the other side of the desk. With a half-smile that was more unnerving
than any glower could have been, the gunman said, “How does this happen?
What now? Do we somehow become one person, fade into each other, like
in some crazy science-fiction movie ” Terror had sharpened Marty’s
senses. As if looking at his doppelganger through a magnifying glass,
he could see every contour, line, and pore of its face. In spite of the
dim light, the furniture and books in the shadowed areas were as clearly
detailed as those items on which the glow of lamps fell. Yet with all
his heightened powers of observation, he did not recognize the make of
the other’s pistol.
“–or do I just kill you and take your place?” the stranger continued.
“And if I kill you–” It seemed that any hallucination he conjured would
be carrying a weapon with which he was familiar.
“–do the memories you’ve stolen from me become mine again when you’re
dead? If I kill you–” After all, if this figure was merely a symbolic
threat spewed up by a diseased psyche, then everything–the phantom, his
clothes, his armament–had to come from Marty’s experience and
imagination.
“–am I made whole? When you’re dead, will I be restored to my family?
And will I know how to write again?”
Conversely, if the gun was real, the double was real.
Cocking his head, leaning forward slightly, as if intensely interested
in Marty’s response, the intruder said, “I need to write if I’m going to
be what I’m meant to be, but the words won’t come.”
The one-sided conversation repeatedly surprised Marty with its twists
and turns, which didn’t support the notion that his troubled psyche had
fabricated the intruder.
Anger entered the double’s voice for the first time, bitterness rather
than hot fury but rapidly growing fiery, “You’ve stolen that too, the
words, the talent, and I need it back, need it now so bad I ache.
A purpose, meaning. Do you know? You understand? Whatever you are,
can you understand? The terrible emptiness, hollowness, God, such a
deep, dark hollowness.” He was spitting out the words now, and his eyes
were fierce. “I want what’s mine, mine, damn it, my life, mine, I want
my life, my destiny, my Paige, she’s mine, my Charlotte, my Emily–” The
width of the desk and eight feet beyond, eleven feet in all, point-blank
range.
Marty pulled the 9mm pistol from the desk drawer, grasping it in both
hands, thumbing off the safety, squeezing the trigger even as he raised
the muzzle. He didn’t care if the target was real or some form of
spirit. All he cared about was obliterating it before it killed him.
The first shot tore a chunk out of the far edge of the desk, and wood
splinters exploded like a swarm of angry wasps bursting into flight.
The second and third rounds hit the other Marty in the chest.
They neither passed through him as if he were ectoplasm nor shattered
him as if he were a reflection in a mirror, but instead catapulted him
backward, off his feet, taking him by surprise before he could raise his
own gun, which flew out of his hand and hit the floor with a hard thud.
He crashed against a bookcase, clawing at a shelf with one hand, pulling
a dozen volumes to the floor, blood spreading across his chest–sweet
Jesus, so much blood eyes wide with shock, no cry escaping him except
for one hard low “uh” that was more a sound of surprise than pain.
The bastard should have fallen like a rock down a well, but he stayed on
his feet. In the same moment that he slammed into the bookcase, he
pushed away from it, staggered-plunged through the open doorway, into
the upstairs hall, out of sight.
Stunned more by the fact that he’d actually pulled the trigger on
someone than that the “someone” was the mirror image of himself, Marty
sagged against the desk, gasping for breath as desperately as if he
hadn’t inhaled since the double had first walked into the room.
Maybe he hadn’t. Shooting a man for real was a whole hell of a lot