Disclaimer: I own nothing… damn it…
I want to say thanks to ssadropout, Hina Kita and mebh for reviewing in the last chapter.
Chapter 10
Havoc took Mulder and Scully to Sergeant Carter's apartment again, as Mulder had requested. Scully didn't know why exactly her partner wanted to see the crime scene once more, but figured he might have had some new idea or maybe new questions to be answered. Or maybe it was just Mulder being Mulder…
"What is it that you're looking for?" Scully asked him.
"I don't know, yet."
Scully wasn't surprised. Looking for answers without having the slightest idea of what those might be was very common for both of them, considering the kinds of cases they usually had to investigate. Mulder started to go through all of Carter's stuff again, looking for anything unusual. Everything still remained in place because the sergeant didn't have any family to claim his belongings.
"Is he always like this?" Havoc asked Scully.
"Yes…" She said.
"Huh."
"But he's a very competent agent." She added, before starting to look at the stuff that Mulder hadn't looked at yet. She had to consider that this wasn't the time she lived in, nor the country she came from. She went on examining Carter's belongings, trying to think like someone from the early 1900s.
Documents, clothes, books… There wasn't anything there that you wouldn't expect to find. Scully moved away from the nightstand and saw Mulder ripping off the wallpaper. She was going to complain about it, but then saw Havoc just watching him without saying a word, like he found it entertaining. She changed her mind about saying anything and pretended she understood Mulder's reasons to destroy private property, even though she didn't have the slightest idea of why he was doing that. Maybe if she did so, Second Lieutenant Havoc would be less likely to tell the Colonel that Mulder was insane and therefore not trustworthy. The blonde soldier didn't seem to take Mulder very seriously.
"Anything?" Havoc asked after Mulder gave up on his wallpaper assault.
"Termites…"
Not happy yet, Mulder began to move the furniture from the wall, making the mess worse. He wasn't very careful in doing so, scratching the floor as he pushed the heavy pieces of furniture. Scully knew that no one would complain about it, but it bothered her to see that the Lieutenant by their side was finding it all very funny.
"A little help, if you don't mind…" Mulder said to Havoc, while holding one end of the bed that was still covered with a blue blanket. "I want to turn this upside down."
"All right…" Havoc said, laughing, even though he had no idea why he wanted to do that.
"Mulder, I honestly don't think you're going to find anything by trashing Carter's apartment…" Scully confessed with a sigh.
However, Mulder just smirked, looking at wooden bed frame. She immediately recognized that look on his face. He had it every time he found evidence. Not any kind of evidence, but what he considered interesting evidence, associated with paranormal phenomena.
"What is it?" She asked, now turning to the upside-down bed to see what he had found.
A small symbol was drawn on the wooden bed frame with black ink. It was round and about the size of a plum. Seemed like someone had drawn it a few days ago.
"It kind of resembles the symbols we found on the basement we were brought to." Mulder said, gently stroking the dry ink.
"What do you think this is?" Havoc asked, now feeling a bit disturbed.
The Lieutenant's smile had just been erased from his face, as he now knew that they had found something that might be relevant.
"I don't know… But I believe it's related to the symbols from the basement." Mulder answered.
"How?"
"I think that those symbols in the basement were used to bring agent Scully and me to this time and this symbol was used to bring someone… or something, here."
"To kill Sergeant Carter…" Havoc said.
Lieutenant Havoc stared at the symbol, now feeling a bit scared. He didn't like Mulder's theory at all. It implied that something supernatural was going on and he wasn't a big fan of anything like that.
"This bed frame could be handmade. Isn't it more likely that this symbol is the craftsman signature? It's not the same symbol, not even the same color of the symbols on the basement. Besides, we have no evidence that the symbols are connected to our coming here." Scully said.
Havoc wanted to believe agent Scully. Her explanation was a lot more reasonable, but at the moment, he was having a hard time to convince himself that all that was going on had a plain scientific explanation.
"If we go to the other victims' places, we can check for similar symbols." The soldier suggested, although he really wished they wouldn't find more of those symbols. He did want to solve the case, but he didn't want it to be anything related to monsters, magic, or whatever the FBI agent could be thinking of.
Mulder and Scully both knew that checking the other places would be the best thing to do now. If they found other symbols, then it meant there was a connection between them and the crimes. If no symbols were found in the other crime scenes, that one was more likely a coincidence.
"Some of the crime scenes still contain the old furniture, right?"
"I think the furniture remained untouched in two more places that are still empty."
They went back to the car in a bit of a hurry and Havoc put the key in the ignition.
"Is it true that smoking can give you cancer?" He asked, holding a pack of cigarettes.
"Yes, it increases your chances a lot." Scully said.
"Damn…" The man said, before putting the pack of smokes back in his pocket and turning on the ignition. "I really needed a cigarette…"
Johen Hewitt's apartment was about 10 minutes from there by car, but it felt like a long way since each of the three people in that car was eager to know if those symbols meant anything. It could be the missing lead that would help them solve the case or just one more useless detail that had nothing to do with it at all. Havoc finally parked the car on the street and got off the vehicle. He went to open the door for the agents, but Mulder opened it himself and they got off.
"How did Hewitt die, again?" Mulder asked.
"Strangled with electric wire in his kitchen." Lt. Havoc remembered.
Havoc had been to the crime scene on the day they found the man.
"Poor old bastard…"
"Did you know him?" Scully asked.
"Yeah, he was quite well known. They said he was going to be promoted, but he died before that happened."
The Lieutenant unlocked the door of the apartment in the second floor and they entered. The place was covered in a thin layer of dust and apparently some things had been taken away. There were no curtains to hide the dirty windows, but there was still an old couch in the living room. There were marks on the floor, where a small table used to be and some more marks suggested the man who lived there wasn't very careful when pushing the chairs to sit down. The wooden floor was all scratched.
"His family came and took most of the stuff, but left some pieces of furniture." Havoc explained.
They went straight to Hewitt's bedroom and found his bed, with no mattress. Luckily, the bed frame was still there, so Mulder and Havoc didn't waste any time. They turned the bed upside down to look and there it was, the same symbol, drawn in black paint.
"Bingo." Mulder said, looking at the drawing on the wood. "It's the same symbol. Seems like it's fading away."
"Damn it." Havoc complained.
"Many cultures summon demons or monsters to do things for them. Maybe someone summoned something to kill those people."
The Second Lieutenant really didn't want to hear that. Havoc noticed Mulder seemed very convinced of that theory, so he looked at Scully, already anticipating disagreement.
"Ok, so let's say these creatures exist and can be controlled to attack people. Why is that nobody has ever found any solid evidence of their existence? So many people tried to find them and no one was ever successful."
"If nobody has ever found any evidence of their existence, it's only because there are people who don't wish to uncover the truth." Mulder said.
Scully sighed, knowing that anything she said now wouldn't make a difference. After all, they both knew how evidence could be easily destroyed and the truth could be hidden from the public, no matter at what costs. The three of them decided to go to the one other place that according to Havoc still contained the original furniture and then headed back to the headquarters.
"Some kind of monster killed them?" Roy asked, his head resting on his hands while he stared at Mulder kind of in the same way Scully did when the man said something that went against the laws of science, but letting a lot more annoyance and a lot less respect show.
"That's a possibility." Mulder said with his confidence unaffected. "We found the symbols in the three crime scenes we looked."
He wouldn't have solved many of the cases they had gotten in the past if he had stopped at the first time someone said he was out of his mind.
"They were all scared to death of something. If they were being threatened by some inhuman creature, who could they have asked for help? Who would believe them?" Mulder continued.
"I think we should focus on human suspects, Mr. Mulder, not lose our time in a wild goose chase." Roy said.
"We all know mistakes have consequences, so tell me, Colonel Mustang. Which one has the worse potential consequences? Believing in something that does not exist? Or ignoring the existence of something that does exist? Years ago doctors didn't know about bacteria, so they didn't wash their hands before attending to women in childbirth."
"You do have an answer for everything…" The Colonel said.
Arguing with Mulder about the existence of these creatures was a waste of time, so Roy turned to Lieutenant Hawkeye and asked her to let the FBI agents know what she had found out.
"Both doctors remembered having taken care of the victims before they died. Elias Lockheed was said to be very jumpy and almost hysterical, although that wasn't included in the medical file. He didn't say why, just said he felt very tired. The other victim, Alice Franklin was also very nervous and wouldn't say why. She asked for some medicine and the doctor said he couldn't give her any because he didn't know what was wrong with her. She left his office without allowing him to examine her."
"So far the only solid lead we have is the symbol you found. It's too much of a coincidence." Roy said. "Someone might have a religious motive to kill soldiers. Wouldn't be the first time… We'll go to the library and look for any records of these symbols. Maybe we can find out what they mean."
His subordinates stood up from their chairs and followed him to the library. Only Breda stayed behind to take Mulder and Scully to their dorms, since the Colonel didn't want them around any documents or even some books that could be found in the library.
N/A: Hello guys! Chapter 10 is one day early! I got an unexpected shift for Friday, along with my already planned Saturday shift. And I'm travelling on Sunday, so I thought it'd be better to post one day early than 4 days late. If the 2 night shifts in a row don't kill me, I'll post another chapter next Friday. See you then! Oh, be so kind and leave a review if you have the time.