Sinister Entity (25 page)

She called Aunt Eve to let her know she was still very much alive and no worse for wear.
 

“We’re having a slumber party,” she said, dripping with mock enthusiasm.
 

“That’s a first,” Eve said, sounding amused. “Did you bring a sleeping bag?”

“I’m the one who gets to stay up all night and watch them. The girl, Selena, requested it so she would feel more comfortable and her mother kind of insinuated that it was non-negotiable.”

“I can understand that. And where does Eddie fit in with a slumber party full of girls?”

“He’s down in Boston meeting with a couple that had their own doppelganger experience years ago. It’s kinda nice to have another person do some of the legwork.”

“Sounds like you have things in hand.”

“Everything is locked and loaded.”

“Well, you call me any time, let me know you’re okay. Even if you just want to talk. You know I love you.”

“I love you, too. And I will. Talk to you soon.”

Jessica knew she made things sound rosier than they were, but she didn’t think there was any need to get her aunt upset or nervous.
 

Everyone came up around eleven. Jessica’s cell phone vibrated on the desk but she didn’t notice it as the girls walked into the room with pillows in hand. Selena and Julie looked as if they were stepping onto a terrifying ride at an amusement park while Crissy seemed almost excited.
 

“How were the movies?” Jessica asked.
 

“Okay, I guess,” Selena said.
 

“Adam Sandler is mad stupid,” Julie added with a weak smile.
 

“Yeah, he is stupid,” Crissy added. “I’ll go get changed.”

The girls took turns changing and getting ready in the bathroom. Selena settled into her bed while the girls slipped into their sleeping bags on either side of the bed. Jessica sat in the chair at their feet.
 

Selena sat up and said, “I don’t like the word doppelganger.”

That took Jessica by surprise. She was prepared to have to answer a few questions, but this wasn’t in the script.
 

“I don’t know, it just sounds creepy, and seeing it is bad enough.”

Crissy piped up, “Did you know that doppelganger is a German word?”

Jessica shook her head. “I wasn’t aware of it, though it does sound Germanic. So, how would you like us to refer to it?”

“Crissy said that the word means double walker. I like that much better. It kind of makes it sound, well, Native American or something, like it’s more spiritual,” Selena said.

“You think you could trap it in a dream catcher?” Julie asked.
 

“That’s even dumber than Adam Sandler,” Crissy countered.
 

Jessica could see things getting out of hand fast. She interjected, “You know what, I think I like double walker better, too. It’s a deal. I’ll tell Eddie and your parents tomorrow. And, Julie, I’m not sure if that would work or not. No one’s ever tried to trap one before. My goal is to find out why it’s here and help it go away.”

She saw Crissy roll her eyes but was happy with Julie’s and Selena’s reactions.
 

“It’s getting late. Time to shut out the lights and try to get some sleep,” she said. She turned off the overhead light and settled into the chair.
 

In the dark, Selena asked, “Won’t you get bored and fall asleep just sitting watching us all night?”

“Not me. You forget, I do this for a living. I’m used to it. Good night, girls.”

To their credit, they snuggled into their pillows and remained silent, feigning sleep long enough to actually fall asleep. She knew they were all down for the count by the sound of their light snores and shallow breathing.
 

The doppelganger, or double walker now, appeared to gravitate to Selena and her, so it was her hope that two beacons would be impossible for it to ignore. She’d left the closet door open a crack, not that an inch and a half of wood could stop it from coming and going. That lesson had been learned yesterday. Shielding the light from her cell display, she saw that Eddie had left a message over an hour ago. The house was too quiet to check it now. It would have to wait until morning.
 

Time inched by like it always did when night draped over a house she was sitting vigil within and there were no distractions to mar the silence or divert her concentration. Twice she crept out of the room to walk through the house, spending several minutes in each room, listening for anything out of the ordinary. The house had its share of creaks and groans, just like any other, but because she hadn’t had time to get more acquainted with it, she was on high alert. With so much adrenaline rocketing through her system on a steady basis, she knew she was in for one hell of a crash come morning. Thank God the bed at the hotel was a king and comfortable.
 

She checked her watch, saw that it was several minutes before three, right around the time the double walker had visited them at the hotel. Three a.m. was the true witching hour, not midnight, the time when the veil between the living and the dead was at its finest. Never a big proponent of spirits working on a schedule, she still felt that it might have some importance to this particular paranormal entity.
 

The girls were still asleep and didn’t stir when she came back, settling into the chair, wincing when the faux-leather protested. Soft shafts of moonlight bathed the room in a dull, blue light. Selena had kicked off her covers, which were now draped across Julie’s sleeping bag. She lay on her side, legs tucked together and bent at the knees. Her dark hair fanned out across her pillow.
If nothing happens tonight,
Jessica thought,
at least she’ll have gotten a good night’s rest.
 

It was going on three fifteen when Jessica felt the temperature in the room plummet.
 

She jerked her attention to the ceiling fan to see if it had kicked into a higher gear. That sometimes happened with the ones that had a wireless remote control. It still spun at a moderate speed, as it had since earlier that evening.
 

Something was about to happen. She knew as much from the tingling at the base of her scalp as the chill that now permeated the small room.
 

Jessica waited, breathing slowly through her mouth to keep the amount of ambient noise in the room and in her head as low as possible. She sat forward in the chair, vigilant. Her gaze darted to Selena when she shifted in her sleep, pulling her legs up closer to her midsection until she was in a tight fetal position.
 

She reached for the ceiling fan remote on the desk and pressed the button to turn it off.
 

The silence was so perfect that her ears buzzed with a dull whine.
 

Selena moaned softly, drawing Jessica’s attention again. It was now as cold as a meat locker. Jessica could see the vaporous exhalations of all three girls. When Selena started shivering, she had to stop herself from covering her with a blanket. This entire tableau was being set by the unknown entity that had decided to take up residence in the house. The last thing she needed to do was upset even the smallest element.
 

She wanted it to feel comfortable. To feel as if it had the upper hand. To show itself.
 

Jessica stared into the dark closet, waiting for the double walker to emerge, preparing herself for its normal yet otherworldly appearance. It was the most unsettling thing she had witnessed in her short time of working in this field, but far from enough to scare her off. She doubted there was anything that could do that.
 

While she was concentrating on the closet, she heard Selena’s mattress crinkle as if a heavy weight had settled onto it. She saw a depression, about the size of a hand, form just inches below Selena’s feet.
 

It was here.

“Come on, show yourself,” Jessica whispered.
 

The depression filled back in, and was replaced by a new one next to her knees.
 

Jessica waited for the doppelganger to take shape, but there was only the steady progression of a phantom creeper in the bed with Selena.
 

“Who are you?” Jessica asked, low enough not to wake the girls. She held her digital recorder toward the bed. “What’s your name? I know you’re not Selena, no matter how much you want to look like her.”

She rose from the chair when she saw deep depressions simultaneously form in four corners around Selena. The force on the mattress had to be intense to push down as low as it had. It was as if it had boxed Selena in and was about to draw itself over her.
 

“I’m Jessica,” she said, louder. “Can you tell me your name?”

She knew it wasn’t going to be that easy but it was worth a try.
 

The bed frame creaked from the extra weight being exerted upon it. It was time to get the other girls out, now!

When Jessica reached for her walkie on the desk, it was nowhere to be found.
Did I leave it downstairs?
she thought, cursing herself.
 

It was time to break this up. Things were taking a dark turn. Selena whimpered in her sleep as if she was being hurt. The wood frame of the bed sounded stressed to the point of breaking.
 

Subtlety had to be thrown out the window. She had to shout for Rita and Greg to get the girls. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her lungs felt as if they had snapped shut and she was locked in a silent scream.
 

Selena muffled a desperate, “No!”

But like Jessica, she was meshed in place, trapped in her dream world while her body was pinned under the weight of a presence that had sinister intentions. She knew that now. Something was very wrong here. The game had changed.
 

Chapter Thirty-Six

Morgan Stern had asked for and received Eddie’s permission to smoke in front of him. He was surprised when the high school teacher opened a small drawer and extracted a pipe. All he needed was the tweed jacket with patches at the elbows to complete the stereotype.
 

“It’s a shame your generation is being robbed of the simple pleasures in life, like a good after-dinner smoke. I never did see the sense of going into the ground with a bunch of healthy parts. Might as well use them up while you have them.”

Gigi gave his arm a light slap. “Don’t go encouraging him to take up smoking. Lord, the things he comes out with. He used to smoke cigarettes. This is his way of quitting.”

“I went from two packs of cigarettes a day to one pipe an evening. Not a bad trade-off. I have one of my colleagues at school to thank for it. He thought he was getting me a gag gift for my fortieth birthday. The joke’s on him.”
 

The tobacco smoke carried an aroma of cherry with hints of vanilla. If it tasted as good as it smelled, Eddie could see why Morgan took up the habit.
 

But, he wasn’t here to talk about the pleasures of a post-repast pipe. He steered the conversation back to the interaction between Morgan, Gigi and his father’s doppelganger in the yard. It seemed as if Morgan had used the pipe as a small diversion, delaying the recitation of a painful memory. He had to let them take their time, not push things.
 

“Eddie, how much do you know about the myth of the doppelganger?”

“Not a whole lot. And would you call it a myth, when we have three people in this room who have seen one?”

“Absolutely. Not all myths are unfounded or stories based on false perceptions. Some myths are quite the opposite, though we as a species try our damnedest to relegate them to the world of fantasy. And do you know why we do that?”

“Because we can’t apply scientific standards to prove their existence?” Eddie answered.
 

Morgan drew on his pipe, allowing a moment to savor the sweet tobacco. “Not entirely. It’s because it scares the hell out of us. When the stuff of nightmares follows us into the daylight, we do anything we can to banish it back to the realm of impossibility. If you ask me, I think people see doppelgangers far more than we know. The problem is, the unmitigated fear that comes with such an experience is so terrifying, so perplexing, that our brains automatically sever the neural pathway the event navigates and deletes the source. It’s powerful stuff.”

Now Eddie was beginning to feel creeped out, despite the warm surroundings and pleasant company. Morgan was making him realize the full weight of the situation he and Jessica had blindly taken on, and it didn’t look like things were going to get any easier.
 

“When you said you spoke to your father’s doppelganger, was it just the one time?”

Gigi answered, “It happened the last two times, both out back. The first time, he didn’t say much, just ‘You startled me’ when we came outside to do some yard work. I remember at the time thinking that he didn’t look the least bit startled. It was as if he had consulted a book of proper phrases and decided that was the one to use when someone suddenly came upon you. We knew by then that it wasn’t Morgan’s dad, so we just stopped and stared at one another for a few seconds. Then he walked down the alley between our house and the one next door and disappeared.”