Dana Scully’s apartment
Friday
6:25 am
Once again in her own apartment, Scully found herself
standing at her
dresser staring wide-eyed at her reflection in the mirror as she fastened
the
silver owl bracelet around her left wrist. That accomplished, she toed
off her
shoes, then removed her suit jacket and folded it neatly over the arm
of the
chair that sat in the corner of her bedroom. Next came her gun and
holster,
which she removed and placed on the nightstand beside her bed. Moving
to
the curtains, she closed them carefully, wanting to ensure that the
rising sun
would not encroach on the darkness of the room.
Finally satisfied that the environment was properly
conducive to sleep, she
approached the bed, wondering not for the first time if she might be
losing her
mind. Her partner was out there, God knows where, having who knows
what
done to him, and here she was moving about her bedroom in a surreal
daze
contemplating a nap. As much as her logical mind was screaming at her
that
this was sheer lunacy, that the only result this foray into the absurd
could possibly
produce would be to shorten that much further the amount of time she
had to
conduct a serious search for her partner, Scully climbed into her bed,
settling
her head back against the pillows. Yes, it was crazy, and yes, it was
entirely
possible that nothing would come of it, but she was determined to see
it through
to its fruition, nonetheless, for the same reasons she had led them
to that McDonalds
in Stevensville to apprehend a pedophile, despite her disbelief. What
if it were true?
If she had the means, quite literally in the palm of her hand, to save
her partner, she
simply couldn’t allow anything to sabotage their use, including herself
and her own
skepticism.
Scully closed her eyes, taking slow, deep breaths
as she willed herself to relax
enough to sleep. If natural slumber proved impossible, she was prepared
to take
a sleeping pill, but she hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, not being
certain that the
drugs wouldn’t have an adverse effect on this little experiment. Fortunately,
although
it certainly hadn’t seemed fortunate at the time, spending the night
in a half-doze on
one’s sofa wasn’t exactly a restful experience, so after just a few
moments, Scully
found herself drifting off, her last conscious thought directed to
her partner.
**Oh Mulder, the things I do for you…**
Reality returned in fits and starts, reasserting
itself one sense at a time. Feeling
came first, as she became aware of the cold, hard concrete beneath
her
stocking-covered feet, the cool air surrounding her causing the fine
hair on her
arms to rise in response. Smell and taste arrived simultaneously, carrying
with them
the nauseatingly sweet stench of gasoline. The odor was so thick, so
overwhelming
she was momentarily robbed of her breath as the vapors sought to steal
oxygen’s
rightful place in her mouth and nose and lungs. She gagged, trying
desperately to
clear her airway of the foul substance before she drowned in it.
Bending at the waist, hands resting on her knees,
Scully coughed weakly several
times until gradually she was able to breathe again, her respiratory
system finally
beginning to adjust to this olfactory assault. The smell of the fuel
was still present,
but no longer quite so overpowering. This was when she discovered that
she could
once again hear. And from the way it sounded, she was not alone.
The noises were faint, vague, and as near as she
could figure given the fact that
her eyes still stubbornly refused to join the party, they seemed to
be coming from a
place about fifty feet to her left. Turning, she cautiously began moving
in that direction,
knowing instinctively that this was where she needed to be.
As she drew closer, it became apparent that there
were two distinct voices coming
to her out of the darkness. The first was deep and slightly gravelly,
it’s tone fluctuating
between gentle amusement and searing anger. She vaguely recognized
the cheerful timbre
as belonging to the elusive Transit policeman she’d spoken with the
previous evening,
Stuart Brown. When the rage of his insanity got the better of him,
she could barely
distinguish the guttural sounds emanating from his throat as being
human. The second
voice however, was as familiar to her as Scully’s own mother.
“Mulder.”
Despite the knowledge that she was as good as invisible
here, Scully couldn’t stop
the ragged whisper that hearing his pain-filled voice tore from her
throat.
It was at this point that her eyesight decided to
catch up with the rest of her, aided
by a single, flickering candle casting its sparse light on the two
men ahead of her. She
increased the pace of her approach, not at all concerned with the thought
that she might
be observed. While she may not completely comprehend exactly what had
brought her
here, her limited understanding of the situation stretched enough to
provide the
knowledge that her existence here in this version of reality was undetectable
by its
natural inhabitants.
She was right there with them now, included
in the dim circle of illumination cast
by the candle. Scully moved closer to Mulder, wanting to assess his
injuries, only
mildly surprised to find that her presence cast no shadow over his
face despite the
fact that she’d moved between him and the sole source of light in the
room. Her loud
gasp of dismay at the sight that greeted her had absolutely no effect
on either the killer
or his intended victim.
She dropped down onto her knees beside the straight-backed
wooden chair to
which her partner was tied with not only what looked like twenty yards
of rope, but
electrical tape as well. His arms were pulled tightly back behind him
and fastened to
the back of the chair with what appeared to be his own handcuffs. Each
foot was taped
at the ankle to the chair leg it rested in front of and a half a roll
of tape secured his thighs
to the seat of the chair, effectively cutting off any chance of movement
whatsoever. The
only part of his body not tied, taped, or otherwise strapped down was
his head. And
from the damage that had apparently been done to his face so far by
this monster, Scully
figured that moving his head around too much would be the last thing
Mulder would
want to do.
The entire left side of his face was an angry mixture
of purples, blacks, and reds,
and his left eye was almost completely swollen shut. There was a thin
stream of dried
blood that had trickled a path down the side of his face, the origin
of which was
concealed within his hairline. Looking into the one hazel eye that
was visible, she could
see the slightly dilated pupil that indicated the possibility of a
concussion.
“So what do ya say, G-man? Hungry yet? There’s plenty
of rats down here in these
service tunnels. I wouldn’t want it to be said that I deprived a man
of his last meal.” Brown
spoke lightly, his tone almost buoyant, as if they were two long-time
friends sharing a
beer and a joke.
“Gee, uh, no thanks. I think I’ll hold out for the
second course. I had rat
yesterday,” Mulder responded dryly.
“You’re a real smart guy, aren’t you G-man? A regular
comedian. Well, that’s
ok. Makes it more fun. I mean, you should’ve seen the look on the last
guy’s face
when I pulled out those scissors. Now that was comical.”
The killer chuckled to himself at the memory, before
growing serious once more. “You
wanna know how you’re gonna go? I could give you a little preview.”
“And ruin all the suspense? No, that’s all right.
I’ll wait until…”
His words trailed off mid-sentence as he suddenly
turned and looked directly at Scully.
Forgetting for the moment that for her this was only a horrible nightmare,
she had raised a
hand to gently brush the hair away from his face so that she could
examine the cut on his
head. It was only when her fingers reached the point where they should
have been stopped
by the barrier of his flesh but instead kept on going as if passing
through a warm,
Mulder-infused fog that she realized her mistake. Currently she and
her partner did not
inhabit the same plane of existence, so physically she was unable to
have any kind of
affect on his environment. Yet, when her fingers had entered the space
presently being
occupied by her partner, she felt a tangible connection to him, as
if she were able to touch
his very essence and take a bit of it back into herself. And when his
head snapped around
to hers seconds later, she felt certain that on some level he too was
aware of her presence.
“Mulder? Can you hear me?”
Not really expecting a reply, and not getting
one, she reached out a tentative hand to
caress his bruised and battered face. This time his eyes slid closed
and he leaned his head
in her direction slightly as if he could feel the gesture and was gratefully
accepting its
comfort. He inhaled deeply as if infusing himself with some pleasant
scent, and that’s
when she noticed that he was wheezing slightly on each indrawn breath.
Without the
benefits of an x-ray machine or even a proper exam, she could only
deduce that this
maniac had either hit or kicked her partner in the ribs, badly bruising
if not fracturing a
few. She found herself hoping that the wheezing was an effort on his
part to reduce the
pain of his injured chest and not due to a punctured lung.
Mulder opened his eyes and warily regarded his captor
as Brown moved out of the
circle of the candlelight. There was a slight scraping noise of metal
on concrete as he
bent into the darkness to pick something up, and then the sound of
liquid sloshing
around in its container. When he returned to the glow of the candle
and brandished
his prize with a maniacal grin, Scully’s eyes grew wide with recognition.
“Oh God, no,” she whispered, feeling suddenly sick.
In his hands, Stuart Brown held a red metal gas
can.
As he slowly unscrewed the cap and walked toward
Mulder, she jumped to her feet
and screamed, “You can’t do this! It hasn’t been three days! You’re
supposed to
wait three days!”
He stopped directly in front of her partner, the
can raised high over his head, and
couldn’t resist one last taunt. “You got anything funny to say now,
G-man? I could
use a good laugh.”
Scully knew the terror he had to be feeling at that
moment. A fear of fire was the
only true phobia that Mulder had ever admitted to having in the years
that she had
known him. To be suddenly faced with the knowledge that your worst
nightmare
was coming true could be nothing less than paralyzing. So only Scully
knew the inner
strength her partner revealed when he unblinkingly faced his captor.
“Fuck you.”
“Now, see, that wasn’t funny, it was just rude,”
he was told as the gasoline-filled
can was inverted over his head.
Mulder coughed and sputtered as he desperately sought
to breathe without inhaling
or swallowing the foul substance. After enough of the gas had run off
so that it was no
longer dripping in his face, he opened his eyes as Brown spoke again.
“Consider that the prologue. We’ll save the final
act for Sunday,” he said, as he
brought the gasoline can down hard against the injured side of his
face. Mulder’s
head crumpled forward as he slipped into unconsciousness.
Scully would’ve given anything at that moment to
be standing in front of Stuart
Brown with a loaded gun in her hands.
“I’m gonna get you, you bastard, just wait and see.”
“I’m gonna get you, you bastard, just wait and see.”
At the sound of his partner’s heated snarl, Mulder
forced himself to raise his
head and open his eyes, despite the fact that the entire left side
of his face felt as
if it were on fire.
“Hey Scully, can you wait to kill me until after
I’ve had a couple of Advil?”
Scully whirled around and stared at her partner
as if he’d suddenly sprouted
wings and proposed a midnight flight to the moon.
“What’s the matter? Never seen someone tied to a chair and doused in
gasoline
before? Scully?”
She gaped at him. “You can see me?” She knelt beside
his chair once again,
waving a hand in front of his face.
“Ha ha Scully, very funny. Now, are you going to
cut me loose before that overgrown
son-of-a…”
Now it was Mulder’s turn to look incredulous as
he realized that the overgrown
son-of-a-bitch in question was sitting on the concrete floor not four
feet away ignoring
them completely.
“What the hell?”
“I wish I could Mulder, more than anything, but
I can’t…”
“Why can’t he see you?” he interrupted. “He’s acting
like he doesn’t even
see you!"
“Because he can’t. And up until a minute ago, neither
could you. He hit you
and knocked you out, and when you woke up…” she snapped her fingers
as
the realization dawned. “That’s it. You didn’t wake up. Mulder you’re
still unconscious!”
“Scully, I have a headache the size of the Grand
Canyon, not to mention some pretty
painful ribs. Do you think you could possibly explain to me in words
that are four letters
or less just what in the hell you’re talking about?”
“This is what I’m talking about Mulder.” She raised
her left wrist to show him the owl
bracelet, it’s moonstone eyes glowing brightly enough to rival the
light from the candle.
“I’m not really here. Let me show you.” She reached
out and tried to touch the
undamaged side of his face. As before, her fingers passed through him,
leaving her with
the feeling that she’d touched a piece of his soul. In that instant,
she could feel his
wonder, his pain, and even the residual traces of the fear he’d experienced
moments
before when faced with the possibility of being burned alive.
His mouth dropped open at the ghost-like touch
of her fingers.
“That was you! Before he pulled out the gasoline,
you touched me, didn’t you?”
He waited for her nod before continuing. “I thought
I must be suffering from some
sort of brain damage. I didn’t actually feel your hands, but all of
a sudden, I felt like
you were nearby. And I could smell you…or rather, your shampoo or bubblebath
or
whatever that apricot stuff is that you sometimes use. What’s wrong?”
Her eyes full of regret, she told him, “I used it
last night, probably right around the
time you were getting your skull bashed in. Damn it, I should’ve gone
down there
myself instead of calling the Transit police. I practically gave you
to him, Mulder!”
But he was already shaking his head. “No Scully,
it wasn’t your fault. By the time
you got my message and called, he already had me. I was lying at his
feet in the security
booth pretending to be unconscious – well, half-pretending anyway since
he had just
clocked me in the head with his flashlight. It’s nobody’s fault but
my own. I should’ve
waited for you to call me back or called Brentwell.”
Scully narrowed her eyes in concentration as a feeling
of urgency swept over her.
“Scully? What is it?”
“I think we’re going to have to save the Blame Game
for another day, Mulder. We’re
running out of time. I think – I think that one of us is going to wake
up soon. Mulder, I
need you to tell me anything you know, about this place, or about him,”
she indicated his
captor who was happily munching his way through a bag of potato chips,
“that will help
me to find you. Do you know where you are? It has the look of a subway
tunnel, though
not quite as big, as if maybe it’s some kind of service tunnel or underground
storage?”
He shook his head in frustration. “I’m just not
sure, Scully. I’m fairly certain that we
never actually left that metro station, but I was pretty out of it
at the time. But even if
that’s the case, if you don’t know exactly where to look, these tunnels
are like a big maze.”
“Ok, well at least I know where to start. What about
him? Do you have anything on
him that I might be able to use?”
“I’ve been trying to draw him out, to get him to
slip up and talk about himself, but so
far he hasn’t fallen for it. Actually, it only seems to piss him off,”
he said sheepishly,
winking his swollen eye at her.
“Aww, poor Mulder,” she said sympathetically, reaching
out to give him a reassuring
pat on the knee before realizing halfway to her goal the futility of
it. She paused, her hand
hovering in mid-air over his leg as an idea began to take root.
“Earth to Scully? You in there?”
She stood up suddenly and pointed towards Brown.
“Mulder, he knows where you
are.”
“Yeah, but he can’t see us at the moment Scully,
and even if he could, I seriously
doubt that he’d write down the address and invite you to tea.”
“He may not have to,” she tossed back to him over
her shoulder.
“When I touched you Mulder, it was like I could
see inside you, what you were
thinking and feeling. Maybe it will be the same with him.”
His voice stopped her inches from her goal.
“Scully, you don’t have to do this. Believe
me, whatever you see inside him will
not be pretty.”
She turned to him and smiled, the first real smile
she’d given him since this whole
fiasco with the bracelet began. “Mulder, you went to Antarctica with
a bullet wound
to the head to find me. Certainly I can take a glimpse into the mind
of a madman for you.”
And with that, she reached out a tentative hand
and touched the devil. Brown jumped
in surprise at the sudden invasion as if he too could feel her presence
in much the same
way Mulder had. His eyes came to rest on his captive, who was still
slumped over in his
chair, dead to the world. While his attention was focused on Mulder,
Scully took a deep
breath, held it, and walked through him as quickly as she could.
On the other side, she paused for a moment, her
eyes closed tightly, as she shuddered
involuntarily. After their misadventures last summer in the South Pole,
Scully had thought
she’d known what it meant to be cold, but this creature before her
had a soul that was
blacker than the darkest night and colder than any ice could ever be.
She felt as if thousands
of oily worms were crawling over her skin, and wondered if that feeling
would ever
completely fade. She had told Mulder days ago that Gallant, the pedophile
they’d
arrested, was evil, but she’d had no idea what evil was then. She knew
better now.
She walked back to Mulder’s side and sat down on
the floor beside him, suddenly
more tired than she’d felt since before her cancer had gone into remission.
She was
careful not to touch him, lest he get a glimpse of her little souvenir
from good ole’ Stu.
Mulder had enough to worry about without knowing what sort of sadistic
things
resided in the mind of his captor.
She looked at him and smiled, not nearly as
brightly as she had moments ago, but he
had to give her points for effort. It was the best she could muster
when all she really
wanted to do was vomit.
“I got it.”
“Are you all right, Scully?”
She opened her mouth to tell him she was fine, but
simply nodded at his warning
look. “I’ll be ok. And so will you. I’m going to get you out of here
Mulder.”
“I know you will. I trust you,” he told her softly.
“But you be careful, Scully. Don’t
do anything stupid. That’s my department.”
Their gazes locked and held for a long moment, until,
clearing his throat, he changed
the subject.
“So, what made you decide to use the bracelet?”
She shrugged. “The Wolf called.”
It took him a moment to decipher her cryptic statement.
“The letter. Someone you love
will be lost…you mean that was me? Gee Scully, I didn’t know you cared.”
What was
meant to be a teasing smile came out looking more like a grimace on
his battered face.
She thought of giving some sort of flippant reply,
then figured, what the hell, he’s
unconscious anyway. He probably wouldn’t remember any of this. “Well
Mulder, I
guess now you know.”
The look on his face was nothing short of stunned.
“Scully…I…uh, I just want
to say…”
A shrill ring pierced the relative quiet of
the tunnel, and Scully’s last thought as the
world faded to black was, “Damn it, not now!”
End Chapter Seven
On to Chapter Eight...
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