Resurrection Mary 2

by Kim EM
© 2002, All rights reserved

This story will make more sense if you read "Resurrection Mary" first. Not much more sense, mind you, but enough.

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The night was young, after all, and it was Halloween. I stepped through the front door, and stopped at the near end of the bar. There was a drink, a Bloody Mary sitting there, already set up. I sat in front of it, and without thinking reached for the glass. The bartender suddenly noticed me, and began, "Wait!..." His voice died as he looked at me. The others in the place saw that he was standing with his jaw hanging open, and they turned to look and see what he saw. Which was me holding the Bloody Mary.

I calmly looked back, and with one smooth motion raised the glass to my lips and drank. One of the patrons, who had the look of a regular, hesitantly shambled up to me, and said "Um, you-- you know why the drink was on the bar?"

I silently looked at him, and waited for him to continue. He stood there, looking nervous, as though he thought that maybe he should return to his station at the far end of the bar.

Finally he cleared his throat and went on, "We-- Chet, that is, the owner, he keeps a Bloody Mary there in case she returns."

I broke my silence. "She?" My voice sounded rusty, like it was frozen by long disuse.

"Mary. Resurrection Mary. People say that she'll stop in here for a drink, someday-- the day she finally..." He trailed off, looking seriously spooked, and then, mumbling to himself, made his way to the far end of the bar.

I signaled the bartender, and when he saw he blanched and carefully walked towards me, walking as though on eggshells in a minefield. When he reached me I asked, "What's this business about Resurrection Mary? I mean, I know the legends, but what's the deal with the drink? And why is everyone so scared?"

He gave me a hard look, and then visibly relaxed. "It's-- She's reputed to have been quite the party girl when she was alive, and the story around here is that when she does finally find her peace, she'll stop in here for a drink before she moves on."

I laughed gently. "And you thought that..."

He interrupted, red-faced. "Sorry 'bout that. What with it being Halloween and all, the fellows get a mite spooked when someone comes in late at night. And when you walked right up to her drink, and then took a sip, well..."

"Her drink," I asked, "how does that work?

"Just a superstition. We leave a Bloody Mary on the bar for her, just to ward off bad luck and to welcome her if she ever does come in."

"Well," I said, "it's a fascinating story, but I guess I have to be going. I've got a long way to travel and I'd better get started. How much do I owe you for the drink?"

As I took a last sip, he shook his head and said, "It's on the house. After the reception you got, it's the least I can do."

"Thanks," I replied calmly. I set the glass down and stepped away from the bar, smoothing my dress as I did so. In the mirror I could see that my long blonde hair was undamaged by the passing years, and smiled to myself.

As I left, there was dead silence behind me for a moment, then the normal late-night barroom sounds returned. Out in the cool and quiet, I knew things had gone horribly wrong last year. When he touched me at the gate, we would merge. We should have merged. I had never intended this to happen.

I expected there to be two of us, sharing one head and getting to know each other. But Richard was gone. I had the sinking feeling that he was dead, taking my place in the beyond. I never wanted, never meant to kill him. I just wanted to come back so I could have fun again. And now, a year later, I had returned to find out... what?

I’d been hitchhiking on Halloween for sixty-three years, borrowing a new body each year, returning it the following Halloween. This past year, though, things went wrong. And now here I was, apparently the sole possessor of this body, returning to the scene of my crime.

I walked back to the rental car, planning to head east on Archer, back into the city. I wasn’t sure where I was going; my family was long-gone, but I needed to be around people. Driving up the near-deserted street would suit my sense of humor, as well. So many years my spirit form had hitchhiked on this night, I almost wondered if I’d find Richard along the side of the road, looking for a body to borrow.

As I reached for my keys, a noise at the rear of the car drew my attention. Standing there was a man – well, I assumed it was a man – wearing dirty jeans and sweatshirt, scraggly beard and long, greasy hair. He stood stock-still, staring somewhere below my neckline, a broad grin on his unpleasant face. I stared back, trying to intimidate him from doing anything, hoping he wasn’t what he appeared. Unfortunately, my intimidation didn’t seem to work.

"Hello, Girlie."

I sighed and resumed digging into my purse for my keys, coming up empty. Where the hell had they gone to? As I glanced down, he moved swiftly along the side of the car, grabbing for my arm. I ducked and stepped back, and his momentum carried him past me towards the front of the car. I looked around, but there was nobody else in the lightless parking lot, and no headlights on Archer Avenue.

As he recovered his balance and turned, I looked for cover, but there was nothing nearby, and he was now between me and the bar entrance. I figured I had one chance, to scream for help and then try and evade him until people from in the bar came out to help.

I let loose with a piercing yell just as a blast of music came from the building. Terrific. I ran, as fast as I could in heels, my only salvation coming from the fact that he didn’t have much of a reaction time. I heard a confused noise from behind me as I fled, and then the sound of lumbering footsteps crunching their way across the gravel lot.

I ran east, diagonally across the avenue, heading for the only shelter I could see, the main gate of Resurrection Cemetery. As I neared the entranceway, I could see patches of wet leaves on the darkened pavement, and I resolved to avoid them. I rounded the gatepost at the driveway’s beginning, and realized that I’d just run into a ready-made pen, with the only entrance the one my attacker was now approaching. I half-turned, and saw him ready to grab me, and then my turn led me onto one of those selfsame patches of wet leaves. My feet skidded out from under me, and I came to a painful landing on the asphalt.

He overshot and ran full-tilt into the barred gate. I started to raise myself from the pavement, fully expecting to see him lunging for me, but instead I saw him retreating in fear from the figure of a man at the gate. He backed away from the man, unheeding my presence on the ground, and as the man from the gate grabbed for him, the attacker tripped over my legs and fell heavily atop me, and the other man fell atop him, plunging headfirst into the attacker’s body, and I felt my body melt away in a blinding flash of light.

***

Once I recovered from the shock, I saw that where there had once been three of us, now were two. Sitting dazedly on a pile of leaves was... me.

I looked down at my own body, expecting the worst, and that’s what I found. I was now in a male body, and not that of the scum who’d attacked me.

The other me shook her head as if to clear it, looked around and then focused on me. She looked down at her body and screamed, enough sound to raise the dead, although that’s perhaps not the best way to put it. She finally quieted and stared back and forth at me and then at her own form, seemingly trying to figure out what had happened.

As I watched her, I had a mental image of the man who’d fallen into the attacker, and of course I had to ask.

"Richard?"

She nodded, then took her head in both hands.

This was going to be a long Halloween.