He strutted up and down the halls of Coral Beach High as he’d often done before. The pale green lockers and tan walls were all very familiar to him, some even sparking fond memories. There was a spot between a row of lockers and the girl’s rest room where he’d carved the anarchy symbol with a protractor late last year. It had been the only constructive use he had gotten out of the tool that semester. One of the lockers on his right still had a dent in it from where he had punched it after Greer had broken up with him.
He stopped at one classroom and looked into it.
There she was.
Cathy Kennessy, in all her grace and style. Her long hair shimmering in the morning light, her lips so juicy he could practically taste them... and he was convinced he could smell her specific aroma from where he stood.
She intoxicated him.
She spotted him outside, and smiled at him.
“Come out!” he mouthed silently, motioning toward himself with both hands.
She shook her head no, giggling.
“Come on!” he pretended to plead, bending down as if he were about to get onto his knees.
She relented, raising her hand.
“Yes, Miss Kennessy?” Mr. Calender said, pointing to Cathy.
“May I be excused? I kinda need to go to the little girls’ room.”
Calender smiled, motioning toward the door. “Go right ahead.”
Cathy smiled, scooping up her book bag and heading for the door as the class resumed its discussion. She joined Grendel and the two of them began walking down the hall away from the classroom together.
“So, how’s Mike?” Grendel asked Cathy in mock concern. Although he was looking at her, he was not even attempting to make eye contact with her as he asked.
“Fine. In fact, he’ll be out this evening, so we’ll both be at your party,” she smiled, relishing in the news.
“Cool,” he said, trying to sound overly enthusiastic about Mike’s presence. Looks like I’ll be going with Plan ‘B’ then, he thought to himself. “So what about Xander, is he...”
“Yup. In fact, I’ve been thinking about trying to fix him and Sara up,” she said in a hushed tone, as if there were someone around to hear it.
“That’d be great. We should talk about that at the party.”
“Sure,” she said before she gave him a little hug and walked back to class. He watched her walk away intently, paying close attention to the slight swivel of her hips.
Tomorrow.
3:15.
Xander Drew got home from school and walked into his room. He went over to his computer, as usual, and jiggled the mouse.
Nothing.
“Oh yeah,” he remembered, slapping himself in the forehead. “I had to turn it off.”
He pressed the on button.
Still, nothing.
“What the hell?” he almost shouted.
He grabbed a screwdriver and opened up the tower, looking inside. The CPU was completely fried, melted to the rest of the machinery so bad that he wouldn’t even be able to pry it off. It would take him weeks to replace, and that was if money was good.
“Damn,” he sighed, tossing the screwdriver down and taking a chip out of the floor.
4:30.
“Frig!” Mike screamed at the little computerized character named Quartz on the screen as he let out a full force eye beam on his character, Ragna-Rock. Ragna went down easily, but then Diamond, the tag-team partner in this match, came out and started to lay it into Quartz. Diamond was the only female character in the game, and sparkled just like her namesake on the screen. She did a kiss attack, using her powers to sap Quartz’s energy. It always reminded him of the effect that Cathy’s kisses had on him, making him smile just that little bit more. Then, just as Mike was about to finish off Quartz ‘HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER!’ flashed across the screen in bright gold letters. He turned to see who had placed the money into the game, and smiled when he did. “Jerk. Why’d you do that?”
“Ah, you would’ve lost anyway,” Xander replied, with Cathy and Sara behind him. “After the kiss attack, Diamond is really vulnerable to Quartz’s punches and kicks.”
Mike sighed. “How true. But I can still beat you.”
“Right,” Xander replied sarcastically, then took the opposing control stick and selected Granite and Obsidian to battle Mike’s Diamond and Ragna-Rock. “I thought these guys didn’t have any decent fighting games?”
“Came in yesterday,” Mike answered absentmindedly, his tongue sticking out as he concentrated on the game.
Cathy and Sara took that as their cue that there would be no more attention paid to them for at least five minutes, both of them walking across the room.
“Boys will be boys,” Cathy muttered to herself, sitting down on the racecar ride. The comedic cartoon announcer was taunting them from within the screen, telling them to ‘race against ten other competitors for the world cup’. It was already beginning to get annoying.
“Yeah, but did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“That secret service guy got killed last night, along with some old couple.”
“No way,” Cathy said, her eyes widening.
“Do you think the guy was right?” she whispered.
“What?” Cathy responded, astonished.
“About Xander doing it.”
“No way! It’s Xander we’re talking about.”
“Yeah, but if you did it, wouldn’t you kill only the guy who thought you did it?”
Cathy acknowledged this. “Still. Sorry, Sara, it’s just not in him.”
Sara sighed. “You’re right,” she admitted, sounding less then sure.
“Autopsy report, Coral Beach Morgue. Thursday, the 22nd. Second report of this nature in three days. First of three victims, beginning autopsy now.”
Harry Ford had lost his patented sense of humor. Some would call the jokes he
