Carpenter Memorial Hospital

Advance, Virginia

6:04 AM

Scully yawned and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. If yesterday had been a bad day, then today was going to try to top it. She figured she had only gotten three hours of sleep, and her body felt like she was dragging it through quicksand. Her head hurt and she had trouble thinking clearly, and she was pretty sure she dozed off on the ride over to the hospital.

"Where's the girl?" Scully asked as she stepped into the hospital lobby.

Sheriff Hutchins stood up as the agents entered. "Good morning, Agents Scully and Doggett. She's with a doctor right now."

"Has she said anything about what happened?" Doggett asked, glancing around the room. He wondered if there was any coffee near by.

"No sir, not really. All we've gotten out of her is gibberish. She was pretty hysterical when I saw her, and all the parents said to me was that she had been raped in her bedroom."

Scully nodded. They had been told that much over the phone. "How much longer before we may see her?"

The police officer started to shake his head, but the doors to the examining room were suddenly kicked open with a loud bang. It was like a storm blew through them as Mr. Thompson, Caitlin and Jaime's father, burst into the waiting room in a rage. "Are you the FBI agents?" he asked, addressing Scully and Doggett.

"Yes sir," Doggett said. "Are we to assume you're the father—"

"I want that little Smith bastard arrested and behind bars right this very instant!" Mr. Thompson exclaimed, slamming his fist into his hand.

"Calm down for a minute, sir. We-" Scully started, but he interrupted her.

"Calm down? Calm down? How the hell can you stand there and tell me to calm down when this little tumor on society is still walking around free? He's killed and raped my daughters, and I want the little son-of-a-bitch behind bars right this very instant."

"Sir, we're doing the best we can to find your daughter's killer, but as it is, there's no evidence to suggest—"

"Look, if you won't bring this kid to justice, then I'm just going to have to take the law into my own hands. Do you understand, little woman?" Mr. Thompson towered over Scully and stabbed his finger into her chest threateningly.

"Now hold it right there, Mr. Thompson," Doggett said, grabbing the man by the hand. "I understand you're under a lot of emotional stress right now, but taking the law into your own hands is only going to make you liable for your actions. You let us handle this. Got it?"

The man's eyes locked into Doggett's, and for a moment they tried to bore holes through each other's heads. At last, the man pulled his arm from Doggett's grip with a jerk and let it drop to his side. "Yeah, I got it," Mr. Thompson said.

"Good," Doggett said.

"Is Caitlin in any state where she can talk with us, sir?" Scully asked.

"Yeah…she's in the back room. There's a nurse that'll show you where she's at."

"Thank you," Scully said politely. She motioned for Doggett and Sheriff Hutchins to follow her, and they were led to the room Caitlin was in.

Dressed in a hospital gown, she was sitting on a hospital bed with her legs dangling over the side. All over her arms, legs, and face, there were cuts and bruises. She was crying into her hands as her mother, with an arm around her daughter, did her best to comfort the girl.

"Caitlin," Scully said gently. "My name is Agent Scully, and I believe you know my partner Agent Doggett and Sheriff Hutchins. We'd like it if you could tell us what happened to you this morning."

"Jason Smith raped me, that's what happened!" Caitlin shouted. Her tears came harder now, and they rocked her body as her mother shushed her crying daughter.

"We're aware of that," Doggett said, being gentle. "Do you think you can tell us the whole story? From the beginning?"

Caitlin trembled for several moments. After she nodded, she took several more breaths to collect herself. As she told the story, she broke down several times, but somehow, she got it all out. "I was in my bed, asleep, when I heard this scratching at the window. I heard Jason scratching at my window. So I got up, and I grab a curling iron to bash his sick little head in, and I walk over to it. He wasn't there, but he must have like somehow snuck into my room. Then there was that big crash of lightning, and he started whispering. It was awful…it was like he was all around me. He was playing with me, and trying to make me scared. So I run for the door. Then…then he somehow gets these…these…vines to grab me. These vines like wrap around my arms and legs and they cover my mouth so I can't scream. They hold me down, and one of the vines starts to tear at my clothes and…and…"

"It's all right," Scully said. She had worked her way over to a corner, and she was folding up something and setting it back in a chair. "We appreciate you talking with us." She gave Doggett and the Sheriff a nod, and they exited the room, leaving Caitlin to cry in her mother's arms.

"I was looking at her clothes, the ones she was presumably raped in," Scully said once they were in the lobby. "There's no tearing, no stretching, nothing that would indicate they were forcibly removed from her body. There was blood, among other biological material that would suggest rape, but there was no plant matter. No leaves, no bark, no twigs."

Doggett nodded. "I don't remember no lightning storms neither. Maybe she was high when it happened. The whole thing is traumatic anyway, she could have been hallucinating."

"I don't know," Scully said as she stepped to the side so an old man in a wheelchair could pass. "How familiar are you with Bruce Campbell?"

"I've seen Evil Dead twice just this last year," Doggett said. "I know about the scene in the movie where the girl gets raped by vines."

Scully nodded. "It's rather odd that she would hallucinate about that. Maybe we should bring Jason Smith in. If we get Caitlin's garments to a lab, we may have the DNA evidence to hold him. Sheriff Hutchins," Scully said, addressing the policeman, "could you get a team over to the Thompson house to dust for prints or any signs like that?"

"Sure thing, ma'am," the Sheriff said.

"What are we going to do?" Doggett asked.

"I guess we go bring Jason in," Scully said, shrugging.

"But I thought you didn't think he did it."

"I still don't. Part of me still thinks Caitlin is just doing this for attention, but there's no reason for the girl to do that to herself. If Jason killed and raped these people, he needs to be brought in and punished. The only thing we can do now is try to bring Jason in."

"Agent Scully!" Sheriff Hutchins called. He ran back into the lobby. He had been outside, and now he was puffing, out of breath. "I just got a call over the radio. Jason Smith has just turned himself in."

Scully looked at Doggett, and he returned the look right back at her.

"Well, that was easy."