Free The Five Masks of Dr. Screem by R. L. Stine Page A

karate uniform. Caught him between my sharp teeth. Swung him to safety.
    I held him down with both paws. And waited for my mind to clear.
    My animal thoughts flashed past me in a jumble of pictures and odors. I could smell the blood of the raw rabbit. I pictured my paw prints in the snow.
    And suddenly, in my mind I was running through the snow, running on all fours. Kicking up a mist of white behind me.
    Then that picture was replaced by another — Peter at home. Our house. Our front yard.
    I could smell the fallen brown leaves. Smell the tangy aroma of wood fires burning in fireplaces around our neighborhood.
    Peter’s screaming rang in my sensitive wolf ears.
    The sound brought me back. Brought me back to being me.
    I’m Monica
.
    I spun away from the snow-covered cliff. I set Peter free.
    He stood up and stumbled awkwardly. His knees appeared to give way. But he stayed on his feet.
    And he continued to scream.
    And without realizing it, I was screaming, too.
    I raised my head to the sky. Then I opened my jaws and bellowed at the pale moon.
    We stood together screaming. I only stopped when I felt the ground tremble beneath my hind paws.
    In the sudden hush, I heard a distant rumble.
    Thunder?
    The rumble grew louder until it became a ground-shaking roar.
    Following the sound, I gazed up to the mountains above us. And saw a tidal wave — a high tidal wave of snow cascading down at us.
    An avalanche!
    Our screams had shaken the snow loose from the mountaintop. We had started an avalanche.
    It came tumbling down with a deafening roar. Picking up speed, the wave of white rosehigher and higher until the dark sky disappeared behind it.
    Enormous boulders of snow came falling in front of the wave. They bounced and tumbled down the mountainside.
    The whole world was white.
    It fell over us. Battered us. Then buried us.
    So cold. So icy cold.
    I reached for Peter but couldn’t find him.
    And I sank deep, deep into the rushing wave of snow.

31
    I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. Except to shiver under the heavy blanket of icy snow.
    I struggled to force down my panic. I knew I had to move —
now
.
    Using all my strength, I grabbed the snow above me and pulled myself up.
    I moved only a few inches. But it gave me space to kick my feet.
    Kicking and thrashing, I dug my way to the surface. With a last burst of strength, I pulled myself out of the deep snow. Then I raised my face to the sky and sucked in breath after breath of the cool, fresh air.
    “Hey, look.” A voice beside me. I turned to see Peter. He had pulled himself up, too.
    He pointed to a dark strip of red light in the sky. The color stretched along a black horizon.
    Peter’s face was hidden by the mummy mask.He turned to me. “Where are we?” His voice came out muffled and tiny.
    I didn’t answer right away. I gazed into the strip of red-purple light. “That’s … the sun starting to come up,” I said. “The snow … the avalanche … it must have taken us away from there…. It brought us back.”
    I spoke in
my
voice. My
human
voice. I was me again. No longer a four-legged animal.
    And we were standing on a street, gazing into the night.
    Peter followed my gaze. Then a cry escaped his throat. “The snow is gone! Monica, we’re
alive
! The snow … the mountains — all gone!”
    I swallowed. My throat ached from screaming. “Peter,” I said, “Look at me. Am I … back? Back to normal?”
    He squinted at me. “You were
never
normal!” he said. He laughed at his own joke.
    I gazed down at myself. It was hard to see. I had two masks on my face, one on top of the other.
    But I was me again. Shivering in the autumn cold in my little gymnastics costume.
    I glanced around. We were standing on the sidewalk on a block of dark houses. An empty lot across the street.
    It took me a few seconds to realize we were standing right where our house used to be.The sight of the bare lot sent a wave of sadness over me.
    I turned to Peter. “We don’t have a