Slaughterhouse High

"And good luck to you all."

Crowding forward, their flashlights crazily stabbing downward, they delved into the cutlery, as somber a group as Futzy had ever seen. He was reminded of the solemn clatter of communion trays passed hand to hand, tiny glasses of grape juice lifted out with a clink.

Adora squeezed his hand and brought it to her lips. "Good plan, darling."

"We'll get him," he assured her.

"I love you, Futzy," said Adora, her eyes beaming with pride.

"And I love you, dear lady."

Futzy felt no cause for confidence.

Yet oddly enough he was confident.

He looked forward to tossing Trusk and Torment out of his life for good-they would be amazed at the new vigor in him as he threw their sorry asses off the front porch-and installing Adora Phipps there instead.

She would glow.

So would he.

And Kitty, at last, would be laid to rest.

But first-Futzy stooped and grabbed a shish kabob skewer to complement his snubnose-they had a rogue janitor to subdue.

*****

Trilby sat in a folding chair behind the refreshments. Pill lay slumped on her lap, a thumb stuck deep in her mouth.

Stroking her daughter's hair, Trilby made soothing sounds and gently rocked her.

Above them, among the rafters, floated the dim shape of a basketball hoop and backboard that had been cranked up and away. From the ill-lit expanse before them rose the Ice Ghoul, the lines of its frame harsh and cutting, its face obscured by shadow.

But Trilby was unafraid.

A madman had murdered her husband, spooked her little girl, and thrown her household into chaos. Yet she feared neither for her life nor for Pill's.

They would survive and grow strong.

Before Brest left with Claude Versailles to check out the science labs, she had hugged Trilby and Pill. "Sit tight," she had said. "We'll be back soon." But as she said it, she had worn her stone face, tight and drawn, her eyes clamped down upon her feelings. There was no telling how tonight's mayhem had affected her, nor how it had affected their future.

Don't think about it.

Pay attention to Pill.

Pill had witnessed a murder, under threat of discovery and slaughter herself. She had heard her father's death announced before a frightened crowd of promgoers.

"There, there," she said. "That's my Pill." Her hand stroked the angel-smooth hair above her daughter's neck. Tonight's terrors might cause Pill to develop too early her lust for blood.

Or she might never do so.

Trilby didn't know which would be worse.

No, that wasn't so.

If Pill were inadequately socialized, she would be treated as an odd duck, open to taunts and jeers and the most hurtful kind of bullying.

Worse, she might join the anti's.

Pill had a fiercely independent streak. If she were permanently damaged over this-and the magnitude of tonight's trauma threatened to make that a certainty-she might join the crazies who, as they claimed, used violence to end violence. Eventually, she would be taken out by government forces.

Stop, she thought. You're hurtling into a terrible future. This will not come to pass!

"We'll come through this okay, honey," she said, her voice catching. "We just have… to be strong." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

Pill lay against her like an inert sack of pudding and bone, her eyes open but unfocused, slow blinks lidded upon them like an infant dull with sleep. Her thumb-sucking came and went but the thumb stayed firmed ensconced in her mouth.

Random shouts issued from distant hallways, coming from bunches of aroused, terrorized kids joining in a hunt for the slasher. At some point, that sick soul would be found and futtered. Then they would all be free.

She stifled a laugh.

Free.

Free to build a new life around the obsessive kernel of this night, a nightmare forever revived, recreated, relived.

No, she thought. We will get beyond this. We will process it and go on.

"We will, honey," she said. "We will."

*****

It was almost time to thrust the drugged fucker into the mob. Almost time for him to be royally futtered.

Delia had developed a taste for blood.

But for the sake of Kitty, and to assure triumph in her pursuit of Brest and Trilby, she would wrap things up now. Call it quits. Slake the frenzied bloodthirst of the crowd with good ol' Gerber Waddell.

And emerge a survivor.

There'd be time enough, after bedding her grieving girlfriends, to maraud and slaughter once more, carefully, selectively, at random intervals.

The janitor lay propped against the wall of a corridor, a lone lightbulb throwing a harsh glare across him. Alarm lit his eyes.

She wondered if she had trussed him up too tight. Had she cut off his circulation? Would his walk be convincing? Or would they see evidence, assuming there was anything left to autopsy, that he had been bound and gagged for over an hour?

Slumped that way, Gerber looked so small.

Her toy, her plaything.

It was an odd responsibility she had taken on, this being in charge of lives and deaths, this manipulation. It made her feel creepy, and virtuous, and powerful all at once.