X-Files: Resurrection: Chapter 3
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Here’s Chapter 3 of X-Files: Resurrection!
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3.
Back in the rent-a-car, we typed in the location for the Albany Medical Center on the GPS and made our way into the city. We drove past a park that looked like a smaller version of Central Park in New York City. The park’s green was surrounded by three- and four-story brownstones that obviously hadn’t changed much or if at all in the century and a half since they were constructed. Clearly, Albany seemed like a small city caught up in a sort of time warp.
We pulled into the general parking lot, took our ticket, and parked the rent-a-car. Inside the hospital, the information booth was occupied by an elderly woman who was no doubt volunteering her services to the medical center. When I asked for the room number for Jimmy Gardner, she looked up at me through the translucent Plexiglas and set her neckchain-supported reading glasses onto the crown of her considerable nose.
“You with the press too?” she asked, just a hint of acid in her tone.
Both Scully and I pulled out our badges, flashing them at the woman.
“We’re with the FBI, ma’am,” Scully said.
“Well then,” the woman said, “in that case, you’ll want to go on up right away.”
She gave us a fifth-floor room number and told us where to find the nearest elevator. Returning our badges to our respective pockets, we made our way up to the miracle boy.
I’m not sure who controlled hospital security or what the protocol was for reporters and the press interfering with the privacy of the patients, but whoever it was had not been very vigilant. The brightly lit corridor outside the nurse’s station was filled with both men and women, some of them carrying cameras, others just holding tape recorders, still others going at it the old-fashioned way with spiral notebooks and pen in hand.
Scully and I once more flashed our badges at the heavy-set nurse who occupied the desk.
“Another visitor for Jimmy,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Just what he needs . . . .what we need.”
“You allow these people up here?” Scully asked in her concerned doctor’s voice.
“It’s not my call,” she explained. “There’s open visitation for a few hours every afternoon. We’re presently in the middle of today’s open hours.”
“Is Jimmy Gardner awake?”
“He is,” she said. “He’s answering questions from the press.”
“We can see that,” I said. “We need to speak with him right away.”
“If you can break through that mess,” she said. “Be my guest.”
We started walking. But before I got too far, I turned back to the nurse.
“Looks like Jimmy is feeling better these days,” I said, not without smile.
“He’s healthier than you and me,” she said, nodding. “Don’t ask me to explain it. But that’s a fact. He’s a happy, healthy kid who, ummm, died for a while.”
“See, Scully,” I said, turning back toward the crowd of reporters, “it’s a miracle we’re investigating. Not a crime.”
If I were living inside a Hollywood western, I would have drawn my service weapon and fired a shot into the ceiling. That would have dispersed the crowd efficiently enough. But I didn’t have the luxury of violence. Instead, I once again pulled out my badge and with my sternest, own-the-joint voice shouted, “Back off people! FBI comin’ through!”
Holding the badge over my head, I plowed my way through the throng, Scully on my tail. Entering into the single-bed hospital room, I politely but sternly asked an attractive female reporter dressed in a red mini dress and matching jacket to please give us a few moments alone with Jimmy. She exhaled, brushed back her long brunette hair, and nodded to her cameraman.
“I’ll be back, Jimmy,” she whispered, laying her right hand on the boy’s head.
Then, shooting me a look that would have frosted over a Dairy Queen, she and her cameraman exited the room.
Scully closed the door, which thankfully blocked out the noise in the corridor.
“Hello, Jimmy,” I said, “My name is Agent Fox Mulder. This is my partner, Agent Dana Scully.”
“You’re with the FBI,” the small but round-faced boy said. His thick black hair was mussed up, and he was wearing a blue hospital gown that sported comic book images of Batman and Robin in all sorts of heroic action poses.
“That’s right,” Scully said, lifting the chart from out of the slot on the back of the door, giving it a cursory exam. “I should also tell you that I’m a doctor. A pathologist.”
“Wow,” the boy said, smiling a mouth full of teeth. “You have a lot of jobs.”
“Sort of,” Scully said, returning the chart to the slot. Then, sitting herself on the side of the bed, “Do you mind if I examine you a bit. It won’t hurt.”
The kid cocked his head over his shoulder.
“Don’t matter to me,” he said. “I already feel like a lab rat.”
“Really,” I said. “And why’s that?”
“I’ve had a lot of doctors poking at me. They can’t believe I’m alive, I guess.”
“Doctors,” I said, giving Scully a look. “And who else?”
“Police. And some people dressed just like you. You know, nerdy.”
“Me, nerdy?” I said, giving Scully a look.
“Were they FBI?” she asked.
“They didn’t say,” he said. “But they carried plastic cards with their pictures and names on them. They also carried guns, which were pretty cool.” His face lit up once more. “I got to hold one of them.”
“One of them let you hold his gun,” Scully said, like a question.
“It wasn’t loaded,” Jimmy said. “Or the man told me it wasn’t loaded anyway.”
Scully proceeded to gently touch at his neck with her fingers. She placed her ear to his chest. She also ran her hands over his scalp.
“You mind if I ask you a couple of questions, Jimmy?” I said.
“You’re going to ask them anyway,” he said. “Just like you’re going to slip and fall on your backside when you walk out of here in a few minutes.”
Scully removed her hands from the boy and shot me another look.
“How do you know that, Jimmy?” Scully said, raising up her head.
“I don’t really know,” he said. “Since they found me in the ice, I not only feel so much better, but I get flashes of things in my brain. You know, like images. Short, sharp, images of something happening to someone not in the past but in the future. It’s like remembering something, only the something hasn’t happened yet. Does that make any sense to you?”
“Future memory,” I whispered more for myself than anyone else. “Jimmy, do you remember going into the ice?”
He shook his head.
“All I remember is going to sleep a few nights ago in my bed and that’s all.”
“You mean your bed in Montpelier?”
“Yeah, that’s it. At home with my folks.”
“Where are your folks now?” I asked.
“They’re at home, I guess.”
“Why aren’t they here?”
“Because they need to pray. They can pray better from home. I’m going back to them tomorrow. They’re going to let me ride in a helicopter.”
“Who told you that, Jimmy?”
“The men in the nerdy black suits who let me play with their guns.”
“I see,” I said. “Jimmy, before you were pulled out of the ice, were you aware of your . . . ahhh . . .serious medical condition?”
“You mean, did I know I was going to die?”
“Yes, from the cancer.”
“My parents prayed very hard,” he said. “They wanted my life and death to be in God’s hands now.”
“They refused medical treatment?” Scully asked, setting a gentle hand on his.
“They said that if Mary, the mother of Jesus, had to give up her only son, then why shouldn’t they?”
I felt a slow burn starting at my feet and running up into my brain. I was sure Scully felt the same burn, only twice as hot.
“One more question, Jimmy,” I said. “You weren’t at any time over the past few days asked to accompany another adult? Did you get in someone’s car? It’s a long way from Montpelier, Vermont to Albany.”
He thought about it for minute.
“I can’t really remember,” he said. “I was very sick.”
“Try.”
He thought some more.
“There was something. Something that night. Bright lights. Outside my bedroom window. Bright colorful lights. And a man.”
“What man?” I said.
“I don’t know. It was dark out, and the lights were shining in my eyes. But he came into my room. He was a tall man, but I couldn’t make out his face.”
“Have you told anyone about this?” Scully said. “Your parents?”
“My parents must have been asleep.”
“How could they have slept through that?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I thought maybe I dreamt it. But maybe I didn’t.”
“What happened after the man came into your room?”
“The lights got brighter and brighter,” he said. “I felt like I couldn’t move, but at the same time, I also felt myself being lifted up. That’s why I still think it was a dream.”
Scully slipped off the bed and stood up straight.
“And after that?” I pressed.
“I woke up here in the hospital.”
I nodded.
“Okay, Jimmy,” I think that’s all for now. “Do you have any idea what time your helicopter ride is tomorrow?”
“They said after lunch.”
“The men with the guns?”
“Yup. They’re pretty cool.”
“Yeah, pretty cool,” I said. “Get some rest, Jimmy.”
“I’ll try,” he said. “Can’t wait to go up in a helicopter.”
I smiled at him. Then Scully and I left the room.
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