They had hit another lull.

"Let's go some place else," she said.

Rocky, on automatic, began to rise.

Cobra's free hand restrained him. "Stay put. Don't get me wrong. I like Sandy's sweet a.s.s and I'm planning on having plenty of stiff-poled fun licking her lobes and knockers. But I'm calling the shots now. I say we hang here."

The door opened below. Then it swung shut. Faster than usual, Sandy thought.

From the landing, only part of the upper door was visible.

A snapping, like the quick sharp shake of a chain, sounded below. The door rattled as if the person who had come through it were trying to open it again.

Then a woman dressed in blue appeared, her short hair in mid-shake as shea"Sandy recognized Nurse Gaskina"bounded up the stairs, clutching a large brown folder, the kind with accordion pockets like a briefcase. Bloodstains dappled her dress, reminders of her having witnessed the death of Mrs. Donner's husband in the band room.

The nurse glanced at them as she sped past, her face full of frowns like grown-ups often got, her fists clenched into tight b.a.l.l.s.

She wanted to say something as she went by, but she held back until she was almost at the top. Then: "The b.a.s.t.a.r.d locked the door behind me."

Sandy didn't need to ask who she meant.

None of them did.

They glanced at one another, then moved as one in sheer terror. Sandy's head surged with hot flushes of panic.

Gripping the gray railing, she followed Cobra and Rocky, gearing that the janitor would somehow magically rise about them, bursting out of one of the panels fitted into the tile walls. Her flats pounded up the steps. A gray wad of gum lay like squashed putty on the edge of one step.

As Nurse Gaskin shot her hand to the door, Sandy heard another sharp snap, twin to the one below.

Did the sound come before, at, or after the nurse touched the door? It was too confusing to tell. It must have been just before.

Ms. Gaskin's hand pulled back from the door as if from a jolt of electricity. She jammed the folder under one arm and hit the bar, full force, with both hands, leaning into it.

The door refused to budge.

Sandy and her men had nearly reached the top platform.

Her mind raced.

They would die here. At any moment, darkness would come crashing down upon them. Hands would shoot out in a quick grasp at her ankles, yanking her off her feet.

No! They would shove the door open, the four of them exerting maximum effort to gain freedom.

But what lay in wait for them when the door flew open?

The nurse turned to them. She glanced with sudden alarm over Rocky's shoulder. He had one foot on the top step and began to look backward.

Sandy was spooked to the max.

She felt the janitor behind her, ready to grab them, skewer them. He was ready to unleash another outbreak of bloodletting.

Then the nurse's face bloomed with hatred.

She slammed full-force into Rocky, upsetting his balance, sending him flailing off the step.

Then she grabbed Cobra by the hair, yanking him across eight feet of ineffective arm-waving, head-first into the tile wall.

"Whoa," he had said, "wait aa""

But the headslam cut off his rising protest, and the nurse repeated that headslam as if she had been possessed by a mad plan to b.u.t.t their way to freedom. A bullseye reddened on the tile wall.

Down below, Rocky landed badly, crying out in pain and disbelief as his body struck stairs and railings, meat and bone out of control.

Sandy froze, unable to move or think.

This wasn't happening.

The nurse was kind and meek and dorky. It was Gerber Waddell they had to look out for.

But kindly Nurse Gaskin released Cobra with an upward flurry of hands and bent for the brown folder.

Rocky was crawling painfully up the steps toward them, his legs weirdly skewed, his right temple smeared with blood.

Cobra fell, no sound from his mouth, just a resounding smack as his skull struck the floor.

"Don't," Sandy whimpered or thought she did.

The brown folder tumbled end over end like a flipped playing card, and in the nurse's hand was a ball peen hammer. As she pa.s.sed, she threw Sandy a look of contempt that pinned her to the wall like a moth to cardboard.

Sandy trembled. She was unable to summon the will to cry out or stop the attack on Rocky.

The nurse's arm swung up.

It swung down.

And Sandy watched the hammer crack open a crater in her boyfriend's skull, staving it in like the thin hollow sh.e.l.l of a chocolate bunny. His body shook with the viciousness of each blow. Sandy couldn't look away, no matter how much she wanted to.

Rocky's cries stopped.

He became a big b.l.o.o.d.y ragdoll.

Only the nurse's savage grunts remained, a counterpart to her swung thunks into red flesh. Above those sounds sailed the wisps of Sandy's whimpering.

At last, the nurse turned away from Rocky and fixed Sandy in her stare. She rose up the steps toward her. Sandy's legs gave out and she slid down the wall.

Tears blurred her vision.

She was falling and the monster was rising.

"Three's a charm," said Nurse Gaskin, low, heavy, and harsh.

She crouched before the girl.

Cold wet metal touched her brow. A tickle slanted across it, a cool drop of blood.

The hammerhead lifted.

Another diagonal, crosswise to the first, traveled Sandy's forehead.

"Don't," she whimpered.

"Hold still now." Ms. Gaskin gripped Sandy's ponytail and wrenched it tight. "This will only hurt for a second."

The blur pulled back and then the punch came swiftly in, leaping beyond all bound, violating Sandy, opening her up.

The stairwell vanished and a rush of stars rode in on a black wave of night.

23. True to Their School.

Despite the chaos that had befallen Corundum High, and faced with mounting reports of fresh victims, Futzy b.u.t.tweiler had never felt so much in command.

Some enterprising jock had brought several dozen small flashlights from one of the science labs. Their beams now angled crazily across the gym. They had ended up primarily in the hands of natural-born leader types, but other kids held them too, infiltrating the privileged few around the bandstand.

Beyond the people Futzy addressed, the Ice Ghoul loomed out of the darkness. But the papier-mache monster didn't cow him any longer. Neither did it bring forth memories of Kitty's death and futtering.

Tonight, Futzy would strike back.

He would triumph over the Ice Ghoul.

Before the night was out, he would see that Gerber Waddell was tracked down and torn apart.

Adora Phipps hugged him.

There would be no more bulls.h.i.t in his life. He loved this woman. Why should he hide it? He wanted every G.o.dforsaken soul in the world to know that Futzy b.u.t.tweiler loved Adora Phipps.

He returned her hug. Then he spoke to the crowd ma.s.sed before him.

There stood the Borgstroms, their eagerness to savage some deserving b.a.s.t.a.r.d, any deserving b.a.s.t.a.r.d, shining out even in darkness.

Beside the Borgstroms were Dexter Poindexter and Tweed Megrim, the night's intended victims who had by some strange chance escaped their fate and were now willing, brave souls, to tempt it again.

And, for all Futzy knew to the contrary, beyond their narrow perimeter of flitting torches, sick dimwitted Gerber Waddell himself lent an ear, knife in hand, ready to rush them at any moment.

Futzy kept his voice low, both to draw close their conspiratorial circle and to shut out the janitor, if indeed he were listening in.

"We're in the midst of a grave crisis, my friends," he began.

"Hey, Futzy," one of the newer teachers piped up. "Cut the c.r.a.p, will you? There's no time for it."

That stung.

Futzy felt tempted to sting back.

Then he admitted to the merits of the remark, simplified, clarified, and began anew.

"I suggest," he said, "that we stay in pairs, divvy up the school, and move out, one flashlight to a pair. Everyone is to be armed. Adora and I have gathered some cutlery." He gestured to a pile of knives at his feet. "Take a couple. If you find the janitor, strike first and save your questions for later. Don't be jittery and don't go off half-c.o.c.ked. Be fully c.o.c.ked and ready for anything."

"What about the students?" asked Claude.

It struck Futzy for the first time: Jonquil Brindisi, who usually cleaved to Claude at these affairs, was nowhere to be seen. He prayed she hadn't come to a bad end. He would miss her spice and spirit.

Nurse Gaskin was absent as well, she who had witnessed the death of Bix Donner and been unable to stop it. Futzy hoped the poor woman wouldn't be permanently scarred by that experience.

"The students," said Futzy. "An excellent point, Claude. As you comb your portion of the school, gather them up, keep them close about you. And shout out to Gerber to give himself up. Offer him clemency, leniency, anything to lure him out of the backways. Our kids are smart. They'll go along to save their necks. But Gerber, despite the cunning he seems to have displayed tonight, is still at heart a simple-minded feeb. He'll buy into the big lie. Then we'll savage him."

It was tempting to speak up, but Futzy kept his remarks close to the chest. The Ice Ghoul seemed to strain forward to hear, struggling to split itself off from the darkness, rise to its full height, crane its bull neck, lumber forward, and kill them all.

A crazy notion came over the princ.i.p.al: He fancied that the janitor had squeezed up into the Ice Ghoul's hollowed-out head, directional mikes in its ears, and heard his entire plan.

Futzy dismissed that as paranoia.

Directly before him, hand in hand, stood Dex and Tweed. Adora, finding them hunkered down in the band room, had persuaded them to come along to the gym.

She gave Futzy's arm a squeeze.

It was time.

"Mr. and Mrs. Borgstrom, you two explore the butchery wing. Claude, I want you and . . . and Bresta"Trilby, you stay here with Pilla"to scour the science labs. Dexter and Tweed, you've got the stairwells."

Futzy's inner map of Corundum High flashed by as he doled out sector after sector. He didn't want any place overlooked. To himself and Adora, he a.s.signed the band room.

"Take time to do it right," he said. "Don't skimp, don't shortchange. When you're finished, bring yourselves and any kids you've rounded up to the auditorium. If you find Gerber Waddell, send runners there.

"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 pa.s.sed hand to hand, tiny gla.s.ses 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 a.s.sured her.

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

"And I love you, dear lady."