'So is mine,' Trip answered.
'You're Baptist,' I pointed out.
'Exactly.' Trip surprised me. He stepped forward and backhanded the creature in the face. 'Where's the Condition?' my friend shouted.
The head rocked back, but slowly returned, laughing. I have an evil laugh when I'm angry. No wonder people consider me intimidating. 'Come on, Trip, you can do better than that!' Trip hit him again, harder this time. He cocked his fist back for another shot.
Suddenly the doppelganger blurred and re-formed. The transformation was nearly instantaneous. Now it was Holly that Trip's fist collided with. She squealed in pain. Trip jerked back, shocked. The fake Holly cried, hot tears pouring down her bruised cheek. 'Don't hurt me, please!'
Trip raised his hand again, but he was shaking. The doppelganger shifted again, and now it was an older black woman with white hair. 'John, how dare you raise your hand to me!' She had a Jamaican accent.
Trip closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. 'Where's the Condition?'
When he reopened his eyes, his mother had been replaced with a teenage girl with red hair and freckles. She batted big sad eyes at him. 'You promised you'd protect us, Mr. Jones. But you let those zombies get to us anyway. You got scared. You lied! You couldn't protect us! Sure, you came back and saved the others, but you were too scared to save me. I hate you!'
'I… I'm sorry…' Trip stepped back from the creature.
'Enough,' I said. 'Dude, it's okay.'
'Sorry.' Trip was wiping his eyes as he left the room. He closed the door behind him. I glanced over at Holly. She was leaning against the wall, impassive and cool. The doppelganger turned its teenage girl face and spoke, only using my deep voice. 'Your friend has a soft heart. I'm sure it'll be delicious.'
'Your turn,' Holly stated.
The doppelganger studied me for just a moment. Its changes were almost so quick that it was hard to believe my own eyes. For just a moment, the face would be slack, almost squishy, then it was somebody else entirely. Mannerisms, speech patterns, even size. It would have been impressive if it wasn't so disgusting.
Julie Shackleford looked up at me, fearfully, as I approached. 'Don't hurt me, Owen, please,' she pleaded. No. Not she. It. I kept walking.
'I'm going to figure out how to hurt you. Then I'm going to hurt you until you tell us exactly what we want to know,' I stated. I repeated those words in my mind. I could afford no weakness.
'Very good, Hunter. Harden your heart,' the fake Julie said. Then my girlfriend was gone and it was my father. 'You always were weak, soft; it's good to see you man up and take care of business. Come on, fatty, show me what you've got.'
I balled up my hand into a fist and slugged the doppelganger in the face. My whole body shook with the impact. 'That's the spirit, boy!' It laughed with my father's voice. Then he was gone and it was Mordechai Byreika, old and frail. 'Boy, what are you doing! Why do you hurt me?'
It's not him. He's dead.
'Smart you are, boy. But proud, and proud will hurt everyone you love.'
'It won't work!' I spat.
Then it was Julie again. 'It doesn't have to. I just want to enjoy the damage you're doing to your soul,' it hissed. 'Beat your wife, Hunter. Come on. This is what I do for fun.' Then it shifted into the form of a little girl. 'Owen, don't let them hurt me! Don't let them take me away. Not again!'
I paused. I had no idea who this was. She was probably seven or eight years old, with dark hair in a ponytail and blue eyes. 'So, is this like a test to see if I'm willing to beat little kids or something?'
The little girl stopped her crying. 'You don't remember me?' she asked incredulously.
It had to be a trick. I had never seen this kid before.
The girl giggled. 'You really don't. You, the Chosen with the ability to see everyone else's memories has his own locked away… How ironic. So much power but too stupid to use it,' the little girl said. 'Past, future, it is all so linear to you pathetic mammals.'
'Who are you supposed to be then?' I asked.
It read my hesitation. 'Apparently that's a secret. Too bad for you. It's really a sad story.'
'Z,' Holly spoke. 'It's messing with you. Step back.'
'I've got this!' I shouted.
'Step back,' she said again.
'Fine!' I stomped away, seething. This stupid monster was pissing me off.
Holly stopped in front of the doppelganger. The little girl face studied her. 'Now you… you're dangerous,' it said. 'Your edge, it is not an act. There are two sides to you, human. Burning hot or freezing cold and somewhere in the middle innocence dies. Delicious.'
'You can read minds?' Holly asked.
'Sure can, kiddo,' it replied. Now the doppelganger was an older man with wispy hair and the flushed face of a terminal alcoholic. 'You're never gonna amount to nothing. You're just like your mom, the tramp. No good slut-'
Holly cut it off by slamming the ridge of her hand into its throat. The creature coughed and wheezed, writhing against the duct tape, like the old man was having a heart attack. 'You gotta try harder than that,' Holly replied. 'I've watched episodes of Doctor Phil that were more emotionally wrenching.'
It changed again. Now it was a young woman. It was hard to tell what she looked like because every inch of her was coated in dried blood, dirt, and filth. 'Holly, you bitch. You left me alone in the pit. I'm dead because of you.'
My teammate snorted. 'Worked through that, chief. Cindy died because she gave up. Vampires killed her. I didn't do it. Is this supposed to make me feel guilty?'
'Guilty? You should. You could have taken me with you! Whore!'
The doppelganger began to thrash, swearing and crying hysterically. Holly turned to me and shrugged. She went back to the creature, walking a slow circle around the chair, studying the mirror image of somebody who had apparently been a fellow prisoner in the vampire feeding hole. 'I think that we're going about this all wrong,' she said slowly.
The creature continued to curse her. I couldn't tell if the fear was genuine or fake at this point. Holly paused in front of it and pulled out her folding knife. The Benchmade flicked open with a snap. 'Let me test this theory.' The creature flinched and thrashed away. 'Hold still, or I'll really screw this up.' She slowly poked her blade into the creature's face. A clear fluid began to bleed from the cut. The woman screamed. I turned away involuntarily.
The screaming stopped. I risked a peek. Holly was holding up the dripping knife. 'Yep, just like I figured. The tissue is all soft underneath, malleable. Like the fingers Julie blew off.'
Holly had carved a chunk out of the thing's face. The flesh underneath had the consistency of raw dough and was leaking a viscous juice down its neck. 'Oh, gross.'
The doppelganger hissed. 'You think you're so clever.'
'Yes. Yes, I do,' Holly responded. 'See, I don't know how your biology works, but I'm sorta like what passes for a medical professional around here now, so I'm just going to keep cutting pieces off until I find something important.'
It had reverted back to the form that it had been in most of its stay at the compound: the Newbie, Dawn. The young woman looked terrified. 'Please… please don't hurt me. Owen, don't let her hurt me.'
'Hurt you? You killed Billy Tanner in the control room. Slashed his throat wide open. You set up an attack that cost us I don't know how many more Hunters dead and injured. You tried to assassinate my boss.' Holly smiled maliciously. 'Hurt you? Dawn, you can read minds, so I want you to read what I'm thinking about doing right now.' Holly closed her eyes.
The creature flinched.
Holly's smile was terrifying. 'Think that'll hurt?'
'Okay, okay.' Dawn blinked, and her eyes were suddenly clear orbs. Her entire face went slack, the color seemed to fade, the features just sloughed away, leaving a blank mass of goo where the head had been. The hair retracted as those ice cube eyes watched us. There wasn't even a mouth, just an indentation in the doughy mass. It puckered inward as it spoke with Dawn's voice. 'So, you want to see what I really am?'
