Mary Had a Little Scare Read online

  Mary had a little Scare

  Pineville Gazette #3

  Wendy Meadows

  Like Cozies and Sweet Romance?

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Thanks for Reading

  About the Author

  Read more by Wendy

  1

  Mary peered through the front windshield of her 1936 Chevy Slantback car watching a pair of windshield wipers struggling to push heavy rain out of the way.

  “My, what a night,” she said, easing off the gas pedal as the car slumped down into a dip, fought through a puddle of water, and carried on down a dark and rainy road like a lost child wandering into a dangerous, mysterious forest. Sagging wet trees hugged both sides of the road, hiding unseen, rural countryside covering a remote part of Maine. The trees appeared to be grabbing at the car with hideous claws, hissing and taunting Mary as she fought her way down the rainy road. Of course, trees didn’t have claws and couldn’t hiss, Mary reminded herself, but still, she felt—the night felt—eerie.

  “Are we on the right road?” she asked Betty.

  Betty was fighting with a crumpled up road map, doing her best to straighten it; the map was obviously winning the battle. “I…think so,” she told Mary in a distraught voice.

  And distraught she was. Not only was she dressed in an ugly purple and white-striped dress Mary swore was lovely, she was now somehow lost in the ugly purple and white-striped dress. And to make matters worse, she was lost in Maine, miles and miles away from home. Oh, what a night.

  “My cousin’s house is supposed to be…somewhere close by,” Betty insisted.

  Mary kept her eyes on the road like a mysterious figure lurking in the night, dressed in a gray and white detective’s dress with her hair wrapped in a tight bun, ready for danger. Only Mary didn’t feel like a daring detective. She felt…eerie. “I think we should admit to ourselves that we’re lost.”

  “Oh,” Betty exclaimed in a sorrowful voice as she fought with the map, “I didn’t mean to get us lost, Mary. Honest I didn’t.”

  “I know that,” Mary assured her best friend. “Sometimes people get lost. That’s part of life.”

  Betty lowered the map and studied the rainy windshield. “The funeral is the day after tomorrow,” she told Mary in a sad voice. “It’s hard to believe that my Aunt Gennifer is dead.”

  Mary glanced over at Betty and then focused back on the road. “Why did your Aunt Gennifer move to Maine?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Betty confessed. “One minute she’s living in northern Tennessee happier than a flea on a dog. Then, one day, she calls my mother and announces she’s moving to Maine. No reason was given.” Betty sighed. “My cousin Brenda, who never married, bless her heart, left Tennessee and followed her mother to Maine.”

  “Curious,” Mary admitted. “Not that I’m implying anything bad. I only know about your Aunt Gennifer and cousin Brenda from what you’ve told me, and both sounded like…curious people.”

  “Eccentric is the word.” Betty sighed again and began trying to fold up the map. “My Aunt Gennifer married a very wealthy man who was eccentric himself…or so Mother tells me. Mother, unfortunately, has a story to whisper about anyone, I’m afraid.”

  Mary grinned. Betty’s mother was known for her wild imaginings. Mary found the wild imaginings of a harmless woman quite amusing—but oh dear, Mary could never say that out loud. Why, Betty’s mother would simply never forgive her.

  “Well,” Mary said, “at least we—” She stopped talking when a bright bolt of lightning flashed down from the sky and struck a tall tree just ahead. “Hold on!” she yelled and slammed on the brakes as the tree burst into flames. The car began to fishtail and skidded off the wet road into a shallow ditch hood first, landing in a shallow pool of water.

  “Oh my,” Mary said, feeling as if her heart would jump out of her chest at any second, “did you see that?” Betty didn’t answer.

  “Oh…no,” Mary whimpered and forced her head to turn right. Betty was slumped forward in her seat, unconscious. The poor thing had fainted. “No,” Mary moaned. She forced her hands off the steering wheel and looked around. The burning tree appeared like a red blur through the windshield, but Mary knew the flames were no match for the pouring rain. And to her relief, the rain began dousing the tree like wet soldiers attacking a fiery fort.

  “Oh, Betty,” Mary sighed and then began trying to back out of the ditch. The back wheels spun, digging into wet ground. Mary closed her eyes and sighed. “Stuck.”

  With Betty unconscious and her car stuck in a ditch, Mary knew she didn’t have many options to choose from. So she did what any reasonable woman trapped on a rainy, dark road would do: She opened the driver’s side door and stepped out into ankle deep water and evaluated the situation.

  “Oh dear,” Mary said, spotting the front of her car sitting in water while the back wheels were barely standing on bare earth. There was no way in the world Mary was going to be able to back her car out of the ditch—the car was right and good stuck. “Oh!” Mary pouted and folded her arms as the pouring rain soaked her hair and dress.

  A little moan came from inside the car. Betty slowly opened her eyes and managed to look to her left, where she saw Mary standing outside next to the open driver’s door. “Mary…Mary…what…happened?”

  Mary leaned down and stuck her head into the car. “Lightning struck a tree…we ran off the road into a ditch,” Mary explained, hoping the bad news wouldn’t cause her best friend to faint again. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so.” Betty moaned and lifted her right hand up to her forehead. “I remember you yelling…and then everything went black.”

  Mary eased back down into the driver’s seat and kicked water off her shoes. “Honey,” she said and braced for the worst, “we’re…stuck in a wet ditch. I don’t think I can drive my car back onto the road.”

  “Oh my,” Betty moaned and began rubbing her forehead. “Lost…trapped…on a dark road…in Maine…on our way to a…funeral.”

  Betty’s words forced horrible images into Mary’s troubled mind. She looked out into the dark woods and saw red, glowing eyes appear, along with hideous fangs dripping with hunger. Next her eyes saw vicious, terrifying monsters crawling out of the dark woods, howling, screaming, hissing…reaching for the car with sharp, hairy claws. The monsters were numerous, dashing from one shadowy tree to the next before charging at the car. “Mary…we’re coming for you, Mary…coming for you…coming for you.”

  Mary squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head. “Stop it,” she begged, “stop it right now.”

  Betty obviously didn’t hear Mary’s plea and continued stumbling down a spooky path filled with unknown horrors. “A funeral…casket…a dead…body,” she whispered in a panicked voice.

  Mary opened her eyes and watched the heavy rain soak the windshield. “Betty,” she pleaded, “we need to focus on our situation and not allow our imaginations to run away with us.”

  “Dead…body,” Betty whispered again.

  In her mind, Mary saw a dead body sit up in a creepy funeral home casket. She shivered all over. “Betty, we need to focus,” she said again. Instead of waiting for a response that would invite more frightening images into her already scared mind, Mary crawled back out
into the rain, stepped down into the ankle-deep water, and studied the night.

  “Okay…what would John do?” she asked herself, feeling the rain water soaking her face. “It’s obvious that this road isn’t well traveled—at least not at this time of night—which means we can’t stay in this spot until morning.” Mary looked down at the water. “This ditch could become more flooded by the hour,” she worried. “The rain is certainly not going to stop anytime soon.” Mary walked her eyes toward the road and sighed. “Betty,” she called out, “we have a long walk ahead of us.”

  “Walk?” Betty asked in a voice filled with dread.

  “Walk.” Mary carefully made her way to the rear of the car, forced the trunk open, and grabbed out a brown suitcase. “Come get your suitcase.”

  “Oh my,” Betty fretted. She opened the passenger’s side door, stepped out into the rain and ankle-deep water, let out a miserable cry, and hurried to the back of the car. “Mary, we’re going to drown!” she exclaimed and pointed down at the flooded ditch.

  “Oh, the water is only ankle deep,” Mary assured Betty, determined to keep a clear and focused mind even though she felt like every hideous monster the mind could imagine was watching her from the deep, dark woods. “Now, take your suitcase.”

  Betty took the brown suitcase and watched Mary as she reached back into the trunk and pulled out a gray suitcase. “Okay,” Mary said as she slammed the trunk closed, “let’s get our purses and start walking. I’m sure there must be a house close by.”

  Betty gulped, worked her way back to the front of the car, helped Mary retrieve two purses, and then crawled up to the wet road. The first thing she noticed as she stared north was how dark—how utterly dark—the night was. She could barely make out Mary’s sweet face.

  “We’ll continue north,” Mary said and started walking.

  “North…of course,” Betty agreed in a shaky voice, staying as close to Mary as possible. As she started walking away from the ditch she glanced back at Mary’s car and sighed. “North is better when you’re riding in a safe car instead of walking in the rain down a dark and scary road.”

  “I know,” Mary said, trying to adjust to the heavy rain falling down from a marble black sky. With each step, Mary began to feel like she was becoming trapped in a horror book. “I’m sorry I panicked and ran us off the road. I should have sped past the tree. It was foolish of me to panic.”

  “I’m sorry I fainted…again,” Betty told Mary, looking into the dark woods. “Uh…Mary…do you think there are any bears around?” she asked.

  “Bears?” Mary suddenly stopped walking and searched the darkness. “Well…it is getting close to autumn…bears are probably getting ready for their winter hibernation…”

  “Bears eat a lot before they hibernate,” Betty pointed out.

  “I know,” Mary said in a nervous voice. She squeezed the handle on her suitcase and started walking again, a little faster than before. “Betty, we need to think positive,” she said, keeping her eyes forward. “If we harm our minds with negative thinking, we’ll only…hinder any chance in locating help,” she finished, struggling to sound mature and calm.

  “Think positive,” Betty said. “Yes, that’s what we’ll do…think positive.” Only Betty couldn’t bring her mind to focus on positive thoughts. She kept seeing a dead body lying in a casket and hungry bears running out of the woods accompanied by scary monsters. “I…should have brought the map,” she told Mary in a shaky voice. “There’s no telling how far we are from a main road…or town.”

  “Rain would have soaked the map,” Mary pointed out. “All we can do is keep walking. I’m sure we’ll come up on a house soon enough.”

  “It’s late,” Betty pointed out. “Even if we do find a house, I’m not sure the owner will open his door to two strange women.”

  Mary kept her eyes on the road. “We’ll tackle that bridge when we arrive,” she told Betty. As she took one step after another, the image of a warm and cozy kitchen appeared in her mind. She saw a sleepy Mary wrapped in a comfortable bathrobe sitting at a safe kitchen table sipping a cup of hot coffee while writing her husband a letter. “I wish we were back home in Tennessee,” she told Betty.

  “Me, too,” Betty agreed. “But Mother insisted I attend Aunt Gennifer’s funeral. She said it’s improper—and rude—for a family member not to attend another family member’s funeral.” Betty looked over at Mary. “Thank you for agreeing to come with me.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t let you come alone, now could I?” Mary forced a weak smile to her wet face. “I can just see John’s face now. Oh, he would be laughing himself silly at us girls. Trapped on a dark and rainy road…”

  “I don’t think our situation has very much humor in it,” Betty told Mary, holding onto her suitcase.

  “John has a very strange sense of humor,” Mary explained and actually heard herself laugh. “Oh, Mr. Serious pretends he doesn’t know how to smile but deep down he’s a clown. Why, he used to pull so many gags on me before he left for the war.”

  Betty nodded. “I remember when John put a fake dead frog in the sugar canister sitting on your kitchen counter. I was having breakfast with you and—”

  “You were the one who found the fake frog,” Mary laughed. “You fainted before John could tell you it was a gag.”

  Betty felt a pale smile touch her face. “I suppose it was funny.”

  Mary saw her husband’s handsome face appear in her mind. “John is far away flying bombing missions over Europe,” she told Betty, feeling her laughter drain from her heart. “He’s fighting the enemy instead of playing innocent gags.” Mary sighed. “I received a letter from him last week. He flew another mission.”

  “How many more missions before he reaches twenty-five?” Betty asked.

  “More than I care to say,” Mary answered, feeling the hard rain taunting her. “John said the mission he flew went well…but I know he would never tell me if something was wrong.” Mary looked at Betty. “Waiting for his letters is torment…wondering if the letter John sends me…will be his last.”

  “Oh.” Betty touched Mary’s hand. “I wish…oh, there’s nothing I can say to make you feel better.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Mary replied and grew silent. They walked for a steady mile without saying a word. Mary glanced at Betty from time to time, trying not to think of the war taking place outside of the safe haven of Tennessee. And then, suddenly, before her mind could think of what it would be like to receive a letter stating her husband had been shot down over Europe, she spotted an object standing on the right side of the road.

  “Is that a mailbox?” she asked.

  Betty squinted her eyes and spotted a black box sitting on a wooden post. “I think it is,” she said and hurried after Mary. Mary ran up to a mailbox that was very fancy and well designed. “It is a mailbox!” Betty exclaimed.

  Mary pointed to her right. “And look at that.”

  Betty struggled to see through the darkness and rain and spotted a tall brick wall running through the woods. In the middle of the wall stood a black iron gate. “My goodness. Who lives here…way out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  Mary bit down on her lip. “Only one way to find out,” she said. She drew in a deep breath and eased down a muddy driveway to the iron gate. Betty let out a frightened moan and chased after Mary.

  Mary handed Betty her suitcase, reached out her hands, and began exploring the black iron gate. “Goodness,” she said, “this gate is strong enough to keep an army out.”

  “Oh well,” Betty said in a quick voice, “I guess we’ll have to search for another house. Come on, Mary.”

  “Wait a minute,” Mary pleaded. She placed her eyes on a metal latch. “There’s no lock,” she said and carefully pushed up the metal latch. As soon as the latch left its seat the iron gate let out a rusty cry and creaked open just enough to allow a single person narrow entrance. “Well…I…” Mary said, staring at the gate. “I…guess we should see if anyone is hom
e?”

  Betty threw her eyes down the long, muddy driveway. No house was in sight, which meant that if there was a house of any sort it was sitting very far away from the road. “Mary, please,” she begged, “let’s find another house.”

  “What if there isn’t another house?” Mary asked Betty in a worried voice. “I know we’re both scared, and I admit our imaginations are certainly not acting as good friends right now…but let’s think…logically, okay?” Mary pointed up at the rainy sky. “We’re both soaked to the bone, lost, and in need of help. Now, we can keep walking and hope for the best, or allow simple common sense to walk us through this gate and down to whatever house is down this driveway. But what we can’t do is act like silly little girls.”

  “But…what if…whoever lives here…is…a killer?” Betty gulped.

  “A killer wouldn’t leave his gate unlocked, now would he?” Mary asked, hoping her question would chase away her own fears as well as Betty’s.

  “Well…no, I suppose not,” Betty answered as horrible images of funeral home caskets flooded into her mind. “But this isn’t Tennessee, Mary,” she pointed out. “People are strange creatures. Why, anyone could live here.”

  “Like Old Lady Brace?” Mary asked. “Remember when we were little girls and thought Old Lady Brace was some kind of monster because she lived way out on Cold Water Springs Road alone in that big old house?”

  “Well…she was a little creepy,” Betty replied. “Small children have a tendency to think the obvious.”

  “I suppose,” Mary agreed. “But as adults we seek facts and the fact was Old Lady Brace was a broken-hearted widow who simply wanted to be alone.” Mary touched the iron gate and then took her suitcase back from Betty. “Betty, I’m going to go ask for help and stop letting my imagination act foolish.”