CHAPTER TWO: THE MIST OF THE DAWN
Fatone stepped off the plane first and encountered a thick, opaque fog. He coughed as he walked through it and into the terminal of the airport. Behind him he heard Scully coughing as well. As they both made their way into the airport, Fatone stopped to look out the window. All around them was a low lying fog like he had never seen before in his life. It moved as slowly as smoke in a crowded bar room and was as thick as clouds that hung in the pictures of opium dens in the late 19th century.
That's when he saw it. Something was moving in the fog in a very non-human like manner. The movements seemed like those of a snake, or at times a dog. He dropped his bag and moved closer to the window, his hands touching the cold glass, immune to the chilled sensation they were receiving. Scully stared at him curiously before asking him what was the matter. He turned to her and spoke, "Down there, in the fog look__" he looked back, but whatever he had seen was gone. "Never mind. Must be the lack of sleep."
She glanced out the window and then back at him, "More than likely it is. I guess then we should be going." She watched him rub his eyes as he turned to her and after he had finished they walked away, shrugging off the unusual fog and the strange movements within it that Fatone had seen. Scully noticed how tired her partner was as they walked towards the nearest rental car desk. As she approached the attendant he made it a point to collapse on a nearby bench. As she returned he had once again drifted off into a light slumber and when she touched his arm slightly he woke with a jolt.
"WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE HOW WHY!??" He exclaimed, looking around nervously. Once he had realized that he had been asleep for such a brief period of time, he blushed, grabbed his carry-on bag and headed towards the luggage terminal with Scully in tow.
"Are you all right, Fa__" she stopped herself as she remembered his request, "Joey?"
"Oh yeah," he responded, "just peachy, you?"
She eyed him, stopping at the luggage terminal as he nearly walked past it. He turned sharply and stood next to her, hopping from foot to foot. "I'm always a little hyper when I first wake," he said with a wink. She bit her lip as she tried, desperately, not to laugh. Suddenly he stopped and looked at her, "I know I saw something, Scully. What I don't know. But it was there... I know it was."
"That's a Mulder statement if I ever heard one," she mumbled quietly, biting her lip in the process.
"I don't know. I really don't know." He watched the luggage move and suddenly their bags appeared. "Hallelujah! My luggage isn't in Cancun!"
Scully stood there for a moment after picking up her luggage and playing with the rental car key in her hand. She had started thinking of Mulder again. Fatone watched her, stayed silent for several moments before saying, "He meant a lot to you?"
She looked at him, surprised that he once again new her thoughts. She nodded somberly and replied, "For a good majority of my career he was the only partner I knew. Sure I had other partners but...there was something special about him."
He nodded and held out his hand in front of her, which she placed the car key in. "You rest, I'll drive," he said, as though confirming what had just taken place. She nodded as they turned towards the exit and the parking lot the car was located in.
***
As they drove through downtown Raleigh Scully dozed in the passenger seat. Fatone passed perhaps a dozen hotels and motels but none of them gave him any particular feeling. His instincts told him to drive on to the outskirts of town and as he did so he thought of various things over and over again in his mind: namely the creature of the mist and the case file. The more he thought on it the more the creature seemed to become a figment of his imagination.
Suddenly he slowed down. On his right was a small motel, well kept and rather friendly looking. His intuition told him to stop there and as he pulled into a parking space, Scully woke up. "We're stopping?" she asked groggily.
"Yes. Don't know why we're stopping here...but something was telling me to."
She looked at him, puzzled, and spoke again, "How far are we from the crime scene?"
He bit his lip, looked at the miles traveled on the car, then consulted the file and map. He mumbled to himself, looking up every now and then, then flipped through the file for the symbol they had discovered. "Twenty miles from there...twenty miles from all of them I think."
Scully couldn't believe it. She looked over his shoulder and quickly estimated. He was right. "How did you do that?"
"I don't know," he replied with a shrug. "I was just thinking about the mist of the dawn and the creature I saw in it then the case and suddenly my mind was like 'stop here' and so I did. It happens a lot... I'll let my intuition take over and just think and concentrate on the road ahead, not caring where I wind up but I always get there. Tour bus drivers hated me because suddenly I'd yell stop or something like that."
Scully looked at him, then looked towards the motel in front of them. In the window of the main office stood an elderly woman and a man, presumably her husband. After opening the door she looked back at Fatone and said, "We shouldn't keep them waiting. They're probably wondering what were doing out here."
He watched her close the door and slowly he opened his. He kept the file in his hands as he stood on the gravel beneath him. There's something important here, he thought to himself. As he stood he looked around, surveying everything in the vicinity. Woods. Dense, thick forested areas that stretched as far as the eye could see. With the exception of the occasional car that passed and the noise from inside the motel, there was an odd silence that surrounded the area. No birds were singing. There were no animal sounds whatsoever. He frowned and even though his instincts told him that this hotel was safe to stay at, an overwhelming fear engulfed him. Slowly he walked to the office and, after opening the metal door to enter, stood next to Scully.
"My partner and I need two rooms," began Scully, showing her badge, apparently she had waited on him.
"FBI? You must be here to investigate that murder over in Raleigh," said the man behind the counter. The woman next to him pulled out a box containing forms and keys. "Been readin' about it in the paper almost every morning. Bad, bad things nowadays." The woman handed Scully two keys and asked both agents to sign the form in front of them.
"I'll just need the government account number before you check out. Funny, we've had quite a few government people stay here," said the woman, nodding all the while.
"It seems like a nice, quiet place," noted Fatone, taking the pen in his hand and signing.
"Oh," she said to the agents, "it is. Such a quiet, quiet place. Not even a town. Just us out here, ain't that right paw?"
"Eh? Oh... Right right."
"So," began Fatone, glancing at Scully before looking back at the inn keepers, "the forest out there looks rather large yet I didn't hear a single sound from it...any clue why?"
Scully looked at him curiously as the couple nodded. "We don't know why it's so quiet," began the man, "It's just that one day, back in...oh...'97, the birds stopped singin'! Strangest thing. Like we're in a bubble."
Fatone just nodded and took a key from his partner. "Well, I'm beat. I think I need a nap." He nodded at the couple, then turned and headed back to the car.
"Such a strange boy," said the woman. Scully could only nod in agreement.