by R. L. Stine
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THE SCREAM OF THE HAUNTED MASK
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ENTER HORRORLAND
The Story So Far…
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TEASER
FEAR FILE #4
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO AVAILABLE
COPYRIGHT
I clicked on the basement light. Then I gripped the iron banister and took a step down. The stair creaked beneath me. It sounded like a squeaking mouse.
I took another step, squinting into the yellow light. The cold stairs chilled my bare feet. I lifted my long nightshirt so I wouldn’t trip over it as I made my way down.
In sleep, my straight brown hair had fallen over my face. I brushed it back over my shoulders. My hand trembled with fear.
I heard a hum in the basement as the furnace clicked on. Another stair squeaked beneath me. I stopped halfway down.
“What am I doing?” Did I say the words out loud — or did I only think them?
Why was I creeping down to the basement in the middle of the night?
It wasn’t my idea. I didn’t want to do it. I was being pulled … pulled against my will.
Carly Beth … Carly Beth …
As if the terrifying mask was calling my name. The ugly Haunted Mask that tried to ruin my life … tried to destroy my brain … tried to turn me evil.
And now it was calling me. Forcing me down the stairs and across the cold basement floor.
Carly Beth … Carly Beth …
I knew I wasn’t dreaming. My fright was too real. I switched on the ceiling light. It glowed off the bright red vinyl chairs and couch in our playroom. I grabbed the edge of the Ping-Pong table. I tried to stop myself. Tried to hold myself back.
But the pull of the mask was too strong.
I suddenly felt so weak and tiny — like a piece of dust caught in a powerful vacuum cleaner. My hands flew off the table. I stumbled forward, my toes tangling in the strands of the white shag rug.
My horse posters … the red wall clock … my brother Noah’s old tricycle … the closet door covered with family snapshots … all swept by in a blur as I staggered across the basement.
To the storage room against the far wall. To the mountain of cartons and old furniture and piles of baby toys and old clothes and magazines. The room where I had buried the mask. So deep in the stacks and stacks of junk that no one could find it.
And now it was calling me … pulling me.
Carly Beth … Carly Beth …
Was the whisper only inside my head? The sound of my own name sent shiver after shiver down the back of my neck.
I knew what it wanted. I knew why it woke me up and called me from my bedroom.
It wanted me to uncover the metal box where I had buried it away. To unlock the box and free it. To pull it on again this year. To let its evil sweep over me once more.
The Haunted Mask was ready to take over my mind again and force me to do its evil.
I couldn’t let that happen. I would never let that happen again.
But here I was, stepping into the dark storage room. Squinting at the piles of cartons and old furniture. Here I was, unable to fight it.
My legs trembled as I lifted the first box. Shivering in my thin nightshirt, I pulled the heavy carton off the pile and set it down beside me. Then I reached for the next carton.
“I can’t stop myself!” My voice came out in a choked whisper.
I wanted to turn away. I wanted to run. Instead, I bent and pulled the metal box out from its hiding place. An old black box with a heavy clasp. I let out a gasp. The box felt WARM!
What was I doing? Why couldn’t I stop my hands?
My heart skipped a beat. I made a choking sound as I unlocked the box and lifted the lid.
Folded inside the box, the mask let off a green glow. I gaped at the two crooked rows of fangs. The fat, rubbery lips grinned up at me.
“Stop, Carly Beth! Stop! Don’t do it!” I pleaded with myself.
But I was no longer in control. I wrapped one hand around the bumpy bald head of the mask and lifted it from the box.
“Ohhhh.” A groan escaped my throat. The mask felt like human flesh!
The pointed chin bobbed up and down. The rubbery lips made a bub bub bub sound as they rubbed together.
I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt ready to burst.
I let the box fall to the floor and raised the ugly mask high over my head. The sunken eye holes grew wider. The wormlike lips made their bub bub bub sound.
The basement cold wrapped around me. I could feel my muscles tighten. My whole body was stiff with fear.
I began to lower the mask … lower it over my head.
I felt the warm rubbery material against my hair. I tugged it down. Soft as human skin, the mask slid over my forehead.
And then … “NOOOOOOOO!” A shout burst from my throat.
A scream of fear and anger all mixed together.
The force of the shout gave me strength. I pulled the mask up and jerked it away from me.
“NOOOOO! You’re not going to overpower me. I’m not going to wear you — ever again!”
I gripped the warty cheeks of the mask in my fists. Then I gasped as the mask moved its rubbery, warm lips. Bub bub bub.
The lips parted and the fangs tilted up.
And the Haunted Mask opened its mouth in a long, deafening SCREAM!
The next afternoon, my friend Sabrina Mason followed me on to the bus. We rode it every day to our after-school job.
“Carly Beth, are you okay?” Sabrina asked, swinging her backpack off her shoulders. “You look like something my cat coughed up.”
I laughed. “Why don’t you say what you really think, Sabrina?”
Sabrina and I have been best friends since third grade. So we can almost always say what’s on our minds without either of us getting hurt.
We’re both twelve. But Sabrina looks at least sixteen. She is tall and dark and graceful and sophisticated looking, with long black hair and enormous black eyes.
I’m stuck with this little pixie face, a tiny stub of a nose, and a skinny mouse body. I’m actually a month older than Sabrina. But people think I’m her younger sister!
The bus started up with a bump. Sabrina and I spilled headfirst into the nearest seats. We dropped our backpacks on the floor in front of us. Sabrina began to tie her hair back in a ponytail.
She turned to me. “So? Let me guess. You were up all night thinking about Gary Steadman.”
“Huh?” I gave her shoulder a hard shove. “Hel-lo? Earth calling Sabrina. I don’t have a crush on Gary Steadman.”
Sabrina’s dark eyes flashed. “Then what did I see at Steve Boswell’s party last Friday night?”
I could feel my cheeks turning hot. I knew I was blushing. I wish I could do something about that. Is there a way to learn how to keep your face from turning red?
“Sabrina, don’t be a rat,” I said. “Total truth? He tried to kiss me, and his braces cut my lip.”
We both laughed. The bus hit a bump, and it made me hiccup.
Sabrina tugged at the brown
suede vest she wore over two T-shirts. She’s really into clothes these days. I mainly pull on jeans and anything I can find in my T-shirt drawer.
“So, Carly Beth, if you weren’t up all night thinking about The Steadman, why the dark rings under your eyes? I’m serious. You’ve been totally pale and droopy all day.”
I sighed and stared out the stained bus window. The sidewalks were covered with a deep blanket of brown leaves scuttling in the wind. We rolled past the library with its tall white columns. Then past Rohmer’s Flower Store with a wheelbarrow of yellow and orange flowers in front.
Should I tell Sabrina the truth?
Yes, I decided. I couldn’t tell anyone else about what happened last night. No one would believe it. Mom would just tell me to stop watching the Sci-Fi Channel.
But Sabrina was there that Halloween. She saw the Haunted Mask. She saw what happened to me when I wore it. Sabrina believed.
So I told her the whole story. How I woke up wide-awake at three in the morning. How I couldn’t stop myself. I was pulled to the basement. Forced to open the box and take out the ugly mask.
Speaking in a hushed voice, I told her how I started to pull it down over my head. And how I finally found the strength to rip it off and shove it away.
My voice trembled as I told Sabrina how it took all my strength to stuff the screaming mask back into its box. It didn’t stop screaming until I closed the box tight. And by the time I went back upstairs, it was almost time to get ready for school.
I was breathing hard when I finished telling Sabrina the story. And I could feel that my face was still bright red.
Sabrina had her hand on my arm. She shook her head. “Listen to me, Carly Beth,” she whispered. “You have to get that mask out of your house. You are really scaring me.”
I swallowed. My mouth suddenly felt very dry. “But where can I take it?” I asked. “I don’t want anyone to find it.”
“Take it anywhere,” Sabrina said, squeezing my arm. “Bury it in the woods. Throw it in the river.”
“But … what if it floats?” I said. “What if someone fishes it out and puts it on? I can’t let that happen to anyone else, Sabrina. It’s too horrifying! When I wore it, it changed me. You remember. I turned angry and evil. We couldn’t pull it off. The mask attached itself to my skin!”
“Ssssh.” She raised a finger to her lips. “Of course I remember,” she said. She held up both hands. Her plastic bracelets rattled. “Look. I’m shaking. I’m shaking all over. That’s why you have to get that thing out of your house.”
The bad memories flooded over me. “You can only defeat it with a symbol of love,” I muttered.
Sabrina stared at me. “Huh?”
“Remember?” I said. “I found a symbol of love. That’s the only way to remove the mask from your face and stop its evil.”
Sabrina shuddered. “Can we stop talking about it? You are totally creeping me out. Change the subject. I want to hear more about Gary Steadman.”
But I couldn’t stop. “Only one good thing came from that Halloween,” I said. “The Haunted Mask changed me. After all that horror, I’m not the same person anymore.”
Sabrina rolled her eyes.
“It’s true!” I insisted. “You remember. I was the class scaredy-cat. I was afraid of my own shadow. Really. But after defeating that evil mask, I’m different, Sabrina. I’m not scared anymore.”
And then something warm and dry curled around my neck.
A snake with glowing yellow eyes slid around my throat. It raised its head and opened its jaws wide.
The snake jerked its head back and closed its jaws.
I heard laughter behind me.
I wrapped my fingers around the snake and gently pulled it off my neck. Then I turned to the two boys in the seat behind me.
“Scared you!” Chuck Greene shouted. He and his buddy Steve Boswell hee-hawed some more and touched knuckles.
I ran my fingers up and down the snake, petting it lightly. Then I handed it back to Chuck. “I knew you brought Herbie in for science class today,” I told him. “No big deal.”
I twisted around in the seat so I could look at the two of them. “Your jokes are lame. Give it up, dudes. You can’t scare me anymore.”
For some reason, they thought that was a riot. “You look like two grinning baboons,” Sabrina said.
They started scratching their armpits and eeeh eeeh eeehing like monkeys.
Chuck and Steve aren’t related, but they look like brothers. They’re both tall and thin, with straight brown hair, dark brown eyes, and the same goofy grin.
They dress alike, too. They always wear baggy, faded jeans and black long-sleeve T-shirts. I don’t know why. But all they want to do is scare me and make me scream. They just don’t realize how different I am now.
Steve leaned over and messed up my hair. “It’s almost Halloween,” he said. “Are you going to hide under your bed this year till it’s over?”
Chuck hee-hawed some more. Like it was a real funny joke.
Sabrina and I both rolled our eyes. “I just saw something kinda scary,” I said.
“Like what?” Steve asked.
I pointed out the window. “Wasn’t that your house that went by three or four blocks ago?”
“Huh?” They both jumped up, grabbed their backpacks, and went running to the front of the bus. “Hey — stop! STOP!”
Sabrina and I laughed as they scrambled off the bus. We waved out the window as the bus pulled away.
“They’re totally immature,” Sabrina said. “Like, shouldn’t they be repeating fourth grade or something?”
I smoothed my hair down with both hands. Then I settled back in the seat. I could still feel the chill of the snake on my neck.
Sabrina waved to someone out the window. Her plastic bracelets jangled. Then she turned and started saying something to me.
But I couldn’t hear her. She sounded far away. Her voice was like an echo of an echo.
Drowned out by a high, frightening scream.
The scream of the Haunted Mask.
I struggled to hear Sabrina, but I couldn’t shut out the mask’s shrill wail. Couldn’t shut it out. Couldn’t shut it out. I covered my ears, hoping it would stop.
“What’s wrong, Carly Beth?” Sabrina gripped my hands and started shaking me. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t you hear it, too?” I cried.
She squinted at me. “Hear what?”
No. No. Is it inside my head now?
What am I going to do?
Sabrina and I climbed off the bus at the last stop. The screaming in my ears had faded, but I felt a little dizzy and weird.
I took a long, deep breath. The air smelled so fresh here at the farm on the edge of town. It smelled like cut grass and autumn leaves and flowers.
Sabrina and I started walking up the gravel path to the tall white farmhouse. The windows in the front of the house glowed red in the late afternoon sun.
The house stood in the middle of a wide green pasture. Beyond the pasture stood a big apple tree orchard.
Our shoes crunched over the gravel. We passed the red-and-white sign that read: TUMBLEDOWN FARMS. A cool October breeze rattled the sign.
A bunch of squawking blackbirds perched on the satellite dish behind the house. High in the sky, I saw a red hawk swoop low, then float up again. The wind made the tall pasture grass tilt one way, then the other.
“Almost Halloween,” Sabrina muttered, leaning into the wind. “We have to think of some Halloween projects for the little beasts.”
Our new job was helping Mrs. Lange take care of eight kindergarten kids in the Tumbledown Farms after-school program.
“Don’t call them beasts,” I scolded. “I think they’re cute.”
“Cute?” Sabrina’s dark eyes flashed. “Do you call stuffing crayons up your nose cute?”
“Only Jesse did that,” I said. “And we got the crayons out with only a little crying, didn’t we?”
“M
rs. Lange says there’s one bad apple in every bushel,” Sabrina said.
I shook my head. “Jesse’s not a bad apple. He’s only five!”
“Colin is my favorite,” Sabrina said. “He’s like a miniature old gentleman. If you tell him to do something, he gives you a sharp salute and then he does it.”
“Colin still sucks his thumb,” I said.
She shrugged. “No one’s perfect.”
“Angela is perfect,” I said. “With those red curls and green eyes, she could be a kid supermodel or something.”
“Super spoiled, you mean,” Sabrina replied. “The way she always has to sit in your lap?”
“She’s sweet,” I said. “You’re just jealous.”
We climbed up the wooden steps to the front porch and scraped our shoes on the welcome mat. I could hear the kids’ voices inside, high and shrill. Some kind of argument. I could hear Jesse trying to outshout the others.
Tumbledown Farms is one of the oldest farms in the state. My dad told me it used to be a real working farm where they grew potatoes and tomatoes and corn and a lot of other crops. But the farm family sold it and moved away a long time ago.
Now it’s a place people go to on weekends. Almost like a theme park. There’s the apple orchard, a petting zoo, two restaurants, an art gallery, a big souvenir shop, hay rides, and a kids’ club.
I pushed open the door, and we stepped into the front room. Warm air washed over my face. I took a deep breath. The house smelled like chocolate. Mrs. Lange always bakes cookies on Friday.
“Gimme it! Gimme it!” I heard Jesse shouting from the playroom.
Sabrina and I tossed our coats and backpacks down on the bench near the door and hurried to the playroom. The first thing I saw was Angela sitting at the art table, crying. An overturned cup in front of her. A big puddle of chocolate milk spreading over the table.
I turned to the window and saw Jesse and Harmony having an angry tug-of-war with a red plastic Frisbee. “Gimme it! Gimme it!” Jesse was fierce!
Laura Henry ran into the room, carrying a roll of paper towels. She leaned over Angela and started to mop up the spilled chocolate milk. When she saw Sabrina and me, she let out a sigh of relief.
“Thank goodness you’re here!” she said. “The kids are totally wired today. I think it’s a full moon or something!”