“Wait, now how do you know the alive Ted is the real Ted? If the password thing doesn’t work…”
“What you really mean is, how do you know I’m me and that’s not really me there on the sofa, if the ‘password thing’ doesn’t work.”
“Oh. Shit. Wait, if you were the doppelganger, why would you tell me the password system doesn’t work? You’d have kept that to yourself, to use against me.”
“Maybe I’m stupid.”
“The fucking conversations we have. Okay, how about this—I ask you something that John would know, but that I or a replicant would have no way of knowing. Something we can verify, right now.”
“Like what?”
“Where’s your drug stash?”
“Why Dave, you know that I would never—”
“Goddamnit, John.”
“Owl jar above the toilet. That way if I have to flush it, it’s right there.”
A trip to the bathroom confirmed this was true.
When I returned, John continued, “As for me and Ted, he just showed up out in the middle of nowhere. His car wasn’t there, he just kind of materialized behind me. That’s the thing—it used my state of mind against me. I was in such a panic, the whole flimsiness of the pretext was hidden from me until way later.”
“And then you killed him. Or it. Whatever kind of shape-shifter this is, it can be killed, is my point. And it stays dead.”
“Shot to the face. Pretty straightforward.”
“Yeah, nobody likes that.” I looked over at the corpse on the sofa. “So … what is it? Specifically? I mean, there’s what each of us is seeing and then there’s what it actually is.”
“Something new, maybe? We’ll need to come up with a name for it. It’s my turn.”
“Later.” The naming of new creatures we encounter is something of a contentious issue. “For now, what do we do with it?”
He thought for a moment. “I wish we could get it to Marconi.”
That’s Dr. Albert Marconi. A famous expert in this sort of thing. He rarely returns our calls.
I said, “Sure, let’s just cram it into a box and mail it to him. Wait, how did you get it back here?”
“In the Jeep.”
“Did you throw the corpse in your Jeep and drive it back here after you figured it out it wasn’t Ted Knoll’s body, or before?”
“What was I supposed to do? Leave him out in the rain?”
“But if you thought it was just a dead guy, a guy you shot, shouldn’t you have called the … you know what, forget it.”
John said, “We need Amy’s brain on this. Is she still at work?”
“No, I don’t know where she is.”
“Wait, Amy’s missing? Why are we dicking around here then?”
“She’s not missing, she’s out with somebody. They swung by and had breakfast, apparently. I don’t know where they went. Phones were down.”
“Who’s she with?”
“I don’t know. I thought maybe she was with you.”
“You’re not worried?”
“It’s not like she was abducted, they ate a meal together.”
“Like she left with somebody she knew, you mean. Or something she thought was someone she knew.”
“Oh … fuck. FUCK!”
I dug out my phone and dialed. It rang through, but she wasn’t answering.
“So help me, John, if all this shit was just a diversion so they could take Amy—”
Something grabbed my wrist.
It was John. The dead one, from the sofa.
Dead John’s mouth opened so wide that his head was about to split in half. Then a second, vertical slit opened from his chin to forehead, his entire face opening like a blooming flower. His skull was hollow, the inside covered in tiny wiggling filaments.
The thing howled with its whole face. The floor shook.
I grabbed at the fingers clutching my arm. Some of the fingers came off, then grew tiny wings and flew away. I was only mildly surprised by that.
Dead John’s body contorted as if it was a clay model that a giant pair of invisible hands had decided to give up on and start over. For the briefest moment, I saw what I thought was a pulsing swarm of small creatures, each about the size of my palm. But then they were gone and so was John. A new figure replaced him.
John screamed, “Nymph!”
Ted had described Nymph as a foppish sexual deviant; John had described him as a sleazy stockbroker type. To me, he looked … like me.
Not exactly me—a fit, tan, healthy version of me, with an expensive haircut. A version of me that hadn’t gone off the rails. Wearing a nice shirt and pants instead of a stained T-shirt and cargo shorts. Yet, I saw my own eyes, and the scar on my cheek.
He said, “Greetings, knucklefuckers!”
John said, “Where’s the little girl? And where’s Amy?”
Nymph smirked and said, “The Master must feed.”
“I don’t care what you named your dick, this shit ends now.”
“Indeed it does!” said Nymph. “Granted, the mere chewing of their flesh takes only sixty-six days. But once consumed, their souls live conscious in the belly forever, for it is their anguish that nourishes the Master. But don’t worry, I will release one of the two, of your choosing. At this moment, I am posing this same dilemma to the mother and father of little Margaret. The four of you are voting. The girl with three votes will be released, the other’s screams will echo through eternity. If no one receives a majority vote, both will be consumed. Someone must vote against their own, to save another. So what will it be? You have one minute to decide.”
I said, “Wait! What if we refuse to vote? What if everyone refuses—”
“Then the Master will gorge on a double portion. Is your vote for your Amy? That is a vote to sentence a child to an eternity of torment. How will your Amy live with that choice, I wonder?”
I said, “Take me instead. Let both of them go, and take me.”
He did that smirking head-tilt thing douchebags do. “Come on, even you must know that your meat is tainted.”
John said, “I vote for both of them to go free!”
I said, “Yeah, me, too!”
“That is not one of the options.” Nymph looked at his wrist. He was not wearing a watch. “Forty-five seconds! Of course, the confounding factor is how little Maggie’s parents will vote. Perhaps, anticipating that you, as selfish assholes, will vote for your Amy, they will as well, knowing that then at least one can be saved.”
John said, “Wait! I vote that the monster eats you.”
I said, “I vote that the monster eats itself!”
“THOSE ARE NOT THE FUCKING CHOICES. Thirty seconds.”
I said, “All right, I’m voting Amy goes free.”
John said, “No, the monster is right, even if Maggie’s parents vote the same, there’s no way Amy can live with herself knowing she’s alive because some other little girl is getting chewed up forever.”
“There’s no way she can live with herself if she’s dead. And you’d be surprised what a person can get over if given enough time to think up rationalizations.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Ten! Nine! Eight!”
I said, “John, you have to vote! Wait, does Diogee get a vote?”
John said, “I vote for—”
My phone rang.
The screen said it was Amy. I answered.
“Amy! Is that you!?!”
Nymph’s mouth snapped shut in mid countdown. He had not been anticipating this.
Amy said, “Hey, I’ve got a little girl here. She’s fine, but I need you to come and get us.”
“Amy! Listen to me! There’s something after you! You and the little girl both! You need to—”
“I’ve taken care of it, we’re fine, we’re at that church by the old coal mine. Oh, and I need you to stop by Walgreens and pick up my prescription, they said it’s ready. And can you get me a bag of those chocolate-covered pretzels while you’re there?”
John
John heard Dave say, “Amy, is that you?” and felt the world shift on its axis. Nymph, standing there with his Gordon Gekko suit and slicked-back hair, sneered and turned in Dave’s direction. The call had clearly not been part of his plan. John saw his opportunity.