When Skinny died, I think it was the end. He was the third to go, but none of us cared about the others. Mary Jo had been the second, and the first some pink chubby kid trying to rebel against his church-council parents. I guess his name was Dave or Morty or Tim or something. Mary Jo was Skinny's ex, and we all hated her since she cheated on him and stole all his junk, did psycho stalker shit and laced a bunch of stuff we bought. All that was left was this little packet, and I heard that was from somebody's dead aunt.

So there's all of the rest of us sitting here with Skinny in the middle and he's got all this blood and vom and shit like that on him and he's laying in it like he just passed out. Only he didn't. He was dead. And finally I said "Somebody get my lighter and that can of spray," just to get rid of the smell. Just because we were all too fucked up to get off our asses and gather up some change to call someone or drag him out of the room, I leaned over and sprayed him down with this can of- oh, I don't know, it must've been WD-40 or hairspray, and I lit him on fire.

He burned like my first line. It wasn't even a drug, that line. It was fucking laundry soap. I was about 12 and my hick cousins were bored so we did it as a dare. After that, I decided I could handle anything up my nose, and I got into it and I was the one who started it all.

One morning, I got up with my long brown hair and chubby adolescent body and 4.0 GPA and sweater vest and decided to skip school. I skipped to hang around the back alley in that neighborhood where mommy and daddy would always drive real fast with the windows rolled up tight, doors locked, don't look at anyone. I stood around with my skirt rolled up to show my flabby, dead-white thighs, my shirt pulled down to show whatever cleavage might be imagined between my big orangutan titties. Some guy walked up, looking like a fucking skeleton, and he said "Do you like snow?" and I said "Winter's my favorite season." He laughed and laughed and took me to his rusting, dented car.

Yeah, I liked the snow. A little later I just called it coke for simplicity's sake, but the word was fun while it lasted.

And then this girl comes up one day, some skinny bitch who cheats off me in English, and she goes "Have you lost weight?" I guess I did. So she wanted to know my diet secret, and I wanted a partner in crime.

This skinny bitch was named Gabby, but we took to calling her Baby cause she never stopped whining and begging and bitching about how she has no money, how she needs some shit, how she's gonna get clean. We were best friends until the two became three. Skinny.

Skinny didn't go to school. Me and Baby didn't go to school except when they threatened permanent expulsion, which only happened every month or so. But Skinny had it: his mom was dead, his dad was in prison, his grandma, the one who took care of him, I guess, was real sick but she refused to take her meds. We ended up with a lot of oxycontin, oxycodone, vicodin, whatever else they prescribed for that month.

When we met him, he had bad skin but not greasy-teenager-acne, he was a sexy punk scarecrow, he was smelly, unwashed, and very much a sweetheart with a lot of fuck and shit and goddamn crack-whore bitch. He had a boyfriend, but he wasn't gay. His boyfriend was Sal, and Sal was a good boy who went to school and only drank and smoked- and no tobacco allowed! He would only smoke pot, and only a joint on the weekend, maybe. Later on, I think he OD'd on meth or something, but that was towards the end of Mary Jo. I loved Sal.

Skinny never knew how much I wanted to be him. I wanted to be a boy, I wanted to be dirty and disgusting and rank and gorgeous. I wanted perfectly smudged eyeliner every day. He never wore makeup until he met me and Baby. I wanted to have ribs that stuck out so you could play xylophone, hips that stuck out so bad that Sal and Mary Jo and me and Baby and Groz and everyone but the chubby kid and the Ruthie-Ann committee always had the most horrible bruises on our hips and thighs and asses. I wanted to be Sal's boyfriend. I wanted to be the one with friends who would kill for me. That why Mary Jo was second.

We snuck into Mary Jo's house one night with a hammer and a turkey baster with some jizz. The hammer was to go down her throat to cause as much pain in suffocation as possible. We raped her with the metal side of the hammer before she died, her pussy and her ass. The hammer was my idea, but it was Groz's idea to torture, suffocate and rape that bitch. It was bad, bad stuff. Real bad.

I got off on it. I got to hold the hammer and watch her face and listen to her muffled screams as I shoved it into her again and again and again. And when her cunt was bleeding and torn, she was still awake, so I made sure I had good enough aim to not bounce off, and shoved the hammer into that bitch's ass til my hand hit her skin. I was so fucking horny off that that I pulled up my skirt and fucked myself with the handle end while I raped her. She cried. She cried and I could hear her trying to tell me to stop, so I yanked out the hammer and smashed her hip with it. I think even Groz was surprised, and he was the only one who knew about this side of me.

When the hammer went down her throat, I had it up my pussy again, and I felt so hot, like a man. That was the best orgasm I ever had. There was this big bulge in her throat from where the hammer was stuck.

We went and cleaned off everything, and squirted the jizz in her before we snapped some photos and buried her under a river. It took some expensive scuba gear, but at least we'll all be dead before she's found.

The poor guy who donated the jizz... I hope he's in heaven, cause he sure as fuck ain't alive after the shit Baby sold him.

I don't think Skinny found out that it was us, except I'm sure he suspected that at least Groz if not all of us had known what was going on. He was torn up about it, seriously. I never felt bad. If he really knew how bad she was, he would've helped us out, but we never let him know about the laced drugs or the stolen drugs or that she was the one who broke in and pissed on his bed and stole his teddy bear from California. Skinny would've killed himself if he knew that. At least this way he was alive.

When Skinny was with Sal, times were good. Sal had a twin sister named Ruthie, and Ruthie was a lesbian with a girlfriend name Ann. They were always together, Ruthie and Ann, and we started calling them Ruthie-Ann. Ruthie-Ann were totally clean, though. The most they ever had was second- hand smoke from Sal's weekend pot. They had a bunch of crazy lesbian friends who would come party with us and they were known as the Ruthie-Ann committee. Dunno why, it just sounded good. They let the chubby kid join, since he didn't know what he was into and the rest of us didn't really like him. Chubby tried to make a deal on his own once, got shot and dumped at his parents' church. Good to have him out of our hair, but that was the last we saw of the Ruthie-Ann committee.

I guess when Ruthie-Ann came to tell us that chubby kid was dead, they expected us to be real sad and shit. We didn't care, we were glad he wasn't using any more of our drugs. We just cared about the next hit, and it didn't matter if some annoying fatty was dead.

I felt power in making fun of his fatness, having once been fat myself. I was now almost as skinny as Skinny and Groz. Closer to Groz, though, since I have a larger skeletal structure in the first place. I could never be a man because even though my hips could bruise and my ribs were near-musical, my tits were pointy and sharp like I'm anorexic but persisted in being C's and my hip bones flared my figure out like a bell.

Skinny was perfect. He always had class-A drugs, always for a good price, never got in trouble with dealers and never had to shoot someone. He did shoot someone, but he never had to shoot anyone. He always knew how good it was exactly, and would give exactly the right amount for anyone. And he had Sal.

Sal's Ruthie-Ann had a cousin named John, who did a lot of crack. This is how we met Groz. Groz came for a visit and he was beautiful. Groz became my new idol- a Drag Noble.

Not a drag queen, not a drag king- Groz was just perfect in being quite male yet holding that violently feminine glamour of the greatest drag divas. Groz is still alive.

Mary Jo died. Chubby kid died. Sal died right before Mary Jo, but he was doing his own thing by then and therefore doesn't count.

Skinny shot this guy's kid. This dealer was charging too much, Skinny was frustrated and wasted and said "If you don't gimme the fuckin coke for half that, I'm gonna shoot your fuckin kid, asshole," and the guy said "Yeah, no, do it you fuckin pussy." And Skinny shot this kinda ugly little seven- year-old girl.

He brought the coke home. He did all of it. He died and I burned him. And I'm watching him burn right now. Groz and Baby are sittin with me, and they're gone. Baby's passed out, Groz is just sorta half-watching the fire. I locked all the doors and windows (1 door, 2 windows) and sprayed the rest of the room, scattered around all our papers and shit, and dragged Groz into the corner before I collapsed on top of him and that was it.

I guess Skinny isn't dead, because I just now opened my eyes and he's running around shrieking and Baby's hair is on fire. I just want to sleep.

Next time I wake up, Groz is holding me and I'm wearing his jacket. We're sitting in the emergency room. Baby's not there. Skinny's not there.

"Where's Skinny and Baby?"

Groz looks at me, his thick pencil-brows delicate.

"Baby's dead, Sweetie. You killed her. You put her head in Skinny's fire."

Oh. Baby died, then. Chubby kid, Sal, Mary Jo, Skinny, Baby.

"Skinny is dead too, Groz. I lit him on fire after he died."

Groz closes his eyes tight, he has veins in his forehead.

"Sweetie, Skinny wasn't dead. He OD'd, but he's alive right now. His skin's all burnt and his hair and he doesn't have any more right ear. You listen to me good, Sweetie, you did this. It's not your fault, but you did this. And now we're all dead."

And then I could feel my lungs in that stinging smoke and I could feel my fingers melting together from the fire. And I died. And Groz died.

Chubby kid, Sal, Mary Jo, Skinny, Baby, Sweetie, Groz.

When Skinny died, I think it was the end.

THE END.