Doppelganger

by Byron Starr

  “Sheriff Oates wanted to take only a few people to try to talk to the kids. He didn’t want to upset them.”

  No across the road and approaching the crowd, Jana turned to Bob, “Please tell me you’re getting this.”

  “Not set up yet,” Bob replied, as he slung the camera to his shoulder.

  The deputy turned and saw Jana and her cameraman approaching. He obviously had his hands full with the gathering of parents, so he opted for reinforcements. He turned to the house and called out, “Bill! I need you out here.”

  Sheriff Oates appeared at the door to the house. He jogged across the yard on an interception course. A big man in a western sports coat came out of the door behind him; she recognized him as Captain Sam Jones, a Texas Ranger who had been brought in to help the investigation. The sheriff got between Jana and the crowd and put his hand up.

  Bob aimed the camera at the two of them.

  “Sheriff Oates, could you please tell us what is going on here?” Jana asked smiling her loveliest smile. Let’s see you get out of this one, you redneck son of a bitch, she thought.

  “I’ll tell you what’s going on Mrs. Parish: you’re in violation of a citywide curfew.” She could tell he had more to say but he managed to hold his tongue – this time. Oh yes, she had him now.

  Jana pressed on. “Sheriff Oates, is this another one of the strange unsolved killings that’s been going on in the area?” she asked, putting special emphasis on the word unsolved. “Is it true your department has no leads and no suspects on these terrible crimes? Is it true that a former suspect is now a deputy in your department?”

  The sheriff’s cheeks darkened. “Mrs. Parish, you go back to your van right now, or I will personally escort you to jail, by God.”

  Got him! Jana thought. Then she continued, “Sheriff Oates, are you saying ...”

  “Sheriff Oates, please allow me to handle this.” Captain Jones interrupted in a smooth, well-enunciated Texas accent.

  Sheriff Oates turned to the Ranger and at first seemed like he was going to argue. Then he simply nodded and walked away without saying another word. At first Jana was somewhat at a loss. She wanted to corner the sheriff, and she almost had him. Still, there was hope; if she could pick up where she left off, maybe she could get some information from this big cowboy that might bring him down.

  “Captain Jones ...” Jana started

  “Please, call me, Sam,” Sam said, removing his hat and extending his hand.

  Slightly baffled, Jana quickly touched his hand and started over. “Captain Jones, can you please tell us what is going on here?”

  “I do wish I could, ma’am, but since it’s all still under investigation, my hands are tied,” Captain Jones politely drawled in the smooth voice of a true Southern gentleman.

  “Is this another of the unsolved killings that have been going on in the area?”

  “Now, Mrs. Parish, like I said, I can’t say anything right now, but I’ll tell ya’ll what I’ll do, I’ll write up a statement and run it over to the Pineywoods first thing in the morning. For right now, though, y’all need to get back to the hotel.”

  Jana asked a few more questions, hoping either to pester Captain Jones into losing his composure or to stall long enough to catch something exciting on film. After five minutes, Jana started repeating her questions and Captain Jones brought this to her attention. He smoothly suggested that he might consider an interview if they would go back to their hotel. Of course he never committed to anything; he just suggested it might be possible. After about five more minutes of smooth talking, Jana and Bob were on their way back to the hotel, half convinced it had been their idea to leave.

  * * *

  The next morning Captain Jones’ statement was delivered by the manager of the Pineywoods Hotel in a sealed envelope. The letter was every bit as evasive as Captain Jones had been in person. The statement said someone had died, but it didn’t even state that they had been killed. When it mentioned the cause of the death, the letter evasively said: foul play has not been ruled out.

  Jana also found that nothing came of the semi-promised interview. Every time she called the Sheriff’s Office and asked for Captain Sam Jones, the dispatcher would tell her he had just stepped out and he would return her call as soon as he returned. Of course, he never did.

  The rest of the day was spent running about town trying to find out what had happened, but in Newton it seemed the rumors were almost as common as the pine trees. It was next to impossible to decipher what had really happened. By the end of the day, one of the few things Jana was sure about was that someone had been killed the night before. Other stories, such as a half dozen teenagers killed and a shootout between one of the deputies and a serial killer could have some truth to them, but it was impossible to tell how much.

  When Jana finally went to bed late that afternoon, she was exhausted and aggravated.

  Later that night, Jana was in the middle of a dream about her ex-husband Lance that involved very little clothes and a lot of heavy breathing, when she felt someone shaking her. She could faintly hear someone through the fog of her slowly fading deep sleep.

  Jana, Get up.

  “Lance?” she mumbled drowsily.

  Jana heard someone laugh, then say, “No, it’s your other boyfriend.” She could now clearly hear Bob’s voice.

  Her eyes were still unfocused, but she could make out Bob’s shape beside her bed. “What are you doing in my room?” Jana snapped.

  “I saw something outside my window.”

  Jana was still groggy from her sleep and a little embarrassed about the dream he had caught her in the middle of, not to mention a little miffed that Bob had caused the dream to end. “Get out of my room right now! I have a right to my own privacy.”

  Bob said, slowly as if he was speaking to a child, “Jana, I think I saw our monster.”

  Jana finally grasped what he said. “Where?” she asked.

  “Across the street.”

  “What did it look like?” Jana said as she raised up in the bed. Her ample breasts were visible through her flimsy white nightgown.

  Bob was aware that before Jana had her baby she had been a quite a knockout, but in the last two years of working with her he never saw her as anything more than an irritable bitch. Now he found himself staring at her breasts wondering what they would feel like.

  Jana followed his eyes to her breasts and pulled the covers up to cover them. Then it was her turn to speak slowly, like she was speaking to a child. “What did it look like, Bob?”

  Bob blushed, but regained enough of his composure to make a sarcastic reply. “Hell, I don’t know. I left my animal cards back in New York.”

  Embarrassed, Bob retreated back into his room, and started getting dressed and gathering his camera equipment. He was just about to walk out the door when Jana came into his room. With the exception of makeup, she was dressed and ready to go. “Where do you think you’re going?” she asked.

  “I’m going to try and take a picture of this thing.”

  “Let’s go then.”

  * * *

  Although the whole thing had been his idea, when they got in the van Bob started having second thoughts about the excursion. He didn’t want to admit it, but he really wasn’t sure it was such a good idea. He knew the chances of them getting caught by one of Sheriff Oates’ storm troopers was very high; it’s not like a white van with CURRENT EDITION stenciled on the side in long, slanted, one and a half foot tall red letters would be easy to miss. Of course, he also knew it was exactly what was on Jana’s mind. If they got arrested for violating the curfew, it would make her story all the better: Nationally Renowned Journalist Detained by Redneck-Fascist Sheriff.

  But Sheriff Oates wasn’t really what Bob was afraid of, and he knew it. Something was out there killing people - something was out there killing people and he was about to go try to chase it down to get its picture.

  Maybe I can get its autograph, too, Bob thought and chuckled t
o himself.

  “What’s so funny?” Jana asked

  “Oh, nothing.”

  They pulled across the street without turning on their lights. Bob stopped in the parking lot of an old gas station. “It went behind there,” he said, pointing to the left of the building.

  Jana opened the passenger door.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Bob asked

  Jana waited until she was fully out of the car before turning to address him. “I’m doing my job. You know, investigative reporting,” she said in a voice that was more playful than her usual waspish sarcasm.

  Nevertheless, the comment stung Bob’s pride. He started to say something, but he decided against it. Bob stepped out of the van and checked his camera for film. The camera Bob had with him tonight wasn’t his usual shoulder-mounted variety with all its lights, bells, and whistles. When Bob traveled, he also carried with him his little handheld video toy. It was lighter and easier to handle than his big one.

  Jana led the way around the gas station. As she reached the corner of the building Bob half expected a hairy arm to reach out and grab her, but it didn’t. Bob followed her around the building. Nothing.

  Jana turned to him and put her right hand on her hip and threw her head back, striking a pose that had probably been sexy about seventy pounds ago. “Bob, you got me all excited for nothing.”

  Is she flirting? Bob thought, but was immediately distracted by movement behind Jana. “Look, over there,” Bob pointed.

  Jana turned. “Where?”

  Behind the gas station was a long tin storage building with ten large doors, each numbered one through ten on the door in white spray-paint. The movement seemed to have come from the direction of several metal garbage cans which were located the right of the building.

  “Let’s go,” Jana said.

  Bob started to protest, but Jana was already on her way over to the garbage cans. He jogged a few steps and caught up. He put his camera to his eye and took aim. As they drew nearer to the garbage cans Jana and Bob slowed down and started creeping toward the cans.

  There was a faint rustling coming from one of the cans. At first Bob thought it was his imagination, but as he drew closer the sound was clearer. It wasn’t his imagination. But still they crept forward.

  This is crazy, Bob thought. If that thing’s behind those garbage cans, there’s no way we can make it back to the van before it gets us.

  There was a six-inch opening in one of the garbage cans’ lid. When Bob and Jana crept within about five feet, the lid of this can suddenly fell off with a clang, and out jumped a small emaciated black cat. The cat let out a frightened meow and launched itself in the opposite direction as fast as its little feet could carry it.

  As scared as the cat was, it couldn’t have been half as scared as Jana and Bob. Jana screamed briefly, then put her hand over her mouth. Bob just stood there staring at the garbage can with his eyes wide open, surprised at how close he had come to wetting himself.

  When the shock wore off, Jana stooped down, put her hands on her hips, and laughed. Bob was still red-faced and only let out a little choked laughter at first, but then he loosened up and joined Jana’s lead.

  “Can you believe us?” Jana asked. Then added, “When we get back to the hotel we’re going to destroy that film.”

  “It was silly, wasn’t it?”

  They laughed for a little while longer, then started back to the van. When they were halfway between the storage buildings and the gas station, Sheriff Oates stepped from behind the building.

  “Well, what have we here?” he said.

  “Oh, hell,” Bob said

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

  Bob put the camera to his eye and followed Jana as she walked up to the sheriff.

  “Sheriff Oates, I have some questions I’d like to ask you about the unsolved killings that have been going on in your county.”

  The sheriff didn’t say a word. He just kept walking toward them, smiling.

  “Do you think it is a person doing these killings, and if so do you have any suspects?”

  “We don’t exactly know what we’re dealing with, ma’am,” Bill said, still moving toward Jana at a brisk pace. Something wasn’t right. Bob didn’t like the way Bill kept coming on.

  Jana continued with her questions. “That’s not very comforting, Sheriff Oates. Don’t you think that it’s your job t ...” Jana’s sentence was cut short by a hard upward swing. Swinging upward, claws that were unseen to both Jana and Bob made deep gouges from the side of her left breast to just under her chin; there the claws of the monster’s first and second digits gouged upward, piercing into her mouth from below. The beast then clenched its fist, bringing its fingers out of Jana’s mouth, the two claws splitting her upper lip in the process. With this firm grip, the Sheriff-Oates-thing pulled Jana to him. He opened his mouth grotesquely wide and clamped down on her face. His upper teeth were sunk into the left side of her forehead, and his lower teeth sunk into her face just to the right of her nose. There was a loud crunching sound as the beast brought its jaws together. Jana’s arms, which had been weakly struggling, shot out straight to her sides at first, then slumped.

  Bob found that his muscles refused to cooperate. He watched the whole thing in stunned shock. The Sheriff-Oates-thing let Jana slump to the ground, then turned its gaze on Bob. It then crouched down on all fours preparing to pounce.

  Finally, Bob’s muscles did something — he pissed himself.

  * * *

  Carl Price cruised down Highway 190 and noticed the Current Edition van parked across the street from the Pineywoods Hotel at Marvin Palmer’s old gas station. Bill had warned Carl, who was filling in for Chad on the night shift, not to leave his car without calling for backup, so Carl pulled up in the parking lot and used his door-mounted spotlight to look around the building. Despite Bill’s instructions, Carl was hesitant to call for backup, because he knew the person backing him up at nights was none other than the sheriff himself. Bill hadn’t been getting much sleep during the current crisis, and it didn’t seem to be helping his temper.

  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.”

  Chapter 19

  From Bad to Worse

  Sam had returned to Austin the day before in an effort to speed up the proc
ess 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.