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When Party Animals Attack
2.1

When Helena woke up, she was in the bathtub.

It took her a few moments to realise this, of course, as her brain went through the motions of attaining a conscious state and re-establishing contact with reality. Rolling over and banging her head on the porcelain merely helped the realization along.

Even after confirming the where, of course, it still took a bit of effort to get to grips with the why. What chain of events - for surely there had to be one - had culminated in her greeting the morning sun stretched out in an empty bathtub with all her clothes on?

As she lay there pondering this enigma, her brain finally revved up enough to access her short-term memory and fully scutinize the events of the previous evening. Her eyes snapped open.

"Oh... god."

She clambered out of the tub, stumbling onto the chipped tile of the bathroom floor. The room was relatively unscathed, she noted at a glance. It was the rest of the house she was worried about.

She unlocked the door and hesitated a moment, taking a few gulps of Dettol-fresh air and steeling herself for the worst. She really wasn't sure she wanted to see what was on the other side. Finally, with a swift burst of courage not unlike that required to yank off a band-aid, she flung the door open.

The first sight that greeted her was the man lying face-down on the hallway floor in his underwear. She didn't recognise him, but then she wouldn't have expected to. She wasn't concerned with who he was so much as whether or not he was still alive, and at this time of the morning she really didn't have the intestinal fortitude to check for a pulse. Stepping gingerly over him, she turned made her way to the living room.

Actually, it wasn't as bad as she'd thought. The house appeared to be largely intact, although most of the windows were broken and the curtains were shredded. One of the armchairs had been turned upside-down, and Baz - one of Eddie's college friends - was lying unconscious underneath it. The floor was littered with debris and broken furniture, and someone appeared to have thrown the TV across the room and into the wall. The sofa had literally had the stuffing ripped out of it.

Several more casualties of last night's horror were huddled around the floor, most of them with their clothes in rags. The snoring confirmed that they were at least still breathing. The fridge door was on the floor next to the kitchen, with yet another prone body lying on it. It was Lance.

He was battered and bruised, his clothes hanging off in rags, and he appeared to have at least one footprint on his face. He was still alive, though, just unconscious. Helena looked around for Eddie, but he was nowhere in sight. She hoped he was okay - he'd been running for his life the last time she'd seen him.

Helena peered down the hallway towards her bedroom. Did she really want to go back in there? She'd have to, she supposed, sooner or later, but she didn't quite feel up to it yet. There was a reason she'd slept in the bathtub last night. Picking her way through the debris in the living room, she swept some broken glass off the other armchair (which had miraculously survived the night of destruction) and slumped into it, collecting her thoughts.

Now - whose idea had it been to have a party?

The original intent, she vaguely recalled, was to have a "housewarming". The term seemed a little redundant since Lance and Eddie had been living here for two years, but Helena had only moved in two weeks ago and it had seemed appropriate. She knew Lance had come up with the idea merely as an excuse to bring other people's alcohol into the house, but it had been a while since she'd gone to a party - and she'd never actually had the opportunity to host one before - so she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. It had, in fact, seemed like a great idea at the time.

She took another look around the shattered living room. Oh, the luxury of hindsight...



SIXTEEN HOURS EARLIER...


By seven-thirty, people had started to arrive. It was still the early phase of the party, that peaceful couple of hours when no-one's really started drinking yet and the embarrassing inebriated exploits of the party proper have yet to ensue. Lance was greeting people at the door and eagerly diverting their booze into the fridge, while Helena had just finished laying out the snacks. Eddie was now introducing her around.

He led her over to the sofa, which was presently inhabited by two young men who'd drifted in about ten minutes earlier. One was a skinny individual with spiky black hair, glasses and a wispy goatee, wearing faded jeans and a Star Trek t-shirt. He sat next to a pasty apparition with sunken eyes, long ratty hair and a flannel shirt, who looked as though he'd recently risen from the grave.

"Helena," Eddie smiled, "this is Devon and Baz. My friends from college. Guys, this is my flatmate."

Devon - the bespectacled Trekkie - looked her over. "Whoah. I mean, hi. And... whoah."

"HIG," Baz waved absently.

Helena looked sideways at Eddie. "What did he say?"

"How's It Going," Eddie translated. "Sorry, Baz is a little surfed-out. He's not used to talking to real people."

"LTNS, M8," Baz nodded to Eddie, trying without much success to get his eyes to focus in the same direction. He motioned to Helena. "GF?"

"No," Eddie replied, looking embarrassed. "FlatM8."

"OIC," Baz shrugged. "IMS."

"LOL," Eddie grinned.

"LMAO," Baz chuckled.

Helena smiled as politely as she could. "I'll, um, go get some more dip." She hurried off to the kitchen.

"TTYL," Baz called after her.

The doorbell rang again, and Eddie excused himself and went to answer it. The newest arrival was a young Indian man, looking very nervous but by far the best-dressed in the room, and carrying a small cask of wine. "Hey, Rakesh," Eddie smiled, welcoming him in. "Glad you could make it."

"Is Dr Allentown here yet?" Rakesh murmured, looking around the room.

"Uh, not yet," Eddie replied. "He said he'd drop by if he could, but..."

"I will wait for him, then," said Rakesh, and went over to stand in the nearest corner. He was intercepted on the way by Lance, who took the cask off his hands and bustled it away into the kitchen. Helena was already at the fridge, trying to navigate her way around all the bottles and six-packs to find the dip. "Well, I guess we're okay for booze," she commented.

"Reckon," Lance grinned, stuffing the cask of wine into the back of the fridge and quickly shutting the door.

Helena took the dip out and found room for it on the table. Several more people had arrived in the interim. "Looks like a pretty good turnout," she smiled to Eddie.

"Yeah, not bad," he nodded."So when are your friends getting here?"

"Oh, uh..." Helena shrugged. "Well, I could only think of a couple of people to invite, but they weren't sure if they'd make it or not..."

Eddie paused. "Oh. Right. Uh... well, that's cool." He grabbed a handful of chips and wandered away, looking slightly worried.



An hour later, the living room was full of people. At least half of them seemed to be people Eddie knew from college, or people they knew, while the other half were a combination of reps, accountants and telemarketers from Lance's work, folks they knew from the neighbourhood or people who'd followed the crowd from the bottle store. The stereo was cranking out the least dated tunes Helena had been able to salvage from Eddie's rather pitiful CD collection, and the party was in full swing.

Or at least, it seemed to be. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but as she circulated around the room Helena couldn't help but think there was something wrong with this party. She'd been trying to figure out what it was all night, but the answer had thus far eluded her.

She drifted over to the snack table, where Eddie and Baz were stuffing their faces with nibbles and having the most incoherent conversation ever heard outside of a Scottish soap opera.

"U OK?" Eddie asked.

Baz rubbed his eyes. "2 long AFK, M8. KWIM?"

"PMFJI," Eddie replied. "But FWIW, U need 2 GAL, IMHO."

Baz frowned. "WTF?"

Eddie shrugged. "Just TILII, dude. KWIM?"

Baz sighed. "Yeah, TNX."

"What the hell are they talking about?" Helena asked Lance, as he breezed past.

Lance didn't break his stride. "I dunno, I don't have my geek-to-english dictionary on me." He vanished into the crowd, heading for the kitchen. Helena shrugged and left the pair to their coversation, going over to change the CD on the stereo.

Several pairs of eyes followed her across the room, but she didn't notice.



Another hour had passed. The party was just warming up.

Helena collected an empty bowl from the snack table and took it to the kitchen for a refill. She started to open the door, but someone on the other side quickly blocked it. Lance's worried face appeared, peeking through the gap. "Don't come in!" he told her.

"What?" Helena frowned. "Why not? We need more food."

"I, uh..." Lance glanced back into the kitchen. "I dropped a bottle of vodka. There's broken glass and booze all over the floor in here. You might slip, or cut yourself or something."

"No I won't. Let me in and I'll help you clean it up."

"No, no, I got it," Lance insisted. "You just, y'know..." He waved a hand towards the living room. "Circulate and stuff."

"You sure?"

"Positive." He grinned.

"Okay," Helena nodded. She passed the empty bowl through the gap in the door. "Whose bottle was it?"

"Oh, it was mine," Lance quickly replied, and slammed the door.

Helena rolled her eyes, turned around and managed to suppress a small scream. Devon was standing behind her, wearing what he probably assumed was a charming grin. "Hi," he breathed, attempting to look taller and more muscular.

Helena smiled. "Hello. Um... Derek?"

"Devon, yeah," Devon replied. "Uh, nice party."

"Yes, it is."

A moment's uncomfortable silence passed between them.

"So, uh..." Devon seemed to be at a loss for words, but finally settled on, "You live around here?"

Helena stared at him. "I... live here, Devon."

Devon's ears started to turn red. "Right... I knew that..." He used the recurring silence to glance desperately around the room. "Yeah, nice house."

"Yes, it is."

"I like it."

"I'm glad."

Again the silence.

"Right, so... uh..." Devon's leg was jiggling involuntarily. "So I was, um, just wondering, y'know, if, like hypothetically speaking, if maybe I... uuuuummmm... if I sort of asked for your, er, phone number...?"

Helena nodded slowly. "Well - do you have Eddie's number?"

"Uh... yeah..."

"Same one," Helena smiled helpfully.

"Oh... yeah, that makes sense..." The redness had escaped from Devon's ears and was now spreading inexorably across his face. "So, ahem... uh, if I was to maybe, y'know, sometime, uh... sort of call you...erm..." He sagged slightly. "I'd basically be wasting my time, wouldn't I?"

"Pretty much," Helena conceded.

Devon nodded, taking a deep breath. "Okay, cool. Glad we got that out of the way."

"Uh-huh. Could have been really awkward otherwise."

"Yeah," Devon laughed desperately. "Dodged that bullet, eh?" He turned on his heel and marched away through the crowd as quickly as he could.

Helena shook her head, feeling an odd mix of amusement, revulsion and sympathy. Well, she'd expected to get hit on once tonight. Now that it was out of the way, she could relax and have a good time. Maybe that was what had been bothering her, after all. She turned to head back to the party, and almost bumped into Rakesh.

"Good evening, Miss," he smiled sheepishly.

"Hel-lo..." Helena replied cautiously.

Rakesh turned his smile up a notch, his eyes wavering. "Yes, hello. Uh - do you live in the area?"

Helena groaned inwardly and looked past Rakesh's shoulder, seeking a tactful means of escape. As she did so she noticed the four or five other guys standing behind him at a polite distance. Though it was no doubt unintentional, and probably caused by some unconscious societal conditioning, they almost appeared to be forming a queue...

Her eyes scanned the room, taking in the crowd of partygoers around her. And then the penny dropped.

She'd just figured out what was wrong with the party. "Oh my god ..."

Eddie had noticed something wrong, too. Having dispatched Baz to the sofa to chill out, he was staring at the crowd with a growing sense of dread. He looked around for Lance, but saw only a locked kitchen door.

"Eddie!" Helena sidestepped a guy who was about to ask her if he'd seen her someplace before, and bore down on Eddie with a panicky expression on her face. "Have you noticed something strange about this party?"

"Yeah," Eddie nodded, gazing around the room. "You noticed it too?"

"You could say that," Helena replied.

"It's wierd," Eddie murmured. "Nobody's drinking anything."

Helena nodded urgently. "Yeah, and... what?"

"Nobody's got a drink," Eddie repeated. "It's nine-thirty and I haven't seen anyone open a can yet."

Helena looked around, and saw that this was indeed the case. Most of the crowd were nibbling on snacks or smoking cigarettes here and there, but not one of them had any form of alcohol in their hands. A few of them were twiddling their thumbs, or unconsciously holding their right hands in the "gripping a pint" position, and some were beginning to cast suspicious glances towards the kitchen where they'd last seen their bottles and six-packs.

"That is wierd," she admitted.

"Wasn't that what you noticed as well?" Eddie asked.

Helena gave him a tight-lipped smile. "No, I picked up on the other thing."

Eddie frowned. "Sorry, you lost me."

"Take a look around," Helena prompted. "See any girls you'd like to talk to?"

Eddie looked at the floor instead. "Oh... right. That other thing."

"I'm the only woman at this party, Eddie!" Helena hissed. "There's like fifty men here, and one girl. According to the Laws of Testosterone, I'm the only item on the freakin' menu. I got hit on five times between here and the kitchen. Didn't you invite any other women to this thing?"

"Well... to be honest, we, um..." Eddie avoided looking her in the eye. "Me and Lance don't really know any other women, or at least none that'd be seen dead at one of our parties..."

"But..." Helena waved her hands at the crowd. "Don't any of these guys have girlfriends?"

Eddie took in the room full of telemarketers, accountants, bankrupt students, sci-fi buffs and internet junkies. "Strangely enough, no... I thought you invited some of your mates?"

"Oh, uh, yeah," Helena shrugged, looking a little embarrassed herself. "Well, I haven't had much of a social life for the past couple of years, what with the business and all. That's one of the reasons I wanted to go flatting in the first place."

"Well, it looks like you're the life of the party now," Eddie observed, looking over her shoulder.

Helena turned around. The pair were gradually being surrounded by an unruly semi-circle of nigh on fifty men, all of them staring vacantly at Helena and unconsciously preening themselves. Rakesh was at the vangaurd of the mob smoothing his hair down, and several of the others were cupping their hands to their mouths to test their breath. A few preliminary chat-up lines, spoken in low, hollow voices, were already beginning to drift out of the crowd.

"So, what's your sign...?"

"What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like...?"

"Did it hurt when you fell from...?"

"I seem to have misplaced my phone number, can I borrow yours...?"

"You wanna see something swell...?"

All the colour drained out of Helena's face. "Oh dear god..." she whimpered. "I'm going to be gang-flirted..."

Eddie dragged her protectively behind him and started to back away from the advancing wave of suitors, edging Helena back towards the kitchen. "Take it easy, guys," he grinned weakly, holding up his hands. "Just leave your phone numbers on the table, and maybe she'll call you next week sometime..."

Helena frantically whispered something into his ear. "Uh, right... Look, she's not ready for a relationship right now, she thinks you're all really nice guys, but she just wants to be friends..."

Helena popped her head over Eddie's shoulder. "It's not you," she insisted, in a desperate voice. "It's me."

They'd almost made it to the kitchen door, the mob still advancing. As Helena reached behind her, searching for the handle, the door suddenly opened. Lance wandered out, an open can of beer in his hand. "Hey, guys," he smiled. "What's going on?"

Eddie didn't answer. The crowd of guests had stopped advancing, and their attention was no longer on Helena. Every eye in the room was suddenly fixed on the can in Lance's hand.

"Where's the rest of the booze, Lance?" Eddie whispered.

Lance avoided eye contact as he replied, "Oh, it's gone. They, um, drank most of it already..."

"They haven't had a drop all night!" Helena hissed.

Eddie stared accusingly at his friend. "You hid the booze, didn't you?"

"Of course not."

"Lance..." Eddie stared him down.

Lance gave in. "Alright, so I did. More for us, 'y'know."

Helena clung to Eddie's shoulders, her face as white as a sheet. "Lance! We've got a party full of men with no alcohol and almost no women! Don't you realise what you've done?!"

"Look, it's simple economics," Lance explained. "The less grog your guests drink on the night, the more you've got left over for the weekend. You'll thank me tomorrow..."

Eddie grabbed him by the collar and dragged him eye-to-eye. "They're... going... to... kill... us!"

Eddie appeared to have the facts on his side. The surrounding horde of men were no longer grooming themselves. In fact, many of them were tearing at their clothes. The assembled testosterone in the room, no longer safely channelled into a desire to impress the only available female, had boiled over into a primal urge to obtain the other fundamental neccessity of the party-going male. A hideous chorus of grunts and screams was building to a crescendo around the room as teeth were bared and chests were beaten. Furniture, clothing and snack foods started to fly through the air as a wave of feral madness swept the assembled guests. Baz sat in the midst of it all, idly munching on a cracker and reading an old copy of Software World he'd found under the coffee table.

"SNAFU," he muttered to himself, as debris rained around him.

Finally, one man - whom they only vaguely recognised as the Vice-President of the Student Union - came loping out of the crowd, stripped to the waist and with mild salsa dip smeared across his face as makeshift war-paint.

"BEEEEEUUUUUURRR!!!" he shrieked. "FIIINNND BEEEEEEUUUUURRRRRR!!!"

The mob charged, many of them waving clubs fashioned from broken table-legs, the rest prepared to fight with tooth and claw.

Eddie turned and ran for the hallway, pushing Helena in front of him. Looking back over his shoulder he saw Lance standing his ground in front of the kitchen door, prepared to defend his ill-gotten alcohol to the death. He snatched up the wooden stool next to the door and swung it wildly in front of him as the swarm closed in. "Back, you devils! Get back, I say!"

"Lance!" Eddie shouted. "Run!"

Lance wasn't listening. "You shall not PASS!!!" he roared, beating back the mad-eyed horde.

Helena grabbed Eddie and dragged him away. "It's too late! Save yourself!"

The last thing they saw was Lance being knocked down under the stampede as the men smashed their way through the kitchen door in their mindless quest for frothy refreshment. "The power of Christ compels you...!!!" he cried, as he vanished under the trampling feet.

Eddie and Helena ran for their lives.

The hallway of the house split off in two directions behind the living room. One corridor led directly to the back door, the other to Helena's room, the bathroom and the garage. If they'd had time to plan their escape, they probably would have run in the same direction. As it was, Eddie was out the back door and halfway across the lawn before he realised Helena had gone the other way. "Aw, man..."

Steeling himself for what would be a (probably) suicidal turn of heroics, he turned and ran back into the house. He was halfway back down the hall when he met the outriders of the mob head-on...

Helena reached the door to her room and rushed inside, slamming and locking it behind her. She could hear them tearing the kitchen apart at the other end of the house. She turned around and sagged against the door.

"Oh, hi," said a voice.

Helena's eyes popped open. Devon was sitting on her bed, a pen and notepad in his lap.

"Look, I've been thinking," he informed her sincerely, "and I reckon I've come up with a pretty compelling list of reasons why you should go out with me..."

Helena yelped, tore the door open and ran back out into the hallway. The mob had found the booze and were parading back through the house, sending up war-whoops and cries of victory as they waved cans and bottles above their heads. Beer was sprayed across the lurching crowd like champagne at a Formula One victory celebration.

Nothing else for it. She ran down to the bathroom and (after a perfunctory check to make sure no-one was in the loo) slammed and locked the door behind her...



And so morning had finally come. And with it, soon enough, would come the inevitable wave of collective guilt and embarrassment that must always pervade the male mind after a night out - bourne by the groggy, dry-mouthed horror of certainty that you, and all who travelled with you on that fateful journey, had indeed made complete and utter wankers of yourselves...

...and then, God willing, there would be Berocca.



A noise from the kitchen broke into Helena's concentration, snapping her out of the awful memory. She looked up as Eddie staggered into the living room, stepping over the comatose heap that was Lance. He had several bruises, a few holes in his shirt and he reeked of spilled beer, but he seemed relatively unhurt. "Morning," he sighed.

"Hi," Helena replied. "Hell of a party, huh?"

Eddie looked around the remains of the living room. "I've had better." He crunched his way across the broken glass on the floor and sat down on what was left of the sofa. "You alright?"

"Yeah," Helena nodded. "Bit of a stiff neck, that's all." She surveyed the carnage. "Bloody men, eh?"

"Bastards, all of 'em," Eddie sighed. He leaned over and held something out to her. It was the last surviving can, salvaged from under the fridge. "Beer?"

Helena smiled and accepted the offering. "Don't mind if I do."

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