This is Avery After Dark, and I'm your host, Avery Ross.

These are some of the most twisted, terrifying stories you will ever hear.

Three true doppelganger encounters.

Our first story.

My older brother, Cameron, travels a lot for work,

and a few months ago, he asked me if I wanted to tag along on a trip to California.

He had a one-day job site visit in this small coastal town just outside Santa Barbara.

And after that, we were planning to drive down the coast for a few days.

I said yes immediately.

I was starting a new job in the next few weeks and wouldn't be able to travel much for the

foreseeable future.

The plan was simple.

Fly in, stay one night, he'd handle his meeting the next morning, and then we'd leave.

We flew in, got an Uber.

Neither of us had ever been to this town before.

This detail is very important before I get into what happened.

We pulled up to this small hotel right by the water, a boutique place with this little

restaurant attached. We walked into the lobby and the woman at the front desk looked up.

The second she saw me, she smiled. Not at my brother, at me. Welcome back, she said, in this very familiar

way. I kind of froze for a second, then glanced at my brother like, is she talking to you?

But she was looking directly at me. There was kind of this awkward moment. My brother stepped in

next to me. We just got into town, he said. We've never been here

...