"Tube socks or crew socks?" "What are we in the mood for tonight?" "Why are we using the royal we?" "I wonder if the post office keep records of people's address changes." "I mean, detectives track people down." "How do they do it?" "All right, it's official." "I've been on the night shift too long." "We're talking to ourselves like the other one's not there." "I'm sorry." "Did you say something?" "What'd you say about a detective?" "Somethin' about your dad?" "Yeah." "I can't track him down anywhere." "Until I do, I won't know how he lived all the esyears." "Or how he died." "Well, maybe he'll find you..." "like he found you in that dream." "Hmm." "I could sure use his help." "What for?" "Well, you know that ghost I was telling you about, the one at the city hall archives?" "Yeah, the one who acts like he's guarding' the place." "Yeah, he made all those weird threats about, you know, there being angry spirits down there and some serious darkness in grandview." "All right, wait a minute." "You're not really worried about us, like we're in danger?" "Definitely not with jim clancy out there in his uniform, so... hey." "Easy." " Go to work and don't come back until people are healthy and safe." "Go to work." "Sleep well." "Hey, al, there's a clear mirror over here." "Yeah." "Thanks." "See ya." "No." "No!" "Hey." " Oh." "Hi." "They told me you'd be up here." "Are you ready for breakfast?" "I'm buying?" "Thanks, but can i show you something first?" "Yeah, sure." "What is it?" "Look, we brought this girl in with, uh, amino acid catecholamines flooding her neurals, and that result was acute catatonia." "That would have been really interesting had it been in english." "But see, it sounds a little crazy to say in english that I think" " I think this girl was almost scared to death." "How?" "Washing her face in a bathroom." "All right, according to one of her friends, before she lost consciousness, the last words out of her mouth were, "bloody mary. "" "Bloody mary?" "Like the drink?" "No, like bloody mary, the ghost." "Oh, you mean bloody mary, the urban myth." "I don't know." "You're the expert." "You tell me." "What really happened?" " Nobody saw." "They're gonna run tests, but the tox screens could take days." "I mean, look at her face." "Somethin' scared her." "Bloody mary." "What's the legend again?" "Well, you'd stand in a front of a mirror, you call out her name,"bloody mary,"" "turn around a few times, and then she comes through the mirror and scares you to death." "Hey... what do you think?" "I don't know what to think." "Tell me everything you know about bloody mary." "Are you kidding me?" "You're, like, the 100th person that's asked me about bloody mary today." "All right." "Well, news travels fast." "Yeah, all over campus." "It's like a full-blown mania." "I have students clamoring to get into my class, and I have offered a little extra credit for anyone that does the bloody mary ritual, and the first kid that dies, I'm giving an automatic "A."" "Well, that's a little ghoulish, don't you think?" "Nah." "I'm just riding the cyberwave." "Cyberwave?" "What's a cyberwave?" "Ok, I know you live in the world of antiques and dead things and dead people, but us, normal people that live in the land of the living, we have this little invention that we like to call... ready?" "Ta-da!" "The internet." "And bloody mary is all over it." "Wait." "So there are whole sites devoted to one urban myth?" "Oh, yeah." "There's bloody mary sites all over the world." "Whatever area the myth takes place in, well, you change the myth to fit local lore." "So what's the rockland U. Version?" "Well, it starts the usual way." "You look into a mirror." "You say her name a few times over and over and over again, and then all of a sudden, bloody mary appears behind you." "Very scary." "But then here's where the rockland U. Students, who I normally mock because their brains are tiny, mushy, and unformed, they got very creative on me." "According to rubloodymary." "Com, you go into some sort of suspended state where you-you can't talk, you can't move for about 4 days, and day after day, mary appears to you until you go mad, and then on the fouth day, you die." "You're dead." "And this is what they think will happen to the girl who collapsed yesterday?" "Well, here's a hint." "Hi." "Excuse me." "My name is melinda." "I'm so sorry to hear about allision." "Could I talk to you guys for a second?" "Uh, who are you?" "My husband is the paramedic who brought her in." "Ok." "What do you wanna know?" "Well, anything that you can remember." "Did somebody hear her say, "bloody mary," right before she lost consciousness?" "Um, well, we weren't there, so we don't know anything." "We just came when we heard that allison, um, that she-she got sick." "Well, you can talk to me." "I'm not one of the police, and I don't work for the university, so... but we don't have anything to say." "We weren't there, so we don't really know." "She heard the noise." "What noise?" "Um, I know that this may sound strange, but if you're scared of, well, anything," "I think that I might be able to help you, but you have to help me." "I need to know more about allison, like did anyone around her die recently, like family or close friends?" "What does that have to do with anything?" "That's hard to explain." " Ok, I don't mean to be rude, but unless you're a doctor or a family member, you need to leave us alone." "Ok, see, that is the thing about bloody mary." "There are so many legends that you can have 2 in one town." "So there's the rockland U. Version, and now there's a grandview version also?" "Yes, but technically the rockland university version derives from the town version." "I mean, that - that's why my students went so crazy." "When they found out they had their own local ghost," "I mean, they-are you sure you don't wanna light candles?" "This story is way better with atmosphere." "Positive." "It would go a lot better with your new decor." "Get to it." " It's kind of dark." "Ok, uh, look." "Mary lived in grandview about 150 years ago." "She was a teenager, she got a disease, and she goes to the doctor after slipping into a coma." "The doctor declares her dead." "You know where this is going?" "To the end of the story." "Anyway, mary goes into the ground, and they tie a string around her hand, runs up to the surface, which is attached to a bell on top of the ground." "That way, if she ever wakes up 'cause she's not really dead, then she- - a dead ringer." "Mmm." "Melinda gordon, you listen." "I like that about you." "Ok." "So, mary's parents are so grief-stricken, they really tie one on that night, and I don't mean tie one on like a string around the hand." "They get hammered." "When they wake up the next morning, they look at the bell." "They see that the bell is- as the kids say-off the hook." "Huh?" "What are they gonna do?" "They have to dig her back up." "They open the coffin lid." "Except now it's way too late." "She's really, really dead." "And get this." "On the inside of the coffin, there's bloody scratch marks inside the coffin lid." "That's it?" "You just go back to your I. M. Ing?" "You're like my students." "Ok." "So then it all makes sense." "All the blogs started out by saying that a bell would ring and then bloody mary would appear, which must be what allison's friend in the hospital meant when she said that allison heard a noise." "Ipso ghosto, you seem to be saying." "Ok, so I do agree that it might have something to do with a ghost." "I did see something in allison's hospital room, but I definitely don't think it has anything to do with bloody mary." "Why would a century-old ghost show up and terrorize coeds?" "Maybe she was tired of getting her bell rung." "Whatever is or isn't haunting allison is about her, but I-I'm not gonna know what she saw until she wakes up." "You mean if she wakes up." "That myth does not prove that anything is gonna happen." "Jen, you gotta get real." "If people are dumb enough to believe in ghosts, then guess what." "You know, it's like they deserve to get scared out of their minds." "It's like they basically asked for it." "Allison did not ask for that." "She's not in a coma 'cause she saw bloody mary." "Please, would you please not say that name?" "Jen." "Come on." "No." "Please don't do this." "Please don'T." "Hey, uh, I'm not an expert on this, but I'm pretty sure that's what I would look like if I saw a ghost." "How did you hear about this so fast?" "I mean, is it already on the net?" "I came back to my office, and you know me." "I hear an ambulance, I come running." "I'm pretty sure you told me this wouldn't happen again, no?" "Will you just show me where it happened?" "I'm paid to be a skeptic." "I'm just running out of reasons to doubt the myth." "Well, here's a reason." "I see ghosts." "Other people don'T." "Ok, but you're forgetting about the one element that runs through all versions of the myth, and that's the mirrors." " I'm not forgetting it." "I'm ignoring it - the bell, the rest of it." "It all makes a good story." "It doesn't make it real." "Excuse me." "Sir, that car is being examined by campus security." "It's ok." "I'm-I'm rick payne, anthropology of the occult." "I'll take it from here." "Where are we going?" "This is it." "We're here." "This is where jenna was found." "And while we're on the subject of things you don't know, let me give you my condensed lecture on mirrors and their place throughout history and the supernatural." "Like the first queen elizabeth, she had her own personal magician who would use a mirror to describe the future." "And the greeks." "Don't even get me started on the greeks." "Uh, this is the condensed version?" "Yes, but you just made it a little bit longer." "The greeks thought that any reflective surface would do." "They even believe that unsuspecting, uh, souls could be pulled underwater by evil spirits lurking underneath the water." "Why?" "Did you just do a flourish?" "I guess I did." "I'll tell u yowhy." "Because cultures throughout space and time have always believed that mirrors are, uh, sort of a veil between our world and others." "Uh, a portal, if you will." "Ok, so let's say that bloody mary uses mirrors as portals." "One problem." "Where's the mirror in here?" "D saveby the bell." "Wow." "Ok, who's opening whose mind now?" "Who you gonna call the next time you have a ghost pluggin' up your works?" "Who I should have called all along." "Ok, we could do this face to face, but mirrors are your thing." "Bloody mary." "Bloody mary." "Bloody mary." "Mel, are you down here?" "Hey, what do you wanna do with this greatart nouveau clock?" "Are you ok?" "You look like you just saw a- nothing." "Nope." "Didn't see a thing." "I thought so." "You were calling her, weren't you, that ghost of bloody mary?" "How do you know about her?" "Are you kidding?" "Every time I go to check my e-mail, my son's got the browser on that page." "All his friends are into it." "It's all so ridiculous." "Why do these kids wanna do this?" " What, scare themselves?" "Just like goin' on a roller coaster, I guess." "You have to face something that feels like death, you come out the other side, and then suddenly you feel so alive." "Ha!" "I found you!" "You were lying." "What?" "Well, it'sme com ant page." "They're all talking about what happened to jenna." "Look at what this person says." ""Stop it." "You guys are making it worse." ""How many people do you want to get hurt before you learn?" "Signed "S. A."" "Now if I go to jenna's webpage, check out her B. F. F. S." "Allison, some girl named claire, and sloane alexander, the friend from the hospital, who told me she didn't know anything about bloody mary." "And here's sloane's website." "Whoa." "Did you see that?" "See what?" " I gotta get down there." "Yeah?" "Who- it's you." "This is gonna sound strange, but I know a few things about ghosts." "You're not laughing." "I'm so sorry." "I'm not used to that." "I have 2 friends in the hospital." "I'm probably next." "You were saying?" "Ok." "Well, first of all, most of the things that people are saying about bloody mary are very unlikely." "Ancient spirits don't usually jump out of mirrors and try to kill people." "Number 2, ghosts can scare you, but they can't do more than that unless you let them." "We can stop this together, but you have to help me figure out who she is and-and why she would wanna do this to you." "For a second there, I actually believed you." "I actually thought I might be ok." "You will be ok." "You just have to help me find the connection." "Why should I help you?" "You don't know what you're talking about." "You're wrong about everything." "The legend is all true, every detail." "You call bloody mary, you hear the bell, she comes through the mirror, and then you die." "Yeah, but no one has died." "It's just a story." "You're wrong." "Rachel died." "I was there when it happened." "Rachel?" "Who's rachel?" "She was one of jenna's suitemates." "Just before semester break, we were talking about blogs and stuff, what kids were saying about bloody mary." "She's real." "Allison, though, she was, like, obsessed, especially when she heard that the real bloody mary had actually lived in grandview and her parents were founders of the college." "And allison swore a roommate of her ex-boyfriend's had actually seen the ghost." "And when he looked up in the mirror, bloody mary was, like, staring right back at him." "Shut up." "You are such a liar." "I swear it." " Prove it." "I dare you." "Go on." "You go do it." " Are you kidding me?" "I'll do it." "We were kind of impressed, actually." "Good luck." "She was the only one who had the guts." "The rest of us couldn't get out of the bathroom fast enough." "Bloody mary." "Bloody mary." "Bloody mary." "Rachel went into a coma, and 4 days later, she died." "I've never heard any of this." "Well, it was last spring, and the university doesn't exactly advertise unexpldened aiaths on campus." "For wha ile, people thought maybe it was a drug overdose." "But you knew better." "We were so scared." "We made a pact to never tell anyone how it happened, but then when we came back after semester break, all this weird stuff started to happen." "It was like mary knew we were back... like she was watching us." "There were all these weird noises." "There was stuff we thought we were seeing in mirrors." "And you think all this happened because you called out a ghost's name?" "Well, rachel called her, but it was our idea, and now mary's coming for everyone there who helped wake her up." "Look, I understand how you feel- no, you don'T." "You don't understand anything." "Ok, maybe I don'T." "But will you at least let me help you?" "You don't have to do this alone." "No, it's too late now." "My best friends are gone, and I'm probably next, and anyone I told would think I was nuts." "Sloane, please don't do this." "I'm sorry." "I need you to go." "Ok, well, if you change your mind" "good morning." " Hey." "Hey, you know, it turns out everything sloane told you about rachel checks out." "She was picked up in kirkfield hall, unresponsive, transferred to mercy, declared comatose, and she died 4 days later." "So what was the cause of death?" "Complications from heart failure." "Is it relyal possible to be scared to death." "Yeah, sure, if it's bad enough." "You get this flood of chemicals to your heart, creates a shock some people can't survive." "Aw, that's just delightful." " Oh, it gets worse." "Look, also, my buddy at the hospital told me jenna is showing exactly the same symptoms as allison, just a day later." "We haven't had a single test positive for any medical cause for their catatonic states." "Well, all the rumors online are getting crazy." "It's like this thing has a life of its own." "Oh, babe, I don't ntwa to tell you your job." "I won't do that." "But we got the 2 girls in the hospital." "They're serious." "There's no other explanation." "Is it possible it could be the myth?" " Yes." "Yes, of course." "Anything is possible, and if anything, my job has taught me that, but I'm sorry." "I don't believe it." "You don't believe it, or you don't want to?" "What does that mean?" "All it means is if it's true, there's a whole lot more to this ghost world than you got a handle on." "You know, if it's true, maybe your- your ghost down in the archives is tellin' the truth." "What, that there's some kind of darkness in grandview?" "Yeah." "Hey." "Remember me?" "I need to do some research on a girl who might have been buried- don't tell me." "Bloody mary." "Well, if that's actually who she was, then yes." "For the 10,000th time today, there are no such records I know of, so kindly look elsewhere." "Um, no." " No?" "No." "This is public property." "Those are public records, and I am the public, so unless you wanna declare martial law," "I'm gonna be going this way." "You're plucky." "You're gutsy." "Those are excellent traits in a person who wants to get badly hurt." "Yeah, you told me that before." "Now, you hear what i just said to the archivist." "What do you wanna tell me?" "You can't just leave the dead to rest, can you?" "I'll let them rest when they let me rest." "Do you know something or not?" "She's real... but not everything you've heard is true." "Some of the most..." "interesting details are missing." "Such as?" "Well, I'm sure you've heard that the doctor wrglyon pronounced mary dead, but do you know who the doctor was?" "It was mary's own father." "They lived in the big house on oak shadow lane." "It's empty now, but it was once the home of dr." "Horace mumford, his wife, and their only child, mary." "Poor mary had diptheria, which was incurable in those days, not to mention extremely contagious." "Dr. Mumford felt they had tobury his daughter right away." "With the chance that the bell might ring, mary's mother wodul not leave the grave." "Well, the good doctor knew that she would die of exposure if she didn't come inside." "Luckily, he had some morphine." "Well, you know the rest." "By the time they got to mary, she was dead... by the doctor's own hand." "You're right." "I shouldn't have asked." "Wait." "You'll miss the best part." "You see, when they finally got mary up, her hands were so... bloody, they missed it at first." "Mary's nails were gone." "They were stuck in the lid of the coffin." "Mary." "Are you here?" "I just wanna talk to you." "Don't you wanna talk to someone after all these years?" "Hello." "Are you catatonic yet?" " Ah, practically." "I was wondering if you were ever gonna call me back." "Did you get me in?" "Well, as it turns out, bloody mary's ancestral home is one of grandview's registered historic buildings, and the preservation society is run by the chair of our architecture school, who is a very bad poker player, and he owes me $138." "By the way, the combination to the key box is k-e-Y." "So I guess now I owe you a favor." "Yeah, and $138." "Mary." "Why won't you show yourself?" "I know you're here." "I know that we've been in the same efom broore." "Ok." "If these are the rules... bloody mary." "Bloody mary." "Bloody mary." "Do you know what happened to you?" "Do you know why you're here?" "Why aren't you looking at me?" "I don't believe it." "You - you actually saw bloody mary, the - the real thing?" "Well, I don't know if I believe it either." "I mean, I was at her family home." "I said her name 3 times." "She appeared." "Her hands were bloody." "But what?" "She had all her fingernails." "Maybe the archive ghost got his facts wrong." "Yeah, maybe, but there's something else." "The bell, it sounded off, you know, like it didn't sound like a 100-year-old bell." "Well, honey, I don't think cast-iron bell technology has changed much." "No, it didn't sound real." "You know, clipped, like- like it was a recording." "I don't think this is a century-old ghost." "All right, you're back to believing the ghost is someone who knew the girls, someone who died, someone who had unfinished business." "Yes." " Yep." "No." " No." "Not someone who knew the girls." "One of the girls." "Look, 4 girls played bloody mary that night. 2 are catatonic, one is convinced that she's next, but only one girl died, the first one, rachel." "You're saying that our daughter rachel died from playing what?" "Well, it's kind of a ghost story that was spread and now has taken on a life of its own." "I" " I'm sorry." "Miss, uh... melinda." "We sent our daughter to college." "We let her live in the dorm, even though we were a half-hour drive away and-which I knew was a big mistake." "Bill, please." "And the first time we go to pick her up... we're sent to a county morgue." "I wouldn't ask you to remember any of this if it weren't for her friends at the hospital." "They need your help." "What can we do?" " I don't know." "I was hoping to find out more information about the relationship." "Well, she never mentioned any of those names." "Jenna?" "Allison?" "No." "Rachel had a hard time making friends." "And why was that?" "My wife will tell you that that was my fault." "Well, that's not - rachel was different from other kids." "How?" " Her heart." "She had a V. S. D." "It's a septal defect, a hole between the chambers." "And she knew about that?" "From the time that she was a child, which was why we could not allow her to play sports." "She had to be home-schooled." "We took every precaution." "I don't mean to pry, but did your daughter by any chance wear a heart monitor?" "Absolutely, 24 hours a day." "And how did it work?" "When her heart got too stressed, it would emit a sound." "What kind of sound?" "You know, like an alarm." "Sloane." "What are you doing here?" "I can help you now." "It doesn't matter." "I'm leaving school." "My parents are coming from maine." "They're picking me up tomorrow." "Yeah, but you don't have to do this." "Bloody mary is not after you." "The ghost is rachel." "What?" " I called her." "She came." "I heard the bell." "I saw the bloody hands." "I saw what jenna and allison saw, and I'm still here to talk to you about it." "You're gonna be dead in 4 days." "No." "That's how long rachel was in a coma before she died, and there's a reason for that." "Rachel had a heart condition, and the excitement or the fear or whatever it is that happened in that bathroom, it was too much for her body to take." "But I heard the bell." "No, what you heard was her heart monitor." "She had a condition, and the scare is what killed her." "Oh, my god." "That's why she did it." "That's why she did what?" "That's why she came for us." "That's why she's saving me for last." "When allison said she knew someone who'd seen bloody mary," "I thought she was just lying to scare us, so why not return the favor?" "Right?" "But I figured allison or jenna would take the dare, but... then it was rachel." "She was so quiet." "You know, I barely even knew her, and then just out of nowhere, she just steps up." "Ok, I'm bored already." "I'm gonna go to bed." "Whatever." " Whatever." "Bloody mary." "Bloody mary." "Bloody mary." "Allison and jenna didn'tve en know what I'd done." "But I didn't-I didn't mean to hurt anyone." "Yeah, but rachel didn't know that." "So I did this." "I killed her." "It was an accident, and I know that, but we have to make sure that rachel knows that." "She needs your help to move on." "You say that like... is she here?" "No, but I think I know where she might be." "Where did it happen?" "In the hall bathroom." "Come on." "Sloane." "I can'T." "Rachel..." "I know who you are and how you died." "Please let me help you." "Rachel, stop it." "Stop it!" "They killed me." "You took a dare that went wrong." "That's what happened." "Left for dead... by you." "Sloane didn't know that you were gonna take that dare." "None of them did." "You have to forgive them." "Doesn't matter now." "They called my name." "Your name is rachel." "You're not bloody mary." "She was a different girl buried alive by her parents." "So was I." "Wait." "I don't see her." "Is she gone?" "Is it over?" "Not yet, but I think I know where I can find her." "I can't find it." "Where is it?" "Your grave's not here, rachel." "This was never your home." "You have to remember who you really are." "You have to remember how this all started." "Look at your hands." "You were holding a glass, and it broke in your hand." "Your heart stopped because you were scared." "I couldn't breathe." "Felt like an empty, cold box in my chest." "Then I saw her, sloane..." "Saw how I scared her, how I scared them all." "And that fear that they felt, I knew that feeling so well." "And they look at me now, and they're the ones who are frozen in fear." "You mean allison and jenna." "I'm with them all the time." "I can go anywhere, do anything." "I never have to rest, and my parents, they can't stop me anymore." "So that's why you understood mary." "You knew what it was like to be buried alive." "But somewhere along the way, you lost who you really are and who you were to everybody who really loved you." "I can help you, but you have to let mary go." "I know it's hard to accept." "I don't care if you think that you can see spirits or-or ufos." "I've heard enough." "Tell him I drove his snowmobile into a tree." "She wants you to know that she drove your snowmobile into a tree." "Oh, my god." "She was only 13." "Lisa... what's she talking about?" "There was a blizzard." "Dad said I couldn't go outside, but mom could tell I was just dying, watching all the snow pile up." "She made me promise never to tell." "She let me drive the snowmobile around the yard." "That was a bad idea." "There was a snowstorm, and..." "I let her drive your snowmobile." "I thought she'd be sitting and her heart would be safe." "This is gonna sound really lame, but" "I think that was the best day of my life." "She wants to thank you for that day." "Oh, yeah." "I suppose she's grateful that we let her live in the dorm, too." "Tell him safety is overrated." "She said that safety is overrated." "Sometimes it's better to let things go, no matter what happens." "I let go of rachel, and look what I got." "Tell him that he gave me the best gift he could ever give me, my freedom." "She knows you miss her, but she wants you to understand how happy you made her." "I..." "I didn't want her happy." "I wanted her alive." "And I was, thanks to them." "She was alive." "You gave that to her." "She's right." "Listen to rachel." "Is she here?" "Is it safe now?" "Um, this is sloane." "She went to school with rachel." "She looks just as scared as I was." "Is that how you want her to stay?" "She forgives you." "Do you see this?" "This light, are you feeling this?" "No." "It's just for you." "What is she saying?" "She's saying she's free now." "She's saying good-bye." "It's ok." "Hey." "I hope you're happy." "Are you happy?" "Uh, generally yes." "Why?" "'Cause those comatose girls have now woken up because of you, and rubloodymary." "Com gets, like, 5 hits a day, mostly from me." "And the crickets have returned to my classroom." "I'm doing my lectures for nobody, practically, ok, and the stark, raving terror that had this town in its grips is now just gone, all because of you." "Well, I'm so sorry." "I should've known how it would affect you." "You know, I was thinking of letting you skate on that $138 you owe me, but now I've changed my mind, so pay up." "Sorry." "No cash." "But you can take your payment in kind." "What, something from here?" "Some of this junk?" "Do I have blue hair?" "Do I live at the end of the block with 15 cats?" "Forget it." "You owe me $138." "This is me leaving disgruntled." "Hiya, jim." " Hey." "What time is our reservation?" "8:00." "We're good." "You know what?" "I think maybe we are."