THIS STORY IS NOT SUITABLE FOR READERS UNDER 12
Story continues from yesterday. If you want to read it from the beginning, click here
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They’d been talking all night.
“So I get it, I do.” Muriel was having trouble getting it. “She had to eat. She had to kill to survive. So she made sure she only killed bad people. Cruel people. She had to kill them to save the animals. Okay. I get that.” She hadn’t noticed that two of her friends had left the room and the third, Sammy, had long since nodded off. But that was okay, she didn’t need a response. She just needed to discuss it out loud.
Velma put her head around the door. “I have to pop out for a bit,” she said quietly.
Muriel looked up. “What? Oh, yeah, of course. I should go.”
“You don’t need to go. Stay as long as you need to. I won’t be long anyway.”
“Where’s Andy?” Muriel whispered so as not to disturb Sammy.
“Still in the bathroom. I think he must have fallen asleep in there.”
Muriel looked at the clock, “oh wow, I didn’t realise it was that late.”
“Okay, I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” Velma told her as she backed out of the doorway and returned to the kitchen.
“Hey,” Muriel hurried to catch Velma before she left, “are you going to kill someone?”
Velma nodded.
“Do you have to? Now? Can’t you stay here with me? Just this once?!” There was an angry edge to her last question.
“Yes. I have to.” Velma was hurt. “I do it because I have to!”
“Why?” Muriel whined.
“Because I’m hungry Muriel! And I can’t afford to get too hungry!” She paused to calm herself. “It’s how I stay in control. If I get too hungry I won’t be able to resist -” She hesitated again, unable to finish the last sentence. “I’ve got to go,” she concluded and left.
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Velma had another friend at work – Rosaline. She was so timid it took her more than six months to say hello to Velma, but gradually they became friendly. By the end of that first year of working together, they were regularly discussing their favourite music and foods. Rosaline’s favourite food was garlic bread but she couldn’t have it very often because Doug, her husband, said it made her breath smell. She also loved chocolate but she had to be careful not to overdo it, Doug said, because she was getting a bit wide in the waist. He would show her the photo he carried of her in his wallet and remind her how skinny she used to be.
Rosaline blushed and laughed when she told Velma these things. “He used to say I was beautiful,” she said, “can’t really blame him for being upset that I’ve let myself go.”
“That you got older you mean?” Velma asked sarcastically, “no, a man can’t be expected to put up with that!” Rosaline smiled and Velma smiled back. “He doesn’t know how lucky he is to have you.”
Rosaline’s smile faded. “He said yesterday that I’m lucky he sticks around because some woman at work fancies him and he said ‘no-one would ever fancy you‘,” she tilted her head at Velma, “that’s not very nice is it?”
“Does he ever say anything nice?” Velma asked. Rosaline didn’t reply.
Rosaline didn’t say much for a couple of weeks after that. It was just polite nods and half-smiles. But eventually they got chatting again and Velma was able to find out that Rosaline was a majorette when she was at school, that she had a best friend called Sue who was once a ball girl at Wimbledon, and that Doug had life insurance.
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Come back tomorrow as chapter six continues, unless you want to read it now 🙂
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