“Take care now, hear?”
“Thank you, Mister Sheriff.” Gerber nodded politely, a grin on his face. Then he picked up the triangulated day flag, did a one-eighty, and headed for the school entrance.
Young couples were cascading now through the double doors, bottlenecked at the table Blackburn had just left. He had entrusted a padlock to the bristle-lipped shop teacher, Elwood Dunsmore-the final padlock that would be snapped on right at the stroke of eight, no more students allowed in after that, no more anybody. The only keys were in the packet he had left with Zane Fronemeyer and on the ring of metal hanging from the sheriff’s belt.
A limousine drew up to disgorge another young couple, fear and anticipation on their faces.
Blackburn clucked and shook his head. Waste of money, as far as he was concerned. Most people made do with their own vehicles, parking in the lot on his left. But there were always some, too extravagant for their own damn good, who saw fit to hire fancy-dan automobiles, hoping to impress their dimbulb classmates with a display of gold-plated rungs up life’s ladders.
Yeah, he remembered the kind from his own high school days. One of that crowd had reached his last red-gold rung a tad early, on prom night. The sheriff had a dried piece of pancreas at home to prove it.
Blackburn crossed the grass on his left and found the sidewalk. From his right fist swayed three padlocks.
Kids with flashlights, sketched shadows in the darkness, waved cars in off the street and left or right along a gauntlet of volunteers who handled the parking proper. Overhead, a pallid moon drifted in and out of pewter-gray clouds.
Passing the iron-barred windows of several classrooms, Blackburn rounded the corner of the building and headed for the gym’s emergency exit door. When one lock’s hasp slid snugly into place there, its firm snap sealed off the exit as a means of escape. There would be no promjumpers on his watch, at least not the kind that signed in and slipped out.
High exuberant shouts erupted in the parking lot at the sheriff’s back. He thought of his son and two daughters, how in two short years Blitz, a sophomore, would drive or be driven into this very parking lot for her prom. Yesterday, a slight injury in gym class had brought Daddy to school, where he received assurances from Nurse Gaskin and a handshake from Principal Buttweiler. The whole encounter had given Blackburn a chill.
But they said it built character, this prom ordeal. And he had survived it, him and his wives.
“Hello, Sheriff!” Kids passed by, crossing the lot, a hint of challenge in their voices, but respect too.
He raised a hand to them. “Be careful now, you hear? Don’t go catching any stray knives!”
“We won’t!” But they well might. Only a few teachers, and the principal of course, knew which couple would die tonight.
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 sturdy door now made impassable.
Nobody 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!
Damn that dimwit janitor.
Every year for the last three, the sheriff had chewed Gerber out about this, making up some crap 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 hell 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 butt.
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 quite—”
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 breasts, 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 them-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 God, 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 assert 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 basement 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 dolt-and with his miniature cleaver sever the man’s jugular.
In his imaginings, Dex effortlessly disarmed the bastard, 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.”