Duality Read online

  A very awkward apology left Valerie’s mouth. “I’m sorry.”

  “How’s your book collection?” Shelly suddenly changed subjects. “Still an Agatha Christie fanatic?”

  It took Valerie a moment to remember that she was supposed to be Rose and Rose loved Agatha Christie. “Yeah,” she said. Then, “I’ve been reading comics lately.”

  Rose hadn’t, but Valerie had, and since she had no knowledge about Agatha Christie, she wanted to talk about something she did know about.

  “Really? And you didn’t tell me?” Shelly said. “I’ve been trying to get you to read comics forever.” She set her plate down and stood. “Come on.”

  Shelly led her through the house to a carpeted basement room with long florescent lightbulbs across the ceiling. The room was packed with shelves of novels and graphic novels. Across one wall were two tables full of long white boxes of comics, and next to them was a small bookcase overflowing with movies. On another wall was a couch with a small table in front of it with a TV and PlayStation. Valerie stared in awe. She did not know this part of Rose’s family was so damn cool.

  Valerie slowly walked up to the long boxes—taking everything in—and stopped at the box marked ‘McFarlane’. She thumbed through and tried not to go crazy. It was all McFarlane Spider-Man issues and various McFarlane covers of other characters.

  “Whoa,” Valerie said.

  “He’s my favorite artist,” Shelly said.

  Rose was immersed in the fictional world placed between two covers. She quickly turned the page to see what would happen to Poirot, then—

  “Hey,” someone said.

  Rose jumped back, dropped her book on the steps, and banged her elbow into the railing. The edges of the pages got dirtied up with a little gunk, and she held her arm in pain.

  “Shawn? What’re you doing here?”

  “Rose? Where’s—where’s Valerie?”

  “Are you crazy? I am Valerie.”

  “I’d recognize her, okay?” he said. “And I know you’re not her, you two don’t even sound alike!”

  Rose shivered, partially from the icy air tracing her lungs, partially because Shawn was onto them. Here she was feeling as if they had just committed a crime. It wasn’t illegal to ditch a family party.

  Shawn sat on the step below her. “Are you okay? Is anyone in trouble?”

  “She’s just taking my place… so I can get out of a family gathering,” Rose said. The shivers worsened.

  “That’s it?” he said, relief softening his features.

  “I hate that half of my family.”

  “Why didn’t she tell me?” Shawn asked.

  “We were keeping it on the down-low…” Rose said, “but are you guys close?”

  “Not as close as I’d like to be,” he said.

  “Oh…”

  Shawn sighed, “Does she mention me?”

  “No, not really. But give it time, you hardly know her.”

  “I think I’m gonna go now. Bye, Rose.”

  “Goodbye, Shawn.”

  Shawn left and Rose went inside. It was at that moment that her life changed forever.

  “The shop’s open until 8:30, if you wanna go with me,” Shelly said. “Do you think we can take your mom’s car?”

  Valerie shrugged, and said, “We can ask.”

  Shelly shut the door to the room behind them and they went back to the gathering outside. Flies were devouring the ribs Valerie and Shelly had left outside. Mrs. Hawthron was talking to some other lady—probably some ditsy aunt, Valerie thought—and it took her five minutes to get Mrs. Hawthorn’s attention.

  “Um, Mom?” she said. It was weird to call another lady ‘Mom’. “Can I borrow your car?”

  “Sure, honey.”

  And with that, they left the party. Valerie drove and Shelly gave the directions.

  “Turn left,” Shelly said as they neared and passed 111th street. But Shelly said it too late, and Valerie couldn’t turn.

  “You were supposed to go left. No big deal, though. I think I know another way.”

  “Sorry,” Valerie said.

  “No, no, it’s okay, it’s my fault,” Shelly said. “Let’s try making a left at the next light.”

  Heavy traffic and a detour had them turning right. Then another right. And soon they had forgotten which way they came from.

  “Are we lost?” Valerie asked.

  “No, we just need to U-turn back to… I think… was it 78th or 79th?”

  “94th…”

  “Okay,” Shelly said, “I have no clue where we are.”

  Valerie pulled over to the shoulder of the road. The night sky dimmed early, and the lack of cars on this road after all the heavy traffic detours moments ago was strange. Eerie silence unnerved her. Suddenly she was nervous; her palms were sweaty and her breaths were shallow.

  Valerie turned the keys in the ignition, “Let’s save gas while we search the maps.”

  She took out her phone and searched, as did Shelly.

  “Did you hear that?” Valerie asked.

  “Hear what?” Shelly replied.

  The car was locked; the windows and doors were intact. No signs of forced entry—or any unwanted entry for that matter. The killer’s knife would slice through Shelly’s face first and then Valerie’s until the angels were unrecognizable; dozens of slashes in sporadic motions swam across their faces down to their necks. Blood spurted from the craters that were left in place of their severed noses; searing pain filled the sockets of their gouged out eyes. Death held them with a cold caress.

  Chapter Five

  One family mourned when they did not need to; one family was happy, unaware that their only child was dead. Rose—pretending to be Valerie, even at the funeral—couldn’t fathom that it was happening. She couldn’t describe it as anything other than emptiness—and emptiness weighed the most.

  From Rose Hawthorn’s diary

  “I can’t bring myself to do it, I can’t bring myself to tell Val’s family that she’s dead and that I’mRose and that I’m alive. I feel nothing but guilt. I can’t stop crying and shaking. It’s all my fault, isn’t it? I can’t go on feeling like this… I feel so alone. I don’t know how long I can keep up the act. I always dreamt about being an actress, but this is the worst role I could ask for. Gosh, it even makes me depressed that my own family hasn’t recognized me, they haven’t realized their daughter is alive and just living a few blocks down…”

  Tears spilled over the pages. Rose wanted to go back home.

  Is there any going back now?

  Deep down she knew there would not be. The time had long passed to drop that bombshell—it had been about two weeks. She picked up Valerie’s phone and checked the time. 7:00 PM on a Wednesday. Her parents—if she could even call them that—wouldn’t be home, they’d be off at their church or meditation or whatever the hell it was they did, Rose wasn’t sure.

  She got off the bed and looked into the mirror, then wiped her tears away. It was getting hard to breathe again, but that was normal now. She sighed and searched for a pair of shoes, and once she put them on she hurried out of the house and walked to her real home.

  Paranoia sank deep into her mind as the sun sank deeper into the sky and the moon began to emerge. Streetlights had been on for a half hour already; it got dark early in Carpenter. Her head twitched over her shoulder repeatedly. She was sure that eyes were watching her… the feeling had been there since before Valerie died.

  She took out Valerie’s keychain, which had a key to the Hawthorns’ house, and opened the back door. Rose locked the door behind herself, then crept to her old room, constantly looking down the hallways and eyeing over her shoulders just in case somebody happened to be home.

  Rose collapsed on her bed and sobbed.

  “Oh, Valerie,” she said.

  It felt as if she hadn’t been in here before. The room was a stranger to her. Peanut the pug ran in and barked.

  “Peanut? It’s me.”

 
; She knelt down to pet her. Peanut whimpered, then ran out and down the hall. Rose lay down on the floor and sobbed some more, but it was short lived. A shine caught her eye. Confused, she reached under the bed and pulled out the knife that was there.

  “Huh?” she said, then thought, I found one of these under Val’s bed… why is one in here too?

  A rock hit the window and a scream came out from behind her lips. She slammed the bedroom door shut and locked it, then crawled to the window and peeked out of the bottom corner. There was nobody outside. She rested against the wall until she got her breath back. She remembered something and hurried to her dresser. She reached into the space below it, only a little grossed out by the dust all over her hand.

  This is where Val kept her diary in her room… if she hid it here, I don’t want anybody to find it and find out we switched. My whole life would be over. I’d be the worst person on earth for holding this secret this long. But I couldn’t have revealed it, I found out in the morning, and so many people knew. I couldn’t have said that they had it all wrong. Oh gosh. It better be here.

  And there it was.

  Oh, Val… oh Val, oh Val, Val, Val, Val.

  She held it tightly against her body. Tears came again suddenly, and Rose couldn’t catch her breath for fifteen minutes. Once she had her emotions under control, she left her old home and went back to the Harts’.

  She hated herself.

  From Valerie Hart’s diary

  “I can’t shake this panicky feeling. Every night when I sleep, I feel a man hover over me. I can’t look at who he is. He watches me. He watches me with nasty thoughts. I don’t know where he disappears to, but he comes back every night. I’m being watched. I know it. That’s why I keep the knife under my pillow, and one under my bed. I know one day I’ll turn and see who it is, and I’ll scream and he’ll grab me and during the struggle I’ll slash right through his chest and he’ll fall over and never bother me again…”

  Valerie, what was wrong with you? Rose thought. Why did I never know this?

  Mrs. Hart walked into the room, “Valerie?”

  “Y-yes?” Rose replied.

  With a wink, Mrs. Hart said, “There’s a boy here to see you.”

  Mrs. Hart left, and Rose hid the diary in a drawer. She threw on shoes without attempting to find socks and rushed to the front door. Shawn was waiting for her.

  “Shawn…” she said.

  “How’re you?” he asked.

  “Depressed.”

  He nodded. “Care to go for a walk?”

  She closed the door and they walked in silence for a couple blocks.

  “Do you hate me?” Rose asked.

  “No,” Shawn said. “I just need to ask… are you ever telling them? You ever gonna tell anyone that they buried the wrong girl?”

  “No!” she replied with subtle anger in her voice. “How can I?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, and silence carried for a minute.

  “Is that all you came here to ask?” Rose said.

  With melancholy in his voice, he answered, “I don’t know what else to ask. Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay, Shawn,” Rose said. She was crying again. “W-we-we had been friends sin-since we were born. We lived on—we lived on the—the same block for a wh-while before I—before my family moved. We—she was a sister to m-me.”

  “I was just a guy with a silly crush,” he said. “I can’t imagine what you feel, Rose.”

  “I hope Valerie is happy… wherever she is.”

  Shawn hugged her.

  Rose was tired and there was an empty park on the block next to them, so she walked there and made her way to the swing set. Shawn followed and sat on the swing next to her. Neither swung, they both sat in silence. The sable sky would begin to rain any minute.

  “Do you need anything?” he asked.

  “Shawn, you’re too nice,” she said. “But—but you don’t have to worry about me.”

  “I’ll always be here for you Valer—I mean Rose,” he said. “Dammit. I’m so sorry, I-I didn’t mean to call you—you just look so much like her.”

  Rose stood up and said, “It’s okay.”

  She kissed him.

  Deep into the darkness, deep into the night, there was a hand holding a knife and kneeling over a young woman’s body that would be found in the morning; her left eye was cut out, and her nose was missing. What seemed like millions of long slashes covered every inch of her face—there was almost no skin left. Her blood poured out and slithered through the pavement and buried itself in the dirt.

  Whoever killed Valerie and Shelly had now killed again.

  Chapter Six

  From Rose Hawthorn’s diary

  “My first entry… I don’t know what to say in here. The cover looked cute, so I bought it. I might use this as a dream journal instead of a diary. Usually I don’t remember my dreams, but last night I did, and I woke up when I got that falling feeling. Don’t know why I got it, my dream was that I walked into a store. There was no falling. It was actually the store where I bought this… diary. I’m not the superstitious type, but maybe there’s something to it. Maybe.

  I know Rose keeps a little journal herself. She tells me it helps her, I think it was something she read online once. She’s a nervous person and she says it helps her to focus.

  I don’t mean to sound like a pretentious cunt by thinking a dream meant something, but it was the only time a dream felt real to me. I already feel retarded writing this down—like I’m missing a damn chromosome. But I still feel tingles in my hands when I think of last night’s dream… so I think maybe… maybe there could be something there. Maybe if I retrace my steps I can figure it out…

  Yesterday. Wednesday. A shit day at school—junior year blows and I’m sure senior year will be a gallon of horse shit. Typical. I’m stuck for eight hours or whatever with a bunch of whores and boneheads. God, I cannot stand stupid people.

  All during study hall I sat next to some bitches who wouldn’t shut their fucking mouths. God wasted two perfectly fine assholes when he gave their mouths teeth. The damn jizz jacuzzies next to me went on and on about getting laid at some party. Gross. Their details are the last thing I wanna hear.

  Then I walked home and it rained on me. My fucking eBay package was on the porch. Got totally soaked. There goes another book to water damage.

  Then it was homework. Then after homework I called Rose and we talked as our show came on TV. I had chicken casserole for dinner and drank a big cup of water before bed. I put on my early 2000s playlist to help me sleep. I wasn’t that tired but had to get up for another shitshow at school.

  My dream started very sunny—the total opposite of the weather here. I was in the middle of the street in clothes I had slept in. I honestly thought it was real. I got to the sidewalk and yawned in my dream, then I walked into the store and up the escalator. And after I got there I just… I woke up. With that falling feeling. I’d rather have a broken ankle than that feeling. Nearly gave me a heart attack.

  But anyway, that was yesterday and my dream last night. This morning I woke up fine. Rose and her brother Orion picked me up for school. Orion’s nice but he’s a bit of a shit.

  So I got to school and forgot about my dream or anything from yesterday. I’m not a superstitious girl. I went home after school and saw my mom was heading to her car. I asked where she was going, and she told me she was headed to buy a few things from the store (the one in my dream), and she offered to let me to go with, so I accepted. I didn’t think about it once since the morning but I now felt as if I had to go.

  I felt so retarded thinking my dream meant something.

  So I went and we looked around, and she’s picking out this and that. Hell if I even know what she went there for. So I walk away from her and look around on my own, and I started going through the aisles with all the pens and sharpies and highlighters. That sorta shit. And I passed the notebooks and there were a few diaries. The p
ink was so shiny, and it had a cheap little lock on it. Somehow I grabbed it without thinking. I don’t even remember grabbing it, it was simply in my hands. I traced over the blank pages and grabbed a pack of gel pens then found my mom.

  She said, ‘A diary, huh?’

  And I was so embarrassed so I lied, all, ‘Rose wanted me to keep one, too.’ and I told her about Rose’s diary and how it helps Rose. I threw in some bullshit about being supportive. She bought it all, of course, why wouldn’t she?

  So that’s how I ended up with this damn thing. And here I am now writing.

  Why?

  Why am I doing this? Why am I writing here?

  As the words pour out of my pen, it all feels… right. Natural. Like I should’ve done this a long time ago. A dream brought me here and I’d rather use this to keep track of dreams. I think. Because I usually don’t have the most interesting of lives to write about.

  Whoa. I wrote so much. That’s enough for today. I got other shit to do.

  Will I write in here tomorrow?

  Maybe if I dream…”

  From Valerie Hart’s diary

  “I didn’t dream. If I did, I didn’t remember it. Today’s Friday and I can’t believe I’m spending my night writing. But it’s 10:30 PM and I made no plans. School wasn’t shit today… everyone left me alone for once. I hate putting up with the fucking annoying people at Carpenter High. I’m gonna need a job away from any and all people one day.

  So what’s a Friday like as Valerie Hart?

  For one, I have a tradition with Rose Hawthorn and I don’t know how it started. Every Monday and Friday we walk down to Eli’s Creamery. A lot of places in Carpenter are old fashioned. Eli’s is an old building, old machinery, old everything minus the tables and curtains and the security cameras. Homey place.