Slaughterhouse High

Eyes flashed from face to face. Great fear dwelt in them. Pride and excitement. The black-clad crew numbered seven, a spinoff from an above-ground anti-slasher organization the government begrudgingly tolerated.

"Let's review the plan," she said. "You and you will detain Sheriff Boltz once he has locked down the school. Gag him, secure his arms, hurry him into the passageways, sedate him, then give me the word."

"What if he puts up a fight?"

She paused, then steeled herself. "Years of talk have gone nowhere. They've shrugged off our protests and petitions." She laughed. "Listen to me. You guys have it memorized."

Eyes on fire, she addressed the questioner: "Use any means necessary. That's why I chose the two of you for this mission. Minimize his pain, but don't hesitate to inflict it. If you have to, waste him. We cannot afford to raise an alarm. The syringe will make him docile but its effects are not instantaneous."

She glanced up into the moonlight, her face tense. Had she heard something?

No.

"You three take the east wing of the school. By now, each of us has burned into our brains a map of the backways. Me and my hubbies will handle the west wing. With luck, we'll be there before the slasher and catch him coming off the elevator from the underground garage. They've secured the garage with a punch code, alarms after the third wrong sequence, so that's out. Other questions?"

She scanned them, her jet-black mop of hair clinging to her scalp.

"I'm proud of you all. Our kids are at stake, their lives yes but also their minds. They will not be inured to violence; we and folks like us will see to that. With luck and the grace of a reasonable God, we will end this horror in our generation. There I go again!

"One last check of the walkie talkies."

They tugged them from their belts.

*****

Dexter Poindexter's senses had never been more attuned to his surroundings.

The coupe's interior swirled with seeped-in aromas: cheeseburger wrappings, gym sweat, whiffs of adolescent horniness. Gleams of moonlight shot knife-sharp across the dashboard. The plastic steering wheel slid cool and stippled through his fingers.

A twelve-year stint of classes had come to an end, the last exam passed, the last cafeteria meal chowed down, the last homeroom roster called.

Tonight was the culmination of so many months of attending school that Dex's memory knew nothing else.

True, summer vacations had supplied breathers that, at their best, stretched to eternity-beaches and boat houses and waterskiing on upstate lakes.

But every September, new looseleaf notebooks were purchased, their pungent faux-leather smell beguiling the nose. Book covers were bought as well, Corundum High's colors, a fierce-eyed gray-and-green ram surrounded by ornate shields scrawled with latinate sayings.

Strange as it seemed, the terror Dex felt about school's not resuming in the fall seemed far more heart-stopping than tonight's slim chance at being hacked to death.

No matter whose life ended at the tip of the slasher's blade, he and Tweed would be touched by the killing. Worse if two of their best buds, or particularly bright-futured seniors, bought it.

But they had been steeled for that.

The victims' names, engraved in proud italic, would be added to the gold plaque in the display case at Corundum High's entranceway, their lives lauded in the newspaper and in local churches the morning after.

And life would go on.

Familiar streets peeled away, the same houses he passed whenever he drove to Tweed's place, rang her doorbell, and gave a "Hello, sir" to her dad, Mr. Megrim, Dex's eleventh-grade history teacher.

Tonight, house fronts glistened with street light. Clusters of people peered from windows or lingered on front porches, watching passing cars and wondering about who rode in them.

Moms and dads driving their kids to the prom? Spiffed-up promgoers possibly high on drugs? Or some over-curious night-cruisers?

Perhaps they relived their own memories of prom night, memories that fiercely glowed or gave off pale flares of longing for lost loved ones.

Dex released a sigh, not realizing how tight he had held his breath in. He checked his face in the rearview mirror, lobebag stylishly rakish, his skin zit-free from hairline to jaw.

He smoothed through a turn.

The headlights of an approaching car blinded him and passed by.

Dex checked his watch.

Time to spare.

In ten minutes, Tweed would float into his arms, her pink-sequined gown swaying as they went out the door and headed toward the prom and a new life together.

4. Relinquishment

Tweed Megrim twirled before the mirrored door of her rumble-back closet. A pink-sequined vision twirled there in reverse.

Such fluffery looked weird on her, yet she found it strangely beguiling.

She knew her boyfriend felt likewise about his tuxedo. She and Dex were Christmas baubles, gussied up for one another, for public display, and, God help them, for potential sacrifice. It gave Tweed a whole heap of scaring.

To be honest, it thrilled her too.