The Puffin Book of Horror Stories

Kenneth Ireland The Werewolf Mask

The mask looked just like a horrible werewolf with blood dripping from its fangs. It was one which fitted right over Peter's head, with spaces for his eyes so that when he looked out the movement gave an extra dimension of horror to the already terrifying expression on the rubber face. The hair hanging down from the top of the mask looked real, as did the hair and whiskers drooping from the sides and face. It was very satisfying, Peter felt, as soon as he had been into the joke shop and bought it.

Something, however, was missing. While the mask seemed realistic enough, it was his hands which were wrong. If a human could really turn into a werewolf, it would not be only the face which would change, but the hands would grow hairy as well. He discovered this when he unwrapped the paper bag in which he had bought it and went upstairs to try the effect in front of his dressing-table mirror. As long as he kept his hands hidden, all was well, but once his hands were seen, they were far too smooth. In fact, they weren't hairy at all. It was rather disappointing, but nevertheless he thought that he'd try out the effect anyway. His mother was in, so making grunting and drooling noises he loped away down the stairs.

He went into the living-room where his mother was darning some socks, flung open the door suddenly and leaped in, arms raised to his shoulders, fingers extended like claws, and growling ferociously.

'My goodness,' said his mother, looking up, 'what on earth made you waste your money on a thing like that?'

'I thought it was rather good,' said Peter, not at all put out. 'Doesn't it look — well, real?'

'Well, it was your birthday money, so I suppose you could spend it how you liked,' said his mother placidly, returning to the socks. 'I don't know how you manage to get such large holes in these, I really don't. I think it must be the way you drag them on.'

'But doesn't it look just like a werewolf?' asked Peter, taking the mask off and examining it carefully.

'It would, I suppose, except there are no such things and never have been such things as werewolves. I think you've wasted your money on something which is of no real use,' his mother replied. 'The money would have been better spent on some new pairs of socks. Still, your Aunty Doreen did tell you to spend it on something to amuse you, so I suppose we can't expect everything.'

'The thing that's wrong with it is my hands,' said Peter. 'The face is all right, but the hands are wrong to go with it, don't you think?'

He put the mask on again and held his hands out for her to see the effect. She glanced at him briefly. 'Putting a mask on like that won't make your hands look different from a boy's,' she said. 'The only thing you could do is wear gloves, your woolly ones perhaps, to disguise them.'

Since she was taking no more notice of him, he went back upstairs, drew a pair of woolly gloves from a drawer in his dressing table, and tried the effect this time. Well, perhaps it wasn't all that bad. At least the gloves gave some kind of appearance of hairiness, but it was still not quite right. He tried combing the backs of the gloves, but that was no good at all. When he tried the claw effect, it was not half as good as when his nails were showing.

He still had some money left, so he went back to the joke shop, taking the mask with him.

'Have you got,' he asked, 'anything like hairy hands?'

The shopkeeper, being a bit of a joker himself, looked down at his hands and asked if they would do. Then he looked down at his feet behind the counter and as if in surprise announced that he hadn't got pigs' trotters, either.

'No, I mean,' explained Peter carefully, 'like I bought this werewolf mask, I wonder if you have a kind of hairy hand mask to go with it. You know, to make the whole thing look — well, more real?'

'Hairy, with sort of claws, you mean?' asked the shopkeeper, nodding. 'I might have. Hang on.'

He went along the shelves behind the counter, opened first one drawer then another, and at the third drawer extracted a transparent plastic bag which he placed on the counter.

'These do?' he asked.

Peter picked them up eagerly, and inspected the contents through the plastic. They looked about right.

'Can I try them on?' he asked.

'Sure.' The shopkeeper ripped open the bag and laid the hands out for him.

They were not like gloves, because they did not cover the hands all round, but merely lay on top and were fastened by a strap underneath and another round the wrist. Just the tips of the fingers fitted into sockets so that the rubber fingers would not dangle about uselessly. Peter tried them on.

'You can't expect a perfect fit,' the shopkeeper said, 'because of course they don't make them in different sizes. If they're too big, just tighten the strap underneath and pull the one that goes round your wrist up your arm a bit.'

He helped him to put them on. They were rather big, but with them pulled well up the hands and over his wrists they were not bad at all, Peter decided. He would have them, if he could afford them. They were just as good as the magnificent mask, they had what looked like real hair growing along the backs, really satisfying long claws with just enough red on the ends to look as if they had torn into somebody's flesh, and what was more the red was actually painted to look as if it were still wet.

'Try the effect of both the mask and the hands,' suggested the shopkeeper, pointing towards a mirror on the wall behind the door, so Peter did. That was much better, especially in the fairly dim light inside the shop. Absolutely terrifying, almost.

'Wrap them up for you?' asked the shopkeeper.

'No, I'll take them as they are,' said Peter.

'Pardon?' The mask was not adjusted quite correctly, so his voice had been rather muffled.

Peter straightened the mask round his face so that his mouth was in the right place. 'No thanks. How much?'

He paid the money and left the shop wearing his new possessions, because he just happened to have noticed Billy Fidler leaning against the pillar box outside, looking the other way.

He ran out of the shop, crept round the side of the pillar box then slowly reached out a hand to touch Billy on the shoulder. Billy turned, as he expected him to do.

'That's pretty good,' said Billy, standing up. He looked Peter over critically. 'I like the hands.' Then he peered closer. 'Oh — it's Peter.'

'What do you think of it, then?' asked Peter.

'Pretty good. I could only really tell who you were by the clothes. It needs to be darker, though. I mean, you don't expect to come across a werewolf in daylight, so it looks just like a horrible mask and a pair of hands just now. If it was dark, though, and you suddenly came at me, that would really give me a nasty turn, I can tell you. Can I try them on?'

Peter didn't mind showing off his new acquisitions, and in any case he wanted to find out if what Billy had said was true. When Billy put them on, he found that it was. They were very good indeed, very effective for what they were, money well spent. But it was still unfortunately true that in broad daylight, on the pavement outside a row of shops with a pillar box just next to them, the mask was just a mask, and the hands were obviously artificial: not at all bad, though.

'Try them out on her,' advised Peter, seeing Wendy Glover approaching with her mother. She was a girl at their school who always seemed to frighten quite easily.

Billy obediently popped behind the pillar box, and as Wendy and her mother drew level suddenly jumped out in front of them. Wendy's mother drew her daughter a little closer to her with disdain.

'Billy Fidler, I should think,' remarked Wendy primly to her mother as they continued along the pavement. She turned after they had walked a few paces. 'A bit silly, I think,' she said loudly.

'I tell you, it'd be a different story if it was dark,' said Billy firmly, taking the mask and the hands off again and giving them back to Peter. 'You try it, and see if I'm not right.'

Peter slipped the items into his pockets and went home, taking them upstairs and placing them carefully in the drawer of his dressing table, trying not to fold them and cause creases to develop in them.

It began to grow dark quite early that evening, so at the first opportunity Peter slipped off upstairs, stood in front of the mirror and tried the mask on again without switching on his bedroom light. In the dusk, it looked beautifully eerie. When he strapped the werewolf hands on to his own and then tried the effect in full, he almost managed to frighten himself, it looked so real that figure ready to leap out at him from the mirror.

Then he knew what was lacking, and ran downstairs into the kitchen, hurrying back up to his bedroom with a little pocket torch in his hands. This time he drew the curtains as well, and when the room was pitch black held the torch just underneath his chin and switched it on suddenly.

This time he really did jump in fright. In front of him was a monster, really horrible, writhing and drooling with just a hint of blood on the tips of its fangs and from its claws more blood shining in the light as if freshly drawn from a victim. He moved his left hand across his mouth as though trying to wipe it clean, and it was so realistic that he was glad to know that downstairs both of his parents were in the house.

'Well, well,' he said aloud, very pleased now, and hurried to switch on the electric light.

He put out the torch, sat on his bed and watched himself in the mirror as he removed first the hands and then the mask. It was almost a relief to be able to see him return to his normal self again. The only thing was, when would he ever have the opportunity to try these things out properly?

His father was calling from downstairs. 'Peter!'

'What?'

'Would you like to do something for me?'

'What?'

'Come down, and I'll tell you.'

Peter was about to replace his toys in the drawer again, thought better of it and stuffed them into his pockets instead, with the torch. If his father wanted him to go out, this might be just the opportunity he had been wondering about. He went downstairs, to find his father waiting for him in the hall.

'I've just remembered a couple of errands I'd like doing. You know the envelopes I've been putting through people's doors, collecting for the children's homes?'

'Yes.' Good, his father did want him to go out, then.

'There are two houses I called to collect them from last night, but the occupants were out. Just those two. Would you mind popping round to see if they're in tonight and collect them for me if they are? Take this with you — ' and he handed over a little card of identity which stated that Peter's father was an authorized collector for the children's homes — 'and explain who you are. They'll know you anyway, I expect, but take it just in case.'

'Which houses are they?'

'Number eighteen, along our road, Mr and Mrs Hubbard, then number forty-seven Devonshire Road. He's new, so I don't know his name.'

'No trouble,' said Peter. 'Won't take me ten minutes, if that.'

'OK then. Remember, it's the children's homes envelopes you're asking for,' his father called after him.

'I know,' said Peter, hurrying.

Once he was clear of the house he carefully drew out of his pockets the mask, and put it on, then the hands, then with the little torch held ready he set off down the street.

Number eighteen was not far away, but as he walked towards it Peter realized that there was nobody out on the street but himself. It was nicely dark by now, and the sky was clouded over, but all at once a cloud slid to one side and he saw that somewhere up there was not only the moon but a full one at that. Just the right sort of night for a werewolf to be abroad, he was thinking as the cloud glided back into place again, so he adjusted the mask so that the eyes and the mouth were in the right places, and pulled up the hairy hands as far as they would go. Then he continued briskly towards number eighteen, where he knocked on the door, pocket torch at the ready.

For a while there was no answer, then he heard the chain behind the door rattle, then a pause.

'Who is it?' he heard a woman's voice ask from inside.

'I've come for the envelope for the children's homes,' he said loudly.

'Just a minute.'

There was another pause, and he assumed that Mrs Hubbard was trying to find the envelope so that she could put tenpence inside it before opening the door. He got ready. Then the chain rattled a second time, and the door opened. As the figure of Mrs Hubbard appeared, he switched on the torch, directly under his chin.

Mrs Hubbard started and stepped back. Peter stood motionless with the light unwavering underneath his chin. There was a gasp, Mrs Hubbard clutched at her chest, then the door slammed shut and he heard the chain rattle again and then a bolt clunk into place.

That was very good, Peter was thinking. He did think of knocking on the door again, this time with his mask off, but thought better of it. She might not come to the door twice. So now for whoever it was who lived at number forty-seven Devonshire Road.

This was a large, gloomy house, with some kind of tall fir trees growing in the front garden behind a thick hedge. He did not remember ever having visited this house before. He opened the wooden gate and walked up the path, to find the front door was not at the front of the house but at the side, with more thick hedge growing in front of it on the opposite side of the narrow path. He wondered how anyone ever managed to carry furniture into the house when the path was as narrow as that.

He did not need to flash his torch to find the bell-push, because it was one of those illuminated ones, with a name on a card underneath it. Luke Anthrope, it said. So that was the name of the man who lived there, he thought; what an unusual name. He pressed the bell, and at once could hear an angry buzzing from somewhere inside, not like a bell at all. Feeling secure and safe behind his mask, when there was no answer he pressed the button again, and this time he heard a man's voice from inside the hall of this dark house. That rather surprised him, since there were no lights switched on that he could see.

'Go round the back,' it said hoarsely.

He walked further along the path to find a tall wooden gate, which opened easily, so he passed through it to see the back door of the house, and knocked on it. The door opened just as the moon came out again, but he was ready for it and had the torch under his chin immediately. Mr Anthrope did not frighten easily, however. He was a short man, with a thick beard and moustache, and he just stood there regarding Peter steadily.

'I've come for the envelope for the children's homes,' explained Peter, switching his torch off since it was obviously having no effect.

'Ah yes,' said Mr Anthrope, but made no move to go and fetch it.

'I've got a card here,' said Peter, fumbling in his pocket with some difficulty since the hand masks rather got in the way. 'It's my father's really, but it proves that you can give the envelope to me.'

The short man continued to regard him without moving. 'Switch that torch on again,' he said, so Peter did.

'Do you know why you never see two robins on a Christmas card?' the man asked him suddenly.

Peter did not.

'It's because if you ever find two robins together, they fight each other to the death. Did you know that? You can only ever find one robin in one place at a time. The same with one or two other creatures.'

Peter had no idea of what this Mr Anthrope was getting at. He had made no mention of robins. Robins had nothing to do with it. And what other creatures?

The man's face was beginning to change rather strangely in the moonlight, which was now shining full upon him. If was as if his beard was growing more straggly, somehow, and the face becoming more lined, and his lips seemed somehow to be thinner and more drawn back over his teeth. Peter only just noticed, too, now that the light was brighter, how hairy this man's hands were. Peter turned off the torch, because he did not need it now.

Then Mr Anthrope did a very strange thing. He came right out to the edge of his doorstep and leaned forward towards Peter as if he was going to whisper something to him.

Then Mr Anthrope's mouth was somewhere near his ear, and Peter, always curious, strained to be able to hear what Mr Anthrope was about to whisper to him. He was astonished then to feel the bones in the side of his neck crunching, and blood running down inside his shirt. He didn't even have time to cry out before long nails were tearing at his flesh.