MARY

Write a title here. Click to edit.

Mary fell asleep on Connie's couch while they were watching an old movie. My Favorite Year with Peter O'Toole and Mark Linn-Baker was just the tonic for the weirded out souls after Mary's dinner time revelations, but the whiskey did them both in before O'Toole's sword was sheathed at the end. 

They didn't talk much during the film, but both women were lost in thought. Connie was worried for her friend on several levels, but didn't know what to do or say for her. She also had an insatiable curiosity to see the fan. More than see it, she wanted to feel it. 

While Connie couldn't say for sure that she believed in talking spiders, she did believe Mary. If Mary said it happened, it did. Of that much, she was sure, but was it real or was it just a hallucination of some sort. Either way, the next day was looming on her mind during the lighthearted comedy flickering on the television screen. 

Connie had heard Mary lightly snoring next to her and covered her with an afghan her mother had knitted before turning off the TV and lights in her cozy living room. Sometimes Mary shared her bed when they had sleepovers, but usually they would end up falling asleep on the big L-shaped couch. 

As she got herself ready for bed, she thought she heard Mary stir, but then there was only silence coming from the living room. Within two minutes of her head hitting her pillow, Connie was asleep, too. It was just after 10:30pm and the house was quiet. 

At 1:12am, Mary sat up on the couch and stared into the darkness. Discombobulated and still a little drunk, She reached around for her phone to see the time. It felt like she had been asleep for days, but it had only been about three and a half hours. 

There was a text message on her phone. Mary rubbed her eyes and stared as closely as she could muster at the number the message was from. It was her home number. 

That's impossible, she thought to herself. But sure enough, it was her number. The was no text in the message but there was a video. Mary was afraid to press play, but she did anyway. The video itself was only a ten or fifteen seconds long, but it was enough to end Mary's night of sleep. 

She rushed into Connie's room and woke her friend up. 

"You have to see this," Mary said, shaking. 

Connie took the phone from Mary's trembling hands and stared in disbelief. It was the fan. Spinning slowly and the light was blinking on and off, on and off, on and off. The pattern repeated itself three times during the duration. 

"It's Morse Code, I'm sure of it," Connie said after the two friends had collected themselves. 

The initial shock, plus the late hour, had made it tough to focus. 

"Why do you think that?" Mary asked. 

"One of my students did a report on Morse Code a few years ago and did a little demonstration of how it would work by using a flashlight. Play it again." 

Mary fumbled with her phone and started the video. 

"See, look. The light does long and short pulses. It's starts with short, short, long, short. Then there is a pause. Then it does short, short, long. Then another pause, then long, short, short, short, pause, shit. We need to write this down." 

"Do you have a pad in here?" 

"Yes, over on my night stand. If there isn't a pen or pencil, there's one in the drawer." 

Mary crawled across the king size bed and grabbed the pad. There was a pencil next to it and a grocery list started on top page. Without thinking, Mary flipped to the next page and said, "Start it again." 

Connie read off the sequence again and added the last few bits. 

"Hey Siri," Mary said. 

"Mm-hmm," replied the robot. 

"Tell me about Morse Code." 

Mary's phone was directed to a website with a breakdown of the Code, including all 26 letters of the alphabet and numbers one through ten. Connie read off the tablet and they deciphered the message. 

It read: F - U - Both. 

This made Mary giggle and then Connie started to laugh. 

"Eff us? Eff you, motherfucker. You're fucking with the wrong ladies," Connie choked out between chuckles. 

Mary looked at her friend and collapsed backwards into the pillows behind her. 

"Is somebody fucking with me?" she asked. 

Connie just kept on laughing and handed Mary her phone which was now vibrating. 

"Looks like you have another message." 

The color drained out of Mary's face when she heard Connie's words. 

"Fucking hell. Is it the fan again?" 

"It's your phone. Besides, I don't want to look. He knows I'm involved," Connie replied. 

Mary took the phone from Connie and stared at the screen intently. She selected her text messages and sure enough, there was another message from her home phone. It was also a video. Mary did not want to hit play, but she did feel safe there in Connie's bedroom, so she lined her finger up with the button and pressed down. 

The screen shifted to the video. It was Mary's kitchen. The lights were on and everything seemed normal, but Mary muttered to herself and Connie, "Who is filming these things and why are they fucking with me?" 

As if on cue, the lights went out and the screen went dark. Mary could barely make out the shape of the island just off the kitchen door. There seemed to be movement on the top of the island. She and Connie leaned forward to try and get a better look. 

The light snapped on again and the island was covered with a sea of small, brown-ish red spiders. The camera zoomed in on them and the iPhone screen was suddenly full of them, crawling all over each other and the tile countertop. 

Some of the spiders were clearly eating other spiders and for a second, it seemed like one of them was peering directly into the camera as it ate the eyes of it's brother or sister. Mary put her free hand over her mouth to stifle a scream, but Connie wasn't so lucky. She let out a combination groan/scream that Mary not only heard, but she felt it, too. 

The lights flickered again at the spiders were gone. The video ended a few seconds later and Mary and Connie sat there in silence for what seemed like an hour. 

"Um. We need to get some sleep." 

The fear and fatigue was obvious in Connie's voice. Mary didn't want to overwhelm her friend any further. She felt terrible for involving her in this, whatever it was. 

"You're right, Con. I'm bunking with you, though, if that's okay. Let's sort this out in the morning." 

"If we can. Right now, I don't know. I'm scared, Mary. That video was fucking weird." 

"I know. Let's get some sleep ... and thank you. I'm sorry." 

"Don't be. I love you. We'll get through this," Connie said, sounding even wearier than before. 

Mary didn't believe the last statement, though. She looked up at the ceiling just before Connie turned out the light on her bedside table. 

There was a tiny spider dangling from a web attached to the ceiling. 

"Please turn the light back on, Connie. Just for a second." 

Connie turned the light on and turned to Mary. 

"What is it? What's wrong." 

"Look up." 

Connie squinted to focus on the ceiling and saw the spider. It had gotten a bit lower and was hovering about three feet above them. 

"I don't think that's a black widow, Mar." 

"So what. It's still weird." 

"I know. Let me get rid of it." 

Connie got up onto her knees, grabbed a Kleenex from the box near her lamp, and reached toward the spider with one hand. She intended to squish it in the tissue but as she got close to it, the spider disappeared. 

"What the...?" 

There was no web and no spider anymore. It simply vanished. 

"You saw it, too, right?" Mary asked. 

"I did. I wanted to crush it." 

"We're going crazy, but at least it's crazy together." 

"One thing, though." 

"What's that?" 

"Is there anything you didn't tell me yet?" Connie asked. 

"No. You know what I know." 

Connie was quiet again. She reached over and turned out the light. When the darkness settled across the room, Connie said, "That fan is fucking with the wrong broads." 

This made Mary laugh, which made Connie laugh, and they settled in for what would be a deep sleep. 

​

While Connie snored next to her, which was almost comforting, Mary tossed and turned. She went from one fitful dream to another. It was like a barrage of horrible imagery between staring out the ceiling, looking for imaginary spiders. In one blast of subconscious moviemaking, Mary was trapped in a classroom and the students were all growing spider legs before chasing her around the room. 

Around 8:30am, Connie woke up to find the bed was empty. She went out into her kitchen and Mary was sitting at the table drinking coffee and looking intently at her phone. 

"Any more videos?" she asked. 

"No," Mary replied. "No more videos. I feel like there has to be some clues, though. Someone was filming these things, right?" 

"Who would want to hurt you like this, though?' 

Mary looked at Connie. She could read her friend as well as she could read anyone. Could she really be thinking that this was not the work of another person? Mary didn't know what was going on here, but she wasn't ready to believe that there was something going on that could not be easily explained. 

While she was laying awake, Mary wondered if Randy was messing with her somehow. He was known for the occasional practical joke. In fact, he had pulled some pretty elaborate ones in the past, but this was just weird. Cruel, too, and that wasn't Randy's style. 

"I don't know, Con. I hope we can get some answers today, though. You still want to dig in?" 

"You bet I do. First, though, we got some fans to take down." 

Connie told Mary she was going to grab some of Jim's tools and she would be back in the house in just a bit. As she walked to the storage room, the events of the previous evening ran through her mind. It dawned on her that Mary seemed numb to the second text message. 

What must she be feeling, Connie wondered. She had been searching now for hours for a logical explanation but she couldn't come up with anything other than it was some cruel prank being played on Mary, and now her. She decided to focus on gathering tools. 

She grabbed Jim's old tool box. He loved that thing. He called it his "Trusty Rusty" since it had a little bit of rust at the corners on one side. Connie picked up Trusty Rusty and set it on the work bench Jim had built during the first year they lived in the house. 

Connie opened the well-worn box to see what was inside and what she would need. There was a folded piece of lined paper on the top tray. It looked like the type of note her students would sometimes pass to each other when they thought she wouldn't notice. 

This was odd, Connie thought. She didn't remember there being any paper in there the last time she needed some tools. A few months earlier, she had needed to loosen an old, dead hose from the spicket in the front yard and had grabbed a pair of pliers from the box. 

Connie picked up the paper and unfolded it. It read: 

Mary, 

Don't do this. Don't get involved. 

Trust me. 

Love, 

Jim 

It was definitely Jim's handwriting. 

Connie sat down hard on the storage room floor, bruising her tailbone, but the pain didn't register. She'd feel it later and wonder what had happened. At that moment, though, her mind went to Jim. 

The note was in her trembling hands. Connie read it over and over. Even though Jim had been gone for a long time, there was still a dull ache that occasionally surrounded her heart. Now it was throbbing and the pain of losing him was enveloping her body as quickly as her silent sobs racked her torso. 

When he was still alive, Jim would often leave Connie little notes around the house. He would even slip them into her school bag so she would find them during the day sometimes at work. Jim was always thoughtful like that, taking care of her without needing to be asked. Even after his death, she was often finding things that he had done to make her life easier. 

This note was something Jim would have done. Connie remembered a time when she had to deal with a snotty asshole from the cable company. He had left her a note on the fridge that day saying something like, "You got this, babe. Don't take any shit! Love you." 

"Why?" Connie said out loud. 

She repeated herself a few more times, wiping off the tears with the sleeve of her robe. She stood up slowly and grabbed a few things she knew she would need to take down the fans. For some reason, she put the note back in the tool box before closing it up. As much as she wanted to forget about this whole situation, she just couldn't turn her back on Mary. She knew she had to help, but there was something else. 

She was also afraid. 

​

Mary knew something was wrong when Connie came out with the tool box and a few other supplies. 

"What's wrong, Con?" 

"The fan struck again." 

"What do you mean?" 

"There was a note from Jim in the tool box telling me to not get involved." 

Mary looked at Connie and her heart broke in two. 

"This has gone to far, Con. I'm so sorry." 

"You don't need to keep apologizing, Mary. We just need to end this today. We are going to get dressed, go to your house, take down those fans, and destroy them. I'll buy you new ones and we'll get a goddamn priest to bless the motherfuckers." 

Connie's voice had shifted into her pissed off teacher voice by the last sentence. All Mary could do was nod her head and get up. 

"I'll be ready in five minutes. You take all the time you need," Mary said. 

Mary headed to the guest bathroom and let Connie have some privacy as she got dressed. While she was in the bathroom, Mary looked at herself in the mirror and didn't like what she saw. Her mirror image reminded her of stranger and the person looking back at her looked like someone she could not trust. 

She realized she was feeling some resentment toward her friend. Why couldn't she have just taken the bull by the horns on Wednesday and taken her trusty softball bat to the fan, she wondered. She could have ended that piece of shit and she and Connie could have been commiserating about a good whiskey hangover right now instead of this... this feeling she had. 

Connie knocked softly on the door. 

"You ready?" 

"Yep. Be right out," Mary replied, but she was not ready. She didn't know if she would ever be ready for what they were about to do. As she stepped out of the bathroom, she said something she never would have thought she would have ever said again: 

"Please God. Please watch over us." 

Mary helped Connie load up the tools in the back of her car and then she followed Connie over to her house. Each of the women needed the time on the short drive to collect themselves. The ten minute ride was probably not enough time to really prepare, but it was something. 

Grim determination oozed from Connie as she drove down the familiar streets. She was pissed. Whoever or whatever that was fucking with Mary was now fucking with her and she did not like to be fucked with. You don't teach middle school for as long as she did without developing a pretty thick skin, but she had no patience left for this kind of crap. 

In her mind, Connie was ready to take care of business. She envisioned walking into Mary's house, grabbing a stepladder and getting straight to work. She could see herself dismantling the fans and handing Mary pieces to be destroyed. A bonfire, she thought to herself, then aloud, she said, "We need to burn that shit." 

Mary stared at the back of Connie's Honda and tried to calm her nerves. She was afraid of what they were walking into and the feeling was terribly uncomfortable for her. No one should be afraid to go home, Mary thought, but even she knew that was way more common than people knew. 

Over the years, Mary had talked to hundreds of students who were afraid to go home. Those conversations were never easy, and often there was very little she could do except hope for the best, but she now realized how badly she had failed at making it easier for the students with her jibber jabber about being strong and making sure they came to talk to her if things changed or got worse. 

Mary realized now that when you're scared, you don't need someone telling you to be strong. You need someone to hold your hand and let you know that they are really there next to you, supporting you, and understanding what you are going through. She felt such love for Connie at that moment that it immediately led to strong, soul crushing regret. 

There would never be another day for Mary where she did not regret involving her friend in her situation. 

"Go ahead, Mar. Unlock the damn door," Connie said with a tone in her voice that was a mix of anger, excitement, and impatience. 

Mary fumbled with her keys, afraid of what she was going to see when she opened the door. The images from the previous night's videos ran through her head. Part of her expected spiders to spill out of the door when she opened it. 

There was nothing there, though. 

When Mary and Connie stepped through the door, the house looked peaceful and quiet. There was no hint of spiders anywhere and, most importantly, it felt like Mary's house again. Even Connie felt a tinge of relief, although she was ready to get busy and start taking fans down. 

Connie set the tools down on the kitchen table which was adjacent to the island, which had been covered with spiders in the video. She kept waiting to see something scurrying around in her peripheral vision, but it was quiet. It was almost nice. 

"I have to admit, Con, that I wasn't expecting things to look like this. I was expecting to see something terrible." 

"Do you think it knows that?" 

It felt strange to hear Connie refer to whatever was creating this situation as "It." 

"It is an 'it', isn't it?" asked Mary. 

"Honestly, I have no idea, but I don't see how a person could have done all the things we saw...(She paused)…or thought we saw last night. I mean, did you even know that Jim used to leave me little notes all the time?" 

"I would have never thought about that, no." 

"Let's go take down some fans, Mar. Let's put this behind us." 

"Okay. I'll get the ladder from the shed. Do you need anything else?" 

"A gun?" 

"I can't tell if you're joking or serious. To be honest, I kind of wish I had one." 

"I'm only half joking. When this is over, you are going to owe me a lot of drinks." 

"When this is done, we are getting very drunk and I am definitely buying." 

Mary opened the door to the backyard and stepped out on the porch. The fans were not moving. In fact, the entire backyard, including the beautiful new porch was perfect. Immaculate, even, which was odd because Mary had not cleaned up her mess from her weeding the previous Wednesday. She had avoided doing anything in the backyard except for taking out the garbage the previous day. 

"At least it cleans up," Mary joked. 

"What do you mean?" 

"I left a big mess the other day when I was doing the weeding and stomping on egg sacks." 

"That's fucking odd." 

"I don't get it. Traumatize us and then clean up. What the hell?" 

"Get the ladder, Mar." 

There was that tone again. Mary wondered if Connie was really angry with her. She did have a right to be and Mary really couldn't blame Connie for being upset. This whole thing was weird and upsetting and, well, just plain scary. Mary had brought this into Connie's life. 

Mary did as she was told and grabbed the ladder from the shed. While she was in there, she thought about grabbing the pickaxe, just in case. It was a smaller one and Mary used it when she was turning over garden beds every other year or so. It could certainly make short work of the fans. It would feel really good to just smash the hell out of the fan. 

As Mary walked back toward the porch, she could see that Connie was taking tools out of trusty rusty. She also noticed that each of the three fans had started to turn, albeit slowly. Was there a breeze, she wondered? 

But she didn't feel anything.