"Double Exposure": Part 3 - June 12, 2025
A friend of a murdered man who came back to life learns how it happened...
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, David was visited by his dead friend Jacob, and he now gets a chance to learn how this happened…
-Kevin Carr
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Illustration by jplenio (@jplenio) from Pixabay
Double Exposure: Part 3 by Kevin Carr
I arrived at Jacob’s apartment in less than ten minutes. He kept shop in the basement of a dilapidated building with rotting supports and crusted burgundy rust flaking from beneath condemnable lead paint flakes. It was not what you would expect for a man as rich and intelligent as Jacob. But he liked it. Even though he had plenty of money in the bank from the Heisenberg Algorithm patent, he chose to live in a place like this. He paid through the nose for private security of the building, but he refused to pay for the upkeep. He said that he liked the smell of the place, even though all I could discern was a bitter reek of mildew. He said that it was nostalgic. I thought it was disgusting.
His place was in a bad area of the city, but his private security kept it clear of any undesirable characters. I always told Jacob that he was sealed off from the criminals in a fortress designed for the paranoid, yet he lived in constant danger of the roof crumbling down on his head.
It was my knowledge of Jacob’s safety concerns that alerted me when I got there. His thick sliding metal door was not only unlatched; it was wide open. I took a deep breath and flicked the switch of my disrupter to stun.
Slowly, I snuck against the wall and peered into Jacob’s apartment. The sight tore at my gut with a cold iron fist. The shock was enough for me to immediately dart inside.
Not one living soul was there to greet me...
...but the dead were spread around the room! Mentally piecing together the body parts, I counted five men. It took me only a few moments to realize that the severed head lying in the chair in front of Jacob’s computer terminal belonged to Lawrence Unger. Quick deduction told me that the three other men who had visited my apartment last night were among the dismembered bodies scattered around the room. The other body was unrecognizable to me, but I was sure that they had all come together. Perhaps it was a nameless soldier or guard.
My eyes quickly scanned the area, finding myself completely alone with the dead.
“Jacob!” I called. There was no answer. I set myself to searching the apartment.
In the hallway, I found a wadded up bundle of clothes soaked in congealing blood.
“Jesus,” I whispered as I instantly recognized the clothes. They were the same pair of ripped blue jeans, bright red and green tie-die T-shirt, dirty socks, beat up pair of sneakers, and holey pair of skid-marked underpants that I had incinerated in the fusion chamber the night before.
A staggering set of bloody footprints led away from the pile towards the bathroom. I was about to commence following these footprints when I heard a noise coming from behind me in the other room.
A man was sobbing.
As quietly as I could, I snuck back down the hall and poked my head into the main room. I was beyond the ability to be surprised at this point, however, I did feel my stomach churn at the sight before me.
Kneeling in a sticky pool of blood sat Jacob McCormick. He wore my clothes I had seen him take last night from my place. His back was to me, so I entered softly. Jacob reached in front of himself and clutched the scarlet shirt of a single torso.
“Jesus,” I heard him sob. “Sweet Jesus, what have I done?”
“Jacob,” I said softly, holding my gun steady.
Jacob suddenly shot up, blood whipping off his hands and splattering towards me. He lost momentary balance on the slippery pool of crimson, but regained it immediately.
“Jesus, David,” he wailed. “What have I done?”
“I don’t know,” I returned. “What have you done?”
Jacob looked around the room and then said through a grimace of terror. “I must have killed them all.”
“Jacob,” I said. “I am going to throw you a pair of handcuffs, okay. I want you to...”
But that was all I got out. Jacob screamed in protest.
“But it wasn’t me!” he said. “It wasn’t me, David!” He took a step towards me.
“Just cool off for a moment,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you. Just put the cuffs on, and we can get this figured out.”
“Just let me explain,” he began, staggering towards me.
“Stop right there!” I commanded in my Solar Navy training voice. But Jacob did not respond. He continued to approach.
“Jacob...” I warned.
Suddenly, Jacob’s eyes opened wide, an excited look bleeding across his face. He began to rush me.
I had no choice. I fired a bolt at him.
The stun blast shook him violently, and he crumbled at my feet. Just as he hit the floor, I heard him say something:
“Behind you.”
I turned around just in time to see the face of Jacob McCormick race from the hall and swing a thick metal bar right at my head.
I jumped out of the way, stumbling over the Jacob McCormick that lay on the floor. I was not quick enough. The charging Jacob McCormick’s swing struck home on my left shoulder, driving me to the ground. I fell, but did not lose control of my blaster.
I fired a stun shot, but my aim was marred from the latest jolt. The Jacob McCormick that attacked me had time to dodge the blast that erupted into blue electrical arcs across the wall. He climbed onto a table against the wall and slid through an upper window. His movements were fluid, almost like those of an animal. As he departed, he glanced at me quickly. I saw something inhuman in those eyes – something hiding behind the mask of Jacob McCormick! With the soft sound of running feet, the ghost was gone.
I looked down to the Jacob McCormick lying on the floor and slid handcuffs around his wrists.
• • •
Jacob McCormick – the one that I had handcuffed and dragged away from his lab – died on the way to the hospital in an ambulance. The massive excitement from the evening and the sudden stun bolt induced an embolism in the right tricuspid valve of his heart, the shock apparently too much for him. For the second time in two days, I saw my friend die. But this time, he was able to tell me what was behind this whole mess. He made me promise, as he gasped his last breath, that I would set things right... that I would take care of the loose ends.
Because I was his friend, I told him I would.
That was why I returned to Jacob McCormick’s apartment shortly after leaving his corpse at the hospital.
The police had come and cleaned up most of the gore. At least the body parts were hauled away and a haphazard attempt at mopping up the lakes of blood was made. A guard had been stationed at the apartment, and the room had been sealed off with the eternal yellow tape. Before I even saw the destroyed tape barrier, the absence of the guard alerted me to danger.
He was not at his lookout point just outside the building. In fact, I could not find him anywhere around the apartment’s direct area at all. It was only after looking in the rear dumpster that I found the guard, his head spun a full 180 degrees and a blood line marking the side of his face. Flies had already begun to swarm around the man’s gaping eyes.
I drew my disrupter and ran back to the apartment’s door. As quietly as possible, I peered around the jamb and into Jacob’s place. In the center of the room sat a figure huddled over the computer terminal. Beyond him was a gallery of grotesque creatures. I recognized each creature as having the original look of Jacob McCormick. Each wore a pair of ripped blue jeans, a bright red and green tie-die T-shirt, dirty socks, and a beat up pair of sneakers. Although I could not see them, I’m sure they each also wore a holey pair of skid-marked underpants. As they lined the wall, I could see their differences. The ones closest to the door looked relatively normal. But in the faces of the copies, I saw the progressive degradation of humanity.
Some looked monstrous, some looked semi-human. But none looked completely human. As they sat, I could see where they could have once been Jacob McCormick, but that was no longer the case. Their faces were hideous caricatures, melting into an organic mass of droopy, ebony eyes and tentacle-like feelers where their mouths might have once been. The most deformed ones twitched, moaned, and squatted on the ground like formless beasts from the deep.
Progressive steps, Jacob’s words he had said in the ambulance haunted me. As time goes by, the copies spiral to a goal. I have not seen that goal reached, but everything I have sent through will degrade in these progressive steps to this creature trying to escape…
TO BE CONTINUED!