Slaughterhouse High

Robert Devereaux Slaughterhouse High

PART ONE 1. Special Delivery

Sheriff Dewey Blackburn had a soft spot in his heart for the week leading up to prom night.

He never told anyone, though.

Wouldn't have been professional.

As Blackburn cruised the streets of Corundum, Kansas, scanning parks and sidewalks for ne'er-do-wells, he felt mighty glad that his hand gripped the tiller of the law, keeping the more deranged impulses of the citizenry in check. Corundum was a thriving town, not so small as to bore one to tears, yet not so large as to lose its charm.

In the back seat, his charges shifted.

The woman released a low moan. The prom gown into which she had been tucked-a waste of fabric, to Blackburn's way of thinking-whispered and crinkled like Christmas wrapping paper. She had been a real scrapper in the holding tank, resisting the needle with every ounce of strength.

Not so her male counterpart, some aimless drifter who stank of sewage until Blackburn's junior deputies washed, coiffed, cologned, and tuxedo'd him. Obligingly had he hazed toward his fate, a sheen of resignation smoothed over his eyes. The blunt, ragged remnants of his earlobes betrayed the shame of his past: ducking out on his prom ("promjumping," kids called it these days), being arrested and ostracized, having his lobes crudely docked before being thrust out to fend on his own.

Along the trim-lawned street, gawkers gawked from picture windows. Blackburn idled by, casual fingers guiding the steering wheel, an elbow bent at his rolled-down window, siren quiet. But folks knew he would be out and about. This neighborhood burst at the seams with teachers, and a squad car with a drugged-out, dressed-up couple in the back and a plastic trough cinched to its top meant only one thing on prom night.

The sheriff hung a right.

A left.

Down the way, a porchlight blazed. The house's big black digits matched the address on his clipboard. Blackburn angled into the driveway and killed the cruiser.

Art teacher's residence.

Plenty of strange rumors circulated about Zane Fronemeyer and his wives. The man coaxed perverse paintings out of his students at Corundum High. Scuttlebutt had it he had entered the teaching profession for the sole purpose of being chosen. It had taken years, but the sick bastard's wish had finally come true.

Blackburn got out.

The doped-up couple had at least an hour of grog on the meter, but they'd be checking out long before that timer popped.

The sheriff strode up the walkway, highly tuned to the neighborhood geeks and gawkers.

He raised a warning finger to the threesome on the lawn across the street. They ducked back into their house, two scrawny joes and a fat she-bitch, all three buck-nekkid except for their lobebags. Them and their fellow rubberneckers would keep their traps shut. They always did, on account of the heap of penitentiary time they'd face if word leaked early which teacher had been chosen.

One ring. Two heartbeats. The door swung back.

"Zane Fronemeyer?"

"You're looking at him." Fucker smiled in oil. Behind him, like a matched pair of aproned bowling pins, huddled his wives, their left lobes decently bagged, their right ones chewed up more than most folks would consider proper. "You brought me a couple o' good ones, I hope."

Christ, what a creep, thought Blackburn. "Here's the paperwork," he said. "Help me with the trough."

Fronemeyer passed the bulging packet to his creamier-skinned spouse and followed Blackburn to the squad car. The sheriff reached up and slipped the knots. In the old days, the steel troughs had been gut busters. These new plastic jobbies with their squat fat legs were a hell of a lot easier on the back.

Hefting the front end, Fronemeyer led the way into his house. "Sheriff," he said, "this here's Camille. That's Hedda."

The sheriff nodded without registering which wife was which, so badly did he want this part of his prom night duties over.

In the front hall, the art teacher sported a matched set of stuffed parents, upon whom an inept fluxidermist hadn't bothered to make his sex-ready alterations at all subtle. What had been done to them was strictly against the law, but the statute was so honored in the breach that Blackburn would be laughed out of court if he tried to call these three on it.

Fronemeyer led the way to the basement steps. The air cooled as they descended.

*****

Tweed Megrim, eighteen, naked, and brimming with anticipation straight down to her tippytoes, stepped through tickling bursts of bubbles into a steamy-hot bath.

With a wince she withdrew her big toe, then slipped it all the way in. The rest of her in an abundance of glory swiftly followed.

As the water rose to embrace her, visions of Dexter Poindexter danced in Tweed's head. At this very moment, just a few blocks away, Dex was stepping into his tub too.

No, wait.