Byron Starr - Doppelgänger

“What started all this?” Carl asked in a curious conversational tone.

James sat staring blankly at the wall behind Carl.

Emilio stopped digging in his ear. “Huh?”

“What started all this?” Carl said in a slightly louder voice; then he continued, “I mean, where did this damn thing come from?”

“Damned if I know,” Emilio said, finally giving up his digging and giving his ear a rest.

“Was it something like the drought we had this summer, last summer’s record heat wave, or was it that freeze we had three years ago, or what? Why us? Why here?” Carl asked, as if to himself.

There was a pause of about five seconds, then James spoke quietly, without taking his eyes from the wall behind Carl. “It doesn’t matter.”

Emilio turned to James. “What?”

“It doesn’t matter,” James said, without changing his volume, tone, or moving his fixed eyes.

Emilio turned to him, “James, you’re going to have to speak up. I can’t hear a thing.”

“I said, it doesn’t matter!” James said in much louder voice, practically shouting. “It doesn’t matter where the damn thing came from. All that matters is it’s here.”

Emilio reached out to touch James on the shoulder, to comfort him, but James raised his hand in a don’t touch me gesture.

There was another ten seconds of silence, then James spoke again. This time his voice was even and deceptively calm. “I’m so stupid. I should have seen it.”

Carl started to say something like, You couldn’t help it. The thing came on so fast, but all he got out was “You cou… ” before James interrupted.

“I’m not talkin’ about tonight’s attack.”

Emilio and Carl exchanged puzzled glances.

James sighed and let them in on what he had just figured out. “During the night I see through its eyes. During the day, when it sleeps, it sees through my eyes. How do you think it knew where to find my house, when Greg would be checking on my house, and where to find the dogs? Hell, how do you think it managed to escape just in time when we almost had it with the dogs and when we cornered it at the church. I was there both times. It saw us coming through my eyes. I can sometimes force myself to wake up during my dreams. Why can’t it do the same? It even knew that me and Emilio were staying here; that’s why it came tonight.” A strange smile creased James’ lips that didn’t exactly seem at home there. “I think it really hates me and Emilio. Especially Emilio.”

“I’m flattered,” Emilio said.

“I think it even knows that I see its movements when I sleep, that’s why it attacked so early in the night. It probably made sure it was in town long before I went bed.”

“What do we do now?” Carl finally asked. He almost winced when he said it, expecting the answer to be, Don’t ask us, you’re the sheriff.

James turned his eyes from the blank spot on the wall he had been staring at ever since they came into the room. He looked straight into Carl’s eyes. “I think I can kill it.”

“How?” Carl asked.

“Do y’all trust me?”

“Sure,” Emilio answered immediately, but Carl didn’t say a word.

“Carl?” James asked.

“I want to know how you plan on going about killing this thing before I agree to anything,” Carl said.

“If I told you, you’d think I was crazy. Hell, maybe I am, but I really think I can kill it. There’ll be no risk to anybody else, just me. All I need is a little help to set it up.”

Carl was going to object, but he saw something else in James’ eyes other than madness. He saw hope. James thought his plan would work, and for now, that would have to do. Carl leaned forward. “I’m all ears.”

Still looking at Carl, James said. “We don’t have much time before the beast is back in his lair, asleep and listening in on every word we say, so I’ll be brief. You’re going to send Emilio home to Midland, right?”

“Hey wait a minute,” Emilio protested, shifting to the edge of his seat.

“I hadn’t given it any thought yet,” Carl answered, “but if you’re right and Emilio is a target for that thing, then he’s not safe here, and he places everyone around him in danger.”

“Your role will be minor,” James said to Carl. “In fact, if this doesn’t go right, and I end up dead, you’ll be able to say you had nothing to do with it — the Department will be completely in the clear.”

Carl nodded. “I’m listening.”

“Tomorrow I’m going to stay away from town. I would prefer to have a patrol car so it would appear,” James tapped his head with his finger to emphasize that he was referring to what the beast would see, “like I’m on official business. If that thing’s smart enough to pull off what it did last night, I don’t want to take any chances on it getting suspicious. I also need Emilio to be at his house, alone, all day tomorrow. From at least eleven in the morning till sundown. After that you can send him off.”

James turned to Emilio. “I’ll stop by at one for a brief visit, and we’ll put on a little act for our friend’s benefit. You’ll say Carl tried to send you off today, but you didn’t want to go. Basically make up some bullshit, but be sure and mention that you will be at home all night, but you’ll be leaving the day after. I’ll mention that I’m going to be coming by to check on you at around one in the morning. At just after ten tonight I’ll show up at your house — the beast should be out and about and not listening in by then. You’ll take the patrol car back into town, and I’ll stay.”

“Leaving you by yourself. Hell, no.” Emilio said.

But another aspect of the plan had caught Carl’s attention. “If the thing is after both of you, why go through all the trouble to make it seem like Emilio’s the bait?” Carl asked. “Why not just use yourself, at your own house?”

“I think it’ll be a little less cautious going after Emilio than it would me. Look at the way it attacked him in broad daylight the other day. Besides, if it’s figured out what I have, it may be a little wary of me.”

The beast awoke just after the sunset. It pulled itself up and leaned on the log it had slept beside all night.

The beast brought its right hand up to its face. The bullet had entered on the outside of the first knuckle of the first finger and passed diagonally through the hand until it exited near the joining point of the wrist and the hand. Tendons had been severed on the first two already damaged fingers, making them fold up, useless. The pain in the beast’s hand was even worse than in its shoulder, and it was sure it knew the cause of the pain.

The One That Caused Pain. It had smelled him. It had heard him. It knew he had been there.

The beast had hurt, and probably killed The Dying One, but The One Who Sees and The One Who Caused Pain got away.

But tonight, The One Who Caused Pain would die.

It was five minutes till ten when James drove up Emilio’s driveway for the second time of the day.

Emilio was sitting on the edge of the unpainted wooden porch, his legs dangling off the side. A small grey suitcase was sitting on the ground by his feet, and his crutches were propped up beside him. James parked the patrol car next to Emilio’s battered Blazer and walked up to the porch.

“Are you sure you want to go through with this hare-brained idea of yours?” Emilio asked.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Anything I can do to talk you out of it?”

James leaned up against Emilio’s truck. He stood looking down at the ground, not wanting to make eye contact with Emilio, afraid that Emilio might see how scared he really was. He shook his head.