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"The Bone Amulet" - A School Days Halloween Story

by DoggyStyle57, Originally written October 11, 2010

In the last weeks of October, 2009, Miss Cheri met Hans at the door of the mansion when he got home from school. Dressed as usual in her French Maid uniform, the petite Chow Chow Dog who served as his legal guardian, as well as his head maid, kissed the boy on the cheek, and handed him a small padded envelope, saying "Welcome back, master Hans. You received a parcel from your mother today. It's postmarked from Tibet."

"So that's where she's at this month." Hans said of his always-absent birth mother. "I swear, my mother spends more time on mountain tops than some of those silly mystic hermits you read about. Thanks, Miss Cheri."

The young Bernese boy took the parcel to his room and tossed it carelessly on his bed, as he changed out of his school uniform. While any sort of letter or communication from his mother, other than birthday and holiday gifts, was a rare occurrence, what did come in on odd intervals was usually just newspaper clippings of her exploits as a mountain climber, to go in his scrapbook that she knew he kept. Whatever it was, it could wait a bit longer to be filed in the scrapbook with the other clippings and photos. First, he wanted to get a shower.

After getting dried off and changing to some comfortable jeans and a t-shirt, Hans picked up the package and tore the end open with one claw. Inside was a single sheet of lined paper, torn from a small spiral notebook, and wrapped around a small object. When he unfolded it, he found a simple oval of carved bone, no larger than the end of his thumb, inscribed with symbols that he could not read, and threaded on a cord that seemed to be braided of grey hair or fur. On the folded paper was a hastily-written letter from his mother, Lady Helga.

"Dear Hans," the letter began "I recently had a very odd encounter. While climbing one of the peaks in Tibet, a stranger appeared in our high-altitude camp. He was a very old, grey-furred Newfoundland dog, wearing only coarse, homespun cloth robes, and was barefoot despite the below-zero temperatures, driving wind and blowing snow. His German was flawless, when he spoke to me, and he said he was a hermit who lived in a cave nearby, and asked if I would permit him to share in the hot meal that we were preparing. I invited him to do so, and he sat beside me during the meal."

"After the meal, he handed me the enclosed hand-carved medallion, and said, 'Thank you for your kindness. This is to protect your son, Hans. See that he gets it and wears it. He will need it, when the next moon is nearly full.' Before I could reply, a sharp gust of wind blew blinding snow through the camp, and when it ceased, he was gone. I have no idea how he knew your name. I hadn't mentioned our family at all, and this whole thing just seems very strange to me. I am sending it to you via one of our native helpers, who will mail it as soon as he can get back to the village at the foot of the mountain. It may be just a silly nonsense, but I can't shake the feeling you need to do as he said. Love, Lady Helga von Alpenstock."

The note was dated October 3rd, so it had taken over two weeks to get to Hans. He looked at his calendar, and noted that the moon will be full in just a few days, just past the end of the month. So it would be nearly full on Halloween night. "Heh! More likely it's just a trinket she bought in Tibet, and she made up that story to make me want to keep it. Oh well, I'll humor her and wear it." He looked over the small amulet once more, shrugged, and put it around his neck, and didn't bother mentioning it to anyone else. He tossed the wrappings and letter into his wastebasket.

The next day, Hans and his family went shopping for accessories to trick out their Halloween costumes. Hans cheerleader friend, Hazel, was going to be a princess, and she wanted him to be her "Prince Charming" again this year. So Hans was looking for a good sword and dagger to add to his costume. He glanced at the blades in the window of an import shop, but kept walking. He normally avoided making purchases there, because the blades and other stuff sold at that particular shop tended to either be very poor quality, or very over-priced, so-called 'antiques'.

But then something near the back of the shop glittered at him and caught his eye. He went in, almost as if it was compelling him to come closer. On the back wall, he spotted just the thing he needed. A renaissance-style dagger with a fancy, silver-inlaid blade. It was kind of expensive, because the inlay work was real silver, but was just too good a match with his costume to pass it up. They had a cheap matching sword, too, but it's blade was nowhere near as nice looking as the dagger. He got the clerk's attention, and purchased them both.

On Halloween night, Hans went out trick or treating with Hazel, Marie, Heidi, Taylor, Edna, Edward, Ashley, and Miss Cheri. But Hans and Hazel had slowed down to kiss for a while and got separated from the rest of their group as they neared the park. Hans smiled, remembering how on the previous year, he and several of his friends had slipped into the bushes near this very spot, to yiff each other silly before continuing their trick or treating on the other side of the park. "Hey, Hazel? Want to stop for a yiff?" he asked.

"Sure! It's a nice night out tonight, and that moon is so pretty. Think we can find the same clearing we yiffed in last year?" Hazel replied.

"I think it's over this way." Hans said, as he led her deeper into the park. "Yeah! Here it is!"

Several minutes later, as they were making out, Hans had the creepy feeling that they were being watched. He looked up, and saw a pair of glowing red eyes and a bulky shape glaring at him from the shadows in the bushes on the far side of the clearing. "Hey, go find your own spot!" he said. "This clearing's occupied."

But instead of politely leaving, a large werewolf jumped out of the bushes and snarled menacingly at them. Hans stared at it, then remarked calmly, as he stood and refastened the codpiece that covered the crotch of his costume. "Hey! That's a very realistic costume you have there. Great job! But it's not right for an older teenager like you to run around and try to scare the younger ones. We're not scared, so go snarl at someone else."

The werewolf snarled again, took a step closer, and swiped at Hans with its razor-sharp claws, missing him by mere inches.

"H-hans? I d-don't think that's a c-costume!" Hazel said, as she grabbed her panties off the lawn and fearfully scrambled behind Hans.

Hans was nonplussed. "Nonsense. Werewolves aren't real, Hazel. That's just some big, burly kid, with LED lights in his mask to make the eyes glow like that, so he can scare kids. Come on, fellow. You've had your laugh, but now you're scaring my friend. Take off your mask and show her I'm right." Hans said.

The Werewolf charged at Hans. But Hans grabbed the creature's shoulders with a martial arts throw, rolled onto his back, and kicked off with both feet in the pit of the creature's stomach. Hans rolled rapidly back to his feet, but he had tossed the werewolf hard into a tree. The creature hit back-first against the trunk, head down, and slid to the ground.

Hans dusted the grass and fallen leaves off his costume, and said. "Keep that up, and that fancy costume's going to get ruined. Knock it off, or someone will get hurt here!"

The werewolf got back on its feet, snarled savagely, and charged at Hans again.

Hazel screamed when she saw the werewolf bite Hans viciously on the shoulder, tearing away the whole left sleeve of his costume. She thought for certain that the monster had ripped the defending boy's whole left arm off! Yet Hans seemed unharmed as he rolled away from the creature and stood again, sleeveless on the left side but intact, and hands spread wide. He was now as ready as any martial artist could be for an attack, and realized this could be serious. Not a time to pull his punches.

The werewolf attacked again, and Hazel screamed and closed her eyes as she saw it catch Hans in a bear-hug, surely threatening to rip Hans to pieces with those vicious claws. "NO!" she heard Hans shout.

Before Hans' disbelieving eyes, the Werewolf evaporated in a stinking cloud of black smoke. Hans had managed to pull his silver-engraved dagger, and impale the creature through the heart, as it attacked.

"W-where did it go?" Hazel stammered, as she opened her eyes again and looked fearfully around her. "Hans! Oh, Hans, are you all right? I thought it was killing you!"

"I'm fine. Not a scratch on me, though my shoulder's a little sore, and my costume's a mess." He said as he sheathed his dagger. "He must have seen me pull my dagger, and used a smoke bomb to cover his escape. It was just a nasty prank gone wrong. Really. We're fine. No one will hurt you, while I'm near you."

"A prank? No! It was real, Hans! That was a real werewolf! You killed him with that dagger! We both saw it!" Hazel insisted.

"Oh come on. If it had been real, he would have torn me apart. I'll admit, that was a really amazing rubber mask. But it had no real teeth. They bent aside like rubber when he bit me. All he did was clamp onto my shoulder and rip the sleeve off my costume. See? There's no blood on my knife at all, so I couldn't have really stabbed him. Werewolves are just a myth, Hazel. Come on. Let's find the others, and go home." Hans replied, placing a arm around the young puppy's shoulders.

Hans didn't notice that the bone amulet was no longer around his neck.

===

In the mail the next day, there was another letter from Lady Helga.

"Dear Hans,

Are you all right? Nothing has harmed you, or threatened to harm you?

_ I think I must have had a very strange dream last night. Some sort of altitude sickness, probably. I thought a strange hermit had appeared in our camp yesterday evening, and given me an amulet to protect you. But today, no one in the camp remembers seeing him at all, except me. Did I send you a package, or was it a dream? A bone amulet, on a woven grey cord? Love, Mother."_

"Wow. She must really be losing it." Hans said. "She even signed it 'Mother'. I hope she won't feel too bad when I tell her I never got anything like that from her."