TITLE: Strangers and the Strange Dead
AUTHOR:  Kipler 
DISTRIBUTION:   Archive at Gossamer, Ephemeral, Xemplary, 
and Spooky. Everyone else should just accept me for the rigid 
control freak that I am and move on. 
SPOILER WARNING: Contains oblique references to themes 
through season 7, but no specific episode details. 
RATING: G
CLASSIFICATION: S 
DISCLAIMER:  The characters belong to CC, 1013, and FOX TV.

SUMMARY:  In which dead bodies and shivering people disturb 
the hilltown of Bradenton, and our young, orphaned narrator serves 
hot beverages to the investigating agents even as she ponders the 
peculiar, elusive nature of their relationship.




Strangers and the Strange Dead 
By Kipler


That winter, when our town was a layover spot for strangers and 
the strange dead, I was writing the river. I liked to write true 
things, things I could know: water and stones, brick and ground 
and the whir of cars under the highway overpass. Most days, 
walking home from work, I would stop in the center of the 
Bradenton Bridge and watch the ice pile and crack, watch the 
milky-green evening sky reflect in the still-open pool of water 
beyond the legs of the bridge. That picture - the green-milk sky - is 
a true thing about the river, and people who live near the river nod 
when they read it, and say: "Oh yes, she knows how it is."

And though it's truth, the January evening water is just a piece of 
the river. To tell the river's story whole and full I would have to 
stand and watch the water for years, unmoving. And even then I 
would not know the things beneath the surface, the eddies and 
black things.

The story of people is like that. It's made of bits and shards of 
things: a smell that sits in the air, the slide of a finger. We steal 
what we can see and piece it together, mend the seams to make a 
story.

*** 
I was in the coffee shop, late afternoon, mid-January. I liked to 
work the afternoon shift, from 11 to 4:30, because no one came for 
a bagel or a sandwich at 4:00; the most I had to do was brew 
another pot of decaf, refresh the cream in the creamer. That gave 
me time to sit in the big booth and write. I was working to save 
money to start at college the next fall. Technically I was too old to 
be a freshman - 21 - but it was time for me to get out of town. So, 
I sat alone in the coffee shop with my books and my paper when 
the door opened and the bell went off to alert me. A man stood 
there in the slanting light. I couldn't really see him but heard his 
voice: "I need some food."

I got up and moved behind the counter.

"We close in a half-hour," I said. "There's not much left. A couple 
muffins and some beef barley."

"Soup?" the man asked, and I looked at him then because his voice 
shook and his teeth chattered as he finished speaking. He was 
slight, swallowed by the jacket he wore. His lined face was dirty or 
bruised - I couldn't tell which - and his right coat sleeve was torn 
from elbow to cuff. At first I thought he was drunk but then I saw a 
drop of water run off the pull-cord of his hood and realized that he 
was wet and cold.

"You OK?" I asked, wondering if I should be alone with him.

He looked at me, then pointed out the window, toward the hills.

"I was up there," he said. "I need some food."

"Your car break down?" I asked.

"No. I was up in the woods."

Up in the woods was nothing in summer and even less in winter. 
Bare trees, cold ground, our little mountain and then another and 
twenty minutes' drive on Route 60 to the next town.

"You were camping?" I asked. The man stared at me, his face 
blank as though I'd been speaking a language he'd forgotten. I 
pressed on. "Were you lost?" 

"Lost," he said. "Yes."

"God," I said, and scalded myself pulling the ladle out of the soup 
pot. I brought a bowl to the man, and he looked at it for a minute, 
as if he'd forgotten how to eat, too, but then he picked up the bowl 
- no spoon - and drank the broth down in aa series of gulps. The 
barley and celery he pushed into his mouth with the fingers of his 
left hand. The fingers were shaking, still.

"Can I get another bowl?" he asked.

The smell of him hit me then. I knew it from hunting parties and 
schools of fishermen, times when they'd come back from a trip to 
the woods with no running water and no women. And I knew the 
smell from trips to Boston, walking past the men on the street-
corners, the ones who rattled tin cans as I  moved by. People who 
are tied to normal life don't carry that smell.

I hurried another bowl of soup to the table. The man ignored me; 
he was caught up in swallowing the food as fast as he could. I don't 
know why I should have felt strange for calling the police, but still, 
I dialed quickly and when Wayne Sampson answered the phone, 
my voice was quiet like secret-telling.

"There's a guy here who says he was lost on the mountain," I said. 
"Did you get any reports of missing campers?"

"No," Wayne said. "You think he's been drinking?"

"No. But he's acting strange."

"Don't worry, sweetheart. I'll be right over." Wayne had been my 
father's friend, and he honored that by carrying a responsibility for 
me.

I hung up the phone and pretended I was straightening things out 
behind the counter. Wayne came a few minutes later, as the man 
was finishing his second muffin and draining a cup of hot 
chocolate. Wayne walked over, his chest pumped out just like a 
sheriff in a movie or something, my protector and king of the town. 

"Hey, buddy," he said, holding out his hand. "I'm Wayne Sampson. 
I'm the chief of police in Bradenton. Wendy tells me you were lost 
on the mountain."

The man looked from his cup to Wayne's outstretched hand, 
looked hard at me for a moment.

"Yeah," he said, then went back to his food.

Wayne put down his hand. "You got a name?"

"Thomas Hopkins," the man said, then paused. "Thomas Hopkins."

"Do you have any identification, Mr. Hopkins?" Wayne asked.

This was funny to the man, somehow. He snorted bubbles into the 
cocoa.

"No driver's license," he said. "No cards, no wallet. No money. 
Plenty of identification, if you can read it." The man tipped his 
head, lifted the hair off his neck and leaned in as if Wayne should 
see something there: a stamp on his skin, maybe, that read, "Yes 
sir, this is Thomas Hopkins."

Wayne gave me a knowing look and shrugged his shoulders. 
"Well, listen, Mr. Hopkins. How about if I pay Wendy for the food 
you ate, and you and I go have a little talk in my office."

Hopkins lifted his head again and nodded slowly. "You got warm 
clothes there?" he asked. "Mine are wet through."

Wayne nodded and handed me a ten from his wallet. Then Hopkins 
stood, and he and Wayne moved dripping across the linoleum and 
out the door. 

*** 
Sometime in the night they came: the State Police and the FBI and 
two of the news crews from Boston, not just Manchester. They set 
up a kind of encampment on the town green, between the coffee 
shop and the police station. That next morning, as I came over the 
bridge, I could see the cars and flashing lights. I didn't know until 
they found me that they were here about the day before, about the 
man Wayne had taken out of the coffee shop.

They all asked the same questions: "Did you see the man 
approach? Was anyone with him? Was he dropped off outside the 
coffee shop or did he walk up?" I stood there dumbly in the filming 
lights, saying, "No, no, I don't know, no." How was I supposed to 
know to watch for these details, when everything looked plain and 
small and ordinary? A wet man coming in looking for a bowl of 
beef barley soup was all I saw.

I wasn't working that day so I went to the library and hid in the 
stacks. The FBI agents found me there. It is a strange thing to live 
in a town where people know you so well and will tell your hiding 
places to strangers.

The FBI people were a matched pair: well-dressed in dark grey 
suits and smart, polished shoes that were useless in the snow and 
ice. The man was tall, roughly handsome with a deep voice. The 
woman was bird-tiny but wore heels; her red hair was cropped 
close to her head, a little-boy cut, the kind that looks good on some 
tiny women. They gave me their names and I tried to lay them on 
top of the dozens of other names I'd been given that day, but they 
slid down and away. So my brain catalogued them as the FBI 
agents: big, dark-haired, handsome man and slight, red-haired 
woman. 

They sat me across from them at the big oak table in the front hall. 
Mrs. Hays at the reference counter didn't even pretend to be 
referring; she stopped work and stared at us. 

"We're sorry to take up your time," the woman agent said.

"I don't think I'll be much help," I replied. "I mean, I would help, 
but... I don't know anything."

The woman quizzed me on what I remembered, the same quiz the 
State Police had given me: from which direction did Thomas 
Hopkins approach, how did he look, was he alone? I shrugged and 
shook my head and said "no" or "yes" or "I don't remember" at the 
right times.

The male FBI agent listened, mostly, and watched his partner: her 
fingers tapping mutely against the tabletop, her lips pursed, her one 
eyebrow raised as she asked me questions and I could not answer 
them.

"Who is this guy?" I finally asked. "What's the big deal?"

The woman exchanged a look with her partner and answered 
quietly. "He's been missing," she said, "For a very long time. And 
we're trying to find out where he's been." 

*** 

My grandfather and I sat and watched the news at 5 that day. I was 
on TV, with my hair a mess and no lipstick. My mother would be 
rolling over in her grave. "Just a little pink," she would have said, 
"To give you some color."

This is what Chet Curtis said on Channel 5: "A small town in New 
Hampshire was the scene yesterday of the mysterious reappearance 
of Thomas Hopkins. Mr. Hopkins disappeared in 1994 and has 
been missing for more than eleven years. Long-running police and 
federal investigations into his whereabouts had failed to turned up 
any leads." 

And there I was, pale lips and all, saying, "I didn't notice where he 
came from. He just walked in the shop." Then Wayne was on 
camera, puffing his chest just like he had in the coffee shop: "I 
assessed Mr. Hopkins' condition and determined that he might be 
suffering from hypothermia, at which point I called an ambulance." 

Then Chet went on: "Mr. Hopkins was transported to Memorial 
Hospital in Concord. Doctors there say that while he is disoriented, 
he seems to have suffered no serious physical injuries. It is not 
know where Hopkins has been for the past eleven years. His family 
members have issued the following statement: 'We rejoice that 
Tommy has been returned to us and we look forward to bringing 
him home as soon as possible.' "

My grandfather kissed me on the head when the story was over. He 
was proud of me, his TV star granddaughter. 

I did an Internet search that night for "Thomas Hopkins." It was a 
common name; I turned up 1,603 matches. I narrowed my search 
with the words "missing person" and found just one page devoted 
to the man I wanted: a site set up by his son, Geoffrey. There was a 
photo of Hopkins on the front page, along with the words "STILL 
MISSING." The picture of Hopkins showed a young man with a 
thick neck and broad shoulders, his face unlined - so different 
from the man I had seen. Underneath the image was a short 
paragraph: "Tommy Hopkins left home on July 16, 1994, on his 
way to the airport in Detroit, Michigan. His car was found, 
undamaged, by the side of route 80 in Pennsylvania. He has not 
been seen or heard from since. If you have any knowledge of 
Tommy Hopkins' whereabouts, please contact us immediately."
         
I clicked a link marked "THE INVESTIGATION." It moved me to 
a detailed timeline listing information gathered by investigators 
since July 16, 1994. There was a photo of Hopkins' car - 
undamaged, indeed, sitting with a full tank of gas by a busy 
highway. There was a photo of Hopkins' family, his wife and sons. 
There was a photo marked "federal investigators on the case." This 
last picture was grainy, shot from a distance, harder to see. At first 
my eyes skimmed past it, ignoring the movie-familiar shot of the 
agents in grey suits and sunglasses. But something caught my 
attention, and I scanned back, focused more closely. There among 
the men in their sameness was a bird-tiny woman in heels. Her red 
hair was longer in the photo - chin-length, softly curled away from 
her face - but her stance, her body language was the same. She had 
followed Thomas Hopkins from Pennsylvania in 1994 to 
Bradenton in 2006.

*** 

I saw the FBI agents in the coffee shop the next morning. I wasn't 
working until afternoon, but I had to get caffeine like everyone 
else, and the coffee was good at the shop, and for me it was free. 
So I slouched in the corner with my book and sipped and read and 
watched the people. I watched the FBI people especially, because 
they knew something about the story of Thomas Hopkins. 

The male agent smiled at the woman as he passed her the cream; 
she smiled back distractedly. Her attention was focused on a set of 
files she had spread open on the table. Her feet - in the high shoes 
- were bent under her seat, crossed at thee ankle. Her partner's legs 
sprawled into her space; his feet rested inches from hers, settled 
there in a gentle fencing-in that she didn't know about. 

I watched the man, saw the way his eyes did not leave the woman. 
It was the same as it had been in the library. It was as if she were a 
thing he was studying. I looked at his face and again at their feet in 
a snow-melt puddle under the table, and wondered what lines ran 
between them. 

(End of Part 1)

Strangers and the Strange Dead (Part 2 of 3)
By Kipler

It was two weeks later there were dead people in the woods. John 
Jacobsen found one body - a woman's - when he went up to shoot 
out of season. They hauled it out, down to Route 60, and because it 
was winter and the going was slow, we all knew about it, and 
people came out to see, to look at a dead stranger who gave 
excitement and gossip but no real pain, no funeral, no ache for us. 

I was there. There had been a thaw, then a freeze, and the snow 
was frozen and jagged. I wasn't wearing boots but only my canvas 
waitressing sneakers, and my feet were ice even before they 
brought the body down from the hill.

The dead faces I had seen before had been funeral-parlor false: 
made-up and preserved and pink. This face was real, swollen and 
scraped and grey. I saw it close-up as they lifted the woman into 
the coroner's wagon, and the thing that froze in my mind was the 
row of tiny, even puncture marks in her left ear: ten of them, 
maybe a dozen, meant to hold rings and studs, silver and gold. And 
in the nose and left eyebrow I saw two more piercings and knew, 
suddenly, that the woman was young, a girl. I wondered if 
someone would dress her for her funeral: give her makeup and 
jewelry that would turn her back into the person she had been 
before she became dead.

Mrs. Hays from the library was there that day, too. We stood close 
to each other, our shoulders touching as they carried the body out 
of the woods - we were so close I could smell her breath: tea and 
wintergreen - and after that day we never spoke about it. Other 
people spoke too much; they didn't understand how sacred it was 
to see a face dead and alone in a place of strangers, how much we 
owed silence and reverence.

The FBI agents came back in the early evening when the body was 
still hidden in the cold back cellar of the police station. I heard that 
they spoke to John Jacobsen and to Wayne Sampson again, and the 
man who drove the coroner's wagon. That was Tuesday, and 
Wednesday there was a team of searchers, and Wayne and the 
Bradenton police weren't allowed up in the hills, and there was 
another body - an older woman - and then a child, a little boy. 
They didn't let anyone see the new dead, though; they put up 
police tape and stood troopers there to wave flashlights, hustle 
people along. 

The newspeople didn't return to town, and I wondered about their 
absence, why they didn't want to broadcast this new piece of their 
story. I wondered if someone kept them away the same way they 
kept us away from the search scene and the bodies.

***

Wayne stopped in for coffee on Wednesday.

"What 's going on?" I asked him, because he had known me before 
I was born and I hoped that he would do something for me - give 
me secrets, maybe, that he gave to no one else. "Do you think 
Thomas Hopkins killed those people?"

"I don't know, Wendy," he told me. "I'm sure that they're 
connected to Hopkins somehow. But they didn't find any 
indication that he was near the bodies."

"Did they just walk there? Where did they come from? How did 
they die?"

Wayne just shrugged. "I wouldn't begin to guess. There's been a lot 
of snow and melt up there, which means they won't be able to do 
much with tracking. It could be that Hopkins was just traveling 
with those people and they got lost up there, separated from each 
other. Anyway... I've worked with the feds before, and they like to 
keep things to themselves. It's their case, now."

Wayne was good at his job. He knew when saying something - 
anything - would just get him in trouble.  

*** 

Theories moved in waves through town, their progress unimpeded 
by the static of logic or proportion. Everyone chose the one that 
made them most central, most connected: "My aunt is a dispatcher 
in Boston and she heard..." "I saw John Jacobsen right after he 
found the body and he said..." "My friend says this is related to 
Whitey Bulger..."

My story, the one that made me proud with the terror of being 
involved, was that Thomas Hopkins was a serial killer, long 
wanted by the FBI in connection with a string of brutal murders. I 
was alone in the coffee shop when he came in! I brought him soup! 
He dripped on the linoleum and I wiped it up! And then they found 
those bodies!

I told this story to my grandfather, and he nodded with 
understanding, but he smiled, too, because I was so important in 
the story I told. 

"I remember something like this," he said. "Two or three years 
ago." I listened, and I adjusted his time scale because he was an 
old, old man. He condensed time. Two years, to him, were six 
months. To him I was still fourteen and my parents had died 
yesterday, yesterday.

"What, Pop?" I asked.

"Bodies in the woods. Down south. Virginia, maybe. Just like this 
- hikers found them during the winter, froozen in their tracks. The 
first one was important... some army guy... I think his name was 
Romaine. I remember that name. Then, after that, they found a 
couple more bodies in the same place. The reporters thought it 
might have something to do with the mob."

I thought about that for a moment, compared it to my movie-
knowledge of mobsters.

"I don't think there were any bullet wounds," I said. "At least not in 
the lady I saw." But saying that brought back the grey face, the slit 
of the eyes, the line of piercings. I shook my head to jostle the 
picture out of my mind and left for work.

*** 

The FBI agents stayed on in town, at the E-Z Rest Hotel. I was 
curious and I was lucky, because there aren't many places to eat in 
Bradenton, and if you don't rent a kitchen with a microwave you 
end up at the coffee shop for breakfast and lunch, at least. I set 
myself the task of eavesdropping, hoping to hear a hint about their 
case, about the bodies and Thomas Hopkins the serial killer.

Thursday morning they came in about seven. The man ordered a 
bagel with cream cheese, and the woman a yogurt with coffee. She 
was tired, that morning; under her eyes, under her makeup, were 
dark circles, and her hair was damp and spiky, as if she had only 
found the energy to run a wet comb through it. 

This is what I heard her say to him as I brought their food: "Call 
them and let them know that we may be here for a few more days." 
And then, as I refilled her coffee cup: "Get back to DC to take care 
of the forensic examinations."  

I watched them from behind the counter as they finished eating. 
They spoke softly to each other; I couldn't hear their words. He 
said something to her, shrugged his shoulders. She looked down at 
the paper in front of her for a moment, then shook her head and 
mouthed "no." He spoke again, and again she shook her head. 
Then the man leaned forward, over the table, until he looked too-
big for the booth, as if he were spilling over, moving into the 
woman's air. He said something and laid his hand flat on the table, 
his fingers almost touching hers. The woman tensed and leaned 
away, glared at the man, and I saw him surrender, pull back, shrink 
to normal size. 

I was suddenly tender to him, and wondered why the woman held 
herself so still and apart from him. 

People are hard to write truly; they have so many frayed threads, 
loose strands that don't connect one to the other. But still: the 
threads stand there daring us to trace them back, to see what started 
them fraying. We always want a story.

*** 
My grandfather had spent Thursday morning at the library using 
the microfiche to fumble through old issues of the Boston "Globe." 
When I came home from work, there were two photocopies sitting 
on the kitchen table.

"There you go," Pop said. "I told you I saw this happen before."

The earliest article was from April, 1997. The headline had run on 
page 2: "Disappearance of Army Captain Baffles Fellow Soldiers." 

"That's the Romaine man I told you about. The body they found in 
West Virginia."

I skimmed the article. Apparently, Captain Theodore Romaine had 
been assigned to a base in Texas. A man with a sterling record, he 
had mysteriously disappeared - along with a military vehicle. The 
car had turned up in a shopping mall in Kansas, and Romaine had 
vanished.

The second article had run in December, 2002 - three years ago. 
Pop had been right about the timeline. This story was a follow-up 
to the disappearance: "Body of missing soldier found in West 
Virginia." I skimmed the text. It was a familiar story. "Captain 
Theodore Romaine disappeared from active duty in April of 1997. 
He had not been seen or heard from again - until his body was 
found on a remote hillside in West Virginia." 

The article wasn't long or detailed. After a short biographical 
section came a few lines about the investigation into Sgt. 
Romaine's disappearance: "The case drew attention at high levels, 
and, until the discovery of the body, agents at the FBI considered 
this an open case and continued to pursue leads in the 
investigation." 

I looked up from reading to see Pop beaming at me, proud of his 
investigative coup. I smiled. "Good work," I said. 

***
Some mornings when I worked I brought coffee and a donut to 
Wayne Sampson when he came on duty. It wasn't unheard of. 

Friday morning early I looked out the window of the coffee shop 
and saw Wayne pull up in the cruiser, only it was strange because 
his lights were flashing. As I watched, he got out of the car, and a 
woman got out from the other side - not from the back seat where 
a suspect would be placed, but from the front passenger seat. But I 
saw Wayne take her arm and lead her up the stairs to the police 
station as if she were a suspect, and I decided he needed some 
coffee.

When I showed up, the woman was sitting in the vinyl chair across 
from Wayne's desk. She was wearing a light nylon jacket and she 
was shivering; her fingertips were blue. I put the coffee and donut 
down on the desk. Wayne didn't say anything to me. He brought 
the coffee to the woman. She picked it up and held it in her 
trembling fingers but didn't drink. I think she was warming herself 
on it.

"I found her on the road," Wayne said. "Those FBI people..."

But the words weren't out of his mouth before they walked through 
the door. They were loosely-tucked, as if they'd been woken from 
sleep, but they were dressed in the usual clothes: grey, formal.

The female agent went and squatted before the shivering stranger. 
She lifted the woman's eyelid and flashed a penlight back and forth 
in front of the eye. I realized that she was some kind of medical 
worker, then.

Wayne and the male agent stood back by me. They spoke to each 
other as we watched the examination.

"Where was she?" the male agent asked. 

"I found her down on Route 60. She was walking in the middle of 
the road. It's the only place where there's no black ice. She came 
willingly in the car but doesn't seem to be able to talk. I couldn't 
get a name out of her."

The woman agent was listening to the conversation. She looked at 
Wayne, angry at something I couldn't guess for a moment, and 
then said, "She's hypothermic and she's slipping into shock. Turn 
up the heat. And do you have any blankets?"

Wayne turned and moved down the hall, and I followed him, 
trying to be useful. There was a closet in the back of the station 
piled high with camping gear: canteens, coolers, paddles, and 
sleeping bags. Wayne tugged at a bag near the top and it came 
down, pulling a dozen other items clattering to the floor. I picked 
up the bag and hurried it back to the woman while Wayne stayed 
behind and put things away.

The strange woman was standing, now, and stripped down to her t-
shirt and underwear. The doctor-agent circled her hand around the 
woman's wrist and moved it up the arm, checking for broken 
bones. She repeated this on the other arm, then spun the woman 
around, lifted the hair away from her neck, and pressed her index 
finger there for a moment, as if checking for a pulse. Her partner 
stood off to the side; his eyes did not move from her as she 
worked.

Wayne returned and said, "The ambulance should be here in just a 
few minutes." The female agent nodded and wrapped the strange 
woman in the sleeping bag, then settled her in Wayne's padded 
office chair - the closest thing to comfort she could find. 

"Damn," Wayne said, looking out the window. "I left the flashers 
on in the cruiser." He rolled his eyes and headed to the door.

I watched the near-naked woman as she huddled in her sleeping 
bag. She was still shivering, her clutching fingers still blue. I 
picked up the cup of coffee and carried it to her. She took it and 
looked at me, then moved the cup to her nose and sniffed at it, 
peeled the lid back, sniffed again. Then she shut her eyes and held 
the cup to her face, pressing it against her blue lips.

The FBI people were huddled a few steps away from me, having a 
quiet conversation.

"I'll go to the hospital with her," the woman agent was saying. 
"You stay here and interview Mr. Sampson. He may have details."

The man stepped close, touched the woman on her back. I couldn't 
hear what he said first, because his voice was so deep and quiet, 
but I caught the middle of his words: "...doesn't necessarily mean 
anything," and the end: "don't want you to get too involved."

When she answered, she slit her voice down to a whisper; I 
couldn't hear it. The man backed away from her as she spoke, 
straightened his shoulders. They both looked at me suddenly, as if 
they had just remembered that there was someone else in the room, 
and the man stepped away from his partner, came to me, touched 
my shoulder.

"Thank you," he said. "I think we can handle this from here."

I moved away, down the long, dim corridor. When I turned the 
corner toward the exit, I looked back, and they were a triangle: the 
FBI woman kneeling on the floor, facing the woman wrapped in 
the sleeping bag, touching her and talking quietly, and the FBI man 
still turned away, facing me but not seeing me.

*** 
Wayne came into the shop around ten, when the breakfast rush was 
over. There were just a few mothers and toddlers, spilling out of 
the library story hour and into the late-morning gossip session.

"Didn't get any caffeine this morning after all," Wayne said, 
settling himself at the counter. "The ambulance turned up about 
seven."

"They take her to Concord or Manchester?" I asked. 

"Straight to Boston," Wayne said, shaking his head. 

I poured coffee. "Does that mean she's really sick or hardly sick at 
all?"

Wayne smiled slightly and shrugged.

"What about those FBI agents?" I asked. "What'd they do with the 
bodies?"

"They sent the bodies to Washington. The lady agent rode to 
Boston in the ambulance with that woman. The man is up at the 
hotel, I think."

I cocked my head a bit. "They seemed like they were having a bit 
of a disagreement."

"I wouldn't know about that." Wayne was all professionalism. 

The FBI man himself came in at two o'clock and took a table, and 
the woman walked in a few minutes later. I was off work by then, 
hunkered down in the big booth with my notebook. Maybe, if I tell 
the honest truth, I'd stayed there in that booth hoping they'd come 
in.

The man was in casual clothes - khakis and a brown sweater 
pulled over a t-shirt. I realized that I hadn't seen him out of his 
business suit before. The woman was still business-dressed but still 
in disarray from this morning. Her hair, her blouse looked wilted, 
and the skin under her eyes was grey-blue. They sat across from 
each other and looked at the menus as if they had not seen them 
before, as if tofu lasagna might have been added since the last time 
they came in. The woman had Sweet-and-Lowed her coffee, 
sipped it, and adjusted the cream three times before the man spoke 
to her.

"I ran a check on that woman," he said. "Her name is Sally 
Cookson. She disappeared in - "

"1996," the woman finished. "I know. In the ambulance, I 
remembered her. From the case file."

"How is she doing?"   

"Physically? She looks all right. Hypothermia. Frostbite on her 
face and hands. She might lose a couple toes. The X-rays didn't 
turn up anything, but she has a scar."

"Did she remember anything? Did she talk?"

The woman shook her head and poured another Sweet and Low 
into her coffee. "She seemed to be out of touch with her 
surroundings. Almost catatonic."

The man was quiet for a few minutes, studying his own coffee. 
Then he leaned in toward the woman and tilted his head just a bit, 
waited until he was sure that her eyes were focused on his.

"I think you should step away from these cases," he said. 

"No." The woman's voice was flat. Her right hand moved up; she 
began rubbing tiny circles on the skin at the back of her neck.

"Scully," the man said. "These people - there are hundreds of them 
since everything ended. And so far we've only found seven alive. I 
appreciate your need to bear witness. I appreciate your empathy. 
But you're not helping these people by being here, and you're not 
helping yourself."

The woman's eyes did not move and she spoke in a deep voice that 
didn't waiver: "I'm fine."

"You're not fine. You're too close to this."

The woman shook her head. The man lifted his fingers toward her, 
gently touched her hand where it was tracing circles on her neck.

The woman jerked her hand away from her neck - it held in the 
air, still clasped in the man's hand - and this time when her voice 
came it was higher and less solid, and her words staccato.

"It doesn't mean anything," she said. "Don't try to read anything 
into it."

"Doesn't mean anything? Scully, you - "

The woman cut him off.

"I told you I'm fine, Mulder. I'm fine."

The man let out a sudden breath, freed the woman's hand. He 
stared at her for a moment, then shook his head and pushed away 
from the table. He left a ten-dollar bill there and walked out of the 
coffee shop.

That was the second to the last time I saw the woman and man. If I 
had known, I would have watched her more closely, as she sat 
alone at the table and very still. I would have studied the piece of 
the story in her hands, pressed palms-down on the table, and in her 
lips drawn in, and in her head just-bowed and her eyes closed. As 
if she were waiting for something to be over.

(End of Part 2)

Strangers and the Strange Dead (Part 3 of 3)
By Kipler

There were three quiet weeks with no strangeness and no bodies, 
and it was into February, with the river ice rotting and heaving 
under the snow that still fell. Night came later and day went on 
until five-thirty, and people began to remember that spring was a 
real thing.

I went to the library three times in the three quiet weeks. I searched 
the newspapers from December 2002 through the following March 
- the winter Theodore Romaine had turned uup in the woods of 
West Virginia. It was hard to find the stories I was looking for. The 
papers were juggling bigger headlines: the bombing of UN 
Headquarters, the stock crisis, the quarantine of London. It was 
hard for me to recall how urgent those stories had been at the time. 
I had been eighteen - old enough to pay attention to the news - but 
world events had seemed distant to me, then, something other 
people paid attention to, took care of.

Still, among the big stories I managed to find what I was looking 
for: three small pieces describing three bodies found in the wooded 
hills of West Virginia. Each body had been found in the winter 
snow, and each had been strangely overlooked by the world at 
large.

***

On Presidents' Day the coffee shop was busy. Other people's 
holidays always make more work for the people who don't get the 
day off. We ran out of sesame bagels and chocolate crullers, and 
people were irritated to have their breakfasts ruined. I didn't notice 
that the FBI agents had come back until I was saying, "Hi, I'm 
Wendy. Can I get you something to drink?" and it was those two 
faces looking back at me. I was glad to see them. It had been three 
weeks without drama in town, and suddenly I wanted the mystery 
to hang fresh over us.                         

"Oh, you're back," I said. "Did something happen?" I asked the 
question without thinking, as if I had a right to hear information 
about the case because I was the one who brought these people 
coffee. But I had been there first, with Thomas Hopkins, and 
maybe that counted for something, because the man answered me.

"There was another body," he said. 

"Oh." I thought of the girl with the pierced ear, and wished the 
drama gone again. 
 
Something was stiff and hard between the man and the woman that 
day. They huddled on their own sides of the table and didn't speak, 
but kept their eyes focused out the window as they chewed their 
food and drank their coffee. The man seemed smaller than I 
remembered, folded or tucked-in somehow. I meant to find a 
reason to speak to them again, but a family of eight came in and I 
had to push tables together, and by the time I looked up from my 
work the agents had gone.

*** 

I stayed on late to close the shop because there was no one else to 
do it and because I needed the money. Just before closing - about 
four-thirty- a man came in. He didn't come to the counter to order 
and didn't sit in a booth, but walked to the pay phone. He picked 
up the receiver, held it to his ear, lifted his other hand to the 
number pad. But he didn't dial. He stood looking at the phone as if 
he had forgotten what to do next. He waited there for a long time - 
a minute, maybe, some chunk of time that feels long and slow 
when you're standing still watching it - then dropped the receiver 
and walked back out the front door.

I kept on wiping the counter, and the front of my mind didn't think 
about the strange man until the smell made its way to my nose. It 
was the smell of hunters and street people and Thomas Hopkins, 
and it had fallen off that man. 

I went to the front door and peeked out. The stranger was standing 
on a snowbank by the edge of Main Street. He was rocking back 
and forth on his heels, looking first one way and then the other, up 
the hill, down to the river. 

The coffee shop was empty by then; I put the "closed" sign in the 
window and pulled on my coat. The stranger watched as I 
approached him. He didn't stop swaying in place when I spoke.

"You lost?" I asked him, the same question I'd asked Thomas 
Hopkins. The man stared blankly at me and kept rocking.

He was alike, somehow, to Hopkins and to the woman Wayne had 
found on Route 60. I couldn't say what it was - the eyes, maybe, 
the strange way the body moved - but I could tell that this man had 
the same hurt on him as those other two had. He was familiar to 
me, known.

And I wasn't afraid, this time. I took my hand and touched the 
man's forearm.

"You lost?" I asked again. "You want some soup? I've got food in 
there." I pointed back at the coffee shop.

The man looked at me. He flexed his jaw and I thought that he was 
trying to talk, but then he raised his lip and I saw that he was 
missing two teeth: the eyetooth on the upper right and the one 
behind it. The flesh of the gum where the teeth should have been 
was ragged and raw. It was a new wound.

"It hurts when I chew." The man's voice was matter-of-fact. When 
he stopped speaking his eyes looked past me - up the hill again, 
down to the river. Then he seemed to make up his mind, and 
stepped off the snowbank, began moving toward the water. His 
steps were slow, small, almost mechanical, as if he'd been walking 
for miles. 

I ran back into the coffee shop and dialed Wayne's number. There 
was no answer. I tried Wayne's house and still there was no 
answer. My heart was pounding. On a longshot, I called the E-Z 
Rest Hotel and was rewarded: the E-Z Rest receptionist told me 
that yes, the FBI agents were staying there, and yes, she would 
patch me through to one of them.

It was the man who answered the phone. 

"Hi," I said. "This is Wendy, down at the coffee shop?"

"Yes, what can I do for you?"

"Well, a man just showed up here. He looks... he's acting like the 
other one."

I heard the man on the phone exhale. "I'll be down as soon as I 
can."       

"He's not here now," I said. "He's walking toward the bridge."
       
I looked out the window. The man had not gotten far with his tiny, 
careful steps. 

The blender was cleaned for the day but I got it out and poured 
some vegetable soup in it, ran it until the soup was liquid. Then I 
poured the liquid into a take-out cup and shoved a straw into my 
coat pocket. 

It only took me a minute or two to catch up with the man. 

"Hey," I said, tapping him on the shoulder. "This won't hurt your 
mouth." He stopped walking and turned toward me.

"It's a soupshake," I said. 

The man nodded when he saw what I had done, and took the cup 
from me. He took a sip of the warm soup, then set out walking 
again. I fell in alongside him. 

"What's your name?" I asked. "Where are you from?" But he didn't 
speak again to me.

It took us fifteen minutes to get to the bridge. The sun was coming 
in low, now, striking the pool of water, glinting in our eyes. This 
seemed to hold the man's attention. He stopped walking, leaned up 
against the green steel rails, stared down into the water. I looked 
closely at him, then. His brown hair was peppered with grey. It 
was tousled and short enough that in spots it stood away from his 
scalp; I could make out a pink scar crossing the skin there. His face 
was bony and angular, mottled where frostbite had gotten it. There 
were lines around his eyes, at the edges of his mouth.

I stood watching him for a long time. I kicked at the snow on the 
roadside; it lay in ragged patches, petrified, and broke hollow 
under my feet.

The sound of a car broke the silence; the FBI man pulled up 
alongside us, parked, and got out of his car.

"Where's your partner?" I asked. 

"She went out to the site where they found the body. She's not back 
yet."

The FBI man moved close to the stranger and spoke. "Sir?" he 
said. "Sir?" The stranger looked at him but didn't answer, and after 
a moment, turned away again and went back to staring at the water. 

The FBI agent stepped back, away from us, and put his cell phone 
to his ear. When he spoke I knew that something had changed in 
him. I could hear the thickness of his voice.

"Scully?" he said. "I need to see you down at the bridge."

There was a pause as he listened to the woman on the other end of 
the line. Then he spoke again: "No. What I have to tell you relates 
to the case. I think it's more important that you be here right now." 

The stranger stood looking at the water. He seemed to have 
forgotten the cup of soup, forgotten us. 

The FBI man put away his cell phone and leaned against the hood 
of his car. His eyes moved between the road and the face of the 
man. He shifted from one foot to the other, checked his watch. His 
finger tapped a persistent, hollow rhythm - one two three four 
FIVE one two three four FIVE - against the cold metal of the car. 

I felt strange to be here, suddenly. I backed away, put myself 
outside the business between these two men. It was darkening, 
now, becoming dusk as we waited.

Headlights flashed across the steel frame of the bridge. The FBI 
agent shaded his eyes against the light, peered at the oncoming car. 
The headlights dimmed and his partner emerged. He walked to her, 
intercepted her as she came onto the bridge.

She stood straight, with her arms stiff at her sides. I couldn't see 
the FBI man's face - he was standing with his back to me - but he 
didn't seem to notice her posture. He put his hands on her 
shoulders, then drew them down her arms until he stood clasping 
her hands in his. His head moved as he spoke to her, and suddenly 
she looked up at me, at the stranger, tried to tug her hands away 
from her partner's. He held her there for a moment, until she turned 
back and looked him in the eye. Then he nodded slightly, squeezed 
her hands, and let her go.

She came past me. When she moved forward her partner did not 
follow but stayed apart, with me.

She moved stiffly, deliberately, and her face was still. She walked 
next to the strange man and looked at his face as he stood staring at 
the water. He did not look up, at first. She reached out and touched 
him on the cheek. He flinched and slapped the hand away, then 
turned his head to look at the woman.

I spoke: "His mouth is hurt." My words were too-loud and I knew I 
should not have broken the silence. I looked over at the male FBI 
agent, but he wasn't watching me, didn't notice me. He was 
watching the other two.

The stranger turned his body toward the woman. She stepped close 
to him, so close that I couldn't see the dim light between them. 

"Do you know who I am?" she said.  I watched her face change as 
she spoke, saw her struggling to keep it still and unbroken. The 
man didn't acknowledge her words. She spoke again. "Do you 
remember me?"    

The man looked at her and lifted his hand to her head, petted her 
there and drew out several strands of hair, let them fall. He parted 
his lips, and I saw the angry gap where the teeth were missing.
 
"You cut your hair," he said.           

A sound came from the woman, then - a sob held back - and she 
pressed her palms flat against the stranger's ribcage and bent her 
head, let her forehead fall against him. When she lifted her face, 
her eyes were wet.

He touched her hair again, bent to sniff it, ran one finger down the 
line of her part. He took her right hand and held it up to the fading 
light of evening. His fingers traced the smooth curve of her 
thumbnail, the ridges between her knuckles, the dish of her palm. 
He nodded.

"I've been looking for you, Mulder," she said. Her voice was deep 
and cracked. "I've been looking for you."

He moved against her, then - leaned his body forward so that there 
was no space between them. I saw her stumble, shift her feet, 
steady herself to bear the weight of him.

They stood like that and did not move or speak, and the FBI man 
stood apart and pressed his fingers against his eyes and did not 
speak, and that was the last piece I saw of their story.

(The End)


I haven't written any "real" stories for almost two years.  So I wait 
in sublime anticipation of feedback on this piece. Of course, I 
would greatly appreciate it if any public feedback on this piece 
didn't give away the ending.

Special thanks to Jesemie's Evil Twin for stalking me during the 
many, many months when I was not even pretending to write 
fanfic.