Too Full of Horror by Minerva Jacqueline Perring

Do you remember playing the all round scary game of Bloody Mary during late night sleepovers or halloween parties?.It is a top favourite truth or dare game played amongst teenagers. The folklore legend of Bloody Mary has been around for many decades. Some people believe that if you stand in a dark room, preferably a bathroom and chant Bloody Mary`s name many times her scary looking face will appear in the mirror.Enough said about the ritual.

It was a cold eery evening on the thirty first of October 1980. Lauren`s parents had arranged to go out to a classy restaurant for a meal out with her mums best friend Harriet Wheeler. To celebrate her new full time job working at the old fashioned sweetshop called Sweet Souvenirs in the city of London. Lauren and her parents went to visit the sweetshop to have a tour around the shop last Saturday. She always dreamed of running a sweetshop ever since she was little.Lauren who was now turning 15 at the end of this month was not completely sure which careerpath she wanted to take. She still had plenty of time though. She considered becoming an actress though when she was younger. Loving the idea of being on television and pretending to be someone else. Both her family and friends always called her such a drama queen. In a teasing way though oddly.

Lauren just sat heavily on the midnight blue leather sofa and just turned off the television. Her parents said they would be back home by around twelve thirty by the latest. Lauren guilitly loved being home alone most of the time. No parents shouting at her about the lack of homework or ordering her to go upstairs to tidy her bedroom. Pure peace and bliss. Today was Halloween and Lauren and her parents had arranged a halloween sleepover for her friends Tanya and Marie. She watched the antique wall clock on the living room slowly tick by. And she waited. And waited excitedly for her friends to come. Lauren suddenly heard their doorbell ringing three times and got up and rushed into the hallway to open the door.

"Hi!" Marie and Tanya chorused pleased to see Lauren. They had not seen much of each other in a few weeks. "Hope you are both well!" Lauren said. "We are really well thanks" they said simultaneously.

"So glad you could come to my sleepover!"Lauren said.

"Come inside" Lauren said.Looking at their excited happy faces. She then walked them down their long hallway and headed into the kitchen at the back. They loved Laurens home. They always said it was so classy. The Davies family lived in a large Georgian house in the outskirts of Lipton town. It had 3 floors and 12 rooms in total. Lauren asked both of her friends what they wanted for tea. They all said spaghetti bolognese straight away. We all ate the spaghetti bolognese  with huge appetite being so hungry whilst sitting in their trendy looking dining room. Tanya loved all the paintings hung on the wall.

They watched a bit of television and got bored quickly. Tanya then suggested that they all play the Bloody Mary game. We never played the game before. But Marie explained briefly about the Bloody Mary legend behind the game. "OK we will!" we say. Climbing up the stairs onto the second floor of the house we enter the bathroom opposite the drawing room. I very carefully carry the three lit white candles. I lock the bathroom door behind us. We place the candles on the shelf just below the mirror. We chant Bloody Mary 3 times. Nothing happens at first. But then we suddenly see a scary black face in the mirror. We all scream the place down. And switch on the bathroom light. The end of the game. RELIEF.

Only fifteen minutes later we hear my parents arriving back home and Laurens dad sensed our unsettled looking faces. Lauren told them both about the Bloody Mary game and both parents just laughed and said it was only a game and they probably imagined it in their minds.

Thirty years later Lauren can still clearly remember playing the Bloody Mary game and her and her friends terrifying experience. Something she will never forgot along with her friends.

The end