It had always struck Alice as strange how certain people dealt with fear. Let it bend their body into a protective ball, sew their mouths shut, build 50ft walls around their houses so that they couldn't go any further than their drive way. She, on the other hand, whilst having an abnormally large amount of it, saw it getting the better of her as a personal defeat. She preferred to pretend it didn't exist, acted like she didn't believe there was somebody in a black cloak and a Ghostface mask not so far behind her in the darkness on her walk to Sasha Evan's flat that frosty November night. Purposely shoving a trembling hand into her coat pocket whilst knocking on the front door with the more robust other, she greeted Tim Robbins with a saccharine "hello" as he welcomed her in.
"How are you?" He asked, hanging her coat up whilst Sasha waved from the sofa. She was in the middle of gnawing on a particularly sugary-looking pretzel. Their company, a bespectacled Matt Dawkins (a friend from Latin club and a fervent supporter of his Neo-Darwinist namesake), and a flame-haired Lucy Pratt (a voracious polo-player, Star Wars fan and secret lover of Beyonce whom Alice knew through Tim and Sasha), upon noticing Alice's arrival also greeted her with sheepish grins and maffled acknowledgements. Matt, however, was distracted, fiddling about with a an antiquated video player; Sasha had, for some reason, insisted they forfeit their Game of Thrones night for a vintage horror movie one.
"I'm alright, thanks." Alice replied, waving at the others. That particular lie always came out easier than the truth. "How are you?"
"I'm good." Tim answered, throwing her a beer from the side, one that she couldn't have whilst as highly medicated as she was unless she wanted an entire night of lost memories. "You'll be pleased to know, Sasha's spaghetti actually doesn't look like a dog just shit it out for once, so we won't have to waste money on ordering pizza in." He said, Alice laughing at his comment as Sasha scowled and beckoned for Alice to join her from the sofa. The laughter wasn't completely genuine, though. It was more so that Tim wouldn't notice her dropping her beer back on to the worktop, from where he had picked it up just moments before, and ask her why she wasn't having it. She waltzed over to where Sasha was sat and dropped down next to her, Tim sitting down on the other side.
"So the first film we're going to watch is a Clockwork Orange, right?" Matt asked, clearly satisfied that everyone was settled.
"What? No! I said the Shining!" Sasha replied, her look of false indignation doing little to hide her mouth's twitch of amusement.
"For fuck's sake, Sasha! Do you know how long it took me to-" Matt began, Sasha snorting as she sipped her beer. "Funny." Matt grumbled, hitting play and sitting back down, the opening credits beginning to roll. To actually sit and watch a film was a concept that Sasha, Tim, or Matt and Lucy for that matter, had never seemed to grasp. Every time they had a movie night, all they did was loll around and prate on about cinematography, who who'd fucked who that week, and how much they all hated David Cameron, as they loudly guzzled down food and beer throughout the entirety of the film. Usually, Alice could just about grit her teeth and get through it but that night, she couldn't do it anymore. Sit around and laugh at Sasha and Tim as they snapped at one another over everything and anything from the origins of the universe to the pronunciation of the word meme. Pretend to be outraged over Lucy "not getting the genius" of Tyrion Lannister as Tim put it. Or even listen to Matt bemoan critics of the Phantom Menace. She'd gone to the movie night for a reason.
She wanted those security tapes from outside Little Chef. She wanted to know where Cleo had gone that night after she'd met Clara. And the fact that the Supplier had almost crushed her trachea 2 nights before made no difference to that; if anything, it had made her more fixated on getting her hands on them. She remembered what Gemma had said; Tim Robbins did shifts there. He was a pushover. He could help her get them. First, she just needed to get him alone. So whilst Sasha, Tim, Lucy and Matt sat there sniggering over the "atrocity" that they called Adam Sandler's Pixels movie, she sat there watching a young Malcolm McDowell have his eyelids propped open, thinking about the best way to divert the other 3's attention. Sasha especially, would be difficult, she mused, her eyes flickering over the room and landing on the pot of spaghetti bolognese, still simmering on the hob. That's when it came to her.
YOU ARE READING
Trust No Bitch: Part 2
Mystery / ThrillerYou think you know the story: 4 women, a dead friend, and an anonymous texter. But think again. It's about to get a whole lot messier, as 4 British university students are about to find out. Full of sex, drugs, and deceit, you've come to the wrong...
