Chapter Two: Lock 'er Up!
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"God, Winslow is such a shithole," Eric said as we got off the bus. "So many Asians, and you just know. You know that they're ABB. All of them."
"Just like all the white guys are skinheads?" Kyle asked.
"No. Not like that," Eric said. "Because they're not."
"And I know at least fifteen Asians at the school who aren't ABB," I said, pulling my hair out of my lowered hood. "A few of them went to our Elementary school."
"Oh yeah," Stan said. "Weren't they those yaoi fangirls?"
Eric snorted, and then he broke out into a full-on belly laugh as we approached the school. "Oh, God, I remember that. Helping out Craig and Tweek to realize their true feelings… Why aren't they at Winslow?"
"Clarendon," I said. "Well, Tweek is there. I think Craig might be. Unless he got into Arcadia."
"Do I want to know how you know, Taylor?" Kyle asked.
I just smiled at my friend and opened the door. Carefully, I stepped aside, just in case. You never knew what could happen with doors. The amount of times I'd been killed by one was… well, it was at least eight. It's not pleasant.
"Right," Stan said as he went inside. "Dude, sometimes that smile is creepy."
"Yeah, right," Eric said. "Like Taylor could look creepy."
"Strangely, I agree with Cartman," Kyle said as he followed Stan inside.
"Good," Eric said. "You should agree with me more, Kyle. We can easily make enough money for everything."
I stepped inside, following my friends. Winslow High School wasn't the nicest of high schools in town, but at the least, the groundskeeping team kept it in relatively good shape. Gang tags were washed off lockers usually within a day or so, and there were gangs. The major gangs of Brockton Bay had representation among our student populace.
Eric wasn't entirely wrong about the ABB. The Azn Bad Boyz, horrible name, often came to school wearing their gang colors of red and green. Way to fucking ruin Christmas, guys. They needed a visit from… Never mind. I wasn't sure that sort of thing would even change their mind at all. They liked to hang around the east hall, mostly hanging among each other and harassing the other Asian kids to get in with the gang.
Not all could resist.
The other major gang presence were the skinheads, the Empire Eighty-Eight. They tended to hang out together too, but they were a bit more confrontational with minorities. Racist little pricks. I mean, they never really bothered me much, but that was probably because I was the "right" type of person.
"God, Winslow is a shithole," Kyle said, glancing at the skinheads gathered at one end of the main hall.
"What did I just say outside?" Eric asked. "Too many gang members shitting up the joint."
"It's just a symptom of the greater problem," I said with a shrug. "Let's get to class."
"What, no locker time?" Eric asked.
"Don't need it for computers," I said. "And Stan's buying lunch today. I'll go drop stuff off after Mrs. Knott's class."
"Makes sense," Kyle said. "Plus, it lets you avoid certain—"
"Taylor!" I froze at the voice and turned my head slightly. A familiar redheaded girl, flanked by what I could only call lackies, walked up to me with a deceptive smile on her face. Emma Barnes used to hang out with the boys and I… well, until Eric decided that all gingers were soulless and evil. Still, Emma and I had been pretty close friends for a while.
We weren't anymore, but we had been. Something went down with her; I never found out what, but she changed. She became practically a different person.
"Emma," I said, mostly because if I didn't acknowledge her, I knew that things would get messy. "What do you want?"
"Nothing, really," Emma said. "Just wanting to wish you a welcome back. Looks like your fashion sense hasn't improved any over the Winter Holiday."
"Like someone like her could afford good fashion anyway," said the shorter white girl to her right. Madison Clements. She was the kind of girl that you could just say was "cute" and not much else, but she knew how to work it. She had that cute innocent act down pat. "She'd probably use any extra money to get strung out anyway."
I rolled my eyes.
"She does have a history, right Emma?" asked the other brunette with her on her left. Lola Ritter was someone who'd always been among the popular kids, and she'd known me since grade school. I was never friends with her, but Emma and I had hung out with her a couple times. "Remember that time with the cats?"
"Oh, fuck you," I said.
"Yeah, leave her alone," said Kyle. "She didn't do anything to you."
"Oh, Kyle," Emma said, and then she looked further around me.
"Ginger bitch," Eric said in greeting. "Please, go on. Talk more shit. I'm sure the principal would love to hear what you have to say. He held out a smartphone with a grin on his face.
"You wouldn't dare, fat-ass," said Emma.
"Try me, you soulless daywalking whore," Eric said, holding his phone out more. He moved his phone even higher, as a hand reached out for it. "Oh Hell no. That was attempted assault, and I caught it on camera, Hess. You'll get kicked off the track team for sure."
"Fuck you, Cartman," said Sophia Hess, one of Emma's newer friends. She was an acerbic athletic black girl who… Well, as far as she knew, she just liked to push me around when my friends weren't there to back me up. She doesn't remember the fact that she's killed me three times this school year alone. Probably for the best, but holy crap, she had anger issues.
Hell, I thought I did sometimes, but getting killed a few dozen times oddly helps with that.
"Delete the video, Cartman," Sophia said, her eyes narrowing.
"How about, no?" Eric asked. "Maybe I should just keep it for safekeeping…"
"All right, hold up," Stan said, stepping between the two of them. "Sophia, Emma, how about you just walk away? It's the first day of the new year. We don't need to deal with the principal."
Emma sniffed. "Only if Cartman deletes the video."
"Not on your life, you ginger-haired freak," said Eric.
"Eric?" I asked. I really just wanted to get to class. "It's not worth it."
Eric looked at me and then back at the girls. He let out a sigh and tapped on his phone. "Fine. It's gone."
"Can we all just go to class now?" I asked. There was a reason I preferred to hang around the guys than the girls of this school. It was far less complicated.
Emma looked at me oddly. "Yeah. Keep your boyfriend under control. We all remember what happened with Heidi Turner when she didn't."
"Eric's just a friend," I said.
"Right," Emma said and walked away. As her friends joined her, she casually turned her head back toward me. "Oh, Taylor, I smelled something funny near your locker. You didn't leave anything in there over the holidays, did you?"
I blinked. "I don't think so…"
"You should go check it out!" Emma called, and I really couldn't help but wonder what the heck was going on. Emma was never concerned about me these days. Something had to be up.
"I'll go check it out and get to class afterward," I said. "Cover for me with Mrs. Knott, Kyle."
"Okay, dude," Kyle said and gave me a thumbs-up. We split up in the hallway so the boys could get to their morning classes, and I could get my locker. Hopefully whatever it was, it wasn't too bad. I really didn't want to have to ask the janitorial staff for help cleaning it up.
My locker was on the second floor of Winslow, one of the reasons it was such a pain in the ass to deal with. There weren't many active classrooms on this floor; Winslow was a school too big for the number of teachers it actually had. There were maybe a few senior classes that were here, but mostly it was just the lockers. Of which, mine was down the east wing, two lockers from the end. They were typical height High School lockers, taller than me, albeit not by much, and they were a little wider than normal, but that worked well enough.
When I got near mine, immediately I gagged. I could smell a miasma of ick just on the end of the hallway. I didn't know how Emma knew it was—fuck, was she really that much of a bitch? Just smelling it, there was no way to tell which locker it came from, but Emma said specifically that it was mine. Pulling my hood up and tightening it helped a bit with the smell, but it didn't help really enough.
I got to my locker, and I put in the combination. When I opened it, immediately I let loose the contents of my stomach on the ground. God. Someone had stuffed my locker with just a whole mess of ick. Used feminine hygiene products that smelled like they'd been sitting there for far too fucking long. I threw up again.
As I was hunched over from throwing up, someone shoved me from behind, pushing me into the pile of ick in my locker. I stepped on something and slipped as the locker door slammed shut behind me. Before I could even stabilize myself, I felt the coat hook on the door dig right through the back of my skull.
Guess I was missing school today, after all. At least I wasn't going to have to smell this disgusting shit anymore.
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"Dude, where's Taylor?" Stan asked Kyle after his morning class. He and Cartman shared World Studies with her for second period.
"I don't know. She never made it to Mrs. Knott's class," Kyle said.
"You don't think…"
"The ginger bitch did something to her locker?" Cartman asked. He looked down at his friends. "I don't care that she's a girl, guys. I'm going to hit her next time she talks shit like that."
"Cartman, you know that's a bad idea," Stan said. "You could seriously hurt her. I mean dude, you're a fucking linebacker. She's a model."
"That, and Hess might come after you," said Kyle. "Remember what Taylor said about her."
"Yeah, yeah," Cartman said. "Still, she would have to go after The Wall to do it. Let's go see what's going on with Taylor's locker that's taking her so long."
"Next class starts soon though," Kyle said.
"Screw that," Cartman said as he started for the stairs. "Mr. G can lick my balls."
"Yeah," Stan said.
"Taylor is more important," Kyle said after a few seconds, following the other two.
It didn't take long for the trio to make it up to Taylor's locker. Immediately, they started gagging at the smell, but the pool of blood at the base of the locker had them worried.
"Oh, God, who has the combination?" Stan asked.
"Don't look at me, dude. Taylor didn't give it to me." Kyle shook his head, but he removed one of his mittens. Sparks jumped between his fingers. "I'll get it open though."
"No, you won't," Cartman said, and he slipped some claw-tipped rings onto his right hand. He then thrust the claws into the top of the locker and grabbed down to pull. The metal bent back, and with another tug, the locker door was all the way open.
Taylor's hooded body hung limply on the door's coathook, blood dripping down. Flies were landing on her open, unblinking eyes, and some rats had already started to nibble.
"Oh my God, they killed Taylor!" Stan cried.
"Those bastards!" Kyle said.
Then the bell rang.
Cartman snapped some photos of the inside and of Taylor's dead body. "This and the video earlier are enough to pin it on Hess. Let's go ahead and call the cops."
"You didn't delete it?" Kyle asked.
"Hell no." Cartman shook his head. "I knew those bitches were up to something. And now Taylor's dead."
"Right," Stan said. "Justice can be done… and we can deal with class."
"Good for us," Kyle said sarcastically.
