The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

A Bad Night for Charles Whitney

It's after midnight, and you're cold and stiff and more than a little pissed off, before a pair of headlights come racing in toward the Whitneys'. Your heart goes into your throat as a black Mustang shoots past your hiding place—a sleek black shadow against the darker black of night.

But it's not excitement at Whitney's (finally!) arrival that galvanizes you. It's his speed and recklessness as he hurtles up the lane toward a roadblock that he doesn't even know is there.

A loud squeal of tires tells you that he's seen Call's car, and his brake lights pop on. The Mustang swerves and fishtails, and the brake lights vanish off the road. For a horrorstruck moment you stand rooted to the spot as you listen for a sickening crunch of metal against stone.

But there's no sound of a crash, and a moment later an engine guns angrily.

You slap Call in the chest, and the two of you spring off toward the shadows that swallowed the Mustang.

It plunged off the path just before reaching the bridge, and you find it on the creek bank with its ass hiked up high in the air. The white back-up lights are on, and the engine races and the tires spin as the driver tries to back up onto the road. Inch by inch, with the engine snarling and the tires squealing, it backs up across slimy grass. When the rear wheels finally get a purchase on the ground, you and Call have to leap away as the car comes roaring back onto the road.

For a moment it sits there, grumbling and racing.

Then the door pops open and a lithe, panther-like figure jumps out.

"The fuck?" Charles Patrick Whitney screams at you. "The fuck! Are you the fucking morons who—?"

You slap Call in the chest. "Grab him," you tell him. "Like I told you."

Call grunts—a happy sound—and charges at Whitney. There's a muffled thump as the two boys fall back against the side of the Mustang. You rush up, but have to jump back as they tussle and wrestle. Call has Whitney in a bear hug, but they're face to face, so you have no way at your victim. Not until Call manages to trip Whitney and falls atop him, pinning him to the mossy bank, can you get at him You squat at Whitney's head and, with a chest bursting with fear, excitement, anticipation, and maybe something like lust, you smash the mask into your target's face.

Instantly he ceases to writhe.

You have to gasp and gulp for air. Muscles deep inside your chest bang away.

"Nice job," you tell Call. "Perfect." You put out a fist, and he bumps it—a gesture that gives you a warm feeling. "Okay, now let's start getting him undressed and prepped."

But you leave it to Call to start stripping Whitney while you lumber on legs that are suddenly heavy with exhaustion back to where you were hiding. From the bushes you pluck out the bag stuffed with Jeff Spencer's clothes. You double-check that Whitney's memory-strip, which you tore off while you were waiting for him to arrive, hasn't fallen out.

Call has everything off Whitney except his t-shirt and underwear—tidy whities—when you get back, and you start folding up the clothes into a neater bundle to lay nearby. Whitney's memories haven't fully deserted you, and you recognize his outfit. It's his preferred "pussy patrol" ensemble: black Levis, black sneakers, royal-purple long-sleeve shirt made of soft-velvet. The v-neck t-shirt that shows off the curve of pectoral muscles. They're clothes made for rubbing up against, and you wonder if Whitney managed to score with them tonight. Given the hour, though, you doubt it.

Which might be one reason he was so reckless as he turned into his parents' driveway, and why he was so furious when he came bounding out of his car.

The boy himself is not the most imposing physical specimen, though you yourself are not one to be overly critical. His legs are slim and hairless, as are his arms. He has only a small tuft of puffy hair in the groove between his pecs. He hasn't got much mass in his torso, though the muscles at least have some definition, and his stomach is flat. The problem, it comes to you in a hazy memory of a memory, is that though Charles would love to be bulky and cut, he hasn't got the discipline, and the weight set he got for his birthday two years ago gets relatively little use.

After the mask comes out of him, you drop the memory strip onto his forehead, to charge it with his most recent memories. You and Call pull and push him into Spencer's clothes as that happens, as you've nothing else to do. And you still have time, even then, to strip off your own clothes and begin putting Whitney's on.

When the memory strip reappears on his forehead, you pop Spencer's mask onto him.

And where once lay a smart-ish, pampered, and handsome member of the top ten percent, there now appears a lumpy, borderline-retarded charity case. Even in the dark you can make out the dull glare that Spencer gives you, and he pushes your hand away when you put it out to help him to his feet.

To him you repeat the same instructions as you gave Call, about looking out for and protecting "Will Prescott" at school—"He's your friend," you tell Spencer, though you wonder if the concept is one that Spencer really understands. Then you walk him and Call back to the other car, and see them off back to town.

That leaves you alone with Whitney's mask, memory strip, and Mustang. All that is required now is to assemble them.

* * * * *

You're flailing as you come rushing up out of the darkness, and you crack your knuckles on something hard. Fuck!

Your heart is pounding, and your skin is crawling all over your body. You blink and bat at the darkness that clings about you, suffocating you, as you try to catch your breath and locate yourself. Some asshole grabbed me, you remind yourself, and I was fighting him and—

Ohhhh!

You groan and go limp as two sets of memories click neatly together, like Legos. You shut your eyes ad wipe the sweat from your face. But still your chest heaves and thumps, and your mind races in a couple of different directions.

Like—

I got him. It was almost a disaster, but I managed to grab Charles Whitney, and now I'm him, and tomorrow I can start putting my plan into effect.

And—

Who's the fucking cocksucker who parked his car across the driveway? I could'a been killed, and I almost wrecked my wheels driving into the brook! I swear, I'm gonna fuck 'em up when I find 'em!

And—

Jesus, am I really ready for this? I mean, here I am, but am I really ready to go to this guy's house and sleep in his bed and see his mom and dad in the morning and pretend like I'm really him? Like I'm really not—you gulp—like I'm really not me anymore?

And—

Fucking wench. Who the fuck you think you are, telling me to get my hand off your ass? Do you even see how you're dressed? I've blown my nose in Kleenex thicker than that skirt, and if you don't want your ass touched, don't go shaking it in my face on the fucking dance floor, okay?

You rake your hands through your hair—soft, floppy, full of body—and grit your teeth as you get another hard-on at the thought of that girl. She was Mexican or some shit like that, with tousled, shoulder-length hair and silver hoop earrings, and you didn't just want to grope her ass, you wanted to chomp on it like a pair of ripe peaches. Fucking Mexicans. She was sloppy and just begging to be banged, but when you made your move she—

You nurse your cheek with a grimace, your ears burn with the memory of the names she screamed at you.

So, yeah, not a happy night for Charles Patrick Whitney. Didn't get laid—got fucking humiliated—and came home to almost plow into some motherfucker or other, and then got tackled by that same motherfucker, and now he isn't even himself anymore.

You're him.

You climb out of the Mustang—where you made the final change after gluing the memory strip into the mask, and sealing it up with some of that new paste like you put in the other masks—and pace up and down to work off some of the nervous energy that is giving you the shakes. You stretch and flex and roll your neck and do a couple of squats. Need to get in shape, you tell yourself, get in serious shape.

Oh, but why bother. You'll drive out to the school tomorrow, look around, figure out who's likely to be available on weekends, and how to get close to them.

Then next weekend, after you've spent a thoughtful, careful week of scouting and preparation—

You slap your hands together: a reflex.

Another new me.

That's all for now.

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"