Pt 2

“Damn!” Samantha groaned, clutching her head as she woke up to find herself sat on the floor of her dorm room in her underwear, leaning against the bed on which Vicki was sprawled, similarly dressed. Amelia seemed to be the most worst for wear of all of them having apparently lost her bra along with the rest of her clothes and was now passed out in the computer chair, head tipped back and snoring loudly. “Just how much did we drink last night?” A quick look around the room at all the empty bottles that littered the floor gave her the answer she was fairly sure that she hadn’t wanted.

She tried to stand and regretted it instantly as the pain it made her feel as if she had been whacked over the head with a large mallet wielded by a particularly angry mountain troll. Revising her ambition to something more achievable, Samantha crawled over to her desk, hoping that her phone was still where she had left it, charging from the computer’s USB port. Carefully, slowly, she pulled herself up, pushing the chair occupied by the unconscious Amelia slightly aside, having absolutely no effect on its occupant. Fortunately, her phone was where she expected it to be – the first thing she had to be thankful for that morning.

“Shit…” she muttered, seeing the time and wincing at the sound of her own voice. She had a lecture in just over half an hour and she could not really afford to miss it. Although she wanted nothing more than to roll Vicki to one side of the bed and crash out again, either to die or sleep off her hangover, she had no particular preference, she forced herself to stand and slowly, shoving empty bottles out of the way with her foot, shuffled her way to the bathroom where she peeled off her apparently vodka-soaked underwear and turned on the shower.

The cool water revived her a little, enough to hunt for a packet of painkillers from which she swallowed twice the recommended dose, determined to survive the lecture. At least she only had one that day and could sleep off the rest of the night’s excesses afterwards. The combination of the shower, the pills and the fresh air on her walk across campus did her the world of good and, by the time she arrived at the lecture hall, her hangover had receded to the point that it was a mere irritation, possible to ignore most of the time, especially as the lecture was on a particularly interesting topic, delivered by her favourite tutor.

By the time the lecture was over, she had almost forgotten the way she has woken up feeling and decided to go to the cafe across campus from the lecture hall for a latte. Half way there, however, she heard her name being called frantically by someone who was apparently running to catch up with her. Stopping, she turned around to see Amelia running towards her with Vicki walking briskly behind.

“Hey!” she smiled, “You woke up eventually then?”

“Um, yeah.” Amelia stopped just short of crashing into her and stood trying to get her breath back while Vicki fairly effortlessly caught up.

“Hey girlfriend!” Vicki smiled and, in Samantha’s opinion, hugged her a little too enthusiastically. She was pretty sure what this meant.

“Okay, go on!” she sighed. “What was it?”

“What was what?” Amelia asked, looking genuinely puzzled and more than a little nervous.

“Well from the way you two are acting, I’m guessing you broke something of mine?” The other two girls looked at each other awkwardly. “Oh no,” Samantha braced herself for bad news, “it wasn’t my computer, was it? You know I can’t afford to replace it!”

“No,” Vicki seemed to be biting her lip, “not your computer.”

“My headphones then?” Samantha pushed, “My vibrator? What?”

“We didn’t break anything.” Amelia informed her in the obvious tones of someone who has bad news but not the type of bad news the person they had to deliver it to might be expecting. “It’s just… You tell her!” she turned to Vicki in desperation. “You’re her best friend! It will sound better coming from you!”

“Oh thanks!” Vicki rolled her eyes. “Okay,” she let out a deep exhale as if psyching herself up, “how much do you remember about last night?”

“Not a lot, honestly!” Samantha chuckled a little nervously, “Why? What did I miss?”

“Well we didn’t remember until about half an hour ago,” Vicki admitted, “and we wanted to… well, I do remember that after the first few drinks you started talking about cannibalism and all the girls you’d known who had got eaten…” Samantha had a bit of a sinking feeling, it sounded like she had opened up a little more than she intended to and weirded her friends out. If she really focussed and cast her mind back, she could vaguely remember such a conversation. “Well after that you started asking why we thought you’d never been cooked or why nobody had ever seemed to want to eat you.”

“So… What?” Samantha narrowed her eyes and folded her arms.

“Well I honestly don’t remember.” Vicki admitted. “I guess we talked about it some more and then had some more to drink and at some point… well… Go on,” she turned to Amelia, “you’d better show her.”

Sheepishly, Amelia handed over her phone. An email was open ready for Samantha to read. The email bore the logo of Sidney’s Family Restaurant at the top, the stylised signature of Sidney Roebuck after whom the chain was named.

“Thank you for your generous…” Samantha read the email, muttering occasional words and phrases out loud, “subject to satisfactory… report for… we thank you again for… Wait, WHAT?!” she practically dropped the phone as the content of the email sunk in. “What did you do?”

“Looks like we signed up to be meat.” Amelia gave an awkward smile. “All three of us, if that makes it any better?” Samantha did not know what to think. On the one hand, she was furious that her friends would do something like this when she had been in no state to make an informed decision but on the other hand, maybe this was just the push she needed to finally make up her mind before the opportunity was taken out of her hands once more?

“So, um, what do you think?” Vicki asked, nervously.

“I think,” Samantha replied, handing the phone back to Amelia, “that we all need a coffee!”