Bloody Mary

Bloody Mary was written by Ted Phillips on October 10, 1998 for a sixth grade writing assignment. The story was based on the real life plan that Ted and his friend Jack had come up with for that year's Halloween, where they would test various urban legends. They were inspired by the recent film Urban Legends, but unlike the characters in the film, they made sure they had a number of contingency plans, should any of the legends prove true.

It all began when I went to Jack's house on Halloween night. After we turned his house into a haunt walk to scare all the little children, we went out trick-or-treating. We came back with sixty pounds of treats and prepared for the trick-or-treaters who would probably knock on the door at any second.

We ran upstairs and got his computer ready. I would lead the trick-or-treaters upstairs where they would sing along with Elmo's Song, a download Jack got from the internet. Near the end of the download were a bunch of gunshots, followed by "Shut up!" After the gunshots, when it said "Shut up," Jack would take his sharp plastic ax and swing it at the trick-or-treaters. (Of course he'd miss, otherwise he'd hurt them -- very badly). Then they would run scared down the stairs and out of the house, hopefully dropping some of their treats on the way.

Like always, when I sleep over his house we go to bed late, very late. Last time it was two A.M. Tonight, unlike the other nights I slept over, we didn't watch television until we fell asleep. Instead, we were trying to find out which urban legends were true and which ones weren't. We didn't do the one about the microwave, when it burns the flesh away; that was too disgusting.

We did the one with Pop Rocks and carbonated soda. I didn't want to do that either, but Jack wanted to prove his courage. I was afraid Jack's stomach would explode like the urban legend said it would. He told me that if it did and he died, I would inherit all his things: his cable box, video games, etc. I liked that idea, but I still didn't want to see my best friend die. He put the Pop Rocks in the soda, shook it up a bit, and poured it into his mouth. He swallowed it; nothing happened. The Pop Rocks dissolved in the soda before it reached his stomach, and no chemical reaction that involved an explosion took place.

Later, at midnight, Jack and I went into the bathroom, the lights off. (I held a can of soda, sprayed with insect repellant). We looked into the mirror, and said, "Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary." Suddenly, the mirror shattered. Slivers of glass scattered everywhere. There was a loud clang and a huge nick appeared in the tiles on the wall. It was Bloody Mary; she was invisible and had an ax.

Then there was another loud clang closer to us and a bigger nick in the wall. The clangs and nicks were crazy; everything got ripped to shread; everything except us. The door was locked. Jack felt a sharp pain in his arm, and blood gushed out. We heard something swoop around and we ducked; a big hole appeared in the door. Jack and I quickly crawled out and ran into his playroom. We locked the door shut, hid in the closet, and locked that too.

An ax was whacking into the door to the playroom, chopping it away. When Bloody Mary came in, "The Elmo Song" started playing on the computer: "This is the song, la la la, Elmo's Song." Then Bloody Mary threw her ax at the computer screen, shorting it out. She removed the ax from the wrecked monitor and plunged it through the closet door. I quickly pushed the door open, knocking Bloody Mary to the floor as she tried to pull her ax free. While she was down, Jack and I fled the room and slid down the banister to the downstairs.

Bloody Mary had no clue where we were now. She walked along the second floor hallway and bashed open the door to Jack and his brother Michael's bedroom with her ax. Michael woke up immediately. Knowing that Jack and I were going to summon Bloody Mary, that was the first thing he suspected. "Bloody Mary?" he called, a bit disheveled. His mattress split in half, and Michael fell in between the two pieces, the springs scraping him and stuffing burying him. Another swipe with the ax sent one half of the mattress out the window. Before anything could happen to him, Michael was out of the bedroom and halfway up the stairs to the attic. Bloody Mary took one step out of the bedroom and flung her ax at him, sending him flying through the air and through the back wall of the attic. He tumbled downward until he landed on his back in the pool.

Bloody Mary searched the top floor for Jack and I, ridding it of its inhabitants (in other words, his mother and father). She finally found her way downstairs and into the living room, where it was pitch black and there wasn't a sound to be heard -- until I bumped into that chair in the kitchen. It screeched along the floor making a horrible noise, like nails scraping on a blackboard.

She turned her head toward the kitchen and slowly made her way inside, ax in hand. She heard footsteps coming from near the table, and swung her ax around the area, chopping off the tops of the chairs and whacking into the table. Then a dish fell from the counter and shattered, as Jack and I hopped over it. Bloody Mary threw her ax in that direction, cutting into the stove. Gas oozed out... and ignited...

We heard the ticking of the stove releasing gas into the air and dashed for the door. Before Bloody Mary knew what was happening, the house exploded, a giant fireball lifted off the front wall of the house, and collapsed the floor, giving off huge fireworks and sparks. The front wall crashed into the cars across the street, which were right behind us, and plunged them into some other houses. The floor had collapsed onto Jack's grandmother's apartment, killing her.

The explosion had created bright lights with the fireball and all the sparks, so we were almost certain Bloody Mary was dead. But then, there was a whooshing sound of something twirling through the air, and something sliced into the roof of a car near us, exploding it. We heard someone nearing us and removing something from a piece of the car's roof.

Jack took a package of Pop Rocks from his pockets, and I held on to my can of soda. He opened the package at one end, and slid it on top of the soda can, and I shook it up. We had already tried this if you remember, but we just hoped that this time we would be lucky. We needed a perfect throw right into Bloody Mary's invisible face... and I threw the can...

There was a humongous explosion, with a fireball and bright streams of light; a loud bang and a strong wind, followed by quiet, indicated by her death.