The going was rough, the way tight.
But foot by foot, Delia dragged them along the backways, fired by thoughts of the machine shop and its possibilities for mayhem.
The restroom door swung shut behind Tweed, a rush, then a catch, slowing a foot from closure.
Dex wasn’t there.
Then he emerged from the shadows. She ran to him, let him gather her into a bear hug.
“I was afraid for you,” he said.
“Me too, for you,” she said. “It was awful.”
From the restroom came a boy’s voice, lonely, hurt, and anxious. His yelps of pleasure sounded like pain.
Dex tensed.
“It’s only Bowser McPhee,” said Tweed. “Him and Peach. They’re going at it.”
The high-pitched voice fell silent, falling off its odd orgasm. Tweed imagined white ribbons of sperm jetting across the red frills of Peach’s dress. The image fascinated and revolted her.
She was glad to have resisted, glad to be in Dex’s arms.
A group of promgoers swept past them.
In their midst moved the old chaperones with the notched jawflesh. Arm in arm they went, their eyes aglow with perverse delight. If you shut your eyes, you could smell wilted violets.
“Where to now?” Tweed asked.
He shrugged. “Back to the dance?”
She pictured the Ice Ghoul rising out of the darkness the gym had been plunged into. “No way. I bet he’s there waiting for the first stragglers to wander in.”
Dex snapped his fingers. “The band room.”
Not more than an hour before, her biology teacher’s spouse had been killed there. His blood would be lying in fresh pools on the planking, near where the French horns sat. Moreover, the room held fond memories of Mr. Jones.
Tweed didn’t want to go there.
But how likely was it that the slasher would return to the site of a recent kill?
“Let’s do it,” she said, taking Dex’s arm.
Against the counterclockwise flow they walked, pressed uncomfortably near the lockers. But the band room lay less than half a corridor away.
When they entered, fresh death-smell still befouled the air. The corpse, thank God, had been removed. No one else was there. The lampstand, bloodstained from the bludgeoning, gave off its feeble glow. Tall gray doors curved around the room, menacing and quiet.
“I don’t think we should…”
“This is home,” Dex said. “I say we take our chances here. Don’t worry. I’ll die before I let him hurt you or get near you.”
Though Tweed had misgivings, she relented. “I feel safe with you.” That was both true and untrue.
“Good, let’s get comfortable.”
In the obscure gloom, Dex removed his white tuxedo jacket, folded it, lining out, and draped it on the floor against the tall door which on a normal day held sax cases. He was gambling, and Tweed went along, that it didn’t hold something else tonight.
Dexter Poindexter, risk taker.
She loved that about him.
She loved lots of things about him. Pulling herself over, she planted a kiss on his friendship lobe.
“What’s that about?” he asked.
“It’s about how I love you.”
He smiled and gripped her hand where it rested on his arm. “I love you too,” he said.
And he did.
Cries of pain interrupted Bray and Winnie’s embrace there in the backways. It was unclear to either of them how far or from what direction the cries came.
A young male voice.
Two sharp grunts.
It raised Bray’s hackles. Winnie’s too, to judge from her reaction.
Bray had halted her onward hurtle, drawn her into his arms, felt her body melt against his, her mouth open to his lips.
Now the pitch of another victim’s pain shot lightning bolts through her and split them apart.
“Come on,” she said, pulling him along.
“Wait. Where?”
“I’m pretty sure it came from over there.” She pressed forward again.
Winnie must have the night vision of a cat, thought Bray. Or my kisses have energized her.
She gripped his hand as the close warm air breezed past them. The walls swept by like batter made of rotting wood, curving out of the pitch black on either side, dim disconcerting rollers crashing without sound about them. An occasional nail snagged his suit.
The bulbs were burnt out in this section of the backways, but that didn’t stop Winnie. It felt to Bray like an endless roil of dreamtime. He had to remind himself that a knife-wielding maniac might leap out at them from anywhere at any time.
“Are you sure you’re—”
“Quiet,” she shot back.
In their first moments behind the scenes, Winnie had spoken of trusting to instinct. Now she had clearly slipped into that mode.
Shifts in temperature and air currents and an impression of black-on-black crossings signaled intersections. Winnie barreled through them, taking her and Bray left or right without a moment’s hesitation.
Abruptly she slowed, stopped. “That’s the place. I’m sure of it.” She raised her arm and pointed.
Two boxes of light floated ahead, canted at a peculiar angle. Bray felt imbalanced in their presence. They hovered there like pointillist paintings stippled in gradations of gray, a sense of menace emanating from them.
“Careful now,” said Bray, tensing to grapple with their killer friend.
To the right of each box was a recess, the place from which the light was coming. Bray imagined a figure crouched to spring. Winnie wouldn’t have a chance.
“Let me by,” he said.
He gripped her, turned her, maneuvering past her. Do it, he thought, don’t let fear creep in. He raised his hands defensively as he walked into the light and turned toward the recess.
Nothing.
No… but… tricked!
The slasher was there below, ready to spring. Bray’s skin flushed with quick sweeps of heat. His eyes were still adjusting. The slasher charging at him had the advantage.
A knife lunged from the darkness.
Nothing.
No movement at all. No slasher. No knife.
Winnie came up to him. She peered down, then averted her eyes. “Christ,” she said.
Crouching closer, he saw what Winnie had seen. Another victim, some old guy, a teacher type, someone he’d never seen. The angle the man’s head lay at made no sense.
Then Bray saw that his neck had been brutally sliced open. There was blood everywhere. A crude parabola of gore coated one segment of the glass, a window onto an empty restroom.
I’m not seeing this, he told himself.
“Bray?” Winnie’s throat was flayed raw.
