Chapter #11The Docile Duplicate by: Seuzz   The fire has definitely done something to the dirt. For a start, it has shrunk and tightened up into a solid object with something like the consistency of baked clay. Fissures have opened in it: one running up the middle of the central axis almost to the midpoint, and two shorter ones opening on opposite flanks higher up. These give it the appearance of a crude, quarter-finished statue of a person, with legs at the bottom and two arms on the sides. A certain bulbousness at the other end contributes to the illusion by resembling an onion-shaped head.
The last step of the spell says that it has to be "polished," and you and Caleb both groan. If it takes a week to polish a mask, this will take a year! Or two years! But, to your relief, it turns out only to need a light dusting to get the remaining impurities off it. Then Caleb lays the book, spell-side down, on the thing's "chest". The page is already dangling loose when he flips the book back over.
"It's a golem!" Caleb says in an awed whisper after you and he have pored over the reverse side of the spell. "You know, like in those old East European stories!" You shake your head. "These magicians would make a clay statue, and they'd imbue it with life somehow," he continues, "and it would be their servant. Kind of like a robot!"
You look at the pile. "So how do we turn it on?"
"You jerk it off?" Caleb chortles. "No, seriously, you put a mask on it." He points to one of the passages in the book. "Where's—? Here!" He grabs up the mask he's been wearing to Salopek and drops it onto the thing's "face."
It vanishes like a dinner plate slipping into a still pool of water. You'd almost think that ripples run through it ...
Then, during a microsecond when you weren't paying attention, the clay pile is replaced by a human figure: a skinny, scrawny human with patchy hair at its shins and pubes and chest, and thick, straw-like hair at its crown. Its eyes crinkle and open, and it blinks at Caleb, and then at you as it sits up.
You and both leap up and back away. "Holy fuck!" you cry in unison. You bang the back of your legs on a table, which collapses with a crash to the floor.
A second later, a kid who look a lot like you has put his head up and, with a wild-eyed look of terror on his face, has backed up against a wall.
Caleb howls with laughter. "Jesus Christ, Will! It's just like you!"
"What is? That?" you gasp. The other kid—who, yes, is your exact twin—stares with terrified horror between you and Caleb.
"Dude!" he wails, and he points at you. "What's that?" He looks down and hiccups. "And why's it wearing my shit?"
"God damn!" Caleb hoots. "It doesn't know it's a fake!"
"Look, everybody just calm down!" you shriek. "Just calm fucking down!" Your breath is coming is such short gasps you're afraid you'll hyperventilate. "You!" You jab a finger at the naked you. "Who? Who are you?"
"Will!" He gulps, and his face twists up. "Will Prescott!"
Caleb interrupts. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"What? I dunno!" It wipes its face. "Going to work, driving here? Wait!" It straightens up and its look of panic darkens into one of suspicion as it looks between you and Caleb. "I came here, and I talked to—" He points at you. "I talked to you about work. And then I—" His brow furrows and his lips work as he peers at Caleb. "Shouldn't I be you?" he squeaks.
Caleb nods, but you can only stare.
"Look here," Caleb says. The boy who looks like you flinches but suffers to let your friend drop a hand on his shoulder. "You're a mask, okay? You remember that, right? Going onto and off my face? And then I'd go around and pretend to be you? Right?"
The thing licks its lips, and nods.
"And sometimes you'd go onto that fucker's face," Caleb continues, and points to you. ("Fucker?" you mouth at him.) "And then you'd remember things that he's done. Right?" Again, the boy nods. "So you remember how we made a pile of dirt and set it on fire?"
"Sure," your twin croaks. "We got that stuff from Salopek."
"Exactly!" Caleb spreads his hands. "Well, you're that pile of dirt. It finished burning, and we put that mask on it, and voila! Here you are."
Your twin staggers and puts his hand out to catch himself. "You mean I'm—?" He turns green.
"You're a golem," says Caleb. "Don't let it bother you," he adds cheerfully. "So you're made of dirt and clay. So are we!" He spreads his arms. "Whole fucking universe is made of dirt and clay, basically! Well, hydrogen, if you wanna be pedantic—"
The thing doesn't look any happier at his words. "So what are you going to do with me?" it cries.
"Yeah!" you exclaim. "My dad thinks one of me is enough!"
Caleb rolls his eyes. "Dude! Use your imagination! Use him to do all the stuff you don't want to do! Like, I don't have to go in to work for you anymore! We can send Clayface here instead! He can go to school for you, and go home and do your chores!"
You gape. "And what do I do while he's doing that?"
Caleb shrugs. "Hang out here and jerk off."
Strangely, that doesn't sound very appealing. "And what do we do with it while I'm out doing the stuff I want to do? Shit! Caleb!" You feel yourself turning very pale. "Does it have to eat? Am I gonna have to get another job to buy food for it so it doesn't starve to death?"
"Yeah!" the golem says. "And what if I don't want to do that stuff like school and chores?"
Caleb marches over to the book. "It says right here," he calls out in a loud voice, "that the golem has to obey the master!" He looks around with a triumphant expression.
"Is that me?" you ask.
"It's your mask," says Caleb.
You look at the golem, which is turning green again. "Do you have to do what I say?"
A rictus spreads across its face. "Something in me says I have to say yes," it tells you.
Dizziness sweeps over you. "Touch your toes," you say faintly, and your twin, with a miserable expression, bends over to grasp his naked feet. "Do a jumping jack." It flails like a marionette with tangled strings. "Er ..."
"Tell it to suck my cock," Caleb says.
"Shut up." You advance on the golem, which returns you a terrified grin. "Huh," you say. "I guess it could be useful. But if it has to be fed—"
"Hang on," Caleb says, and he pulls you back. "Let me try something."
He reaches for your twin's face, but the latter slaps him away with a snarled, "Get away from me!"
"Will?" Caleb says, and you tell the unhappy creature to put its hands down and hold still. It complies, though it looks like it's about to burst into tears.
Caleb grasps it by the brow, mutters under his breath, and pulls.
Your face and form vanish, to be replaced by that clay statue again, now standing upright with appendages slightly akimbo. Caleb turns to you with a grin, and shows you the mask in his hand.
"And that's how come you don't have to feed it," he chortles.
* * * * *
Caleb wants to put the mask back onto the golem and order it to finish polishing the new mask, but you tell him he can polish it himself. Caleb relents with bad grace, but cheers up when you suggest taking a look at the next spell.
"Same freaking stuff as we needed for the last one," he reports as he copies down a list of ingredients. (It makes sense that one person go through the book instead of two, so you're goofing off with YouTube videos on your phone.) "Good thing your dad ordered us so much stuff," he chortles. "Say!"
"No!"
"What?"
"We are not putting my dad's mask on that thing! It was creepy enough when you were wearing it," you add as he grins at you. "Having a completely fake him down here with us?" You shiver hard.
"You just don't have a sense of fun," Caleb says as he bends over the book again.
"Maybe we should get a mask of your mom," you retort.
"Now that's not funny," Caleb barks. "Now, if we knew where my dad was, and we got a mask of him, there's a few things I'd like to say and do to him." His normally good-natured countenance falls into a hard glower. But he doesn't continue, and just resumes scribbling on a piece of paper. His father abandoned him and his mother when he was young, and this is one of the few times you've heard him speak openly of the man.
"At least we don't need to make another trip to the cemetery," Caleb says a minute later. "This one only calls for forty pounds of dirt, and I think we've got that much left in the corner." You nod vacantly. But a minute later you look up when Caleb says "Uh oh."
"What?"
He doesn't answer, but starts working furiously at his phone. "What?" you ask again, and still he doesn't answer.
For several minutes you stare at him as he scowls at the book and taps at his phone and pulls at his nose and lips.
Finally, he says, "Maybe we do need to make a trip to the cemetery."
"For what?"
"A body."
Your mouth falls open. "A corpse? The spell calls for a corpse?"
"I hope so," Caleb says grimly. "Actually it just calls for a human body. But if it doesn't mean 'corpse,' then the recipe calls for a live person to be sacrificed."  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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