It’s weird. Knowing there’s someone out there that looks exactly identical to you but you aren’t twins. Sure there are people that just share the same first and last name, but having the same first and last name, and face? I’m talking about someone you don’t know and didn’t grow up with but talks, walks, and even acts the same way you do. Doppelgängers. That’s what they’re called, I think. They’re like your clone. Evil twin in this case.
It’s even worse when they find and start stalking you and ruining your life, trying to infiltrate the perfect little bubble you’ve spent so much time and hard work creating.
You know it’s funny, I wasn’t the type of guy to believe in stuff like Doppelgängers before, but when you find yourself standing in the rain holding a gun to the forehead attached to a face that looks like a carbon copy of your own… well, let’s just say it’s hard to ignore the truth when it’s staring you in the face.
I think I can trace the beginning of this to last year. I believe this all started the night my doppelgänger first tried to break into my home- it’s just that I didn’t know it was my doppelgänger at the time.
My wife, Jessica, had shaken me awake because she thought she could hear noises coming from the porch and front door. When I stalked my way through the living room to get a closer look there was a large shadowy figure I could see behind the glass next to the door. I ran back to the bedroom to grab a weapon to beat some sense into the would-be intruder, but of course I didn’t get a chance to see the guy. By the time I’d readied my baseball bat, fully prepared to swing as soon as I got the door open, the shadow was gone. Trying to get a better look through the frosted glass was impossible, so I did the stupid thing and opened the front door and took a step onto the porch to investigate further.
“Just a raccoon. Nothing to worry about.” I had said, re-entering our bedroom.
Jessica laid under the sheets shaking something fierce. She had shot me an unconvinced look as I threw the aluminum bat back under our bed.
“I went and checked,” I chuckled,” you can go back to bed. Everything is fine.”
“I swear I heard something, Darren.”
“You did. A raccoon.” I reassured her.
“What did you do with it?”
“Handled it. It’s all taken care of.”
My wife finally accepted that answer and turned over to her side to fall back asleep, mumbling about why it took me so long. And that was the end of that.
Yes, I lied to my wife, but I had good intentions! I didn’t want to scare her or our six year old daughter, Sophia. Everything would be alright if they were none the wiser. Or so I had thought.
I bought a hand gun after that. A Smith & Wesson. Just to be safe. I also stayed up a little later than I should’ve, watching over the house, for a little while after that. Again, just to be safe. After a month full of severe paranoia and no other signs of the shadowy figure from that night, I dropped it. After all I did have a more deadly method of protection, better than a measly bat. I never told Jessica about the gun though, she hates them.
Everything went back to normal after that, or as normal as it could get with a six year old child. I don’t know what it was, but one second Sophia was the perfect, loving, golden angel child I knew and loved. My daughter was the definition of a daddy’s girl. But the next, all of a sudden she was disgusted by my very presence. Whenever I asked her to do something she’d throw a tantrum. The whole nine yards. Kicking, screaming, tears flying down her face and all I’d had asked her to do was pick up some of her toys.
She was fine with Jessica though. When it was Jessica asking her to do something, Sophia did what was asked of her with the biggest and brightest smile on her face. Sophia and Jessica have grown a lot closer in the past year and I’ll admit I’m a little jealous. Jessica is the first person Sophia runs to when she gets home from school. She always wants to play with Mommy, never daddy. She demands snuggle and cuddle time with Jessica and only lets my wife tuck her into bed at night and read her bedtime stories.
Meanwhile, I’d make Sophia’s favorite food for dinner, Mac and cheese with chicken nuggets, and she’d refuse to eat it. The nights I made dinner, it always ended with food being thrown everywhere across the entire house and Sophia throwing a tantrum. She’d hit and punch me away from her all the while screaming, “I hate you! I’ll always hate you! I don’t love you anymore!”
As a father, hearing your daughter scream and say she doesn’t love you like that is heartbreaking. We took her to a behavioral analyst and all they could tell us was that kids tend to shift which parent they favor more while growing up. She said that although her outburst were a bit extreme compared to the normal, everything was perfectly fine with our daughter.
Jessica was relieved to hear that, since she’d grown very concerned with Sophia’s behavior towards me. Of course she didn’t mind being Sophia’s favorite parent though. I was also a bit relieved, thinking that this was all a phase she’d outgrow soon. It still hurt that she basically loathed my entire existence. She had no respect for my authority over her as her father, and I’d tried everything. Playing nice to bribes. You name it, I did it. I just kept reminding myself what the behavior analyst told us when things got tough.
Eventually, after a few months, Sophia’s behavior mellowed out and she began to slightly tolerate me again.
At that point, everything seemed to be coming up roses. I got a huge promotion at work, Jessica and I had become very active in the bedroom, and I was in the beginning stages of planning a huge family vacation for the three of us.
But then everything started to fall apart.
It started with a letter that was put in the mail box last month. No stamps or return address, so that meant it was hand placed in there. It was addressed to Jessica. Luckily, I was the one that normally got the mail so after opening and reading the terrifying love letter she’d received, I shredded it and tossed the remains of the letter into the fire place.
Then there was the stuffed bear plush left on the porch with another letter but it was addressed to Sophia this time. The three of us had just returned from a night out when we spotted it, so I couldn’t throw anything away. Jessica gave me a concerned look and we took the stuffed animal and letter before Sophia could grab it. She threw a tantrum and yelled at me to give back her gift. Jessica handled Sophia’s meltdown, the biggest one since she started coming back around to me, and I took the plush and letter inside. I read the letter, then crumpled it and buried it in the trash. When Jessica asked what it said I told her it would be better if she didn’t know what the contents of the letter were. She stared at the teddy-bear sitting on the counter and pondered what to do with it.
I voted we throw the creepy as hell thing out insisting it could’ve had a camera in it, but Jessica was adamant on calling the police and filing a report, wanting the thing to be taken as evidence. I stopped her and told her I’d take care of it and it’d be best for her not to worry. We had just found out she was six weeks pregnant with our second child and I didn’t want her to stress herself out.
Jessica grew very paranoid after she retrieved the mail one day and found another creepy and cryptic love letter in the mail box. Unbeknownst to me, she started collecting them and the other small and weird gifts our stalker left as evidence.
When I found the shoe box of letters hidden under our bed I burned the box in the fire place and lit it ablaze. She sat there in tears with the pregnancy hormones making her emotions go out of whack. I had to remind her several times that I was her husband and that this sicko leaving her love letters was mentally unwell. The hormones were confusing her and whatever the letters said were a crazy mans delusions. Sophia witnessed everything and took her mothers side when she saw she was crying. Eventually she dropped it after I made it abundantly clear I’d take care of it and we went back to a semblance of normalcy. Sophia was colder to me afterwards though.
Tonight, Jessica woke me up frantically, hitting me in the chest to wake up.
“He’s here!” She whisper yelled in a panic. “The stalker, he’s outside! I was going to the bathroom when a flash of lightning showed him peaking through the window!”
“O-ok! I’m coming.” I said rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. I got out of bed, grabbed my gun from under my nightstand, and headed for the door. Jessica stopped me quickly putting her arms on mine.
“Darren why do you have a gun?”
“For this exact reason! To protect you, us! Now get your hands off of me.” I grabbed her arm off of me and stared her in the eyes. “Stay here,” I ordered,” don’t even think about leaving the house.”
She moved out of my way and I marched out of the house. I tried not to think about the terrified look in Jess’s eyes as she looked at me.
It had just started drizzling when I stepped outside. An ominous rumble of thunder in the distance reminded me of the incoming thunderstorm heading our way.
I made my way to the window my wife said she saw the man. When I got there nobody was there. However there were muddy footprints under the window. I followed one footprint to another. There was a path of them. The bastard still had to be near. The grip my hand had on the gun tightened.
I raised my head to follow the rest of the trail, which led to a tree and some foliage in my backyard, and was met with the sound of someone running towards me. A quick flash of lightning reveals someone barreling towards me. A second later the guy lunges and I retaliate by pistol whipping the son of qa bitch.
He lets out a guttural grunt of pain, but recovers quickly. He comes at me again and another bolt of lightning dances across the sky. At the same time a sharp metallic object glints in the light. I feel a sharp stinging feeling on my forearm and the gun falls from my hand, sliding far away in the slick muck.
“You sick fuck!” He yelled, pushing me to the ground. Another burst of light revealed a large cut across my forearm that was gushing blood. I crawled back, trying to reach for my gun. My attacker noticed and quickly stomped on my hand. I yelled out in pain coincidentally when a loud crack of thunder shot through the sky, meaning Jessica wouldn’t have been able to hear me. He then shoved the gun in his waste and then jumped to the ground, aiming his knife for my throat. I move just out of the way enough for it to nick my cheek. The blade lands in the grass next to me. “You took my family from me! You stole my life from me!”
One last flash of lightning revealed my own face staring back at me, only a much more angrier and scruffier version. My doppelgänger then proceeded to pummel me in the face. I blocked some of his punches and landed a few good hits of my own. Some time furling our little scuffle, I managed to get a hold of my gun. I shot a warning shot right by my doppelgängers ear.
He stumbled off of me, holding his ear in pain. I wiped the blood coming out of my most likely broken nose, stood up, and steadied myself. Still stunned and clutching his ear in pain, I made my way towards the bum looking man. I couldn’t contain my laughter as I said, “I fucked you’re wife and got her pregnant too!”
My comment struck a nerve and my clone lunged at me angrily. He held his hands out like he was going to strangle me. Instead, I pistol whipped him in the face, again, before twisting his arm behind his back and pinning him to the ground. Boy am I grateful for all those self-defense classes I took in the beginning of the year. I knew it would come in handy one day.
I then whispered softly in his ear, “You had your chance with them and you blew it. I simply gave them a better life than the one you could provide. They love me and are happier than ever.”
“Happy?” Darren #2 chuckled to himself. “They aren’t happy! I’ve been watching them! Sophia hates you and ever since I gave her that letter, Jessica is always tiptoeing around you! She’s scared of you! Deep down she knows the truth, both of them do! You’re not Jessica’s husband! You’re not Sophia’s father! I am!”
“Oh shut up already!” I shouted in anger, hitting my doppelgänger over the head with the butt of my gun. He went unconscious and limp. Quiet. A quick finger shoved to his nose told me he was still alive, but barely.
Good, I still had plans for him.
I then dragged my doppelgänger all the way to the back seat of my car, taking a pit stop by the garage to grab my keys and some rope to tie him up with.
With the turn of a key in the ignition, my engine turned over and I pulled out of my driveway. It was time to do what I should’ve done before. It was time to end this.