Toronto, Ontario, Canada
August 24th, 1996
"All right, Zoe," said Dr. Penner, shuffling his papers and putting them down on his lap. "That's all our time for today, but make sure you keep our homework in mind. Start with the small stuff if you aren't feeling up to trying anything big."
Zoe, who was sitting across from him, nodded. "I will. Thank you, Dr. Penner."
Just as she was about to stand up, however, a burst of cold air glided into the room. Zoe hunched her shoulders, wrapping her arms around herself. "What was that?" she asked, in a small voice. And then she repeated it four more times, to make it a good number. "That? That? That? That?"
Despite her discomfort, Zoe couldn't help but feel a pang of irritation. She'd been getting her repeating compulsion under control, up until then. With a sigh, she glanced over at her therapist to see if he had noticed the setback. He was frowning, pulling his sweater tighter around his body. "I don't know," was his response. "Maybe the heater went out? That was odd, though."
"Maybe," Zoe murmured.
Dr. Penner got up and took a few steps toward the heater in the corner. However, the faint whistling of wind throughout the room was getting louder. It was beginning to sound dangerously like breathy moaning. Zoe gasped, and began to tap nervously at the table with one hand. Five. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Seeing her fear, Dr. Penner stood up. "Hello?" he called out. "Is… Is someone there?"
All of a sudden, the lights flickered, and then went out altogether. When they came back on, a man was standing in the middle of the office. Alarm hit Zoe like a punch in the stomach, and she whimpered in fright. Dr. Penner's jaw dropped. His mouth moved slightly, as if he was about to say something, but no sound came out.
"It's your fault," rasped the man. As Zoe watched him, she realized that she could just see the corner of Dr. Penner's desk through the man's leg. Or, at least, that was what it looked like. Could it be? Zoe rubbed her eyes, hard. When she opened them again, the man was closer to her therapist, though Dr. Penner had taken a few steps back. He still didn't say anything, but Zoe could see that he was scared. There was something else lurking in his expression, though she couldn't quite recognize it.
The man raised a hand. After a few seconds, he curled it into a tight fist. Dr. Penner made a choked sound, and a burst of red exploded across his chest, a stark contrast against his light sweater. Terror struck Zoe; she screamed, and in her desperation to get away from the translucent man in the centre of the room, ended up knocking her chair over. The wind was knocked out of her as the back of the chair hit the ground. Her glasses fell off of her face, too; Zoe hesitated for a moment, not wanting to make any sudden movements. The man didn't seem to notice her at all, though, or maybe he just didn't care. He jerked his fist, and Dr. Penner fell to his knees, more blood spreading across his chest. Some spurted out, spraying Zoe's shirt.
"Zoe," Dr. Penner coughed. "Run!"
Terror was rendering Zoe's mind a blank wasteland, but she snatched up her glasses, scrambled to her feet, and lunged for the door. Normally, she would have to tap the doorframe seven times before opening it, but in that moment, she was too preoccupied with getting as far away from the ghostly man as possible. "Help!" she yelled, almost tripping in her haste to get out of the room.
She didn't look back, just ran. But when she returned to the office with the police, trembling in her unsanitary, bloodstained clothes, she found Dr. Penner lying face-down on the floor. There was blood pooling around his body, smeared across the carpet and one of the chairs. "My God," whispered one of the officers, surveying the scene. Zoe felt her shoulders shaking before the tears started to drip down her face.
Another officer stepped into the room. She rolled Dr. Penner over and checked his pulse. "He's dead, Chief," she announced, looking out at Zoe and the other police.
The police chief, an authoritative-looking man with dark hair, sighed. "All right," he said, and turned to Zoe with his arms crossed. "What happened here?"
"I t-told you… there was a man…" Zoe managed. "He just appeared… and he was t-translucent, like a g-ghost…"
"A ghost, huh?" asked the chief. "And where is this ghost now?" When he said the word 'ghost', he made air quotations with his index and middle fingers. Zoe winced.
"I don't kn-know," she told him.
The officer who had checked Dr. Penner's body came back over to Zoe and the police. "No other evidence, sir," she reported.
The police chief frowned. "All right," he said gravely. "Take her in."
Before Zoe knew what was happening, handcuffs snapped around her wrists. "Wait… w-what?" she stammered. "I… I don't… I told you, it was… a man, a g-g-ghost… I don't know who he… wait!" The officer closest to her had just shoved her roughly toward the door.
"A ghost. Sure it was," the police chief growled.
Zoe swallowed hard. "L-Let me call my mum, sir. Sir. Sir. Sir. Sir."
"I'm right here, kid. You don't have to repeat yourself," he told her. "We'll call your parents when we get down to the station."
As they ushered Zoe toward the door, she turned around to take one last look at Dr. Penner's office. At the armchair where she had sat every three weeks; at the comforting, pastel purple walls she had studied when eye contact was too overwhelming; and at Dr. Penner, a friendly face to whom she had confided so much. Now, he was bleeding out on the ground- and the police thought that she had done it.
Zoe glanced away. This blood-spattered version of the room was not the way she wanted to remember it. She stared pointedly at the ground as the police ushered her out of the building.
"I hope you have a warm jacket," remarked Fox Mulder as he entered his office one morning. His partner, Dana Scully, raised an eyebrow at him from across the room.
"It's warm outside, Mulder, what are you talking about?" she asked warily. With Mulder, you could never be sure.
He grinned and handed her a case file. "We're going to Canada," he told her.
"Canada?" repeated Scully, opening the folder and studied the first thing inside; the file belonging to someone named Rajesh Penner.
"This is Dr. Penner," said Mulder, pointing at a photograph clipped to the file. "He's a psychiatrist from the province of Ontario. Or, at least he was, up until yesterday. He was killed in his office during a therapy session with a sixteen-year-old girl named Zoe Renaud."
Scully flipped through the contents of the case file. Sure enough, there was a photo of the girl there as well. She had curly, dark hair, glasses, and a face full of freckles. "She was a patient of his?" Scully asked.
Mulder nodded, sitting down across from her and kicking his feet up onto his desk. "Uh-huh. According to her file, Zoe Renaud suffers from severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. She was Penner's patient for almost two years."
"And has she been questioned about his death?"
"Yes," Mulder replied. "She claims that Penner was attacked by a ghost. Obviously, that isn't going down so well at the police station."
Scully raised her eyebrows. "A ghost?"
Her partner nodded again. "Apparently Zoe is eager to help the police with whatever information she has, but right now she's their main suspect."
"I can see why," Scully said. "She was the only other person present at the time of death. But you believe her? You believe that Rajesh Penner was killed by a ghost?"
Mulder shrugged. "I don't know what I believe yet. But I'd at least like to hear her side of the story. It doesn't seem like anyone else does."
"Fair enough," sighed Scully, closing the file. "All right. When do we leave?"
Her partner reached into his pocket and pulled out two plane tickets. "One-fifty," he responded, grinning.
"A.M. or P.M.?"
"P.M."
"Well, that's still more warning than you usually give me," she remarked.
Mulder laughed softly. "You got me there," he said.
The agents arrived in Toronto, Ontario just after three o'clock. It was warm outside; Mulder shrugged off his coat, looking irritated. "You do know that it's summer in Canada too," Scully said.
"I know that," her partner grumbled. Scully couldn't help but laugh.
Mulder's coat lay abandoned in the back seat when the agents pulled up to the morgue. They went inside, and after showing their badges to the coroner at the front, were granted access to the body of Rajesh Penner. Mulder peered over Scully's shoulder as she began to unzip the body bag. "See anything ghostly?" he asked.
Scully smirked up at him. "I haven't even opened the bag up yet," she said.
Mulder chuckled, and waited as Scully revealed Dr. Penner's body. There were two wounds on his chest, one close to his heart, the other a bit lower. "Puncture wounds?" supplied Mulder. "But I thought no weapons were recovered from the scene of the crime."
Scully nodded. "That's right." She opened the coroner's notes. "According to the autopsy, by the way the skin was opened and the whereabouts of the internal hemorrhaging, it's highly unlikely that any sort of knife went in. And none of the witnesses heard shots fired."
"So what are you thinking?" Mulder asked.
The redheaded agent sighed. "I'm not sure. It… it just doesn't seem possible, Mulder."
"Well, in that case, why don't we go pay a visit to the girl?" suggested Mulder.
"Zoe Renaud?"
"That's the one. Maybe she can give us some insight into what caused Penner's injuries."
Scully nodded. "All right. Let's go."
A/N: I've actually finished this fic in its entirety! However, the updating schedule may be a little erratic just because, well, I'm still a busy student. But stay tuned! More ghostly phenomena to come!