The Doppelgänger: A Psychological Thriller (4 page)

She took slow, deliberate steps toward the door. Another knock.

“Who is it?” Darcy asked.

“It’s me.” Mr. Hatter’s voice drained the tension drained from her body. She stuffed the revolver back into the drawer and slammed it shut. She opened the door.

Mr. Hatter stood on the other side of the door, his head hanging down. She saw his silvery white hair, parted down the middle. His dull grey pant and navy sweater completed the image.

“Mr. Hatter,” she remarked, jumpy.

“Thank you for taking care of Smokey last night,” he said. Faint smell of alcohol gushed through her nostrils.

“You’re welcome,” Darcy said.

“You found her near the trash can yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“She likes those mice. The real thing always wins over cat food.”

Darcy smiled.

“I must get going. Good night.” he said.

“Good night.”

With those words, he turned around and left. Darcy proceeded to her bed. She buried her body under the duvet and turned the lights off. She stared at the ceiling for a long time before she fell asleep.

Chapter 5

On Monday afternoon, Darcy took the L to Mike’s office to return his coat. The small office on the second floor was the center of activity. Papers flew. Phones rang chaotically. The wires crisscrossed. An intern almost tripped over. There were just four staff members in the office. A journalist, a photographer, writer and an intern. The Science Reporter was severely understaffed.

A journalist brushed past Darcy. One of the staff was occupied with a phone call. Another ran around the office, chasing the flying papers. The photographer was unfazed by the flood of activity. He was busy doing something on the personal computer. Headphones plugged his ears. Darcy could hear the beat of the music.

“Hello? Yes? The final draft? Just a moment,” Michael said on the phone. His desk was swamped with papers. He signaled an intern who rushed with a file. “Umm…yeah, it’s on the way. It should be there anytime. Yes, thank you.” Before he hung up, Darcy heard a beep. He got an e-mail. His brown eyeballs moved at lightning speed across the breadth of the computer screen.

Darcy stood at one corner of the room, away from the center of activity. Darcy loosened her coat buttons. The overworked intern noticed her. He walked toward her.

“I’m here to meet Michael…” she began.

“There you are,” his enthusiastic voice called out. “Congratulations. You managed to find this place.” He flashed a friendly smile at her. A faint smile touched Darcy’s lips. He looked at her sharply.

“I’m here to return the coat,” she said. Her fingers clutched a bag with the coat inside. She held it up. She walked to his desk and placed the bag on it.

“Thank you,” he said, semi-distracted by the computer screen. “Sit down.”

Darcy looked around the room. There was no place to sit. Every surface was covered with phones, photos and papers. The intern scurried over and cleared up papers from the chair near her. She took a seat hesitantly.

“Coffee?” he asked. Before she could answer, he moved to the coffee machine at the edge of the room. She glanced at the clock. 1:00 PM.

Her stomach growled. She dug her fingers into her stomach.

“Should we have lunch instead?” he asked, his eyes racing to the wall clock. Darcy was hesitant. He picked up his coat and dashed to the door. Darcy followed him.

Five minutes later, she stood outside an underground cafe tucked away in the basement of an old building. The air was chilly. Mike and Darcy began to walk into the café. A black chalkboard with the day’s menu stood outside.

“Here we are,” Michael said. He began to descend the stairs. Darcy followed.

The smell of warm food permeated through the air. She climbed down the wrought iron staircase and entered a room buzzing with people. The walls were made of red bricks. The cafe had a small line of counters that began ended with the cash register. The menu was displayed on a black board behind the buffet style table. Darcy looked at the warm dishes and found her appetite awaken. A few slices of cake lay at the end of the spread.

“What would you like?” the guy at the cash register asked. He had both his ears pierced. His blonde hair stood in spikes. He constantly tapped on the wooden table on which the cash register lay.

“What do you recommend?” Darcy asked Mike who was standing beside her.

“The pastrami sandwich is excellent,” he said.

“I’ll have that,” Darcy told the guy at the counter. She moved to the next counter. The young lady in black uniform prepared her sandwich and placed it on a tray. Darcy collected her tray and sat on one of the wooden chairs. Mike followed her with his lunch.

Darcy removed her coat and placed it on the chair. She adjusted the cutlery in her hand and ate a piece of the potato.

“Ummm…it’s delicious.” she said, chewing the remnants of the potato. Mike smiled.

“I’m sorry I dropped by without calling. Lunch time…” she began.

“I’m glad you came by. I need to see human beings sometimes,” he said, quickly.

Darcy raised her eyebrow.

“No, the intern doesn’t count.”

Darcy smiled.

“Is it just me or have I seen you somewhere?” Darcy didn’t know why she said it. Mike peered at her closely.

“I thought you’d never remember,” Mike said, throwing up his hands. A broad smile crossed his face. She tilted her head. He went on. “Literature society, second year.”

“That’s why!” Darcy exclaimed. She banged her hand on the table. The loud noise made a few people turn. She coughed and lowered her voice. “Michael...of course. I thought you looked familiar.”

“We went to the same university,” he continued, in a nostalgic tone.

“I remember now. We did the Shakespeare play together.”

“Yup.”

For the next hour, Darcy and Mike recounted every detail of their university life. University life had been a dark phase in her life. Most of what she remembered was her trauma and the counselling sessions she had to overcome it. However, the literature society was a distant, fond memory.

She heard Mike go on about the play they did. He was enthusiastic because he was meeting an old classmate after a long time. Darcy finished her baked potato.

Darcy glanced at the clock. She stood up abruptly. She heard a faint tweet coupled with a vibration. A message lit up the phone. Darcy pulled it out, distracted. She clicked on the new message.

The posts have been deleted

-Brian

Darcy breathed with relief. Mike looked at her, questioningly.

“I need to leave,” Darcy said. “I’ve got to get back.”

“It was nice meeting you again,” she said before exchanging numbers and Facebook profiles. She walked and placed the tray filled with empty dishes on the rack.

Mike grabbed his coat. They walked out of the cafe together. The busy street blasted through her senses. She continued to gaze at his profile.

“It was nice seeing you. If you want to meet again, you have my number.” He walked away.

The conversation momentarily distracted Darcy from her troubled life.

At 7:30 PM, Darcy stood on the platform, waiting for the next train to arrive. She was surrounded by an unfamiliar crowd of people, gazing at her.

In the distance, she spotted the brown coat. The distant image solidified into a medium frame. It looked like her. The train engine appeared in the distance. Darcy pushed her way through the sea of strangers. She only saw the woman in the brown coat. Only her. Her footsteps hastened. The train approached the platform. She had to get to her before…

The doors opened. People walked into the train. Darcy ran. She picked her feet up and ran to the brown coat. The woman walked toward the door rapidly. Darcy almost touched her coat. Her fingers reached for the woman’s arm, brushing her brunette hair.

Startled, she turned. Blue eyes. Sharp nose. Chocolate brown hair. She blinked. Darcy let her shoulder go. The woman shot her a glare before she rushed into the train. Darcy stood on the platform, breathless. The alarm resonated. The doors closed. The train moved.

Coaches full of strangers passed her by. She saw hundreds of faces pass her by. The woman was gone. Darcy looked at her face that merged into oblivion. It wasn’t her. The woman looked like Darcy from the back but it wasn’t her.

The platform was quiet and empty again. Footsteps rushed down the stairs and emerged. A crowd was beginning to gather. Darcy rested her back against the brick wall. Oxygen filled her lungs. Another train was on its way. Darcy’s eyes burned holes on the empty platform. People inched forward and covered the platform. Lights flashed. A train emerged.

At 8:00 PM, Darcy walked out of Chicago station. An unnatural silence descended over the streets. The city was unwinding. The bright glow in shops was replaced by crowds outside the pub. Darcy smelled a mix of pizza, smoked sausages, Mexican food and beer. She walked past the main road and turned where the road curved.

She opened her apartment door. She reminded herself to vacuum, again. She made an attempt at cleaning by arranging the scattered pillows and bedsheets on the couch. She pulled out another microwave meal and set the timer. She curled up on the couch with her dinner. The bedsheet was laid out again, and the pillows dismantled. Fifteen minutes of cleaning had come to nothing.

Her phone screen lit up with a message. It was from Brian. Darcy set the food aside. She unlocked the screen.

Check the blog.

Her eyes darted to the laptop in front of her. She pushed the bedsheets away and pulled it close. The pink lotus on the desktop screen filled her vision. She opened the blog page.

A black screen greeted her. The title took her breath away.

My mother

She scrolled. There was an image of her.
Her
mother. Emotion choked Darcy’s throat. The scenes came like an army of invaders. She could feel her mother’s gentle fingers caress her skin. Her soft voice. The scent of white magnolia that she loved. Images of her brushing her blonde hair. She jerked her eyes open. This was real. The image before her eyes was real.

At the back of her mind, the time bomb of panic began to tick. The powdery white words began at the end of the images. Darcy’s fingers traced the first line.

My mother is now a distant memory but once she walked this earth.

Many of you asked me what happened to my mother. Who was she? How did she die? Who shot her? Why was I imprisoned in the asylum?

Like everything else in life, these questions have no easy answers.

Darcy’s heart rate shot up. Her reluctant eyeballs rolled to the source of concern. A stack of wooden drawers sat at the edge of the room.  She crawled to the drawer. Her hands fell on the chilled metal drawer handle. With a swoop of courage, she slid the it open.

A cloud of dust rose in the air. She coughed.

Inside it lay a rectangular small wooden box. She brushed the dust off its surface. Her fingers trembled, sliding on the surface of the box. She pulled it out of the drawer and put it down on the floor.

Her fingers undid the lock. She opened the box. Inside it, lay a picture of her mother – the same one that was on the blog. The photo frame was dusty on one side and clean on the other. She hadn’t opened the box since her mother’s death. That meant somebody else had. Her throat choked with a mixture of phlegm and tears. She cleared her throat and shoved the photo frame back into the box. She clamped it shut.

She crawled back to the laptop. She pulled it closer.

This is my mother. My beautiful mother. I spent fifteen happy years of my life with her until that fateful day.

Why did she die? She knew a secret. She knew the suffering of the patients in the asylum. She knew they were being experimented on without their consent.

Who shot her? He did. One moment. One shot. And she was gone. Just like that.

Why was I imprisoned? Because I knew too much. I knew the ugliness of his soul.

I’ve had her image for a decade. I never had the courage to look at it. Like my past, I erased it from my memory.

Sharing my pain with the world gave me courage. I decided to publish her photo so she would not disappear from the surface of the earth silently.

Now, these are meaningless questions. The ruins of a storm. They cannot change what happened. Only I can.

The post ended. For a moment, Darcy’s senses stopped functioning. Shock overtook her. She stared at the computer screen. The words passed over her eyes. The phone vibrated, tickling her skin. Brian sent her another message.

It was published from your IP address.

Darcy gulped.

Sweat trickled down her forehead. She looked at the date the post had been published. It was 2nd August, 2014. The number rang bells in her mind. Her mother disappeared on the second fifteen years ago.

Delete it.

She shot Brian a message as soon as she regained her senses. Her thumb lingered over the touchscreen.

She had to do something. This couldn’t go on. He would find her. He would take her back to that horrible place. She shut the sounds out. Her palms clamped her ears shut. No. Not again. She couldn’t go there again.

Done

-Brian

Brian shot her a message. He was quick. Darcy dropped the phone and inhaled all the oxygen she could. It was close. It was really close.

Another message.

There were three comments

People had seen it. They knew. They knew about her mother. They knew who she was. She turned the volume of the music up. A James Bond-esque theme song resonated. Smokey’s voice grew louder.

Heartbeat drummed against her hollow skull. She paced across the apartment.

She froze near the couch. She sat back down. Her fingers clicked on ‘about’ subconsciously. She tapped her fingers on the keypad. She copied the e-mail address. Her eyes focused on the screen. The author was enigmatically known as ‘D’.

Darcy began writing a new message to the author. Her fingers hammered at the keypad ferociously. Her heart raced, her thoughts trembling. Her vision was clouded by panic.

But, her intention was crystal clear. She wanted to meet ‘D’. Whoever this person was, knew everything. That was dangerous. She had to find her before Dr. Cleo did. She had to stop her before something worse happened. Dr. Cleo was probably looking for her already. A wave of fear ran through her spine like electricity.

She turned to the e-mail she was writing. She pressed ‘send’.

A second later, her phone buzzed. She received an e-mail. She sighed.

We need to meet.

-Darcy

It had come back.

Jazz classics continued to play on the television. An emotional chanteuse crooned another depressing verse. Darcy fell asleep on the couch with the photo frame lying on the floor.

A sharp buzz woke Darcy up from her fear-induced lull. She turned to her lit up phone.

A message.

She rubbed her eyes. Her fingers unlocked the screen. The hazy letters became clearer.

Potter’s cafe. 7 pm. Saturday.

-D

Darcy continued to stare at the screen, numb with disbelief. D had replied. Whoever D was,
she had replied
. Darcy’s legs moved weakly under the blanket. The soothing jazz music metamorphosed to an eighties rock ballad. She turned the television off and kicked the bed sheet away.

She checked the number from which the SMS had been sent. It was hers. But how?

She looked around the apartment. It was calm. Anticipation coursed though her body. She was here. D was here. She opened the windows. There were no shadows today. She closed them. An uneasy feeling rose up her stomach.