The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

A Dead End

Previously: "Caleb Gets In the Way" 

Whatever is going on between Caleb and Teresa—if anything—is their business, you decide. Mostly, you feel relieved that you don't have to worry about her anymore. Though you do wonder how it is that she and Caleb (if Keith is to believed, and maybe he isn't) should have connected.

Later that afternoon, when Caleb texts to say that Teresa will not be using the basement tonight, and that you're free to take it, you allow yourself to wonder if the two of them aren't going to go off and do something together (with or without masks). But you only text back a quick ok thx.

And then you don't take advantage of it.

Oh, you come close to. After dinner, you tell your mom you're going to take a quick bike ride around the neighborhood, and you even set out for the elementary school. But when you reach it, you brake to a stop and stare thoughtfully at the basement windows for a while before resuming your ride and returning home.

It's because you started imagining what it would be like, that you pass it by. Sure, the first thing you thought of were Mickey's yummy lips nibbling at yours while she grunted and mumbled passionately with her arms hanging around your shoulders. You imagined her smooth breasts, warm to the touch, cradled in your palm, and you imagined your cock straining toward her naked body as you stretched out over her. You imagined her scent enveloping your face, and her gentle cries as she yielded herself to you.

You even imagined her murmuring, Oh my God, Will you're soooo much better at this than your friends are! afterward.

And that's what killed it.

Because you imagined yourself going where they went, and you also imagine this girl—even though she's a fake— comparing you to them, and maybe even talking with you about her time with them. And that was a boner-killer.

Besides, in just a few days, after you've made up some more doodads and masks, and made some more girls, you'll have some new ones to play with. Sure, there are two more masks inside the basement, with the faces that Caleb and Keith made and wore, and Caleb might already have even attached some brain-strips to them to make them come alive on the golem. But even if your friends haven't put them on the golem already and ridden them to a climax—and you'd bet Keith already has—they are tainted by association. So you figure you can wait until Saturday or even Monday.

And you'll make it clear to the other guys that any mask or masks that you claim will be yours exclusively so that you don't have to worry about this kind of thing ever again.

* * * * *

The rest of the week passes. You and Caleb made sure to check on the thing in the barn twice or even three times a day, relighting it when necessary. Still, when you turn your phone on after church on Sunday, you find a message from Caleb telling you that the fire was still burning when he checked it that morning.

You're impatient enough, though, that you drive out after lunch to check it yourself. It's gone out, you find, and when it doesn't relight, you dance around the empty barn, pumping your fists and whooping softly to yourself. You quickly text Caleb and Keith, telling them to come out.

Caleb brings Teresa with him.

* * * * *

"Crap," Caleb mutters as he studies the screen of his phone. "It could mean 'dead', but it could also mean 'alive'."

"Does it really matter?" Teresa asks. Her tone is very matter of fact.

"I think so!" Caleb says. "I think there's a big difference between a body that's alive and one that's dead!"

You're back at the elementary school again, in the basement, the four of you. In addition to Teresa, Caleb had brought the mask of Mickey and some clothes out to the barn, and he moved quickly to bundle the disguise onto the new golem and hurry it out to his car. Then you and the others drove back to the school, took Mickey down inside it, and positioned her next to the first golem before removing the mask.

You hadn't bothered to start making a third golem, but you did take the book with you. Caleb has been studying the next spell, and translating it.

The good news is that it doesn't call for anything you don't already have on hand, and in less quantities. It sounds like it will make another golem, for it calls for the same powders and fuels as you've been using, and also for earth from a graveyard, though only for a handful instead of hundreds of pounds.

But there is one other ingredient it calls for, and it's the one that's got Caleb stymied and the rest of you frowning nervously at each other.

"What I mean is," says Teresa, "is it really going to make a practical difference? If it is supposed to be a dead body, what are you going to do? Dig up someone from the cemetery? Sneak into a police morgue, or a funeral parlor?"

She glances around the room with a faint smile. You make a face. Keith looks like he's going to be ill.

"Alright, fine," Caleb grumbles. "We're not going to use a corpse. Though if it turns out we have to—"

He makes a face. "I don't know how to finish that sentence," he mutters.

"Then it would have to be someone who's alive," Teresa says. "It does mean 'human' doesn't it?" she adds. "We can't use a dog or a cat?"

"It says 'humanum'," Caleb replies. "'Corpus humanum.' It just doesn't get more specific than that."

"So we try it with a live subject?" Teresa asks.

Caleb's eyes widen. "Do we?" he asks her.

The smile slowly fades from her face, and her eyes harden.

"Dude, you're not settin' me on fire!" Keith exclaims. He looks around the room, as though someone might volunteer him for the job.

For that is another problem. The spell calls for covering a "human body" in flammable fuels and powders, with a little dirt and some human hair thrown in, and set ablaze, as it says to do with a golem. So outrageous does this sound—so close to necromancy—that you struggle to think through without flinching the implications if you tried it.

"Well," says Caleb, putting into hard words one of those implications, "if we set someone on fire the way the spell says to, and you're supposed to use a corpse instead— Well, my guess is then we'll get a corpse we can use."

Teresa shuts her eyes and presses her lips together. Keith groans.

"On the other hand, if we're supposed to use a living person in the spell— Well, then I don't know what it could do to them. Maybe nothing. Maybe ... something."

"There's no hint of what'll happen when the spell's done?" you ask.

"You know the way this damned thing works, Will." He pulls at the page, which refuses to separate from the page beneath. "It doesn't tell us what it'll do until we actually do it."

"So," says Teresa, "we risk trying it on someone, or we don't do it. Any volunteers?" She looks around the group.

"Hey, I already said no!" Keith exclaims.

"No one has to say 'no', dipshit," you retort. "None of us is volunteering. Right?"

"So what do we do?" Keith asks.

"If anyone doesn't have a bright idea," Teresa says, "I think the answer's obvious. We don't do anything."

"Well, not with this spell," Caleb says.

"So that's it?" Keith says after a pall of silence has fallen over your group. "We're done with it?" He points to the book.

"I don't think we can get any further," Caleb says as he shuts the grimoire. "Not unless one of us volunteers as a test subject for this one."

Does it have to be one of us? you ask yourself, and flinch at the fact that you even had the thought.

"I guess that's all," Caleb says. "Well, I for one should get home. I'm gonna take this with me, if that's okay," he says to you. "Just to keep looking it over, see if I get any ideas." You tell him that's fine.

* * * * *

But about an hour later—as you more than half expected him to—he calls to ask you to meet him back at the basement.

"Yeah," he sighs when you tell him you were expecting to meet with him again, "I didn't want to talk about the rest of things in front of Teresa. I mean, I don't want rub her nose in it."

So together, using the retrieved book, you make five of the mens, as the book calls the metal strips, to go with the five masks you have cast. You ask him what he thinks you all should do with them.

"Well, Teresa isn't going to want one, so let's just pass 'em out among the rest of us. I know what Keith wants to do, and he thinks we're going to help him."

"Aren't we?"

"Well, sure." He squints at you. "You gonna wear Mickey's mask to school when we go in? I mean, given the workout she's been getting—"

"One of you can," you coolly inform him. "In fact, maybe you and Keith should be the ones wearing masks. I assume we're gonna do it tomorrow?"

"Sure. What are you going to do?"

"I'm not sure yet," you confess. "I'm gonna sleep on it."

"Well, there's one more thing to decide," Caleb says. "Do we want to make a third golem? We're done with what we needed the book for, we can start on another one."

That's all for now.

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"