Slaughterhouse High

His instincts were honed. No need to fret. Just live each harrowing moment for all it was worth. Screw up his nerves and be on high alert during the twenty minutes' ordeal, as the seniors hurried off to their designated spots, sat beneath big black numbers, and waited.

Afterward, the survivors would return elated and relieved to the gym, eaten up with curiosity. Which couple, they'd be wondering, would shortly be laid in the lap of the Ice Ghoul to be hacked and futtered at midnight?

It wouldn't be him and Tweed.

The odds favored them.

Then Dex's confidence hit the inevitable speed bump.

The odds favored everyone.

*****

"I see it!" screamed Pim.

Altoona clucked. "'Course you see it, dummy. 'Swhere it's been for a billion years."

"Yeah, I know. But it's the free."

"So?" Altoona stopped behind some car whose left blinker was flashing. She checked her watch. Twenty minutes before the doors closed, and three blocks to the parking lot. "It ain't like it's an exam or nothin', Pim, so don't crap your knickers, okay? It's more like, in fact it's precisely like, two luckless fuckers are forced to cash in their chips and the rest of us are allowed to breathe again finally. Who's in that rustbucket ahead of us?"

Pim craned forward. "Oh jeez!"

"What?"

Pim giggled and clapped her black-mitted hands. "One's the loser babe from butchery who almost lost a thumb."

"Hairy-lobed Lulu?"

"Yeah. And look. Good old Futzy stuck her with that triple-bellied bozo with the corduroy pants who hangs over his lunch like pigs over a trough. The kid nobody in their right mind ever sits with." Pim glowered with ratlike malice. "I sincerely hope they're not the chosen ones, cuz no one I know would want to rush in and futter them. Too many goddamn cooties."

"Couple o' friggin' losers," said Altoona. "You wonder how they live with themselves. 'Course, if anybody had bullied either of these twits, we'd've held the bullies down and branded 'em. So go figure. Leave losers alone? Hey, we tolerate that. Cause 'em grief? We flog you to beat the band."

"Cuz we understand how it feels. The being mocked, I mean."

"Right."

Clouds scudded behind the school building as they approached the lot. Jacketed students directed with flashlights. Altoona saw Tweed Megrim's kid sister, Jenna, a peppery little junior, splitting cars off this way and that.

"Jesus fuck, it's the prom!" screamed Pim, jiggling fit to burst out of her dress.

What a love bunny, thought Altoona.

And what interesting times lay ahead later tonight, when they bared their nether parts for those yummy zippermouths, Condor and Blayne.

Altoona's lobes peppered and zinged like a string of pinched Christmas lights.

*****

At the punchbowl, Jonquil Brindisi, teacher of the greater vices, ladled orange glop into the outheld cup of Claude Versailles, teacher of the lesser vices.

Jiminy Jones, ignored in a bow tie, roved on the risers, setting out thick binders of charts on the dance band's unsteady black stands. Poor sad Jiminy. Such a humorless stub of a fellow, short, bristle-browed, full of gray bland business grit in faculty meetings. His demeanor had surely had the effect of turning off potential mates, as now they turned off Jonquil.

Artificial fog drifted across the floor from that towering effrontery in the center of the gym, the Ice Ghoul.

"Thank you," said Claude. He took a sip of punch. "And yes, Jonquil, I concur. This year's crop of seniors showed execrable taste in choosing as the centerpiece of their prom the hoary old Ice Ghoul. He's not only a slap-in-the-face to a fine principal, our poor dear Futzy chum. But as much as, to the adolescents who while away a mere four years here the Ice Ghoul seems a source of endless merriment, to those of us logging our third decade and counting, he's dull, dull, dull."

Jonquil smiled. Wordy bugger, hair starting to thin. But Claude was tall, arguably handsome, all-in-all a not inconsiderably sexy man. "Maybe they took your lessons in Sloth to heart."

"Indeed," said Claude, licking orange foam from his upper lip. His suit was bright yellow with bold black stitching, his lobebag the same. "The Ice Ghoul this class. A particularly vicious bunch this year, perhaps?"

"I try, Claude, I try."

Knock off a few years, ungray a few streaks at the temples, plunk him in a singles bar, and Jonquil would jump him in an instant. A pity she had stricken colleagues from her list of possible playmates. Pity too that the bar fodder, men and women both, came nowhere near Claude's quality and allure.

"In my lessons on Rage," she noted, "a full six weeks we dig and delve into that fine and unjustly maligned passion, I do my best to instill a love of the vicious."

"One would think it natural."

"One would think so."

Across the gym, Jonquil saw Adora Phipps nod her tight-bunned head and excuse herself from an early gaggle of seniors. She headed their way, young but dressed in a spiffed-up version of the granny clothes that marked her off as one of the oddest of the odd.