Authors Note: This is the first short story I've written in a while and feedback would really be appreciated. Also if you find any mistakes or grammatical errors please let me know. I do the best that I can, but I’m afraid it’s far from perfect. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy it.

DragonsDream13

Tradition

“Come on Timmy, You can do it! Don’t be such a wuss.” The kids goaded mercilessly.

“But I don’t wanna! I don’t wanna!!” Seven-year-old Timmy said with as much force as he could muster.

He was up against the big kids. Will Drew and Stephen were all two years older then him and he couldn’t fight back while they shoved him towards the old house.

“What am I doing guys?”

“You’re going to meet Bloody Mary today.” Drew answered with half a snicker.

“And if you do you’ll get to be in our club.” Will chipped in.

“Now shut up and do what we say.” They both said in unison.

Timmy was now thoroughly scared. He’d heard stories about Bloody Mary before from the really big kids, like the 6th graders, and everything he’d ever heard had always been bad.

He tried to sit down in a weak attempt to stop them from practically dragging him to their destination, but it simply made them push harder.

“Listen guys, I’m not so sure about this. All the stories are so scary.”

“O just shut up already Timmy. We all did it when we were your age, and were all still here aren’t we?” Drew responded again. Drew decided not to mention that none of them had actually completed the task, they’d all chickened out. But just like the older kids did to them they were going to do to Timmy. It had become tradition.

They arrived at the old gray house they had been heading too. The house itself would have been bad enough to scare anyone, with millions of cobwebs in every possible location and the look of being abandoned for hundreds of years. So of course this had to be the location Drew picked for the ritual.

With one look of the house Timmy practically wet his pants. It looked like one of those houses full of ghosts and monsters and all sorts of other bad things that could eat him.

“Were like going-ing in in there?” he managed to stutter out.

“Of course, you wouldn’t expect Bloody Mary to live in a church would you?” Will said while Drew unlocked the gate that led to the house. Will and Drew had sat down the night before and planned it all out, so they had an answer for practically everything.

Will grabbed Timmy’s left arm and Drew got his right, and with the so far silent Stephen behind him Timmy had nowhere to go but to the house’s door. It creaked open as Will opened it and Timmy thought he saw something move in the shadows.

“AHH Please Don’t make me do this! I don’t want to be in your club anymore! WAHH” Timmy pleaded. His reaction only made Drew snicker.

They had dragged him all the way to the door on the other side of the huge houses foyer when they paused for a second.

“Will, open up the door!” Drew commanded.

Will reached over and pulled the door open making all the floorboards creak. Timmy jumped up and tried to back away from the gaping opening that was now facing him. He felt two arms grab his shoulders and shove him forward. He lost his balance and fell into the room. The door slammed behind him and he was alone.

All alone.

Will and Drew gave each other high fives and started doing some sort of victory dance while Stephen just stood and watched them. Up until this point he’d kept quiet about this whole ceremony. After all he hadn’t planned any of this, they only invited him to show off he figured. But so far he hadn’t seen anything that impressed him. Just two airhead 4th graders trying to make themselves feel powerful by pushing around kids much younger then them. Plus, he had a really bad feeling about the house they were in.

Will was the first to notice Stephen’s behavior. “What’s the matter with you?” “You going to wuss out on us?” Stephen was growing tired of there limited vocabulary.

“No no no.” he said. “It’s just… are you sure this is a good idea?” “ I mean…What if something goes wrong?” he was full of doubts.

“What could go wrong Stephen?” He was quiet. “Exactly. Nothing dude, so chill out.” He figured he’d relax for now. After all these two obviously think they know what they’re doing enough to actually do it. And Drew had a point. What could possibly go wrong?

Timmy was scared to death. He had his eyes closed and his fists clenched so tightly his hands were turning blue. He could hear the others talking, but not what they were saying. He rocked himself back and forth until his back made contact with a wall. He tried to calm down; after all so far nothing had killed him. That was a good sign that he was going to be okay. He opened his eyes.

At first he couldn’t see anything, for there were no windows or lights in the room. When his eyes adjusted a second later there still wasn’t much to see. He saw the faint outline of a toilet and a wastebasket in the far corner and a few shelves here and there. The only other thing in the room was a large mirror facing him on the other side of the room; it stood out from everything else in the room because somehow it was giving off a faint light. Even enough of a light where Timmy could clearly make out his reflection.

The mirror reminded Timmy of what he was supposed to be doing. He decided he’d try to be brave and prove to all of the big kids that he was just as good as them once and for all.

“Bloody Mary” he yelled.

The three halted their conversation at the sound of Timmy’s voice.

“Did you hear that too guys?” Stephen asked.

“Yea.” They both said. “He actually said it.”

The house shook violently one time, throwing them all off their feet and making things crash all around them…

“ What the hell was that?” Will asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m getting a little scared now.” Drew admitted. “I didn’t expect anything like that to happen.” “It must have just been a coincidence.”

“Yea.” they all agreed.

Nothing happened.

Nothing like the stories happened, no monster came and ate him, the ground didn’t swallow him up, and nothing was out of place. It was if he hadn’t done anything at all. Timmy became more confidant that the stories were after all just stories.

“Bloody Mary!” He said with much less fear.

This time something happened. He suddenly couldn’t see the rest of the room anymore. The only thing he could see was the mirror, which was now glowing much brighter then before. He also couldn’t hear the others talking anymore. It was if the whole world had gone silent. Then a low humming starting coming from the mirror.

Timmy was no longer confident. He stood up and ran blindly to the door, smacking his face straight into it. He started pounding on it as if his life depended on it.

“LET ME OUT OF HERE! SOMETHINGS SCARYS GOING ON!!!” he shrieked.

Stephen heard Timmy repeat himself and looked to see that Drew and Will had heard as well. They both didn’t look very surprised at the courage of the seven-year-old.

“Shouldn’t we let him out now?” Stephen asked. “He’s clearly shown his bravery and this is just going too far.

“Shut up Stephen, If he can go this far he can go the rest of the way too.” Drew reasoned. He could see that neither Drew nor Will were scared anymore. It had probably just been a flash of fear that he’d seen in them to begin with. He could see the feeling of power reflect in their eyes and there was nothing he could do to help Timmy when he was against both of them.

Suddenly there was a loud thump against the door, and the screaming started. He was at the door in a heartbeat with his hand on the doorknob when he felt Will’s hand gripping his wrist.

“What do you think your doing, Stephen?” he snarled “ Not thinking about letting poor Timmy out now are you?” Stephen just glared at the much stronger Will, he knew he was beat.

Then the house jolted again, and again they all hit the floor, temporarily disbanding the confrontation between him and Will. He was up in a second though despite the shaking of the house and he wrenched open the door with both hands.

Standing in the doorway was Timmy, blood all over his face and arms, with the eyes of an animal about to be killed. He grabbed Timmy to him and tried to pull him away from the pitch-black room when someone grabbed him from behind, making him lose his grip on Timmy. He spun around and slung Drew, the one who had grabbed him, across the hall, and tried to grab little Timmy away from Will. He realized quickly that he was a few seconds too late.

He watched in horror as Will shoved Timmy towards the open doorway, as if The doorway was the mouth of a lion. Timmy hit the ground with a thud too exhausted apparently to get up. The next thing Stephen knew Drew was standing in front of the doorway.

“Say hello to Bloody Mary for me Timmy.” He said with a look completely lacking in remorse. Stephen sworn later on that he had seen something strange, something evil flash behind Drew’s eyes at that moment. It was an image he couldn’t forget, and one that haunted him till his death.

The second Timmy disappeared into the dark the door slammed. The suddenness of it knocked them all backwards. Then he started screaming. He was yelling like a dying animal, a sickening sound of agony and downright fear. Stephen heard the sound of glass breaking.

There were scraping noises.

Timmy yelled louder.

Then silence.

The door creaked open to reveal an empty room.

Timmy was gone.

The police never did solve the case. They talked to Stephen, Will, and Drew but no one believed any of their stories. Although Stephen figured his was the most accurate. They classified it as a runaway case and the search ended two weeks after it began. Then everyone seemed to forget about little Timmy. Everyone but Stephen that is.

The next year on the same day Stephen went to the house, and into that horrible room. Everything looked like it should have, with nothing out of place. “They did a pretty thorough cleanup after all,” he thought to himself. Then something caught his eye. In the middle of the floor, he saw a tiny shard of glass, not even large enough for the cops to take as evidence. He picked it up and looked at it, and for a second he swore he saw little Timmy’s bloody face in it, screaming his last breathes in hope of anything, anyone, coming to save him. Stephen sat down and cried.

So much for tradition.