New Title 1 by R. Frederick Hamilton Page B

me before I did anything really dumb but just before she did, this smile spread across his face and it was so friggin’ freaky and when he talked it was just this stilted monotone. Shit, I couldn’t even attempt an impersonation. He just said: sorry you’re not my type, you don’t look like her”,’ Sarah stopped talking and barked a nervous laugh.
    ‘Shit, it doesn’t even sound that bad repeating it but I swear there was just something about the way he said it. Freaked the shit out of me.’
    ‘Okay.’ Rachel’s voice sounded dry and crackly to her ears. A new thought was growing and as she listened, she slowly, with a somnambulistic step, began to walk back to the bedroom.
    ‘… But I thought I should ring and tell you, you know, as he seemed rather caught up with you. I’m telling you he’s a freak.’
    ‘I know. It’s the main reason I didn’t want you to call him over last night if you recall.’ Rachel stopped dead as she reached the bed; its sheets still rumpled, and studied the glass.
    ‘Well I didn’t know, I was trying to do you a favour…’ Sarah’s voice was carrying an edge of righteous indignation that Rachel just couldn’t swallow at the moment. As her eyes locked on the faint smears at the bottom of the window, Rachel knew she had to get off the phone or she’d take it out on her friend.
    ‘I’ll have to call you back,’ she hissed and hung up without waiting for a reply.
    For the longest second, she just stood there, her body quivering with rage, the shooting pains of cramp infusing her whole left side now.
    Well mission accomplished, you’ve successfully pissed off your friend, the voice spoke up. What’s next on the agenda…
    Rachel roared aloud in frustration, stopping the voice dead in its tracks as the irritations of the last week began to pour into her: her fucking broken car, the fucking tram trips, the fucking missing underwear, fucking Sarah, fucking Mitch not leaving a fucking note, the fucking pervert next door and his fucking staring, ruining her fucking night out, fucking Maree giving her shit at work, the fucking broken hot water service that she still hadn’t called the landlord about and now fucking this. He’d been again. She was certain of it, he’d been out there watching. He’d cleaned up or at least tried to but she could still see a few smears and it just made her so fucking angry. What fucking right did he have? He was just like all the other ones: the fucking inconsiderate pricks.
    The fucking old bitch , ‘I don’t like to keep my babies locked up.’ Babies, they were fucking cats!
    The fucking goth wanker : ‘I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you show me your tits and then I might turn down the music.’
    All of them. Fucking one after another. All she fucking wanted was to be left alone. Just some fucking peace but no…
    Rachel roared again, a tense choking sound that did not relieve the snowballing rage one iota. It just kept building and building and building.
    The phone shattered very satisfyingly as she hurled it into the wall.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Ben sat, slowly smoking as he rolled the bottle of pills absently in front of him. He really wished he’d bought another bottle of bourbon. Something to distract himself with but he didn’t dare go out now to rectify the oversight. He didn’t want to miss an opportunity if she went out.
    That was if she did go out today.
    Did she have work? Ben had lost track of time. He had no idea how long had passed since the pub. He was a little hazy on the time before then as well but assumed it had been a Friday on the pub night. But how long had passed since then? Ben had been slipping in and out of the Red Room since his near-mishap outside Rachel’s window and it had been hard to keep track.
    He pressed his eye to the crack between the blind again as he saw a shadow flit by. He didn’t recognise the chubby man in a matching green tracksuit set. He was probably from one of the flats up the other end of