Slaughterhouse High

Dunsmore, a coffee-skinned shop teacher with a bristle mustache and a bulbous friendship lobe, winked, okay'd his fingers, and folded the bills into his coat pocket. "That's called hush money," he told the junior, who nodded and said, "Yeah, we learned about that stuff in Mr. Versailles' class in the lesser vices."

Now Pill was being difficult.

"Why the long face, honey? I'll come in to check on you every half hour," Trilby assured.

The child kept her head bent, her pre-adolescent earlobes forlorn in their naked innocence. In three or four years, when puberty struck, her baby Pill would need to be fitted for a lobebag.

"You've got your books, Gigi the goat, and a nice plush chair. There's pear juice in the mini-fridge whenever you want it."

Whiny voice, yet thank God no tears: "But I want you, Mommy."

Brest and Bix stood by the door.

Trilby sensed them behind her, impatience and loverly interest intermingled. Later, in bed, she had no doubt they would use the delay caused by Pill's whining as an excuse to vent their pent-up affection toward her. And she would do her best to counter with her worn riding crop.

"You'll be a big girl, won't you?" she asked. "You'll take care of yourself?"

Pill nodded, hugging her stuffed goat.

"That's my girl. Now remember, if you hear footsteps, what do you do before the people come in?"

The corners of Pill's mouth flexed. "I miss Puff," she said. Puff was her kitty.

"What do you do?" repeated Trilby.

Pill looked glum. "Hide in the coat closet."

"That's right. In your little corner of pillows. Leave a tiny crack for air, and when you're sure they're gone, it's okay to come out again."

The faculty lounge was brightly lit and off-limits for the slaughter. Pill would, as Trilby had instructed her, keep her hands off the paper cutter and out of the supply drawer. Leaving her here would be perfectly safe.

"That's my girl," Bix offered.

Brest, beside him, said nothing.

Trilby kissed her index fingers and touched them to Pill's lobes. "Give your mommy a hug, honey."

Thick wool from Gigi the goat tickled Trilby's neck as her daughter's slip of a body moored against her and the butterfly mouth she so loved closed about the maternal tip of her friendship lobe.

*****

Gerber Waddell arrived in his beat-up truck and his best coveralls.

As he crossed the parking lot and entered the school building, early promgoers gave him a wide berth. The teacher who sat at the front table, Mr. Dunsmore, and the short line of students being checked in ignored him.

Pond scum.

Oughta be snuffed, all of them.

Gerber went without ceremony to the supply closet near the band room. He used his ring of keys to let himself in.

It was close in here, the lone pull-bulb dim and dusty with age. Shelf upon shelf of tools and duct tape and extension cords in impossible orange tangles passed beneath his gaze.

Gerber paused.

Why am I here? he wondered. There was a reason I came in here.

Letting his fingers rise before him like so many pale stalagmites, he pointed them toward the school entrance and with great effort traced his steps until they were back where they had begun.

Oh yeah. Tin snips. An axe. An ice pick. A graduated, pan-piped pouch of screwdrivers.

He loaded his utility belt with these items, repeating their names over and over in a whisper until they dangled there.

Flag. Gotta do the flag.

Damned students didn't appreciate the work involved in the flag task. Mornings, they shot spitwads at him while the pulley at the top gave the odd groan and the parallel cords sang in high slaps against the flagpole and the heavy furls of the flag moved, jerk by jerk, into the sky like a huge slumbering dinosaur head roused from sleep.

Gotta take it down.

Night time comin' on.

Later, there would be blood to clean up, lots of blood.

And stray body parts from the futtering, flung into ill-lit corners of the gym.

But the night was still young, and plenty of mayhem simmered across the brainscape of Corundum High's head janitor.

Gerber Waddell locked the closet. He paused outside in the hall to remember again where he was headed.

Some gussied-up young snotwads swished by, wide-eyed and agiggle. They made a joke at his expense, but Gerber paid them no never-mind.

Flag. Fuckin' Ol' Glory. Fuckin' flag.

Yep.

*****

Sheriff Blackburn watched the flag rise, giving it a smart salute as the head janitor watusi'd beside the white flagpole, the ling ling ling of the pulls slapping metal.