Prom Ditchers

"Quite messing with it!" Mikey scolded, knocking Frank's hands away from his tie.

"I can't help it, I feel like I'm being strangled!" Frank protested as he started fiddling with it again, then successfully ripping it from his neck. "Gotcha!"

"You of all people should be used to wearing ties, you go to catholic school!" Mikey said,

"Hey, hey, hey! Just because I'm used to wearing them doesn't mean I like it!"

"Shut up guys! You wanna get us caught?" Gerard hissed at them.

"Sorry…"

Gerard rolled his eyes at the both of them as he made his way out the old, high-arched window. Ray, Mikey, Bob and himself were in the middle of sneaking Frank out of his catholic school prom—not only after sneaking out of their own. Right now, they were climbing out of the second story window, and this only worked because they had a gutter to slide down to safety.

"Very Assassin's Creed…" Frank said smoothly climbing out the window,

"What's Assassin's Creed?" Ray asked looking up at him perplexed,

"I have no idea…"

They all decided to consider Frank mentally damaged and continued down the gutter.

When they were safely on the ground, they took off towards the outer aspects of the school grounds.

"So, what are we going to do now?" Mikey asked when they were in the clear,

"Well the night is young… Let's raise some hell!" Gerard said grinning evilly.

They all thought on that for a moment, "What the hell, let's do it."
--

"Um Gerard, when you said 'Let's raise some hell!' earlier, I was thinking something much more different than this." Frank said simply, watching as Gerard came back with ice cream.

"Hey, ice cream is badass. SO, it is the key basis to raising hell." Gerard stated, handing one to each of them.

"Oh yeah? Where'd you read that?"

"Badass Magazine. Not to mention its just common sense."

"You can't be serious." Ray said smirking,

Gerard pulled out a copy of the ever real Badass Magazine and raised his eyebrows.

"It appears I stand corrected."

"Yuck!" Mikey gasped, spitting out the ice cream he just licked.

"What's wrong?" Gerard asked,

"This tastes awful." Mikey said, his nose scrunched in distaste.

The other 4 boys looked at their ice cream and couldn't resist tasting it for themselves.

Gerard and Ray spat it out while Frank looked like he was about to throw up. Bob on the other hand swallowed it roughly and made one hell of a face afterwards.

"OH MY GOD," Frank choked out, "What the hell is this made out of?!"

"I don't know but it's probably the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted in my life!" Gerard said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

They all agreed with vehement nods. Suddenly Frank had a s***-faced grin plastered to his face.

"What?" Mikey asked him,

"You guys skipped out on your proms too, right?" Frank asked,

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Well, what would you say about crashing a prom and see how many suckers fall for drinking the punch with this stuff in it?" he motioned to the supposed-to-be-ice cream melting in his hand.

"Tempting..." Gerard said, "Are we planning on crashing our prom?"

"That was the idea," Frank said, "you guys are always telling me that it's a living hell in that school dealing with bullies and plastic-princesses all day. So how about we consider this payback?"

--


"This is perfect!" Mikey whispered excitedly, practically jumping for joy. The guys were stationed outside the front doors to the school, making sure everything was planned and ready. They had all changed into their dress clothes to blend in with the crowd, all except for Frank because he was already perfectly dressed for their sabotage.

"Okay, so let's go over everything one more time," Frank said, "We'll all go in one at a time so we don't look too obvious, I'll make make my way around the room while you guys set things up for the sprinklers to go off at midnight. When you're done with that, Gerard," Frank motioned to the dashingly dressed Gerard whose raven hair fell lightly in front of his eyes, "you'll come over by me and cover while I slip some of this into the punch." He flashed a small bottle of the melted ice cream from his inside pocket and then tucked it away again. "After that, we just sit back and watch the hysteria." Frank finished with a smile,

"Got it,"

--


Frank pushed open the heavy wooden door and slipped inside the packed, dark-lit room. Music was pounding in his ears as he passed behind the huge speakers, the DJ was playing pop-techno and the dance floor was packed with with girls swinging their hips and grinding on their boyfriends. There was a line of boys and girls sitting on chairs at the edge of the room, they were the least populars sitting on the sidelines. There was nothing wrong with them, they were just like everybody else in the room, except these boys and girls were much more real and true to themselves. One boy looked over at Frank standing by the punch bowl at the end of the room and looked him up and down. Frank looked back at him and nodded, as if silently saying I'm the same as you. The boy nodded back and went back to watching the dancers.

Gerard came up behind Frank and stealthily tugged on his sleeve, standing next to each other and looking as if they didn't know the other was there.

"Everything set up?" Frank asked Gerard,

"Everythings perfect," Gerard replied, pretending to look around the room.

Frank saw Ray, Mikey, and Bob leaning idly against the wall by the only exit from the auditorium. Ray shifted his eyes to Frank's and nodded, Frank acknowledged him and turned to the punch bowl with his back to the room. He took the bottle from his inside pocket and shook it a little, watching the putrid pink liquid swish around. Gerard moved so that he was slightly in front of Frank as Frank opened the bottle and poured it all into the red-colored punch. It swirled around in the bowl and the color difference vanished almost instantly. Frank grabbed the ladle lying beside the bowl and stirred to make sure it was completely mixed.

Frank stowed the bottle back into his pocket and walked away with Gerard. Mission accomplished.

Frank waved his hand at the boy he had made eye contact with earlier, the boy looked at him with eye brows raised as Frank tapped his watch before exiting the room with the other four boys.

--


The guys stood in the hallway in front of a door labeled "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY".

"Found us some A-class seats for the show," Mikey said, jingling the janitors keys in front of them, smiling widely.

"How did you score those?" Frank asked, astonished.

"I have my sources." Mikey said, trying to sound mysterious.

"More like teacher's pet," Gerard chided,

"Hey! I resent that." Mikey said indignantly.

"Still, it's pretty useful."

Mikey narrowed his eyes at his brother before flipping through the different keys until he found the one he was looking for.

"How did you know it was this one?" Frank asked as he watched Mikey slide the selected key into the slot.

"They're numbered," Mikey pointed out, showing him the assortment.

Mikey turned the key and opened the door to a small room with mini TV screens.

"The security surveillance room, very nice..." Frank said in approval, seating himself in the one chair at the center of the screens.

"So many cameras and yet so many kids still get hurt." Gerard said soberly.

Frank shook his head, "These cameras only watch the auditorium and the parking lot, apparently the teachers' cars are more important than the students."

"I think they also record the school plays through here." Ray pointed out. A small recorder sat on the desk next to them.

"Hey, wanna record what happens at midnight? Wouldn't it be nice, say if you have a bad day, you come home, put in this tape and reflect on this soon to be happy memory? It'd cheer me right up." Frank said brightly.

"Let's do it!"

Mikey grabbed a blank tape from a nearby shelf and placed it in the recording bank of the tech units.

It's five minutes till midnight," Frank stated, looking down at his watch. "We should also start seeing people getting sick from the punch. Ah, there's one now!"

They all leaned into the screens as they watched a girl take a sip of punch through black and white vision. Her hand flew up to her mouth as she made a vomiting motion and ran from view of the first camera and the second one watched her rush out the auditorium door towards the bathrooms. They all laughed and high-fived each other, relishing in their success.

"This is awesome," Frank said, happily watching as another student took some punch.

"Hey, where's Bob?" Ray asked.

They all looked around, Bob wasn't there.

"But," Gerard began, looking puzzled, "He was with us a minute ago, he was with us in the auditorium."

"Check the cameras,"

They scanned the TV screens until finally, "Found him!"

Ray pointed to the TV screen all the way to the right, Bob was clearly seen in it.

"What is he doing?" Mikey asked looking a little nervous,

Bob was standing at the edge of the room, he slouched as he stood and was swaying like he was hammered. He looked sickly now too. Bob was watching a pair of girls talking and laughing with each other. And then he started walking towards them.

"What is he doing?" Mikey repeated, now definitely feeling uneasy.

"I don't know, but he looks like hell." Gerard said, watching Bob's every step.

Then suddenly, Bob launched himself at the girls, catching one by the neck and biting down hard.

"OH MY GOD!!!" Mikey screamed,

"WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING?!" Frank shouted, "HE'S NOT A CANNABAL! ...Is he?"

"I don't know what's wrong with him but we have to do something," Ray said seriously, already by the door.

Suddenly the smoke detectors went off all around the school and it began to pour down in all the hallways and rooms, including theirs.

"S***!" Gerard swore,

"Come on," Ray opened the door and they sprinted through the hallway, shielding their eyes from the downpour.

They knew they were getting close to the auditorium because they could hear the screams of terror reverberate through the hallways. It was making Franks blood run cold as he listened to them.

Suddenly a figure moved into the middle of the narrow hallway, the sprinklers giving it a watery shadow. The boys skidded to a halt on the wet floor, their hair and clothes matted to their skin. The figure stepped forward, it was slouched with long black hair, it's head dangling in front of itself.

"H-Hey, are you all right?" Frank called out, this wasn't right.

The figure's head lifted and revealed a girl's face that was twisted in insanity. The figure launched itself at Frank, screaming and flailing it's arms madly. Frank dodged away just in time and the figure collided with a row of lockers. It sat there for a moment stunned before trying to get up.

"Oh no you don't!" Gerard broke the glass on the fire extinguisher case and snatched it, ramming it into the thing's head. It collapsed by the lockers, twitching slightly.

"Thanks for that." Frank said breathlessly,

"Don't mention it." Gerard replied, looking just as shaky as everyone else.

"That was Maggie Morrison." Mikey said, "What the hell happened to her?"

More screams erupted from the auditorium and the four boys booked towards the door. They found the right hallway and Frank recognized a boy standing in front of the auditorium door. It was the lonely boy Frank had warned earlier, and he wasn't alone now, almost every least popular was there.

"You guys all right?" Frank asked, stopping next to him.

The boy nodded then shook his wet hair from his face, "We made it out just in time, everything went to hell after that guy bit Tiffany Stewart."

"Bob," Ray said quietly. They all looked at each other. They didn't know if there was going to be a way out of this without hurting Bob.

"We have to get in there." Gerard stated, taking a step towards the door.

"NO!" The boy snapped, blocking Gerard. "Everyone in there's gone psycho and they're attacking everyone in sight. We sealed up the door so nobody's getting in or out."

"Zach, we can't just let them die--" Mikey began,

"Why not?" Zach challenged, anger rising in his voice "Everyone knows what they've done, they've made our lives a living hell! You three, of all people, you guys should know that."

Gerard, Ray, and Mikey all twitched involuntarily.

"This... This still isn't right." Mikey said, his fists clenched at his sides.

"Mikey's right," Ray said, moving to stand by his friend, "hell, they deserve to be beaten bloody, but not killed... Not like this."

Gerard was silent, staring at his feet. His hands were balled into fists and his jaw was clenched. His eyes were hard and troubled with anger.

"Gerard.." Frank said quietly, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Gerard sucked in a breath and exhaled roughly, Frank felt his body shake under his fingers.

"We'll try to save them." He said finally, his voice strained "But if there is truly nothing we can do, I will not take unnecessary risks for them."

Zach looked into Gerard's face for a moment before making a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat. "Fine." he hissed. He made a motion with his hand and two students removed the two chairs barring the door. "Just remember, when you step in there. You step in there alone."

Gerard held the fire extinguisher in his hand, Ray was holding the emergency ax, Mikey had a crow bar from the janitor's office, and Frank clenched his sheathed pocket knife he hid in his school uniform.

"It was nice knowin' you guys." Frank said, staring at the heavy wooden door shielding them from the blood bath inside. The sprinklers were still going, and that was going to make things difficult.

"I couldn't have asked for better friends." Ray said.

"If we don't die tonight I promise never to buy any of you ice cream ever again." Gerard said.

They all smiled at that.

"Well," Frank began, taking hold of the doorknob, "here goes nothing."

Frank wrenched open the door and they rushed inside. Their battle cries echoed through the halls as the door closed and the chairs were put back in place.

"Amnesty is as good for those who give it as for those who receive it. It has the admirable quality of bestowing mercy on both sides." -Victor Hugo