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Mirror, Mirror

Alone in the Dark with Bloody Mary

By Tom BakerPublished 6 years ago 8 min read
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They say that Marie will never be the same again, and I sure believe it. The way she careened out of that bathroom that night, her face bloody, horrible claw marks stretching across her right cheek, well, you can bet it was an image not one of us would soon forget! But I better explain.

I always thought the story about “Bloody Mary” was just a lot of hogwash. I thought it was just something that kids did at slumber parties, as a prank, something to scare each other silly. But, you know what? I WAS WRONG. DEAD WRONG.

Bloody Mary is bloody real. She’ll come at you in the dark; she’ll haunt your dreams

Marie and the girls were having a slumber party, Corinne told me later. They had made popcorn and were watching videotapes (yeah, this was many years ago) of old horror flicks. Re-Animator, The Exorcist, stuff like that. It was Marie’s house. Outside, Corrine said, you could hear the crickets chirp, and the wind blow through the trees. It was pretty spooky that night, she said.

Suddenly one of the girls asks Marie about her Ouija Board. “Yeah, it’s really creepy. I found it in the attic when we moved in. It’s one of the old-fashioned ones.”

One girl asked, “Have you used it? Does it work?”

Marie replied. “No, I haven’t used it much. It’s said a few things. One spirit that comes through, though, is this one called ‘Mary.’ Says she used to live in this house, long ago.”

“Yeah,” agreed one of the girls, “this place is really old, isn’t it? Kinda creepy. Is it haunted?”

“Oh sure,” said Marie, sniggering. “I mean, I think it is. Sometimes I hear this weird moaning, and hear pounding on the wall. Mom swears she’s seen a shadow move across the wall…and things get moved around, and disappear.”

“And I’ll bet things fly off the shelf sometimes!” said one of the girls, excitedly.

Marie didn’t answer, but got up, went over to the dresser, bent to the bottom drawer, and retrieved her Ouija board. The box indeed did look old-fashioned, like the thing had been sitting up in the attic awhile.

It was not long before the girls were bent over the thing, their nervous fingers moving the pointer (“Planchette”, reminded Marie to the others. “That’s what it’s actually called. The Planchette.”) around the surface of the board. For a long while all they seemed to get was gibberish letters thrown out. The girls all giggled nervously. One or two didn’t want to play, and hung back a little glumly from the others.

Then, after maybe twenty-five minutes.

“What’s your name?”

The pointer–-"planchette"-–spelled out:

M-A-R-Y

“Wow. It’s Mary. Okay. How are you doing tonight, Mary?”

I-M I-N H-E-L…

“Oh,” said Marie. “That doesn’t sound good. Wait. Uh, Mary?”

YES.

“How, may I ask, did you die?”

The pointer spelled out:

C-H-I-L-D-B-I-R-T-H

The girls all started to whisper among themselves, one piped up with, “Someone’s pushing it!” before being hissed down by the others. Marie said, “No! Wait. I think that’s the truth. I’ve done some reading about those times, and that happened a lot back then, you guys. Yeah. Women dying while giving birth. I bet it’s true…”

“I bet this really happened,” said another.

“I bet she really is a ghost. Oh man, I’m not going to sleep AT ALL tonight!” added a third.

The talk was hushed down by the Ouija players, and Marie asked, “Marie, what year did this happen?”

JANUARY, the thing spelled out. 1-10-1886.

“Oh man, I forgot how old this house was. Man, that was like, OVER a hundred years ago!” Marie looked stunned for a moment. But then an idea seemed to dawn across her face. She looked intrigued by the thought, suddenly, asked:

“Mary? Mary, we want to see you…”

There was a general chorus of “No!” coming from Marie’s slumber party guests. A player or two took their fingers off of the planchette.

“Marie, no!” said. “What, are you nuts?”

“No, I’m being serious, I want to!” said Marie, with some exasperation.

Corinne thought she was just trying to impress the rest of the girls.

“C’mon guys,” said Marie, sounding a little whiney. “You can’t quit now. It’s just starting to get good. Just starting to come through more clearly!”

The tension was so think. Suddenly, it seemed you could cut it with a knife. Finally, one or two of the girls put their fingers back on the planchette, and started again. “Mary” had an answer, a longer one than before. This is what she wrote:

“YOU CAN SEE ME IN THE MIRROR BY CANDLELIGHT. GO INTO THE BATHROOM. TURN OFF THE LIGHTS. TURN AROUND COUNTER-CLOCKWISE THREE TIMES. SAY ‘BLOODY MARY, BLOODY MARY, BLOODY MARY.’ MY FACE WILL APPEAR IN THE MIRROR.”

There was stone silence in the bedroom. Marie suddenly jumped up.

One of the girls asked, “Where are you going?”

Marie turned, smiled, replied, “Where do you think? To get a candle.”

The other girls began to protest, but Marie’s mind was made up. She quickly retrieved the candle, some matches, and went into the bathroom across the hall. The other girls followed her. She turned to them, smiled, tried to appear brave and self-confident. In reality, Corinne noticed she was shaking a little.

“Now, I’m going to go in there, and I’m going to call up Mary. Anyone that wants to come with me, can.”

No one did.

“Okay. Well, if you hear anything…freaky, open up the door and come on in. Otherwise, I’ll let you know how I make out.”

And with that, Marie lit the candle. She went into the darkened bathroom and shut the door.

The slumber party waited outside, some almost pressed against the door, trying to hear something, anything. Shows you the power of belief, right? They WANTED to believe something would happen, wanted to be convinced.

There was a mumbling. Then silence. Then suddenly–-

“Oh my god! Oh, Jesus!”

Marie cried out, her voice rising into a sudden shriek. She bounded out the door, the little knot of girls backing out to let her through.

“Look!” someone cried. “Her face! My God…SOMETHING HAS CLAWED HER FACE!”

But there was no need to point that out, as it was quite easy enough to see. Marie looked as if some animal with a talon claw had raked three horrible wounds across her milk-white face. She was walking around in shock, balling like a baby, holding her bleeding face in her snot-and-tear-covered hands.

Below, from her parent’s bedroom, Corinne could hear Marie’s parents open their own bedroom door, come bounding up the stairs. Marie’s mom said, “What in the hell is going on up here? Sounds like someone is being murdered!”

They pressed a cold cloth against Marie’s burning skin, tried to disinfect the wound. But she was in a state of shock. All she would say was, “But she was so beautiful…so beautiful…so beautiful…” Finally, they ended up calling an ambulance. Marie had a trip to the emergency room. Later, she spent time in the psychiatric ward.

Corinne told me she went to visit her later. Marie sat in the Dayroom, gumming tapioca, and telling Corinne what had happened right before she came running, bleeding, from that bathroom.

“I did what she said. Stood looking into the mirror. All I could see was my own face in the mirror by candlelight. Then I turned around and said it, I said…well, you know. And I waited. And at first, I thought I was seeing things, but then, slowly, my face turned into this OTHER face, a really, really beautiful woman. And I thought, Wow, Mary, whoever she was, was really gorgeous. But then, the face started changing, and it started…bleeding. And it started to curse at me, say horrible things. Accuse me of things. I can’t even remember it all. It was so fast, too fast to take it all in! And this horrible, cursing, bleeding face suddenly became real haggard, and old, like a crone, and the voice grew rough and deep, and then I felt…I felt…”

But Marie couldn’t finish, and it took her a few minutes to get ahold of herself.

“So you have to warn people. You have to warn the kids, have to tell them if they encounter this thing, NOT TO DO WHAT IT SAYS. Don’t stand in the bathroom, in the ark, with a candle, chanting ‘Bloody Mary.’ Because, THIS IS NOT A GAME. THIS IS REAL…”

Her voice was quivering as she finished.

“There’s a DEMON that lives in the dark, and Mary is its name. And it will reach out, and touch you, and claw you in the dark! And you’ll end up JUST LIKE ME.”

And with that, visiting hours were over, and it was time to leave.

Corinne told me all this later. I don’t mess with the occult, and this is one of the reasons why. Except when I’m taping bird sounds. Just…bird sounds. Because, then, I sometimes get ghosts.

urban legend
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About the Creator

Tom Baker

Author of Haunted Indianapolis, Indiana Ghost Folklore, Midwest Maniacs, Midwest UFOs and Beyond, Scary Urban Legends, 50 Famous Fables and Folk Tales, and Notorious Crimes of the Upper Midwest.: http://tombakerbooks.weebly.com

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