Ade Grant - The Mariner

When the Mariner awoke, probably not long later, the poker session was in full swing and there were several more drinks laid out for him in a neat line. He sat up in his chair, making the legs screech on the stone floor. Prompted by the sound, Rebecca looked in his direction and saw he’d awoken. She grinned and winked before turning back to the table and throwing another disk. The Mariner took her gesture as it was meant: she’d ordered the drinks, paid for by her winnings. Let them both enjoy their vice. The real tab was picked up by the good doctor on top of the hill.

In a silent salute, the Mariner downed a second and third shot of whiskey, slowing to enjoy the scent of the fourth. The fumes filled his nostrils, tickling the sensitive nerves within.

The thought of his nose oddly made him think of his devils back aboard the Neptune. Were their noses pointing in his direction? he wondered. Their snouts peering into the dark night air? How long would they wait before they sought food of their own?

The Mariner downed the fourth whiskey. Fuck those little bastards. They were like his addiction, something he’d put up with far too long. If they starved or got themselves shot, that was their own damn fault, not his. He wasn’t going to be their pet any longer.

Rebecca gave the table a celebratory slap and pulled another pile of coins in her direction. It looked like the evening was going well. For her, for him, for the way life sometimes picks up when you least expect it.

The fifth whiskey disappeared through his grinning lips. There was no burn now. The liquid felt as mild as milk. He held the empty glass up and soon had the barman by his side.

“Another glass sir?”

“Whatever my friend can afford.”

His waiter crept over to Rebecca and gently shook her from her trance. At first she appeared angry, but the fierceness faded as if adjusting from a dream awoken. She shook her head, said something and then handed the barman a whole handful of coins. He smiled, nodded and scurried back to the bar, returning promptly with a whole bottle of bourbon to set down on the Mariner’s table.

“The lady says this is for you.”

The Mariner mumbled a thanks and looked to Rebecca. There was no wink this time, her attention was solely upon the game. An uncomfortable notion made him wonder the nature of the gift, was this her way of celebrating greater victories, or was she making sure he wouldn’t bother her again?

No matter; time to drink the sixth.

He watched her play poker against four opponents. He was sure there had been more, they must have skulked off as their reserves evaporated. Perhaps they were in the shadows now, watching the game of chance taken as seriously as gladiatorial combat?

In the warmth of the candlelight, Rebecca struck the Mariner as one of the most desirable women he’d ever seen. True there hadn’t been many. Not of courting age. But outside fantasy she was above them all. He could see her profile side on, her face the very picture of confidence, green eyes lit up as she calculated the odds. He looked at her body, hidden conservatively in shirt and jeans, yet still her figure could be deduced. Breasts pushed beneath shirt buttons as she stretched. Hips swayed as she danced in her seat.

The Mariner wanted her. It had been a long and lonely time at sea. He thought he’d managed to drink his desire away for good, but now it was back. Perhaps he had the doctor to thank for that as well?

There was no eighth drink. The seventh would last all night. Gone were the glasses; the Mariner cradled the bottle in his lap, sucking deep as he watched.

After a while he found it easier to imagine fucking her if he closed his eyes. The result was as agreeable as the bourbon. Sordid images danced across his vision and he chuckled at them, coaxing them along. Once again the sounds and smell of the room became distant, a dim shadow behind his fantasy, a sexual playground that had no limits.

But suddenly he was abed. The sexual illusions gone. the images of copulation and sordid union — erased! He was unaware of such things; after all, he was just a boy, afraid and alone.

There was a voice, somewhere in the dark, sounding distant and muffled. He tried to discern the source as he wanted to call them forth from the darkness and speak with them, but for some reason he was silent and immobile. It was then he realised why they sounded so far away; there was something covering his face. Suffocating him.

Raw panic. He had to move, to push back or face death. But his limbs were weak and there was naught to do but wait.

He felt like he was drowning, being dragged deeper and deeper into the ocean. It was a fear he’d often felt in the midst of a storm, when lightning flashed overhead threatening to burn his ship in one quick blaze. The Mariner lived on the sea, and there was only one death suitable for a man like he.

Except none of that was real. It was nonsense.

There weren’t monsters or Mindless or empty ships that carried devils.

—Suffocating! I can’t breathe!

The world hadn’t splintered into a billion pieces adrift in an endless sea.

—Let me go!

He wasn’t a Mariner. He was just a boy.

Drowning!

Besides, thought the boy as he spiralled down into the darkness, the Mariner didn’t even have a name. So he couldn’t possibly be that man, because his name was-

The Mariner’s eyes snapped open to the reassuring gloom of the gambling den. The bourbon bottle lay in his lap. At some point it had slipped from his grasp spilling its contents down his leg. He didn’t mourn the loss, he’d drunk his fill for the night and then some. The smell, only hours before so welcome and sweet, now seemed rank and rotten. It made him want to hurl, but his body couldn’t muster the resolve. Instead a small pocket of bile climbed high up in his throat, just enough to coat his tongue, before skulking moodily back below.

“You think it’s about the fucking money?”

An angry voice. With several others growling in agreement. These are what had awoken him from his nightmare. He would thank them, if they were the sort who’d respond well to kind words that made little sense. Perhaps not, instead he would hold his tongue; there was a drunken meanness in that tone that the Mariner wanted no part of.

“Just take it all, please, I was playing for fun, I don’t even want it.” A woman’s voice. Scared. Threatened.

“So you think you’re above us? Our goods no good?” Another nefarious voice, not as gruff as the first, but slyer. Not the alpha male, but a member of the same pack all-right. A coward suddenly feeling bold.

“Of course they are!” Crying now. The sound of prey cornered by wolves. “But I’d rather we just went our separate ways, and forget this happened at all.” Dead already. “Please, I’m not well, I need to get back to the clinic.”

The fog fell from the Mariner’s drunken head. It was Rebecca! The room swam into focus; the game had gone sour and her opponents had cornered her, four in total. Her back was to the table whilst they stood around, blocking retreat.

Not that retreat looked likely, even if she managed to bolt past them, entrapment seemed certain. The Mariner glanced about the room. Drinking and chatter in the dark recesses had stopped, all eyes were now on the central altercation. Anticipation in the air. They were in a beasts’ den. How had he not seen it before?

Rebecca gathered her chips together in her hands and offered the bounty, though they didn’t even elicit a glance, not even when the coins caught the light and shimmered; cold eyes were too busy sizing up their victim, planning how to violate her first.

The Mariner knew he had to act. The thugs thought he was passed-out, dead-drunk, and that was fine by him. They could go on thinking that until he put a bullet through each of their heads, but he had to be careful. No doubt they would be keeping an eye on him as her accomplice. When he made his move, he had to do it fast and without warning.