The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Meek and Meeker

Previously: "Welching on Your First Bet" 

"I'll put it on," you tell Caleb. With a hammering heart you look down at the prone body of Shannon Welch.

"Okay," Will says. "What are we going to do about, uh, the real whatserame here?"

"Who? Shannon?"

"No, whale-woman."

You feel a flash of anger, but suppress it. "We'll put her mask onto Shannon."

"And what's Shannon gonna think when she wakes up and finds she's been transformed into a human-manatee hybrid?"

You give him a dirty look as you reach behind for the zipper to your dress.

"She's not gonna wake up and find anything like that," you say. "I put summa that stuff into Barbara's mask, so she'll just be, you know, Barbara Meek when she wakes up." The dress relaxes around your shoulders as you pull the zipper all the way down, and you kick off your shoes. "We can switch people back around later, put the real Barbara back to normal and put my dad's mask on Shannon. Or— I dunno, maybe we'll leave everyone where they are. It might be convenient having Barbara Meek's place as a second hideout."

You slough the dress off your shoulders but leave it wrapped around your waist as you reach under it to start pulling your hose down. That's when you catch the look of alarm—even disgust—on your doppelganger's face.

"You know, dude," you snarl at him, "you don't have to stay and watch."

At least he has the grace to look a little embarrassed as he bolts from the conference room.

* * * * *

You're cold and itchy when you wake for the second time, and your head pounds with what feels like a migraine. But you ignore it as you turn over and frantically pat at the carpeted floor for the chiming phone. You find it, sit up, tap the alarm off, and catch your breath. To your relief, that migraine quickly recedes until it's only an acrid fog clouding your mind.

You feel as though you've woken from a deep sleep and are dragging the ruins of an intense dream into waking, for your head is a jostling jumble of memories and instincts. You rub your face and will yourself into clarity and wakefulness. My name is Will Prescott, you mutter to yourself. Will Prescott. I'm a student at Westside High School. But now I'm also—

You reach for a nearby, almost-as-instinctual thought. Barbara Meek? No, that was—

Then it hits, like a slap of cold water the face. The memory of Barbara Meek, her eyes rolling and her grin gigantic as she waddled into your office and asked you to join her in the conference room. We're gonna have a new position open up, she said as you followed her down the hallway, and we don't want everyone knowing who we're talking to about it. This was a surprise, because the last that you had heard—

The last that you had heard—

You. Shannon Welch.

You raise your head, and push the hair from your face. You wrap your left hand across your torso, supporting your bare boobs with your forearm.

Shannon Welch. I'm Shannon Welch now, not Barbara Meek. And yet Barbara's personality still seems to linger about your, like a heavy fog.

Maybe it's because you were hardly out of her mask before getting into Shannon's. You told Caleb to wake you up after you got the mask off, and you were groggy and headachy when you came to under his violent shaking. He said something to you and you said something back, but you can't remember what it was, except it must have been about Shannon's mask, because you have the dim impression of him handing it to you.

You frown, and glance around, and find that phone again, the one with the alarm set. It's Barbara Meek's phone. The heck? And where is—?

You scramble to your feet, and the cool, dry air of the conference room scratches at your bare skin. Also at the back of your throat. Ugh, I hate the climate control in this place, you vaguely think as you paw at the clothes—at once strange and familiar—on the conference table. It always makes me feel like I'm coming down with a cold.

Voices are murmuring low from somewhere outside the room, but you ignore them and concentrate on dressing as quickly as you can: panties, bra, dress blouse ... It's after five, which means you're going to be late—probably very late—getting home. You should probably send Stephen a text—

Oh, let him wait, you spitefully think as you pull the slim dress slacks on and tuck your blouse into them. Besides, it's meatloaf night and that'll keep in the oven.

You pause in the act of buttoning up the slacks as you contemplate the fact of your husband.

Hmm, that's going to be tricky, you think.

Then your smile wrenches up into a wry grin. No it won't. Because it's going to be Caleb!

You find yourself gloating a little as you wrap the loose-fitting dress jacket about yourself, and slide the low-heeled shoes on.

* * * * *

Barbara Meek and Will Prescott are sitting in the front office, talking in low voices, when you emerge from the back. Barbara does a double-take at you, and her eyes roll like marbles as a slightly nauseous grin spreads over her face. "Oh, hey boss," she says. "We were just talking about you!"

"That's nice," you retort as you twist your hair back into a bun. "Can you come help me with this?" She hurries over, and you hand her the clutch of bobby-pins that you took from Shannon's hair as you undressed her. "So what were two talking about?" you ask Will as Barbara grabs a fistful of your hair.

"Oh, just general stuff. The new security guard?"

"Yeah, what about him? Oh, and what's the deal with him? What happened to the old guy?"

Will stares at you. "Don't you remember?"

"I don't think so."

"'Cos Ms. Meek was telling me about him."

You frown and let your mind's eye turn inward. No, there's nothing really there, nothing that Shannon Welch doesn't know, when you go searching. In fact, now that you think about it ... You can't even really remember Barbara apartment, except in a vague way. Or her cat, except that it was black and white. Could you pick her car out of the parking lot? Maybe.

"Well, no, I can't remember anything," you confess as Barbara finishes pinning up the bun for you. "But I guess it doesn't matter. Is he still locking up?"

"I guess so," Barbara says when Will doesn't answer. "There, pretty as a picture," she says as she comes around to grin at you, as though you were a Danish just begging to be gobbled up.

"Thanks." Her grin makes you nervous, and you find you can't look her in the face. "Well, I have to get home now, I'm late—"

"Does this gal live alone?" Will asks.

"Gal?" you ask him with a frown. The word is an insult.

"Woman. Whatever, Will."

You sigh. "No, she's got a husband. And he's waiting for me."

"So what are we going to do about him?" He looks at you closely.

You're about to reply, but you catch yourself. Now that Caleb has asked the question, you're not nearly so certain as you were before about how to handle him.

"Do we have another mask ready?" you ask.

"Well, not ready to go," he says. "But I just have to glue some pieces together."

"But they're all polished up?

"Sure. I just gotta glue one of those brain doohickies into it. But that's the last brain doohicky we got. And we'll have to polish up more masks, if we're going to do any more."

"Well, we don't need anymore." You look around, vaguely, for your purse, then remember that it and the rest of your stuff will be back in the tutorial offices.

"So, you need me to go get the stuff?" Will asks. "Put it together and, um—?" He sucks his lips as he watches you closely.

You nod because, yes, you do need a mask to put onto Stephen Welch. But do you need to put Caleb under that mask? Really, all you need is to put a mask onto him to control him, like you've got Barbara Meek under control at the moment. And that doesn't require moving Caleb from where he is.

Except then you'd have to set up another way for you to meet with Caleb, easily and conveniently. And Shannon, unlike Barbara Meek, doesn't really have many friends.

In fact—and this scares you a little when you think about it—she doesn't have any friends at all.

Not even her husband, really.

Next: "Meet the Welches" 

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