The Halloween Mask

Miranda Evans was tired. It had been two hours since she began trick or treating with her friends, and they had all gone home. Now, she turned her sore feet towards home, which was several blocks away. She was also freezing and regretting the thin fabric of the black witch's dress. Shivering and lugging a pumpkin head full of candy, she passed by Halloween decorations and a straggling group of trick or treaters. At one point, however, she stumbled, and her witch's hat tumbled off her curly head.

Catching up the hat, she nearly moved on when she saw what she had tripped over, a mask. Curiosity got the better of her, and she picked up it to look at it, but she was disappointed by how boring it was. It was a plain plastic mask of a boy's face with brown hair. Then she looked closer and felt unpleasantly surprised: the face was a replica of a teenage boy in her science class, Callan Randall. Even the nose was the exact shape and size of the real one, long and straight. Miranda shivered and considered dropping it on the ground again, but for some reason she could not explain at the time, she held on to it as she continued walking.

She was a block from home when she stopped, and her breathing became shallow, though she had been walking at an easy pace. She shivered, and her whole body filled up with a dread she had never experienced before. She was not sure why she had stopped, but then she realized that the night, which was already dark, was now darker. She looked around her frantically, trying to understand why. She did not understand until she had turned completely around to look back at the direction from which she had come: all the streetlamps behind her, which had been lit, were now extinguished.

Miranda turned around again. The streetlamps ahead of her had been inexplicably extinguished as well. She could barely see anything around her since even the moon and stars were hidden by clouds. She had just made up her mind to run fast and furiously home when she was literally knocked to her feet. She had not been hit, but feet from her a Halloween display had suddenly turned on. All she knew, in the moment, was that lights flashed on, something jerked towards her, and she heard an evil, maniacal laugh. Already tense, this was too much for her to handle standing on her own two feet, and she found herself hitting the sidewalk. She looked up from where she lay and saw a seven-foot clown with red hair and an evil grin, orange eyes spinning around in its head.

Heart pounding, she slowly clambered to her feet, the mask clutched in her right hand and the pumpkin head in her left, though half the candy had gone flying when she fell. She stared for some moments at the clown when she saw movement behind it. The Halloween display died down, but just before the lights in its head were gone, she had seen a smaller figure emerging from behind. She knew this was not a display, it was a person. She froze as the mysterious person came up to her, and she was actually able to see the face because clouds moved away from the moon. What she saw was not very reassuring.

It was a boy in a clown costume. He was close to her height and dressed in a plain white costume with a blue frilly collar and fuzzy blue buttons running down the front. His hair was blond, and his face was painted white with a large blue teardrop underneath his right eye. His lips, marked out in red lipstick, smiled sadly at her.

"You have something of mine," he said softly.

"W-What?" she stammered, though she knew as she asked that he meant the mask.

"That mask is mine," and he pointed at the mask in her hand. "I dropped it when I was out with friends this evening."

She silently returned it to him.

Holding it, he explained, "I didn't mean to frighten you too much. I was hoping that scaring you a little by turning out the streetlamps and turning on the clown back there would make you drop the mask. Then you wouldn't know."

"Know what?" she whispered.

"Know who I am."

He placed the mask on his face, and astonishingly, his face seemed to absorb it. The blond hair and make-up disappeared, and he assumed the facial features of the boy in her science class, Callan Randall.

Miranda made a small scream, but he smiled at her as if what just happened was perfectly normal.

"Did you know that cruelty can turn people into monsters?" he said gently. "My mother molested me as a child, and I still live with her. I've been so ashamed, and I think it's that shame which has torn me apart into two people. I am a sad clown in private, and at school I appear as a normal boy." He smiled again. "You're the first person I've told that too. I hope you don't mind."

Miranda shook her head. "I don't mind."

She meant it. Somehow, though this was the most surreal day she had ever had, she did not mind him telling her his tragic story. She realized he needed to tell someone, and why not her, since she was the only one who had seen him without his mask?

"She deserves the worst thing to ever happen to her," she exclaimed vehemently. "You deserve to be free of her."

"You think so?" He paused to consider. "Yes, I agree. Good night, Miranda, and thank you. Talking to you has freed me."

"Good night, Callan."

In the morning, the town was shocked to learn that Mrs. Randall was found dead in the bathtub, a knife sticking in her throat. No one saw her son Callan again.

Miranda smiled when she heard the news.