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DEADLINES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF HORROR AND DARK FICTION, will be released in November of 2008! Visit www.cometpress.us

The Cowbird's Nest
by Clinton A. Harris

"I thought I would find you here, Jim Russell," the man said. "I didn't believe it at first, but here you are."

Jim stopped where he was, his keys in hand, ready to unlock the door to his apartment. His first thought was that a bill collector had found him. His second was that he was about to be murdered.

"Do we know each other?" Jim asked. For a moment, the man looked oddly familiar to Jim, but he couldn't place it. The hair, the eyes, his build, all of it reminded him of someone else. Somebody from high school? A guy from work? The man smiled and Jim felt chills down to his bones. After seeing that toothy grin, one side of the mouth higher than the other, a glint of mischief in those eyes, there was no mistaking it. It was Jim himself, or what could pass as his exact copy, standing right in front of him. Not quite like looking in a mirror, but rather a photograph of himself blown up to life size. It was an odd thing to experience, much like hearing his own voice on tape.

"What the hell is this?" Jim demanded. "Who are you?"

"Well, Jim--if I can call you that--I'm you!" the other man said. "We are the same person. I know this might sound odd, but I am from a parallel universe. I've come to help you."

"This is a joke, right? Somebody put you up to this." There could be no other explanation, Jim thought.

"I wish that were true," the other Jim said. "I know it might sound weird, but I've got nowhere else to go. Somehow I wound up here, and I don't know how to get back. At first, I thought I was just hallucinating, I mean things here are similar yet different, you know? Anyway, after awhile, it all started to add up, and I realized I wasn't in Kansas anymore."

"You're from Kansas?" Jim asked.

"Listen, Jim," the man continued. "I can help you."

"Supposing you aren't some sort of con man, how can you help me?" Jim asked.

"You live in this place, so you're obviously broke. I wouldn't be much of a con man if I was here to fleece you. The truth is I need a place to stay, just until I can find a job and a place of my own, of course."

"So how's crashing on my couch supposed to help me?" Jim asked.

"Well, first of all, I wouldn't be any trouble. I promise. Plus, I could go to work for you. Maybe let you work on that novel you've been trying to finish. If you've got a girlfriend, you could use the extra time to take her out more. It would be like making a copy of yourself, really. At least until I can get back on my feet."

"How did you know about my book?" Jim asked.

"Like I said, our worlds aren't much different. I've been working on a novel, so I took a shot in the dark, and guessed you were too."

"There's this girl, Claire, that I met at the bookstore," Jim said. "I wouldn't mind having more time to take her out. But come on, your story is insane. How am I supposed to believe you?"

"I guess you really shouldn't," the other Jim said. "But unless you help me, I'm gonna be living on the streets. I promise you, I'm not some kind of wacko."

After a long moment of silent consideration, Jim asked, "Have you ever worked as a file clerk?"

"I can alphabetize in my sleep," the other replied. He reached out a hand and Jim shook it. The man's palm was ice cold. He didn't shake it any longer than he had to.

"What do I call you?" Jim asked.

"Well, Jim, of course," the man said with a grin.

***

It took some time for Jim to get used to writing full-time. He spent the majority of the day inside, typing away at the story that had been dormant for so long. "The Wastes Beyond," was the working title. It had been weeks since he had worked on it longer than an hour or more. He wrote all morning. At lunch, he scrounged through the fridge for something to eat. In the afternoon, he paced around the room. Then he sorted through his CD collection to find the most suitable writing music to fit his mood. He watched some television. He took a nap. The hours passed and there was still no call from work. The police didn't come knocking on his door with a Jim Russell impostor in custody. He drank a beer on his balcony, watching the ebb and flow of the passersby on the street. Joggers. Women pushing strollers. A bum with a shopping cart full of aluminum pop cans. This was what he was missing. This was what freedom felt like—time to just pay attention to the details.

His double was due back in a few hours, and was dreading his arrival. Hearing him walk around the apartment all night had been strange enough. It didn't seem like the man ever slept. Jim tried not to spend too much time around him. He was a nice enough guy, sure, but it didn't feel right. He decided if he ever sold his novel, he would pitch the guy out on his ear the same day.

When the call came, Jim snatched the phone off the hook. It wasn't work, or the police, but Claire.

"What are you doing home?" she asked.

"Me? Oh, uh, they changed our shifts around a little bit," he said. I got home early." Keeping track of all the lies was going to be tricky, he thought.

"Well, I was just calling to leave a message," she said. "But since I got the real deal, I'll ask. There's a concert in the park tonight. I thought you might want to come?"

"I'd like that," Jim said.

"Really? Meet you at Washington Park around seven?"

Seven meant an hour of staring at the other Jim before he could leave.

"Better make that six," Jim suggested. "We can go out for some coffee first."

Claire agreed and Jim felt relieved to have an excuse to be out of the house for much of the evening. By the time he returned, the other Jim would already be vegetating in front of the TV. Hopefully he would be tired enough to fall asleep by then and not be troubled by the sound of his double in the next room. Jim finished a revision on a chapter before getting ready.

When the phone call came, just before six, Jim waited for the machine to take the message. The voice he heard sounded odd, nasal. "Jim, I'm still at work. I offered to work some overtime tonight. I hope you don't mind. I'll see you later."

Jim rushed to pick up the receiver, "Jim?" he said. The name caught in his throat.

"Oh, hey Jim. I thought you were out."

"I was just about to leave. Got a date with that girl Claire. How are things?"

"Great," the other said.

"No problems at work? Nobody asked you any weird questions?" Jim asked.

"Nope. Hey buddy, I've got to go. Have fun on that date."

The line clicked and the other Jim was gone. Jim hoped he still had a job by the end of the week, not to mention furniture in his apartment. He felt better about the situation as the days passed, and then the weeks. The other Jim brought home the paychecks which had gotten bigger since he started taking on more hours and more work. Jim finished chapter after chapter until his book was nearly finished. He began the revisions, worked straight through the days, met Claire every night of the week, and slept like he had been drugged every night. His life felt balanced, complete.

One of the differences between the Jims was that the new Jim truly enjoyed his job. Jim had hated it. Ineffectual bureaucrats at the top, illiterate drones at the bottom, and Jim in the middle, wishing he had a chance to write all day and enjoy life instead of slaving away over lists of names, ledger balances, spreadsheets and the incessant hum of incoming calls throughout the maze of cubicles. The other Jim thrived at this line of work. He worked sixty hours a week and never complained. The subject of things going back to the way they were before never came up.

When he did run into the other Jim, the exchanges were mercifully short. A passing glance of recognition or a brief "how's it going?" usually sufficed. The other Jim lived in the peripheral of his life, filling in the spots where he needed to be, but where Jim hated being. The other man got very good at feeling out Jim's mood and tended to leave him alone, as if he knew his presence made him uncomfortable. It was possible that he felt no more at ease with the situation, but Jim never heard him complain.

Their biggest exchange of words, other than the first time they met, was the time Jim came home late one night from a date with Claire. His double sat on the couch, drinking a beer. Black label generic. The other Jim said he preferred it to name brands. It was empty calories and let him live cheaply. The man could hold his liquor better than Jim could. Like tonight, he drank brew after brew and never seemed drunk, other than becoming sullen while he stared at hours of television. Jim considered having a talk with him about this habit, but it didn't seem to be affecting his ability to hold down a job. In fact, there was already talk of Jim getting a raise.

"Wanna order a pizza?" Jim asked as he took off his coat. Except for the light of the TV, the room was dark. The shades were drawn.

"No thanks," the other said. "I haven't had much of an appetite for food lately."

Jim asked him what he was watching.

"A nature program," he replied. His face was illuminated by the fluctuating images of the TV screen. Eye-tearing greens and blues, yellows and stark white, all contrasted painfully with the gloom of the rest of the apartment.

Jim sat down on the couch, surrounded by empty cans of Black Label. He tried his best not to let any of the cans touch him as they sat in the dark living room, watching television.

"Like the cuckoo," the narrator said, "the brown-headed cowbird builds no nest. The female lays her eggs in another bird's nest and lets it raise the young."

The other Jim chuckled to himself and changed the channel. A panel of toothless rednecks and a dwarf were on a talk show panel. A large woman whose clothes were eleven sizes too small was in tears.

"Jerry, he's changed so much since he knocked me up. I don't even know him no more! It's like he's a different person!"

"Why do they always talk in clichés?" Jim asked.

"Shhh. This is good stuff," the other warned.

"That baby ain't his!" the dwarf insisted. The caption said she was the man's ex-wife. "It don't look nothin' like 'im."

"That baby's mine, bitch!" the man bellowed. The other Jim changed the channel just before the rednecks could start throwing chairs.

"That's not his baby," Jim said.

"I wouldn't be so sure," the other said. “You can see it in the eyes.”

Jim left his roommate to his shadows, transfixed to the flickering television screen. A pair of robins were feeding a trio of chicks. One was twice the size of the other two, and black. The narrator continued his lulling drone about the tragedies of survival and the importance of the food chain. It made Jim sleepy just to hear it. He felt like he was in biology class again, where he got most of his best naps in college.

He closed his bedroom door and locked it on nights like these, especially when the other Jim had been drinking. He never acted drunk, though it might have been a relief. Instead, he became sullen. Volatile.

Things between Jim and Claire got more serious, which only helped the situation. Jim was spending more nights at Claire's. She had a key made for him. They joked about getting engaged, but Jim knew it was more than a joke for Claire. He was beginning to feel the same way. Each morning, he kissed her goodbye as they parted ways for work. Claire walked one way to the University, and Jim went to the apartment. She called him on his cell phone during the day, so she never realized he wasn't stuffed in his cubicle, but rather sending copies of his novel to agents and publishers.

After months of this Jim had decided to give up, until the night an agent called to tell him she was interested in drawing up a contract. She said there were already a few publishers interested in buying his book. One editor had called his book the best thing he had read in months. After getting off the phone with the agent, Jim was stoked to tell someone else the good news. Anybody.

"You were right," he told the other Jim. "All I needed was the time to do this. I knew I had it in me!"

"That's great, Jim," the other Jim said. "I was hoping you could help me out with something."

"Sure," Jim said. "What's going on?"

"I got promoted to Assistant Director the other day," he said.

"Wow! That's great news. You don't sound very excited."

"Oh no," the other Jim replied. "It just that I went out with some friends from work the other night, and well, one thing led to another, you know? To make a long story short, I need you to come in tomorrow to give a urine sample."

"What?"

"I need you to pee in the cup. And probably work my shift. It's just one day, and you've been working there for a few years already."

"Sure, why not?" Jim answered. "But there's no way in hell I'm working twelve hours like you do. That's where I draw the line."

The next morning, Jim arrived at work fifteen minutes late. He trudged through the front lobby and past the pretty blonde receptionist.

"Hi, Jim," she said.

"Uh, hi, Cindy," he said. In two years of employment, Cindy had never looked up from her nails long enough to notice him walking into the building. Now she was stopping him.

"You feeling alright? I heard you have a pee test today."

"I've got it covered," Jim said. "How are you?"

"My knees are still shaking from the other night."

"Oh. Hey! I'll see you later."

"You're goddamned right you will," Cindy said. She dipped her finger into her coffee and then put it into her mouth. Her freshly glossed lips encircled her finger as she drew it out slowly, deliberately.

Jim met with the HR doctor and took the test. He handed the warm cup of pee over to the doctor and went back to his desk. People he never talked to before waved and said hello. The young, hip crowd, as he always had known them. The kind that bragged with each other around the break room table about who they had met in a club, and joked about bad decisions they had escaped from early in the morning before they woke up.

Jim sat at his desk, and stared at the monitor. He read some email. Unlike the days when he came here every morning, his inbox was packed full of personal messages. One from Cindy the receptionist made his cheeks red. Some of hers had pictures, which he began to delete without opening. What she had sent him was enough to get them both fired, and probably arrested.

"What the hell has he been doing?" Jim asked out loud.

"Jim," someone called from behind. It was Darlene Mauser, his supervisor.

"Ms. Mauser," he said as he quickly closed out of his email program. "What can I do for you?"

"Your promotion has come through, so I'm here to help you move your things. We're going to miss you around here. We all chipped in and bought you something." Darlene Mauser, a woman known mostly for her hatred of everyone tossed a flat box into Jim's lap. He pulled at a loop of the bow and slipped the ribbon off the box. Inside the box was a box of cigars.

"Don't tell anyone, but I smuggled them out of Canada on that last business trip. They're Cuban."

Darlene helped Jim box up the assorted odds and ends that had occupied what he had known as his workspace. It belonged to someone else now. A version of himself that had kinky sex with hot receptionists, partied with the cool employees and got gifts of contraband cigars from his boss. He began to realize that someone else was living his life better than he could have done it himself.

After Darlene left he waited alone in his empty cubicle while his new office was being prepared. Most of the boxes were already on their way up the elevator. He swiveled in his chair, cycling through the list of recent calls on his phone. The usual numbers appeared, and then a few that he saw only on other people's phones. The company president, a CEO. There was also another number he recognized: Claire Robbins. He looked again. It was her home number as well as a few from her cell phone.

Jim grabbed his phone and dialed the number for his apartment. The line was ringing at the other end. One ring, two rings, three rings. "Damn it, the machine is going to get it," he snarled.

"Hi, you've reached Jim Russell," the voice began. He had no way of telling if it was he that had made the outgoing message. "Leave a message after the beep."

"Jim!" he shouted. "Pick up the phone!"

The line broke for a moment, "What?" Jim heard the man say.

"When did Claire call you here?"

"What? Man, I don't know. The other day I guess. What the hell is wrong?"

"I don't know, Jim," Jim said. "I'm just getting pictures of the receptionist wearing a lot of leather in my inbox."

"Oh man, that girl is a freak! I think I need somebody a little more wholesome, don't you think? Somebody that wants to settle down and have a family."

"That's what I'm afraid of! I see you've been talking to my girlfriend without my permission."

"I know what you're thinking, but it's cool, Jim," the man said.

"How the hell could you possibly know what I'm thinking?" Jim shouted.

"She called work a couple of times when you had your cell phone off. I handled it, so don't worry. Okay?"

"That's it?" Jim asked.

"I swear," the other Jim replied. "You have nothing to worry about."

"It's just weird, you know? It's like I'm a stranger to my own life."

"Does seem that way," the other Jim said. "I'm sorry you're there for the urinalysis, but that was really the last time I do anything stupid like that again."

"I understand. Thanks, Jim," Jim said. He hung up the phone.

The test results came in while Jim was finishing setting up the new office. He didn't know if the other Jim would approve of how he had arranged the place, but it was all he could do. The other Jim's new job was out of his league. He left at five o'clock and rode the bus home. On the kitchen table, the other Jim had left a note saying he wouldn't be home for the rest of the night. He checked the mail and found a letter of acceptance from a publisher for his book along with a check for a sizable advance. His life had forked off in two directions and now he was succeeding in both of them. He called Claire's cell phone, but got only her voice mail. He remembered her saying something about presentations all throughout the week. He took himself out to Chinese food, and then decided to stay in the rest of the night and drink some wine to celebrate. He fell asleep in his clothes in front of the TV.

The next morning, he woke to the sound of the door buzzer. He shuffled off to the door and peeked through the keyhole. It was Claire.

He opened the door, and immediately, she rushed in. "I know you don't like me to visit you here," she said, "but after you called in sick yesterday, and we spent the whole day locked in your bedroom, I couldn't stay away."

"What did you say?" Jim asked.

"Oh, you are a devil," she purred. "I can't get it out of my mind. I need you again." Claire was already peeling out of her clothes.

He wanted to yell, and kick the wall and slap her for being so blind, so damned trusting, so sure about everything (like which Jim she was sleeping with, even though it should have been obvious), and for betraying him, but he held it in.

"Claire," he said. "I'm afraid I have to ask you to leave."

"What? You aren't serious, are you?" she asked. "Please no. You said this would happen if I talked about yesterday again. I'm sorry. I didn't know you were serious!"

"I am. Please go now."

She was confused, but did what Jim asked. He tried to say something as she left the apartment sobbing, but no words would come. He went to the desk drawer where he kept his manuscript and found his .38 revolver. He waited on the couch for the other Jim to come home. This was the first time he ever imagined using it on himself, especially in this way. It was nearly midnight when the other Jim finally showed up, reeking of booze and cigarettes.

"Jim," he said. "I didn't expect you here so late."

"Claire was here," Jim said. "She seems to think I called in sick from work yesterday for an entire day of sex."

"You didn't?" the other Jim joked. "Oh, that's right. I get us confused sometimes."

"I sold my book," Jim said.

"Cool," the other Jim replied dismissively.

"That means I don't need you to work at my job anymore. I want you out."

The other Jim sat down in the chair across from Jim. He eyed the pistol Jim cradled in his hand like a newborn kitten. "Are you going to plug me with the little pop-gun of yours?"

"You don't exist in this world. You won't be missed," Jim countered.

"Claire might miss me, now that she knows what a real man is capable of."

Jim raised the gun and tried his best to get the other Jim in his sights despite how hard his hands were shaking. He scrubbed a sleeve across his dripping nose. "Get out! You've ruined everything," he said.

The other Jim calmly replied, "There wasn't anything to ruin before I got here, Jimmy boy. You wasted most of your life doing things the safe way. That's why I don't think you have the brass to shoot me either. The neighbors will hear. Of course, they might think it's just time that you finally killed yourself. I take every chance I get to tell them how depressed I am."

"What?"

"Yeah, between your reclusiveness and what I whisper to those old nosey women at the mail box, they figure I'm long overdue for a coffin ride. But if you kill me, they will hear, and they will come. Then you'll have some splainin' to do.

"By the way, Jim. Thanks for taking that urine test for me. Gave me a whole day to myself to spend with Claire. In a couple of weeks, she'll be taking a test of her own."

Jim didn't know what to do. He lowered the hammer on the pistol. He had never seen someone move so fast. He watched the other Jim grab the baseball bat from behind the door. The man glided up to him and swung the bat hard. He felt the wood crack against his temple. Then the impact of the floor. Then nothing else.

***

Jim took a picture of his wife holding their newborn baby. Claire was proud, but still worn out from the eighteen hours of labor she had suffered. The baby slept in his mother's arms, wrapped up tightly in soft blankets.

"We can call him Jim, Jr.," Claire said.

"He doesn't look like a Jim, Jr." he said. "How about Edward?"

"He does look like an Edward," Claire agreed. The truth was that he didn't look like either of his parents. The baby was unique to both of them, just as Jim knew he would be. Somewhere in the world, there was another person that this baby resembled most. A dead ringer. It was this other person's thoughts that would call out to young Edward until the day they stood face to face. Edward would know the exact way to gain the other's trust, through a deadly telepathic bond shared by predator and prey. There were all sorts of stories that could be told. Twins separated at birth, cousins, even some cockamamie story about a parallel universe. Whatever it was, it would be obvious to the young doppelganger.

He would gain the trust of his victim by telling him whatever he needed to hear to believe his story, gradually assume his identity, reproduce, and ultimately overpower and eat what evidence remained. After gorging himself and sleeping for nearly a week, he would absorb all the remaining mental characteristics that his limited telepathy could not glean. It was instinct. It was how it had been with their kind for thousands of years. Now, after nearly thirty years of living from stage to stage of this cycle, Jim finally knew what it was all about.

Looking down at his child, he felt whole for the first time in his life--including the day he ate the last of his gracious host.

"What do you think he'll be when he grows up?" Claire asked.

"With any luck, he’ll become the man he was born to be," Jim replied.

♦♦♦