Doppelganger 2

Dele crossed the parking lot of his workplace’s property and quickly got into his vehicle, a not-so-flamboyant Nissan, grey in color; an everyman’s car, so to speak. There was nothing that set it apart from the average Joe’s automobile on the street, which was specifically why he had chosen it for his own. Ife had her own car, a similarly modest Volkswagen model in better shape than his. He liked it that way. While neither of the couple favored too much public attention, Dele preferred it even less than his wife did, opining that too much attention often brought very bad luck. If only he knew that he was the subject of attention, and one of a frightening nature.

Dele’s route home could be traced along three major paths: the first was the expressway, which involved hours of traffic, and thus was not ideal for an evening such as this. The second route was even worse, and the reason Dele’s car was still serving him contentedly and faithfully was because he had made it a habit not to ply that road. It had potholes, and the most car-friendly of these were still more likely to scrape silencers and give a plethora of axle problems. Ife often joked that the average potholes on that route were so deep, one could probably prospect them for crude oil.

The third route was a path through a quiet neighborhood,, peaceful and neither inhibited by an excessive volume of cars, nor the lack of volume of certain portions of the road. It was here Dele often passed. It was here that the attack was sprung. As Dele drove along, he noticed a car which coincidentally looked like his own; same brand, same color, same bumper. It even had the same scars: a tiny fault just below the handle of the driver’s door, a slight dent on the right side of the bonnet. Oh, and it had the same sticker on his rear screen… not to mention that the plate number was identical to his own. Okay, that wasn’t coincidental.

Three strangely dressed people seemed to be examining the vehicle; strangely dressed, because it wasn’t everyday one saw people dressed in Ku Klux Klan-style robes, only they were jet-black, instead of white. One of them saw him and pointed frantically, sending the others into rabid activity. One got into the strange twin of Dele’s car and sped off, while the other two stood in the road and produced a weapon each; one had a cutlass, and the other a hand axe. This was no time to play the hero. Quickly stepping on the brakes and switching the gear into reverse, Dele sought to escape the eerie cultists. Yes, that was probably right; they must surely be cultists, though what they wanted from him was anybody’s guess.

The cultists could run well, apparently faster than he could reverse, as a matter of fact. While he was still trying to swing his vehicle around and kick the gas for all he was worth, a blow from the hand axe shattered the window closest to him. The other cultist seemed to be chanting something while running, and Dele discovered, to his shock, that his eyes began to swim. Swerving this way and that, while trying to control his slipping mind and errant car, Dele was only vaguely conscious of the two cultists now on his vehicle, one on the bonnet and the other on the roof. By now, he realized that he had turned off his familiar path home. The road was getting increasingly rough, while the cultists kept trying to get at him with their weapons, something he had been miraculously able to largely avoid.

Then the car ran into a gully, the kind of gully that killed anything that ran into it, even water rivulets.

To be continued...

Thanks for coming!

That little boy,

@pearlumie