This choice: Yeah, you'll act as bait. • Go Back...Chapter #34To Fish and Cut Bait by: Seuzz   "Bait?" you squeak. "What do you mean by 'bait'?"
"What do you think he means?" Carson sneers. He turns to Bredon. "We'll do it."
Like fuck we will! you want to shout at him. But you see the glint of determination in Carson's eye, and acquiesce.
Bredon looks at him, and at you, and snorts softly. "At least one of you is half-smart," he says, and says no more about which one it is.
"What do we do?" Carson asks.
Bredon regards him for a bit. "Nothing," he finally says. "I said they've probably got this house under observation, and they'll be dying to know what I've said to you and done to you. You just have to hang out here, and they'll find you."
"Do you want us to bring them back here?"
"They won't come. They're too smart for that." He scratches his cheek thoughtfully. "You missed a date last night, didn't you?"
"Me too," you pipe up.
"You didn't volunteer." Bredon turns back to Carson: "Call her, offer to take her someplace for brunch. Odds are she's one of them, so she won't hold a grudge about being stood up last night."
Despite his earlier bravado, Carson now looks unhappy as he takes out his phone.
* * * * *
Darcy Whitehead, it turns out, is extremely happy to get together with "Frank." While Carson gets cleaned up, Bredon busies himself in the garage for a bit, then drives off on an errand. He returns with a couple of bottles of hard (and very cheap) liquor, and half-drowns himself with half of one.
Carson dresses up nice for his brunch date: faded blue jeans, a heavy button-down shirt over a clean white tee, and Frank's letterman jacket. Bredon stops him—like a mother examining her son before prom—and lightly picks at him with dexterous fingertips: straightening him here, tugging him there, pinching him into shape. "What do you want me to do?" Carson asks.
"Try to get laid. Off with you now, and don't worry. Nothing bad'll happen to you. Even if it does, someone else will pay for the funeral."
Carson does a dramatic turn at gathering his courage, and leaves.
"You're just sending him out there?" you ask when he's gone.
"No. But what else I'm doing is none of your business," Bredon says. Your phone rings in the other room. "You're not here," he continues. "Turn that thing off."
"But—"
"Turn it off. Do homework, surf the internet, play a game. But sit still and do nothing."
"So what are you going to do?"
"I'm gonna take a nap."
And so saying, he drops onto the sofa, puts his head back, and closes his eyes. But he's also prepared for trouble, for he takes out his knife and grips it tightly in his right hand.
* * * * *
You don't remember the last time you felt such a mix of boredom and anxiety. You keep thinking about Carson, naturally, and what might be happening to him. Bait. He's put himself into the jaws of the doppelgangers. He's been braver than you all through this adventure. Braver and smarter, though you're not sure how far this current play counts as "smart." Bredon has as much as said he doesn't care what happens to Carson or to you. What is his plan? You have a dreadful premonition it involves letting Carson get replaced by a duplicate, whom Bredon can then catch and torture for information.
So these are the thoughts running through your head while you try to kill time. You've no concentration for homework and there's nothing on the internet. You sit and you pace and you try using the toilet and you root through the kitchen and when there's nothing else to do you risk waking up Bredon by turning the TV on. But even that can't hold your attention for more than ten minutes.
You're back on the computer, playing some crazy-weird Tetris-like laptop game, when Bredon appears in the archway. "Over here," he barks. "Or stay there, I don't care," he says when you blink back. He strides over and thrusts that knife at you. "Hold this," he says. "Go on, take it." Feebly, you grasp at the hilt. "I need to see a man about buying a sombrero," he says. "And I want you to—"
He stops dead, his eyes glittering. But he's not looking at you; he's looking at the laptop, at the geometric game that's slowly unfolding on screen. He turns to give you a very long and penetrating look, then resumes speaking without relaxing that intense stare.
"Hold onto that knife," he tells you. "Then sit back, and relax, and think of the sky. Concentrate on the sky, and do your best to let your mind go blank. That last part shouldn't be too much of a problem," he sourly adds.
"Okay, why?"
His expression turns slightly puckish. "For lack of a better phrase, for the out of body experience it'll give you." He puts his hand on your shoulder. "Do it, Prescott," he says. "I won't let you go far before I shake you out of it."
Doubt and trepidation overwhelm you, but you do as he says. You settle back in the chair, and after blinking a few times, close your eyes. You take a deep breath and grip the knife more tightly. Think of the sky? You try to imagine it: a vast dome of blue, like an inverted bowl. It flashes briefly into your mind's eye and is gone as your concentration wavers. Bredon's fingers tighten on your shoulder, and you try again. The sky. It's usually got clouds in it, right? Little pale thin ones. Maybe a con trail left by a passing jet. The picture forms again, much more clearly and vividly this time. You can even see the tiny jetliner racing along, leaving that condensation trail—
Your heart leaps as you feel yourself rushing through that sky. The vision bends alarmingly, and you're plunging toward a house. More than a house: a mansion. More than a mansion: a castle! And as it looms, the walls dissolve and you're floating above the ceiling of a cozy-looking living room. It's filled with people, teenagers like yourself, milling around. A lanky one is stretched on a long sofa, and as you concentrate on him—
Everything shakes, and the vision shatters. You gulp down a breath, and look up at Bredon. "I saw Carson!" you exclaim. "And it was him! I mean, he wasn't wearing—"
"I know. Good. I'm actually impressed."
"What was happening?"
"It's a kind of remote reconnaissance, like watching through a drone. Don't ask how it's done. But here's what I want you to do." He closes the game on the laptop—but only after saving it first, you notice—then on a scrap of paper scribbles a phone number. "That's my cell. Go back into recon mode. Think of the sky, like I told you. Watch and listen. If anything really important happens—and you'll know it if you see it—call me at this number."
"You're leaving?"
"I saw what I needed, and now I have to buy that sombrero."
"What kind of sombrero?"
"Never mind. You just watch and call in if you see anything. If you need to break the recon, let go of the knife. Oh, and try not to drop it on your foot when you do." He pats your shoulder roughly, and is quickly gone.
You blink and draw several deep breaths. This is freaky, very freaky, and you tremble a little at having this responsibility thrust onto you. An out of body experience, Bredon called it. Then "recon." Probably it's not quite either one, but whichever it is— Well, time enough to worry about that later, you suppose. You'll be more comfortable in the living room than at the dining room table, so you settle yourself onto the opposite end of the sofa from where Bredon had been sitting. You get comfortable, then grip the knife, close your eyes, and lean back. Think of the sky. You wonder if you'll be too nervous now to do it properly, but you've hardly let your head fall back when you are whisked away again.
* * * * *
You can see the room more clearly now. It's not tiny, but it's small and warmly furnished with a low sofa and a low chair and a couple of beanbags. A hi-def, big-screen TV dominates one wall; opposite is an open space through which you can glimpse a small dining room and a kitchenette beyond. A staircase leads up to a landing and a closed door. Tall windows and a glass door look out onto a vast, rolling green lawn.
And who's here? You recognize many of them, and it sickens you to know that they're doppelgangers.
Carson, unconscious, is on the sofa, and though he's still wearing Frank's clothes he is no longer wearing the mask. Sitting beside him is Darcy Whitehead: pale of skin and dark of hair, wearing that flinty expression she often has. Jonathan Straussler is leaning against the wall with arms folded and a bemused smile on his face. The elfin-faced Ian Carpenter, captain of the basketball team, fidgets next to him. On the staircase are sitting Timothy Johnson, another basketball player, and his girlfriend, Juliana Seaton, with their arms loosely wrapped about each other. And you groan to see the beautiful, boobilicious Becky Torres squirming excitedly in a beanbag, like she has to pee.
As you concentrate on each one, you drift toward them, and you find you can steer yourself around. You can even float down near the floor if you want, and bodies and furniture—though they look solid—have no substance to them. Or you've no substance to yourself. But there is no sound.
So you drift about, wondering what Rick saw that got him so excited, and wondering where he's gone. You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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