DOPPELGANGERS FROM HELL A Cautionary Tale for Christmas

DOPPELGANGERS FROM HELL 

                         by Jezebel Vary Baker. 

                          Secret mistress of Robert E Howard and participant,  with H P Lovecraft,  Lord Dunsany, The embalmed head of Arthur Machen,  Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Yog Sothoth,  Yig, John Foster Dulles and Shug Niggurath,  the Black Goat of the Forest( last  seen, an oozing fungal cloud of protoplasmic orbs, floating  out of a New Orleans apartment in the summer of  '63)in a Top Secret plot to raise the Clthulu from its hidden lair...

                  PART ONE

                       IS THERE A FAKE MOM IN THE DARKNESS,  OR ARE YOU JUST PLEASED TO SEE US?

  I awoke in terror. Desperately trying to free myself from the choking cobwebs of sleep, with my memories seemingly orphaned and freed from the tyranny of time and reason, I found myself lost; set adrift on a chaotic jumble of images. Threatening to wash over me, or even sweep me away,  devoured by the crashing waves of indifference. 

We spend so much of our lives trying to deny. Imagining the great uncaring oceans,  like the measureless depths of eternity above and beyond,  have nothing better to do than worry and fret about us. Choosing to measure their vastness in the terms of our own pathetic insignificance. 

The long distant past- my childhood back on the doppelganger plantation on the drowsy banks of the River Pest, The near distant past- the last day of summer term at Neiderhut Institute of Advanced Alchemy and Apothecary Science,  my best friend,  Sanford Van Gough,  getting ridiculously drunk in the Paintsniffers Arms, planning how we would spend the upcoming long vacation. We had decided we would hire a Rambler Station Wagon and go searching for Fake Moms in the fooish swamps of Florida. Having studied the copy of the Doppelchronicon he had swiped from the library of nearby Miskatonic University,  stuffing the ancient moldy tome under his ever accommodating 13 inch hat, Van Gough said Bradenton was the place to go!!

The words " A lotta doppelgangers wandering around down Bradenton way, why my dear Bly,  it would be just like back home! On the plantation outside Budapest!" had barely left Van Goughs lips when the landlord,  apparently having taken offence at our refusal to donate $1000 to further his research,  neither Van Gough or eye were remotely interested in his theses: How turpentine and non drip emulsion were brought to earth by a super advanced alien species, " The Great Pyramid is made from empty tins of Dulux non drip " he roared as he chased us down the narrow winding cobbled lanes of Innsmouth. 

Those careless innocent memories, Atlantean echoes of a long submerged land,  mingled with far darker shadow haunted images of the immediate past. 

I lay there, on the dusty floorboards,  clutching the folds of my sleeping bag like a child stricken with terror gripping the duvet he cowers under, afraid to peep out at the shapeless hag  ridden horrors lurking out there, trying to piece together the immediate past from the chaotic jumble of jigsaw shaped images that continued to rampage through my already half ravaged senses.

We had set out -and a strange incongruous pair we made! Me, Archibald Pumpernickel Bly III, only son and heir of Captain Pugwash Psoriasis Maria HP Sauce Salvador Ipcress File Von Bly, 24th Count of Kudlaty County and Hereditary Cup bearer to the Imperial House of Habsburg,  a shy somewhat timid bibliophile. An aged antiquarian ill at ease in the modern world,  of fast food,  fast cars and even faster fake moms  And Sanford Ichabod Van Gough,  bon viveur,  football star, near genius intellect . In his ever present shades, 13 inch hat and oversized cowboy boots he was usually to be found,  when not on the football field or the astrophysics laboratory,  quaffing pints of paint thinner cocktails, surrounded by a bevy of admiring sorority girls,  while I preferred the peace and solitude of the nearby Miskatonic University library,  pouring over ancient manuscripts , medieval grimoires and forbidden alchemical and magical texts. Until its liberation by Van Gough the library owned the oldest known version of the Doppelchronicon, supposedly the work of the semi mythical mad Transylvanian warlock Constipatus Von Waffenstark,  sometime in the mid 16th century. According to legend he wrote it while languishing in a dungeon in Prague. Awaiting execution for bewitching the Emperor Rudolf 's potato fritters- having, perhaps unwisely, choosing to hire a Rambler Station Wagon from  Monk and Dragoo's Multi Hearted Hydra Tanning Salon,  Nail Bar,  Anal Bleaching Emporium and Used Car Hire, one of the proprietors,  a quite alarming apparition in, what appeared to be,  an orange prison jumpsuit and a gigantic afro fright wig, in the middle of the showroom,  proceeded to unfurl a " prayer mat" which resembled the welcome mat outside the hospitality tent the year they held the La Jolla One Legged Arse Kicking Olympics in a muddy field outside Benjamin Cole's House of Underage Holes in Bangkok. He began reciting passages , plucked seemingly at random,  from The Great Zapruder Film Hoax, Harvey and Lee,  Bloody Treason and other such conspiratorial tomes, while his partner,  who was dressed up,  as if en route to a down market swingers bar in mid 80s Bradenton,  tried to sell us VHS copies of the " other other OTHER Zapruder film '

Our trip was uneventful enough,  leaving Van Gough sleeping in the car, or carousing in a local singles bar ( Strangely his go to chat up line  , " Wanna measure IQs sweetheart?" always so devastatingly effective back on campus provoked nothing but mockery in the various establishments he frequented. As did his attire) I would study the local architecture,  marvelling at the numerous Pre Armstrongian follies. In Lee County I stumbled across a small museum,  with a particularly impressive collection of colonial era anti doppelganger fetishes . Made on the giant Blache Jacques Doppelganger Plantation by the enslaved workers)

However I digress. 

It was when we reached the outskirts of Bradenton itself when things started going wrong. 

Very wrong indeed. Setting in motion the series of events that culminated in me lying here on the floorboards of an abandoned antebellum doppelganger plantation house, gripped by fear, listening to the heavy clump clump of Van Gough's cowboy boots descending the half ruined main staircase. 

After stopping over at the small hamlet of Stanton's Peak and not wanting to spend another night there( apart from the bizarre androgynous ( asexual?) morbidly obese inhabitants who spent their days puttering about on mobility scooters or lounging aimlessly in the doorways of the semi derelict ruins of a nearby potemkin village, the landlord of the only inn/ guesthouse,  had really creeped us out the night before,  insisting on spending the night in our room, stark naked , save  for a strategically placed combover shaped g string pouch,  was disturbing enough, but when he pulled out a gallon jar of KY jelly and spread, what I took to be some sort of portable waterproof satantic altar, on the floorboards ( which incidentally were covered in globular mounds of dried phlegm. Indeed Donna, our host, a sallow eyed degenerate , inordinately proud of the tattoo which covered the entirety of his weak concave chest, Geli Raubal and Eva Braun,  both naked, with their faces buried in each other's bushes " Look what happens when I twitch my extra nips " Donnie/ Donna giggled as the tattooed bodies began writhing lasciviously across his nipple engorged chest, would often and noisily spit on the floor. Taking an infantile delight as he filled his cheeks with the ghastly greenish purple phlegm he would hack up, each spit was invariably accompanied by the almost overwhelming stench of raw effluent) and suggested we play a game of Twister, " Bradenton rules" he added,  his usually gormless features distorted in a sinister leer, that Van Gough and I quickly made our excuses and left.

Foolishly deciding to drive the last few dozen miles , or so, to Bradenton without stopping. As the Rambler juddered and rattled along the lonely highway we tried to ignore the immense oppressive sense of loneliness that bore down upon us. 

Reaching down from the empty moonless sky, peering out from the eerie blackness of the forest,  which now seemed to close in upon us. The giant pine trees like gaunt sentinels standing guard. 

Both of us were seized by a sudden instinctive atavistic sense of dread. 

We both knew,  we both understood,  our conscious minds fumbling across ancient ancestral hieroglyphics carved deep into the hidden pools of our souls.

We were crossing into another dimension. We had stumbled into some occluded kingdom,  carefully obscured by the ever shifting ever restless fog of forgetfulness. 

Somewhere we weren't wanted. 

Van Gough, his pinched slightly porcine features fixed themselves into a smile. Waxy and insincere,  the smile he used when taking the number of a girl he had no intention of ever calling 

" Let's put on a little music" he grinned, " lighten the mood a little " 

With his pudgy fingers,  that look even more trotter like in the gloom,  he begins twisting the dials like they were a particularly unco operative bra strap. Music poured out, a hectic babble of bright sound,  filling the silence but like so many fingers, I sensed, desperately trying to plug the leaks in the dyke , p

The music was a feeble defence against the silence,  against the darkness,  against the unspeakable something,  lurking within. 

But a feeble defence is better than no defence at all. Isn't it?

Van Gough gave a little cry , " My favourite song", he trills,  his grin widening making deep wrinkles under his shades , " Wannabe " by the Spice Girls filled the car in all its louche fingerlickin' anti splendour. 

Forgetting our predicament Van Gough sang along,  taking great delight in making the crude gestures he had devised to emphasise each Zig a zig ahhh 

I have to confess I found,  if not a great deal,  then at least a certain comfort in the tuneless babbling " You should hear Ralph Cinque and the Singing Loveladys version " Van Gough yelled,  drumming his his pudgy trotters on the dashboard,  " it really kicks ass, the dance routine is fucking great too...Dickie Hooke sure enough deserved to win anti semitic choreographer of the year that time "

No sooner had the words left Van Goughs lips , the radio cut out and the engine spluttered and died.

We were stranded in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of the night. Deep in a forest somewhere near Bradenton. 

Ive only the faintest of faint recollections of what happened next. Perhaps mercifully. Perhaps I simply wouldn't allow myself to accept,  to believe. A fool to the very last I clung stubbornly on to the rotting driftwood of my deepest most cherished beliefs as they drowned. One by one. Submerged in the great all encompassing horror that now surrounded us, circling,  predatory. 

Stumbling,  crashing,  screaming,  helpless, like HARVEY and Gretel, or Little White Riding Hood ,we ran and we kept running even though we knew our pursuers were all around. It was pointless to run, but even more pointless not to. To stop running was to surrender to the inevitable. 

Then, silhouetted against the looming blackness of the forest we saw the outline of a building. Instantly I recognised it. Although in ruins, and only partially glimpsed through the twisted veil of branches and undergrowth,  that seemed alive( what can I tell of the sounds? Eerie malignant chattering twittering whispering but yet still never once piercing the silence!! Or the shapes, the red eyes unblinking and watchful and even the trees themselves that seemed inutterably hostile alien and alive) it was a clearly an antebellum doppelganger plantation house. Probably built around the early decades of the 19th century. This was further confirmed by the cluster of wrecked shells,  rotting timber and crumbling bricks: the remnants of the slave huts, half obliterated by the encroaching forest. 

I  recall Van Gough giving an incoherent cry; of terror? Or delight? I could not tell,  indeed by now it was an utterly pointless distinction. 

Immediately, all at once   as if moving in unison at the command of some gestalt entity, a great feathery host of pigeons swept upwards,  " coup coup" they cried as they emerged from the shattered balustrades and the half decayed remnants.  " Coup coup" they cackled as they swept upwards,  bursting out of the piney canopy into the darkness beyond. A great blurry beating mass.

We watched them, craning our necks, Sanford pushing back the brim of his 13 inch hat to follow them,  we could hear the wings pounding,  after being immersed in silence the sound seemed almost unbearable. 

It stopped as suddenly as the flock vanished. 

It just vanished. One moment it was there, an impressionistic cloud of darkness grafted onto the darkness,  the next it was gone. Leaving the sky as empty and moonless as before. 

Without speaking a word,  without pausing to think,  after all what exactly was there to think about? Van Gough and I, carrying a few sparse possessions: sleeping bag, ACME portable doppelganger detection kit, a few cold onion bhajis wrapped in tin foil,  half an ounce of Sanibel gold in Sanfords favourite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rucksack,  headed through the undergrowth,  emerging on the weed choked lawn we stumbled up the driveway,  the dull crunch of gravel further dulled by the mass of weeds , under the  heel of Van Goughs cowboy boots,  it reminded me of the doppelgangers plaintive mating cry, back home on the banks of the River Pest...

The front door,  or what remained of it, sagged off broken hinges, as I gave it a little shove it replied with an indignant creak, like the time Sanford tried his luck at the over 60s Grab a Granny night at the Texas Very Busy Loyers Club...

The place was an utter shambles. Cobwebs spinning down from the skeletons of wrecked chandeliers,  dust,  neglect,  decay, empty picture frames lined up along the peeling walls like vacant eye sockets,  great musty pools of shadow, half obscured the fantastical shapes. The shattered remains of the grand staircase,  the furtive scuttling of insects,  tiny and not so tiny inky blobs retracing the steps some blushing belle once took, you could almost hear the rustle of the crinoline and the admiring murmurs, the ghostly echoes pathetic sketches,  scribbled across the darkness..

We staggered into what must have been the grand reception room, just a mass of hollow shadows l now, as the room was completely empty,  the windows,  once ornate gilt lattice work beneath grand  stucco arches were just yawning chasms,  the frames having been ripped out and the glass smashed. Indeed tiny blunt fragments still lay scattered across the floorboards under the film of dust. 

After hunching down to wolf down the bhajis,  gulping down half a bottle of Ma Butler's Own Prescription Moonshine,  we collapsed on the floor,  Sanford not even bothering to remove his boots, they stuck out of the bottom of his Incredible Hulk sleeping bag. 

As soon as I hit the floor,  I realized just how tired I was. Not even the discomfort of the cold dusty floorboards ,not to mention the ever present terror,  a dull persistent ache now,  like psychic toothache perhaps,  it was just THERE, not even the suspicious gurgling and rumbling emanating from the general vicinity of Van Goughs gut could disturb me.

I quickly fell into a heavy dream less sleep. 

Perhaps an hour or so passed before I woke,  disturbed not by symphonic bursts of flatulence but by a sweet insinuating croon. Melodious yet hoarse , tender, intimate but yet deeply unsettling 

It came floating down from upstairs 

" Duh, the CIA faked Oswald's dental records "

I froze. The icy fear coursing through my veins seemed to paralyze me. I lay there,  clinging pathetically to my sleeping bag,  helpless and afraid. 

I was a child again,  listening to haunted cries of the spare doppelgangers at harvest time..

" Duh the CIA faked Oswald's dental records "

Insidious, the keening of a lovesick banshee,  announcing the death of her beloved, the sultry deeply feminine croon filled my senses , 

I had an overwhelming urge, like the time I stood outside the Brown House Headquarters of the OIC with a crossbow and a quiver full of fiery bolts..I wanted to get up and run towards the sound 

" Duh the CIA  faked Oswald's dental records "

The clumsy clump of Van Goughs cowboy boots broke the spell..

" Sanford " I hissed, as the cowboy hatted blob lurched past me, towards the empty doorway,  " Sanford,  what the fuck are you doing?"

So I lay there,  immobilized by terror,  following the dull percussive clumps as they ascended the staircase 

It was unbearable,  worse even than the time I listened to Singalong With Dickie Gilbride...

But worse was still to come!!

I listened as Sanford clumped his way to the top of the staircase,  my whole being alive with anticipation, with naked horror, like I was back at the first,  and only,  Truth Frequency Radio Nude Olympics 

Silence,  utter and complete silence. I imagined I could hear the spiders spinning their silvery webs, the blink of the blood red eyes in the forest outside,  the fluttering of DR Neiderhuts Harvard medical school class of 83 scroll after he'd demolished an extra portion of Vindaloo 

The silence was shredded by a bloodcurdling scream..

" Sanford! Sanford!" I wailed helplessly 

A moment passed,  maybe 2 , maybe 5, time was as much use as a polygraph machine at the annual JFK assassination conference 

Then the clumping resumed

Sanford was coming back down the stairs!!

I lay,  still prostrate with excitement and exquisite terror, not knowing what else to do. My limbs were heavy, leaden almost,  and completely unresponsive. 

" Sanford " I cried out as the clumping drew closer,  I followed it along the hall...

" Sanford SANFORD "

I screamed as the plump cowboy hatted figure came lurching into the room. Moving awkwardly with jerky un coordinated steps. Like a sonambulist...a sleepwalker..

" SANFORD,  NO!! " I managed a piteous shriek..

As there before me stood my best friend,  for once hatless and shadeless,  his eyes glassy and staring,  a sickly grin plastered on his face..

In his outstretched had he held the barrel of a Mannlicher Carcano 

The Mannlicher Carcano that had cleaved his skull in two!!Literally split in two, great  bloody gouges dripped on the  floorboards No one could survive such a wound...

No one could. No one did

The animated corpse of my best friend loomed over me, ready to cleave my skull in with the rifle butt that had cleaved his own skull!!

DOPPELGANGERS FROM HELL 

             Part Two

              With a superhuman effort I somehow managed to break the spell fear had cast over me, and  leaping to my feet I bolted towards the empty window frame. 

Sanford staggered and lumbered behind me, swinging the Mannlicher Carcano,  making strange incoherent grunts of anger as the butt swished harmlessly through the air. Bursting through the thickish film of spider's webs I landed on the veranda,  the rotting planks gave an agonising creak under my feet. Ignoring it I vaulted over the ruined balustrade,  where the flock of pigeons had nestled, and bolted across the lawn.

The years  of indigent torpor now caught up with me as I began panting and wheezing. Only the thought of Sanford,  his lifeless corpse conjured by whatever foul abomination lurked in his eerie wreckage of the plantation house, coming galloping behind me, snarling and howling,  kept me going. 

I was running for my life. Perhaps my Immortal soul.

With a great Herculean effort,  drawing on hitherto unknown resources I managed to reach the single rutted dirt track. Our Rambler Station Wagon stood there. A tiny silhouetted blue lost amid the sinister forest backdrop. 

" if I could only reach it" I thought " maybe I could close the doors,  but what then? Somethings with power enough to cheat death itself was hardly going to be troubled by a flimsy car door..

Then all of a sudden I heard hoofbeats,  ithere, in front of me,  seemingly having materialised out of thin air a lone rider on a coal black horse came bolting towards me. 

I was trapped. 

Or so I thought. 

As he approached I could see he wore some kind of uniform,  I could just about make out the vague outline of a sheriff's star.

I took a chance and began yelling at the top of my lungs, " Help! Help me for mercy sake it's going to kill me"

I ran towards the horseman, still conscious of Sanford loping behind me. I saw the brief glimmer of two steely eyes and the dull flash of cold steel. With a grunt the Sheriff drew his pistol,  I threw myself onto the ground,  covering my eyes as the fiery echo of 1 2 3 4 shots filled the vastness of the night.

I lay cowering there for a couple more minutes,  before stumbling nervously to my feet, glancing down the now empty track. A thin sliver running like a parched riverbank through the trees. Standing brooding and watchful they kept whatever secrets lurked at the heart of this hellish place. 

And they kept them well.

" Are you alright mister?" The Sheriff asked, pushing back the brim of his hat with the barrel of his pistol.  I looked at him with wide startled eyes, barely able to talk as my teeth were still chattering. 

He was lean, wiry about medium height with a thin gaunt looking face.
I couldn't help noticing his eyebrows. They looked like they were carefully plucked. He wore what looked like a pink golf sweater under his uniform too. Quite a look for a country Sheriff 

" I.. well..we.." I stuttered, peering back over my shoulder,  half expecting me undead remains of poor Sanford to come leaping out from behind a tree, and come lurching towards us, great gloops of black blood dribbling down from the wound which killed him.

Grinning at us with insane malevolence. 

" I ,,, well,,,we" I tried again,  barely managing a blurt out a few pathetic syllables before I dissolved into tears. Great wretching sobs

" I reckon you had yourself quite a shock" the Sheriff muttered in his laconic backwards drawl, bolstering his pistol he reached into his breast pocket,  " Here , take a swig off this" he handed me a small silver flask. Grabbing it with trembling hands I took a long swig. It was brandy. Strong brandy, probably from some local bootleggers still. I winced as I felt the burn of the fiery liquid. 

Suddenly I didn't feel quite as bad. My hands stopped trembling and I felt able to string a few coherent words together. Wiping away the tears from my eyes as I handed him the flask I managed a feeble smile 

" Thanks officer" I mumbled 

Hearing my distinctive yankee burr he gave me a funny sudelong glance

" You ain't from around here, are you?" rubbing his chin thoughtfully he answered his own question in a pensive murmur,  " no of course you ain't,  why else would you be wandering around out here at this time of night " He fixed me with a deep searching gaze, " You mind telling me why you is wandering around here?"

Feeling slightly revived and somewhat reassured by the sheriff's phlegmatic demeanour I tried explaining. 

" Well, you see it's kinda like this. My friend Sanford and I decided to take a road trip,  we're students,  back East" I nodded vaguely,  thinking it prudent to avoid mentioning the fake Moms and the fact we were studying erotic alchemy,  I continued meekly , " and we wanted to see this fine country of yours"

" Uh huh" the Sheriff gave a sardonic growl

" Well, we " I paused , remembered the gormless saliva encrusted face of Donnie gurning up at us as he unrolled his twister mat " couldn't find suitable accommodation in Stanton's Peak 

" No, I bet you couldn't " the Sheriff smirked  and rolled his eyes,  " I bet you couldn't "

" Not wanting to hang around we decided to drive straight to Bradenton,  but" a shiver of fear ran through me as I remembered us jolting through the eerie darkness,  assailed,  from inside and out, by insidious waves of loneliness. 

" But our car broke down,  a Rambler Station Wagon " I added, gazing across at the Sheriff,  who stood stroking his chin, staring out at the forest. " Then..then" I gulped feeling the terror surge back as I pictured us running aimlessly through the trees,  " Then we saw this plantation house "

The Sheriff gave a jolt,  he gave me a strange look. " You saw a plantation house,  a ruined plantation house,  back there,  in the forest " he pointed a long tapered finger over my shoulder,  his voice,  a weird high pitched squeak almost cracking with tension. 

And fear

I nodded slowly. " An old ruined plantation house " I repeated mechanically. We decided to spend the night there"

I had barely managed to finish my sentence when the Sheriff emitted a shrill whistle and shook his head vigorously,  " you mean you boys decided to bunk down in the old Armstrong place?"

Icy fingers of terror wrapped themselves tightly round my innards. Obviously we had intruded onto unhallowed ground. Clearly,  for whatever reason,  and I think I could hazard a guess as to why,  the Old Armstrong place had an evil reputation 

" Yes" I stammered. Then the words begin pouring out of me. A babbling rush of sheer horror. Like the poor bastard who had to commentate on the bi annual Education Forum sumo wrestling championship...

" My friend Sanford and I " my body gave an involuntary spasm as I thought of his shattered skull,  the great seeping head wound,  the ghastly smile plastered on his pallid lifeless features,  the terrible relentless clump of his cowboy boots as he lumbered after me, swinging the Mannlicher Carcano " had a  bite to eat" and a little something to drink " I managed a sheepish smile " then we tried to get some sleep "

" Downstairs or up, I mean where did you boys crash out?"

" Downstairs " I replied hurriedly,  " downstairs in a huge empty room,  broken windows y'know,  really creepy "

" Yes, I know " the Sheriff whispered softly,  sticking his thumbs into his belt and tilting his head, he gave a little awkward cough before continuing  slowly,  almost choking with embarrassment,  " I know you northerners see things kinda different to us , and I ain't no bigot,  I don't go putting a hood over my head every Friday,  and go whooping and a hollering around with them polecats from Stanton's Peak,  but what I is trying to drive at son, cos it might jeopardise how some folks round here think, you and your buddy didn't have yourselves a little lovers tiff or nothing?"

Even though the murky gloom of that infernal forest I could see his hollow cheeks were flushed crimson.

His quaint manner,  not to mention the absurd question itself made me burst out laughing. 

A sickly laughter, it was too,  the sort that can poison the soul , and its reverberations,  pealing like bastard churchbells seemed right at home here. The laughable soon dissolved into convulsions 

" No sir " I bristled,  struggling to sound as indignant as I could,  " we didn't have a lovers quarrel,  we were tired and scared and we just wanted a place to rest until sun up, to get out of this God forsaken forest "

" Take it easy,  son" he soothed in an emollient tone, " all sorts of weird things have gone on up in the old Armstrong place,  all kinda strange critters from out of town. Folk here maybe kinda parochial,  kinda old fashioned but they are decent law abiding folks "

Suddenly the air filled with a bloodcurdling howl. It started off as a low almost subsonic growling,  that you felt more than heard, before rising to a bizarre terrifying whooping. 

The sheer instinctively reached for his pistol 

" You and your buddy been messing around with things you ain't got no business messing around with,  boy's

To be continued...

DOPPELGANGERS FROM HELL 

Part Three

SHERIFF GORDON DISCOURSES 

Glaring at me through the murky gloom,  scratching the tip of an immaculately plucked eyebrow with his silver flask,  and  perhaps remembering his duty he looked ready to  interview me, and, by the grim look now darkening his scrawny  features ,the by no means inconsequential detail he had first encountered me running for my life through this awful forest. 

Being chased by something...

But what?

And just what was I going to tell him?

Suddenly the full horror of my predicament sunk in. Forcing it's way in, with icy gimlet fingers , through my senses, still half numbed with shock.

I just KNEW , when we returned there, as we must,  sooner or later ( the mere thought made me tremble with fear. Suddenly I was back at college,  in Professor Hookes still life classes, barely able to watch as the model,  an ex Professor desperate for money after accusing Barney the Dinosaur of being a covert Mossad assassin,  responsible for the Sandy Hook massacre,  removed his robe, revealing the Jabbaesque mounds of sweat engorged blubber) the Sheriff would find nothing. 

Nothing except poor Sanford sprawled lifelessly. His 13 inch head shattered by the butt of the Mannlicher Carcano lying nearby. 

I would be accused of murdering him.!! A hapless yankee tourist clubbing his " friend " to death after a lover's quarrel? I could already feel the noose tightening round my neck...

" Just exactly what are you doing out here , boy?" The Sheriff enquiries , fingering the ivory handle of his pistol , peering up at me with cold unforgiving eyes " And what in tarnation were you running from?"

Not knowing what else to do,  and remembering I'd left the number of the Honest Kris at Trine Day  Verlag Legal department back at home,  I decided to tell the truth. Studying the Sheriff closely I reckoned I might just have a chance. He looked like the type who had a shelf full of Trine Days most troofiest trooffests back in his office..

If he believes a load of delusional claptrap, not to mention a mentally ill Florida grannies demented ramblings then he might well believe I was chased by the Mannlicher Carcano wielding zombie corpse of my best friend Sanford 

" You might find my story a little hard to believe Sheriff " I murmured 

" Let me be the judge of that son, you just tell me,  truthful like, what the Sam Hill you were doing out here"

I took a deep breath 

" Well it's kinda like this"

Before I could say another word the same eerie howling started again. A piteous haunted wail, it reminded me of yesterday,  back in Stanton's Peak,  when our landlord discovered his suppliers had sent him a load of kosher bagels instead of his favourite Sanibelite's Pride Anti Semitic Spaghetti Hoops. 

" Perhaps we better be getting the Armstrong out of here  son, c'mon " he grunted,  slipping a booted foot into a stirrup " Ever ridden a horse before son?"

" I was a member of the Education Forum for nearly 10 fucking years " I snapped indignantly " there's no four legged critter I haven't at least tried to mount "

" Good enough " the Sheriff smiled , trying to ignore the ominous moaning that filled the forest,  I shuddered,  the terrible almost blasphemous groaning reminded me of that awful Halloween I got lost in Beckett's Gulch and found myself beneath Lord Gordo's boudoir window " Hop up son, you can tell me everything as we ride back to my office "

I  stood motionless. A mass of conflicting emotions filled my poor senses." What about poor old Sanford? My best friend? Despite everything I couldn't just leave his body out here, could I? Maybe he had spiked the bhajis with PCP, or maybe the were  the ruhypnol coated bhajis he'd taken to the Miskatonic High School Prom...maybe I hallucinated the whole thing..." 

Another bloodcurdling howl,  not to mention the Sheriff's horse, pawing the earth impatiently,  made up my mind. Leaving whatever scruples I had behind,  in this terrible God forsaken hellhole I leapt up behind the Sheriff. 

Trying not to notice the way his eyebrows started twitching as I grabbed hold of his tapered, almost feminine waist.

Spurring the horse and with an expert flick of the reigns,  we were soon galloping along,  the further we got the better I felt. 

But still I felt the thin icy stabbing of the needle of unease. My mind suddenly began swarming with doubt and fear, each one lit up with ghastly luminosity,  like willo the wisps tempting me to my doom.

I kept wanting to turn back. It was as if was being squashed by a pair of ginormous invisible titties,  I felt like I couldn't breathe...what about poor Sanford? You selfish bastard,  just leaving him there, running away like the truth from the annual JFK conference. What about the Rambler station wagon? That dude in the orange jump suit looked fucking deranged,  if you don't get the car back on time....I shuddered imagining him and his sleazy friend forcing my poor cat Larry to watch the other other OTHER Zapruder film before bleaching his arse and bundling him into the erotic tumble dryer the previous resident,  some whackjob from Kentucky who was supposedly writing a dissertation on masturbation in post industrial Manchester had left behind 

The sheriff's voice calmed my troubled senses. For the time being at least..

" So tell me " , he bawled over his shoulder, his eyebrows were twitching that much now they reminded me of the time Sanford stapled a particularly hirsute centipede to his top lip the year he entered the Truth Frequency Radio beauty pageant dressed up as Hitler,  " what exactly were you boys doing back there"

Remembering our old home economics teacher,  Miss Cole's favourite saying, " Tell the troof,  the whole troof and nothing but the troof" ( quite ironic really,  after he had to flee to Bangkok, after being caught telling porky pies to the Board of Governors. Not even they were dumb enough to believe that he needed 3 metric tonnes of Zyklon B to fumigate the faculty synagogue) I decided to tell him

" Well sir, Sheriff " I paused 

" The name is Sheriff Gordon son" he yelled as he pulled out what looked suspiciously like an 18th century vintage British Navy cat o nine tails( the one our ancestor, the ill fated Cap'n Bly used, attempting to quell the mutiny on the HMS Bounty was one of our families prize mementos. Keeping it in a glass case alongside the silk knickers the  equally ill fated Colonel Bly wore at Waterloo and the wooden jockstrap General Horatio Humpernickel Bly wore during the Second Anglo Marattha war) and began flogging his poor horse...I couldn't help but notice how his eyebrows were practically throbbing..

I was going to ask if he was perhaps related to a certain Lord Gordo,  14th Baron Haw Haw and Hereditary Laird of Beckett's Mound,  before thinking better of it. If he WAS related to Lord Gordo and if he thought I moved in the same kind of bizarre niche fetishist circles,  he might get the wrong idea and decide to take a detour DEEP into the forest,  doppelgangers be damned if you catch my drift..

The thought of spending a night out here with a relative of THAT Lord Gordo,  who I may add is armed with a pistol and a cat o nine tails , not to mention the fucking horse, aside from the hideous looking ( obviously surgically enlarged) giant cock dangling betwixt its hind legs it seemed to be enjoying the increasingly brutal whipping the Sheriff was administering...

Suddenly the thought of getting my head split open by a Mannlicher Carcano wielding zombie doppelganger in cowboy boots seemed like the better option..

Nevertheless I found myself blurting out the entire sorry tale..

The Sheriff seemed strangely nonplussed when I described Sanford lurching upstairs,  apparently hypnotized like Sirhan Sirhan  or ( allegedly) Donnie Jeffries- when he turned up at a holocaust denial convention in Tehran wearing nothing but an oversized nappy.  I was going to say he hardly batted an eyebrow,  if his eyebrows didn't resemble the baseball bats the time,  back in 1921, the Stanton's Peak KKK gatecrashed the annual NAACP fundraising gala, when I started gibbering about being chased out of the Old Armstrong place by Sanfords undead Mannlicher Carcano totin' remains,  but when I mentioned seeing the pigeons he almost dropped his whip..

" Whoa there Buchenwald " he cried,  I tried to pretend I hadn't just heard him , not even Lord Gordo himself would name his horse after a concentration camp,  I thought,  almost forgetting poor old Auschwitz No 2 the gerbil,  who vanished in such mysterious circumstances,  the very day a certain Kentuckian showed up on campus with his erotic tumble dryer...

" Did you say that you boys saw the pigeons?"

He gaped apparently dumbstruck. His slackjawed gormless expression looked uncannily like Lord Gordo and our principal,  DR Neiderhut himself ( Harvard medical school class of 83 bitches)

I nodded tersely,  eager to get the fuvk out of the forest. If anything we seemed to have ridden deeper into it, the trees,  gaunt and menacing seemed to tower over us.

" No white man has ever seen those pigeons " he murmured,  " only the local nig...I mean African Americans and the occasional jew and injun. Them coloured folk say the pigeons are the souls of the Armstrongs,  let out of hell for the night"

He paused,  peering round at me...

" Them Armstrongs were mighty fine folks, sure some said they was proud and cruel, but my great granpappy Impetigo Gordon was overseer on the old Armstrong doppelganger plantation,  he said they was fine upstanding Christian folk...Course the War of Northern Aggression done near finish them...the ex slaves worked them doppelgangers on the share before they ran away..The last of the Armstrongs,  Miss Donnie Jeffries- Armstrong was born over yonder in Haiti,  a strange woman by all accounts...hated em ex slaves,  hated anyone matter of fact who weren't  as lily white stupid as he was, hated anyone  who didn't wear a tin foil corset too.Tried to revive the family fortune by making tin foil corsets,  but apparently them yankee jew bankers and carpetbaggers had the market for tin foil corsets all tied up, in a manner of speaking. Miss Donnie only had one servant,  a gummy half crazed midget called Dickie Gilbride,  who went around all day with a hosses feed bag full of turps strapped to his face and a big ole mahogany dildo strapped someplace else. Came to town every once in a while to buy more paint,  or turps or tin foil,  ut was like them folks never ate. Anyway my granmammy own the general store back then, I  remember her telling us little uns all about Dickie,  how he started talking all crazy,  said Miss Donnie had found these old parchments,  full of forbidden doppelgangery lore and was carrying out all sorts of experiments...one day he just stopped coming into town. It was like Muss Donnie had up and vanished into thin air. Well as you can imagine all sorts of crazy assed stories started circulating,  bout ghostly doppelgangers wandering around,  local nigs...coloured folks,  pardon me son, won't go near the place past sundown "

He stopped talking,  and sat for a moment,  deep in thought. I tried to process his fanciful yarn,  I mean I hadn't spent nearly 2 years taking Miss Barnards Conspiracy Through the Ages module for nothing,  I was well versed in simple minded bullshit..

But still if I hadn't seen Sanford come clumping towards me,  with his head caved in, his glassy eyes staring out sightlessly,  trying to brain me with the Mannlicher Carcano that was still smeared with his own brains and lifesblood..

" Listen here son, I never caught your name "

" Archibald Pumpernickel Bly III " I replied mechanically in a lifeless monotone..

He peered at my features with a dubious scowl,  " That ain't no Jewish name or nuthin?"

" No Sheriff " I bristled, still sore and slightly raw from the anti semitic examination Donnie our ex landlord had subjected us to. He said he'd watched Borat over 113 times, " And not just for the nudey wrestling neither " he told us as we passed him on the stairs,  still cradling his shotgun and looking for cockroaches scuttling under the door. Apparently he stayed put until we were 20 miles outside Stanton's Peak...

" I'm a scion of the Anglo Hungarian branch of the Bly doppelganger dynasty " I added with a haughty sniff 

" Fair does son, I ain't prejudiced myself you understand " Not wanting to quibble with a relative of Lord Gordo's,  especially one armed with a pistol and a cat o nine tails,  I neglected to mention the Sig rune necklace peeking out from under his golf jumper,  or the AKIA , or the  Wolfsangel,  or the SS lightning bolts or the 14 words tattoos,  covering his hands and his wrists 

" We'll head on back to Juddufkis Bush, the county seat, spend the rest of the night in my office " I tried to ignore the faintly salacious leer that briefly animated his unprepossessing features 

" Then we'll ride back out to the old Armstrong place and see what's still out there to be seen Then" a strange,  almost humane expression flickered across his face, " There's an old injun, nearly 120 years old,  lives around these parts in one of them old sharecroppers huts, if anyone knows the secret to the mystery of the Old Armstrong Place,  then Ten Bellies Charlie does, what's his injun name again?" He murmured to himself as he fondled his whip in anticipation,  " Oh yes, Man Who Stick Multi Headed Disinformation Hydra up his teepee...I tell you boy some of them injuns round here, the Gilbride Sioux, spend too much time glug gliugging at the firewater...what kinda name is that,  in fact we were talking about him just the other day,  me and my son Hepatitis B Holocaust Denier Reichsfuhere Himmler Gordon IIi" He beamed at me proudly,  " Same name as me and my daddy,  God rest his soul,  sleep warm down there in Bariloche paw,  one day them Zionist media stooges won't be able to spread no more of their infamy! And your great work will be recognised by doctors and scientists the world over" 

With that he gave his horse a couple of expertly administered lashes of his whip and we were off..

Heading back to the ominously named Juddufkis Bush and his office. 

To wait until sunrise..

I hadn't dreaded the first tickles of the impudent marmalade fingers of the dawn since my last shift at the Texas Very Busy Loyers Club...cleaning up after their annual Strippathon,  when dozens of terrified young men are forced to bare EVERYTHING to appease the bloodthirsty lust of a swarm of voracious middle aged hausfraus....

To be continued