One Shots

Bloody Mary

I know this may not be the right legend but this is how I've always told it.
---------------
Mary was a sweet child. She had friends that played with her all day and an older sister that loved to drop by from college.

She wore adorable pastel-coloured dresses and black buckle shoes with white knee-length socks that had three black bands at the top. She kept her hair back with a black headband. Her hair was blonde, the colour of warm honey, and fell just past her shoulders in soft waves. She had quiet blue eyes and a light spattering of freckles across her pale nose and cheeks.

Her friends all loved her and her dog, a black Labrador. They would all run around until noon, when everyone went home for lunch and housework. That's when the dream became a nightmare.

See, while everyone adored Mary, her parents hated her. They would treat her like a slave but gave her a perfect room and plenty of toys so they could seem normal to others but hold it over her head.

One night, after a harsh talking-to and cleaning the kitchen top-to-toe, Mary was laying in bed with her dog on the floor. Her hand dangled over the right side of her bed, where her dog lay. He would lick her fingers every so often to assure her he was still there. She fell asleep, falling into a dark nightmare.

Just before midnight, Mary started awake, gasping and drenched in a cold sweat. Her dog whined and nosed her fingers, which still hung over the side of her bed.

She rolled out of bed, to the left, the side which her door was cracked open.

She crept down the hall to the bathroom, where she turned on the faucet and washed her face in an effort not to cry.

She slunk back to bed and lay her hand over the edge, earning a small lick. As she was drifting back to the depths of sleep, Mary heard a drip coming from down the hall. Thinking she left the sink running, she crawled out of bed and back to the bathroom. After flicking the lights on, she choked on a scream. Her beloved Labrador's head was slowly dripping blood into the sink drain. In the mirror, a sentence was written in his blood.

'Dogs aren't the only ones who can lick.'

A horrified realization came upon young Mary Trueblood. Her dog wasn't the one licking her fingers earlier.

She hyperventilated, terrified to go back to her room, knowing what would happen if she did.

The other option would be to go to her parents room. A door past hers.

Mary turned the lights out in the bathroom and tiptoed down the hall. Upon reaching her room, she peered inside.

A large figure stood at the end of her bed, in one hand was the obvious shape of an ax. An ax dripping more then dog blood.

Mary was a smart girl. Smart enough to know that that much blood couldn't have come from just her dog. Especially all the blood spattered on the murder's clothes.

She choked back a sob and made a mad run for the stairs, her footsteps alerting the killer.

He caught her and dragged her back by her hair, pulling her into her room.

Mary screamed and struggled as much as a ten-year-old could. In the end, it was useless.

Her hand knock off the clock from her nightstand seconds before her heart stopped. The clock broke just as it struck midnight.

The next day, Mary's older sister got a call from detectives to come down to the scene of the murders to identify her family.

The parents were beheaded but young Mary's body had been slashed. Torn to bits. The only thing fully intact was the girl's face.

The newspapers then referred to her as Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary Trueblood.