Story 9 – Unwed Mary

‘Do you believe in ghosts, vicar? I need to tell someone about what happened this morning.

I’m trying to think where to start this, you know, work out what’s the most important point. I’m still a bit jumbled, my heart is still pounding.

I guess, start with Unwed Mary? No, Frank, I’ll tell you about Frank. It’s all his fault anyway.

So, Frank is a friend of a friend. Friend might be a bit too strong a word really. He’s one of those guys that you know, but you don’t choose to hang out with. He just turns up when he wants and can either be charming as hell or the scariest bastard you ever met. You don’t dare tell him he’s not welcome because you don’t know if he’ll take it well or cut your ears off. 

He’s one of those.

He’s not from round here, he comes from somewhere up in the Midlands, not that he’d tell us where. We just worked it out based on his accent.

So, last night I’m at a house party being thrown by Jess and Rick. It’s an ok party, decent tunes, enough booze to keep us afloat. Nothing really major, just one of those where its more of a hang out than a full party. Until Frank turns up. 

He’s brought a bag of coke, he’s got his own music he wants to play and he’s brought a few girls in tow. Suddenly he’s got the music pumping, people are getting high and everything is starting to get a bit loud.

I’d been enjoying the hang but I wasn’t really feeling like having a heavy night. Yeah, I’d been on the beers, just to keep myself sociable, you know? So I find myself a quieter corner, no part of the house is actually quiet now. I see Jess and Rick’s neighbours come round to complain about the noise. Next thing I know, Frank’s charmed the pair of them, must have been Sixty years old at least, and the wife’s doing a line of coke and the guy is getting a lap dance from one of the girls Frank brought along. They’ve gone from complaining about the noise to having their best night out for decades.

This is what I mean about Frank, on another night he’d have pulled his knife on them, I’ve seen him do it.

He spots me sitting in a corner, just watching the world get wilder and comes over.

“Not enjoying the party?” He asks.

I told him I was enjoying it just fine, I just preferred to sit here for a bit and watch what everyone gets up to.

That was a wrong choice of words.

“Spy, are yeh? Peeping Tom more like. Pervin’ in the corner?” His eyes were staring through me. He’s a scary bastard. “Trying to gather evidence? Gonna tell the fuzz?”

At that, I knew I was in trouble. If he thought I was trying to dob him in, I’d never get to the next morning without some serious blood loss.

“I’m watching the girls dance, Frank.” I lied, desperately, “I’ve got no rhythm, ask anyone. I’d stamp on their feet if I tried to join them. But it’s nice to watch them dance.”

I saw that spark of fury fade from his eyes and he snapped into a conspiratorial grin “They are sexy as shit, ain’t they?”

He sat on the arm of the chair and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “You can shag one of them if you like. Call it sixty as we’re mates.”

Now I really felt uncomfortable. For a start I didn’t know if any of the girls he’d brought actually were prostitutes. If they were that was one problem, if they weren’t and Frank thought he could get money out of me for sex with them, I’m not certain he’d leave her much choice.

Secondly and just as important, I didn’t actually want to shag any of them. I’m gay, but Frank didn’t know that and based on some of the things he’d said, I didn’t want him to know. Hope you don’t mind that I am, vicar. I know the Church of England is all over the place on acceptance.

Nice to hear that not all priests are the problem then.

So, I was a bit stuck. I’d just got out of Frank doing something unpleasant by saying the girls were sexy but now I had to get out of paying to have sex with one of them, which could easily set him off again.

I managed one little spark of intelligence and waggled my can at him “Kind offer, Frank. But I’m a little worried about brewer’s droop. Don’t want to spend sixty notes and find out the whole thing’s a write off.”

He slapped me on the shoulder and laughed “Good lad, shouldn’t spend when you can’t get your money’s worth.”

I smiled back, but inside I was relieved and still afraid.

“Tell me a ghost story.” He said, out of nowhere.

“A what?” I asked him, sure I’d heard him wrong.

“Tell me about a local ghost, make me scared.” His eyes were getting crazy again.

A local ghost? I only knew about one and that’s because it was a story Rachel had told us all at a party a few months ago. Actually, not quite true, I did hear about another one, but second or third hand. Something about a witch who cooked kids in jam and you can smell her at the beach or something.

Are you ok, vicar? You’ve gone white, are you not well? This isn’t that important.

You sure you’re fine? Well, if you insist.

So the story I knew was about Unwed Mary, have you heard of her, vicar? Neither had I until that party, but Frank had been there too.

“I only know about Unwed Mary, Frank. The one Rachel told us the other month.” I said, hoping that would be enough for him.

“I don’t remember it.” He told me. “Tell it to me again.”

Through the mild haze of beer, I tried desperately to remember what Rachel had told us.

“Right, so on a road near Arundel station there’s this ghost that appears if you call out her name.”

“Where’s the road?” He demanded.

“I think it’s that one near Arundel station, runs along by the Downs.” I told him, hoping I was right. “So, the story is that on her wedding day, her husband to be took her down that road on the way to the church. They argued about something and he either dumped her at the side of the road or her killed her and then dumped the body behind a hedge. Ever way, she ended up dead before she got married. So if you go down there and find the right place, you call out her name and she will appear. She’ll ask you where her husband to be is. You tell her you don’t know and she start to cry and then disappear.”

Frank snorted a bump of coke off of his hand “What happens if you tell her you do know where he is?”

“I have no idea.”

He slapped me on the shoulder and stood up “So, let’s go find out.”

I was shocked “What, now?”

“Yeah, you ain’t doing anything at this party. I fancy trying something different. You drive, I’ll call out for Mary. We’ll see if she turns up.”

I didn’t want to do that. Not because I thought we’d meet a ghost, I didn’t believe in them. I just didn’t want to go anywhere, alone, with Frank. Especially not in the dark when no-one would know where we had gone. But I couldn’t think of a good reason not to, not off the top of my head. I’d already made it clear I wasn’t enjoying the party, I had no reason to stay. I wasn’t anyone’s ride home and I didn’t think lying to him would work .

He hauled me to my feet and started pushing me towards the front door.

“Me and Toby are going ghost hunting. Anyone else want to join us?” He yelled.

There were shaken heads and laughs. No-one would catch my eye, I think they were afraid Frank would make them come too.

“Your loss.” He called to them “When we’re famous ghost hunters with our own tv show, you’ll all be at home watching it.”

I allowed myself to be propelled out of the party and into my car. I felt out of control, unable to change the direction my life was heading in.

“Come on then, Venkman. Let’s see if we get slimed.” He laughed.

“Does that make you Winston?” I asked him, starting the car.

“Nah mate, I’m Egon. I’m the one with all the brains.”

I couldn’t help but laugh along with him, my fears receding. That was the problem with Frank, when he was charming, he was totally charming. He made you feel special. He’d made me Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, the guy we all want to be because he’s just so cool. Then he’d taken on Egon, the nerdy one, but made it seem like it was the better choice. It’s just so hard to explain what its like when you aren’t experiencing it.

A psychopath? Possibly. Now that you say that and I think about all those shows, then, yeah. He would fit their description well. I start to see how so many of them got away with what they did for so long if they were anything like Frank.

Jess and Rick lived in Littlehampton, so it wasn’t too hard a trip to go out of town, up past the dump and then through Crossbush. Do you know the road I’m talking about, vicar? Just after you start coming down the hill, after the Harvester, there’s a long road on your right, before you get to the train station. Sheep fields either side, the Downs on your right as you drive down it.

That’s the one. Well, it was two in the morning and there was only a sliver of moon to light the road. They’ve got no streetlights down there. So it was just the moon and my car headlights. I hate driving down country roads like that. I was just glad that it wasn’t raining.

Frank wound the windows down and let in the blast of freezing air. He told me to drive slow, as neither of us knew where the spot was where Mary was supposed to appear. So we did as he said, I drove slowly and he kept calling out for Mary.

Hedges and fields, that’s all that was either side of us. I reached the end of the road, where it joined on to another. Frank told me to turn around and go back.

“Maybe this isn’t the right road.” I said. “I’m only repeating what I think Rachel said. We don’t know if she was right in the first place.”

“You two aren’t the only ones to say this is the right road.” He told me. “We’ll do another couple of runs up and down, go slower and turn the music off. Maybe she didn’t hear us.”

“That doesn’t mean any of us know for certain, it could just be an urban legend.” I argued.

He smiled at me and I was suddenly very scared of him. Like, I’d forgotten just how scary he was. “Back to the start and then up and down one time after that. If she doesn’t appear, we’re in the wrong place and we’ll go back. Does that sound fair? It won’t take more than half an hour and its not like anyone is expecting us back right now, is it?” He sounded so reasonable, but at the same time absolutely terrifying.

I did my best to hide how scared of him I was “Back up and then one more go round. Yeah, that sounds fine. But no more after that. If we don’t find her, we’re either in the wrong place or she doesn’t exist. We can look stuff up in the morning.” My words sounded more confident than my voice did, I’m certain of that.

“There’s a lad.” He said.

As I turned the car around, he started yelling for Mary again.

There are no houses along that road, no-one to hear him yell. I reflected that if Mary did exist, it would have been a perfect place for her husband to be to kill her. Especially fifty odd years ago, when she was supposed to have died. There wouldn’t have been much traffic and there were no locals around to hear her scream. I actually started to think that this could be the place. That thought was quickly followed by another reminding me that I was alone, in a car with a man that scared me and all of those advantages were on his side if he decided to do something to me.

I let the car crawl along, but I was mentally ready to accelerate, hard, if Frank made any sudden moves towards me. I’d have to hope he had a sense of self preservation.

We crawled down the road that time, barely making five miles an hour. Frank was calling out in a sing song voice “Mary, where are you, Mary?”

All the way back to the start of the road, nothing happened. So I turned the car around at the head of the road and we start making our way down again. Frank’s still singing out of the window as loud as he can when I suddenly remembered a bit of information from Rachel’s story.

“Hey mate, I think I remember Rachel saying that you have to call her name three times. That’s it, just her name three times in a row. Does that sound right to you?” I asked him because I don’t want him to think I’ve deliberately made him waste his time by not saying the right thing.

He stared at me and then nodded “Yeah, actually. That does sound right.”

So, we’re about halfway down the road at this point and he yells out “Mary. Mary. Mary.”

He’s taking a breath to yell again when a voice from the back seat says “Where’s Marco?” 

Frank looks at me and smiles. Meanwhile I’m shitting myself and stop the car.

We turn around to look at the same time. A younger woman, late teens, early twenties, is sitting on the back seat. She’s wearing a wedding dress, a simple one, not one of those big poofy things. Her hair is black and she’s looking at the floor so we can’t really see her face.

“Where’s Marco?” She asks again.

I couldn’t speak, my mouth was so dry. I couldn’t make any sounds.

“Where’s Marco?” Her voice sounded like a lost child, sad and scared.

“Marco? I know where Marco is.” Frank tells her. I’m staring at him, I can’t believe he’s actually doing this. Its one thing to find out ghosts are real. Its something else entirely to start messing with them.

She looked up, she had streams of mascara running down her face. She’s still got tears flowing from her eyes. “Where’s Marco?” Her voice sounds more hopeful now and I feel like a complete shit.

“Up the road a ways.” Frank tells her, and winks at me. I’m shaking my head, but he places a hand on my leg and suddenly I don’t know which one of the two I’m more scared of.

“Where’s Marco?” This time her voice is demanding.

“Up that way. Come on, Toby, get us up there.” He pointed forward.

I put the car in first and start moving. I don’t know where he thinks we’re going. I get up to fifteen miles an hour and he tells me to slow down a bit. 

“We don’t want to miss him, do we?”

“No, we don’t.” I replied. Trying to make myself accept this is happening.

“Where’s Marco?”

“Jesus, love. Can’t you say anything else?” Frank sneered at her.

Suddenly her face is right beside mine and I swerve in shock. She screams at Frank “Where’s Marco?”

He jumps back, then calmly looks forward. “Just there, where the hedges end. Stop there Toby.”

I do what he says.

Frank points to the field on the left “He’s that way. Toby, stay here. I’ll take her.”

He opens the car door and as he steps out, she’s already standing out there. No sound of her moving, no sight of her either. She was just there.

Even Frank jumps at that. I can see his face, lit by the interior light, and I see something I’ve never seen on his face before. Indecision. Suddenly he’s not so sure this is a good idea. Then he changes again, his charming smile comes back and he tells her to follow him. He shuts the car door and walks off into the field, she walks behind him.

As soon as they were out of sight, I started to hyperventilate. I couldn’t get a grip on myself, I felt my whole body shaking. I felt hypersensitive, every breath of wind through the window felt exquisitely like a knife being traced over me.

That was when I heard the scream. It was so high pitched that I couldn’t tell if it was him or her. What had Frank done?

The scream came again, this time it was definitely one of pain and then it suddenly stopped and I heard her voice angrily yelling “Where’s Marco?”

All of a sudden, Frank didn’t seem like that much of a threat, you know? I hadn’t turned the engine off, I guess I was expecting to make a quick getaway the whole time. I accelerated hard enough to get a bit of wheelspin. I absolutely refused to look in my mirrors, I didn’t want to see her behind me.

So when she appeared in front of me, I screamed and hit the brakes. One of those stupid, reflexive things, you know? I couldn’t have hurt her if I hit her, but she looked like a person and I’m not Frank. I had to hit the brakes.

“Where’s Marco?” She screamed at me and started walking towards the car.

I put it in reverse and moved away from her.

Her walk became a run as I accelerated.

“Where’s Marco?” Her voice was angry. Whatever Frank had done to her, he’d really pissed her off.

I accelerated more. The road is mostly straight, just slight curves, I was trusting to seeing the hedges in my wing mirrors to keep me from crashing.

I started to pull away from her.

She dropped to all fours and started chasing me like a dog. But not as cleanly, her limbs looked out of control.

I’m pretty sure it was at this point that I wet myself.

“Where’s Marco?” She kept screaming.

Scared. Panicked. Warm and damp around my crotch, I yelled back at her “Marco who?”

“My Marco!” 

I think it was the shock of hearing her say something else that prompted what I said next. I honestly couldn’t tell you why I said this, but I yelled back “What’s his surname, you psycho?”

She came to a sudden halt.

I should have kept going, just let her fade into the darkness as I was just about to reach the end of the road. But something about that last exchange had thrown me.

So I stopped.

She appeared in the passenger seat next to me. 

I definitely screamed.

There were patches of dark on her white dress. I couldn’t see for certain without putting the light on, but I felt quietly confident that she had more of Frank’s blood on her than he did in him.

“What’s Marco’s surname?” I pulled out my phone, praying the 4G would work here “I can look him up and see if I can find him.”

She stared at the phone, she had no idea what it was. She even flinched when I opened google.

“His name?” I prompted.

“Marco Donague.” She whispered, staring at the screen while I typed his name in. I was praying it wasn’t going to be a hugely common name.

It wasn’t.

In fact it was so uncommon that there were no results.

I wanted to cry. But I thought I should try again.

“Did he have any other names he might go by?”

“Marc. He always wanted to be called Marc by everyone else.”

“Marc Donague. Let’s try that.” So I did. One result, one Facebook profile. I clicked on it and showed her the picture of the old man who’s profile it was.

“Is this him? It might be quite a long time since you last saw him.” The old man did look familiar to me, but I couldn’t place him right then.

“Marco.” She said it tenderly and reached out to stroke my phone. She touched the phone enough that the next picture came up, showing Marc with his arm around a woman of a similar age to him. They were in a back garden I recognised. I also recognised the woman sitting in a chair behind them.

“Alyssa!” Screeched Mary. 

If I had thought she had been angry before, I had no idea. Up until this point she had mostly looked like a sad woman, except for that strange four legged run. Now I could see her as a vengeful spirit. Her hair began to float, like she was touching a Van Der Graf generator. Her eyes sunk into her head, blackness swelling around them. I started to cry.

“Where’s Marco?” She demanded. It felt like a weight was pushing my eyes back into my skull. It hurt, it hurt so much.

“I think I know.” I sobbed.

“No tricks!” She hissed.

“No tricks. But no promises either. I have seen him at a house but I don’t know if that’s where he lives, ok? I can take you to that house where I saw him, but I can’t promise that’s where he will be.” I was praying she would accept that.

“You know him?”

“No! No, I don’t know him. But I think he is my friend’s grandfather. I saw him when we had a party at her house. It was her who told me the story about a ghost on this road called Mary.” I had never thought the story might be real and I certainly never thought that it was part of her family’s history.

So I started the drive back this way. The house is one of those off of Horsemere Green Lane. Yeah, not far from here at all.

Her hair fell back down to normal, her eyes came back. That pressure in my head went away.

We drove in absolute silence. Me because I didn’t want to say anything that would piss her off. Her, I’m guessing, because she didn’t need to say anything to me.

I tell you, vicar, that was the strangest drive of my life. There I was, giving a ghost a lift to her ex-fiancee’s house. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t something I thought I would ever come anywhere close to doing.

When we got to the house, I parked outside and pointed at it.

“Is he there?’ She asked.

“I told you, I don’t know. That’s the house I saw him at. I don’t know if he was visiting or if he lives there. I don’t have any way to find out where else he might be.” That was a lie, I could have waited for Rachel to wake up and then I could have asked her. But there was no way I was going to do any more, not a chance.

She was outside of the car, then outside the front door, then she was gone. It was like she moved whenever I blinked.

As I started to turn the car around, I heard a scream break the silence.

Her voice screaming “Marco!”

Then I heard another scream.

So I left as fast as I could.

I remembered this church and came straight here. Nearest place to be safe from evil spirits. That’s why I was sitting on that bench when you came along. 

I hoped holy ground might keep her away in case she decided to come looking for me.

What do you mean “It didn’t last time?”

Sorry, Reverend Follow, has something like this happened before?

You don’t want to talk about it? I don’t blame you.

Well, if here is no protection, I guess I’ll go home. Thanks for listening anyway.’

© Robert Spalding 2020