Fred & Mary

by Kipjo Ewers

  His hand rattled as he reached for his phone.

  “Mary? Mary?”

  The screen flickered followed by incoherent static. A sickening dread filled up Fred’s throat making it difficult to breathe. He reached down deep and pulled his cowering courage out of his gut so that he could get to his feet and slip on some sweat pants.

  As he forced himself to tip toe out into the hallway, his bones vibrated, his skin felt as if it was aflame, and he felt as if he had to fart and urinate at the same time.

  It did not help that the carving sound that became more sinister the closer he got propelled him into a horrible horror movie where the non-virgin and ethnic person were the first to go.

  As he entered the living room, his heart clenched up.

  The loveseat had been turned over, and one of the chairs were broken as if there had been a struggle. As Fred tried to deduce how he slept through such a ruckus, he spied Mary crouched down in the middle of the living room.

  Mary, or who he hoped was Mary sat in a squatting position wearing one of his white t-shirts, and yellow underwear wielded one of their huge butcher knives and was carving something in the living room.

  His eyes fluttered in disgust.

  Her long curly brown locks covered her face in a cliché manner preventing him from seeing what he could sense was a frightful mien.

  He knew the intelligent thing to do was to run and get help. Having no idea who to run to in this situation was his dilemma. Running outside and yelling that his ghost wife inhabiting a doll had gone mad would see him in a straightjacket.

  If he could even, make it to the door based on her savage state.

  He checked his phone. The screen still sputtered as the audio violently cracked.

  “Mary? Mary? What’s wrong? Talk to …”

  His question fell apart as he could see what she was carving into the floor from where he stood.

  Fred’s face bore a visage of twisted nervousness.

  “Who is …?”

  His question was interrupted by a warning that managed to get through the crackling sound on the audio speaker of his phone.

  “Get away from her Fred! That’s not me!”

  The horrifying caveat was barely enough to force a petrified Fred backward as whomever or whatever it was that now inhabited the doll body swung the butcher knife with the vigor and intent of separating Fred’s head from his body.

  The ominous entity was almost successful as it nicked the side of his neck inches away from his jugular. Fred went reeling and crashing against the arm of the couch as he clutched his neck that was now dripping with blood.

  His body quaked violently, as his eyes bulged as the doll still in a squatting position glaring back at him with a near twisted and demonic expression on its face. It continued to savagely stab and scratch up the wooden floor as it expanded the doll’s jaw to an inhuman length stretching the face while rolling its eyes to the back of its head. It emitted a horrifyingly traumatic bellowing sound as it sizing Fred up for the kill.

  “Fred, move your ass to the bedroom!” Mary ordered him. “Go now! Now!”

  A whimpering Fred found it hard for his body to obey her commands, as he shuffled back to the hallway. It was the animalistic wail which made the entire apartment and his very bones rattle that forced him to hightail it screaming.

  Fred felt nothing but heat and urine dripping down his leg as he bolted for the bedroom. The close slapping feet meant it was upon him, that he wasn’t going to make it until he felt a force take him off his feet and hurl him into the bedroom at the last second.

  Fred slammed awkwardly into the foot of the bed causing him to drop his phone. As he painfully squeezed out a groan, he managed to look up and see the massive wooden bedroom door slam shut, and the large double bedroom dresser slide across the room plowing into the door barricading it.

  It didn’t stop the poltergeist’s momentum as it rammed the doll body it had stolen into the door, and then proceeded to stab at the door attempting to get through as the heavily weighted dresser held its ground.

  Fred hollered and screamed while still clutching his cut neck with one hand, and holding his skull with his other hand as he curled into a fetal ball on the floor until the ruckus on the other side of the door abruptly stopped.

  The next thing his ears picked up was scampering feet, and a door violently slammed open.

  “She’s gone,” Mary informed him.

  “She? That was a fucking she?” Fred trembled.

  “We have to go after her!”

  “We are not going after jack shit!”

  “Fred, if you don’t want to be convicted of murder, get the fuck off the floor, put on one of the huge bandages from the medicine cabinet, and get after her! Now!”

  He jumped as the bedroom dresser roared as it was pushed out the way, while the bedroom door swung open. He let out a slew of profanity as he picked up the phone, and painfully scrambled to his feet first grabbing a t-shirt from out of the clothes hamper, and then sprinting to the bathroom to quickly tend to his bleeding neck.

  He then snatched up his car keys from the foyers table, slipped on his sneakers, and ran out the door jumping down flights of steps to get to the bottom. His ears picked up the voice of an irate Mr. Robinson along with his dog Zippy frantically barking in the background.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  On the way, down, he ran into a mortified Ms. Santiago standing in the hallway next to her open apartment door.

  “Fred! Fred! Stop!”

  “Sorry, Ms. Santiago! I can’t explain or stop!” He spun around her. “I’ll explain everything when I get back!”

  He could still hear her screaming his name as he jumped down the final flights of steps and barreled through the doors onto the street. He cursed himself for poor cardio as he sucked up some air and ran for his life to the Jeep jumping in.

  The second he got in, the door slammed shut without him touching it, and the car started up. Fred didn’t bother asking as he pulled out gunning the vehicle.

  “Turn left,” was her first command.

  He barely made the light as he hit the left turn causing the SUV to drift. He gunned the pedal as the wheels regained their traction. As the Hemi bellowed propelling the Jeep way over the speed limit, Fred prayed to a God he cursed a couple of days ago, not to get him pulled over on that night.

  “She’s less than a mile and a half away from her destination and moving fast; you have to drive faster Fred,” Mary informed him. “Take the next right, and then a left. Don’t worry about lights or cops I have that covered.”

  “What the fuck just happened?” Fred frantically demanded to know.

  “Another spirit stole the doll body.”

  “Who? Why?”

  “Her name is Magda Jenkins,” Mary began to explain quickly. “She stole the body so that she could kill her husband. She said he’s responsible for her death. So right now, she’s headed over to his house with one of our huge kitchen knives to butcher the shit out of him.”

  “How could this even happen?” He shook his head in disbelief. “You said no other spirit was capable of inhabiting the body!”

  “You’re seriously asking that question now?”

  “Yes! Pretend I’m stupid and indulge me!” He snapped at her while making another turn.

  “She’s an extremely pissed off spirit which makes her a bit stronger than me,” Mary began to explain. “I was told she’s been trying to find a way to kill him for awhile, especially when she found out he’s been slipping it to her best friend before and after her death. She was also in on setting her up.”

  “Other spirits told you this?” Fred gulped.

  “Yes.”

  “That still doesn’t explain how she took over the body!”

  “She didn’t come into the house by herself; she came with something else. Something that promised to hurt you if I didn’t come out into the living room and let her take the body.”

  Fred al
most choked on his saliva as he took a deep swallow. New sweat now drenched his body as he floored the Jeep.

  “She made a deal with something over here,” She continued her explanation. “And it gave her the strength to take over the body. I don’t have to tell you what will happen if she makes it there.”

  “Best case scenario, a life sentence in either a loony bin or state prison,” Fred grunted. “Worst case, I get the needle.”

  “Drive faster Fred.”

  He obeyed taking the Hemi powered vehicle to almost seventy miles on the residential streets. He was sure they had been caught on several traffic cams running through lights and stop signs, but Mary has successfully woven a path for him to avoid running into the long arm of the law, and either stopped or sped up the Jeep to avoid Fred from being broadsided in three instances.

  “We’re a block away!” She blared from the Jeep's speaker system. “She’s already at the house heading for the front door! Go, Fred! Go!”

  “Which house?” Fred yelled back.

  “Second one on the corner with the white Porsche SUV in the driveway!”

  Fred barreled through his last stop sign hitting the block. Fear began to surge through him as he realized he didn’t have a clue how he was going to take on and stop a poltergeist possessed doll on demonic steroids.

  “There she is Fred! There she is!”

  Reality froze as Fred watched both terrified and fascinated by Mary’s doll body now inhabited by a female Wraith made her way to the walkway of her former home with the intent to murder her widowed husband sadistically.

  “Ram her Fred! Ram her!”

  “What?” a petrified Fred asked.

  “I said fucking ram her!”

  Before he could obey the ghostly audio text command from his wife, the pedal of the Jeep sunk into the floor causing the Hemi engine to roar as it accelerated jumping the curve. Fred no longer in control of the steering wheel he was holding braced himself as the Jeep viciously slammed into the doll running it over. The vehicle then spun out to a screeching halt, but not before brutally sideswiping the parked Porsche SUV in the driveway.

  A dazed Fred searched to unbuckle his seatbelt. The second he found the lock and opened the car door, he spilled out of the Jeep hitting the lawn hard. He fought to stand on his rubbery legs as his world began to spin violently after being smacked by the airbag that deployed.

  The first thing he did was give the doll a glance, which was now roadkill on the lawn. He then went back into his car for his phone which flew onto the floor of the passenger side of the vehicle.

  “Fred! Look out!”

  Mary’s chilling warning was enough to turn him around to barely block the risen doll as it pounced on him slamming him violently into the smashed in Porsche. He was still too dazed to stop the ten-inch butcher knife which hovered inches from his abdomen. The doll’s hand trembled as it attempted to force the blade through his soft flesh, while some other force battled with it to prevent it from happening.

  Its face contorted as its mouth stretched further bellowing an ungodly howl in Fred’s face that vibrated a high-pitched scream out of him.

  “Fred! You got to help me save your ass! I can’t hold her for long!”

  Fred continued to scream as he followed his wife’s command using his right leg to kick the doll off of him to get some breathing room. As Mary controlled the doll’s knife hand, Fred summoned up all the courage he had buried deep inside of him and tackled the doll taking it up and slamming it to the ground.

  As he climbed on top of it to pin it to the ground, it used its free left hand to latch onto his throat to choke the life out of him.

  “You …got …to stop,” Fred gurgled. “Killing him …won’t bring you back.”

  “I have to! I have to!” Magda’s ghostly voice shrieked nearly deafened him.

  Fred’s eyes fluttered as her enhanced demonic strength cut off vital oxygen to his brain. He gasped as he felt her grip being forced loose. As he pulled his neck from the death grip, he felt a sharp knee to the groin hobbling him over and a powerful backhand to his jaw that not only gave him whiplash but send him flying off of her.

  A groaning Fred curled up into a semi-ball clutching his violated private area as Magda rose to her feet and started to trudge to the door of her former house. Fred powered on instinct alone rolled to his knees and charged hitting her with a chop block to the back of her right knee upending her.

  She answered with a frustrated howl as she rolled back to her feet, and then dived on top of him to embed the knife into his skull only to be stopped once again by Mary.

  “Fred! You got to move baby!” Mary screamed from his iPhone which lay on the lawn after he dropped it during the struggle. “You got to help me! She’s too strong!”

  As the knife moved to his skull, a half-conscious Fred raised his rubbery arms to lend what little strength he had left to keep himself alive. In the back of his mind, he did not want to die; he really did not. But if it were to end this way, at least he and Mary would be together again.

  “Police! Drop the knife! Drop it now!”

  Those were the words Fred had heard before six shots rang out tearing through the doll while knocking it off of him. A traumatized Fred was a turtle placed on his back unable to move.

  What Fred heard next, would haunt him until the day he took his last breath. Out of thin air came the sound of mighty wings and a blood-curdling sobbing scream from a woman. An animalistic savage roar tore through the night rattling the bones of everyone within earshot of it. His ears and senses were violated with the resonance of something sharp stabbing into what he could only believe was soft flesh.

  Next to follow were dragging sounds as the echoing bawling screams grew fainter and fainter. The last thing Fred heard was sinister snickering that could make a heart skip several beats.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  Fred’s ears picked up the question from one the male police officers on location.

  “Mary! Mary!” Fred screamed out.

  He punched through his fear rolling to his side searching for his phone.

  “You there, do not move! I said don’t move!” commanded the officer.

  Fred ignored his command preferring to get shot as he found his phone. He quickly placed his finger over the Touch ID pulling up the screen.

  “Sir, last warning, drop the phone and lay face down on the ground!” warned the officer.

  Fred quickly read Mary’s message.

  “I’m okay! Drop the phone!”

  A relieved Fred tossed it and rolled onto his stomach with his face in the lawn and his hands clasped behind his head. He had seen enough fictional and real life police television shows to determine what the officers would do next.

  As predicted, two of the officers cautiously walked over and handcuffed him. They then helped him to his feet and walked him back over to the squad cars while another officer went to inspect the female perpetrator they just put down with a hail of gunfire.

  “Are you alright sir?” inquired a female officer. “Are you injured?”

  “I'm all right,” Fred nodded.

  His focus was on an explanation he was going to come up with in the next five seconds.

  Waterfall sweat ran down his back as the stocky male officer jumped back after checking the assailant they downed.

  “What the fuck?” He turned with a scowled expression in Fred’s direction.

  “What is it?” Ask the female officer.

  “It’s a doll.”

  “What the hell you mean it’s a doll?” asked another male officer.

  “I mean it’s a goddamn doll,” the first male officer forcefully reiterated. “It’s one of those life-like sex dolls!”

  In that split-second revelation, Fred knew he went from victim to perpetrator as all eyes locked on him.

  Five minutes later, Fred waited as the head police officer on the scene, and one of his colleagues spoke to Magda’s ex-husband, who went into a fit over
his Porsche, with Magda's best friend now girlfriend standing by his side. Judging by their night attire, the ruckus he caused while stopping Magda awoken them out of their sleep.

  There was a tiny part of him that wished he was too late to stop her. He stood there imagining the looks on their faces as she waited for one of them to open the door.

  Fred came out of his trance as the lead officer walked back over to him by himself to question him.