Byron Starr - Doppelgänger

Emilio laughed. “Why are you asking me?”

“You’re a game warden. I thought you guys were supposed to know animals,” James said, chuckling himself.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s trying to throw us off.”

James shrugged as if satisfied with this answer. Then something hit him that sent a shiver down his spine. “An animal couldn’t be that smart. How would an animal even know we were after it, much less how to throw us off?”

“I don’t think we’re dealing with normal animal intelligence here.”

Just as Emilio finished, Larry called out, “All right ladies. Off your ass and on your feet; out of the shade and in the heat.” They had no sooner stood up than Larry was off, followed by his assistant and the rest of their little group.

The beast awoke with a start.

It poked its head out from under the roots and looked around. Its eyes were unaccustomed to the bright light of day, and even after its eyes adjusted its vision was somewhat blurred. Its sense of smell and hearing, on the other hand, was unaffected. The beast raised itself, sniffed the wind and listened. It couldn’t smell them or hear them coming, but it knew they were on the way.

The beast dropped back on all fours, climbed up the bank of the creek, and rose to two feet again. Still no sound or smell of what it knew was coming.

It waited.

After a couple more minutes, the beast heard a sound, and stood up. Yes, it could hear them. Not much longer and it would be able to smell them too.

The beast began to lope in the direction of the sound. It hadn’t gone far when it stopped once again and smelled the air. The sound was much nearer, but it still couldn’t smell them; the wind had shifted toward the approaching group. This was good. The beast wanted to mask its smell, not hide it.

The beast closed its eyes and sent its senses forward, now relying even more on smell and sound than it usually did. It passed through the woods and over hills for some distance until it came up on the approaching party. It noted the smaller creatures leading the others. Their noses were down, sniffing the ground.

The beast’s senses then entered one of the dogs and found a memory; one of a small black animal with a white stripe down its back. It then repeated this process with each of the dogs.

Larry and his dogs barreled through the woods for almost a half a mile past their stop before coming to more houses. The trail then began to follow a path behind the houses for another half mile. They skirted close to several homes along Lee’s Mill Road, bringing many people out of their houses to watch as seven bloodhounds, five game wardens, one recently sworn in deputy, and a half crazy dog handler with a filthy vocabulary stormed noisily through their backyards. Despite an audience which included several ladies and quite a few children, Larry continued to blast out encouragements to his hounds in the form of obscenities. The trail continued close by these houses until it took a right and crossed Lee’s Mill road.

When they crossed the road, Larry’s assistant began to plead for another stop and James was silently rooting for him. Emilio was tired but seemed to be holding up okay; however, James wasn’t exactly in the best of shape, and he wasn’t sure how much further he could go. Larry didn’t answer his assistant, but — without stopping his dogs — he turned to Emilio and asked, “There’s a creek ahead. How far?”

“Half mile, maybe,” Emilio panted.

“We’ll rest there.”

But they hadn’t gone much more than a few more steps before the dogs stopped on their own. They sniffed around trying to pick up the smell. They were nervously hopping about, constantly looking in the direction they had been going and whining.

“What the hell?” Larry said, then attempted to coax them on. “Come on, let’s go.”

Only two of his seven dogs wanted to continue on, albeit without as much enthusiasm as before. The rest just whimpered and looked in the direction they had just been so eagerly heading.

“This is new,” Larry said, trying to get his hounds going again.

James looked at Emilio. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” Emilio said as he unslung the AR-15 from his shoulder.

Larry gave his remaining dogs, which were much easier to handle now that they were less excited about continuing, to his assistant. “Looks like Sal and Jody are the only two that’s got the balls to keep on.” Then he took off again, but at a much slower pace. The dogs were hesitant, and silent — no baying at all now. James, Emilio, and three of the game wardens followed along. The assistant and the other remaining game warden stayed behind with the other five dogs.

Not much further along they came to a creek and the dogs began to hurry upstream.

“That’s it!” James said, pointing at the root system of what had once been a tall oak. “That’s where it’s been sleeping.”

The tree was long since dead, only about ten feet of the trunk remained. The water had eroded away the dirt from around most of its roots causing them to stick out spider-like into the creek.

Emilio moved forward with his rifle to his shoulder, ready for action. James was right behind him, with his pistol in his hand. Larry led the way and the dogs began sniffing around the tree. Emilio carefully peeked underneath the dead tree’s roots. Nothing.

The dogs went no further than the tree.

“Shit! The damn trail ends here.”

“What happened?” Bill asked from behind his desk.

It was just past eleven at night, and Bill, Sam, Emilio, and James were once again in Bill’s office discussing the day’s failed attempt to track the beast with dogs.

“I’m not sure. Larry’s dogs just lost the scent,” Emilio said. “All the sudden, too. Like the thing just disappeared.”

“I think I might know what happened,” James spoke up. “Remember when it killed that horse and those two cows? How it was able to walk right up on them? When it changes, it takes on another form’s appearance and sound. It takes on their smell, too. It just heard us comin’ and changed into something different.”

“Then how come the dogs started acting strange before they reached the den?” Emilio asked. “I mean, wouldn’t it have been asleep there, woke up, then changed?”

“Maybe it went back down its tracks tryin’ to throw the dogs off.”

“I don’t think that would work on Larry and his dogs,” Sam said. “They’re the best in the state, and possibly the best in the country.”

Emilio nodded. “Yeah, it would take one hell of a scent to cover its tracks so well that only two out of seven dogs were able to follow the trail to the den, and I didn’t smell a thing. We could even see its prints, but the hounds wouldn’t pick the trail back up. We followed the prints for about a quarter of a mile by sight, but finally lost them in the brush.”

“Maybe we’ll have better luck next time,” Bill injected. “The damn thing’s nocturnal, so we’re bound to catch it nappin’ sooner or later.”

Early the next morning James returned to the sheriff’s office. He met with Bill and told him the beast had left from under a white wooden structure that James supposed was its new den and stayed to the woods throughout the night, killing and devouring a rabbit before returning.

James was worn from lack of real sleep and it showed. Bags were plainly visible under his bloodshot eyes, and his speech even had a slight slur to it. He seemed drunk. Bill suggested that he go home and get some rest, and he did.

It was three in the afternoon when James finally returned to the sheriff’s office a second time, looking and feeling a little bit better. When he arrived, Sam and Bill were just coming out of the building and walking to Bill’s patrol car.