Authors Note: Alright, so I'm not new to writing, but I am to fanfiction and fiction in general, so in my defense this is a first attempt. This story takes place during season four.
Second note: I rated it pg-13, but if you are sensitive to language this may seem like a low rating because there is quite a bit of cursing later in the story.
Chapter One
Buffalo, NY
December 08
3:43 a.m.
In a dark room, lit only by the television, 19 year old Amy Winston, was asleep slouched in a recliner. The room was small, containing a bed along the far wall that had papers spread across it, piles of books, and an acoustic guitar lay across the top of them. In the corner was a desk with more papers and books, and next to that the television and a stereo were perched on top of a board supported by four stacks of cinderblocks. Around the room there were old milk crates stacked into makeshift bookshelves, each of them overfilled. The television lit the room with a blue tint while the infomercial blared. Suddenly Amy's eyes opened wide, she sat up rigidly straight and started screaming. Her door flew open wide and her roommate came running in, "Ames," her roommate said loudly to be heard over the screaming. Amy did not stop yelling, she was on her knees on the carpeted floor now.
"They're coming back! Oh my god, they're coming back!" Amy did not seem to realize the presence of her roommate, who crouched on the ground next to her and put her hand on Amy's shoulder.
"It's okay Amy, it's just a nightmare." Her roommate spoke soothingly, but Amy ignored her and continued to yell.
"Get away, get away!" She crawled over to a corner and held her knees rocking back and forth, "Get away, get away." She repeated herself in a more pleading tone for a while until suddenly she jumped up, brought her hands to her right temple and screamed an agonizing scream of someone in severe pain. Then fell down in a heap on the floor and curled herself into the fetal position, her hand still over her temple. Her roommate just stood in the centre of the room near the recliner where she knelt by her friend and stared at Amy. After a little while of watching Amy lie on the ground, she grabbed a pillow and blanket from the recliner and covered up her friend, who was still curled up on the floor.
Washington D.C.
December 19
7:32 a.m.
Scully walked down the hallway to the basement office that she shared with Mulder. Although she was about a half hour early for work, she was not surprised to see Mulder already at his desk immersed in a file. Although she would never admit it to his face, her partner's passion for his work, and his determination in the face of an almost impossible task impressed her. "Good Morning." Scully spoke first, startling Mulder who had been so involved in whatever he was looking at that he hadn't even noticed his partner's entrance. "Mornin' Scully." Mulder smiled and looked at his watch, "Early today aren't we?" "Obviously not early enough," Scully replied ignoring the feeling in the pit of her stomach that she got whenever her partner flashed one of his genuine smiles. "What are you working on?" "A nineteen year old girl has been missing from her Buffalo apartment for ten days. According to the police report she disappeared late at night, or early in the morning on December 8. Her roommate got worried after not hearing from her and reported her missing a few days afterwards." "This isn't your usual brand of case, is it Mulder?" Scully looked at her partner with a raised eyebrow, "Unless of course you think it was little green men." She joked and flashed a smile at her partner, who took her ribbing in good humour. If anyone else had made that comment, it probably would have offended him. But Scully wasn't just anybody. He knew that she respected his work, despite their almost constantly differing theories, and that her comment was spoken in fun. "Grey men, Scully. Grey." Mulder flashed a smile of his own back at his partner. "And to be quite honest, I don't believe that this disappearance is directly the result of extraterrestrials. I assume that she just left town." He paused, "Actually, it's only coincidental that I heard about the missing girl. The girl is connected to a much more interesting case that came across my desk over the weekend." "How so?" "Nine years ago, a series of fifteen children from Erie County, between the ages of nine and eleven, disappeared out of their bedrooms. There were no witnesses, save our missing person from Buffalo who was the twin sister of one of the abductees. Anyways, no sign of forced entry, windows and doors locked tight, no evidence, and no arrests. The case was closed and shoved into the basement. Over the past two weeks, each one of the missing children from 1986 was found dead, scattered across Western New York. The twin brother of our missing girl was found over the weekend. I want to talk to a few people who had contact with Amy Winston, our missing girl, and with any luck find a way to contact her. I've got a few questions I'd like answered about the night her brother disappeared. I had them save the body of Thomas Winston, her brother, for you in the Erie County Morgue. If I were you I'd go home and pack some warm clothes, we leave for Buffalo in two hours. I'll pick you up in forty five minutes."
Buffalo, NY
1:46 p.m.
The snow was coming down in near white out conditions and traffic had been moving slowly because of it. Scully was re-reading the autopsy reports of the other fourteen missing children. "Mulder, are these the complete reports?" "I think so." Mulder replied, "I only glanced at them, since it is your field of expertise." "I think a few pages are missing. Either that or the medical examiner didn't do a full autopsy, which would be unusual for this kind of case. These reports only cover the external exam, basically stating that the body was found frozen, undetermined time of death, undetermined cause of death, with a few seemingly random scrapes and scars. There's nothing in here about any kind of in depth investigation to find a cause of death, no 'y' incision or toxological screen." "Maybe you can come up with something a little more concrete; I'll drop you off at the morgue before I go talk to Amy Winston's roommate." "Even if you find Amy, what makes you think she's going to be able to answer any of your questions? The police already interviewed her, right after the incident, and she didn't remember anything then, what makes you think that she is going to remember anything now? Ten years later." Scully questioned, "You already have a theory about what happened that night, don't you?" "I have a lot of theories." Mulder winked. Scully quietly laughed to herself, remembering the first time he had said that to her.
It didn't take them very long to arrive at the morgue, despite the less than desirable driving conditions. "Give me a call if you find anything of interest." Mulder said as Scully exited the car, "I'll be back in a couple of hours." After she entered the building he pulled away and started driving again, further into the city to the house where Amy Winston rented an apartment with Marie Harrison.
Mulder walked up onto the old porch and rang the doorbell for the third floor apartment. After a short time, the door opened and a college aged girl stood in the doorway. "Marie Harrison?" Mulder pulled his badge out of his pocket, "Special Agent Mulder. Can I ask you a few questions?" "Is this about Amy?" the girl in the doorway asked excitedly, "Did you find her?" "No," Mulder replied, "but I do have a few questions for you." "That's fine. Anything to help find Ames. Come on in. Watch your step though, the stairs are wet." Marie led Mulder up three flights of stairs to the landing of the attic apartment and opened the door. The apartment was nice, albeit small, with a kitchen to the left of the door and a tiny living room with a full sized piano on one side that took up more than half of the room. Mulder couldn't figure out for the life of him how they had gotten a piano up the narrow staircase. "Have a seat." She gestured to the chairs around a small coffee table. "How long have you known Amy Winston?" Mulder started his questioning.
"It depends on who you ask." Marie replied with a smile, and then hurried to explain, "I've known her for five years, but she says that she's only known me for three of those five years. See, we went to a small high school, so everybody knew everybody. Amy Winston was my biology lab partner in freshman year, five years ago, but she was pretty much oblivious to everyone around her. She did what she needed to do for the class, but she didn't really talk to anyone, she always seemed like she was in her own world. Most of the time she was either reading or drawing. A couple years later, after persistently bugging her, she finally acknowledged my presence and we began to hang out on weekends. You know, like real friends. Then after we graduated, I started college at University of Buffalo, and since she was staying in Buffalo as well we decided to get an apartment together." "According to the police report you filed, you found her missing on December 8, but didn't report her missing until the night of the 11th ?" "Yeah," Marie nodded, "See, Ames was never a predictable person. She came and went as she pleased, usually out of the fire escape that is attached to the window of her room. It's not unusual for her to disappear for twenty four hours, or call me from New York City, Rochester, or anywhere else she feels like going. One time, after being missing for almost thirty hours, she called me from a payphone in Gettysburg. Anyways, because of her disappearing acts I wasn't too worried at first. But she's never been gone this long without calling. Plus, her backpack is still in her room. I was afraid something happened to her, plus she really didn't seem to be in any condition to travel the night she disappeared, so I called the police." "She wasn't feeling well?" "Actually, it was the strangest thing. The night she disappeared I woke up to her yelling. I went into her room to see what was going on, and I found her on her knees in the middle of her room shaking and yelling about someone coming. She was acting really weird, she didn't seem to notice me in the room. She crawled into the corner and yelled some more nonsense about people coming before she stood straight up and screamed the worst scream I've ever heard. Then she grabbed her head, like this." Marie placed both hands over the right side of her head, "and then she fell to the ground fast asleep. I went back to bed, and in the morning I awoke to find her gone." "Do you remember exactly what she was yelling?" Mulder's interest had peaked.
"If I remember right she was yelling that someone was coming, then she started mumbling 'Get away'." "Has this happened before?" Mulder asked "Not like this. Ames has nightmares a lot, she mutters in her sleep, but usually she either wakes up or if she yells in her sleep, it's only once and I find her asleep in her chair in front of the television." Marie paused, then continued, "I hope she didn't decide to go anywhere when she woke up, I really don't think she was in good condition, I'm afraid that she tried to take one of her trips and wasn't in her right mind." "She didn't have plans to go anywhere?" Mulder asked "She never has plans." Marie emphasized the word 'plans'.
"Does she have family or friends that she might be staying with?" "She doesn't have any real family. Not since her grandfather died at the end of senior year. Her father left right after she was born. Her brother is missing, most likely dead. And her mother has been out of the picture since Ames was ten. As far as I know Amy has no idea where either of her parents are. As far as friends go, I'm pretty much it. I mean she goes out with a group of us sometimes. Usually me and my boyfriend and some of our friends, but Ames never got close to any of them. Actually I think she avoids talking to them, even when we all go out. The only other person that she talks to on a regular basis is the dean of discipline at our old high school. Amy spent a lot of time in detention, and got fairly close to old Mrs. Asher, the dean of discipline. They still meet for coffee about once every week or so." "Did she have any idea where Amy might have gone?" "No. She was really worried about her though. I think she felt like the mother Amy never really had. Mrs. Asher tried to be Amy's confidant. I don't know if Ames ever opened up to her or not, but she was there to listen to Ames." "Is there anyway I could get in touch with Mrs. Asher?" "School's still in session, you could find her at the Academy. It's on South Elmwood, near Chippawa Street. You can't miss the building, it's a huge brick thing." "Thank you for all of your help." Mulder got up to leave then stopped, "Just one more thing: Do you know anything about her past. Did she ever mention anything about the night her brother disappeared?" "I know very little about her past," Marie replied, "I know that she was raised by her grandfather. Her father left before she was old enough to remember him, then when Amy was about nine or ten her mother left her with grandfather and left town. Amy never told me why. I assume that her mother suffered a nervous breakdown or something because of her brother's disappearance. As far as her brother goes, she never mentions his disappearance. Actually, she never even told me that she had a brother. One day when I went to visit her at her grandfather's house, about three years ago, her grandfather showed me his picture and told me that he disappeared out of his bed one night and was never seen since. When I asked Ames about it, she shrugged it off and said something sarcastic about always wanting to be an only child. She never brought it up again, and I never asked her about it." She paused for a second, and Mulder began to leave. Marie stood up as well and spoke again, "I don't want to give you the wrong idea about Amy. She's a little strange; she's very impulsive, she keeps weird hours and uses the fire escape instead of the front door. It seems sometimes that she feels like she's carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Not to mention that she's a very defensive person. She hides behind apathy and sarcasim. But she's a very good person at heart. I hope you find her. Sorry I can't be of more help." "You've been very helpful," Mulder said giving her his business card. "If you hear from her, or if she comes back on her own, I'd appreciate it if you called my cell phone."
Erie County Morgue
5:13 p.m.
Mulder walked into the examining room just as Scully had put Thomas Winston's body away. "Perfect timing." Scully told her partner and grabbed her notes, the audio tape, and her jacket. "Find anything interesting?" Mulder asked as he led the way through the steady snow to the car.
"Actually, yeah." Scully reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a small test tube in which she had placed a small chip that she took out of the boy's neck. "Look familiar?" she asked her partner.
"This is the same thing you found in your neck." Mulder replied "Yeah Mulder, and you don't sound too surprised." Scully said, "Did you suspect this from the beginning? Was this boy taken by the same people who took me?" "Scully," Mulder started quietly, "I suspected as much, but I didn't really want to say anything until I was sure." He looked at his partner's face to try to get a reading, and then seeing that she wasn't furious as he had feared, he continued "What else did you find?" "Well, time of death appears to be sometime in the last week. It's hard to tell because the snow bank in which he was found could have warded off decay for some time, but it does appear that he died within the past week. Cause of death was a puncture wound to his head with some sort of sharp pointed object." "Was the puncture wound on the right temple by any chance?" Mulder interrupted,
"Actually yeah, I'd say the object that pierced the brain was made of some sort of metal because it didn't leave any trace material, like splinters. The wound went right through his frontal lobe, but did not exit through the left side of the skull. He did have small scars on the top and back of his head, but judging by the healing process they were at least five years old. He also had a series of longer scars on his back, near the spine. But these scars have also healed considerably." "Could these scars be surgical?" Mulder asked as he started the car.
"The symmetrical placement of the scars and the way they healed suggest the incisions were sewn up by someone who knew what they were doing, so they could be. You don't think the scars are results of some sort of test, do you?" "I'm not sure, but you said yourself they seem like they were sewn up by a professional." The conversation came to an end as Mulder pulled the car into the parking lot of a diner, "Hungry?" He asked.
"Famished."
End of Chapter 1
A/N: I've got most of the story either written or planned in my head, however I am open to suggestions/comments/criticism. Should I continue (I promise that the plot will pick up)?