PART 2
Chapter 03 - The Doll
The next morning, Joey awoke to find the embankment across the river alive with what appeared to be dozens of security and cleanup workers. The trucks involved in the accident had been removed during the night and another big UPS unit was parked on the shoulder of the highway while the cleanup crew was retrieving the boxes and parcels, which had fallen out of the original trailer, and were loading them into the new truck. He watched the cleanup effort with mild interest through his binoculars and then, noticing the time, began to dress for the day.
He liked his room above the garage very much, enjoying the privacy it afforded him. Diana and Gary had always treated his bedroom as his private personal residence and even knocked before entering.
Occasionally, when he had been at school or away with friends, Diana would deliver his cleaned and folded laundry, piled neatly on his bed. She allowed him the freedom to put his things away where he wanted them.
While his room was decked out with every amenity a young man could want: television, stereo system, and desktop computer, he still spent most of his time in the main house with Diana and mostly used his personal space as a bedroom to retire to at night.
Once dressed, he went down the stairs and into the house, where the smell of cooking bacon made his stomach grumble.
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Over breakfast, Diana informed him she had been called into work at one of her hair salons. Diana was an excellent hairdresser and freelanced with two hair salons in nearby towns on a part-time basis.
Thinking this would be a good opportunity to personally drop off his job application at the Albertsons grocery store in town, he asked if she would mind driving him there.
Diana grimaced, "Are you sure you want to do that?" she asked, "I'll likely be several hours with the two appointments I have."
Joey shrugged, "That's not a problem," he said, "It's only three or four miles home, and I'll even enjoy the walk--it's a nice day."
The Albertsons was not open for business but the store manager was just opening up when he arrived. She took his application with a smile and said she hoped to see him back when they began interviewing prospective employees.
He took the typical route home, backtracking along the rural two-lane road they had used when driving there that morning. Near home, he took a shortcut he knew, crossing the old abandoned railway bridge across the river. As he was crossing, he looked down at the river and was surprised to see what appeared to be a rather large wooden crate under the trestle where it had apparently been caught up in the bridge's framework.
He looked up toward the accident site, shading his eyes with his hand, and surmised it must be at least three-quarters of a mile away. If the crate below him in the river was part of the UPS freight, it had traveled quite a distance with the river current. Curious, he crossed the bridge and cautiously slid down the steep embankment to the riverbank.
Seeing that the crate would not be easily recovered from where it lay wedged beneath the bridge, he sat down and removed his shoes and socks and then rolled up his jeans to above his knees. He waded into the river, shivering as the cold water quickly numbed his feet. He grasped the crate and pulled it from where it had become wedged against the bridge. It was made of pretty sturdy wood and felt rather heavy but it floated on the water so getting it to the riverbank was relatively easy. Once on the bank, however, it took most of his strength to pull it from the water.
He sat beside the crate, which looked disturbingly almost like a small coffin. When his feet and legs had dried, he lowered his pant legs and donned his socks and shoes. He felt reasonably sure that the crate was part of the UPS shipment that had fallen from the truck, there was an address label that had been torn off and washed away, with only a partial address still visible.
The crate was sealed with screws, so he was unable to open it to examine the contents, but, on one side, one of the wooden slats had been damaged in the accident and was cracked. He worked the tips of his fingers into the crack and pulled. The wood slat separated with a loud crack and he lost his balance, falling backward and sitting down on the riverbank.
He swore and stood up, wiping the sand from his backside, and looked into the hole he had made in the crate. He gasped aloud and his heart jumped in his chest to see a face looking back at him. He staggered backward and would likely have fallen completely into the river had he not somehow managed to regain his balance in the last second and pulled himself up short. He stared at the crate, unsure of what he had gotten himself into and almost sure that the crate was, in fact, a coffin as he had originally suspected.
Cautiously he stepped toward the crate once more and looked down into the hole. There was no mistake, it was a human face... a woman's face. Upon closer examination, he could see that her eyes were open and, seemingly, staring fixedly. What the hell? Something about it just didn't seem right. The woman's head was completely covered in clear plastic sheeting of some kind, and he assumed all of the contents were similarly wrapped.
He stepped closer and leaned forward for a better look. It was most definitely a woman; he could see there was a color in her lips and makeup around her eyes. But... her skin texture appeared almost wax-like. Tentatively he reached his hand into the crate and touched the plastic above the woman's cheek. Her flesh felt cool to the touch, soft and pliant beneath his fingertips.
He gasped and sat back down. He suddenly realized what he was seeing. It had to be, he surmised, some kind of doll or mannequin. He had heard of lifelike figures sold in adult stores on the Internet and wondered if this could be one of those things--a sex doll? Intrigued now more than ever, he was determined to find out.
He stood back and looked around to make sure he had not been seen or that anyone was watching him. When he was assured that he was, indeed, secluded and alone, he dragged the crate beneath the low-hanging underbrush at the river's edge, where any casual passerby would not likely notice it, and hurried home.
He knew Diana would not be arriving home any time soon, which afforded him a fair amount of time for the privacy he needed to do what he had in mind. He rummaged in the garage until he found Gary's old two-wheel dolly and wiped the cobwebs from it. He hurried back to the railway bridge, pushing the wheeled dolly in front of him as he jogged, and made good time on the half-mile trip.
He managed, with more than a modicum of difficulty, to get the crate onto the dolly and up the embankment, stopping to rest several times before reaching the end of the bridge. From there, it was a relatively easy walk home along a well-worn dirt path. All he needed to do was keep the crate steady when rolling over any ruts or potholes along the way.
Once home he was faced with the dilemma of getting the crate up the stairway to his second-floor room. He backed up the stairway slowly, pulling the dolly's wheels up one step at a time. It took him several minutes, but he finally managed to get the crate up the stairs and lying flat on his bedroom floor.
After returning the dolly to the garage, he took a Phillips-head screwdriver from the toolbox and hurried back up to his room. He carefully removed all the screws along the top of the crate, six in all, and raised the top.
"Oh, wow," he gasped aloud as he set aside the top of the crate. He pursed his lips and let his breath out slowly as he let his eyes move over the contents of the crate. It was, indeed, a life-size female mannequin-- and yet, it seemed much more than just a mannequin.
