The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Blasts from the Past

Previously: "The Last Day of Life as Lindsay?" 

Before you can reply to Michael's suggestion, Dane's phone dings with a text from Paulina. After reading it, you grab Michael by the arm. "Come on."

"Hey! I'm—!"

"That was Paulina. She says we're not getting new faces till tomorrow. Let's get out of here."

"What? So why'd you drag me out here if we're not—?"

"'Cos I thought they could get them for us this afternoon." You yank open the door to the trailer. "Are you coming?"

Michael makes a face. "All right! You need to chill, Lindsay," he says. "You need to—"

Bite me, you almost snarl back at him. But then a wickeder idea comes to you.

"I'm sorry," you say, and step up close to him. "I sometimes forget that—" You put your arms around his skinny torso and bury your face in his flannel hoodie. "I'm so mean to you sometimes, Michael, and here you are with such a hard on for me."

"Eyaugh!" He pushes you away and jumps back, eyes popping and breathing hard. "Jesus, man!"

"Serves you right. But come on. I'll make it up to you in the car."

Maybe Caleb takes that as a threat, because he hangs back, and circles warily around the front of the car even after you're squatting in the passenger seat with your cell phone out. He gives you a slit-eyed, sidelong look.

And he doesn't relax until you confess that by "making it up to him," you mean that you want to buy him a chocolate shake at the nearest Dairy Queen.

* * * * *

You've just finished at the DQ and are thinking about heading back home when you get a text from fake-Dane: jesus man got to talk. When you ask him what it's about, he just repeats that he wants—no, he needs—you to come back out.

There's a wild look on his face when he meets you out in the yard. In fact, he's trembling.

"It was that guy who came out here," he say after you're back inside with him. "Fuck me, fellas," he continues as he glances between you and Caleb, "but I think we're in trouble."

"This about the guy who wanted to buy some weed?" Caleb frowns. "Shit, is he some kind of dealer?"

Fake-Dane gives him a wide-eyed look. "I don't know what he is. But he—" He falls onto the dumpy, smelly sofa and buries his face in his hands. "Does anyone else," he asks in a pained voice from between his fingers, "know about what's going on? I mean, uh, about the masks and what you all guys are doing with them?"

A chill, like a column of frigid air, rushes down your spine. "Not unless someone's been talking," you say.

"Look, just tell us what happened," Caleb says. He drums an impatient finger on his knee.

"Okay. So this guy gets here just after you left," fake-Dane says after taking a deep breath. He cradles his folded hands between his knees. "There was two of them, actually. Big dudes, both of them, like wrestlers or football players. The one who texted me was all smiles and shit, started by joking about some parties he was wanting to hit and if I was going to be there, asking me about my stash and where I get it and how he could get some and if I'd sell him some of mine. The other guy—they said they were brothers, but they didn't look like each other—he just leaned up against the wall there by the door and stared at me.

"So I started getting a really bad vibe," he continues, "'cos I'm wondering if they're really cops or something. The one by the door especially, he didn't look like he was interested in getting stoned or nothing. But the other one, he just kept talking and joking and stuff until—"

His face twists up. "I don't what I said, or what I didn't say, but it was the wrong thing whatever it was, 'cos suddenly they both got real quiet. Or, the one who was talking got real quiet, and he gave me a look like the other one was giving me. Like—"

A pale smile jerks at his lips. "You know how Dad looks at us," he says to you, "when we're in a shitload of trouble?"

Your first thought is that your dad never gives you a look like that, though your mom frequently does. Then you realize that he's talking about the father that you and he share: Harris Prescott. You suppress a small shiver as you remember the kind of cold glower that he freezes you with when he catches you at something you shouldn't have been doing.

"Well, I don't know what I said," fake-Dane goes on, "but they both suddenly just froze up on me. Then they wanted to talk about the basketball team. Which was a weird change of subject 'cos—"

"What were you talking about before that?" Caleb asks.

"Nothing important." He shrugs. "Jokes and shit like that. Dirty jokes, mostly. But then—"

He catches himself, and blinks, and blinks again. Then he says, "My name. That's what he asked me. And then, like, they froze me out."

"Your name?" Caleb says. His brow furrows. "Didn't he know your name when he—?"

"Well, yeah! But then he was, like, 'Dane, right, you're name's Dane?' and I said yeah, and then boom! Wall of ice just drops between us.

"And then," he continues as you and Caleb exchange puzzled glances, "then he starts talking about the basketball team. And this is where it gets weird, and why I'm asking if someone's been talking or someone knows about what's going on, 'cos they say they're on the basketball team 'cos they moved over from Eastman and—"

"Oh, hey, wait a minute?" Caleb interrupts. "It's those guys?"

"What guys?" you ask.

"Two guys from Eastman, they changed schools, moved out here."

"What are you talking about?"

"What I just said!" He pulls out his phone and starts scrolling and tapping at it. "These guys, brothers, they were on the Eastman team, but they changed schools and were gonna join our team."

"You pay attention to that stuff?" you demand. "Who are you and what did you do with Caleb Johansson?"

He gives you a look. "Yeah, well, you're making a joke, Lindsay, but Michael actually follows this stuff, so I know what it's about. Fuck me, but his friend Luke— Luke Bryant, you know? He's been spazzing out about it, so I've been having to spazz out about it too when him and me are together. Here." He shows you the phone. "That's them."

It's a photo of two guys, one blonde and one dark, in basketball jerseys. The blonde must have been the talker fake-Dane was telling you of, for in the photo he's got a wide grin on his face, and his eyes glint, while the other one lances the camera lens with a cold stare. They both look very buff.

"So they start talking about the team," fake-Dane resumes, "and they start talking about Gordon, 'cos the squad had these tryouts to replace him and they were redoing the whole squad. And Gordon, well, you know."

"Oh!" It suddenly begins to make sense. "They talked to Gordon," you tell Caleb. "The guy who looks like Gordon, you know, but who's really Dane!" Shit. In all the confusion and plans you'd almost forgot about the original body-swaps that got you into this mess in the first place. "They must'a talked to Gordon to find out why he dropped off the squad—"

"And Dane finally turned loose," Caleb finishes for you, "and told them he's really—"

But he breaks off with a frown. "But he's turned into a total pot-head, so why would they pay any attention to what he says? And would he say to them? 'I used to be Dane Matthias but someone body-swapped me with Gordon Black'?"

"Maybe he told them because they're new to school," you suggest. "Maybe it's easier to tell someone you don't know something like than to tell someone you do know."

"Why would they believe him?"

"Who says they did?" you retort. "Maybe they just came out here 'cos they wanted to goof off with Dane here and see what he says about it all. What did you say?" you ask fake-Dane. "You bluffed 'em, right?"

"Of course! I'm not an idiot!"

"So what's the problem?" you ask, looking between the other two. "So I guess Dane broke down and told these guys he's got these delusions, but if you bluffed them—"

"Yeah, but I ain't got to what happened after I 'bluffed' them." The color fades from fake-Dane's face. "That's when the stuff started happening."

"What stuff?" You get another of those cold air masses falling down your spine.

The scared look returns to his face. "Well, they started pushing at me," he says. "The guy started talking about Gordon and Gordon's life, and why maybe he wanted to just say 'fuck it' to his dad and to sports and to school, and I'm just trying to nod along, even when he says that maybe Gordon would like to have my kind of life and maybe would even want to steal it." He licks his lips. "Then he said, 'You didn't steal Dane's life, did you, Gordon?"

"Dudes were really taking Dane seriously," Caleb says.

"But then when I just laughed and told them that I was Dane and who'd want my life, then—"

He points to a lamp that is lying on the floor. "That thing came flying at me."

You start. "Wait, they started throwing things at you?"

"No! It just rose up and flew at me! They were on the other side of the room when it happened."

He licks his lips. "And then stuff started falling out of the kitchen cabinets. Go take a look for yourself. And the other one, the one who wasn't talking, he looks at me all hard like and says, 'It's a bad idea to let magic loose. Because once you let it loose, sometimes it stays loose'."

Next: "Twenty-Five Places to Hide" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"