Andrew Klavan - Nightmare City

Now he was in the lobby. He didn’t remember pushing through the doors, but he must have. He was standing just inside, in a broad open space with both an elevator and a flight of stairs leading upward. There was a semicircular desk in the center. A receptionist stood behind it, a woman of maybe thirty or so. She had long black hair and a severe expression on her face. She looked, Tom thought, like an angry schoolteacher. She stood still, staring sternly at him as if she were about to scold him for not paying attention in class.

He walked toward her.

“Hi. My name is Tom Harding,” he said. “I’m here to see Karen Lee in 6B.”

The woman went on staring at him—staring and frowning. She didn’t seem to approve of him. She wouldn’t even answer.

“Excuse me?” said Tom. “Hello? I’d like to see Miss Lee in 6B.”

Still—no response. Tom felt a weird little charge of anxiety. He remembered the ranchhand who had walked right past him as if he weren’t there. A cold feeling went down his neck, as if someone had put a piece of ice against his skin.

“Miss?” he said out loud to the frowning woman at the reception desk. He waved his hand in front of her face. “Miss, can you hear me?”

And still, the woman didn’t move, didn’t answer. Her eyes shifted a little, and Tom realized with a jolt that she wasn’t really looking at him at all. She was looking through him, as if she didn’t see him, as if he were invisible to her, as if he were…

… a ghost .

The thought came into Tom’s mind before he could stop it: Am I a ghost? Am I dead? Am I already dead?

Just then the phone on the reception desk rang. Immediately the woman behind the desk responded, picked it up.

“Front desk,” she said in a brisk voice.

She turned her back on Tom and went on talking into the phone.

It was true! She couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear him at all!

Tom raised his hands to touch his own chest, as if he might find he had become insubstantial, a phantom. The receptionist went on talking into the phone, oblivious to his presence.

Tom’s anxiety turned to fear. Desperate to prove himself wrong, he moved away from the receptionist. Moved to the elevators. He pressed the Up button. The elevator didn’t light up. Didn’t move.

Of course not.

Because ghosts can’t call elevators , Tom thought.

No, no, no, that couldn’t be right. The elevator was probably broken. He looked around. The stairs. He would use the stairs. He rushed over to them. The receptionist didn’t try to stop him from going up.

Right. Because she doesn’t even know I’m here .

He climbed the stairs quickly with the question repeating and repeating itself in his mind. Did I die? Was that storm the end of me? Am I dead? Am I already dead?

Out of breath, he reached the sixth-floor landing. Karen Lee’s apartment, 6B, was down at the end of the hall. He hurried to it. Knocked at the door. Noticed a doorbell button. Pressed it. He didn’t hear any bell ring.

Of course not .

He knocked again. He called out. “Miss Lee? It’s Tom Harding. From the Sentinel .” No answer. He pounded loudly on the door with his fist. “Miss Lee?”

Panic was rising in him. Am I dead? Am I already dead? He drew back his hand to pound on the door again. But before he could, he heard sounds behind him. A soft clunk . A whir .

He turned around. It was the elevator. It was on the move.

It wasn’t broken, then. He took a few cautious steps down the hall until he could see the numbers above the elevator door. Sure enough, the light was flashing from one number to another as the elevator climbed, from two to three to four. Five. Six.

Tom moved closer. He was right in front of the elevator when it stopped. He was standing and watching as the door slid open.

He could not believe what he saw inside. He gaped wild-eyed, letting out his breath in a single rush.

Tom Harding stood and stared in fear and amazement as Tom Harding stepped out of the elevator into the hall.

A double of himself! A doppelgänger!

Tom would not have thought anything could have frightened him more than he had been frightened already on this terrible day. He did not think anything could have raised in him the sheer terror he had felt when the malevolents broke into his house or could have chilled him the way the ghosts of his memory had in the school. He did not think anything could make his heart turn to ice the way it had when he had looked into the wicked eyes of the Lying Man.

But this was worse than any of that. This was scarier by far.

The sight of his own double made him feel as if his very soul had been stolen from him. His very essence, his very self. Because if this—this thing stepping out of the elevator—if this was Tom Harding, then who was he? What was happening to him?

The doppelgänger came walking toward him—right toward him, as if it didn’t see him standing there. Before Tom realized what was going to happen, before he could react and get out of the way, his double reached him and walked into him—and then walked right through him !

It was the worst thing Tom had ever felt—worse even than the moment when the malevolents had fallen on him. It was sicker than that. The double broke through the boundaries of Tom’s being and Tom felt for a moment that he had become nothing, that he had exploded into atoms and blown away. For an instant, he had no sense of himself, no memory, no presence. For an instant, he was the double and the double was him.

Then it was over. The doppelgänger had passed through him. Tom felt himself come into being again. Only then, with a nauseating shock, did he remember the momentary, sickening sensation of nothingness.

Unsteady, he turned and watched as the doppelgänger continued down the hall as if nothing had happened.

The double approached the door of 6B. He knocked softly. Immediately, a voice Tom recognized, Karen Lee’s voice, answered from within.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Tom,” said the double. “It’s Tom Harding from the Sentinel .”

You’re not! Tom wanted to shout at him. You’re not Tom Harding! I am!

But he didn’t shout. He didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure anymore who he was or what was real or what was true. All he could do was stand there, gaping in silence, as the apartment door slowly opened.

Karen Lee looked out at the doppelgänger. Tom recognized her at once. She was the woman in the white blouse who had stood in his driveway. A small, thin woman about forty or so. Her eyes shifted nervously past the double. She looked down the hall as if she was worried someone else was hiding behind him. Her gaze passed over Tom but didn’t pause. She didn’t see him. She turned back to his double. She spoke to him in a low, rapid voice, almost a whisper.

“I made a mistake,” she said. “I’m sorry, but you have to go.”

“But you were the one who called me,” the doppelgänger answered, looking confused. “You told me I should come.”

“I… I was wrong,” said the woman. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t want you here. You have to go.”

She’s afraid , Tom thought as he watched them. And he urged his double in his mind: Don’t leave. Stand your ground. Help her .

The double seemed to obey. “It sounded like it was important,” he said. “It sounded like you really needed to talk to me.”

“I’m telling you,” said Karen Lee urgently, “I can’t. Please. Just go away.”

She started to close the door. Watching the scene, Tom thought: Don’t let her do it. Something’s wrong. Find out what it is .