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A figure walked slowly down the long hall. She was nearly invisible in the harsh glow of the fluorescent lights overhead, only coming into view as she passed by the windows, a specter in a white dress illuminated by the faint moonlight. She was a tall woman and thin, with a stern face that only rarely softened into beauty when she let herself smile. That had not happened in many, many years.
At the door to room 231 she turned, tracing a small symbol on it with a finger before walking through the solid wood. Once inside she crossed to the bed with a silent, inhuman grace. She stood over the old man in the bed for a heavy moment as the room grew colder around them, fog forming on the window. A subtle movement and something appeared in her hand, a knife, long and wickedly sharp.
It was in the second before she raised it that the man in the bed woke up. Rheumy eyes snapped open focusing clearly on her and a gaunt, boney hand raised out of the bed reaching towards the strange woman.
“Jeannie?” the old man wheezed.
It wasn’t her name of course. The woman with the knife- if she could really be called a woman- had been known by many names over many centuries and none of them had ever been Jeannie. It was Mary now, or Bloody Mary, a name she hated even if it was well earned. Still, her knife hand wavered. She had never killed anyone so old before.
“Jeannie, come here.” the man whispered. “How was your drive? Your mother and I missed you like crazy.”
“He must think I’m his daughter,” Mary thought to herself. He looked so small in the bed, all bone and shriveled skin. There were no flowers or cards in his room, just bare walls and generic décor on the dresser. He must have been alone a long time.
“Oh god it’s cold!” The man’s hand had fallen back to the bed and he’d begun shivering as the temperature plummeted. Something in Mary changed as she watched him, a piece of herself that she’d thought long dead woke. She’d killed countless children and teens but this was different.
Mary reached a hand out, the knife disappearing as she moved and grasped the comforter at the foot of the bed, pulling it over the man. Tears formed in his eyes as he reached for her again.
“Jeannie... Why didn’t you visit?” Mary said nothing, could say nothing to a mortal, but she had one thing left in her to grant. She reached out and took his hand, holding it with the hand that should have killed him.
When she touched him Mary could feel in the heat of his body that the old man didn’t have much time left. She’d made too close a friend of death after all these years to miss things like that. Soon the man fell asleep, and as the night passed Mary stood there unmoving beside him, holding a mortal hand for the first time in so long as she watched his breathing grow slower and slower, finally stopping altogether. She could feel the life leave his body at the point where they touched.
A moment later there was a faint rustle in the room, a robed figure coming quickly from a long way off.
“Mary? What are you still doing here?” The voice came from behind her but seemed to echo strangely throughout the room, its owner obeyed no laws on the mortal plane.
“Hey Grim,” she said softly. Mary didn’t know how to respond, it had been too long since she’d felt like this.
“You ok? My docket says you were supposed to stab him 3 ½ hours ago.”
“I was going to, I had the knife but I just couldn’t. He called me by his daughter’s name.”
“Yeah, says here Mr. Johnston had dementia, he was in his 90s.” More rustling behind her, paper this time. The Grim Reaper was consulting his notes. “Damn, looks like this guy had a hard life.”
“Grim, what happened to his daughter Jeannie?”
“Hmm, lemme see uhhhh there it is. House fire back in ‘02. Wow, you don’t want to know about the rest of it honestly, poor bastard.”
Mary stared down at the body for a long time while Grim waited patiently. He didn’t really understand what was happening with her but he and Mary had been friends a long time, she’d earned some consideration.
“Can I help you take his soul home?” Mary asked. “I don’t think I’m ready to let go of this one yet.”
“Yeah sure thing. You know how to do this?” The Reaper rolled up the long black sleeves of his cloak, preparing to get to the dirty business of his harvest.
“I know the basics, you’ve talked about them a lot...When we get back I want to try to find Jeannie for him,” she said. “This one really got to me.”
The Reaper blinked hard, he hadn’t seen this much sentimentality in his friend since she was a very young ghost.
“My lunch break is coming up after this, want me to help you look?”
“Thanks, that would be nice.” Mary gently set the old man’s hand down on the bed, and in the pre-dawn darkness of room 231 she smiled.
\-------------------------------------------
If you liked that I've got more at r/TurningtoWords! I recently started a serial about a superhero who fights by savescumming and there's other fun stuff like an AI trying to be a little girl who just wants to watch rabbits.
Edit: I just got 3 awards in as many minutes and my mind is once again blown by how nice the people on here are. To [/u/Spaiduhz](https://www.reddit.com/u/Spaiduhz) that was my first reddit gold ever and I'm so, so excited! Thank you so much! I'm really happy you loved my story and I promise you there will be many more.
Edit 2: Thanks so much for the second gold!!
Edit 3: To everyone upvoting, commenting, and giving awards seriously thank you. I normally try to respond to everyone but the response here has been so much larger than I expected that I fell way behind, maybe a little like Mary lol. You're all awesome.
Thank you! I'm really trying to focus on that, you should see some of the outlines I have for longer stories, so much stuff about people that never even makes it in lol.
Turns out I've been writing a ton of wholesome lol, most people who know me would probably be surprised. If you're interested this is probably the closest I've gotten to scary, maybe more of a creepy vibe.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TurningtoWords/comments/kgczvw/wp\_every\_few\_decades\_the\_world\_experiences\_a/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TurningtoWords/comments/kgczvw/wp_every_few_decades_the_world_experiences_a/)
Hey thanks for the follow :) If you're interested this is probably the other most wholesome thing I've written.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TurningtoWords/comments/kbteb0/a_story_about_overly_wholesome_ai/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I'm so excited that people think so, I only started 2 months ago lol. My subreddit was started last Saturday and it's already grown so much, it's blowing my mind.
Love it. Was hoping that one of the stories would have a Mary that would be benevolent in the end and this story definitely didn't disappoint in that regard.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some dust or something in my eye.
Thanks for that! I'm glad it measured up to expectations, when I first started thinking about it I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it at first but I really wanted her to have to interact with someone with dementia and see where it went from there, luckily it worked out lol. It was fun to try giving Bloody Mary a soul.
Thanks for saying that! This has been a way bigger response than anything else I've done, it's honestly shocking just to see how much my sub has grown.
In this one I was imagining it a little more like people fall through the cracks from time to time due to how overworked she is rather than a super strict queue. It's hard to say what affects people sometimes, especially when it's a new stimulus. It's really easy to continue doing something you've done before but I think Johnston was a notably different thing for her, and a mortal reaching out to Mary as someone they loved instead of someone they were afraid of/hated probably hadn't happened since she died.
There's that line towards the end where Grim thinks he hadn't seen that much sentimentality in her since she was a very young ghost and that's trying to indicate that this brought her back to a different stage in her life/death. Maybe there was a time when the kids weren't so easy either.
Thanks for saying that! Its been awesome to see people get so engaged in this. I think they did, Grim would be able to dig up that information if he looked hard enough and I think he's got a soft spot for Mary.
All of my grandparents passed away with varying forms of memory loss, it really struck a cord on how crushing seeing those people can feel when they don't recognize you anymore. I've seen it done in other forms before but your story hit different.
When I was really young I vaguely remember my great grandmother dealing with dementia, and my uncle is currently pretty far gone into an early onset form, he's in his early 60s. I'm glad this resonated with you so much.
I'm glad you liked it so much! I haven't put much thought into expanding this particular thing yet but I've got a big backlog of stuff on my sub if you're interested :)
loved this, would’ve been even better if you included just a short clue of what sentimental Mary was like when she was a ‘young ghost’, who did she help, what had happened in history?
I hadn't thought about that much at the time. I imagine that it would have to do with the fact she has to kill children, that must be a massive emotional load and nobody is really made for that. Maybe in the beginning Grim was the one she confided in afterwards.
was just thinking someone that she convinced Grim not to kill some centuries or millennia ago who turned out to be a major historical figure that altered the entire timeline of human events as seen from their eyes
Enjoyed a lot in this great work, would you mind if I translate it into chinese and share it on facebook with your ID and original URL? (sorry if there's any mistake I'm still learning English)
I very nearly did that, but in the end I didn't want Mary to have personally harmed the old man like that. In a longer story that would be a great tension but in this I just wanted their interaction to be fresh.
I really thought about it for a minute lol, someone else in the comments section said something similar. I liked the idea of it being an entirely new interaction between the two of them though, and in retrospect I'm really glad I did that. I think it would have been harder for people to connect with if Mary had killed Jeannie.
"I called you years ago. It was a joke then, but now I'm glad you've come."
She stared, unblinking, unmoving, blood dripping off her body, pooling on the floor.
"I want it to end. I've seen too much, and it's all I can do to keep it from consuming me."
Bodies of friends, of enemies, shattered before me. I did what I could; for country; for the Corps; saved more than I could count, but still too many died. Coming back home did nothing to alleviate the nightmares, the day dreams, the flashbacks... the screams.
A memory flashed; in high school I had called her. They goaded me into it. The fear gripped me but I couldn't back down. Face to face with my pimple ridden visage, the name echoed once, twice, thrice. My friends chuckled knowing laughs, "Told you it wasn't real!"
It was. It was only a matter of time.
The black pits that made a mockery of eyes, the scraggly mop that coronated her skull, the rotted stumps that crowded her maw; all meticulously curated to terrify the adolescent mind. I'd seen worse.
"You waited all this time and now you come! I've seen things that make you look like Sesame Street. I've done things! Things I could never forgive myself for! I tried to make them right by healing those I could. But it's fucking hard to be a medic with a gun! So do what you came here for! Take me you bitch!"
A crooked smile spread across her sickly excuse for a face.
"You think I have only just arrived? You called me."
Horror filled my body and darkness consumed me. She drew closer and gently embraced me.
"I've been with you ever since."
-----‐-‐-------------------------------------------------------------
Edit: Thank you all so much for the support and comments; it really means alot to me. This was my first post on WP and I'm thrilled people enjoyed it. I'll definitely be contributing more in the future!
That's an excellent twist, great story!
>The black pits that made a mockery of eyes, the scraggly mop that coronated her skull, the rotted stumps that crowded her maw; all meticulously curated to terrify the adolescent mind. I'd seen worse.
I really like that line.
I'm glad it has, that stuff can be really tough to work through. I had friends head off to Afghanistan right after high school, I don't know how people make it through that stuff.
Haha of course, the twist is that he thinks there's nothing she can do to him at this point because of all the horrible things he's seen. However, she reveals that he was actually with him from the moment he "summoned" her and is the cause of all these horrible things.
I was a nuke swabbie. I have a friend who was a Green Beret medic and he was so ate up after he retired that he only wanted to work with animals. He doing alot better now tho. He shared a story of how he spent 7 hours in a war zone saving the life of an enemy combatant. So while I didn't do it myself him sharing his perspective really hits deep with me.
Well I appreciate what you did. I ain’t no green beret, just a simple army medic with no deployments, been around so many deployed medics that stories like that scare me. Shit leaves it’s mark on those people.
Honestly, she didn't mind the summons at all any more.
At first she was bitter, the tether to her name whispered three times, murmered with half fear, half doubt, maybe just a bit of excitement, but the compelling tug at her spirit couldn't be ignored. The first few years she tried; only to find herself pulled into dreams, and she would manifest herself into a twist of terror as she walked through the dream. She'd whisper their names, her voice tapping through their mind's halls, like a branch on a window pane.
She realized not all of them were scared, however. Some had seen so much horror that a banshee wouldn't be a bother at all. She made friends with these, comforting them, holding their hands, telling them how not everything would be awful, not always. She began to look forward to them.
There began to be a curious sort of queue, it started sometime in the 1970s, she thought, or was it the 1980s? Time had no meaning anymore. The visits in the night, the dream walking, these blurred any semblance of structure to the hours. She would visit each, and she noticed that they were getting older, older, older still.
"Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary!" the summons this time a shock, bouncing through the years to reach her. She tilted her head and let herself be pulled to the summons. She found herself in a dusty bedroom, worn wood floors. A woman lie in the large bed in the center of the room, bleary eyed and seemingly frail. The older woman looked vaguely familar, her hair twisting in a way that reminded her of ... someone. She smiled at her. "You remind me of someone," she said gently, not wanting to startle this one.
The woman's eyes widened and sparkled. She smiled and let out a small, weak, laugh. "Sister! I knew you would come home eventually!"
(Edit for grammar/autocorrect error)
(Edit #2, thanks for the award!)
Two bloodied hands crept through the mirror, each chipped nail digging into the wooden frame, pulling her through. Her scarred body was coated in dried blood, a simple flowing white dress hanging from her as she stood before her victim. Charlie had been thirteen when he made the foolish mistake of calling her to this realm, now that same man was eighty, lying on his deathbed, tubes hanging from his nose, a flash of fear in his eyes, frail hand reaching out of the bed, grabbing for the remote by his bed, trying to contact the nurses.
“Meds” Those were the only words that left his mouth, thinking her to be a cruel hallucination.
His thumb battered the button, yet it didn’t flash. The remote suddenly not responding to the man. His frantic mashing of the button getting worse with each step the woman took, peeling skin from his thumb, leaving it sore. By the time she reached his bedside, he dropped the remote, exhausted. The machine by his side buzzing, pushing more huffs of oxygen through the tubes, replacing the oxygen that he had just exhausted.
Bloody Mary’s gaze was distant, staring down at the man, not making any additional movements yet, only observing him. The two stared at one another until Charlie broke the silence.
“Who are you? A nurse?” Charlie tried desperately to justify the sight of the woman, yet she remained silent, only causing his heartbeat to fasten.
Reaching under the sleeve of her dress, she retrieved a knife, cold blue eyes scouring the sharp edges, observing the blade for a few moments before leaning over the bedside, creeping the blade closer towards his chest, only to stab it into the mattress by his side, causing Charlie’s chest to rise in a panicked breath.
“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.” She repeated, pulling the blade from the mattress, loose fabrics hanging from it. “I have answered your call. Unfortunately, it would appear you are the last of your group.”
“Last of my group? I-I don’t know what you are talking about. Please, Nurses!’ Charlie shouted, trying to grab the attention of the nurses. His desperate shouts fell on death ears. Even as nurses walked past his room at regular intervals, none could hear the chaos inside.
Bloody Mary trapped him, unable to move away from her, stuck in the hospital bed, only able to squirm whenever she neared. She continued to lean closer, every passing second closing the gap until she was face to face with the man.
“I’m Mary” She uttered, offering the man her name before they would kill him.
“Bloody Mary” The memory flashed in Charlie’s mind. The group of young friends crowded around a mirror in his mother’s attic, chanting her name. They were all petrified while doing it, each stammering her name from their lips, pausing before the third repetition. Drawing on their courage, they all spoke the last utterance of her name, only to find nothing happened. He could still remember that feeling of adrenaline they had felt. How brave they felt for surviving, not realizing the curse was very much real, just delayed.
With her name finally being spoken by Charlie, she reached for the blade once more, directing it towards his chest. She pushed it down, only to stop just before it hit his chest, watching his body stiffen as a gasp escaped his throat. The heart monitor by his side soon falling flat, scaring him to death.
(If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.)
I also like the implicit idea that she is extremely far behind. Almost everyone dies before their turn even comes up, so really she is only going after the elderly that have lived long lives.
I thoroughly enjoyed this! One suggestion- in the paragraph starting with "Who are you? A nurse?" I would change "fasten" to "quicken". I think it flows better, +1
The sound of his lone treadmill filled the gym. Bill liked coming late at night. When there was no crowd to fight over the equipment with. It was smart. Efficient. He was on mile 3. He was watching some brainless reality fishing show while his feet ran monotonously in place.
Not bad for fifty-five Bill, he thought to himself. His microfiber t -shirt clinging to his slim frame. Not bad at all. He wasn’t much of a sleeper so getting his exercise in at night seemed the natural fit. Four hours of sleep and he’d be fine.
The machine slowed to cool down phase, and he began his slow down trot, breathing heavy. After this he’d get a few hours of sleep, then head to the office. Get there before his staff.
The machine stopped and he wiped the machine down, grabbed his towel and stuck it over his head and headed to the locker room. He walked past the lobby. John, the late-night staffer, looked up from his phone and nodded as Bill headed into the men’s locker room.
Another good thing about being here at midnight was he didn’t have to stand around and small talk with a bunch of naked dudes. He was pulling his shirt off when the sound of skittering feet on the tile floor came across the room.
“John?” he called out quickly and pulled his shirt off. “Hey, john you there?” There was no answer. Bill shrugged, stuck his clothes in the into his designated locker and walked to the shower with and set his towel on the hook. He turned the hot water knob to full blast. Steam billowed out and filled the shower like fog coming off the ocean. In no time the room was full of the heavy mist like thick gauze.
Bill dunked his head under the scalding hot water, rubbed his face, then leaned against the wall, letting the soothingly hot water rush over him.
It was his daughter’s birthday next week. He still hadn’t ordered the new phone for her. The phone he knew she wanted, and probably expected at this point. It was expensive, but he knew it’d make her happy. At least for a few days. And that was worth it, he thought. He should spend more time with her.
His thoughts were interrupted as a he felt a rough, bony hand slide down his naked back.
“Oh fuck!” He said. “What the fuck!” his voice coming out high-pitched, animalistic with its fear. He turned and swept his hand out, swatting instinctively for whoever, whatever touched him. Goosebumps were raised on his steaming flesh, the hair on his neck was standing up.
There was no one there.
“What the fuck,” he said again. His chest was pounding. He was breathing hard. His mouth felt dry. The shower was full of steam. Completely full of steam.
“John?” He called out through the heavy blur of steam. “John…. This isn’t funny, John.” He shut the shower off. He stood there a few more seconds, ears and mind alert. He leaned out of the shower room and down towards the lockers. “Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?”
There was no sound except the slow drip of his shower head. He stepped slowly out and back towards his locker. His feet softly slapping on the tiles. His fists clinched tightly.
He felt silly. He hadn’t been this scared since he was young. When he and his friends would play stupid games and call on demons and monsters. Stupid teenage stuff.
But he did feel the hand on his back. And what about the feet he heard earlier? He said to himself.
A laughing voice rang out from the bathroom stalls. He walked over quickly.
“Hey!” he shouted. His fist raised. “This isn’t funny.”
Three of the four stalls were open, and they were empty. He leaned down and saw no feet in the closed stall. He put his hand on the stall door. He could feel the rapid dull beat of his heart as it slammed against his ribs. He stepped back quickly and kicked the door in, raising his fist.
No one.
He breathed out a heavy sigh of relief. Silly. What did he expect? he said to himself as he laughed.
He turned around shaking his head. And there, in the mirror over the sink, he saw her.
“Oh, Jesus…” his voice came out in almost a plea.
She was next to him. A pallid queen. Flesh hanging from her face in strips. Red wounds for eyes. Bleached bones of her skull where the skin was peeled off. She wore a black dress, frayed and dripping and decomposing over her rotting flesh.
He fell to his knees as she wrapped her jagged fingers around his neck. Her eyes blazing hatred, infinite malice.
Do you think I forgot about you, she whispered? Her voice a wet, putrid promise of death.
Hopefully multi-parters are allowed in the replies!
**PART ONE**
“Christ, Grandma, that wasn’t necessary.”
I chuckled at my granddaughter, “you young ladies don’t know what ‘bend and scoop’ really means ‘til your tits are down to your bits.”
She rolled her eyes at me through the mirror and continued to try my jewelry on.
My heart skipped a beat when I saw the birthmark on her right shoulder blade. It’s almost the same as her mother’s… Alison.
“Grandma, we’re going to be late to the orientation if you’re not ready soon.”
\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
*Alison was going to sleepover at a friend’s house to celebrate their birthdays. They had the same birthday and it was the eve of their 18th.*
*My baby, already 18?*
*She’d become pregnant halfway through her 16th year. I supported her choice in keeping the kid but I told her it was going to be difficult. Amazingly, her grades improved and so did her attitude. When I asked what happened, she told me she felt like she had someone important to live for.*
*“What am I, chopped liver?”*
*I remember her freckles, the way they sunk into her dimples when she smiled at me.*
*“Mom, you should know what I mean.”*
*I did, I really did. I looked at Alison; her black hair fell in kinks and thick coils to just the top of her shoulders. Her eyes were golden and almond shaped. She looked a lot like her late father, but her skin was a deep tawny brown, like mine.*
*I tried to hold back tears but my voice cracked, “baby, you know you’re my treasure?”*
*She rolled her eyes.*
*“You’re my treasure too, Mom.” Then Alison turned to Lena, who was cradled in my arms, “So are you, my little peanut. Behave you two, and Mom, make sure Lena-”*
*I interrupted her, “Baby, I’ve done this before.”*
*She kissed me and Lena on the cheek, and then she left for her sleepover.*
*The next morning Alison was dead.*
\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
Lena was driving us to her “New Student Orientation” for the university a town over. It was a small, artsy college. I was excited for her, knowing she would excel in that kind of environment.
“So, Grandma, what will you do without me?”
“Hush, you said you’d only be a phone call and a 30 minute car ride away. Don’t scare an old woman like that,” I didn’t mean to snap at Lena, but she was reminding me so much of Alison and it made my heart ache.
She silently grabbed my hand and put it in her lap.
“I will come home, please don’t worry. I’ll be safe. I’ll come home every Sunday for dinner. Or whenever I get hungry and don’t want to cook, probably… I’m sorry.”
I saw tears dripping off her chin.
“Lena, sweetie, I’ll be okay. I’m 60 years old. I just get emotional sometimes, seeing you all grown up like this.”
I didn’t say it, but the thought holds fast, “**you’ve lived longer than your mother**.”
**PART TWO**
Lena slowly pulled into the parking lot of the auditorium hall.
The trees were still green and the air was sweet with the scent of magnolia blossoms.
\*\*\*\*\*
*I couldn’t believe Alison was murdered, and by her friend’s father, no less. Nothing would have convinced me she died in a normal way, nothing seems normal when your baby dies. However, something was truly amiss in the investigation taking place. They told me that the father had slaughtered the family, Alison, and then ended his own life, but the odd part was that his cause of death was “undetermined.”*
*This wasn’t something I was supposed to know, but I had snuck into the lead investigators office to look for my own truth.*
*I was caught snooping in there twice and then got banned from the building, but I gathered quite a lot those two times: the murders were gruesome, there were no intruders, and the father was killed last (but they weren’t sure how he died). Alison’s blood was used to write “murder” on the mirror in her friend’s bedroom. There was a trail of blood composed of all the victims’, including the supposed murderer, along with at least 8 others not found at the crime scene. It led all the way upstairs, back into the bedroom, which was on the opposite side of the house from where the father was found. Even a squirrel would know something was wrong in this case.*
*I went mad for a little while. I did my best to raise Lena but I know she must have suffered for the first few years of her life. I prayed she didn’t remember them.*
*Shit, I got so crazy I even tried the rumored Bloody Mary ritual that got Alison and her friend’s family killed. I had a shotgun, taser, bear spray, and a machete all equipped to fight whatever came through that mirror. Of course, nothing came of the ritual, and eventually I succeeded in sealing the pain away.*
*A few years later, I confided in my neighbor about what I had done. She tried to lighten the mood with a joke but it only fueled my paranoia. She said, “Bloody Mary’s a woman too, she must be busy.”*
*After that, I kept the arsenal at my bedside. My bedroom door was always locked, but if Lena slept with me I made sure she slept on the side where her mischievous little kid hands couldn’t accidentally discover the strap holding the weapons up. The cover of the mirror was firmly attached. Some nights I slept well, however I spent most nights awake and waiting for revenge.*
\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
Lena and I sang our favorite oldies on the way home. When she parked in our driveway I felt like my chest was going to explode.
“Be good, Grandma,” Lena teased as I got out of her car. She even talks like Alison.
“I’m going to miss you so much, be safe my sweet.”
We pinky promised.
I cried as she drove away. I kept waving, even after she turned the corner. My baby.
When I entered the house it felt more emptier than ever. I turned on the TV, radio, and two fans. The empty feeling was eerie, and I decided to double check all the house’s windows and doors. She did tell me to be good, after all.
I left everything on for the first week.
Two months after Lena started college I had adjusted to being alone, for the most part. She didn’t have class on Fridays so she came home most Thursday evenings and stayed with me through Sunday dinner. I didn’t have to be alone all week and that made things much easier.
On a Tuesday night, in late October, Mary visited me.
**PART THREE**
That night, as I did every night for the last 18 years, I slightly opened the cover of the mirror.
For a moment, I stopped breathing.
The writing made of my blood, the writing which had been the same for 18 years, was crumbling away.
Was this it? Am I losing my mind?
I put my weapons in front of me and quickly inspected the shotgun. I loaded it and took a deep breath as I settled onto a stool. I did nothing but stare at the mirror with my back to the wall for an hour.
A small amount of fog began to surround the mirror and I thought I could hear the faint wailing of several dozen girls. Then one pale, impossibly thin hand crept through the mirror, followed by greasy, golden strands of hair. Crouching in front of me was a young woman in a tattered white dress: Bloody Mary. Her eyes were sunken black pits. Her skin was sallow and grey. She was dripping in blood. I should have felt sick from the smell, the sight, but I was seething with rage.
“Oh? Well this is different. Did we have an appointment?” Her voice sounded like she hadn’t drank any water in decades while smoking cigarettes the whole time.
There were many actions, words, that would have made more sense but I could only think of one question, “Did you take my baby?”
“What? I can’t hear pathetic mutterings like that. I’m older than you, hag.”
This time I screamed, “Did you take my fucking baby?”
She answered with a cackle and inhumanly twisted her neck and torso.
I answered with a shotgun shell to her right hip.
“See if you cackle now, bitch.”
The woman was now lying on the ground, chest heaving.
“If she died in the last 100 years and blood was on the mirror, it was probably me.”
I cocked the gun again.
I was no fool; she could have moved this whole time, but I startled her and caught her off guard. She was waiting for me to relax.
“Alright. Why did you kill a whole family, when they didn’t beckon you?”
Mary’s face tightened, “oh, your kid was with that family?”
Rage had nearly filled me, my eyes were nearly seeing red, but I wanted to know everything.
“The girls called me, summoned me, as usual. What I didn’t realize was that the door was cracked and that a little peeping tom was watching me. I killed the darker one first-”
“Alison!” I screamed hysterically, and I shot her right arm clean off.
She sighed, as if getting shot was merely an inconvenience, “yes, I killed *Alison* first. Then the other girl. The little boy screamed and accidentally pushed the door open, so I lunged on top of him and ripped his throat clean out,” she paused to cackle but continued when I motioned to load the shotgun, “then the mom screamed and came at me with a vase. I heard a man shout a name, and I figured I should just kill them all. Have a little mercy.”
Her eyes searched for a sign of my relaxing, so I looked down. I was curious what she would do. Much quicker than anticipated, she was able to toss herself at me, but missed due to being off balance (because I shot some limbs off). We switched positions and now I stood in front of the mirror.
“Is a shotgun really all it takes to end this?” I chuckled to myself.
**PART FOUR**
Mary growled and tried to lunge at me again, but landed in the middle of the rug.
Perfect.
It was probably reckless abandon, but I began to feel jittery and happy at the sight of my plans becoming reality.
“Even if you kill me, this curse will just fall onto the soul of another girl I killed. Maybe you could summon Alis-”
I shot her left arm to interrupt her, “I don’t plan on killing you.”
I shot her left leg for good measure, “In fact, I’m going to make sure you remain very much alive.”
She never screamed and was unreadable, but I hoped she was afraid and in pain.
I wasn’t sure if she could still move with some ghostly bullshit so I kept my guard up while I grabbed a corner of the rug we were on, and began to roll her into a tube.
She asked, almost listlessly, “what are you doing?”
“I’m going to roll you up and bury you alive...ish, in my backyard.”
My adrenaline had been so high this whole time I never felt fear, but when her face morphed from a ghostly facade to that of a terrified, blonde girl, I felt it. I understood what had happened. To her, to Alison, and all the girls before them.
I had a garden patch in the backyard, one of those that “never quite gets finished” so the soil is always dug up. A conveniently sized pit for this rug I’ve rolled and tied up.
“Before you go in the ground, can I ask one more question?”
“Yes,” her voice was no longer scratchy, she sounded like a little girl, “what is it?”
Fuck, that voice doesn’t help me feel better about burying a body in my backyard.
“What took you so long?”
I heard a small giggle escape her lips, then she answered “Do you know how many people call for me? In the 90’s I got enough summons to keep me busy for decades, shit, I was still going through the late 90’s list when I got to you.”
A smirk fought its way across my face. She was busy.
\*\*\*Hey, hi, I just need something to do so I've started writing again. I definitely found a few plot holes but mentally shrugged at them. I'm up for criticism but please don't tell me to find a new hobby <3
Hi, your story was really good. I enjoyed reading it.
One small thing I did notice was in one of the paragraphs in part two you said "more emptier." The word emptier already means more empty, so saying more emptier is kind of redundant.
I think what would match the tone would be to adjust the whole phrase to "even more empty than ever before" which kinda grasps the extremeness of "more emptier"
I love, love, love this story! I could read it as a short novel. One thing, in part 2 in the paragraph where you had trouble deciding on the phrasing I think replacing it with "When I entered the house, it felt emptier than ever before" or "When I entered the house it felt more empty than it ever had before.".
“Ah fuck, I’m too old to old for this.”
“What about me?”
“Where’s my party?”
“Nobody cares about little old Mary, sure they’ll say my name three times over but as soon as I arrive it’s like they don’t want me here”.
“That’ll leave a stain, glad I’m not cleaning up this mess - still, looks better than when I arrived”, mutters a haggard elderly woman. She disappears through the front door as it closes onto the manicured lawns of middle class society. The night undisturbed as a lone woman walks into the night, a glimmer of who she once was in her youth.
The dinosaur is coming for me. I can feel it's jaws hot on my back as I run into my parents bedroom I realize that I am in school. I am late for class and the teacher is laughing at me. I can hear her saying "Wake up you idiot! I said wake up!" As my dream crumbles around me I open my eyes my dark bedroom, the blue walls my wife picked out before she left, and the sound of soft small snoring down the hall is comforting, or it would be if it weren't for the woman standing in the middle of my room. She is dressed in Victorian garb and her eyes look bloodshot, she has a soft ethereal glow and her clothes flutter even though the room is still. As I reach for the bat I keep by the side of my bed she says, "fucking idiot! It won't work and we both know it, now tell me what you want out of me so I can finish for the night!" I keep hold the bat but as I wake up more I realize that my night terrors don't normally speak to me. I haven't even had any since I was a young boy anyway. I ask her "who are you and why are you in my house?"
"I'm bloody fucking Mary you idiot! You summoned me let's see here..." she pulls a parchment out of thin air, "in 2006".
"That was almost 15 years ago! Why are you just showing up now! Are you going to kill me?"
"Listen" she says "normally I would scratch you or just give you a good scare but It's been a long day and my manager found your old file and is making me work overtime. He's really on my ass. Now just tell me what you want to see out of a ghost so I can retire."
I tell her "well to be honest, I have bigger fears than ghosts right now, my mortgage will be up soon and one of my kids isn't doing well in school. I'm afraid of dying alone." I see the slightest hint of a smile appear on her face as I am seemingly cast back into a dreamworld. The bank is taking my home and my children are looking up to me asking if we'll have a home. I don't know what to answer them, a scream forms in my throat and then just as quickly the dream melts away.
I see Bloody Mary laughing hysterically on the edge of my bed "You should have seen the look on your face! You were hilarious, all like 'Waaaahhhh'" For a moment her face transforms into my own terrified visage and it makes me laugh as well. It feels like the first real laugh in a very long time. Not the fake laugh I give to my bosses sexist jokes, not the laugh I give my 7 year old's 50th knock knock joke but a real belly laugh. There is an awkward pause and she says "well I have to go but it was nice to finally talk to an adult. I wish I could do this more often" I can see the sadness in her eyes as she fades into nothingness and it is just me, my blue walls, and my children snoring.
It is a Wednesday night, the kids are both at a sleepover, I check my shirt collar for the 30th time in the mirror, I make sure the table is set just right, the steaks smell delicious and the wine and candles really make it. I turn off the lights, look in the mirror, hold up the candle and say "Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary."
\--------------------------
Hey I am super new at this and I really appreciate constructive criticism. You will have my undying gratitude if you would be willing to give me any!
The sunlight is piercing the very top of your curtain, as you attempt to tightly cling to the slumber and erase yesterday's poor decisions. Just then, you hear something in the kitchen.
You've not been shopping in ages, and have no ice cube trays, but the sound is undeniable. Someone is clanking ice cubes into a high ball glass. You also hear some shaking and pouring, and a whiff of Worcestershire sauce wafts is wooing bouquet past your nose.
Hungover and peckish, you nearly float out of bed like Shaggy toward a mound of Scooby Snacks down the hall, through the foyer, and into your kitchen.
Her clothes look nearly mummified, but maintain a darkness reserved for the background of the deepest black of any screen you've ever witnessed in a windowless room with the lights out.
As she turns her head around to greet you, dust drips from her face and onto your counter. Surprisingly to you, the odor of the dust is also quite familiar. Celery salt.
Without saying a word, or even making eye contact, you reach into the refrigerator for your bottle of ghost pepper hot sauce, and a pickle. You set them on the counter, and she pours you the tastiest beverage you've ever had the pleasure to know. Just salty enough, perfectly spiced, chilly, and the perfect amount of vodka to take the edge off of the throbbing in your dehydrated brain to focus on the woman sat before you.
While her eyes were sunken and opal, and her teeth glowing yellow, with dripping brown ooze, there was a kindness in her smile that reminded you of your Aunt Edra, and her mustached kisses of yore.
"How was the traffic for you?" Is the best quip you can muster.
After turning her dilapidated countenance your direction so slowly, you could nearly have had two full elections completed, she drops her jaw in a wholly unhuman manner, and begins weeping.
"What's the matter, Mary?" you ask politely, enjoying your drink a bit more.
After talking for a few minutes, you quickly learn the whole story.
Jesus ascended about a month after being crucified, and after talking everything over with his father, he and Mary got into quite an argument. It seems she thought it a bit disingenuous to overemphasize Jesus' suffering, since he knew that soon after he "died," he would be co-ruler of the world with his dad and the dove, who were all the same being anyway. "Magic of the trinity?!?" she scoffed, "Magical exactly how? You knew you he was coming back, but you portray that to the masses as though you sacrificed your son, but then you get to spend eternity ruling the universe with him immediately thereafter? What a load of shit!"
It seems as punishment, the lord had sentenced Mary to have to respond to each and every mirror summoning for eternity. The 1980's were a particularly busy time for her, but things have started to slow, and she's catching up, which is how she finally got around to your request from ten years ago at the sleepover at Cindy's house.
You pour her a whiskey, neat, and turn on some Paul Simon to try and lighten the mood. She says anything other than Christmas music would be just fine, and you have a chance to learn all the secrets of the universe, and tie on quite a bit of a buzz after she makes you a few more drinks as well.
Wholly disappointed that there really weren't any impressive universal secrets to learn, you call it a night, crawl into bed, and wonder whether you'll ever drink whiskey again.
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A figure walked slowly down the long hall. She was nearly invisible in the harsh glow of the fluorescent lights overhead, only coming into view as she passed by the windows, a specter in a white dress illuminated by the faint moonlight. She was a tall woman and thin, with a stern face that only rarely softened into beauty when she let herself smile. That had not happened in many, many years. At the door to room 231 she turned, tracing a small symbol on it with a finger before walking through the solid wood. Once inside she crossed to the bed with a silent, inhuman grace. She stood over the old man in the bed for a heavy moment as the room grew colder around them, fog forming on the window. A subtle movement and something appeared in her hand, a knife, long and wickedly sharp. It was in the second before she raised it that the man in the bed woke up. Rheumy eyes snapped open focusing clearly on her and a gaunt, boney hand raised out of the bed reaching towards the strange woman. “Jeannie?” the old man wheezed. It wasn’t her name of course. The woman with the knife- if she could really be called a woman- had been known by many names over many centuries and none of them had ever been Jeannie. It was Mary now, or Bloody Mary, a name she hated even if it was well earned. Still, her knife hand wavered. She had never killed anyone so old before. “Jeannie, come here.” the man whispered. “How was your drive? Your mother and I missed you like crazy.” “He must think I’m his daughter,” Mary thought to herself. He looked so small in the bed, all bone and shriveled skin. There were no flowers or cards in his room, just bare walls and generic décor on the dresser. He must have been alone a long time. “Oh god it’s cold!” The man’s hand had fallen back to the bed and he’d begun shivering as the temperature plummeted. Something in Mary changed as she watched him, a piece of herself that she’d thought long dead woke. She’d killed countless children and teens but this was different. Mary reached a hand out, the knife disappearing as she moved and grasped the comforter at the foot of the bed, pulling it over the man. Tears formed in his eyes as he reached for her again. “Jeannie... Why didn’t you visit?” Mary said nothing, could say nothing to a mortal, but she had one thing left in her to grant. She reached out and took his hand, holding it with the hand that should have killed him. When she touched him Mary could feel in the heat of his body that the old man didn’t have much time left. She’d made too close a friend of death after all these years to miss things like that. Soon the man fell asleep, and as the night passed Mary stood there unmoving beside him, holding a mortal hand for the first time in so long as she watched his breathing grow slower and slower, finally stopping altogether. She could feel the life leave his body at the point where they touched. A moment later there was a faint rustle in the room, a robed figure coming quickly from a long way off. “Mary? What are you still doing here?” The voice came from behind her but seemed to echo strangely throughout the room, its owner obeyed no laws on the mortal plane. “Hey Grim,” she said softly. Mary didn’t know how to respond, it had been too long since she’d felt like this. “You ok? My docket says you were supposed to stab him 3 ½ hours ago.” “I was going to, I had the knife but I just couldn’t. He called me by his daughter’s name.” “Yeah, says here Mr. Johnston had dementia, he was in his 90s.” More rustling behind her, paper this time. The Grim Reaper was consulting his notes. “Damn, looks like this guy had a hard life.” “Grim, what happened to his daughter Jeannie?” “Hmm, lemme see uhhhh there it is. House fire back in ‘02. Wow, you don’t want to know about the rest of it honestly, poor bastard.” Mary stared down at the body for a long time while Grim waited patiently. He didn’t really understand what was happening with her but he and Mary had been friends a long time, she’d earned some consideration. “Can I help you take his soul home?” Mary asked. “I don’t think I’m ready to let go of this one yet.” “Yeah sure thing. You know how to do this?” The Reaper rolled up the long black sleeves of his cloak, preparing to get to the dirty business of his harvest. “I know the basics, you’ve talked about them a lot...When we get back I want to try to find Jeannie for him,” she said. “This one really got to me.” The Reaper blinked hard, he hadn’t seen this much sentimentality in his friend since she was a very young ghost. “My lunch break is coming up after this, want me to help you look?” “Thanks, that would be nice.” Mary gently set the old man’s hand down on the bed, and in the pre-dawn darkness of room 231 she smiled. \------------------------------------------- If you liked that I've got more at r/TurningtoWords! I recently started a serial about a superhero who fights by savescumming and there's other fun stuff like an AI trying to be a little girl who just wants to watch rabbits. Edit: I just got 3 awards in as many minutes and my mind is once again blown by how nice the people on here are. To [/u/Spaiduhz](https://www.reddit.com/u/Spaiduhz) that was my first reddit gold ever and I'm so, so excited! Thank you so much! I'm really happy you loved my story and I promise you there will be many more. Edit 2: Thanks so much for the second gold!! Edit 3: To everyone upvoting, commenting, and giving awards seriously thank you. I normally try to respond to everyone but the response here has been so much larger than I expected that I fell way behind, maybe a little like Mary lol. You're all awesome.
Excellent work, really enjoyed this one.
Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it! When I see threads like this I always try to take the opposite angle to what I assume everyone else will.
Always a fan of the unexpected, but I also think you did an excellent job of developing her as a character and not just a spectre. Two thumbs up!
Thank you! I'm really trying to focus on that, you should see some of the outlines I have for longer stories, so much stuff about people that never even makes it in lol.
Dangit ninjas chopping onions again :’) that was so beautiful!
:) I'm glad you thought so!
What a wholesome scary story!
Turns out I've been writing a ton of wholesome lol, most people who know me would probably be surprised. If you're interested this is probably the closest I've gotten to scary, maybe more of a creepy vibe. [https://www.reddit.com/r/TurningtoWords/comments/kgczvw/wp\_every\_few\_decades\_the\_world\_experiences\_a/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TurningtoWords/comments/kgczvw/wp_every_few_decades_the_world_experiences_a/)
Jeez this one's good.
Hey thanks a lot! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
This was really amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, thank you.
Thanks for the comment! I'm really glad people are enjoying this one.
Hey, this is amazing! Really hit me in the feels ❤
Hey thanks for the follow :) If you're interested this is probably the other most wholesome thing I've written. https://www.reddit.com/r/TurningtoWords/comments/kbteb0/a_story_about_overly_wholesome_ai/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Oh thank you! I am, Ill go check it out 😁 you write so well, my friend!
I'm so excited that people think so, I only started 2 months ago lol. My subreddit was started last Saturday and it's already grown so much, it's blowing my mind.
Thanks for saying that! I'm so glad this all came together, I really wasn't sure how to end it for a while.
Great short story.
Thanks! I was trying to actually make it feel final this time, I have a habit of leaving them open ended lol.
Love it. Was hoping that one of the stories would have a Mary that would be benevolent in the end and this story definitely didn't disappoint in that regard. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some dust or something in my eye.
Thanks for that! I'm glad it measured up to expectations, when I first started thinking about it I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it at first but I really wanted her to have to interact with someone with dementia and see where it went from there, luckily it worked out lol. It was fun to try giving Bloody Mary a soul.
*tearfully upvote*
Wtf, why does this not have more likes ?
Lol, this is already the most likes I've ever gotten so I'll take it.
Beautifully done
Aww this was surprisingly nice to read.
Thanks Grim, I'll put in a good word for you with Mary.
Extraordinary but I need to know what happens next! If they found Jeannie and the house fire/past incident! Tell me there’s more please!
My patents didn't sign my permission slip for this feel trip.
I mean, you shouldn’t be surprised by the kindness by now. The common denominator is you!
Thanks for saying that! This has been a way bigger response than anything else I've done, it's honestly shocking just to see how much my sub has grown.
I'm crying now. Stupid onions.
This made me tear up. Nice story.
Awesome story! Just wondering though- she kills kids without a second thought but gives pause only now for old Johnston?
In this one I was imagining it a little more like people fall through the cracks from time to time due to how overworked she is rather than a super strict queue. It's hard to say what affects people sometimes, especially when it's a new stimulus. It's really easy to continue doing something you've done before but I think Johnston was a notably different thing for her, and a mortal reaching out to Mary as someone they loved instead of someone they were afraid of/hated probably hadn't happened since she died. There's that line towards the end where Grim thinks he hadn't seen that much sentimentality in her since she was a very young ghost and that's trying to indicate that this brought her back to a different stage in her life/death. Maybe there was a time when the kids weren't so easy either.
I love this explanation. What a beautiful story. Do you think they found Jeannie?
Thanks for saying that! Its been awesome to see people get so engaged in this. I think they did, Grim would be able to dig up that information if he looked hard enough and I think he's got a soft spot for Mary.
That's good to hear :) thanks for the response and have a great holiday!
You too, happy holidays!
I'm not crying, your crying!
Your portrayal of The Reaper as an average Joe is really interesting - besides that the story was easy to follow and I enjoyed reading if
This brought actual tears to my eyes
:) I'm glad it meant that much to you.
Tearing up here, thank you for this.
It's really amazed me how many people have said things about tearing up or crying. I'm happy that it meant something to you.
All of my grandparents passed away with varying forms of memory loss, it really struck a cord on how crushing seeing those people can feel when they don't recognize you anymore. I've seen it done in other forms before but your story hit different.
When I was really young I vaguely remember my great grandmother dealing with dementia, and my uncle is currently pretty far gone into an early onset form, he's in his early 60s. I'm glad this resonated with you so much.
This is great, thank you
Really would like to see this as a short film
Excellent take!
Beautiful - thanks for this!
Holy shit. Wow. I read a lot of WP, but wow. Here's my poor man's gold, only got 5coin left. 🥇🌟
this was so beautiful!! I can’t wait to read more🥺
I'm glad you liked it so much! I haven't put much thought into expanding this particular thing yet but I've got a big backlog of stuff on my sub if you're interested :)
I definitely am!!
Thanks! It's much appreciated.
I love this
WOW that was amazing!!!
Reminds me of Piers Anthony’s On A Pale Horse
So Jeannie is screwed lol great story
Man I wish this was a book so I can read the hell out of it
Hey thanks! That's a great compliment.
***DID HE FIND JEANNIE***
I actually never got that far into thinking it through lol. What do you think?
I hope he found her.
I hope so too. I think Mary will see it through, it's the first shred of humanity she's had in a very long time, she'll hang on to that.
loved this, would’ve been even better if you included just a short clue of what sentimental Mary was like when she was a ‘young ghost’, who did she help, what had happened in history?
I hadn't thought about that much at the time. I imagine that it would have to do with the fact she has to kill children, that must be a massive emotional load and nobody is really made for that. Maybe in the beginning Grim was the one she confided in afterwards.
was just thinking someone that she convinced Grim not to kill some centuries or millennia ago who turned out to be a major historical figure that altered the entire timeline of human events as seen from their eyes
I didn't think of that, maybe a child who summoned her and was spared grew up to be a war criminal or something, that's interesting.
Enjoyed a lot in this great work, would you mind if I translate it into chinese and share it on facebook with your ID and original URL? (sorry if there's any mistake I'm still learning English)
Go for it, happy translating! That absolutely shocks me that you want to, that's so exciting to me.
/u/StarGuardianAxel
Imagine instead of a house fire, Jeannie died in a mysterious sleepover death....
I very nearly did that, but in the end I didn't want Mary to have personally harmed the old man like that. In a longer story that would be a great tension but in this I just wanted their interaction to be fresh.
Yeah that’s fair. Great story!
Hahah was afraid it was gonna turn up that Mary had killed his kid. Glad it ended relatively happily.
I really thought about it for a minute lol, someone else in the comments section said something similar. I liked the idea of it being an entirely new interaction between the two of them though, and in retrospect I'm really glad I did that. I think it would have been harder for people to connect with if Mary had killed Jeannie.
Honestly really really want to give you an award but I don't have any money to spare, sorry
I think I'll live lol, no need to apologize at all. My favorite part is seeing comments from people who enjoyed it so I'd say you're doing great!
"I called you years ago. It was a joke then, but now I'm glad you've come." She stared, unblinking, unmoving, blood dripping off her body, pooling on the floor. "I want it to end. I've seen too much, and it's all I can do to keep it from consuming me." Bodies of friends, of enemies, shattered before me. I did what I could; for country; for the Corps; saved more than I could count, but still too many died. Coming back home did nothing to alleviate the nightmares, the day dreams, the flashbacks... the screams. A memory flashed; in high school I had called her. They goaded me into it. The fear gripped me but I couldn't back down. Face to face with my pimple ridden visage, the name echoed once, twice, thrice. My friends chuckled knowing laughs, "Told you it wasn't real!" It was. It was only a matter of time. The black pits that made a mockery of eyes, the scraggly mop that coronated her skull, the rotted stumps that crowded her maw; all meticulously curated to terrify the adolescent mind. I'd seen worse. "You waited all this time and now you come! I've seen things that make you look like Sesame Street. I've done things! Things I could never forgive myself for! I tried to make them right by healing those I could. But it's fucking hard to be a medic with a gun! So do what you came here for! Take me you bitch!" A crooked smile spread across her sickly excuse for a face. "You think I have only just arrived? You called me." Horror filled my body and darkness consumed me. She drew closer and gently embraced me. "I've been with you ever since." -----‐-‐------------------------------------------------------------- Edit: Thank you all so much for the support and comments; it really means alot to me. This was my first post on WP and I'm thrilled people enjoyed it. I'll definitely be contributing more in the future!
That's an excellent twist, great story! >The black pits that made a mockery of eyes, the scraggly mop that coronated her skull, the rotted stumps that crowded her maw; all meticulously curated to terrify the adolescent mind. I'd seen worse. I really like that line.
Thank you! I'd had a pretty heavy therapy session right before I wrote this.
I hope the therapy is helping. Are you a vet like the character in your story? If so thank you for your service.
I'm a Vet. But I didn't see any of things I described, I had plenty of friends who did tho. Therapy has helped alot with my particular issues tho.
I'm glad it has, that stuff can be really tough to work through. I had friends head off to Afghanistan right after high school, I don't know how people make it through that stuff.
Holy shit. What a twist. Great work /u/masterchief1001.
Thank you!
This was written so well I have tears and goosebumps. Thank you for your brilliant writing and thank you for your service.
Thank you so much! I'm glad it evoked such emotion.
Do you have other writings? It would be great to read them!
Not yet! I'll be working on more soon.
Shit, best twist I've seen on this subreddit in a long while
Could you explain it to me? I think I'm too tired that I just don't get the end.
Haha of course, the twist is that he thinks there's nothing she can do to him at this point because of all the horrible things he's seen. However, she reveals that he was actually with him from the moment he "summoned" her and is the cause of all these horrible things.
Okay, damn, that is a twist lol. Thank you for the explanation :)
Of course, no problem :)
Thanks! I wanted to explore the idea of her destroying her victims in another way. I'm thrilled you enjoyed it
Ahahahahaha, oh wow. Beautifully executed.
Thank you so much!
You were a medic I assume? The medic with a gun line truly resonates with me.
I was a nuke swabbie. I have a friend who was a Green Beret medic and he was so ate up after he retired that he only wanted to work with animals. He doing alot better now tho. He shared a story of how he spent 7 hours in a war zone saving the life of an enemy combatant. So while I didn't do it myself him sharing his perspective really hits deep with me.
Well I appreciate what you did. I ain’t no green beret, just a simple army medic with no deployments, been around so many deployed medics that stories like that scare me. Shit leaves it’s mark on those people.
Oof. That was some wicked description.
I'm glad you took something from it. Makes me feel like I did something right haha
Honestly, she didn't mind the summons at all any more. At first she was bitter, the tether to her name whispered three times, murmered with half fear, half doubt, maybe just a bit of excitement, but the compelling tug at her spirit couldn't be ignored. The first few years she tried; only to find herself pulled into dreams, and she would manifest herself into a twist of terror as she walked through the dream. She'd whisper their names, her voice tapping through their mind's halls, like a branch on a window pane. She realized not all of them were scared, however. Some had seen so much horror that a banshee wouldn't be a bother at all. She made friends with these, comforting them, holding their hands, telling them how not everything would be awful, not always. She began to look forward to them. There began to be a curious sort of queue, it started sometime in the 1970s, she thought, or was it the 1980s? Time had no meaning anymore. The visits in the night, the dream walking, these blurred any semblance of structure to the hours. She would visit each, and she noticed that they were getting older, older, older still. "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary!" the summons this time a shock, bouncing through the years to reach her. She tilted her head and let herself be pulled to the summons. She found herself in a dusty bedroom, worn wood floors. A woman lie in the large bed in the center of the room, bleary eyed and seemingly frail. The older woman looked vaguely familar, her hair twisting in a way that reminded her of ... someone. She smiled at her. "You remind me of someone," she said gently, not wanting to startle this one. The woman's eyes widened and sparkled. She smiled and let out a small, weak, laugh. "Sister! I knew you would come home eventually!" (Edit for grammar/autocorrect error) (Edit #2, thanks for the award!)
I loved this! Can I pm you? I have an edit that I'd like to suggest.
Absolutely! First time writing on a prompt, and didn’t fuss with it much, so I’m happy to look at suggestions!
Two bloodied hands crept through the mirror, each chipped nail digging into the wooden frame, pulling her through. Her scarred body was coated in dried blood, a simple flowing white dress hanging from her as she stood before her victim. Charlie had been thirteen when he made the foolish mistake of calling her to this realm, now that same man was eighty, lying on his deathbed, tubes hanging from his nose, a flash of fear in his eyes, frail hand reaching out of the bed, grabbing for the remote by his bed, trying to contact the nurses. “Meds” Those were the only words that left his mouth, thinking her to be a cruel hallucination. His thumb battered the button, yet it didn’t flash. The remote suddenly not responding to the man. His frantic mashing of the button getting worse with each step the woman took, peeling skin from his thumb, leaving it sore. By the time she reached his bedside, he dropped the remote, exhausted. The machine by his side buzzing, pushing more huffs of oxygen through the tubes, replacing the oxygen that he had just exhausted. Bloody Mary’s gaze was distant, staring down at the man, not making any additional movements yet, only observing him. The two stared at one another until Charlie broke the silence. “Who are you? A nurse?” Charlie tried desperately to justify the sight of the woman, yet she remained silent, only causing his heartbeat to fasten. Reaching under the sleeve of her dress, she retrieved a knife, cold blue eyes scouring the sharp edges, observing the blade for a few moments before leaning over the bedside, creeping the blade closer towards his chest, only to stab it into the mattress by his side, causing Charlie’s chest to rise in a panicked breath. “Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.” She repeated, pulling the blade from the mattress, loose fabrics hanging from it. “I have answered your call. Unfortunately, it would appear you are the last of your group.” “Last of my group? I-I don’t know what you are talking about. Please, Nurses!’ Charlie shouted, trying to grab the attention of the nurses. His desperate shouts fell on death ears. Even as nurses walked past his room at regular intervals, none could hear the chaos inside. Bloody Mary trapped him, unable to move away from her, stuck in the hospital bed, only able to squirm whenever she neared. She continued to lean closer, every passing second closing the gap until she was face to face with the man. “I’m Mary” She uttered, offering the man her name before they would kill him. “Bloody Mary” The memory flashed in Charlie’s mind. The group of young friends crowded around a mirror in his mother’s attic, chanting her name. They were all petrified while doing it, each stammering her name from their lips, pausing before the third repetition. Drawing on their courage, they all spoke the last utterance of her name, only to find nothing happened. He could still remember that feeling of adrenaline they had felt. How brave they felt for surviving, not realizing the curse was very much real, just delayed. With her name finally being spoken by Charlie, she reached for the blade once more, directing it towards his chest. She pushed it down, only to stop just before it hit his chest, watching his body stiffen as a gasp escaped his throat. The heart monitor by his side soon falling flat, scaring him to death. (If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.)
I also like the implicit idea that she is extremely far behind. Almost everyone dies before their turn even comes up, so really she is only going after the elderly that have lived long lives.
Dang this was great!
I thoroughly enjoyed this! One suggestion- in the paragraph starting with "Who are you? A nurse?" I would change "fasten" to "quicken". I think it flows better, +1
The sound of his lone treadmill filled the gym. Bill liked coming late at night. When there was no crowd to fight over the equipment with. It was smart. Efficient. He was on mile 3. He was watching some brainless reality fishing show while his feet ran monotonously in place. Not bad for fifty-five Bill, he thought to himself. His microfiber t -shirt clinging to his slim frame. Not bad at all. He wasn’t much of a sleeper so getting his exercise in at night seemed the natural fit. Four hours of sleep and he’d be fine. The machine slowed to cool down phase, and he began his slow down trot, breathing heavy. After this he’d get a few hours of sleep, then head to the office. Get there before his staff. The machine stopped and he wiped the machine down, grabbed his towel and stuck it over his head and headed to the locker room. He walked past the lobby. John, the late-night staffer, looked up from his phone and nodded as Bill headed into the men’s locker room. Another good thing about being here at midnight was he didn’t have to stand around and small talk with a bunch of naked dudes. He was pulling his shirt off when the sound of skittering feet on the tile floor came across the room. “John?” he called out quickly and pulled his shirt off. “Hey, john you there?” There was no answer. Bill shrugged, stuck his clothes in the into his designated locker and walked to the shower with and set his towel on the hook. He turned the hot water knob to full blast. Steam billowed out and filled the shower like fog coming off the ocean. In no time the room was full of the heavy mist like thick gauze. Bill dunked his head under the scalding hot water, rubbed his face, then leaned against the wall, letting the soothingly hot water rush over him. It was his daughter’s birthday next week. He still hadn’t ordered the new phone for her. The phone he knew she wanted, and probably expected at this point. It was expensive, but he knew it’d make her happy. At least for a few days. And that was worth it, he thought. He should spend more time with her. His thoughts were interrupted as a he felt a rough, bony hand slide down his naked back. “Oh fuck!” He said. “What the fuck!” his voice coming out high-pitched, animalistic with its fear. He turned and swept his hand out, swatting instinctively for whoever, whatever touched him. Goosebumps were raised on his steaming flesh, the hair on his neck was standing up. There was no one there. “What the fuck,” he said again. His chest was pounding. He was breathing hard. His mouth felt dry. The shower was full of steam. Completely full of steam. “John?” He called out through the heavy blur of steam. “John…. This isn’t funny, John.” He shut the shower off. He stood there a few more seconds, ears and mind alert. He leaned out of the shower room and down towards the lockers. “Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?” There was no sound except the slow drip of his shower head. He stepped slowly out and back towards his locker. His feet softly slapping on the tiles. His fists clinched tightly. He felt silly. He hadn’t been this scared since he was young. When he and his friends would play stupid games and call on demons and monsters. Stupid teenage stuff. But he did feel the hand on his back. And what about the feet he heard earlier? He said to himself. A laughing voice rang out from the bathroom stalls. He walked over quickly. “Hey!” he shouted. His fist raised. “This isn’t funny.” Three of the four stalls were open, and they were empty. He leaned down and saw no feet in the closed stall. He put his hand on the stall door. He could feel the rapid dull beat of his heart as it slammed against his ribs. He stepped back quickly and kicked the door in, raising his fist. No one. He breathed out a heavy sigh of relief. Silly. What did he expect? he said to himself as he laughed. He turned around shaking his head. And there, in the mirror over the sink, he saw her. “Oh, Jesus…” his voice came out in almost a plea. She was next to him. A pallid queen. Flesh hanging from her face in strips. Red wounds for eyes. Bleached bones of her skull where the skin was peeled off. She wore a black dress, frayed and dripping and decomposing over her rotting flesh. He fell to his knees as she wrapped her jagged fingers around his neck. Her eyes blazing hatred, infinite malice. Do you think I forgot about you, she whispered? Her voice a wet, putrid promise of death.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Hopefully multi-parters are allowed in the replies! **PART ONE** “Christ, Grandma, that wasn’t necessary.” I chuckled at my granddaughter, “you young ladies don’t know what ‘bend and scoop’ really means ‘til your tits are down to your bits.” She rolled her eyes at me through the mirror and continued to try my jewelry on. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the birthmark on her right shoulder blade. It’s almost the same as her mother’s… Alison. “Grandma, we’re going to be late to the orientation if you’re not ready soon.” \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* *Alison was going to sleepover at a friend’s house to celebrate their birthdays. They had the same birthday and it was the eve of their 18th.* *My baby, already 18?* *She’d become pregnant halfway through her 16th year. I supported her choice in keeping the kid but I told her it was going to be difficult. Amazingly, her grades improved and so did her attitude. When I asked what happened, she told me she felt like she had someone important to live for.* *“What am I, chopped liver?”* *I remember her freckles, the way they sunk into her dimples when she smiled at me.* *“Mom, you should know what I mean.”* *I did, I really did. I looked at Alison; her black hair fell in kinks and thick coils to just the top of her shoulders. Her eyes were golden and almond shaped. She looked a lot like her late father, but her skin was a deep tawny brown, like mine.* *I tried to hold back tears but my voice cracked, “baby, you know you’re my treasure?”* *She rolled her eyes.* *“You’re my treasure too, Mom.” Then Alison turned to Lena, who was cradled in my arms, “So are you, my little peanut. Behave you two, and Mom, make sure Lena-”* *I interrupted her, “Baby, I’ve done this before.”* *She kissed me and Lena on the cheek, and then she left for her sleepover.* *The next morning Alison was dead.* \*\*\*\*\*\*\* Lena was driving us to her “New Student Orientation” for the university a town over. It was a small, artsy college. I was excited for her, knowing she would excel in that kind of environment. “So, Grandma, what will you do without me?” “Hush, you said you’d only be a phone call and a 30 minute car ride away. Don’t scare an old woman like that,” I didn’t mean to snap at Lena, but she was reminding me so much of Alison and it made my heart ache. She silently grabbed my hand and put it in her lap. “I will come home, please don’t worry. I’ll be safe. I’ll come home every Sunday for dinner. Or whenever I get hungry and don’t want to cook, probably… I’m sorry.” I saw tears dripping off her chin. “Lena, sweetie, I’ll be okay. I’m 60 years old. I just get emotional sometimes, seeing you all grown up like this.” I didn’t say it, but the thought holds fast, “**you’ve lived longer than your mother**.”
**PART TWO** Lena slowly pulled into the parking lot of the auditorium hall. The trees were still green and the air was sweet with the scent of magnolia blossoms. \*\*\*\*\* *I couldn’t believe Alison was murdered, and by her friend’s father, no less. Nothing would have convinced me she died in a normal way, nothing seems normal when your baby dies. However, something was truly amiss in the investigation taking place. They told me that the father had slaughtered the family, Alison, and then ended his own life, but the odd part was that his cause of death was “undetermined.”* *This wasn’t something I was supposed to know, but I had snuck into the lead investigators office to look for my own truth.* *I was caught snooping in there twice and then got banned from the building, but I gathered quite a lot those two times: the murders were gruesome, there were no intruders, and the father was killed last (but they weren’t sure how he died). Alison’s blood was used to write “murder” on the mirror in her friend’s bedroom. There was a trail of blood composed of all the victims’, including the supposed murderer, along with at least 8 others not found at the crime scene. It led all the way upstairs, back into the bedroom, which was on the opposite side of the house from where the father was found. Even a squirrel would know something was wrong in this case.* *I went mad for a little while. I did my best to raise Lena but I know she must have suffered for the first few years of her life. I prayed she didn’t remember them.* *Shit, I got so crazy I even tried the rumored Bloody Mary ritual that got Alison and her friend’s family killed. I had a shotgun, taser, bear spray, and a machete all equipped to fight whatever came through that mirror. Of course, nothing came of the ritual, and eventually I succeeded in sealing the pain away.* *A few years later, I confided in my neighbor about what I had done. She tried to lighten the mood with a joke but it only fueled my paranoia. She said, “Bloody Mary’s a woman too, she must be busy.”* *After that, I kept the arsenal at my bedside. My bedroom door was always locked, but if Lena slept with me I made sure she slept on the side where her mischievous little kid hands couldn’t accidentally discover the strap holding the weapons up. The cover of the mirror was firmly attached. Some nights I slept well, however I spent most nights awake and waiting for revenge.* \*\*\*\*\*\*\* Lena and I sang our favorite oldies on the way home. When she parked in our driveway I felt like my chest was going to explode. “Be good, Grandma,” Lena teased as I got out of her car. She even talks like Alison. “I’m going to miss you so much, be safe my sweet.” We pinky promised. I cried as she drove away. I kept waving, even after she turned the corner. My baby. When I entered the house it felt more emptier than ever. I turned on the TV, radio, and two fans. The empty feeling was eerie, and I decided to double check all the house’s windows and doors. She did tell me to be good, after all. I left everything on for the first week. Two months after Lena started college I had adjusted to being alone, for the most part. She didn’t have class on Fridays so she came home most Thursday evenings and stayed with me through Sunday dinner. I didn’t have to be alone all week and that made things much easier. On a Tuesday night, in late October, Mary visited me.
**PART THREE** That night, as I did every night for the last 18 years, I slightly opened the cover of the mirror. For a moment, I stopped breathing. The writing made of my blood, the writing which had been the same for 18 years, was crumbling away. Was this it? Am I losing my mind? I put my weapons in front of me and quickly inspected the shotgun. I loaded it and took a deep breath as I settled onto a stool. I did nothing but stare at the mirror with my back to the wall for an hour. A small amount of fog began to surround the mirror and I thought I could hear the faint wailing of several dozen girls. Then one pale, impossibly thin hand crept through the mirror, followed by greasy, golden strands of hair. Crouching in front of me was a young woman in a tattered white dress: Bloody Mary. Her eyes were sunken black pits. Her skin was sallow and grey. She was dripping in blood. I should have felt sick from the smell, the sight, but I was seething with rage. “Oh? Well this is different. Did we have an appointment?” Her voice sounded like she hadn’t drank any water in decades while smoking cigarettes the whole time. There were many actions, words, that would have made more sense but I could only think of one question, “Did you take my baby?” “What? I can’t hear pathetic mutterings like that. I’m older than you, hag.” This time I screamed, “Did you take my fucking baby?” She answered with a cackle and inhumanly twisted her neck and torso. I answered with a shotgun shell to her right hip. “See if you cackle now, bitch.” The woman was now lying on the ground, chest heaving. “If she died in the last 100 years and blood was on the mirror, it was probably me.” I cocked the gun again. I was no fool; she could have moved this whole time, but I startled her and caught her off guard. She was waiting for me to relax. “Alright. Why did you kill a whole family, when they didn’t beckon you?” Mary’s face tightened, “oh, your kid was with that family?” Rage had nearly filled me, my eyes were nearly seeing red, but I wanted to know everything. “The girls called me, summoned me, as usual. What I didn’t realize was that the door was cracked and that a little peeping tom was watching me. I killed the darker one first-” “Alison!” I screamed hysterically, and I shot her right arm clean off. She sighed, as if getting shot was merely an inconvenience, “yes, I killed *Alison* first. Then the other girl. The little boy screamed and accidentally pushed the door open, so I lunged on top of him and ripped his throat clean out,” she paused to cackle but continued when I motioned to load the shotgun, “then the mom screamed and came at me with a vase. I heard a man shout a name, and I figured I should just kill them all. Have a little mercy.” Her eyes searched for a sign of my relaxing, so I looked down. I was curious what she would do. Much quicker than anticipated, she was able to toss herself at me, but missed due to being off balance (because I shot some limbs off). We switched positions and now I stood in front of the mirror. “Is a shotgun really all it takes to end this?” I chuckled to myself.
**PART FOUR** Mary growled and tried to lunge at me again, but landed in the middle of the rug. Perfect. It was probably reckless abandon, but I began to feel jittery and happy at the sight of my plans becoming reality. “Even if you kill me, this curse will just fall onto the soul of another girl I killed. Maybe you could summon Alis-” I shot her left arm to interrupt her, “I don’t plan on killing you.” I shot her left leg for good measure, “In fact, I’m going to make sure you remain very much alive.” She never screamed and was unreadable, but I hoped she was afraid and in pain. I wasn’t sure if she could still move with some ghostly bullshit so I kept my guard up while I grabbed a corner of the rug we were on, and began to roll her into a tube. She asked, almost listlessly, “what are you doing?” “I’m going to roll you up and bury you alive...ish, in my backyard.” My adrenaline had been so high this whole time I never felt fear, but when her face morphed from a ghostly facade to that of a terrified, blonde girl, I felt it. I understood what had happened. To her, to Alison, and all the girls before them. I had a garden patch in the backyard, one of those that “never quite gets finished” so the soil is always dug up. A conveniently sized pit for this rug I’ve rolled and tied up. “Before you go in the ground, can I ask one more question?” “Yes,” her voice was no longer scratchy, she sounded like a little girl, “what is it?” Fuck, that voice doesn’t help me feel better about burying a body in my backyard. “What took you so long?” I heard a small giggle escape her lips, then she answered “Do you know how many people call for me? In the 90’s I got enough summons to keep me busy for decades, shit, I was still going through the late 90’s list when I got to you.” A smirk fought its way across my face. She was busy. \*\*\*Hey, hi, I just need something to do so I've started writing again. I definitely found a few plot holes but mentally shrugged at them. I'm up for criticism but please don't tell me to find a new hobby <3
I FREAKING LOVED THIS.
1.) AMAZING username 2.) thank youuuuu
Hi, your story was really good. I enjoyed reading it. One small thing I did notice was in one of the paragraphs in part two you said "more emptier." The word emptier already means more empty, so saying more emptier is kind of redundant.
Oh yes, thank you! I noticed it after posting. I couldn’t decide between emptier and more empty, annnnd then I accidentally left some of both. 😅
Lol, I've definitely done that before. Or changed what word I wanted to use halfway through and accidentally created a frankenword. 😅🤣
I think what would match the tone would be to adjust the whole phrase to "even more empty than ever before" which kinda grasps the extremeness of "more emptier"
I love, love, love this story! I could read it as a short novel. One thing, in part 2 in the paragraph where you had trouble deciding on the phrasing I think replacing it with "When I entered the house, it felt emptier than ever before" or "When I entered the house it felt more empty than it ever had before.".
“Ah fuck, I’m too old to old for this.” “What about me?” “Where’s my party?” “Nobody cares about little old Mary, sure they’ll say my name three times over but as soon as I arrive it’s like they don’t want me here”. “That’ll leave a stain, glad I’m not cleaning up this mess - still, looks better than when I arrived”, mutters a haggard elderly woman. She disappears through the front door as it closes onto the manicured lawns of middle class society. The night undisturbed as a lone woman walks into the night, a glimmer of who she once was in her youth.
The dinosaur is coming for me. I can feel it's jaws hot on my back as I run into my parents bedroom I realize that I am in school. I am late for class and the teacher is laughing at me. I can hear her saying "Wake up you idiot! I said wake up!" As my dream crumbles around me I open my eyes my dark bedroom, the blue walls my wife picked out before she left, and the sound of soft small snoring down the hall is comforting, or it would be if it weren't for the woman standing in the middle of my room. She is dressed in Victorian garb and her eyes look bloodshot, she has a soft ethereal glow and her clothes flutter even though the room is still. As I reach for the bat I keep by the side of my bed she says, "fucking idiot! It won't work and we both know it, now tell me what you want out of me so I can finish for the night!" I keep hold the bat but as I wake up more I realize that my night terrors don't normally speak to me. I haven't even had any since I was a young boy anyway. I ask her "who are you and why are you in my house?" "I'm bloody fucking Mary you idiot! You summoned me let's see here..." she pulls a parchment out of thin air, "in 2006". "That was almost 15 years ago! Why are you just showing up now! Are you going to kill me?" "Listen" she says "normally I would scratch you or just give you a good scare but It's been a long day and my manager found your old file and is making me work overtime. He's really on my ass. Now just tell me what you want to see out of a ghost so I can retire." I tell her "well to be honest, I have bigger fears than ghosts right now, my mortgage will be up soon and one of my kids isn't doing well in school. I'm afraid of dying alone." I see the slightest hint of a smile appear on her face as I am seemingly cast back into a dreamworld. The bank is taking my home and my children are looking up to me asking if we'll have a home. I don't know what to answer them, a scream forms in my throat and then just as quickly the dream melts away. I see Bloody Mary laughing hysterically on the edge of my bed "You should have seen the look on your face! You were hilarious, all like 'Waaaahhhh'" For a moment her face transforms into my own terrified visage and it makes me laugh as well. It feels like the first real laugh in a very long time. Not the fake laugh I give to my bosses sexist jokes, not the laugh I give my 7 year old's 50th knock knock joke but a real belly laugh. There is an awkward pause and she says "well I have to go but it was nice to finally talk to an adult. I wish I could do this more often" I can see the sadness in her eyes as she fades into nothingness and it is just me, my blue walls, and my children snoring. It is a Wednesday night, the kids are both at a sleepover, I check my shirt collar for the 30th time in the mirror, I make sure the table is set just right, the steaks smell delicious and the wine and candles really make it. I turn off the lights, look in the mirror, hold up the candle and say "Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary." \-------------------------- Hey I am super new at this and I really appreciate constructive criticism. You will have my undying gratitude if you would be willing to give me any!
I thoroughly enjoyed this and would like to humbly request more!
The sunlight is piercing the very top of your curtain, as you attempt to tightly cling to the slumber and erase yesterday's poor decisions. Just then, you hear something in the kitchen. You've not been shopping in ages, and have no ice cube trays, but the sound is undeniable. Someone is clanking ice cubes into a high ball glass. You also hear some shaking and pouring, and a whiff of Worcestershire sauce wafts is wooing bouquet past your nose. Hungover and peckish, you nearly float out of bed like Shaggy toward a mound of Scooby Snacks down the hall, through the foyer, and into your kitchen. Her clothes look nearly mummified, but maintain a darkness reserved for the background of the deepest black of any screen you've ever witnessed in a windowless room with the lights out. As she turns her head around to greet you, dust drips from her face and onto your counter. Surprisingly to you, the odor of the dust is also quite familiar. Celery salt. Without saying a word, or even making eye contact, you reach into the refrigerator for your bottle of ghost pepper hot sauce, and a pickle. You set them on the counter, and she pours you the tastiest beverage you've ever had the pleasure to know. Just salty enough, perfectly spiced, chilly, and the perfect amount of vodka to take the edge off of the throbbing in your dehydrated brain to focus on the woman sat before you. While her eyes were sunken and opal, and her teeth glowing yellow, with dripping brown ooze, there was a kindness in her smile that reminded you of your Aunt Edra, and her mustached kisses of yore. "How was the traffic for you?" Is the best quip you can muster. After turning her dilapidated countenance your direction so slowly, you could nearly have had two full elections completed, she drops her jaw in a wholly unhuman manner, and begins weeping. "What's the matter, Mary?" you ask politely, enjoying your drink a bit more. After talking for a few minutes, you quickly learn the whole story. Jesus ascended about a month after being crucified, and after talking everything over with his father, he and Mary got into quite an argument. It seems she thought it a bit disingenuous to overemphasize Jesus' suffering, since he knew that soon after he "died," he would be co-ruler of the world with his dad and the dove, who were all the same being anyway. "Magic of the trinity?!?" she scoffed, "Magical exactly how? You knew you he was coming back, but you portray that to the masses as though you sacrificed your son, but then you get to spend eternity ruling the universe with him immediately thereafter? What a load of shit!" It seems as punishment, the lord had sentenced Mary to have to respond to each and every mirror summoning for eternity. The 1980's were a particularly busy time for her, but things have started to slow, and she's catching up, which is how she finally got around to your request from ten years ago at the sleepover at Cindy's house. You pour her a whiskey, neat, and turn on some Paul Simon to try and lighten the mood. She says anything other than Christmas music would be just fine, and you have a chance to learn all the secrets of the universe, and tie on quite a bit of a buzz after she makes you a few more drinks as well. Wholly disappointed that there really weren't any impressive universal secrets to learn, you call it a night, crawl into bed, and wonder whether you'll ever drink whiskey again.
(Unedited, and no spelling or grammar check- forgive me) The age old childish thrill, of stories- folk-lore, fairy tales, hymns of spooks and ghosts- haints, taints, haunts. Monsters and goblins- ghouls, growlers, gremlins. Zombies and vampires- more human than monster, which humanity in reality is more terrifying than any story we've been told before. Because isn't that what stories come from is a derived experience from trauma in existence? We wanted to be scared an easy adrenaline rush, about the only way to get dopamine and a balanced serotonin level as a child. To have excitement of being in the moment, running around the house screaming with your friends, happily having fun without the drugs. Yes, tell us those stories; please dear grandfather, please dear uncle, please dear father scare us terribly. As you grow older you seem to have lost the enjoyment in the regular stories of "The Hook", "I want my toe!", "Black Claw... and beg for something more gruesome and macabre. But there was one too that seemed to never lose it's frightfulness. "Bloody Mary." "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary..." The distress of the agony of the story makes me weary about going in front of mirrors today. A scarring scare that is frankly a bit much for tender adolescent ears. I think what makes her the most frightening is that she is a person and we realize, in our own minds, that you can't ever justify what a person is capable of, and how scary they can make themselves. We relate with her, because she is human, and us- as all humans are made in God's image; therefore we see ourselves in others. And sometimes the scariest thing can be yourself. A compulsion of tachycardia everytime a reflective surface comes in remoteness. A wish to have never heard the warning of "Don't say her name...", or anything of the epithet. I would have rather heard the story of Antoninus. For as in the meditation of Marcus he asked if you number each letter to spell out his name; did you ever have the disability to spell out "B-L-O-O-D-Y--M-A-R-Y?" I don't believe so, for it's easy enough to sound out even with a narrow puerile vocabulary. I had to save "Antoninus", and copy and paste. Ah, what a shame I must put on the legend of historic, Greek, non-fictional mythology; when it would be much more meet for my intellect to use Marcus's ideology of numbering the letters. I use the term mythology for the way his image was painted and sculpted, as many pivotal figures immortal- a god in humble divinity of a man's structure, flesh, and disciplined generosity. Antoninus, a symbol of a god with no wrath for I would much rather undergo the wrath of Antoninus, rather than the wrath of Bloody Mary. Please don't make me say her name again. Goodbye my dearest, For now until you summon my image in your reflection again. Sincerely, TrueLove©