Read Online Doppelgänger by Sean Munger - Free Book Online

split-second and indeed she’d only half-heard it. It reminded her of the ominous rustling noise amongst the leaves in her dream of Ola returning from the grave even though the sound she’d just heard did not resemble it. She listened intently, counting the ticks of the clock. After twenty-five when there was no recurrence of the sound she decided firmly that she had imagined it. She turned over, fluffing the pillow. Next to her Julian made a somniloquistic grunt.
    TICK…TICK…TICK ( creak )…
    Then she heard the giggle—the same one she had heard the night before.
    â€œJulian!” Anine cried, grabbing him. He was awake instantly, his body giving a savage jerk that nearly flung her off the bed. “Someone’s here! Someone’s in the house!”
    Instantly he launched himself off the bed and bolted for the bureau. She heard a drawer open and him fumbling about in the dark, and then she froze at the cold metal click of the gun that she hadn’t known until this moment that he possessed. “Stay here,” he said. “Don’t make any sound.”
    He paused for just a moment before the bedroom door, then flung it open and bolted into the hallway. His voice boomed through the hallway and the stairs: “Who are you? I’m going to shoot you!”
    Anine quivered, clutching the bedclothes around her. The ticking of the clock now suddenly seemed much softer than it had before.
    She head Julian’s forceful footfalls up and down the hallway and then down the stairs. “Who’s here?” The next time she heard his voice it sounded much less commanding. “Is anyone here?” After a while she saw through the ajar bedroom door the very faint hint of orange light from below—he lit a lamp—and she heard him call out in various other parts of the house. But there was no answer.
    He returned to the bedroom. In one hand was a glass oil lamp, probably the one from the hall table. In the other was the revolver. Julian set both on the table next to his side of the bed, and he sat down, facing away from Anine.
    â€œWhat did you hear?” he asked.
    â€œThe same thing as last night. Footsteps outside the bedroom—the boards in the floor creaking under the carpet. Then someone giggling.”
    His body was very still. He stared at the wall. At last he said, “Anine, there’s no one here. The front door is locked. No one can get in.”
    â€œI heard it, Julian. I know I did.”
    After a long pause he leaned forward, pulled up the glass lamp cover, and blew out the wick. “You imagined it,” he declared, and swung into bed.
    â€œNo, I didn’t. I’m sure I heard it.”
    â€œYou thought you heard it.”
    â€œIt was the same thing as last night. That means when I heard it last night it couldn’t have been Mrs. O’Haney.”
    â€œYou imagined it last night too,” he sighed. Then he emitted a strange sound, kind of like a grunt. “I knew it.”
    Within two minutes he was asleep. Anine lay there in the darkness, now feeling more terrified and bewildered than ever.
    I didn’t imagine it. I heard it. Not just tonight, but last night too.
    The ticking of the clock was loud again, a cymbal crash every second.
    CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
    She didn’t sleep. In the deathful silence between each deafening tick she waited in terror that she would again hear the creaking and the spectral giggling from behind the bedroom door.
    Anine knew very little about the world of domestic servants but she observed very quickly that her surmise about it being difficult to hire a replacement for Mrs. O’Haney was correct. The notice began running in the Times two days after the Irishwoman’s death. On that day only one potential applicant came to call at the house, a thoroughly unsuitable woman called Polly Mace with terrible manners and no references. The day after that no one came at all. Anine hated to