Slaughterhouse High Part 29

He stroked the small of her back and gave a nervous laugh. "I'm just . . ." He set his punch gla.s.s on the refreshment table. "It's just that it's hard standing here doing nothing when some . . . some son of a b.i.t.c.h isa""

"I know, Dex."

"And Jiminy Jones. He was so all of it, is the musica"and his angry baton slashes when the trumpets rushed."

"I liked Mr. Jones too."

Dex hung his head.

All his life, he had been steeling himself for this night, ready to fend off attack despite his fear, eager for the moment when the bell that meant freedom sounded at last.

Now that bell had rung and he had felt the elation of survival. Then he had discovered, as had they all, that their survival was by no means a.s.sured. Attack could come at random, from any quarter. It was no longer a controlled quant.i.ty within a measurable slice of time.

Dex turned to Tweed. "I want to be brave. But it's so hard. He could be anyone. He could be within reach of us right now."

"I know."

"I'm scared, Tweed. It's one thing to . . . how can I defend us from this? I'm just some stupid kid who . . . no, wait, I'm a man, I can do this thing, I can do it."

Then the tears came, and Tweed crushed her crinkly dress against his body. She hugged him fiercely, braver by far than he.

It wasn't fair.

He would lose her for being a coward. She would pretend nurture now, but when they were out of the woods, she would drop him for some other guy.

He had felt brave earlier. He had prepped for braveness. He had even secretly l.u.s.ted to go into teaching one day, instilling in the young a love of the greater vices perhaps.

Like Jonquil Brindisi.

What moved people to do what they did? The question had always fascinated him. Besides, it would give him a shot at being the designated slasher some day, taking out bullies like Stymie Glumm or Angelo Manglebaum.

He would never tell Tweed's father that. Nor would he argue against the anti-slasher cause with him.

No. The law said Mr. Megrim was ent.i.tled to his opinion, as long as he limited himself to talk alone. In time, he would come to accept his son-in-law's differing stance on the issue.

Dex's tears began anew.

All of that was past.

"I've got to . . . to get it together."

"Dex," soothed Tweed in his ear, "let it fall apart for a while, okay? You're in my arms. You're safe here. Just let it fall apart. It'll come together soon enough."

Dex buried his sobs in her hair, the aroma of hair spray cloying but comforting.

As distraught as they all were, he didn't want his cla.s.smates to see him crying.

They would remember afterwards, when this nightmare was over. It might ruin his rep. It might condemn him and Tweed and their chosen mate to a life of poverty and scorn on the outskirts of society. Prom bravery counted for much. Tonight might be judged differently, but he didn't want to bank on that.

"I guess," he said, calming, "I guess I just prefer . . . you know, everything in its place."

"You do." Tweed stroked his hair. "You're that way. But tonight we've got to roll with the punches. It's tougher than we thought it would be, that's all."

"It is."

"Dex, just know that I love you and I'm with you, no matter what happens. Whoever's doing this will be caught, and killed, and torn apart. Futzy and his staff will see to that. They've got to, they really do. Have faith in them."

"I will," he said, wiping the tears on his tuxedo sleeve.

But inside, Dex had no faith at all in Princ.i.p.al b.u.t.tweiler and his staff, who, from the look on their faces, had not the slightest clue about how to bring the rogue killer to justice.

Peach had never seen anyone look as stunned as Bowser McPhee.

To tell the truth, Peach couldn't believe what was going on either.

The multiplying bodies were bad enough.

Some teacher had gone off his nut.

Eventually, she had no doubt, he would be found and futtered. A few more cla.s.smates would eat it and the school would gain some notoriety, but Peach was sure she would survive.

Deatha"her own, that isa"was not within the realm of possibility.

Bowser was a bit more upset by the killings than she. But what really seemed to torque him out, and how could Peach blame him, was Fido's reaction.

Fido had paled and woozeda"and simply walked away from her and Bowser.

Right straight to the fat chicks over yonder, a pair of mustachioed slugs pup-tented in plug-ugly, wallpaper-inspired dresses whose green and magenta blooms splashed garishly everywhere.

In-f.u.c.king-credible!

"I can't believe he did that," Bowser repeated. "The simpering little b.a.s.t.a.r.d took a hike."

"He wants to marry a couple of blimps!" The nerve of anyone rejecting her for two lard-lugging losers like Kyla Gorg and Patrice Menuci.

"He was my forever." The poor boy was really broken up. "How's he gonna get home? What'll I tell my folks?"

Ms. Brindisi and Mr. Versailles were speaking at the mike like Academy Award presenters.

The sheriff's body had been carried to the band risers, a tarp thrown over him and the music teacher.

Peach wished they had joined the other dead folks in front of the Ice Ghoul. Putting them on the risers seemed to expand the ghoul's dominion, as though the huddle of frightened seniors between the creature and the wall behind the bandstand now fell beneath its sway.

"Whynchu take Fido aside and talk it over?"

"I don't know," said Bowser, stunned all over again. "I guess I oughta do that. But I feel like saying, f.u.c.k it to h.e.l.l and back. He's not worth it, walking away like we meant nothing to one another. We were everything, Peach, I s.h.i.+t you not, everything to one another."

"So take him aside and tell him that."

And do it, oh please G.o.d yes, she thought, do it before he touches those blubbering tent-sprawls of noxious girlflab.

"I won't," said Bowser. He gritted his teeth and flexed his fists. "I can't, but I will." But before he took his first step, the teachers at the mike were saying, "Make way for her."

Make way? Who was there to make way for?

Peach, hearing fresh rumblings ripple through the crowd, craned her neck to see.

Nurse Gaskin's bobbing head moved off to the left, her hands raised to slice through a dappled sea of bodies. Someone near Peach pa.s.sed along rumors of blood on her dress.

"They're saying her dress is b.l.o.o.d.y," said Bowser.

"I hear them," said Peach.

Beneath a glisten of blue and pink and orange lights, the nurse pa.s.sed through a jostle of students to the risers and the mike.

She looked shaken as she shouldered the two teachers aside and clung to the mikestand, a grasp at salvation.

"It's . . . ."

She covered the mike and spoke briefly to Mr. Versailles, then back, as distraught as Peach had ever seen anyone.

"It's the janitor. We were in the band room, me and Bix Donner."

On Peach's right, a high hoot sounded from a woman holding a little girl. The woman raised a hand to her mouth. Brest Donner, Peach's biology teacher, gripped her fiercely in her arms.

Oh yeah, Ms. Donner's wife.

"I . . . ." The nurse brushed off Jonquil Brindisi's hand.

The stains on her dress sickened Peach.

She pictured Ms. Donner's husbanda"this Bix guy the nurse was yammering on and on about, who had helped Mr. Dunsmore cut down the sheriff's bodya"being stabbed by the feeb janitor, blood from the wounds spraying upward to splash Nurse Gaskin's dress.

"I yelled at Gerber," she said. "I tried to stop him. He just kept coming at Bix. Then he swung the lampstand up and slammed it downa""

The nurse covered her mouth, her eyes hot with tears.

In an instant, Ms. Brindisi was beside her again, speaking words Peach couldn't hear.

Nurse Gaskin nodded.

A final thought occurred to her.

She dipped again to the mike: "Trilby? Brest? I'm sorry."

She almost seemed to regret her own survival.

"I've always treated the poor man well. We all have. Gerber couldn't help what he was, and what he's become again. He vanished through the band room doors into the backways. I . . ."

Her hand fumbled for a tissue in her right pocket.

That's when the lights went out.

There was a loud noise, like a big switch being thrown ker-chunk.

The image of Ms. Brindisi and the nurse hung in a ghostly afterglow, then wiped away to black.

Peach, fear ballooning in her like a sudden burst of fever, found Bowser's waist and clung to him.

"Jesus Christ," he said.

Peach saw the janitor coming at her from all directions, that benign wisp of a grin cracking open to reveal madness, bloodl.u.s.t, a rapacious urge to kill.

A voice began, booming from the PA system.

At first, she thought it was the janitor's. But the fear that quavered in the words and their deeper pitch identified the dead sheriff, speaking no doubt under duress.

"Boys and girls," said Sheriff Blackburn's voice, "the front entrance to the school is open. You must not stay in the gym. If you stay here, you will die. I repeata""

But the voice repeated nothing.

Peach could almost see him looking up from a scripted text, looking up to see a sudden blade come sweeping in. A rushed shoved grunt of impalement had been caught on the tape, chilling in how nearby it sounded.

Faintly, over a renewed sweep of crowd noise, Peach heard Ms. Brindisi.

"Stay where you are!"

But that was futile advice.

Peach wanted out of there that instant, and every one of her cla.s.smates wanted the same.

The babble surged.

The bodies moved her, shoved her, precisely where they all wanted to go. Screams lanced through the panic. A few seniors went down in the crush. Or maybe Gerber Waddell had swept in to slaughter them. Who could say? Peach only knew she had to escape, and fast.

The opening to the dim hallway loomed before her. She shoved the kid in front of her, Sorry on her lips. But she wasn't sorry at all. Nor were those in back who propelled her forward.

Above the melee, loud and distorted, a sad gentle singer from the fifties sighed, "I'm Mister Blue, wah-o-wah-ooh." Interspersed, Gerber Waddell's familiar chirp stole in, sharp and piercing: "Hi there, hi there."

"Oh my G.o.d, he's got me," shouted some frightened boy. The janitor strode among them, cutting, slas.h.i.+ng, killing whatever got in his way.

Peach squeezed through the dim rectangular archway. A crush of bodies threatened to snap her ribs, so great was the pressure on all sides. But she made it to the corridor, holding miraculously to the back of Bowser's suitcoat.

The air cooled.

The flow of students carried her as swiftly as before, but with less threat of violence.