by Tim Lebbon
“And why is she the one we’re visiting?” Scully asked.
“Because hers is the first house we come to.” Mulder offered her his charming smile, but she really wasn’t in the mood. She was tired, and she’d slipped away from the Academy under the pretense of having a sick relative. She was running out of excuses. Mulder drew her on his wild goose chases, and she went along every time, drawn perhaps by the simple fact that he needed her, and perhaps...
Well, she was too tired to think about this now. Too exhausted to dwell on shadows and wraiths, and things that should not be. Her scientist’s mind was never comfortable in that place, even when she was well rested.
“So what’s her story?” she asked.
“Like the other three, she disappeared from home two days ago. Parents attest that she’s a happy kid, not prone to running off. No boyfriend that they know of. No reason for her to skip school, not come home.” They were approaching the outskirts of Lynott Sound, and it looked like a hundred towns Scully had visited. Normal, ordered, entirely forgettable.
“No parent knows their thirteen-year-old girl,” she said.
“Speaking from experience?” Mulder asked. He was always smiling, always offering a joke.
“That’s for me to know,” she said, and she couldn’t help smiling. Sometimes he just made her want to do that. “So where’d you get this information?” she asked. “Local police?”
“As far as I’m aware, they’re no longer involved. The girl came home. Case solved.”
“Hospitals, then? Local doctors? She must have been checked over, at least.”
“Must have,” Mulder said, but it was dismissive.
“So?” she asked. Maybe I don’t want to know, she thought. Mulder had a shadowy side and often dubious sources, she’d already seen that, and she’d also seen what the Bureau thought of it.
“Just a guy I know,” he said. “We’re here.”
“What guy?”
But Mulder was already out of the car and approaching the small, neat house. All she could do was follow. She got out of the car and brushed herself down, ran a hand through her hair, trying to forget how tired she was and how much trouble she’d be in if she wasn’t back at the Academy by morning.
“Someone who wants us both to know,” Mulder called back at her, before knocking on the front door.
A short, bald man answered. He seemed nervous, glancing past Mulder at her and back again.
“Morning, sir. FBI.” Mulder flashed his badge. The man became even more nervous, if that were possible.
“What do you want?” he asked.
As Scully drew level with Mulder she looked past the man into the house. Curtains were drawn and it was shady inside, but she smelled breakfast cooking, fresh coffee, and a couple of kids were running back and forth in the open living area, laughing and shouting.
“We’re here to ask you about Laura,” Scully said. She smiled, trying to put him at ease. But the man’s gaze didn’t settle. Drugs? she wondered, but only briefly. He wasn’t high. He was scared. “She hasn’t done anything wrong, sir,” she continued.
“Why are the FBI interested in her?” the man asked.
“Sorry, Mr. Connolly,” Mulder said. “I should have explained. We’re a very specialized part of the Bureau, just looking into... very special cases. And your Laura appears to be special.” If he was appealing to the man’s pride in his child, it didn’t seem to work.
“Don’t you need a warrant, or something?”
“No,” Scully said.
“We’ve only just got up, and—”
“Laura’s awake?” Scully asked.
The man stared at her for the first time, and she could see the fear, deep and real. Fear for his child. “No,” he said.
“I’m a doctor. I’d be happy to look her over. I’m sure you’ve already had her examined, and I’m surprised she isn’t in hospital.”
“There’s nothing wrong with her, that’s why!”
“I’m sure.” She let that hang for a while.
“Come in,” the man said at last, stepping back from the door. “I’ll show you to... Just follow me and...”
“Who’s that?” A woman appeared from the kitchen doorway, carrying a tray of plated pancakes. “Oh.” She was short, thin, and pretty, and Scully took an instant dislike to her. She couldn’t really make out why, but she had learned to trust her instincts.
“We’re just here to check on Laura,” Scully said.
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“FBI,” the man said.
The woman seemed to verge on panic, then quickly calmed herself.
“Kids. Breakfast.” The two rug rats reduced speed to merely fast, snatching a plate each from the tray and retreating to a corner of the room to protect their feasts.
“I’ll show you through,” the man said. His wife put down the tray to follow.
“Any chance of some of that coffee you’ve got brewing in there?” Scully asked sweetly.
“Yeah, we’ve been traveling for hours,” Mulder added. Good. He could see the trouble behind the mother’s eyes, too. Scully felt a pang of regret that they didn’t officially work together anymore. She missed that casual chemistry.
Hesitant, the woman nodded and slipped back into the kitchen, while the nervous man headed out into a hallway from the rear of the open-plan living area. Scully took a moment to size the place up—well-stocked bookshelves, a couple of nice prints on the walls, board games piled on one corner shelf. She moved closer to one of the prints, noticed it was an original painting, and then saw the signature Betty Connolly. They were an intelligent, creative family, and the place was clean and well kept. Yet they still had something to hide.
Maybe they were just troubled because they hadn’t taken their catatonic daughter to hospital. Which was weird in itself.
“In there,” the father whispered, standing back against the wall and gesturing towards an open door.
Scully experienced a shiver of doubt. She watched the man, not the room, but he was sad and lost, not alert and scheming. Mulder entered the bedroom and Scully followed.
“I’ll bring the coffee,” the man said as she passed.
“Thanks.”
“If you can help her?”
Scully wasn’t sure whether it was a condition or a request, so she simply did not reply. She couldn’t. She still had no idea what she was about to face.
Unlike in the rest of the house, the bedroom curtains were open, and morning sunlight fell across the bed. It was a typical teenager’s room—posters on the wall, books and albums in disarray on a couple of shelves, stereo silent on a corner table. Clothes were piled on a chair and in a washing basket in another corner, and a wardrobe stood open, displaying a splash of colorful attire. A dressing table mirror held a scatter of photographs around its edge, all of them showing smiling, happy teenagers accompanying the girl in the bed.
She looked nothing like she did in the photos. She looked dead.
Scully heard Mulder’s sharp intake of breath. “Scully...” he said, and she knew what he was thinking. The girl was dead, and the parents were keeping her here, unable to accept the fact of their daughter’s demise. A horrific idea, but she’d heard about it happening before.
Crossing quickly to the bed, she took up Laura’s hand where it lay outside the sheets. It was warm. Her pulse was slow and strong. Scully’s shoulder relaxed, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
“She’s alive,” she said.
“Phew,” Mulder said. “Well, they’re hiding something else, then.”
“For sure.”
While Mulder looked around the room, Scully began examining the girl. She was deeply asleep. Her eyes did not seem to be moving, and her breathing was slow and even. Her skin was warm to the touch, but the blankets used to cover her were probably too thick for the time of year. She touched her beneath the nose, pinched her ear lobe, then lifted the covers at the bottom of the bed and scratched the underside of her foot. Lau
ra emitted a low groan, but nothing else.
“How is she?” Mulder asked. He was pacing the room, opening drawers, touching objects, doing what he did. He had an eye for things out of place. If a hint about whatever the family was hiding was in this room, he’d find it.
“She seems fine, physically,” she said. “At least from a cursory examination. I could do some sensory tests, given time, but I’m not sure Mommy will want me sticking needles in her girl.”
“Nothing obviously amiss?”
Scully looked again, checking the girl’s relaxed face, lifting her long hair away from her ears. She glanced up at Mulder and nodded towards the bookcase in the corner.
“Oh, sure,” he said.
Scully lifted the covers and popped open the buttons on the girls night dress. Without moving her, a full check over was impossible. But she seemed like a normal teenager in good health. Just sleeping.
Deeply asleep.
Scully held Laura’s hand again. Turned it over, scratched at her palm. No response. Then she examined her fingers.
“Look here,” Scully said.
“Cut on her knuckles.”
“Yeah. Scratches, really. Might have bled a little, but not much. But look under her nails.”
“Dirt. She was found out in the woods, with the three others who disappeared.”
“She’s clean everywhere else. Even the bottom of her feet. She’s been bathed and changed more than once since she was found, and what mother wouldn’t do that? This is more recent. And I don’t think it’s mud.”
Mulder glanced back at the open bedroom door, suddenly more alert and serious. He drew a penknife from his pocket and opened a small blade. While Scully held the girl’s hand steady, Mulder scraped the tip of the blade beneath the nail of her index finger, careful to retain the matter that crumbled out.
He held it up at eye level, and they both drew close.
“That’s blood,” Scully said.
Mulder touched his fingertip to the blade, picked up a speck of the dark detritus, and rubbed it between his fingers. Then he showed Scully. Both fingertips displayed a gritty red smear.
“And not that old,” he said.
“Can you help her?” the father asked. He stood at the doorway, his wife behind him. The man held coffee cups. They steamed. To Scully, it didn’t smell very good.
“Has Laura moved since you found her in the woods?” Mulder asked.
“No!” they both said at the same time. “No, not at all,” Mr. Connolly continued. “When they were found, the first thing we did was bring her home.” He nodded past them at his daughter, tears in his eyes.
“She’s asleep, and dreaming,” her mother said. She never quite met Scully’s eyes.
“What do you mean?” Mulder asked.
“She makes noises. In her sleep. As if she’s being...” Her face crumpled, and Scully felt regretful about her earlier assessment of the woman. “Being hurt,” the girl’s mother said.
“She really needs to be in a hospital,” Scully said. “She’s catatonic, similar to a low-level coma. Does she suffer from any mental illness? Take drugs? Is she on any new medicines?” Her parents shook their heads. “Well, she needs looking after by—”
“No!” The father came forward quickly, coffee cups slipping and spilling hot fluid down his stomach and legs. He dropped the cups, Mulder backed up, hand lifting to his belt, and Scully held her breath.
The man gasped and clasped at his clothes, pulling them away from his body as the coffee quickly cooled.
“Once they have her, they might never let her go,” the woman said. “She’ll be an oddity.”
“Why do you say that?” Mulder asked. The couple, obviously troubled and deeply disturbed, offered no reply. The woman stepped back, gesturing for them to leave.
I should ask about the blood, Scully thought. But Mulder spared her a quick glance, and in that look she saw that he shared her own concern. Something was going on, and they had to be delicate getting to the bottom of it.
They passed back through the living area and out the front door. Scully looked back at the woman following them, recognizing her fear, wanting to help. But she also saw the haze of secrecy, and the blood beneath the girl’s fingernails was troubling.
She and Mulder had to ask around. And after that they’d come back.
“She’s a good girl,” the mother whispered.
“I’m sure she is, Mrs. Connolly. But you need to help her.”
Back in the car, Mulder started the engine and pulled them away from the house.
“That could have gone better,” he said.
“They’re terrified,” Scully replied. “The girl’s the center of that house, did you feel that? They’re just orbiting around her, and something’s scaring them more than the condition she’s in.”
“And what condition is that?” Mulder asked.
“Catatonia is traditionally recognized as a symptom of schizophrenia. But it’s an effect that can be found in drug users or alcoholics, especially when they’re going through withdrawal.”
“She didn’t strike me as an alcoholic or junkie.”
“No, nor me.”
“And the same effect on four people?”
That was what confused Scully. If the others were similar to Connolly, then they were looking for an outside cause. And that made things so much more complicated.
“There’s a human-jaguar hybrid in the Amazon,” Mulder said. “It’s a legend leftover from the Aztecs. It breathes its victims to sleep and sets them hunting for it.”
Scully rolled her eyes, hoping that Mulder saw.
“Border control isn’t what it used to be,” he continued. She could hear the subtle tone of self-mockery in his voice, but she usually assumed it was a defense mechanism rather than self-deprecation. She still wasn’t sure how much of the tall stories Mulder came out with he actually believed, but she knew for sure that he wanted to believe.
“Really?”
“Just an option, Scully. These stories come from somewhere. Maybe the people who came up with that one knew of a plant extract, a drug, something that put people to sleep like this. And maybe that plant has somehow appeared in these local woods.”
“Or maybe a jaguar monster put them to sleep and is using them to hunt, eh, Mulder?”
“What else caused what’s happened? And why is it not only her?”
“We haven’t seen the other cases yet.”
“Way ahead of you.”
As they drove through the little town, Scully remained alert. Her tiredness still burned behind her eyes, but since seeing Laura Connolly and witnessing how flighty her parents were, she already knew this was not a normal case.
If there ever was a normal case involving Mulder. She’d seen strange things with him, experienced some phenomena that could not easily be rationalized away. She tried. She had to try, because she was a scientist and a realist. But sometimes logical explanations were not so easy to find. The difference between her and Mulder was that she actively looked for them, while he consciously willed them aside.
“You think her parents just missed that blood under her fingernails?” Mulder asked.
“Not when they brought her home, cleaned her, and put her to bed, no.”
“Which means it got there later.”
“That’s what I figure.”
“When she was supposedly asleep.”
“Right.” Scully nodded, frowning. Hunting for the jaguar beast, she thought. But hunting what?
They drove through the town square and into another street, a wide road with houses spread a comfortable distance apart, mature trees shading them, and four-wheel-drives on driveways. It was the classic image of an affluent neighborhood.
Mulder drew up in front of a big, light blue house, checking out a slip of paper in his hand.
“Here we are. The home of—”
“Oh, shit,” Scully said. “Look who’s come to the party.”
A familiar man leaned a
gainst a car already parked across the street.
“And I didn’t even send him an invite,” Mulder said.
****
He didn’t trust Krycek. Introduced as a partner, Mulder thought of him more as a watcher, a guard, someone to keep track of him and his more arcane beliefs and concerns. What the purpose behind this observation was, he was not yet sure. But he was determined to find out.
They got on well enough, even though their surface bonhomie hid a deeper suspicion and mistrust. Mulder saw it in Krycek, and he made no effort to hide it himself. That was why he’d slipped away from their meaningless stakeout to come here, leaving Krycek behind.
At least, that was his intent.
As Mulder and Scully crossed the road towards him, Krycek yawned and stretched his arms to the sky. He interlaced his fingers, clicking them. He was fit and strong, and if this display was intended to intimidate Mulder, it failed. He’d seen enough to know that real strength was mostly hidden away.
“How’s our friend Morrissey?” Mulder asked, referring to the two-bit gangster they’d been watching back in Boston.
Krycek shrugged but said nothing.
“Did he make you?”
Krycek’s face darkened, but only for an instant. “He’ll still be there tomorrow.”
“Maybe I still won’t.”
Mulder’s partner sighed heavily as if already bored with the conversation, then turned to Scully. “Dana. Radiant as ever.”
“Surprised to see you here, Krycek,” she said.
“Likewise.”
“Just helping Mulder on a new investigation.”
“Authorized?”
A loaded silence. Then Krycek laughed.
“Not that I give a shit about that, really, guys. Give me a break. I’ve come a long way, and only because I know Mulder’s got a nose for an interesting case.”
“And how did you follow me?” Mulder asked.
“We have mutual friends.”
It must have been X, Mulder thought. He knew the man by no other name, knew nothing about him, no clue as to his intentions or allegiances. But X provided good intel on cases that might be classed as an X-File, even though the X-Files no longer officially existed. Mulder supposed it was arrogant to assume that he was the only one X chose to talk to.