From: drsivana99@yahoo.com   
      
   Sorry, I accidentally sent you the wrong draft of the story I posted    
   a few minutes ago. This is the correct, complete version. thanks!   
      
   I NEVER WENT TO HELL   
   by Chuck Miller   
   PG-13   
   Feedback welcome   
      
   FBI HEADQUARTERS WASHINGTON D.C.   
   The Day Before...   
      
      
   Special Agent Dana Scully stood, hands on   
   hips, before a cork board in Fox Mulder's basement   
   office. Tacked to the board were a number of color   
   photographs and the main color in them was red. She   
   was a doctor and a pathologist, so the images did not   
   make her sick, she could look at them as a mechanic   
   might look at an engine or a butcher a slab of meat.   
   Not that she was cold or inhuman, she was nothing of   
   the sort, but she had learned long ago to distance   
   herself from the worst of the many terrible things she   
   was obliged to see.   
      
   She took a pair of wire-rimmed glasses from her handbag and   
   put them on,   
   leaned closer to one of the photographs. There were   
   nine photos in all, three sets of four, one set for   
   each of the victims.   
      
   She took a breath and said, "I see no evidence here of any particular   
   surgical skill. These women were hacked apart, not operated on.   
   Why, a hunter field-dressing a deer would use more   
   finesse." She removed the glasses and turned to face   
   her partner, seated behind the close and rather   
   squalid room's only desk.   
      
   "Anyone could have done this. Anyone sick enough   
   to want to, I mean."   
      
   Mulder nodded and ran a hand through his hair. "I know. I'm not    
   buying the theory   
   that a doctor is responsible. I'm not sure where that came from. I    
   don't think anyone in Illinois law enforcement generated it." Scully    
   cocked her head.   
   "Do you have a theory? Should I even ask? Your aliens   
   haven't graduated from cattle mutilation to humans, I   
   hope." She was not at all serious, but not entirely   
   joking, either. And she held her breath while she   
   waited a beat or two for Mulder's reply.   
      
   He grinned a little and answered with his tongue   
   in his cheek. "No, Scully, the Reticulans perform   
   breeding experiments on humans. They don't just hack   
   us up for the hell of it. Of course," his voice grew   
   thoughtful, "we could be dealing with an alien serial   
   killer, which is certainly a rare phenomenon, but..."   
      
   Scully held up a hand. "Mulder, if you dare go   
   there, I will resign from the Bureau just as soon as I   
   sign the papers for your involuntary committal."   
      
   He laughed. "Scully, if you were inclined that way,   
   you would have done it years ago. I think you're afraid of    
   committal. No,   
   seriously,   
   though, I do see a possible... theme here. I don't   
   know what it means or how we might use it to track the   
   killer... Tell me, do you notice the same thing I   
   did?" Scully frowned and moved back to the board to   
   study the photos. At first, her expression was blank,   
   her eyes flicking here and there, focusing and   
   unfocusing like a person studying one of those magic   
   eye hidden picture posters. She saw nothing...   
   nothing... and then BAM!   
      
   "Jack the Ripper," she   
   said quietly, looking up at her partner. "These   
   mutilations are identical to the ones performed in   
   1888 by Jack the Ripper. I remember the details well.   
   I had a class at the Academy where we studied the   
   post-mortem reports from the case in detail. This   
   first one, here... the wounds correspond with the ones   
   received by Mary Ann Nichols. This second one," she   
   tapped the photo with a fingernail, "has been made   
   into a—and I'm going to hate myself for saying   
   this—dead ringer for Annie Chapman. I'd have to   
   check a reference book, but it seems to me that the   
   bodies are even positioned in exactly the right way.   
   You're thinking..."   
      
   "Copycat," Mulder said." It isn't a common   
   phenomenon. But it isn't unheard of. There was a...   
   Well, I'll get to that. But most serial killers are so   
   egocentric they wouldn't dream of copying someone   
   else's `work.' I've never seen this much attention to detail. Serial    
   killers   
   often murder in a state of frenzy that would preclude their   
   taking pains to do it in such a precise way. Of   
   course, some of them are able to exert that kind of   
   control, but that usually goes in aid of their own   
   'style.' They are, after all, demonstrating their   
   general superiority—they're gonna want to do it   
   their way.   
      
   "On the other hand, have you ever noticed how   
   many bar bands there are that cover the same few Led   
   Zeppelin songs? Some of them play nothing but. The   
   desire to slavishly imitate is strong within our   
   collective breast. There's no reason that even a   
   sociopath should be immune."   
      
   "You're suggesting some sort of... homage?"   
      
   Mulder nodded. "A tribute band. It would   
   be sui generis in the annals of crime, but not   
   impossible by any means. Change is part of the human   
   condition. Everything evolves. Organisms, technology,   
   social structure... Why not murder methods? Retro is in now. And    
   whoever this guy is, he has an eye for detail, as you noticed. The    
   only discrepancy is the intervals between the murders. Those don't    
   correspond with the original Ripper's pattern in any way that I'm    
   able to decipher. It's only been two weeks since the first one.    
   Ripper '88 took almost two months to work this far down the list.    
   The timing here is either random or based on something so arcane I    
   can't figure it out. Some people are traditionalists so long as it's    
   convenient. He doesn't want us anticipating his next move. He's a    
   show-off, but he's pragmatic. He taunts and terrorizes without    
   tipping his hand."    
      
   "Like the Ripper himself," Scully offered. "Or herself. Did you know    
   that Arthur Conan Doyle postulated that the killer might have been a    
   midwife?"   
   "Conan Doyle believed in fairies," Mulder said dismissively. "He    
   accepted a set of crudely faked photos by a pair of young girls as    
   proof that the `little people' existed."    
   Scully was silent for a beat or two, eyes narrowed at her partner.    
   Her gaze cut over briefly to his "I Want To Believe" poster, with    
   its elegantly faked (she believed) photo of a classic flying saucer,    
   and she drew a breath to say something. Mulder cut her off before    
   she could get it out.   
   "Never mind," he said, "I get the point. Pots and kettles." Scully    
   just shrugged.    
   "Right. Well, Glen or Glenda, the ripper left quite a mark. Eighteen-   
   eighty-eight was a   
   bad year, Scully. I suppose you could say it gave birth to the worst    
   horrors of the twentieth century. There was the Ripper, the first    
   widely publicized serial murderer. Hitler was conceived in 1888.    
   Think of how much different things would be if those two had never    
   existed. You ever daydream about having a time machine and going    
   back and killing Hitler?"   
      
   "Not really," Scully answered. "I won't go so far as   
   to say that I think time travel is not and never will   
   be possible, even though it is exactly what I do   
   think. But if it were possible, meddling with the past   
   would be dangerous and foolish. What if by killing   
   Hitler, you opened the door for someone worse? And   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)