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It says they told no one, because they were afraid, as stated in Mark 16:8. What follows is agreed on my most all scholars to be a later addition, since we have found versions of Mark with three other endings, plus copies without anything after verse 8 at all. Further yet, we see how verses 9-20 are an addition in that Mary M. is reintroduced as if we did not remember who she was, along with "now . . . ".

As for how abrupt the ending is, there seems to be a very theological reason for this. Do you remember how in Mark and only Mark that Jesus tells his disciples to keep quite about him? This became known as the Messianic secret. As Wrede suggested over a century ago, this secret is then revealed not by the disciples because they were too incompetent (which Mark demonstrates throughout his work) and the women also failed to tell of the good news, leaving the writer of this gospel to finally tell you what happened. The reason you have no heard about these amazing things is because the writer has not told you yet and Jesus kept is followers quite and all failed to follow orders when needed; Peter failed Jesus, Judas betrayed, the Twelve ask dumb questions over and over, and the women fail to tell anyone. Remember is does say "they told no one". It does not say "later they said this and that".

And why in the world would Mark have not stated anything about Jesus' post-resurrection sightings if he knew of any? It would be illogical and outright stupid to know about some of the most amazing things, such as Jesus walking through walls, Doubting Thomas, the Ascension, all untold in Mark, if he knew about them. Any of these are greater in wonder than the multiplying of bread and fish, especially when mentioned multiple times, and yet Mark seems to find no consideration to the post-resurrected Jesus at all. The best explanation: he knew of none of these stories.

There is no time frame given at all as to when the women would speak again. It is all a part of the greater Messianic Secret motif found in Mark and only in Mark; this makes the ending not so abrupt and it helps explain the secretiveness of Jesus as found only in Mark.

As for ending in mid-sentence, this comes from the notion that one cannot end a sentence normally, let alone a book, with the Greek word "gar", which here means "because". However, there are sentences in the Gospels that end with this word and an editor of the works of Plotinus who created a volume of works by him had a book end with that word. So, the grammatical reasons are not persuasive to me that the verse ends in an incorrect fashion. And, as stated before, copies of Mark do exist from the past that have no extra verses at all, let alone the other endings that all differ significantly.

As for how the author knows about this when everyone was supposed to have failed to talk about it: ever heard of fiction? The author knows what happened because that person decided what would happen in the story. Besides, in the ancient days people did not ask for sources and the gospels are likely compilations of numerous sources, oral and written, all of which can be seen as dubious to the critical eye, but virtually all acceptable to the masses in the days of old. You didn't have Skeptical Inquirer back then and the debunking of stories was not anyones real past-time. The stories would have been accepted based on the position that the teller of the story places himself in, much as how the poet Pindar did in his time. (These points are made in "Did the Greeks Believe in their Myths?" by Veyne.) Besides when it comes to asking how did such-and-such know this or that happened, how did the author know what Jesus said at the Mount of Olives if Jesus was alone and the disciples fell asleep?

Needless to say, I am not convinced by Waterrock.