From: "David Hearne" <ottercrk@sover.net>

TITLE: HARTWELL (1 of 1)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

SUMMARY: A third perspective on the events of "Bad Blood."

SPOILERS: "Bad Blood," of course.

RATING: PG

ARCHIVING: Take it, take it!

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have the feeling that somebody has used this idea already.
If someone has, I mean no infringement. I hope our stories are sufficiently
different.

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My momma used to tell me, "You better prepare yourself for trouble 'cause
life ain't gonna give you nothing else."

Now, that's a bleak way of looking at things, but you have to understand.
Momma was from "the old country." She was nine years old before she left
Europe with her parents. Over there, they tend to be on the gloomy side. She
may have picked up the Texas way of speaking, but she never lost the
European way of thinking.

I guess that I take more after my daddy. He was born here in the U.S.A. and
to him, life was something to take easy. It's a matter of geography, I
suppose. Over there in Europe, there's more than enough grimness to go
around. I ain't saying that things are one-hundred-percent peachy keen here
in America, but the general feeling is that if you just relax and mind your
own business, then you'll be okay. That's pretty much how I look at things
myself.

Still, my momma was right about a lot of things. It's a good idea to prepare
because you never know what's coming down the trail.

Or who's coming.

When you got the kind of community that I have to look out for, it's best to
keep your eye out for certain people. I've done my share of research and
I've got a list of individuals who may be trouble. There's a rich guy out in
Massachusetts who thinks he's a modern-day...a modern-day...who's that guy
from "Dracula?" You know, the German fella who supposed to be an expert on
vampires? I forget. Anyway, this man from Massachusetts goes around looking
for vampires to kill and he's got the time and money to waste on his hobby.
And there's a group of college kids from Arizona who investigate what they
call "supernatural nocturnal humanoids." Like most of the people on my list,
they're pretty harmless. However, you don't how they would react exactly if
they actually found a "supernatural nocturnal humanoid."

However, there's one fella on my list that's definitely trouble.

I got the call when I was at home watching football and drinking beer which
I admit is close to my idea of heaven. The phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Sheriff Hartwell?"

"Yep."

"Sheriff, I'm Agent Fox Mulder from the FBI."

Well, nuts. "How may I help you there, Agent Mulder?"

"I understand that you got a body down there in Chaney. A body that died in
an unusual way."

We sure enough did. I had been trying to make sure Ronnie's handiwork
slipped under all the radars. Unfortunately, there ain't a whole lot of
weirdness in this country that don't escape Fox Mulder's attention.

You see, weirdness ain't just Mulder's obsession. It's his job. It's what he
gets paid for. My sources had told me that he's very smart and well-versed
on mutants, ghosts, werewolves, you name it.

Of course, I couldn't tell him to go away. That would make things even more
suspicious. So I agreed to wait for him and his partner to come on down.

Afterwards, I tracked down