This choice: Try doing the spell yourself • Go Back...Chapter #38A Job Done Right by: Seuzz   "Can't you guys try it again?" you ask. "Or here, I'll do it, you supervise."
"There's no point, Will," says Beta-Carlos. "We -- "
"Yo! Where you guys keep the cameras?" Eric hollers. You spin about. He's in the doorway, wrinkling his nose. "Jesus, what died? That you, Carlos?" he hoots. "You shit yourself or something?"
"Yeah, there's kind of a mess in here, we gotta clean it up," you reply. "Hey Mike," you call to the other beta, who's followed Eric over. "Take him back into the other room, tell him what we're going to do."
Beta-Mike's eyes pop. "For reals?"
"About the video!"
Eric's grin turns sly. "You guys setting me up for a prank?"
"Yeah, that's it exactly," you shoot back. "We're gonna prank you on camera. Try to look surprised."
Eric opens his mouth to reply, but Mike grabs him by the neck and yanks him back into the hallway.
"I don't think this is going to do any good, Will," Carlos says. Then he shrugs and takes out the knife. "But we'll start over with some fresh ingredients."
Flash forward: Now he's staring into a bowl of off-white paste. A little steam is still coming off it. "I don't know what it was we kept doing wrong," he says. "But that's the stuff the way it's supposed to be."
* * * * *
It didn't take long -- maybe five minutes -- to put it all together and set fire to it. There wouldn't seem to be any more to it than baking a cake (though you don't know how to do that either), and the only seemingly magical part was when you had to run your fingertip around the sigil while uttering some barbaric incantation. You hope you didn't thereby just sell your soul to the devil.
"What now?" you ask.
"Now we go get your mask from the other unit. Or I will. Mike and I will take care of Eric, too. He's gotta be sick of him by now."
"Who? Eric sick of Mike?"
"Mike sick of Eric."
You catch Beta-Carlos by the arm. "Is there something wrong with that guy in there?" you ask in a low voice. "You guys don't like him?"
"Oh, he's fine. He's just on all the time, is all." He pulls away and trudges from the room.
That gibes with the impression you'd been getting. But it's too late for second thoughts now. Besides, you reflect after being startled by a loud clatter from the other unit, it's better to be the person that's on than to be one of the people he's on at.
A moment later Beta-Carlos returns with a mask. "All set. Well, it will be once the mask is done copying him. Here. Now you just have to put that stuff we made into the mask. No, with a paintbrush, goofus," he adds as you pick up the bowl and start to tilt it over the mask.
And inside of two minutes that's all done with too. Once the paint-like shell you put into the mask stops feeling tacky, Beta-Carlos leads you into the other unit. Eric, his eyes open but glassy, is splayed on the floor.
You've not really gotten a good look at him before, so now you give him a good once-over. He's not your twin, not by a near mile, but he could be your cousin, you suppose. (Well, not your sexy Japanese-American cousin.) His hair -- a light brown, now exposed as that ball cap has tumbled off his head -- grows curls loosely over the top of his ears and eyebrows. His nose turns up a little, but his face is free of acne and his features are conventionally, regularly handsome, though not especially memorable. Earlier, when he was mobile, he had a raffish grin and the devil's own gleam in his eye. But it's impossible to make out a personality now that his face is slack.
So it's his frame and clothes that remind you most of yourself -- or, at least, of how you imagine yourself. He's lanky and sloppy, with big feet and elbows and -- judging by the size of his shoes, which are torn and dirty, like they've been chewed at by large dogs -- he's got big feet, too. He's dressed in red athletic shorts -- short for shorts, too, with the hems dropping only halfway down his thighs. His gray t-shirt looks about five sizes too large for him and is tangled up around his torso almost like a poncho. You pick his ball cap off the floor and compare it to yours. It's the same make and model, and the same size too.
"You can try it on in a minute," says Beta-Mike. "There comes his mask now." You look down. While you were distracted, that blue oval has reappeared on his face. "I'll take care of sealing it up," Beta-Mike continues as he scoops it up.
You open your mouth to volunteer -- what if they screw this up, like they screwed up that other spell? -- then snap it shut. It won't be a spell, it'll just be spreading another kind of goop on the inside, and Beta-Mike shouldn't be able to screw that up. You vaguely remember Fairfax mentioning that they use the betas to polish the masks with a car buffer.
So a silent minute passes before Beta-Carlos nudges you. "You might want to pop your mask onto him," he says. "So you can get your beta up and running."
"I'll do it in a minute," you reply. "Besides, I'd, uh, kind of like to be alone with him when I do that."
"How come?" Beta-Mike asks.
"Because I don't want to feel outnumbered?" you sarcastically suggest.
The two betas look at each other, then snort. "Whatever," says the Mike clone. "Here." He hands you the mask. "Want us to pull the door down?" he asks when they're outside, and he rolls his eyes when you nod.
Yeah, you sounded sarcastic when you said you didn't want to feel outnumbered, but the fact is that it's pretty close to the truth. It's creepy enough dealing with two fakes. Having a third around, and one that's a clone of you, would be about ten times worse.
But you don't waste any time, and after making sure your mask is dry, you drop it onto Eric Murphy's face.
It vanishes, like a flat stone slipping into a still pool. Only this one leaves a change. Will Prescott opens his eyes and looks at you. "Oh my God," he says, and slowly raises up.
You nod and swallow. Except for the missing hat, even in Murphy's clothes he's a dead ringer for you. He looks down at himself, and waggles his legs. "So I guess that guy showed up." He cocks his head. "The shorts don't leave a lot to the imagination." Then he pales, and his expression curdles. "Oh, Christ! That means I'm wearing his underwear!"
"Well, let's get you out of them," you gasp, though you're in no hurry to get yourself into them. Your beta scrambles to his feet. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"Mike slapping a mask onto me. Except I guess it was Beta-Mike. Shit. I'm one of them now, right?"
"I guess. But be nice to them."
"Okay." He nods soberly.
"And get all your homework done."
He winces a little, but nods. You cock your head and study him. "And stay out of trouble with Dad."
He flinches like he's been gut-punched. "You're asking the impossible."
"Well, try. Otherwise, just be like me."
He stares up at the ceiling and fidgets. "Gotcha, I guess."
You wonder just how seriously this thing is going to take these instructions. You wouldn't take them seriously if someone were giving them to you, but your beta seems pretty pliant. A lot more pliant than the other betas were with you. You make a mental note to ask Fairfax about that.
"Well, okay then. I guess we get undressed." And so you start disrobing. Your beta has his things off inside three seconds.
* * * * *
Your back is very chilly, like you've been laying on concrete. You open your eyes. The world looks like a metal roof.
You blink. Hang on, of course it looks like a roof! You sit up. And no wonder you're cold to the bone, you're naked and sprawled out on a concrete slab!
Now you remember! Carlos and Mike invited you out to make a YouTube video with them! At a self-storage complex -- Weird! -- but that's where they had their studio, it turned out. Some guy named Will Prescott was going to cohost with you. You got there and jabbered at them because, in truth, you were more than a little nervous about it all, but there was a hiccup and you sat around talking with Mike, then suddenly you got jumped and something shoved over your face.
Pretty exciting!
There's a whole lot more back there you could probably remember if you only tried, but you're not interested in trying. The past is dead, only the future lives! You read that once upon a time, but you don't remember where, even though you don't read very many books, so it's funny you'd forgotten where. But it made a big impression on you -- Word! -- and even now you nod in agreement to it as you stroke your shins.
Hmm. They're still smooth and a little raw from your shaving them the other day. You told Tim you were joining the swim team. Pretty soon he's gonna ask what happened to that. Well, you'll worry about it when he asks.
Speaking of people who aren't here, where's Beta-Prescott? You grab up your clothes and sprint next door.
The three betas are outside, and even Beta-Mike turns pale when he sees you. "Jesus, he's naked!"
"Yeah, we should do the video this way!" you exclaim. "Nude movie reviews!"
"You should just go find the cheerleaders so you don't get in trouble," Beta-Carlos retorts. You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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