The Devil Next Door (4 page)

Unlike so many of the others that ran the maze of high school looking for their slice of cheese, Macy had ambitions. School and study came easy to her, so early in her freshman year she decided to go to law school upon graduation and commenced to arrange her classes accordingly. Yes, a good law school. Then maybe criminal law followed by district attorney and even judge. After that, a leap into politics and who could say where it would all end?

Yes, Macy had high ambitions, lofty aspirations, but no one save the school counselor knew this. None of her classmates would have suspected that brainy, quiet little Macy was aiming at positions of great power.

And the reason for that was Macy herself.

She was, sadly, shy and introverted and much-ignored. Much as she fantasized about being a great wolf of the courtroom, the fact was that she found it nearly impossible to give even a three-minute oral report before the class or to even speak up unless directly called on. These things, she well knew, were something she would need to work on.

On her way into Mass Media, she steered her way through the mulling bodies in the hallway and slipped into her seat. No one noticed her outside and nobody noticed her inside. She was simply a fixture in the minds of the other students, much like a chair or a desk. She sat up in front, arranging her materials, trying to shut out all the gossip and bitching that was going on around her. Sometimes it all seemed so terribly juvenile she could barely stomach it.

“—and if he doesn’t call tonight, that’s it—”

“—thinks she’s got me wrapped, dude, but she’s in for a surprise—”

“—so they blamed me, can you believe it? It’s just a little dent—”

“—that top cost me fifty bucks, so the dumb bitch puts it in the dryer—”

“—he told us to hand it in tomorrow, like I have the time—”

“—if that’s what he thinks of me, he can kiss my ass—”

And on and on and on.

Macy could hear Shannon Kittery and her pop squad discussing something almost breathlessly and she figured it probably had something to do with hair color or shoes or something else equally as revelatory.

“All right, all right, pipe down!” Mr. Benz said as he waltzed into class, chewing a big wad of bubble gum as usual. “Everybody in their seats or I’ll get my whip out.”

He opened his briefcase and snapped his gum. Everyone took their seats and the commotion died to a low murmur.

“You’re not supposed to chew gum unless you have enough to share,” Shannon Kittery giggled. A few stifled laughs broke out, mainly from her group.

Benz strode over to her, grinning. “All I’ve got is this piece,” he said, pulling the blob of wet gum from his mouth and sticking it about an inch from the end of her nose. “But you’re welcome to it. Go ahead.”

Shannon made a disgusted sound and shut up.

“Anybody else want it? No? Heck with ya.” He shoved it back in his mouth and went up to the board. He ran his fingers across the bald pate atop his head and said, “My hair look okay?”

Everyone laughed.

“Good. My hair is my life.” He sorted through some papers on his desk. “Today, I want all of you to break up into twos with your assigned study buddy and get to work on your reports. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s only the third day of school, but those reports are still due next Friday. Any questions?”

A few hands shot up.

“Good. Get to work.”

Benz sat down at his desk and read a newspaper, ignoring everyone.

Macy felt a slow painful groan well up inside her for this was the moment she dreaded most of all. For some ungodly reason, Benz had teamed her up with Chelsea Paris, one of Shannon’s ratpack. Chelsea was a varsity cheerleader and after Shannon herself, the reigning queen of the hive. Chelsea had no use for Macy and that undying love went both ways. Chelsea came over, looking like she was approaching a septic tank, and sat down at the desk nearest Macy. She crossed her arms over her impressive bosom, rolled her eyes and proceeded to look very bored.

“I don’t like this any more than you do,” Macy told her, surprised that she had even said it.

“Oh, spare me, you little nit,” Chelsea said, examining her lustrous auburn hair for split ends. “Spacey Macy. I’m so sure.”

“I was just saying—”

Chelsea held a hand up, palm towards her study buddy. “Yeah, yeah. Whatev.”

“Knock it off,” Macy said, something hot bubbling inside her. “Bitch.”

Chelsea looked like she’d been slapped.
“What did you say?”

Macy just licked her lips.

She couldn’t believe she’d just said
that.

Not that it was uncalled for, really, but she wasn’t like that, she never spoke up…but suddenly it just felt
right.
For years now she’d wanted to tell Chelsea and Shannon and the rest of the bimbo bunch exactly what she thought of them. And now, she had. It was amazing and more than a little shocking for both girls.

Macy sat there, staring at Chelsea, and it was crazy, but it was almost like there was a voice in her head, telling her what to do, egging her on. But not a thought voice, but an
actual
voice, one that was deep and confident.
Haven’t you taken enough shit?
it seemed to be saying to her.
Haven’t you given these insufferable, vacuous, superficial little bitches every chance? You’ve been pushed and pushed and pushed and each time you’ve been kind, each time you turned the other cheek, they rewarded you with treachery. It’s high time you gave a little back, don’t you think?

Macy smiled. “Bitch,” she said. “Rotten slutty fucking cheerleader bitch.”

Chelsea looked like she was going to cry. “You, you can’t talk to me like that, you little—”

“I’ll talk to a little cunt like you any way I want.”

Both girls stood up now, facing each other.

Everyone was waiting, anticipating bloodshed.

Chelsea was taller, athletic, but inside she was weak and frightened like the rest of her ratpack. Terrified of rejection, of the curse of unpopularity. Afraid to be told the truth and particularly by a socially inferior nit like Macy Merchant. And Macy? For the first time in her life, there was no fear, no indecision. She stood there, smiling, her eyes the flat gray of tombstone marble. She wanted to hurt Chelsea, she wanted to draw blood and make the little cheerleading whore beg for mercy.

The animal in her was hungry.

“Cunt,” she said.

“Ah, girls…” Benz said.

Chelsea’s eyes narrowed to slits and she slapped Macy across the face.

There were muted cheers from the ratpack.

Macy grabbed Chelsea by the throat, yanking her right over the desk and bouncing her face over its top not once, but twice. Chelsea made a strangled sound, eyes bulging, blood running from her nose. And before anyone could intervene or hope to, Macy yanked Chelsea’s head up by a handful of hair, grabbed a sharpened No. 2 pencil off the desk, and buried it in her left cheek. A few gasps rose up as Chelsea stumbled back, a look of horror on her face, the freshly sharpened No. 2 Ticonderoga jutting from her cheek, a wet trail of blood running down her jaw. Whatever sort of shock had gripped her, it now faded, and she opened her mouth to scream. Opened it wide enough that Macy could see that the tip of the pencil had impaled her tongue, gone right through it in fact.

“Yahhhggg,” Chelsea gagged, blood gushing from her mouth now and right down the front of her pink Old Navy tee. “Gaaahhhlllggg…”

It was not a pleasant sound.

Macy could smell the blood.

It made her mouth water…

7

And, at the moment Macy Merchant lost control, upstairs in Mr. Cummings 5
^th
hour BioLab, Billy Swanson waited.

Waited.

Because even the best plans were really a matter of timing and stealth. The new Billy knew this even if the old one was too goddamn stupid to realize such basic laws. So he waited until Cummings paired them up for their lab assignment. He waited until Cummings asked for a volunteer to pass out the dead frogs for dissection.

“I’ll do it,” Billy offered, grinning pleasantly.

Cummings looked surprised, but shrugged. “Go to it,” he said.

Tommy Sidel laughed as he passed by. “Think you can handle it, dip shit?”

Billy kept smiling. “I can handle anything, douchebag. Didn’t you know that?” He leaned in closer. “You still going out with Shannon Kittery, Tommy? Lucky boy. I think I’m going to fuck that bitch in the mouth.”

Tommy tensed. “You’re fucking dead,” he said.

“We’re
all
dead, Tommy. Take my word for it.”

Tommy looked like he was ready to piss nails and Billy knew that after school, old Tommy star-running-back-scumbucket-pencil-dick was going to be thinking payback and it would be the worst decision his little pea brain had ever come up with. But then, everyone knew that Tommy Stick-Up-His-Ass-Sidel had all the cunning of a box of petrified camel dung and all the charm of an open sore. Yeah, he’d come looking for payback and Billy would give him a little treat he’d never forget. And when he was done cutting on him, he’d do something to that uppity prick’s corpse that would make his own mother puke.

They were all assholes.

They all deserved to die.

For like Macy Merchant, something inside had suddenly changed. Whoever and whatever Billy Swanson had been all those years was gone. The worming caterpillar named Billy had crawled into its cocoon and emerged as a pissed-off butterfly with a brand new attitude, one that looked down in disgust at the mess the old Billy had made out of his life.

There came a time, the new Billy assured him, when enough was enough. When you stopped chewing other peoples’ shit and asking for seconds.

And that time was now.

Because the old passive shit-eating Billy days were all over. History.

He’d been picked on, put down, and shit upon…but no more. That was for the weak. And Billy was no longer weak.

The supply room in which the frogs were stored was in a large, bulky stainless steel refrigerator reached by a door at the back of the classroom. The storeroom had another adjoining door which led to the chemistry classroom. It was closed, the room on the other side empty. The storeroom was where the chemicals and lab glassware and utensils were stored.

It was also where Cummings and a few other science teachers stored their lunch bags and coats.

Billy saw Cummings’ red Thermos.

He smiled.

There was a yellow metal cabinet on the other wall which read DANGER HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS! in brilliant red letters. As always, the key was in the lock. Calmly, purposefully, Billy opened it and removed the jug of sulfuric acid. He slipped on the elbow-length protective rubber gloves and did what had to be done. Afterwards, he got the frogs out. They were in heavy plastic bags. He passed one out to each lab team and placed them unceremoniously on the wax-lined dissection trays.

It was simple.

All things truly wonderful usually were.

Then he took his seat. His lab partner was Lisa Korn, another much put upon student who always looked a bit ragged. She was jittery and prone to fits of crying and sudden fainting spells. She had all the earmarks of a future neurotic, a condition that was in many ways fostered and encouraged by the incompetence and blind eyes of the public school system. Billy always felt sorry for her, because he knew what her life was like. The abuse the other students handed out to her which the faculty simply preferred to ignore. By the nastier students and uppity bastards like Tommy Sidel and his posse, Lisa was known simply as Lovely Lisa Korn-Hole.

She looked nervous as always, afraid maybe that she had done something wrong or would say something wrong if she dared open her mouth.