The Doppelgangers

The Doppelgangers

The hot desert air is stifling. The temperature is triple-digits. Megan hurries across the twisted landscape as best she can. Her mouth feels like she just licked the top of a pool table. But, she is unexpectedly free, and must keep going. Moonlight will show her the way.

Finding her bedroom door ajar, the keys to the outside door on a table, and nobody awake, is a godsend.

She stumbles along through a desert landscape, just wanting to put distance between her and the institution. Slowing down to catch her breath, Megan settles on a fast walk for the remainder of the distance. It’s at this slower pace that she notices something unexpected lying in her path. In the moonlight, it’s no more than a black blob.

Is that a body?

Megan cautiously approaches the inert lump and gently pokes it with her foot. Nothing. She pokes it again. Still nothing. Her curiosity overcomes her fear, and she kneels by the inactive figure.

I’ve got to get out of here, but I can’t ignore this person on the ground. I just have to see if it’s alive.

Megan holds her breath as she turns the limp body over.

What the hell!

She gasps out loud, and drops the body to the ground.

This is crazy! It can’t be.

Megan lifts the immobile body a second time, and turns it over again. This time, she shines her flashlight on the figure’s head. She studies the face in her hands. It’s like looking in a mirror.

This is my face. How can that be? I don’t have a sister.

And that’s how Megan found her twin sister—lying in the middle of a path, in the high desert, on the night of her escape. Identical in looks, right down to the birthmark on her neck, her twin is an exact double of her.

No time to reason this out. Now is the time to get away.

Being on the lam, she isn’t about to contact the authorities about this lost soul. Megan-I shakes Megan-II, awake. Surprisingly, II gives no signs of surprise on seeing Megan-I. With Megan II in tow, they both run for Megan’s secret hideout on the other side of town. After an uneventful hour of desert travel, they arrive at Megan’s cabin.

Megan-I is winded, and has to slow down to rest several times. Megan-II, however, seems ready for a marathon. She isn’t even breathing hard when they arrive at the cabin. Strange, how my “twin” only required a nanosecond to be fully awake, and ready to run. No matter. I’ll look into that later.

Exhausted, and without a word, they both fall asleep. Megan-I wakes up first, and spends a good half hour watching Megan II. It’s just mind-boggling how similar they are to each other. In fact, they’re not just similar…they are identical. However, there is one difference. Megan-I thinks she hears something unnatural coming from II. It’s a mechanical sound…a kind of whirring emanating from II, as she sleeps.

Perhaps I’m imagining it. Perhaps it’s just II’s form of snoring.

First there was one Megan. Now there are two. Megan-II is supposed to eliminate Megan-I. Soon there will be only one Megan again…a new and better Megan—one connected to the mother-ship. At least, that’s the plan. The invasion is going well. Resident after Pine-Valley -resident, is being replaced, with no one the wiser.

The fact that the replacements look identical to their ‘former’ selves, coupled with the fact that every winter, some people in the area did seem to act a little strange from living in the desert, raises no suspicions. As far as the locals are concerned, all is normal.

The invading force from across the galaxy is very particular in choosing which Earthlings they replace. Not just any Earthling will do. They know exactly who they want—they want only the best.

On Jinn, the invader’s planet, a special adoration, bordering on worship, is reserved for those labeled asylum. To be an asylum on Jinn is the highest rank attainable. Of course, they have no way of knowing that asylum; their word for genius, has a totally different meaning here on Earth.

Megan-I, a lifetime resident of Pine Valley Asylum, is a serial-killing sociopath. Her escape from the hospital was totally unplanned and unexpected. After resting up, Megan-I would get on with what she did best—hacking up persons she chooses at random. Who better to be her first victim after her escape than Megan-II.

This is my territory… me and Axe. There’s no room for another Megan.

Years of incarceration have not dulled Megan-I’s reflexes.

Now, where is Axe? I hid her here years ago? Ah! I remember…she’s in the cabinet under the sink. Hello, my beauty. It’s time you and I got on with our purpose in life.

With a swiftness unheard of on Jinn, Megan-I dispatches Megan-II. She lays out the now lifeless body of her double on the floor of the cabin, chops her up, and stuffs her into the shed out back, with the remains of her former victims.  

That was wonderful. I haven’t felt so alive in years. I’m hungry. She coos to Axe. I see you’re hungry, too. Shall we go find food for both of us?

It was most unusual that Megan met her doppelganger. Earthlings and their respective counterparts were not supposed to meet. The ‘re-placings’ were to go quickly and smoothly. Those being replaced were to be dispatched of and never found.

By the time the invaders realized that they were duplicating lunatics, it was too late. By replicating all the residents of all the asylums in the world, all of their doppelgangers had been used up, and could not be re-programmed. Shocked at their massive mistake, the invaders exited Earth, determined never to return to this insane planet.

And that, dear friends, is how the lunatics of this world saved all of us from an extra-terrestrial invasion from across the galaxy.