Ned blindly
stumbled his way towards home, constantly singing the redundant
lyrics that permeated his alcohol-fogged brain.
Nature
suddenly called and Ned, no longer having the least inhibitions
about pissing in public, leaned against the brick wall of an old
building along the way and after digging inside his broken zipper
and soiled pants, fished his stub of a penis out and let his flow
of dank urine splash against the side of the building.
He
leaned his head backwards both from the satisfaction of pissing
and nearing the end of the mindless refrain and then with his
course voice bouncing off the sides of the nearby buildings, became
aware that he was being stalked and drunkenly looked around.
The
darkness became even darker as the entity closed in and surrounded
his frail body with a bone chilling cold that he had never felt
before nor ever would again. His penis now forgotten and with
the last few drops of urine dribbling down the leg of his soiled
pants, he shuddered and felt the heavy hands of death on his shoulders.
His
mind, though completely fogged from the effects of alcohol, raced
in trying to comprehend what was happening to him and failed miserably.
He
felt the long, ice-cold teeth sink deep into his throat and through
his own stench, caught the whiff of an even more horrible, putrid
scent that had he lived two more minutes, would have gagged even
him.
His
eyes were opened wide and the tendons in his neck were distended
as the entity ripped the center of his throat out and spit it
unceremoniously on the dirty street below. The bright red spray
of blood that blew thickly from the ragged hole in his throat
and splashed against the dirty bricks of the old building ran
in thick rivulets in front of his dying eyes.
He
heard, rather than felt, the top of his skull being ripped open
and his brain being devoured greedily by the dark entity.
Ned
Tatum's last conscious thought before the eternal darkness descended
over him like a heavy, warm quilt on a cold winter's night was
of his lost wife and the life he had wasted with his continued
use of alcohol.
"Oh
God, I fucked up and I'm so very sor…" His brain screamed
wordlessly, as his dead body dropped to the ground.
The
entity, satiated from its recent meal and with gobbets of flesh
still dropping from its long, sharp teeth, continued down the
street but was confused by its sudden inability to move correctly
and the impulse to do the unthinkable, to sing.
"What
do you do with a drunken sailor, what do you do with a drunken
sailor, what do you do with a drunken sailor, earl lie in the
morning."
