Slaughterhouse High

As if that thought were a signal, the trap was sprung onscreen.

"There she goes!" screamed the announcer.

The blade flashed.

Out popped the Home Ec teacher. The wide-eyed boy sustained a lethal slash to the throat. His date, offering a feeble whine and a feint at struggle, joined him in death.

The beautiful brutality of it brought most of the cabinet over the top, though they were careful that their moans did not top in intensity those of President Windfucker.

Holding back his own release, Willy Wanker spoke softly into his lapel mike: "Now."

The doors burst open.

Everybody turned in mid-spurt at the heavy tromping of boots, taking in a sudden rush of soldiers in camouflage, men and women not much more than high school age themselves, brandishing knives and grimacing with resolve.

The stern-faced suits who tried to protect the President lost fingers to the downslash and were shoved out of the way by the sheer force of numbers.

Cholly Bork took a stab to the neck. The crossbarred airplane control that animated Gilly Windfucker flew out of his hands, and the puppet leader collapsed. Beneath the pummeling, Bork went down, his arms flopping ineffectually this way as he tried to ward off the attack.

A crack crew lofted the inert president into the air. Snips at his strings. Snips where his limbs articulated. His arms and legs were passed on to two solders assigned to snap them over their knees. Others stomped on his head and torso, then tossed the bashed and broken parts into a waiting trash can for the bonfire Wanker had scheduled at midnight on the Shite House lawn.

All of this a trio of filmers filmed, cameras perched like parrots on their shoulders, eyepieces to their eyes, close enough but not too close to be caught up in the melee.

So as not to detract from the slaughters being carried out across the nation, the footage would be aired on late-night news. This would be a capper, not a distraction.

So the Committee to Assassinate the President had planned it, and so it would be.

Wanker was pleased with himself.

He was able then, at last, to relax into the ride of his orgasm, his huddled privacy set aside for a brief instant as he moved into the flow and gave all he had for his country.

*****

"I think we've made it," said Tweed, barely whispering. The darkened chem lab, with its odd stifle of odors and its solid workbenches, would suffer nothing louder.

Dex confided, "I think you're right."

"Did you hear screaming?"

"I might have." He gestured in the same direction she had fancied muffled sounds coming from moments ago. "Off that way."

"Yes, just ringings in my ear," she said. "I thought I was only spooking myself."

It might be, thought Tweed, nothing but a shared deception. Right this moment, the square grate above Dex might be kicked spangling across the classroom and the killing begin.

Or now. Or now.

But she felt a lifting in the lab, as if it and its ghostly pairs of seniors arrayed against the wall were being raised heavenward. Intuition, sure. But that was something she and her sister Jenna excelled in.

"I wonder who bit it," Dex said.

"I love you, Dex."

He looked into her eyes and smiled through a sadness, a good wish toward somebody now defunct. "Love ya, Tweed."

"No, I mean more than ever."

Relief flooded her body. Dex looked so good, so indescribably good, that she thought she might burst.

"I mean," a laugh escaped, his eyes steady on hers, "I mean," she said, putting her hands to the sides of his head, his earlobes warm between thumb and forefinger, "I mean I really sincerely truly love you, Dexter Poindexter."

Then her lips pressed against his.

His hand touched her back.

A lip tingle, like spot-on trombone playing but a kajillion times more gratifying, softened her. She grew moist as if Dex were fondling her, her earlobes beating hot with passion.

Her fingertips found something smooth at his lapel. With a laugh, she broke the kiss.

"What?" he asked.

"You still have your sax strap on," she replied.

"Makes me feel saxy."

"Old joke." Bubbles of joy effervesced in Tweed's head.

"Besides," said Dex, "I knew, one way or the other, that we were going to survive this. I just knew it."

A bell shattered the silence, so loud and so sustained that gasps and shouts and a flurry of startled obscenities erupted in the classroom.

Tweed hugged Dex anew, taking his friendship lobe between thumb and forefinger as though it were a fat velvet button.

"Let's go," said Dex, helping her up. "Time to hunt for the victims."

Whichever couple found the dead folks first won some silly prize. But Tweed didn't care about that. She only cared that she and Dex were out of the woods-a murkier and more wicked place than she had imagined-and she told him so.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he said. "But let's get into the spirit of the thing anyway. We did it. We're survivors!"

"I've got to call Dad first."

Dex took her hand.