A/N: Stuart Townsend, got it.

Ch. 1

Carl Kolchak stared through the massive office windows at the winding freeway clogged with traffic. It gave him the impression of an endless snake, like that one in Norse legend supposedly wrapped around the world. The cars that formed the scales glittered and moved with the methodical sluggishness of an actual snake – the Norse snake continually winding around and around, hugging the world to death or protecting it like a beloved egg; Carl hadn't decided yet.

Watching the traffic was a pastime for his eyes when he had to think. It was better than staring at a computer screen and a monotonously blinking cursor.

The only setback was the hypnotic effect it kept trying to have on him. He felt his eyelids grow heavy more than once, and his mind become incoherent in its machinations. Kolchak rubbed the heel of his hands in both eyes, massaging the muscles and trying to get them to tear up and relieve him of the dryness. Finally, giving up on trying to think at all, he swiveled his chair around.

Perri Reed was standing there, grinning at him, carrying a thick file in her arms.

" Wow," she said. " Don't you look all bright and chipper."

Carl smiled at her sarcasm. When it came to being irked, he was pretty much immune. But at the moment, his brain refused to process a witty reply.

" Bad night?" Perri asked.

Carl rested one arm on his desk, picking up a pen and tapping it tunelessly against the keyboard. " You could say that."

Perri shook her head and made a hissing sound between her teeth. " Only have yourself to blame. Being nocturnal and getting up at dawn is not a healthy lifestyle, Kolchak."

Carl still held his smile, despite the slight ache in his limbs and back. " Funny you should say that. I've actually been going to bed before two in the morning." Though 'bed', in this case, was a misnomer. Carl had been more or less crashing on the couch for the past couple of days. Normally, staying up wasn't a problem for him as long as he caught three or four hours of rest a night. Yes, outwardly he appeared mellow and stoic, but inside he always had energy to spare. Way too much to do to sleep.

Then things had unintentionally altered.

" So, then, why the bags under your eyes?"

Carl shrugged. " Bad dreams."

Again, a misnomer. They weren't so much bad as strange, inexplicable.

Perri's expression softened, her grin lessening into a slight smile. " Want to talk about it?"

If Carl hadn't already been smiling, he would have. Perri Reed – relentless reporter by day, caring human being the rest of the time.

They had met under negative circumstances when they had been forced to work on a story together because Carl had snagged it first, despite Perri's claim to it. But unusual occurrences, strange and frightening, had practically stomped that negativity into the dust. Perri was an iron hard skeptic when it came to many of Kolchak's theories, and tended to be biting about it, but Carl had yet to hold it against her. She was only beginning to witness the things Karl had seen, and reason and logic tended to be difficult to let go of, especially for a reporter. It wasn't that Carl wanted to bring her around to his way of thinking, but he did want her to start being a little more open-minded.

At least she was patient with him.

Carl stopped tapping his pen, averting his gaze to the computer screen and the incessantly blinking cursor.

" Not really." He then leaned forward, planting his elbows on his desk and rubbing the side of his face with one hand. " Got something you want to show me?"

Perri glanced at the files, then handed them to Kolchak. " Nothing I would label as bedtime reading. Our story isn't an isolated incident. Officer McMallon brought them over. You know, the guy that kept looking at you funny when you made the comment about shape-shifting?"

Carl dropped the file on the desk and opened it, turning the pages one at a time. " He didn't consider I might have been kidding around?"

" Were you?"

Carl looked up at her, still all smiles. " What do you think?"

Perri rolled her eyes. " You know, you really should be a little more subtle with your questions like – you know – the one about shape-shifting, then the one about turning invisible? I mean do you really expect people to just up and believe you when you talk about stuff like that?"

" I like to look at it as keeping all possibilities open, that's all."

Perri snorted out a derisive laugh. " Is that what you call it?"

Carl looked up at her, meeting her gaze and holding it. " What would you call it?"

She was grinning again, then pursed her lips and shook her head. Kolchak grinned back. He had her there, he always had her there, but she would never speak any of the words out loud. Both out of etiquette and the fact that she didn't entirely believe it, not anymore.

Insane, stupid, weird; he'd heard them all muttered behind his back. But like sarcastic remarks, they had yet to burrow under his skin.

There were times, small moments when he was able to just sit and let his mind wander, when he thought the same things. A lot more lately late.

A shiver ran through him, but too quick for Perri to see. He felt cold, mostly due to a lack of better circulation resulting from a sluggish body still craving sleep. He'd been getting sleep, but his body refused to realize this. In all reality Kolchak couldn't call what he was doing sleep; not if it was leaving him in this painful half zombie state.

Carl looked back at the file and continued flipping through the police reports and newspaper clippings. Page after page was nothing but murder. One article, dated 1975, was of a woman killed in the middle of the day in her own home while her family was present. None of them had seen a thing, just found her mutilated body in the bathroom. Each family member was suspected say for the three year old, but no arrests made. Another article was of a ten year old girl found murdered on a subway in 1980, and no one had witnessed a thing. A police report, however, had it that the killer had been holding the child up with a knife in her back, and set her in the seat she was found in when he left. A suspect was arrested, a twenty-five year old male who had the murder weapon in the pocket of his coat, though he insisted he hadn't done it according to another article.

The cases were all the same; deaths happening in broad daylight, with witnesses aplenty, all having seen and heard nothing. One case wasn't even a murder but a kidnapping of a ten month old, when everyone was at home, and the baby was in the living room, playing in a playpen. Supposedly, the kidnapper had been waiting in the backyard and slipped in through the sliding doors when no one was around. The incident had taken place only four years ago.

" See, it's not unheard of for someone to creep in unnoticed," Perri said. " It's just ours is the first that involves a serial killing."

Carl continued turning each page over. The deaths were nasty, vicious, but nothing compared to the present situation.

Someone, a man age twenty-five to fifty according to profilers, was going on a rather gruesome killing spree. The first case involved a woman, thirty-seven, making dinner for her family all gathered in the living room watching a movie. Her son had been the one to find her sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood, dissected like a cadaver with her heart torn from her chest.

Carl had met the kid, and had been the only one able to talk to him about it. After all, Kolchak, of all people, could actually claim true sympathy for the kid. He knew what it was like, finding someone he loved butchered and bloody. Sometimes the image slipped into his dreams. One of the reasons he preferred being nocturnal.

They'd been slipping in a lot more the past couple of days, leaving behind both a physical and mental ache that wouldn't leave.

Other cases soon followed. Another housewife and mother, a grandmother, a daughter, a woman's only child, a husband, someone's sister. Recently, a cousin who had been like a sister, last seen at a bar but found out in the desert where a group of college kids were having an bonfire kegger. The profiler on the case chalked the killings up to having to do with taking away a loved one – taking away love - thus the removed hearts. Either the killer had lost someone and wanted others to share his pain, or had never experienced love and was jealous of it.

What had caught Carl's attention to the deaths was the manner in which the killer did his work; right under everyone's nose. Again, broad daylight, and witnesses aplenty. But when Carl had talked to the boy, the kid confessed to having heard and seen nothing, and he had said it with uncontained guilt - as though it was all his fault. Again, something else Carl could relate to. Death always left the living beating themselves up over the idea that they could have done something.

Or wishing they had died as well, just so they could stop feeling the pain.

For Carl, the desire hadn't lasted long. The need for answers had outweighed the need for the pain to end. The pain was still there, it still hurt, but it was more a motivating force now, pushing and prodding him to seek the truths most tried to pretend didn't exist. And in turn, the pain would fall to the back of his mind, becoming a numbed presence. Only for a time, though. When all was said and done, it would come slinking back in for more pushing and prodding, being the constant reminder that it was.

At least it wasn't constant, period.

When Carl finished, he closed the file and pushed it away.

" Profiler's thinking," Perri said, " is that the guy stalks his victims, watches their every move plus the moves of the family, and plots out opportunities to attack while the family is present but not able to witness anything."

Kolchak nodded, then reached into the drawer of his desk and pulled out three stapled sheets of paper, handing them to Perri. She glanced over the printed story, scrunching her brow and shaking her head.

" What's this?"

" Real bedtime reading. You know the expression mind over matter?"

Perri continued to peruse the article. " Yeah?"

" Well, that pretty much sums up what you're looking at. It's about a guy who was able to walk into the home of a consulate just by saying his name over and over. The guards actually thought he was the consulate, and let him in, no questions asked."

As expected, Perri peered over the pages, arching an eyebrow at him. She then lowered the article and gave him another straight-on incredulous stare.

" What are you saying? That our killer is able to slice these people open while everyone's home through some mind-meld that would make Spoc jealous?"

" Well, putting it that way makes it sound ridiculous..."

Perri dropped the papers back on his desk. " Carl, putting it any way would make it sound ridiculous..."

" But think about it," Carl continued, unabated. " It's no different from hypnotism, and we've both seen how dangerous that can be."

Perri just rolled her eyes, turning as though to go only to turn back; body language for 'please don't go there again, Carl.' Half the time, Perri didn't have to say a thing. Carl could read her like a children's book.

And, as usual, Kolchak was undeterred. " All the guy would have to do was get the name of her husband or one of her children, and repeat it over and over. Maybe concentrating on their faces, I don't know. But if a man can get into a heavily secured facility, then he can – probably even more easily – get into a small suburban home. It would explain why no one was heard screaming and there were no signs of a struggle."

Perri gave Carl a heavy-lidded look. " Well, all Vulcan voo-doo aside, we really need to go talk to the cousin of the last victim."

Carl nodded, then was hit by a wave of weariness. Suddenly, the prospect of having to get up and move around sounded too much. He took a deep breath and let it out quickly, waiting for the heaviness in his body to pass. He lowered his eyes to the keyboard, then rubbed the side of his face again.

" Kolchak, all kidding aside, you really look like hell. Just how bad is this dream? Why can't you talk about it?" Perri asked.

Carl looked up, but not at Perri. Not at anything, in fact, as his eyes decided to momentarily lose focus.

" Because I don't know what they're about."

NSNSNSNS

A/N: the story about the guy walking into the heavily guarded facility is, supposedly true, but I couldn't remember the details. I heard about it when I was in school and found it a fascinating concept. If you know the full story, feel free to tell it.

This chapter's just an intro into half of the plot. Things will get much more interesting in the next chapter.