by Lee Hayton
“He’s not going to tell you that.”
Tyler turned to Gary, exasperated. “Why not?”
Wilma started answering before Gary could open his mouth. “He’s right. That guy back in my office isn’t about to spill the beans on where the magic thingy should go. He wants it for himself.”
“Maybe I can compel him?”
“Sure,” Wilma agreed “It would probably be best to try that out on a croupier first.”
When Tyler shot her a mean gaze, she blew him a kiss. “Joking. You will need to do something, though. Otherwise, he’ll just lie through his teeth.”
“Well, I’ll try with the stone, but it wouldn’t hurt to have another obvious means of persuasion. Got something sharp handy?”
Wilma skipped across the office and pulled a fancy letter opener from her drawer. “Sharp enough?” Its blade glistened in the sunlight like a vampire’s fangs that desperately needed to be fed blood.
“That’ll do nicely,” Tyler said. “Ready?
Gary nodded while Wilma said, “Yeah, ready.”
Tyler opened the coffin lid again.
If looks could kill, then Tyler would have choked to death in a second. Julius glared at the three of them from eyes bug-eyed with fury and with fear. “Let me out of here,” he demanded. “This is no way to treat your family.”
“Answer my questions, and we’ll let you go.” Tyler looked down at Julius with his eyebrows raised, nodding when the man tilted his head in agreement. “Good. First up, how do I change these two back the way they were?”
Julius stared from the warthog to the ten-year-old girl and back again. “Were you two the ones prancing around yesterday?” They nodded and he pursed his lips. “How the hell did you get in such a state? Did you do this to them, man?” He turned back to Tyler with a look of admiration. “That’s just cruel.”
“No, I bloody didn’t. The two of them managed to wish themselves into that state.”
“Wish yourselves back again,” Julius said, giving them his narrow-boxed shrug again. “Easy.”
“We’ve tried that already,” Tyler said, his lips thinning. “If it were that easy, smart ass, then we wouldn’t need you at all.”
Julius chewed his bottom lip and looked up as though thinking. “Well,” he said after a long pause. “If you let me out of this box, I could probably try a few different things.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Gary said. “Either tell us how from in there, or we’ll just shut the lid and throw you away.”
Julius’s eyes widened. He recovered quickly, pasting on a wide grin, but the look had been too obvious to miss. Tyler pressed his advantage home.
“There’s only one way out of that box, and that’s through giving us relevant information. You can do that voluntarily, or you can wait while we try to compel you.” Tyler paused for a long moment, then added, “It might hurt a bit.”
Hearing her cue, Wilma flashed the letter opener in front of his eyes, giving Julius a second to view its sharp edge, then tracing it lightly over his collarbone. A thin red line appeared in its wake, blossoming into crimson drops.
Julius flinched and tried to draw away, but his movements were too restricted. “I already told you,” he said with panic in his voice. “You just do the opposite of what you did to get them in that state.”
“And I already told you that we tried that,” Tyler yelled down at him. “Wrong answer. Must. Try. Harder.”
Wilma flashed the letter opener at Julius again in a way that made Tyler feel grateful that she was on his side.
“It’s how it works,” Julius shouted so hard that drops of spittle went flying out of his mouth. “You hold the stone, and you wish for something. It’s as simple as anything could be.”
Figuring they were getting nowhere, Tyler moved on. “How do I get it to do the other things? There must be more to it than wishes.”
“There are wishes, commands, and objectives,” Julius said. His eyes were fixed on the letter-opener blade that Wilma held. “If you want a wish granted then you grab hold of the stone and say, ‘I wish for whatever,’ and it’ll happen. If you order that something happen, like saying ‘flip that truck’ or ‘kill that horse’ it’ll do that, too. If you tell it a goal you want to achieve, it’ll lead you on a long chase that eventually gets you where you want to go.”
“So, let’s try a command then.” Tyler rocked back on his heels then held out the hand with the stone over Julius. “Tell me the truth.”
The stone glowed brighter and sent out a beam of pink light, bathing Julius in its warmth.
“Now, let’s go over this again,” Tyler said. “How do I get these two”—he pointed to Gary and Wilma—“back to the way they were?”
Julius started to sob with fear, his eyes still fixated on the sharp blade. “I don’t know what else to tell you, man. You wish for the reversal to happen and it should happen. It’s always been that way.”
“Why do you have a swastika on your chest?” Wilma asked.
“I joined the Aryan Brotherhood because I’d run out of people to use as backups when I went on runs to try to recover the stone. Once you’ve gone through villains, killers, and thieves, that’s the only bottom there is left to go.”
Gary took a turn. “How did you know to be at the trailer park yesterday?”
“I knew that Billy was trying to pass the stone on. I’m attuned to it on a base level, so I always know what’s up.”
Julius licked his lips, eyes flicking from Gary to the letter opener in Wilma’s hand, then back to Gary.
“He’d already tried and failed to give it back to other members of the family who’d had it in their possession before. The easiest time to get hold of the stone is at the point of changeover—the new owner doesn’t know its power, and sometimes you can just snatch it straight out of their grasp.”
“If he actively wanted to pass the stone on, then why didn’t he just give it to you?” Tyler stared down at Julius, still not confident that the command, to tell the truth, was working.
“Everyone in the family is in league against me. They’ve made up stories about how dreadful I am when half of them are far worse.” He locked his gaze with Tyler. “I’d be a good and respectful owner of the stone. Sure, I’d use it for my own advancement and to kill anybody who stepped in my way, but so would anybody. I’m not the worst of our kin. Not by a long shot.”
“Is the stone meant to be yours?”
Julius began to struggle, twisting and writhing as though he was being shocked. “No,” came out through clenched lips, clearly against his will. “It’s not mine. It’s never been promised to me.”
“So, it has been promised to someone?”
Julius bit down on his lips so hard they began to bleed. Foam spurted out of his nose and mouth while he jerked, trying in desperation to keep the words from spilling out. Wilma waved her weapon in front of him again. Although his eyes expanded in fear, the expression was almost lost as he began to convulse.
“Shit,” Gary said mildly, giving Julius a poke on the shoulder. “That looks serious.”
“Who does it belong to?” Tyler shouted, gripping the coffin either side of Julius’s head. “Where are they?”
“On the road to Vegas,” Julius sputtered before his eyes rolled up into his head. The base of the coffin jerked as his feet hammered against it. Finally, his entire body strained upward at an impossible angle. His chest compressed against the break in the casket lid, scoring a thick line through the tattoo in his flesh.
“Should we call an ambulance?” Tyler asked. He rubbed the back of his neck, anxiously looking to Wilma as the most grown-up of the three of them. “He looks in a bad way.”
With a final huff of blood-soaked foam from his mouth, Julius went still and limp. His eyes were closed. He was unconscious.
Gary leaned over for a closer inspection, giving Julius a test poke to ensure that he was out cold. “Not bad for a first try, Tyler. But I think you’ll need to work on
your technique.”
Chapter Eight
“He said Vegas, and unless you know of one other than Las, then that’s where I’m heading.” Wilma pointed at Gary to pick up the end of the coffin as she jammed open the office door with her hip. “It’s obvious that you need to get that thing on to the person who should be caring for it.”
“Yeah. Would you be so keen on moving right now if the last word Julius had spoken was North Dakota?”
“Hey,” Wilma dropped her coffin end long enough to slap Tyler on his shoulder. “I don’t make up the rules, bud. I just follow them where they lead.”
“You know they don’t let children into casinos, right?”
Wilma offered Tyler such a scowl that he looked down at the floor. “I know that there’re ways around everything. Besides, wasn’t that your top priority? Getting us changed back?”
“Yeah. And Julius didn’t know the answer.”
“Maybe you broke it,” Gary said.
“Well,” Tyler responded, “in that case, you’re both out of luck.”
Although the gunman was still as light as a feather, the coffin made up for the missing weight. The tendons on Gary’s warthog neck stood out in sharp relief as he manhandled his end through the door.
“Or maybe there’s a set number of times you can wish for things in a single day. The ATM was one, I was two, and Wilma was three. Stands to reason, doesn't it?”
“None of this stands to reason,” Tyler muttered, “it’s fucking magic.”
“Yeah,” Gary said, looking over his should with a grin that spread from ear to ear. “It’s fucking magic.”
“I need someone to get the car door.” Wilma’s shrill voice commanded instant attention, and Tyler ran out of the office to help her. With one hand in the middle of the coffin to support the weight, they maneuvered the casket into the back seat. For a moment, it even looked like it would fit.
“Damn it!” Gary said. “Should we just empty him out of it?”
Tyler shook his head. “I’m not driving anywhere with Julius in the back seat unless he’s well-secured.”
“Command it, then.” Wilma’s voice was so reasonable that it took Tyler a moment to catch up.
“Eh?”
“You commanded him to be as light as a feather, and he was. Command him and the coffin to shrink.”
“Hey,” Gary said, holding his hands up. “That’s my burial casket, remember? I don’t want you shrinking it down so that when it comes to my turn to use it, I don’t fit.”
“Don’t you worry,” Wilma said, patting his shoulder. “When it comes time, we’ll just bend you up in weird shapes until every bit of you is squeezed in.”
Gary failed to look reassured at that prospect.
“I’ll command it to grow once we’ve done whatever we need to,” Tyler said. “Unless I manage to break that bit of the stone as well.”
Wilma barked out a harsh laugh. “The guy was talking shit. There’s no way a magic stone can be broken, even someone of such questionable intelligence as you should know that.”
“I told you, it’ll be the three wishes concept.” When Wilma raised an eyebrow, Gary ran through his explanation again.
She gave a shrug. “Could be it. That stuff about the three wishes has to come from somewhere.”
“If that’s the case, it will work today, won’t it?” Tyler asked.
Wilma and Gary looked at each other, then Gary stretched his hand out to touch Tyler’s magic stone. “Go on, then.”
“I wish that Gary looked like a normal man again.” Tyler waved his spare hand in a swirling motion, just in case the instruction needed an extra bit of pizzazz. After a moment, Gary withdrew and shook his head.
Tyler felt the strange guilt flood over him again. “We can try again tomorrow.”
“Maybe it’s confused,” Wilma suggested.
Gary looked at her with a frown. “How’d you mean?”
“Well, you didn’t really look much like a normal man to start with. Perhaps the stone can’t work out what you want it to do.”
Gary stepped back, cupping his hand as though it were the object thing wounded rather than his pride. “You try it, then.” He jerked his head at Tyler’s hand. “Go on, girly. See if it can tell that you’re meant to be an adult woman.”
Wilma extended her hand with caution, as though stretching it out toward the fires of hell. An expression of relief cascaded down her features when she touched the stone and nothing happened.
“I wish that I looked the same as I did two days ago,” Wilma intoned. There was a lot of solemnity behind her voice but not much enthusiasm. Tyler remembered her grabbing hold of him the other night. Even in Wilma’s drunken state, the excitement had been so intense it seemed to shine from her like a star.
“Confused again, I guess.” Gary turned back to the casket crammed into the back seat of the car. “Okay. Size down my final resting place, if you must. I just want to get a move on.”
The commands worked where the wishes wouldn’t, and soon there was room for both the warthog and the coffin in the rear of the car. As Tyler got behind the wheel, he looked over his shoulder at the side of Gary’s trailer. The line of bullet holes told a story that a week before he wouldn’t have believed. He looked down at his hand and saw another incredible sight.
The world appeared to be a very different place full of stranger things than Tyler had been led to believe. “Okay.” He shook himself. “Let’s go.”
Wilma drummed her hands on the dashboard. “Road trip!”
After six hours of driving into the desert, Tyler pulled the car over to the side of the road. They’d reached a small town comprised of a gas station and a motel. With night about to fall, it would have to do. Certainly, the lack of any other patrons in sight fitted well with their plans.
Following a quick vote, something Tyler realized too slow he’d probably always lose, he was elected to be the one to go into reception and book a room for the night. Wilma handed over her credit card, the only one who owned such a thing.
Inside the reception area, the desk was unmanned but the door through to the rooms beyond was positioned wide open. When Tyler craned his neck to look inside, he saw a woman dressed in white blouse and slacks standing by a small side-table crowded with bottles of pills and a glass of water.
He cleared his throat before he dinged the bell, giving her a split-second warning. Still, she jumped, raising a hand up to her neatly styled hair—the dark strands drawn back into a tight bun.
A minute later, the room secured, Tyler reversed the car as close to the motel room door as he could get. A quick transition and they’d have Julius tucked into their room before anybody thought to look.
“Did he survive?” Wilma asked as Gary and Tyler brought the coffin inside. “If he’s a goner then I don’t want him going back into my car. Check on the guys in the trunk while you’re at it.”
Gary went out to do so. To forestall any questions about his odd appearance, he’d wrapped a large silk scarf around his head. Now he looked like the ugliest Muslim woman in the village. Tyler’s suggestion had been to play up the sympathy card. “Say you’re suffering from what the Elephant Man had. See if anybody asks another question when they think it’s a disease.”
Gary stared into the open trunk so long that Tyler was sure something disastrous had happened. He was about to go outside and check when Gary slammed the lid back down. As soon as he entered the room again, Tyler could tell why. His friend’s eyes were red-rimmed. He’d been crying, not checking.
“I want to try something else,” Tyler said. “Before we awaken our sleeping beauty.”
“What’s that?” Gary stood back from him, eyeing him up warily.
“I want to test out commanding you back to normality. Stand still while I give it a try.”
Gary stood still, head hanging like he’d been caught out doing something shameful. Wilma sat quietly on the bed, her keen eyes fixed on the floor show.
“I
command you return to your previous human form,” Tyler shouted and cast his stone-hand toward Gary. No flashes of light erupted, there was no increase in the pink glow.
“Good one.” Wilma hopped off the bed and trotted over to the coffin. “Shall we get back to it, then? We’ll owe money for room and gas tomorrow, and if they try the card I left with reception, they’ll have a nasty discovery.”
“Sure.” Gary looked downcast, not jumping forward to help as he usually would. “Open him up.”
“Why don’t you have a seat, precious, since you seem under the weather? Better still, why not go over to the gas station and forage us out a few snacks?”
“No. Gary should stay.”
But Gary had already stood and made his way to the door. “I don’t need to see any more of this. May as well go do something useful.”
When the door slammed behind him, Wilma stared out the window at his dejected figure, slumping toward the gas station. “He’s a ray of sunshine this evening.”
“The sooner we can work out how to change him back, the better.”
Tyler unscrewed the top of the coffin lid and swung it open. At some point during the lengthy incarceration of the car trip, Julius had vomited inside the casket. The red velvet cushioning was smeared with stomach acid dotted with the inevitable pieces of carrot and corn.
“Pe-ew,” Wilma said, holding her nose. “The construction on that thing must be solid. I couldn’t smell a thing when the top was shut.”
“Crack open a window, would you?” Tyler bent over and slapped Julius lightly on the face. The stink of vomit increased until he felt close to throwing up himself.
“Hey, Julius. Wake up.”
The stone in his hand did its glowy thing, and Julius’s eyes flickered open. He stared out at Tyler and Wilma, his face creasing with concern.
“Why are you both bigger?”
Wilma cackled with laughter. “We’re not bigger. You’ve just been reduced to fun-size.”
“What’s that horrendous smell?”
“That’s you.” Tyler walked through to the bathroom, returning a moment later with a wet washcloth. He wiped the worst of the muck off Julius’s face, having to scrub where it had dried to a thick film.