Doppelganger Read online

  PRAISE FOR DOPPELGÄNGER

  “Byron Starr seems to be the potential heir to the uniquely East Texas horror crown presently worn by Joe R. Lansdale.”

  - Ardath Mayhar

  “Byron Starr follows the trail blazed so famously by writers like Stephen King; put average people in an everyday situation, then introduce a supernatural element and watch the sparks fly.”

  - Jeff Edwards, The Harrow.

  “Vivid and suspenseful, this is a great take on the classic tale of a monster terrorizing a small town. The pacing and action are excellent, the monster a real piece of work, and the townspeople likable and believable in the situation into which they’re thrust. Don’t miss this taut thriller.”

  - Kim Paffenroth, author of Gospel of the Living Dead and Dying to Live.

  “Doppelganger is a good old fashioned rip-out-your-throat monster novel with a furious spirit and a lot of heart. Byron Starr brings his main characters to life with careful strokes, only to run them through the pain mill and make you feel it with them. A strong beginning, a powerful end, and a creature to remember for all time — if you’re a fan of fast-paced horror with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing, dig into Starr’s latest offering and have yourself a feast.”

  - Christopher Fulbright, author of When it Rains and Of Wolf and Man

  DOPPELGÄNGER

  by

  Byron Starr

  Published by Graveside Tales at Smashwords

  Doppelgänger

  Published by Graveside Tales

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address

  Graveside Tales

  P.O. Box 487 Lakeside, AZ 85929, USA

  www.gravesidetales.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 Byron Starr

  Cover Art © 2009 Bret Jordan

  www.bretjordan.com

  This book is available in print at GravesideBooks.com and other fine retailers

  FIRST EDITION eBOOK

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  For Ardath Mayhar

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Shelly for putting up with me, Abby for being so much like me, and J for being the calm one in the family at the tender age of one.

  Thanks to those who have been with me for the long haul: Chris Philips, Pete Allen, Lavern Harris, Pat Payne, Adrienne Jones, Megan Bulloch, Bret Jordan, and Ardath Mayhar.

  And to some of the new friends I’ve met along the way: Patricia Esposito, Mike Stone, Gabrielle Faust, Kim Paffenroth, Marcy Italiano, and Chris Fulbright.

  DOPPELGÄNGER

  Prologue

  The October wind whispered softly between the tall pines. In hushed tones it spoke of secrets long hidden from human eyes. There was a sharp chill in the air which spoke as well. It told of the coming of winter.

  There were no moon or stars out, but the beast had no trouble seeing as it lurched through the underbrush. It loped on all fours, propelling itself along with its legs and powerful arms like an ape. Coming to the edge of a clearing, the beast stopped, raised itself on powerful hind legs and sniffed at the wind. Its sense of smell was amazingly keen. The smell of pine was strong here; however, there was another faint odor in the wind.

  The beast lowered itself to all fours and continued into the freshly logged clearing, bounding over stumps, fallen trees, and broken limbs, until it came to a set of tracks in the mud. The prints were large and flat, not unlike the impressions of the beast’s own feet when it walked upright. Lowering its head to the ground, the beast inhaled deeply, bringing to its nose a strange odor, unlike anything it had ever smelled before. Raising its head, the beast began following the tracks, which seemed to move almost at random throughout the clear-cut, finding five other similar sets of tracks. These prints all began and ended at a set of ruts in the ground. Like the prints, these furrows were present in seemingly random pattern throughout the area, before they finally merged at a wide path in the trees that leading out of the clearing.

  Then another smell caught the beast’s attention. It rose on two legs and sniffed again, then set off in the direction of the smell. It moved at a faster pace than before, stopping frequently to raise its snout to the wind and sniff the air. After loping through the woods for several hundred yards, the beast came to a stop and once again stood upright and raised its nose to the wind. The scent was much stronger. It was close.

  Still standing erect, the beast shut its eyes, yet could still see. All its senses �� sight, vision, hearing, smell, and even taste — seemed to leave its body and float forward into midair. Then, flying at an incredible speed, its detached senses passed through several hundred yards of woods and underbrush before coming to a slender doe timidly munching on grass, completely unaware that it was being watched from a distance of less than twenty feet by a creature that was almost a half a mile away. The beast watched the deer for a few seconds, then its detached senses moved closer, circling toward the deer’s head as it approached, until it was directly in front of the deer’s face. The beast’s senses paused briefly, a mere two inches from the doe’s face. A tuft of hair was raised just above the deer’s nose where a tick had burrowed in for a meal of its own. Unaware of any presence, the doe continued the meal that would prove to be its last. The beast’s senses slowly continued forward until they passed into the unsuspecting doe’s right eye.

  Once inside, the beast briefly saw the world from the doe’s eyes, then it began to sort through scenes in her memory — sights and smells of the woods, other deer, other creatures of the forest, a long grey path with a yellow stripe running down its center, large objects with a pair of lights cutting through the darkness ahead of them flew along this path at amazing speeds. All of these scenes flashed by rapidly until one of a small fawn with white flecks along its back appeared.

  This memory froze in place for a moment, then, two hundred yards away, the beast opened its eyes. In an instant, its vision returning to normal, the beast lowered itself to all fours and started in the direction of the deer at a much slower and more cautious pace than it had traveled earlier.

  As the beast drew near, the doe could occasionally be seen through the gaps between the trees. Her ears were perked and she was intently looking in the beast’s direction, but she did not flee. Soon she was in full sight. The beast stopped a mere ten yards from her.

  The timid doe took a cautious step forward, pointed her nose in its direction, and sniffed. No alarm. The scent was familiar and registered as friendly. She took another step and continued inching closer until she was right in front of the beast.

  As soon as she was within reach a powerful, clawed hand lashed out. The blow landed on her neck, the claws ripping out her throat and the impact driving her to the ground. Mortally wounded, the deer still tried to rise, but a powerful hand was on her shoulder, holding her down as a set of jaws descended to take a savage bite out of her side.

  * * *

  James Taylor jerked upright in bed, his heart pounding in his chest and his body drenched in sweat. The sudden movement woke his wife, Angie.

  “Honey,
are you okay?” Angie asked groggily.

  “Yeah, just a bad dream,” James answered, lying back down.

  Beside him Angie shifted her position a little, and said nothing else. Unlike James, Angie never had any trouble finding sleep.

  James lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. He stared into the darkness, barely able to see the outline of the ceiling fan slowly cutting the darkness overhead. After gathering his thoughts, James turned to his wife, who was little more than an outlined shape beneath a pale blue blanket. Only the blond top of her head was visible. James listened to the regularity of her breathing until he was sure she was asleep, then he slowly and carefully climbed out of the bed.

  In the bathroom, James shut the door behind him before turning on the light. He ran some water in the sink, splashed it onto his face, and looked up into the mirror. His face was weary, his eyes bloodshot, with bags under them, and he needed a shave. He looked like he had one hell of a hangover.

  It had been a long time since he’d had a dream like the one he’d just experienced. In high school, he dreamed about Marsha Schubert losing her cherry to Josh Stevens long before Josh’s bragging let the cat out of the bag. He dreamed about Matt Garret and Bubba Saunders’ wreck the very night Bubba’s truck tried to straighten a curve on Highway 87, killing both boys. In another dream, he’d seen old Charles Wellman, the town’s retired night watchman, come home and kill his wife, then kill himself — the same night the old drunk did just that. The last dream of this nature was about a year and a half ago, when he had dreamed that Michael Salter and Ruby Keinzel were having an affair – months before the gossip started floating around the small town of Newton, Texas. There was no doubt that tonight’s dream was the type of dream Angie referred to as his visions. These strange dreams were all seen through the eyes of someone else, and they had a certain reality to them, a certain unmistakable feeling not in sync with the surrealism of normal dreams.

  But this vision had been different from any he’d had before. For one thing, most of these dreams were brief, some very brief. His dream of Doris Crawford dropping her baby out of its highchair had lasted only around five seconds. The night Charles Wellman was driving home drunk and tried to outrun Jack Cooper’s patrol car gave him the longest vision James could recall, and it lasted only around three minutes. But tonight’s vision lasted over thirty minutes, possibly closer to an hour.

  That wasn’t what bothered James, however. What bothered him was the fact that this dream hadn’t been seen through the eyes of a human.

  Chapter 1

  The One Who Sees

  It was only after much tossing and turning that James was able to get back to sleep. When the alarm went off the next morning, he felt as if he hadn’t slept a wink. He rolled out of bed and ambled zombie-like to the bathroom where he brushed his teeth and combed his hair. James put on a pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt, then made his way toward the kitchen. In the hall, a sandy-haired little boy wearing a backpack zipped by, the backpack bouncing and rattling as the boy ran.

  “Hi, Daddy,” the energetic child said without turning.

  “Hey, Squirt.”

  Jimmy Taylor had just started first grade. Jimmy was blessed with his mother’s good looks and social abilities, and — if his straight A report cards were any indication — his father’s intelligence.

  Stopping only long enough to give his mother a quick peck on the cheek and grab a Pop-Tart, Jimmy scampered outside to wait for the school bus.

  When James entered the kitchen, Angie was watching Jimmy from the kitchen window. She was holding a cup of coffee in her hand and was dressed in her version of a housecoat — a huge white tee-shirt that came down past her knees, and on the front it said in bold black letters BACK OFF! The shirt, a gag gift from a birthday two years ago, couldn’t have been more incorrect about Angie’s early morning disposition. Her shoulder length blond hair was in a ponytail. Angie wore a minimum of makeup, but even this bit of lipstick and powder was absent in the Taylor family early morning ritual. It didn’t matter. Her complexion was flawless. James noticed how the sun coming in the window made her seem to glow. She’s even beautiful in the morning, he thought.

  “Morning, Honey,” James said, plopping into a chair at the kitchen table in front of a plate of eggs and toast.

  Keeping her blue-green eyes glued on Jimmy in the front yard, Angie smiled sweetly and replied, “Morning.”

  James and Angie had been married for seven years now. Not coincidentally, only about a half a year longer than Jimmy had been alive. Their marriage had been a shock to the small town of Newton. At the time she was a senior in high school, Homecoming Queen, and one of the most popular girls at Newton High School. Her parents owned Lambert’s Furniture in Jasper, and her father was on then Newton City Council. Angie Lambert was real Newton County nobility.

  James Taylor, on the other hand, was anything but. He had lived in Longview until his parents died in a car accident when he was twelve. James was taken in by his grandmother, who lived in Newton. The move didn’t agree with James in the least. He was a smart kid, but he wasn’t outgoing and had a difficult time making new friends. Halfway through his senior year, James’ grandmother died. Only a few weeks later, James dropped out of school and went to work as a carpenter’s assistant.

  Two years later, Angie and James met when the Lamberts decided to build an addition onto their house. They struck an instant friendship and soon they were dating. At first Angie wasn’t serious about James, but she soon found she was becoming more and more attached to him. What really clinched their relationship, however, was Angie’s father, George Lambert. He strictly forbade Angie to have anything to do with this “no-good dropout.” So like any other rebellious teenager, Angie promptly fell in love.

  There were hard times at first, but a few months later, soon after Jimmy was born, Matt Garret’s untimely death opened up a job at Baldwin’s Garage, and, although James had no prior experience as a mechanic, he managed to get the job. James learned his job quickly and soon realized he had a bit of a knack as a mechanic. In no time he had developed a reputation as the best mechanic in the county. Two years after James first started to work for the garage, Ike Baldwin — one of the two brothers who owned Baldwin’s Garage — was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Ike sold his half of the garage to James at an unbelievably charitable price. Soon James had paid off the note and was even able to buy the small two-bedroom house just outside of Newton where they were currently living.

  James ate his eggs and toast while Angie continued watching Jimmy from the kitchen window. It was not until James heard the sound of the bus’ air brakes, followed by the squall of its unoiled side door, that Angie turned her eyes away from the window.

  “You didn’t sleep very well last night,” she said. “You tossed and turned all night.”

  James was a little shocked by the statement. Angie was normally such a heavy sleeper that she wouldn’t know if a train wrecked in the front yard. “No, I didn’t,” he answered briefly.

  “Did you have a nightmare?” she asked.

  “Yeah, sorta,” James answered, washing down a bite of toast with a swig of milk.

  Angie gazed at him for a moment then, hesitantly, she asked. “Was it one of those dreams?”

  “Sorta.” James mumbled through a mouthful of eggs.

  Those dreams were a touchy subject for James. Although most of those dreams, or visions as Angie sometimes called them, were simple, unimportant things that he saw through the eyes of other people while he was asleep, he all too often saw something that he would rather have not seen. In fact, the dreams, or visions, were never of a positive nature.

  After James finished swallowing his mouthful of eggs he changed the subject. “How do you feel today? Any morning sickness yet?”

  Angie let the other subject drop.

  Smiling, she patted her still flat tummy (only two months’ pregnant, she hadn’t started to show) and said, “No, not yet.”

  Ja
mes washed down his last bite of eggs and got up from the table. He gave Angie a kiss before leaving for work.

  * * *

  Angie watched him from the kitchen window much as she had Jimmy. James was not attractive by any stretch of the imagination; neither was he unattractive. In fact, he was somewhat nondescript. He was slightly short — about five-foot seven inches tall — and fairly thin. He had brownish-green eyes and brown hair that always seemed to be hidden by an old baseball cap. Angie smiled as she watched him stop to toss a stick for their black lab, Lady. It wasn’t James’ looks that had caused Angie to fall in love with him.

  * * *

  Every night for the next two weeks, James continued to have the dreams. Like his previous visions, James would ride along, an inactive observer seeing the world through some strange beast’s eyes. Almost every night the beast fed on some sort of animal, sometimes more than once a night. It always caught its prey in the same strange way. First it would smell them in the distance, then it would separate its senses from its body and send them forward. The beast’s senses, for lack of a better word, entered its prey’s mind through one of their eyes (even if the eye was closed, James noticed), then the beast would approach its prey without causing any alarm whatsoever. Throughout the next two weeks the beast killed a number of small animals, mostly squirrels and rabbits, although it did manage to kill a small dog and another deer. Once it even managed to kill an owl that swooped down to land on a branch well within its reach.