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Johnny Goth ran down the Mountain swiftly, catching up with the doppelganger Elizabeth Winters half way to the Great Tree. Out of breath, she stopped running without argument.
“I won’t hurt you,” said Johnny. “I want you to help me get my own Elizabeth back.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Fat chance, Johnny. I take it that you two were close in this universe, but you can forget getting her back. This is my fifth world now, and they’re all different.”
“Your fifth?”
“And I’m a relative novice. I’ve heard of an Elizabeth that has been to more than a dozen worlds.”
“A dozen?”
“So many that she lost count, but certainly more than a dozen, and she replaced a different Elizabeth each time, most of them also trying to get back home, or as in my case, to escape home.”
“Escape? You left your original world on purpose?”
“Certainly. It was so lousy I figured I had nothing to lose.”
“What could be so bad that you’d want to leave your whole world behind?”
“Principally you, Johnny Goth. In my original world you’re a sick sadistic bastard.”
“Me? I am?”
“Don’t look so surprised. Hopefully you’re not so bad in this world. Not a bastard like my first Johnny Goth, anyway. And what about me? In this universe do I have money?”
“You’re a school teacher without much money.”
“Shit! Same-old same-old.” She turned and started walking down the mountain again.
“Wait, where are you going?”
“Away from here. Maybe I can get the National Enquirer or someone to buy my story, assuming you have newspapers here. With some cash maybe I can get my life back on track.”
“I don’t think I can let you do that.”
She stopped walking and turned to face him with a frown. “Maybe there’s some bastard in you after all?”
“This place is under siege and attack, Elizabeth. There have been serious attempts on my Elizabeth’s life. Staying here with us may be your only chance to live.”
“Shit,” she remarked. She walked back to rejoin Johnny. "This gets better and better."
Johnny marveled at how much this woman was both the same and different from his own Elizabeth. How she talked and looked was somewhat Elizabeth-like, but she clearly wasn’t his Elizabeth. “Besides, I want my own Elizabeth back, and I expect you to help me get her.”
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Secrets of Goth Mountain Page 60