Mary’s eyes fixed on me, her fingertips dragging down the flat surface. She was so close, I could hear her rasping and rattling, like she was trying to breathe through phlegm. Anna dashed for the gym door, shoving the box of salt at me as she passed. I heard her talking to Jess, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. The sound of bodies banging against metal resumed. They were trying to force the door open. I stared at the mirror with my heart lodged in my throat, my feet itching to run, run, run. But to where? Bloody Mary was still trapped in the mirror behind the salt line, but soon, much too soon, the water would wash it away.
I stood there, frozen, as the water slithered across the floor. In the past, when I’d watched horror movies because I thought being scared was fun, I always got angry at the characters whose hands shook so badly they dropped the car keys when the monster was chasing them. It felt unbelievable. If someone wanted to survive, she would keep it together long enough to get away. Now, standing in the locker room like a frightened lamb, I understood. Fear shut my body down, like it had done to Jess the first time Mary came through Anna’s mirror.
Jess and Anna ran up from behind me, Jess straddling the bench next to the bathroom so she could salt a fresh section of tape. I watched her work, wanting to tell her it was too late, but the words got stuck in my throat. I was too scared to talk. My mouth opened and closed, but no sound came. It wasn’t until Anna clapped a hand on my shoulder that I found my voice again.
“There’s no time, Jess. Look,” I said.
“Bullshit. No ti—” Jess wanted to argue, but then she saw the water creeping steadily along. Her eyes flicked to the mirror. Mary bobbed her head and smeared her face against the surface, her nostril slits flaring.
“No, no, no, no. NO.” Jess grabbed her salty tape and scrambled back.
“We’re stuck,” Anna announced, her voice dripping misery.
“No shit, we’re stuck.” Jess barreled her way toward the gym supply closet and rifled through it. Kickballs, softball gloves, and safety equipment flew out the door. A moment later, she made an aha noise followed by a loud metallic clang. She came out with an umpire mask covering her face and an arm of baseball bats. “Come here. Take one. If she gets near…”
I didn’t know what effect swinging a bat at a ghost would have, but Anna and I took our bats anyway. The extra bats dropped to the floor, the water now deep enough that they splashed when they hit. Jess wrapped her bat with her tape strip, the salt facing out. Clever. I wish we’d thought of it sooner.
As we armed ourselves, the water crested the salt line and dissolved our defense. Mary’s hands poked through the glass where Anna’s tape didn’t touch. It was that easy for her. The mistake we’d made was leaving a section of glass big enough for her to pass through. Circles rippled across the mirror’s surface, the quadrant of glass quivering as it turned to gel. Her wrists came next, then elbows and arms, followed by her head. When her foot crossed from her world into ours, splashing down in the black drain water, she let out a gurgling chuckle.
I’d seen Mary in Anna’s bathroom when she tried to climb from the mirror. I’d seen her scuttling up the steps of the Southbridge Parish. But I’d never been close enough to get an unadulterated look at her. Her upper body was how she appeared in the mirror: her head was balding, her black eyes never blinked. Her rubbery half lips sported tiny pus blisters. Her neck was too thin over her clavicles, skin graying with patches of green and purple. Her arms were winter branches, bare and knobby and too pointy.
What I’d never properly seen was her lower half. Her once-white dress was brown from too much time crawling through muck, the hem of the skirt tattered and torn and ankle-length. It was hiked up to her knee on the left side, exposing the bones of her leg. The skin had worn so thin, her tibia and fibula were visible, the nerves and muscle long since rotted away. Her left foot was swollen and blue-tinged, like a moldy sponge that had absorbed too much water. Her right leg was whole, but a gash along her calf released a steady stream of onyx beetles into the water on the floor, like her fleshy bits only served as a festering ground for insects.
There was no hint left of the girl from the photograph. Instead, there was five feet of ghoul. If Mary and Jess stood side by side, Mary would barely crest Jess’s chin. She was so tiny, and yet I knew what she was capable of doing with that body. Death had given her a strength that her frail frame had not. I took a step back from her, my breath coming in short, panicked pants as Mary stretched her arms to her sides, testing her freedom.
“Stay together. Try to stay together,” Jess said, snagging her box of salt from the bench and backing toward the showers. I followed because I didn’t have any better ideas. Part of me wanted to hide. It was a childish instinct to assume the monster couldn’t see you because you couldn’t see it. But that wasn’t how this worked. Mary would find us anywhere.
“Matter of time,” I murmured, my hand squeezing around my pitiful arsenal of salt and a softball bat. Jess glared at me from behind her umpire mask. I turned my head around to see what Anna was doing, but she wasn’t there. She’d ignored Jess and gone her own way, toward the bathroom. It was just Jess and me in the shower section, the showerheads above blasting scalding water, the drains below spewing frigid black sludge. Half of my body sweated, the other half was riddled with goose pimples.
I heard Mary’s labored breathing around the corner. Her feet shuffled along as she cooed and trilled, sounding far too pleasant. Splash, splash, splash. Her footsteps neared, then the sounds stopped. Jess and I looked at each other, wondering what could possibly interest Mary enough that she’d pause her hunt.
“Are you two all right?” Anna asked from the toilet stalls. Her voice drew Mary like a siren’s song. The ghost let out a hiss and barreled away from us to find Anna. All I could picture was Mary shredding Anna apart.
She wasn’t going to hurt my friend.
I ran out of the shower room, screeching at the top of my lungs. Mary trundled toward the bathroom, her arms swinging wildly to either side. Her fist tangled in a shower curtain, and she yanked it down before kicking the plastic away with a snarl.
“MARY! COME ON. IT’S ME. COME ON!” My voice cracked halfway through, but I continued to shout, waiting for the dripping dead thing to turn around and look at me.
She spun, her eyes wide. Her head tilted back as she sniffed the air, the growl that escaped her throat pregnant with menace. A beetle climbed from her right nostril to scurry across her cheek before disappearing into the neckline of her dress.
“That’s it. Come get me. You want me, not her. Come on.” I readied the salt and bat. I expected her to dive at me, but she moved forward slowly, like she wanted to savor the moment.
“Mine,” she rasped. I shook the salt box at her, trying to keep a distance between us, but she lurched my way with grim determination. I’d had every intention of facing my fate when I’d come around this corner, but as she closed in, my feet moved back. My survival instinct had kicked in, telling me to run.
Mary was a few feet away now. I had to choose: bat or salt? I picked the bat, the salt splashing down to the floor by my feet when I dropped it. I swung the bat, hoping to maintain a gap between me and Mary, but she grabbed the end and jerked. The bat flew from my hand. Mary peered at it for a second, like she didn’t know what it did, before tossing it behind her.
I picked up the box of salt. The bottom had gotten wet, but I ripped off the top and grabbed some of the dry salt. I was about to fling my first handful when a blur of motion drew my attention. Running at us with her bat raised above her head was Anna. When Mary stopped at the cross section of the locker room T, Anna had a straight shot at her and she took full advantage, her weapon poised and ready.
Before Mary could react, Anna slammed the aluminum bat down in an arc. It crashed into Mary’s shoulder with a sickening crack. Mary wailed and staggered, almost dropping to a knee. I took my opportunity to throw the salt. It struck her on the left side of her face. Mary slapped and
clawed in agony. One of her fingers squished into her eye, and a stream of viscous black goo oozed down her cheek and over her chin. She thrashed like she was on fire, her feet sliding across the wet floor as she retreated. We had a small advantage, and we had to take it if we wanted to live.
More salt. I threw as much as I could as fast as I could, some of it damp and clumpy from the box’s dip in the water. Mary blindly lashed out with her claws, but Anna brought the bat around again. There was a snap as Mary’s wrist took the brunt, her hand crunching and skewing off at an odd angle. By then, the locker room was almost completely full of steam. I could barely see Anna wielding the bat next to me, but every one of her swings gave me a brief glimpse of her face. Her lips were pursed in concentration, her face splattered with a spray of Mary’s tar-blood. Around us, the padlocks rattled and the shower pipes groaned.
“Jess, come on. She’s moving back. We need you!” I called, but Jess never came. I didn’t know where she was or what she was doing. I was too busy trying to shove Mary back to check on Jess. I advanced on the ghost. She retreated toward the mirror, unable to go left for fear of getting hit with the baseball bat, unable to go right for fear of another fistful of my salt. For a moment, I thought we had beaten her, that we’d all live through this fight. I thought Bloody Mary would be forced into the mirror and we’d lock her away with the salt from my stash.
The next time that Anna swung the bat, Mary charged. Anna gasped. The steam swirled up, blocking my sight. Anna’s bat rattled to the floor. Anna cried out in a muffled scream. I didn’t think, I reacted. I ran at Mary and Anna with my salt, hoping to save my friend, but Mary reached out for me and…thrust me away. She sent me sprawling onto my butt in the water with a single push to my chest, the salt box splashing away to my side.
The motion of my body sailing back dispersed the haze for a second. I glimpsed Mary dragging Anna toward the mirror. Mary had Anna by the hair, her moldering hand wrapped tight in Anna’s long tresses. Anna thrashed and screamed, but it was no use. She was hooked tight. Anna was pulled to Mary’s body—as close as I’d been when Mary had captured me with her nails during the second summoning.
“SHE’S GOT ANNA. HURRY. SHE’S GOT ANNA!” I screamed to Jess. I crawled across the ground and managed to grip Anna’s ankles with my hands. I pulled on her, trying to stop Mary’s progress, but the ghost was so unnaturally strong that I was pulled through the water as though I were weightless.
“No!” I howled, my voice breaking when Mary stepped over the bottom ledge of the mirror. She was going back to her world and taking Anna with her. I tightened my grasp, but it made no difference. Mary gave another hard tug, and I watched through a wall of tears as Anna was pulled over the ledge and into the mirror’s surface. Anna’s screams cut short as liquid glass rushed into her mouth.
“JESS, HELP!” I shouted, still pulling on Anna’s feet.
Jess was suddenly there. Her bat dropped by her feet before she opened her box of salt and began tossing handfuls at the mirror. I thought it was a good idea at first, that she was forcing the ghost into retreat and we’d pull Anna to safety, but the moment the crystals touched the glass, the surface began to harden. If she continued, it’d get too thick for us to pull Anna out.
“No. No! Stop! It’s going solid! You’re using too much! Help me pull!” But Jess ignored me, firing the salt instead. As the last of Anna passed through the undulating glass, my hands went with her. I remembered the cold jellylike feel of the water from when Mary had dragged me through. This was thicker, more rigid. Salt clusters were drying on the surface. The glass was crystallizing. If I didn’t pull my hands back soon, the surface would go hard and I’d either be stuck between the worlds forever or lose my hands.
“No. Please, no…” I wept, but there was nothing I could do. The pressure around my forearms became unbearable. I was forced to let Anna go. I wrenched my hands from the glass seconds before it hardened. Fog rose up inside the mirror far thicker than the steam in the bathroom. A second later, a long arc of crimson splashed across the glass followed by another. And another. Rivers of blood rained down on the wrong side.
Anna’s blood.
It didn’t seem real. When the showers stopped spewing, when the black water sank back into the drains, when the fog cleared from the room, I kept thinking that Anna would come back. Except that wasn’t the reality. The reality was that Anna was gone. Forever.
I sat a few feet from the mirror without flinching, catatonic. My guts ached, my eyes burned. Mary could have hauled me inside the glass right then and I would have been too stupefied to do anything about it. But she didn’t come. She left me there to snivel, my pants wet, my knees hugged to my chest.
Jess stood beside me crying softly. She put her hand on my shoulder, but I pushed her away. If she’d listened to me, if she’d pulled Anna instead of salting the mirror, Anna might have had a chance. But Jess never listened to anyone. She did what she thought was best—her ideas trumped all ideas—and now Anna Sasaki was dead.
In the end, I ran. It wasn’t brave or noble. It probably wasn’t the right thing to do, but after what felt like hours of sitting on that wet locker room floor, I climbed to my feet, grabbed my bag, and ran. Jess called my name, but I kept moving. I ran from the locker room. I ran from the school. I ran until my legs ached. I ran until they stopped aching and I felt like I could run forever. My apartment was miles from the school, but I ran all the way there without pause.
By the time I hit my parking lot an hour later, I was covered in sweat. My clothes and body had fused together; my hair was matted to my skull. My lungs hurt. I didn’t care. Stopping was the worst thing I could have done. While I’d been punishing my body, I wasn’t thinking about Anna, but the moment I climbed the stairs, the moment my key slipped into the lock of my door, I started bawling.
I dove into my bed. I buried my face in my pillow and screamed myself raw. When my throat felt like I’d swallowed a porcupine, I stopped to tear off my damp, sweaty clothes. I rolled into a ball beneath the covers. I stayed that way until the calls started. It was Jess, furiously blowing up my phone before resorting to sending texts that I refused to read. I shut it off. I didn’t want to hear from her. If I had my way, I’d never look at her again. All the sorrow and rage I felt at losing Anna was directed at Jess. She’d put Bloody Mary before common sense—before our safety. Anna had been right to be mad at her. In the end, Anna was the only one of us who had had any sense.
It took them a day and a half to realize Anna was gone. Her parents called the night of her disappearance to ask if I knew where she was, but I told them I hadn’t seen Anna since school lunch. I went to bed after that, sleep my only reprieve. Even then, I was plagued by dreams of Anna, of Mary. It wasn’t much of an escape. I woke to tears running down my cheeks.
Tuesday morning, I told Mom I still didn’t feel well. She took my temperature and despite the lack of fever, she let me stay home again. I rarely asked. I left my room only to use the bathroom, the box of salt never leaving my side. Mary never showed. I immediately went back to bed—not hungry, not thirsty, not feeling alive at all.
Mom was supposed to work a double, but at suppertime, there were feet pounding up the apartment steps and then the slamming of the front door.
“Shauna? Are you here?” I heard from the other room.
“In bed,” I said. “Headache.”
Her purse hit the floor. She ran to my room, her keys jingling inside her pocket. She thrust the door open to peer at me, her eyes huge. I sat up a little to look at her, the blanket tucked to my chest, and she crossed the room in three strides to hug me. It was sweet at first, affectionate, but then it grew stronger, more a clutch than an embrace.
“Why didn’t you pick up your phone?” she barked at me.
I blinked, cringing as she gave me another hard squeeze. “My phone was off. Sorry.”
“Oh. Oh, honey.” She sank down on the mattress beside me and put her palms on my cheeks, her thumbs stroking my c
heekbones. Her eyes narrowed. I probably looked awful. I’d been crying so much, my face felt hot and there were splotchy hives all over my upper chest. “So you heard, then. All right, at least you know. Luanne at work pointed out the AMBER Alert, and when you didn’t pick up the phone, I just…I came straight home. I’m so glad to see you, but don’t shut your phone off again. Don’t, please,” she said, and she pulled me back into her arms, forcing my face into the crook of her neck.
There was an alert on Anna. For a moment, I worried that the police would come pounding on my door, demanding answers, but that would mean they’d have to know Jess and I were the last people with her. And how would they find that out? Someone may have seen us leaving the cafeteria, but we were always together. That wouldn’t raise any suspicions. No one had been around the locker room when it went down, either. The halls were empty because of lunch.
I couldn’t worry about it. Even if the police came sniffing around, they wouldn’t find anything except salty water. Jess had torn the tape from the mirrors before she bailed. There was nothing incriminating to find. Anna wasn’t just dead, she was gone. Permanently. I clung to Mom and burst into more sobs. She stroked my hair, her lips grazing my temple.
“It’ll be okay. Anna is fine,” she crooned. I wanted to scream at her that, no, Anna wasn’t fine, that she’d been killed in front of me.
Mom made me tea and brought me toast that I wouldn’t eat. Her phone rang in the other room and she left to answer it. She returned a minute later, her fingers toying with the buttons on her coat. “That was Luanne. Some local folks are going looking for Anna—clues or…well. You get it. Did you want to go?”
Mary (Bloody Mary) Page 16