Chapter #13A Shadow Falls by: Seuzz   This is freaky, you decide, and quickly leave.
You kill more time around town before heading back toward the school; your progress is slowed at one point by what looks like a bad car wreck. Your double is waiting out front when you arrive, and it climbs quickly into the cab. "I hope you had a good day off," it mutters.
You slap it on the head, but then tease and josh with it on the drive to the elementary school, where you half expect to find your teammates. Then your cell phone rings. "It's Lisa," your double says, and you snatch it away before it can answer.
"Will?" she says in a quiet, numb voice. "I tried looking for you after class, but I couldn't find you." Really? Your heart leaps. "Probably you won't care," she says, "but I thought you should know. There, uh, there was an accident after school."
"An accident?" You frown.
"Yeah. A really bad one. A car wreck. Cameron Huber and Sean Mitchell were in it."
The phone slips from your fingers.
When you're done talking to her, you try calling Caleb. He doesn't answer.
* * * * *
You pass frantic hours, killing time by rooting out more news, then at around six you drive out to Caleb's, where you turn the wheel over to your duplicate and order it to drive around until you call. You rap sharply on the door, and ring the doorbell frantically. Caleb, a perturbed look on his face, answers. "Dude!" you gasp. To your surprise (and dismay) he just sighs and gestures you to follow him back into the bedroom. Your feet feel numb as you stagger after him. When the door is closed he turns with a snort and reaches for your face. "What are you doing?" you snarl, and slap his hand away.
"Look, you need to trust me. It's for the best," he says wearily, and reaches again for your face.
"Caleb, it's me! Will! I'm not wearing a mask!" His eyes freeze. "My mask is still riding around on-- On whatever that thing is. Or person. Driving around, waiting for me!"
He stares, and lunges at your face again. You briefly struggle, then relax and let him grapple at your nose and forehead. If it's the only way to convince him ...
He stumbles back and sits on the foot of his bed with a shocked expression. "Will!" he gasps. "Oh my God! When I heard about the wreck--"
"You heard?! Then why the fuck are you being so calm?"
"Because I thought--!" His jaw tightens. Then he jumps up and embraces you. "Because I thought you were in it! I thought you--" He pokes you in the chest. "I thought you were a golem, and why would I be nice to one of them?"
Your arms hang limply. The fuck--? Then it hits you: "You thought I was still wearing Cameron's mask!" He steps back and nods. "Then Tilley didn't tell you--"
"Tell me what?" he asks sharply.
"I switched with him this morning. I left school and let him take over for Cameron. He didn't tell you?"
Caleb shakes his head, and his gaze grows distant. "This is unexpected," he mutters.
"This is bad! Two of our friends-- Well, one of them-- Wait, what's the deal with Sean?"
"Oh, don't worry about him," Caleb says impatiently. "There's no problem there. Tilley, though ..." He tugs his lip. "Well, I guess he can just disappear."
"Just disappear?" you gape. "Caleb, he's dead!"
"Keep your shit together. We can get sad and hysterical later. Right now we just need to cover things up."
"Cover ... up ...?" You sag weakly against the door.
"You didn't do anything about your double, right?" he asks sharply. "No change to his mask or who's under there?" You shake your head. "Okay, then at least we know where Cameron is. Except everyone thinks he's dead now." He drums his fingers on his knee. "Well, that's okay, I've got a place I can put him. You can go back to being yourself."
You clutch your head, and haven't the stamina to argue or resist when he tells you to call your replacement and have it come out to the house.
* * * * *
A week passes in a haze.
It's as though they fascinate you: The clean, marbled pink headstone, spreading its massive wings. The yawning pit, barely concealed by the polished casket suspended over it. The dark mounds of earth flanking it.
And the small woman, all in black, with a veil over her face. Sitting alone, legs crossed at the ankle, with only the minister near her. No one else.
Your eyes ache as, unblinking, you stare at one, stare at the next, stare at the next, and stare at the last before returning to the first. A ticking in your head, as though in tune with--or maybe regulating--the movement of your eyes, becomes first a throbbing and then a cracking. At one point you have to clutch the side of your chair, for you feel like you're going to faint.
And even this picture of perfect morbidity has to suffer a disfiguring scar. You glimpse them from the corner of your eye, and turn slowly to confirm the impression: It's those two Eastman guys ("Frank"? "Joe"?) you saw at the bakery that day. They are wearing dark suits, and their eyes are hidden behind dark shades, and they are standing in the back. But they too are attending Sean Mitchell's funeral. As you stare at them, the blonde one leans in to the other and murmurs something.
Afterward, you sit on the bumper of your truck, trying desperately to drive the image of Sean's mother--looking so utterly bereaved, so utterly forsaken and alone--from your head. But it remains. Worse, the very image throbs.
Someone sits next to you: Caleb. You pull away, and weakly try to shake his hand off your shoulder when he puts it there. "It doesn't have anything to do with us," he says quietly. "It's just a horrible coincidence."
You look up at him with staring eyes. "I didn't think it was anything else," you hear yourself whisper. "Until now."
His face tightens. "Well, forget what I said, then. You think it isn't eating me up? I don't want it eating you up."
"But it is," you groan. "I can't get--" You choke. "I can't stop thinking about--" You can't say it: Sean's mother. "Can't stop."
He squeezes your shoulder.
"We have to do something about it," you say with a firmness that surprises you. "We have to get him back for her."
"Who?"
"Get Sean back. For her."
"We can't get him back, Will," Caleb says quietly. "Um, I don't think the book can raise the dead."
"But we can get the mask back," you say, seizing on a sudden thought. "Get the mask out of the casket. We can make another golem for it!"
"That won't work."
"How do you know?"
"Um, embalming?"
"Does it embalm the freaking mask?" you demand.
"Things that happen to a person wearing a mask I'm pretty sure happen to the image inside the mask," he says. "You'd get a mask of a dead person back."
You grab Caleb's arm. "If it embalms the image, then maybe the person under is okay! Maybe they're still only asleep! Cameron! We could get Keith back from under--!"
"He was in a bad accident." He pries your hand loose. "It's a human body under there. He's got to be dead too."
You stare at him, feeling haggard. He carefully squeezes your arm. "You're going to have to make your peace with what's happened, Will. Both of us are."
* * * * *
It's dark--very dark, under heavy clouds that have completely veiled the moon and yet which only very faintly reflect back the lights of the city. That's good, since you don't want to be caught as you sneak into the cemetery. It's also bad, for you can barely see anything. Low gravestones rise from the ground like worn teeth, and it takes you only a few minutes to realize that they all look alike in the all-enveloping blackness. You've no idea where you are relative to the Mitchell grave, or where it is relative to the few trees that rise in isolated spots.
You're reduced to marching slowly up and down the rows, flicking your flashlight at any gravestones that look vaguely familiar. You only know it was in the middle of the cemetery, away from the walls, which again is only a mixed blessing: there's no easy landmark like a wall to guide you, but at least you're also far from the surrounding streets, along which headlights occasionally flash. You keep your use of the torch to a minimum.
Thirty discouraging minutes pass. And then a great mass of fresh dirt rises at your feet. You turn the pale circle of light on the headstone: MITCHELL. You swallow in horror. It suddenly hits you what you're going to do. It will be nasty digging, whatever you find, which a good result will only somewhat allay. And if it's a bad result, a stomach-turning result? It was, after all, a closed-casket affair ...
The shovel slides off your shoulder as you groan. It's a broad headstone, and with a sinking heart you realize it encompasses a family gravesite. That wouldn't be a problem, but there are two great piles of earth. You'd assumed at the funeral that one of them was just the earth from Sean's still-open grave. But now there are two of them, and both are covered in flowers.
You'll never find Cameron's grave at the other cemetery. You should just work here. But which grave do you open? The one on the left or the one on the right? You have the following choices: 1. Left 2. Right indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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