Ghost Bully
Torment from beyond the grave!
Back starting in 6th grade and up to my senior year, I had to put up with a bully by the name of Keith. To describe him simply, he was a giant of a teenager with not one intelligent thought in his head. The only knowledge he could’ve been considered an expert in is methods of torment. They included things like wet willies, atomic wedges, swirlies, purple nurples, and extreme Indian burns. These are only a fraction of what he was capable of.
I remember one time when he put superglue on one of the toilet seats. The fire department had to be called out to help remove the poor student who chose to use that particular stall. Despite all this, he’d never face serious consequences. At most, he’d get suspension but never expulsion. Word was that his dad happened to be good friends with the head of the school district which allowed him to get out of trouble. Why he chose me to be his primary target of torment, I’ll never know.
The only thing I can think of is that I happened to match him in height and he might’ve felt threatened by that. In addition to the bullying methods mentioned above aside from the superglue one, I was also the victim of many beatings by him. Honestly, they were preferable over what else he’d do. Bruises healed after a while. However, having to walk home in freezing cold weather without a jacket or shoes because he stole them off me made me wish he’d stick to the beatings.
Karma did eventually catch up with him. Well, that and his own recklessness I should say. During spring break of 11th grade, he passed away. Rumour has it his death involved dancing near the edge of a cliff and a lot of drinking. As I’ve mentioned, he wasn’t too bright. While I wasn’t overjoyed at the news of his demise, I’d be lying if I said I felt any sadness when I learned about it.
I thought then I wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore but the universe has a funny way of proving us wrong. After graduating, I moved to attend college. I rented a place along with several other students. When winter break came along, everyone in our fraternity headed home from the holidays aside from me. Not to delve into my personal life but when it came to helping me with my problems, my parents pretty much just told me to tuff it out. Fighting back against Keith was out of the question for two reasons.
One, I was pretty scrawny as a kid so any kind of physical confrontation with him would not have ended well for me. The second reason is that any method with which I could have used to beat him would have resulted in me getting expelled and put in juvenile hall. Since I couldn’t really do anything about him and my parents chose not to out of fear of consequence from the school district, I didn’t really feel like spending the holidays with them. That meant I had the house to myself until the others got back. I was looking forward to over two weeks of binge-watching and gaming. It was all going well until New Year’s Day.
It was dark out when I was getting ready to start on another series. As I was about to load it up. I suddenly felt the temperature plummet. Annoyed, I thought that the heating somehow went out. To my surprise, though it seemed to be working fine. Confused, I wondered what the source of the cold could be when I heard a noise come from somewhere within the room. The cold I felt on the outside was nothing compared to how chilled it made my blood feel.
“Nerd…” I heard a ghostly voice full of anger say.
It seemed so familiar which only caused me to experience more fear. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from until my eyes fell on the tv. It was unplugged yet somehow it was on. The picture on it was blank. An image began flickering to life. At first, I had no clue as to what I was seeing because the picture was distorted.
When it became clear, I fell back in horror. What I saw on it I recognized as Keith. He looked similar to the last time I saw him except his face was horribly wounded. His head had been split open up from his fall. Blood covered half his face. His eyes were filled with hatred and I knew he could see me through the screen.
He let out a yell and a blinding flash from the TV filled the room. When it went away, I saw that Keith was now standing in front of me. The look in his eyes had changed from enraged to malicious. A wide grin stretched across his lips. I could only watch with a mixture of disbelief and fear as he spoke.
“Miss me, dork?” He asked in his annoying thick hillbilly voice I’d almost forgotten about.
“No,” I said. “This can’t be happening. This isn’t real.”
“Oh, it’s real alright and I’m here for you.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Really? Then I’ll make you believe it.”
Keith ran towards me before I could even think to flee and grabbed my arm. Then gave me what I’m to call an ice Indian burn. I call it that because unlike a normal Indian burn that leaves one’s arm hot, this one left my arm feeling ice cold. As a matter of fact, it felt as though it had been frozen by the time he was done. He let go of me and I fell back clutching it in confusion and pain.
“Man, I missed doing stuff like that. Do you believe I’m real now?”
I just nodded.
“Good. Now I’m going to chase the cut.”
“Wait. Don’t you mean cut to the…?”
“Shut up. I’ve been stuck in Hell for the last year and I am going to find a way not to go back.”
What surprised me is learning that Hell apparently was a real place. What didn’t surprise me is the fact Keith ended up there after he died.
“What does any of this have to do with me?” I asked after a long moment of silence.
“Isn’t it obvious?” He scoffed. “I’m here to possess you.”
“What? Fuck no. You’re not doing that.”
I scrambled to my feet.
“Yes I am and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Can’t you just find someone else to possess?”
“No. It has to be you.”
“Why?”
“I wasn’t really paying attention but apparently I can possess people I’ve been around a lot.”
“But we hate each other.”
“Doesn’t matter. Now hold still. I’m not really sure how to do this.”
He tried grabbing me again but I made like I was going to run towards the front door but instead headed to the kitchen. I didn’t fake him out like I was going to the kitchen and instead go to the front door for a couple reasons. He’d probably reach me before I could open and even if I did manage to get outside, I wouldn’t be able to outrun him for very long. Therefore, I chose to go into the kitchen where I quickly located the salt.
“When I’ve gotten your body I’m headed straight for the gym,” I heard Keith call out to me as he was coming into the kitchen.
I threw a line of salt at my feet in an arch shape. Keith looked down at it.
“What’s that supposed to do?”
“Stop you from reaching me.”
“Like hell, it will.”
He then tried reaching for me only for his hand to be stopped as though a glass wall were between us.
“What the?”
He then tried again only to get the same result.
“See? You’re not getting past this.”
He let out a bone-rattling yell, that scared the living shit out of me and began hammering furiously at the barrier that only applied to him.
“Get out here, you fucking coward,” he roared. “I’m not going back.”
Keith proceeded to start wrecking the area around me. During all this, it didn’t occur to him to try and get rid of the salt with any of the objects in the kitchen such as the broom. That didn’t really help my situation, though. I couldn’t stand in that spot all night. Not to mention, I had no idea how to get rid of him.
The only thing I had to work with is that apparently somehow Keith escaped from Hell. That meant they would want him back. All I had to do then was find a way to make contact with it. I have heard of several methods in which one can talk with Satan directly. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to implement them.
The only one I could think of that I’d have the time to do was the Bloody Mary ritual. I’d never done it before and I wasn’t sure if it would work but it was the only thing I could think of to try. I knew that doing this may very well have made me go from the frying pan to the fire. However, between getting my body stolen by Keith or getting killed by her, the latter sounded more preferable. My biggest obstacle was getting past the ghost of the dumb brute wrecking the living room.
Luckily for me, he happened to make so much noise I was able to sneak past him. When I started going up the stairs, he heard me and screamed my name. Then ran towards the stairs. I managed to make it to the bathroom before he could grab me. It was only after closing and locking the door did I get a sinking feeling when I realized what I wasn’t holding anymore.
“Shit, the salt,” I thought. “I must’ve dropped it.”
At that moment I thought I was done for. I could only wait for Keith to come into the bathroom as dread was knotting in my stomach. Instead, I heard him start pounding on it.
“Open this door right now,” he yelled.
That was when I realized, he didn’t know ghosts could phase through solid objects. Honestly, I thought it was common knowledge but apparently not. With that being said, though I knew it wouldn’t take him long to break the door down so I got to work. One of my roommates liked to smoke weed in the bathroom and would leave one of his lighters in the medicine cabinet. One of my other roommates couldn’t stand the smell of it and would often use scented candles to cancel it out after he was done. I used both of these to perform the Bloody Mary Ritual as Keith continued pounding on the door.
I’m aware that there’s more to it than lighting some candles in front of a mirror and saying her name three times. I’ve seen several methods online with which to summon her. The one, in particular, I chose I saw on an online forum. Despite me not even being sure it would work, it was the only one I could think of at the time. I cut my index finger open with a razor blade and used the blood to draw a pentagram on the mirror along with some runic symbols.
Then lit the candles. After that, I said her name three times and nothing happened. I remember then that the comment in the forum I saw stated that her name had to be said backward for it to work. Therefore, I had to say Mary Bloody instead of Bloody Mary three times. When I did this, all time seemed to come to a stop. The candles’ flames went from orange to light blue and flared up, nearly touching the ceiling.
Their heat got so intense I had to step back. They bent backward, completely engulfing the mirror in fire. Then in contrast to the heat, I heard what sounded as though someone was sucking a drink through a draw. The fire seeped into the pentagram. Then it and the symbols lit up the same color as the flames.
The room suddenly went from boiling hot to freezing cold. The contrast was so shocking it sapped my strength and I had to hold onto the counter to keep from collapsing. I waited for a moment and my strength returned. Then lifted my head up from the strength. It’s a good thing I was in the bathroom because I nearly shat myself at what I saw in the mirror.
Mary stood behind my reflection. She looked far more terrifying than I could’ve possibly imagined. Her deformities made Keith’s seem trivial by comparison. To start with, she was extremely pale. If she were standing still she probably would’ve been indistinguishable from the wall.
The next thing I noticed about her was her eyes. They were entirely red and lacked pupils. Her face had jagged cuts all over it. She smiled with teeth so black it almost seemed like each individual tooth was made of a shadow. Her nails, which were really long grey claws, dug into my shoulders.
“Hello, darling,” She said in a raspy yet somehow soothing voice.
“Oh fuck this was a bad idea,” I squeaked out.
Before I could even scream she had already spun me around to face her and grabbed me by the throat. Her grip was so tight I could hardly breathe. She lifted me off the floor. Then got ready to stab my eyes out.
“K-keith…” I managed to choke out.
She paused with her nails right in front of my eyes.
“What did you say?”
I managed to say his name more audibly.
“Are you referring to the one who escaped Hell recently?”
I nodded and she let out an irritated sigh. Then released her grip on me.
“Damn it. Do you have any idea what this means?” She asked.
“Not really,” I replied, rubbing my neck which felt incredibly sore.
I suspected it would bruise later on.
“I can only claim one person when I’m summoned in this way and I have to prioritize escapees so where is he?”
I felt partial relief when she said that. I say partial because she wasn’t going to kill me. However, she was still standing right in front of me and could potentially do me harm. I pointed to the door. She snapped her fingers, resulting in time resuming and Keith’s pounding on the door continuing. Mary unlocked it and turned the knob.
“I said open this door before I…”
His voice caught in his throat when he saw Mary. Then became filled with rage directed at me.
“You snitched on me,” he yelled and tried lunging at me.
Mary stopped Keith by stabbing him through the chest. Even though he was coughing up blood he still tried reaching for me. She brought his face at level with hers. Then she proceeded to stretch her mouth open unnaturally wide, causing the screams of many anguished souls to come from it. I couldn’t see inside it since I was behind her but from how he was reacting to it, I’m guessing it wasn’t a pretty sight.
She lifted him up and one bite, swallowed him whole. I could still hear him screaming even after she did. It sounded as if he were falling from really high up. I heard a final shriek from him. Then silence.
“Is he finally gone?” I asked.
Mary turned around. I winced at how much wider her smile was.
“He is and I’ll be seeing you eventually.”
I felt the color drain from my face.
“Come again?”
“A condition of the ritual is that you forfeit your soul by performing it,” she explained. “Which means you and I are going to have a lot of fun together after you die.”
She began walking towards the mirror.
“Wait,” I called out, prompting her to look at me again. “I don’t want to end up in Hell after I die. How can I avoid that?”
“Why would I tell you even if I did know? You’re welcome to try and figure it out, though. In the meantime, I’ll give you something to remember me by.”
Mary raised her hand. I gasped and tried backing away. She slashed me across my chest, causing me to cry out in pain and fall back into the shower. The pain was indescribable. I haven't felt anything like it since then and I hope I never do again. I looked up from my wound to see her walking toward the mirror.
She touched it, making it ripple as if it were made of liquid. Then pulled herself through it. I got up and used the first aid kit in the medicine cabinet to bandage myself up. I had been so busy doing it that it was only after I was done did I notice the pentagram and runes had vanished. I heard the front door opening, followed by my roommate, Freddy yelling at the mess Kieth had made.
“The fuck happened here?”
He looked at me when I reached the bottom of the steps.
“What happened to you?”
He pointed to my bandages.
“Uh, a bear came inside and wrecked the place. It was probably looking for food.”
“God damn. Well, we can worry about this later. You need to go to the hospital.”
“No. I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, the cuts aren’t that deep and I rubbed ointment on them so I should be good. Wish I could say the same thing for the living room, though.”
We were both too tired to clean right away. I was tired from my ordeal and Freddy from traveling. The following day, Freddy called animal control. I did feel kind of bad about causing them to waste their resources but I wasn’t about to tell anyone what actually happened. I had enough problems without being put in a straight jacket.
He explained what had happened to my other roommates when they got home. Then we all cleaned everything up and that was that. Aside from the TV, the damages weren’t too bad. What was bad is the fact the ritual had cursed me. Since then, I haven’t figured out a way to get rid of it.
I already tried the obvious route of getting baptized but no dice. It’s hard to explain the feeling of being cursed. The best way I can describe it is it’s like having an upcoming test I know I’m going to fail. The main difference being instead of a test, it’s Bloody Mary torturing me for eternity. I have also tried psychics.
As it turns out, though they’re expensive as hell. I’ve spent a combined total of about $200 on them and my curse still isn’t gone. I try not to let it get to me but that’s easier said than done. I’ve become overly cautious since then. I don’t get out much due to fear of some kind of accident. I know this will all be futile in the end.
People don’t live for very long so if anyone can recommend me an exorcist, medium, or something similar that isn’t too expensive, I’d really appreciate it. That bitch was scary and I do not want to spend my afterlife with her if I can help it.
Author's note: If you enjoy this story and want to support me aside from subscribing, donate to my Cash App:
If you want to use another payment method, check out the link here:
Loved this! Hope thinking Mary Bloody 3x doesn’t count, or I’ll be avoiding mirrors for a while.