It was Ketchup Mortimer  (part 3 of 4)

Charlie felt a shudder run down his spine like ice water and shook his head dispersing the last of the clinging thoughts and turned back to Mortimer.
 
He was perched impudently far over the edge, his pale gangly limbs hung down clad in his blood spattered khakis as his feet swung to and fro in a childish manner.
This was managed with the kind of skill that Charlie believed was reserved strictly for superhero characters and small arachnids.
 
"Oh... and Mortimer?" Charlie paused in the door of the bedroom looking at him, he appeared to be midway through another attempt at ingesting the tattered remains of his sweater sleeve.
It had once been a very nice sweater Charlie recalled, a black and white stripe pattered that hugged close to the little puppets body.
 
Mortimer halted for a second, his mechanical jaw released the end of his destroyed sleeve before his swiveling eyes met Charlie once again.  
"YeS Charles?" he hissed in his brush fire tongue.
 
"Please don't try and paint the living room walls with pigeon intestines again while I'm out, alright?" Charlie requested in the same tired mono tone as though he had just asked for an extra bag at the store.
 
"But oF cOuRse Charles... SinCe tHe rEceNt ColLaPsE of The cEiLinG iN thE sParE BedRooM tHeRe hAvn'T bEen neArlY as MaNy in the hoUsE, at bESt I CoUld OnLy fInD eNouGh to do The sMalL baThrOom DoWn sTaiRs." Mortimer cackled gleefully forcing the dresser to sway like a sky scraper in an earthquake.
 
With another worn sigh Charlie slipped from the room and headed down the stairs, each one giving a loud protest to his temporary weight.
 
Upstairs Mortimer listened to the hissing screech of the rusted screen door that hung like a suicide victim, somehow managing to both cling and drape itself on it's hinges over the sagging porch.
 
The grumbling of Charlie's milk truck pulling out of it's nearly straight place in the garage and vanishing down  
the street passed reluctantly through the glassless pane as Mortimer waited on his vigil.  
 
Hearing the truck disappear he broke merrily into a rasping chorus of his favorite diddy about dead cats in trees and  
other such activities to pass the long hours before Charlie's inevitable return.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Written and published by A Nameless Traveler  A.K.A.  -Andrew F. R. Kerklaan and Keys_and_Gloves