Slaughterhouse High

Even so, his exposed lobe-stump was quite the turn-on. Ditto the woman's undocked friendship lobe, whose faux-chartreuse dye-job reminded Zane of the crushed kernels of pistachios. And this doped-up duo was completely at his mercy.

The mutt's whimpers began again to grate on him. Zane checked his watch. Time to shake it.

He kissed the two of them on the lips, the man pretty much out, but the woman responding as in a dream, her pretty pink tonguetip starting to show.

They couldn't trace lipmarks.

Zane was sure of it.

Further play could wait until just before he axed them, once the dog was dead.

After he'd had his practice? The young pair at the prom, whose names and place of death waited inside the packet upstairs.

Zane untied the leash from the sink trap.

Stupid mutt tried to lick his face, had to be batted away. He slack-jerked it into the light, then retied its leash to the trough leg closest to the drain.

That would minimize cleanup.

"Zane? You need anything?" Top of the cellar stairs.

Bitch wife wanted to watch. She had tried to coax him into taking her to the prom. Hedda would lick blood if he let her.

"For the zillionth time, I'm fine. Leave it alone, Hedda. You're staying home."

A hurt pause, then petulance: "Just trying to be helpful."

She shut the door.

The promise of the evening flared in Zane's body. Fired up by blood lust, he would come home from his killings at Corundum High and undo his worst mistake. Into the dustbin of memory would he drop-kick his sorry-ass wives. Then he and his lover would run off, assume new identities, and begin afresh.

When he let go of the leash, the dog's dumb exuberance yanked at the empty trough.

Damned thing needed ballast.

Zane's eyes lighted on the drugged couple. "What the heck."

The man alone might suffice.

They had shaved him at the jail. Homeless men typically had stubble or beards, but for prom practice they tended to clean up nicely.

Zane tugged at the man's right biceps.

"Come on, junior," he coaxed, shouldering the lulled deloused carton-dweller off the couch. The woman slid along the cushions, soft moans issuing from her lips. "You'll feel right at home in here."

It took several tries to get him into the trough. Zane knee'd one tuxedo'd leg over the rim, then the other, and lay the bastard down. He was heavy, more a matter of large than well-fed.

But this was the last time Zane would have to lift him.

More puppy tugs. More whimpers. More scrape and movement of the trough away from the drain.

Zane sighed.

The woman was in a bad way, her perm crushed against a couch arm as her fingers fretted at her brow. "Come on, honey. Your turn."

"Please, no." She was as listless as a sack of tapioca.

Zane drew her off the couch. A corsage of white carnations edged in blue tickled his nose. He snaked a hand beneath her gown, felt hot thigh, a bikini'd rump, hints of a slit.

Maneuvering her troughward, he wondered why no one this sexy had ever come on to him when he was her age.

He had her now though and, the law be damned, he would use her in some undetectable way, her and her companion both, before he was finished.

Zane positioned her atop her date, felled refugees from a wedding cake. The man's lobestub glistened like a dare. Zane pressed his lips to it.

The thrill of it blooded him below. Were time not pressing, he would have slipped off his lobebag and stroked himself to head-heaven.

The trough, which he pushed back into place by the drain, now had sufficient weight to anchor the dog's ardor. But the couple was showing signs of revival.

The medicine cabinet.

He raced for the steps. Hedda stood at the door, Camille topless beside her.

Zane glared at them. "Stay out of the basement," he warned, leaving the door ajar.

"Do you need anything?" Hedda asked.

"I'm fine."

Hallway. A snap of the light. Tired old sink. He clicked the mirror open and swung it aside. Medicines, sleeping pills, laxatives, a generous supply of Tuffskin-in-a-Tub.

Ah.

Chloroform.

Sampler drug-baskets had been the rage among realtors when he and the wives had traded up in houses two years before. Zane snatched the bottle up, shoved a few gauze pads into his back pocket, and returned to the basement.

The couple, still groggy, had begun to shift about in the trough, struggling for the energy to open their eyes. Zane knocked the man out first, then the woman, same pad on both. He had bought himself maybe ten minutes.

Keep focus on the mutt, keep his nerves calm, don't jinx his aim. Those were his goals.

Ready.

Ice Ghoul? He'd give them Ice Ghoul.

The axe seated itself in his hands, palm-wrap behind its blade. He walked about the drain until he faced the wag-tailed, droopy-tongued pup in the dim light, the gray trough stuffed with a heap of prom costumes.

Zane's practice chops in the woods outside of Corundum had been a cakewalk. Flinders flew. His arms sang to the rhythm of exertion, and the scent of tree sap swirled in his nostrils.

Here? Nothing but a chore.