Chapter 1:
It was a bitter cold night in Tarrytown New York. A light snow falling from the sky, adding to the several layers that already covered the New York ground, a full yellow moon lighting up the sky, giving off an eerie glow against the snow. It was October, and even though fall had just begun, the weather wasted no time giving its early Christmas present. It was late, but Jack's dog, Merle needed to be walked, and this happened to be his favorite path. There were no cars, and it wasn't very often he found other walkers on the same path, though sometimes he found that a lot of people liked to walk their horses along this path….mostly because it was out of the way.
The mixture of crispy leaves and fresh snow crunched under his boots, as Merle, wandered off ahead of him some.
"Comeon, Merle, do your thing so we can go back home and go to bed." He pulled his coat around himself tighter… it seemed to be getting colder by the second. That's when he heard it….
Clickity, clack, clickity, clack followed by the Winnie of a horse…
It seemed a little late to be out walking a horse, but then he thought about himself being out and about so late, and shrugged it off. The sounds got closer, and Jack was hoping that the rider would be able to see him. Suddenly the pull on the leash stops dead, as he hears Merle, barking and growling.
"Merle, quit causing trouble. Sorry about that Sir, he is just a little up tight." Suddenly Merle yipes, and then the leash goes dead. "Merle…." Jack says, feeling s little scared. "Merle, come on boy." He pulls at the leash a little to try to encourage him to come back. He hears nothing. No horse hooves or whinnies.. no talking…and nothing from his dog. "Merle?" Jack says as he starts to walk forward to see what had happened. As He inched closer, he saw the shadow of a horse standing there, and sitting on top is a figure… Jack can't make out any details, he is still too far away. He see's his dog there in the distance, lying on the ground.
"Merle?" Jack begins to walk faster. "Hey what happened?" Jack thrusts his question at the man on the horse. "Did your horse trample him?" He was answered in silence. "Hey! You better hope my dog is okay, Mr." He says through a shakey voice. As he approaches, he see's a pair of red eyes staring back at him. They feel evil, it makes Jack stop dead in his tracks. He drops the leash as he takes in the view. The horse is huge, black, and it's his eyes that are red. His eyes travel up the length of the horse until his view lands on the man sitting on the horse. Black clothes… from a world long ago, and as he takes in the height of him, he searches for the man's eyes. "Sir….?" He begins…. But then stops when he realizes that the man sitting on the horse…has no head. The Horse Whinnies as if it's unleashing its battle cry, and he stands on his hind legs….kicking ferociously with his front. The figure on top holds tight, raising a sword high in the air. Jack is beyond terrified; he lifts his hands to his face, trying to cover in sheer terror. It's the last thing he sees as the headless man, swings his sword right at him, he feels the slice of pain for an instant, and then chokes on the blood leaving his body through his neck. He falls to his knees, holding his neck as the horseman swings back around and slice the back side of his neck. Everything goes black.
….
"You can't seriously be thinking what I think you're thinking, Mulder." A short red haired agent eyes her partner with steel blue eyes, as he flips through slides of a series of murders just a few hours from them.
"In each and every case, the head was severed from the body…" Mulder continues as if he is telling a story. The lights flicker in the basement office where their superiorities found it best to keep the "Spooky Mulder" and all of his spooky, unexplainable files. "Not a single body has been found with its head, it's as if the killer is taking the heads as trophies." He jumped up, turning off the projector, and flipping on the lights. "There's only one real legend, in which heads being severed was the consistent MO of one killer…and in Sleepy Hallow no less, how could it be anything else?!"
"Mulder, we're talking about a children's story, a fairy tale!" She looked at him with a certain amount of wonder and amusement trying to figure out where he gets this strange tick of his about the paranormal. "I think the headless horseman is quite a stretch."
"Scully, the town of Sleepy Hollow is only minutes away from where the murders have happened! That's no small coincidence." He looked at her, his brown eyes pierce her; they do this dance every time a case lands on his desk. But he needs it, he needs her, she keeps him honest and grounded. Still there are times that her unbelief in the paranormal simply sends him reeling, trying to figure out how she doesn't see. "And those stories, Irving wrote them based off of real inspiration; just because we've turned it into a modern day fairy tale doesn't mean that those towns weren't terrorized by….." He struggled to find the right title. "A monster, ghost…something!"
"Monsters can take many shapes, Mulder." She says looking through him. "I think the story, and the area might have a certain amount of influence over the people who live there, in fact it's known to cause people to see things, and feel things… legends like that have been known to cause people to react in certain ways...it could be a serial killer for all we know"
"Or those things people keep seeing, feeling even, are real, which is why… we are going to take a nice long drive! I have a funny little feeling that it…whatever it is… is going to strike again tonight." He says as he takes the file out of her hands walking back to his desk, a familiar picture hanging on the wall behind him, a picture of a UFO on it with the words ' I want to Believe' tapered across it.
"Mulder, it's a four hour drive!" Scully looks at him, not really as surprised as she sounded.
Come on Scully, it's been awhile since we Road Tripped! Mulder looks at her and smiles, taking a sip of his coffee. Scully gives him a dead stare, some things never change.
…..
Meanwhile in Harrisburg Pennsylvania:
Dean looks across to his brother, straggly brown hair covers most of his face, and he is staring intently at the computer in front of them. "Find anything?" Dean asks as he pushes his food towards him. The smell of a bacon cheeseburger and fries fill his senses, making his stomach cringe in hunger.
"Mmmm….a few." He pauses, still intently looking at the screen, swallowed up by the possibilities of the monsters that could be out there lurking in the shadows.
"Well…don't be picky, Sammy; Job's a job." Dean replies. "You gonna eat that…." Dean eyes his brother's food before he even touches his own. Sam ignores him, looking through pages and pages of stories that the police just can't put their finger on. Dean steals some of his fries. Sam looks up from the computer and glares at him, for a second, moving his food out of Deans reach. Sam was always the smart one, the re-searcher. Dean was more of a shoot and ask questions later kind of guy, but Sam came armed with knowledge, and Dean had to admit, it made their lives ebb and flow nicely.
"Hmmm…. Listen to this." He suddenly starts, as Dean unleashes his hunger on the hamburger, rolling his eyes with pleasure. "The 5th in a string of homicides by beheading is found just outside of the legendary town of Sleepy Hallow Pennsylvania, heads of the victims…still missing. " Dean looks up from his hamburger, intrigued.
"Seriously, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Dean stops and stares at his brother
"The Headless Horseman?" Sam looked up at his brother. "But why now?"
"What do you mean?" Dean asked
"Well I mean, we have the story, but there hasn't been anything else on the radar as far as a headless horseman since it was written. It seems odd that it would appear out of nowhere after all these hundreds of years"
"What are you thinking like a curse?" Dean asked exploring ideas.
"Yeah, maybe, wouldn't be the first time." Sam replies matter of factly.
"Good enough for me." He says taking another bite. "How far away are we?" Sam spends a moment or two staring at his screen again before answering.
"About 5 ½ hours." He closes his computer sliding it in a bag before pulling his food over to himself and starts in on his sandwich.
"Alright, well, I say when we're done here, we hit the road and 'head' over to sleepy hallow." He smiles with a mouthful of food. Sam looks at him, trying to hold back his laughter.
"That's bad." He says before taking another bite.
"Too soon?" Dean says, not being able to help himself.
"Yeah…" Sam says with a smile. "Little bit."
The brothers finish their food, and just a few minutes later, they are back on the road, New York just hours away.
…
By the time that Mulder and Scully arrive, the sun is sinking low over the tree line, the air is cold and an eerie feeling has already fallen over the town of Tarrytown PA. They pull up in an old black Chrysler, just steps away from the crime scene that's just getting finished up. They step out of their cars, both looking very professional in their suits. They walk towards the yellow tape labeled 'Crime Scene' being stopped by the officer standing guard. Mulder and Scully whip out their badges, and show them to the officer.
"Wow, the Feds are really on top of this one aye?" He asks, his blue eyes looking at them, trying to gain some sort of answers.
"What makes you say that?" Mulder answers as he puts his badge back in his pocket.
"Well, there is already two of you here, I guess they thought you needed back up or something. " He pauses as Mulder looks up at him "With this case, you might actually need it." A look of fear crosses his eyes.
"I guess we'll find out." Mulder replies, cocky and ever so sure of himself. They slide underneath the tape and walk in the direction of where the crime had happened. They pass what seems like myriads of officers, and crime scene investigators, until Mulder spots two men in suits already standing near the crime scene exchanging quiet words. He decides to waste no time, and walks in their direction, Scully close to his side.
"Wow look at this!" Mulder starts, making the two boys turn and face him. He is surprised by such young faces. "Looks, like the FBI gives two hoots about what's really going on here if they sent you here." He gives a sly smile, having a sneaky suspicion about these two, who look like they've been caught in a trap.
"Oh yeah, what makes you say that?" The one with short hair, and big attitude fired back.
"Usually this kind of thing ends up on my desk and is never heard about again, they don't call me spooky Mulder for no reason." He rolls a piece of gum around in his mouth, waiting for a response.
The Short haired one smile's crossing his arms… "Wow must suck to have that reputation follow you around."
"Yeah well, reputation isn't everything." Mulder starts.
"Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, agent…." The short haired one waits for the fill in the blanks…
"Special Agent Mulder…" he flips his badge out for them to see. "And this is my partner, Special Agent Scully." She pulls hers out as well. The boys exchange a glance, but the spunky young one holds his ground.
"Right, well… we were here first, so…"
"So, what?" Mulder pauses getting some fun out of this.
"So I think we can handle this, if we need you, we'll have our guys call yours."
"Yeah, slick, doesn't really work like that. Then again, you would know that if you were a real FBI agent…wouldn't you agent….." Mulder returns the favor, waiting for names.
"Agent McLane and this is my partner Agent Riggs." He says as they whip out their badges, showing them as fast as they can, before shoving them in their pockets.
Mulder smiles, trying to decide if he should continue to point out their fatal flaws, but then he kind of wanted to see how far they would go to impersonate federal agents, whoever they really were, he would find out soon enough, but for now he decided to play along. He kinda liked the little fiery one, reminded him of himself ten years ago. "Alright then, let's get started." He walks between them, patting Dean on the back; Scully walks around the open side of Sam, who politely nods at her… She nods back giving a slight smile.
"What was that all about?" Scully asked her partner as the two men trailed behind them.
"Did you see their badges, wrong information in the wrong spot? Not to mention their names; Mclane and Riggs? " He looked over at her.
"Are you saying they're impersonating federal agents?" She asked, keeping her voice low. He smiled back at her, letting her know she was right. "Mulder, we can't let them stay anywhere near this case if they are lying. We don't know who they are or what they are here for."
"They're here for information." He says matter of factly.
"Why do you say that?" She asks mildly confused.
"Because not everyone can almost pull off a perfect impersonation, they've done this before, probably a lot."
"Well that doesn't make sense….what…." She starts but doesn't get a chance to finish; she is interrupted by the coroner, a black man with dark eyes, blue gloves around his wrists.
"I'm done here if you guys want to take a look before we load him up." He says as he stands up and removes the gloves. Mulder kneels down, taking in the unsightly body, covering his face with the back of his wrist. Dean kneels down beside him.
"Hmmm…" Mulder huffs, as he sits there silently taking in the body, the area surrounding it…putting pieces together in his mind, before he ever lest anyone in on it.
"What? What do you see?" Dean asked
"Just something that goes against my theory."
"Which is…?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Mulder stood up and started to walk over towards his partner, who was taking notes from the first officer on scene.
"Try me." Dean replied back, walking next to him.
"Do you know the legend of sleepy Hallow?" Mulder asked
"Are you saying the headless Horseman is back….kicking ass and taking Heads." Mulder stops and looks at him, and smiles. "What?" Dean suddenly feels a little weird.
"You believe in that kind of thing?" Mulder asks, liking this kid more and more.
"More than you know." Dean puts his hands in his pocket looking away.
"Alright, well, legend has it that if he, crossed a certain bridge, he would disappear in a blaze of 'fire and brimstone'." Mulder looked out in front of them
"You mean that bridge?" Dean looks in his direction, just a few feet in front of them was the bridge between the two small towns.
"That would be the one."
…