Slaughterhouse High

But Delia had succeeded in slowing him to a dull soundless thud against the glass. A gush of blood sheened down his daughter's face as she put the finishing touches on her lips and headed past the necking couple.

A death wheeze burbled from Matthew Megrim's throat: melodic, rhythmic, optimistic even in the grip of excruciating pain. The poor fuck had once more saved his child, who walked oblivious out of the girls' room, flouncing away from death for the second time this evening.

Delia let his corpse collapse and retrieved the knife from where it had fallen. Not sharp enough for the neckers.

She recovered her blue chiffon lobebag and slipped it back on. From the gym bag lying beside the folding chair she drew a thick rubber mallet. Hefted it. She would stun 'em and drag 'em off to the machine shop for fun and games.

No time to waste.

Kitty Buttweiler's memory demanded far more honoring. Love by death stolen away could never be regained. But by God, that love could be revered, and she was determined to revere it.

There was nothing like human skin split wide-down to muscle, organ, bone, and marrow-to rouse the blood and focus the attention.

Delia unlatched the mirror and swung it open.

The lust bunnies, Bowser and Peach, an odd pair, separated their kissy lips and arched back to check out the noise, the cool draft, the sudden disorientation.

Delia reached over the sink, a perfect swing to her arm, and smacked the bare-lobed slut first. The fallen Peach pinned her mate, which made it a breeze to lay open his forehead. He fell silent, inert, as she had done before him.

The girl first, then the boy, Delia drew up into the alcove beside the dead teacher. With wraps of twine, she secured their wrists behind their backs.

The going was rough, the way tight.

But foot by foot, Delia dragged them along the backways, fired by thoughts of the machine shop and its possibilities for mayhem.

*****

The restroom door swung shut behind Tweed, a rush, then a catch, slowing a foot from closure.

Dex wasn't there.

Then he emerged from the shadows. She ran to him, let him gather her into a bear hug.

"I was afraid for you," he said.

"Me too, for you," she said. "It was awful."

From the restroom came a boy's voice, lonely, hurt, and anxious. His yelps of pleasure sounded like pain.

Dex tensed.

"It's only Bowser McPhee," said Tweed. "Him and Peach. They're going at it."

The high-pitched voice fell silent, falling off its odd orgasm. Tweed imagined white ribbons of sperm jetting across the red frills of Peach's dress. The image fascinated and revolted her.

She was glad to have resisted, glad to be in Dex's arms.

A group of promgoers swept past them.

In their midst moved the old chaperones with the notched jawflesh. Arm in arm they went, their eyes aglow with perverse delight. If you shut your eyes, you could smell wilted violets.

"Where to now?" Tweed asked.

He shrugged. "Back to the dance?"

She pictured the Ice Ghoul rising out of the darkness the gym had been plunged into. "No way. I bet he's there waiting for the first stragglers to wander in."

Dex snapped his fingers. "The band room."

Not more than an hour before, her biology teacher's spouse had been killed there. His blood would be lying in fresh pools on the planking, near where the French horns sat. Moreover, the room held fond memories of Mr. Jones.

Tweed didn't want to go there.

But how likely was it that the slasher would return to the site of a recent kill?

"Let's do it," she said, taking Dex's arm.

Against the counterclockwise flow they walked, pressed uncomfortably near the lockers. But the band room lay less than half a corridor away.

When they entered, fresh death-smell still befouled the air. The corpse, thank God, had been removed. No one else was there. The lampstand, bloodstained from the bludgeoning, gave off its feeble glow. Tall gray doors curved around the room, menacing and quiet.

"I don't think we should…"

"This is home," Dex said. "I say we take our chances here. Don't worry. I'll die before I let him hurt you or get near you."

Though Tweed had misgivings, she relented. "I feel safe with you." That was both true and untrue.

"Good, let's get comfortable."

In the obscure gloom, Dex removed his white tuxedo jacket, folded it, lining out, and draped it on the floor against the tall door which on a normal day held sax cases. He was gambling, and Tweed went along, that it didn't hold something else tonight.

Dexter Poindexter, risk taker.

She loved that about him.

She loved lots of things about him. Pulling herself over, she planted a kiss on his friendship lobe.

"What's that about?" he asked.

"It's about how I love you."

He smiled and gripped her hand where it rested on his arm. "I love you too," he said.

And he did.

*****

Cries of pain interrupted Bray and Winnie's embrace there in the backways. It was unclear to either of them how far or from what direction the cries came.

A young male voice.

Two sharp grunts.

It raised Bray's hackles. Winnie's too, to judge from her reaction.