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[A] Prom Queen
’
s Revenge
 
a short story by Kody Boye
Originally published in the Yellow Mama Webzine, May 2007
She’d been set up at that after
-prom party, and now, Kathy Swanson was fully aware of the mistake thathad lured her into one of the most embarrassing and humiliating moments of her life.
She and her so called “boyfriend” had gone to this party that a few of their friends threw. It was at the
grandest, most luxurious mansion in town, and only the coolest, most popular teenagers had been invited. Kathy
and her “boyfriend,” Kevin, had been voted King and Queen of the Prom, and they’d gone to the party to
celebrate.The red carpet had been rolled out for them. . . .But it had been no special occasion. No special event would have started out so well, and ended so badly.
Somehow her “friends” had put together
a video of Kathy and a guy making out. Obviously via computer,they had done this. The video was
bad,
really bad. It was actually pornographic.They had made her look like a slut, making out with another guy when she already had a boyfriend.Kevin had been so furious that, in front of everybody there, he had ripped off her dress, forced her to thefloor, and raped her!They had
laughed,
and they had done
nothing
to help her. There was no help to be had for Kathy thatnight, no help at all.And when she had run out of that big house, screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs, and down
to the police station, the police had done very little. She’d told them she’d just been raped by her boyfriend. Afterthey’d taken swabs from her vagina,
trying to procure sperm, they said she was lying.
Ly 
ing . . .They said she was lying about being raped! The whole town was out to get her, the whole entire town.
When she’d told her parents, they hadn’t believed her either. They hadn’t even liked t
he idea of her
“going to some party with a
boy 
.” They instantly grounded her.
 No one had believed Kathy. She had tried several times to go back to the police, and to convince herparents. She even went to several doctors, trying to prove her case. Fo
r three days she hadn’t showered, trying to
save the traces of sperm that might still be in her vagina.
It was only after the first week that she’d been laughed at by everyone she told, that she realized
no one
 would ever believe her. No one would believe Kathy Swanson
—who’d been voted “Most Popular” in the High
School yearbook four years in a row
—
head of the cheerleading squad, the prettiest girl in school, and thegirlfriend of Kevin Sparks
—
the most popular guy in school
—
had been raped.As she sat in the park, under a large oak tree, she wept for the fears and trials she was now going through.
She’d been assigned to go to the school counselor every day till she “got over this.”And “
this
” had happened two weeks ago.
 She decided she would skip school till she knew what to do.
Her parents were no big help in this matter, none at all. They’d grounded her from her cell phone, her
laptop, going to the mall; from everything she enjoyed.
They 
 
had suggested she be counseled for this “newproblem” that had
suddenly come up in her life. And the counselor was as big a help as her parents.Kevin had since broken up with Kathy and was now dating some other girl. Well . . . That was the
ru
mor,anyway. If it was another plan to humiliate Kathy, it was working!
“A slut, most likely,” she muttered to herself as she wiped her tears on her pink blouse. It would bestained from all her crying, but right now, she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything in the world. “I hateyou, Kevin!”
 She
did 
hate him. Before, when they’d had little fights, she’d told her friends she hated Kevin. But thetwo of them had always made up. In the end, they’d always made up.
 
The diamond ring he’d given to her as a “promise,” (of engagement) and she’d kept it. She still wasn’t
sure if he was the sole source of the problem they were having right now, but she still blamed
him
.The ring would stay on her finger till she could figure this all out, or till it became official the two of them
had 
broken up. She was still unsure why this had actually happened.
Maybe he raped me because he was angry . . . I tried to tell him it wasn’t 
me
in that video . . . But the girl had looked 
so
much like me.
Whoever the computer genius was, who had put Kathy’s face on another gir
l, or had found a look-alike,
Kathy didn’t know. She just wanted to forget this whole thing!
 
No, she didn’t.
 She wanted re
venge
.
 
[A] Prom Queen
’
s Revenge
–
Page #2
 © Kody Boye 2007-2009
 
Days she spent in the park, and nights in the cemetery near the old gas station. Now that the newcemetery had been built, nobody ever went into this old one. It was just too . . . ab
nor 
mal to go there.Now, as the moon was fully in the sky, lost in its own orb of light, Kathy leaned against a large gravestone.
In the few weeks she’d been staying here, she had come to kn
ow Erma, and she treated Erma like she was a realperson. Erma had told her (not
actually 
told her; it was more like Kathy “guessing”) she herself had been the
victim of the same type of crime as Kathy. It seemed like they were twins, separated from birth, yet born fortyyears apart.
Normally it would seem morbid for Kathy (or anybody) to talk to a corpse, much less one who’d been
eaten by the worms a long time ago. She, a once-popular teenage girl, was reduced to talking to a gravestone . . .How pathetic.
“At least Erma keeps me company,” Kathy said with a laugh as she hugged her knees, rocking back andforth on the grave, “Not like
those
 
guys . . . Who thought I was lying.”
 Maybe nobody believed her because nobody
wanted 
to. They all gave her weird looks, or fake smiles,then burst into laughter. It was like she was a standup comic, trying to make a buck off a bad joke.
She wasn’t trying to be funny, if people had perceived her that way. This could be their way of getting
back at her for being more popular than them!
Kathy didn’t doubt that, not for a bit. All of those cheerleaders and drama queens had wanted to get back
at her for stealing the guy
they 
all wanted.She shivered as one of the occasional cool, late night breezes came up. That was the downside to beingoutside at night: it was cold.
She shook her head, sighing as she pulled the small blanket she’d found in the park over her.
 
That night she would fall asleep with visions of death . . . the death of those who’d humiliated her.
 
Kathy Swanson, the girl who’d supposedly been kidnapped (as the news reports said,) was now walkingaround the local “All
-Around-
Buy” store.
The store clerk wondered why she
—
a teenage girl, who so closely resembled Kathy Swanson
—
waswalking around a store that sold no cool clothes, makeup or nail accessories. He quickly discounted that when shelooked up at him, with a smile and wave. He turned around and went back to work.
Well, at least that worked,
Kathy muttered to herself.
Hope I never have to flirt with an old man again
!
The clerk hadn’t been so old, maybe thirty, but still, between eighteen and thirty was twelve years of time, experience, and other things she’d rather not think about right now.
 Kathy browsed through the aisles like she was
a normal, average person. She’d dyed her hair and wore nomakeup to make sure that nobody recognized her. That clerk had been close, so she’d done the only thing she
could do: flirt.
She was, in essence, what some people called a “dumb blonde;” still,
she was far from dumb. How could
a “dumb blonde” so cleverly trick that man? She laughed to herself as she stopped before an aisle of belts.
 
Belts . . .
she thought.
They could come in handy.
She grabbed several belts without realizing what she was doing, but she knew she
had 
to have them.
There was an inner calling for her to pick certain ones. Men’s belts, they were . . . the nice, thick kind thatwouldn’t break very easily.
 As she went down the aisle, she continued to find things that could be useful, but at the same time, notuseful at all. These were common
man
items: hammers, nails, screwdrivers.Then she saw the large knife. Beautiful was the only word to describe it, with its gleaming, black handleand the shiny, silver-dyed blade. That was what she wanted.
But with the slight budget she was on, she’d never be able to afford it.
She peered around to see if there were cameras.There
wer 
en’t.
 Very carefully, she slipped the knife into her large pants pocket. She made sure that it was concealed,then walked to the front counter.As the clerk rung her up items, Kathy noticed he looked oddly at the amount of belts. He seemed to studythem several times before placing them all in the bag.
“Here you go, miss,” he said as he handed her the bag. Then he gripped her shoulder. “Maybe me and
 
[A] Prom Queen
’
s Revenge
–
Page #3
 © Kody Boye 2007-2009
 
you could go somewhere after my shift, huh?”
 
“Pervert!” she yelled, as she ran out of the store.
 That was the last the man saw of the girl he suspected was Kathy Swanson.It had been orchestrated in the most brilliant manner. The warehouse was the perfect place to kill them,and now, she had just made the call.
“Come on down to the old warehouse . . . Say what happened to Kathy Swanson, and I’ll drop the money.Tell anyone you’re here and I’ll personally kill you. Also . . . Bring all of the friends who helped you that night.” 
 
Now, Kathy sat up in the rafters that criss-crossed near the top of the small warehouse. The building was
so small, she only had to swing down to get back on the ground. She wouldn’t even be hurt.
 As she waited, she became tense. The gun she held had been procured from a low-class farmer. It was astandard pistol, the type police officers would have used. He probably was a retired cop, she thought, but she
didn’t dwell on it.
 They were coming.She could
 feel 
them.As the three guys walked in, she stood up on the rafters. She watched, as from behind them came thefourth.
Kevin . . .
If she said that out loud, it would have come out poisonous; so poisonous, it would have sounded likedblasphemy. Now he would get
his
, she would make sure of that.
“So,” Kevin, the presumed leader, said, “Who
ev 
er you are…are you
really 
here, or is this just some kind of 
 joke?”
 Kathy shifted her weight on the wooden beam, so the guys looked around.
“All right, it’s your game,” Kevin said, as he sat on a wooden crate. “Yeah, that was Justin, Tim and Mike
who helped me. They wanted to get back at Kathy because she was being a slut. She was probably sleeping with
that other guy when she kept saying she couldn’t go out with me. And when she and I went to the prom . . .” Here
he trailed off and laughed.
“They played the fake tape,” he said. “Oh, she was a great look
-alike, that girl! Yeah, it was
my 
plan. I
found the girl, paid her a lot, both for the movie and her ‘services.’ And when the dance came . . . Oh, I had wanted
to fuck Kathy in front of 
ev 
erybody for so long! I can’t believe she didn’t realize she was t
he only girl there. It wasperfect, so
 ,
 
so perfect!”
 
Kathy couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Kevin,
her 
Kevin, had orchestrated this entire thing! Angerburned in her veins, and that was when she did it. What would end them for good.She dropped her ring.As it landed, the band cracked. When Kevin bent to examine it, he froze.
“Oh, my God.”
 
Three gunshots went off, and his three friends fell. All shots to the chest, “lucky”
ones that killed one guyinstantly, but left the other guys moaning and writhing in agony.Laughing, Kathy jumped down from the rafters and aimed the gun at Kevin.
“K
-K-K-
Kathy . . .” As he picked up the ring’s cracked band, light reflected in his face.
He looked terrified.
“W
-W-
Why 
?”
 
“Why?” Waving the gun, she advanced upon Kevin. “Why did you do this to me, Kevin? If you didn’t wantme anymore, why couldn’t you just break up with me?”
One of her scuffed white shoes touched the pool of spreading crimson and was forever stained. She onlyglanced at the blood before looking back at Kevin.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded.
 
“Kathy . . . I love you, hon.” Kevin’s eyes filled with tears. “Please . . . Just put the gun down, please!”
Hands raised, he backed away from her.
“Get on the bench.”
 
“What?”
 
“Get on the bench!” she yelled.
 He backed away, almost
 fell 
on the bench. He lay down as Kathy waved the gun again. Then she pulled
the belts out of the bag she’d stored beneath the bench.
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