Chapter Two: Mary

Tragedy strikes.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

MARY

( I )

            When Brad woke up he had a splitting headache. He sat up, rubbed the back of his head, and looked around. He saw all of the tombstones and remembered where he was. He had fallen asleep while waiting for the fog to lift last night. He looked down at the empty beer cans laying around him and cursed himself for falling asleep. This could have ended real bad. Brad squinted his eyes as the sun was bright and it was making his head hurt. He was pretty sure that he was alone so he might slide this time, but he would have to make sure that it never happened again. He looked down at the tombstone he had used for a pillow and rubbed his sore head some more. He had the kink from hell in his neck. His whole body screamed in protest as he stood up and stretched. Brad looked around one more time and started walking. He could have walked home by the road, but the shortcut through the woods was quicker. Again he scolded himself for falling asleep. He made his way towards the house, and now that he could see it real good in the daylight he realized that it did seem kind of creepy since he was alone. The whole house was broken down. All the paint had since chipped away and looked weathered. The wood for the porch was sun bleached and warped. All the windows were boarded over, there was no glass to be seen anywhere and the porch swing, while it still hung, it was uneven and one end was slightly higher than the other and the chains were rusted. He started to make his way around to the back when the porch swing started swaying back and forth, making a creaking sound each time. It sounded so loud in the quiet morning that it made him realize just how alone he was out here. He looked up at one of the boarded up windows and could have sworn he saw someone looking at him through one of the gaps and now it sounded like someone was moving around in there. The stories about the place came back to him now. The flesh on his arms stood up in tiny goose bumps. He decided that if there were dead people up and walking around in there he was staying around long enough to start hearing the gunshots. Brad ran around the back now and stopped dead in his tracks. His heart leapt into his throat and his forward momentum almost made him topple over as every muscle in his body locked up. The car from last night was parked in front of the pathway, blocking his escape route. Behind him, the footsteps in the house sounded like they were getting closer to the door. Brad turned back to the car and decided that he was going up and over it.

( II )

            Alexander dribbled his basketball in the driveway and took the shot. It hit off the front of the rim and bounced off to the side. It bounced off the sidewalk a couple of times before coming to rest in his front yard. He stood in the driveway looking at the basketball and then at the hoop that was anchored to the wall above the garage door. It had been there for two months now, and he practiced every day. His mother had got it for him when he let it be known that he wanted to try out for the basketball team next year. He had been out here for twenty minutes already, and he knew what he was doing wrong. He wasn’t getting enough lift on the ball. Every shot was hitting off the front of the rim. He walked over and picked up the ball. Alexander spun the ball in his hands as he walked back to the driveway. He stopped in front of the hoop, bounced the ball twice, and shot again, putting a little more into it this time. This time he gave it a little too much. The ball hit off the back of the rim and bounced straight up into the air before going off to the side again. He retrieved it and shot again. He got the rim again, just like every time before, but this time the ball bounced back towards him. He wasn’t ready for it, and it bounced past him and out into the street. His mother always told him how great his father had been at basketball, won a state championship in high school. That was the reason Alexander wanted to play, because his dad did. He was beginning to think that maybe his dad’s talent for basketball had skipped a generation as he walked out into the street to get his ball.

            Gavin didn’t know how long he had been asleep, but he had one second before everything went to hell to wish that he had never woken up. He opened his eyes just in time to see the kid coming out into the street. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to stop in time, it was way too late for that. He closed his eyes and slammed on the brakes anyway. He didn’t want to see what he knew was going to happen. The sound of screeching tires cut through the quiet morning like a knife as all eighteen of his tires locked up.  A moment later Gavin both heard and felt the sickening thud as hit the boy, and drove over top of him. When he finally came to a stop, he climbed out of his truck and looked at the road behind him. He instantly felt sick and his legs turned to rubber. There was blood everywhere and he could see what was left of the boy lying in the middle of the street. He reached out and grabbed the side of his truck for support as the world started to swim in front of him. Gavin hit his knees and threw his breakfast up all over the street. He struggled to breathe as his vision started to blur and he became light headed. He knew he was going to pass out, but he was trying to fight it. He was dimly aware of a woman screaming now, but he had no idea where it was coming from or when she had started. Then she was hitting him and screaming in his ear.

 “You killed my baby! You monster!” Mary screamed as she started hitting him.

 “I’m sorry,” was all Gavin could bring himself to say, and he said it over and over again.

 “Murderer!!!!!!!! Murderer!!!!!!” She continued to scream as she hit her knees and grabbed him by the hair.

Gavin could feel himself being shaken by the head. It was all getting to be too much, and he couldn’t fight it anymore. He let it all go, and he could have sworn that he heard hushed, whispering laughter before the darkness enveloped him.

****

            Carol Branton was just sitting down to breakfast herself when she heard the commotion out front. At first she thought that another animal had bought it in the road when she heard the squealing tires. There was road kill out there every other day; it was usually a deer or sometimes assorted wild animals would fall victim to the road. Every once in a while it would be someone’s pet but that was rare.  She buttered her bread, prepared not to give it another thought when the screaming started. It was the screaming that got her because she had screamed like that once in her life. It was the kind of scream you unleashed when something damaged you all the way to your soul. Carol dropped her knife and shuddered. It sounded like Mary. It had to be Mary she corrected herself. She was the only other person that lived out here, well her and Alexander. The thought of Alexander made Carol jump to her feet. There is only one thing that would make Mary scream like that. Something had happened to Alexander. She remembered the squealing tires now.

 “Oh, God no,” Carol said as she ran for the front door.

            The first thing she saw when she hit the front yard was Alexander in the street. There was so much blood and the body of the little boy didn’t even look like him anymore, but she knew it was him. His basketball was sitting in the street only a couple of feet from his body. She felt her stomach lurch, and she had to fight to stay on her feet as her eyes filled with tears. Carol didn’t think she could take this; it was too soon for her, too soon after her own son. She watched in a daze as Mary stopped shaking the unconscious man in the street. Had to be the driver she surmised, and ran back into her house. Mary reappeared a moment later with the biggest knife Carol had ever seen. It was like she had stepped out of her house and into a real life horror movie. Mary was running back towards the man now. She was covered in blood, and had a look of pure madness on her face. She was going to stab the man to death right in the middle of the street. This realization snapped Carol out of her daze and got her moving. She ran across her yard and out into the street. She didn’t know if she was going to make it in time, but she had to try, and then she had a terrifying thought. Would Mary try to stab her too?

            Mary hit the street in a sprint lost deep in her own thoughts, and they were all thoughts of murder. She only had one mental image in her mind that it kept replaying over and over again. The image of her boy’s broken and bloody body lying in the middle of the street. The next thing she knew she was on her knees next to the unconscious trucker. She raised the knife high into the air with both hands, and thought about Alexander. She could hear voices whispering in her head, building in pitch until they were in a frenzy. Repeating the same word over and over again.

 “Kill…..Kill….Kill….Kill.”

Mary screamed at the top of her lungs and prepared to bring the knife down. At that moment Carol slammed into her at full speed from the side and tackled her to the ground. Mary grunted as her breath was knocked out of her. She lost her grip on the knife, and it went skittering across the street and disappeared into the high grass on the other side of the road.

 “Nooooooooo!” Mary screamed.

The two women rolled around on the ground, each one trying to gain control over the other. Mary rolled over and straddled Carol and began clawing at her face.

 “Mary stop it,” Carol said.

She looked up into Mary’s wide eyes and saw that there was nothing there. She had completely snapped and retreated back into her mind. She tried to fight off Mary’s attack without hurting her, but it wasn’t going very well. Carol hissed as Mary put another scratch on her face. Now Carol got angry. She had a good ten pounds on Mary, and now she was going to use it. She reached up and pulled Mary off of her by her hair. Mary continued clawing at the air, trying to get any piece of Carol that she could as Carol climbed on top of her. She grabbed Mary by the shoulders and shook her violently.

 “Snap out of it,” Carol said.

Mary didn’t listen, she continued clawing at her with a permanent snarl etched into her face, she looked like a wild animal. Drastic times called for drastic measures. Carol reached back with her open hand and smacked Mary in the face.

 “Snap out of it,” she repeated.

Carol got the same response so she smacked her again. This time she smacked Mary so hard that it stung her hand. Mary stopped clawing now, and her eyes grew wider than before and now Carol saw something else in them, fear, she was back.

 “My boy,” Mary whimpered.

 “I know,” Carol replied, and she cried now too.

She rolled off of Mary and laid beside her in the street. She looked up at the sky, and tried to catch her breath. She listened to Mary crying beside her and thought about her own son. Over to the west The Gate stood alone in the field; a silent witness to the madness that had just erupted, and anyone who would have seen it at that moment would have sworn that the dark stones were now darker.

( III )

            “Are you alright?” Carol heard a voice ask.

It sounded like it was coming from the end of a really long tunnel, and she had no idea to whom the man was speaking to. Then he shook her. Her mind had been back in Miami on the day that her son had died, but now she was looking up into the face of Clay Parker, Sheriff of Morte, and now everything that had happened came flooding back.

 “Where is Mary?” Carol asked, sitting up.

Clay put his hands on her shoulders and held her where she was while she looked around and tried to get to her feet. The scene had changed drastically. There was an ambulance parked behind Clay’s car on the side of the road. The trucker was awake now and in the back seat of Clay’s car. How long had she been out of it? She tried to get up again.

 “Now just hold on a second,” Clay said.

Carol stopped.

 “I come out here, Alexander is dead in the street. I got an unconscious guy lying next to his truck and you and Mary are lying over here covered in blood. She is completely gone, and you are unresponsive even though your eyes are wide open. I need to make sure you are alright.” Clay said.

 “I’m fine,” Carol replied.

Clay continued on ask if she hadn’t said anything.

 “What is your name?” He asked.

 “Carol,” she replied.

 “How old are you?”

 “Twenty seven, are we done?” She asked.

 “What is my name?” Clay asked her, ignoring her question.

 “Jesus Christ!” Carol exclaimed.

 “No,” Clay said with a perplexed look on his face.

 “It was a term of exasperation Clayton,” Carol said, using his whole name.

 “Okay, well I guess you are fine,” he said and helped her to her feet.

 “What in the hell happened out here, and what happened to your face?” He asked.

Carol touched her face and winced as she headed towards her house. She could feel all of the scratches on her face as they were all raised and irritated. She would have to treat them, but they could wait; first she needed something to drink. She couldn’t remember ever being this thirsty.

 “Come with me, and I’ll tell you all about it,” she said as she opened her front door and went into the house.

Author's Note

All reviews are appreciated.