"God Damn it SAM, or whatever the fuck your name really is. This piece of shit wifi system your company set up in my new house SUCKS!" Gus screamed into his cellphone to the tech from Bangalore. Irritated that yet again his phone started to die as it perpetually lost charge, he plugged it into the charger cord and kept yelling. "And another thing. What the fuck is going on with these routers that cause all of my batteries to keep dying? Hello... Hello..HELLO... OH FUCK IT!!!"
Slamming his phone down on his desk he looked down at the screen and scowled. Once again, like it had doing all week, it was black. Only the slight red flash at the bottom remained indicating that the battery was now almost completely dead. Sitting down in his office chair he sighed as Angeline came over and put her paw on his leg. Petting her he calmed down and said "Sorry for yelling girl, but this is starting to affect Daddy's work."
It was true, it was. Everything had been a dream with the house but this was a major issue. For someone else it may not have been such a big deal to have their mobile devices constantly drained of juice and their wifi erratic, but for someone who made their living on the internet, this was a killer. That morning he had been on a long overdue call with his programming team in Kazakhstan and the call dropped off right in mid-sentence. Despite repeated tries he never was able to reconnect and the rest of their conference had to take place over email. The constant computer problems he was having kept him perpetually pissed off and only the frequent late night visits from Jasmine kept him off the edge. Normally Gus was very even keeled but his calm demeanor cracked when all his electronic devices declared war on him simultaneously.
Seeing his phone finally get charged up enough to receive, he answered it quickly when it rang. "Serge? Serge? is that you?"
"No Mr. Le Blanc" spoke the heavily accented Indian voice on the other line. "I am so sorry for your inconvenience I have contacted one of our local technicians and he assures me that he and his team will be over to fix your problem by the end of the day. You should be up and running by late afternoon we promise."
Shocked that the tech actually called back, Gus's mood brightened. "Thank you "Sam", I look forward to getting this resolved." Hanging up the phone, he smiled. At least there was going to be a resolution to his computer problems which as a good thing but given that it was already mid-morning he realized that the whole day was shot. Walking out of his large office he approached the staircase to go upstairs. If he could not work at least he could work out, and having just gotten his home gym set up in one of the bedrooms upstairs the day before, Gus was anxious to try it out.
"Come on girl!" he called to Angeline who crouched at the foot of the stairs growling.
Staring up the staircase, the red fur on her back stood up bushy as she stood fixed to the ground in terror.
"What is with you?" he sighed as he saw her shaking and growling. It was obvious that his dog was not taking to the new house readily as this pattern had repeated all week. Angeline, a friendly and happy dog normally had been a nervous wreck since they moved in. Always right on his heels, she did not like to be away from him ever. It became almost dangerous to walk around inside as she was constantly almost tripping him as she hung close to his legs. Only when he wanted to go upstairs did she stop and he knew that if he did not pick her up and take her she would howl and bark incessantly until he did.
Scooping her up into his arms he began walking upstairs as she shook and whined. "You are quite the queen aren't you?" he joked as he ran his hand over her shaking head. When they reached the landing and passed the wall of rosaries, he put her down on the ground and she scampered rapidly into the open door of his new home gym. Tail down and whimpering, once inside the room she sat in a corner and shook.
"Angeline, what is it baby? What has you so spooked?" he said soothingly as he took off his shirt to get ready to work out. Grinning, an idea popped into his head and he walked across the hall to his bedroom and returned with his hands behind his back. Squeaking the toy once, Angeline's ears perked up and as he tossed the rubber squeaky toy at her feet she happily attacked. Hearing her playing like she used to he smiled as he climbed onto the brand new elliptical machine.
Gus prided himself on his physique and much of his lazy success with women was due to his well sculpted body that he worked on frequently at the gym. Now that he had a big house, he could finally create his own personal home gym and as he looked around at the large sunny room he had chosen to use for that purpose he was pleased. Against one wall he had his weight bench installed next to a long row of weights. In addition to his elliptical machine he also had a stationary bike and a treadmill. Best of all was the large flat screen HD television he had installed against a mirrored wall. Turning it on and firing up one of his favorite adult movies, "Amazing Anal Asians", he snickered.
"Definitely takes the boredom out of working out!" he laughed as he began to synchronize his steps with the action on the screen. An hour into his routine, sweat was pouring off of his body as he reached a new milestone on his brand new machine he kept going. The tech was not due to come until afternoon, so he thought he might as well be productive while he waited.
He was very pleased with his new setup. The erotic images flashing on the screen made this the most enjoyable time he had ever had during a workout ever. "Better than Sports center at the Y eh Angeline?" he called out as he watched her continue to bite the rubber toy. Feeling his muscles ache and seeing the miles tick by on the readout, he knew with his new ability to watch whatever porn he wanted to as he worked out would soon put him into the best shape of his life. With no one else in the house he had no compunction blasting the video at full blast, the moans and panting of the actresses on screen still almost drowned out by the increasingly frantic squeaking of the toy pig Angeline was gnawing on. Suddenly the squeaking stopped.
It took a few minutes before Gus noticed the change, but a sudden drop in temperature caused him to shiver despite the buckets of sweat pouring off of his body. Looking over at his dog he stopped running as it was obvious she was distressed.
Her fur standing on end Angeline stared intensely at the open door behind him. Growling and crying she shook as she pointed towards the hall. His body too suddenly started shaking as he felt a cold chill run up his spine as a cold wind blew into the room. As he got ready to get off the machine and pet his dog, Gus glanced at one of the mirrors on the wall that faced out into the hall behind him.
"HOLY FUCK!" he screamed as he jumped off of the elliptical. Out of the corner of his eye in the mirror he thought he saw a thick black mist in the hall. His mind instantly thinking his house was on fire he spun around and ran out of the room towards the supposed fire. Now standing in the empty hall with his pulse pounding, he saw nothing. His heart racing, both from his intense routine but mostly from the thought his house was on fire. Confused and sniffing the air for smoke he jumped as he felt something brush against his ass.
"JESUS!" he jumped as he thought he felt a pair of icy fingers stroke his left cheek. Spinning around and looking frantically down the hall he saw nothing. Now turning back, he found himself looking straight ahead at the wall of rosaries. Another shiver ran down his spine as he watched the light from the large hall stained glass window dance across the thousands of beads and cast a dazzling display on the floor.
Sniffing the air again for any sign of smoke the sound of his front doorbell ringing caused him to jump again. Looking back at Angeline, who now seemed less stressed, he laughed as it appeared that the crisis was all a figment of his imagination.
"Girl, your canine paranoia is starting to work on ME!" he cried as he walked over to the landing. Walking down the stairs he opened the front door.
"Package for Mrs. Laveau." The UPS driver said as he passed the brown box to Gus and asked him to sign.
"Uh, she doesn't live here anymore." Gus replied as he took the box in his hands.
"Sign here please." The driver continued, purposefully ignoring this new tidbit of relevant information. Constantly monitored for efficiency he had one goal on his mind and that was to get a signature and get back on his way. The fact that Mrs. Laveau did not live there anymore was not something that concerned him.
Signing the paper, Gus opened his mouth to repeat his statement but was rebuffed when the driver quickly bounded down the stairs and out into his truck. Standing alone on the porch he looked down at the box. He did have a morbid curiosity as it is not every day that one gets a package meant for a dead woman and he considered opening it. As he pondered his options, the silence was broken by the voice of Maxine Clark from next door.
