Fred & Mary Page 2

  He slipped his hand out from its grip and bosom giving his hand a look over. He then leaned over giving the doll a closer look. It looked like it was fast asleep as it lay there, which made the back of his neck feel hot for some reason.

  Out of nowhere, its eyes opened causing Fred to let out a scream as he reeled back.

  Grasping his heaving chest, he came to his senses. The eyelids were still in the sleeping position. It was all in his head.

  “You’re going to take a lot of getting used to,” he muttered.

  Fred rolled out of bed and went through his routine for getting ready for work. He hopped in the shower, urinating, washing, and brushing his teeth at the same time. Fred hopped out, to towel off, lotion up, and to rummage around to pull together clean work clothes. The mountain of funky clothes next to the side of the bed told him he had to do laundry at some point.

  Finally dressed, he gave his new sleeping bedmate a final look before heading out the bedroom. Before he left, he made his usual Pop Tart breakfast with a side of black coffee and four sugars.

  Grabbing his bag, he headed out the door, running down the stairs while praying not to run into Ms. Santiago. Safely making it out the door, he hopped into his vehicle and went to work.

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  More rested than he had been for a couple of months allowed Fred to focus more on work. However, now and then his mind wandered back to what happened that morning.

  “Dumbass,” he garbled to himself, as he shook the incident from his psyche.

  It was a doll and nothing more he thought to himself. He felt foolish thinking it was anything but that. As he attempted to focus on the presentation on his computer screen, a knock on his open door took his attention away from his work.

  “Bam and bam,” Barney stood with a grin on his face flashing two brand new comic books within standard bags with board covers behind them, “Regulators number one and the alternate cover signed by Jim Lee himself!”

  Fred’s face beamed like a six-year-old as Barney walked in laying them down on his desk causing work to grind to a halt as he picked them up giving them a look over.

  “Bro, these are off the chain! Thank you, man! What do I …?”

  He stifled his question, as he saw the scowl that formed on his friend’s face.

  “My bad,” Fred coughed.

  “I should drag you across your desk for even asking that,” Barney shook his head in disgust.

  He dropped down into one of Fred’s seats taking a load off, as Fred gratefully set the books down.

  “Seriously, thank you, man.”

  “Working on the Shiro account?” Barney inquired.

  “Yeah,” Fred nodded glancing at his screen. “Going over and tweaking the spreads the team sent me, I think they’ll be blown away by our proposal.”

  “How was the bookcase?”

  “The what?” Fred furrowed his brows.

  “The custom bookcase you ditched the comic book store and me to go home and put together,” Barney narrowed his eyes.

  “Oh! The bookcase,” Fred finally remembered his fib. “It looks pretty good. It wasn’t that hard to put together.”

  “What color is it?” A suspicious Barney began his interrogation.

  “It’s unstained Birch wood,” Fred cleared his throat. “Mary always said light furniture brightened up the space. So, I went with that.”

  Barney nodded halting his interrogation much to Fred’s relief.

  “So, what do you want to do tonight?”

  Fred and his eyes slowly met. Barney was prepared as he wore a visage of disappointment expecting to get shot down again.

  “Barney …I’m not trying to be difficult man,” Fred lowered his head.

  “I know,” Barney muttered while standing up, “Some other time.”

  “No,” Fred shook his head, “How about tomorrow?”

  “Fred, you don’t have to man.”

  “No, I want,” Fred gave him an earnest look. “We can hit up End Zone; we haven’t been there in awhile.”

  “Alright, bet,” Barney smiled. “Well, I got to get back and get some work done myself. Enjoy the books, that Jim Lee was the second to last one. I almost dropkicked Mickey Carson to get it.”

  “Barney …” Fred leaned back in his seat with a stunned visage. “I told you to leave that boy alone; he’s only twelve years old.”

  “He’s a pint-sized terrorist and a bully, acting like he runs Comickaze!” Barney defensively pointed at his friend. “His ass had to be humbled!”

  “I can’t,” Fred chuckled shaking his head. “Go get some work done.”

  Fred waited for his friend to leave before his smile dropped. He didn’t want to go out. However, Barney had done everything to be there for him. From giving him his space, to gradually suggesting activities for them to do, to not taking it personally when Fred shot him down.

  He could give him one night out, especially for risking life and limb to get him his first issue comic books. One night in his mind would fulfill the debt and allow Barney to tolerate the next six months to a year Fred would shoot him down again.

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  With the day ended Fred made his way home. He planned for another quiet evening of takeout food, becoming a couch potato, and catching up on whatever work he was unable to do in the office. He said goodbye to Barney and repeated his promise of them hanging out after work tomorrow.

  His drive home was a usual quiet one, and he lucked out not running into Ms. Santiago this time. His wish to avoid her leaned more toward the guilt that he had to lie to her. She had been both kind and motherly to both him and Mary since they began renting from her.

  Yesterday he was both embarrassed and had no way of explaining to someone the age of his mother why he purchased a life size female doll. Knowing that she was going to ask the next time he saw her, Fred began to formulate how he was going to sneak an actual bookshelf into the apartment so that he could show her.

  As he walked into the apartment, his stomach began to turn. It looked and felt different.

  As he dropped his bag at the door and walked around, something felt completely off to him. He began running his hand down his goatee while giving the place a look over. In plain view, everything looked normal to him, but in his gut, something did not seem right.

  He finally chalked it up to nerves shrugging it off.

  Fred walked over to the refrigerator flying it open to pull out a pitcher of water …and froze.

  The bad feeling, he felt came back and intensified a billion-fold.

  Inside the refrigerator, all of the cartons of takeout food along half-drunken bottles of soda that went with the food were gone.

  What was also unnerving was that there were some mystery items Fred knew were in the back that he kept forgetting to throw out.

  They were also gone too.

  The only two items left within the refrigerator were the pitcher of water he was going for and a box of baking soda.

  Fred slowly closed the door, and reopened it just to make sure his eyes were not deceiving him. The scene did not change.

  His heart began to flutter as he stood up and made his way to his bedroom. He did not have to walk all the way through as his entire body became molten hot stopping him in his tracks.

  The missing mound of clothes at the foot of his bed was the first thing to make his stomach turn in on itself. The fact that it was missing meant someone was in his room, which said they saw it. What made it worse was the doll was propped up and repositioned to sit on his properly made up bed with its legs crossed and the television remote in its right hand.

  Fred first went to his dresser to find some of the clothes that were on the floor both clean and folded although not neatly. He then moved to his closet and found his remaining clothes hung up. His fear turned into irritation as he quickly n
arrowed down the culprit who broke in and tidied his apartment.

  A bit calmer, he headed over to the closet which housed the double stack washer and dryer units they bought at Sears two years ago. Inside the dryer waiting to be hung up was a final load of his bright colored shirts. The irritation within him dissipated as he wiped his eyes from the mist forming within them.

  She refused to stop looking out for him. Fred partially chuckled with embarrassment wondering what she thought when she walked into his bedroom, and how he was going to explain the doll to her.

  With a huff, Fred rolled his eyes going for his phone. The jig was up. He had to get it over with and rip the bandage off. He also prayed she didn’t take pictures.

  Hitting her name on his speed dial, Fred waited for her to pick up.

  “What up broham?” a chipper female voice rung through the speaker of his phone.

  “V,” he swallowed. “Were you in my house today?

  “Say what?” His sister asked with a confused tone.

  “V …look,” he sighed. “I appreciate what you did, but I keep telling you I can take care of myself. You don’t have to sneak into my house and …”

  “Fred,” she cut him off. “I’m in Manhattan …I’ve been here since yesterday dude. You forgot I had to fly out here for the pitch meeting?”

  A cold chill washed over Fred as the memory of their conversation popped him on the side of the skull. She was the only person aside from Ms. Santiago who had keys to his domicile which she fought tooth and nail to have so that she could check up on him. If she was in New York from yesterday, that left only one suspect capable of perpetrating this random act of kindness.

  “Um …yeah,” he cleared his throat. “I remember …how did it go?”

  “Better than I hoped,” she answered with a concerned tone. “I got the account. Fred, is something wrong? You alright?”

  “Yeah V,” he came back while scanning his apartment again. “I’m alright; I think I just confused myself. Wow! Congratulations on landing the Niche-DG account!”

  “Thanks, I had to work hard for this one, Mrs. Franklin loved my ideas. I’m out here for a month visiting with Hank and working from the New York office, you want me to …”

  “I’m good sis,” he attempted to project a smile through his phone. “I just confused myself. How about we meet up when you get back and celebrate.”

  “Okay.”

  “Have a safe trip, I’ll call you tomorrow.” He promised.

  “Yeah you do that,” she said sternly. “Love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  Fred’s back was soaked as nervousness seeped out of his pores.

  The problem with Ms. Santiago being the only suspect was the fact that he knew she was a staunch Catholic. Even though she wasn’t that big of a prude to pull from the foul language armory, or go into a disturbing walk down memory lane of the lovers she had which included her husband, which at the time made Fred blush with embarrassment. He wasn’t sure she would react kindly to a doll mainly used for sexual purposes laying in his bed.

  Nor did he believe she had the sense of humor or strength to move a doll that had human weight to it off the bed and position it the way it now sat.

  It was something he was sure Veronica would do; unfortunately, his prime suspect had an ironclad alibi.

  He had several good reasons not to run downstairs and interrogate Ms. Santiago. Unfortunately, he also had one good reason he had to.

  Fred took his time walking two flights down to Ms. Santiago’s apartment. In his mind, he was configuring the right words and phrases to say to her. He would be able to tell from the look on her face the second she opened the door if he had to start looking for another rental unit or not.

  Not that he believed she would kick him out for having a sex doll in his bed, but the embarrassment and weird looks he would have to deal with from her would be too much for him.

  His stomach became a wet towel rung out as he stood at her door. He could hear her moving about due to her slippers over the sound of her television playing. His arm became lead as he slowly raised it. He gave the door three soft taps partially hoping she would not hear it.

  “Who is it?” She asked.

  “It’s Fred Ms. Santiago.”

  “Oh Fred, coming!”

  Nervous jolts radiated up and down his spine. Ms. Santiago’s enthusiastic tone brought a sick feeling to his gut. It became worse the minute the door opened, and he finally saw the look on her face. It was warm, pleasant, and very much happy to see him.

  “How are you dear? How was work?”

  “Uh, it was excellent Ms. Santiago,” Fred nervously smiled. “How are you?”

  “I am doing quite well; I was in the middle of making dinner and getting ready for Jeopardy! How was putting up the new bookcase yesterday? Can I see it?”

  “I was so wiped out from getting it up the steps yesterday,” he swallowed. “I decided to wait until the weekend to put it together.”

  “Oh, okay,” she nodded. “Is everything alright?”

  “Ms. Santiago,” Fred fretfully rubbed his bald dome. “Um, were you in my apartment today?”

  “Why no,” she shook her head. “Is there something wrong?”

  A spotless apartment he did not clean with laundry he did not wash made something wrong in his mind. He could tell however that good old Ms. Santiago was not the culprit.

  “Uh, no …nothing at all, I think my sister Veronica is playing a prank on me and did not want me to know she came and cleaned up my apartment a bit.”

  “Oh!” She smiled. “That would explain the music I heard coming from your apartment today!”

  “You …you heard music coming from my apartment?” Fred cracked a panicky smile.

  “Yes,” she nodded. “I think it was about eleven this morning. It wasn’t loud, but I heard it when I was heading out to run my errands. I assumed you were home for some reason. When I came back around one, it had stopped.”

  “Yeah, it was probably my sister,” Fred covered up his concern with a bold face lie. “I’m going to head back upstairs and give her a call. Let her know the jig is up. You have a good evening.”

  “Okay my dear, you too. And I can’t wait to see that bookcase!”

  “You’ll be the first to see it when I’m done!”

  Fred followed up his final lie with a wave as he walked away. He trotted up the steps until he was out of view. He stopped five steps up to his floor and gripped the guardrail as his body quivered uncontrollably.

  “What the hell is going on?” Fred choked.

  He pulled out his phone to give his sister a call again but stayed his thumb hovering over her name in the recent call section. His gut and common sense told him this was not her doing, and the last thing he wanted was to get her more worried than she probably already was halfway across the country. He slowly lowered his hand and walked up the final steps staring at his apartment.

  He took his time walking back in, this time carefully inspecting everything. It was worse than he thought.

  Someone had been doing a bit of cleaning. Counters were dusted and wiped along with the mirrors in the apartment. Fred checked the garbage receptacle for the missing food in the refrigerator but found only an empty fresh bag. It was then he remembered what Ms. Santiago said to him.

  Whoever the cleaning perpetrator was no doubt tossed it down the garbage shoot at the end of the hall.

  Nothing appeared stolen so it would be ridiculous to call the authorities.

  As he stood in the kitchen without a clue as to how to handle this beyond bizarre situation, a sick and insane idea fell from the skies and cracked him in the skull.

  His heart once again quickened as he headed back to his bedroom.

  There was still one more suspect he did not check.

  Standing in the doorway of his bedroom, Fred started back at his new bedmate still sitting casually on the bed. An icy chill raced up and down his spine as an indescribable fear kept him f
rom entering his room. He felt as if it was staring right at him, or more so gazing into his very soul. Now would have been the right time for him to say that it was just a doll to reassure him. However, with no explanation as to who violated his space and cleaned it, his current situation had his mind flooded with all of the creepy movies he had either seen or heard about with dolls that became animated, and nine times out of ten began murdering people.

  Before entering the bedroom, Fred went into the hallway closet and pulled out his spare Louisville Slugger bat. He inhaled some courage as he came to see whether he was crazy or not.