Chapter #49A Transformation, Part 1 by: Seuzz   Your gamble paid off nicely: the mysterious remote mask that Frank and Joe found has been resting on Florence Shabbleman, probably for decades, without her realizing it. That's why you could slip into her body and take control of her.
But you don't want to stay in her grotesque old body. Lucky you've got Grandmother's cunning old mind to help. So you rise early the next morning and put an alternate plan into action.
"Fetch a crew," you order Nate. "Tear out the floor to the church and put in a ramp. I have need to operate The Still."
"I kin operate it fer yew, Grandmother," he protests. "Long as you guide me."
"Do as yer told," you snap back, and he scurries to carry out your directive. You then order Aunt Sarah, the bony old woman who watches the town through the eyes of her idiot daughter, to fetch a set of supplies from a list you've drawn up. "Mind yew get it right," you warn her.
While she's gone you take the sack of Joe's remains back into the study. You place the mask he'd been wearing onto the Libra and erase all its contents, leaving a fresh new mask in its place. You then summon Rosalie. "There's a change coming to Cuthbert," you tell her. "I have great plans fer yew, girl. You must put this to your face." Docilely--she is always docile--she sits on the floor as you direct and dons the mask. "Yew'll thank me in time," you tell her when she's recovered. "But not yet. Go prepare a large breakfast--food for a hungry, growing boy--and fetch it upstairs to yer charge."
"Do I feed it to him?" she hesitantly asks.
"No. Just leave it. Now send Sarah in."
Aunt Sarah leaves you with the supplies she'd bought, and with them you mix a sealant that fixes Rosalie's imago in the fresh mask. You also prepare a single mind band.
Sarah then helps you up the stairs to the room where your real body lies unconscious on the bed. You're looking bad, but you'll soon put that to rights, for the breakfast Rosalie had prepared sits steaming nearby. After dismissing Sarah, you take from her box of purchases Hank's special bottle of hooch and draw a long pull. It burns going down. As the room swims, you wave your hand over your face in a complicated gesture ...
* * * * *
Grandmother Shabbleman glares at you weakly as you sit up. "I'll turn yer bones to milk," she cries. But that curse is all she can manage before her head sags. But it chills you enough that you don't smile. You pull the remote mask from her face--and glance inside it, to see the twin of the control sigil that you'd fortuitously copied into your own mask--and press the new mind band to her forehead. When it reappears, you put the remote back onto her.
You're so hungry you don't even feel pangs anymore. But you gobble down the pile of scrambled eggs and sausages and ham and toast and potatoes, chasing it with hot coffee. Your strength somewhat restored, you review your plans, to see that you've got them correctly set up. Then, satisfied with your progress, you brush your face again, returning to Grandmother's body.
By the clock, it is nearly two hours before you regain consciousness.
* * * * *
It's late afternoon before a dirty and sweaty Nate Shabbleman returns with word that the temporary ramp has been erected. "Good," you tell him. "Now, there's a boy upstairs. He can't move, being in a deep sleep. Fetch him to the church. I'll meet yew there. Sarah! Rosalie!" The two women appear as Nate goes upstairs. "Help me to the car. Sarah, take that bag." You point to the sack that contains the supplies you'll need.
You note Will Shabbleman--still done up like Frank--watching you from the side of the street. You don't speak to him, but: You'll get yours soon, you think to yourself.
It's a short drive of about a mile to the church, a dirty pile of polluted stonework that hasn't been used for its original purpose in many decades. Sarah and Rosalie help you up the stairs to the main door and into the sanctuary; your progress is so slow that Nate and Sam Gibson--who are carrying your real body--pass you on the way in. There's a gaping hole in the floor where a huge chunk of the foundation has been ripped away; a rough plywood ramp leads down into it, running parallel to a set of stairs that normally offers entrance to the blasphemy in the basement.
You dismiss Sarah and rely on Rosalie to help you down. "Yew know I've always intended the best fer yew, girl," you mutter. "The hopes of me and mine have rested on you since the day yew were born."
"If you say so, Grandmother," she says.
"Don't sass me, girl," you snap. "If I've treated yew badly at any time, it's been to prepare ye. Yew've a kingdom awaiting yew." She says nothing. "Yew'll do as I say, knowin' it's fer yer own benefit?"
"Yes, Grandmother," she says quietly. But her tone is hopeless.
You almost relent. The poor girl spent many times in the box. She doesn't deserve--
But you've your own skin to worry about.
Yes. Skin.
"Sam, yew kin go," you tell him. "Nate. Rosalie. Stay and help." You point to your prone body. "That boy there, he's the one we've been needing. He has the power in him that--" You raise your eyes to regard the horror.
It's been there since before your time--since before Florence Shabbleman's time, you silently correct yourself. The monstrosity constructed more than a hundred years ago, but which has only partially functioned in the years since--
You can't stop the characteristic scowl from forming on your face. In the seventy years since the Keyserling mob stormed the town, burning the church and many other buildings. In the seventy years since they wrecked everything the Shabbleman clan had carefully built up. In the seventy years since they looted the place, stealing the Libra and kidnapping your twin sister, Margaret.
Margaret Shabbleman. Now a dead woman.
As Florence herself soon will be.
As for the thing beneath the church: You call it "The Still," for that's what it resembles. Three huge steel tanks hang from the ceiling, each sprouting a mare's nest of tightly coiled metal tubes. These all lead to a bulbous glass cylinder, and it hurts your eyes to look at it; the curves on it seem all wrong, and you have the unsettling impression that it is inside out. Another glass tube leads from it to a thing that looks like a pressure cooker suspended by wires from the ceiling. And from this hangs a rubber tube, ending in a long, vicious-looking needle that hangs next to a chair.
"The boy. Lay him beneath the console." The latter is a large wooden box, with thin tubes coming out one side to connect to the mass on the ceiling, and other tubes disappearing into the walls, where they connect to the pipe organ upstairs. "And now, Rosalie, I need yew to sit in that chair."
Rosalie looks at it fearfully, and for a moment you think she will refuse. But she's been bred and broken to obey. And so, looking like a girl who knows she is about to die, she takes her seat. "Now bind her, Nate," you order the constable. "So that she don't thrash and hurt herself while we make the change."
Nate looks at you, and beneath his poker-face exterior you can see the loathing and hatred for the old woman you are possessing. The chair has straps at the ankles and wrists, and he buckles Rosalie in. Her face goes very long, and a single tear runs down her cheek.
"The needle, now."
Nate jabs it into the back of Rosalie's neck. She gasps, and her eyes bulge.
You could order Nate to perform the rest of the tasks, but you prefer to busy yourself; it will keep you from having to look at the girl. So you lurch about, adjusting nozzles and valves and tubes; there are a few knobs to turn as well. When you are satisfied, you flick a switch.
Rosalie gurgles long and low. You keep your back to her. You know what you would see, and prefer not to see it. Soon, the racket of tanks groaning and tubes gurgling drowns out her soft death agonies.
Ten minutes later, Nate speaks. "It's done, Grandmother."
"Set her to the side," you say. "Now help me into the chair."
Nate looks up sharply from the mess of skin and clothing he is disentangling from the needle and tubes. "Grandmother?"
"Yew heard me. Help me in. Then do exactly as I say."
He is very tentative at touching you as he helps you in, and binds the straps to you only loosely. You crane your neck to watch and bark orders as he makes the small adjustments necessary for the machine to work again. "Now. When I am gone, toss my skin and clothes to the side. I won't be needing them again. But take Rosalie's skin, and hook it back up to the needle." Nate's eyes widen. "As I said, Nathaniel. Then yew will turn that switch--" You point. "--to the left, and that one so it points upward. Start The Still agi'n. Then leave. Wait outside." You glare hard at him. "Give a girl her privacy for when she reappears." You flash Grandmother's most evil grin.
Nate swallows hard, but nods. "Yes ma'am."
You settle back. There is only one great gamble to make, and it's not on Nate's disappearing when you have to make the old switcheroo on him. It's when--
You gasp and jump sharply as he jabs the needle into the back of your neck. It grinds hard against bone. Probably the asshole enjoyed himself doing it.
And then with a growl The Still roars to life. You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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