Scary Mary (15 page)

“
This is my house! I make the
rules!”

“
No!” Mary cried. She needed to destroy
the locket now before more than just property damage and bruises
happened.

“
Arf! Arf!”

“
Chowder, go get the locket! The locket!
Go! Fetch!” She didn’t know if Chowder understood what she was
asking, but she had to try. Chowder barked again from the direction
of the hallway.

“
Mary, did you just ask the dead dog to
get the locket?” Rachel asked. She tumbled over the back of the
sofa and landed on the cushions with an oomph.

She got up and went toward the hallway. “Well,
why else did you bring him?”

The locket came streaking out toward her at
about six inches above the floor. She squatted down, and Chowder
ran straight to her. She took the locket. “Good boy,” she
murmured.

“
Rach, throw me the bag!”

She threw the small pouch of herbs to her, but
in midair, it did a right angle and flew into the kitchen.

“
Interception!” Kyle giggled from his
corner.

Mary gave him a ruthless glare, and he shut up.
She was running out of patience and stamina. She looked down at the
locket in her hand. ‘He’d kept her here. Close to his heart.’

She pried the locket open with her fingernails.
When she opened it, a cold blast of air hit her in the face. Inside
was a lock of blond hair.

“
You’ve imprisoned me long enough,
Ricky,”
said a new voice. It was female and not
happy.

The room started to fill with kinetic energy. A
windstorm began that knocked over vases and tore pictures off the
walls. From the overturned wastebasket, bits of paper swirled in
the brewing maelstrom.

“
Mary, what’s happening?” Rachel
yelled.

“
She’s unleashed another spirit,” Gran
answered from her chair.

“
Another one?”

“
I put up with your abuse for
three years, Ricky.”

“
Everybody meet Julie, Ricky’s former
wife.”

“
Baby, I only wanted you to
love me.”

“
Does that mean she’s on our side?” Rachel
asked.

“
And in my foolishness, I did
but not anymore. Time for payback.”

“
You could say that,” Mary
said.

The chaos in the room escalated. The floor began
to shake, and the furniture began to slide around the room. As much
as Mary wanted to give Julie a chance to get her due at Ricky, she
really didn’t want the ghosts to destroy the house in the
process.

“
Mary, watch out!” Gran shouted as her
chair came barreling toward her. Mary jumped out of the way and the
chair hit the wall with a resounding thud.

“
Are you all right?”

“
Yes, the chair took the brunt of
it.”

“
Do you have any ideas?” she yelled over
the howling wind.

“
Remember how I told you to never put
tinfoil or silverware in the microwave?” Gran called.

“
Yeah,” she answered in
confusion.

“
Well, this once you can.”

“
You mean?” she said, comprehension
dawning in her.

“
Do it, before this gets anymore out of
hand.”

“
I don’t see how that’s possible,” Rachel
yelled. She was crouched beside the sofa shielding herself from the
winds with a cushion.

“
Do you really want to find
out?”

“
Good point. Let’s nuke’em.”

She struggled to her feet and began to hobble
toward the kitchen. Rachel got up and put her arm around her waist
to help her walk. They fought their way to the kitchen. ‘Oh goody,
the kitchen,’ Mary thought with a grimace. Taking one step was a
mini-battle. The winds felt like they’d gotten to class four
hurricane status. It was amazing that the windows hadn’t shattered
yet. Kyle huddled in a small ball, staring wide-eyed at the chaos
around him. Mary didn’t spare him more than a glance as she and
Rachel made their way into the kitchen.

“
I just want to know one thing, Ricky. Why
did you kill me? Why did you decide to come home that day and put a
bullet in my head?”

“
Like you don’t know. Did you
think you could get away with cheating on me? I knew, and I decided
to put a stop to it.”

“
Cheated? Who would I cheat on
you with? One of your buddies? They were worse than you, and their
wives had the restraining orders to prove it.”

“
Not one my friends. That Paul
that kept calling here all the time and one time came to the Police
Department to pick you up. You spent the night with him, and don’t
you deny it!”

“
Yes, I spent the night with
Paul, and God, I wish I had slept with him, but I didn’t. Paul was
helping me. He was my psychiatrist, you bastard.”

“
Do you think this will work?” Rachel
yelled. They were almost to the microwave.

“
No, but it’s our only option!”

“
Then now or never.” Rachel staggered to
the counter. She wrenched open the microwave door and got out of
her way. Mary hurled the locket inside and slammed the door
shut.

“
How long?” she asked.

“
Does it matter?”

“
Right. Time to go, Ricky,” Mary called.
“You too, Julie,” she said to herself as she punched in
9999.

The cook light came on, and sparks began to go
off inside the microwave,

“
Mary, get—” Gran shouted.

“
Nooooo!”
Ricky
screamed.

Julie let out a long sigh.
“Free at
last...”

The protective glass exploded outward. The two
girls dropped to the floor. Small slivers of glass fell onto their
backs.

“—
out of the way,” she finished. The wind
suddenly stopped, and everything in mid-air hung motionless a half
second and then dropped. Gran untangled herself from the electrical
cord as it fell limp.

“
Is that it? Did we kill them? Again?”
Rachel asked in disbelief as she helped Mary to her feet. Mary was
having a hard time standing up. She couldn’t put any weight on her
bad ankle. It appeared to be already swelling.

She looked at the wreckage in the kitchen.
Sometime during the battle, the fridge had been flung open, and
food and drink hurled to the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. All
the cabinets were open and a few of the doors still swung slowly
back and forth. But it was silent. Gloriously silent.

Until the smoke detector went off.

She jumped back and hit the counter awkwardly,
banging her elbow and shifting to her bad ankle.

“
Kill it!” Rachel screamed and grabbed a
rolling pin.

“
Oh God.” Mary laughed and collapsed back
to the floor. A happy invisible dog instantly besieged
her.

Gran calmly came into the room, reached up to
the smoke detector, and wrenched out the battery. The incessant
beeping stopped.

Kyle staggered to his feet and looked at the
wreckage in horror. “What am I going to tell my parents?”

This sent Mary into another fit of giggles.

Rachel stepped over to him and grabbed his
shoulder. “You could tell them the truth. A homicidal ghost tried
to kill a girl from school, she saved your life, and in the
process, destroyed your house.”

“
We’ll help you clean up,” Gran said,
bending over and looking under the sink for cleaning
supplies.

“
I am not doing the microwave,” Rachel
declared.

“
Could we go to the hospital first?” Mary
pleaded from the floor.

“
Why?” Rachel asked.

“
So I can get my whole body
X-rayed.”

Chapter 14

Conclusions

"So how did you guys know to come here?" Mary
asked as Rachel helped her out to the station wagon to go to the
hospital.

"I saw the note on your locker. I was really
pissed that you didn’t tell me about it as soon as you came out to
lunch."

"I hadn’t seen it yet."

"Oh."

She gave Rachel a sideways glance. "I did want
to tell you when I saw it after lunch, but you’d stormed off."

Rachel sighed. "Oh jeez, I’m such a bad friend."
She opened the door and helped her get into the station wagon.

"No, you’re not. You were awesome today. So you
saw the note and called Gran?"

She nodded. "I was mad, but I knew you needed
help. You can’t do everything yourself."

Mary stretched out on the backseat and nodded.
"I know, and I will tell you everything. I’ll bore you to tears
with everything."

Rachel grinned. "If I start snoring, just poke
me." She smiled back.

"I expect to be told things too. Next time, you
will call me before facing something like this again," Gran said as
she got into the driver’s seat. Mary nodded again. She was
beginning to feel like a bobble head, but she deserved it. She
hadn’t been thinking when she’d rushed over.

Kyle got in the front passenger seat.

Mary gave her grandmother a questioning look
through the rear view mirror. Her grandmother just shook her head
minutely.

Gran started the car and turned to Rachel. "I’ll
be back shortly to help with the rest of the cleanup."

"You better. I might mix cleaning chemicals or
something. There are many reasons my family has a housekeeper."

She grinned and waved to Rachel as they drove
away. The grin slipped away when she turned and stared at the back
of Kyle’s head. Why was he coming with them? He should be helping
with clean up most of all.

~~ ~~ ~~

She sat in an uncomfortable silence beside Kyle
in the emergency room. At the house, Gran had looked at Kyle’s head
and cleaned the cut made by the lamp. It wasn’t bad enough for
stitches. Gran had interrogated him thoroughly about how he felt.
She’d looked closely at his pupils and declared that he didn’t have
a concussion. He didn’t need to see a doctor, but he’d come with
them to the hospital anyway.

He hadn’t said anything on the ride to the
hospital. After helping Mary fill out the insurance forms, Gran had
left to go back and finish helping Rachel clean-up. She didn’t know
why Kyle stayed with her. Gran hadn’t said anything about him
staying. She just left them sitting together with the promise to be
back in a couple of hours.

Well, if she was stuck with him, she took a deep
breath. “Could you tell me why you were wearing Ricky’s
locket?”

Kyle sat hunched over with his hands clasped
together. He shrugged his shoulders in response to her question.
“Just a dumb idea I guess.”

“
But how’d you end up with it in the first
place?”

He tilted his head back and stared at the
ceiling. “I found it when I went down to the basement after I heard
all this stuff crash down there. All these boxes had fallen over,
and when I started putting them back up, the locket sort of fell on
my shoulder. It scared the crap out of me. I thought it was a
freaking snake. When I reached down to pick it up, I thought I
would show it to Mom, but when I picked it up, I changed my mind. I
decided to wear it, and I got meaner everyday that passed until I
couldn’t hold in the hatred anymore.”

She sat there in shock. She knew exactly which
day he was talking about. She’d lured him into the basement by
riling Ricky up. “Ricky decided for you to wear the locket. You
didn’t have a chance from the get go.” She wasn’t sure if her words
were to reassure him or herself.

“
Then I was possessed or
something?”

Her eyes slid to him. “That’s what I think. Or
did you really want to go twelve rounds with me?”

“
Oh God,” Kyle said, putting his head in
his hands. “I can’t believe I did all that. I mean I really wanted
to hurt you.”

“
Hey,” she said, grabbing his shoulder.
“You didn’t want to hurt me. It was Ricky. I don’t blame
you.”

“
Still, you’re not supposed to hit girls.
Hitting on them is fine, but…”

Mary smiled. Even if it had been Kyle’s body
that had terrorized her for the past couple of days, it hadn’t been
Kyle, the person. She was beginning to like Kyle, the person, or at
least, she didn’t want him to suffer bodily harm.

“
I should’ve been stronger,” he
murmured.

“
It wasn’t your fault.”

Kyle shook his head. It would take him a little
while to get over it, but she was positive he would. A nurse came
over to them, pushing a wheelchair. “Miss Hellick, we’re ready to
see you now.”

“
Thanks,” she said. With Kyle’s and the
nurse’s help, she got into the wheelchair. Her ankle had swollen to
the size of a grapefruit, and the tiniest weight on it hurt like a
thousand bee stings. As the nurse prepared to take her to an
examination room, she turned back to Kyle. “Go home and help with
the clean-up. Tell your parents you accidentally destroyed the
microwave. They’ll believe you. Don’t worry about it. It’s all
over.” He nodded.

“
Mary?” he called.

She turned back again.

“
Thanks, you know, for saving me and
stuff,” he said, suddenly self-conscious. She smiled.

“
No problem.”

~~ ~~ ~~

She sat silently in the front seat of the
station wagon on her way to school. The doctors had said she
shouldn’t do a lot of walking for the next month. Yep, she had
sprained her ankle and was using crutches in the meantime.