28 May Copycats

Part I

Dirt roads in Washington weren’t like the ones back in Nebraska. Spencer had grown up seeing country highways stretch straight and open toward the horizon, interrupted only by the occasional wheat field, gas station, or power line. But this—this winding, tree-choked corridor felt more like a path carved into something older and darker. The forest pressed in from both sides, thick with fir and cedar, and what little sky was visible above the canopy had begun to dull from the sharp clarity of morning to the pale haze of early afternoon. It was beautiful in the way that deep water was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not trusted.

He didn’t say any of this aloud. Clarissa was playing music through her phone, something ambient and reverb-heavy, while Ava scrolled through photos from the trail they’d stopped at earlier. Ricky had his arm slung over the steering wheel like he was born with it there, the knuckles of his right hand tapping the dashboard in rhythm with the song. The car was an old forest-green Jeep Cherokee with too many bumper stickers and a five-inch crack in the passenger-side window. It had no business running as smoothly as it did, but Ricky had a way with machines—and with people, for that matter. Spencer still wasn’t sure whether he liked that or not.

“You ever been this far out?” Ricky asked, glancing at him in the rearview.

Spencer shrugged. “Not really. My family didn’t camp much.”

Clarissa laughed from the passenger seat. “Spence thinks anything west of Seattle is cryptid country.”

“It is cryptid country,” Ava said, not looking up. “We passed a road called Devil’s Glen two turns ago. Come on.”

Ricky smirked. “That’s not even the worst of it. You want stories, I’ll give you stories.”

Clarissa rolled her eyes but leaned closer to him anyway, adjusting the angle of her sunglasses. “Save it for the fire, ranger boy.”

It was the first time Spencer had been invited to do anything since moving into the dorms three weeks ago. He had met Clarissa and Ava through Intro to Media Studies, and Ricky had shown up two days later when Clarissa dragged Spencer to a house party. Ricky didn’t seem like the college type. He was a couple of years older, didn’t talk about classes, and had the relaxed confidence of someone who’d already seen things worth keeping to himself. When he offered to drive them all out to a place “where you could actually see stars,” Spencer had said yes before he could talk himself out of it.

The car rounded a bend, and the road narrowed again, a thin slice of gravel flanked by steep ditches and undergrowth so dense it looked like a wall. That was when the Jeep hit something.

There was a sudden thump beneath the front passenger tire, followed by a sound like wet bark snapping. The whole vehicle lurched. Spencer’s shoulder slammed into the door. Clarissa cursed and braced herself against the dash as Ricky slammed on the brakes and veered them onto the shallow, weed-choked shoulder.

“Jesus,” Ava muttered. “What was that?”

Ricky threw the car into park and got out without answering. Spencer opened his door more carefully and stepped into the gravel, immediately feeling the soft give beneath his sneakers. He walked around to the front and saw the tire—shredded. A jagged piece of wood jutted out from beneath the wheel well, broken at an angle that could only be described as purposeful. It wasn’t a branch. It was a spike. Hand-carved, bark stripped, sharp enough to puncture through heavy-duty rubber.

“Someone left that there on purpose,” Clarissa said, joining them.

Ricky crouched beside the tire, running his fingers along the edge of the hole. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Looks that way.”

They spent the next five minutes confirming what they already suspected. There was no signal—not even a flicker of a bar—and the nearest town, if Ricky was remembering right, was at least five miles back down the road. The air had grown hotter since they’d left the last highway, and the drone of insects was starting to rise in the silence between them.

“Well,” Ricky said at last, standing and wiping his hands on his jeans. “We’re not getting a tow out here. Not without hiking back.”

Clarissa groaned. “Can’t we wait until someone drives by?”

“You’ve seen the map. This road’s pretty well off-grid. Might’ve been an old service trail at some point.” He looked down the empty curve of forest stretching ahead of them, then back at the others. “I’ll go. I can make better time solo. You all stay here.”

Ava raised an eyebrow. “Are you serious?”

Ricky turned toward the Jeep, opened the driver’s door, and reached under the seat. When he stood up, there was a compact black pistol in his hand. “Yeah,” he said, as if that explained everything.

Clarissa’s mouth fell open. “You brought a gun?”

“I always bring it when I come out here.”

“Why?”

He looked at each of them in turn before answering. “There are stories. Stuff people don’t talk about much. Mimics. Skinwalkers. You’ve heard of them, right? Things that wear your face but get it wrong. The locals here call them ‘copycats.’”

“Okay,” Ava said, crossing her arms. “Copycats… riiiight. Now I know you’re screwing with us.”

“I’m not,” Ricky said, and the gravity in his voice startled even Spencer. “If something comes back here looking like me, don’t open the doors. Don’t talk to it. Don’t trust it. Ask it questions—specific ones. Only I’ll know the answers.”

Clarissa laughed again, nervously this time. “You’re serious.”

“I am.” Ricky took a deep breath. “Ask me what I was drinking when I met you, Clarissa. Ask me what’s tattooed on my back. Ask me what kind of dog my sister used to have. If it gets any of those wrong, it’s not me.” He tucked the gun into the waistband of his jeans, tightened the straps of his backpack, and nodded once. “Windows up. Doors locked. Stay in the car.”

Then he turned and walked down the road, vanishing into the heat shimmer between the trees before anyone could argue.

Part II

For a while, they said nothing.

The quiet that followed Ricky’s departure stretched on. Even the insects, constant and background before, seemed to have lessened their chorus. Spencer watched the ripple of dust settle on the Jeep’s hood, then leaned back against the headrest, hands folded tightly in his lap.

Clarissa, true to form, was the first to break the tension. She reached forward to turn the music back on—something dreamy and low-tempo—and cranked the window down two inches.

“So,” she said, dragging the word out, “we’re not gonna pretend that wasn’t insane, right?”

Ava let out a short, brittle laugh. “You mean the mimic bullshit or the gun?”

“Both,” Clarissa said, stretching. “That was some prepper-core lunacy. Like, was that a warning, or was he messing with us? We’re not about to get pranked, are we?”

Spencer didn’t respond. He was watching the bend in the road where Ricky had vanished, half expecting him to come trudging back with a grin and some reveal that it had all been an elaborate prank. But the way he’d looked—serious, almost frightened—that hadn’t been part of a bit. Not even close.

“I mean, if we’re gonna be here a while,” Clarissa said, already swinging the door open, “I’d rather not bake alive.”

Spencer sat forward. “Wait. Ricky said to stay in the car.”

Clarissa leaned against the doorframe, one leg extended, her sunglasses now perched atop her head. “Yeah, well, Ricky also said a forest cryptid was going to come back wearing his face. I think we can risk some fresh air.”

Before Spencer could protest further, she climbed out. The sky had cleared completely by then, and the sun filtered in through the breaks in the trees, dappling the gravel and the moss-covered embankments in gold. Clarissa stood in it like it was a spotlight, arms raised above her head as she stretched, revealing a pale strip of stomach above her jeans.

Ava climbed into the backseat beside Spencer, eyeing him sideways. “You know she’s doing that for your benefit, right?”

“I’m aware,” Spencer muttered.

“She flirts with everyone. It doesn’t mean anything.”

He nodded, though the flush in his ears suggested otherwise.

Clarissa, meanwhile, had hoisted herself onto the roof of the Jeep. She peeled off her tank top with theatrical flair, revealing a black sports bra underneath, and lay back against the metal, soaking in the warmth. She turned her head slightly to regard him.

“You coming up here, Spence? You look like you could use some Vitamin D. You’re paler than the underbelly of a trout.”

Spencer hesitated. The air smelled sweet and green, the kind of scent you never found in cities. Somewhere in the distance, a jay let out a single, harsh cry. Clarissa was smiling at him now, hand extended in mock invitation. Her legs were crossed at the ankles, toes flexing in the sun.

He looked at Ava, who raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Then he glanced again at the road.

Nothing moved.

The breeze stirred the tops of the trees and caused a few shadows to shift along the ground, but otherwise, the world held still. He imagined climbing up beside her, maybe laughing, maybe letting the heat of the car’s metal roof blur the edges of his worry. Maybe kissing her. Maybe forgetting for a moment that they were stranded miles from anywhere with no reception and a spike through their tire.

But then the memory returned—the way Ricky had turned to him, gaze sharpened by something that wasn’t paranoia, but experience. If anything comes back that looks like me…

“I’m good,” Spencer said finally. “I’ll stay down here.”

Clarissa sighed in mock disappointment and rested her arms behind her head. “Suit yourself. You’re missing out.”

They sat like that for twenty minutes. The warmth of the day lulled them into a half-sleepy silence, broken only by the occasional creak of the Jeep’s frame or the rustle of birds above. Spencer allowed himself to close his eyes for just a moment, focusing on the rhythmic sway of the trees beyond the windshield. For the first time since the tire blew, it felt like maybe they would be fine after all.

Then the gunshot rang out.

It echoed once, sharp and unmistakable, cracking across the stillness.

Clarissa jerked upright on the roof, nearly losing her balance. Ava’s phone slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor.

Spencer stood up, heart pounding, eyes fixed on the direction of the sound. It had come from deep in the woods—far enough that the trees had muffled the tail end, but close enough to be certain it wasn’t a hunter or some far-off firework. This was a gunshot.

A few seconds later came the yell.

It wasn’t a scream, exactly—more like a garbled exclamation, hoarse and confused. Then nothing. No footsteps. No rustling. Just the high whine of cicadas returning to fill the void.

Clarissa slid down the side of the car and landed hard, breath quickening. “That was Ricky’s gun.”

“You don’t know that,” Ava said, though her voice had changed.

“I do,” Spencer replied, already backing toward the driver’s side. “It was close. It was—”

He stopped himself. Something was watching, and listening. He could feel it.

They were not alone.

Part III

They stayed inside the car after the gunshot, windows up and doors locked just like Ricky had instructed. No one spoke for several minutes. The atmosphere inside the Jeep gradually became unbearable. Clarissa sat in the backseat, hugging her knees, her eyes darting toward the tree line every few seconds as if expecting it to peel open. Ava stared straight ahead, jaw clenched, phone gripped in one hand like it might spring to life and offer them deliverance.

Spencer sat behind the wheel, though he hadn’t started the engine. The keys dangled from the ignition, silent and inert. He didn’t remember switching seats with Ricky, only that he felt more in control behind the wheel—even if that control was largely symbolic.

“Should we do something?” Clarissa asked. Her voice was too loud in the confined space, too sharp around the edges. “I mean… go look for him?”

“We don’t know what happened,” Ava said. “It could’ve been an accident.”

“No,” Spencer replied, gripping the wheel tightly. “That wasn’t an accident.”

They didn’t need to rehash it. The sound of the gunshot had carried a finality to it—one that made explanations like “he slipped” or “he fired by mistake” ring hollow. It hadn’t been a warning shot. It had been a last resort.

Still, they did nothing. The heat in the car grew more pronounced, and with it came the subtle itch of waiting too long. At some point, they’d have to decide whether to stay or to act. The idea of walking the road was no more appealing than it had been before, but doing nothing seemed worse, as though the longer they sat in place, the more the woods would notice them.

Then Ava gasped and pointed.

Spencer turned in time to see a figure moving along the side of the road—staggering, bent slightly at the waist, and covered in dirt and sweat. The man came into view slowly, emerging from the trees like he’d been formed from them. His shirt was torn at the collar, his arms streaked with grime, and there were fresh scratches across his cheek.

It was Ricky.

Or—it looked like him.

Spencer’s first reaction was relief. The second was doubt.

Clarissa sat forward. “Oh my God, he’s alive—”

“Wait!” Spencer snapped. He reached across the console and locked the passenger door with a sharp click. “Something’s wrong.”

Ricky stopped a few feet from the Jeep, blinking against the sunlight. His posture was off. Not by much—just enough that it struck Spencer as wrong in a way he couldn’t articulate. One of Ricky’s shoes was missing, and his remaining sock was black with mud. His chest rose and fell in uneven bursts, but there was no sign of the gun. No phone. No backpack.

He raised one arm and knocked on the driver’s side window, three soft taps. “Hey,” he said. “It’s me.”

None of them moved.

“You’re not opening the door,” he said. “Why?”

Spencer leaned toward the glass. “Where’s your phone?”

“I dropped it. It’s busted.”

“Where’s the gun?”

Ricky hesitated for half a second. “Lost it when I fell.”

“You didn’t bring help?”

“There wasn’t anyone nearby. I thought—I figured I’d get you guys and we’d walk back together.”

Spencer didn’t respond. He looked over his shoulder. Clarissa and Ava both stared forward, tense and uncertain. Something about Ricky’s voice was wrong. Not in pitch or tone—it was too perfect. But the rhythm of his speech, the cadence, the flow of his words—they felt rehearsed. Constructed.

Then he grinned and chuckled.

Spencer had seen Ricky laugh before—when someone said something outrageous, when Clarissa teased him, when Ava made some deadpan remark that slipped under the radar. Ricky’s laugh was always a little too loud, always a little infectious.

His smile didn’t reach his eyes. It peeled across his face like a mask stretching too tight over a skull.

Clarissa whispered, “Spencer…”

“I know,” he said. “I remember.”

Ricky—or the thing wearing Ricky’s shape—tilted its head as Spencer rolled the window down an inch.

“Answer some questions for me,” Spencer said, each word crisp and deliberate.

The thing’s smile faltered. “You think I’m not me.”

Spencer ignored it. “What were you drinking when you met Clarissa?”

It blinked. “Beer.”

“Wrong,” Clarissa said softly. “It was grapefruit White Claw.”

“What’s tattooed on your back?” Spencer asked.

“Tribal—some kind of tribal shit,” it said, flinching as though it had guessed too quickly.

“Wrong again,” Ava said. “It’s a compass. His dad’s compass.”

Spencer took a breath, then leaned in, just enough to meet its eyes. “What kind of dog did your sister used to have?”

The silence that followed was too long to be accidental.

When the impostor answered, its voice had changed. Still Ricky’s timbre, but deeper now—emptier. “Something that barked too much.”

Spencer rolled the window back up and locked the doors again.

The thing dropped its smile and stepped back from the car. Its expression darkened—not in anger, but in disappointment. As if it had hoped this performance would be sufficient, and now it had to resort to less pleasant methods.

“Come on,” it said, tone almost petulant. “You’re just being paranoid.”

Ava recoiled as the impostor leaned forward and pressed both hands against the hood. Then it pushed down with both hands, and the frame of the Jeep groaned audibly. The hood bowed inward slightly. The whole vehicle rocked.

The thing moved to the driver’s side door and tried the handle. When it didn’t budge, it leaned against it with its full weight, one palm planted flat against the glass. Its face was inches from Spencer’s, eyes wide, pupils dilated far too large for the light.

“I can tear this thing open, you know,” it said. “I don’t want to. But I will.”

It slammed its fist against the door—once, twice, then stopped.

“I’ll give you one last chance. Open the door.”

Spencer met its gaze. “No.”

The thing let out a sound—something that might have once been a sigh, but came out more like a growl choked back with effort. Then, without another word, it turned and walked away. Not back toward the trees, but around the car and off the shoulder, moving with a jerky, disjointed rhythm that looked human until you really watched it. Until you noticed the knees that bent wrong, the shoulder that dipped with each step like something had been disconnected.

Ava began to cry softly. Clarissa rubbed her hands over her face, as if trying to wipe away what she’d seen.

Spencer started the engine. The flat tire screamed in protest as the rim scraped against the gravel.

“I don’t care if we ruin the wheels!” he shouted. “We’re getting out of here!”

Part IV

The sound the Jeep made as Spencer pressed the gas was something between a shriek and a groan. The front right tire, now nearly stripped from the rim, spun sluggishly over gravel and shattered bark. The Jeep lurched forward in fits and starts, wobbling with every turn of the axle, and even at ten miles per hour, it felt like the whole vehicle might fall apart beneath them.

Clarissa braced herself between the front seats, arms extended to steady herself. Ava held onto the overhead handle, eyes darting to the side mirrors.

“Can we even make it like this?” Ava asked.

“We don’t have a choice,” Spencer said. “We drive until we find someone—or until we’re out of road.”

A figure stepped out onto the shoulder ahead.

It was the same one—the false Ricky, no longer pretending to be anything else. Its expression had flattened into something hollow. The affectation of humanity had drained from its face. Its arms hung too still at its sides, its posture slack, as if awaiting further instruction. Then it smiled again, but this time there was no curve to it, only the exposure of teeth.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” it called out, its tone right but its voice distorted—half a second off, one octave too deep.

The thing tilted its head back and let out a whistle.

It wasn’t the kind of sound any of them had expected, nothing at all like what a person would imitate. It was piercing and unnatural—shrill enough to make the air vibrate—and it seemed to spiral rather than echo, curling into the trees like it was being absorbed by them.

For a few seconds, there was only that noise, and then stillness.

Movement followed.

At first, it was impossible to tell how many shapes were filtering through the forest. The light fractured as it passed between branches, breaking up the forms into pieces—shoulders detached from torsos, limbs merging with trunks. But as they drew closer to the edge of the woods, their bodies became clearer, and the details resolved into something unmistakable.

They were all Ricky.

These were not exact duplicates, but seemingly purposeful approximations. Some looked fresher than others, their clothes only slightly torn, skin only lightly smudged. Others seemed distorted—faces drawn long, arms too flexible at the joints, eyes bulging slightly from the sockets. Each bore the same general injuries: dirt-streaked arms, twisted shirts, blood at the corners of the mouth or jaw.

There were at least six of them, maybe more. The trees still moved behind the first wave.

They formed a loose semicircle around the Jeep, their heads turning at the same time like synchronized dolls. One moved toward the rear bumper. Another placed a hand on the hood and dragged its fingers slowly across the metal, leaving a smear that looked like grease but smelled like rot.

Clarissa made a soft sound in her throat and pulled her knees up into her seat.

“Keep driving,” she whispered.

Spencer pressed harder on the pedal. The Jeep jolted forward again, but the road ahead was narrowing, and the steering was becoming harder to control. The impostors didn’t chase them—not at first—but followed in slow arcs, keeping pace along the shoulder and ditch, drifting closer with each second.

Then the one by the passenger side mirror raised its arm and drove its elbow down onto the glass. The side mirror snapped off with a sharp crack and landed in the gravel. Ava screamed.

Another pounded against the gas tank door with its fist until the latch gave and the flap sprang open. One near the rear window pulled something from its mouth—a metal object bent and stained with saliva. A knife blade. Or something that had once resembled one.

“We have to get out of here!” Ava shouted.

“I’m trying!” Spencer said, but the Jeep was beginning to resist.

With a jolt that nearly sent them into the ditch, he felt the rear give out. The vehicle tilted slightly and groaned beneath them. One of the back tires had gone completely flat—maybe two.

He looked down at the dash. The warning lights had begun to glow—pressure failure, traction loss. Then came the smell: the bitter tang of rubber melting against metal.

Another figure leapt onto the hood, knees slamming into the frame, palms smearing grime across the windshield. It crouched there, head turning mechanically from side to side, teeth clenched so tightly that the gums had begun to bleed. Its eyes locked on Spencer’s, and it mouthed something he couldn’t hear. Then, louder this time, all of them began to speak at once.

“There will be more after nightfall,” they said, voices layered together like a choir in reverse.

“There will be more.”

“There will be more.”

The creature on the hood reared back and slammed its forehead into the glass. The windshield spidered, but held. Again, and again it hammered the vehicle.

Clarissa grabbed Spencer’s arm. “Do something!”

“I can’t—” he started, but then the entire Jeep rocked hard to the left as one of the creatures wrenched the rear door handle and tried to peel it open.

Another slammed its fist into the roof. A third tore the license plate clean off and held it above its head like a trophy.

They were playing now, testing them. Mocking them.

And then, as quickly as it had started, the noise stopped. The creatures froze in place, limbs still raised mid-motion, heads cocked as if listening to some silent cue. One by one, they backed away from the vehicle, retreating into the woods in the same way they had emerged—backward, fluid, silent.

The last one to disappear was the original impostor—the one who’d come out of the woods first. It stared at them for several seconds longer than the others. Then it stepped behind a tree and was gone.

Spencer let his hands fall from the wheel. The sound of the overheated engine ticked in the sudden quiet.

Ava was crying again, this time without restraint. Clarissa looked dazed, her hands shaking in her lap.

“We’re stuck,” Spencer said, not because they didn’t know, but because saying it aloud made it real.

Clarissa nodded slowly. “They didn’t want to kill us yet.”

“They wanted to scare us,” Ava whispered. “Because something worse is coming.”

“Spencer, I don’t want to die,” Clarissa sobbed. “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer said. “I’m sorry.”

Part V

They didn’t speak again for several minutes after the impostors vanished. Every sound outside the vehicle seemed suspect. Every rustle of the trees, every shift of gravel beneath the Jeep, every darting shadow across the windshield could have been the return of those things. There was no way to tell whether they had truly gone or were waiting—watching from behind the green curtain of undergrowth, waiting for someone to crack a window or step outside.

Clarissa sat curled against the door, her legs drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around her knees in a posture that suggested both defense and defeat. Ava was clenching and unclenching her fists in her lap, eyes pinned to the road ahead as if sheer will might summon a rescue.

Spencer had not removed his hands from the wheel. His knuckles had long since gone white, but he didn’t trust himself to let go. Not yet.

Then they heard it. Footsteps. Not the crunch and scramble of a creature, but the steady, familiar sound of boots on gravel. Measured. Human. Approaching slowly, cautiously.

Ava straightened. “Someone’s coming.”

Spencer leaned forward, peering through the fractured windshield. A figure was approaching from the same direction as before—same gait, same height. But this time, something was different. The man had Ricky’s build, Ricky’s clothes, even Ricky’s walk. His shirt was untucked and streaked with dust, but he was holding something in each hand. As he drew closer, it became clear.

A cell phone.

And the gun.

Clarissa gasped. “Oh my God! It’s him! It’s really him this time!” She moved to open the door.

“No, Clarissa! Stop!” Spencer said, putting his hand on hers. “Not so fast. We don’t that for sure.”

The figure stopped ten feet from the Jeep and raised one arm in greeting. “It’s me!” he called out. “I made it to town. Took forever to get a signal. But I’m here now. I’ve got help on the way.”

He held up the phone like a badge of proof.

“And the gun?” Spencer asked.

“Still got it. Didn’t have to use it again.” He smiled. “Just lucky, I guess.”

But even as he stood there, his posture calm and inviting, there was something unnatural in his composure. He didn’t appear winded or tense. There was no urgency in his voice, no trace of what someone might sound like after surviving a near-death encounter and traversing miles. He spoke as if he were ordering coffee.

Spencer swallowed and opened his window an inch. “You said help is coming?”

“They’ll be here soon. Sheriff and a tow truck. Probably twenty minutes out.”

Clarissa looked to Spencer. “Ask him.”

“I know.” He focused on the man outside. “What were you drinking when you met Clarissa?”

There was a pause—brief, but unmistakable. “Beer,” the figure said.

“Wrong,” Spencer replied, cold and flat.

The impostor’s eyes narrowed, but it smiled again, wider this time. “White Claw. Grapefruit. Right?”

Spencer didn’t answer. He continued. “What’s tattooed on your back?”

“Compass,” the thing said too quickly, like a student recalling a cribbed note.

Spencer furrowed his brow. “What kind of dog did your sister used to have?”

That did it.

The smile faded. The head tilted, ever so slightly. Then the voice that came from its throat dropped by several degrees.

“Still asking questions. Still playing the hero.” Its fingers flexed around the grip of the gun. “You’re starting to piss me off, Spencer!”

Clarissa let out a sharp breath and jerked back into her seat. Ava reached for the crowbar wedged between the front seats.

The creature raised the gun, aiming it toward the car, and for a moment, Spencer thought it was going to fire. But then it fumbled—its hand slipped against the trigger guard, and in trying to recover, it discharged the weapon directly into its own thigh.

The sound was deafening at close range. The creature shrieked, more in frustration than pain, and stumbled back. Blood oozed from the wound, though it was too dark to be entirely human. The thing looked down at the injury, blinked twice, then snarled.

“Doesn’t matter!” it hissed. “Still got five more.”

It raised the gun again and fired—once at the windshield, once at the rear driver’s side window, and once into the passenger-side door. The glass cracked but didn’t break. One bullet punched through the roof, sending a burst of sound-dampening insulation fluttering into the cabin.

Clarissa screamed. Ava ducked, clutching her knees.

Spencer didn’t move. He kept his eyes on the thing’s face, noting how its frustration was quickly giving way to rage. It squeezed the trigger again, but this time there was only a click.

Empty.

The creature stared at the gun, confused. Then it dropped it, baring its teeth.

“You don’t deserve to die quickly!” it said.

Then it turned and limped away, dragging its leg behind it like a broken marionette. It disappeared into the brush once more, leaving only the echo of its words and the smell of powder and hot metal in its wake.

Inside the car, the silence broke.

Clarissa burst into sobs, curled up in the passenger seat with her face buried in her hands. Ava was muttering to herself under her breath, her words low and directionless.

Spencer sat back, blinking at the bullet hole in the ceiling above him. A shaft of light bled through it, soft and gold, wholly indifferent.

“They’re not going to stop,” Ava said. “Not until one of us breaks.”

“We’re not breaking,” Spencer said. “Not before nightfall. Not after. We’re getting out of here, all of us!”

“You saw what it did,” Clarissa sobbed. “It’s learning. Each one’s more convincing than the last. That one had the phone, the gun—it knew most of the answers.”

Spencer nodded. “But it didn’t know all of them. That’s what matters.”

Clarissa looked up. “What do we do?”

He reached down and pulled the crowbar from the floor. “We stay put and prepare. We don’t open the door for anything, no matter what it says or looks like.”

Ava reached behind her seat and pulled out the bear spray. “This won’t stop them. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Spencer said, “but it might buy us a few seconds.”

Clarissa wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt and found the tire iron beneath her seat. “We need something sharp. Something that can actually hurt them.”

“There’s nothing in here sharp enough,” Ava said.

“Then we make do with what we have,” Spencer replied.

The sun was beginning its slow descent. The trees cast longer shadows now, and the temperature had begun to drop.

Spencer adjusted the crowbar in his hands and looked out through the bullet-scarred windshield, watching the trees sway.

“They’ll come back,” he said.

“We know,” Clarissa replied.

And still they waited.

Part VI

The forest changed with the falling dark. Shadows pooled at the base of trunks, swallowing whole patches of earth that moments ago had been visible. What warmth the afternoon had offered was gone. Now the air turned damp and still. Inside the Jeep, the three of them sat in silence. The crowbar rested heavily across Spencer’s lap. Clarissa held the bear spray close to her chest. Ava hadn’t spoken in some time, her eyes fixed on the rearview mirror, though there was nothing in it.

The mimics had been gone for almost an hour. But none of them believed they were truly alone.

The sound began faintly—soft footsteps against underbrush, like someone pacing intentionally just out of sight. A moment later, the first figure emerged from between the trees.

At first, Spencer thought it was Clarissa.

Same long legs, same lean hips, same dark waves of hair framing a face equal parts daring and unbothered. But this version wore her clothing from earlier in the day—the cutoff shorts, the ribbed tank top, the sunglasses still pushed up over her head. The mimic strolled casually out into the open, pausing in the road.

Then it reached for the hem of its shirt. It lifted the fabric slowly, baring its stomach, then its chest. No bra underneath. The exposed breasts—Clarissa’s exactly—bounced slightly as the shirt came over the head and was tossed aside. Then the mimic slid a hand across its abdomen, down between its thighs, where it rubbed idly over the denim.

Spencer sat up straighter.

Another figure stepped out behind it—Ava this time. Or rather, a perfect mirror of her, complete down to the faint line of a scar on her left shoulder and the slight inward curve of her knees. This mimic wore the same t-shirt and leggings Ava had worn hiking, though they had been carefully tugged to emphasize her figure.

The mimic-Ava ran her hands through her hair and then slowly peeled the shirt over her head, revealing a lace bra. Before Spencer could so much as stutter, it removed the garment and tossed it into the woods. Her pants followed, slipped off in slow rhythm, until she stood completely bare beneath the moonlight.

Inside the car, no one spoke.

The Clarissa mimic approached first, hips swaying with exaggerated rhythm, her hands now cupping her breasts as she stared directly at Spencer through the windshield.

“Spence,” she whispered. Her voice was identical. “I’ve seen the way you look at me.”

Spencer’s throat tightened.

“I know what you think about when you’re alone,” the mimic said. “I know what you want to do to me. What you want me to do to you.”

Behind her, the Ava mimic pressed herself against the driver’s side window. She leaned in and mouthed something seductively. Spencer couldn’t hear the words, but he could read her lips: I want you inside me.

Clarissa tensed beside him. “Don’t listen. Don’t watch.”

“I’m not—” he started, but his voice came out brittle.

“Yes, you are!” Ava hissed from across the seat. “You’re watching.”

He was.

The Clarissa mimic dragged her hands down her stomach again, then slid them between her thighs. Her eyes stayed fixed on him, her mouth parted. Her fingers moved in slow, measured circles, and when she moaned, it was exactly the way Clarissa had once laughed at a joke he’d made—full and warm and private.

Then the mimic climbed onto the hood.

She knelt there, naked, lit only by the faint glow of the moon and the dull gleam of the broken headlight. She spread her legs. Her hand didn’t leave her body. The other reached down, picked up something from the gravel—a discarded leaf—and traced it between her breasts.

“Come on, Spence,” she said, her voice husky. “Open the door.”

He looked away.

The Ava mimic tapped lightly on the glass. Her breasts were pressed flat against it now, leaving fogged outlines. She reached down and began to mimic Clarissa’s movements.

“Let us in,” she said. “We’ll take care of you.”

“You’re not real,” he muttered.

“We feel real,” Clarissa’s voice said.

Then came another form—another Spencer. This copy emerged from the dark wearing his shirt, his jeans. It walked like him. Smirked like him. And as it drew closer, it began to strip as well—slowly unbuttoning his pants, peeling off his shirt, exposing the same birthmark on the hip, the same awkward, lean muscles.

The Spencer mimic approached the Clarissa mimic on the hood.

“No…” Spencer said.

The mimic ignored him.

It reached out and took Clarissa’s hand. Together, they lay back against the windshield. Her legs wrapped around his waist. Her moans grew louder. Her nails dug into his shoulders—his own shoulders. And then, as Spencer sat frozen, she lowered her mouth to his copy’s visibly engorged groin.

Clarissa gasped aloud inside the car. “No—no, this isn’t happening—”

The mimic on the hood moved with slow, exaggerated rhythm, allowing her moans to echo off the glass between them. Spencer watched himself throw his head back, mouth open, face contorted in pleasure.

He tried to look away, but the sound wouldn’t stop.

Then the mimic climaxed him—his mimic—and pulled back, allowing the product of its efforts to spatter across the windshield.

Clarissa screamed.

Ava turned her head and covered her ears.

The Clarissa mimic wiped the streak of fluids across the glass and pressed her face to it, tongue dragging a crooked trail upward. She smiled through the mess.

Spencer couldn’t breathe. “That’s not—not me.” he said.

But it looked like him. And in spite of the grotesquerie of the situation, he could not deny his arousal, nor his shame.

When the mimics finally pulled away—retreating like dancers from a stage, still naked, still smiling—the damage had been done. The glass bore smears of sweat and other fluids. The hood still held the outline of two bodies. The night no longer felt quiet.

Clarissa turned her face to the door and wept.

Ava said nothing.

Spencer stared out into the trees, his grip on the crowbar unbroken.

The worst part wasn’t the performance. It wasn’t the voices, or the sounds, or the act itself.

It was the simple fact that, for a moment, some part of him had wanted it.

Part VII

Their reprieve was short-lived.

The knock came soft at first—three dull thumps against the hood, as though whoever made them lacked the strength to raise their arm above the elbow. Spencer sat up fast, crowbar at the ready, and peered through the windshield, his eyes adjusting quickly to the bruised blackness that had settled over everything. The others stirred beside him, still half-stunned from the last ordeal. Ava reached for the flashlight but didn’t turn it on. Clarissa muttered something inaudible, and then fell silent.

A shape hunched in the headlights, crawling forward from the shoulder like a wounded animal. For a moment, none of them recognized it. The posture was wrong—limp and sagging, as if it had been dropped from a great height. But as the thing drew closer, dragging one knee, one palm slick against the gravel, the familiarity sank in.

“Ricky,” Clarissa whispered, though her voice held no certainty.

The figure came into full view, collapsing just feet from the bumper. His hair was matted with blood. One eye was swollen completely shut. His shirt hung in tatters, revealing ribs that looked bruised to the point of fracturing. His lips moved, but no words came at first—only wet, broken breath.

He tried again.

“Help… please… it’s me…”

Spencer was conflicted. Even through the grime and the blood and the slackness in his features, it looked like Ricky. Not the mask-like imitations from earlier, not the theatrical puppet-play the mimics had used to taunt them. This version shook with pain. This version bled. He coughed hard and spat something black and viscous into the gravel.

“It could be another trick,” Ava said, but she didn’t sound convinced. “You saw what they did. They can make themselves look like anything.”

Spencer was already unbuckling his seat belt.

“No,” Clarissa said, grabbing his arm. “Don’t.”

“I have to know,” he said. “If it’s him, we can’t leave him out there.”

He cracked open the door slowly, careful not to let it swing wide. The night air was chill in comparison to the temperature of the Jeep’s suffocating interior, and with it came the sharp, coppery tang of blood. The figure on the ground groaned again.

Spencer kept the crowbar in one hand as he stepped forward.

“Don’t move,” he said. “Just lie still. I need to ask you something.”

The figure nodded—or tried to. His head dipped forward and stayed there, trembling.

“What were you drinking when you met Clarissa?” Spencer asked.

A pause.

“…Beer,” the thing said, wheezing.

Spencer’s fingers tightened around the crowbar.

“What’s tattooed on your back?”

A second pause. Longer this time.

“…Anchor?”

“No,” Spencer whispered. “Not even close.”

He took a step backward. The figure lifted its head slowly. The face—so damaged, so close to real—split into a grin. Teeth dark with blood gleamed behind cracked lips.

“We’ve got you now,” it hissed. “You should have locked the doors.”

Then it shrieked—not in pain or alarm, but in triumph. The woods exploded with movement. Branches split, leaves scattered. Shadows took form and rushed forward.

Spencer turned, bolting back to the car, but it was too late. The door had already been opened.

Clarissa was screaming. Ava was shouting something—his name or hers or both—but the voices were drowned beneath the thunder of limbs striking metal, hands slapping glass, claws dragging grooves into paint and flesh alike. One of the windows blew out as a mimic tore through it with a piece of rebar sharpened to a spike.

Spencer threw himself at the side of the car, only to be grabbed from behind. Fingers dug into his shoulders. Another pair wrapped around his waist. They didn’t feel like hands anymore; they were too cold, too strong. He dropped the crowbar trying to twist free, and someone—or something—ripped open his shirt.

And then they changed.

They took Clarissa’s face first—two of them, grinning wide and naked, pressing themselves against him. Their mouths were too warm. Their breath smelled wrong. One kissed his neck while the other whispered filth in his ear, things she had never said, things no one should have said in that voice.

Then came Ava’s face. Another mouth. Another set of hands. All of them pawing, caressing, luring him into a trap that had no exit.

They pulled him to the ground, and he landed hard on his back. Above him, the mimics formed a circle. All of them were Clarissa, Ava, or him. The Spencer copies watched him with mirrored eyes as they leaned in close. Their skin rippled like something beneath it was moving too fast for the flesh to contain.

One Clarissa-thing mounted him, grinding against his hips. It moaned, and the sound was perfect. The timing was perfect.

Then it bit him.

The pain was sharp, bright, jagged. It bit again, lower this time, tearing muscle from thigh. Another sank its teeth into his shoulder. The others followed, mouths open, teeth flashing. They fed in unison, tearing, ripping, devouring. Not just hungry, but worshipful, as if this act was sacrament.

He screamed until blood filled his throat.

His last thought was of Clarissa—real Clarissa—watching it all happen.

And then he didn’t think anymore.

Inside the car, Clarissa had managed to pull Ava across the seat and slam the door shut again. The mimic Spencer outside was still clawing at the roof, his face now soaked in real blood.

The girls fumbled for the bear spray and swung at anything near the window. A mimic lunged forward, and Clarissa drove the crowbar through its arm. The thing didn’t scream. It didn’t even flinch.

It only looked at her with Spencer’s face and whispered, “You felt so good. I want more, Clarissa. The real thing.”

She opened the door and ran.

Ava followed, stumbling over the gravel, tears blurring her vision. The trees loomed ahead, but the shadows moved faster than they could. Mimics slipped out from behind the trunks—more Clarissas, more Spencers, more Avas. All of them naked, all of them slick with blood and smiling too wide.

Clarissa screamed when they caught her.

Ava turned and saw it happen—Spencer’s mimic holding her down while two others began to eat. Clarissa’s mouth opened wide, but the sound was cut off as teeth found her throat.

Then they were on Ava.

She kicked, thrashed, and screamed, but it didn’t matter.

One by one, they tore her apart.

Part VIII

The wrecker’s headlights pierced the forest in two narrow beams, catching only the first few trunks before the trees swallowed the light whole. The road ahead looked emptier than Ricky remembered. He leaned forward in the passenger seat, jaw clenched, every muscle in his legs still knotted from the sprint that had carried him through the woods and back to the ranger station.

The tow truck rumbled over a ridge and began its descent. Behind them, the sheriff’s SUV followed in low gear, its light bar off, its spots casting a thin white blade along the treeline.

The driver beside Ricky shifted in his seat. “You sure this is it?”

“I’m sure,” Ricky said. His voice was rough. It felt like someone had taken sandpaper to his throat.

“You weren’t making a lotta sense back at the station. You said something about people… wearing your face?”

Ricky didn’t answer.

When they came around the last bend, the high beams fell on what remained of the Jeep.

The vehicle looked like it had been attacked by something clawed. The driver’s side door had been torn half off, dangling on its hinge. The roof was dented inward, glass strewn across the dirt. One of the tires had been shredded. The others looked slashed straight through. Across the hood, dried blood had streaked into long, oily lines.

The sheriff pulled up behind them and stepped out with a flashlight. He swept it across the ditch, then the open rear of the Jeep, where what remained of a sleeping bag had been crumpled beneath something red and soaked through. A crowbar lay bent in the dirt.

“What the hell…” the tow driver whispered.

The sheriff crouched. “Bullet holes,” he said, shining the beam upward. “Three. Maybe four. Exit wounds through the roof. Blood everywhere. Some of it fresh.”

Ricky stepped down from the truck, legs stiff and unreliable, and walked slowly toward the open passenger side. The door had been kicked open. Or pulled. There were no bodies, but the floor was smeared with handprints—some pressed in blood, others streaked as if someone had tried to hold on while being dragged out.

He circled the car. There were drag marks in the gravel. Knees. Fingertips. Boot prints—his own—and bare feet. Dozens of them, crossing over one another, weaving in circles. The spacing was wrong. The rhythm broken.

“Where are the others?” the driver asked.

“They were here,” Ricky said. “I left to get help.”

“You left them stranded out here?” the sheriff asked. There was no accusation in his voice, not yet. Just disbelief.

“There was no better choice. Someone had to get help.”

“And what do you think happened then?” the sheriff asked.

“They were surrounded.”

“By what?”

Ricky looked into the trees. “Things that looked like us. Hungry things.”

The sheriff stood, hands on his belt. “I’ll need to take you in, you understand. There’s blood, damage, and missing people. We’ll need a formal statement. Some testing.”

Ricky nodded, still watching the tree line. “You’re not going to find anything.”

“We’ll get a team up here in daylight and do a full investigation. I assure you, we’ll find out what happened to your friends.”

Ricky’s eyes moved back to the road. “Everything will be gone before then. That’s how it works.”

The tow driver took a cautious step back toward his truck. “What are you talking about, son? Do you mean… bears? Cartel grow ops? What kind of—”

“I told you, they looked like us,” Ricky repeated. “Moved like us. Talked like us. But they weren’t right.”

The sheriff raised his light again. “No signs of struggle beyond the car. No tracks heading into the woods. No blood trail that leads anywhere.”

“You don’t get it,” Ricky said. “They’re gone. There’s nothing left of them.”

He walked to the rear of the vehicle and stood in silence for a long time, staring at a patch of gravel where the pattern had been broken—where something had knelt, maybe even sat, before disappearing into the dark.

Behind him, the sheriff and tow driver exchanged glances. The sheriff radioed for backup.

But Ricky wasn’t listening anymore. His eyes were on the trees. And in the deepest recess between trunks, just where the shadows bled into one another, something shifted.

It didn’t come forward or move toward the light—but it was there.

A tall, familiar figure, standing still. The tilt of its head was unmistakable.

Clarissa.

Or rather, something wearing her face.

A moment later, a second, shorter figure joined her. One with narrower shoulders and its hair pulled back.

Ava.

They didn’t wave or blink. They simply watched.

Then a third form stepped between them.

Him.

Ricky felt his breath leave his body, and he closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, the trees were still, and the figures were gone.

Two Months Later

The noise of the city didn’t help. Sirens were just new versions of screams. Footsteps in the hall became whispers against the glass. Ricky kept his curtains drawn and the lights off most nights, not because he thought it would keep them away—but because he knew it wouldn’t.

He hadn’t spoken to the press. Hadn’t returned the messages from Clarissa’s parents. Hadn’t been back to campus. The sheriff’s office had run their investigation, combed the crash site again in daylight, and sent divers to nearby creeks. But there were no bodies, no official leads, suspects, or motives. There were obvious signs of foul play, but nothing that could be proven or tied to anyone in particular. The official conclusion was that a group of college students had gotten lost, had a good time at first, but then later panicked, and likely succumbed to exposure, and perhaps were attacked by animals, such as wolves or bears. They concluded further that Ricky had likely been suffering from trauma-induced delusions and recommended that he seek counseling.

Ricky knew better.

And sometimes, late at night, he saw them again.

They never came into the house, but they stood beneath the streetlights across from his apartment, where the light fell just short of their feet.

Sometimes it was Clarissa, her hair still matted with blood, styled the way it had been before she died. Other times, it was Ava, clutching the crowbar they’d left behind. And sometimes it was him—copy after copy—standing shoulder to shoulder, heads tilted at the same angle, all observing from the shadows.

And on the very worst nights, it wasn’t them at all, but something new. Something that wasn’t wearing anyone’s face yet.

Something waiting to choose one.