About The Mask

by Clare London
15 pages / 6000 words
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc

There’s a very mixed reception for Joey and his lively, unruly friends, when they go trick-or-treating on the penthouse floor of the exclusive Royal Apartments. They find themselves the butt of everything from hostility to humor to handfuls of caramels. But at the final door, a horrific masked figure tricks Joey into finding what might just be the best treat of all.

Sample

The man at number 603 laughed -- loudly and rudely -- at our costumes, and slammed the door in our faces. Cody and Bren laughed back; Vince frowned.  “Pathetic,” he drawled.  “Total lack of community spirit.  You think I might find some outstanding traffic violations on him I could resurrect tomorrow?”

“I’ll post sour cabbage through his letterbox,” muttered Cody.

“I could punch his lights out,” Bren announced, enthusiastically.

I rolled my eyes.  Things weren’t progressing exactly as I’d planned, and we’d only just started.

The sheet tugged at my arm.  “Joey, like I s-said, I c-could...”

“Not now, Gaz,” murmured Cody, absently, interrupting him.  There was a glint in his eyes.  “Leave this to me.”  On red-painted, perfectly-formed legs, he marched to the next door and hammered on it.

Things didn’t improve.

The family at 609 had a puppy, and it leapt up and bit Cody in its ‘youthful enthusiasm’ -- or so the kids there insisted.  They looked to be on their own, and were obviously terrified that someone would come and take it away.  Bren muttered it was highly likely this’d been suggested before.  Vince was cowering in the corner of the corridor, avoiding the whole debate, blaming his allergies.  Cody was hopping up and down, cursing all pets and children alike, his tail whipping across his buttocks like some BDSM session on auto-pilot, and looking like he was about to vote for ritual dismemberment of the beast.

Gaz helped me catch hold of the bouncing puppy and we shooed it and the kids back indoors.  Homicide -- or puppy-cide, for which I was sure only Cody would know the correct word and I wasn’t asking him right now -- was circumvented.