Short Stories

I didn't expect things to turn out the way they did. It was supposed to be a fun night out. But things went wrong.  "One evening a few weeks ago, I was with my friend Cindy. We were at my house while my parents were away for the weekend. I thought we could do whatever we liked as we had no adults telling us what to do. A new club had just opened downtown - Fall's Nightclub - and it already had a good reputation. Everybody my age had been there or heard about it; the loud music, great dance floors, bright lights - and especially cheap drinks. I really wanted to go to the club to see for myself how good it was. 'Let's go to Fall's,' Cindy looked up at me from behind her laptop where she was scrolling through f*******:.  'That new club downtown?' Cindy asked, 'You know that your parents would never let you - neither would mine let me.' Cindy had always done what her parents - and mine - had told her. I remember thinking to myself 'She really  needs to go to this club with me, get drunk and have some fun.' 'C'mon, Cind,' I said, trying to convince her to go with  me, 'you know how good it's supposed to be.' Eventually she sighed. I gave her the best puppy-dog-eyes look I could and she gave in. 'Fine.'" "We got dressed up, did our makeup - all the normal things girls do before they go out - and then we set out for the club. Arriving shortly after 10:30pm, the music was blasting and could be heard from halfway down the block when the doors were open. The queue was short when we reached the club; only a five minute wait. 'ID please.' 'Ash, don't tell me you've forgot it.'  'No, wait there... Here... Here it is!' I was so excited to get inside, and the search for my ID card annoyed me.  'Ashley Smith.' The security guard looked at me questioningly. 'You're twenty-one?' 'I am,' I replied, a little too harshly. 'Okay.' He handed me my ID back and we rushed inside before he could change his mind.  'He's such a grump!' I shouted to Cindy as we walked to the bar. I needed a strong drink to relax me and take away the anger.  'What?' I only understood what Cindy said by reading her lips. 'Nothing,' I mouthed back." "We had a few drinks and danced our way through a lot of songs with a lot of different guys. It was beginning to get hot on the dancefloor so we headed back to the bar. We noticed that the last guy Cindy had danced with followed us to the bar. Probably hoping for her number.  Signalling the bartender, we ordered out drinks. 'Two tequila's please.' While the bartender got our drinks, we talked with a guy who had just walked over to us. He introduced himself as Tom.  'Your tequila's, ladies,' the bartender announced as he slid our drinks across to our side of the bar.  'Here, let me pay for those.' Tom was quite a good-looking guy - blonde hair and deep-set green eyes. He paid for our drinks and handed them to us.  'Ladies.' We were quite drunk by now and found the smallest things hilarious. We all laughed and drank. I noticed that Cindy's drink was a slightly off colour compared to mine. I didn't think anything of it at the time.'" "Around half an hour later, Cindy complained of dizziness and stomach ache. Tom was still with us, he was such a generous guy and had paid for both of our drinks a few more times within the half hour. I told him that we were going to leave, due to Cindy feeling unwell.  Tom walked us out of the club and to the end of the street. He had asked for my number as we approached the end, and was just finishing putting it into his phone as we reached the corner so I slowed to give him time to put his number into my phone. I looked at my phone to check the time - 02:37am. I wondered if we could still call for a taxi as it was getting cold and late.  We heard tires screeching followed by a loud thud. Tom and I both looked up at the road, to where Cindy was lying in a small pool of blood that was slowly expanding with every passing second. She wasn't moving." "After that I don't remember much, except the ambulance and going to the hospital with Tom. We sat for hours, only approached by a police officer who wanted to know what happened. They said the car must have been going fast. When we'd both told them our version of events, we weren't spoken to until around 8:30 the next morning. It was the same doctor that had told us Cindy had been going into theatre about five hours earlier.  'She didn't make it through the operations.' A few days later the police officer visited me at my house. She told me what had happened to Cindy. 'She was drugged by a man who approaches young girls and tells them his name is Tom. The police have been watching him for a while, and he is suspected of killing three other girls who fit Cindy's profile. He buys his victim a drink, and slips the drug into it before passing it to her. Usually he targets girls who are alone, or whose friends are distracted, or on the dancefloor. Now that we are sure he's a killer, he will go to prison for a long, long time.'"  "I couldn't cope with Cindy's death. I attended her funeral, spoke a few words before she was laid to rest and then went home. Days passed by, blurred together. I slept through most of them. A friend of ours who moved to Australia a few years ago came to visit me and asked about Cindy. I told her about what happened, and sensing I wasn't in the mood to talk, left to see other friends.  That night I could stand it no longer. The emotional pain was unbearable. It had gotten to the point where I was no longer eating and had an irregular sleep pattern. I had become numb. After that, the only thing I remember is waking up with a sharp pain in my wrists and side. Someone was shaking me, asking me to respond but it was like they were far away. I looked around me. I saw blood and followed it to my hand where I saw the knife and the deep cuts that had bled so I too was in a pool of blood." I noticed tears were rolling down my cheeks. I wiped at my face.  My psychiatrist looked at me. "And that's how it happened."