Mercedes' Dirge

by Belle Zimet

  “So you killed her?” Troy spat out.

  “Not yet, I just kept watching. You were both angling to marry her and I figured I would just pounce on whichever one of you lost out. I saw you having sex and I knew I could please you with what I had learned. I knew I just had to get you to sleep with me once, and that would be it. You’d be enamored with me because I was the closest thing to my sister, and Mercedes would die inside seeing me with one of the men she loved.” Alexa squatted again in front of Troy and grabbed his face. He pulled his head away in revulsion, his eyes burning with a fresh hatred.

  “So what happened?” Ella asked.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard that Joel came here to see Mercedes and things got kind of violent?” Ella nodded and Alexa continued, standing again and straightening her pants. “In the course of it he revealed our secret of the peephole and that I’d been helping him watch her in her room. He threatened to tell everyone about all the men, even in detriment to himself if she didn’t have sex with him. She managed to kick him out and confronted me immediately. She said she was afraid I was much sicker than she’d thought and that she needed to think about her next course of action, but that it would probably involve telling mom and dad so they could get me help.”

  Alexa stopped to take another swig, making a face. “I begged her not to tell them yet, to let me at least finish out the year at school, which was only three weeks and she agreed. I knew I had to destroy her in that time period and I set to work. I impersonated her and made the report about Bryan to the school, which of course she rescinded when she found out about it. She’d just thought it was a bad joke, and never suspected that it was me trying to ruin her only healthy relationship. She’d moved the furniture over the peephole and locked the attic door, but I’d found another key. Every time she thought I was leaving, I’d actually sneak into the attic. The day she died I watched Nick propose and her accept. They sat there and kissed and talked about all their plans, but an hour later she was writing Troy an email, planning their next tryst as though she were single. I was disgusted. I couldn’t handle it anymore. After he was gone I busted into her room and confronted her. She looked frightened when she realized I had been watching. She tried to talk me down and told me that she had a sex addiction that she needed to get help for and that was in love with Nick and that she was going to call it off with Troy, but it hadn’t been the right time.” She looked over at Troy who was shaking his head in repulsion. “Sorry, baby, but I think she was telling the truth. You lost her, she’d already put the ring on.”

  “I’m over it now. I wish I’d never met her.” He said lowly.

  “As I screamed at her, I could see she was terrified and that there was no way I could convince her not to tell our parents, and that if she left the room I would be finished. They’d send me back to the clinic to be abused and raped for the rest of my life, and she’d marry Nick and have perfect babies and a perfect life. Before I knew what I was doing I'd wrestled her on the bed and started choking her with the scarf. She fought, but I’d been working out and lifting weights every day for a year and I just held her down with all my strength until her eyes glazed over and she stopped moving.” Alexa’s eyes were devoid of emotion as she delivered the story, pausing only to swig. “She was so much weaker than me. She couldn’t even scratch me or leave defensive wounds. It made it so easy.”

  Ella felt her eyes welling with tears for Mercedes. The story was so disturbing that even while she was awaiting her own impending death, she couldn’t help but grieve again for the poor girl.

  “I hurried to vacuum and wipe everything down. I knew it was reasonable for my hair and prints to be in the room, but I wanted to protect Troy because I still wanted him, and with her gone I knew I could eventually have him. Mercedes just stared at me with her dead eyes the whole time, and as much as I wanted to close her eyes, I knew I couldn’t. When I went to get the engagement ring off of her finger it was gone. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find it and just prayed the police wouldn’t find it.”

  “So that Nick would seem jilted and guilty?” Ella asked with a gulp.

  “Yes, I knew Troy was my only hope, and if he didn’t tell anyone about his relationship with Mercedes than we could be together without stigma. Luckily, he kept it quiet and the rest is history.” She shook her head. “Until now when you fucked it all up, Ella.”

  “What’s up with the rope burns around your wrists?” She asked, frantically trying to buy time. Her questions were running dry, and abject fear began to seize her.

  “I did it. Originally I wanted it to look as though Troy tied me up and then killed you and then himself, but he mentioned when he left to come here that Bryan might be with you, and I knew it may end up being more complicated. It clearly served a double purpose as far getting you to leave the attic and come to where I could knock you out. I knew I could corroborate him being the killer if I had physical proof of his psychosis. I’d held onto that angry note that he’d written and kept it from the police all these years, and put it where it would be found.” She laughed. “And you were so willing to believe he was a murderer.”

  “I didn’t know what to believe, but I never suspected you.”

  “Your mistake, honey.” She cooed. “Clearly it’s going to cost you.”

  “Why go to all that trouble to be with Troy just to kill him now?” She asked quickly. She could feel the conversation wrapping into a dreaded lull that may lead to her imminent death and was struggling furiously and hopelessly like a spider being slowly washed down a drain.

  “I didn’t want to kill him, but self preservation is stronger than anything I ever felt for him. He’d never forgive me for killing you, so he has to go too.” She said simply.

  Suddenly Bryan started mumbling and they both looked at him with his head up staring with hooded eyes into the air in front of his face with wonder.

  “Mercedes, you look great.” They heard him say to the still air as he became audible. “I don’t feel so good, but I’m happy to see you.”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Alexa yelled at him, tone menacing..

  “I don’t know what is going on, Mercedes.” Bryan said drowsily before suddenly opening his eyes all the way to stare wide eyed with shock at whatever he was seeing. “What the hell are you wearing, Mercedes?”

  Alexa flew over and suddenly grabbed Ella by the neck. “Shut him up, Ella.”

  “He’s delirious, Alexa. You hit him on the head with a gun.” She blurted back frantically, feeling completely helpless to stop Alexa in her crazed state.

  “I’m going to kill him anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter.” She spat out as she kneeled quickly in front of Bryan.

  “Mercedes is fucking dead. I killed her, and I’m going to kill you too.” She hissed in his face.

  Through her frightened tears, she caught a disturbance at the window to her right in her peripheral vision. She shot her head over to investigate and was shocked to see that Alexa hadn’t drawn the shades and to her astonishment she saw Nick looking in. She looked at him with imploring eyes and nodded over to the scene in front of her with Alexa threatening Bryan with a gun and he nodded and then vanished from the window as quickly as he had appeared. She prayed that Alexa would stand facing Bryan without killing him long enough for Nick to sneak in behind her. The delicacy of the timing filled her with foreboding dread. If time wasn’t on their side, Alexa would shoot Bryan before Nick could appear, or she could casually turn and see him coming. She highly doubted he had a gun to protect himself, though she was flummoxed at why he was even there to begin with.

  A palpable disturbance in the air caught her eye and she watched in surprised awe as Mercedes apparition formed quickly behind Bryan. The air became frigid as though all the heat was being sucked into the area and replaced with the deathly phantom. Mercedes was in her murdered incarnation with a bruised neck and hollow, darkened eyes. Her countenance was marred by a sickly pallor and her lips were drained of color as she stared Alexa down
silently and Ella watched with pleasure as Alexa tripped backwards and gurgled incoherently as she dropped her bottle of liquor and it rolled backwards into Ella’s bare feet.

  Ella felt Nick behind her, but he was crouched so that he couldn’t be seen and was busily sawing away at her bonds. She quickly looked at Troy who was watching aghast as the scene unfolded in front of him, ignorant to Nick’s presence. Bryan was staring straight ahead, completely missing the sad spectacle behind him, likely to his benefit.

  Mercedes opened her sickly looking mouth, wide and large and nothing but a disembodied primal yell emanated. A sound of hollow anguish, anger and retribution as Alexa continued to desperately try and find her footing and skittered back on the floor in panic with her palms supporting her.

  She finally stood up and lifted her gun and pointed it at Bryan. “I can still hurt you, Mercedes. I’ll kill him!”

  Ella’s hands finally came free and though her feet were still bound, she bent over and grabbed the half filled bottle of liquor and didn’t hesitate to hop forward with it and smash is satisfyingly over Alexa’s head. The heady smell of rum exploded into the room as Alexa crumpled to the floor in an unconscious heap into the broken glass.

  Nick ran over and kicked the gun aside as Ella quickly cut the ropes around her feet with Nick’s knife, ignoring the searing pain and gore around her wrists, and ran over to Alexa’s drawer of tricks where she was gratified to find the key to the handcuffs. She immediately stumbled over and freed Troy who quickly grabbed a still insensible Alexa and dragged her to the same stove of his bondage and handcuffed her to it. Nick worked quickly to cut Bryan from his ropes, while supporting his slumping shoulders.

  They’d forgotten about Mercedes, but once Alexa was confined they both looked up to see Nick looking amazed at Mercedes who floated in front of him. Her appearance, despite the homely dress was exactly as they remembered it. Beautiful and magnetic and now devoid of bruises and discolorations as she stared at Nick with saddened eyes and a wry smile on her lips.

  Nick’s eyes were brimming with tears, and his voice muddled with despair as he spoke to her. “I love you, Mercedes. I want to be with you.”

  She only smiled and shook her head and she moved closer to him. She managed to gather words from the energy around her. It was as though wind had a voice and though it wasn’t the voice they remembered it was still her. “Love you. Move on.” She said as she passed her hand through his. He opened his hand and looked down incredulously at what could only be the engagement ring that she had kept hidden somewhere safe all these years. He sobbed uncontrollably as she turned to face Bryan who was staring up at her with unbridled wonder. Her apparition seemed to fold in half to kneel before him as she smiled and touched through his face. “Miss you.” She said quietly as he attempted to touch her face back and his hand drifted through as though she were made of fog as the mist of her face wavered.

  She drifted to Troy who was standing to the side mopping tears from his face, watching her. She touched through his chest and smiled widely at him. “I’m sorry.” She said simply as he bowed his head and sobbed that he was sorry too. “Don’t be.” She said as she turned from him.

  Ella took a deep breath as Mercedes turned her attention to her. Her breath caught in anticipation as Mercedes wafted up to her. She stared her deep in the eyes before putting her non corporeal hand on Ella’s shoulder. Every hair on her body stood on end and she quivered as an electricity lit her body up with the otherworldly touch. “Thank you.” She rasped.

  “I’m sorry it took me so long, Mercedes.” She wept. Mercedes shook her head with a small smile, but she seemed to be fading quickly.

  “Be happy.” She said simply as she disappeared, and the room was once again devoid of all magic and replaced with natural warmth.

  They all sat near Bryan and they continued to sob together until they heard Alexa sitting up on the other side of the room. They had no way of knowing when she’d woken or what she’d seen.

  “Just kill me.” She begged. “I can’t go to another mental hospital.”

  “No.” Ella said as she wiped away her tears and slipped the light on. The room was flooded in illumination and they all squinted to adjust.

  “Kill me, please!” Alexa yelled.

  “You aren’t good enough for death when you want it, you asshole.” She said before turning on her heel to call the police.

  EPILOGUE

  Six months later

  Ella looked sadly at her old room in the mansion. It had been completely emptied of all furniture and personal effects and revamped as a room in the bed and breakfast. All visible traces of Mercedes were gone, though the indelible impression would always remain to those who knew her. The peephole had been carefully patched, and no more of the disgusting perversions that had occurred lingered in artifact.

  Bryan had kindly purchased the mansion from the Tavares family and had put into motion the bed and breakfast idea, though he was a silent owner and none of them actually wanted anything to do with the day to day operations. He said he couldn’t stand to see the place out of her friends and families hands for good.

  Both Bryan and Ella had suffered mild concussions, but were otherwise unhurt from the ordeal. Troy had sprained an ankle from jumping from the balcony but was otherwise unharmed, at least physically. A deep sadness had settled over him and she knew that he was forever changed. Where relief had set in at no longer keeping a grievous secret, ten years of Alexa’s betrayal had taken over. His feelings of guilt of living with a woman that insane for so long without knowing it weighed heavily, and he had dealt with a lot of derision from everyone when it became known that he’d been sleeping with Mercedes.

  Nick had been absolved of his guilt in the court of public opinion, and that along with Mercedes’ instructions to move on convinced Ella that it would no longer be difficult for him to find someone to share his life with. Life had been so hectic in the months following, that she’d never really spoken in depth with him since that night. As they waited for the police to arrive that fateful night, they had all agreed to not mention Mercedes’ ghost. They knew they would share the information with people close to them, but never would they exploit the specialness of what they had experienced by making it public knowledge.

  Regardless, she knew there was plenty of buzz about this bed and breakfast in the ghost lovers community, and she knew that they would make up at least a portion of the clientele.

  “Saying goodbye?” Bryan said as he approached behind her and put his arms around her waist, nuzzling into her hair.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” She said quietly, fighting tears.

  “I own this joint, you know. We can visit whenever you’d like.” He laughed.

  “Oh, I don’t think I’ll be spending anymore nights here. I like your nice, new house.” She said as she turned and wrapped her arms around his neck, lifting onto her tiptoes to kiss him tenderly.

  Immediately after her showdown with Alexa she had moved in with him. It was a risky move, she knew, but it had worked out well and it felt right. She knew she couldn’t see herself with anyone else, and that feeling had eluded her before even in her marriage.

  “I’d say get a room,” Troy said from the hallway. “But I wouldn’t recommend this place.”

  They both looked at him and laughed as he walked over and shook Bryan’s hand. Nothing like a shared near death experience to soothe past rivalries.

  “Let’s get this party started.” Troy said.

  “I have my orders.” Bryan said as he put his hand out for them to lead the way. It was the soft opening of Mercedes’ Bed and Breakfast, and they were throwing a cocktail party to celebrate it.

  It was a gorgeous summer day, and at 6pm the sun was shining brilliantly into the backyard where all the tables were set, pristinely with crisp white clothes, and stargazer lily bouquets. Mercedes’ favorite. Brian had added a pool to the property, and it was aglow with hundreds of floating tea lights.

  They walked ou
t and saw everyone mulling around, with glasses in hand, admiring the property.

  They saw Mira and Nick staring out over the ocean and they grabbed their glasses and made their way over quickly where they exchanged pleasantries before they stared out at the water with them. Ella had made sure to call Mira soon after the ordeal and she shared the entire story with her, spirit and all. Mira had cried openly over the phone and ever since they had struck up a unique friendship, bonded in grief.

  “Why did you come that night?” Ella suddenly asked Nick.

  “I’m not sure if it was Mercedes, but suddenly all the hair on my body stood up and it’s like I just knew I had to come here immediately, and that it was a matter of life and death. I felt ridiculous the entire drive and almost turned around when I saw the dark house. But then I saw a light in Mercedes room and saw someone staring out the window. It disappeared in front of my eyes, and I knew I had to get out and investigate. I walked up to the window just as Alexa was talking about killing Mercedes and I saw you tied up. I tried the door, but it was locked, and as I turned to find another way, the door unlocked and opened on its own. I remember the house like I was only there yesterday, and found the room you were in immediately.” He explained, tears beginning to form and she knew that it was because the next part of the story was seeing Mercedes when he walked in.

  “Amazing.” Ella breathed. “As I sat there listening to Alexa’s tirade I wondered if Mercedes had abandoned us, but it’s as though she did all she could and played the only real card she had of appearing until it could distract Alexa and we could escape.”

  “I can’t believe we’re all here.” Nick said.

  “Everyone that deserves to be here, that is.” Mira said darkly, and they were forced to think about the two that were absent.