Read Mary Jane's Grave for Free Online Page B

joking. Right then, I just wanted to get the hell out of there.”
    Gary suddenly excused himself and dashed to the restroom just outside the door. I had a feeling he was going to lose his coffee. So far, nothing he’d told me was outrageous or unexplainable. Everyone’s perceptions of sight, smell and sound can vary greatly, and being teenagers, one person’s imagination could scare the hell out of the rest of them.
    It was a good fifteen minutes before Gary came back into the room. I was beginning to think he’d finally decided to take off, his nerves getting the better of him. I reminded him where he’d left off, and he began to talk about the car.
    “Anyway, like I said, I just wanted to leave. I felt better when we were finally in the car. Then Jesse turned the key in the ignition and the damn thing wouldn’t start. The battery was dead. That’s when I got scared. I kept telling Jesse to let me out—I was in the backseat—so I could walk out of there, but he was swearing at his car. It was brand-new. All of a sudden, the car just blared on. Jesse hadn’t even turned the key again.”
    “If you were in the backseat, how could you see that Jesse didn’t turn the key in the ignition?” I asked.
    “He said he didn’t, that’s all. Stevie was in front and said Jesse didn’t, too.”
    “Then what?”
    “We left. Jesse drove like a bat out of hell down the road. When we finally came to the stop sign, they were all laughing like crazy. That’s when I decided they were all pulling my chain.” He paused.
    “Go on.”
    “We had just made the turn when Jesse floored it. He got up to about eighty when I looked up at the dash to see how fast he was going. That’s when I saw the woman.” He stopped, and I saw he was beginning to sweat.
    “Tell me about the woman, Gary.”
    “She was just standing in the middle of the road, wearing a long white nightgown. She was holding something wrapped in a blanket, and she was smiling.” He bit his lip, the image clearly as vivid as the night he’d seen it. “She had really long red hair, and she was pretty but…”
    “But what?”
    “She was pretty but scary. I don’t know how else to explain it, but once I saw her I yelled to Jesse, ‘Look out!’ That’s when he jerked the wheel to miss her. That’s the very last thing I remember until I woke up in the hospital and found out that everyone in the car but me was dead.”
    I waited a few moments, absorbing everything Gary had told me. Unfortunately, no woman had been found at the scene, and no other witnesses were alive to confirm his story.
    “Gary, do you remember how much you drank that night? Were you drunk?”
    “I know what I saw, Sergeant,” he said firmly, looking offended.
    “I’m not insinuating that you don’t, Gary. I just want to know how much you’d been drinking or if you’d taken any drugs.”
    “I had, maybe, five or six beers, and yeah, I was buzzing. But I didn’t do any drugs that night. Never have, never will.”
    I had asked Gary this question for several reasons. Alcohol consumption, drugs, and lack of sleep are just a few things that can cause hallucinations. I remember several years ago when I was working night-shift road patrol. I was so tired I thought I saw birds flying at my windshield and people ducking behind bushes. This was right before I fell asleep at the wheel and almost hit a telephone pole.
    A sudden flash of light from an oncoming car could’ve caused Gary to think he was seeing a woman in white. At least that’s what I tried to tell myself, since his story was so illogical. He was scared after being at the grave. Mix the fear with alcohol and I was surprised he didn’t see the woman fly right at their car on a broomstick.
    “Gary, I’m almost done. How many people have you told this to?”
    “My parents and the state trooper who took my statement,” he said matter-of-factly, but I knew he was lying.
    Obviously, he had told more people than that. Coop told