A/N: This is my entry for Cullen's Bull-Pen Challenge # 2. I didn't wait as long this time. See, I'm learning. ;) As before, it has nothing to do with my current series, just for fun and the challenge. Hope you like it!

A/N 2: Just thought I'd let everybody know that Booth and Brennan aren't together in this little fic. ;)

A Message from the Grave?

By 18lzytwner

Dr. Temperance Brennan sat at her desk as she would every other night, finishing paperwork or writing another chapter for her next book deadline. Strange things had been happening around the Medico-Legal Lab all day but she hadn't been fazed by them. Lights had flickered on and off, the phone rang without anyone being on the other end, and tools had been found in the strangest places. The forensic anthropologist had just figured because today was Halloween that Hodgins and Zach were up to no good.

"Hon, are you sure you don't want to come to the Halloween party? I mean Booth did invite us." Angela hoped that Brennan would leap at the chance.

"Angela, Halloween is just a pagan holiday that consists of people dressing up in silly costumes and getting drunk. It's actually a Christianized perversion of what it really meant to the ancient Celts. Lord Samhain was supposed to come and take the spirits that roamed to the underworld not hand out candy to the children that come dressed up and knock on the door. I highly doubt that the ancient tradition of performing rituals of human and animal sacrifices to ward off spirits had anything to do with what is practiced today. Besides whether it's Halloween or not, this paperwork will still be here tomorrow." The forensic anthropologist told her.

"Well ok, but you know it's not so bad to get out and have some fun sometimes." Angela took a piece of paper and left it on her best friend's desk. It contained the address and directions to the party that some of Booth's friends were throwing.

"Just in case you change your mind, sweetie. Happy Halloween." The forensic artist smiled and left the office. She had to go get ready because the party started in a few hours.

It was quiet now in the Lab and Brennan smiled a little to herself. Now she could get everything done and not be interrupted. The only sounds were her fingers hitting the keys on the desktop computer's keyboard and the occasional whirring of the hard drive.

Ten minutes later there was a loud noise out in the lab and Brennan sighed in frustration for being interrupted. Getting up from her comfy computer chair, she went to the office doorway.

"Angela, I thought you…" She stopped as she could see no one around. Looking around to make sure, Brennan just shrugged her shoulders and returned to her chair.

Five minutes went by and there was another loud noise. Now she was getting really angry and she flung her office door wide open and actually walked out into the lab. Swiping her card at the post, Brennan walked up to the examining table. To her surprise she found the skeleton they had been working on earlier still on the table.

I saw Zach put this away myself, how did it get here? She thought. Shaking her head she looked around for the boxes that had been used to store the skeleton. They were right underneath the table as they normally would be and Brennan grabbed some examining gloves off the nearby shelf.

Twenty minutes later, she had everything back into the boxes and carefully carried the first box to the storage room. Then she returned to the examining table and made a second trip with the second box. Finally, with that taken care of, Brennan headed back to her office.

It was quite for the next hour until the security guard came by and stopped at the forensic anthropologist's door.

"Still here ma'am?" It was obvious question but Brennan looked up from her work."Yes, another late night I'm afraid, Bob."

"Well I'm going home and Steve will be here so have a good night." Bob said.

"Thank you, you too." Brennan smiled.

"Happy Halloween." The security guard smiled back and left the office. Brennan turned back to her computer and saved the document open on her screen. Looking up at the clock, she realized that Bob's visit had meant it was a little after seven o'clock. The party started at eight and she was sure that Booth would be a little disappointed she wasn't going to show but work had to be done.

Around seven forty-five, the forensic anthropologist heard another noise from the lab. What is going on today? She wondered. Walking out into the lab, she saw Steve looking things over up on the platform.

"Did you want this skeleton out still Doctor?" He asked.

"What skeleton?" Brennan asked.

"The one on the table, ma'am." Steve looked at her sideways.

"I put that away myself almost two hours ago, it can't still be…" she stopped mid-sentence. The very skeleton she had put away now lay on the examining table, its storage boxes back under the table where they normally would go.

"Are you ok?" The security guard asked.

"Yes, I just could have sworn I put this away already." Brennan said as she grabbed another set of examining gloves off the shelf and began to pack away the bones. Steve shrugged his shoulders and continued on his rounds as the forensic anthropologist put the bones away.

When that was finished, she returned to her office to find that the file on her computer had been changed. "The dead walk the earth" was printed across the bottom of the document in big bold letters. Shaking her head, she pressed the 'Backspace' button and tried to delete the words. Much to her surprise the words didn't disappear as the cursor went right over them.

"What the…" She was about to curse when the computer screen went black. The lights in the office went off as well and the entire building lay in darkness. It took a few minutes but Brennan's eyes adjusted to her surroundings. That's when she heard Steve calling her name.

"Dr. Brennan, are you ok?" He asked as he shone his flashlight around and walked toward her office.

"Yes Steve, I'm fine what happened?" The forensic anthropologist wondered.

"I don't know but I'm going to check it out. Here, keep my spare flashlight." Steve handed the battery operated light source over to her and walked toward the guard station in the front of the lab. Brennan decided to walk around and see things for herself. The message that had appeared on her computer was familiar to her and she wanted to know how it was possible that it managed to get there. No one had walked into her office while she was putting away the skeleton on the table.

Suddenly, the lights came back on and she was forced to close her eyes due to the brightness. Upon opening them again, she went back into her office and booted her computer back up. However, it never returned to the desktop. Two new words graced the screen and her eyes went wide, "You're next!"

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Booth stood at the party looking around for his partner. Instead he caught Angela walking in with Hodgins and Zach. It had been easy to pick up who they were as once again because only squints would have those types of costumes. The entomologist was dressed as a Bilbo Baggins from Lord of the Rings and Zach was dressed as a caterpillar. Angela however had to be the clown in between them. Booth wondered where Brennan was.

Waving at them and the three headed over to him. The FBI Agent was surprised by the look on Angela's face.

"Well you weren't that original were you?" She asked.

"What? Count Dracula is a classic, besides I really like these fake teeth. Where have you guys been?" Booth answered.

"Sorry, we were late. Hodgins got lost and it he refused to admit it." Angela said. Booth saw the look on the entomologist's face.

"If Zach hadn't read the directions wrong, we'd have been here." Jack told him.

"I read them like it said; someone didn't copy them down properly." Zach defended himself.

"I don't care, it isn't that important. Where is Bones?" Booth stopped the argument before it could go any further.

"Brennan said she didn't want to come, something about too much paperwork. I tried to convince her but she went into the whole 'the ancient Celts would be rolling in their graves, if they knew what Christianity had done to their holiday' speech." The forensic artist said. Booth's face fell.

"Listen the party will be going on for hours, that's why Frank had the party out at his parent's barn. I'm heading back into the city and I'm going to get her. I'll be back in an hour or so." The FBI Agent told them. Before any of them could object, he walked away toward the barn doors.

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Brennan quickly manually shut off the computer and took a deep breath. This wasn't happening. There hadn't been bodies for at least five years. She ran out into the lab and ran into the bone storage room.

She wanted to reread the label on the box that she had put away not that long ago only once again it wasn't there. Quickly, she raced back out into the lab and up to the platform. The skeleton was back up on the table but something was different.

There was a blood trail leading from the table to the floor and she followed it. Walking along, the tables and equipment up on the platform she noticed that the trail was becoming bigger and wider. She left the platform and followed it toward the second examining room, where a body would be before having the flesh removed, and that's when she found it.

Steve was covered in blood and lying on the closest table to the door. Brennan immediately checked for a pulse, only to find that the security guard didn't have one. She bit her lip and quickly reached into her pocket to call the police. The forensic anthropologist never got the chance as someone came out of the shadows. Before she could react the man grabbed her throat.

"You aren't as smart as they say you are. You fell right into my trap." The man smiled as she struggled to free herself. He laughed and began squeezing her throat until the world went black.

"Bones. Bones." A familiar voice pulled her back from the darkness after what seemed like an eternity. She opened her eyes and got a face full of Count Dracula.

"Yahh!" The small scream came out before she realized who it was.

"Booth!" She wrapped her arms around him.

"Are you ok? You look like you've seen a ghost." He asked. She let go of him and looked up into his eyes. Concern was evident and she wondered why he was there. She hadn't gotten a call out before the man grabbed her.

"How'd you get here? Did the police find Steve's body?" Brennan asked.

"Whoa. Steve's body? Who is Steve?" He wondered.

"The security guard; he was dead in the examining room." She replied.

"No one is dead. I came here from the party because Angela said she couldn't get you to come. I was going to take you to the party but obviously there is something going on here." Booth led her over to her couch and they sat down.

"Why did you think the security guard was dead?" He asked.

"I saw him. He was covered in blood and his chest cavity was ripped open. The messages on the computer said he was coming for me but I didn't believe it." Brennan told him.

"Who was coming for you?" Booth was really starting to get upset. Something was very wrong.

"Around six years ago before the FBI and Jeffersonian agreed to their arrangement of working together, the Maryland police came here to ask for my help. Starting in 1994, every year on November first, they would find a partially decomposed body in some place conspicuous. Some place that the body could have only been placed there late on Halloween. The murderer would always leave the same note on the body, 'the dead walk the earth'. It was the only thing to link the bodies together. Every body came with the saying but it wasn't always in English. He used French, Spanish, Italian, and Polish before in 1999 he used Latin and then in 2000 he used English. It was a weird pattern and there wasn't much to go on forensically.

"I spent weeks analyzing all the bones and came to the same conclusion. All the victims were strangled. Well according to the reports when the bodies were discovered they were all missing a specific organ. It takes a strong person to strangle someone and the bodies were of both genders and all races. It also takes a good enough knowledge of the human body to know exactly where to cut and how to remove an organ without ruining it. I couldn't narrow it down except that it had to be a man about six foot four with a superb education and large hands. Strangely in 2001, there was no body and the case dried up. That's why I don't like Halloween. This guy slipped away and some where he's probably doing it again and there is no truth or closure for the families. All they know is that their son, daughter, mother, or father was killed for no apparent reason." Brennan sighed and let her shoulders sink.

"You did all you could. There wasn't much evidence but you tried. That's all anyone could ask for. At least the families could bury their relative. You gave a lot more than you think to them." Booth tried to make her feel better.

"My best wasn't good enough and every year since 2001, I have been having nightmares and I still can't catch the bastard. There has to be something I can do." She said. Booth was about to tell her something but he never got the chance. The forensic anthropologist raced out of the room and he followed her. They went intro the bone storage room and then back up to the platform.

"My subconscious had to be telling me to go back to this body. I had pulled it out earlier and looked it over as I always do every year since 2001. Zach had put it away but in my dream, it kept returning. There has to be something here to get the murderer." She said. Gloving up, Brennan took the bones back out of the box and began to carefully examine them.

"Bones, can't we just go to the party and you can look at the bones tomorrow?" He asked.

"You can if you want but I have to do this." Booth could see the determined look in her eyes and nodded.

"No, I'll stay here." He said. A slight smile crossed Brennan's face and she turned back to the bones.

Booth looked at his watch. It had been two hours and she was still looking at the skeleton. He watched her pick up what looked like the part of the spine and that deep look of concentration crossed her face. Booth hoped that it was a good thing and was about to ask her when she sighed.

"Nothing. I went over every inch of the skeleton and nothing." It wasn't like her to admit defeat like that.

"Well look, I'll use my FBI powers and run background checks on all the victims and see if any one lines up in their lives. Plus you can have Zach go over the bones tomorrow and tell him it's a test. Maybe a fresh pair of anthropological eyes is just what this case needs." Booth smiled.

"You'd do that?" She asked.

"Of course I would, I'm your partner. That is if you can agree to go out to dinner with me tomorrow." Booth whipped out his 'charm' smile. Brennan smiled right back.

"What about the party?" She asked.

"Well I guess it would still be going but I'm not in the mood anymore." Booth gave her a tight smile. Brennan sighed.

"You didn't have to stay, you could have gone." She said.

"It wouldn't have been any fun without you though." The FBI Agent responded. Brennan was a little taken aback by the comment. A smile crossed her face and she moved closer to him. He looked at her; she'd never done this before. Suddenly, he found his lips to be occupied by hers and he didn't put up a fight. He opened up and their tongues found…

"Ouch! What do you have in your mouth?" She asked pulling back. Damn, teeth! Booth thought.

"Sorry." He said aloud and quickly spit them out.

"Now where were we?" Their lips once again met and it would a little while before the separated.

The End

Happy Halloween Everybody!