Something About Alice Murphy: BOOK 2

P A R T - T W E N T Y - O N E

Chapter Twenty-One: A New Era
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"Alice, what the fuck." Charlie hissed as she stared at him with a vacant expression. It seemed to take her a few seconds before she realised it was him, and blinked before gasping. It was like she was suddenly awoken from a dream, and everything was sharp and too bright to look at. She could see the red out of the corner of her eye and looked down quickly, seeming to startle herself as she saw what she had done.

Peter Green was lying face down on the floor in a pool of his own blood that was oozing from a large wound on the back of his head where it had split open. There was another impact mark on the back of his neck that was bleeding too, and Alice stared in shock as she felt her stomach turn at the sight of so much blood, it had begun to smell sickly sweet and metallic already and it aggressively clung to her senses. "Oh my god." She gagged, covering her mouth only to snap her hands away as she realised it was on her fingers too. Charlie moved quickly and walked over to her to see what she had done, and cursed aggressively again, pushing her out of the way so he could get to work. "I didn't mean to do that, I didn't- I just came here to talk to him." She tried to explain as Charlie cursed repeatedly and lent down to check if Peter Green was actually dead.

"Fuck. Fuckity. Fuck." Charlie hissed, feeling no pulse and looking at the way the blood was pooling and spreading quickly and grabbed some kitchen towels on the counter next to him and began putting them on the floor to stop it spreading so far. Alice stepped away, looking down at her hands as they trembled. She could feel the blood on her face too and whimpered quietly, turning towards the sink to wash it off. "No!" Charlie snapped, "Go wash off in the lake, you're just spreading the blood."

"What?" Alice gasped, feeling strangely hyper aware of everything she was doing and worried that if she moved too much she would fall apart. She had her hands hovering in front of her, her fingers outspread, and she stared at Charlie in shock as he spoke to her, but it was as if she couldn't hear him. It all seemed muffled as her mind replayed the impact wave radiating through her arm when she had hit Peter Green twice. Once on the back of the neck, and a second time as he fell on the back of the head. She'd felt nothing but pure joy for maybe about 2 seconds when she watched him turn limp then slump to the floor, then noticed Charlie walk through the door. That was when the daze broke.

"Alice!" He snapped, clicking in her face. "Wash off, now! Take off your shoes, put the big boots on that are by the back door. Now, do it now!" He snapped, showing a different side of him as he cursed again and put more paper towels down as the blood climbed over the ones he'd originally put down. Alice began to gasp her breaths quickly as she walked through kitchen door, careful not to touch anything with her hands and made it to the back door, it was open already and she could see the dark green boots next to them by the mat. She slid her shoes off and picked them up, and glanced back behind her to check if she had left a trail of blood but she hadn't.

Her eyes leaked heavy tears but she didn't feel emotional nor did she feel like crying as she slid the boots on and carried her shoes outside. She walked carefully down to the lake across the damp grass, in a tense daze of fear and adrenaline as the fresh morning smell seemed to mix with the metallic stench of blood and assaulted her nose. A rush of nausea took her by surprise as she reached the waters edge and she vomited into the murky water at the edge of a pier, dropping one of her sneakers into the water by accident. Her hands had turned white-blue as she swayed a little on her feet and held her hair back, feeling exhausted suddenly. She could feel an ache in her shoulders as her mind replayed the impact again and again like a broken tape. She could even see her expression, the intense glare and the tightness in her jaw. She didn't recognise herself in her own consciousness eye, and in a daze, stood up, knowing she needed to wash off the blood because Charlie had told her too.