by: Margaret

It was one of those strange times when you hovered between unconsciousness and
wakefulness. Bo Duke knew that he was dreaming. Surrounding him were the physical
objects of home… a picnic table draped over with white linen, bowls of red beans and
rice, potato salad, fried chicken, and of course the General parked near the front door of
the farm. He knew somehow, however, that none of what he saw was real. He knew he
was dreaming. He could have easily woken up. In fact, the subconscious clock in his
head was telling him that morning was nearby and that the alarm would soon go off. It
would be kinder to just get up and turn it off before it rattled his nerves once again. But
he decided to stay in slumber’s grip. He was enjoying where he was.
In his mind’s eye, the whole family was together, relishing each other’s company.
They were all outside participating in their ritualistic after_church brunch. The day was
sunny and mild, with just a hint of a breeze. The grass and bushes had an unusually green
hue to their foliage, a beautiful one. The roses were in full bloom, and they looked like a
handful of red and yellow buttons thrown across the siding of the house. It was nothing
less than Eden with sparrows and the chickens prancing around the picnic table, but
unlike real life with no pestering insects to aggravate the serenity of the feast. Daisy was
in her Sunday dress fussing over the table. She picked at the daintily painted plates and
bowls, trying to get everything to look just perfect. She wasn’t having much success,
though, thanks to a particularly annoying family. Uncle Jesse and Luke leaned over her
shoulder and cracked jokes with each other as they stole bits of food here and there when
she wasn’t looking. Their quick hand motions, however, could not escape the corner of
her eye. She turned around and saw their cheeks full like squirrels. She playfully scolded
the men for acting like children. But Luke and Jesse just chuckled at her remarks. Then
Daisy giggled, and soon everybody was doubled over with stomachs that ached from the
laughter.
Bo watched silently from the far end of the table. He smiled lovingly at his
family’s frisky mood. Nothing in the world made him happier than to watch his family at
play. The unusually intense sense of humor was also irresistibly alluring, and it took
about half a second for the young man, ususally the biggest tease in the whole family, to
decide to join in the fun. He pushed his wooden stool back and took a few steps toward
the trio. Just then, an unnatural movement from the corner of the house caught his eyes.
He stopped. What he saw lasted for only a second, but he could have sworn that a flash of
long, blonde curly hair jogged past him. Curiosity took hold of him, and he decided to let
the play wait for a little while. He left his family and made his way past the cars and the
front porch to the edge of the house. The sight of a small girl in a baggy shirt and dirty
jeans was surprising, but it was her glumness that shocked him most of all. She was a
cute little thing, with a small nose, pouty cheeks, and curls on her head just like
Goldilocks in the fairy tale with the three bears. What puzzled him, however, were the
tears that ran down her cheeks and chin. They flowed like water droplets that fell from
the nozzle of a broken faucet. A deep, almost parental concern overwhelmed him,
making him blink slightly in utter surprise; that was not his normal style. Uncle Jesse had
taught them all concern for others, though, and so he approached her,anxious to know
what was wrong.

“Little girl!” he called. “Honey, are you okay?”
The girl turned to look at him, as if surprised that he actually noticed her. Her
melancholy demeanor quickly melted away, and like a scared deer, she bolted for the
trees. For a few seconds, Bo stood his ground, stunned at the girl’s unreasonable response
to his voice. Something was really wrong.
“Wait!” he yelled. Thinking that she was lost and disoriented, he took off after
her. It didn’t require a lot of effort to close the gap between him and the child. One stride
of his equaled three of hers, and the juvenile quickly fell into arm’s reach. If he could
catch her, he could help her. He could make her see that he meant no harm. Bo lunged
for her shirt and missed. His fingers grazed the cotton cloth, but he couldn’t manage a
hold. The girl reached the tree line and threw herself into the camouflage of the bush. Bo
doggedly burst into the shrubbery behind her and…
The sun disappeared. Bo stopped dead in his tracks, confused. It was night_time
now. The dim light of the full moon was all he had to see by. The little girl had vanished.
He looked behind him and found that the farm was gone too. He turned around full circle
and realized that he was middle of the Hazzard woods. What in the world just happened?!
Where was the house!!
“Uncle Jesse!” his voice quivered with uncertainty and a touch of fear. He hated
being left alone, but expecially when he wasn’t sure of his surroundings.
“Luke! Where are you!”
“That’s him! Fire at will!” The malevolent, familiar voice sent a stabbing chill
through his chest. Bo flipped around, and right behind him stood Alex Krycek, General
Lewinski, the Shapeshifter, and fifty faceless men all dressed in fatigues. Bo gasped. It
took less than a second for his mind to grab hold of his old enemies’ faces. The instinct of
hunted prey washed over him and screamed into his head: RUN! RUN INTO THE
TREES! HIDE! He turned to the safety of the tree line, but at that moment, his legs froze.
The two limbs planted themselves on the ground and resisted all attempts at movement.
It was as if they had wills of their own.
“You can’t escape us!” a low voice yelled from the converging mob. “We have
you, and there is nowhere to run!”
Bo looked up, and from the crowd of soldiers emerged a monster. An old man
who looked like an emaciated skeleton in a tattered black suit came rushing to the
forefront. He had the strength and size of a bull elephant. Billowing white smoke poured
out his nose and mouth. His eyes glowed bloody, neon red. His yell turned into the
deafening scream of a banshee, and like a wolf, he lunged after Bo’s neck.

**********************************************************************
The young farmer bolted upright in his sleeping bag and almost screamed. At the
last second, he saw Fox Mulder and Luke asleep in their beds and realized that he was in
his bedroom…dreaming. He bit his tongue, and instead of hysterical shouts, deep,
uncontrollable breathing took it’s place instead.
*Calmdown, Bo Duke. You’re just dreaming.* Except that it was more of a
nightmare. His pulse slowed down as he watched his cousin and their houseguest slumber
away peacefully in their cotton sheets. He wiped a thin line of cold sweat away from his
forehead. Geez! What a way to wake up! He suddenly chuckled at himself. Uncle Jesse
had warned him about watching horror movies before going tobed, and boy, this was the
last time he did!
He checked the two older men again. His violent jump hadn’t disturbed them in
anyway. They slept right through it, Thank God. It would have been embarrassing if he
ended up having to explain himself. The jokes at the breakfast table would never end! He
scratched his head and yawned as he groggily pushed himself to his feet and shuffled
over to his bed. He leaned over Fox Mulder’s sleeping form and reached for an alarm
clock that stood on a nearby night table. He turned the face towards him and red the time:
5:15 am. In just alittle over an hour, the machine would buzz.He stared at the glowing
green digits and wondered if he should just get up and get breakfast going. He quickly
decided against it. It did not take long for him to forget about the nightmare, and the
heart_pounding effects of the bad dream left as quicklyas they came. Weariness filled the
void that the dissipating fear left behind, and Bo caved into the drowsiness without much
of a fight. The young blond crawled back into his sleeping bag and immediately dozed
off the second his head hit the pillow. The last conscious thought he had was one of self
reassurance.
*It’s just a dream,* he told himself. *Just a dream.*
He had no clue just how wrong he was.

********************************************************************

The old man reached into his pocket and felt the carton of cigarettes lying on the
bottom near the lining of his suit. He quickly took it out, and with deft fingers, removed
the thin and slippery cellophane wrapping around it. With his thumb, he popped the top
of the box open breaking the fragile perforated seal of the cardboard. He then grabbed a
thin white stick of nicotine and paused rolling the addictive tube between his fingers. He
shook his head. This truly was a filthy habit. The Marlboro cigarettes were silent, slow
killers that stole your breath by eating away at your lungs while giving your body the
delightful delusion of anarcotic high. Its destruction was slow, taking years to imbed
irreversible damage and disease deep in unsuspecting body cavities. How closely the
cigarettes resembled the kind of work he did. It was a fitting calling card and the only
name that his coworkers and enemies knew him by ~ the master assassin, The Smoking
Man.
He shoved the paper tube into his mouth and fumbled through his pant pocket
looking for a light. He set the tip aflame and took a deep breath, filling his lungs with
smoke and finding relief from the tension that lay heavy in the air of the room. The point
of contention sat quietly in front of him, shirking at the stinky cloud of smoke that passed
her face.The girl was only eight years old, though she looked much older. It wasn’t
normal for little girls to be so sullen, and the Smoking Man knew it. Most children her
age would have probably cried by now, moaning, maybe even begging to be back in the
consoling arms of their mom and dad. But since this little girl had spent nearly half her
life on the compound away from people, she knew only the members of the Secret
Society and nothing about family, much less the comforting arms of a mother or father.
The Smoking Man and the people of the Secret Society arranged this
environmental seclusion on purpose. This was a special little girl they had, a dangerous
little girl. And the only way to keep her in line, to keep her under control, was through
fear. It was ironic. Almost comically so. THEY scared her because they were afraid of
her, and she in turn, with her… gifts… scared whoever the Society told her to terrify
because she was afraid of the Smoking Man and the things he would do. Like a dog
chasing his tail, the fear ran around in circles, and somehow, because of it, things got
done. Except for now.
“Patricia,” the Smoking Man said with an almost childish whine.”You’re not
concentrating.”
The girl cringed next to the arm of the chair as if expecting a blow from the back
of her captor’s hand.
“Patricia!” the old man’s stern voice demanded an answer.
The little blonde picked at her shirt with her trembling, pudgy fingers. “I’m tired,”
she finally said in a low voice. “I can’t do it today.”
The Smoking Man sighed in aggravation. He smashed his cigarette against the
table, putting it out and walked briskly to the end of the room. The second prisoner
gasped at the old man’s approach. Though his full body flinch broadcasted in no
uncertain terms the terror he was in, Patricia could feel the man’s fear as clearly as if it
were her own. It was part of her “gift”. She could read people’s feelings, and the emotion
this prisoner gave off struck her more poignantly than the view of the pale hue on his
face. He was a young man, sixteen to be exact. He was still dressed in his pizza delivery
outfit of light blue and bright red. She could sense that he wanted to bolt from his chair
out the door and to take his chances in a mad dash to the outside. In the end, however, he
couldn’t move. The surrounding guards made sure that he stayed immobile. With
machine guns in one hand and hot pepperoni pizza in the other, four army men kept the
young boy firmly in his seat by pressing the nozzle of their weapons against the nape of
his neck while they gorged themselves on stringy mozzarella cheese and tangy tomato
paste.
The Smoking Man brushed passed them all. He towered over the youth, and the
boy winced, expecting the mauling to begin. “What do you want from me?!” the
freckled_faced teen yelled. “I don’t even know you people!”
“Quiet,” the Smoking Man ordered. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a
deep red swiss army knife. He flipped the blade out with his thumb and slammed the tool
onto the table. The boy’s eyes grew wide. He jolted and stood halfway up, but one of the
soldiers pressed the nozzle of his M16 hard against his neck, freezing him in his
uncomfortable position.
“Sit down,” the Smoking Man ordered, his voice calm and almost distant. The boy
stared at the old man as sweat ran down his nose and trembling lips.
“Sit down,” the assassin repeated softly. “I’m not saying this again.”
The boy apprehensively obeyed and quietly sat in his chair. His whole body shook
as he made his way down. The Smoking Man turned back to Patricia.
“I have no patience for your mood swings today, little girl. Do your thing. Do it on
the pizza man, and do it now. Or I promise you, I will punish you, very, very, very hard.”
The pizza boy stared at the trembling girl on the other end of the table. She was as
pale and as terrified as he was. From the old man’s conversations, he knew that whatever
beating would shower down on him would have to come at the girl’s command. He
reached out to her, mouthing silent and desperate pleas of mercy. He fidgeted in his chair
wondering if he should get down on hisknees and beg.
The little girl felt a large lump form in the back of her throat,and her stomach
churned. She didn’t want to do it. What she was doing was bad; she knew that. She was
hurting people, really hurting people, but still the guards, the Smoking Man, and THEY
would punish her if she disobeyed… And she was so afraid of punishment.
She heard the boy whisper a plea, and she tried her best to hold her tears back.
“I’m… I’m so sorry,” she whispered in sorrowful defeat.The boy’s arm suddenly
went numb. He jumped in his chair and grabbed his paralyzed wrist with his good hand.
He couldn’t feel it. His skin was blue, and the muscles felt cold and clammy, stiff and
rigid. It was as if the whole limb had died on his shoulder.
The boy panicked. He turned and knocked the chair backward. The soldiers
immediately swarmed him, bringing their weapons up against his face, but the kid
ignored them in favor of yelling. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?!” He stared at
Patty, who reluctantly turned her face away from him. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
His arm muscles suddenly tensed, and the limb shot outward towards the table.
The boy fell to his knees at the force of the thrust. His fingers extended, then curled into
claws. Acting with a mind of its own, the hand slammed down upon the knife gripping
the handle and pointing the blade straight into the boy’s face.The freckled_faced teen
screamed. He fell to the floor. He gripped his wrist and tried to regain control of the limb.
He couldn’t. He reached for the blade in an attempt to pry the weapon free from his
fingers, but the hand used a strength that was not his own. The knife plunged towards his
face. The boy screamed, bracing himself for a stabbing. Then, his fingers suddenly
opened as a tingling spasm extended the digits outwards like the fins of a fish. The knife
tumbled out of his grip and bounced along the floor shooting a metallic clang into the
silent air.
The Smoking Man looked back up towards the girl. Patty shook violently. Her
neck and chest were soaked through with tears. “Pl… pl… please Mr. Smoking Man. I…
I… I can’t… I’m tired. I can’t do it today. Please, please can I go back to my room?”
The Smoking Man scratched his chin and took a second to think.The trauma had
been a little too much for the girl to take in one dose. He reached into his pocket and
pulled out the cigarette box. He took his time lighting the tobacco filled tube and then
took a few puffs before giving his army men orders. He nodded towards the boy curled in
a fetal position on the floor. The teen was hugging his arm, shaking. “Take him away,” he
said nonchalantly.
“And do what with him sir?” one of the armed men replied as hetook another bite
of pizza.
The old man brushed gray_streaked bangs out of his eyes and tooka second to
think. “Treat him like an alien abductee,” he said with distant, calculated logic. “Erase his
memory. Then, put him back on the street. We really don’t need a kidnapping
investigation by the local authorities, now do we?”
The soldiers wordlessly obeyed the order. The four men reached down and
grabbed the boy by the arm. It took a lot of effort to bring the shaken youth to his feet.
He was frozen. His knees had lost all their strength, and he was so exhausted he couldn’t
walk straight. In the end the soldiers carried him out the door, and Patty watched from
her chair as the boy’s immobilized form was dragged out of the room. She stared back at
the floor and gripped the edge of her chair. It was over, for now. Her breathing slowed
and her muscles went lax as she realized that the danger had finally passed. She still
hadn’t hurt anyone badly, and she was thankful for that. But she also knew deep in her gut
that the day was near when she would be told to hurt people in irreversible ways.
The Smoking Man slowly walked back towards her. She didn’t lift her gaze to
watch his approach. She smelled his nicotine breath hovering over her head, and a chill
went down her back. Then, his hand fell upon her scalp. To her surprise, the touch was
not a violent one. It was actually gentle.
“It’s always hard the first time,” the almost grandfatherly voice said softly in her
ear.
“There’s nothing wrong with feeling that way. You just need practice. The more times
you do it; the easier it will get.” He tenderly twirled her blonde, curly hair in his fingers.
“Eventually, you won’t feel anything at all for any of your victims. And when that day
comes, you’ll see that your powers will be at their strongest!”
“I don’t want these powers,” Patricia quietly moaned. She wiped her tear stained
cheeks and neck with her sleeve and began trembling again as wrinkled, callused
fingertips ran up and down her shoulder. “I just want to be normal.”
“You’re not normal,” the Smoking Man corrected, “and I can’t make you normal.
You’re simply going to have to live with your abnormality, and whether you like it or not,
you’re going to have to learn to deal with your… gift.” He reached into his coat pocket. He
carefully pulled out two photographs from his vest and laid them both on the bare desk.
Patricia kept her gaze towards the ground. She knew what was coming next, and
she didn’t want to see the pictures of the people she would hurt.
“Today was a practice day, Patricia. But tomorrow, we will use your powers for
real.” The Smoking Man took a step back. “Look at the pictures.”
The girl raised her chin and stared at the photographs of two men. One was a
handsome brown_haired man dressed in a dark suit.The other was a much younger blond
who donned a yellow cowboy shirt and jeans, as well as a contagious happy_go_lucky
grin that made her fight to hide a smile despite the circumstances. Someone had penciled
in words at the edge of the photograph, but Patricia was not schooled well, and she
couldn’t read. She guessed, however, that the men’s names were scrawled on the bottom,
and she stared at the jumbled letters that made no sense to her illiterate eyes: BO DUKE
and FEDERAL AGENT FOX MULDER.