The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

It's Alive!

Previously: "The Benchwarmer" 

"This better not burn the house down, Prescott," Jeremy growls as he pours the last of the ingredients into the bowl. His brow is dark and his expression hooded.

You make a face behind his back as you reach for the lighter. The fuck am I putting up with Jeremy's shit for? you wonder.

It's not the first time today you've asked yourself the question. Jeremy's been a pill from the very start.

He was in a surly mood when you met up with him at his house last night, but at least he lost himself inside the video games the two of you played until it was time for your curfew. You should have just cut things off with him then. But on the way out to your car he said something about "getting together on Saturday," and like a desperate idiot you seized on that as a chance to show him that crazy book.

So you took it with you when you met him this that this morning for a lunch of hamburgers and fries at Burger King, and he was interested enough that he went with you to buy the stuff for the first spell, and took you back to his place to try it out, using the garage as a work space. But he's been getting moodier and moodier, and every comment he makes has a sarcastic snap in the back of it.

"You wanna do the honors or do you want me to?" you ask him as you hold out the lighter. He only shrugs. Jesus, even his shrugs are sarcastic, you think.

All the stuff you bought has been mixed together inside a large glass salad bowl, making a kind of grayish-white mud, that you've balanced on the sigil on the open page of the book. You flick the lighter and thrust it at the pile. Nothing happens, so you try it again. Again, nothing happens.

"Christ," Jeremy mutters. "You're not even trying. Here, let me—"

You grimace as he yanks the lighter away. With a sullen sneer he jams the flame into the mess, so deep he half-buries his knuckles into the goop.

Foosh! A great column of smoke pours out of the bowl, and a terrible stink rolls into the garage. Luckily, the doors are up, but you and Jeremy both stagger back, choking.

The growl of a motor in the driveway distracts you from your friend's lusty curses, and you whip around. It would be the perfect cap to the day if Jeremy's parents chose this exact moment to return home.

But it's worse. It's Seth Javits.

Jeremy is still coughing as Javits leaps from the cab of his truck—which is of a similar make and model to your own; you cringe to think what he must think of a loser like you having a truck like his—and swaggers in. "Oh, Jesus, what's that stink?" he barks as he tears the sunglasses from his face. Then: "Prescott?" he exclaims when he claps eyes on you.

"Oh, you're just in time, man," Jeremy gasps. "Help me get rid of this shit."

"The fuck's going on?"

"Science project." Jeremy glowers at you. "Not mine."

"Fuck. Whatever. You got supper plans yet?" Javits seems to be ignoring you with great deliberation. "Well, come go get something with me anyway. What the fuck were you doing?" he asks, craning his neck to peer into the garage.

"Just a thing," Jeremy says. His face is twisted into a defensive squint. "Clean this shit up, Prescott," he barks at you.

"Sure, fine," you snap back. "You guys can take off, I'll finish up here and close up."

"Just take it with you," Jeremy says. "I don't want you taking it in the house or dumping it in my yard. I gotta take a piss, man," he tells Seth, and lopes inside.

You feel Seth's eyes on you turn to the "experiment." The back of your neck gets very hot as you pack up the bags of powders and crystals that it took you most of the afternoon to procure from various supply houses.

Fucking Jeremy, you mutter to yourself. You should have known better than to try getting mixed up with him again. He always had kind of a glum streak in him, even back in middle school when you were friends, and all yesterday and today he was acting depressed and resentful at making your acquaintance again. Now that one of his current friends—one of his real friends, one of the asshole basketball players he threw you and your friends over to hang out with—has shown up, he can't wait to hurl you away.

And what'll happen on Monday? you can't help wondering. Will he goad Javits or one of the others into seeking you out to hassle? Will he try hassling you himself, just to make it clear that he's not your friend anymore? Your hands start to shake.

"So what was this stuff?" Javits asks. He leans against the work table, arms folded, and peers down his nose at you. His eyes are hard but inquisitive.

"Just a thing I found," you mutter back. "You wouldn't be interested."

Seth snorts. "Not what I asked, Prescott. I asked, what is this shit?"

"I don't know!" You should know better than to snap back impatiently at a guy built for both basketball and football—one who has carried you into bathrooms for a little light bullying—but Jeremy's bad mood has put you in a bad mood too, and you can't help yourself. "I just found this book," you mutter as you resume cleaning up. "You, like, can make stuff with it. I was bored and Jeremy was bored, so we got together to see what it makes."

"And it makes this shit?" Seth hovers with a wrinkled nose over the bowl. "What for?"

"I dunno. Guess I won't find out, either."

"You mean you're just gonna pour it out?" Javits asks. You shrug. He peers into the bowl again. "Is it done?"

"I dunno. I mean—" You catch yourself. Why am I trying to humor this douchebag? "There were a few more steps to it. Like—"

Spitefully, almost, you snatch up the bowl and tip it over the convex mirror. A thick stream of the goop trickles down, like pancake batter, covering the mirror. "There," you tell Seth. "That was the next step."

The door opens, and Jeremy comes in. "Okay, I'm ready," he says. "Don't you got that stuff cleaned up yet?" he asks you.

But you're watching Seth, who has bent over and is examining the stuff you poured out. Gingerly he touches it. It has hardened. He hesitates, then peels the stuff off the mirror. It has formed a kind of semi-spherical shell.

"Huh," he says. "So what's this f—"

Then he gasps and flings the thing into the air. You duck as it flies toward your face. With a ringing clatter, the shell hits the concrete floor of the garage.

No one says anything. You and Jeremy are both staring at Seth, but Seth with bulging eyes is staring at the shell. You glance down—

—and do a double-take at the thing on the floor.

Is it your imagination, or has it changed shape?

"The fuck's your deal, man?" Jeremy asks Seth.

Seth doesn't answer, but crouches and with forefinger and thumb picks the shell up again. He turns it this way and that, and his eyes bug out some more. Almost despite yourself, you crowd in close to him.

The thing has definitely changed shape.

Where once it was smooth and regular half-sphere it is now a concave oval. It has also acquire bumps and ridges. But not until Seth gasps, "It's a face!" do you recognize the new shape.

He's right, it is a face. There's a forehead and brow line; depressions where they eyes would be; a ridge that's a nose; and slightly pursed lips. There is even a chin and cheekbones.

It is grayish-white all over, too, so it looks almost exactly like a tragedian's mask. It only misses holes for the eyes.

"What happened?" you ask.

"Nothing!" Seth exclaims. "I just—! It just ... twisted! In my hand! Like it was fucking alive!" He visibly shivers.

"Dude," Jeremy says. His expression turns reproachful.

"Fuck you!" Then Seth rounds on you. His eyes burn. "The fuck is this shit?" he barks.

"I don't know! I just found this book, and I just—!"

Seth grabs the book up and glares into it. "The fuck? It's not even English!"

"What happened in here?" Jeremy demands. He turns a dark glare onto you.

"I was just telling Seth what we were doing! He was asking! And then I—! He wanted to know what were supposed to do with that stuff we made! So I poured it over the mirror, 'cos that was the next step—"

"I told you to clean this shit up, not to—!"

"Shut the goddamn fuck up! Both of you!" Seth has turned very red. "The fuck is going on with this book, Prescott?"

You look at Jeremy. He glowers back. Then he shrugs and turns away. You turn back to Seth. "So, what, do you want it from the beginning?" you ask.

* * * * *

So you give it to him, all the way from the start, with you going out to Arnholms to find a thing to put in Walberg's time capsule. You show him how the pages of the book don't turn, but how they did start to turn after you put a bloody thumbprint into it. Red spots are showing in his very pale cheeks by the time you are done, and there's a hard light in his eye. But he says nothing except, "Now I gotta take a piss."

"Lemme have the book," Jeremy says in a low voice after Seth has gone inside. "No," he says when you hold it out to him. "Lemme buy it off you." He glances over his shoulder at the door. "You don't wanna get mixed up with anything that Seth's into."

Next: "When Three Is Two Too Many" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"