Think of something else. Let the body take over. The past hour’s killings came welling up: blood, icicles, Sheriff Blackburn dropping like a sack of flour.
Strangely enough, for all his prim stiffness while he lived, it was the death of Jiminy Jones that prompted much of Tweed’s shock. Short in stature, an imitative trumpet player, Mr. Jones nonetheless displayed always an infectious love of music, a love that had inspired her and Dex, that made them reach beyond the norm in their playing and in what they listened to.
She couldn’t believe Mr. Jones was dead, his corpse tarped upon the risers he would no longer break down or set up. His short fat arms would no longer wave a baton at them. His tinny dictator’s voice would no longer bark, “Don’t rush,” in time to the strict beat he heard in his head.
Tweed’s bladder let go.
Thoughts of Peach and Bowser came rushing in. But the process had been set in motion, a steady stream that would go to completion.
Did she detect any increase in their moans, anything to signal an untoward interest in her bodily functions?
None.
Surely, it had all been in her head. As usual, she had been too damned self-conscious. Her father had made a Broadway show tune out of it, even softshoeing to it and brandishing an imaginary cane and straw boater. “Get out of your head,” he had sung, “and into my heart, bah-pitty bah-bah bah-pitty bah-bah- bah.”
Tweed wiped, stood, adjusted her prom dress, and flushed.
When she emerged from the stall, she spied Bowser’s white sleeve, the gold cufflink, where his right hand had disappeared in a flurry of red frills hiked high up on Peach’s stockinged outer thigh.
Tweed couldn’t see what Peach’s hand was up to. But from her arm movements and Bowser’s muffled ung ung where their lips met, it was easy to guess. He was so turned on that even his friendship lobe appeared to blush and swell.
Tweed pretended nonchalance.
Standing at the sink next to them, she took out a tube of lipstick, leaning forward to apply it. Smart pert babe in the mirror.
She appeared untouched by the horrors around her. But she wasn’t. You couldn’t tell anything from a person’s outer show.
Fingers fell on Tweed’s waist.
She froze.
It was Peach’s free hand, caressing clumsily, working its way down the curve of her butt.
“What do you think you’re doing?” asked Tweed, moving abruptly left so that the hand withdrew as from an oven burn.
Peach turned upon Bowser’s lips, speaking through his mindless unfocused barrage of guppy kisses. “You want us, Miss Prissy Perfect. It’s the end of the world. Join in, indulge your whims, share the fun.”
Tweed said, “Why don’t you go find Cobra? Or Fido?” She put a spin on it. I’ve got Dex, she was saying. You two creeps have dumped your boyfriends like noseblown kleenex.
“You’re here,” Peach said. “They’re not. Bowser’s hard, I’m wet, and you look pretty tasty. Doesn’t she, Bowser, sweetie?”
“Arf, arf,” he said, giving Tweed a dark, zitful leer.
Tweed glared. “Not interested.”
She looked back at herself in the mirror.
One last touchup.
Somewhere nearby, she had the sudden sense of… something awful.
She couldn’t pinpoint it.
It felt all-surrounding, as if the mirror’s reflexiveness threw off her instincts, her fight-or-flight response.
“Fine,” said Peach. “Be that way, bitch.”
Tweed blushed, warm from the insult but also reacting to something else. There was something very wrong here, a thing more terrible for being undefined and out of reach.
An image of Dex waiting in the corridor came to her. She had to get back to him. She had to be sure he was all right.
Tweed stuffed her lipstick in her purse, then glanced over. Bowser McPhee, staring at her, was fingering the slut’s lobebag, tugging it down, down, down, not intending to stop, not being stopped by his new lover. It slipped lower, then fell to the floor, sweet aroused girlflesh hanging there naked and exposed.
The sight thrilled Tweed.
She was dumbstruck, frozen where she stood, wanting to be with Dex right now, wanting just as much to stay and watch, maybe even partake in the events unfolding before her.
This is crazy, thought Tweed. This is way past crazy and I oughta move, go, get out.
Right now!
Dex stood there in the hallway spooked.
Why hadn’t they headed for a more heavily trafficked area, instead of these out-of-the-way restrooms?
He could stand to go himself, but the frosted glass door with BOYS etched on it was dark and foreboding. He would have to snake a hand inside it to turn on the lights.
Why were the lights off anyway?
It was a trap. Gerber Waddell waited inside, knife dripping. If Dex held really still, he could probably hear drops of blood hitting the tile floor.
Besides, what if Tweed emerged, missed him, went off by herself to look for him? She would be attacked for sure, and Dex would live his life knowing that his negligence had led to her death.
No. He would wait here. His bladder could wait too. No matter that it was spooky here and there were far too many shadows oozing up out of the age-old grime where wall met floor. No matter that things gleamed in those shadows.
He had his moves down.
He just needed to be vigilant.
Ah but what if the mad janitor was in the girls’ room right now, holding his hand over Tweed’s mouth and readying his blade for her throat?
Dex felt like bursting in.
But no. No sound other than a flush came from inside. No scuffles. His ears were attuned to the slightest noise, even imagined ones.
I can’t trust my senses, he thought.
But there’s stuff you know your mind is making up, and there’s no mistaking the real thing when it happens.
Yeah, but by then it’ll be too late.
It’s the girls’ room, he kept telling himself. The girls’ room.
No boys allowed.
Only pervies would be interested in sneaking in. And he was no pervy. Dexter Poindexter was a straight arrow, and always would be.
It was good to be a straight arrow in a world that was falling apart. His parents said so. They told him they were proud of him for it.
Just be on the alert, he thought. Be ready to fend off attack, darting out from any doorway or any secret snap-back-able portion of any wall. Steer clear of walls.
And try not to piss your goddamn pants.
Explain that to the tuxedo rental place.
He laughed. Here his life was in danger, and he was worried about being embarrassed in the face of some dumb-ass clerk.
Dex checked his watch.
