Two padlocks remained.

Blackburn hummed as he rounded the building's next corner, low bristly shrubs keeping him clear of the wall. The back entrance was used only by driver ed kids and those who lived north of the school. It yielded to his efforts, a st.u.r.dy door now made impa.s.sable.

n.o.body here. He started to feel creepy in spite of himself. Whistle a happy tune.

Right.

He resumed his walk around the building. On the east side was an emergency exit from the band room, hidden in moon shadows. The floods on this side hadn't been flicked on!

d.a.m.n that dimwit janitor.

Every year for the last three, the sheriff had chewed Gerber out about this, making up some c.r.a.p about ordinances, safety regulations. But the truth was, Blackburn would somehow always manage to spook himself by the time he got around to the back of the school on prom night.

No houses. Just some weeds and a fence, a lazy stream bubbling along behind it.

Detaching the flashlight from his utility belt, Blackburn trained it on the door. The padlock fell from his hands and clattered on the concrete. Then it was up again, a cool inverted U of metal sliding against metal, a solid steel snap that sealed off the school's east exit. Yes. How easy it was to feel satisfied by a simple sound.

Now to complete his journey around the school perimeter, get the h.e.l.l out of here, and lambaste that dweeb janitor.

Someone touched him on the shoulder. The boy in him yelped. His skin bristled with fear as he whirled and went for his gun. Foolish gesture, on hold and relaxing even as he touched the gun b.u.t.t.

Blackburn saw who it was. "Jesus Christ, don't you ever do that to me again!"

"Sorry, Sheriff."

"Creepy enough out here as it is." His hand returned to his side. "So, we meet again."

"Sheriff, I need your help." Oddly cool.

"You don't sound quitea""

His instincts flared. Then the dark arm rose, as though detached from its body's stasis, swiftly curving about and impossibly long.

A grimace betrayed the usually complacent face before him, exertion abruptly concentrated.

But before Blackburn could raise his hands to ward off whatever it was, the wind whipped up in the restless branches above him and an impossible weight snuffed all awareness swiftly out.

6. Limos, Volvos, and Jalopies.

Dexter Poindexter's coupe eased through the night. Its headlights knifed through the darkness, which swept behind him and grew whole again.

Dex finally felt like a grown-up. A man in charge of his own decisions. Protective of his wife-to-be. On his way unshackled.

Starting in the fall of his junior year, there had been inklings, stirrings of adulthood: his voice growing deeper and more confident; the soft brillo'ing of his pubic hair; an obligatory stint as a zit farmer; the wary way adults had of staring at you, prunish joes and biddy-janes whose youth had long gone sour and who tottered, a whole heap of 'em, on the lip of the grave.

But tonight was different.

Tonight Dex sat behind the wheel of his car, Tweed by his side. Upon the tips of her earlobes and no doubt between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, she had dabbed a scent that drove him wild.

Once they had enjoyed and survived the prom, wedded bliss would be theirs. A third would come along to complete thema"male or female, it didn't much matter.

Then a couple of jobs to sustain them, and some kids underfoot in there somewhere.

But what if they had been chosen?

"It's a beautiful night," Tweed said.

"The best," he said.

What if the designated slasher were staring at their photos right now, laying plans to be right behind where they were seated, removing screws in advance so that he could pop out in an instant and draw his blade across Dex's throat? My G.o.d, he would die gasping for a breath that never came, even as he watched Tweed suffer the same fate. In the slasher's eyes would shine a bead of hatred, its gleam the last thing Dex saw as his vision faded.

Grown-ups hate kids, thought Dex. They envy us our youth. They love to snuff two of us every year. And I'll be just like them, now that I'm nearly a man.

But he quickly nixed that thought, letting righteous rage at the adult world again a.s.sert itself.

They would not touch his Tweedie-bird.

They would not harm a hair on her head.

Nor would they hurt Dex. He had been working on his reflexes, visualizing alone in his bas.e.m.e.nt against the wall where Mom and Dad couldn't make fun of him. There, he pictured over and over the abrupt appearance of the slasher. Dex would push Tweed out of harm's way, then seize the knife arm of the emerging teacher, even if it proved to be gum-chewing Coach Frink of the gorilla arms and the dumb blunt brow and the beady eyes, even that musclebound dolta"and with his miniature cleaver sever the man's jugular.

In his imaginings, Dex effortlessly disarmed the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, saw him struggle in his death throes, threw an arm around Tweed, and said, "We got him, honey. He's dying and we're free."

Now, in the car, Tweed nestled closer and put a hand on his right arm. "I love you, Dex."

"I love you too."

And he did. He loved Tweed with his entire heart. "His spleen 'n' liver too," as the song had it. "We're going to have a great time tonight, you and me and all of us. This prom's gonna kick some serious b.u.t.t."

"No question," she said, laying her head against his arm. "It's such a dreamy night."

His instincts were honed. No need to fret. Just live each harrowing moment for all it was worth. Screw up his nerves and be on high alert during the twenty minutes' ordeal, as the seniors hurried off to their designated spots, sat beneath big black numbers, and waited.

Afterward, the survivors would return elated and relieved to the gym, eaten up with curiosity. Which couple, they'd be wondering, would shortly be laid in the lap of the Ice Ghoul to be hacked and futtered at midnight?

It wouldn't be him and Tweed.

The odds favored them.

Then Dex's confidence hit the inevitable speed b.u.mp.

The odds favored everyone.

"I see it!" screamed Pim.

Altoona clucked. "'Course you see it, dummy. 'Swhere it's been for a billion years."

"Yeah, I know. But it's the free."

"So?" Altoona stopped behind some car whose left blinker was flashing. She checked her watch. Twenty minutes before the doors closed, and three blocks to the parking lot. "It ain't like it's an exam or nothin', Pim, so don't c.r.a.p your knickers, okay? It's more like, in fact it's precisely like, two luckless f.u.c.kers are forced to cash in their chips and the rest of us are allowed to breathe again finally. Who's in that rustbucket ahead of us?"

Pim craned forward. "Oh jeez!"

"What?"

Pim giggled and clapped her black-mitted hands. "One's the loser babe from butchery who almost lost a thumb."

"Hairy-lobed Lulu?"

"Yeah. And look. Good old Futzy stuck her with that triple-bellied bozo with the corduroy pants who hangs over his lunch like pigs over a trough. The kid n.o.body in their right mind ever sits with." Pim glowered with ratlike malice. "I sincerely hope they're not the chosen ones, cuz no one I know would want to rush in and futter them. Too many G.o.dd.a.m.n cooties."

"Couple o' friggin' losers," said Altoona. "You wonder how they live with themselves. 'Course, if anybody had bullied either of these twits, we'd've held the bullies down and branded 'em. So go figure. Leave losers alone? Hey, we tolerate that. Cause 'em grief? We flog you to beat the band."

"Cuz we understand how it feels. The being mocked, I mean."

"Right."

Clouds scudded behind the school building as they approached the lot. Jacketed students directed with flashlights. Altoona saw Tweed Megrim's kid sister, Jenna, a peppery little junior, splitting cars off this way and that.

"Jesus f.u.c.k, it's the prom!" screamed Pim, jiggling fit to burst out of her dress.

What a love bunny, thought Altoona.

And what interesting times lay ahead later tonight, when they bared their nether parts for those yummy zippermouths, Condor and Blayne.

Altoona's lobes peppered and zinged like a string of pinched Christmas lights.

At the punchbowl, Jonquil Brindisi, teacher of the greater vices, ladled orange glop into the outheld cup of Claude Versailles, teacher of the lesser vices.

Jiminy Jones, ignored in a bow tie, roved on the risers, setting out thick binders of charts on the dance band's unsteady black stands. Poor sad Jiminy. Such a humorless stub of a fellow, short, bristle-browed, full of gray bland business grit in faculty meetings. His demeanor had surely had the effect of turning off potential mates, as now they turned off Jonquil.

Artificial fog drifted across the floor from that towering effrontery in the center of the gym, the Ice Ghoul.

"Thank you," said Claude. He took a sip of punch. "And yes, Jonquil, I concur. This year's crop of seniors showed execrable taste in choosing as the centerpiece of their prom the h.o.a.ry old Ice Ghoul. He's not only a slap-in-the-face to a fine princ.i.p.al, our poor dear Futzy chum. But as much as, to the adolescents who while away a mere four years here the Ice Ghoul seems a source of endless merriment, to those of us logging our third decade and counting, he's dull, dull, dull."

Jonquil smiled. Wordy b.u.g.g.e.r, hair starting to thin. But Claude was tall, arguably handsome, all-in-all a not inconsiderably s.e.xy man. "Maybe they took your lessons in Sloth to heart."

"Indeed," said Claude, licking orange foam from his upper lip. His suit was bright yellow with bold black st.i.tching, his lobebag the same. "The Ice Ghoul this cla.s.s. A particularly vicious bunch this year, perhaps?"

"I try, Claude, I try."

Knock off a few years, ungray a few streaks at the temples, plunk him in a singles bar, and Jonquil would jump him in an instant. A pity she had stricken colleagues from her list of possible playmates. Pity too that the bar fodder, men and women both, came nowhere near Claude's quality and allure.

"In my lessons on Rage," she noted, "a full six weeks we dig and delve into that fine and unjustly maligned pa.s.sion, I do my best to instill a love of the vicious."

"One would think it natural."

"One would think so."

Across the gym, Jonquil saw Adora Phipps nod her tight-bunned head and excuse herself from an early gaggle of seniors. She headed their way, young but dressed in a spiffed-up version of the granny clothes that marked her off as one of the oddest of the odd.

To Claude: "But men and women are vicious in so predictable and plastic a way, and they're no better as kids. In cla.s.s, I work myself upa"you know how I geta"but they stare back, as dull as a crusted plate, these hormone-pumped wonders. Take Notorious, for example. Sure it's s.e.xy to see someone fry on TV."

Miss Phipps nodded to them, listening as she poured herself some refreshment. A wormy seam, as she leaned, ran up the back of her stocking from fat-heeled black shoes. When she straightened, the seam was abruptly hidden, her long severe frock falling to cover it.

"Watching someone fry," continued Jonquil, "invariably gets me off."

"Me too," said Claude. He waved to Miss Phipps, who gave him a f.u.c.k-off nod and stared over her cup at Jonquil in mid-peroration.

"My point, though, is that smell they give us!" Cluck of the tongue, roll of the eyes.

"Surely you don't want the real thing?"

"Of near the amazing smell of a corpse. For heaven's sake, if you're going to get people off, you really shouldn't cheat the most critical sense of all with cheap cosmetic subst.i.tutes. For all the distaste TV viewers claim, there's nothing like the aroma of victims, freshly butchered or fried, to bypa.s.s the veneer of civilization and go straight for the beast in the braina"nothing like it to snag one's l.u.s.t and turn it positively ravenous."

Jiminy Jones bobbled a low sour blat out of his trumpet.

"I wonder," said Adora Phipps, taking another sip.

"Don't wonder," Jonquil said. "Believe it."

The lobebag Miss Phipps wore had that second-generation feel to it, as if it had been rummaged out of her grandmother's hope chest.

Her right lobe, thank goodness, was bare. A year ago, Jonquil and Ms. Foddereau had taken the English teacher aside, hoping to persuade her out of repression's past in that regard at least, and the resumption of school in September had seen Miss Phipps abandon the antiquated right bag that the rest of Demented States society had trashed so decisively in the mid-sixties.

Claude said in annoyance, "Where's Gerber Waddell when you need him?"

She followed his gaze to the wetness plashing down the papier-mache and chicken-wire face of the Ice Ghoul.

The creature half-knelt, half-crouched. It was daunting in its crudeness but so overdone as to be laughable: b.u.t.tocks doughy and split apart, a thick spearhead erection beribboned and far too huge, bright red everywhere except where brush had missed newsprint.

Its musclebound arms lofted skywarda"the knife, the torch, an obvious parody of the Statue of Libertya"and its ma.s.sive head was bent to peer triumphantly at the dead couple soon to be laid before it.

Jonquil's gaze returned to the splash of drops, slow but predictable, that hit the concave crimp in its brow, sorrowed along its cheek, and dripped down the muscled chest before it pa.s.sed out of view.

"Rained all night, didn't it?" she said.

"It woke me up," agreed Miss Phipps.

Jonquil took in the seething gush of dry-ice fog issuing from vents cut in the figure's broad pedestal.