chunk.
But it wasn’t a chunk as much as a resonant, wet splap! Mr. Sladder was standing straight as a pole, head bent back. The ax blade was buried in the middle of his face, bisecting his eyes.
“Dag fat psychopath,” he gurgled, staggering back. “Run, Nellapee…” Then he collapsed like a bag of sticks.
Penelope’s blouse was torn open as she turned to run. Two big soft hands plopped on her breasts and pulled. Instantly she was aloft. She was being carried away.
She kicked and screamed. Hot breaths brushed her ear. It was the ax-wielder, the horse-killer. He must’ve come around the other side of the stable. His big hands roughly kneaded her breasts and crotch as he carried her on.
—Be careful with her! the odd slushy voice demanded.
Slats of moonlight passed Penelope’s face. The horse killer seemed to be sniffing her hair, and then he was licking her neck. The harder Penelope squirmed, the more securely she worked herself into his grasp.
Then she thought: Plums.
It was an errant thought, yet very clear in her mind. Plums. The average person certainly would find it peculiar for a young woman to think of plums while being abducted by a madman in the middle of the night. Nevertheless, the image glowed: squashing plums, bursting them. She thrust her hand into the figure’s trousers, into his briefs. His erection felt like a hot bone. Thinking of plums, she grabbed his testicles and squeezed them so hard her hand cramped.
The plums, disappointingly, did not burst. But the figure’s wavering deep yowl was reward enough. He dropped her at once and folded up in the impact of pain.
Penelope ran.
She trampled down the corridor, banging through swing doors. No footsteps could be heard pursuing her. Next she squealed in joy, for in a moment she bolted through the exit.
The open night air felt good on her exposed breasts. She used the moon’s ghostly light to guide her out the gate and to the dark outline that was her car. I made it! she thought. I escaped! God only knew where the horse-killer was taking her, and what he planned to do. Penelope careered around her Datsun ZX, jumped in behind the wheel, and slammed the door. She reached for the ignition, had her fingers on the key, was about to turn the engine over, and only then did she realize in slow, sinking horror that someone was sitting beside her in the passenger seat.
—
CHAPTER 6
“Good to see you, Wade! It’s good to have you back!”
“Wha—” Wade said. A waxlike, idiot grin opposed him as he stepped through the vestibule. The lobby was dismal with cluttered dark and geometric edges of tile shine. Standing thinly before him was Dean Saltenstall.
“It’s a pleasure to be back, sir,” Wade, said, you back stabbing two faced grinning fruitbar.
The dean offered his hand, which Wade shook with some reluctance.
“Affluence is no excuse for one to become separated from the real working world. Isn’t that what life’s all about? Honest work?”
What do you know about honest work, you blue blood hypocritical fuck? “I couldn’t agree more, sir.”
“Good, good! Then let’s go.” The dean’s grin never faltered. “We start at the bottom and we work our way up, right, Wade?”
Wade didn’t know what the old crank was talking about, but he suspected that the reference to starting at the bottom might have something to do with cleaning toilets for minimum wage. They moved briskly down dim halls which smelled of floor wax. Their heels clapped on shiny tile. Wade followed the dean’s back, wishing for a slingshot.
“I’m quite proud of our lab facilities.” The dean looked like a sapling in a pinstripe suit. Preposterously overstyled grayish hair made his tight tanned face appear fake, like bad cosmetic surgery. “And I’m equally proud of our maintenance staff.” He stopped at the door. The door read “Janitorial.”
And the dean was beginning to snicker.
“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” the dean said.
Wade fumbled. “Why?”
“Why else? To teach you a lesson. You’re a rich, pompous hooligan who’s been breaking my ass for six years. But now, finally, I get to return the favor. Justice is so sweet.”
“So that’s the game,” Wade concluded.
“Indeed it is, so I’d walk softly from here on. Your father is at his final limit—your future is in my hands now. One more mistake, Wade, just one more, and your father will disown you.”
This Wade knew to be fact. He was in a minefield now.
The dean’s grin turned evil, his true colors. “I’m your lord and master from here on, Wade, and don’t you forget it. The rules are simple. You will work this job to the full satisfaction of the department, and you will carry out your duties as prescribed by your immediate supervisor without hesitation and without argument. Otherwise, you will be fired, and it will be my personal pleasure to see that your father is promptly notified.”
The dean had him now, and Wade knew it. If he got fired, he’d be cut off for good. But at least it couldn’t get any worse.
Or could it?
“Did you say something about a supervisor?”
“Indeed I did,” the dean replied. “And here he is now.”
A door clicked shut. A shadow crossed the room—huge, wide as a beer barrel. “Good to see you, Wade. Good to have you back.”
“No,” Wade muttered. “Not you. Anyone but—”
Professor Besser came forward. He seemed to be limping a bit. The plump, slyly smiling face and trimmed goatee made him look like the devil on his way to the fat farm. “I can’t tell you how enthused I am to be supervising you in your new…position.”
The dean handed Wade rubber gloves, a smock, and a toilet brush. “Tools of the trade, my boy.”
“It’s fun work, Wade.” Besser smiled. “As you’ll soon see.”
Wade took the “tools.” Then the dean turned to Besser and said, “I’m afraid there’s been a mishap on the second floor. It seems an entire bank of toilets became…clogged simultaneously, and they overflowed. Ghastly mess, and quite malodorous.”
“I’m sure Wade will be pleased to take care of it.”
“And remember,” the dean added, “honest work, Wade.” Then he threw his head back and laughed, disappearing down the hall.
“No time like the present, eh?” Besser said. “You will clean every toilet in this building, every day, and you will also mop every bathroom floor and scour every sink. And you know what they say, don’t you? A job not done right isn’t worth doing at all.”
“Oh, is that what they say?” Wade remarked. One day I’ll clean these toilets with your fat face. Now, that’s worth doing.
“I’ll be in my office should you need me. Have fun, Wade.”
Wade simmered. But as Besser turned to leave, Wade noticed something. Did Besser have a pendant around his neck? It looked like a black amulet on a black string. It looked like a cross.
But Besser was an atheist, like all college professors. Why wear a cross?
“Professor? Is that a cross you’re wearing?”
Besser didn’t answer. Instead he looked back with an unfocused gleam in his eye. Even more peculiar was what he said next. “Great things may await you, Wade. The most wondrous things.”
“Huh?”
Almost dreamily, Besser walked away. And that was odd too. He strode off in a quickened limp, like a man, perhaps, who’d been recently shot in the buttocks.