The Devil Next Door

Tommy looked like he was ready to piss nails and Billy knew that after school, old Tommy star-running-back-scumbucket-pencil-dick was going to be thinking payback and it would be the worst decision his little pea brain had ever come up with. But then, everyone knew that Tommy Stick-Up-His-Ass-Sidel had all the cunning of a box of petrified camel dung and all the charm of an open sore. Yeah, he’d come looking for payback and Billy would give him a little treat he’d never forget. And when he was done cutting on him, he’d do something to that uppity prick’s corpse that would make his own mother puke.

They were all assholes.

They all deserved to die.

For like Macy Merchant, something inside had suddenly changed. Whoever and whatever Billy Swanson had been all those years was gone. The worming caterpillar named Billy had crawled into its cocoon and emerged as a pissed-off butterfly with a brand new attitude, one that looked down in disgust at the mess the old Billy had made out of his life.

There came a time, the new Billy assured him, when enough was enough. When you stopped chewing other peoples’ shit and asking for seconds.

And that time was now.

Because the old passive shit-eating Billy days were all over. History.

He’d been picked on, put down, and shit upon…but no more. That was for the weak. And Billy was no longer weak.

The supply room in which the frogs were stored was in a large, bulky stainless steel refrigerator reached by a door at the back of the classroom. The storeroom had another adjoining door which led to the chemistry classroom. It was closed, the room on the other side empty. The storeroom was where the chemicals and lab glassware and utensils were stored.

It was also where Cummings and a few other science teachers stored their lunch bags and coats.

Billy saw Cummings’ red Thermos.

He smiled.

There was a yellow metal cabinet on the other wall which read DANGER HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS! in brilliant red letters. As always, the key was in the lock. Calmly, purposefully, Billy opened it and removed the jug of sulfuric acid. He slipped on the elbow-length protective rubber gloves and did what had to be done. Afterwards, he got the frogs out. They were in heavy plastic bags. He passed one out to each lab team and placed them unceremoniously on the wax-lined dissection trays.

It was simple.

All things truly wonderful usually were.

Then he took his seat. His lab partner was Lisa Korn, another much put upon student who always looked a bit ragged. She was jittery and prone to fits of crying and sudden fainting spells. She had all the earmarks of a future neurotic, a condition that was in many ways fostered and encouraged by the incompetence and blind eyes of the public school system. Billy always felt sorry for her, because he knew what her life was like. The abuse the other students handed out to her which the faculty simply preferred to ignore. By the nastier students and uppity bastards like Tommy Sidel and his posse, Lisa was known simply as Lovely Lisa Korn-Hole.

She looked nervous as always, afraid maybe that she had done something wrong or would say something wrong if she dared open her mouth.

“Don’t worry, Lisa,” Billy told her. “It’s all about to change.”

She just looked at him and he smiled.

He could smell the sex between her legs. It made him giddy.

“Let’s do it,” he said.

Taking the scalpel, he slit open the frog’s belly like it was something he’d done a thousand times. While Lisa turned an amusing shade of green, he pinned back the frog’s skin with tiny dissection needles and got to work.

And waited for the shit to hit the fan.

He did not wait long.

Mr. Cummings went into the supply room and came out with his Thermos, pouring himself a cup of coffee. He made it all the way to his desk before he took his first gulp. Like he always contended, he was nothing without his caffeine and today was the day when he would finally get his fill. He raised the cup to his lips, scanning the lab teams with disinterest, and swallowed a big gulp.

No one was really paying any attention to him at that moment.

No one but Billy Swanson.

Cummings drew the cup away from his lips with dawning horror. What was at first a scowl of distaste soon became a twisted rictus of agony. The coffee cup slid from his trembling fingers and shattered at his feet.

And then everyone was suddenly paying attention.

Cummings was staggering around and shuddering, clawing at his throat as gouts of steam wafted from his mouth like cigarette smoke. No one said a word in that split second of realization that something was very wrong with him. His glasses flew off, his eyes bulging, his face the color of Wisconsin cherries. Rivers of sweat coursed down his brow.

“What’s he doing?” Tommy Sidel said.

Cummings fell back against his desk, overturning a stack of graded test papers. His fingers were hooked into claws, thrashing and tearing at himself and everything in sight. “Ggggghhhhlll,” he gagged, blood running from his mouth in dark ribbons.