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Goodbye, New Mexico had many urban legends. Too many, if me and other paranormal researchers had anything to say. Something about the Route 66 ghost town drew people and the supernatural to it in the same way it did for Area 51, Stonehenge, and the Bermuda Triangle.

One evening, Dean, Laurie, and I stayed an hour later than we usually did. The office building that Paranormal Hunters Society rented space from was emptied of other people. The similar office doors of small tax services, non-profits, and travel agencies had already closed up for the night. Meanwhile, we were finishing up the latest round of paperwork and scrolling through more archived newspapers.

“Finally!" Laurie sighed with satisfaction, raising her arms stretched up high. The mountain lioness let out a purring grunt when something audibly snapped in her joints. “Fuck…I dunno about you boys, but I'm gonna get some sleep."

“You do that, Laurie," I said, letting out a tired yawn. “Might join you later in bed, if you're interested?"

She responded by flipping me the bird. We both smirked, while she rolled her feline eyes at me. In all honesty, the thought of a cold shower and a warm bed (with a warm body to cuddle next to) sounded divine.

“Hang on a second," Dean cut in from across the communal work desk. “I think I found another weird Goodbye article."

“I'll read it later tomorrow." Laurie waved a paw. “Have a good night!"

“Good night," we both said to the mountain lioness as she went out the door. Then, I looked up to the Mexican wolf sitting across from me and asked, “So what'd you find?"

“An article from 1989 mentioning one Olivia Martin, an elderly Goodbye resident, causing a scene at the local grocery store while claiming she's being stalked by a maned wolf that looks exactly like her."

“Looks like her? Like a doppelgänger?" I asked with raised jackrabbit ears, my interest piqued. “Dean, we've seen plenty of newspaper articles here and there of residents going crazy, so why's this—"

“You didn't let me finish explaining, conejo," he growled in annoyance at me, then motioned for me to walk by his laptop at the other end of the circular desk. I did. “The article mentions that Mrs. Martin got arrested for two separate incidents during a trip to Florida during winter earlier that year. Both times, she pleaded to police that an evil twin was tormenting her."

“Florida, Florida," I mulled it over, then shared a look with Dean. We both had the same exact idea. “What year did Florida start having that sunshine law that made arrest records public?"

He flashed his canines in a knowing grin. “I think long before 1989."

***

Sure enough, we found it. It required some deduction skills, but we found it, and read about what exactly happened. According to the police report, a rookie officer named Jordan Gomez received a dispatch alert saying that a hysterical mammal, possibly a she-wolf and then confirmed to be a maned she-wolf, was causing a scene at a now-demolished shopping mall called the Palm Grove Plaza. One caller claimed to have been physically assaulted by the lady when she tried to calm her down.

When Officer Gomez arrived at the scene, he discovered a massive crowd of confused and curious mammals watching a wide-eyed, tearful Olivia Martin looking around her like a caged animal. However, Gomez mentioned in the report that the maned she-wolf wasn't glaring at the spectators, but at the shoppers behind them, like she was looking for a family member. It was like she didn't even care about the fact she was causing a big scene.

Officer Gomez approached Olivia Martin, whom he described as looking like she'd been running a marathon in a summer dress, and kept repeatedly muttering the phrase, “It's following me." The delirious and frantic canine was given a shock blanket, and while an ambulance was on its way to check on both her and the mammal she'd assaulted, the officer got their sides of the story.

According to Maria Moore, a vixen retail worker, aged fifty-two, the maned she-wolf had shopped at her clothes boutique half an hour prior to the assault. She seemed tired, but didn't act out of the ordinary. Mrs. Moore just assumed she was one of many out-of-state tourists unused to the heat and helped the next of many customers after she left.

However, Mrs. Moore's opinion sharply changed when she spotted the same maned she-wolf frantically running back and forth along the southern end of Pine Grove Plaza, near the food court. At least a dozen or so other shoppers were quick to notice her, because she was the only one either jogging or screaming whenever she paused to look at or behind one of the concerned shoppers. Mrs. Moore had just gotten on her break. Having just had a normal, if pleasant, conversation with the strange canine, the younger vixen went to talk to her to try and calm her down. As far as she could guess, it looked as if the maned wolf was either hallucinating on some drugs or had lost somebody important like a cub. She figured that whatever was going on wouldn't be worth going to jail or getting banned from the mall.

Unfortunately, not two seconds after trying to tap the lady's shoulder, Olivia Martin would suddenly strike her across the face. Then, she started screaming and backed away as Mrs. Moore did too, clutching her bloody nose and going straight back to her workplace nearby. From there, the vixen called 911, who dispatched Officer Gomez to the scene.

According to the report, Mrs. Moore reluctantly desired to press charges.

Meanwhile, after Olivia Martin had been screened by ambulance medic (and then handcuffed in the backseat of a police car), Officer Gomez interrogated her at the local precinct. At first, Olivia wouldn't speak, barely moving to the point of being almost quasi-catatonic. The sheriff is about to refer her to a mental health professional when suddenly, the maned she-wolf mentions seeing herself multiple times since going on vacation from her hometown, Goodbye.

That caught the officer's attention, and he wrote down that Olivia had started seeing a doppelgänger of herself a week before her planned Florida vacation. Before that, a few neighbors and friends had been saying they caught her in weird places at weird time periods. A coworker mentioned seeing the maned she-wolf enter their workplace an hour before her shift, despite still being asleep and home at the time. An on-and-of boyfriend recalled seeing her walk outside his bedroom window, despite several witnesses saying she had taken an extra late shift, and being confined to the other side of town. A neighbor said he saw her walk inside her home moments before she did…and then, Olivia finally spotted her too, walking along the sidewalk only to disappear in the blink of an eye.

In Olivia Martin's frantic words, “It looked so much like me! Well, mostly like me! The muzzle's more angular! My brown fur's more mahogany! Those eyes…they don't belong to me! And that smile…it looked like someone had taken fishing hooks on each end and pulled hard to make an unnatural grin!"

That had happened two days before her flight to Florid. At first, Olivia had chalked it all up to her being too stressed and figured that spending a week or two on vacation would be best for her. If not to relax, then to get away from her own damn home.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Olivia's evil twin followed her. The day of the assault and her arrest, she began seeing the lookalike appear more and more around her. It either stared menacingly or approached her while trying to say something. The canine never let it have a chance to speak. She began to panic, one thing led to another, and then, Olivia claimed that she saw her doppelgänger standing directly behind Mrs. Moore, and was trying to punch it, not the vixen.

Whether it be luck or Florida's pitch-perfect legal system, Olivia Martin managed to convince them to let her go. She still got charged for assault but only needed to guarantee being present in court in order to avoid her zero-dollar bail order being revoked.

Sadly, that wasn't the case. In a later report filed by the same Officer Gomez, Olivia Martin had caused an even worse scene while in the middle of a farmer's market. A few concerned citizens tried restraining her when she grabbed a knife from a butcher stall, swinging it wildly around and trying to strike an invisible enemy until Gomez arrived with backup. They had no choice but to jail her, have a psychiatrist evaluate her, and wait for a relative from Goodbye to bail her out. They didn't have to wait for much longer, apparently.

“Her grandson and niece came by to pick her up and paid her new bail, promising to not let it happen again. Until the legal matter with the assault victim is settled in court, and if the judge is lenient with her regarding her charges of disturbing the peace, I would personally recommend that Olivia Martin be institutionalized in her home state. Her delusions and public behavior make her a risk to herself and others," I finished reading aloud Officer Gomez's report, and Dean sat in silence with me for a long moment. “Goddamn…Just…damn."

“Yeah." Dean let out an uneasy breath. “It sounds…freaky. Even if it's true, and let's say it is true, I'd…never wanna let my mind deteriorate like that."

I perked an ear. “Deteriorate?"

“Yeah," the Mexican wolf said, then shifted over to show me his tablet. “According to the report's follow up, the psychiatrist did confirm Mrs. Martin had signs of dementia with a likely argument for late schizophrenia."

“Ahh," I hummed. “And what about the third incident, back in Goodbye's grocery store?"

“Not much, other than the article." Dean swiped at another tab. “New Mexico isn't as thorough and open about its police reports, but I did find out that it likely resulted in Mrs. Martin being institutionalized, and she stated in Southwestern State Hospital until her death several years ago…"

“What about emailing her family?" I asked.

“As far as I can tell, they're keeping dark," he answered. “MuzzleScroll accounts are locked as private, they don't have public emails, and no extended family working a public job. We might've reached a dead end here…Better move it all to our Goodbye Files folder, and rank it under 'Doppelgänger'."

I muttered a curse or two beneath my breath, but sighed, knowing there wasn't anything else we could do about it.

“So, what would you do?" I asked a short moment later, then clarified, “If you met your evil twin on the street?"

Smirking, he promptly, “Not sure, but knowing you, conejo, you'd probably get turned on by the thought of making out with yourself."

“C'mon," I laughed, waving him off, “you think I'm that shallow? I'd invite my twin for drinks first before I consider flirting."

“And if you get lucky," Dean commented with a dry grin, “then I'd finally have the chance to tell you to literally go fuck yourself." With that, I rolled my eyes, and figured we did all we could for the Goodbye case so far. Until one of Mrs. Martin's relatives came to us or we were unfortunate enough to encounter our own doppelgängers, it would have to remain closed.