The Five Masks of Dr. Screem Read online

  The big dog arched its back. It was getting ready to attack.

  I struggled to think. Could I do a forward roll over the dog, onto the safety of solid ground?

  Maybe a simple cartwheel?

  No time. The big creature roared as it leaped at me.

  It lowered its heavy paws onto my shoulders — and sank its teeth into my neck.

  29

  “Owwwwww.”

  With a shrill cry of pain, I shrugged my shoulder and shoved the dog off. I raised the snow wolf mask in both hands. I knew it would take me somewhere weird and frightening. But I had no choice. I had to get away from the vicious dog.

  I took a deep breath — and jammed the wolf mask down over the insect mask.

  And then a blinding flash of light made me shut my eyes.

  The light seemed to swirl around me. Cover me like a weightless blanket.

  I waited for the jolt of pain of the dog’s bite. But I didn’t feel it.

  I couldn’t feel anything. Just the coldness of the white light.

  Cold. So cold.

  I opened my eyes and gasped. I was standing in deep snow.

  A bright moon low overhead made the snow gleam like silver. I blinked, waiting for my eyes to adjust.

  I glanced around. The snowy ground dipped, then rose again. A tall, white mountain peak loomed in front of me. And to my side, a snowy cliff with nothing but purple sky behind it.

  I’m in the mountains, I realized. Snowy mountains.

  Where had the mask taken me? I sniffed the air. I smelled something new. I couldn’t quite place the smell.

  I took a few unsteady steps forward in the snow. The snow was soft and flaky and fell away from me as I walked.

  I gazed down at a set of paw prints. Animal paws making a straight track along the side of the cliff.

  I stopped after another few steps. I felt awkward. Heavy. As if I’d put on a lot of weight.

  A picture flashed into my mind. I saw a rabbit. The rabbit was dead and torn to pieces. I could smell the dead, raw rabbit. I could see its meaty legs and its tender middle. The red meat clinging to its bones.

  I felt hungry.

  Wait. Stop, Monica. Why the crazy thoughts?

  My stomach growled. I sniffed the air again. I recognized the smell. A human. I was picking up the scent of a nearby human.

  I turned slowly — and saw Peter standing on top of a low snowdrift. His mummy mask gleamed under the moonlight. He had his hands wrapped tightly around himself.

  “Peter?”

  I tried to call to him. But only a grunt escaped my throat.

  I tried again. And grunted again.

  What’s up with this?

  I lowered my gaze to the snow. I stared at the animal paw prints. They stretched in a straight line from behind me.

  They were mine!

  My stomach growled again. I felt like growling, too. I suddenly felt an anger I’d never felt before. Pure animal anger.

  I’m an animal.

  The words rang in my ears. And repeated. I’m an animal.

  So that’s what the wolf mask had done. It carried Peter and me here to this high, snowy mountain slope. And it turned me into a snow wolf.

  A grunting snow wolf staggering forward on four legs.

  Hungry. And angry.

  I pawed the snow. I looked around.

  I pictured the dead rabbit again. I could taste its cold, wet, pink-and-yellow insides. What tasty morsels did the stomach hold?

  I raised my head to the sky and let the wind tickle the fur on my ears. Then I sniffed again. Humans were too bony to eat. But Peter had such a sweet scent.

  I started to drool. My belly grumbled.

  Peter might steal my rabbit. I pictured him grabbing the rabbit in two hands. Ripping it apart. Tossing the fur into the snow and raising the fresh, tasty meat to his face.

  No way.

  Peter can’t have my food. A wolf doesn’t share.

  I knew what I had to do. I had to get rid of Peter.

  He stood watching me.

  And I can smell his fear.

  I staggered toward him on my strong animal legs.

  He let out a cry and stumbled backward, off the snowdrift.

  He landed on his back in the deep snow.

  I didn’t give him time to stand up.

  I pounced.

  I clamped my teeth onto his neck and scooped him up in both front paws. Then I raised myself onto my back legs. With my new animal strength, I lifted him above my head.

  I released his neck and opened my mouth in a howl of victory. My howl echoed off the high mountains above us.

  The long triumphant howl burst from my chest and out through my open snout. It felt good to show off my strength.

  Peter screamed and struggled, kicking and thrashing.

  But he was no match for my animal power.

  When the wolf is angry, the wolf will ACT.

  Holding the shrieking boy in my claws, I staggered on my hind legs to the edge of the snowy cliff.

  And with a beastly roar, I tossed him over the side.

  30

  Peter flew into the air.

  His scream of horror snapped something in my brain — and I lunged forward. Closed my jaw on to the edge of his karate uniform. Caught him between my sharp teeth. Swung him to safety.

  I held him down with both paws. And waited for my mind to clear.

  My animal thoughts flashed past me in a jumble of pictures and odors. I could smell the blood of the raw rabbit. I pictured my paw prints in the snow.

  And suddenly, in my mind I was running through the snow, running on all fours. Kicking up a mist of white behind me.

  Then that picture was replaced by another — Peter at home. Our house. Our front yard.

  I could smell the fallen brown leaves. Smell the tangy aroma of wood fires burning in fireplaces around our neighborhood.

  Peter’s screaming rang in my sensitive wolf ears.

  The sound brought me back. Brought me back to being me.

  I’m Monica.

  I spun away from the snow-covered cliff. I set Peter free.

  He stood up and stumbled awkwardly. His knees appeared to give way. But he stayed on his feet.

  And he continued to scream.

  And without realizing it, I was screaming, too.

  I raised my head to the sky. Then I opened my jaws and bellowed at the pale moon.

  We stood together screaming. I only stopped when I felt the ground tremble beneath my hind paws.

  In the sudden hush, I heard a distant rumble.

  Thunder?

  The rumble grew louder until it became a ground-shaking roar.

  Following the sound, I gazed up to the mountains above us. And saw a tidal wave — a high tidal wave of snow cascading down at us.

  An avalanche!

  Our screams had shaken the snow loose from the mountaintop. We had started an avalanche.

  It came tumbling down with a deafening roar. Picking up speed, the wave of white rose higher and higher until the dark sky disappeared behind it.

  Enormous boulders of snow came falling in front of the wave. They bounced and tumbled down the mountainside.

  The whole world was white.

  It fell over us. Battered us. Then buried us.

  So cold. So icy cold.

  I reached for Peter but couldn’t find him.

  And I sank deep, deep into the rushing wave of snow.

  31

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. Except to shiver under the heavy blanket of icy snow.

  I struggled to force down my panic. I knew I had to move — now.

  Using all my strength, I grabbed the snow above me and pulled myself up.

  I moved only a few inches. But it gave me space to kick my feet.

  Kicking and thrashing, I dug my way to the surface. With a last burst of strength, I pulled myself out of the deep snow. Then I raised my face to the sky and sucked in breath after breath of the cool, fres
h air.

  “Hey, look.” A voice beside me. I turned to see Peter. He had pulled himself up, too.

  He pointed to a dark strip of red light in the sky. The color stretched along a black horizon.

  Peter’s face was hidden by the mummy mask. He turned to me. “Where are we?” His voice came out muffled and tiny.

  I didn’t answer right away. I gazed into the strip of red-purple light. “That’s … the sun starting to come up,” I said. “The snow … the avalanche … it must have taken us away from there…. It brought us back.”

  I spoke in my voice. My human voice. I was me again. No longer a four-legged animal.

  And we were standing on a street, gazing into the night.

  Peter followed my gaze. Then a cry escaped his throat. “The snow is gone! Monica, we’re alive! The snow … the mountains — all gone!”

  I swallowed. My throat ached from screaming. “Peter,” I said, “Look at me. Am I … back? Back to normal?”

  He squinted at me. “You were never normal!” he said. He laughed at his own joke.

  I gazed down at myself. It was hard to see. I had two masks on my face, one on top of the other.

  But I was me again. Shivering in the autumn cold in my little gymnastics costume.

  I glanced around. We were standing on the sidewalk on a block of dark houses. An empty lot across the street.

  It took me a few seconds to realize we were standing right where our house used to be. The sight of the bare lot sent a wave of sadness over me.

  I turned to Peter. “We don’t have a lot of time left,” I said.

  Peter nodded. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his white uniform. “I — I can’t believe what’s happened to us tonight,” he said softly.

  “I’m afraid to find another mask,” I confessed. “Afraid to put another mask on. Each time it — it takes us into a horror movie.”

  “Except it’s all real,” he said. “But, Monica — we have to keep going. We only have three masks.” He stared at the empty lot in front of us.

  “We don’t have much time,” I said.

  “How about the skull mask?” he said. “That should be easy to find.”

  I squinted at him. “Easy? Why?”

  He shrugged. “So far, the masks have been their own clues — so …”

  I finished his sentence. “The best place to find a skull mask is … a graveyard.”

  We both began walking in the same direction. Hillcrest’s oldest graveyard was about a three-block walk.

  The night was eerily still. The houses we passed were all dark. No cars on the street. The trees didn’t rustle. No whisper of wind.

  The only sounds were our shoes thudding on the sidewalk and the beating of my heart.

  I had to jog to catch up to Peter. “Are we — are we really going into the old graveyard on Halloween?”

  “What’s scary about it?” Peter demanded. “It’s only dead people.”

  32

  The paint had nearly all peeled off the low picket fence in front of the graveyard. Parts of the fence had fallen to the ground, leaving wide gaps.

  I peered through one of the gaps at the crooked, tilting gravestones, which were black against the purple sky. Dead leaves had piled up and formed hills against several gravestones. Like blankets to cover the dead.

  I shuddered.

  I never liked cemeteries. Even new, pretty ones that were well taken care of with smooth grass and straight, shiny gravestones.

  Some of my friends sometimes had picnics in the new cemetery a few blocks from school. But I couldn’t join them. It gave me the creeps.

  I just couldn’t stop thinking about the dead people lying so still, rotting away in their wormy coffins beneath the ground.

  I had nightmares about graveyards. I never told anyone about them. I didn’t know if it was normal or not.

  And now, Peter and I stood staring through the broken fence. Gazing at the crooked rows of little grave markers and the blanket of dead leaves over them.

  “Let’s go,” Peter said. He squeezed through a gap in the fence.

  I took a deep breath and followed him.

  As soon as we stepped into the graveyard, the wind started up again. It had been so still and silent. And now, it was as if the wind had been waiting for us.

  The dead leaves began to crackle and move. Carried on the wind, the fat brown leaves danced in circles around the low grave markers.

  The bare limbs of the old trees appeared to shudder in the swirling gusts.

  “Peter … I d-don’t like this,” I stammered.

  He moved down a row of gravestones. Most of them had fallen over and lay flat on their backs. Like the dead people beneath them, I thought.

  “Peter?”

  He didn’t seem to hear me. Leaning into the wind, he moved down the row of ancient gravestones. I followed close behind.

  I kept my eyes on the ground. Was the skull mask hidden here? Was it buried in the deep leaves? Hidden behind a grave?

  I grabbed Peter’s arm when I heard a loud moan.

  “What was that?” I cried. “Did you hear it?”

  He spun back to me. “Hear what?”

  “A moan. Like someone groaning,” I said. “It … sounded human,” I insisted.

  “Look around,” he said. He waved his arm. “We’re the only ones here.”

  “The only living ones here,” I corrected him.

  He wandered down the next row of old graves. His shoes crunched loudly over the dry leaves. The trees creaked all around.

  I jumped in shock when a flat gray headstone toppled over at my feet. I leaped back, my heart pounding.

  Just the wind.

  And then I heard the moan again.

  “Peter,” I called in a trembling voice. “We … we’re not alone.”

  33

  We both stopped and listened. Where was that frightening moaning sound coming from?

  Like a sad cry from the grave, I told myself.

  Then I saw a blur of yellow-white. A pale spot of light.

  I took a few steps over the crackling leaves. I moved closer, squinting hard.

  “Peter — do you see this?” I pointed.

  He turned from the row of graves. He followed my gaze.

  I took another few steps closer to it.

  I saw a deep hole, black against the gray of the ground. An open grave.

  Beside the grave, I saw some narrow tombstones. Unmarked. Tilting this way and that.

  And at the head of the open grave … a wider grave marker. Like a stone tablet.

  With a yellow object resting on top of it.

  The mask!

  The skull mask. I could see it clearly now. I could see its deep eyeholes. The open jaw slack against the front of the gravestone.

  “Peter! Here it is!” I shouted. “I found it.”

  He cried out. I could hear him running to me.

  I stepped up to the mask. I bent down.

  The skull had a hideous toothy grin on its sagging mouth. The top of the head was bumpy and crisscrossed with cracks.

  I raised both hands. I hesitated for a moment. I knew something weird was about to happen. But I had no choice.

  I grabbed the skull mask by the sides.

  Oh, no.

  Oh, no.

  I opened my mouth in a shriek of cold terror.

  The cracked yellow skull — it wasn’t a mask.

  It was hard, like stone. A real skull.

  I started to lift the skull before I realized it was attached to a skeleton.

  I froze. I was too stunned to let go. The skeleton rose over me. The bones were dry and yellow under the moonlight.

  And as I stood there, a strong gust of wind blew through the skeleton’s rib bones.

  And it moaned.

  Now the skeleton rose up. Its cracked skull tilted toward me as if it was looking at me through its empty eye sockets. Its mouth was frozen in a hideous grin. It had only two or three broken teeth left in its
mouth.

  Peter bumped up beside me. He tugged my hands off the sides of the skull. Then he uttered a cry as the wind blew through the skeleton’s bones and the skeleton moaned again. The leg bones made a cracking sound as they stood taller.

  I tried to stagger back, away from the ugly thing.

  But it moved with surprising speed.

  It grabbed my throat with its hard, bony fingers.

  I saw it grab Peter with its other fleshless hand.

  We both screamed as the skeleton lifted us off the ground — and heaved us into the open grave.

  34

  I landed on my hands and knees in wet dirt.

  Peter thudded beside me. He rolled onto his side and bumped the wall of the grave.

  I gazed up to the top of the hole. I expected the skeleton to appear up there.

  I could hear its moaning as the wind blew through its bones. But it didn’t follow us down. I couldn’t see it.

  I pulled myself to my feet. Mud clung to my knees. The dirt beneath us was soft and wet. It smelled sour down there, like spoiled milk.

  Beside me, Peter stood and stretched his hands to the top of the grave. He wasn’t tall enough to reach it.

  He jumped two or three times, trying to grab hold of the ground above the grave. But the mud was too wet. He kept sliding back down to the bottom.

  Wiping mud off his hands, he turned to me. “I … think we’re trapped down here,” he said softly.

  Something caught my eyes on the grave bottom. Something glistened in the moonlight. Glistened and moved.

  I bent down to examine it — and gasped. A clump of worms. Thick as a mop head. Long, wet worms crawling over each other, tangled together. Like a big heap of moving spaghetti.

  I turned away. And saw more worms poking out of the dirt walls. Dozens of worms dropped down the sides of the grave. Wriggling at my feet in the wet mud.

  “I — I hate worms,” I stammered. “I have a thing about worms.”

  “I know,” Peter said. “Remember when I put those Gummi Worms in your bed?”

  “Shut up, Peter!”

  He gazed up at the ground.

  “I’ll give you a boost,” I said. “I’ll raise you to the top. After you climb out, you can pull me up.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” he said.