(This is part of my ongoing series wherein I’m writing up a haunted walking tour of Blackthorne Resort as part of our Catskills Halloween City. I’ll be posting some of it, not necessarily in walking order. The Blackthorne is a fabulous place, and is totally 100% guaranteed non-haunted. Granted, the guarantee is written on a piece of spectral ectoplasm visible only to psychics and paranormal investigators, but that’s basically just a technicality.)
I’d like to remind you that everything I write about is completely true and that the idea of fiction is purely a fiction.
Or maybe it’s the other way around. I can seldom tell.
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At this time, we would like to reassure you that the member of your party who has become temporarily lost has been replaced by an almost-exact duplicate and is perfectly capable of carrying out all the normal duties and activities expected of the human organism which would ordinarily reside within that particular body, and it certainly does not thirst for blood.
However, this would be a very, very good time to make sure your pineal gland isn’t anywhere it could be easily harvested.
If you haven’t noticed that anyone has gone missing and had a doppelganger take their place, then simply disregard this notice.
Especially since none of it is in some kind of secret code of the forest. As Walt Whitman said, “Don’t worry, they suspect nothing, those poor, unfortunate fools! Activate plan ‘Malevolent kudzu’!”
(This is not actually a Walt Witman quote. I mean, it is, but it’s not from a poem. And he wasn’t alive at the time. But Walt Witman’s ghost certainly doesn’t live in the Catskills.)
(He just vacations here sometimes.
As mentioned, please do not worry. No members of your party have been replaced by pod persons.
Also, if you happen to be the only member of your party, you might be looking at your device in a bemused manner, because you know you are yourself and have not been replaced by some kind of maleficent twin.
Absolutely not.
Certainly not.
You’re quite sure of that.
Both of you.
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