This choice: Tell the others the spell is finished • Go Back...Chapter #33Dummies and Other Dummies by: Seuzz   "It's a minion," says Connor. He looks from the grimoire to the now-extinguished pile, then glances sideways at the iPad he's been using for translation work.
It took him and Justin twenty minutes to get over to the school; Caleb is stuck doing housework for his mom, but told you to call back as soon as you'd figured out what the thing is. While waiting for the others you had tried your hand at translating the exposed conclusion of the spell, but hadn't been able to quite wrap your head around the various parts of the description. But with Connor's succinct summary it all comes into focus for you.
You snap your fingers and look around. A mask, where did you put the— They're inside one of the big desks, and you rummage around until you find the one that copies Caleb. You look up, showing it to Justin and Connor; they look back a little palely, then nod. Gingerly, you approach the stone-like figure resting on the back table.
Those rents and fissures that opened up in it still worry you, but not as much as they did before. For a start, the fact that the grimoire has opened up a new page argues that the spell executed correctly; for another the shape of the thing now suggests a rough human figure. The great rent up the center separates out two thick, stubby legs; the two fissures on either side separate out two rude arms from the truck. The knob at the other end is like a turnip-shaped head.
The head is where you should put the mask, as the reverse of the spell page directs. If it works the way you now think it should work—
You place the mask upon the thing. It vanishes, as though you've dropped it into a pool of deep water. There is, maybe, the faintest suggestion of a ripple in the mass; maybe it is only your imagination wanting to see some kind of intermediate change. But it lasts for the shortest fraction of a second. Where there had been a massive pile of congealed stone and clay there is now a skinny human body of flesh and hair.
A male human body. You yank your eyes away from the patch of bushy hair at the midpoint of the creature.
It sits up, and Caleb Johansson rubs his eyes and peers at you. "Will?" He notices Connor and Justin behind you. "Guys? What's—?" He raises a knee, and notices that he's naked. He pulls himself into a tight bundle and flushes. "The fuck is going on?"
"Caleb?" You clear your throat and say his name again, a little more strongly.
"Why are you all staring at me?" this thing that looks like Caleb demands. Its eyes are wide and wild. "What did you do to me?"
Words die in your throat. Connor speaks. "We didn't do anything to you. Are you really Caleb?"
"Who the fuck else would I be? Shit, did you do something to my face?" He looks down at his body with obvious trepidation. "Anyone got a phone or mirror or—?"
"You look fine," you blurt out. "It's just that, uh—" You glance back at the other guys. "What's the last thing you remember?" you ask the thing with Caleb's face.
"I don't know! Nothing that should end with me sitting here like this!"
"Were you just at home, helping your mom clean house?"
"I don't think so."
"Do you remember going to the Warehouse with me Friday night?"
"What warehouse?"
"We were dressed up like Eva Garner and Hannah Westrick, and I got drunk—"
Caleb's eyes bulge.
"It's a minion in a mask, Will," says Connor. "It's not gonna remember any of that."
"I was thinking maybe it was Caleb and he got, I dunno, transported here magically."
"It's a minion," Connor says firmly," not the real guy." He snaps his fingers. "Caleb, come stand over here."
"Why?"
"Because I said so."
"Fuck you." Caleb scoots back, pressing himself against the wall.
"It acts just like him," Justin observes. "I was expecting more like, uh, a magical robot thing."
Caleb's voice rises to a shriek. "Did you motherfuckers put some kind of hex on me?"
"Calm down—"
Caleb tries making a break for the door. Since he has to get off a broad table first—and in his bare feet he can only hop around gingerly—it's no great trick for you and the others to catch him and push him onto another table. He howls until Connor gets the mask off, at which point he reverts to that mass of hardened clay.
The three of you pause to catch your breaths and stare haggardly at each other for a moment. "Maybe it only obeys the person it's a duplicate of," Justin suggests as Connor returns to frown over the grimoire.
"Maybe," Connor allows. "But it's really not clear. As near as I can make out, it's supposed to obey the guy who made it. But we all pitched in to help make it. And if it only obeys the original, then—" He trails off. "Well, we can try."
So you try a variety of other masks, without success. It's pretty creepy, putting masks of yourself or of Connor or Justin onto the thing, and getting a naked duplicate of someone already in the room. The duplicates seem to think it's pretty creepy too. The Will Prescott that materializes stares back at you with a slit-eyed glare that mingles loathing and terror, and the Connor Hutchison and Justin Carr that appear looks hardly any happier. You don't keep any of them in existence for very long: only long enough to establish that they are failures as "minions" as they don't obey anyone's commands, and that you are getting different "minions" every time, for Will doesn't remember popping into existence as Caleb, and Connor doesn't remember sitting up as a naked Will.
* * * * *
You and the others are on the point of concluding that the spell didn't go off correctly when Caleb finally shows up, looking both eager to plunge into the new spell and vexed that you hadn't called him with any updates. His vexation deepens when you tell of what you have made, and how it doesn't seem to have worked. No one believes it will do any good, but at his request you put a mask back onto the thing when Caleb requests to see it for himself.
It's your mask that's snatched up, and your doppelganger wastes no time in springing back away from the crowd. He bares his teeth, and does a double-take at the sight of Caleb. "Where the fuck did you come from?"
"I just got here," your friend says, and his voice sounds weakly. "Jesus," he adds. "The thing looks feral." Indeed, its hair—your hair—is sticking up every different direction, and its limbs are bent beneath it as though it's a spider monkey looking for a chance to spring. "What kind of orders did you try giving it?"
"Just simple ones," says Justin. "Like, 'Come here' or 'Go stand over there'."
"Hey," Caleb tells the thing with your face and body. "Go stand over there." He points to corner.
Will Prescott springs, and everyone flinches. But it springs in the direction of that corner Caleb pointed to, and it looks as surprised as everyone else when it reaches it. "The fuck did you just make me do?" it cries.
"I just—" Caleb blushes as everyone turns a gaping look at him. "Uh, go stand over there now," he says, pointing to another spot. Prescott, his feet dragging unwillingly complies. "Now go, uh—Go—" Caleb stammers. "Go bring me that mirror from off the desk over there."
Everyone dives out of the way as Prescott pushes through your little knot to where the concave mirror is sitting. His lip is curled up in an ugly way as he hands it to Caleb, and he hisses loudly.
Caleb swallows a couple of times, then tells Prescott to lie down on a table, and removes the mask from. It almost slips from his fingers before he can, with a tremble lay it next to the bare minion.
* * * * *
Similar experiments with the other masks give similar results: however reluctantly, and with however much loathing, the doubles of Connor, Justin, and Caleb himself will obey him but no one else. Caleb becomes increasingly smug as you and the others become increasingly exasperated.
It doesn't make sense—you're the owner of the grimoire, and everyone cooperated on making the raw minion—until you pore over the ingredients list for about the fourth time. "Hair," Justin says, pointing to the line and then to Caleb. "We used your hair when we made the thing."
It's the only theory that makes sense, and it leaves everyone but Caleb unhappy at he alone having a minion. "I'll let you borrow it sometimes," he says airily.
"Borrow it to do what?" Justin asks.
"Send it in to work for you, or for classes," Caleb says. He catches his breath. "Whoa! I might never have to go to school again!"
"I'm making one for me," you blurt out, "even if I have to lug the dirt over all by myself!"
You see the same thought in everyone else's eye, and plans are soon made for another raid on the cemetery later that night. Space is cleared in the basement for three piles of dirt, and Connor and Justin leave to pick up more sandbags at Wal-Mart.
Only after they're gone does Caleb remind you that you're still on Starbucks duty tomorrow. "Are you going to be able to handle all that work on so little sleep?" he asks.
"What can I do about it? They're not going to let me out of either job."
Caleb looks cagey. "What would you give me if I could get you out of the cemetery run tonight?"
"How would you—?"
"Just tell me what you'd give me."
"My stamp collection," you sarcastically retort.
"Be serious. Will you let me have the key to this place tomorrow night?"
"Why?"
"None of your business. I'll give it back to you at school the next morning."   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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