The Harvest

Chapter One

         Agent Beckett wiped the smudges from his from his Ray Ban sunglasses and put them on. The sun was rising now and was high enough in the morning sky to skew his vision. It was early, 0627 to be exact, and Nathan Beckett had been up from some time.

         Nathan Beckett had been a ten year vet with the FBI, and was a Marine prior to that. The last couple years he had been working as a field Agent tracking serial killers. He had helped with a high profile case two years ago and was rewarded with this job. Since then Nathan had seen the most evil sides of life, the most demented and horrifying parts of humanity. He had lived the ying most of his life but seeing the yang had forever changed him. He still had his humor and was able to keep his sanity, but this current case hit close to him and it hit hard.  Nearing 40 years old, and after all the shit he had seen in the corp, still nothing had prepared him for what was to come.

         After a midnight call from the director, Nathan had boarded the first flight to Albany, rented a car, and drove most of the early morning to a small state park in upstate New York.

         Nathan opened the door of his rental, grabbed his coffee from the center council, and a file from the passenger seat. Nathan took a sip. It was strong and it was exactly what he needed. Agent Beckett had been trying to wrap his head around this case for 6 months now, and felt as if he was still on square one.

         Hikers and Campers had gone missing, there bodies were being discovered all over the place, some more in tact then others. The children that had gone missing with these families had never been found. This was the 8th family to be found and a total of 20 dead, 6 missing and absolutely no leads.  The victims found this time were the Allisons, a family of four from Maine. Mr. Allison had been found lying next to his wife and 15 year old son, they had been scattered about 5 ft from each other

         As Nathan made his way to the crime scene he was approached by his partner who had gotten there a couple hours earlier. She was already in NY for a seminar. At just 33 years old she was the FBI’s most promising agent. Beauty was also one of her strong suits. She was fit, agile and had long amber hair. Seeing her had always brightened Nathan’s day. He had always thought, had life been different had both of them not been scared by the FBI that maybe they would have fell in love and had a normal life.  Neither Nathan nor his partner Alice Larter  had choosen normal. The FBI had made Alice serious, which sometimes did not mesh well with Nathan’s humor and take it as it comes bravado. But somehow over the last 2 years Nathan was able to penetrate her hard shell and recently had been able to see her at her core.

         “Nathan, how nice for you to join us” Alice stated as she flashed him a smile.
         “ What have we got here, does it fit the profile?
         “ It does, just as crazy as the last two

         “The Allison’s had been found like the rest, neatly placed, well preserved, and far from where they had gone missing. The local ME had placed there death some time between 6pm to 1am on Tuesday. Many vital organs were missing and the ME also confirmed that the boy with them was between 15 and 17, but due to his missing head and id it is not positive it was the son. IDs found on the victims show that they were indeed the Allisons.”Alice stated with a very crime drama like rhetoric.

         Nathan still had no explanation how this could be the Allison’s. The Allisons had gone missing in Maine and then show up in New York. This was not the thought that drove him crazy. The part that he could not fix in his head was that the Allisons went missing in 1977, and although that was 35 years ago they hadn’t aged a bit, how could they have died on Tuesday. His initial thought was that they had been frozen. None of the tests done on the bodies had shown any signs of long term exposure to cryogenics or freezer burn. Last month Mary and Dean Travers were found 10 miles from these bodies, they had gone missing while vacationing in Maine on July 26 1988. The bodies of these victims had been well decomposed by only by months and not years.

         Even the clothing was correct, Dave Allison had been found wearing a Steelers tee shirt that had not been around since the 70’s. Currency and id photos long since expired had suggested that the victims were killed 40 years ago but were somehow preserved.

         Opening the case file Nathan made another discovery. Poloroids recovered from the campsite site in 77 showed that the Allisons were still wearing the same clothes they were wearing the day they went missing. Nathan was currently trying to figure the suspects motives. Why after all this time would the killer be showing off his victims? Most serial killers are looking for some kind of fame, could he want to be caught? As Nathan fixated on these questions, he had a theory that this serial killer had a protégé, the bodies were being dumped off of hiking trails and in the wilderness, a tough feat for someone in their senior age which the killer was most likely in. The killer also had to have a background in the medical field. All the victims found had some of there body parts removed, with surgical preciseness. Although no cause of death had been determined, it would be hard for Mr. Allison to have lived long without his heart, or his boy without his head for that matter. No trace evidence had been found on the victims, and the bodies were drained of there fluids as well. Nathan had started to wonder if he was on the set of the X-files.

         Showing the photos to Alice he couldn’t ignore how good she looked this morning. She was much more awake and rested then the traveled Beckett. Alice had been taking a seminar in NY the day before, it had been covering preservation, from the Egyptians all the way to modern science techniques. The Bureau had sent her to learn and to drill the doctor with ways of preserving that leave no visible marks. If they could find the process, maybe they could get a bead on there killer. Unfortunately Alice had come up empty handed.