Just Kill Me by Adam Selzer Page A

too long. For stories we tell while we’re moving, not parked, you want a very basic, short versionof the story for nights when traffic isn’t too heavy, then a bunch of extra things to add in case you have to stretch it out. For that story, my basic outline is:
    1. In 1934 Mary Bregovy died RIGHT ON THIS SPOT!
    2. She’s a popular candidate for the true identity of Resurrection Mary, our most famous local ghost.
    3. People pick her up, then she disappears outside of Resurrection Cemetery.
    4. Similar to other vanishing hitchhiker legends, but we have firsthand accounts. So there. Na-na na-na boo-bug, stick your head in a thunder-mug.
    Then, if you need to fill space:
    â€”Other possible Marys at Resurrection Cemetery (there are at least 70 from the right time period) (I always try to point out that no one’s sure Mary Bregovy is really her, because she’s totally NOT the ghost, the story was at least three years old when she died. But she was the girl they focused on when the story was on Unsolved Mysteries and she died right on the tour route, so.)
    â€”Note that there’s no reliable sighting in which the ghost even says her name, so we might just be calling her Resurrection Mary because it has a better ring than, say, Resurrection Ethel.
    â€”Specific sightings
    â€”How those specific sightings differ from the standard “vanishing hitchhiker” urban legend
    â€”Other local vanishing hitchhikers (there’s a hitchhiking flapper who disappears at Waldheim Cemetery, out by you)
    â€”My plan to kidnap her (if you absolutely must)
    We’re working the early shift at the home today. Off by 2 p.m. Wanna come meet us at Graceland Cemetery? We’ll do some training stuff. You can also sit in on the stand-up class I’m taking at Second City tonight if you want to. Being a tour guide is a similar skill set.
    Now GO TO SLEEP!
    â€”Ricardo

Chapter Five
    T he last three letters in my bowl of alphabet cereal the next morning are D, I, and E. Die.
    â€œI’m calling in sick at the grocery store,” I say.
    â€œYou’re going to work,” says Mom. “Don’t listen to your cereal.”
    â€œIf the youth of today stop listening to their breakfast cereal, this country is done for,” I say. “You say so all the time.”
    â€œI’ve never said that.”
    â€œI heard you say it while you were embalming some punk who didn’t listen to his cereal just last month.”
    â€œNot funny.”
    â€œLook, how is this not an omen?”
    Mom looks down at my cereal. There is no denying that it says “die.”
    â€œIt’s German,” she insists. “It means ‘the.’ ”
    â€œThey make this stuff in Michigan,” I say. “Why would it be speaking in German?”
    â€œIt’s trying to say ‘ the only way you’ll work off the damage you did to the hearse is by going to work.’ ”
    â€œIn German?”
    â€œIn German.”
    â€œThere aren’t enough letters in a full bowl to say that all in German.”
    â€œYou owe me money. Go to work.”
    I know I’m fighting a losing battle, but at least I’ve made my stand. I gather the last three letters—D-I-E—up in my spoon and gobble them down. In a symbolic way, I’m conquering death.
    I’m not quite ready to tell Mom about the new job yet. And anyway, I’m not sure when I’ll start getting paid, or how many tours I’ll get to run. For now, I have to keep bagging groceries to pay off the damage I did backing her hearse into a cement pillar in a parking lot. A cement pillar which frankly had no business being there, for the record.
    But during my whole walk to work, I’m messing with my phone, trying to get the Tribune archives to load on it.
    I’m hooked.

    There is no way to be good at bagging groceries. Everyone has their own weird way they want their stuff