a/n: Once again and as always, thanks for the reviews for chapter 5! Here, as promised, is the long-awaited footage...
Beta'd by chiroho, who this time saved me from a pretty silly and embarrassing typo. :D (or maybe a Freudian slip...)
Chapter 6: The Footage
Unmarked helicopters hovering;
They said it was a weather balloon.
I know the truth;
I know the whole shebang.
-Soul Coughing, "Unmarked Helicopters"
The footage hadn't been edited, and it consisted largely of long, rambling interviews with townspeople, and then even longer, more rambling reflections by the filmmakers themselves. It was one of these taped reflections they'd seen back in Chicago, and now they were beginning to worry that this much-vaunted footage was just more of the same. Morgan gave a jaw-popping yawn and rubbed his face with a large hand. Prentiss elbowed him in the stomach, and he struggled to pay attention.
"I know it seems pretty dry," Hotchner said, "but I think it's important. These interviews show you who they talked to before they made the decision to hit the woods."
"Does it show what prompted that decision?" Prentiss asked. She had her notebook balanced on her knee and a cup of coffee at her elbow. As to that, Morgan had been correct: copshop coffee was copshop coffee, nice Southern manners or no. Hotchner had been kind enough to provide doughnuts and Danish from the local bakery, though, so Prentiss wasn't complaining.
"I don't think there was any one thing, necessarily. Or maybe I'm just looking at it wrong."
"Hhmm," Prentiss said noncommittally. She doubted it.
"This town is like a blast from the past. I mean, I was expecting The Beverly Hillbillies, I guess, and I was wrong about that, but—"
Prentiss tuned out what on-film Penelope Garcia was saying and concentrated instead on the woman's face. She was happy, animated, and she seemed to be in her element. Despite her wild fashion sense, Prentiss had noticed that she had the easiest time drawing people out in the interviews; they seemed to connect to her almost instinctively. Prentiss drummed her pen against the lined, empty page. The irregular rhythm helped her think, and she knew it would keep Morgan awake.
The interview with Garcia ended, and the time stamp jumped several hours. Morgan sat up like he'd been electrocuted. "It just skipped the entire day. That interview was filmed at 8:15 in the morning; now it's after 9 at night."
"I'm sure they had other cameras," Hotchner said. "The additional footage might be on one of those."
"Buried out in the woods somewhere," Prentiss said glumly.
Morgan shushed them both and leaned closer to the computer screen. "They're already in the woods here. Something happened in that 13-hour period that made them decide to head out there. They didn't even wait for morning."
Hotchner pointed at the distinctive-looking tree in the center of the frame. "That tree's about an hour's hike outside of town. They left after dark."
"Dave, wow, look at this!" Spencer Reid's boyish voice said. "This tree has got to be over 800 years old! Can you believe—"
"Quit messing around, Reid; we gotta make camp before the moon rises. Come on," Dave Rossi told the team's youngest member.
"Do you need a permit to camp out there?" Morgan asked.
"Yes, and that spot isn't a designated campsite. They're a fair way off any marked trails."
"If it's not on a trail, then how to do you know the tree?" Prentiss asked.
"It's called the Hanging Tree," a new voice said. "It's pretty famous around here." The three figures hunched in front of the small computer swiveled as one, and Jennifer Jareau eyed them with a mix of amusement and consternation. "I thought we were going to discuss showing them the footage," she said to Hotchner.
"The situation changed," he explained succinctly. "Jennifer Jareau, this is Derek Morgan and Emily Prentiss. Prentiss, Morgan, Jennifer Jareau with the Forest Service."
They all shook hands, and J.J. found a chair. Hotchner offered her coffee, but she refused. She did take the last bear claw from the pastry box, and Prentiss thought she was a pretty smart cookie for that one.
"So…Hanging Tree. Like witch trial hanging?" Prentiss said once they were all settled again.
"No, not exactly." She hesitated; considered. "Mountain people are extremely superstitious," she explained after a moment. "To them witches are very real, but for the most part they're helpful; they cure illness, provide small charms, help women in childbirth."
"Sort of the wise woman type, rather than the dark-pact-with-the-devil type?" Morgan said.
"That's it," J.J. agreed.
"Well if the tree wasn't used to hang accused witches…?"
J.J. shifted in her seat; she looked desperately uncomfortable. Hotchner came to her rescue. "Like she said, superstitious. No one knows if anything was actually hanged from that tree, but tradition has it that humans were sacrificed there years ago. Now it's considered one of the more haunted sites in the area."
"Who supposedly sacrificed these humans?" Prentiss asked. "The Indian tribes that lived around here weren't into that sorta thing."
Morgan glanced at her, eyebrows raised. Someone's been doing her homework, the look said.
Prentiss' answering expression read more along the lines of bite me.
Hotchner, ignoring the silent exchange, spread his hands in a shrug. "That part of the story is left vague."
"It wasn't just humans," J.J. said. "Animals, too. They say you can still hear the dogs barking at the moon."
Hotchner's eyebrows furrowed. "Coyotes," he said. "These hills are lousy with coyotes."
"Cougars bark, too…sort of," J.J. said. "It sounds like a bark when the males are looking to mate."
"But cougars don't mate in October, do they?" Prentiss asked.
"No, that's a springtime thing."
"Then what's that noise?" she said, indicating the laptop with a hitch of her thumb.
J.J. leaned closer; a line formed between her light brows. "Coyotes probably, like Hotch said."
"Are you hearing this?" Garcia hissed into the mike. "Reid, do you hear that?"
"Yeah, Garcia, I'm not deaf."
"Coyotes?"
"No, coyotes make noises more like…yiip yip yowwl!" he demonstrated.
"Reid, quiet!" Rossi ordered.
"It sounds like dogs to me," Reid said softly. "Possibly wolves."
"Aren't wolves extinct in this part of the country?" Morgan asked J.J.
"Back in the early 90s they tried to reintroduce red wolves to the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee, but they failed; now they're all out on the NC coast," she said.
"Could be hunting dogs, maybe," Prentiss suggested.
"That really isn't the most interesting thing on here," Hotchner said. For the first time he leaned forward and skipped ahead. At Morgan's look, he explained. "It's mostly just them tromping around in the woods finding nothing. They never once mention what they're out there looking for."
"Is that the moonshine shack where the camera was found?" Prentiss asked as Hotchner stopped the video.
"Yes. You can see where the still was over here, with the pipes leading down this way." He pointed the apparatus out to them on the screen, and they squinted to make it out amidst the deadfall and overgrowth. He had skipped past the point he wanted to show them, so he backed it up. "Now," he said, "is when things get interesting."
The camera was shaking like the person holding it was running full-tilt through the trees. Occasionally they could see flashes of the other filmmakers – Garcia and Rossi, so it was Reid who had the camera. Garcia had one, too, and that at least partially confirmed Hotchner's theory about the missing footage. Rossi yelled something over his shoulder to Reid, but the mike didn't pick it up, and the image was too shaky to read his lips.
"I don't understand," Prentiss said. "What happened? Why are they running?"
"No idea," Hotchner said. He rewound a little, and they saw a low battery indicator before the screen went black. When the picture came back again, the group was running. "Maybe it's on that other camera; I don't know."
"Are they chasing something?" Morgan asked.
"I don't think so," Hotchner told him. "Look at Rossi's face." He paused it on that moment, when the professor was looking back at his young student to offer advice or a plea, and they all understood what Hotchner meant.
"Keep going," Prentiss urged after a moment.
He hit play again, and the action resumed. The camera's jostling was making Prentiss slightly seasick, but she couldn't look away. The young doctor wasn't even bothering to aim anymore: they were all getting a great view of his mismatched socks and completely impractical brown shoes.
As abruptly as it had begun, the running stopped. Reid lifted the camera again, and the sound of his heavy panting filled the small room. "Think…lost them…not sure…Dave!" This last word was an urgent almost-whisper: he was afraid to shout, but he was desperate to locate his companions.
"Reid!" a voice hissed very near the camera. They watched the picture jump as he jolted.
"Garcia, where's Dave?"
"No idea…we can't stay here, though."
The image moved to show Garcia's face. She held a video camera in her hand, but she wasn't filming. Her hair was full of leaves, and she'd lost her glasses somewhere. There was a long, thin scratch along one cheek.
"Spencer, come on. We have to get somewhere we can use the sat phone."
"Shhh! What was that?"
Garcia's eyes widened in desperation. "Run. Don't stop. Just run!"
She took off in one direction, and he went the opposite way. There were several more sickening minutes of staring at one purple sock and one yellow striped one before he stopped again. Now when he lifted the camera they could see the image Hotchner had shown them earlier: the moonshine distillery. He hovered on it for a few heartbeats before he turned the camera on himself.
"I don't know if this is what Dave was looking for. Maybe I should've asked more questions." He glanced over his shoulder like an anxious animal. "My name is Spencer Reid. Penelope Garcia and David Rossi are my friends. If you find this, keep looking for us. Please don't stop looking."
There was a flash behind him; he whirled and the camera caught an instant of Garcia. Her own camera hit the forest floor with a soft bounce, but Reid didn't pause to grab it. He moved toward the still, and they watched as he filmed himself again.
"It looks like he's hiding the camera here," Hotchner explained; Morgan and Prentiss nodded in agreement.
"I'm not afraid," he said into the camera; his young, awkward face filled the screen, and even the cynical Prentiss felt her heart twist. He spun around and began running again, away from Garcia. Her camera could still be seen at the top of the frame.
"Is that everything?" Morgan asked; only the woods were in view now, and all looked peaceful and quiet.
"Wait," Hotchner said, holding up a hand. "Just wait."
Several silent minutes passed; Morgan tried not to fidget. Finally his patience was rewarded, and the two detectives leaned toward the screen once more. Two feet had appeared in the top left of the frame, and they moved slowly but purposefully toward the right. The man – surely it was a man – seemed to be looking for something, and after a moment he paused. In a movement almost too fast to believe, he bent and retrieved Garcia's camera.
Apparently satisfied, the feet moved off to the right; Reid's abandoned camera kept filming, but no one was there to notice.
Morgan sat back in his chair and let out a long, low whistle.
"Fuck me gently with a chainsaw," Prentiss muttered.
"That's a pretty accurate summation," J.J. agreed.
Chapter 7 is proving slow going, so a review might help my muse along a little. :)
Thanks for reading!