Skin

by Ben Mezrich

  He reached the end of the hall and turned toward Perry Stanton’s room. The heavy wooden door was still shut, and there were sounds coming from the other side: the splintering of wood, the crash of breaking glass, the thud of heavy objects slamming to the floor. Bernstein swallowed, glancing back down the hall. He could hear voices from around the next bend, and he knew that a dozen nurses, techs, and doctors would be there within the next few seconds. But from the sound of things, Perry Stanton and his nurse might not survive that long.

  Bernstein was about to step forward when something hit the door hard, near the center, and the wood buckled outward. Bernstein jumped back, terror rushing through him. The door was made of heavy oak; what could have hit it hard enough to buckle the wood? He stared, waiting for the door to crash open.

  It never happened. Seconds passed in silence; then there was the sound of running feet, followed by a loud crash. Bernstein overcame his fear and dived forward, his hand reaching for the knob.

  The door came open, and Bernstein stopped. He had never seen such devastation before. The metal-framed hospital bed had been bent completely in half, and there was a huge tear down the center of the mattress. The television set lay on the floor, its screen cracked and smoking. Both picture windows had been shattered, and shards of glass littered the floor. My God, Bernstein thought, what could have done this? Some sort of explosion? And where was Perry Stanton? Then Bernstein saw the IV rack embedded halfway into the plaster wall to his left. His head swam, and he took a slight step forward.

  His foot landed in something wet. He looked down, and a gasp filled his throat. There was a kidney-shaped pool of blood beneath his shoes. It took him less than a second to follow the blood back to its source.

  Teri Nestor was lying halfway beneath the warped hospital bed, her legs twisted unnaturally behind her body. Both of her arms looked broken in numerous places, and her uniform was drenched in blood. Bernstein was about to check her vitals when his gaze slid up past her contorted shoulders.

  His knees weakened, and he slumped against the nearest wall, covering his mouth. Still, he could not tear his eyes away from the sight.

  It was as if two enormously strong hands had grabbed Teri Nestor’s skull on either side—and squeezed.

  2

  Fox Mulder pressed a soggy hotel towel against the side of his jaw as he lowered himself onto the edge of the imitation Colonial-style bed. Most of the ice had already melted through the cheap cloth, and he could feel the cold teardrops crawling down the skin of his forearm. He lay back against the mattress, listening to the bray of the television in the background, letting the monotonous voices of the CNN anchormen mingle with the dull throbbing in his head. A wonderful end to a wonderful afternoon. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth and grimaced at the salty taste. Dried blood, mixed with the distinct, gritty flavor of processed cow manure. Well, he thought to himself, it could be worse. The bastard could have had good aim.

  Mulder closed his eyes, massaging the ice-filled towel harder against the knot of muscle just below his lower gum line. He could still see the shovel flashing toward him, and the crazy glint in the Colombian’s eyes. A few inches higher, and the shovel would certainly have cracked his skull open. Mulder only wished his partner, Dana Scully, hadn’t cuffed the man so quickly after he had wrested the weapon away. A good, long scuffle would have given Mulder a chance to pay the Colombian back for the blow. And for the wild-goose chase that had led them to the deserted barn in the first place.

  Still, Mulder had to admit, it wasn’t entirely the Colombian’s fault that he and Scully had spent the last two weeks wandering through upstate New York on what should have been a DEA assignment. Carlos Sanchez couldn’t have known about the reports of mutilated livestock that had trickled in to the FBI over the past few months, or about the resulting case file that had been dropped on Mulder’s cluttered desk in the basement of the Hoover Building—partly because the case’s bizarre focus seemed to fit with Mulder’s obsession with the unexplained, and partly because no other agent wanted to investigate a bunch of dead cows.

  Sanchez couldn’t have known about these things—because in truth, the case had had nothing to do with mutilated livestock. Mulder should have known from the beginning that the case had not been a bona fide X-File. Thirty-two cows with scalpel wounds across their abdomens was a cliché, not a paranormal mystery.

  Mulder had not seen the clues until too late. When Scully had discovered evidence of old stitches beneath the wounds of the most recently mutilated cows, he should have begun to suspect something. Then, when he and Scully had determined that all the mutilated cattle had originated in the same breeding ranch just outside of Bogota, he should have made the final connection.

  But it wasn’t until he had stumbled into the abandoned barn on the back lot of Sanchez’s farm that he had realized the truth. He had stared at the eviscerated carcasses piled high in the center of the barn, and the bloody, sealed bags of white powder drying in the hay—and the lightbulb had finally gone on. Bandez had been using the cows to transport cocaine into the U.S. The abandoned barn was a drug depository, with distribution routes leading straight down I-95 into Manhattan.

  Before Mulder had finished digesting his discovery, Sanchez had come at him with the shovel. A minute later he had been lying on top of the Colombian in a pile of dried manure, while Scully made the arrest. He had nursed his aching jaw in silence during the winding ride back to the hotel, avoiding Scully’s eyes. He hadn’t needed to see her expression—he knew what she was thinking. Yet another debunked mystery, a mirage with reason at its core. Of course, it was her job to think that way. That’s why she was there in the first place—to expose the scientific, rational truth behind Mulder’s supposed enigmas. Sometimes even her silence was as subtle as a shovel to his jaw.

  He heard the shower go on in the adjacent room and groaned, lifting himself back to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. His athletic, six-foot frame ached from a combination of exhaustion and frustration. He ran his free hand through his dark hair and tried to chase the fog out of his tired hazel eyes. It was almost time to leave. He and Scully had a long drive back to the airfield in Westchester, and if they were going to catch the last commercial flight back to Washington, they would have to break more than a few speed limits along the way. Of course, that was one of the perks of having federal plates and FBI badges. Somebody else handled the speeding tickets.

  Mulder removed the soggy towel from his jaw and let it drop to the ugly beige carpet. The cramped hotel room stared at him, four white plaster walls glowing in the light of the twenty-inch television set. Aside from the television, the room contained a redwood dresser that was supposed to look like an antique, a desk with a fax machine and a telephone, and a closet Mulder had filled with blue and gray suits. Mulder’s travel bag was under the desk, and his gun and badge were next to the phone, the straps of his shoulder holster trailing down behind the fax machine, swinging in the refrigerated breeze from the baseboard vents. Home on the road, another variation on a theme. Mulder and Scully had been there a thousand times before.

  Mulder was about to get up and start packing his suits when something on the television screen caught his eye. He paused, momentarily forgetting the throb in his jaw. A reporter with frosted blond hair was speaking into a microphone as she wandered through what looked to be a hospital hallway. Behind her was a spiderweb of yellow police tape. Even through the tape, Mulder could make out the disaster scene in the room on the other side of the hallway; the torn, blood-spattered mattress, the IV rack sticking straight out of the wall, the destroyed, overturned television set, the shattered picture windows—and most disturbing of all, the strange indentation in the center of the half-open wooden door. It was the indentation that had caught his attention in the first place—because it seemed somehow familiar. Something he could almost place.

  “The sheer violence of yesterday’s tragedy has shocked local authorities,” the CNN reporter droned
into her microphone, “and a boroughwide search for Professor Stanton is presently in full swing. Still, this is little comfort to the family of nurse Teri Nestor…”

  The picture on the screen changed as the reporter continued on, and Mulder found himself staring into a pair of intelligent blue eyes. The man in the enlarged photograph looked to be about fifty years old, with thinning brown hair and slightly oversized ears. Even from the cropped photo, Mulder could tell he was a small man; the angled tips of his shoulders barely made an impression through his professorial tweed jacket, and his neck was thin and roosterlike, devoid of muscle.

  As the CNN reporter dribbled out sketchy details about the diminutive professor and the horrible murder of the young nurse, Mulder’s thoughts swept back to the moment in the barn when the Colombian swung at him with the shovel. He remembered the violent glint in the Colombian’s eyes. Then he looked again at Professor Stanton’s photo. He was still staring at Stanton’s kind blue eyes when the picture on the television changed again.

  This time he was looking at a close-up of the destroyed hospital room. The mattress, the IV rack, the broken television set, the shattered windows—and the marred, half-open door. He took a step closer to the screen, hunching forward, his eyes focused on the strangely shaped indentation in the wood. Suddenly, he realized what he was looking at.

  An imprint of a human hand, set a few inches deep into the heavy oak. Palm wide-open, fingers splayed outward. Mulder’s eyes widened, as a question struck him. What kind of force would it take to make an imprint of a hand in a heavy oak door?

  He turned and looked at the open door to his hotel-room closet. As the CNN report ended and the frosted blond reporter was replaced by an overweight sportscaster, Mulder crossed to the closet and placed his hand flat against the cold wood. He gently slapped the door, keeping his fingers stiff. Then he slapped it again, this time hard enough to send shivers back into his elbow. He lifted his hand and looked at the wood. Nothing, of course.

  His mind felt suddenly alive; this was the feeling he hadn’t gotten with the mutilated cows, the driving sensation that had earned him the nickname “Spooky” in the basement hallways of the Hoover Building. To anyone else, the scene held nothing more than a pair of kind blue eyes, a demolished hospital room, and a mark on a wooden door. But to Fox Mulder, it was like cocaine in his veins. These unexplainable details carried the scent of an X-File.

  He quickly moved to the small desk in the other corner of the hotel room and reached for the phone. He dialed the number for the New York FBI office from memory, and spoke quietly to the operator, detailing the request he wanted forwarded to the NYPD homicide division in charge of the Stanton investigation. Then he replaced the receiver and made sure his fax machine was in the autoreceiving mode.

  He crossed back to the closet door, pausing along the way to retrieve the soggy towel he had dropped on the floor by the bed. He wrapped the towel around his open right hand and stood facing the unmarked wood.

  He shut his eyes, drew back—and slammed his right hand into the center of the door. There was a sharp crack, and Mulder grimaced, the muscles in his forearm contracting. He pulled back and saw fractures in the surface of the wood, expanding outward from the point of impact. The cracks were noticeable—but nothing like the deep indentations he had seen in the CNN report. And even with the towel, his entire arm ached from the collision with the wood. He tried to imagine each finger in his right hand hitting with enough force to leave a dent.

  A sudden knock interrupted his thoughts, followed by a muffled female voice. “Mulder? Is everything okay?”

  Mulder quickly crossed to the hotel-room door and undid the latch. Dana Scully was standing in the narrow hallway, her rust-colored hair dripping wet. She was wearing a dark suit jacket open over an untucked white button-down shirt, and it was obvious she had dressed quickly. Her usually precise and formal appearance seemed momentarily frayed—from the drops of water that glistened against the porcelain skin above her collarbone, to the concerned look in her blue eyes. Although her hands were empty, Mulder could see the bulge of her holstered Smith & Wesson service revolver under the left side of her jacket; no doubt, had he delayed answering the door, she would have entered the room barrel first. “What’s going on in here? It sounded like someone was brawling with the furniture.”

  Mulder smiled. “Not the furniture. Just the closet door. Sorry if I interrupted your shower.”

  Scully stepped past him into the room. She smelled vaguely of honeysuckle, and there were still flecks of shampoo caught in the lilting arcs of her hair. She stopped in front of the closet door and took in the cracked dent in the center of the wood. Then she glanced at the wet towel still wrapped around Mulder’s right hand. “That’s an interesting way to ice a swollen jaw.”

  Mulder had almost forgotten about his injury. The swelling and the pain no longer seemed to matter. “Scully, how often do patients try to kill their doctors?”

  Scully raised her eyebrows. Her body had relaxed, and she was working on the top two buttons of her white shirt. She stopped in front of the television set, the glow reflecting off her high cheekbones. “Mulder, we need to get packed and on the road if we’re going to make it back to Washington tonight.”

  Mulder shrugged, then returned to his line of thought. “A patient wakes up from an operation, vulnerable, drugged up, exhausted—and the first thing he does is erupt in a violent rage. How often, Scully? Rarely? Almost never?”

  Scully was looking at him intently. She recognized the familiar gleam in his eyes. But Mulder could tell—she didn’t know where it was coming from, or why it had to happen here, in the middle of nowhere. It was late, she was tired, and perhaps a little frustrated from the long days they had spent on a case that had turned out as mundanely as she had expected. Certainly, she was ready to get back home to her apartment and what little life she had beyond the enveloping reach of her job. “What are you getting at, Mulder?”

  Before Mulder could answer, a high-pitched warble reverberated through the room. The fax machine coughed to life, and Scully turned, startled. She watched as the pages began to slip quietly into the receiving bin. “Did someone kill a doctor?”

  Mulder followed a few paces behind as she crossed to the fax machine. “Not exactly. A nurse named Teri Nestor. But he did more than kill her. He destroyed his recovery room. He shoved an IV rack through the wall. Then he put his right hand two inches into a heavy oak door.”

  Scully lifted up the first three pages and began to leaf through them. Mulder could see her analytical mind going to work as she read the preliminary forensic evaluation he had requested from the homicide investigation. As for himself, he didn’t need the details to get himself inspired; his obsessive curiosity was already aroused. “They had the man’s picture on CNN, Scully. A small, gentle-looking professor. The kind of guy who gave me better grades than I deserved in college because he didn’t want to hurt my feelings.”

  Scully continued to read the pages coming out of the fax machine as she spoke from a corner of her pursed lips. It was obvious she had little interest in a case that had seemingly materialized out of nowhere. “People kill for many reasons. Sometimes they kill without reasons. And we both know that size doesn’t matter. The human body can perform miracles of violence—when properly provoked. Drugs, fear, pain, adrenaline; all of these things can incite impressive acts of violence. And all of these things are closely associated with hospital stays. This looks like a local homicide investigation, not a federal case—”

  Scully paused midsentence. Mulder noticed the sudden creases that appeared on her forehead. He looked at the page at the top of the pile in her hands and saw what appeared to be some sort of medical chart. The page was split into a dozen categories, with lists of numbers and long paragraphs of medical terminology. Mulder had only a rudimentary knowledge of medicine, and the numbers and paragraphs made little sense to him; but Dana Scully was an experienced physician. Before joining the FBI she had completed a
residency in forensic pathology and had an expert’s grounding in biology, physics, and chemistry. It was the initial reason she had been chosen to act as a foil to Mulder’s fantastic quests. It was also part of the reason she had grown into much more than a foil; her rational, systematic approach often functioned as the perfect complement to Mulder’s brash and impulsive investigative style.

  “What is it?” Mulder asked, trying to read her unreadable eyes. He had requested the entire NYPD case file, and he had no way of knowing what Scully had stumbled upon.

  “It’s the preliminary autopsy report on the murdered nurse,” Scully responded. “There’s obviously been some sort of error.”

  Mulder waited in silence, as Scully continued reading the report. Finally, she looked up from the pages in her hands. “According to this autopsy report, Teri Nestor’s skull was crushed with the approximate force of two vehicles moving at more than thirty miles per hour.”

  Mulder felt a chill move down his back. His instincts had been correct. Despite Scully’s reservations, he had a feeling they weren’t heading back to Washington just yet.

  3

  Two hours later, Dana Scully watched her own reflection shimmer against the steel double doors of a carpeted elevator, as glowing circular numbers ticked upward above her head. Mulder was standing a few feet to her left, testing his jaw with his right hand as his left foot tapped an incomprehensible rhythm against the elevator floor. Behind him, a medical student in blue-green surgical scrubs leaned heavily against the back wall, his eyes half-closed from exhaustion. Scully knew exactly how he felt. The whole world dancing on your shoulders, and all you want to do is sleep.

  She threw a glance at Mulder, noticing the energy behind his features, the bright glint in his hazel eyes. Scully was amazed at her partner’s stamina; it was already close to ten, and they had both been on their feet since 6:00 A.M. Scully felt ready to collapse—and she wasn’t the one who had been hit in the face with a shovel less than eight hours ago.