Note: This is meant to take place in that little gap between Oscar's death and when we see Oscar all nice and dissected in a pan.
Round Table
It's too warm in Zeke's garage. There are too many people crammed into too small of a space with too much complicated equipment and a smelly, lumpy couch. They sit in an awkward circle so that everyone can see everyone else because, Casey notes, it wasn't equality that made the Round Table; it was abject paranoia. He taps his fingers on his knee and giggles nervously a little. Delilah immediately pounces on him.
"Do you think something's funny, Casey?" She narrows her eyes as she leans forward in her seat. "Is something funny, Casey? What's funny, Casey?"
"Lay off him," Zeke counters before Casey can open his mouth to respond. "He's just a little high strung." He turns his gaze from the late Oscar-the-rat to Casey, as if he's worried he might be wrong. "Aren't you?"
Casey nods. The room relaxes collectively. And then another thought strikes him, even more irreverent and inappropriate than the last. He gives a little grunt of laughter before clapping his hand over his mouth, but Delilah is already out of her seat.
"What is it now?" She asks, her shrill voice a small step away from piercing nearby eardrums. "What is there to be so fucking 'high strung' about?"
"God damn you, sit down!" Stan kicks one foot out, not actually trying to hit Delilah, just punctuating his command. "You're just making it worse."
"I just want to know," Delilah says icily, sitting primly as if it was her plan all along to take her seat following her outburst, "what's so fucking funny. Casey?" Her eyes are slits of restless malevolence that make Casey's throat feel very tight. "Care to share it with the rest of the class?"
All eyes turn to him—even Zeke's manage to tear themselves away from delicate work of scalpel and tweezers—and the little hairs on the back of Casey's neck begin to prickle and stand on end in agitation. "Well, I was just… um… thinking about how, like, how in bad horror movies… um…"
"Jesus, just spit it out," Stokely mumbles from between her fingertips. Casey swallows.
"Like in Scream, you know… the rules for surviving a horror movie?" For a moment no one speaks.
"Oh." Everyone's gaze shifts from Casey to Mary Beth. "You mean, like, never say 'I'll be right back'…"
"Because you won't," Zeke finishes for her and nods, sagely acknowledging the heads that turn toward him. "Be right back, that is." He gnaws at his lower lip for a moment before turning back to the disemboweled rat before him.
Delilah wrinkles her nose in disgust. "You all think this is just some movie?" No one answers. "I've got news for you people. This is real life. Not some cheapo, drive-in, slasher flick." There is a pause as everyone absorbs this reality.
"No drugs or drinking," Stokley's low voice intones ominously. Stan laughs.
"Yeah, right. We're sitting in a fucking meth lab."
"It's not a meth lab," Zeke says through gritted teeth as he shakes his head back and forth.
"No sex," Casey adds, quieting Stan's snickering. "It's always the virgins who survive."
Delilah exhales heavily. "Oh, come on. And who here is honestly a virgin, these days?" No one answers, but Stan stares stubbornly at the ground, Stokely turns her head away from Delilah, and Zeke takes a far more concentrated interest in Oscar's remains than ever before. Finally, Casey sighs.
"I'm a virgin." Delilah snorts. Casey feels a slight pressure on his upper arm, and when he turns he finds Mary Beth patting his shoulder sympathetically and staring at him with large doe eyes.
"It's okay, Casey. So am I." Delilah snorts a second time.
"Ooh, Mr. and Mrs. Abstinence! What a lovely couple you make!" Stan sniggers, but quickly muffles his amusement when Stokely glares at him. The loud screech of Zeke's chair on the concrete of the garage floor makes everyone jump.
"Shut up, Delilah." Zeke grabs a few empty test tubes in his hands and strides purposefully behind the couch to a metal shelf crammed full of Mason jars filled with varying degrees of unnamed substances, their worn off labels and cracked lids exuding an air of the threat of the unfamiliar. "You aren't funny." He fills each of the tubes with clear liquid from one of the jars, chosen seemingly at random; he then places the tubes in a clearly homemade support one shelf higher.
On his way back to his seat, Zeke cuffs Casey on the back of the head. Once he is sure he has the other boy's attention, he smiles and trails his fingertips gently over the exposed shell of his ear. The rest of the group watches them, vaguely curious. "Don't worry, Casey," Zeke whispers, pursing his lips a little and smiling. "If we make it out of this alive, I promise we'll take care of that virginity thing right away."
And as Zeke sits back down and picks up a pair of clamps with long, tapered fingers, Casey thinks appreciatively that maybe it wasn't equality or paranoia that fueled the Round Table, but a concentrated and concealed arousal for one's fellow man.