The Unfortunate Tale of Little Mary Jenkins (short story), Page 2

  “Enough already!” Nick said, not enjoying the anticipation. “'Scary Mary' just sounds like a made-up story anyway.”

  “Oh, really? Made up?” replied Sam, flicking his flashlight on and off under his chin. “I don’t think so, but I’ll let you be the judge.”

  All three listened intently as Sam told the story.

  ###

  So, Mary was a little blonde-haired eight-year-old who loved to play hide-and-seek. In fact, she loved all types of hide-and-seek—Regular, Sardines, Ghost in the Graveyard—everything. She had even made up her own version, which she called Flip-Flop.

  Mary would play with anyone, anywhere: at home with her family, in the park with other kids, in the street with her friends. Sometimes she’d even play with the neighborhood dogs, sticking a hotdog in her pocket so they’d come find her.

  ###

  “Sounds more like 'Crazy Mary',” said Jeff. “Putting hotdogs in her pockets like that? That’s gross.”

  “Shut it, punk,” said Scout, elbowing Jeff in the ribs. “I want to hear this.”

  “Ouch!” he exclaimed, not moving fast enough this time.

  “As I was saying,” Sam continued…

  ###

  It was late October, and dark gray clouds covered most of the sky. The sun was just dipping below the horizon, casting a flat, strange light across the landscape. The neighborhood looked eerie, like all the color had been drained out. Above, the dark clouds threatened to start raining.

  Ignoring the possible downpour, Mary and several kids were playing in the backyard of the haunted Buckley house, which had remained vacant ever since the couple was found dead in their bed many years before. The house was falling apart and the huge yard was overgrown with plants and weeds, bordered by several half-broken “Private Property—No Trespassing” signs posted but ignored. The neighborhood kids always sneaked through the black wrought-iron fence to play hide-and-seek since it was a huge yard and had so many hiding places and most of the kids didn’t even mind that it was a haunted house—not during the day, that is.

  They had already played several of their favorite hide-and-seek games, including Sardines and Normal when Mary shouted, “Flip-Flop! Count down from fifty and come find me!” Flip-Flop was a lot like Sardines—one person hid and everyone else searched. The twist was that as soon as the person was found, the game was over. Rounds were usually pretty fast unless you could find a really, really good hiding spot.

  “No!” yelled Victoria, startling everyone. “You always get to be ‘It’ for Flip-Flop,” she said.

  “’Well, I called ‘It’, so I get to be ‘It.’ That’s how 'It' works,” replied Mary. “You don’t have to play,” she added, taunting Victoria.

  “Fine,” snarled Victoria after a brief stare down, “but I will find you.”

  “Well, you haven’t before, but whatever. I suppose there’s a first time for everything,” Mary said. While Victoria glared, Mary started looking for a hiding place. Victoria was definitely annoyed. Mary knew she needed to find The Perfect Hiding Spot.

  Actually, Victoria was way beyond annoyed. She was mad. Madder than you’d think a nine-year-old could get. She hated Mary for no other reason than that Mary was unbeatable at hide-and-seek. So, Victoria counted faster than anyone, sounding more like “fiddy ah-gatr, furty-nine ah-gatr…” in an effort to be the first on the hunt for her nemesis. The clouds on the horizon darkened as she counted and thunder provided the backdrop to the countdown, rumbling faintly in the faraway skies.

  Mary looked around the yard. She saw the pile of rotting barrels and wooden cable drums, but they were too obvious. The slightly better option was the thick overgrowth by the broken down shed, but even that wasn’t good enough. Her scanning eyes passed over all the known spots and eventually came to rest on the large house, looming over her in the late afternoon light.

  The house, thought Mary. No one had ever hidden in the house. That could work. But it was haunted and going inside did not appeal to her. Dusk was descending quickly and already the house looked dark and ominous. However, she knew it would be The Perfect Hiding Spot and she did not want to lose today, especially not to Victoria.

  Mary glanced around to make sure no one was peeking and then darted towards the spooky house. Dust devils swirled leaves around her as she ran and the old wooden porch groaned loudly when she climbed the rotting stairs. Mary gingerly pushed aside the large splintered wooden front door, which hung lopsided on a few rusty hinges. The hinge protested as she moved the door, squeaking loudly. Mary cringed at the sound, fearing someone might hear the noise. With a last quick glance behind her, Mary stepped into the house, and then stumbled, but reached out to catch her balance. A jagged sliver on the door frame sliced her hand, leaving a small gash that oozed bright red blood on her hand and a left tell-tale smudge on the door frame. Ignoring the stinging pain, Mary sucked on the cut and ran into the house.

  Victoria finished counting. She looked around the yard quickly. She wanted to find Mary fast and end her winning streak—once and for all. The other kids finished counting, too, and everyone spread out, looking for Mary. After several minutes, and no luck, everyone—except Mary, of course—gathered close, but not too close, to the front of the darkening house, standing under a large weeping willow tree.

  “She’s gone,” one boy said. “We looked everywhere. She must’ve gone home.”

  “Yeah,” echoed a little girl, “gone.”

  “We should just go home—it’s getting late,” said someone else.

  Victoria wasn’t convinced. In her suspicious heart of hearts, she knew Mary was somewhere, hiding—maybe even watching and laughing to herself. Victoria continued to look around, passing over the obvious hiding places they had already searched. As she glanced past the house, though, a strong gust of wind shook the porch, making the door creak loudly as it swung on its rusty hinges.

  Victoria heard the creak. She looked back at the porch. There was something about that noise, but she couldn’t figure it out. The wind gusted again, swinging the dangling front door, which again creaked loudly. That noise, thought Victoria, staring at the door. She had heard it while they were counting, she realized. Could Mary have pushed past the door and gone in the house to hide, she wondered, glaring at the decrepit front door, now hanging still, partially opened.

  “Let’s go look in the house,” she said to the other kids.

  The kids looked at Victoria like she was crazy. Playing in the yard of a haunted house during the day and going into a haunted house as it got dark were two different things. Black windows peered down at the children like empty eye sockets, and the front porch underneath looked like the giant mouth of an evil beast. No one wanted to follow her into that dark hole to who-knew-what horrible place to meet who-knew-what horrible fate.

  “Uh, are you sure, Victoria? You know what they say about that house. Mary wouldn’t go in there.”

  “Yeah, and it’s getting pretty dark, too,” a scared voice added.

  “Yeah, I’m sure, and yeah, I know what they say, but Mary would do anything to win, haunted house or not. That’s got to be where she is. Besides, we already looked in all the good places in the yard and she wasn’t there, so where else could she be? She’s got to be in the house,” said Victoria.

  Reluctantly, the kids trudged along, slowly following Victoria onto the ominous porch.

  Victoria spotted the small smear of blood on the door frame and smiled. She hurried in, like a bloodhound on the scent of an escaped convict. I’ve got you this time, Mary Jenkins, she thought to herself. Out loud, she whispered, “Victory to Victoria.”

  Mary heard the kids moving around on the porch before she had found a hiding place on the main floor. She panicked and hurried up the wide grand staircase, hoping to find somewhere to hide on the second floor. The first door she peeked behind led to a cobwebbed closet—too small. The second door revealed a dusty bathroom with checkered floor tiles—still not good enough. The third room,
though, was very promising.

  It was the infamous master suite, supposedly the most haunted room in the house.

  Mary looked quickly around the huge bedroom. Moldy wallpaper peeled off the walls and dark shadows crouched along the edges of the room. Broken chairs and tables were stacked haphazardly halfway up the wall in one corner. Torn curtains hung at the side of a shuttered window, which was lined with broken glass, looking like a mouthful of craggy teeth. Sitting next to the window were a large bed and a decrepit wooden nightstand.

  The bed was definitely the centerpiece of the room. It had a gigantic carved headboard and a tattered canopy overhead, supported by large, ornate corner posts, from which faded fabric drooped lifelessly. Several water-stained pillows sat at the head of the bed. The front legs were broken, tilting the bed forward so that it nearly touched the floor.

  Mary ran through the wide double-door entry and started looking. The closet was large, but empty, leaving no place to hide. Climbing behind the broken furniture looked good, but too noisy and too dangerous. She thought of climbing inside the big nightstand, but the enormous bed looked better, with perhaps just enough room for her to slide underneath it. Maybe. It looked so close to the ground that no one would think to look there, not even smarty-pants Victoria.

  Mary crept to the far side near the window, grabbed the bedpost and shook it to make sure the bed was solid enough and wouldn’t fall in on her. It felt safe to her, so she dropped to the floor, leaving a small smear of blood on the post. Slithering underneath the bed, she hoped the other kids didn’t hear the squeaking floorboards as she moved around. The fit under the bed was tight, almost too tight, but she was small and wriggled to the middle and waited patiently. Dust bunnies tickled her nose, but she didn’t move, trying to breathe as quietly as possible.

  After searching the first floor, Victoria climbed the staircase to the upper floor. Stairs creaked with each footstep. She looked in the small closet and then moved on to the bathroom, which was also empty. Next, she stepped down the hall and stood at the threshold of the master bedroom. She flinched, noticing that the musty, dank smell of the house seemed stronger. Still, she looked briefly around the room and then stepped in for a closer look. The fading light coming through the shuttered window made it hard to see, but Victoria thought she saw faint footprints scattered across the dusty floor.

  “Maaaary,” she sing-songed, checking the large, dusty walk-in closet, but it was empty. “Maaaary,” she repeated. Then she peered carefully around the old broken nightstand, but it was empty, too. Strips of rotting curtains swayed eerily in a breeze coming through the broken window, brushing Victoria’s face. Swatting at the curtains in frustration, Victoria spun in a circle. She had been so certain Mary would be in here.

  The other kids had reluctantly followed her, but they had stopped at the doorway, silently refusing to go into the haunted master suite. There was only so far they were willing to go and they were not happy about the growing shadows and gloom overtaking the house. Subconsciously, they huddled together, trying to protect themselves from the fear running wild in their overactive imaginations, half expecting the spirits of the dead Mr. and Mrs. Buckley to rise from the bed.

  Victoria was ready to give up and move on to another room down the hall when her hand brushed against something wet and sticky on the corner post of the bed. She peered closely at it, recognizing the brownish red of freshly drying blood. Ha ha—gotcha, she thought, realizing where Mary must be hiding. She kept it to herself, though, thinking to have a little fun with Mary before exposing her hiding spot.

  “She’s not in here,” Victoria said more loudly than necessary. “Let’s jump on this old bed and see if we can scare up the ghosts of Mr. and Mrs. Buckley. Maybe they can help us find Mary.”

  Victoria stepped up onto the dusty bed and jumped up and down on it—hard. The other kids watched, horrified and fascinated at the same time, thinking that she was definitely, definitely crazy. A little gray mouse that had made a home on the inside of the old box springs scrambled out as clouds of dust poofed into the air with each jump, rusty springs squeaking in protest each time Victoria landed on the unused mattress.

  Mary scooted further back into the darkness. Dust bunnies and cobwebs tickled her nose even more. She felt the rusty steel springs bounce painfully on her back with each jump, smashing her harder and harder against the dusty hardwood floor.

  “Look,” said Victoria, kicking at a lump on the bed, “here’s Old Mrs. Buckley herself.” Victoria’s toe ripped through the ratty quilt and ancient feathers flew through the air from the feather pillows tucked underneath.

  Relieved at seeing feathers and not evil spirits rising from the dirty old bed, the kids broke their silent truce and finally stepped into the room. They climbed on the bed and, tentatively at first, they jumped. Then, they jumped again, laughing more and more each time. And each time they smashed Mary more and more—her legs, her back, her head.

  Mary gritted her teeth. She did, not want to give Victoria the satisfaction of finding her. Box springs and wooden supports smacked into Mary, bruising her and leaving welts and small cuts, but she stayed silent. Underneath her, the termite-infested floorboards creaked and groaned, sending clouds of dust to the floor below. Despite the pain, Mary remained resolute, saying nothing.

  Above Mary, one little boy hesitated. “Victoria,” he said, “is she und—“

  “’Shut up and jump,” she hissed at him.

  “No, I won’t. This is wrong,” he said, realizing what was going on and running from the room.

  Finally, Mary was about to cry out and give up when the rotted floorboards abruptly gave out. The floor broke and the heavy bed plunged through the gaping hole. The bed, Victoria and the rest of the children landed below with a thunderous crash, settling in a cloud of dust on the hard tile floor.

  On the bed, Victoria and the kids screamed, yelled and cried. Miraculously, they weren’t hurt, only shaken up. They had been saved by the old mattress and rusty box springs.

  Under the bed, Mary was not so lucky.

  The little boy, who had just barely reached the bottom of the staircase, paused, shocked at nearly being crushed by the bed. Realizing what had happened, he ran for help as fast as he could.

  Stumbling off the bed, one shocked little girl saw Mary’s limp leg and started bawling. Others started screaming while Victoria kneeled down and peered tentatively under the broken bed. Mary’s pale face looked like a discarded porcelain doll, staring at her through a cloud of dust. A trickle of bright red blood dripped down from the corner of her mouth. Mary reached towards Victoria with a shaky hand and wheezed through her crushed lungs, “Olly olly oxen free, you tried and tried, but you never found me.” Her face then went still, frozen like a picture. Her blue eyes stayed open and her arm went limp, resting on the floor, still reaching for Victoria.

  Victoria scrambled back, shrieking.

  ###

  Sam stopped talking and stood up abruptly.

  “What, that’s it? That wasn’t a ghost story. There wasn’t even any ghost,” said Nick.

  “Yeah,” said Jeff. “Where’s the ghost?”

  “No, that’s not the whole story, but I gotta pee,” Sam said, crushing his fifth emptied can of root beer. “The ghost part is next, when I get back. You know, if I get back,” he added, clicking his flashlight on and stepping into the darkness, which quickly swallowed him up.

  “Oh. I was thinking that wasn’t so bad,” Nick said, to no one in particular.

  Sam returned a moment later and sat down.

  “Feel better?” asked Nick.

  “Much. Now, where was I?”

  “Victoria was screaming like a little girl,” said Jeff.

  “Considering the fact that she was a little girl, that’s probably okay,” said Scout, giving Jeff the evil eye.

  “Oh, yeah. So, the police called Victoria’s mom and she ran through the growing storm to get Victoria and take her to the supposed safety of t
heir home.”

  “Supposed? What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Nick.

  “Supposed,” Sam repeated. “It’s ‘supposed’ to mean you’ll find out.”

  “Foreshadowing, Nicky boy, it’s foreshadowing. It means you’re probably going to have an accident in your pants pretty soon,” said Scout.

  “Ha,” laughed Jeff.

  “Okay, back to the story, and yeah, Nick, Scout’s right about foreshadowing. You might want to be careful about, uh, accidents,” Sam said, grinning.

  ###

  Victoria was nearly catatonic from the traumatic event. She walked home from the Buckley home in a steady drizzle of cold rain, huddled next to her mom. Chilly drops of water rolled off the small black umbrella and dripped down the back of her neck, but she didn’t notice as images from the afternoon kept flashing through her mind. The cluttered yard. The gray clouds. The swirling leaves. The gloomy house. The dark shadows. The creaky stairs. The broken bed. Mary. The blood.

  They finally reached their house. Victoria dashed inside as thunder rumbled overhead. She wanted to get out of the cold rain and crawl into the safety of her bed. She practically flew up the stairs to get there. The normally quiet stairs creaked loudly with each step, catching Victoria off guard—they reminded her of the Buckleys’ noisy stairs.

  Lightning flashed across the sky and the lights flickered as Victoria rushed down the hall. She jumped into her bed, the four posts of her bed just like the old bed in the Buckley master suite. Shuddering, she flung the comforter over her head, trying to hide from what had happened—trying to hide from Mary and from the horrific memory of Mary reaching out to her from under the shattered bed.

  The flood of memories finally overwhelmed her. “Mom! Mo-oom!” she screamed.

  Her mom shrugged off her wet overcoat and raced up the stairs. Victoria lay huddled in her bed, rocking back and forth and mumbling to herself, “She’s coming, she’s coming, she’s coming.”