"Double Exposure": Part 2 - June 5, 2025
A resurrection after a brutal death leads to questioning of a modern technology...
Every Thursday, Silver Gecko Publishing highlights one of my stories, either a work of short fiction, a novel, or an audiobook. This week’s selection is the short story “Double Exposure,” from the anthology THE GHOST READERS AND OTHER STORIES, available on Kindle, and in paperback.
I am serializing this longer short story in the Substack, so you have a chance to read it through the newsletter for free. If you like the story, be sure to buy a copy of THE GHOST READERS AND OTHER STORIES, available on Kindle, and in paperback for many other stories like it.
In the last segment, we left David heading home in a depression after seeing his best friend Jacob killed at a Tele-Depot. However, there was a surprise waiting for him at home…
-Kevin Carr
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Illustration by MariaD42530 (@MariaD42530) from Pixabay
Double Exposure: Part 2 by Kevin Carr
My hand fumbled behind me for the light switch on the wall. After some scrambling, my middle finger found it and flipped it on. The kitchen came to life with light, and I saw the identity of the man in my apartment.
It was the last person I expected to see.
It was Jacob McCormick!
• • •
Someone was shaking me. My head warped around in dizziness, and my shoulder blades throbbed along with my tailbone. Suddenly, I realized that I lay in repose, but not in the traditional bed. I could feel the cold linoleum underneath myself – the hard surface of my kitchen floor.
It suddenly became clear to me...I had fainted. My knees had buckled, and I had stumbled backwards, falling to the floor. Normally, I would have been embarrassed at the situation: a hard-nosed officer in the Solar Navy fainting dead away in his Jockey Shorts at eleven o’clock on a Friday night. But under the circumstances, the act was forgivable.
I cracked my eyes opened and looked up at the person shaking me. Although he was back-lighted by the fluorescent bulbs lining the ceiling, his identity was unmistakable.
So the ghost has form, I thought. He can touch me.
“David,” the ghost said.
I wanted to scramble away in terror, but I was too exhausted.
“You’re dead,” I said.
“What happened?” Jacob said, sitting back, Indian-style on the kitchen floor. “I know this seems fantastic, but I need you to level with me: How did I die tonight?”
“I think you were targeted for a hit,” I said, too tired to resist. “Some assassin dressed as an ultra-hallucinogen junkie shot you in the chest with a third level disrupter this afternoon. You died in pieces.”
For a moment, a bout of giddiness and hysteria appeared within me. Why was I explaining this to him? He was there, for Christ’s sake!
I suppressed the urge to cackle. It seemed right to comply with the ghost.
“When did this happen?” Jacob asked.
“About six o’clock,” I replied. “I had just teleported to the Depot and met you.”
Jacob reached a hand up and stroked his chubby chin.
“That seems about right,” he said.
“Are you really Jacob?” I blurted.
The man across from me looked up to meet my eyes. He lowered his hand and leaned forward.
“Yes,” he said. “And no.”
“I saw you carted off in a bag, Jake.”
“Yes, you did. I’m sure that you did. And what’s left of that body surely rests in the appropriate place. But that body is no longer me. That body is dead. I am Jacob McCormick, and I am alive.”
“How?”
Jacob looked around for a moment, as if he was afraid of someone listening.
“It’s a new project I’m working on.”
“I know,” I said. “For the Solar Navy. You told me this earlier this evening.”
“I did?” Jacob asked, a look of concern spreading across his face. “How much?”
“Nothing more than that. Don’t you remember?”
“No,” he said. “I only have common memories before 9:34 this morning with the Jacob McCormick that you met this afternoon.”
I leaned forward and looked my friend in the eyes. Why such a specific time frame? Was this really Jacob McCormick? I had thought I could tell if he were an imposter. Show me his perfect double – someone who talks, acts, looks, smells, coughs exactly like Jacob. I could tell the difference. No double was perfect.
But this one was. Perfect to even the subtle location of haphazard zit scars from adolescence. This was Jacob McCormick.
But so was the man I met this afternoon. If it were not, I would have noticed then as well.
Except there was something about him that felt odd, something perhaps beneath physical appearance. There really was no change from the Jacob McCormick that I knew, but instead the hint of a change ready to take place.
“I need you to do something for me,” Jacob said, handing me a bundle of clothes. “Incinerate these in your fusion chamber.”
Just then, I realized that the clothes he was wearing were all too familiar. With a closer look, I knew that they came from my own closet.
“But Jacob...” I said.
“Just do this for me,” he pleaded. “I need to take care of a few things.”
I took the bundle loosely and nodded. Suddenly, a sharp knock on the door cut through the room. Jacob startled like a frightened puppy.
“I need to go,” Jacob said, rising from his seat. “Just get rid of those, please.”
“Sure,” I said. And with that, Jacob ran to the back of the apartment and out of the window to the fire escape.
The knock at the door came again. I rose, and on my way to the door, I shoved the bundle of clothes that Jacob had given me deep into my kitchen trash can. Then, I answered the door.
“Lawrence,” I said, immediately recognizing Lawrence Unger from my base. He was flanked by three other men that I did not recognize.
“Hello Pierce,” Unger said. “I need to talk with you.”
“About what?” I asked. “No disrespect intended, sir, but I really am tired, and I’ve had a very bad day.”
“I just need to ask a few questions.”
I looked him deep in the eye for a moment. Being the same rank as Unger, I had an advantage. Unless I received orders from an officer superior to us, I did not need to comply. In light of the day’s incidents, I chose not to let the men in my apartment. I did, however, run a chance that one of the other three unrecognized men were Solar Naval officers above us in rank. But that was a chance I was willing to take. If they desperately wanted in my apartment, they would not ask. This simple fact showed that they wanted to avoid suspicion. If I insisted on hearing higher orders, that might shine a light where they did not want it.
“What is this concerning?” I asked.
Unger looked uneasy for a moment.
“Yes?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
“It’s about Jacob McCormick,” Unger said.
I sighed, then leaned on the door jamb. “Read the police report. I saw him killed today; not much else happened.”
Unger shifted his weight. I was leery of any questioning that happened in my own home. Although I was a military officer, my home was still my haven. If I offered Unger and his friends entrance, anything found or seen in the apartment could be used against me in any case that may be happening behind my back. Only an official order from a higher command – or a search warrant – could force me to allow them into my apartment.
They were questioning me about Jacob McCormick, and his ghost had just appeared to me minutes before and handed me a package of clothes to be destroyed. I wanted to be on firm ground with this incident. I did not want to be questioned in a semi-shocked state.
At that point, I was certain that the other men were, indeed, superior officers. Sure, they could give me an official order, but that would be highly irregular, and would paint their stealth night visit with a bright red flag. Probably they thought I would have no objection to allowing them entrance, and I would have if I had not just been visited by a dead man.
“Look, Lawrence,” I said. “I just saw a very good friend die today. I am also on leave. In two days, I will be glad to talk to you back at the base.”
Unger stood silent for a moment. But I stood my ground. At that point, with their bluff, I knew they did not want to induce an order for the sake of subtlety.
Finally, Unger nodded and smiled.
“You’re right,” he finally said. “This can wait. But not until the end of your leave. Be in my office tomorrow morning.”
Without another word, they turned around and left.
• • •
Four hours after Lawrence Unger and the other three silent men disappeared from my doorstep, I took the bag of clothes down to the fusion chamber in the basement. Before I threw it in, I looked inside to find a pair of ripped blue jeans, a bright red and green tie-die T-shirt, dirty socks, a beat up pair of sneakers, and a holey pair of skid-marked underpants.
I tossed the bundle in and watched it destroyed in the fusion furnace.
• • •
The next morning I rose late for my own schedule at 8:30. The stress and trauma of the previous day had wiped me out. Sand crusted over my eyes and I felt the steady throb of an aching bladder with many hours of storage, the side-effects of a heavy night’s sleep.
I took about a half hour to shave, shower, dress, and eat. Then, I took the next fifteen or so minutes to have a once-over of the apartment. I wanted to be sure that Jacob did not leave any evidence to directly incriminate me. I knew that if he had left fingerprints or loose hairs around as evidence, I could hardly clean it all up without knowing where it was – and that would definitely take more than a fifteen minute glance. But, I knew that evidence of his presence in my apartment did not prove that I helped him. Before I discovered what went on that day, I wanted myself covered and relatively safe.
Convinced that I had removed or covered any macroscopic details of my aid to Jacob, I locked up my apartment and got in my car. I did not want to fight off a case of TB hiccups that morning. A forty-five minute drive to the base was far more appealing. It would give me time to gather my thoughts.
I pulled out of my driveway and headed towards the interstate.
About fifteen minutes into my ride, my phone rang. After a moment of deliberation, I answered.
“Pierce here,” I said with a sigh.
“David,” a deranged voice called into my ear. It took me only a moment to recognize the owner: Jacob McCormick!
“Jake!” I yelled. I did not have time to worry about my phone records becoming another connection to the murdered man. Jacob’s voice knocked all sense of reality from me. It was in such a panic. I simply could not ignore him.
“Oh, Jesus! God, the slaughter! David! You need to get over to my place as soon as you can! It’s all gone horribly wrong! The program has deteriorated! They made another copy, but it is rotten!”
“Get a hold of yourself, Jake,” I yelled into the phone as I swung the wheel of the car to run down an off-ramp, changing my heading towards Jacob’s place.
“It’s too much!” Jacob screamed. I heard the shattering of glass in the background. A man screamed not too far from him. “It’s too much,” he continued as another snatch of cacophony erupted behind him. “The copy has gone bad! Get over here now! And bring your gun!”
With that, the call terminated. I reached a hand up to wipe the sweat off of my upper lip. If Jacob was asking for my gun, it had to be dangerous. Jacob had hated guns ever since we were children. He accepted my use of them as a Solar Navy officer, but I never thought I would see the day when Jacob actually requested I bring one to him.
But Jacob is dead, a voice called from within me. I shook my head to clear it.
Keeping a firm grip on the steering wheel, I reached across to the shotgun seat and opened the glove compartment. I pulled out a small Solar Navy issued disrupter. Holding it in front of my face, I checked the battery charge: in the green with more than 75 percent power. A quick glance at the safety ensured me that it was on…
TO BE CONTINUED!