Scary Mary (8 page)

She was getting a headache from her internal
debating. She remembered the motto of her favorite middle school
math teacher, ‘Keep it simple, stupid.’ Helping people was right.
She should help Cy, even if he didn’t want it or thought he needed
help. Glad that she finally had it figured out, she said, “Okay,
we’ll go to the public library after school. You’re right. Ricky’s
obituary shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

Chapter 7

Scary Mary, Investigations

“
I know this was my idea, but I take it
back. This was a stupid idea,” Rachel said. She unloaded her fifth
roll of microfilm and jammed it back into its box. Mary was sitting
at the other microfilm reader. She was on her sixth
roll.

“
No, it was a good idea. You’re just
tired.”

They were in the basement of the Snyder Public
Library in the microfilm section. The Snyder Daily was only on
microfilm. They hadn’t gotten around to digitizing it yet, much to
the two girls’ dismay. After the reference librarian had shown them
how to work the readers, Rachel and Mary had gotten to work. So
far, it had been a long and boring process.

“
I am tired, which means it’s time for a
break,” Rachel said. “Want to get something to eat?”

“
No, I want to keep working.”

“
Come on, we’ve been at this for two
hours. Your eyes are going to shrivel up like prunes if you don’t
take a break.”

“
Now I’m hungry.” Mary shook her head.
“No, I want to stay here. You go and take a break. I’ll be
fine.”

“
Are you sure?”

“
Yeah.”

“
OK. Do you want me to bring you back
anything?”

“
No, go on.”

“
Mary-” She tried again.

Mary waved her off. “Go. The sooner you leave,
the sooner you’ll get back.” Rachel nodded and went towards the
stairs.

Mary turned back to the microfilm machine and
began scrolling through the pages. In the March 23, 1994 issue, she
found a brief obituary for Richard ‘Ricky’ Moore. She looked
through the rest of the paper and found the news story on the
second page of the local section of the paper. “Hello, Mr.
Psychopath AKA Ricky,” she whispered to herself as she began to
read the article.

‘
Tragedy struck a small home on
Berkmire Street last night around nine o’clock. Neighbors called
police when they heard a series of gunshots from the white ranch
house. When police arrived on the scene, they found the bodies of
Richard and Julie Moore. Detectives say that it appears Richard
Moore shot Julie, his wife of four years, twice in the chest and
once in the head before turning the gun on himself. Neighbors said
the shooting horrified them but that it did not necessarily
surprise them. Police had been called to the home several times
before that night due to noise complaints caused by violent
arguments between the couple. Investigators speculated that the
couple wasn’t happy and that the husband may have been abusive, but
no charges had ever been filed. Police were not offering any
conclusions as to why Moore may have killed his wife and himself.
No suicide note was found.’

The article wasn’t that encouraging. It only
gave her the basic story of what had happened, but it was proof for
Cy, to show him that she wasn’t making this up. He did have a ghost
in his house. She searched through later issues for a follow up on
the murder/suicide but didn’t find anything. The newspaper must
have thought the story was done.

She began putting away the boxes of microfilm.
As she was shutting the drawer, a box of microfilm popped out and
dropped to the floor. She bent to pick up the box. When she had the
box in her hand, a soft voice whispered, “May 5th, 1995, section B,
page 2.”

“
Thanks, Mr. Fletcher, but I found what I
needed.” She put the box back, but it popped out again as she tried
to close the drawer.

“
Did you hear me, Mr. Fletcher? I said I
found what I needed.” Mary picked up the box again, but as she
moved to put the box back for the third time, the drawer slammed
shut.

“
Mr. Fletcher!”

“
Shhhhhhhhh!”

The reference librarian stuck her head around
the corner to check on her. Mary waved her hand as if she’d caught
it in the drawer. “Sorry,” she mouthed. The reference librarian
nodded and went back to her desk.

Mary sat back down at the microfilm machine and
loaded the roll that Mr. Fletcher seemed so keen on. “Fine. Show me
what you want me to see.”

The roll began unwinding, and the pages whirled
across the view screen. She gulped as she got a twinge of motion
sickness.

Mr. Fletcher was the original librarian for the
Snyder Public Library. He had worked for the library until he died;
at least that was what everyone thought. He still corrected
shelving, put needed materials in people’s paths, and helped
discourage bad behavior. People, trying to ‘borrow’ books without
checking them out, inevitably tripped before even reaching the
security gates, and the books would mysteriously fall out, even out
of sealed bags. He’d helped her a few times find books for school
projects, so she knew he wasn’t a bad spirit, though today he was
being irritatingly helpful.

The microfilm stopped abruptly. On the view
screen was a picture of Cy’s house. She skimmed the article, and
her jaw dropped.

A gas explosion had occurred two years ago in
the home, causing a small fire that partially destroyed the
building. A single woman had been living there at the time. The
incident severely burned her. Mary got a sick feeling in her
stomach. She could just bet that Ricky had sparked the incident,
literally. She printed out that article too.

“
Thank you, Mr. Fletcher,” she whispered.
In response, the drawer for the microfilm quietly slid
open.

She had just closed the drawer when Rachel
returned. “Back to the coal mines,” her friend announced.

“
You can put your canary away. We don’t
need to dig anymore.”

“
You found something?”

“
Yeah.” She handed over the freshly
printed sheets. Rachel skimmed them.

She gave a low whistle. “Welcome to
psycho-city.”

“
Yep.”

She gave the articles back. “So Ms. Exorcist,
you got a plan?

Mary shook her head. “I don’t know. I think it
might be a good idea to talk to this woman, who lived in the house
before. She had to have seen or felt something while living there.
After that, I guess I’ll talk to Cy.”

“
What if Cy doesn’t believe
you?”

Mary looked down, not liking the idea. “Then
I’ll have to do something on my own.”

“
Well that’s all hunky-dory, except for
one thing,” Rachel said.

“
What’s that?”

“
There’s not enough ‘we’ action. You’re
not doing this alone.”

“
Rach, you don’t need to be
involved.”

She shook her head. “If you’re involved, then
I’m involved.”

“
But I don’t even know what I’m doing. If
you’re involved, it just means two of us are in trouble instead of
one.”

“
I don’t mind being in trouble if it takes
some of it off you.”

“
This won’t work.”

She looked at her in disbelief. “And your plan
will? Come on, even Batman had a sidekick.”

“
Superman didn’t.”

Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “And he died,
remember?"

~~ ~~ ~~

Before leaving the library, Mary found Terri
Kuwalchek’s address, the previous owner of Cy’s home, simply enough
in the phone book. It was a real stroke of luck that she still
lived in town. Mary knew that a face-to-face meeting with the woman
would be better than something over the phone or through email,
after all calls could be blocked, and emails deleted. A person at
the door was a little trickier to avoid. Rachel borrowed her dad’s
car to drive them to Ms. Kuwalchek’s current address.

Terri Kuwalchek lived in a quiet apartment
complex on the outskirts of town. Mary got out of the car with a
touch of nervousness. She hadn’t come up with a script yet of what
to say. It’d been only an hour since finding the newspaper
articles.

“
Rach, are you sure we shouldn’t wait a
day before doing this?”

Rachel beeped the automatic locks. “Mary, the
sooner we have all the facts, the sooner we can go and tell Cy.
Delaying is not of the good. Delaying is synonymous with
Ricky.”

“
But what am I supposed to say? Hi, Ms.
Kuwalchek, do you remember that house you lived in that exploded?
Yeah, did you know it was haunted? Oh, you did? Do you happen to
remember anything specifically about the haunting? We’re going to
do an exorcism. It’s a school project for extra credit.”

“
Sounds good to me.”

“
She’ll slam the door on us!”

“
Fine, leave out the bit about extra
credit.”

Mary rolled her eyes and stomped up the
stairs.

Ms. Kuwalchek lived in a corner apartment on the
second floor. When they arrived, Mary took in the absence of a
doormat and any door decorations. It was starkly naked compared to
all the doors around it. It looked like no one lived there. She
pushed the doorbell and let out a sigh of relief when she heard
movement on the other side. The door opened a crack with the chain
still drawn. A suspicious eye looked out at the two girls.

“
What do you want?”

“
Are you Terri Kuwalchek?”

The sliver of face bobbed up and down.

“
My friend and I would like to talk to
you, Ms. Kuwalchek. My name’s Mary, and hers is Rachel. We’re
friends of someone who lives in your previous house 1118 Berkmire
Drive.”

“
Tell your friend to move out now. Don’t
stay there another moment.” The door began to close.

“
Why? What’s wrong with the house?” She
asked, but the door closed.

Mary looked at Rachel, and her friend shrugged
her shoulders. If Ms. Kuwalchek refused to talk to them, they
couldn’t do anything. They turned to go but stopped. They heard the
chain to the door being drawn off. They turned back.

The door opened fully.

“
I don’t know what’s wrong with that
house, but it did this to me." They saw the half of her face that
the door had hidden. It looked like melted wax.

“
Did anything lead up to the explosion?”
Mary asked. Her eyes searched desperately for something safe to
focus on. She noted Ms. Kuwalchek’s limp brown ponytail, her faded
blue sweatshirt, and the tiny silver cross hanging at her neck, but
Mary’s eyes kept sliding back to the scarred half of her face. By
some luck, the woman had been able to keep her left eye. It looked
at Mary with a clear brown intensity.

Terri Kuwalchek stepped back and held the door
open. “Come in. I’ll tell you what I know.”

Her living room was sparse to the point of
having an unfinished feeling to it, like half the stuff that should
be there wasn’t. Mary shuddered at the thought. She and Rachel sat
down on the couch. Ms. Kuwalchek sat down in a recliner across from
them.

“
Before I begin, tell me what you
know.”

Mary nodded. “We know that the house was once
the home of Ricky Moore, who killed his wife and committed suicide,
and when you moved into the house about three years later, a gas
explosion occurred that burned you badly.”

Ms. Kuwalchek laughed. She covered the damaged
side of her face with her hand. “Yeah, that’s obvious.”

“
And since then, no one has stayed in the
house for more than a few months. Everyone moves out quickly
without giving a good reason why.” She’d picked up that piece of
information from Gran, who kept an eye on the neighborhood. The
fortuneteller was always on the lookout for possible new
clients.

Ms. Kuwalchek nodded her head. It was her turn
to speak. “That figures. You don’t want to stay there longer or
else he gets you. I found that out the hard way.”

“
Ricky,” Rachel breathed.

Ms. Kuwalchek turned to her and nodded her head
again. “That’s right. Ricky. I don’t believe in any of that hocus
pocus nonsense, but there’s something in that house. It was like it
fed off me. I didn’t notice anything at first, but as time went by,
I started not to feel right. I felt in danger in my own home. It
was really bad in the basement. There’s something down there with
eyes that stalks you. That’s where the murder/suicide took place.
That’s where the explosion was. I’ll only tell you this one more
time. Your friend needs to get out of there. You stay there too
long, and Ricky gets you.”

“
Thank you, ma’am. You’ve been a big help.
We won’t take anymore of your time.” Mary got up. Ms. Kuwalchek
showed them to the door.

As the girls were going down the stairs, Ms.
Kuwalchek called after them. “Leave while you still can before he
traps you. Like he trapped me. I haven’t left my home since what
happened, and he’s probably laughing at me, the bastard.” Mary
looked up at her, staring her full in the face, until the scars
burned into her retinas. Ms. Kuwalchek retreated into her house and
locked the door behind her. She wondered how long it would be
before the poor woman had another visitor.

When they got back into the car, Rachel asked
the question that Mary had been mulling over. “How are we going to
tell this to Cy?”

She leaned her head against the car door window.
Terri Kuwalchek’s face slowly morphed into Cy’s with the scars
transposing onto him. “I don’t know.”