From: katrina <katrina@peganet.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 16:00:37 -0400
Subject: Medusa touch


TITLE:  The Medusa Touch
AUTHOR:  Patricia Lee Macomber
EMAIL:  katrina@peganet.com
RATING:  PG
CLASSIFICATION:  X
SPOILERS:  None
KEYWORDS:  Possession, medical, monster, ancient
SUMMARY:  Mulder and Scully are called to a small
	    Florida town where they investigate the
	    case of a young woman who is possessed
	    by an ancient entity which apparently

	    has a long list of victims.
	





THE MEDUSA TOUCH
BY
PATRICIA LEE MACOMBER

	"We only found the body at eleven last night," Sheriff Barnes was saying  
"We haven't even gotten around to the autopsy yet."
	"I'd like to assist, if that's okay with your ME," Scully requested.
	"I can't think of anything I'd like better than bending over a body with a 
lovely lady such as yourself."  A rotund, balding man was ambling through the 
back door just then.  He was wearing a white lab coat and munching voraciously 
on a sandwich.
	"This is Dr. Tate, the county ME.  Bob, this is Agent Mulder and this is 
Agent Scully, FBI."
	"Pleased to male your acquaintance."  The man wiped his soggy hand on the 
leg of his trousers and offered it only to Scully.
	"You said that you found no signs of foul play.  Why then, were we called 
in?"  Mulder eyed the pudgy man, wondering to himself how many of his corpses 
had been sewn back up with bits of ham and cheese clinging to their colons.
	"Oh, we didn't call you in because of the victim, Agent Mulder.  We called 
you in because of the perpetrator."  Dr. Tate swallowed hard and swiped at his 
greasy mouth once more.  "Strangest damn thing..."
	"Shut up, Bob."
	"Well, the whole damn place is buzzing about it.  They're gonna find out 
anyway."
	"Dr. Tate here isn't known for his tact."  Sheriff Barnes looked 
embarrassed, stricken.
	"Well, that old axiom about fat people being jolly isn't always true." 
Mulder shot a derisive look Tate's way.  "Scully, why don't you and the good 
doctor get started on your autopsy.  Sheriff Barnes, I'd like to see
the crime scene, if that's at all possible."
	"Sure thing.  We had the car towed but the whole scene's been cordoned 
off.  Hasn't rained yet, so everything should still be pretty fresh."
	Mulder leaned close to Scully for a moment, his mouth crooking into a 
grin.  "Keep your eye on that one, Scully.  If he shoves something in your
hand, more than likely it won't be a scalpel."
	Mulder turned with a flourish and strode cockily to the door, Scully 
sneering at him playfully as he went.
	Sheriff Barnes led Mulder to his patrol car.  The lot behind the 
combination Sheriff's Department, Morgue and jail was paved in dirt and so it 
was apt to shift a bit to the east or west, depending on which way the wind was 
blowing on any given day.  Luckily, Florida's renown afternoon showers had been 
strangely absent the past few days, so the dirt wasn't nearly as compacted or as 
dimpled with puddles.
	Barnes wove the car through the maze of other cruisers, then made his way 
onto the downtown Ft. Myers streets.  This part of town hadn't changed
much in the past thirty years or so and Barnes could make his way through the 
area blindfolded.  A few of the streets had been made one-way on the last two 
years, adding to the confusion and detracting from the amount of shoppers who 
ventured out of the mainstream malls and down to the quaint shops.
	"Who was it that found the body?" Mulder asked, startling Barnes from his 
nostalgic reverie.
	"That would be Jonathan Obermeier.  He owns a house down that way and 
nearly ran over the body on his way home from an Eagles meeting."
	"Do you see many murders out in this area?"  Mulder hadn't meant that as 
an insult; he was merely curious.
	"We're not exactly the shit-splat town everyone thinks we are.  I mean,
we're not nearly so big as Washington, but we hold our own."
	"I wasn't implying..."
	"We see plenty of murders.  Lot's of drug traffic and...yes...even a few 
hard boiled bases, like the DEA bombing couple of ears back.  I've been
with the Lee County Sheriff's Department for over thirty years, and I ain't 
never seen nothing like this."
	Barnes wheeled the car onto a six-lane road, passing a sizable shopping
mall/movie theater complex.  Everything here was low and sprawling, laced with 
palm trees.  And it was oh, so flat!
	"This is Daniel's Road.  Right up ahead is where the perp was hit.  Soon 
as we get down this dirt road, you'll see where we found the other body."
	Barnes eased the cruiser onto the right shoulder of the road and then cut 
the engine.  He threw open the door and stepped out onto the hard dirt, finger-
pressing the crease in his pants.  He placed his hands on his hips and squinted 
against the blinding sunlight.
	"Right there is where the car stopped.  We're still not sure why.  And 
then they both got out of the car."
	Mulder turned toward the man, his demeanor suddenly becoming more 
menacing, more inpatient.  "Why don't you just talk me through the whole even,
as far as you know it, that is."
	Barnes ripped the Ray Bans from his face and glared angrily at Mulder. 
"Now, lookit here, Agent Mulder.  I may not be a hot shot FBI agent, but
I know how to conduct an investigation.  I'm what folks around here call
a 'cracker', which means I'm Florida born and bred.  Third generation, as a 
matter of fact.  And I'm second generation Sheriff's Department.  My own daddy 
served under the great Snag Thompson when he was Sheriff.  So, you may not think 
I've got the brains to pour piss out of a boot with the
instructions on the heel, but I KNOW how to conduct my investigations.  I'll 
walk you through this whole damn thing step by step and then you tell me what's 
what."
	Mulder paled in the face of this man, who had a good four inches and a 
muscular hundred pounds on him.  He wasn't about to start discussing the finer 
points of DNA tests or ground compaction tests with the man.  "I'm s=
orry.  No offense intended."
	"Offense taken."  He replaced his Ray Bans and stalked off in the 
direction of the first crime area.  "According to witnesses at the local 
Walmart, Chloe Marsh locked her keys in her car.  Brenda Walsh, who happens to
be a cashier at that self-same Walmart was leaving for work and offered Chloe a 
ride home to get her spare keys.  Witnesses have them leaving together in 
Brenda's car at roughly eight-thirty that night."
	"How did Chloe expect to get into her apartment to get her spare keys if 
her other keys were locked in the car?"
	Barnes turned on him with eyes that told Mulder he was the dumbest toad
ever set on the Earth.  "Because, Agent Mulder, her landlady...who just happens 
to live on the premises...has a set of keys."
	"Just asking."  Mulder threw up his hands defensively and squelched a 
smile.
	"Anyway, they left the Walmart and headed for Chloe's apartment building  
It's just a mile or so west of here on Daniel's.  They would have come down Six 
Mile Cypress...the back way.  Why the hell they stopped here
has got me stumped.  There wasn't any problem with Brenda's car.  It turned 
right over when the tow truck came to haul it off.
	"We can place Chloe in the car, not only because of eye witness accounts, 
but also because of the cigarette butts.  The ashtray was full of Doral Lights, 
which Brenda smokes.  There was one Winston butt at the front of the ashtray.  
It had the same lipstick on it that Chloe always wears.
	"When they got here, both of the girls evidently got out of the car.  You 
can see Brenda's footprints...they're the ones with the flat soles and
the heart imprints.  She always wears those same nurse's shoes.  Chloe's
are the L.A. Gear Walkers.  Both sets of prints lead over to here..."  He walked 
several feet south and crossed the road.  "...where there appears to have been a 
scuffle of some sort."
	Mulder stooped down and examined the scrambled foot prints.  There was 
clearly quite a scuffle, then both sets of prints led off toward Daniel's
Road.  Mulder followed the myriad of prints toward the paved road.
	"They took off running some time after the scuffle.  We can tell that 
because of the soil compact and distortion of the prints."  With that, he shot a 
sneer at Mulder.  "And right here, Brenda collapsed.  She fell face down on the 
dirt for no apparent reason and that's just where Johnny Obermeier found the 
body."
	Mulder crouched down again and studied the outlines of a woman's body. 
It was sprawled out considerably, as though she had made no attempt at breaking 
her fall.  There was a long, deep scorch mark in the dirt, beginning at about 
where the woman's mouth would have been and ending approximately five feet from 
there.
	"What's this?" Mulder inquired, turning his sun-beaten eyes up to Barnes
	"Ah, you noticed that, did you?  Well, that one's quite a puzzler to me, 
too.  I had some soil samples taken to the lab, but all they could tell
me was that the sand had been melted.  Said it could only be melted like
that at temperatures of over a thousand degrees."
	Mulder poked at the deposit with one tentative finger and overturned a 
shard of glass.  He produced a plastic bag from his pocket and held it up
for Barnes' inspection.  "Mind?"
	"Be my guest."
	Mulder placed the shard of glass in the bag, sealed it, and pushed it back 
into his pocket.  "So, Brenda fell right here, but Chloe's footprints
lead off toward the road."
	"Yup.  She ran on, I guess not knowing that Brenda wasn't after her no 
more.  According to the guy driving the car...Frank Porter.,..and two eye
witnesses, she just ran right in front of his car.  Didn't even notice that it 
was there.  Porter was just coming from the airport.  He's a computer salesman 
in town for a convention.  He was headed for the Holiday Inn
in his rented car when the whole thing happened.  You ain't never seen anybody 
so crushed in all your life."
	"So, Porter didn't know either of the women.  Did the two women know each 
other?"
	"Only so much as a routine customer and a cashier can know each other. 
Anyway, the car struck her doing fifty, which is the legal limit ri'sheer"
	"And she died on impact?"
	"Well...sort of.  Porter got out of the car right off and checked for a
pulse.  He said she didn't have one then and the paramedics didn't find one when 
they came onto the scene.  But Porter swears that just before they loaded her 
onto the gurney, Chloe's eyes shot open and she looked right at him.  Gave him a 
mighty big case of the heeby geebies, that did."
	"But they pronounced her dead once they got her to the hospital?  She 
never regained consciousness?"  Mulder felt something mysterious tickling at the 
base of his brain.  Barnes knew something that he wasn't letting on and Mulder 
had to know what it was.
	"Well, now, I'll just let the doctor tell you about that part.   I can 
give you all the where-fors and hows-comes, but I'm no physician.  She was taken 
to Gulf Coast.  It's right over there."
	"Then let's go.  We're burning daylight here."
	The two men walked back to the cruiser.  Mulder knew for sure he wouldn't 
get any more out of Barnes just then.  The whole incident had clearly upset the 
sheriff enormously, so Mulder didn't push.
	They pulled into the parking lot of Gulf Coast Hospital and climbed from 
the car.  Barnes stood for a moment, wiping the sweat off his brow with
a clean, white handkerchief.
	"Woo!  It's hotter than a fish turd on a sand bar out here.  Come on.  
Let's get in out of the heat."
	Mulder smirked at the man's metaphor, lowering and shaking his head.  He 
followed Barnes inside the cool building and waited while he spoke to the nurse 
at the front desk.
	"We're in luck.  Dr. Walker just happens to be in right now."
	Barnes took off down the hall without further edification.  Mulder 
followed dutifully behind him, anxious to get at the really exciting portion of 
this mystery, such as whether or not Chloe Marsh really was dead or not
	They went up to the second floor, then stopped at the nurse's station. 
Barnes smiled at the young woman and leaned flirtatiously across the counter.  
"Good morning, darlin'.  Would you happen to know where Dr. Walker
is at the moment."
	The young woman batted her long lashes at him and smiled coyly.  
Obviously, the two were acquainted.  "He's with a patient at the moment.  But he 
should be done in a sec, if you'd like to wait."
	"It would be my pleasure," Barnes offered, lingering for a moment to study 
the girlish nurse's comely form.
	Mulder strode over to a bank of chairs and dropped into one, feeling 
suddenly tired and exhilarated both at once.  He was itching to get at Barnes' 
secret; could see himself shaking the man until he gave it up.
	Within moments, a tall, serious-looking gent appeared from around the 
corner.  He was writing something on a clipboard and very nearly collided with 
Barnes as he approached the desk.
	"Dr. Walker, Sheriff Barnes would like a word with you."
	Walker looked up from his copious notes and grinned a might.  "Ah, Barnes!  
God to see you again.  What can I do you for?"
	"I'm here with Agent Mulder of the FBI."  He motioned in Mulder's 
direction and he stood up to greet the man.  "He'd like to hear what you know 
about the Marsh girl."
	Walker's face grew suddenly pale and taut.  "Why don't we go into the 
lounge where we can talk in private."  He snapped his fingers twice and the 
nurse produce another chart, complete with x-rays and other pertinent 
attachments.  Walker tucked it under his arm, and walked away.
	Everyone had grown so deadly silent and morose at the mention of Chloe's 
name that Mulder could already feel the goose-flesh crawling up his back  He 
followed the two men, joining in on their silence and sense of foreboding.
	"I was the attending physician last night when Chloe came in," Walker 
started off, shutting the door and straightening his back.  "These are her
x-rays."
	He held them up for Mulder's perusal, indicating points of interest with 
one long index finger.
	"You can see here that she had a very severe skull fracture./  And here, 
her spinal column was completely severed at the base of her skull.  If that 
first injury hadn't killed her, one of the other two would.  Here, it clearly 
shows a fragment of her rib stabbing right through her heart."
	Walker reclaimed the x-rays quickly and shoved them unceremoniously back 
onto their manila envelope.  "Now that you've seen them, forget you ever saw 
them.  Because as far as I'm concerned, they don't even exist."
	"What makes you say that, Dr.,. Walker?"  Mulder had that creepy feeling 
again, the one that made his privates crawl and his hair stand on end.
	Walker leaned against the wall and stared off into time and space.  "Chloe 
Marsh was hit by a car at approximately nine o'clock last evening.  The 
gentleman who hit her swears he couldn't raise a pulse at the scene.  Ten 
minutes later, when the paramedics arrived, they also couldn't raise a pulse.  
Bear in mind that, for all intents and purposes, that woman was
already dead for ten minutes.
	"She was then brought to the emergency room.  That was at nine-twenty-
three.  By this time, she's been dead at least twenty-three minutes.  I saw her 
two minutes later.  I pronounced her dead at that time.  We sent for an orderly 
to take her to the morgue.  She's dead now some thirty minutes."
	"No attempt was made to revive her?"  Mulder asked stupidly.
	"She was dead on impact Agent..."
	"Mulder."
	"Agent Mulder.  There's no sense in reviving a person who's been dead that 
long.  As I was saying, by the time the orderly arrived, forty minutes had 
passed.  He stopped outside at the nurse's desk to sign the papers.
 By this time, poor Chloe has been dead for forty-five minutes.  Dead." 
His face was a mask of severity and humbling sorrow as he said this last.
	"I happened to be standing at the nurse's desk when he arrived with her.  
I was signing a medication order.  Chloe, by this time, has been dead for nearly 
an hour.  We were standing there...all of us...the nurse, the orderly, me.  All 
of a sudden, out of the blue, Chloe springs up into a sitting position and sucks 
in this great big huge breath.  Her eyes are open and she's staring right 
straight ahead like she's seeing something the
rest of us aren't.  And then, after several seconds of consciousness, she just 
collapses onto the gurney again.  She's still alive, but comatose."
	Mulder suddenly felt like he wanted to run, out of the hospital for sure, 
all the way back to Washington perhaps.  "What you're telling me is that, after 
being dead for damn near an hour, this woman suddenly cam back to life?  And 
there were no attempts made to revive her?  It was spontaneous?"
	Walker kneaded his hands fiercely and stared straight into Mulder's 
disbelieving eyes.  "That is precisely what I'm saying, Agent Mulder.  As time 
passed, she started regaining consciousness more frequently and for a longer 
period of time.  We ran some more tests on her, to see how the hell she could 
still be alive.  She sustained not one, not two, but three certainly fatal 
injuries.  And she's here to tell about it."
	"What did the follow-up tests show?"
	"They showed that her spine had healed itself.  They also showed that her 
heart and rib were back in their normal positions.  The only thing that was not 
completely healed was her skill fracture.  If you look closely,
you can still make out a faint line where the fracture hasn't yet completely 
healed."
	Mulder sank back into a nearby chair and rain one trembling hand through 
his hair.  His mind was reeling with the enormity of this whole thing.
	"There's one more interesting thing, Agent Mulder," Dr. Walker offered up.
	"As if that weren't enough."
	"Chloe Marsh had a tonsillectomy at the age of seven.  She also had an 
emergency appendectomy at the age of nineteen."  Walker swallowed hard and 
narrowed his eyes a bit.  "Both have been restored."
	"What?"  Mulder groaned, sliding slowly out of his chair and allowing his 
eyes to widen.
	"Her tonsils and her appendix.  Both back."
	"God."
	"That's what I said."  Sheriff Barnes placed his hands nervously on his
hips and studied his shoes.
	"I'd like to see her, if it's at all possible."
	"She might still be awake.  I'll take you to her."
	Barnes and Mulder followed Dr. Walker down the hall to an isolation room 
where Chloe was being kept.  He paused for a moment before opening the door, 
steeling himself and causing Mulder to wonder just how horrific the
girl must appear.
	He opened the door on a completely normal-looking young girl, however, and 
Mulder exhaled loudly.  "Knock, knock.  Chloe?  Are you awake?"
	"Yes, Dr. Walker.  I'm awake.  Are you going to let me go home now?"
	"Not just yet, Chloe.  These men would like a word with you."  He stepped 
aside, affording Mulder a clear view of the girl.
	She was a small, slight girl; hardly a hundred pounds dripping wet.  She 
had intense, compelling brown eyes and the longest, silkiest blond hair
that Mulder had ever seen.  Her skin was as pale as the moon and nearly as 
luminescent.  Just looking at her, Mulder would never have guessed that she's 
spent a sick day in her life.
	She straightened in the bed, trying to offer as strong a presence as she 
could.  "Hello, Dawg," she giggled demurely.
	Barnes met Mulder's bemused glance, blushing in the face of it.  "She's
the only one allowed to call me that."
	"My folks used to live next door to the Barnes' when I was little.  I 
couldn't say 'Barnes', so I just named him after the deputy Dawg in my 
cartoons."
	"And it stuck, too, darlin'.  I was at the Academy for six months before I 
got those bozos to stop calling me that."
	They shared a mutual laugh, then Barnes bent to kiss her forehead.  "How 
you feelin', little love?"
	"Much better.  I can't understand why they're still keeping me here."
	"They just want to make sure you're feelin' all better before they sick
you on the world again."  He drew up a chair and eased into it.  It groaned in 
protest of the sudden burden.  "If you're feelin' up to it, we'd like to ask you 
a few questions."
	"Must be dang serious.  You brought reinforcements."  She shot a 
questioning glance at Mulder.
	"This is Agent Mulder.  FBI."
	"Hello," he said, offering one wary hand to her.
	"Nice to meet you, Agent Mulder.  My, aren't I hot stuff, rating my very 
own personal FBI agent!"
	Mulder pulled up a chair, content to let Sheriff Barnes take the lead.
	"Chloe, darling', what in creation were you doing with Brenda Walsh last 
night?"
	Chloe suddenly grew pale, if it was possible to achieve a paler shade of 
white.  "I locked my stupid keys in the car again.  Brenda came out just as I 
was fixin' to call for a cab.  She offered me a lift back to my apartment.  Said 
she would bring me back to my car once I got my spare keys."
	"And why did you stop on Palomino?"
	"Lord knows.  We were driving along, listening to the radio and making 
small talk.  All of a sudden, she just pulls onto the dirt road without saying a 
word.  She stopped the car and turned to look at me and then, without so much as 
a fare-thee-well, she grabs me by the throat.  She's a digging her fingers into 
my beck and all and I wondered to myself just why the heck she was doing that.
	"Well, I thought she was going to kill me.  I couldn't breathe a lick and 
my hands were starting to fold up and I couldn't make them open again.
 So, I just put my foot right on her chest and shoved for all I was worth  She 
went a flying back against the other door and I just jumped out
of that car.
	"I ran down the road a few feet but she was on me like white on rice.  We 
fought for a bit, but I finally managed to get free of her again.  I swear to 
God, Dawg, she had the weirdest look in her eye.  She never said a single thing, 
but I swear she looked like that Charles Manson guy you always see the stories 
about.
	"So, I got free of her again and I ran down the road, looking to flag down 
a car.  I guess that's when I got hit, 'cause I don't remember a thing after 
that."
	Barnes leaned back in his chair and placed his beefy hands on his knees.  
"And you got no idea how Brenda might have ended up dead?"
	Chloe's eyes flew open and her jaw went slack.  "Dead?  Brenda's dead?"
	"Sorry, darlin'.  I thought you already knew."
	"I had no idea."  She looked as though she might cry at any moment.  
Mulder took it to be sincere.  She looked at the way Barnes was eyeing her,
then began to shake her head slowly.  "Now, you just wait one darn minute, Dawg.  
You don't think I killed that girl, now do you?"
	"Calm down, Chloe.  All we're saying right now is that Brenda died on that 
road last night and you were the only other person there."
	"I swear, Dawg.  I didn't kill her.  There's no way I killed that girl.
 I put my foot in her chest and pushed her off me.  I even struggled with her 
for a bit.  But there's no way in heck I could ever kill anybody."
	"It's okay, Chloe.  We believe you.  We just have to find out everything 
you know so we can figure out how she did die.  Catch my drift?"
	She was beginning to calm down a bit now, though her eyes still looked 
frantic.  "I know.  You're just doing your job.  But I've told you everything I 
know.  Believe you me, if I knew anything that would help you, I'd
say so."
	"Okay, honey pot," he chuckled, patting her leg with one large hand.  
"I've heard all I need for now.  Would you mind talking to Agent Mulder here for 
awhile?  I'm sure he has some questions of his own."
	She looked cautiously over at Mulder, sizing him up.  "I guess so.  But
I don't know what else I can tell you that I haven't already."
	"I'll just leave you two alone.  Take it easy on her, Mulder.  She's had a 
rough go of it."
	"Not to worry, Sheriff."
	Mulder and Chloe watched as Barnes shuffled out of the room, closing the 
door behind him.  Mulder returned his gaze to Chloe, who was now staring at him 
with all the ferocity and calculated cunning of a cornered beast.





CHAPTER TWO

	"Do you know what happened to you last night?" Mulder asked Chloe.
	Her mood had lightened somewhat.  She was at least less intense.  "Of 
course I know what happened.  I died last night.  It's not like it never 
happened before."
	Mulder was taken aback at that remark.  He sat back in his chair and cast 
a wary eye on her.  "It's happened before?"
	"Yea.  Twice."
	Suddenly, he leaned forward, listening intently and staring at her.  "Tell 
me what you saw on those other two occasions."
	"Let's see, the first time was a drug overdose.  I was only nineteen at
the time.  I was kinda wild, you know what I mean?  My dad died in Viet Nam 
right after I was born, so it was always just me and Mama.  She died two days 
after my nineteenth birthday and I kinda went off the deep end. 
I was at a party with my boyfriend.  We were smoking some pot and drinking some 
beers.  Then, this guy shows up with some pills.  He tells me they're real mild, 
that they won't hurt me.  So, I took some of those, too. 
I can remember sitting there, just listening to 'em all talk.  And all of a 
sudden, I started getting this tunnel vision and they started sounding all far 
away and stuff.  The very next thing I know, I'm all laid out on the floor with 
everybody staring down at me and stuff."
	"Tell me about while you were dead.  What did you see?"
	She looked at him, wondering if he already knew what she would say.  Most 
people looked at her like she was crazy when she told the story and she thought 
he just might fall into that same frame of mind.
	"Well, I know this sounds just like the stories you always hear on the 
talk shows and stuff, but I really did go into a tunnel.  There was a really 
bright light at the end of the tunnel and I just kept drifting up toward that 
light.  But before I could get there, I guess I was sent back or
something, 'cause I just started floating right back down to my body."
	"Did you see your body while you were out of it?"
	"No.  Huh-uh.  I guess I missed that part.  Anyways, I woke up there on
the floor and everybody was telling me that I had died.  My girlfriend...who 
just happens to have been a nurse...told me that I swallowed my tongue and that 
my heart stopped and I quit breathing.  She said I was dead for something like 
five minutes.  They were all wondering whether or not to call the EMS, on 
account of the drugs and stuff.  Luckily for them, I cam back before they 
actually had to call."
	"You didn't see or talk to anybody while you were gone?"
	"Nope.  Not a soul.  But I really changed after that.  I quit doing the
drugs and drinking and smoking.  Well, the smoking never really took, but I quit 
the rest of it.  I figured...hey...I've come back once, maybe I ought not to 
press my luck.  I guess you could say I got kinda pious.  The second time cured 
me of that, though.  After that second time, I figured that God, or whoever had 
control over such things, just wouldn't let me
die.  I figured that I was practically indestructible, if you catch my drift."
	"Tell me about that second time.  Was it the same?"
	"Just the same.  I was out in the garage, fixing to sand some cabinets so 
I could stain them.  But my stupid boyfriend didn't bother to tell me that the 
sander had a short in it.  I latched onto  that dang thing and it bit right into 
me.  I was thinking it was just like those cartoons you always see.  You know, 
your hand just won't let go of the thing, even though you know it's hurting you.  
My hand was locked tight onto that sucker
and I just watched the ceiling pass by as I fell onto the floor.  Same as 
before, I went into that tunnel.  And before you ask...no...I didn't see my body 
that time, either.  I saw the light and the tunnel and I went up through the 
tunnel.  But the light sent me back before I ever got into it.  I woke up about 
two hours later with a big old headache and a tingling in my arm that lasted 
darn near a month."
	"How about this time?  Was it the same as the others?"
	She screwed up her face and thought hard about this for a moment before
answering.  "Well, it kinda was and it kinda wasn't.  See, I don't remember 
being hit by the car, but I remember starting up through the tunnel. 
Not long after I went into the tunnel, I was sent...quick as a lick...back to my 
body.  I opened my eyes and was staring at this man stooped over
me and feeling my neck.  Then, I just went right back into that tunnel again."  
She broke off into a shudder, her eyes pressing tightly closed against whatever 
she was recalling.
	"Are you all right?  Do you want me to call the doctor?"
	She swallowed hard and struggled to speak.  "No.  I just get these 
headaches every now and again.  They don't last long, but they're real doozies 
just the same."
	"We can always pick this up later."  He felt horribly sorry for her.  The 
poor girl had had such a hard life, and now this.
	"I'd rather just get it over with, if it's all the same to you."
	"All right.  Go on."
	"Well, as soon as I went back into that tunnel, I started seeing things.  
Not with my eyes, of course, since I didn't have eyes to look through right 
then.  But I got impressions of things, dark things, clinging to the sides of 
the tunnel and waiting to just grab me.  I got almost to the end of the tunnel, 
where there was still light, but when it was time to pass through, something 
stopped me.  Mind you, it wasn't like before, when I got sent back.  
Something...some force...wasn't letting me in there.  So, I just hung out.  I 
was floating there until I was sucked back down into my body.  And ever since I 
got back, things just haven't felt right."
	"What do you mean, they haven't felt right?"
	"I can't really explain it any better than that.  It's just that my body, 
it doesn't feel the same to me anymore.  It's like I'm in somebody else's body.  
It's like I don't have complete control over it anymore.  As my mama might say, 
I'm not her toe-headed, blue-eyed angel anymore."
	Mulder snickered in spite of his best efforts to prevent it.  "But Chloe, 
your eyes are brown."
	"Oh, no, Agent Mulder," she giggled demurely.  "My eyes are and always 
have been blue."
	Mulder gaped at her in bemused disbelief, then reached into the drawer of 
the table next to the bed.  He held forth a small hand mirror, allowing her to 
inspect her reflection in it.  "Take a look, Chloe.  your eyes are as brown as 
Bambi's."
	She gazed into the mirror, the smile sliding off her face as sudden 
dawning crossed it.  "Oh my God!  My eyes are brown."  She checked his respon=
se; was not bolstered by it.
	"Do you wear contacts?"
	"No.  I can't wear them.  They hurt.  I have to wear glasses all the time 
'cause my eyesight's so..."  The mirror slid from her thing fingers as
she stared out the window at the tress outside.
	"What is it Chloe?  What's the matter?"
	"My eyes.  I can see perfectly."
	Mulder blinked at her, unsure of what to make of this.  "Maybe it was 
something that happened during the accident.  Perhaps the blow you sustained to 
your head..."
	"Bull!  You and I both know that's not true.  Any more than donkeys can
fly.  Something's happened to me.  I can feel it.  But it has nothing to
do with the accident."
	They passes a few moments in nervous silence, then Chloe risked speaking 
again.  "Why so many questions?  I mean, Dawg's interested in me 'cause
of what happened to Brenda.  But why all the metaphysical stuff?  What's
your angle in this?"
	He chanced a boyish grin at her, then leaned in as if he were about to 
share a coveted secret with her.  "I'll tell you something.  I'm not your
run-of-the-mill FBI agent."
	"You're not?"  Her surprise was genuine.  So was her smile.
	"Nope.  I'm in charge of all the...shall we say...strange cases.  Anything 
that doesn't seem to have a logical explanation, they just call me and my 
partner in and we try to find an illogical explanation."
	She tittered at him, suddenly liking this charming, boyish man.  "And I'm 
a strange case, huh?"
	"Well, you were dead for almost an hour.  I can't say we see that every
day."
	She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head at him.  "So, do 
you think I killed Brenda?"
	"Actually, I don't.  I think Brenda had some sort of heart attack or a 
stroke or something.  If you're telling the truth, then you couldn't possibly 
have killed her."
	"I am telling the truth, Agent Mulder.  I swear."
	"I believe you, Chloe."
	"And what do you think is happening to me?  Based on your experience with 
such things, that is."
	"I can't really say just yet.  But I'll make you a deal.  As soon as I've 
figured it out, you'll be the first one I tell."
	Mulder gave her a sidewards wink and then sidled out of the room.  Sheriff 
Barnes was waiting for him in the hall, leaning over the high desk and talking 
rather animatedly with the nurse while he browsed her form.  Mulder sneaked up 
behind him and waited a few moments, unnoticed by either of them.  Then, he 
cleared his throat loudly and waited for the blushing to begin.
	"Done with Chloe already, eh?  My how you big city boys do rush."
	"There really wasn't a lot to say.  I'd like to ask you a few questions, 
though."
	Barnes leaned casually against the wall and stuck his hands in his 
pockets.  "Shoot."
	"I'd like to know more about Chloe.  Her background."
	"Sure.  She's Florida born and bred like me, though she mostly grew up in 
a little town just east of here called Lehigh Acres.  She was a quiet kid, good 
student, never gave anybody any problems."
	"Does she have any particular religious affiliation?"
	"Naw.  Her ma was devout Catholic and her dad was a Methodist.  Both of
'em worked too much to ever have time to see to things religious.  She had a 
mild go 'round with booze and drugs and such after her ma died.  Hell, I even 
picked her up on a DUI once.  Didn't make a case of it.  Just drove the kid gone 
and tucked her in.  All that was just because she fell in with a bad crowd is 
all.  That damn kid she was dating wasn't worth two nubbins of goat manure, I 
can tell you that.  Doing time in the Federal
pen for kidnapping and rape."
	"What's she been like since then?"
	"Oh, hell!  That's girl'
s been squeaky clean.  Works two jobs, hasn't touched the drugs or booze
in years.  She donates blood regularly.  Donates time for the Meals on Wheels, 
the habitat for Humanity.  Anybody needs help, she's the first one
on the scene.  Still can't figure hows come she never got hitched up with some 
nice fella.  Got a lot to offer, that girl does."
	"As much as that pretty nurse?"  He jerked his head comically to indicate 
the little blond.
	"Ah, hell, boy!  I'm married.  I ain't dead."
	Mulder chuckled deep in his throat and straightened to leave.  "Thanks,
Sheriff Barnes.  You've been a big help."


	Mulder walked through the door of the morgue, laden with papers and the
like.  He was whistling, which told Scully that something had really piqued his 
interest.  He strode right up to her and thrust out his chin, smiling against 
her disgusted frown.
	"So, how did we make out on that autopsy?"
	"You're in an awfully good mood, Mulder.  What happened?  Did you uncover 
an alien conspiracy to overthrow the government?"
	"Better."
	"You finally beat Virtua Fighter!"
	"Very funny, Scully.  Actually, I've happened upon a young girl who just 
happens to be very talented.  At dying and coming back to life."
	"That's interesting.  I've happened upon one who isn't,:
	"What did you find out?"
	"For starters, Brenda Walt died because all her neural synapses had become 
fused together.  By the time she got into that car with Chloe Marsh, she had 
barely enough brain left to blink."
	Mulder whistled through his teeth and leaned on Dr. Tate's desk.  
"Anything else?"
	"It's never enough for you, is it, Mulder?"  She wet her lips and pressed 
on.  "Her heart was severely enlarged, there was enough adrenaline in her system 
to power a battleship and, from all the physical evidence we can gather, her 
temperature was high enough to fry an egg on her forehead."
	"No signs of drugs?  Disease?"
	"No drugs, no alcohol, no disease of any kind.  Other than her apparent
heart condition and brain dysfunction, that girl was as healthy as a horse."
	"Curiouser and curioser."
	"So, was Chloe able to offer you any explanations?"
	"I'm afraid not.  She got into the car with Brenda.  The next thing she
knew, Brenda had stopped the car and was trying to choke her to death.  She 
managed to fight her off and make a break for it, but Brenda caught her again.  
As Chloe was running toward the main road to get help,. Brenda
apparently just collapsed, dead."
	"Great.  So there's an eyewitness but she didn't see anything."
	"Chloe's quite an interesting girl.  Do you know she's died three times
and come back to life each time?  And all without any form of medical 
assistance."
	She studied his face for a minute, gauging his sincerity in this.  "You're 
not kidding, are you?"
	"Not a bit.  This time, she was dead for nearly an hour.  Three people 
will testify to that in a court of law.  All of a sudden, she just sits right up 
in bed and starts breathing again.  What do you make of that, Scully?"
	"I think the three people who declared her dead were wrong."
	"Not a chance.  One of those people was a bonafide medical doctor.  And, 
he had x-rays taken to help with the autopsy.  She had a severe skull fracture 
and her spinal cord was severed just below the head.  But the real kicker is 
that one of her ribs was broken and the fragment penetrated her heart."
	"Any one of those things would be enough to kill her.  But all three?" 
Now, Mulder had her undivided attention.
	"Know what else?  This sweet girl, whose eyes used to be blue and terribly 
near-sighted, now has brown eyes and twenty-twenty vision."
	Scully raised her eyebrows and pulled down the corners of her mouth.  
"What does she think caused it?"
	"I'm not sure she even has a value.  If she does, then she's not telling"
	"Well, that's very interesting, Mulder.  But the fact is that we don't 
really have a case here.  There's no sign of foul play involved in Brenda's 
death.  And, although your Chloe certainly sounds fascinating, we can't possibly 
justify staying here and trying to solve the mystery of her rebirth."
	Mulder shuffled his feet and adopted that "ah-gee" attitude.  "I know."
 Suddenly, he looked up at her, his face stuck somewhere between impish and coy.  
"Would it help if I had a piece of really weird physical evidence?"
	She studied his face again, trying to decide which answer would get her
in the least trouble.  "Do you?"
	"I do."  He reached into his coat pocket and produced the plastic bag 
containing the charred sand.  "It was found at the crime scene.  It began where 
Brenda's mouth would have been and extended five feet in the direction that 
Chloe was running."
	Scully eyed it distastefully.  "Looks like glass."
	"Sand, Scully.  It used to be sand."  He watched as her confused eyes 
lifted to meet his.  "All that aside, I think we should go back to Washington 
and let the lab boys analyze it.  Until something strange turns up, there's 
nothing keeping us here."
	"You're right, Scully, of course.  But it's kinda late now.  I suggest 
that we get a good night's sleep and head for home in the morning."
	"Buy me dinner?" she asked girlishly.
	"To quote Sheriff Barnes, "Do bears shit in the woods?'"  Mulder leaned
against the desk again, a self-satisfied grin gracing his face.


	Mulder and Scully enjoyed a peaceful dinner, followed by an early bedtime.  
The county ME was listing Brenda's cause of death as natural causes and their 
minds were at ease concerning the whole affair.  Although there
was certainly something strange about a girl who could suffer such severe 
injuries and still manage to reanimate herself, it was neither strange enough 
nor dangerous enough to warrant their staying on the case.
	The following morning, they headed for home, bidding a fond farewell to
Ft., Myers and mourning the fact that they hadn't even occasioned the beaches.
	Upon their arrival at the Bureau, Mulder dropped the sand sample off at
the lab, then went immediately to check his messages.  He had several minor 
details to clear up, then he would have the rest of the day free to spend in a 
vegetative state in front of the TV.  If his luck held out, there might be a 
good ball game on.
	The next morning, as Mulder was passing the lounged on his way to the 
office, a slightly-built, bespectacled technician accosted him in the hall.
	"Just thought you might want those lab results."  He had an arrogant grin 
on his face as he leaned casually against eh wall and awaited prompting from 
Mulder.
	"Oh, I had almost forgotten about those.  So?  Give."
	"Well, there w3ere indeed elements of sand in that piece of glass you gave 
me.  In fact, most of the elements of it are exactly the same as glass: Silica, 
carbon..."
	"Get on with it."  Mulder scowled impatiently at him.
	"Okay.  The really strange thing is this: Embedded in the glass were some 
very strange fibers.  They were part organic and part inorganic.  But their 
properties would make them highly conductive, as in electrical impulses.  They 
were almost like artificially produce neurons of some sort."
	"Any idea how they got there?  What might have produced them?"
	"Not a clue.  But I'll tell you one thing.  Whatever left them there was 
alive at some point in time."
	"Anything else strange?"
	"Isn't that enough?"
	He blinked at the man for several beats, then grinned condescendingly. 
"Yes, I suppose it is."
	He moved off down the hall, feeling suddenly inspired and confused.  
Moments later, he breezed into Scully's office and dropped into a chair, 
propping his feet up on the desk for good measure.
	"I just had a really interesting talk with the lab technician who ran the 
sample I gave him."
	"And?  What was it?"
	"It's not so much what it is, as what it is not."
	"All right, then.  What isn't it?"
	"It's not glass.  At least not plain old ordinary glass.  It has little
fibers imbedded in it which are part organic and part inorganic."
	"And...?"
	"And they are highly conductive.  As if something alive had at one time
passed through or over the glass."
	"And you find that strange."  She couldn't muster enough interest to even 
be mildly annoyed at him.
	"Follow me on this, Scully.  What if something were living inside Brenda 
Walt.  Using her as a sort of host.  Eventually, the host body would wear out 
and it would have to relocate.  So, it found ample opportunity with Chloe.  But 
Chloe fought back and Brenda died before the transfer could
be made.  So, the thing...whatever it is...managed to get to Chloe's then-
0deceased body and enter it.  Wouldn't that account for her sudden reanimation?  
And the seemingly instant repair of her injuries?  Maybe even the change in her 
eye color."
	"Yes, Mulder, but what would that thing be?  An alien?  A spirit?  What?"
	"I don't know.  Nothing shows up on any of her tests."
	"She's not exhibiting any of the symptoms that Brenda would have had."
	"Maybe it's too soon."  He watched her face as she thought about this and 
he could tell that she was trying to rebuke his theory.  "I thing we have to go 
back to Ft. Myers.  I think we have to talk to Chloe again."
	"On what basis?  That we have weird glass?"
	"No.  On the basis that there's some strange entity running around and 
taking control of people's minds."
	Scully laughed out loud at this, not particularly caring if she offended 
him or not.  "You really are a lunatic, you know that, Mulder?"
	"Yea, but I'm a fun lunatic.  What do you say, Scully?  Road trip?"
	"What will we tell Skinner?"
	"That there's been a sudden development in the case.  Besides, we sort of 
have an understanding about things like this.  I don't ask his permission and he 
doesn't refuse me.  Come on.  Let's pack."


	The two of them left for Ft. Myers the same day.  As luck would have it, 
they were able to get their old rooms back at the Holiday Inn.  It seems that 
the tourist trade gets pretty slim during the off-season, so such things as 
rental cars and motel rooms are a dime a dozen.
	As a courtesy, they notified Sheriff Barnes that they were back in town.  
Then, they enjoyed a quiet dinner and turned in early.






CHAPTER THREE
	Mulder was sleeping soundly in his motel room when he suddenly got the 
impression that he was not alone.  In his dream, he was seated on the chair next 
to the requisite motel-room desk when someone's shadow fell over him.  Before he 
could turn around to see who was there, he awoke, sitting
bolt upright in his bed and panting with terror.  He wasn't sure if his stark 
fear had been brought about by the dream, or whether some actually external 
force had conjured it.
	He was in the middle of talking himself down -- and doing a pretty poor
job of it -- when he sensed someone standing on the other side of the room.  He 
whipped his head around so that he was staring directly at the form, then his 
panic blossomed once more as he recognized the intruder.
	"Chloe!  How did you..."  He made as if to stand up, then found that his 
legs simply would not withstand the strain.  They buckled and he collapsed onto 
the bed once more.
	"Ssh!  Please don't tell anyone you saw me.  I need your help, Agent 
Mulder.  You're the only one who understands.  You're the only one who can stop 
it."
	"Stop it?  Stop what, Chloe?"
	She buried her face in her hands and began to sob softly, the tears 
trickling out from between her fingers and soaking her cotton hospital gown.
 This time, Mulder made a more concerted effort to stand, meeting with some 
success and actually managing to propel himself forward a few steps.
	In a flash, Chloe was gone, her atoms disbursing like so much chimney 
smoke on a windy day.  Mulder stopped in his tracks, frozen there by fear and 
the anticipation of her return.  After several moments of stagnation,
he finally admitted that Chloe would not be coming back.
	He staggered to the phone and hastily dialed the number of Gulf Coast 
Hospital.  A groggy voice responded to the ring and Mulder cleared his throat 
loudly before speaking.
	"Second floor nurse's station, please."
	"This is Nurse Adams.  What can I do for you?"
	"This is Agent Mulder.  I was in earlier with Sheriff Barnes.  I know this 
is going to sound crazy, but could you go check and make sure that Chloe Marsh 
is still in her room.  I'll wait."
	Nurse Adams hesitated a moment, obviously torn between hanging up on a 
prank caller and pissing off a federal agent.  "Just a moment.  I'll check"
	After what seemed an eternity, Nurse Adams picked up the line once more.  
"Yes.  Chloe's still in her bed."
	"Are you sure?  Did you actually see her face?"  He knew that he sounded 
like a lunatic.  At this particular point in time, he didn't much care.
	"I saw her face.  There's no doubt about it.  That's Chloe."
	"Thank you."  Mulder placed the phone back on its cradle in slow motion, 
wondering all the while just what he had seen in his room.
	The vision was far too detailed to have been a dream.  The clarity of it 
was what had frightened him most.  He could hear that little ring in her voice 
and could actually see the familiar pattern in the fabric of her hospital gown.
	He wondered what he should do next.  Should he go to visit Chloe and risk 
being thought a fool or a madman?>  Or should he just keep the whole in=
cident to himself?  He decided on the latter.
	He crawled back into the bed and pulled the covers up under his chin.  No 
matter how many of these things he had dealt with and no matter how he
tried to talk himself into not being afraid, the simple fact of the matter was 
that he just couldn't bring himself to turn out the light.
	He laid there for some time, his eyes inexorably drawn to that one corner 
of the room where Chloe had appeared to him.  He was finally made to admit that, 
if he did not turn out the light, he would lay there for the rest of the night, 
staring at that one barren point in the room.  He finally screwed up his courage 
and switched the light off, spending another sleepless hour staring blindly into 
the darkness in the fear that she would
return.
	

Mulder trudged into the motel dining room that morning, looking like death 
warmed over.  Scully was already there, hunched over a cup of coffee and 
skimming the morning paper.  She looked up just in time to see Mulder take his 
seat and her eyes scanned his rumpled form.
	"What happened to you?  You look like you haven't slept a wink."
	"That's because I haven't."  He leaned over in the direction of the 
waitress and placed a hand on her arm.  "Could I get a cup of coffee when you 
get a chance?"  He managed a smile for her as she moved off in the direction of 
the kitchen.
	"So, what kept you up last night?  Lumpy mattress?"  Scully smirked at him 
over the rim of her cup.
	"I had the single weirdest dream of my life.  At least I think it was a
dream."
	Scully noted the befuddled, almost fearful look in his eyes.  "Mulder, 
what was it?"
	"Well, I was lying there, asleep in my bed.  And all of a sudden, I woke 
up feeling like there was somebody in the room with me.  When I looked over at 
the corner, Chloe was standing there.  She was still wearing her hospital gown 
and she kept asking me to help her.  She said I was the only one who could save 
her.  Then, she started crying and when I took a few
steps toward her, she just disappeared into thin air."
	Scully looked at him for a long beat, confused by how much this dream had 
rattled him.  "Well, Mulder, I can imagine how unsettling it muster have been, 
but I don't think it's all that bizarre given the circumstances.
 I mean, you're here investigating a strange death involving a woman who
just happens to make a practice of dying and coming back to life.  It's only 
natural that it would be on your mind.  Your subconscious was just playing 
tricks on you."
	"But Scully, I'd swear I was awake.  I mean, the whole thing was so vivid.  
More vivid than anything I've ever experienced.  I was so convinced that Chloe 
had really been in my room that I called the hospital to make sure she was still 
there."
	"And was she?"
	"The nurse said she was sound asleep in her hospital bed."
	"There you have it.  You were dreaming.  Nothing more."
	The waitress poured his coffee, then readied her pad to take their 
breakfast orders.  Mulder had just opened his mouth when his phone rang, 
jangling his already unsteady nerves.
	"Mulder."
	"Oh, Agent Mulder!  I'm so sorry to bother you.  This is Chloe Marsh.  
Dawg gave me your number."
	"What is it, Chloe?  What's wrong?"  His eyes met Scully's, though only
briefly.
	"Could you come over to the hospital?  Now?  Please?"  Her voice was so
unsteady, so high-pitched with fear that it set Mulder's teeth on edge.
	"Well, sure.  Maybe if you'd tell me what's wrong.."
	"I can't talk about it over the phone.  Please.  You're the only one who 
might understand.  The only new who might help."
	"We'll be there in a flash."  He shoved the phone into his pocket and 
placed his napkin on the table.
	"What's up, Mulder?"
	"Chloe wants us to come to the hospital.  She sounds pretty upset."
	"Okay.  Let's go."
	She followed him out of the small restaurant, wondering just how much 
stock he was still placing in this dream.  Since his eyes seemed hardly able to 
focus, Scully drove the short distance to the hospital.  Judging by
the quiet at the nurse's station, no one else had any inkling that something was 
amiss.
	"Oh, thank God you've come," Chloe gasped as they entered her room.  She 
looked even paler than before; her hands twisting and folding the edge of the 
sheet.
	"Is everything okay, Chloe?" Mulder asked her as he sat on the edge of the 
vacant bed.
	"I don't really know any way to explain it to you.  I'll just have to show 
you."  She checked his face, trying to judge just how much this demonstration 
might frighten him.  Then, she pressed on.  "Keep your eye on that book over 
there on the chair."
	Mulder and Scully's eyes traveled to the hefty volume which now lay on the 
green vinyl chair across the room.  At first, they saw nothing whatever out of 
the ordinary.  Then, the book began to slowly levitate off the chair, traveling 
through the air at an increasing rate of speed until it reached Chloe's waiting 
hands.
	She turned her sullen eyes on Mulder's incredulous face.  "See what I 
mean?  And that's not all.  Watch the water glass."
	She made the water glass levitate off the table a few inches.  Then, she 
made the bathroom door open and shut and the TV change channels.  When she had 
finally completed her show, she looked at him again, her eyes pleading.
	"How is it that I can do that?  How can I make it stop?"
	Mulder found the whole thing staggering.  He looked to Scully, then back 
to Chloe.  You're demonstrating some sort of psychic power.  Has anything like 
this ever happened to you before?"
	"Never.  And I don't want it to be happening now."
	"When did this start?" Scully inquired.
	"Just this morning.  I got bored with TV, so I thought I'd read.  Only the 
book was over there on the chair.  So, I just thought about how nice it would be 
if the book came to me, so I wouldn't have to bother the nurse  And it did."  
She was still wringing the edge of the sheet, her knuckles white with the 
effort.
	Scully took a step forward and placed a reassuring hand on the girl's arm.  
"It must be due to your head injury.  That's the only thing I can think of that 
could cause something like this.  Have you spoken to Dr. Walker about this?"
	"Heavens no!  Id don't want people to think I'm weird."
	"Well, I think it would be a good idea if we ran some more tests.  Maybe 
something will show up that we missed before."
	"Agent Scully, you sure know a lot about medicine.  Have you ever seen 
anything like this before?"
	She thought about this for a moment before answering, then decided on the 
more diplomatic approach.  "I've seen some cases of psychic abilities where 
people were able to move objects with just their mind.  But they usually were 
born to it.  We'll talk to Dr. Walker about getting some tests
done.  We'll know more than."
	"It's probably just a side-effect of your injuries," Mulder offered with a 
wink.  "It'll probably go away on its own in a couple of days."
	That seemed to calm her somewhat, though she still hadn't found her smile.  
Scully followed Mulder into the hall, taking care to shut the door before she 
spoke.
	"Do you really think it'll go away, Mulder?"
	"No.  Excuse me, nurse?  Could you tell me where Dr. Walker is, please?"
	The nurse beamed at him and smoothed back her blond hair.  "He's in the
lounge at the moment.  Down the hall, last door on your left."
	"Thanks."  He pocketed his hands and walked to the end of the corridor,
then pushed open the heavy wood door.  "Dr. Walker could we have a word with 
you?"
	"Ah, Agent Mulder.  What brings you back here?"
	"Actually, Chloe called me about an hour ago.  Did she say anything to you 
about having any trouble?"
	"Trouble?  What kind of trouble?"  His eyebrows had knit themselves 
together over his nose, giving him an appearance that was more menacing than
concerned.
	Mulder sank heavily into the chair across from Walker and let go of his
breath.  "She seems to be experiencing some sort of psychic episode.  She's able 
to move things across the room, that sort of thing."
	Walker's eyes were on the verge of rolling out of his head.  "As far as
I'm concerned, such things don't exist outside of science fiction.  And now, 
here it is, right in my own hospital.  You've witnessed this?"
	"We both did," Scully interjected, stepping nearer to the men.
	"What could cause such a thing?  Her near-death experience maybe?"
	"I wouldn't call lit 'near-death'.  If anything, it was pure death.  But 
that might be one explanation.  Many people who have crossed over to the other 
side have returned bearing certain gifts, for lack of a better term.  And Chloe 
was there for more than just a brief visit."
	"I wouldn't want to get behind any paranormal explanations until we've 
ruled out all the scientific ones.  I think we should order an EEG and a follow-
up CAT scan right away."
	"I take it you have some experience in these matters?"
	"Just a little," Scully replied as Mulder snorted quietly to himself.
	"all right, then.  We'll do it right away.  YOU can be there if you like"
	Scully nodded her agreement.  "We should go tell Chloe."
	The corridor, which really only stretched twenty feet from end to end, 
seemed unbelievably long just then.  The three of them marched down the hall, 
their feet tapping lightly on the linoleum as they went.  Apparently, Chloe had 
heard them approaching, and she used her newly acquired talents to open the door 
for them.  Walker hesitated momentarily, eyeing the door warily as though it 
might at any moment slam in his face.
	"Good news, Chloe," Mulder began.
	"Yes, I know.  You've decided to run some more tests on me."
	Mulder shot a glance at Scully, whose raised brows only hinted at how 
stunned she was.  "How did you know that?"
	"I over heard you talking."
	"But you couldn't have heard us," Walker disagreed.  "We were at the other 
end of the hall with two closed doors between us."
	"I heard everything you said.  You're going to give me an EEG and another 
CAT scan."
	"That's impossible.  You couldn't have heard that."
	"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Dr. Walker, but I did hear it.  You said 
that as far as you were concerned, such things didn't exist outside of science 
fiction.  And now here it is right in your own hospital."
	Walker was frozen where he stood.  Mulder looked at Chloe with something 
akin to pride.  She was returning his gaze, though she seemed intent on
something else.
	"I didn't read your minds, Agent Mulder.  I heard you quite clearly."
	All the color drained from Mulder's face as he turned toward Scully and
Walker.  "That's just what I was thinking.  I was thinking that she must
have read our minds somehow."  He looked back in Chloe's direction, only
to see the beginnings of tears.
	"Then it's true?  I did hear your thought?"
	"It's all right, Chloe.  Don't panic."  Walker stepped over to the bed,
his hand hovering just above her shoulder, though he couldn't quite bring 
himself to actually touch her.  "There's got to be some logical explanation for 
this.  Agents Mulder and Scully are going to come with us while we do those 
tests.  Then we'll know for sure what's causing this."
	"And how to get rid of it?"  Her eyes begged for the proper response.
	"Probably."
	She allowed them to load her into a wheelchair and take her downstairs for 
the tests.  Mulder and Scully watched through the little window as she held 
perfectly still for the CAT scan, then they walked beside her all the way to the 
EEG room.
	"Now, this isn't going to hurt.  We're just going to put some probes on
your head so we can see what your brain waves look like."
	She held still as he put the little sensors all over her head, then 
crossed her arms across her chest impatiently.  Mulder was standing at her side, 
looking at her in wonder and trying not to have any thoughts which might 
frighten her if she picked up on them.
	"I'm going to take a base-line reading first," the technician advised, 
adjusting her equipment.  "Then, I'm going to ask you to do a couple of things 
for me so I can see what happens.  Okay?"
	"Sure," she sighed, staring at the ceiling and frowning.
	"All right, now.  I want you to close the door for me."  She waited 
patiently for what she thought would be a no-show, then nearly fled the room
as the door began to shut.  "That was...uh...very good, Chloe.  Try something 
else."
	"You can't wait for Friday.  You leave on your vacation on Friday.  To 
Hawaii, right?"  She spared not a glance for anyone else in the room, but
kept her eyes trained on the ceiling.
	"That's right," the technician murmured, feeling a rash of goose bumps 
travel across her entire body.  She looked down at the machine and bit 
contemplatively into her lip.
	"That should be all we need.  Thanks."  Walker stepped in to remove the
sensors from Chloe's head.
	She sat up and stared at them, one by one.  "So, what's going on?"
	"Well, your EEG base lines are completely normal," the technician offered.  
"But when you shut the door and read my mind, your alpha waves go right off the 
scale.  And a completely different band shows up."
	"What does all that mean?"  Chloe had the innocent eyes of a very young
child.  Those eyes now looked as though they belonged to a war-weary 
octogenarian.
	"It means that your brain is somehow able to operate on a level that most 
people don't even have."
	"So, what's causing it?"
	Dr.. Walker rounded the corner, bearing Chloe's x-rays and a wide smile.  
He slid them onto the lighted screen and motioned for Mulder and Scully to join 
him.
	"If you'll look right here, you'll notice a small...growth, for want of
a better term.  You know as well as I do that it wasn't there yesterday.
 But it's there now.  It's not a tumor.  And it's not a hemorrhage.  Agent 
Scully, have you ever seen anything like it?"
	"No.  It looks like..."
	"Yes, I know."  He shared a knowing glance at her, then turned his eyes
back to the x-rays.
	"Would you like to clue us in?" Mulder requested impatiently.
	"Well, it has all the properties and tissue density of...of a..."  Walker 
broke off, not really brace enough to give voice to the truth.
	"What?" Chloe barked her eyes wide with anticipation.  "What does it look 
like?"
	Scully turned around, her face stoic and unreadable.  "It looks like 
another brain."
	Chloe fainted.


	Mulder was standing next to Chloe's bed when she started to come around.  
Her head lolled from one side to the other, her eyes barely fluttering.  When 
her lids finally did peel back, she found it hard to focus her eyes on anything 
at all.  She licked her lips and swallowed hard, wincing at the dryness of her 
throat.
	"Here," Mulder offered, "let me get you some water."
	He pivoted to reach for the pitcher, only to see that Chloe had beat him 
to the pinch.  The pitcher was suspended in mid-air, filling the cup of
its own volition.  The strew lifted off from the table and docked with the cup 
en route.  He watched, fascinated, as the girl drank greedily from
the cup, then returned it to its former resting place.
	"What's happening to me, Agent Mulder?" she slurred hoarsely, her mouth
somehow not obeying her brain's commands.
	"I'm not exactly sure, Chloe.  But I don't think it's anything you should 
be afraid of."  He had lied in that last, though he intended nothing more than 
to soothe her jangled nerves.
	"Just make it stop.  Please."
	He mopped the beads of sweat from her forehead and tried on a smile.  
"Tell me, when you were with Brenda that night, did you see anything strange?"
	"You mean, other than Brenda?"
	"Yes.  Other than Brenda."
	"I didn't have time to see anything else.  I was too busy fighting her 
off."
	"You didn't see anyone else?  Perhaps a strange cloud or a puff of smoke?"
	She looked at his face, confused by his odd questions.  "Nothing.  Should 
I have?"
	"I don't know.  I'm just trying to find some way of explaining what's 
happened to you."
	Dr. Walker stepped through the door just then, his cheerful expression 
masking his stark fear of the girl.  "How are we feeling?"
	"I don't know about you, Dr. Walker, but I'm feeling damned strange.  
Pardon my French."  She blushed at that, a nice girl using such profanity.
	"Well, we've given you a mild sedative to help you get some rest."
	"Whatever this thing inside my head is, can't you just take it out?"
	"That's just the trouble.  We don't know what it is, so we don't know if 
it would be safe to remove it.  Any kind of brain surgery is risky and we don't 
want to put you in any danger."
	"I don't care.  I'd rather be dead than be like this."  She turned her 
head toward the window and fought the flood of tears which was even now welling 
up behind her lids.
	"Why don't we let her get some more rest, Agent Mulder.  We can't do any 
more today."
	Mulder looked at the back of her head, feeling such sympathy for her that 
it threatened to overwhelm him.  "You know where to reach me if you need me."
	"Thank you," she said in a small, tremulous voice.
	Walker held the door for Mulder to walk past, then shut it quietly.  "I've 
called in a friend of mine from college.  A Dr. Canton.  He's the leading brain 
man in the country.  I'd feel a whole lot better knowing he was here.  Just in 
case."
	"That's a good idea.  I've got a couple of things to take care of.  All
right if I come back this evening and check in on Chloe?"
	"Sure.  She doesn't have a whole lot of people left around here.  I'm sure 
she'd be glad to see you."
	Mulder shuffled slowly down the hall, his body and his mind feeling the
brunt of the stress.  Hew wanted to take a nap but he felt so over-tired
that he doubted sleep would come that easily.
	He went first to the motel, where Scully was doing some surfing on the 
Internet, trying to find anything that might even remotely resemble Chloe's 
case.  He knocked gleefully on the door, then breezed past Scully as she opened 
it.
	"Well, nice to see you, too, Mulder."
	He belly-flopped onto her bed and shut his eyes for a second.  "Did 
anybody get the number of that truck?  I feel like hell."
	"That happens when you don't sleep for extended periods of time."
	He struggled to a sitting position and stretched mightily.  "So, what did 
you find out?" he yawned.
	"A couple of very interesting things.  First of all, there was a death 
very similar to Brenda's about two months ago in Tampa.  As coincidence would 
have it, Brenda just happened to be in Tampa for a convention on that very same 
day.  And she was booked at the same hotel that the deceased stayed at."
	Mulder suddenly felt very alert.  "Go on, Scully.  You have my undivided 
attention."
	"Three months prior to that, there was a similar death in Baton Rouge. 
This time, a used car salesman."
	"Well, no accounting for taste."
	"Two months before that, a postal worker in Kansas.  Two months before 
that, a doctor in LA."
	"Whatever it is, it's heading east."
	"It?" she questioned snidely, turning to meet his faze.
	"Yes, it.  Whatever.  Let me ask you something, Scully.  Remember that 
sample I took from the road where Brenda died?  Is there any mention of 
something like that in any of the other cases?"
	"Not that I've seen.  But that doesn't mean there wasn't.  Mulder, what
are you thinking?"
	"I'm thinking I need to take a vacation.  No, seriously.  I'm wondering
if there's a pattern to these deaths.  Something they all had in common.
Some genetic trait, a certain predisposition to it."
	"Something like...say...they were all victims of a car crash or they were 
all the same race?"
	"Yea, something like that.  Maybe this thing needs a particular type of
metabolism.  Or it avoid people with diabetes.  Something along those lines.  Am 
I making any sense, Scully?"
	"ordinarily, I'd say you're nuts.  But considering Chloe's strange 
resurrection and her new-found psychic abilities, I'd have to say there's at 
least a remote chance that you're right.  But where did it come from?  I suppose 
we can check into these other deaths, try to uncover some sort of
pattern.  But what does it want?"
	"To survive.  That's all any sentient being really wants.  And if it needs 
a host body to accomplish that, then it will do whatever it has to to
get one."
	"It might explain the rapid healing of Chloe's body.  Maybe even the 
return of her appendix and tonsils.  But what about the growth in her head?
 What purpose might that serve?"
	"Do I look like Mr. Wizard to you?  I don't have all the answers.  Just
some."
	"I'll get some names and addresses off the computer.  We can check these 
people out later.  Right now, what you need is some rest."
	"Bless you, Scully."  He sank back onto the bed and curled himself into
a fetal position.
	"Nut here, Mulder.  Go back to your own room."
	"And they say the Maytag repairman's lonely."  He reluctantly got off the 
bed and padded back to his own room.


	He had been worried that Chloe might pay him another uninvited visit, but 
his poor mind and body were so tired that he slipped into a dreamless sleep the 
second his head hit the pillow.  At around six, the phone rang,
scaring the life out of him and making him smack his head smartly on the
headboard.
	"Yes," he panted into the receiver, his eyes stuck open from the fright.
	"Agent Mulder?  This is Sheriff Barnes.  I think you better get down to
the hospital right away.  All hell's breaking loose and you may be the only one 
who can calm her down."
	"You mean, Chloe?"
	"Yea.  Hurry."
	"On the way."
	He dove into his clothes while he alerted Scully, his head filled with 
sleep-induced cotton and most of his body numb.  He met her in the hallway and 
trotted to the car as he filled her in on what little he knew.
	They arrived at the hospital only minutes later.  The hallway was filled 
with people, huddled together and whispering quietly among themselves. 
A small cluster of nurses had gathered together at the desk, clutching at each 
other in panic.  Outside of Chloe's door, Sheriff Barnes stood guard, his back 
pressed tightly to it and one beefy hand grasping the knob.
	"What's going on in there?" Mulder asked as the din reached his ears.
	"See for yourself."  Barnes stepped aside and as he released the knob, the 
door flew inward with a crash.
	Mulder dared to look inside, where some unseen force appeared to be 
wreaking havoc on the hospital furniture.  As he took one wary step inside, he 
spotted Chloe, her knees drawn up to her chest and clutching her head with both 
arms.  She was moaning softly and crying, her whole body shaking with the effort 
of...what?
	She turned her swollen eyes toward him then.  They were red and haunted
and it made Mulder cringe just to look at them.  Still, he shored up his
strength and took another bold step toward her.
	"Oh, God!  Make it stop!  Please.  I'm not doing this.  How do I make it 
stop?"
	The drawers on the bureau were crashing open and shut.  Small objects were 
flying about the room, hurling themselves at the walls.  Her bed was banging up 
and down on the floor as she bounced about.  Both windows were
shattered.  And in the midst of it all was Chloe, terrified, helpless Chloe.  
She had no understanding of how or why all this was occurring and her eyes told 
the whole story.
	Mulder ran to her at once and grabbed her by both shoulders.  "Look at me, 
Chloe."  She failed to respond to him at all, so he shook her once, gently.  
"Look at me.  Look right into my eyes and nowhere else."
	She did as he asked, her eyes still filled with tears and panic.  They 
softened mildly as they gazed into his.
	"Do you trust me, Chloe?  DO you?"
	"Yes."
	"All right then.  You can control this."
	"No, I can't."
	"You can," he affirmed sharply.  "You just have to calm down. Nobody's 
going to hurt you.  I won't let them.  Take a deep breath."  He watched as she 
followed his instructions.  "Hold it.  Good.  Now, let it out slowly  Just 
relax.  Take another deep breath."
	He glanced hurried about the room, noting that things had calmed down 
slightly, though the room still seemed to have a life of its own.
	"And let it out slowly.  Okay, now I want you to lay back.  There's 
nothing to be scared of.  I'm here to protect you.  Close your eyes and take
another deep breath."
	He cast a look back over his shoulder at the others, who were still frozen 
in terror.
	"That's great, Chloe.  Do you feel my hand in yours?"
	"Yes."
	"All right.  When you start feeling afraid or uptight, you just squeeze
my hand.  But remember, there's nothing here that's going to hurt you."
	She slowly allowed her eyes to open and locked them on his.  A tear 
trickled slowly don her cheek, making its way to the pillow.  "What happened?"
	"You just lost control, that's all.  This is all so new to you.  You just 
have to learn how to work it."  He stroked her forehead tenderly and graced her 
with an endearing smile.  "Feeling better now?"
	"Much."  She tried on a smile.  It fit.
	":Can you tell me how this all started?"  He eased onto the edge of the
bed, all the while maintaining possession of her hand.
	"I had a bad dream.  I dreamed that somebody else was inside my body.  I 
was outside it somehow.  And my own body was chasing me, trying to kill
me.  When I woke up, everything was going crazy, flying around and stuff."  She 
stared to tremble again and so she squeezed Mulder's hand roughly.
	He smiled in the face of the pain, intent on keeping her calm.  "I think 
it would be a good idea if you let Dr. Walker give you something to help you 
sleep."
	She nodded her agreement and bit into her lip.  "Will you stay until I 
fall asleep?"
	"Sure."  He waved Dr. Walker and Scully into the room, keeping eye contact 
with Chloe.   "I'm going to step outside to have a word with my partner.  I'll 
be right back."
	He slowly stood up, keeping a watchful eye on her.  When he gained the 
hall, he pulled Scully, Walker and Barnes aside.
	"I think it would be safer if we kept her sedated until we know what's 
causing this."
	"That's a wonderful idea, Agent Mulder," Walker sighed.  "Truth is, we 
have to keep increasing the amount of sedatives each time.  She's developing an 
amazing resistance to them.  I don't know how much longer we can keep putting 
her under."
	"If we can't keep her under control, we're going to have to remove her 
from the hospital."  Barnes frowned, clearly not wanting to jeopardize Chloe in 
any way, but knowing where his priorities lie.
	"Sheriff Barnes, surely you don't intend to just put he out on the 
street?"
	"Agent Scully, I don't see any other choice.  There's no end to the damage 
that girl can do.  I love Chloe as much as anybody, but there's no telling who 
might get hurt if she gets out of control again."
	Mulder sighed resignedly and eyed Scully.  "well, I'll stay here tonight 
just in case something happens."
	"That's a good idea, Agent Mulder.  She seems might sweet on you."
	Mulder exhaled loudly and stalked back to Chloe's room, where he pulled
a chair to her bedside and eased into it.  "How do you feel, Chloe?"
	"Like a turtle with two shells."
	"Huh?"  He snickered, a happy relief for his sagging spirits.
	"I'm so danged tired that I feel like a turtle toting around two shells."  
She met his eyes, offering up a smile of her own.
	"Ah!" he said, tilting back his head and chuckling some more.
	She lay on her side, gazing at him with increasingly unfocused eyes.  She 
forced a smile for him, then licked her lips lethargically.  "So, does
Agent Mulder have a first name?"
	He smirked and shifted uneasily in his seat.
	"What's the matter?  Did your parents name you something weird like 
Horatio?"
	"Nothing that awful.  My name is Fox."
	"Fox.  I like that.  It really suits you.  Agent Fox Mulder, FBI.  Good
name for a TV show, if you ask me."  She eyed him peculiarly, wondering if she 
would have the courage or the strength left to ask what she needed
to.  "Fox, I want you to promise me one thing."
	"What's that, Chloe?"  He rubbed her hand instinctively.
	"If things get worse, if I start hurting people, I don't want you to worry 
about me.  What I mean to say is, its more important that I not hurt other 
people than it is that I don't get hurt.  If push comes to shove, you do what 
you have to do.  Even if that means killing me.  Okay?"
	He studied her face for a long time, suddenly impressed by how wondrously 
beautiful she was.  Her beauty wasn't in the turn of a leg or the artful 
placement of a cheek bone.  The beauty of Chloe was in the simple goodness of 
her heart, the story in her eyes.
	"It won't come to that."
	"But if it does..."
	"I will take measures equal and appropriate to the threat presented.  Good 
enough?"
	"Good enough."
	"Good.  Now go to sleep."
	She did.






CHAPTER FOUR

	Mulder awakened the next morning, still crammed into the green chair and 
stiff as a board.  He could hardly move his head at first and his back cried out 
in protest as he moved to sit up.  He had fully intended to go back to the motel 
once Chloe had fallen asleep, but his mind hadn't had the good sense to get his 
body moving in time.
	He looked in Chloe's direction and was made aware of the fact that she was 
staring at him.  He wondered if she was reading his thoughts; if she had read 
them last night.
	"Good morning," he moaned, embarrassed at being seen in such a disheveled, 
unprofessional state.
	"I didn't expect you to spend the whole night, you know.  You could have 
gone back to your motel."
	"I didn't expect to, either.  I guess I was just a little too tired to 
make the move."  He scrubbed one hand across his bristly chin and stifled
a yawn.
	"Well, you're going to be suffering for it all day long."  She reached out 
and touched his arm affectionately, drawing both their eyes to it as their flesh 
began to heat up.  "What was that?" she queried, drawing her hand back.
	Mulder straightened, one hand on his formerly aching back and one on the 
bed.  "I don't know but my back sure feels better."
	She gaped at him in confusion.  "Did I do that?"
	"You just might have.  Is there no end to your talents?"
	She smiled, happy that she had finally done something helpful rather than 
harmful.  "You should go back to the motel now.  I've taken advantage of your 
kind heart quite enough."
	"If you need me, don't hesitate to call."
	"Sure thing, Fox."  She took pleasure at how disconcerted he was by that 
simple familiarity.  He was genuine and kind.  She liked him very much.


	Mulder went back to the motel, where Scully was just dressing for the day.  
He knocked on her door, then leaned against the wall in complete exhaustion.  
When she opened the door, he glared at her through sleepy eyes.
	"Mulder!  What on earth happened to you?"
	"I spent the night scrunched up in a chair," he mumbled as he staggered
past her.  "How about you?"
	"Slept like a baby.  How's Chloe?"
	"Better than yesterday.  How did you make out on those other deaths?"
	"Well, I spent a good bit of time gathering all the information I could
about the victims.  So far as I can tell, they had absolutely nothing in
common.  They're not related in any way.  In fact, only two of them shared the 
same blood type.  They have different occupations, different income brackets.  
As far as I can tell, they were just chosen at random."
	"Oh well.  I guess we're back to square one."
	"I think the important thing now is to find something that disagrees with 
this entity of yours that still won't hurt Chloe.  You know, drive it out of 
her."
	"And into what?"
	"I don't know.  We'll have to place her in an isolation ward of some sort.  
Wear decon suits and the like.  Although, God knows exactly how this
thing transfers.  A decon suit might not make a bit of difference."
	"Well, while I was sleeping it off over at the hospital, you were coming 
up with a plan.  I like that about you, Scully."
	"Thanks.  Right now, I think you should go back to your room and take a
shower."
	"Smells like a good idea."


	Mulder awakened to a frantic rapping at his door.  When he finally 
achieved a vertical position and made it to the door, Scully was facing him down 
with urgency and fear.
	"Come on, Mulder.  We've got to get to the hospital."
	He yawned loudly and rubbed his face.  "What's wrong?"
	"Dr. Walker just called.  There's been a fire at the hospital.  It started 
in Chloe's room."
	Mulder grabbed his clothes off the back of the chair and ran into the 
bathroom.  "Did he say anything else?" he hollered from the other side of the 
door.
	"No.  Just that we should come down there right away."
	"Let's go," he sighed, snatching up his coat as he breezed past the chair.
	Once they arrived at the hospital, they spotted the center of activity at 
once.  Several fire trucks had gathered just outside the emergency entrance.  
Firemen were milling around casually, speaking into radios and wiping soot from 
their faces.
	"Agent Mulder, FBI.  What's happened here?"
	"I'm not exactly sure, sir.  A small fire broke out on the second floor.   
It could have been a lot worse, but I think we have it under control now."
	"Any idea what caused it?"
	"Not yet.  We're still investigating."
	Mulder and Scully left the man to his duties and continued their trek to 
Chloe's room.  When the elevator doors slid open on the second floor, the stench 
of smoke was everywhere.  Mulder coughed twice, then stepped onto the linoleum 
tiles.  Dr. Walker was standing next to a gurney in the hallway, his back to 
them.
	"Dr. Walker, what happened?  Is Chloe all right?"
	Walker turned to meet them, his face having aged ten years since their 
last meeting.  On the gurney sat a terrified and smoke-blackened Chloe, her eyes 
the single lightest part of her body.  "We're still not real clear on what 
happened, Agent Scully.  The fire seems to have started in Chloe's room, though 
I can't say just how."
	"I told you," she coughed.  "It was me."
	"How could it be you, Chloe?"  Mulder stepped closer, unsettled by her 
wild appearance but still concerned about her state of mind.
	"I was asleep, having this dream.  In the dream, I was very cold, like you 
might get if you were stranded for a long time at the Arctic or something.  And 
in my dream, I gathered up some firewood and started a fire.  When I woke up, 
there was smoke everywhere and the bed was on fire."
	"You weren't hurt, were you?"
	"Weirdest thing," Walker offered.  "She doesn't seem to have been touched 
at all, even though most of the bed burned up around her."
	"I inhaled some smoke is all.  How could I have done this, Fox?  How?" 
She looked near tears; near hysteria.
	"I don't know," he mumbled, placing one steadying hand on her shoulder.
	"Well, we can't have her staying in the hospital any longer.  We've had
to evacuate the whole floor as it is.  No telling what might happen next
time."
	"You can't just send her home," Scully admonished, her eyes more fraught 
with anger than fear.
	"We can't keep her here."
	"But..."
	"The doc's right, ma'am."  Sheriff Barnes had come up behind them, his 
hands customarily thrust into his pockets and his face grim.  "We do have
to consider the safety of the other patients."
	"It's all right.  I don't mind.  They don't seem to be able to help me 
much here anyway."
	Scully evaluated Chloe's sincerity in this.  The girl was brave, no doubt 
about that.  But she was also terribly frightened and, for the most part, 
helpless against whatever power seemed to be controlling her thoughts.
	"Well, we're not going to let you stay alone.  If anything happened, 
there'd be no one there to help you.  Mulder and I will stay with you."
	She looked up at Scully, her eyes brimming with tears again in the 
unvoiced fear that something else was probably going to happen -- and soon.  "I 
appreciate that.  I do.  But I don't want..."
	"Is it all right if we take her home now?" Mulder asked, cutting Chloe off 
before she could talk them both out of it.
	"No reason why not.  For all intents and purposes, the girl's perfectly
healthy."
	Mulder fetched a wheelchair from the nurses' station and gestured wildly 
at it.  "Hop on.  I'll give you a lift to the car, if you're not afraid
of my driving."
	She smiled a bit at that, reminding herself to thank the Lord for such 
friends as Mulder and Scully.
	Mulder drove them to Chloe's apartment, a smallish, two-story building 
only two miles down the road.  Though it was by no stretch of the imagination 
posh, it was tasteful and cozy.  Mulder took a look around, amazed at the sheer 
number of plants that were in the place.
	"How long have you lived here, Chloe?"
	"About two years.  As soon as they put this development up, I came to ha=
ve a look at it.  I fell in love with it instantly because of the fact that 
every apartment had its own patio or balcony."
	He nodded in agreement, relaxing a bit, though the threat of Chloe's 
strange abilities still hung over him.
	"I have a twin bed in the guest room and a sofa bed out here.  You two can 
divide who sleeps where.  There's always clean sheets on the bed and I'll put 
out some fresh bath towels."
	"Don't go to any trouble on our account," Scully called as she disappeared 
down the short hall.  "We're very easy to please."  She waited until she was 
sure Chloe couldn't hear them, then she leaned close to Mulder.  "Do you think 
we should tell Chloe what we suspect she's up against?"
	"Before Mulder could reply, Chloe called to them from down the hall.   "I 
think you should always be honest with Chloe.  She's not a child, you know."
	Scully grimaced, feeling instantly stupid for having forgotten Chloe's 
new-found psychic abilities.
	"Now, Agent Scully.  I will make us some tea and then we can all sit down 
and discuss this thing of yours."
	They watched her warily as she set about preparing the tea.  She was far 
too at ease with all this, far too accepting.  It might have been because she 
had long ago touched upon the theories trickling through their minds.  Mulder 
didn't think so.  He thought that somehow, some way, this thing that had control 
over Chloe was getting stronger, was taking even more
of her power away from her.
	"There, some nice herbal tea.  It should calm us all down."  She set the 
tray on the table before them and filled three cups.  "Sorry there's no
milk.  Well, that's not exactly true.  There is milk, but it's rather chunky at 
the moment."  She smiled wanly hen sipped her tea.
	"Chloe, we don't want to scare you any more than you already have been.
 We just think you need to know what you're up against."
	"It's all right, Agent Scully/  I think at this point any more fear would 
be superfluous.  I've already been scared just about as bad as a person can be."
	Mulder and Scully exchanged worried glances, shocked at the girl's use of 
such a word.  "Chloe, from everything that we've been able to gather, we think 
you're dealing with something that's...well...let's just call it
extra-natural."
	"I'll buy that, Fox.  But just what exactly is it, this extra-natural 
thing?"
	Mulder swallowed hard, fearing that, no matter how he approached it, he
would come off sounding like some sort of raving madman.  "Judging by the sudden 
appearance of such strong psychic powers, and the burnt track of
sand on the road where Brenda died, I'm inclined to believe that something was 
living inside of Brenda..."
	"And now it's in me.  What?"  She said it with such decisiveness, such 
calm resolution that it frightened Mulder even more.
	"I'm not exactly sure.  It could be merely the spirit..."
	"A ghost?"
	"Something like that.  Or perhaps an alien presence."
	She snickered mockingly.  "Oh, please.  I've never been abducted by 
aliens.  I've never even seen a UFO."
	"I didn't imply that you had.  I'm just saying..."
	"The thing that's growing in my head, could that be it?"
	"Whatever is growing in your head is more likely to be a by-product of 
that entity," Scully corrected, trying to maintain a clinical detachment in the 
face of Mulder's  zeal and Chloe's almost blas=E9 attitude.
	"So, why not just take it out?"  She sipped some more tea, then set the
cup on the table for fear that the rattling of cup against saucer would betray 
her true emotions.
	Scully watched this woman, who above all was simplistic in her points of 
view and virtually without pretense, change faces before her very eyes.
 She was at one moment, the uncomplicated, sweet Chloe whom they had come to 
know.  The next, she appeared to be a wiser, near deceitful woman who not only 
accepted what was happening to her but condoned it.  Scully straightened visibly 
and chose her words, not wanting to frighten Chloe nor
to threaten whatever might be in possession of her mind at that particular 
moment.
	"We don't really know what that growth really is.  I feel it's safer to
try and find a non-invasive solution. We might be able to find something
which would drive thing out of you."  She watched Chloe's face for changes, 
signs that it was not really Chloe who was hearing her words.
	"Brenda died with it still in her.  Either she didn't react the same way, 
or she didn't have enough time to get help.  I don't want to go like that.  It's 
not that I'm afraid of dying, exactly.  Right now, that seems like a much better 
choice than going on like this.  But, if I die, what will become of this thing?"
	Scully remained silent for a moment, not wanting to be that truthful with 
Chloe.  In the end, she realized that there really was no secret capable of 
being kept from her.  "It will probably try to go into somebody else"
	"If there's nobody else around?"
	"I don't know."
	Mulder took over again, trying to be gently and at the same time itching 
to dig at Chloe for any fragment of information that she could get.  "We just 
don't know enough about this thing to be able to tell you anything
for certain.  Maybe you could think of something that might help."
	"Such as?"
	"I don't know.  Did you feel anything when this thing entered your body?  
Or maybe you're getting some kind of sensation from it?"
	She studied his eyes, thinking this over but coming up empty.  "I'm sorry.  
I was unconscious when it all happened.  Dead, really.  And I don't have the 
sense that anything's in here with me."
	"All right, I think we're all a little tired just now.  I suggest we try 
to get some sleep and in the morning, we'll discuss what sort of therapy we 
might try to get this thing to leave you."
	Chloe nodded slowly, her eyes staring across the room at nothing in 
particular.  She stood at once, picking up the tray and returning it to the 
kitchen.
	"If you need anything, be sure and let me know."  She walked to the 
hallway and then turned back.  "I really do appreciate all you're doing to help 
me.  I don't know anybody who would go through all this for someone they don't 
even know."
	With that, she was gone, into her room and into a deep sleep.


	"Do you want bacon or sausage?" Chloe was asking them across the breakfast 
bar which separated her kitchen from the living room.
	Mulder was refolding the sofa bed and he cast his response over his 
shoulder.  "Bacon would be fine."
	"You don't have to cook for us, Chloe," Scully added, climbing onto one
of the wicker bar stools.
	"Nonsense.  Mama always said that a happy guest will be a frequent guest  
I feed anybody who comes into my home.  Even stray cats."
	"Could I possibly get another cup of coffee?" Mulder asked sheepishly, 
hesitant to get under foot in the small kitchen.
	Chloe turned on him with a broad smile, one hand on her hip and the other 
wielding a spatula.  "Mama had another saying.  I'll get you the first
one.  After that, you're family and you can get it yourself."
	"Yes, ma'am," he blurted, offering a mock salute.
	Chloe was in high spirits that morning, almost as though nothing untoward 
had happened to her.  She was maddeningly warm and charming and she had that 
sort of natural innocence that just seemed to suck a person in.
	She served them breakfast: Heaping stacks of pancakes and bacon with a 
side of hash browns.  Mulder and Scully took one bite and mistook her apartment 
for heaven.  Chloe smiled knowingly, stuffing her own mouth as she
watched them eat.
	"You sure are a good cook," Scully marveled.
	"Hey, Scully.  Maybe you could take some lessons."
	She poked Mulder roughly in the ribs and scowled at him.  "As soon as I
have someone to cook for, I will."
	They ate in blissful peace.  Nothing extraordinary had happened during the 
remainder of the night and, from all outward appearances, nothing ever would 
again.  Chloe seemed to be back to her innocent, light-hearted self.  They knew 
enough to avoid that sort of false security, but as long as the moment lasted, 
they would enjoy it to its fullest.
	Chloe cleaned up the breakfast dishes, shoving them into the dishwasher
and switching it on.  Then, she sat down in her official TV-watching recliner 
and pierced the agents with her eyes.
	"So, why don't you tell me what your plan is."  She was smiling rather 
purposefully now, her face seeming almost rehearsed.
	"To behind with, I'd like to go out to LA and have a talk with the family 
of that doctor."
	"What doctor, Fox?" Chloe questioned, her eyebrows raising automatically
	"We've found three other deaths similar to Brenda's.  The first was a 
doctor in LA  I' like to go out and talk to his family.  See if I can learn 
anything."
	"Oh."
	"And while he's gone, we can get started on your treatment."
	"What have you decided, Scully?"
	She turned toward Mulder and drew in a deep breath.  "Well, to begin with, 
I think we should try the most innocuous treatment first.  We really don't know 
anything about what's causing your problems or what it might react to.  
Something as simple as an aspirin might be enough to kill it.  Or, it might be 
something radical.  So, we'll start with some antibiotics
and antiviral medications.  Then, if that doesn't work, we can move into
the more radical treatments."
	"Radical?"  Chloe pushed the recliner into an upright position, poised for 
bad news, her face fading at the mere prospect of some horrible medical 
treatments.  "You mean, stuff like chemo or radiation?"
	"Something like that."
	"But what if it's something simple, like too much chocolate or something?"
	"Well, we know it's not bothered by cholesterol," Mulder quipped.  
"Judging by your diet, you must have the highest cholesterol of any living 
person."
	"Have you given any thought to where this thing's going to go if it does 
lave me?"
	Scully shifted uneasily in her seat and shared a tense glance with Mulder.  
"Presumably, it's going to go into the nearest available body."
	"Which would be you, Agent Scully."  Her mouth fell open, working 
feverishly but producing no sound.  Her eyes were filled with panic as she 
swallowed back the hard lump of terror and found her voice once more.  "I don't 
want anybody to get hurt because of me.  Especially not you."
	"That's why, at least as far as the drug therapy goes, I'm going to be 
taking the same doses as you."
	"And that'll work?"
	"I don't know.  But it's the best idea I could come up with.  If we have 
to move on to such things as radiation, we'll move you to a larger hospital 
where we can place you in a sealed isolation room."
	"You sure you'll both be okay alone here?" Mulder wanted to know.
	"We'll be fine.  Won't we, Chloe?"
	"Sure.  Fine."  She was sitting, entranced, and gave no sign of 
recognition when Mulder spoke to her.
	"I'm going to schedule the first available flight to LA,  With any luck, 
I'll be back tomorrow.,  Okay, Chloe?  Chloe?"
	Her eyes snapped back into focus and she feigned a smile for him.  "Okay, 
Fox."
	He went into the kitchen to use the phone, leaving Chloe and Scully to 
their own devices.  "As soon as we drive Mulder to the airport, I'd like to go 
to the hospital and talk to Dr. Walker.  He'll be able to get us everything we 
need.  And he can be on call if we need him."
	Chloe nodded idly, her mind focused on other things.


	The two women drove Mulder to the airport and watched through the expanse 
of glass as his plane took off.  That was when the first tentacles of fear began 
to wind themselves around Scully's mind.  When she turned to leave, she was sure 
that her face held none of the confidence and solace that she had intended.
		"Shall we get started?"
	"Why not?"
	The two drove to the nearby hospital, then managed to track down Dr. 
Walker as he was dictating notes on a small tape recorder.  He looked up as
they entered his office, confused by how normal and almost cheerful Chloe 
looked.
	"Why, hello, ladies.  How are things at Chez Marsh?"  He put down the 
recorder and leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers over his belly and 
forcing a smile.
	"We're ready to start some form of therapy for Chloe," Scully informed 
him, taking a seat at the other side of the desk.
	"Really?  And what have you come up with?"
	"First of all, we'd like to see if some conventional antibiotic therapy
might get rid of this thing."
	"Hm.  Chloe's never been allergic to any kind of medication.  I'd say 
that's a fair starting point."
	"We were hoping you'd supply us with the necessary medication."
	He looked rather uncomfortable as he met Scully's eyes once more, though 
he tried hard to conceal that fact.  "You are trained in this, I hope."
	"Certainly.  I assure you, I wouldn't do anything that might put Chloe at 
risk."
	"I suppose a prescription for some Penicillin and the like wouldn't do any 
hard.,  How much?"  He reached for his prescription pad and pen, looking askance 
at Scully.
	"Let's see, 500 milligrams, BID...I'd say fifty units to start."
	"Fifty?  That's an awful long course."
	"I'll be taking it, too.  When and if that thing leave her, I'd like to
be as distasteful a target as possible."
	"I see."  He began writing the prescription, then paused, pen in mid air  
"Chloe, how do you feel about this?"
	"I'm all for anything that'll get rid of this thing."
	"I still can't quite believe everything I've seen here.  I mean, it's all 
just so ...bizarre."
	"I've seen stranger things.  Things you'd never believe."
	He eyed Scully for a moment, finding that he had come to like this woman 
very much over the past few days.  "I'll just bet you have, Agent Scully"
	She took the prescription from him and offered her hand.  "Thank you, Dr 
Walker.  You've been a great help to us."
	"Anything I can do.  You have my home number.  Don't hesitate to use it
if you need help."
	"Thank you," Chloe offered with a smile.
	As they left the hospital, Scully wrapped one arm neatly around Chloe's
shoulders.  "I say we rent a few movies, ho home, put our feet up and relax."
	"Hurray for that!  This is going to work.  I just know it is."
	"Are you always this optimistic?"

	"So, what am I going to do?  Sit around and convince myself that nothing's 
going to make this go away?  Tell myself that my life is over?  That I'll die a 
horrible death in just a few short days or weeks?  What good would that do?  
Mama always said that sorrow only breeds more sorrow."
	"Your mother was a very smart woman."
	"Yea.  She had me, didn't she?"  Chloe smirked playfully at her, then 
began to swagger haughtily as she walked toward the car.


	"Down the hatch," Scully said, holding forth one of the pills and a glass 
of water.
	Over the teeth and past the gums, look out tummy, here it comes."  She 
took the pill and tossed it into her mouth, then drained the water glass.
	"Now, let's watch that movie."  Scully dropped onto the sofa and picked
up the remote.
	Chloe sat down beside her, propping her feet on the small coffee table and 
grinning.  "Gee, I wish we had some pop corn."
	Like a bolt of lightening, a huge red ceramic bowl appeared on her lap,
brimming with hot pop corn.  Chloe looked at Scully with something akin to 
amusement, then winked.
	"Well, it may be scary, but at least it has its benefits."  She took a 
piece and crunched on it for a moment, then held the bowl out to Scully.
	"No thanks.  It gives me the creeps."
	"Aw, come on.  It's perfectly all right.  Taste it.  It's delicious."
	"No way."
	"What are you?  Chicken?"
	Scully began to cluck like a chicken and then they both burst into peals 
of laughter.  If there were anything at all lurking in the shadows, it sure 
didn't show in their faces.
	Once the movie was over, Scully got ready to retire.  She had pretty well 
settled herself into the spare room and Chloe had actually gotten quite used to 
having someone else around all the time.  She had lived alone for so long, that 
she had nearly forgotten how nice it was to have someone
near.
	Chloe had some trouble dropping off to sleep.  Since beginning her 
therapy, Chloe had spent nearly every waking second obsessed with whether or not 
it would work.  She worried about when and where the thing would leave her; 
waited tensely for it to happen.  And so, she lay in her bed, staring at the 
darkness and listening to silence.  She wondered what it would
feel like, what it would look like and if she would be alive at the end of it.
	Shortly after midnight, she did manage to slip into sleep.  Scully had 
been having a dream, to which Chloe had made herself privy.  She watched the 
woman's mental pictures roll by like a feature film, astonished at how clear it 
was and yet how surreal it felt.  She knew that this was a horrific invasion of 
her privacy, but she simply couldn't stop it.  More and
more, she found that her mental calisthenics were more reflex and less effort.


	She awoke the next morning to the sound of the shower running.  
Momentarily, she had forgotten the fact that she no longer lived alone and so 
the unbidden sound startled her awake.  As she padded out into the hall, she 
finally realized that her roommate was the source of the sound and so she turned 
to go back to bed despite the late hour.
Scully came out of the bathroom just as Chloe reached her bedroom door. 
Her eyes were drawn at once to the middy footprints upon the beige carpet and 
then to Chloe's besotted, feet.
	"What have you been up to, Chloe?  Gardening in your bare feet?"
	Chloe looked at her as if she had just sprouted horns.  "What are you 
talking..."  Her eyes traveled down her form to her feet, then stuck there.  
"Oh, my gosh!  What's happened to me?"
	"Have you ever had problems with sleepwalking?"
	"Not that I've been told.  I haven't left the house since yesterday.  I
swear.  At least, I don't remember going out."  Her eyes were swimming in fear 
as she at last looked up at Scully once more.
	"Well, we'll figure this out later.  Right now, you ought to go in and 
take a  shower.  Don't worry about the carpet.  I'll clean that up."
	Chloe had a mind to protest, then thought better of it.  Mechanically, she 
plodded into the bathroom, where steam still laced the mirror.  "Agent Scully?  
Where do you suppose I went?"
	"I don't know, Chloe.  But I think we should find out."






CHAPTER FIVE

	Mulder walked up the steps of the two-story Spanish Colonial house and 
checked the name on the door.  "Dr. and Mrs. Reed Warren," the plaque read  As 
he rang the bell, he mentally crossed his fingers, hoping that Mrs. Warren would 
be able to provide some smidgen of information that would help him.
	A lovely woman of about fifty opened the door, her red hair done into a
tight French twist and her pretty face smiling at him.  "May I help you?"
	"I'm Agent Fox Mulder.  FBI.  I know this is an inconvenience, but I was 
wondering if I could ask you a few questions regarding your husband's death."
	She stared back at him for a moment, her face expressionless, leaving 
Mulder with the mounting fear that she would simply send him away.  "Come in," 
she offered simply, standing aside so that he could pass.
  "Please excuse the state of the place.  My maid is on vacation 
and...well...I'm not very good at these things."
	The house was immaculate.  Every stick of antique furniture in the place 
looked as though it had been polished just that morning and the wood floors 
gleamed up at him.  Mrs. Warren led him into the expansive living room, which 
was dominated by an enormous gothic-looking fireplace.
	"Now, what would you like to ask me, Agent..."  She raised her brows in
that cultured, questioning way that true ladies sometimes do.
	"Mulder, ma'am.  I hope this isn't too painful for you."
	"Not at all.  I've had quite some time to mourn and I think I've come to 
grips with it."
	He offered a conciliatory smile, then looked at his notes.  "I've been 
able to link your husband's death with four others like it across the country.  
I was wondering, did he show any signs of illness over the past few months 
before his death?"
	"Not a one until the very day he died.  He woke up feeling rather feverish 
and nauseous.  He stayed in bed all that morning but then he forced himself to 
go into the hospital anyway.  That's the way Reed was.  Duty at
all costs.  He seemed very agitated anyway, like he just couldn't make himself 
sit still for a second.  The last time I saw him was when he kissed me good-bye 
as he was leaving.  Two hours later, a policeman came to my
door to tell me that he was dead."
	"What did they list as the cause of death?"  He already knew the answer.  
He just wanted to get at any suspicions she might have.
	"Heart failure.  They said his heart was extremely enlarged."
	"And what do you think?"
	She eyed him curiously for a moment, trying to get a feel for what he was 
getting at.  "I just don't know.  He's very careful about getting his check-ups 
and the sort.  And he's never had any trouble with his heart at
all.  Besides that, there's the odd way in which he died."
	"How's that?"
	"Well..."  It was clear from her tone and her hesitation that she was 
reluctant to release this little tidbit of information.  "On the way to the 
hospital, he suddenly just swerved his car up onto the sidewalk in front of a 
restaurant.  He walked right inside and approached a woman who was
dining there.  As far as I can tell, he had never met this woman before.
 That notwithstanding, he simply grabbed her and kissed her, right there
in front of God and everyone.  Then, he simply collapsed onto the floor..dead."
	"This woman, did you ever get her name?"
	"A Mildred Kendall.  From Kansas.  She was apparently here on vacation 
with her family."
	Mulder looked deep into her eyes, sizing up her ability to handle what he 
felt he had to tell her.  "Mrs. Warren, Mildred Kendall died some months later 
under similarly peculiar circumstances and from a heart attack. 
Three days prior to her death, she drove herself to the emergency room, 
complaining of aberrant behavior and a high fever."
	"Oh.  My."  She sat straight as a board, her face suddenly slipping into 
that practiced, complacent mask.
	"Before she died, Mrs. Kendall apparently had a very strange encounter 
with a Miss Barbara Morgan, who later also died from the same type of 
condition."
	"My heavens!  This is starting to sound like one of those odd little virus 
movies they're so fond of making these days.  Are you suggesting..."
	"I'm trying to find the cause, Mrs. Warren, not suggest one.  We have a
young woman in Florida who now suffers from the same kind of malady as your 
husband.  We're trying to help her before it's too late."
	"I am very sorry to hear that.  I'm afraid I don't know anything that 
might help, though I can give you the name of a gentleman who might know a
great deal more than I about this thing.  He was a patient of my husband's.  He 
called me a few weeks after Reed died and said that he wanted to meet with me.  
He said he had information about Reed's death that I might
want to know.  I never did meet the man because, frankly, I was just too
weary to deal with it.  Besides, nothing he could possibly tell me would
bring Reed back.  His name is Professor Donald Stillman.  He's an archaeologist 
at UCLA.  This is his number."
	She passed a business card to Mulder, then watched his face carefully. 
"You just happened to have his card sitting on your coffee table?"
	"He stops by almost once a week to ring the bell and, when I don't answer, 
he leaves one of his cards in the mailbox.  He used to call every day, but I had 
the number changed."  She studied her hands, gracefully perched in her lap, for 
a moment, then raised her soft blue eyes to meet his. 
"Agent Mulder, whatever might or might not have happened to my husband, I'd 
really rather not know about it.  I do wish that woman well.  Honestly, I do.  I 
just can't deal with dredging up all that pain again."
	"I understand, Mrs. Warren.  And I thank you for taking time to speak with 
me."
	He strode out of the house with Mrs. Warren hot on his heels.  She was a 
pleasant enough woman but Mulder got the distinct impression that she was not 
all she appeared to be.  Perhaps she was hiding something mysterious about her 
husband's death.  Perhaps she simply had another man in her life and was not 
anxious to have the world find out about it.  In either event, he would leave 
the woman to whatever devices got her through the night.
	He went back to the hotel and immediately called Professor Stillman's 
office.  They informed him that the man was on a dig in Israel and would return 
the following day.  Disappointed, Mulder decided that he would call
Scully and fill her in.  He would also have to tell her that he would stay on in 
LA, for another day.  He was sure that she wouldn't be thrilled about it but 
there was simply no other way.


	All through breakfast, Scully kept eyeing Chloe suspiciously.  Where had 
the girl gone last night?  And what had she done?  The very thought that Chloe 
could disappear from the apartment like that without arousing her
scared Scully beyond words.  She would feel so much better if Mulder would just 
come back.
	Chloe was doing dishes when the phone rang.  She wiped her hands 
haphazardly on her apron and then grabbed up the cordless phone.
	"Hello?"
	"Hi, Chloe, darlin'.  How ya doin' this morning'?"  It was Sheriff Barnes, 
though his usually sunny tone had a ring of deception to it.
	"I'm feeling okay, I guess."
	"Could I talk to that Agent Mulder of yours?"  On the other end of the 
phone, Barnes voice cracked.
	"He's not here.  He went out to California on an errand."  She felt 
obliged to tell him no more than that.
	"Did Agent Scully go with him?  If not, I'd like to speak to her."
	"Just a moment."  She passed the phone over the breakfast bar to Scully.  
"It's Dawg."
	"Sheriff  Barnes.  What can I do for you?"  She was confused by his call, 
more so by the fact that he had asked to speak to her rather than Chloe
	"I don't want you to make like anything's going on.  Just keep a good 
poker face and we'll be just fine."
	"Okay."  She scanned Chloe's face, hoping against hope that she couldn't 
read her thoughts just now.
	"Last night, around three, someone broke into the hospital's pharmacy and 
stole some drugs."
	"What kind of drugs?"  Again, she checked Chloe's expression for signs of 
comprehension.
	"Pain killers, sleeping pills, downers mostly.  A lot of them."  He paused 
for a moment, listening to the frightened silence between them.  "Here's the 
reason I asked to speak to you first.  I wanted to ask you if Chloe was at the 
apartment all night."
	Scully turned her back on Chloe, somehow feeling as though direct eye 
contact might increase the chances that she would read her mind.  "No."
	"I understand you can't talk with Chloe right there.  And, Really, I 
understand the trouble Chloe's having.  I don't want to do anything that might 
upset her at this point."
	"Yes."  She began fidgeting nervously with her robe, picking at the 
chenille and partially denuding it.
	"The thing is, the silent alarm in the pharmacy was tripped when the 
culprit broke the window on the door.  Two of their security guards showed up 
and actually caught the thief in the act.  One of them was badly injured when 
the perpetrator threw him twelve feet down the hall and into a glass door.  The 
other fired one shot into the perp, directly into the chest  Agent Scully, the 
perpetrator was Chloe."
	Scully straightened, feeling the first tingle of icy fear trickle down her 
back.  She turned a wary eye to Chloe, who seemed not in the least bit interest 
in the conversation.  "Are you sure?"
	"I wouldn't be calling you if I wasn't.  One of the security guards 
remembered her from her stay here.  Described her to a tee.  Agent Scully, you 
said that Chloe wasn't in the apartment all last night.  Since you can't very 
well talk, I'm going to lob a few at you and you just see if you can return 
them.  Okay?"
	"Yes."
	"She did leave at some point during the night, didn't she?"
	"Yes."
	"Do you know what time?"
	"No.  I went to bed around eleven, so I must have missed it."
	"Ah.  And you never saw her come back home?"
	"No.  I got up around seven."
	"Gotcha.  Well, is there anything else you can tell me?"
	"Yes.  Footprints."  She spun her head then, feeling Chloe's eyes burning 
into the back of her head.
	"I see.  Well, this is one fine kettle of fish we got here.  On the one
hand, I'm obliged to put the guilty person behind bars.  On the other, I
can't very well punish Chloe for something she had no say in.  I'm gonna
talk it over with the hospital administrator and see if I can't get him to cut 
her some slack, being that she's...of diminished capacity and all."
	"That's a good idea.  And I'll see what I can find out for you.  Good-bye, 
Sheriff Barnes."
	She passed the phone back to Chloe, who seemed nonplused by the whole 
affair.  Then, she sat dolefully on one of the barstools, watching Chloe clean 
the white tiled counters and hum.
	"Dawg called about me, didn't he?" she stated out of the blue.
	Scully met her eyes reluctantly, then sighed in resignation.  "Yes, he 
did, Chloe."
	"It has something to do with where I went last night."
	"I'm afraid so."  She watched as Chloe slowly made her way around the 
counter and took up a position on the stool next to Scully's.  "I don't want you 
to get upset over this."
	"Why don't you just tell me what it is?  I'll get it out of you eventually 
anyway."  Her eyes were so demanding, so piercing that it made Scully
cringe inwardly.
	"All right.  It seems that someone broke into the hospital pharmacy last 
night and stole some drugs.  They also injured one of the security guards who 
tried to stop them.  He managed to produce a perfect description of you, along 
with your name."
	Chloe's hands were trembling now, tightly knitted together and resting on 
the counter.  She bit into her lower lip and scowled at her hands, knowing what 
everyone else only suspected.
	"So, some time last night I slipped out of the apartment and robbed the
pharmacy.  I don't remember leaving, but I woke up with mud all over my feet."  
Her voice began to tremble even more now, running a close second to her hands.  
"And the guard says it was me.  So, it must be me."
	Scully looked into her tragic, guilt-pained eyes and wanted to cry.  "All 
the evidence points to you, yes.  But if there's one thing I've learned in my 
years with the FBI, it's that evidence can be and often is deceiving.  Let's 
look at this logically.  If you did indeed go there and steal
some drugs, then they must be here somewhere.  Right?"
	Chloe brightened a bit at that last, feeling one single ray of sunshine
creep into the dark corners of her soul.  "Yes.  Where else would I take
them?"
	"Then, why don't we just go have a look, huh?"  Scully managed a tenuous 
grin for her, sliding off the stool and offering her hand to help Chloe
down from hers.
	Hand in hand, the two women went first to the bathroom, where their search 
turned up nothing out of the ordinary.  Next, they rummaged through the hall 
closet and then Chloe's own, still finding nothing.  Chloe was beginning to take 
heart in the fact that they could find no evidence when Scully dropped to her 
knees and began searching through the things under Chloe's bed.
	"Uh-oh," she murmured, pausing in her search before extracting herself 
from under the bed.  When she sat up, she held in her hand a large plastic bag 
containing several dozen medication bottles.
	"Oh, God!" Chloe sobbed, collapsing limply on the bed and burying her face 
in her hands.  "It was me.  It really was.  I don't remember ever leaving here 
last night.  And I don't remember ever seeing those bottles.  But I did it.  I 
went there.  And I hurt that man.  How could I do all those things and not even 
remember it?  How?"
	Scully crept onto the bed beside her and wrapped one anchoring arm around 
her heaving shoulders.  "Calm down, Chloe.  The guard wasn't hurt too badly.  
You didn't kill anyone..."
	Her eyes shot to Scully's, searching them, reading them.  "Yes, but how
long before I do?  How long before I kill someone?  How long before I do
something really monstrous?  How long, Agent Scully?"
	"You've got to get hold of yourself, Chloe.  This isn't going to help 
anyone."
	She shot to her feet, staring down at Scully as though from a million 
miles away.  "What was I going to do with these?  Was I going to kill myself?  
Or was I going to kill someone else?  What would I need with all those drugs?  
What would it need with them?  I couldn't stand it if I hurt anyone.  Especially 
not you.  You've got to get those out of here right now  Before I...it...uses 
them.  Get rid of them.  And check all the food  Check and make sure I didn't 
poison the good.  Or the milk.  You can't trust me anymore.  You can't trust me 
not to hurt you."
	Scully grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard.  "Stop it!  You're 
not responsible for this.  Or anything else this thing does with your
body.  It's just using you and you don't have any control over it."
	She pushed herself off from Scully in one swift movement.  "But I should  
Don't you understand?  I should have control over my own body, my own actions.  
But I don't.  This thing is turning me into a monster, Agent
Scully.  And nothing you or me or anybody else can do is gonna stop it."
	She bolted out of the room and ran, shrieking, down the hall to the 
bathroom.  Once inside, she slammed the door hard and locked it, collapsing 
against it in wretched sobs.
	Scully followed, worried that she might try to hurt herself.  Thanks to
the recent search of the bathroom, she knew that there were no sharp objects on 
the room, no medication stronger than Tylenol.  She knocked on the door and 
called to Chloe, but nothing she did would elicit a response from the devastated 
girl.  Then the phone rang again.
	Scully ran to the kitchen and pawed the phone roughly off its cradle.  
"Yes?"
	"Scully, you sound out of breath.  Is everything okay there?"
	"Actually, things here are a bit...hectic."
	"How so?"
	"It seems that Chloe left the apartment last night, without waking me or 
her, for that matter.  She broke into the hospital pharmacy, stole a 
considerable amount of medication and the roughed up a security guard for good 
measure.  And all without having any knowledge of it."
	Mulder whistled through his teeth and cleared his throat.  "I'm almost 
finished here so I'll be taking the afternoon flight out."
	"That's good news.  I could use some help."  She paused, trying in vain
top catch her breath.  "So, were you able to get anything useful while you were 
out there?"
	"If you call pneumonia useful.  Whoever it was that said it never rains
in southern California should be shot.  It hasn't stopped raining since I got 
here."
	"But were they any help?  Did you get any information?"
	"Some very good information.  The wife of the doctor says that he was fine 
right up until the day he died.  Then, he seemed to run a very high fever.  He 
had trouble concentrating and was extremely agitated.  As she put it, he 
couldn't sit still for a second.  About noon, he divided that he needed to go to 
the hospital anyway to do his rounds.  Before he got there, he stopped his car 
on the sidewalk in front of a Mexican restaurant and went inside.  This is where 
the really weird part starts.  He just walked in, took a look around, then went 
up to a couple who were seated at a table in the back of the room.  He grabbed 
the wife by the shoulders and kissed her for no reason at all.  Then, he just 
dropped dead."
	"Wow!  That's even stranger than Brenda Walsh's attack on Chloe."
	"I did a little digging with the LAPD.  And Scully?  The woman he kissed 
was the same woman from Kansas who died almost three months later."
	"So, the thing made its transfer when he kissed her.  Have you been able 
to dig up any relationship between the woman in Kansas and the case in Baton 
Rouge?"
	"Not yet, though I'm pretty positive one exists.  I did, however, get the 
name of a Professor Donald Stillman, a patient of the doctor's whose wife died 
under similar circumstances and whose son nearly died.  He contacted Mrs. Warren 
after the death of her husband and said that he had something to tell her about 
how her husband died.  She never got back in touch with him because she was just 
too distraught to talk about it.  The man's an archaeologist associated with 
UCLA.  He's gone on a dig but he's expected home tomorrow.  Since you're having 
so much trouble there, I figured we could call him together and see what he has 
to say."
	"You've certainly put together a lot of the pieces."
	"So, how's Chloe holding up?"
	Scully spared a parting glance at the bathroom door, then stepped fully
into the kitchen where she would be less likely to be overheard.  "At the 
moment, she's not doing too well.  As you can imagine, this whole incident with 
the pharmacy has taken its toll on her.  And I don't think the therapy's doing 
much good.  I think it would be a good idea to step it up as much as possible.  
Try something a little more aggressive."
	"Hopefully, Professor Stillman will be able to tell us something that 
might help.  I'll be leaving soon, Scully, so hold down the fort until I get 
there."
	"I'll defend it to the last drop of your blood."
	She placed the receiver back in its cradle, then returned her attentions 
to the bathroom door.  Where there once had been agonized sobs, there was now 
only silence.  That, more than the sound of hysteria, frightened her.
	She tapped lightly on the door, biting into her lip and praying that Chloe 
was still all right.  "Chloe?  Honey, are you all right?"
	"Yes," came the weak, sniffling reply.
	"I've got good news.  If you come out, we can talk about it."
	She waited outside the door, hearing the soft, muffled sounds of Chloe 
blowing her nose and then the click of the door lock disengaging.  Chloe's face, 
when it appeared in the doorway, was tortured, swollen.  Her eyes
wavered between anger and sadness so that Scully never could get a really good 
fix on the girl's state of mind.
	"Come sit down with me.  We'll talk."
	She followed Scully to the sofa, then slumped onto it in despair.  "I'm
listening."
	"I know you're listening, Chloe.  But you've got to really hear me.  
Okay?"
	"Okay," she groaned, playing the part of the belligerent child now, her
lips poutty and her eyes mocking.
	"I just spoke with Mulder on the phone.  He's coming back this evening."
	"Did he learn anything?"
	"Yes, he did.  He spoke to the wife of one of the other victims.  She 
described her husband's death as being very much like Brenda's.  Which certainly 
means that we're dealing with the same thing here.  She also gave him the name 
of a man who seems to know a great deal more about this thing than the rest of 
us.  I guess he might be the closest thing to an expert we're ever going to 
get."
	"So, he knows what it is?  How to stop it?"  Her eyes looked cheerful, 
hopeful, though only for an instant.
	"We're not sure yet.  He's out of the country right now.  But he's coming 
back tomorrow and Mulder and I will speak to him.  We'll find out everything he 
knows and maybe then we'll be able to stop this thing."
	She sighed resignedly, sinking even further into the sofa and staring at 
the floor.  "Hurry up and wait.  Hurry up and wait.  What are we gonna do in the 
meantime?"
	"For starters, we're going to step up your therapy.  I'd like us to start 
taking an anti-viral medication.  And if that doesn't work, we're going to move 
you to the hospital in Tampa.  They have a large, secured isolation ward there.  
We can put you there while we try some radiation and chemo.  That way, we won't 
risk this thing getting away from us."
	She turned her sullen eyes on Scully, scarring her with her sorrow.  
"You'll stay with me, though?  You won't just leave me there?"
	"Of course.  Mulder and I will both be at the hospital with you."
	"That's good..  I don't want to die alone."


Mulder walked off the plane looking for all the world as though he had just been 
on a two-week bender.  His face was cleanly shaven but his eyes were dark and 
sunken and his clothes looked as though they had been slept
in.  He forced a smile for Chloe's sake, though he didn't feel that there was 
much of anything to smile about
	It was dark outside and hot.  The humid air clung to everything it touched 
to the point of being heavy against ones body.  Mulder paused to wipe
a trickle of sweat from his brow, then walked up to Scully/
	"How are we doing?  Okay?"
	"Better."  Scully looked fondly at Chloe, whose spirits seemed to have 
lifted immeasurably since Mulder's arrival.
	"What's say we stop some place and get something to eat on the way back
to the apartment.  I'm sure Chloe's tired of cooking for us."
	"Oh, no, Fox.  I never get tired of cooking."
	"Be that as it may, we've got a nice expense account and the bosses get
worried if we don't use it enough.  Come on.  Admit it.  Couldn't you use some 
good Italian food or maybe even some good Mexican?"  He grabbed her about the 
shoulders and gave her a playful little shake.
	She pretended to think this over for a moment, then snapped on her 
internal lamp.  "There is a great Italian place just up the road a piece.  I 
think I could survive gorging myself on some lasagna."
	"There you have it, ladies and gents.  The lady has spoken."  He picked
up his tote bag with one hand and wrapped the other arm around Chloe's shoulders 
again.  "I call shot-gun."
	The trio passed an enjoyable evening, eating some excellent Italian 
cuisine and laughing over silly jokes.  For the moment at least, they had almost 
forgotten about the threat of the unseen entity.
	When they returned to Chloe's apartment, they collapsed onto the sofa 
together to pass the time watching TV.  Chloe was terribly jittery and she
found that she couldn't keep her hands still no matter how she tried.  She kept 
twirling her hair and fussing with her shirt, every now and again
pausing to sigh heavily and wiggle her foot.  Mulder and Scully watched all 
this, worried that she might be moving into the next phase of occupation even 
sooner than they had expected.
	At midnight, Chloe announced her intentions to retire and then disappeared 
into her room.  Mulder waited until she was safely behind the closed door, then 
he turned to Scully to share his thoughts.
	"I think one of us should keep watch on Chloe tonight.  Her room has no
outside walls, so the only way out of here is through the living room.  I'll 
take the first shift."
	"No, Mulder.  You've got jet-lag.  I'll take the first shift.  You take
the second."
	"Aw, Scully.  Always looking out for me, aren't you?"
	"Not at all.  There's a movie coming on at one that I want to see.  I'll 
wake you at four."
	Mulder trudged into the guest room, his feet leaden and his head nearly
so.  He fell asleep almost instantly, though he awakened frequently throughout 
the next two hours, remembering fragments of some wispy dream.


	The credits were just rolling when Scully thought she heard a noise coming 
from the hallway.  "Mulder?" she called out softly, waiting silently for a 
response.
	When none came, she decided to investigate.  She was in a half-standing
position when Chloe showed herself in the doorway of the living room.  Her eyes 
were unblinking, though she swayed ever so slightly as she stood still.
	"Oh, Chloe.  I thought you were Mulder.  The TV wasn't keeping you up, was 
it?"  Scully took two steps away from the chair, then froze in her tracks.
	Chloe continued across the living room, still not blinking, not responding 
to Scully in any way.
	Scully placed a staying hand on her arm.  "Chloe, are you all right?"
	She shrugged Scully off and continued in the direction of the front door, 
her face stony and her eyes misty.
	"Chloe.  Where are you going?"  No response.  Scully stepped around her
and positioned herself between Chloe and the door.  "I'm not letting you
leave here."
	At last, Chloe's blank eyes came into focus, locking onto Scully with an 
intensity so sudden, so fierce that it curdled her blood.  In one chillingly 
fast movement, she seized hold of Scully's throat and hoisted her several feet 
off the floor, only to pin her against the wall.
	"Mulder!" she shrieked, trying to call for help before her air left her.  
"Help!"
	Chloe paid no heed to the sound of Mulder's fast-approaching footsteps.
 She kept Scully pinned to the wall for a moment longer, then, in one easy wave 
of her arm, cast her aside like some stuffed animal.  She landed in a dazed heap 
on the other side of the room, her vision flashing in and
out like a strobe light.
	Mulder grabbed Chloe's arm forcibly and spun her about.  Without warning 
or hesitation, he slapped her hard across the face, intending only to snap her 
out of her trance.
	Instead of the desired effect, Chloe merely crumpled onto the floor, 
unconscious.  At once, Mulder bent down beside her on the floor, taking her
pulse and feeling inexplicably guilty.
	"It's okay.  She's just..."
	Chloe's arm shot out and latched onto Mulder's throat, tossing him to the 
floor where she could roll atop him.  They struggled aimlessly, rolling about 
the room while each of them jockeyed for position.  She was unbelievably strong, 
terrifyingly relentless in her quest to dispossess Mulder
of his oxygen.  As they wrestled, Scully managed to gain control of her 
faculties again.  She went immediately to the spare room, where her medical bag 
was being temporarily billeted.
	When she returned, Scully bore with her a syringe filled with Thorazine.  
Brandishing it, she called loudly to Mulder.  "Try and hold her still."
	Mulder used every ounce of strength he had ever had and then some to bring 
chloe into position on the floor.  He forced himself to exert as much
pressure as was humanly possibly on her arm, thus pinning it to the floor  More 
than anything else, Chloe now resembled a cornered beast.  Mulder recognized 
that look in her eyes from before, in the hospital when he
had first met her.
	Scully plunged the needle into her arm and injected the syringe's full 
load.  Almost at once, Chloe began to relax, her body losing strength and
her arms becoming ever more manageable.  It wasn't until she had fully lost 
consciousness, however, that Mulder felt safe in releasing her.
	He sat back on his haunches and wiped at his forehead with one quaking 
arm.  When his eyes met Scully's, he felt a shared terror in them.  "You okay, 
Scully?"
	"I think so.  How about you?"
	"I'll live.  I think I better start spending a little more time at the 
gym, though."
	"It's like she had no control over herself.  You could look in her eyes
and just tell that Chloe wasn't in there."
	"The lights are on but nobody's hone.  How long will she be out of it?"
	"Ordinarily, I'd say about six hours.  But considering her present 
condition, I'd say she could come out of it any time."
	"I don't think we have a choice.  We're going to have to restrain her."
	"It's going to scare the hell out of her, waking up and finding herself
tired to the bed."
	"What else are we going to do?  We can't just let her run amok.  And it's 
for sure we can't stop her."
	"All right.  Help me get her to bed.  We'll cuff her to the brass 
headboard."
	Mulder scooped the limp Chloe into his arms, his over-exerted muscles 
crying out in protest.  He managed to get her onto the end before they gave out 
and then stood by while Scully cuffed the girl's left wrist to one of the metal 
bars on the headboard.  He had no idea if her present strength would allow her 
to simply snap the cuffs in two, but he hoped that they would hold.  If they 
didn't, he couldn't imagine what else would contain her.