The Five Masks of Dr. Screem (3 page)

The book ended there. I stared at the final sentence.

“What does that
mean
?” I cried.

Bella didn’t answer. Her eyes burned into mine.

“It means we have five minutes to get
out
of here!” Peter cried.

We both jumped up.

“You
have
to let us go,” I told Bella. “Peter and I can’t help you.”

Before Bella could reply, a loud crash made Peter and me cry out in surprise.

I swung around — and saw books sliding off the high shelves, tumbling to the floor. Peter and I ducked under the table as heavy old books flew across the room.

Earthquake
, I thought.

I covered my head and shut my eyes.

Books crashed and thudded all around me.
Books bounced off the tabletop, over the floor. It was
raining
books!

And then — another crash. My eyes shot open in time to see a whole wall collapse.

No. Not a wall. A bookshelf fell over. It slammed to the floor with a deafening crash. The room shook. A curtain of dust floated up into the air.

Then silence.

I picked up my head — and watched a man stride into the library from behind the fallen bookcase. He wore a long purple robe with a purple hood. He had a red face and a square white beard that looked like a paintbrush.

He came stomping over the books, kicking them out of his way. He was short, I noticed. He was no taller than Peter.

He stared hard at Peter and me as he stormed into the room. He had purple eyes that glowed like jewels.

“Dr. Screem!” Bella cried, raising her hands to her face. “Keep back. Keep back!”

He stared straight ahead as if he didn’t hear her.

“Dr. Screem — please!” Bella pleaded. “Stay away from them! Don’t
hurt
them!”

But Screem kept up his march over the fallen books. He strode straight toward my brother and me.

And the look on his bearded face was
not
friendly.

“Don’t touch them! Don’t hurt them!” Bella screamed.

I froze in terror for a long moment. Then I grabbed Peter and pulled him backward till we bumped against a shelf.

Screem marched straight ahead.

I held my breath until my chest hurt. My knees felt like they were about to collapse. I leaned back against the bookshelf to keep from falling.

“No — please!” Bella cried, hands pressed to her face.

But Screem didn’t have his purple eyes on us. He was gazing straight ahead at the hidden compartment holding the five masks.

Bella gasped. “No! Stay away!” She moved quickly. She dove to the shelf and tried to block it with her body.

Screem pointed a finger at her. I saw a big green ring on his finger.

I gasped as a beam of green light shot out
from the ring. The light swept over the bookshelf.

It began to turn. In seconds, the five masks were revealed.

Screem advanced. Bella backed away in fright. He reached inside and snatched the five masks one by one.

He squeezed them together, cradling them under his arm.

“No! No! No!” Bella cried. She ran at Screem, lowered her shoulder — and tried to tackle him.

But he ducked away. Bella slammed onto the floor and slid on her stomach. Her long hair flew up behind her. She let out a frustrated cry.

Screem hid the masks under his robe. He gazed down at Bella as she climbed slowly to her feet. And a strange smile crossed his bearded face.

“And so it begins again,” he said softly. His voice was high and whistly, breathy like an old man’s voice.

“Screem, listen to me —” Bella pleaded.

“You cannot stop me. It is written in the book. The hunt begins again,” Screem said. “But this time when it is all over, the masks — and all their power — will be mine.”

“No —” Bella protested.

“When Halloween ends, your control of the masks will end, too,” Screem told Bella.

His purple robe swept around him as he turned and started for the opening near the fallen bookshelf.

Bella took a few steps after him but stopped. I could see her chin trembling, see the fear on her pale face.

At the shelf, Screem spun around. He waved a long finger at Peter and me. “Keep away. I’m warning you,” he growled.

I stared at the green ring on his finger. It set off a beam of green light, like laser light.

“Don’t try to help her,” he cried. “I know who you are.”

The library door suddenly rose up in front of him. With another swirl of his robe, he disappeared out the door.

His words rang in my ears.

I know who you are…. I know who you are…
.

Each time I heard them, another chill shook my body.

Bella came striding over to us. She suddenly looked older. She had deep lines under her dark eyes. Her lips were dry and cracked.

“Now you have no choice,” she murmured.

I squinted at her. “Excuse me?”

“You have no choice,” she repeated. “You
must
help me. Screem knows who you are. That means you are in terrible danger.”

Okay. Okay. I’m a very patient person. I can put up with a lot of nonsense.

I’m a calm person. I can deal with difficult people.

I have to put up with Peter, after all.

I think I’m pretty good in an emergency.

But every person has a limit. And I’d just reached mine. I’d had enough.

I took a deep breath and held it. I waited for the chills to stop rolling down my back.

Then I grabbed Peter by the shoulder and gave him a push. “Let’s go!” I cried, motioning to the door with my head.

“Stop!” Bella ordered.

“We’re out of here!” I said. “You and that little wizard Screem are both crazy.”

“Yeah. Happy Halloween!” Peter cried.

And we both took off. We ran right past her. Slipping and sliding on the old books on the floor, we leaped over the fallen bookshelf. And darted through the library doorway.

I heard Bella shouting, but I didn’t turn back.

I tugged open the front door of the house, and Peter and I rocketed outside.

The cold night air shocked my hot face. Swirling winds sent my hair flying up.

Our shoes slapped the hard ground as we ran side by side down Bella’s front lawn. We practically burst through the tall hedges at the street and kept running.

I glanced back. I expected Bella to be chasing after us.

But the street was empty. Nothing moved. No people in view. No cars.

It must be late
, I realized.
No trick-or-treaters on the street
.

Mom and Dad will be furious
.

And if we tell them what happened to us … they’ll say we made it all up
.

Peter and I ran down the middle of the street. I ran so hard, I had a sharp pain in my side. But I ignored it and kept running.

We reached the corner of our block. Peter nearly tripped over his trick-or-treat bag.

How could he still be carrying it?

There we were in the scariest moment of our lives. And all he could think of was holding on to his Halloween candy? Amazing.

We ran past the Willers’ house. Then the small empty field with the baseball diamond marked in the dirt. Then the Kleins’ house.

My legs were aching. The pain in my side was
intense
.

Just a few more steps …

And then Peter and I both stopped running. And we both let out screams at the same time.

“NOOOO.”

“Oh, NOOOO.”

My throat tightened in horror. I struggled to breathe.

I gazed up to the top of the low slope where our house had stood.

It was gone.

Our house was
gone
.

Peter and I were staring at an empty lot.

“Wh-where is it?” Peter stammered. His eyes bulged and his mouth hung open.

We were both panting too hard to speak. I could feel the blood pulsing at my temples. I dropped to my knees to get over my dizziness.

“It’s … gone,” Peter choked out. “But … where are Mom and Dad?”

I shook my head. I looked away from him. I didn’t want this to be real.

I had the idea that if I looked away, then turned back, our house would be where it always stood.

But no.

Tall grass swayed in the gusting winds all the way up the sloping front. Nothing but tall grass.

“We — we’re on the wrong block,” I said, still struggling to catch my breath. “That’s all. The wrong block.”

I climbed to my feet and gazed around. “Come on. This is crazy, Peter. We just got mixed up.
Check the street sign. Our house must be on the next block.”

“No,” Peter replied in a whisper. “Monica, look.”

He pointed to the tree at the top of the lot. The fat maple tree with the low limbs that he and I like to climb.

I let out a long, unhappy sigh. “Yes. That’s our tree,” I murmured. “You’re right.”

The tree stood at the end of the stone walk that led to the driveway. But now there was no walk. No driveway.

No house.

My whole body shook. My teeth were chattering. I hugged myself tightly but it didn’t help stop the shakes.

I need my parka
, I thought.

What a crazy idea. How could I get my parka if my house was gone?

“This can’t be happening,” Peter said. His voice cracked. “How can a whole house disappear?”

“Dr. Screem,” I murmured. “He said he knew who we were. He said he didn’t want us to help that crazy woman Bella.”

Peter squinted at me. “Do you really think Screem did this? To show us how tough he can be?”

I shrugged. It didn’t make any sense to me. I just didn’t want to believe it.

“Was Bella telling the truth?” Peter asked. “That whole story about collecting the five masks every year to keep them out of Screem’s hands?”

I didn’t answer Peter. I was thinking hard. I stared at the neighbors’ house, and it gave me an idea.

I pointed to the Kleins’ house. “It’s still there. Like always,” I said.

There were lights on in the front window and in two upstairs windows. Yellow light washed over their front stoop.

“The Kleins must know what happened to Mom and Dad,” I said.

Peter took off, running up the middle of their lawn. I raced after him.

Maybe the Kleins saw something. Maybe they could tell us something that would help us.

They had always been nice neighbors. They were the ones who marked the baseball diamond in the field down the block.

Mrs. Klein was the girls’ basketball coach at my school. Mr. Klein traveled a lot. He always brought new kinds of candy bars home for Peter.

They were younger than our parents. Their daughter, Phoebe, was only in preschool.

My hand was shaking so hard, it took three tries to ring their doorbell. Peter leaned over the
stoop and peered into their front window. “I can’t see them,” he said.

I rang the bell again. I was very eager to talk to them.

Finally, I heard footsteps inside and murmured voices.

The door swung open, and more yellow light spread over the stoop. I blinked a few times — and stared at the old couple standing in the doorway.

He was bald and red faced, and his thick square eyeglasses made his dark eyes bulge like frog eyes.

She had short white hair and a round chubby face. She wore a long flowered dress and leaned on a brown cane.

They both eyed us up and down. “Yes? Can we help you?” the woman said finally.

“Wh-where are the Kleins?” I blurted out.

They glanced at each other. He blinked his big froggy eyes. “The Kleins?”

“This is their house,” Peter said.

They both shook their heads. “No. You must have the wrong place. We don’t know the Kleins.”

“But that’s
impossible
!” My voice came out more shrill than I’d planned. But I couldn’t keep my panic down. “You
have
to know the Kleins. They’ve lived here for years.”

“Must be some kind of Halloween prank,” the woman muttered to her husband.

He started to shut the door. “Sorry. You have the wrong house,” he said. “Are you sure you’re on the right street?”

“Y-yes,” I stammered. My heart pounded so hard, I could barely breathe. “We’re on the right street. That was our house next door.” I pointed to where our house had stood.

“You know the house next door?” Peter asked. “That was our house. But all of a sudden —”

The old man’s face turned cold. “Sorry, kids. I don’t really get the joke,” he said.

Leaning on her cane, his wife stepped up to the door. “There’s
never
been a house next door,” she said. “It’s
always
been an empty lot.”

The horror had begun. Just as the old book predicted.

Finding yourself written about in a yellowed old book was scary enough. But finding yourself with nowhere to live … with your parents missing and your house vanished …

It was almost too horrifying to bear.

Our whole world had turned upside down. I wanted to push a
REWIND
button and go back to that afternoon, back to when our lives were normal.

Would we ever see our parents again?

Peter shivered in his karate uniform. His trick-or-treat bag stood in the grass beside him. He had both hands shoved deep into his pockets.

I could see he was trying hard not to cry.

Peter never even cried when he was a baby. He was always tough and fearless. Once, he
jumped into a friend’s swimming pool, and he didn’t even know how to swim.

He just wasn’t afraid of anything. He splashed around until he started to float. Mom and Dad didn’t have to fish him out. I think he was three at the time.

Knowing that, it felt even worse to see him so frightened and upset.

“We have no choice,” Peter said.

I turned to him. “You mean we have to go back to Bella’s house?”

He nodded. “It might be the only way to get our house back.”

So we hurried through the dark, empty streets. I saw lights on in a few houses. But many were dark.

Two cats followed us for a while. They yowled at us as we trotted down the middle of the street. Maybe they were warning us to turn back. My brain was filled with crazy thoughts like that.

The cats lost interest after a block or two and ran behind a house.

As we made our way past the tall hedges in front, we could see all the lights on in Bella’s house. The front door was open. She stood in a pool of gray light, as if she was expecting us.

We ran up to her, both panting hard. “Our house …” I choked out. “Our house is gone.”

“Can you help us?” Peter asked.

She waved us inside and shut the door. We followed her into the front room.

The fire crackled loudly in the fireplace. The flames danced high, sending flickering shadows over the room.

She handed us two glass cups of yellow liquid. “This will warm you up,” she said.

I eyed the cup suspiciously. “What is it?”

She frowned at me. “It’s hot apple cider,” she said. “If you want me to help you, you have to learn to trust me, Monica.”

I took a sip. It was sweet and hot and felt good on my dry throat. I took another sip.

“How can we trust you?” I blurted out. “Our house is gone. And our parents. Everything. Gone.”

Bella shut her eyes. “It was Screem,” she said. She opened them and gazed hard at Peter and me. “I warned you.”

“Screem made our house disappear?” Peter asked.

“He wasn’t lying — for once,” she said. “He
does
know who you are. And he wanted to show you —”

“Show us what?” Peter interrupted.

“Show you how powerful he is,” Bella said. “Do you see the evil power he has with those masks? He can change reality. Make houses disappear. Make people disappear — forever.”

I gasped. A wave of fear swept over me. “Make them disappear
forever
?” I asked.

Bella nodded. “Forever,” she said.

“But … h-how can we bring our parents back?” I stammered.

Bella frowned again. Her dark eyes went dull.

“You can’t,” she said in a whisper.