Author's Notes: I just want to say Thanks to all the readers for taking their time and putting
up with my multiple cliffhangers to read my meager creative works. 

Possession 


   "I don't understand it," Mulder said in frustration. "This is a text-book example and we have
no evidence besides my bruised knee." 
    I sat on the couch and watched as my partner walked up and down the length of his room in
frustration. No form of activity had been detected at any of the sites of which an apparition
had been seen, it seemed to me a waste of time. 
   "Perhaps we are not the ones at fault here," I said trying to distract him. 
   "What are you driving at?" he asked me with a look of puzzlement fliting across his features.

   "Maybe these people are trying to pull some sort of elaborate prank on us and we've been
ignoring the obvious, the fact that there are no entities her at Magnolia." 
   "Why try an elaborate hoax such as that." 
   "Maybe they want to discredit you? Maybe they have something to gain by concocting this major
haunting and then making you out to be a colossal failure when we can't properly investigate it?
I don't know." 
   "What about the destruction downstairs in the parlor? you were there explain that." he said
defending himself and putting me on the spot at the same time. I always hated it when he did
this to me. 
    "I saw the afteraffects, yes,Maybe there was a substantial shifting in the house's
foundation. Or a minor earthquake there is a minor fault under Mississippi geologists have
theorized that it is only a matter of time before a substantial tremor occurs in this area." 
   "Come on, Scully. Do you really believe anything you just said." he said with impatience. 
   "I don't know," I said a little louder then necessary. "I don't know what I believe." 
    As if on cue, the big bay window of the right side of the room imploded, showering fragments
of glass across the room. The projectile that had shattered the window--a stone as large as a
baseball--accompanied the glittering shards. It struck Mulder behind his left ear, causing him
to stagger foreward, his eyes rolling back into his head. The force of the blow had propelled
him onto the settle, where he lay limply, facedown on the cushions. 
   "Mulder!" I yelled. I crouched next to him mentally taking inventory of his injuries. The
assault continued but I ignored it all my attention centered on my fallen partner. I quickly
made a move to check his pulse. He was still alive and the pulse was strong, but he was still
unconscious. The rock had split his scalp, the entire back of his head was bleeding freely. I
looked for something to staunch the flow and just held his head on my lap with a firm hand on
his injury. 
    I reached to where my cell phone sat on the bedside table, and dialed 911. I pressed the
receiver to my ear expecting to hear the emergency service of Vicksburg pick up. But instead,
there was a crackling static that shot through my ear like a thunder blot, robbing me of my
senses for a few moments. I had dropped the phone, now in picking it up to try dialing again I
heard this time a soft snickering which came from the receiver of the telephone. It was an evil
laughter brimming with depravity and sadistic pleasure-- the laughter of something straight from
the depths of hell, or some satanic realm close to it. 
    I got to my feet, settling Mulder head on a pillow, and crossed the room to the door. I laid
my hand on the doorknob, but hesitated in turning it. I held my breath and heard footsteps echo
in the hallway. They stalked the length of the hall twice before coming to a halt outside the
door. From that side, came the same laughter I had heard in the telephone receiver a few moments
ago and I knew it was also the same laughter I had heard in the downstairs parlor three days
ago. 
    I felt my adrenaline kick in, Causing my heart to pound in my ears. I felt as if some other
force caused me to turn the knob in my hand. I glanced over my shoulder at Mulder, laying in the
settle unconscious and bleeding. I knew the inly was to help him would be to go search for
assistance. 
    Bracing myself, I opened the door and stood still. Nothing, no sound, no movement, just the
ornamental hallway of the plantation house. 
    Then, a door on the opposite side of the hall opened and out stepped Wade Laughlin. 
   "Agent Scully?" he asked. "What is going on in there?" 
    I grabbed him by the arm, much to his surprise, and took him into the room to show him
Mulder who still lay unmoving and yet still alive I knew that unless he would get to a hospital
he could easily bleed to death. I could see Laughlin getting angrier by the second, as I told of
what had happened just a few moments before. I wrapped Mulder head in a bandage that should hold
until we can get him to a hospital and Laughlin helped me get Mulder into his bed. 
    I then heard the footsteps again this time they were coming from the direction of t he back
staircase. I was prepared. I had been trained by the FBI academy to be ready for any situation
and I was trained not to react to things the way most people do. i felt myself are in my
capacity and I felt prepared...for anything but this. I walked down the hall, gun drawn and
aware of my every surrounding. I had forgotten the presence of Wade Laughlin behind me. We stood
against the wall and I was about to turn the corner and face whatever intruder I encountered.
Laughlin, impatient to see what was going on, stalked out from behind the wall and turned the
corner on a sharp heel. 
   "Shit!" I said under my breath. I was about to turn the corner myself when Laughlin turned
the corner again, pale and speechless. I sat him down where he stood and turned the corner
myself. 
    Not more then fifteen feet away from me stood a man surrounded by a brilliant aura of
electric green. He was tall and powerfully built, and clad in the uniform of an American Civil
War Union Captain. 
Half of the officer's face was strikingly handsome--wreathed in the platinum blond hair and
bushy muttonchops--while the other half was horribly mutilated, the injury had a black and
darkened center, the apparent cause of death was a bullet to the man's skull. His eyes flashed
with fiery emotion and for some reason they struck fear into my very soul. 
   "Who are you?!" I demanded in a voice that didn't sound like my own. I already knew who he
was but I felt it necessary to ask. 
    Instead of replying the spirit laughed softly laying his hand on the calvary sabre, and with
drew it from it's scabbard. Totally ignoring that I had a gun pointed to his head. It was then
that  realised he wasn't looking at me but Wade Laughlin who was now standing behind me with a
dazed expression on his face. I didn't have time to think let alone react before the entity had
raised it's sabre over it's head and charged on Laughlin with a hoarse  yell of triumph.
Laughlin  seemed not able to move but raised his hands reflexively over his head, knowing it to
be futile he flinched waiting for the searing pain of the blade. The sabre slashed downward
through his arms and past his hands, entering his left shoulder and upper body. 
   He dropped to his knees on the carpet, urgently gasping for breath. I tried going over to
help him but the spirit gave me a look that curdled my blood and rooted my feet to the floor. My
gun was pried from my grasp by some unseen force and something I, myself could not control. It
hit the floor at my feet with a loud thump and rested there. the spirit then turned back to his
previous assault of Laughlin. 
    Wade Laughlin seemed to be freezing to death he shivered violently and his skin was a
translucent shade of blue.  The emotions that flited across his face frightened me, hatred,
contempt, and something else that lay beneath the surface--perverted desire.  He yelled out and
almost immediately the emotions that were on his face and that had burned in his eyes, seemed to
have disappeared. the entity with sabre in hand was nowhere to be seen. 



END OF PART 8********************PART 9 COMING SOON

*******************************************************
Possession 



    After the incident last night I, myself was sure of who our main suspect was--Wade Laughlin.
his strange behavior, dark looks and glassy eyes just augmented my suspicions. I had to keep
watch out for this guy. Yes, I was going to watch him very closely. 


*          *                *            * 


   "Let us in!" boomed the baritone voice from outside. "By the authority of the federal
government, I demand you, open the door immediately!" 
    Shannon Braxton stood at the head of the winding staircase, listening to the pounding fists
against the bolted doors of the sturdy oak and the stern voice roared just beyond them. She had
expected something disastrous to happen when she heard the movement  of the troops, marching en
masse, along the main road earlier that day. Shannon knew that if the Yankee seized Vicksburg
that it would be then end of the chance for a Southern victory of this bloody war. 
   "What shall we do Miss Shannon?" the slave girl who had asked the question stood at the
bottom of the staircase along with her companions at a loss of what to do. 
   "Let those Yankee bastards stand in the snow and freeze for all I care!" she said loud enough
so that it could be heard outside. 
   "Very well!" came the thunderous voice of authority once again. "Then we shall have to enter
by force!" Shannon could imagine the commander turning to his men. "Knock the doors down." 
    The sound of the battering ram slamming against the oaken doors echoed through the house. It
was a sinister sound, one that quickened the heart and sent a shudder of dread through one body,
in dire anticipation of what was certain to fallow next. 
    Shannon stood on the upper landing, her frail hands tightly clutching the banister. She
wished her beloved was there with her at that moment, she knew it was futile even to think of
such things. She had not seen Edward since he'd ridden off to join the Confederacy, though she
still had the antique pistol that he had given her before he had left. She clutched it now in
reassurance in the folds of her skirts. She knew that Edward was still alive; he wrote to her
whenever he found the opportunity. But over the past year, his letter had grown fewer and fewer
as the North's tightening hold on the South grew tighter and tighter. 
    Her train of thought was interrupted by the battering ram's successful efforts in breaking
down the door. Men in Blue uniforms  the littered the plantation grounds bustling in and
swarming in the house. 
    Several of the soldiers--calvary men, from their dress and demeanor-- pushed the gathering
of slaves away. In their wake strolled a tall, powerfully built man clad in the uniform of a
Union Captain. the man was handsome, sporting a mane of  blond hair and thick sideburns, but
there was a cold cruelty in his eyes that revealed the ugliness that dwelled within. He was
carrying a long-barreld revolver and in the other a calvary sabre. He looked around the hall as
if searching for the one who denied the unwelcome entrance of him and his men. 
    Shannon was afraid but spoke out nevertheless. "What do you want here?" she demanded boldly.

    The officer's attention was quickly drawn to the head of the staircase from which the voice
had come. He took a step foreward. "I am Captain James Bates," he told her with an air of
pompous seniority. "By the order of General Thomas of the Union army I have been given
instructions to seize this dwelling for use as a command post during the skirmish to come." The
way he said it clearly  showed he was not  too excited about the role in which he was to play in
the upcoming battle. 
   "You have no right!" She yelled from above. 
   "Oh, we have very right in the world to do whatever we damn well please, besides what do you
rebels expect after the disloyalty and treason you have shown to your country? We intend to use
this dwelling for the purpose I've stated and when the battle is over, confiscate any supplies
we shall need on our way to Pennsylvania." 
   "Mrs. Braxton? Mrs. Braxton?" came the calls of Phillip Ashton, a neighbor who's plantation
house was burned the year before. "What is going on here?" he asked seeing the Yankees rummaging
through the house and the knocked in door. 
   "Nothing, Mr. Ashton," came Shannon's calm voice from on top of the stairs. "These men were
just leaving." She said glowering at James Bates, who she noticed at that time was lingering his
gaze over her petite body, and coming to rest on the bodice of her dress. Shannon knew the
expression that blazed in the man's eyes; it was the burning of sexual desire. With growing
alarm she realized the captain's intentions toward her. 
    "I don't think we will be going quite yet... Mrs. Braxton. i still have some business to
attend to." he said making movements to go up the stairs when the small body of  Phillip Ashton
stepped in his way. 
   "Sir, I will not allow you do dishonor the lady in that fashion you and your men may leave
now." came the  reassuring voice of the neighbor apparently Ashton had seen the gleam in the
captain's eyes as well."Please sir, just let us live in peace." 
    A contempt like nothing Shannon had ever seen before leapt into the captain's eyes. " Not
likely! I'll teach you to mess with an officer of the Union Army!" And before Ashton could move,
Bates acted. Brutally, he brought the sabre down with all the force he could muster. The blade
sliced cleanly through the flesh, cutting the leg in half but not managing to hit bone. 
   "Phillip!" Shannon cried horror and concern for the friend making her forget social
standards. 
   "Take him away!" Bates shouted to one of the officers. "Somewhere where he can't be a
nuisance." 
    Bates' attention the strayed back to her and he now looked at her with not quite so much of
the lust she had seen before. "I'll deal with you later." he said and waved hi hand in
dismissal, he then strolled into the parlor and picked up and decanter of Edward's finniest
whisky. 
    Frightened, Shannon fled along the upstairs corridor to her bedroom. Slamming the door
behind her, she securely engaged the lock on her door and sat on the canopy bed. As the tears
streamed down her face, she wondered what could she do to stop the captain when he tried
mounting the staircase with the same intentions he had today. She knew she could do nothing. She
could do absolutely nothing except sit here and wait for the inevitable. 

*     *      *        *       * 


    Scully's anxiety seemed to be on the highest levels since entrance in the plantation house
known as Magnolia. Mulder had been taken to the hospital earlier that night and was still
unconscious due to the blow to the head and loss of blood but she was sure he was going to pull
through, he'll be back to help her in a few days. 
    Mulder was not the only thing that worried her though. Wade Laughlin's interest n her had
increased and blatantly so. He tended to roam the plantation grounds though never leaving the
house. Several times she had been working in one room or another and had caught him staring at
her through the window from the lawn outside. She had found herself trying to avoid the man but
still he seemed uncomfortably near, whether she liked it or not. 
    He was now standing outside in the front drive with a butane lighter in front of his face
waving the flame back and forth across his face. There was an expression of grim determination
on his face, as if desperately trying to figure out the answer to some perplexing question
somewhere within the bluish flame. At first, she did not know what he was doing, then she
realised that he was trying to imagine what the manor would look like engulfed in flames.  she asked herself returning to her casefile. 
    Had Mulder known of Laughlin's strange behavior he would never have gone to the hospital
voluntarily, she could simply not let him do that. his health was more important and she could
take care of herself though she did feel more reassured of herself when Mulder was here. He was
and continues to be a source of comfort in her life and she definitely felt she needed comfort
at this moment. 
    It was at this moment, when she spared a thought for what Shannon Braxton must have felt
when the Union army barged into her own peaceful life and wreak havoc upon it. She, with no man
to protect her from rape or death and just a handful of slaves. She pushed the thought away and
continued with her work though the Infamous Southern Belle must have felt  the same as she did
now, Helpless and afraid.

***************************************************************
Possession 



    Scully spent the night tossing and turning only to be woken from her fitful sleep to noise
from the hall. Intuitively she grabbed her weapon lying on the table beside the bed. 
    She carefully opened the door to her room and stepped outside into the hallway. She heard
footsteps along the corridor downstairs and immediately thought of the mysterious footsteps she
heard the night that Mulder was hit by the rock, it had been two days since then and Mulder had
suffered damage to the brain. He still had not woken up from the coma the doctors had said he
was in, they say he will wake up from it though, and that he should have minimal brain damage. 
     She looked out a window that lead to the vast magnolia grove that surrounded the house. She
saw a glow within the branches and leaves of the magnolia trees. Alarmed, she picked up her
trench coat and went downstairs to the door. 
    It did not take long to find him. Wade Laughlin sat on the ground indian style, not more
then three feet away from a crackling fire fuelled by dead leaves and broken branches. The man's
face was expressionless as stone, but his grey eyes were livid as he sat staring into the
flames. 
   "Mr. Laughlin," She said cautiously pointing the gun at his head. "I'm going to have to ask
you to stop what you are doing and put your hands on your head." 
    Ignoring her he built up the fire more and just as she was about to repeat what she had said
again he spoke. "I've found it, Miss Scully." 
   "What do you mean? What have you found?" 
   "The solution to the problem." 
   "What problem?" 
   "The poltergeist." He said calmly still not looking at her. 
   "It hungers, Miss Scully." 
   "It hungers for what?" 
   "It hungers for that which it missed, due to the sudden circumstances of it's own earthly
demise. it hungers for death and destruction. It hungers for fire." 
   "Do you mean to tell me--" She began disbelieveing 
   "Yes," He said "It desires to witness that which was denied to it a hundred and forty years
ago--the burning of Magnolia." 
    His words registered in her brain and she knew what his intentions were. At that moment he
looked at her and his tone changed. "Miss Scully, don't worry this is my property and it IS
legal for me to have a small campfire in my own backyard." 
    He was right and there was nothing she could do about it. "Be careful." She said as an after
thought as she let her arm drop and walked back into the house for her desperately needed sleep.
God how she wished Mulder was here! 
    A moment later all thoughts of Agent Dana scully had passed. As a dark and malignment force
took control of Wade Laughlin. he turned his gaze back to the campfire, eyes centered of the
heart of the cracking flames. 


    I was on the interstate highway after visiting Mulder in the hospital. He had still not come
out of his light coma but there was still hope and the almost certainty that he would wake up. A
sudden sense of sadness and dread engulfed me and hit without warning. i could not figure out
why not having Mulder with me on my way back to Magnolia affected me so strongly. We had been
apart before and sometime he would even ditch me, I felt a little flush of anger at 
that thought. But this time it felt different then it had before. Perhaps I was afraid of facing
Magnolia alone, Magnolia and it's "inhabitants". I looked in the rearview mirror and noticed a
change in myself. My usually short cropped auburn locks had grown longer almost reaching my
mid-back and it had turned a darker shade too. And it wasn't just my physical appearance either
it was my character and my outlook I became shy around Laughlin and that I haven't done since I
was a teenager. Mulder, also seemed to be undergoing a transformation, the  mustache he had
taken to growing since we have been here has grown longer and bushier. 
    Then an idea came to my mind, or more like a suspicion that 
the aura of the planation and the historical nostalgia had caused Mulder and I to unconsciously
act and resemble the long dead Confederate officer and his beloved wife. That some form of
possession,even if it was subliminal, had taken place within us both. 



    Mulder found himself traveling along Highway 31, not in the car Scully and he had rented but
on the back of a powerful black horse. 
    The animal moved along the two-lane stretch of rural road at an even trot. The road was
covered with an icy blanket of snow and ice. 
    He spurred the horse onward as the town of Vicksburg grew further behind him. The number of
residents decreased, giving way to desolate landscape of barren pastureland and dense patches of
forest. As he rode toward one these patches he realised that he was not more then a mile and a
half from Magnolia. 
    Then fear creeped over him in small waves increasing in intensity as he rode. By the time he
reached the turn off leading to the plantation, his anxiety had reached a fevered pitch. In his
heart, Mulder knew a tragedy had struck Magnolia...and struck hard. 
    As he rode down the lane that led to the house, Mulder was assaulted by all the sights and
smells of wholesale destruction. The Magnolia grove was no longer the rows of stately trees that
had once grown there. Instead, only charred trunks bearing a few smoldering branches stood along
the front drive. The bittersweet scent of burnt Magnolia hung heavily in the air, causing the
horse beneath him to grow skittish. The scent of burning reached him, as well.  the feeling of
dread increased tenfold and his heart began to pound wildly in his chest. Despite his fears, he
steeled his horse nerve and bore his heels into the flanks of the stallion, sending him into a
full gallop. 
   "My God!" was all that he could manage to say as he approached the circular drive and the
structure that stood just beyond. 
    The first thing that came into his line of sight were the three vehicles parked into the
driveway: Mrs. Laughlin's Saturn, Laughlin's  pickup, and their own rented Ford. All three were
no more then smoking hulls of blackened metal now. The next thing that drew his attention was,
of course, the plantation house itself. that is, of course still be referred to as such. 
    The tall structure had suffered the same fate and the cars and truck. Sometime in the past
twenty-four hours it had been totally and completely engulfed by fire. It's towering limestone
columns and brick walls were sooty and black and the windows stood empty of wood or glass They
gaped what him, almost accusing of arriving on the scene too late to prevent it's apparent
destruction. He shifted his shocked gaze to the front entrance. The double door hung askew
revealingg ash and smoke beyond it. 
     Mulder swung down from the horse and and approached the building. When he reached the open
door, he paused as he eyes stung with the tears from the smoke. "Scully?" he called weakly. his
voice echoed through the ravaged structure, bounding off charred timbers and crumbling walls,
sounding very hallow and small. 
    He checked the rooms of the lower floor. The parlor, living room, and kitchen were empty,
their furnishings were either missing or reduced to mounds of ashes and cinder. His worry built
as he returned to the entrance hall. Without consideration of his own safety he bounded up the
window staircase. Halfway up, a few steps gave way, fortunately he caught hold of the railing
before falling 20 feet tot he ground. He found the second floor to be in worse shape then the
lower floor had been. The ceiling had collapsed and the rafters were exposed to the daylight. 
    Mulder entered Scully's bedroom the canopy bed looked like the bones of a sacrificed animal.
Tatters of burnt cloth hanging from where they had once hung from the wood of the bedframe. 
    "Scully!" he cried again more frantically this time. He entered the hall and made his way
cautiously toward the west side of the house. Feeling that Scully was in the house and yet that
something was drastically wrong shred whatever composure he had left. Running down the rickety
staircase not caring if it gave way under his feet. "Scully!" he screamed trying to hold down
his panic. "Where are you?" 
    His mad search for his missing partner led him through the kitchen and out the back door.
Abruptly he stopped finding himself facing the rear garden. The big oak no longer stood as it
had centuries past. Now it was only a jagged black stump. Around him the garden looked different
then when he had last seen it, as well and even beyond, were dozens of  earthen mounds. It did
not take him long to realize what they were and how they had come to be there. They were newly
dug graves, hastily filled and left unmarked. 
    For a moment, Fox Mulder stood there and stared at the intimidating number of graves, then
something drew his attention: it was a single shovel standing by the side of the house. It
seemed to beckon him, taunting to take it and try his luck no matter how futile the cause might
seem. 
    In a daze of mounting grief, he walked to the shovel and yanked it to the ground, and faced
the task before him. Then, picking up the shovel and driving it into the earth. He did it again
and again as he began to dig for...what? 


   "Sir?" came the voice of a woman "Sir?" came the voice again. 
"Doctor I think he's coming out of it." 
   Mulder awoke in an environment that he did not recognize, but then he became aware of the
fact that he was in a hospital. 


END OF CHAPTER 10******************CHAPTER 11 COMING SOON