~ The Double ~
Dear Editor,
I send you this story, hoping it may be of
interest to you. Fear, anxiety, horror,
desire, love, dreams and reality are all the
elements that, combined, make this story
so absurd but still sort of believable. I bet
you’ve never read anything like this before.
What I’m going to tell you here is not my
story, but something that happened to a
person very close and very dear tome—my
neighbor.
I live in a small town in the north of
Norway. It’s one of those places where
nothing ever happens, and people do lots of
sports and drink so much every weekend
that they can’t find the front doors of their
own houses.
Life here, for me, is extremely boring,
and it has been
that way for a long time. I’m a lonely
soul, and I like fine things: music, theatre
and art. This little town offers nothing like
that. My husband died many years ago,
leaving me without any kids and with a
grumpy old sick dog.
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One day, luck seemed to knock at my
door. A nice young couple moved into the
empty house next tomine. The two houses,
mine and theirs, are so close to each other
that I could see them making breakfast in
their kitchen while I watched TV in my
living room.
Their life was very interesting tome; they
seemed almost perfect but also kind of
mysterious.
Thus viewed from a distance, they were a
perfect mix of fiction and strength.
However, I soon discovered something
extremely unusual about this couple. You
may not believe me, or you might think
that I’m a poor old deceived woman, ready
to get involved in the lives of others, but I
believe that this story must be told and
absolutely deserves to be published.
One fine morning, someone knocked at
my door. And there she was, my beautiful
and mysterious neighbor. She introduced
herself and her two beautiful children,
Doris and Lukas, to me. She said they had
just moved from a town on the mainland
and that she was there to finish a writing
project. Yes, she was a writer. What a funny
coincidence!
I invited them in, and I made pancakes
for the kids while we talked and sipped
coffee.
Her name is Beatrice, and she’s
thirty-nine years old, from Italy. When she
was eighteen, she moved to London, where
she studied Literature and Philosophy and
met her husband, Michael, a Swedish man.
They married very young and had two kids.
After a few years, they moved to Germany,
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where she worked as a translator and editor
for a publishing company, and her husband
worked in IT as a freelancer.
She told me about the book she was
writing. It was a story of a little girl and her
family: her mother, her father, and her
younger brother. They lived in a sunny
apartment in Naples, in the south of Italy,
where the chaos from the street—things
unsaid and the fear of feelings—rose in
waves into their daily life.
The little girl's name was Susy. She was a
very nice girl, always helping her mother
with household chores. One day, she was in
the kitchen, setting the table for lunch. Her
mother was talking to her, but she couldn’t
remember exactly what she was saying.
Susy turned around to pick up some dishes,
and suddenly, a second later, her mother
was gone. In her place was another woman.
She was identical to her mother in
appearance, but muchmore evil. Susy knew
it; she could feel it.
The evil mother ordered Susy to do
terrible things. She told her horrible things,
and Susy was very scared. She ended up
doing what her mother wanted.
I asked if
there was something
autobiographical in the story. Beatrice
seemed perplexed, but in the end, she said,
“No, I wouldn’t say that, but there are
strange coincidences between a writer’s life
and what she might write.”
Since they’d moved, many things had
changed in their lives, she told me. When
they were in their previous home, she’d
been very busy with her work.
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I can now say that Beatrice wasn’t a
conventional woman; even if her
appearance seemed okay—that is to say,
normal. Apparently, she behaved like a
woman of moderate habits, a person who
would never attract particular attention.
She was beautiful, that's for sure, active
and independent, a workaholic, always
ready to go anywhere andmeet anyone and
organize things, make things happen.
Translation and writing were her passions
in life, but travel and meeting people were
her pleasures. I must admit, I liked her a
lot.
When she’d started working in the
editorial field, she’d felt very excited. It had
been her dream to reach a certain level in
such a competitive field. She loved the job.
She felt fulfilled in it.
One day, her boss told her, "I have high
expectations for you. You’re an ambitious
person, but to get what you want, you have
to make sacrifices. But they’re sacrifices for
a good purpose. Make them for your family;
think about how your sacrifice will benefit
them.
“Your image cannot be compromised.
And somehow, they—your family, your
children—will be an obstacle to your
professional progress. They don’t match
the image that one has of you. To succeed
in this field, you must ... sacrifice a part of
yourself. Your image must be that of a
person aiming for success—independent.
To succeed, I don't say that you have to
neglect your family, but maybe hide it; put
it in the background for some time. Think
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about it. After all, you’re doing it for them,
too”.
Poor Bea. I thought and thought about
those words for many days and nights. This
torment went on for weeks. Life had given
her an impossible choice. How could she
reconcile the two? But in the end, she
made a decision that she believed was the
wisest in the long run. Her family was
everything to her, but she couldn’t give up
on herself, on what she liked to do, on her
work, on her personhood. So she decided to
follow her boss's advice.
With great caution and attention, Bea
began a new life. There was the Bea who
went to work, who went to book fairs, who
met writers and agents, who traveled. And
there was another Bea who loved her
family, who spent time playing with her
children, who went for walks in the woods.
Bea led two different lives, which never
intersected except during the night, in her
dreams.
But they were more than dreams; they
were real nightmares. In those dreams,
horrible things happened, but Bea couldn’t
remember them once she was awake, lying
in a pool of tears and sweat.
Someone could probably call her feelings
a mix of anxiety and sadness, a form of
guilt, but it was impossible for Bea to
define them.
One night, she woke up as she had for
many weeks, soaked in sweat, terrified by
something vague and remote. She felt
exhausted and restless at the same time.
Suddenly, she felt a strong pain in her
chest, as if she had just received a straight
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punch to the middle of her belly, at the
level of her heart. She got scared and
thought she was having a heart attack.
Then, she felt nauseous and quickly stood
up from the bed and ran to the bathroom
with an extreme urge to vomit.
She switched on the light and began to
breathe heavily; her retching breaths
became sobs. She again felt a strong
pressure on her chest. Bea put her hand
over her heart. She was bent over in pain
when, sobbing, she regurgitated something
from her mouth and into the bathtub,
nearly choking.
Stunned by fatigue and pain, Bea sat on
the floor near the tub. She didn't even have
the strength to get back on her feet and go
back to bed. Behind her, a strange figure
was rising from inside the bathtub; thin
white limbs stretched out and hung
alongside the tall, slender woman who
slowly laid a hand on Bea's shoulder. Bea
hadn't expected that and spun around.
What she saw scared her so much that she
screamed: the woman was herself, but a
monstrous version of herself, not in
appearance, because the woman was
identical to herself, but in her thoughts and
in her heart; Bea could read the woman
very well and interpret her, as a sister can
do with her evil twin.
When Bea woke up the next morning, it
took her a couple of seconds to realize that
everything was in the same place she had
left it the night before. It almost seemed to
her that the dream she’d had was real. Or
rather, for a moment, she was afraid that
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after the previous night, her present daily
life would never be the same again.
However, all around the room, she saw
the chest of drawers and the wardrobe, the
large mirror near the table, the chair and
the clothes that were just where she had
left them.
She got up from bed and went into the
living room; to be certain, she wanted to
see if the rest of the house was like it
always was. And above all, she wanted to
see if Michael and the children were still
there and were all right.
In fact, just like the day before and the
other days before it, Michael had gotten up
early and prepared breakfast for the
children and for her. Now, he was sitting at
the kitchen table, drinking coffee and
reading the newspaper while the children
played with their food.
“Hello,'' said Bea and went to the coffee
machine to pour herself a cup.
“Hello,” Michael replied.
The children ran over to Bea to hug her
and kiss her. Just for a moment, a sense of
terrible and inexplicable anguish assailed
her. "Today, I’ll be out all day. I don't think
I'll be back for dinner," she said a little
sadly.
"Don't worry. We'll spend time together
over the weekend. I'll be with the children,"
Michael said.
He was so supportive of her work, and not
a day passed that Bea did not consider
herself a lucky woman.
Suddenly Michael told her, "You talked in
your sleep last night."
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Taken by surprise, Bea remained frozen
for a second at the idea of having said
something—something unmentionable.
"And what did I say?"
He looked at her, puzzled, and replied,
"Nothing that made sense ... You
stammered more than you spoke …”
"Ah, I had a terrible nightmare ..."
Just as Bea was starting to tell Michael
her weird experience of the night before, he
interrupted her to say, "Inmy opinion, you
shouldn’t stress too much."
He was laughing, so Bea gave up on her
story and answered him. "I'll try," she said.
"Now, I'm going to get ready."
“I’ll try,” she’d said, but she thought all
day about her nightmare and the unsaid
words mumbled the previous night to her
husband. Like a nail stuck in her head,
those thoughts went on and on and on. She
thought about the dream in the morning
while correcting proofs, at lunch and while
she ran in the afternoon. But what had she
said in the dream? Fortunately, at the end
of the day, just as she was getting on the
subway to go home, she realized she wasn’t
thinking about her dream anymore.
The obsession had finally dissolved.
But when she got home, she found
another surprise: The police were waiting
for her. They wanted to interrogate her
because, as they told her, she’d just
committed a crime. The problem was that
she couldn’t recall having committed it.
They said she had been seen entering an
antiques store, right next to her building.
She’d walked past the store every morning
on her way to work. Although she and the
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store owner didn’t know each other
personally, they greeted each other and
exchanged courtesies and gestures of good
neighborliness.
Imagine the surprise of the shopkeeper
when that morning, he had seen her
stealthily enter the shop and reach out a
hand to a bird-shaped ornament—a
magpie,
to be precise, made of
porcelain—and run away with it. They
knew Bea too well to have any doubt about
who it was. She’d snuck in the entrance and
reached out and grabbed the porcelain bird
and escaped.
The police, after having been called by the
shopkeeper, had gone to the door of her
house without hesitating. They’d waited for
Michael, her husband, to come home after
picking up the kids at school. He remained
incredulous in the face of the police claims,
but he had not resisted, because he was
convinced that they were wrong.
When they had entered the apartment,
they hadn't had to search for long. In fact,
they hadn't had to look for anything; the
porcelain magpie stood serene in its
gleaming ceramic splendor at the center of
the dining table in the living room.
“This is a joke,'' said Michael.
They waited for Bea to return home and
offer the necessary explanations. She’d
found all three of them waiting for her
there, sitting around the dining table in the
living room, along with the magpie.
Bea apologized and said she didn't
remember doing such a thing.
Her husband said, "It's not like you."
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Then, one of the policemen had tried to
arrange the pieces of the puzzle and offer
an explanation for what had happened.
"She woke up that morning and was ready
to go to work. That morning, she didn’t
take the kids to school. Toomuch to do. She
had an important meeting. Michael took
the kids. But before going to work, she
stopped outside the shop, near her home,
to wait for her husband and children to
come out. Then, she stole the object, went
home, placed it quietly on the table and
finally went to work.”
"But I don't remember any of that at all,"
said Bea, lost and confused.
"Maybe it was a moment of stress and
anxiety. You might want to take a few days
off. Kleptomania or memory loss can be
symptoms of somethingmore serious," the
other policeman told her.
“However, the shopkeeper has decided
not to file a complaint. He’s proven to be
very tolerant and understanding. But he
wants the bird back," the first policeman
said.
Bea looked at the object in question. It
wasn't even her style. How could she have
stolen it? And why?
That evening, Michael slept on the sofa
bed. He and Bea had argued after the police
had left. He thought Bea needed to slow
down a little with her work. All that work
was driving her out of her mind. She was no
longer the same. Bea, on the other hand,
felt that he had been distant. He was no
longer present.
The discussion had gone on for hours and
hadn't gotten them anywhere. As had been
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happening more and more frequently, Bea
felt like she listened to the conversation
from outside herself--like her her head
was separate from the rest of her body
Now Michael was on the couch, trying to
sleep, and the more he tried, the less he
could sleep. At three o'clock in the
morning, when he’d finally fallen
half-sleep, he saw a shadow crossing the
arched doorway that led from the bedroom
corridor to the living room. Quickly and
surreptitiously, the shadow went around
the table and the television. And although it
had an unusual shape and way of walking,
there was no way that Michael could be
mistaken; there was no doubt that the
shadow was Beatrice, his wife. But there
was something about the figure that was
different, unrecognizable. In a moment,
Bea was at the foot of the sofa.
Michael looked at her. In a single
movement, she took off her turquoise silk
nightdress and slipped under the rough
wool
blanket—an
uncomfortable
requirement for camping overnight in the
living room—her naked body next to his.
At 05:15 the alarm sounded, as it did
every morning. Bea was standing there
making coffee, as she did every morning.
Michael looked at her, but she looked
indifferent—almost
irritated by his
presence, there in the kitchen, hampering
the morning preparation ritual, disturbing
her concentration. She looked like a
different person from last night. They took
leave of one another with a quick kiss in the
front doorway, one of those kisses where
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they grazed their lips as though afraid of
actually touching each other.
Bea checked her agenda on the train. She
had a very long, busy day ahead. That
morning, Michael would also take their
children to school. Bea wouldn't see them
all day.
With meeting after meeting, the day went
by very quickly and was tiring; it ended late
at night, after the last meeting, which had
taken place at dinner. Bea had been
drinking that night, but she wasn't really
drunk. She only felt a little tipsy.
After dinner, outside the restaurant,
there were no taxis, so Bea decided to walk
a bit to clarify some ideas she had. She
walked to the taxi station around the
corner, but there were no taxis there,
either. She had to wait. She was cold and
felt tired and upset, when she saw
something that terrified her.
Her boss was just coming around the
corner, probably to get a cab, too, when he
was assaulted, brutally and for no reason,
by a woman who had run across the street
holding a stick. She hit the man on the head
and in the stomach with it several times
before he fell to the ground. But even then,
the woman, caught up in her savage
wickedness, didn’t stop. She kicked the
poor man until he was no longer breathing.
Bea was wordless with shock. She
couldn’t say or do anything. She was
immobilized by a feeling of deep anguish. It
was like being imprisoned in a block of ice.
Her voice had stuck in her throat. Then,
fear took over.
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The murderess, whose identity had been
a mystery up until then, turned to look at
her.
Bea felt ice stream through her veins, and
it then turned to fire. She recognized the
murderer instantly. It was herself, or rather
the evil twin version of herself—the same
one she had seen a few nights earlier in the
bathroom of her apartment.
The woman started laughing. She laughed
louder and more and more and with the joy
of her own laughter—as though a hilarious
comedy show were unfolding before her.
She bent over with laughter. Bea looked
herself up and down, to figure out why her
twin was laughing so much. But there was
nothing wrong with Bea. She was just
standing there.
The woman suddenly stopped laughing
and started running in the opposite
direction. Bea thought of following her, to
learn where she’d been hiding. But
something stopped her. If this was the
situation, no one would believe such an
absurd story—a diabolical double who was
haunting her and had just killed her boss.
So Bea decided she had to do something to
cover up the evidence of the murder and
make sure it couldn't be traced back to her.
She took the walking stick that the
murderer had left behind and hid it under
her coat. She had to destroy it.
In the meantime, she would go home and
think about what to do. After a long walk,
she found a taxi and reached the door to her
apartment building. There was her double,
waiting for her, with a hysterical evil grin,
as always. When she saw Bea get out of the
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car, the double opened the front door and
started to go inside.
Bea chased her. The double ran up the
stairs, opened the door to Bea’s apartment
and entered. Bea was just in time to grab
the open door and slip into her apartment.
Everything was dark. Everyone was asleep.
Bea walked in and made her way into the
living room and the kitchen, then into the
hallway, looking in all the rooms to find the
intruder. But she was gone. She’d vanished
into thin air.
From that day on, Bea started to feel
secretly persecuted by her double.
The identity of the violent murderer of
her boss was never revealed. This did
nothing but create terrible distress for Bea.
She began to feel that her colleagues
secretly suspected her, and she felt guilty,
not only because she knew who the killer
was, but because she had helped her to hide
the evidence. Oddly, the terrible and sudden
death of her boss had caused an unexpected
advancement in her career.
The most horrible thing was that Bea
couldn't share her secret with anyone, not
even with Michael, because she knew
nobody would ever believe her. Maybe she
really was under stress, exhausted. So she
decided to cut back on work, even if it
significantly affected her career, and spend
more time with her family.
This was when the real nightmare began
for Bea. She realized that her cruel twin was
taking her place in her life. Maybe she’d
already started a long time before. Bea
noticed it in this way.
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One Friday morning, Bea decided to pick
up her children at school. She was almost at
the entrance to the kindergarten when she
saw her double. The other Bea stepped past
her, ignoring her and with a brisk step,
reached the glass door before her.
Bea was astonished. There was
something uncanny about all
that
naturalness, all that ease. Her double had
done this before, many times. It was like a
habit.
Finally, Bea saw Doris and Lukas leaving
with her double. At
that moment,
undecided about what to do, Bea crossed
the road and hid behind an ice cream truck
parked by the opposite sidewalk. From
there, she could see what was happening.
She saw the three of them walking
together, and they seemed happy. The
children spoke and smiled at her double.
Bea felt overcome with loneliness, and then
a terrible rage assaulted her—an anger
against herself.
From that day on, Bea ran into her double
in different situations,
several times,
always with her family, taking Bea’s place.
The double wasn't always present,
though. She appeared and disappeared
suddenly. She came forward in Bea’s
absence. For example, on weekends,
Michael went with the children to the park
or the zoo, and Bea stayed at home to tidy
up and get ready to meet them; at that
moment, the double would appear and
replace her. So when Bea finally caught up
with her family, she’d find her double with
them.
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Then when they went back home, the
double would vanish and Bea could resume
her role within the family.
The same thing happened at work.
When Bea went to the bathroomor maybe
even when she was sitting at her desk, she
would see her double come into the office,
greet her colleagues and move around like
nothing had happened, as though Bea
didn't exist.
Sometimes, the double would even enter
Bea’s office. Bea saw her sitting there and
laughing, mocking her. She threw paper
planes at Bea. But she never said a word to
Bea.
The situation had become unbearable for
Bea, until one day, when she got home
from work and she found her double on the
sofa, mending Bea’s son’s clothes. Bea was
in the kitchen, and she went into the living
room to speak to her double. The double
was lounging on from the sofa, looking like
she had no intention of moving.
Bea stopped. She had no idea what was
happening. This person didn’t exist; she
was a figment of Bea’s imagination, her
disgust, her distress. Yet now, she was
there, sitting on the couch, cuddling her
children, sleeping with her husband and
taking the glory for Bea at work.
Bea didn't have the courage to say a word,
to take a step. She turned, opened the door,
went down the stairs and began to walk
aimlessly. Myriad thoughts crossed her
mind. A sense of suffocation choked her.
Tears ran down her face. That night, she
slept in the street and did so for many more
nights.
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Many weeks passed.
From that day on, Bea wandered
aimlessly in the streets. Now, her days
consisted of reaching certain places at a
certain time, not for interesting business
meetings, but to get food, clothing and
shelter. Wandering gave her a lot of time to
think, but she couldn’t reach a clear
conclusion about what was happening to
her.
Bea would go home secretly, from time to
time, stealthily, to bathe, to change and to
eat, but she always slept in the street.
Everything at home was perfect—the light
coming in through the windows, the
garden with the walnut tree, her children’s
fragrant clothing.
Finally, Bea decided what to do. It took
her many weeks and many days, but she
finally decided to face her cruel twin and
defeat her, at any cost. She came up with a
plan: she would hide in the living room and
wait for a moment when she could be alone
with her double. Bea had begun to think of
her double as “Bea Number 2” and of
herself as “Bea Number 1.”
One morning, after Bea’s husband and
children had gone out to play soccer, Bea
Number 2 was preparing lunch and
cleaning up. Bea Number 1 jumped out from
behind the sofa by the window. Bea Number
2 was a little bit surprised, but she didn't do
much, as though she’d seen a distant
unwanted relative.
Bea Number 1 had a kitchen knife with
her, and she said, "I don't know who you
are or where you came from, but I want you
out of my house and my life immediately."
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She was trembling all over as she spoke;
trembling, with the dagger felt ridiculous.
Bea Number 2 didn’t flinch. She entered
the room and sat on the couch, the same
one where Bea had seen her the first time.
She crossed her arms and said, "What do
you think you're going to do with that
knife? Kill me? You put me here. You
wanted me to be here. Don't you
remember?"
"What do you mean?" answered Bea
Number 1. She felt lost and confused. She
lowered the knife and looked around, first
at the room, at the furniture, and then at
herself. Everything suddenly seemed
foreign to her—even her own hands, her
legs and her feet.
"It’s absurd for me to have to tell you
this,'' said Bea Number 2, “but you created
this whole thing. I’m your real fear, your
hidden desires, your anxiety released. You
made your own rules ... You want to be
perfect and still be yourself. What did you
expect? Accept reality, as it is now. Live in
the shadows—the shadow you have
become."
Bea listened in silence, then looked out
the window and found the strength to react.
She raised her knife, angrily and
menacingly,
and
said,
screaming
hysterically, "I won't let you take my life. I
won't let you do this." She took two steps
toward the sofa to attack Bea Number 2 but
had to stop immediately and back away a
little. Bea Number 2 had eased herself off
the sofa, and slowly her body had changed.
It was slowly stretching. In her black
trousers, the legs had grown and bent
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backward at the knee, like the broken
branches of a tree. Her arms in the white
pullover had become thin legs. Her back
and her trunk had lengthened and widened
to make room for a huge mouth with rows
of teeth, while the little head and face
remained where they were, on the neck.
"Now, you force me to do what I don't want
to do. But at least we’ve reached the end.
Soon, all this will be over. We’ll return to
being one," said the monster who was Bea
Number 2.
The huge, thin-legged creature moved
over poor Bea Number 1 and swallowed her
piece by piece until nothing remained but
the knife.
The monster slowly recomposed itself
into the human form of Bea Number 2,
which was now the only Bea left, since it
had swallowed the first.
And it went on again and again over time,
feeding on the lives of other women
without ever stopping.
My young friend had finished telling her
story and was quite downcast. I understood
that this story had touched her very deeply,
but I didn't know the difference between
reality or fiction.
From the window upstairs, I watched her
leave and reach her house. When I looked
again, I was struck with a shudder of
horror. I saw her at the window, her eyes
turned toward me, the thousand legs and
the two heads. The alien monster was
behind the window, looking straight at me.
Maybe I wouldn't be able to escape, either.
Elda Oreto
~ from "Bright Nightmares ~ Horror Stories", 2021
Bright Nightmares: Horror Stories: Oreto, Elda: 9798701485653: Amazon.com: Books
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