FP's Fun

Chapter 7

"Tumble." Alice whispered to herself, seeing her breath in the almost freezing temperature of the house with the broken air conditioner. "The tumblers. It's all about the tumblers." Alice smiled, remembering what FP had taught her about picking locks back in high school. And her hair. She had bobby pins in.

She shivered, excitedly looking over at her right handcuffed wrist, the good one, and she leaned her head over, attempting to grab for her hair pins. Just as she felt the top of her head with the tips of her fingers, there was resistance. She pulled and tugged, trying her best to reach for the pin on the back of her head, but she couldn't reach. She screamed in frustration and another Fake Alice returned.

"Hey, Alice." She said as she danced a little on the right side of the bed. "Remember that week at Coachella, just before graduating college?" She screamed as if yelling over a crowd.

"What?" The real Alice wondered in her inside voice.

"Remember Coachella?!" Fake Alice yelled even louder.

"Yes, yes! Why are you screaming?" The real one asked quietly.

"Remember when the Motley Crue performed and you lost her mother's favorite hair clip and she was pissed?" Fake Alice continued to sway as if dancing along to something.

"Yes. What does that have anything to do with this? Are you just trying to point out more of my faults? Thanks!"

"No, no. Remember how you lost the clip?" Fake Alice asked and soon, she saw in the real Alice's eyes that she finally understood.

"Oh!" Alice started shaking her head aggressively as if to rock music and soon, her bobby pins fell out. One landed in her lap and another, on the floor. "That's alright, that's alright." She said to herself. "I only need one. Thank you, Al-" Before she finished, she looked up and saw that Fake Alice was gone yet again.

She bent over, struggling to pick up the bobby pin in her mouth, but when she finally did, she laughed with joy, moving her mouth over to her right handcuff, attempting to put the bobby pin inside the keyhole to the cuff. She heard the coyote growling and she looked over to see him standing, staring at her with threatening eyes. "Stay! Stay!" She tried to mumble with the bobby pin still in her mouth. "Nuh uh!" She watched him slowly step closer to the bed and her instincts told her to move back farther on the bed, though she didn't move very far. "Good doggy!" She mumbled again, knowing those types of remarks wouldn't work on a wild animal. She closed her eyes and shook her head at herself before continuing to keep an eye on him. He growled some more and she glared at him, wanting nothing more than to growl back. But she didn't want to provoke him, so she just sat there, staring him down.

He took another step toward the bed and she felt her weak body wanting to give up. Soon, horrible shooting pains ran up and down her legs and she closed her eyes, breathing heavily, the fog from her breath in the cold air filling the room.

"It's all about the tumblers." She heard Fake FP at her right shoulder as she couldn't take it anymore.

"Fuck!" She cried out in pain, the bobby pin falling out of her mouth and into her lap again as her legs shook. She shivered from the cold and shivered from the pain and her body seized.

"It was only a matter of time before that happened." Fake Alice said, standing behind Fake FP to the real Alice's right. "Lack of water, lack of food. Lack of blood flow due to the almost subzero temperatures in here."

Fake FP laughed at the fake women over his shoulder. "I'm so glad we're hallucinations. I don't even remember what the cold feels like."

"Right?" Fake Alice laughed, putting a hand on Fake FP's shoulder.