Byron Starr - Doppelgänger

Carl didn’t see anything, so he decided to pull around behind the gas station. The cruiser slowly rounded the corner of the store. As the back parking lot came into view, Carl continued to use his spotlight to light up the shadows behind bushes and corners. He had no idea why the troublesome reporters would be violating the curfew, but he imagined if they were desperate enough to break the law for a good story, they would be desperate enough to hide from the law to keep from getting caught.

Carl was so intent on pointing the spotlight into various corners that he pulled right up to the bodies before he saw them. When his vision returned toward the front of the car, Jana was only some twenty feet away, right in front of the headlights. She was facing toward him. All that remained of her face was her lower jaw and part of her left cheek, but this was covered with blood; her head looked like a mass of bloody pulp with blonde hair.

“Oh, God!” Carl gasped, and started fumbling for the radio. “C–Clara, this is sixty-two, I need backup behind the old gas station on 190… and an ambulance, over.”

“Could you repeat that last part, sixty-two?”

“We’ve got someone down behind Marvin’s gas station on 190.”

“Ten-four,” Clara answered

Carl stared at the bloody mess in front of his car. Behind Jana he thought he could make out another body. Probably the cameraman, he thought. Carl pointed the spotlight in that direction, and sure enough, there was another body. This one actually seemed to be in worse condition than the one in front of him.

Carl picked up the mike again. “Clara, be sure and wake up the sheriff on this one.”

“Ten-four.”

Sam had returned to Austin the day before in an effort to speed up the process of getting a new team of bloodhounds and more law enforcement personnel to help patrol Newton County. As soon as Bill called to let him know what had happened, he set out on his return trip as fast as his sports car could carry him. After he arrived, he sought out Bill and found him in the squad room.

“This is bad,” Sam said as he came through the door. “Real bad.”

Bill was seated behind Carl Price’s desk. Needless to say, Bill wasn’t using the computer. The computer was on, but its screen saver was active. While winged toasters fluttered across the screen, Bill was intently searching for something in the large storage cabinet behind Carl’s desk.

Bill motioned for Sam to close the door behind him.

“You just thought we’ve had problems with reporters,” Sam said, this time it was his face that was flushed bright red. “When word that a reporter and her cameraman were killed by a strange animal in the streets of downtown Newton, Texas, reporters are going to swarm on this town like locusts.”

There was one thing that Captain Sam Jones absolutely couldn’t stand and that was being in a situation that was out of control. Throughout Sam’s life he had always had an uncanny ability to avoid such situations by either quick wits, smooth talking, or, when necessary, brute force. However, it seemed none of these assets had been able to pull him through the current crisis. Up until now he found himself barely able to keep things from falling apart. Now it seemed the death of these two big-city reporters was going to push the situation into the out of control zone, and this made Captain Sam Jones none too happy.

“I can handle one overweight ex-bimbo from Current Edition, Bill, but I’m not sure if I can keep it up when the major networks send their heavy hitters.”

While Sam was talking, Bill found what he was looking for in the bottom of the storage cabinet, under several reams of printer paper — an old VCR. Bill set the VCR on Carl’s desk, beside the computer.

“Can you hook one of these things up?” Bill asked, as if he hadn’t heard a word Sam had said.

“Yeah,” Sam said hesitantly; the question set him back a little. “Mind if I ask why?”

“That,” Bill pointed at a little video camera sitting on the edge of Carl’s desk, “was found at the scene. If we’re lucky, our cameraman may have caught whatever killed them on tape.”

The video camera didn’t solve the dead reporter problem, but it sure did make Sam’s gloomy day start to look a little better. Perhaps this was the big breakthrough they’d been waiting for.

Sam picked up the VCR and took it over to the TV that was on the top of a filing cabinet across the room from Carl’s desk. While Sam untangled the wires to the VCR, Bill pressed the button on the intercom and told Debra to get in touch with James and Emilio and have them report to the sheriff’s office immediately.

Once the VCR was set up, Sam used the remote to fast forward until they could see the front of Marvin’s old gas station on the screen.

Sam pressed play.

James followed Emilio into the squad room.

Emilio glanced up at the TV and commented, “Aw, man, I didn’t bring popcorn.”

“Oh, good y’all are already here,” Bill said, “We just got started.”

Sam pressed pause, stopping the scene at a dark view behind Marvin’s gas station. Jana was still in the shadows, only her dark silhouette was visible.

“Have a seat,” Bill said. “This tape ought to be real interesting. It was found in a camera near the body of one of this morning’s victims.”

Emilio took a seat, and James leaned up against the wall.

Sam pressed play.

Jana continued around the corner of the building. Once she was out of the shadows, she was clearly visible. She stopped and looked around. Then she turned back to Bob, apparently attempting to look sexy, said, “Bob, you got me all excited for nothing.”

“Bob, you stud,” Emilio commented.

Then Bob and Jana thought they heard something near the garbage cans, and they began slowly working their way in that direction. Bob stayed behind and to the right of Jana, enabling him to get a good shot of her as well as a good shot of the area they were approaching. As they drew near the garbage cans, Emilio leaned anxiously forward in his chair. And when the cat flew out of the garbage can, causing the lid to fly off with a bang, Emilio jumped like a kid watching a horror movie, giving Sam and Bill a good laugh. Jana and Bob then had a little discussion about how silly they thought they were acting, then started back toward the gas station.

“What the hell is that?” Emilio asked in a shocked voice. No one answered. Everyone in the room was silent.

The thing was at first hard to make out, but as it stepped into the light of the security lights behind the gas station they were treated to a much better view. It was walking upright like a human. It looked to be close to six feet tall, and very wide at the shoulders. Its body was built a lot like a human’s except its arms were slightly longer and its legs were slightly shorter. The creature was also covered with short, coarse hair that looked black in the poor lighting, but might have been a dark brown. It resembled a cross between a man and an ape, with one major difference: its head. From the neck up the creature was completely hairless. The skin looked black and leathery. Two small dog-like ears poked up on top of its head. The beast’s jaws were oversized for the rest of its body, and no lips covered the two rows of jagged, oversized black teeth, some of which looked to be almost an inch and a half long.

“Oh, hell,” they heard Bob say, but he sounded awful calm to have something that looked like that walking toward him.

“No, this is perfect. He doesn’t have his Ranger buddy with him to do his talking. Just keep that camera rolling,” Jana said

“What the hell?” Emilio said, confused by Jana’s comment