Chapter 1
Sam drives his son Simon and daughter Lindsay to their school. They take their seat belts off and walk out of the car. Sam waves to them.
"Bye!"
They wave back and run to the school, in a hurry. They're late because the family overslept. They forgot to turn on the alarms on their phones last night.
Sam gets a phone call from an unknown number and answers.
"Hello?"
The mysterious man smiles behind his hoodie.
"Do you remember your mission?"
"Yes..."
"Good."
The man turns off the call. Sam sighs deeply and drives to a shopping center. He parks the car in the garage and locks it with the car keys. He walks to the boys WC in the shopping center and closes the door. A man is on his way out from one of the rooms but he can't lock the door up. Sam looks at himself in the mirror.
"Sorry... But I have to do this."
The man tries to lock the door up again.
"Did you trap me?"
Sam washes his hands.
"Hello? Can you help me?"
The water turns red and the man starts to scream. Blood is flooding out of him.
"What's happening!?"
Sam's cat mask turns into a clown mask. He starts to laugh, evil.
"You're doomed..."
"Let me go!"
The man falls to the floor, dead. Sam takes his mask off. He looks shocked at himself in the mirror.
"I've just killed someone..."
Sam takes a deep breath.
"This isn't me. I'm Sam Jones, a nice guy who has a girlfriend and two kids. How long is it going to take until I don't have to obey the mysterious man anymore?"
Sam looks at the mask, which now is transformed into a cat mask again. He puts it in his bag and goes out of the WC. When he finally goes into the car to drive away, he sees two police cars coming in one of the back mirrors. He looks at his clothes and face to see if he he'd got blood on him but he can't see any sign of murder. Sam takes a deep breath and drives away from the crime scene, to his house. He takes his shoes and jacket off in the hallway and thuds to the bed in his and Riley's bedroom. His eyelids slowly lowers and he falls into deep sleep. A while later, Riley walks in to wake him up. She just got home from her work; Waitress on a restaurant.
"Wake up, sleepyhead!"
Sam wakes up, stretches and yawns.
"Hey, Riley. How was your day at work?"
"It was great. I'm starting to get better at serving. For example, I can hold three plates at the same time. How was yours?"
"It was... exhausting. The copy machine was broken and my boss yelled at me because he didn't believe me. Then, when he saw it, he finally got calmer."
"Wow... We certainly didn't have a similar day today."
Sam giggles.
"I know."
"We should get to the car to pick up the kids from school."
Sam drives and Riley sits in the front seat. The road is pretty long from their house to the school but it was the closest school they could find since they moved. The family wanted a more exciting view, therefore they moved from the city to the countryside. When they arrive, Sam looks at the clock on his arm.
"We're just in time. They're coming in three... two..."
All the pupils are happily running out from the school.
"...one. Here they come."
When Simon and Lindsay has run out of the school, they get into the car while taking up their phones. Riley looks at them from the front seat.
"It would be fun to talk about your school day now. You always play games on your phones after school."
Simon sighs.
"It's because of the school's rules. We can't have phones at school."
"Okay, you can tell us when we come home."
"Sure!"
Sam drives them to the house. He's feeling very guilty because of the murder of an innocent man. How could he kill someone? It was partly the mask who killed the man, but it still felt wrong. Suddenly, he sees the man he killed standing in the middle of the road. He stops the car immediately.
"Oh no!"
Riley looks at Sam, confused.
"What?"
"Can't you see him? The man, standing in front of us."
Riley shakes her head.
"No. I think you need to rest. Maybe, you've worked too hard."
The man disappears. Sam takes a deep breath.
"Yeah, probably."
When they arrive, Sam goes to the bathroom and looks himself in the mirror.
"Remember who you are, Sam. You're not evil. You're just forced to do evil stuff. No more imaginations."
Sam washes his face with cold water and dries it with a towel. When he goes out from the bathroom, he sees Lindsay standing there. She looks at him, wondering.
"What evil stuff?"
"I was just training my acting skills. Did it seem realistic?"
"Yeah. Very realistic."
Lindsay smiles.
"You should be an actor."
"Thanks, sweetie."
Sam walks away from the bathroom. Lindsay looks suspiciously at him.
Sam gets a call from the mysterious man.
"How did it go?"
Sam talks quietly to him.
"I... killed a man. The mask forced me to."
"Did you see the evil clown you became with the mask?"
"Yeah, don't remind me. I didn't like what I saw..."
The man laughs.
"You need to conquer your fears."
"Is it just me or have you done this to other people too?"
"It's not just you."
"Will I ever be able to get rid of the mask?"
"No. Not before I've moved on and chosen a new person. Bye, Sam."
The man turns off the call.
The night is coming and it's time for everyone to sleep. An owl is howling on a tree branch. No other sound can be heard from anywhere. Sam can't stop thinking about the mysterious happenings.
Sam is on the way to his work after driving the kids to school. It's an office, which also is in the city. He walks into the big building and goes to an elevator. He works at level 10. While the elevator goes up, he gets a call.
"Who is it?"
"Every time you see an unknown number, you should know it's me."
"Okay..."
"Did you bring the mask with you today?"
"Oh no, I forgot. Wait... Do you want me to kill people every day?"
"That's right. But no worries, I can bring the mask to you through my mind when it's time."
"No! Everybody will see who I am."
"I can also see through my mind. If you are alone or not."
"I can't kill one of my colleagues. It's too cruel."
"You have no choice."
The man turns off the call. Sam goes out of the elevator. He doesn't look as happy as he used to do, knowing the mission he's expected to do. Luckily, he's not alone yet. There's thirty more there too. Sam goes to his office desk and reads what he's going to do on the paper glued to the desk. The colleagues get new tasks to do every day. Sam's task is to put stamps on letters, browse the names and surnames and write them on the letters on the desk. The name he is going to start with is "Siri Ericsson". He puts a stamp with purple roses on it and writes down the name and address. Sam puts the letter on Penelope's table. She's putting invitation cards in the letters she gets. Sam tries to get a look at the invitation card but Penelope puts it aside too fast.
"What are the invitations for?"
Penelope shrugs.
"I don't know. Probably something that has with business to do."
"Is it a secret?"
"I have no idea..."
Sam goes to his desk again and fixes more letters.
In school, Lindsay talks to Simon about Sam.
"It seems like dad has done something very bad..."
"And how do you know that?"
"Because I heard him talking to himself in front of the mirror yesterday. About him doing evil stuff."
"What evil stuff?"
"I don't know. He didn't say anything else. Just something about imaginations..."
Sam sees the man he killed coming in front of him, with a baseball bat.
"Don't hit me! What happened wasn't my fault!"
Sam's colleagues notice Sam's breakdown. Sam runs away from the man to the elevator, where a woman from another level stands. Sam presses the bottom level and the elevator is going down. When the elevator stops, the doors lock by themselves. The woman looks shocked.
"How did that happen?"
The cat mask comes to Sam's face, transparent until it's fully visible. She looks at him, wondering. He scratches the elevator with his nails. Meanwhile, the woman's body gets scratched. She screams in pain and stares at him. She sees a clown mask instead of the cat mask he had before.
"Help!"
"It seems like you're finally getting killed."
The woman falls to the floor. Sam walks out of the elevator with the clown mask. The time has stopped and everybody is frozen in their moves. Sam walks further away from the elevator with a crooked smile. The mask gets removed from him and he stops smiling. Everybody's gathering around the elevator. Sam turns around and sees the woman, laying dead in the elevator. He looks shocked at her. Sam goes up the stairs to the office, to not make people suspect him. When he goes into the office, they stare at him.
"Sorry, I just had a breakdown."
The boss, who heard about what happened from Sam's colleagues, goes to him and pats him on the back.
"I think you need to take some time off from the work."
"Okay, boss. I will."
Sam walks out of the door, takes the stairs down and walks out of the building. He goes into the car and calls the mysterious man. The man answers.
"Hello, Sam."
"Why do I have these weird imaginations?"
"They appear to everyone that I have chosen. When I'm gone from their life, they don't have the imaginations anymore."
"You've got to be kidding me! I don't want to live like this. Having imaginations, being a killer and scared of being caught. I hate the clown side of the mask too."
"You should enjoy it. You're getting a much tougher personality with the clown mask."
"Enjoy it!? No way..."
Sam turns off the call and drives away from the office building, to his house. He walks in to the living room and watches TV. It's the news. The news anchor clears his throat.
"There have been two crime scenes, one yesterday and one today. We don't know who did it, or if it were more people than one involved."
Sam watches the news until it ends. He turns the TV off and takes a deep breath. They didn't say anything about who they thought it was.
"That was relieving..."
Sam goes to the bedroom and writes in his diary. He'd forgot to write in it since they moved, because it's been so stressful with the packing and everything.
"Dear diary... I've just made a deal with a so called "the devil". I don't even know his name. He forces me to kill people in a cat mask. Every time it happens, the mask gets transformed into a clown mask. I can't tell anyone about it. If I would, no one would believe me or I would end up in prison. I've already killed two people and that feels enough. But unfortunately, it seems like I have to kill one person every day. It's nauseating to see them dead afterwards. And as if it couldn't be any worse... When I kill, I have no feelings because of the clown mask. My life is horrifying until the mysterious man tells me that I don't need to obey him anymore..."
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: Truyen247.Pro