August 16th 2026

I slept pretty well. All things considered. “All things” being the bat desperately flying over my ‘head sock’ covered, sleeping body as both David and the cat fought to catch it first… and the ventriloquist dummy that may be actively plotting to kill me.

“What’s that,” you say?

“Oh yeah… there was another bat… and David woke me up trying to get it and… Huh? No not that?”

“There’s a ventriloquist dummy that may be actively trying to kill you?”

“Yeah… just another typical Thursday for Vanessa… amiright?”

So yeah… David woke me up… I told him after the whole ordeal… I said, “You know, you don’t have to wake me up for that shit… I’d just of slept right through it…”

David was exhausted. He never went back to sleep. Me?

I was out as soon as I laid back down and pulled my sleep cap over my eyes. Out.

Even with that whole dummy thing.

David wasn’t able to get back to bed until 4:30 that morning.

“You know…” I told him later on our morning walk with Ottoman and a thickly rolled joint for each of us as we walked through the quiet neighborhood, hardly anyone out… “I think I fucked up…”

“Oh yeah, and why do you think that?” David wanted to know, as he exhaled a large puff of smoke and gently tugged on Otto’s leash. Otto was poking around a neighbor’s stone wall.

“I don’t think I should have said the shit I said in front of the dummy… now I’m afraid it might try to kill me…”

“You think the dummy is going to kill you?” David snorted back a laugh.

I wasn’t laughing though, I was serious. “Yeah… I mean… it’s a possibility. I mean think about it… would you rather be sitting in a fucking antique store on an old rattan chair or would you rather be at the bar picking up chicks?“

“Personally I’d pick the rattan chair… but that’s just me… I’m not a dummy.”

You had to laugh at that one… concerned or not, David always made you laugh.

“No but for real… I think that little fucker is going to kill me somehow now… and I’m pissed I said anything in front of it… I really fucked up…”

But I guess for you… the reader… to understand any of this… we’d have to back up just a bit here.

I don’t know how it came up. Doesn’t matter. Somewhere there was probably some weird flow of rambling thoughts that turned into me being gone and David being single and me stating that I thought that if I were to meet my maker, that David would remarry.

David laughed at that. “No I’m good…”

“Is that because you wouldn’t want to take care of someone again?” You had laughed back.

“I mean… maybe a little? But for real… we’ve had a great run… sure we’ve had our ups and downs but I love you and I love what we’ve had and if you weren’t here anymore… I’d be all set. I would just do my own thing…”

“I don’t believe that…”

A few minutes earlier you had proclaimed that if he were to meet his early demise that you’d be all done getting married and would instead buy a ton of land and put up tiny houses for you and your friends and you’d all take care of each other (and your herd of tiny cows) as you aged.

“Well now wait a second… I didn’t say that you’d remarry and call your tiny houses village BS… how come you get to dictate my post-Vanessa existence?”

“Right… but I also didn’t say that I’d wall myself off from society like you probably would… I think you’d get lonely by yourself, whereas I wouldn’t be by myself… I think a nice woman would find you… that’s all. You do whatever you want if I go first… that’s what I’d want for you anyway: to do what you want… I’m just saying that I think it would be nice for you to not be alone…”

David pondered that for a moment…

“I mean like for instance,” I continued…”when you and the kids left to go visit your parents for the long weekend. I was ecstatic you all left, right? Peace and quiet. First thing I did was run inside and hop on Elliot’s bike and ride around the sanctuary as fast as I could. It was really fun. Then I ate dinner at 3:00. Felt wonderful. I smoked a joint in the family room while I cleaned. I got to walk around in my underwear when it was really hot. I didn’t have to worry about doing anything on anyone else’s schedule. Not gonna lie… it was fucking fabulous.”

“But ya know what? I got bored… It was kinda like ‘Home Alone’. Ya know when Kevin realizes that he’s by himself and there’s that whole montage of Christmas music playing and he’s enjoying himselft doing whatever the fuck he wants? It was like that… but then he missed everyone and…”

David interrupted you, he put his hand up and laughed, “Now wait just a second because you’re remembering that movie wrong… Kevin didn’t miss anyone until two grown men were trying to rob and kill him. Kevin was out doing laundry, paying bills, buying groceries… Kevin was living the dream till those two guys…”

“Electricians…” you laughed…

“Electricians…” David laughed too, “tried to kill him… THEN Kevin had his misgivings about being alone… and ONLY when murder was on the table.”

“Ok fine… you’re right. I’m just saying, you do what you want, I’d just hate to think of you walling yourself up alone and never meeting anyone.”

“I’d be fine, Vaness… really. I’d miss you of course. Obviously. But I wouldn’t date again… ever.”

“Ok… well you do you then. I’d be getting mini cows and shit… just so we’re clear. And obviously missing you.”

“Have at it. After I’m dead, of course.”

“We’re not zoned for livestock. You’re good.”

********************************************************************

That was Wednesday. Thursday morning you had your appointment with your orthopedic surgeon. David came with you. He joked around about wanting to talk to your surgeon so that he could figure out just how much you were ‘milking’ this surgery and to ask when you could start actually doing some real work around here.

He was joking of course but still came into the exam room when you were called in. You liked to have him go into important appointments with you so that later on you could remember any of the verbal instructions you were given.

When your appointment was finished the two of you drove through town, David stopped at the real estate office on the corner of Main St. The two of you read through all of the listings on the front window with all the vigor of someone actively looking to buy a small home in a sleepy town. Except that you weren’t actively looking to buy anything. You just loved to look.

Inside David introduced himself and you to the agent at the front desk after asking if the former listing agent of your church was in. She wasn’t so David let the woman at the front desk know that he was dropping off one of your church stickers for her and also dropping off a bunch of his business cards to all of the agents… because he was now officially the only non-retired, currently licensed electrical contractor in the entire town.

They seemed mostly uninterested but promised to pass on your sticker and cards before you walked back out onto Main St.

“So…” you said, looking at the antique shop just a few doors down… “Can we go into the antique store while we’re here? It’s open…”

“Ha! I knew you were going to say that… boy do I know my wife…”

“I mean… I’m a creature of habit and we’ve been together 21 years so…”

“And you still surprise me…”

“Just not in this case…”

“Right…”

The two of you linked hands and walked to the antique store. When you got in the store’s owner, a man about your age who had reached out and introduced himself on Facebook months ago was at the register. You introduced yourself as he had asked you to do.

When you walked down the aisle David who had been looking at vintage postcards caught up with you and asked about the exchange. You told him that the store’s owner had asked you to come say, ‘hello’ next time you saw him in the shop.

The two of you walked up and down the rows of old furniture and glasses and knick knacks. You pointed out pricey Pyrex and beautiful dressers. David showed you some uranium glass and you showed him a beautiful Delft china wall mounted coffee grinder. You imagined yourself in a beautiful Selkie gown, hair pinned up high in the back, as you ground coffee in your vintage kitchen.

“What would you do with it?” David’s voice squashed the half hearted tradwife fever dream… “We don’t even drink coffee…”

Aside from eating and painting, you didn’t do shit in the kitchen. The dress and the china and the coffee dream dissolved before it could even fully form.

“It’s just pretty to look at…”

“It is…”

In an upstairs booth, you ran the fabric of a navy blue flowy sleeveless gown through your fingers. “Oh wow… this is really pretty… and it’s only $15…”

“That would look really nice on you…”

“It would. I just don’t know when I’d wear it…”

“Maybe when you’re grinding coffee?”

“Ha! Maybe…” you put the dress back down. You didn’t buy it but you loved that if you had, David wouldn’t have minded, he would have told you how pretty it looked on you.

You were almost through the entire antique mall when David noticed it. You had seen the creepy little thing a few minutes before while David was busy rummaging through some old wooden hand tools.

“Hey did you see this thing?” David wanted to know as he picked up the old ventriloquist's dummy and propped it up in the crook of his left arm.

“Oh I saw it… it’s so freaking creepy…” you said as you turned away from him and set your sights on some old pink glassware.

“My friend and I…” David called after you in his suave, womanizer, cosplay voice, “couldn’t help but notice you from across the bar… can we get you a drink?”

You turned to see David using his hand to control the dummy’s arm, making it beckon you towards them.

“Oh my god, David. Gross. Stop it. That is so fucking creepy. Put that thing down. It’s so gross.”

“You don’t think if you die that I should get this guy to take to the bar? Could be my little wingman…”

“That thing doesn’t exactly scream endearing, David. It’s reading more of a ‘use my flesh to make a lampshade, kind of vibe…’ I don’t think that would do much to help your cause,” you said.

“You don’t think I could pick up women at the bar with this?”

“Ummmm…. No. It’s creepy.”

David put its little plastic hand on your shoulder…

“Not even a little neck massage to sweeten the deal?” David joked as he used the two plastic hands to simulate a Swedish dummy massage.

“Ewwwwww, stop it! Don’t touch me with that thing. Put it down. ‘You break it, you buy it’… and I definitely don’t want it.”

David laughed and put the dummy down.

“That thing is so creepy. In all seriousness though… I think it’s hilarious bringing it to the bar to pick people up… honestly it’s pretty freaking funny. If I kick the bucket and you don’t come back and get this thing, I will come back to haunt you.”

The two of you walked back up to the front of the shop to check out. David had found a bunch of vintage postcards he wanted. He always managed to find some interesting ones from St Petersburg, or Clearwater, or some of the many spots you had visited on your trips up and down the eastern US. You were still chuckling though over the dummy at the bar…

As the owner rang David up you mentioned the dummy and David taking him to the bar if you dropped dead. It was a funny premise. You figured the shop owner would find it hilarious, he seemed like he had a good sense of humor…

Except that his entire demeanor changed. He got really quiet and really serious. He told you both that he was a ‘sensitive’ and an amateur paranormal investigator. “There’s something evil attached to that dummy.”

“What do you mean? How do you know?” You had wanted to know.

“Things have happened. I’ve experienced plenty of things working here now in this building over the years,” he motioned across the old shop with his right hand, the postcards in his left. Seeing the place it was easy to picture that one might hear an occasional bump in the night… there was a lot of history there.

“I’ve seen and heard a lot of… stuff…” he continued, “but that thing… there’s something not good with it. I have never gotten that from anything else here, I have never been any place either that carries that same energy. It’s evil. Whatever has attached itself to that thing is not very nice…”

“So… ummm…. What would you say if someone bought it?”

“Well… I don’t own the doll… so I really couldn’t divulge anything I guess…”

(as if selling evil dolls on consignment absolved you of any sin)…

“I would just tell them,” he continued on, choosing his words cautiously, “to be very careful with it…”

*****************************************************************

David gently folded over the small paper bag with his vintage postcards while the two of you walked back to the car.

“Well that’s some crazy shit…” you said.

“What’s that? The dummy?”

“Yeah the fucking dummy… I wasn’t about to comment on the haunted Pyrex…”

David laughed, “It was pretty creepy…”

“Apparently it’s haunted too… not just haunted… the evil haunted type… and we just talked about me being out of the picture and you taking that fucking thing to the bar to pick up chicks… if I drop dead… some crazy accident… it’s the dummy… it wants to be your eternal wingman…”

“I don’t know what happened officer…” David pretended, “she was just walking down the stairs and…”

Then he continued in a gruff voice as if pretending to be someone else, “Hey listen there kid, you wanna put down the doll while you’re talking to me… I know that your wife is dead and all but my god, the doll is creeping me out.”

You both laughed.

David went on in with his old timey crime fighting detective voice, “Hey Bruce, you’re gonna want to get a look at this, she’s got tiny little hand prints on her neck… looks like she was grabbed then thrown down the stairs by something with very tiny little plastic hands…”

“Stop it,” You laughed.

“The dummy’s eyes would be going back and forth watching the detectives…”

“In all seriousness though, David… what if that evil just attached itself to us. I mean that fucking doll could follow us…“

“We didn’t bring it home, Vaness… we should be fine.”

“I don’t want to go back in there with that thing till it’s gone… feels like we’d be tempting the fates. The last thing I want is an old chandelier falling off the ceiling and taking me out next time we’re in there.“

“Then I’d HAVE to bring it home… you told me you’d haunt me if I didn’t.”

*******************************************************************

So when at 1:30 in the morning, David woke you out of a dead sleep, you honestly didn’t know what to think.

Was the dummy in your bedroom? What was happening? You had to pull your sleeping cap up over your forehead to see…

“There’s a bat, Vaness!”

“A bat? Huh? What? Where?”

“It’s up there! Look!” David said pointing to the small winged mammal hanging upside down in the corner of your room just over the bathroom door.

“Uhhhhhhhh, really? You woke me up for that??? Just leave it! It’ll go away…” you groaned, the bedroom light stung your sleepy eyes.

“Vaness, get up! The cat is trying to get it, the bat is going everywhere…”

You sat up and hopped out of bed. David grabbed a t-shirt and lobbed it gently up at the bat. He wasn’t trying to hurt it, just trying to scare it off its perch so he could grab it.

On the first shot the t-shirt made contact with the bat and the bat swooped down from the ceiling. You let out a screech as the bat soared under the canopy bed and just over your head. You ducked instinctively with your arms up over your face.

The bat swooped back and forth across the room, its wings flapped wildly. They reminded you of the old Vaudeville movie effects with the rubber bats on strings, except this one was real and both your husband and the cat were running after it instead of away from the little animal.

“Rocky, STOP IT!” David hissed at the cat. “Vanessa, get Rocky.”

You ran for the cat just as the bat slammed hard into the wall by the bed and fell onto the floor. It flapped its wings wildly for a few seconds before taking off again from the floor.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” David said, exasperated… “Well I’m calling bullshit right now. First thing in the morning I’m going to do an Wikipedia update!”

“What are you talking about!!!??? It’s 1:30 in the morning and I’m trying to hold our cat and you’re trying to catch a bat and this has what to do with Wikipedia?!”

The bat smashed into the side of the canopy bed’s rail and again fell to the floor. David ran towards it with his t-shirt but before he could capture the bat it flapped its wings before once again becoming airborne.

“THAT!!!! YOU SEE THAT SHIT???”

“The flying bat?”

“NO! That the bat was able to fly from the ground… all the shit we’ve read about bats said that they sleep upside down off the ground because they don’t have enough wing strength to pick themselves up off the ground like a bird does… turns out we just made a discovery. Jeff Corwin can kiss my ass… I know what I just saw…”

The next time the bat smashed into the bed you were holding the cat, who was absolutely losing his shit, and David managed to toss the t-shirt over the little animal before it could defy all bat fact texts and lift itself off the ground again. When he finally managed to net the screaming mammal and pick it up, the bat tried to bite him repeatedly, “Well this is definitely the most aggressive one I’ve ever picked up. He’s trying to bite the shit out of me.”

“I mean you just whipped it out of the air with an old t-shirt… I’d be fucking pissed too…”

When David finally returned from letting the bat go outside on the Sugar Maple tree in front of the church you were already sound asleep. He figured that even though you’d both discovered that bats, despite every single thing you’d ever read about them telling you otherwise: were indeed able to fly up off the ground, David still decided it best to put him in a tree… the bat protested loudly in that styrofoam squeak you’d both grown so used to in the last year before stealthily climbing up the tree and disappearing into the darkness of the early morning.

****************************************************************

Which brought you to Friday morning… and you deciding that there was a very good chance that a creepy dummy could very well be plotting your demise.

David of course found the whole idea absurd.

You still though, told him that if he ever found your lifeless corpse at the bottom of the stairs, to check for little handprints around your neck… or little plastic footprints on your back.

Of course he would, he said, “because he wasn’t a dummy…”

“Right… because you’re Batman…”

Which he basically was. And if he was going to pick up chicks at the bar after you kicked the bucket, they’d probably prefer Batman with his wingman: his dead wife’s cat… versus some creep with a ventriloquist dummy… which was probably going to leave a little plastic someone, pretty fucking disappointed.

Here’s the creepy haunted evil dummy… so glad we didn’t bring this thing home with us…