The Hangover: Part III

Birds were chirping delightfully in the trees and the sun was cresting higher into the noon hour sky. It had only taken the cabbie a half hour to get to Green-Wood Cemetery, driving through the entrance gates and through to the main gate; coming to a literal fork in the road. In a matter of seconds of pulling over to the side of the small roadway within the cemetery, the foursome had burst forth from inside the vehicle, with Stu asking the cabbie to keep the meter running. They turned from the cab and came to a stop, trying to figure out which way to go.

Looking left, right and straight ahead, Stu smacked Phil on the chest. "You and Sam go straight, I'll go right. Alan," he looked over at Alan, "You go left, okay? Scream if you find the right mausoleum."

"Dude, it's a cemetery," Phil remarked, proving once again he wasn't always the insensitive one of the bunch.

"Then, I don't know. Caw like bird, very loudly."

Without so much as a goodbye, Stu took off running to the right that narrowed into a pathway. Alan shrugged and ran in the direction of the left, as fast as his weight would allow him. He didn't go but fifty feet before having to stop and catch his breath, bending forward with his hands on his knees. Phil and Sam had already started to hurry off in their allotted direction when Sam noticed Alan's cease of movement.

"Are you gonna be okay, Alan?"

He turned back and nodded slowly. "Yeah," breathing in deep. "I'll be fine. It's just a little hot out."

"You don't have to run, Alan. We don't need you keeling over dead," Phil said.

Alan smirked appreciatively at Phil. "Thanks, Phil. I'll do my best."

Phil just nodded and grabbed Sam's elbow, leading her onward. They ran straight ahead, trying to determine where exactly the right mausoleum would be. The path they took twisted and turned a little and they decided to veer right where they came upon two mausoleums. It was unspoken between them to separate; each walking up to one of the mausoleums. There was no one else around as they approached their respective mausoleum doors and knocked, calling out Doug's and Amanda's names. They waited, listened, but received no response.

Looking at Sam, Phil shrugged. "On to the next."

They continued on side by side, giving up on running for the time being. Sam spotted some mausoleums a little further up the path to her right, pointing them out to Phil who followed as she led the way. Cupping his hands over his mouth, Phil called out Doug's and Amanda's again as Sam went to the mausoleum closest to her, banging on the doors.

By the third one, she turned and frowned at Phil. "I have a feeling I'm going to wind up in a special level of hell for this."

"Well, we more or less desecrated a few graves already by leaving Doug in one of these things," Phil commented, patting the palm of his left hand on the door of the fourth mausoleum. "I'd say we're already fucked."

Sam nodded, then began to smirk a little. "Maybe I'll stop into a Catholic church when we all get back to LA and I'll light a few candles."

"You're Catholic?" Phil asked, as they moved toward the fifth mausoleum together.

"Irish Catholic on my mother's side, Jewish on my father's."

Phil winced and laughed at the same time. "Wow, that's a volatile mix."

"Tell me about it."

"I guess that means you enjoy whiskey, have the Catholic guilt and the Jewish greed."

Sam scoffed playfully, giving Phil a shove to his arm. "What kind of name is Wenneck anyway? What volatile mix do you have?"

"Wenneck is German. German on my dad's side and a little on my mom's but mostly English from my mom's side."

"So..." Sam trailed, thinking. "So, basically you like your beer."

Phil flashed her his usual, charming smile. "Basically." Walking backward, he grabbed her hands in his and pulled her toward him as his back pressed up against the fifth mausoleum. "Like I said back in the city, I think we go well together." He just stared down at her as she looked upward with a knowing smirk.

"I dunno. I think my Jewish ancestors might have something to say about your German ones."

Nearing her face, Phil muttered, "I don't really give a shit about what others say." He then grazed his lips against hers, but left it at nothing more than a graze as he stepped away, but not without a slap to her ass first. "C'mon. We have more mausoleums to desecrate."

Stalking off on those two long legs of his, Phil head back toward the pathway they'd been on, leaving Sam to gather her wits and try to keep her temperature from rising; and not because of the warm weather outside. Biting her bottom lip, she followed after him.



Stu had groaned the moment he realized he should've had Phil and Sam go right. He didn't realize just how much bigger the right half of the cemetery was. The path he was on curved back toward the front, bowed to the right and then some. Fortunately, there weren't as many mausoleums to get around to which he figured narrowed the search down considerably. He had also given up on running, due to the heat, his exhaustion, sore body and he didn't feel like getting dirty looks from groundskeepers or mourning visitors for running around like a crazy person, calling out names and banging on mausoleums.

He kept up with a light jog as he manuevered around a few graves, only once tripping over a flat headstone he hadn't seen, that lay only slightly elevated above ground. He recovered quickly, looking around to make sure no one saw him. Unfortunately there was an elderly woman with her hand resting on a headstone, making a face at him.

He nodded to her and offered a small smile. "Tripped," he explained lamely, turning his jog to a fast-paced walk until he was out of her line of sight, then he took off jogging again toward the next mausoleum.

"Doug!" he yelled under his breath. "Doug! Amanda!"

He was getting nothing. He found two masoleums at least twenty feet apart and walked up to one before realizing something.

"What are you doing, Stu?" he asked himself. "Why are you knocking on every mausoleum you come across when the one you're looking for is built into a hill?" He then raised his eyebrow as if a split personality taking over. "Because I'm a dumbass, that's why, Stu," he answered his own question in a slightly raised tone.

Shaking his head, he marched onward.



When Phil and Sam came upon a row of approximately nine or ten mausoleums built on a small hillside, Sam smacked his arm and grinned. Their excitement over their finding was short-lived when they saw a funeral was in process across the pathway from the mausoleums.

"Fuck," he groaned. "How do we discreetly check the mausoleums for Doug and Amanda with those people over there?"

Sam shrugged. "Nonchalantly?"

They began to walk up the incline toward the first of the many mausoleums, with Phil placing his hand on the door and calling in a low voice, "Doug? You in there?"

"Amanda?" Sam called. "It's Sam."

Phil looked at her. "I don't think it's this one."

By the time they reached the sixth mausoleum, they noticed someone walking toward them on the pathway from their right. On closer inspection, they saw that it was Alan, completely covered from head to toe in dirt; his hair, face, white T-shirt he'd bought at the hospital, Stu's green swim shorts, legs, and feet.

His bare feet.

"Alan? Where are your shoes?" Phil asked, stepping back down the incline and closing the gap between them. "And why are you so dirty?"

"Oh, your hand's bleeding," Sam pointed out with a sympathetic look. She grabbed Alan's hand and held it palm side up only to drop it back down for a moment.

"I kinda fell," came his sheepish response.

"Where?" Sam inquired, leaning forward to tear at the bottom of her sister's pink dress she was still wearing. It had a slight ruffle to the bottom and she ripped part of that off with a strength that impressed Phil, judging by his expression. The dress seemed like it had been well-made and after all they'd been through in the last day and a half, the dress was virtually intact. Till now.

"Spit in your palm," she ordered and Alan obeyed. She took part of the pink ruffle to wipe his spit around to clean around his cut. As she began to wrap the entire piece of ruffled fabric around his hand, she asked again, "Where did you fall?"

"Into a grave." His response was more nonchalant then when he first mentioned falling; as if he was more embarassed over falling in general than falling into a grave.

Both Phil and Sam just looked at him, incredulously. "Are you fucking serious?" Phil asked. "How do you fall into a grave?"

"There was a buttefly I was trying to follow while I was looking for mausoleums and I didn't see the open grave and I fell in."

"Oh my god, Alan." Sam kept staring in disbelief. She had an image in her head of him falling face first into a grave and landing on some casket, but Alan nixed that thought of hers with his following comment.

"It's okay," he shrugged off. "There wasn't a coffin in there yet. It was empty."

"How'd you cut your hand, then?" Phil looked over toward the funeral starting to disperse and brought a hand up to his head. His sunglasses were on and shielding his eyes, but the sun was directly above his head and the glare still found its way to his blue orbs.

"I was trying to pull myself out and I grabbed a rock and it had a sharp edge."

"You gotta be more careful about where you're going," Sam muttered motherly to the portly man.

Alan simply nodded with a small smile. "I know. I get distracted sometimes."

"But where are your shoes?"

"Still in the grave."

"Well," Phil spoke, deciding to change the subject. "We have four more of these mausoleums right here. They're built into a hill, so we're thinking maybe Doug and Amanda could be in one of these. You can help us."

Alan's smile grew larger. "Okay." He walked right up to the next mausoleum and knocked loudly on the door, garnering looks of contempt from those in attendance to the funeral across the way. "Hey, Doug? Are you in there? Amanda?"

"Alan," Sam hissed. "Quietly."

"Oh, sorry."

Just as the three of them began to move toward the next mausoleum, they heard this loud, girlish scream of excitement in the distance.

"What the hell?" Sam wondered.

"I think that was Stu." Phil turned in the direction the scream came from and, sure enough, Stu came a-running, waving his hands when he spotted the others. When he saw the funeral that was breaking apart and the glares he was receiving, he immediately winced and ceased his wild gestures, but he kept running toward his friends.

"I found them!"

Sam's eyes widened and she decided she didn't care about proper cemetery decorum anymore. She ran the remaining distance to meet Stu halfway; Stu's flip-flops she was wearing smacking annoyingly on the paved pathway. Because they were so big on her feet it made it difficult to run so she kicked them off, bent down and picked them up. "Where are they?"

Stu gestured with his thumb over his shoulder. "This way." He looked over to Phil and Alan who were approaching. "I couldn't get the door to budge on my own. I could hear their voices inside but the thing is built so solid their voices were muffled. I couldn't make out what they were saying."

"Probably a few choice expletives," Phil commented.

Nothing else was said as the foursome followed Stu as he led the way toward a hilly area of the cemetery where a lone mausoleum sat, built into said hill with several headstones in front of it.

"Amanda!" Sam shouted, running up to it and banging her fist on the door.

Sure enough, just as Stu had said, there were muffled voices inside and someone banged back on the door.

Sam squealed in delight. "It's Sam! We're here to get you out!"

The second bang happened, heavier this time.

Phil gently pushed Sam out of the way and grabbed a hold of the knob, trying to yank the door toward him to no avail. "Alan, grab me around the waist and pull when I pull. I think the heat made the door expand and that's why it won't budge."

Alan walked up behind Phil and wrapped his arms around Phil's waist, his face pressed into Phil's back and he pulled, causing both of them to fall backward on the ground, with Phil flattening out Alan.

"Goddammit, Alan, I said to pull when I pull, not before," Phil grumbled, rolling to his side and pushing himself up to his knees. "My hand wasn't on the knob yet."

"Sorry."

Stu helped Phil up while Sam did the same for Alan.

Phil returned to the door once again, this time grabbing the knob and throwing a look over his shoulder. "Okay, now you can pull."

Wrapping his arms back around Phil's waist, Alan pulled with all his might and with a tacky suction sound resonating into the air, the mausoleum door popped open. It was dark inside since there were no windows like newer mausoleums had. The daylight provided just enough and the foursome were able to peer inside to make out a figure moving around just as a second came jumping out and attacking the first person standing in the way of the open door, which happened to be Phil.

Phil went flying backward yet again, this time on the bottom of the pinning and a half-naked Doug on top, gripping Phil's shoulders and shaking the taller man mercilessly.

"How can you leave me in a fucking crypt?" Doug shouted. "You fucking asshole!"

"Whoa, Doug...Doug, calm down!" Phil shouted back, but trying to be more calm. He held his hands up and pried Doug's off his shoulders to force him to back off a little.

Sam started to step inside of the mausoleum just as Amanda appeared, standing in her bra and panties but holding Sam's dark blue dress. She was covered in sweat and looking like she'd survived the holocaust. "Oh shit," Sam murmured, reaching her arms out to pull her sister toward her. The younger Simmons woman's blonde hair was so matted against her face as if she'd been in a sauna. "Are you okay?"

"Is it my wedding day?" came her voice, scratchy and dry. She squinted, not used to the array of light from having been holed up in the mausoleum for more than twenty-four hours.

Sam nodded guiltily. "Yeah, but we have enough time to get to OHEKA Castle and get you looking pretty," she touched her sister's limp hair. "The wedding can't start without you."

"How come it took this long for you guys to find us?" Doug demanded, looking between the foursome who had been running around Manhattan and Brooklyn for the last two days. They were staring at him apologetically but also with amusement in their eyes.

Doug was missing his eyebrows.

"We blacked out again, couldn't remember anything when we woke up yesterday morning," Stu explained, trying not to chuckle at how weird Doug looked.

"Explains why I couldn't remember how I got locked in a fucking crypt," Doug growled, walking back inside.

"We didn't lock you in, we propped the door open and had every intention of getting you back out," Phil insisted, calling after his smaller friend. He looked over at Stu who was trying his best not to laugh. Phil shared the same feeling of wanting to laugh hard, but considering how angry Doug was, he didn't want to push that envelope. "We got distracted. Alan was injured and his wound seemed to be getting worse. We just forgot, man. We're sorry."

Doug reappeared holding his dress shirt, dress pants and blazer in his hands, as he was standing there only in his boxers. "Why did we blackout at all, though?" His eyes wandered over to Alan. "Alan?"

Phil stepped forward, putting a hand in front of the beardless man. "It wasn't Alan this time. It was me." Off Doug's confused gaze, he added, "I bought LSD off some guy in the bathroom at the restaurant we were at. We all took a piece."

"I didn't," Amanda muttered. They all looked at her. "I remember seeing you coming back from the bathroom," she explained. "I was still at my table with my bridesmaids. I looked over seeing you all toasting something and putting something in your mouths. I figured it was breath mints you were passing around. Then Stu walked away 'cause he saw Billy Joel and brought him back over and then we brought our tables together."

"You remember everything?" Sam asked.

Amanda shrugged. "Most things. I've always been a lightweight when it comes to drinking. I didn't need LSD to contribute to blacking out a little. Most of Friday into Saturday is foggy but I remembered leaving Doug here. Of course it wasn't until a few hours later. I told Stu where I was going," she looked at Stu and pointed.

"Yeah," he muttered sheepishly. "One of the things the blackout momentarily wiped from my mind until this morning."

"I forgot there was a shirt keeping the door open and bumped it with my foot. The door was so heavy. It swung shut on its own and was sealed pretty tight. It woke Doug up and we tried opening it but there's no handle from the inside."

"We're so sorry you were both left in there all this time," Sam apologized, wrapping her arms around her sister for a hug. "We've been turning over every stone in New York we could think of, trying to figure out where you were."

"I bet you're starving." Alan stared at Amanda, his eyes occasionally migrating away from her face to take in the sight of her in only her undergarments.

Amanda responded by pulling Sam's dress over her head. "I'll eat after I get married."

The others smiled at each other. "Alright," Phil spoke, looking at Amanda. "Let's get you to the altar." He clapped his hands together and then placed one of them on Doug's back, giving him a supportive pat.

As they began to walk toward the pathway, Doug was walking and dressing at the same time, hopping as he tried to put his pants back on. He passed his blazer to Stu while he pulled his dress shirt on and turned to look at Alan for a moment.

"Hey Alan, your beard is missing."

Alan didn't give any sort of physical gesture of acknowledgment. "So are your eyebrows."

Doug touched his hands to his face and felt around. "Oh shit," he muttered.