Ditched and Re-Boxed

In the middle of the night, Brad suddenly woke up from what seemed like a push to his chest. He bolted in the bed and looked around. There was no one in the room, except Emily, peacefully sleeping on her side. He got out of the bed carefully, trying not to wake Emily up, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. In the hallway, he heard some noise coming from the hunting room. He went there and saw the door’s padlock broken and the door ajar with dim light coming through from inside.

His heart pounding, Brad tiptoed to the door and opened it. He quickly realized that the light was coming from the moon, looming bright and large in the window opposite the door. He thought he’d never seen the moon like that before, full and werewolf-yellow, but quickly discarded that thought because he rarely had been in the hunting room at night. His gaze was now fixed on something else.

Serena was sitting on the sofa again, with crossed legs, the busted right knee up. Her box was lying next to the sofa on the floor. Serena wore an expression on her face that was both stern and suffering. The spooky sign on her chest read, “I want socks, Brad! My feet are cold & ugly.”

Terrified, Brad closed the door slowly, trying to avoid its creaking not to wake up Emily. But then curiosity took over the scared part of him.

How the f*ck did she get out of the safe? And what’s with that face?

Brad slowly opened the door and without entering the room looked at Serena again. Her facial expression, if ever more reproachful, was frozen.

Ah, the makeup! I wonder who did it, quite masterful.

Brad looked at Serena’s gun safe. Its door was wide open, and the digital safety lock was not damaged. Clearly, whoever opened it knew the combination. The safe had a second lock, a simple padlock that Brad couldn’t see now. Brad threw a quick glance at Serena and could swear she blinked. He wrote it off to some malfunction. She did have the factory settings that allowed for the eyes to open and close to the touch, but she was damaged now so the blinking could have been accidental.

Breathing deeper to calm down, Brad decided to check the safe out. He came up to the safe and saw that the padlock was now sitting on the safe floor, next to a pair of new white Under Armour socks. It was his favorite socks brand, and the one Serena was wearing when he discarded her. As he bent to pick them up, Brad heard some commotion behind. He turned around and saw that Serena lumped over and nearly fell to the floor.

Still afraid to wake Emily up, with his heart ready to jump out of his chest, Brad reached the door in three strides. He shut the door carefully and went to the kitchen for that glass of water. He splashed some on his face, too, dried it with the kitchen towel and went back to bed. Emily was still peacefully sleeping, in the same position.

If only she knew. Wait, maybe she does? Who else could have done this, if not her? But then, all the locks! She never went to that room and how would she have known about locks and keys? I need to talk with her in the morning, but how?

He moved closer and spooned Emily from behind, sniffing in her hair for comfort. Emily barely opened her eyes, “That feels nice, babe,” and went right back to sleep. Brad’s rampant thoughts tortured him until dawn when he finally sank into a heavy sleep.

When Brad woke up around 9 am, Emily was long gone. He checked his phone and saw a 6:26 am text from her, “Called in early for a DV. Hope you have a good day! [heart and smile emoji].” Domestic violence and drunken bar fights were the most common crimes in their small town, so he didn’t give it a second thought.

Brad immediately went to the hunting room. He was shocked to see that it was locked with its usual padlock. He fetched the key out of his secret box in the closet and opened the door. There was no one on the sofa.

The gun safe was locked as usual, as well. Brad opened it and saw Serena’s box in there, standing exactly the way he’d left it.

Was it all just a bad dream? But no, I remember every detail! It was so real I nearly got a heart attack!

He opened the box and looked at Serena’s face. She had no sorrowful makeup, but when he looked down he saw she was wearing new white Under Armour socks…

To be continued.

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