Page:Weird Tales Volume 27 Issue 01 (1936-01).djvu/33

Rh stole along to the door of the closed room. She sought almost feverishly for the key, found it, opened the door, and went blindly into the room. She went directly to the mask, took it from the hook, and slipped quietly from the room, locking the door carefully behind her.

in her room, she held the mask up, looking at it closely. She held it on a level with her eyes, squarely even with her face, and caressed the smooth satin with the fingers of one hand. As she looked through the eye-slits, she fancied that she saw a movement behind. Startled, she lowered the mask; there was nothing there. It was not difficult to convince herself that she had seen the shadow of some movement of her own through the eye-slits.

She noticed uneasily how lustrous the satin mask seemed, and remembered how drab its color had been when she had first seen it. She held it up again, still caressing it, feeling terribly drawn to this beautiful adornment. Then again she saw a movement through the slits, but this time she did not lower the mask. She looked away from the eye-slits, outlining the mask with her gaze. Then she looked back again—and saw that from the dusk behind the mask, two bright, glittering eyes were watching her through the slits in the satin. She sat paralyzed in her bed, continuing to hold the mask before her. Then she saw a movement beneath the eyes, and lowered her gaze. It was the lips, the rich red lips of the yellow satin mask. They were working convulsively, moving, alive!

With a half-strangled cry, Monica thrust the mask under the bed. Then she lay back on the pillow, breathing quickly. Her eyes caught the faintest suggestion of movement at the door of her room. The door was opening slowly, as if it were being pushed. Monica shrank back against the bedstead, her eyes wide in terror. But there was nothing there that Monica could see. Perhaps she had not closed the door, and its weight was now swinging it open. She leaned forward slightly, breathing a little more easily.

Then she heard the faintest rustling movement from the side of the bed, coming as if from behind her. She turned her head quickly. Bending swiftly downward was the dim suggestion of a figure, its spectral face hidden beneath the yellow satin mask, its eyes glowing evilly down upon her, its movement disclosing two other figures peering at her from the darkness beyond. It seemed an eternity that Monica lay there, an eternity that the hideous apparition took to descend. Then the lamp went out. With a choking cry, Monica fainted.

Monica did not come downstairs the next morning, it was Alice who went up to call her. Aunt Susan had said, "Monica's never been late before. Won't she be jolted to find her record broken!"

Alice found her cousin so weak that she could lift her arm only with great effort. Alice was alarmed.

"What happened, Monica?"

Monica looked at Alice, confused. "I—I don't know, Alice. I'm so weak, I can't get up. It was that dream." She shut her eyes tightly and shuddered.

Sudden terror struck Alice. She came down on her knees beside her cousin's bed. "What did you say? What was that about a dream, Monica?"

Monica seemed not to have heard. "It was bending over me," she murmured. "It was rich and alive, a beautiful yellow—but evil. Then she—she—oh, I don't know what happened, Alice."

"Monica!" exclaimed Alice sharply, her face suddenly pale, "you've found that mask! You've put it on!"