“I know, I know,” I said. I’d known it before, too, but now that someone had really, truly gotten hurt, I couldn’t procrastinate any longer. As much as this Mary thing was going to suck solo, it’d suck much, much worse if I dragged my friends down with me.
I took a deep breath and nodded like Cody could see me. “I’ll do it. Today, after I hang up with you. But even without them, I just want…I need to figure this out. To beat Mary. I want to beat her so badly. And if she’s in that basement, if her body’s there, maybe there’s a way. I can’t lose that hope.”
There was a long pause on Cody’s end of the line before she said, “I understand that. I never lost hope, either. It was harder at the end, but it was still there. If you want, I’ll go with you when you go back to the church. I know the situation you’re in, and I’ll help. The floor wasn’t like that when we went years ago, but if it is now, maybe there really is something under there.” She paused to take a deep breath before adding, “And when we go, we go during the day, we go with salt. But after you get situated, after you get a plan in action, we’ll go together.”
To volunteer to help me was brave after so many years of being haunted. But it made sense, too. Mary had tortured Cody for almost twenty years. Anyone would want the opportunity for closure, to even that score. “Thanks, Cody. Thanks a lot.”
“You’re welcome. If you need anything else in between, let me know. And thank you for warning me about last night. As far as I know, Mary always goes back to the mirror. It calls to her. I’ve never heard of her staying on this side, but I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.”
To be honest, neither did I.
I promised I’d cut ties with everyone right after the call, but that was a lie. I did craft an e-mail I could send to all three of them, but then I spent a few hours rereading it while I mustered the will to send it. It wasn’t poetic or drawn out. It was the bare essentials:
Hey. I’m sorry everything is so messed up. Mary threw Bronx out a window. Between last night and today, it’s clear it’s no longer safe to hang out. I love you, I appreciate your help, but you have to stay away.—S
So simple and yet so final. The draft blinked at me, taunting me to send it, but I couldn’t push the button yet. When Mom came in to get me for dinner, I told myself I’d send it after I’d eaten. Mom had been busy while I’d been sequestered in my room. She’d boarded over the hole in the wall with flattened moving boxes and thick tape to keep out drafts and bugs.
After a salad, I went back to my room and drifted between half sleep and staring at the ceiling. What I didn’t do was press Send on the message. Not until right before midnight—Kitty had just sent me a text that said Bronx was going in for emergency surgery on his spine.
She said he might not walk again. Bronx’s bright promise of a football career was gone because Mary wanted to punish me. I couldn’t do that to other people. I had to protect my friends. I sent it. Jess would try to call to yell at me for being so dumb, so I shut off the phone. I kept the light on when I climbed under the blankets. Mom visited one last time, spending a lot more time fussing over me than usual. I liked the attention, the feel of her hands toying with my hair. It made me feel loved, which was something I needed right then. Being haunted by Bloody Mary was proving to be pretty isolating.
“I love you, Mom,” I said.
“I love you, too, Shauna,” she returned before leaning down to give me a good-night kiss. I hugged her tight, then she wandered off back to her room, closing my door in her wake.
I stayed home from school the next day, telling my mom I was sick. I should have informed Jess, too. Her car horn blasted at quarter of seven. I hadn’t answered my phone, so she came for me in person. When I didn’t emerge from the building, Jess blasted the horn again, and then a third time, probably pissing off all my neighbors. There was no way I was going to venture downstairs to tell her that I was staying in, so I turned on my phone to text her. There were many messages from Jess and Anna, and a couple from Kitty. I ignored them all to tell Jess to go to school without me. Her response was, no fuk u.
“Oh, come on, Jess. Don’t fight me on this,” I said, about to send another response, but I heard the slam of the downstairs door followed by feet on the steps. A minute later, she pounded on my front door, laying siege, her fist a battering ram behind every knock.
“Cut the crap, Shauna. Open up.” When I ignored her, she did it again. And again. And again. “Shauna, open the goddamned door!”
Realizing she wasn’t going to leave until someone called the cops on her, I got out of bed and stormed down the hall, my salt tucked under my arm like a security blanket. I yanked open the door and glared at her. She gave me a critical once-over and frowned. Admittedly, I looked terrible: my teeth weren’t brushed, and neither was my hair. I wouldn’t normally let anyone see me like this, but my care factor about my appearance was nonexistent.
“Get dressed,” she said. “You’re not doing this.”
“Doing what?”
Jess was not amused by the question. She shouldered past me into the apartment, sending me staggering back in the process. She gave me her best death glare before tromping to my room and waving her hand around. “Let’s go. Dressed. Now. I’m not letting you ditch me. Us. We got into this together, we’re getting out of it together.”
I closed the door and glowered at her back as she disappeared around the corner to rifle through my bureau. “I’m doing this for your safety. Look at what happened to Bronx,” I protested.
“It sucks, but we’re in this together until the end. Here.” She came out of my room to throw jeans and a T-shirt at me. When I let them fall straight to the floor, she pushed them toward me with her sandal. “Come on, Shauna. You can’t hide. Our odds of figuring this out are way better as a team. You’ve got to keep your shit together. Now get dressed.”
I stooped for the clothes and eyeballed her. “Why are you doing this? I’m trying to protect you.”
“Let me worry about myself. I know the risks; so do Kitty and Anna. If they bail, they bail, but I’m not going anywhere. You need a bra and panties. Go.” She circled around to herd me into my bedroom. I tried to push back, my feet skidding over the carpet, but Jess was strong thanks to years of playing sports. I wasn’t going to win this fight.
“I’m doing this for you!” I finally snapped, but Jess gave me a sharp look before her arms folded over her chest. Her legs braced like she was settling in for a long, nasty battle.
“No, I’m doing this for you. Go. Now.”
I stopped fighting. Deep down, I didn’t want to. Yes, I had heard Cody, but what I wanted most in the world was a friend, and I had one standing in the hallway threatening to kick my ass if I tried to ditch her. It was bossy and ballsy and stupid, but that was Jess’s way. And right then? I was glad for it.
I stared at the windows of my classroom, expecting to see something wicked inside the panes. I was sorting life into two categories now: time between Mary attacks and actual Mary attacks. My teacher was reduced to background noise as I counted the number of glass beakers lining the corner storage station.
Kitty texted mid-class to say Bronx got through surgery, but they wouldn’t know his prognosis for a while. I took that to mean she wasn’t in school today, and that made sense. You didn’t recover from watching your boyfriend take a three-story nosedive overnight.
I was shuffling my way to my second class when Anna caught up to me in the hall. I didn’t see her coming, and she greeted me by resting her hand against the flat of my back. I let out a screech and dropped my books. Other students in the hall turned to stare at me. Anna apologized for startling me as she stooped to help me pick up my stuff.
“You ignored my texts last night,” she said, stacking my papers into a neat pile.
“I turned my phone off. I meant it, though. You really should stay away. She’s always around now.”
Anna stuffed my homework at me before gathering my books. I watched her do it, not he
lping in the slightest, though I wasn’t sure why. I think my brain was just that gone. “Yeah, well, deal with it. I’m sticking around. It’s not your fault you’re haunted.”
“You sound like Jess. I tried to stay home this morning, but she dragged me here by my hair.” I winced. Comparing Anna to the person she’d sworn to avoid forever was probably a bad plan.
Surprisingly, she smiled a little and nodded, like somehow, this had bettered her opinion of Jess. “Well, that’s the first smart thing she’s done in a week. What kind of friends would we be if we ditched you?”
“Smart ones?” I returned.
She fell into step beside me as I meandered toward my next class. Other kids were running to make the bell, but I couldn’t be bothered. Anna seemed content to keep pace with me.
“Maybe, but either way I…Look.” She stopped talking and walking at the same time, her brows pinching together with strain. There was gravity to whatever it was she wanted to say to me. She shuffled her feet, looked down, and then back up. It was still weird to see her without her glasses on, but I’d get used to it sooner or later. “After you messaged me last night, I got really worried, especially when you didn’t text me back. Jess was in the same boat, and she called me. We talked. Forget everything I said yesterday. You’re more important. I was listening to Jess talk last night, bugging out about what’s happening to you and insisting we have to help you, and I realized I need to be more like that, you know? More focused on what’s going to get us through this. So that’s what I’m going to do. With Jess, because she really does care.” She smiled a little ruefully, lifting her narrow shoulders in a shrug before adding, “I get mad too easily. But I’m going to try to chill.”
“You do. But we like you anyway,” I said.
She snickered and turned back toward the hall. Her hand came out to graze my arm, fingertips tracing over the black bruise near my wrist from when Mary tripped me into the church’s stone steps. It was a gentle touch, not hurtful in the least, but it set her to scowling. “We’ll figure it out, Shauna. Just don’t leave us. And I promise, we won’t leave you. At least, I won’t. I’ll always have your back.”
Jess didn’t sit with me at lunch. I saw her in the cafeteria; she saw me, too, then put her tray at another table anyway. Anna slid in opposite me and we both watched as a few of Jess’s softball friends sat with her: Laurie Carmichael with her spiky black hair and high-pitched shrieker voice, Becca Miller with the biggest attitude problem this side of the Mississippi, and Tonya Washington, who was actually funny.
“They have a softball game later. Jess mentioned it last night,” Anna offered. I nodded, but the timing struck me as odd. Just this morning, Jess had insisted we stick together, but by lunch she’d already screwed off? When she glanced my way, almost like she felt the weight of my stare, she frowned and looked away.
Was Jess mad at me? Maybe. Maybe she was pissed I’d tried to ditch her. She wasn’t normally sensitive, but this whole experience had certainly changed me for the worse. It wasn’t so hard to believe it’d changed her, too.
Anna and I ate in silence. Halfway through lunch I realized that I had to go to the restroom. Every bathroom in the school had mirrors and steel doors and steel everything. I wanted to hold out until the end of the day, but after five minutes of squirming, I let out an exasperated sigh. Anna lifted her head to blink at me.
“I have to pee. And I’m afraid it’ll…you know. With Mary.”
Anna put up a finger to indicate I should sit tight before she headed over to Jess’s table. She bent down, whispering something into Jess’s ear. Jess nodded, excused herself from her friends, and jogged out of the cafeteria. Anna came back to collect me, offering me her hand like she was the mom and I was the kid and this was totally normal. I grabbed my book bag and took her hand without a second’s hesitation.
“I left some packing tape in Jess’s car Saturday,” Anna said. “She’s going to get it and meet us in the locker room. It’s the closest bathroom to the parking lot.”
We sped along, still holding hands. When we got to the gym, Anna let go of me to scout out the locker room. She emerged a minute later and we waited for Jess, who showed up with the roll of tape in one hand and a fresh box of salt in the other.
“Hey,” Jess said in greeting. “We good to go?”
“Yeah,” Anna said. “The locker room is empty.”
They ushered me inside and told me to sit on a bench next to the lockers while they prepped the other side of the room. I tried to wait patiently, but the combination of a full bladder and nerves meant I fidgeted and scooted across the wood.
The high school locker room is shaped like a T. On the left-hand side of the long portion, the top of the T, are about a dozen shower stalls with skimpy white shower curtains strung up for privacy. The right side holds all the lockers and the door that leads into the main school building. Between the showers and the lockers is a floor-to-ceiling mirror almost eight feet wide. Next to it is the door that opens out to the soccer field. The bottom part of the T connects to the gym at the end, with a supply closet on the left side and three bathroom stalls on the right.
Anna worked on the big mirror near the showers using the box of salt I had in my bag. Jess took the bathroom mirrors and used her own stuff. I watched Anna cut off strips of tape and make a big X across the glass before laying a line of salt on the floor. I could hear Jess working in the other room, and when she finished, she came out to claim the tape from Anna, probably to treat the smaller mirrors over the sinks in the same fashion.
I waited as patiently as I could for them to finish. Every few seconds I’d eyeball the padlocks on the lockers around me, expecting them to explode in a creepy ruckus, but they stayed dormant. After what seemed like days, Jess came and directed me toward the toilets.
“That’s as good as it’s going to get,” she said. It wasn’t much consolation, but there wasn’t much else we could do to make it safe. I scurried away from the lockers, my hands already fiddling with my pants as I took the corner. Jess had salted pretty much everything in the bathroom, including taping the chrome stall door for me, and I mumbled my thanks as I closed the door. I could see Anna’s and Jess’s sneakers outside, both of them waiting around to protect me in case things got weird.
I finished as quickly as possible, managing a grateful smile for them as I approached the sink. My hand darted out to turn on the water, but then reared back like something inside it might bite. Nothing happened. It was just a boring old sink with boring old water. I washed my hands and grabbed a paper towel, feeling a little better that we’d made it unscathed through something so simple and yet so complicated as taking me to the bathroom.
“So much work for such a stupid thing,” I said to them, and they both laughed, though it wasn’t so much a humor thing as it was exhausted resignation.
“Should we clear the tape?” Anna asked Jess.
“I guess. Let’s get Shauna out of here first and then we’ll strip it down.”
Anna nodded and led me out like she’d become my personal Seeing Eye dog. I gave the lockers a furtive glance as we passed them on the way to the exit. I placed my hand on the long silver bar to the door and pushed. There was no click to indicate that it released. I pressed the bar again and again. Nothing happened. I looked at Anna. She blanched and reached out to shove the door with me. It was useless.
My eyes pounded in their sockets like they might propel out of my skull. Not now. Not again. “Jess! Check the door to the gym!” I called. Anna slammed her body against the door as I darted through the locker room to get to the door leading to the soccer field. A chorus of groans from the shower section stopped me short. I knew that sound. I’d heard it in my own bathroom right before the mud and gunk. This time, though, instead of one shower under duress, it was twelve. The pipes shrieked in strained agony as the showerheads quaked and rumbled inside the fiberglass shower walls.
“She’s coming,” I whispered, my voice drowned out by a series o
f earsplitting whines. “She’s here.”
Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang.
The pipes screeched with a rhythmic banging, like someone was pounding on them from the inside with a hammer. Yellow clouds rose from the metal shower drains, the ghostly fog pouring over the tiles and wafting across the floor. The showerheads gave a collective squeal as hot, black water blasted into the stalls.
“Let’s go!” Anna said, rushing past me to throw herself against the soccer field door. The padlocks on the lockers behind us sparked to life, rattling and slamming like they had in the hall last week. Jess was making a thudding noise around the corner. Anna started kicking the door.
“Shit. Shit. What did she do?” Anna shoved at the door one last time as if this time it would magically open. But I knew it wouldn’t. She knew it wouldn’t, too. The bar wouldn’t work because it was aluminum covered in chrome. Shiny things were Mary’s domain.
“What’s…Why…” Anna brushed past me, inching toward the showers. I followed her gaze, watching the geysers of black sludge shooting up from the drains. Water flowed from above and below now, creating an unnatural, fetid bog that oozed its way across the floor. The first tendrils of encroaching water curled around Anna’s tennis shoe before splintering off into the checkerboard grooves of grout in the floor. It wasn’t until the runoff was a few feet away from me that I recognized the danger: the salt line underneath the big mirror. The water was only a few feet away from the salt line.
“The line. She’s going for the line. She’s going to dissolve it,” I said. There was a crisscross of salt across the glass’s surface, yes, but without the salt line on the ground, was it enough? I glanced at the taped mirror. At first, I couldn’t tell if the condensation on the glass was on our side or Mary’s. Then Mary appeared through the moist gray haze to slam against the mirror. She hissed at the salted tape upon contact before neatly sidestepping to one of the wedges of open glass where the tape didn’t reach.
Mary (Bloody Mary) Page 15
