Chapter Forty: At The Movies

(The Bite, Pt. 4)

***

Valerie had no idea where she was going.

She zoomed and whipped around the corridor and its twists and turns, staying next to Robin as they, Rowan and Steve ran behind Erica and Dustin, the corridors blurring together in her drug-hazed mind. Looking at them made her think about her favourite childhood book,  Alice In Wonderland, and she wondered if the rabbit hole was actually like this—and if it was, she was glad she had friends and Robin. She never liked how Alice fell down the rabbit hole alone. She wondered if they would be seeing big doors and little doors and rabbits and vanishing cats soon—or maybe they were already in Wonderland, since Rowan could glow now!

As they turned around a corner, Rowan steadying Steve as he yelled, "Whoa!", Erica demanded to Dustin, "Where are we going?"

"Just trust me!" Dustin shouted back.

"It better be a fucking good hiding place, Dustin!" Rowan yelled as they sprinted down the corridor.

Hiding—who were they hiding from? The Russians? The Queen Of Hearts? Both made Valerie grin and giggle, and she wondered if this was how the Mad Hatter felt. If it did, she couldn't blame him for being a little bit mad.

Finally. they came to a door, Valerie colliding against Robin and nearly being squashed by Steve in a tall-people sandwich before Rowan wrenched Steve back. Dustin opened the door, peering out before he whispered, "All clear."

He opened the door and now they crept out, Valerie determined to be sneaky-sneaking as they crept down the popcorn-littered aisle of the cinema, heading right to a movie theatre that had Valerie hear the faint strains of bombastic music. Dustin threw the doors open, and Valerie's eyes widened as she saw a man with crazy hair and a teenage boy on the screen as the man yelled out, "What did I tell ya?! Eighty-eight miles per hour!"

"Come on," Dustin hissed as they jogged down the aisle, right to the front row, Valerie trying to watch her footing and the movie—it looked really good, and something about the dialogue struck her that this was her favourite genre of movie.

But her attempts at movie-watching ended when she saw to her dissatisfaction they were in the front row—AKA the worst seats ever—and Dustin ordered, "You three, sit."

"No, no, no! These seats are too close!" Robin protested, but she, Valerie and Steve still sat down despite the annoyance cutting through the constant state of euphoria they've felt since the Russian morons messed up the drugs.

"Dude, these seats blow," Steve complained.

"Ugh, front seats are the worst," Valerie moaned as she leaned her head back.

"Then don't watch the movie," Dustin said.

"We wanna watch it," Robin whispered, and Valerie nodded vehemently in agreement.

"Then watch it!" Dustin snapped loudly.

Valerie blinked rapidly as Rowan's eyebrows shot up. On the row above, a man shushed them and Robin and Valerie immediately turned to shush him back.

"Oh my God," Rowan muttered before she grabbed Valerie and Robin, forcing them to turn around as she hissed, "Just stay quiet and stay still."

Robin pouted and Valerie crossed her arms, not liking Rowan's grumpy attitude even more than she already did as she muttered, "Party pooper."

Rowan only glared at them as Dustin whispered, "Sorry."

He looked back to Valerie, Robin and Steve, instructing firmly, "Whatever you do, don't. Go. Anywhere."

"Fine, Dad," Steve mocked, and Robin and Valerie laughed again because that was honestly so funny, it was literally one of the funniest things she ever heard. However, Rowan gave her and Robin a deadly look that had them stop laughing, as Robin zipped up her lips and Valerie mimed locking hers up and tossing away the key, the both of them smiling.

Rowan only sighed, before she, Dustin—after he'd given them another look to stay put, and they would, where was the trust, Dustin?—and Erica left, leaving the trio alone to watch the movie.

It was then Valerie noticed Steve had somehow managed to get popcorn—popcorn Valerie hoped he was gonna share with her and Robin, because she would literally fight him for it if he didn't.

As if Steve sensed her murderous intentions regarding food, he offered the popcorn to her. Valerie took a handful, munching away on it happily. Sure, it was stale and slightly too buttery for her taste—she preferred her popcorn extra salty—but it tasted like the best damn thing ever, especially since she didn't have anything to eat ever since they were trapped, she was starving.

So she munched on the popcorn, eyes glued to the movie, forgetting about the terrible seats as she was transfixed by what was happening, as she saw to her delight it was a science fiction movie—and to her further delight, it was about time travel! She loved time travel! Sure, she loved it when science fiction movies were about aliens and outer space and robots, but she loved time travel just the tiniest bit more—like, wouldn't that be so cool to jump back in time to the past or even the future? That would be so freaking cool, especially if the future was like what she'd seen in all her science fiction movies! She could even see if she and Cami succeeded in their careers, or if she was still with Robin! It was literally so, so cool! And this movie was all about it!

She immediately loved it.

Beside her, she heard Robin and Steve laughing and Valerie hurriedly shushed them—not just because of what Rowan had said, but because she wanted to watch the movie! Stealing another handful from Steve, she focused back on the movie as the time travelling scientist or whatever talked about how he invented time travel to the kid, a grin stretched out on her face as she felt herself be engrossed in the movie, her science fiction loving heart beating with sheer delight at the film.

"What's happening?" Robin whispered to Steve as the car that had now become a time-machine appeared back into the present.

"I have no idea," Steve whispered back.

"It's about time-travel, now hush," Valerie informed, turning back to the film.

"Oh," Robin and Steve murmured as they looked back at the film.

They kept watching it, as Valerie fell even more in love with it—as the kid, Marty McFly, accidentally went back in time to when his parents were teenagers and messing it up so that he and his siblings couldn't exist and needing to fix it by getting his parents definitely together and going back to the present—hence why it was called Back To The Future, genius! The bit about how the young version of his mom had a crush on her son gave Valerie the heebie-jeebies, but she supposed the mom didn't really know that was her son? Whatever—but Valerie couldn't deny the teenage version of the mom was incredibly hot.

But as fun as it was watching this while on drugs, Valerie had a feeling she wanted to watch it even more when the drugs, regrettably, left her system—she had a feeling she'd love it even more when she'd become sober again.

It felt like it was the middle of the film when Valerie was nudged by Robin. She immediately turned as the pretty girl whispered, "Wanna get something to drink?"

Valerie blinked. "Robbie, we're meant to stay here! Plus, the movie's getting really good..."

"We'll be back before they even know it! And we're really thirsty," Robin reasoned, Steve nodding and adding, "Super thirsty."

Valerie pouted—she didn't wanna leave the movie when it was getting so good—but she couldn't deny she felt really thirsty as well.

"Okay," she said and the trio got off their seats and headed outside, Valerie's drug-influenced brain thinking they'd have a quick drink and be back to finish the film.

Oh, how wrong she was.

***

This was so fun to write!

Agh, I love the movie scene so much! And I LOVED that the film theatre they snuck into was showing Back To The Future! I love that film so much, so I was really happy to see Stranger Things showing a clip of it and using its theme music for that iconic scene—and, of course, I had to have write Valerie absolutely LOVING it, even when she's high. Drugs or no drugs, our science fiction nerd will love this film no matter what

Along with having Valerie love the film, I loved writing the chaos of Valerie, Steve and Robin being high and Dustin and Rowan acting like annoyed parents to them. It's really fun. And yes, the group has left for water... and unfortunately, they won't be back...

Next chapter's back with the Party! And then, chapter after that will have the trio be high one last time... and have some confessions...

Please read, comment and vote!

GhostWriterGirl out!