Trapped!       part 1 (800 words)

You’re at a party. A bloke turns up drunk. He starts provoking the guests and narrowly escapes getting a smack in the gob from some girl’s brother. Your mate Simon eventually throws him out, but the bloke returns an hour later.
You’ve just finished chatting with someone and you think about making a move home. Although tomorrow’s Sunday, meaning no work, you don’t like parties once they get busy.
The bloke catches your eye. ‘Harry, right?’
Best to ignore him.  He’s a pretty weird looking bloke with long tangled hair and strident earrings that jar.
‘One of my friends had a dog called Harry,’ he says. ‘But this friend of mine had to have Harry put down. He’d eaten rat poison. Shame, isn’t it?’  
You take a gulp of your drink.  Best not to respond.  
‘You’re pretty rude, aren’t you, Harry?  Mr Passive-Aggressive. Want to settle this with a fight outside?  Best of three?  I reckon I’d ‘ave you. You look like a real loser.’
What do you do?


You’d love to say you stood up to the bloke and taught him a lesson, but his outburst was too unexpected. It threw you. Instead, your mate Simon and another guy dealt with the problem and got rid of him for the rest of the evening.
You check bus times on your phone, keen to escape such a rubbish party. The next Night Bus is due in half an hour. Plenty of time. You take a slow walk up the hill to the main road. Normally, an autumn night would calm you, but the scene with the bloke keeps replaying. What was his problem?  You hadn’t even met him before. Maybe you should have hit him, gained a bit of respect.       
It’s nearly one o’clock in the morning. You reach the main road and wait at the bus stop.
Or at least you think you do.  
But you can’t be sure, as events take a nasty turn.    

So you return to your flat, you think, and head straight for bed. You slip away into nothingness, although at some point you hear a police helicopter. When you come to, it’s Sunday afternoon and your head pounds from something worse than a hangover.
‘Take it easy,’ a woman says.
‘Who are you?’ you say, but the words come out garbled. Why is this woman in your flat? You try to remember exactly what happened once you got on the Night Bus, but your mind remains a blank.
Your flat is a bedsit basically, with cooking facilities, shower and toilet. London rents. You turn your head and see the woman for the first time. A stranger sitting by the tiny table, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. She’s gorgeous.  Great figure, long black hair that sort of shines.  Mediterranean facial features.
‘How are you feeling?’ she says. ‘Did the sleep help?’
How are you feeling?   Mad question.  Dazed and groggy. Confused, with a touch of amnesia.  Scared as well, although you wouldn’t admit that.  
You and this woman...you didn’t, did you?
‘You had a nasty bang on the head last night,’ she says.  ‘So I helped you back here and stayed in case of any difficulties. Careful, try not to move. I think you should be okay, but you mustn’t be alone at the moment.’
‘What happened?’ you say, but the effort of speaking makes you dizzy.  
‘Don’t you remember anything?’
‘No.’
‘Nothing at all?  What about me running across the road towards you?’
‘Which road?’
‘One of the small roads near the High Road.  I live locally.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘You’ve got concussion. Under normal circumstances you’d need to go to hospital to get checked out, but that’s completely out of the question now. You see, there was a lot of trouble after you got off the Night Bus. The police would have to get involved, and you mustn’t have that.’
‘What sort of trouble?’ you say, remembering the sound of the police helicopter orbiting at some point during the night.
‘You got into a fight.’ The woman appears to hesitate before continuing.  ‘It wasn’t your fault. You were provoked and threatened by a man that got off the Night Bus when you did. This man followed you part of the way down the High Road. From what I can make out, you were aware that something wasn’t right and you tried to cross without making it too obvious, but the man got really angry and things kicked off. That’s when I came on the scene. I don’t think there were any other witnesses, but it would be best not to take chances.’
‘I don’t remember any fight.’
‘It was ugly, I won’t lie to you. You took a nasty blow to the head.  I’m not surprised you can’t remember.  You defended yourself, though. Anyway, I helped you back here and spent the rest of the night drinking coffee to stay awake. I wanted to keep an eye on you.’
‘That’s kind,’ you say, grinding your teeth from the pain in your head. ‘What happened to the other man?’
‘Well, that’s the problem.  He was unconscious when we left the scene.’
‘What, from me?’
The gorgeous woman nods. ‘That’s why you mustn’t talk to the police. Or to any of your friends about it.’