“It was, when you were younger,” Black Mary says. She’s crawling through the snow with me.
“Feeling better?” I ask her.
Her eyes are like ice. “No.”
We make it to the porch. I’m on my knees, hesitating. Black Mary puts her hand on my shoulder.
“We can always go back if you want.”
I knock on the door. The bones in my hands feel like they’ll shatter from the cold.
A shadow moves in the window. I want to scream, and I do. Shadows hit and twist and bite. Shadows hurt you from the inside out.
The shadow opens the door. It is a woman. She looks at me and her hand goes to her mouth.
“Oh my goodness. Oh no,” she says. She calls over her shoulder for a blanket and some hot chocolate and the police. She looks back at me, reaching out with both hands. She touches my skin and we both draw back.
“Are you alone, sweetheart?”
Black Mary sweeps past her into the house. Red Mary sits on the porch, sucking her thumb.
“You’re too old to do that,” I tell her. I look back at the woman.
“My mom had a yellow house, I think. Do you know my mom?”
The blanket arrives. She spreads it out and I gingerly step into it, my eyes on Black Mary. She nods, and I let the woman wrap it around me and lead me inside.
“What’s your name, sweetie?” The woman is all eyes, taking in my tattered dress and ratted hair, the bruises and dried blood. I want to say that she should check on Red Mary, but the little girl seems happy. She seems okay.
My name. It’s been too long. I scribbled it on the page of a book once, but he threw all of the books away one day when he was angry.
“I can’t remember. I’m just one of the Marys.”
The woman’s voice is patient, carefully so. “One of the Marys? Which one?”
A man enters the room, saying something about the police being on their way. I see him and shrink back. He is big and tall and his hands could wrap around my throat so easily. The man looks like he wants to say something, but he only uses his big hands to pass a mug to the woman and then steps away.
“Which Mary?” the woman asks again. Her eyes are soft. She shows me that the mug is full of hot cocoa.
“I don’t know. Maybe White Mary. Do you think my mom will remember me?”
Red Mary taps the woman on her thigh. “We’re all Mary here,” she tells her, but the woman doesn’t look at her. Not once. She doesn’t even seem to notice.
Mercedes M. Yardley wears red lipstick and poisonous flowers in her hair. She has been published in John Skipp's Werewolves and Demons anthologies, The Pedestal Magazine, The Vestal Review, and A Cup of Comfort for Parents of Children with Special Needs. Mercedes is the Nonfiction Editor for Shock Totem Magazine.Visit her at http://www.mercedesmyardley.com.
EXHIBIT C
By David McAfee
Ah, good. Right on time, sweetheart. I’m gettin’ pretty good at measurin’ doses; I had your timin’ down perfect. Of course, it helped that I knew your weight, even if you tried to keep that shit secret. But I knew it. I always knew it, even when you’d lie and say a different number. I knew you were lyin’, I just didn’t care. I…
Oh, shit. Hold on. Let me get the tape recorder goin’…
There. Now we can start. So, didja miss me?
Damn! If you arch your back any harder you’re gonna break your spine, hon. Sorry, I shoulda told you about my little friend, there. His name is Merle, after Merle Haggard. He’s just a plain ol’ rat. Like him?
Right, right. Of course you don’t. You were always scared of rats. Pretty silly, if you ask me. The things are mostly harmless. That’s why I stuck Merle in there with you, so you could see he’s just a cute little furball. You guys are gonna get along fine.
Don’t bother strugglin’. Those cuffs held that cop for half a day before I finally did him a favor and broke his shins. They’ll hold you just fine. But, since I remembered how much you like kinky shit, I had ’em padded just for you. Whaddya think? Just like old times, right? Ha! Okay, maybe not so much. Still, you’re cuffed, and I’m standing next to you. That’s gotta bring back a few memories, don’t it? I know this ain’t the same as bein’ cuffed to the bed, but it’ll do. The bed is still upstairs, but I needed somethin’ different for the basement. Somethin’ stronger. Somethin’ that wouldn’t absorb the blood like a mattress.
That’s why you’re layin’ in a big marble box. Took me a while to make it, especially since I had to scrounge the marble from foreclosed houses and the like. I couldn’t just walk into Home Depot and ask for pieces to make a marble box three feet deep and six feet long. That woulda looked kinda funny, don’t you think? Woulda given the cops too much info, too. Took fuckin’ forever to cut the slabs and secure ‘em together, too. You wouldn’t believe how heavy that shit is. But it had to be marble. I know how much you like marble, plus blood just washes right off that shit. A little water, a little bleach, and presto! Clean as a freshly-wiped baby’s ass.
Oh, looks like Merle found your toe. Come on, now. It’s just a little nibble. No need for such a fuss.
You know, hon, you really should see your face right now. I’m tempted to take a picture so you can check out your expression, but that’s probably not a good idea. I dunno much about that shit, and I’d probably send the fuckin’ pic somewhere by accident, and that’d be the end of me. We don’t want that, do we? Of course not.
Anyhoo, I bet you’re surprised to see me again, ain’tcha? After all, it’s been six years since you met Brian and took off. What have you been up to? Oh, right. The gag. Sorry. I’m working on a new place that will let me stop using those things, but for now I can’t have you screamin’. The neighbors might hear. So far this setup has worked pretty good, at least it suited for the last few people. It should work just fine for you, too.
Don’t matter anyway. I know what you’ve been up to. It took me a long time to find you again, but once I tracked you down it was easy enough to see what you’ve been doin’ the last six years. For example, you taught my son that Brian is his father, and then you went and gave him a little brother. Still sittin’ on your ass at home, too. No job for you. Poor Brian. How many hours a week is that sap workin’ to keep you happy? 60? 70? What a dipshit. I might have to pay him a visit next. Nah, that’s probably a bad idea. It’s bad enough I grabbed you, but if he disappeared too, it’d point the cops right at me. They’re already lookin’ harder since I put that detective up on that cross. Did you see the news reports? I especially loved the shot from that one photographer; the one that showed the big metal cross stickin’ up outta the dirt with the detective’s body hangin’ from it. That shit was cool. It was a bitch gettin’ that damn cross out of the basement and planting it in the park like that, but it was worth it. They showed that picture on every TV news show from California to New York. I’m famous now.
And you always said I was a bum who’d never make anything of myself. Guess I showed you.
Merle sure seems to like your toe. No matter how many times you kick him away, he just keeps comin’ back. My fault. I forgot to feed him the last couple of days. Sorry, Merle.
It’s their own fault, really. That detective was a joke. Them givin’ my case to him was a slap in the face. Told me they didn’t take me serious. Made me realize I had to do somethin’ big to get their attention. It worked. But now that I got it, I gotta be extra careful. That’s why I have the saw, but we’ll get to that in a minute. First we’re gonna have a little fun.