>OHIO AIRPORT
>WHEELING, WEST VIRGINIA
>1300HRS...///

Tom was exhausted. It had been a long night and he was heading home. He did not expect to be heading home so early. He thought he would be in West Virginia for at least a few weeks, maybe even a month or more. But it was a refreshing thought to be heading home. He dressed in a pair of tan khaki trousers, brown loafers and a navy blue golf shirt. His hair was shaped just the way he liked it. He did put his Boston Red Sox baseball cap on his head and he placed a pair of sunglasses on his face.

As he walked along the airport concourse he saw a woman walking toward him with matted hair, clung together more in ropes than straight. Her skin was bloated and rotting with a green undertone. Tom could smell it. He was back at the cabin. The woman’s eyes lolled about in her useless sockets. Her limbs flailed about and she staggered as she walked. As she got closer to Tom, she hissed at him. He rubbed his eyes and took a double take. When he looked back at her, he saw a 40-ish year old woman dragging a black suitcase behind her wearing a business suit. She had a beautiful blonde mane with blue eyes and a confident smile. Her skin tone was a healthy tan. Tom stopped, leaning in the wall of the concourse, rubbing his eyes. He was tired, but couldn’t get the image out of his mind. The hallucinations were too much.

While waiting at gate nine for his flight, he texted his wife. He let her know he was coming home. He gave her the flight information but hadn’t heard anything from her since he sent the email, what yesterday? Two days ago? Could have been two months ago. It seemed so long ago. Next, he texted his boss at the FBI office. He let him know his CIA-FBI collaboration work ended a lot quicker than he expected. He said he would be back to work in two days but had a reservist weekend coming up. Finally, he texted his marine battalion commander to let him know he would be in the armory this weekend. Also, that his work assignment was cut short.

With business taken care of he allowed his head to sink back into the seat and drift off uncomfortably. It wasn’t good sleep, but enough to refresh him a little. He planned to sleep more on the flight. Just before the attendant called to board, he heard a vibrating buzz from his phone. [i]Sorry, babe. I’m working now. We can talk when I get home. Love ya.[/i] Tom smiled and stood. He proceeded forward to show his ticket. 

He awoke in Boston around 1400 hours. Gathered his luggage and hailed a taxi to Braintree. By 1530 hours, he was unlocking the door and heading to his bed for more sleep. He stripped off his clothes and lay in the bed. His eyes wide open thinking about the events of the past 24 hours. Eventually he drifted off.

A few hours later, he was dreaming about Clyde’s wife and the burning cabin. Only this time, he was the one being choked, and he was being drawn into the tank with [i]it[/i]. He was screaming at Donnelly, Justin, Jason, Serena, Laine and Laurie to help; but they stood around tank with fire blazing behind them in a circle laughing. Donnelly was reeling over backward and then bent forward in fierce fits of laughter, pointing at Stewart as Clyde’s wife pulled him into the tank. Then he woke in a startled sweat.

“Honey, are you OK?” Jill asked her husband as he roused.

He looked around the room disoriented, wiping his sweat covered face, “yea, yea…” He paused. “I guess I was more tired than I thought.” Tom was out of it and would need another day to recover. He planned to take a day in the gym. Do some weights and get in some cardio.

“How was your trip?” Jill asked.

Oh how he would love to just dump all that ghoulish nonsense on her. It haunted his conscious, his dreams and his nasal passages. “Huh!?” Tom looked up at her. “Can you give me a moment? I’m going to take a shower. I’ll tell you about it when I come downstairs. Can we order a pizza for dinner?”

“Sure thing, babe. Get yourself cleaned up. We’ll have a pizza and talk about your trip.” She turned to leave the room, “honestly, I thought you would be gone longer.”

“Yea, me too.” Jill left Tom alone in the room. He pulled his legs over the edge of the bed rising to his feet. He grabbed a towel heading to the shower.

Several minutes later, he was downstairs wearing T-shirt and sweatpants. He shuffled over to his wife and gave her a kiss. She ordered the pizza, handing Tom a glass of Chardonnay. He sipped the wine and took a seat at the kitchen table.

“How was your trip?” Jill asked him. She was very curious about what he did. He was always very reluctant to talk about his work, but felt she deserved something.

“It was…” He searched for the right words. She could see that he was really searching for what to say. He was grasping for a way to tell her what happened without frightening her.

“Don’t worry, hun’. If you can’t tell me, I’ll understand.” Jill was over eager to hear about his trip and wanted nothing more for her husband to unload the world on her right now. She silently pleaded with him to tell her something. He needed this release. She could tell by his expression that he had the weight of the world dragging him down.

Tom looked her straight in the eye and began, “Do you remember a television show that was on about six or more years ago called, [i]Fringe[/i]?” Tom asked Jill.

“Yea, I watched it when I was out in California.”

“You know how they encountered otherworldly creatures and situations that just couldn’t be explained?”

“Sure, that was what made the show exciting.”

“Well, what I saw at this cabin in the woods in West Virginia was a lot like that show. I still do not know how to explain it. I saw a corpse come alive and attack one of my colleagues. This Mr. Donnelly I met from another Federal Agency heads up the group. I get the impression he has seen shit like this before and now I am very curious to see what else we are going to get into. As you know, I really can’t go into details about what we do, but I am on call and need to be ready to go wherever and whenever he calls.” Tom stopped to recollect what happened. It was only a day, but it was an eventful day. He had already made up his mind he would go again when Donnelly called. It was just too much…too much to pass up.

“Unexplainable, huh?” Jill was comfortable with his response. “Was it like [i]The Walking Dead[/i]?” She allowed a nervous laughter.

Tom looked up at her, “Yes…yes, Jill. It was exactly like The Walking Dead!” The doorbell rang interrupting Tom’s train of thought. Jill plucked a twenty-dollar bill off the counter and headed to the door. She returned in a few minutes with a pizza from Angelina’s on Elm St.

“What you get?”

“Spinach, Eggplant, Roasted Peppers and Olives,” Jill said with a glee in her voice. She enjoyed vegetarian pizzas. Meat pizzas didn’t agree with her.

“Yea, sounds delicious,” Tom responded. “A little sausage or pepperoni could go a long way, you know.”

“Right, they never agree with my stomach. I always get too much acid. Besides, these vegetable pizzas are better for you.”

After dinner, Tom tried to explain a bit more on what happened during the trip. He felt torn between telling her everything and not wanting to scare her too much. They retired to their sitting room to watch television and drink wine.

Later that evening, the couple engaged in marital bliss. The relief of tension was just enough to knock Tom out until morning.

>FBI FIELD OFFICE, FEDERAL BUILDING
>BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
>0900HRS...///

Two days later…

“Ray, do you have a minute?” Tom asked his boss, Ray Calhoun, sliding into his office.

“What’s up, Tom?”

“You know that special assignment I was on the last few days out in West Virginia?”

“Yea, how’d it go?” Ray asked.

“It was billed as a joint CIA-FBI venture with people from other agencies including military. We conducted an investigation into a man named Clyde Baughman, which took us out into the woods to a cabin Baughman owned. We found him dead. I’m not sure what he had done and I’m sure if we dig deep enough, we can find out what. When we visited Clyde’s cabin in the woods, we found something very disturbing. We met his wife out there. Apparently, she died quite some time ago. The wife was in a septic tank. She crawled out of the tank…”

“Wait!” Ray put up his hand. “How could she [i]crawl[/i] out of a septic tank if she had been dead?...for quite some time.”

“Well, that’s an excellent question, Ray. One I hope to answer some day. It was right out of Dawn of the Dead.” Tom paused briefly. “Anyway, the corpse stood up and tried to choke Doctor Heather Laine a psychologist at the BAU down in DC. Two of the others opened fire on the animated corpse and dropped her for good. It was the most bizarre thing I have ever seen. Now, I can’t seem to get that image out of my mind. I honestly don’t care if you believe me, but I know it happened.”

“I would imagine, if what you are telling me is true, it would be difficult to get that out of your mind.” Ray confirmed. “Is there any chance the wife was alive when she climbed out of the tank and then your new friends killed her after she attacked Doctor Laine?”

“No way, Ray. She was all bloated and her skin color was a pale green. She was definitely dead. There was no way she could have looked like that and be alive.”

“Thanks for telling me this. Keep me informed if you run into anymore zombies, OK?” Ray didn’t believe Tom. He considered having him psychologically evaluated after telling such a fantastical story. But Tom was a good investigator. He would do no such thing. He would wait and see if Tom was called away on another such investigation. Maybe next time Tom could bring back some verifiable evidence?

“No problem, Ray,” Tom left the office and began going over old cases to see what he needed to get into.

>FORT DEVENS
>AYER, MASSACHUSETTS
>0700HRS...///

The drive out to Devens Reserve Forces Training Area or more often called, Fort Devens was roughly an hour and a half. He stopped for coffee at Dunkin Donuts. He wore his US Marine Corps Multicam uniform, carrying a flight bag with a few essentials and his briefcase. He had a change of clothing in his car. The first place he went after depositing his bags in his own office was to the office of his battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Norman Miller. The man was in his late 30s and had seen action in Afghanistan and Iraq. Colonel Miller was a Lieutenant during the March up to Baghdad in ’03.

“Colonel Miller,” Major Stewart addressed his battalion commander.

“Tom, come on in. Have a seat.”

“Sir, what is the strangest, most bizarre thing you have ever seen the Corps? Especially on deployment?” Tom asked his commander.

Colonel Miller was a bit taken aback by the question. But Tom was one of his best friends in the reserves and he would humor him. “I remember these prostitutes in Bangkok who had this acrobatic act. It was quite strange, but you had to pay for both of them and it was private showings only.”

Tom smiled at his Commander’s story. “No, I mean something inexplicable. Something that really just threw you for a loop?”

“I don’t know, Tom. What’s going on? Did you see something?”

“Ten years ago, I was in Northern Afghanistan with the First Raider Battalion. My platoon was on a patrol and we came across a pile of bodies.” Tom told Norm Miller.

“I saw a few mass graves myself while in country too, Tom.”

“No, not like this,” Tom continued. “These corpses had already begun to decompose. They appeared to have been dead for months. We found them in an area where the goat herders would pass through maybe once a day. There was no way, a pile like this could have gone unnoticed for two months. The decomposition was pretty far gone. My platoon was tasked with removing the bodies and we turned them over to graves registration who eventually interred them.”

“The corpses couldn’t have moved themselves,” Colonel Miller stated matter of factly with a laugh.

“Yes sir, that’s what I thought too,” Tom responded. “At least when I was a lieutenant. I almost suspect the Russians or someone in Turkmenistan had crossed the border and left them there; carted in trucks. Once all the corpses were gone. There was a strange black stone at the bottom. The thing was shaped in a perfect square with shiny smooth surface. The four foot by four foot rock was curious as patterns on its surface appeared to move. The rock did not physically move, but it appeared as though there were slow moving clouds inside the color of the rock, which also seemed to be one of the densest materials I had ever seen. The movement of clouds in the rock was more like a dark swirling effect, without light. It gave me a creepy feeling, a tingling sensation up my spine. It was as though nothing good and positive would ever come for the rest of my life. To be honest, being in its presence gave me the urge to harm myself. I knew I had to get away from this rock. You know, I could have sworn several of the corpses’ eyes actually moved as they were being pulled away.” Tom paused for several minutes allowing that to sink in.

“That is truly bizarre, Tom. I can’t say I have ever seen anything quite like that and I never heard anything like that either. Why are you sharing this with me now?” Colonel Miller asked his operations officer.

“Something happened this past week that brought those old memories back to the front,” Tom told the Colonel. “I went to West Virginia for a work assignment as you well know. I can’t tell you too much about it, but I saw a woman who had been dead for a long period of time, crawl out of a hole and attack one of my co-workers. The dead animated corpse choked an FBI behavioral analyst. Two other members of the group shot the dead woman dead for good after that.” Tom sat in the colonel’s office for several minutes. “I contemplated not telling you anything because it sounds so ridiculous, but we’ve been friends for years and I trust you. Maybe you’ve seen something like this?”

“No Tom, I can honestly say I have never seen anything like that,” Colonel Miller was now worried about his friend. “Are you OK, Tom?”

“Yes, sir. I’m fine. Forget I even mentioned this to you,” Tom quickly recovered. He regretted telling the colonel about the animated corpse now. He wanted to change the subject, “I’ll bet you a bottle of Jamison I score higher on the pistol range than you today.”

“You’re on!” Colonel Miller exclaimed with a smile. “You ready to take a hike to the range with the battalion?”

“Yes sir!” Major Stewart remarked. “I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks.”

A few hours later, the first battalion, 25th Marines was spread out over a mile of road marching in formations of five columns with full pack, assault vests, Kevlar helmets, and weapons slung. The unit’s battalion red colors flapped in the breeze as the color bearer walked just behind and the the right of Lieutenant Colonel Norman Miller. The rest of the battalion staff, including Major Stewart marched in front of the A Company Commander, Captain Spellacy. They did not march in step, but did stay together. The battalion of marines marched four miles from the armory to the rifle ranges to begin a day of shooting. By Sunday afternoon, the entire battalion would need to be qualified in their primary weapons. The Commander also wanted the infantry squads to have a chance to run through the Infantry Battle Course and for all riflemen and NCOs to have a chance to fire on the Known Distance (KD) range. Rifle marksmanship has always been and will continue to be of utmost priority with the United States Marine Corps.

Captain Washington, the Battalion Intelligence Officer (S2) stood next to Major Stewart. “How you feeling today, Tom?”

“I feel great, Reg,” Tom responded with a smile. “How’s your pistol shooting lately?”

“I can’t complain. I usually hit expert every time.”

“You still working the graveyard shift?” Tom asked Captain Reginald Washington who worked as a Mass State Police Trooper out of the Leominster barracks.

“Yes sir, I’m one of the shift supervisors now,” Captain Washington quipped.

“Congratulations!” The officers on battalion staff advanced to the firing line on the pistol course. They took all their commands from the tower. When instructed to do so, Major Stewart locked and loaded one 14-round magazine into his M9 pistol to begin the Combat Pistol Program. The first phase begins with the pistol in the holster. Tom stood on the line, waiting on the command from the tower to begin. Upon the command, he drew his pistol, assumed a natural Weaver stance and lined his sights up on the target.

Just as he was about to squeeze the trigger, he saw a woman walking toward him with matted hair, clung together more in ropes than straight. Her skin was bloated and rotting with a green undertone. Tom could smell it. He was back at the cabin. The woman’s eyes lolled about in her useless sockets. Her limbs flailed about and she staggered as she walked. He lined the sites up on the animated corpse and squeezed his trigger. He fired several times until he heard the command in the tower to cease fire. Tom’s pulse quickened. He could feel the sweat under his helmet and around his neck. He was nervous. When the day was over, he owed Lieutenant Colonel Norm Miller a bottle of Jameson’s Whiskey. He swore he would never tell anyone that story…ever.

>FBI FIELD OFFICE, FEDERAL BUILDING
>BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
>1000HRS...///

Two weeks later…

Tom was back at the Federal Building in Boston reviewing cold cases, those files that the Mass State Police and local law enforcement agencies failed to solve for one reason or another. He flipped through the files, one after another. A young girl, Grace Wollansky of Haverhill who had gone missing and no one knew where she was. Another young woman, Victoria McQueen had told an outlandish story of an antiquated Rolls Royce Wraith taking the young girl to someplace called Christmasland.

A second file mentions a possible homicide in a residence in the rural community of Leyden. Apparently, the victim was an avid hunter and owned several firearms including shotguns and rifles. The man was found dead in the floor of his living room. One of his shotguns was found near the corpse and the man’s brain matter was splattered over a wall and ceiling. The State Police out of Shelburne believe it was a suicide, but there was something about the case that spoke otherwise.

Finally, the third file was of two bodies washed ashore in Cohaset, not far from Hingham and Boston. The bodies had been in the water for more than a week and were bloated. The track suit, the man was wearing hinted of Russian Mafia, but they weren’t very prevalent in the Boston area. The State Police’s Crime Prevention and Control (CPAC) unit ran into a roadblock and passed it on to the FBI to have a crack at it. He decided to take a look at all three files.

>STEWART RESIDENCE
>BRAINTREE, MASSACHUSETTS
>1800HRS, 15 MAY///

Tom walked into the house on John Paul Circle in North Braintree. “Hi Honey!” Jill was in the kitchen preparing a meal.

“I hope you’re up for grilled chicken salad and Pinot for dinner?”

“Sounds great, Sweetie.”

The house in Braintree was close enough to the freeway to make an easy drive into the city, but in the suburbs where traffic was no concern and he could avoid the hassles associated with city living. Fortunately working for the US Government paid well as well as a Marine Biologist at Woods Hole on Cape Cod. Jill had a 50-mile drive to work, which took roughly an hour both ways. It slowed down when she encountered the summer traffic heading onto the Cape. The couple had a comfortable living, more than enough means to support a child or two.

Tom still thought about having a child but didn’t let it interfere with him too much. He dropped his briefcase next to his desk in his home office along with his suit coat.

His cell phone began to ring. He looked at the caller ID and didn’t immediately recognize the number. But it was a Northern Virginia extension which he did recognize. He assumed it was work related, “SSA Stewart, how may I help you?”

[i]"Hey, Tom," a soft feminine voice on the other end replied. "It's Dr Heather Laine, from Quantico. We met in West Virginia. Are you busy?"[/i]

Tom was caught off guard, but recognized her voice as soon as she spoke her name into the phone. “Heather! How are you?”

[i]"Doing about as well as expected, just working late on a case from your neck of the woods and I thought about you," she said, "How about you?"[/i]

“I’m doing well. West Virginia feels like a lifetime ago now. I know it was only a month, but things have gotten better here. What case are you working on? Maybe I can help?” Tom was curious about the case. She must be dealing with Cold Cases like him.

[i]"That's great to hear, Tom," She responded. "Oh, the case. Yes, it's two John Does, both found washed up along the coast near…near Cohasset, I probably butchered that pronunciation. Anyway, both unsolved, unidentified and bodies damaged by exposure on the water within a week of each other. State police first caught the case but it went cold pretty fast. So, we're taking a look at it."[/i]

“I do recall this case. The bodies were reportedly in the water for over a week. They were quite bloated. The first was a male close to 30 wearing a tracksuit found near Kimball’s Point and the second a female in her early 20s found on Black Rock Beach near Forest Ave.” Tom paused to think about the case some more. He had read the file over a few weeks ago and was familiar with it. “The saltwater could have been used as a forensics countermeasure. The only thing CPAC could uncover was that the people in Cohasset wouldn’t tell them anything. It wasn’t just that possibly they didn’t know, but they appeared frightened about something, fearing that if they did talk it could mean the end of their life; kind of like Whitey Bulger’s Winter Hill Gang.” Tom mentioned the Massachusetts State Police’s Crime Prevention and Control Division.

[i]"Being dumped at sea certainly is a forensic countermeasure," Laine said wryly. "It does have a strong feeling of execution. Cause of death was determined as multiple GSW on both. And the track suit, suggests Russians, it was Adidas after all. I'm glad you're familiar with this case. It was just given to me today to try and create a profile of the suspect."[/i]

“Yea, that’s about right. I kind of suspected the Russians too. They haven’t really taken over much in Boston but are growing in Providence and are entrenched in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn. I even hear they are making inroads in Bridgeport, Connecticut. You know who grew up in Bridgeport, right?” Tom didn’t wait for Dr. Laine to respond. “Aaron Hernandez!”

“Hey, are you coming up to Boston or are you doing your work from Virginia?”

[i]"Oh, the football player convicted murderer, they must be very proud. I might pop up there, check out the crime scene area. It's probably not going to help much but I miss the water. And maybe talk to some people mentioned in this case file. Sometimes they're willing to share more with a stranger, someone that will be gone in a few days and never pull them over for a speeding ticket. I'll have to see how far I get with the autopsies; our pathologist is going over them with me."[/i]

Jill popped her head into the office, “Your salad is ready, if you are interested.” She stated in a hushed tone.

“Sounds great, give me a call when you come to town. I can pick you up and go check on some of your leads together. It was good hearing from you, Heather. I do need to get going.”

[i]"Thanks for the help. Have you heard from Donnelley or Foster, or any of the others?"[/i]

“No, you are the only one. I’ve tried to put that behind me for now. I am still curious and will respond when he calls...I’m sure he will call again.” He didn’t want to tell her about the hallucinations and nightmares he had experienced from their adventure in the woods of West Virginia. It was not his place to share such personal experience with someone he barely knew.

[i]"Probably a good idea, have a good night, Tom."[/i]

Tom hung up the phone and headed into the kitchen for grilled chicken salad. 

“Who was on the phone?” Jill asked.

“Doctor Heather Laine, a Forensics Psychologist from the Behavioral Analysis Unit in DC. She is working a cold case that washed ashore in Cohasset awhile back. She was asking for my take on the case. She may come up to work on it with me.”

“Oh, do you get calls like that often?” Jill asked. She was just curious.

“Quite often at work. Rarely at home. I mean, how often do you hear me talking to colleagues at home? Yea, it happens once in a while, but rarely.” Tom neglected to mention he met Dr. Laine on his trip to West Virginia. For all she knew Heather was a colleague in the FBI. He was lost in thought; dwelling on that day in West Virginia.

“Tom, I missed my period this month,” Jill allowed that little pellet to just hang out there. Given his frame of mind, it did not register.