MARY’S  NIGHTMARE

by Carolann Lucente 

        The old lady, Mary, was very tired.  She had been working on her waitressing job in the café the whole day.  Her boss was having a sale on the daily specials, which had brought every other factory worker into the small café for the entire week.  Today, it was chicken and dumplings.  The old lady was dead on her feet.  They had been working shorthanded as one of the other girls was off on sick leave.  She could hardly make it home that night on the bus.  

        Mary sat in her seat and looked out of her window.  She wondered if tonight would be any different than the past nights.  She had been having trouble getting to sleep at night for some strange reason.  She usually fell into a dreamless sleep and had done so for many years.  Her husband, Carl, had died a few years ago.  She missed him very much.  He always took care of her.  Her children were scattered to the four winds and rarely contacted her.  She was alone as far as she was concerned. 

        She used to live in a small house on the East side of town on Arcadia Avenue.  She had owned this house with Carl for many years.  After the kids had grown up and moved away, she got herself a dog for company.  She called him "Sparky" and he had since died too.  After the dog had died, she sold her little house and got herself an apartment.  She was alone with nothing much more than her little job, which was killing her. 

        Mary was not too concerned when she did start dreaming.  She thought she was probably cold, as she kept the heat turned way down.  She always dreamed when she was cold.  That darned electric bill was too high and besides, she could stand to be a little chilly during the night.  After all, it was winter and it was supposed to be cold.  An extra blanket and she would be just fine. 

        Her boss, Jim, was a nice man but some of the factory workers who came in to eat were devils.  They had no respect for the old women.  Oh, some of them did, the ones with some family upbringing, but the mean ones, they demanded service right away, just like she was a young chick!  There was one in particular that she started dreading having to wait on when he came in.  His name was Frank.  He was a big man, acne scars on his face.  His hair was always dirty and his mouth was worse.  He cursed everything in the place including the old lady.   She got to the point where she didn’t even try to be friendly to him.   He wasn’t worth it. 

        Frank was a troublemaker at the plant.  It seemed nobody liked him and he had no friends.  He did just enough work to keep his job and the rest of the time dared anyone to mess with him.  He saw that the old lady was afraid of him and this made him feel like a big man.  She started thinking about him on the bus.  It was a fairly long ride to her stop and she had time to go over some things in her head. 

        "What will you have?” the old lady asked him tonight.  She waited with her pad and pencil in her hands for his reply.  He looked at her with that look that he had.  She felt a little chill, such as a fear in her when she looked in his eyes.  She saw something in them that frightened her.  

        "I’ll have your special of the day, you old bag,”  he had said.  

        Mary disliked Frank more and more, as each day came and went.  He never changed.  He just got worse.  Tonight, though, her boss let her leave a little early.  They weren’t busy and he saw she was bone tired.   

        Frank was outside the door, on the street, finishing up with the flat tire of his car at the curb when he saw her leaving.   

        "Well, well!  If it isn’t the old bag from the bad-ass café.  Want to come home with me and see what I can do for you?”  he asked her.  “It probably has been a long time since you have had a real live man!”  He laughed that dirty laugh his kind always seemed to have.

        Not knowing what else to do, Mary just turned her back on Frank and started for the bus stop.  

        However, the crude man decided he would have some fun and went after her.   Nobody was on the street but the two of them.

        Her boss didn’t usually look after Mary once she left the café.  Tonight, she wished he had.  She was scared of this big creep and decided to walk faster to the bus stop.  He caught up with her the same time that she reached the stop. 

        "What do you say old lady, want a thrill?  Lets go to my place!"

        Mary was really scared now.   He was putting his face in hers and pulling at her arm, trying to get her to turn around and go with him.  “No, leave me alone you big lug.  Leave me alone!” she said over and over.  Frank started pulling her back toward his car when Mary's boss came out of the door of his café, locking up.  She called to him and he turned to look in the direction of her voice.  He saw that the old lady was alone at the bus stop and shouting for him.  He waved and turned his back and left her there.  Why didn’t he come and help me? she wondered.  I am here being harassed by a man who wanted to rape me and the boss just turned and left me alone?

*  *  *

        A few hours later, Mary was laying in bed awake.  She thought about the things that had happened with that creep, Frank, at the bus stop.  There were a few things that just didn’t add up though.  Things like why her boss had ignored her calls.  Why he turned and left her alone there with this man.  It was all very strange...

        Suddenly, a movement in the room startled Mary.  She looked up and there was Frank, standing there unzipping his pants.  He was staring at her.

        Mary was suddenly very afraid.  She started calling for help.  “Help me, somebody help me!  Oh Carl, help me!”  She had called out to her late husband, forgetting in this moment of great fear that he was dead.   Frank was getting into the bed now, smiling that evil dirty smile he had.  She was beside herself with fright.  She was trying to get away from him, fighting him but he was too strong for her.  She closed her eyes and called for help once again.  

        Then, out of a mist in the room, came Carl.  He was not old anymore.  He was young, very strong and very angry.  He pulled Frank off the bed, spun him around and knocked him to kingdom come.  He picked Frank up and threw him around the room.

        Mary was very anxious about Carl being in her room.  She didn’t understand how this could be. 

        "Carl, Carl!" she cried out.  “Be careful.  He has a knife!”

        Carl took Frank’s wrist in his strong hand and twisted it completely around.  The sound of the bones in Frank’s wrist breaking could be heard from across the room.  Frank let out a scream of pain and rage.  Carl was so intense on getting this animal away from his wife that he could only think of one thing to do.  He took him to the window and flung him through it.  Frank landed three floors down on the concrete sidewalk.  His neck broke with the impact and he died instantly.

        Mary looked at Carl and was so happy to see him.  She loved him very much.

        Carl turned back around from the window and looked at her.  He said with much love, "Honey, I came back to help you but I can’t stay.  They won’t let me.  Know that I love you and always have.  I will be waiting for you.”  With that, he was gone.  

       Mary was awestruck.  She lay back down on the bed and cried herself to sleep.

*  *  *

        When she awoke the next morning, Mary looked around the room.  There was nothing out of order.  Her clothes were not torn.  The window was not broken from last night’s fight between Frank and Carl.  She ran to the window and looked down at the pavement below.  There was no blood.

        "What happened?" she asked herself.  "I know Carl was here.  I talked to him and he talked to me, for God’s sake!”

        There was knock at the door.  Putting on her bathrobe, Mary went to the door and asked who was there.  A neighbor replied, so she opened up for her.  The neighbor was concerned about the noise Mary was making in her sleep during the night.  She said she wanted to come over to see if everything was alright, but thought it best not to disturb her.  When the neighbor left, Mary sat down on the bed.

        I'd been dreaming!  All that had been a nightmare!  Nothing has happened after all.

        Mary was very upset now.  She knew that she would probably see Frank again at the café today.  She got dressed and went on to work.   However, when the factory workers came in to eat, Frank wasn’t with them. 

        Mary couldn’t help herself; she had to ask about him.  One of the guys that was always nice to her told her that the darndest thing happened to Frank the night before.   He was standing in his room at the boarding house when he had some kind of a spell, knocking things over, swinging at empty air, yelling at the top of his lungs when nobody was there.  He had a seizure of some sort and fell down, going out of his window on the third floor of his rooming house.   He died instantly on the concrete sidewalk below, his neck broken. "Darndest thing,”  he said.

        Mary fainted.  Her nightmare had come true!

The End