The Carbon Copy

The carbon copy arrived the same week we did, folded neatly into the bottom of a moving box labeled ‘MISC’. I remember pulling it out, thinking it was a strange sort of family portrait—two children, a boy and a girl, standing in front of a house that wasn’t ours. The boy had a smear of chocolate around his mouth, and the girl was missing her front tooth. But the faces were wrong. They were ours.

I was nine when we moved into the Hillcrest Apartments, a cluster of gray concrete buildings that smelled of mildew and burnt toast. Mom said it was temporary, just until Dad found a better job, but the way she said it made me think we’d be there forever. My brother, Leo, was four, and he had a habit of crawling into our parents’ bed at 3 AM, his little feet cold against my back when I’d sneak in there too. He was afraid of the dark, but only since we’d moved. Before, he’d sleep with his door wide open, the hallway light a dim rectangle on his carpet. Now he demanded the glow of his nightlight, and if it flickered even once, he’d scream until Mom or Dad came.

It started with the lights. Leo would turn them on and refuse to let them be turned off. He’d stand in the hallway, his hand on the switch, his eyes wide, and if I so much as reached for it, he’d wrench it back with a sob. ‘Don’t,’ he’d beg. ‘It’s not the dark I’m scared of. It’s the copy.’

I asked him what he meant, but he just shook his head and pointed at the wall. At first, I thought he was joking. But then I saw the shadow. It was late afternoon, the sun slanting through the blinds, and I was walking past his room. Leo was sitting on his bed, playing with his toy cars, and there, on the wall behind him, was another shape. It was the outline of a child, but it was wrong—too tall, too thin, with arms that hung too low. And it was moving. Not with Leo, but against him. When Leo leaned forward, the shadow leaned back.

I froze. I blinked. The shadow was gone. Leo looked up at me, his face pale. ‘You saw it, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘It follows me.’

I told myself it was just a trick of the light. But that night, Leo refused to sleep in his room. He cried and screamed until Mom let him stay in her bed. I heard him through the wall, whispering, ‘It’s under the bed. It’s in the closet. It’s in the mirror.’

Dad thought Leo was just being dramatic. He tried to reassure him, but one night, I heard him mutter to Mom, ‘There’s something wrong with that kid. Maybe we should take him to a doctor.’

But I knew it wasn’t Leo. It was the house. Or rather, the building. The Hillcrest had a certain smell, a dampness that clung to your clothes, and the walls seemed to press in close, especially on the second floor. Our apartment was 2B, and the neighbor across the hall, a reclusive old man named Mr. Kremm, watched us through his peephole. I never saw him leave, but I’d hear his floorboards creak at night, and sometimes, when I was alone in the kitchen, I’d feel a cold draft from under the door.

One afternoon, I was in the laundry room in the basement, waiting for the washer to finish. The room was lit by a single fluorescent bulb that buzzed and flickered. I was reading an old comic book when I heard a sound—like a child’s laughter, but wrong. It was coming from the vent. I put my ear to the grate and heard a voice, faint and tinny: ‘I’m in here. Let me out.’

I yanked my head back, heart racing. The laughter stopped. Then a draft blew through the vent, and I swore I saw a face—a smeared, wavering image of a boy with chocolate on his mouth—staring back at me. I dropped the comic and ran upstairs.

That evening, Leo wouldn’t stop crying. He was sitting in the corner of the living room, his arms wrapped around his knees, rocking. Mom knelt beside him, trying to soothe him, but he kept screaming, ‘She’s not my sister! She’s not my sister!’ He pointed at me. ‘The other one wears your clothes. She laughs in the mirror.’

I felt a cold knot in my stomach. I went to the bathroom, the one with the big medicine cabinet mirror. I looked at myself. For a second, the reflection seemed to lag—a fraction of a second behind my movements. I raised my hand slowly. The reflection raised its hand, but it was too fast, and when I blinked, it was normal.

But then I saw it. In the corner of the mirror, just out of focus, was a shape. A girl. She had my face, but her hair was darker, and her eyes were too close together. She was smiling. I turned around, and there was no one there. I looked back, and the shape was gone.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I heard Leo whimpering from down the hall. I got up and went to his room. His door was ajar, and through the crack, I saw him lying in bed, the covers pulled up to his chin. ‘Leo?’ I whispered. He didn’t move. But something was off. His breathing was shallow, and his eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. As I watched, his face seemed to shimmer, like a heat haze, and for a moment, I saw a different face—a boy with darker eyes, a cruel twist to his lips. Then it was Leo again.

I screamed. Mom and Dad came running. Leo woke up, confused, and said he hadn’t seen anything. But the next day, I noticed a photo on the fridge—the carbon copy I’d found. It was still there, but in the photo, the house behind us had changed. The windows were now dark, and there was a figure in the upstairs window, a girl with a smear of something dark on her face.

I showed it to Mom. She just frowned. ‘It’s a trick of the light,’ she said. But I knew better.

That evening, Leo went missing. We searched everywhere. Dad checked the parking lot, Mom ran down the hall, and I looked in every closet, every bathroom. Finally, I heard a noise from the basement. I ran down the stairs, and there was Leo, standing in front of the washer, talking to the vent. ‘I told you not to come out,’ he said. ‘She’ll see you.’

I grabbed his arm. ‘Who are you talking to?’ I demanded.

He turned to me, and his eyes were empty. ‘The copy,’ he said. ‘She wants to trade places.’

I pulled him upstairs, but when we got to the top of the stairs, I saw the bathroom door was open. The light was on. And there, in the mirror, was a reflection of me—but it was walking away from the mirror, into the mirror’s depth, and then it stopped and turned. It smiled. And then it stepped out.

I blinked. There was no one there. But Leo was shaking. ‘It’s too late,’ he whispered. ‘She’s everywhere now.’

We moved out two weeks later. Dad got a job offer in another state, and Mom was relieved to leave. But as we packed the last box, I found the carbon copy photo in the trash. I picked it up. In the photo, the girl in the window was gone, but now the boy in the front—Leo—had a dark smudge on his face, and his eyes were hollow. I flipped it over. On the back, written in careful pencil, were the words: ‘We’re here.’

I didn’t tell anyone. I just threw the photo in the dumpster and got in the car. As we drove away, I looked back at the Hillcrest Apartments. The windows of 2B were dark. But in the bathroom window, I could have sworn I saw a shape—a girl, her face pressed against the glass, smiling. And she raised a hand, not in a wave, but in a slow, deliberate beckoning.

I turned away and didn’t look back again. But sometimes, in the middle of the night, I hear a faint laughter from across the hall, even though we’ve moved far away. And when I look in the mirror, I see my reflection, but sometimes she’s a fraction of a second earlier than me. And she’s smiling.