He awoke feeling refreshed.  This in itself was an oddity;
that he could sleep soundly at any time was something for
which to be grateful, but the idea that he could do so in a
haunted house was incredible.  Mulder raised his wrist and
pushed the button that illuminated his digital watch.  It
showed twelve minutes after ten.

According to his watch, he'd slept for nearly fifteen hours.

Tossing back the sleeping bag and sitting up on the sofa,
Mulder tested his ankle against the floor.  It still hurt,
that much was definite, but the swelling seemed to have gone
down.  When he tried to rise, he found that by breathing
deeply and gradually increasing the weight he placed on that
foot, he was able to stand on his own.

Mulder shuffled slowly across the floor to the window facing
the front of the house.  He pushed the velvet
draperies aside and looked out upon a grey day.  It was
raining heavily, and he realized suddenly that he hadn't
even been able to hear the rain falling until now.

He thought of his cell phone, lying on the seat of his
rental car, still connected to the portable charger.  He
really ought to give Scully a call.

On the other hand, why should he stumble through a downpour
on an injured ankle just to call someone who hadn't cared
enough about him to come along in the first place?  If she'd
been here last night, she could have wrapped his ankle or
something...at the very least talked him into lying down
instead of making that stupid trip up two flights of stairs.
In fact, if she'd been here to watch her partner's back, the
way she should have been, the entire incident would probably
have been avoided.

Screw her, then.  Let her wonder why he didn't call.  Let
her worry about him, for a change.

Still staring out at the rain, Mulder was unconscious of the
malicious grin that now spread across his face.

Suddenly, screwing Scully seemed like a fine plan.

Turning away from the window, he noticed the fire was
blazing away in the fireplace again.  He wandered over to
it and warmed his hands, wondering if the table was set for
breakfast.  On the other hand, if all the occupants of the
house had to offer for a meal was dried beans and petrified
cornbread, he'd pass.  Desiccated infant foot sounded more
appetizing by far.

Mulder instantly snapped out of his reverie, shocked by what
had just crossed his mind.  Where had a thought like *that*
come from?

The fire went out at once.

Without it, the room was plunged into near-total darkness
again, so Mulder opened the rotting drapes.  The daylight
that managed to find its way in under the balcony outside
was dim and grey, but it did help to illuminate the room a
bit.  It was better than nothing, and his flashlight
batteries were already showing signs of running low.  Which
was weird as hell, because he'd replaced them just before
leaving home.

Damned store must have sold him old batteries.

He was hungry, but instead of checking the kitchen for
breakfast or searching the now darkened fireplace for more
baby parts, he sat down on the sofa and rooted through his
pack.  Mulder extracted a couple of granola bars and a
bottle of water and consumed them with gusto, tossing the
paper into the fireplace.  Maybe the next time it lit
itself, Clarke House would oblige him by taking care of his
trash.

After his breakfast, he rooted again through his backpack
and found his lockpick set.  It was time to find out what
was hiding in the attic.

Maybe it was that white thing that had flashed past him on
the stairs.

Mulder didn't stop to question whether or not he really
wanted to encounter such an entity, he just made his way
purposefully, if slowly, up the stairs.

By the time he reached the door to the attic, he was
breathing heavily, as if he'd run several miles.  He
couldn't account for the tiredness that swept through his
body, considering how long he'd slept, but for some reason
he was unsurprised to find the door standing open.

"Okay," he said resignedly, and climbed the last three
stairs to enter the attic.

There were no velvet curtains here, only bare windows
letting in the dim light.  The room itself was devoid of
furniture--devoid of dust as well, he noticed--but there was
writing on one wall.  Crossing to where the wallpaper was
peeling away, Mulder lifted a piece of it so he could read
what it said.

"God grante that she lie stille," he quoted aloud.  "Hey, I
read that story when I was a kid!  Although if I remember
correctly, it was about possession, not a haunted house.
You're slipping."

He wasn't sure what he meant by that statement--was it a
comment on his own memory, or that of the house?--but he
didn't bother questioning it at the time.

It was cold up here, and seeing nothing out of the
ordinary--except for that odd sentence written on the
wall--(was it written in blood?  He leaned in for a closer
look and was almost disappointed to find it looked more like
a black permanent marker had been used)--Mulder decided to
check out the second floor more thoroughly.  He'd barely
seen it last night.

The door behind him was closed, although he'd left it open
wide, and again, Mulder was unsurprised.  At least it hadn't
locked him in the attic, he thought as he twisted the knob
and the door opened easily.  That could have been awkward,
considering all his food and water was downstairs.

Although as neat as the ghosts who haunted Clarke House
seemed to be, it might have been put away in a kitchen
cupboard by now, he thought, and giggled at the idea.
Giggled like a girl, he realized, which brought back
memories of a discussion with Scully concerning a girlie
scream.  Wondering what a girlie scream would sound like
coming from him, Mulder opened his mouth and tried for one.

"Eek!" he murmured in a high-pitched voice, but it didn't
feel quite right.  He tried again.  "Eeeeek!"  This time he
managed to increase the volume, but it still didn't have
that shrill fingernail-on-a-blackboard quality he was
attempting to achieve.  He drew in a deep breath and made
one last effort.  "Eeeeeeeek!" he screamed as loudly as he
could.

Downstairs somewhere, a door slammed.

"All right, fine," he answered it sulkily.  "I just wanted
to see what it felt like."

Having experienced the girlie scream with no discernable
side effects, Mulder left the attic and descended the narrow
stairs to the second floor.  The doors to all the bedrooms,
which he'd left standing wide open the night before, were
shut.

"Doors sensibly shut," he commented.  "Isn't that how it's
supposed to be in a haunted house?  At least, I'd call Hill
House the definitive haunted house of fiction.  Do you
suppose Clarke House is the definitive haunted house of
fact?"

Mulder didn't even bother questioning who he was talking to.
He opened the first bedroom door, finding the bed made
neatly, as expected.  He was surprised, however, to discover
the curtains drawn back, letting in the daylight--such as it
was.  He took a look around.

The room was tastefully decorated in shades of blue.  There
was a hooked rug beside the bed, a ruffled bed skirt that
swept the floor beside the rotted remnants of velvet
bedspread, and a blue vase holding some dead flowers.

"You really ought to replace those," he commented absently
to the room at large.  The dormer window looked out upon the
side yard, and Mulder found himself fascinated with one of
the dead trees outside.  It looked for all the world like a
grotesque monster, its arms spread threateningly, or maybe
one of those apple-throwing trees Dorothy had encountered in
the Wizard of Oz.

He watched the tree for a few minutes, waiting for it to
exhibit some sign of life, and was mildly disappointed when
it continued to act like nothing more than a dead tree.

"Try coming inside," he told it confidently.

He left that room, uninteresting as it was, and entered the
next.  This one was done up in yellow, and Mulder wondered
briefly if there was a Purple Room and an Orange Room, just
like in Hill House.  At this point, he would almost be
disappointed if there was not.

The yellow room was just as neat as the blue room had been,
except for the indentation in the bed, indicating someone had
lain down on top of it after it had been made.  The shape
appeared to be that of a small child, perhaps four or five
years old.  Peeking out from under the bed was a pair of
canvas sneakers, falling apart with age.  Mulder crossed to
the old fashioned dresser and opened a drawer, but there was
nothing inside but a few rodent droppings.

"There are your rats," he told Scully, although she was not
present at the time because she had chosen to desert him,
the man who had stood by her through cancer and Emily and
all nature of crises, to visit that bastard brother of hers.

He opened another drawer, and this one was not empty.

"Eeek!" Mulder screamed half-heartedly as he looked at the
infant foot, complete with shoe, that had disappeared from
his evidence bag the night before.  

Shaking his head at his effort, he put the foot into yet
another bag he withdrew from his pocket.  There was no
point, he knew.  No doubt the foot would disappear from his
possession soon, only to reappear in the kitchen sink, or
something.

The thought of kitchens made him realize he was hungry, and
Mulder looked at his watch.  It read 3:15.

He shook his wrist, then looked again, but the watch still
insisted that over five hours had passed since he'd
awakened.

"So is it my watch that's screwy, or does time really pass
faster here?" he asked the room.

His answer was the bedroom door swinging silently open--no
creaking hinges on this door, oh no, and it occurred to
Mulder dimly that the Martha Stewart ghost needed to give
the kitchen door some ghostly oil.  And oddly enough, he had
left the door open when he'd entered the room.  Which meant
sometime in the past few minutes, someone had shut it.

He watched the door silently, his heart pounding in his
chest, but no entity came through it.  No flash of white, no
Martha floating above the floorboards...nothing.

"Federal agent!" he called again, a small grin on his face.
"Bet that intimidates the hell out of you, doesn't it!"

Clarke House made no reply.

"Answer me!" he yelled suddenly, frustrated with the lack of
response, although had he been forced to say, he couldn't
have told *what* response he expected.

Silence reigned.

"Maybe I'll just grab some paint and fix this place up,"
Mulder said maliciously, and immediately received the answer
he'd sought.

The door in front of him slammed shut, faster and louder
than any human could have slammed it, and that was followed
by a series of bangs throughout the house.  It was as if
every door in the house had been slammed shut one after
another.

Mulder stared at the door, listening to the noises from
below and above, his eyes wide with fear, but once the house
was again silent, he regained some of his bravado.

"Is that what it takes to get a response out of you?" he
asked the house.  "Maybe I'll just threaten to repair this
cracked window over here."

He watched the window, listened for the doors...but all was
still quiet.

It struck Mulder, quite suddenly, that darkness was falling
outdoors.  The rain had stopped, and the sky was clear in
the gathering twilight.

His watch now read 6:42.

"What the FUCK!" he demanded, ripping the timepiece from his
wrist.  "This is bullshit."

It was unlike Mulder to swear so constantly, and some part
of him realized the oddity and questioned it, but he managed
to stifle that voice of reason.

"Fuck you," he said to it.  "And fuck her, too.  Actually, I
think I will.  Fuck her, that is.  I don't think I'll even
ask her permission first--she likes to play rough.  Why else
would a girl join the FBI?  Wanted to play with the *big*
boys, no doubt."

Mulder grinned, and the distorted image of himself he caught in the
mirror brought him instantly back to reality.

"What am I talking about?" he asked himself, horrified at
the thoughts he'd been entertaining.  "Scully, I'm glad
you're not here with me.  Who knows what I might try to do
to you while under the influence of this house."

Under the influence, he told himself firmly.  That was it
exactly.

"I have to get out of here."

The thought came clearly, all by itself, not on the heels of
another, as thoughts are wont to do, and Mulder decided he
would heed the advice.  He walked purposefully to the
bedroom door and twisted the knob.

It was locked.

"Dammit!" he yelled, pounding on the door.

He stopped when answering thuds seemed to come from the
other side.  His breath caught in his throat when he
realized that there was someone--or some thing--just outside
the bedroom where he was now trapped.

"Let me out!" he demanded firmly, twisting the knob again,
but the only reply was the closing of another door across
the hall.

Turning away, scanning the rapidly darkening room for
another exit, Mulder again noticed the indentation on the
bed.  It had changed.  It looked like the person who had
been lying on his or her back had now turned on their side,
perhaps to observe his pathetic attempts to free himself.
Perhaps enjoying his descent into...was it madness?

No, Mulder answered himself absently, eyes glued to the bed,
it was not madness.  It was perhaps a profound lack of
judgement, maybe even carefully suppressed desires--he
shuddered at *that* thought--but it was definitely not
madness.  He had seen madness, and this wasn't it.

As he stared at the bed, he thought he saw a movement--like
breathing, only it wasn't as though the unseen person on the
bed was breathing, it was as if the bed itself was
breathing.  He could barely make out the slow rise and fall,
rise and fall, of the mattress, but it was there.

This time the girlie scream came with no effort.  "Eeeeek!"

The noise from his own throat woke him from his near-trance.

Mulder threw himself at the door again, pounding
frantically, more afraid of what was *inside* the room with
him than of what might be outside.  The dreadful banging on
the door had ceased, but the bed, when he risked a glance
over his shoulder at it, continued to breathe.

All at once the doorknob began to turn slowly from side to
side.  Mulder backed away in horror, realizing he was
drawing ever nearer to the breathing bed but unwilling to
face whatever monstrosity now wanted to come in.

It wants to eat me, he thought clearly.  It wants to eat me
but I won't let it, I can't let it, I--

His thoughts broke off when the door itself began to
breathe.

It pressed inward and outward gently, bending the wood on
its hinges but not threatening to splinter the door...it was
as though...

"The house itself is alive," Mulder said softly.  "It's
alive and it knows I'm here."

He turned frantically toward the window, planning to jump
from the second floor if necessary in order to escape the
house.  He was two steps toward the cracked glass when he
caught sight of the heavy wardrobe in one corner of the
room.

"Of course!"  He nearly sagged with relief.  A place to
hide!  Surely inside a wardrobe was as perfect a hiding
place as beneath a bed, and Mulder could hardly crawl under
*that* bed, now could he?  At this moment, the wardrobe
itself showed no signs of life.

The doorknob behind him continued to turn slowly back and
forth, the door continued its gentle inhalation and
exhalation, and Mulder yanked open the wardrobe door with a
feeling of almost profound gratitude.  Gratitude towards
whom--or what--he didn't really know...perhaps to Clarke
House itself for providing him a place to curl up and hide
until the monsters went back into their lairs.

He yanked the wardrobe door open and stared in shock at what
occupied the small space.

It was the rest of the desiccated baby.

There was nothing girlie about Mulder's scream this time--it
was long and loud and healthy.  It was the scream of a man
who has nearly reached the brink of insanity, and it
occurred to Mulder in a detached sort of way, even while he
screamed, that it was a fine thing--here he had worked all
these years on the X-Files, had seen all manner of
frightening things, had even discovered that the evil that
men do is far worse than that of the imagination...and now
he was ready to collapse over a simple haunted house.

But it isn't simple, his inner self objected.  There is
nothing simple about Clarke House at all.  It is the most
complex of creatures.

He closed his eyes for a long moment, pressing the lids
together tightly, willing himself to believe that the
abomination in the wardrobe was only a figment of his
imagination, but the steady breathing of the house around
him gave lie to that notion.  At last, summoning up the last
of his courage, he opened them again.

The infant corpse was gone.

Mulder stared at the empty wardrobe--dust free, if you
please--and wondered if it was a safe place to hide, or if
the infant would reappear the moment he closed the door,
crawling toward him in the pitch black, its breathing rattly
and labored in contrast with that of Clarke House, its eyes
glowing as it came for him, came to eat him--

A single drop of blood fell from the shelf above.  Mulder
knew it was blood even though he could barely make out the
dark red of it in the growing gloom, because the time in
this infernal house was all screwed up and even though he'd
only been awake a short while, it must already be nearing
midnight.

Then the first drop was joined by a second, splattering
lightly as it hit the wooden floor of the wardrobe.

Slowly, as slowly as he could justify, Mulder raised his
eyes to see what resided on the shelf.

There was no scream at all this time, just a bulging of his
eyes, a hand to the mouth as he fought back a retch.

This time, the infant wasn't desiccated.  Not at all.

It was freshly chewed, its foot missing, its body more red
than white, its small blue eyes open and staring directly
into Mulder's.

He reached a hand automatically toward the pocket where he'd
stashed the bagged, dried foot inside the sneaker, and when
Mulder felt the blood coat his fingers, the blood from the
foot that was not desiccated, but was as fresh as that in
the wardrobe, his shock was complete.

He withdrew his hand bit by bit, reluctant to confirm with
his eyes what his sense of touch told him was true, but at
last it could be put off no longer.  He raised his fingers
so they caught the beam of moonlight that shone through the
window, past the dead tree that resembled nothing so much as
a man, a dead man stretched out on a rack or a bed of iron
spikes or some other equally awful instrument of
torture...and saw the blood coating them.

Mulder fell, thinking just before he hit the floor that he
had already accomplished the girlie scream, now he might as
well go for a girlie faint.

He hoped Clarke house would be merciful, and eat him while he
was unconscious.

*****

Scully slammed the phone down in frustration.

"Still can't reach him?" her brother asked with something
almost like sympathy in his voice.

She shook her head, worried.

"Don't worry, Dana.  He's probably forgotten all about you
in the excitement of his ghost hunt."  The sympathy for his
sister's concern was now replaced with unconcealed sarcasm.

Scully sighed, fighting back the urge to yell at him.  "You
don't understand, Bill," she said defensively.  "It isn't
like Mulder to completely ignore his cell phone.  I'm afraid
something might have happened to him."

"What?" Bill snorted derisively.  "You think a spook got
him?  Don't tell me you're buying into that nonsense now."

She counted to ten, then counted to ten once more for good
measure.  "It's an old house," she explained.  "There's no
telling what kind of condition it's in.  He might be
hurt, and unable to call for help."

"More likely he's been arrested for trespassing and spent
the weekend in jail."

Her face hardened.  "Then he'd have called me to come bail
him out, now wouldn't he?" she replied coldly.

Scully drained her coffee mug and stood up from the kitchen
table.  "Bill, Tara, I've enjoyed the visit, but I'm afraid
I have to go check on him."

"What!"  Bill slammed his fork down, causing his plate of
bacon and eggs to jump.  Matthew began to cry.

"Great, Bill, thanks a lot," Tara snapped, getting up to see
to their baby.

"Sorry, honey," he murmured to her as she passed.  "Dana,
this is ridiculous.  Every time we get together, every time
I try to see you, Mulder always gets in the way.  Why can't
you get away from that guy for just one week?"

"He's my partner," Scully insisted, trying to make him
understand, wondering why she felt the need to explain
herself to Bill--was it just because he was her older
brother?  Had she never grown up where he was concerned?  "I
have an obligation to watch his back."

"He has obligations to you, too," Bill said darkly.
"Besides, it's not like you're on a case."

"If you thought Tara was in trouble, would you sit calmly at
my place drinking coffee, or would you do everything in your
power to help her?" she demanded.

"But that's different," Bill objected.  "Tara is my wife.
You can't compare what we have to what you and Mulder--"

He stopped as Tara, coming up behind him with the baby in
her arms, placed one gentle hand on his shoulder.  He
glanced up at her to see the warning in her eyes.

"No," he said obstinately, suddenly fearing the worst..
"Dana, don't tell me you've gone and *married* that louse!"

That was the last straw.

"No, I have not," Scully replied evenly, pushing her way
back from the breakfast table and heading for the stairs.
She could pack her things and be on a plane to Texas within
a couple of hours, she figured.  Then all she had to do was
locate the place and find Mulder and haul him out of
whatever danger he'd managed to get himself in.  But she
couldn't resist tossing one more word at her stunned brother
and sister-in-law as she started up the stairs.

"Yet."

Bill was finally at a loss for words.

*****

Scully called the police in Clarkeston on her way to the
airport in a taxi and explained the situation to them.  The
promised her they would look into the matter and get back
with her.

The police dispatcher had every intention of complying with
her request--he'd heard all the stories about Clarke House
growing up, and although he didn't really believe this Agent
Mulder was in any danger from ghosts, he might have fallen
through a loose floor board and broken his leg or
something--but just after Agent Scully called, they received
a report of a robbery in progress.

Clarkeston was still a small town, and major crime was
uncommon, though not unheard of, and the police department
was understaffed.  As soon as he received word that the
robbery also involved a possible shooting, he forgot all
about Mulder.  Every available officer was called to the
scene of the current crime.

*****

Mulder awakened slowly, fluttering his eyelids open, then
shut, then open a time or two, adjusting his eyes to the
daylight that streamed brightly through the window, its beam
slightly distorted by the crack in the glass.

It took a minute for the events of the night before--and was
it really the night before, he wondered, or was it last
week, or last month?--refreshed themselves in his mind.
Once they did, he sat up suddenly; he was horrified to
discover himself lying on the bed.

The bed which was now, at least, no longer breathing.

He wanted to scramble off the offending piece of furniture,
but the shooting pains in his head nixed that idea.
Instead, he pressed his palms to his eyes hard, trying to
drive the headache away.  It reminded him for a moment of
the headaches his mother used to suffer after Sam
disappeared.  She'd get a pinched look on her face, her skin
would turn pasty, and the only relief she could find was
contained in a prescription bottle and a darkened room.

As an adult, Mulder had always supposed his mother's pain
was psychological, a result of her family's tragedy.  Now he
felt ashamed of himself for doubting her.  Clearly it was a
family trait, one which Clarke House had uncovered where
real life had failed.

He hoped after he left this place, it would disappear again.

He hoped he would actually leave this place.

Alive, preferably.

And sane.

His head shot up from his hands at the sound of a laugh.  He
winced at the shifting cannonball in his head, but continued
to listen.

It had come from upstairs, in the attic, and there was no
mistaking whose laugh it was.  He hadn't heard it often, but
it was memorable enough to him that he'd recognize it
anywhere.

It was Scully.

Scully was here, in the house.  And she was laughing at him.

"Bitch," he said clearly.  "I'll teach you a lesson, bitch."

It did not seem strange to Mulder that the bedroom door,
which had been locked when he'd passed out last night, was
now standing wide open.  Clarke House had welcomed him, and
since he'd passed the test of initiation--which had to be
what the horrors of the night before had been--it would now
begin to accommodate him.  Hence, he fainted on the floor,
but woke up in a comfortable bed.

His watch, which he'd apparently dropped when he fell, lay
glittering in the sunlight.  Mulder picked it up, noticed
the time said 12:00 midnight, and shook it.  There was no
result, and Scully laughed again from above, louder this
time, more mockingly.

"Scully!" he called loudly.  "Scully!"

Her voice came back to him like a breeze, like a whisper, as
soft and ephemeral as the whiteness that had flashed past
him on the stairs--how many days ago?

"Mulder," she called, teasing him, teasing like the bad girl
she was, like a girl who needed to be taught a lesson.

And who could teach Special Agent Doctor Dana Katherine
Scully better than her partner, who knew her every quirk and
could read her mind in the most crucial of moments.

"Nobody," he told himself confidently.  He started for the
door, and was surprised to find that he could, in fact, read
her mind this very moment.  Right now, she was sitting in a
chair upstairs in the attic, a chair that very much
resembled the desk chair in his basement office, and her
blouse was unbuttoned to the waist.  She wasn't wearing a
bra, and her nipples peaked, beckoning him onward.

She wanted him.

Oh yes.

Mulder licked his lips in anticipation, wondering what she
would taste like, believing he could already taste her on
his tongue, savoring the flavor that was Scully.

Behind his eyes, behind the pain, there was a part of him
that screamed (no, this is wrong, this is crazy, this is NOT
ME!) but he ignored it.  That voice wasn't saying anything
he wanted to hear.

He put one foot on the stairs leading toward the attic, his
eyes trained upwards, his ears waiting to catch any noise,
his nose already smelling the scent of her waiting.

"Coming, Scully," he said in a sing-song voice as he slowly
climbed the stairs.

*****


From the Clark County Gazette
June 2, 1961
From the Obituary Column

Alice Johnson, beloved wife of Roger, passed away suddenly
at her home early this morning.  Mrs. Johnson was born April
16, 1923 in Randall, Texas.  She and her husband moved to
Clarkeston in 1951. In addition to her grieving husband, she
also leaves a daughter, Elisa, a son Bill, a sister, Ruthann
Albrecht, of Enid, Oklahoma, and several nieces and nephews.
She was preceded in death by her son Abel, who passed away
in 1955. Funeral services will be a Clarkeston First
Presbyterian Church, Saturday morning at 10.




"I'm sorry, Agent Scully," Detective Bridges said, holding
the phone a little away from his ear while the woman on the
other end railed at him.  "I'll talk to the dispatcher on
duty, but things have been pretty busy around here today."

He waited while the FBI agent took some deep breaths,
clearly attempting to bring herself under control.  When she
finally spoke again, it was with a much more reasoned tone.

"Can you send someone out there now, Detective?" she asked.
"I understand you don't have a lot of people right now, but
I haven't heard from my partner in three days.  I'm certain
something must have happened to him."

"I'll send a car out there to check," he assured her,
relieved that she'd calmed down.  Although he'd never admit
it to another living soul, angry women scared the hell out
of him.  His wife was just like this one--calm and serene
one moment and furious the next if someone she cared about
was threatened.  He could almost picture Agent Scully. Tall,
brunette, curvy but definitely not overweight--he'd wager
she looked a lot like his wife, in fact.

"Thank you," she said.  "My flight should land within half
an hour.  I'll get up there to Clarkeston as quickly as I
can."

"You drive carefully, ma'am," he admonished.  "Weather's
been cold and rainy all weekend, and the streets are wet."

Only after receiving her assurance that she'd drive very
carefully, did he break the connection.  "Bill," he called
to the officer in the outer office.

Bill Johnson, who had just finished regaling his wife with
tales of his own bravery in vanquishing the man who'd robbed
the store that morning, turned to Detective Bridges with a
big smile.  Life was good.

Life became a little less pleasant in the next moment when
his boss told him to swing out by Clarke House and make sure
some damn fool FBI Agent hadn't gotten himself hurt there.

Bill Johnson had also grown up in Clarkeston, but unlike the
dispatcher, who was young and full of cocky self-assurance
at times, he believed the stories about Clarke House.  After
all, his older brother Abel had disappeared there when Bill
was only two.

Grumpily, not missing the look of amusement that passed
between the dispatcher and Detective Bridges, Bill stomped
out to his patrol car.  He slammed the door and screeched
out of the parking lot, leaving behind no doubt as to his
feelings about this assignment.

Clarke House was only a ten minute drive from the station,
but all the way there, Bill could feel the knot in the pit
of his stomach growing bigger.  For all his bravery in
chasing down a criminal, he knew, and readily admitted, that
he was afraid of Clarke House.

He'd be a fool not to be afraid, after what had happened
there over the years.  After what had happened to his own
big brother.  And although Bill had been too young when Abel
disappeared to really remember the laughing, tow-headed boy
in the family pictures, he never forgot how his mother had
reacted.  She'd fallen into a depression so deep that
nothing his father could do helped, no doctors seemed able
to help, no friends or relatives or well-meaning strangers
could help...and finally, when Bill was eight, she had taken
her own life, unable to deal even then with the loss of her
oldest son.

It was no wonder, then, that Bill both hated and feared
Clarke House.  So he'd do exactly as he'd been ordered, and
no more.  Bill would drive by Clarke House, but that was
all.  He wouldn't park in the driveway, he wouldn't step
foot in the yard, and above all he would never, *never* go
inside.

And when Bill Johnson, younger brother of Abel Johnson, who
had disappeared into Clarke House when he and his young
friend decided to go exploring over forty years ago, drove
by the house, Mulder's car, carefully hidden in the
dilapidated garage, was out of sight.

Bill saw nothing to indicate there might be a missing FBI
agent on the premises, but the eerie bluish light glowing
from the attic windows through the grey afternoon made him
stamp down harder on the gas pedal.

He almost thought he could feel Abel watching him as he
passed.



From 'Stories of Genuine Hauntings'
by Alexander Roberts
copyright 1986

Bill Johnson, who was only a toddler at the time his older
brother Abel disappeared, still lives and works in
Clarkeston.  He's a police officer, and while he often
patrols the town, he tells me he avoids Clarke House if at
all possible.

"I just won't drive by it unless it's absolutely necessary,"
he reveals.  "It's not that I've ever seen
anything there, and I don't really remember when my brother
disappeared, but..."  Here he pauses and gives a shudder.
"There's just--you can feel there's something there, y'know?
Something bad."

Something bad, indeed.  The mother of the other boy who
disappeared along with Abel Johnson told the newspapers she
was convinced the boys had been "swallowed up" by the house.
Swallowed up seems to be as accurate description as any,
since people seem to go inside and never return.  Subsequent
searches of the house, both inside and out, have turned up
no evidence, but the fact remains that a string of
disappearances, all associated with Clarke House, have
occurred.

Not one body has ever been found, not one runaway has ever
changed his or her mind and phoned home, not one
construction worker has returned to work the next day,
laughing at the joke he played on his co-workers.

In fact, there is nothing at all humorous about Clarke
House.  One might even say it is diseased.



Mulder watched the darkened stairwell turn brighter as he
approached the attic.  He remembered the four windows, and
imagined how they would let in the brilliant sunshine.  It
would glint off Scully's copper hair, tinge her eyelashes
with gold, and caress her nipples just before he--

The thought of what he might do to Scully's nipples broke
off at once when he emerged into the attic.

The door had been open again, of course--the attic was
waiting.  Scully was waiting.

But Scully was not, and even as he heard the whisper of her
voice at the back of his mind, Mulder stared at the walls,
floor, ceiling--all covered with dripping, blood-red paint
that spelled out his name, over and over and over again.

In the next second, his eyes wide and his gaze fixed, he
became aware of the smell, and realized it was not red
paint, but blood--naturally it was blood, what else could
you expect from a haunted house but to find your name
written in blood all over the walls, beginning to drip,
beginning to run, beginning to meld together until it
appeared the entire attic had been *painted* in blood.

With a feeling of betrayal--was it possible Clarke House was
not welcoming him, accommodating him, but was instead merely
playing with him?  And what would happen when the house
tired of its new toy?--Mulder turned and stumbled down the
stairs.  The pain in his ankle was still very bad, and the
lightning bolts in his head increased as he descended.

He intended to go on down to the first floor, maybe find
something to eat, since he couldn't remember having any food
at all since those granola bars, and that had to have been
days ago, his stomach was gnawing at him, protesting loudly,
telling him he was *hungry*, dammit, and *thirsty*.  As he
grew closer to the ground floor, he could feel the welcoming
atmosphere of the house, and he suddenly couldn't wait to
get downstairs and see if the fire was glowing, and if the
dining room table was set for dinner.

He was about to put his foot on the first step of the main
staircase when he caught a flash out of the corner of his
eye.  He whipped around, wincing at the renewed agony in his
head, in time to see one of the bedroom doors drifting
closed.

And he could smell her.  She was in that room, no doubt
reclining on the bed, waiting for him, her dripping panties
down around her ankles and her breasts jutting upwards,
straining for his touch.

Mulder grinned, but it was not a nice grin.  It was not a
grin any of his associates had ever seen on his face.  It
felt like the grin he'd caught in the mirror the night
before, and his amusement deepened at the realization.

"Honey, I'm home!" he called in his best Jack Nicholson
voice, and glanced down, halfway expecting to find a hatchet
in his hands.

Instead, he saw his weapon.

He didn't remember drawing it--didn't, in fact, remember
replacing it in the holster after he'd fallen down the
stairs, but there it was in his hand, gleaming silver in the
broad daylight that flooded the second floor through the
three open bedroom doors.

Hearing what he was certain was an answering moan from
Scully, Mulder stepped forward, nudging the fourth door
aside with his foot.  It swung open to reveal a room ravaged
by time, but quite empty of human occupation.

It was the Purple Room, and Mulder laughed aloud at the
sight, forgetting that it had been decorated in shades of
muted green when last he'd explored.

"Did Hill House actually *have* a Purple Room?" he asked
himself.  "Oh well.  Doesn't matter.  I can report with
absolute confidence," he told the dust particles swimming in
the sunbeams, "that Clarke House has a Purple Room.  Guess
Martha forgot to dust in here.  Maybe she doesn't like
purple."

Bowing politely to the dust-filled room, Mulder withdrew,
reholstering his firearm and drawing the door quietly shut.

It was then that he heard the banging on the door
downstairs.  And Scully calling his name.  No sultry,
come-hither lilt in her voice this time, either--she sounded
worried.  And possibly pissed.

He knew he should call out to her, reassure her that he was
all right, but when he opened his mouth to do so, the pain
in both his head and his ankle grew so severe that he nearly
blacked out.  Opting instead for working his way down the
stairs, Mulder intended to greet her in the kitchen.

He wondered if the petrified cornbread was back.

Right now, it even sounded appetizing.

His fingers unconsciously slipped into his pocket, feeling
for the baby's foot, but his pocket was blessedly empty now.
He wasn't sure exactly why that was a blessing, but Mulder
knew without doubt that it was.

"Scully," he tried to call, but found his voice wouldn't
work, and a second later, that whiteness passed him on the
stairs again, trailing his name behind as it disappeared.

It had Scully's voice, but the woman pounding on the
door--that was Scully.  That *had* to be Scully.

But what if it wasn't?  He was suddenly unsure.  What if it
was Scully who waited upstairs, soft and inviting, and the
thing pounding on the back door, trying desperately to get
in, was really the monster of Clarke House, come to eat him?

Mulder inched forward down the remaining stairs and peeked
around the corner just as the glass crashed inward,
shattering.  A hand reached inside, flipped the lock, and
opened the door, and Mulder recognized the hand, he knew it
was her, it was his partner, it was Scully, so why was he
filled with terror?




"Mulder?" Scully asked uncertainly, seeing him staring at
her with fear on his face.  "It's me.  Are you all right?"

He said nothing, and she reached out a hand to him.  Just as
she touched him, tried to grip his wrist, he twisted away
and darted around the corner.  Scully heard him running up
the stairs as she stood stock still, her brain still trying
to register the fact that Mulder had appeared...transparent.
And that her hand had gone right through his arm.

Shaking her head at last, realizing how absurd her thoughts
were, she started after him, but upon rounding the corner
into the living room, saw her partner lying at the foot of
the stairs.

But he was running *up* the stairs, I heard him, her
subconscious whispered as she knelt to examine Mulder.  UP
the stairs.

"Mulder, can you hear me?"

There was no response.  She felt for a pulse and was
relieved to find one although it was weak and thready, and
she worried at the pallor of his skin.  He lay on his side,
half on the floor and half still on the stairs, one foot
caught between two of the rails.  There was a large lump on
his head.  The ankle of the captured foot was swollen to at
least three times its normal size, and she thought it was
probably broken.

"Come on, Mulder, wake up," she urged, slapping at his cheek
lightly.  After one slap, her hand drew back.

There was something--*wrong* about his skin.  It felt
soft...too soft, as if he was...melting.  The word didn't
even begin to describe what she meant, but it was as close
as Scully could come on such short notice, and without a
thesaurus handy.

She reached for her cell phone, prepared to call an
ambulance, and it seemed as she watched, Mulder's body began
to take on that transparent appearance she thought she'd
seen when she thought she'd seen him in the kitchen.
Shaking her head, both at the confusing thought and at the
image, Scully looked again.

It was as if Mulder was disappearing into the house.

Suddenly, the ambulance was a secondary concern.  She had to
get Mulder out of here, now.

It took Scully almost half a minute to extricate his ankle
from the rails that held it prisoner, and during that time
she watched as her partner grew steadily more transparent.
Even his clothing seemed to be fading, as if he was turning
into a ghost right before her eyes.

When she finally had him freed, she slipped her hands under
his arms, ignoring--denying, even--the *squish* sound his
skin made when she touched it.  Praying under her breath,
unaware she was even doing so, Scully summoned all her
strength and began to drag Mulder toward the kitchen door.

He was much lighter than he'd ever been before, all the many
times she'd pulled him out of danger, and she managed to
make rapid progress.  Not rapid enough, though--the closer
to the door they came, the more transparent Mulder grew.  By
the time she'd pulled him all the way across the kitchen,
she could barely see his form at all.  Her hands were
clearly visible through what should have been his clothes
and skin and bones and muscle and blood...

And then, just before he faded away entirely, Scully reached
the door.  She had left it open, but now it was shut, and
for a wild, irrational moment, she was afraid it would be
locked, that the house had locked them inside, that it
wouldn't let Mulder go.  Then she opened it, breathing a
sigh as it swung easily and quietly on well-oiled hinges,
and pulled Mulder outside.

As soon as he was out of the house, his form returned.
Whatever trick of lighting or shadow had caused him to
appear transparent, the cold light of day revealed the man
she knew so well--battered and perhaps broken, but whole and
breathing.  She felt for a pulse again, and this time was
gratified to find it strong.  As she withdrew her hand, his
eyes opened.

"Hey," she smiled, relief flooding through her because now
she knew he would be all right.

"Scully?" he asked, his voice sounding confused, his
expression dazed.  "How did you get down here?"

Thinking he meant to ask how she had gotten "down" to Texas
from California, she answered, "I flew."

Mulder, who had meant nothing of the sort, merely nodded,
accepting her answer as no less strange than anything else
he'd seen in the past few days.

"Do you think you can lean on me and hobble to the car?" she
asked, offering a hand and helping him sit up.  "I'm pretty
sure your ankle's broken."

"It's not broken, just sprained," he contradicted.  "I've
been walking around on it for days."

She stared.  "Mulder, when did you fall on the stairs?"

He shrugged casually.  "A few days ago.  It was no big deal.
I just twisted my ankle and bumped my head a little."

With an uncomfortable glance back at the house--it seemed
almost to be watching them, she thought, then shook that
thought off as well--she helped Mulder to his feet.  All at
once, Scully wanted to put distance between them and Clarke
House, and she didn't care to examine her reasons for
feeling that way too closely.

*****



They drove less than half a block before Mulder made her
stop.  She pulled over to the shoulder, glancing at him
worriedly out of the corner of her eye, but he seemed calm
enough.  For just a moment though, his face--the expression
on it was one she'd never seen before.  Turning to him
once the car had stopped, examining every aspect of the face
with which she had grown so familiar, Scully dismissed the
notion as folly.  Clearly the atmosphere of Clarke House had
gotten to her for a minute, but it was nothing.

And all that idiocy about Mulder "fading away" - that had
obviously been her eyes playing tricks on her.  It was a
dark, gloomy day, and the light inside the house had been
minimal.  Anyone might have made the same mistake.  It was
nothing.

Nothing, she told herself firmly as Mulder gave her a weak
smile.

"I just wanted one last look," he told her.

He turned around in his seat and craned his neck to see the
house around the head rest.  Clarke House stared back at
him, furious at having lost him, and Mulder knew without a
single shred of doubt that, should he venture back inside,
he would be completely absorbed into the structure and
framework and essence of the house very quickly.  It had
wanted him, that he knew for fact; hadn't it written his
name in blood all over the attic?  Hadn't it welcomed him
with a glowing fire and petrified cornbread, possibly the
best it had to offer?  The house was, after all, very old.

And with that thought, with a flash of sudden insight, he
knew.  He knew why the house hated repairs, why it wouldn't
allow its walls to be painted, why it had grown angry when
he'd threatened to repair the broken window.

It was alive.  He'd seen it breathing.

And it wanted to die a natural death, not be artificially
kept alive long after its time, like an elderly grandmother on
life-support, knowing her life has passed, ready to move on,
furious at those who kept her bound to earth and her wasted,
useless body.  Clarke House wanted to live and die as
itself, not to be kept alive with paint jobs and repairs, not
to be murdered before its time by demolition.

It wanted to fall, bit by bit, one piece of plaster, one
roof shingle, one supporting beam at a time, until at last
it sank back into the ground and returned to dust.

Mulder opened his mouth to tell all these things to Scully,
and then stopped.  It would sound irrational, when explained
with mere words, and Scully would blame it on his head
injury.  He didn't want her disbelief to sour his feeling of
understanding, perhaps even of empathy--his feeling of
*oneness* with Clarke House.  For a time, however long he'd
been inside, he had been a part of it, and it had been a
part of him.

It had wanted to eat him, and he had wanted to be eaten.

"Can we go now?" Scully asked nervously, interrupting his
thoughts, and it occurred to Mulder that she was afraid of
Clarke House.  Oh, she'd die before she'd admit it,
especially to him, but he knew that slight tremor in her
voice.

Scully was afraid.

She hadn't been initiated.

She hadn't been welcomed.

She didn't know the house the way he did.

At last he nodded, giving her permission to drive onward.
After a few moments of silence, she asked him, "So what did
you see inside that musty old house, anyway, Mulder?  Did
you meet up with any ghosts or goblins?  I assume you didn't
find any trace of the missing writer."

He was astonished to realize he'd forgotten all about
Alexander Roberts, had forgotten that he'd gone there to
find the missing man.  He had forgotten everything once he'd
entered Clarke House.  But Scully would never understand
that.

He knew it was an attempt to escape her own fear that made
her speak so lightly of Clarke House, but it annoyed him,
nonetheless.  He tried to think of an explanation she could
accept.

"I'm not really sure I saw anything," he lied, for Mulder
was as certain of recent events as he was of his own name.
He knew, for instance, that time had been different inside
the house--it might speed up or it might slow down, but it
was not time as he knew time.  He also knew the fire had lit
itself, evidence had disappeared and reappeared, and that
someone inside liked to keep the dishes washed.

He knew that although outside it was cloudy and rain had
obviously been falling for most of the day, while he'd been
inside Clarke House, the sun had been shining.

And that something in there ate babies.

And that it had wanted to eat him.

And that he'd wanted to be eaten.

Swallowed up.

Absorbed into the structure and framework and essense of the
house, to die its natural death with it, however long that
might take.

And somewhere deep in his soul, Mulder knew--he *felt*--that
if he ever went inside again, he'd never come out.  He'd
never want to come out.

"I think I imagined a lot of stuff while I was unconscious,"
he told her, making it easy for her, giving her explanations
she could cope with in her narrow view of the world, a view
that did not allow for houses that lived and breathed and
ate babies.  "There were bits and pieces from all the ghost
stories I've ever read, and all the scary movies I've ever
seen.  So it must have been in my own mind.  Clarke House
wouldn't be that unoriginal."

"You talk about it like it's alive."

"Do I?" he asked absently.

A few minutes later, Scully turned into the parking lot of
the Clarke County General Hospital, drawing to a stop in
front of the Emergency doors.

"Scully-" Mulder protested.

"Don't even argue with me," she ordered.  "You have a head
injury, and in spite of your opinion, I still think that
ankle is broken.  You're going to get checked out.  It
isn't optional."

Mulder sighed, and sat back in the seat while Scully went
inside to fetch the orderlies.  He knew he had no choice but
to let her fuss over him.  She just had that tone in her
voice.

While he waited, he let his mind roam idly over the events
of the past days, and for few seconds, Mulder found he could
almost make himself believe it had been a hallucination
brought on by the blow to the head.  He wondered, if he
worked at it, how long it would take to make himself agree
with Scully that it had all been in his mind.

He wondered if he would sleep better at night, believing
none of it had been real.

But when he stuck his hand in the pocket of his jacket, the
pocket where the infant's foot had been while the house
initiated him, he felt wetness, and when he withdrew it, his
fingers were covered with blood.


END


*****

Author's notes--

The locations in this story are purely fictitious.  There is
no Clarke County, Texas, and if there is a town called
Clarkeston, it's too small to be listed in my atlas.  The
"references" to newspaper and book articles are likewise
fictitious, except for the paragraph from The Haunting of
Hill House, by Shirley Jackson.  If you have never read the
book, and haunted houses interest you, find it and read it.
If you've never seen the movie made back in the sixties by
director Robert Wise, try to rent it, or watch for it on
late-night television.  That piece of junk that came out a
few years ago by the same name can't hold a candle to the
original.

This entire story, including the name of the house, Clarke
House, are figments of my imagination.  The structure
itself is real, however.  On a trip home from Oklahoma one
day it caught my eye.  I thought it was such a fascinating
house that I took the next exit off the freeway, turned
around and went back for a closer look.  Only the fact that
there were late-model cars in the driveway, indicating
people actually lived in the house, stopped me from
exploring further.

On my next trip north I took along a camera and snapped some
pictures, and it is from those photos and the inspiration
they provided that this story grew.