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James sat on the edge of the bed with his face in his hands. He could not believe the way his day was going. First, his life was threatened by a crazed man that bore a striking resemblance to him. Second, the police detective that came out to look into it seemed to view him as more suspicious than the man that wanted to kill him. Third, now Jennifer seemed to think that he was crazy. She had not come out and said so, but it was obvious from her facial expressions that she found his story hard to believe.
That much had been apparent when she had decided to stay and complete her shift at the hospital instead of coming with him to pack for an escape. Detective Sweeny had not helped him in that regard. When he had showed up, he spent more time focusing on James than anything else. He even asked Jennifer if she had been concerned about his mental health recently. Jennifer said that she had not, but even James had caught the shift in her eyes as she said it. If he had seen it, surely Sweeny had caught it as well.
This had prompted the detective to ask her if she had known where he was on the previous Sunday afternoon. James had nearly choked at this question. He knew where the detective was going with this, and he did not like it at all. He felt like he had just become the prime suspect for a crime that he did not commit. Sweeny had scratched his face and looked thoughtful as Jennifer had told him that James had been moving his things into her place.
James had been relieved momentarily when Sweeny said that he wanted to look at the security video taken at the time that James had come in to the hospital. He said that he needed James to point out the man that had been threatening him. This had sparked hoped into him. If he could have shown the man, then he would no longer be on the hot seat.
Unfortunately, the killer had managed to avoid detection. He must have noted all of the cameras and been careful to stay clear of their range. When James had suggested this to Sweeny, all the detective had done was grunt and scratch his cheek. James had thought that the best place to show his adversary was when he had spoken into his ear. Once again, this hope had been short lived. The camera that would have shown that was currently out of working order. A technician was expected to repair it later that afternoon. By then, of course, it would be much too late to prove anything.
The detective had once again probed James for the name of a company that he provided consultation too, but he had still been unable to do so. He did not know what had come over him, but this strange sense of amnesia had surfaced at a most inopportune time. He just wished that he could have started the day all over again. Then he would have packed all of his things and insisted that Jennifer take a long vacation with him. Maybe by then the deranged killer would have found somebody else to terrorize.
Instead, here he was, sitting on his bed waiting for the woman he loved to come home, and hoping that nothing bad happened to her on the way. Once she got home, he would try his best to convince her that he was not out of his mind. The problem was that he really had no idea how he was going to do that. Everything she had seen or heard from his in the last couple of days had indicated otherwise.
He was really beginning to wish that he had not told her about the reason for his hesitancy. The darkness, that hovered at the edge of his mind. How crazy had that sounded? The next day he comes raving into her place of work and insisting that somebody is trying to kill him, but nothing shows up on the security cameras. I must look like a total lunatic to her right now, he thought. What a difference a couple of days could make.
He forced himself to turn his thoughts away from how Jennifer must be viewing him and returned his focus to the real problem. If he did not figure out how to avoid the psychopathic killer, it really would not matter what her opinion was of him. It would be very hard to convince her that he was not crazy if he was dead. Of course if he was dead, she would probably be gone as well. After all, he had been told that everything precious to him would be taken away first.
The strange man had said that by the time he was through, James would be willing to take his own life in order to end the suffering. James knew that all it would take would be to lose Jennifer. She was more precious to him than anything. Life would not be worth living if she was gone. He would be willing to lay down his life in order to spare hers. Maybe he could offer to do just that. He wondered if the psychopath would accept that. He doubted it. A man like that seemed to take pleasure from hurting others. Even if James killed himself right in front of him, he would probably still kill Jennifer just for the fun of it.
As James thought, he began to wonder just how he had known so much about the man from such a short encounter. Sure, he had seen the story about the golf course murders that pointed the way toward crazy behavior, but that did not tell him as much about the man as he seemed to know. It felt as if he knew the kind of drive that his predator had. He even knew that the man viewed himself as a predator.
There had to be an answer to that. Just like there needed to be an answer to the man's remarkable similarity in appearance to him. One could almost make the argument that they were identical twins. The idea seemed preposterous, and yet he could not throw it out. He had been an only child. He could not remember ever being around any other siblings. It had always just been him and his mother.
That sparked an idea in his mind. His father had left when he was just a baby, and he had never had any contact with him. Could it be that he had been separated from his twin when the two parents split up? Did his father take his brother and leave him with his mom? Would his mom really have kept that from him his whole life? All of this seemed like wild conjecture, but it was hard to say it was too crazy to be considered. Everything that had happened to him on this fateful day seemed to be beyond belief.
James remembered leafing through an article on twin studies that had been in one of the medical journals that Jennifer had lying around. It had been about a month ago, but she should still have it. She normally piled the things up in her closet for about a year before she would finally throw them away and start a new stack. She still had ideas of becoming a doctor some day, so she liked to study up on all the latest medical advances.
James went to the closet and found the stack. He could not remember which journal it had been in, but he knew that it would not have been the most recent one. He took it and tossed it aside. After this, he began to leaf through every page of each journal in search of the article. He did not have to go too far back. The August issue had an article toward the back that focused on twins separated at birth.
He pulled it out and read it again; this time with greater interest. He had remembered that it had said something about the uncanny similarities between twins that had been apart for their entire childhood and then reunited as adults. He found that paragraph with ease. It said that in many cases, the two children would be raised in very different environments, and yet end up having the same mental outlook.
In one case, two girls had been separated at birth due to their mother putting them up for adoption. She was a teenage girl that did not want to have an abortion and yet did not want to take on the burden of raising two children while still being a child herself. One girl was adopted by a family that later had children of their own. She was set aside in favor of their true offspring. It was not surprising that she had issues with depression and feelings of worthlessness. Eventually, her depression led to attempted suicide that landed her in a mental hospital.
It was there that she had met her sister. This girl had been adopted by a well off family that was not capable of producing children on their own. She had been doted on and given everything she ever wanted. Both parents had showered her with love and attention. In spite of this, she had experienced problems with depression and feelings of worthlessness her whole life. Her parents had tried everything they could to help her with this and then been heartbroken when she had tried to kill herself. They had placed her in the same mental institute her sister was in with the hope that she would eventually be cured of her insecurities.
The most amazing part of all was that they had both used the same method of attempted suicide. They had both taken an overdose of sleeping pills while they were home alone. They had hoped that they would simply drift off and never wake up. In both cases, a family member came home unexpectedly and called for help.
It was only after the two of them were together again that they came out of their depression. They lived together as adults and eventually seemed to merge into the same person in two different bodies. They had never been able to feel whole until they were together. It was only in each other's company that they could feel like they had something to live for.
Other studies had supported the fact that separated twins had striking similarities in their lives, despite growing up in very different circumstances. They would have the same emotional issues, get married about the same time, get divorced about the same time, and even have the same total number of marriages. Often they would even have the same sexual hang ups as each other.
The most bizarre case that James found was a study out in California where two college students were accused of copying off of each other. An English professor had been very upset when a young man had handed in a short story that he had written for an assignment that matched that of a female student in the same class. The stories had been exactly the same, word for word, and even had the same misspellings.
When he had confronted them on this, they professed that they had never even spoken to each other before. Doubting the truthfulness of this, the professor had placed them in separate rooms and instructed them to write a different story. Again the assignments were exactly the same. Dumbfounded, he had searched deeper into the matter and found out that they were actually twins. They had been adopted as well, so their last names had been different which had accounted for the professor not initially realizing that they were related.
This was the first case that had shown a mental connection to that degree. It almost defied belief, but it seemed as though the two of them could almost read each other's mind. Perhaps it was just that the two of them were so mentally similar that they appeared to be telepathic.
This was what James had been searching for. If he was actually the twin of the man that wanted to kill him, it would explain why he seemed to know so much about a man that he really knew so little about. It had also seemed as if he could feel the killer before he had actually felt him before he heard him speak at the hospital.
Of course, the idea of being similar mentally to this monster was not a pleasant thought. He could not imagine himself being capable of the sort of atrocities that his counterpart seemed to enjoy. He certainly could not even fathom the idea of killing people for a living the way his adversary claimed he did. Even the thought of it made James feel sick.
On the other hand, perhaps this explained the darkness that dwelled in his mind. Maybe he had the same sort of psychosis lingering in the back of his own mind that dominated the other man's consciousness. It was possible that he was only a small step away from falling into the same sense of derangement. If this was the case, he not only needed to find a way to stay alive, but also to exercise this darkness forever from his mind.
One thing was certain. If he did, in fact, have a twin, his mother would be sure to know about it. It would be too late in the day to talk to her about it tonight, but he would go and see her in the morning. Surely then he could get the answers he needed. Perhaps if he could learn about the man who wanted to take his life, he would be able to find a way to both save his own life, and convince Detective Sweeny that he was not the man to be focusing on.
The phone rang and interrupted his thought process. James looked at the time. He did not know why, but it seemed as though he was more aware of the time of day than he had ever cared to be before. It was four seventeen. Jennifer would be getting off of work soon. He went over to the phone and soon wished that he had not done so.
"Hello James." An all too familiar voice said. "It seems you felt like you could get some help from the police. Tell me, how did that work out for you?"
"Nobody believes me." James said. "I don't know how you did it, but every camera in the hospital seems to have missed you."
"Of course." Wraith said. "Unlike you, James, I happen to be aware at all times. I would never allow myself to be followed the way that you did, and I certainly would not have let myself be caught on video. Only an idiot like you makes himself so visible. I have to say that I am disappointed in you. I had hoped that you would be a worthy adversary, but it seems you are just another stooge. Oh, well, I guess I will have to squeeze as much fun out of you that I can."
"What is your problem?" James asked. "I have done nothing to you. Why do you feel the need to do this?"
"James, this was kind of cute at first, but now it is becoming annoying." Wraith said, as if lecturing an errant child. "You can stop pretending that you do not know what I am talking about. You were stupid enough to steal from me, and now I am going to kill you. You really should stop wasting your time with the police, though. They cannot help you. Nobody can. You are doomed and so is your precious Jennifer. Have a nice night. The game starts tomorrow."
With that, Wraith hung up the phone, leaving James feeling distraught. He wished that he had more time to figure out more about this man. He didn't even know the guy's name. He had accused James of stealing his identity, so perhaps he called himself James. That did not feel right, though. For now, this man seemed more like a wraith than an actual man. He seemed to come and go without letting anybody know of his presence other than James. It was as if the man were a ghost. Yes, he would refer to the killer as the wraith, for that was what seemed to fit.
At least he knew that nothing would happen to Jennifer yet. The wraith had said that the game started tomorrow. As much as it sickened James to think of this as a game, he knew that he could not change the wraith's mind. If it was to be a game, he needed to find a way to play by his own rules. The first step would be finding out as much as he could about his intended killer. That meant talking to his mother. He hoped that she would be able to shed some light on the subject.