X-Files: Trust No One

by Tim Lebbon

  Mulder forced his eyes open, wincing at the pain. A dim orange glow picked out his surroundings. Dirt walls. Timber supports. Narrow passage.

  He was in a mine. Most likely the one the vampire had been trapped in since the fifties.

  He looked to his left. Huge piles of earth and rocks blocked the passage. But there was a hole in the ground, a wide fissure.

  “He has to feed, you see.”

  Mulder looked right and saw McEllroy approaching with his shotgun.

  “McEllroy. Let me go. There’s still time to stop this.”

  “Stop this? You can’t stop this. No one can. It’s the way of the world.”

  He squatted down in front of Mulder.

  “I created him you know. Callum. He came to life from my books. That’s why I have to keep feeding him.”

  “No. McEllroy, you based your books on your father’s notes. He made the vampire what it is.”

  “Liar!” McEllroy backhanded Mulder. “He came because of me. They’re all the same, don’t you see? The vampire? My fans. They’re always hungry. Always need feeding.”

  A white glow appeared in the fissure in the tunnel floor. McEllroy nodded toward it. “He’s coming.”

  McEllroy straightened up and took out a needle. “MDMA. He likes his victims willing, you see. Doesn’t like the taste of adrenalin.”

  *****

  The snow had left the forest difficult to navigate. Scully’s feet kept sinking into deep drifts. She was breathing heavily by the time they were only five minutes from the road.

  She checked her phone again. The GPS signal said Mulder’s phone was only about a kilometer or so away.

  “This way,” said Scully, pointing.

  “Can I see?” asked Sheriff Goodman.

  Scully handed her phone over and he studied the screen. “That’s the old mines. They’ve been closed since the turn of the century.”

  “You know where they are?”

  Lester nodded. Scully took her phone back and slid it into her pocket. “Lead the way.”

  *****

  “Wait!” Mulder desperately needed to buy time. “You don’t need the drugs. I’ll go. Willingly.”

  McEllroy frowned. “What?”

  “You think I don’t understand? You think I don’t get it? The vampire. He’s us. He’s our culture. Never-ending hunger for the latest thing. The latest book. The latest gossip. Twenty-four-hour channels that need constant feeding. Manufactured news. Fame hunting. Reality shows about talentless morons whose only claim to fame is that they filmed themselves having sex. Endless reboots of movies that are only a couple of years old. Cancelled television shows brought back to life as comics and novels. Social media this. Facebook that. I understand, McEllroy. You and me, we crave a simpler time. Do you know they actually asked me to join Twitter? I’m talking about my department. The X-Files. All the other FBI departments have signed up and they wanted me to as well.”

  McEllroy’s gun dropped slightly. “Goddamn it. I hate Twitter. My publishers asked me to sign up. I told them I would burn my latest manuscript if they even mentioned it again.”

  “See. I get that. What’s with the constant need to share everything? Selfies and pictures of what you’re eating. Who cares, right?”

  “They do. He cares. That’s why we have to keep feeding it,” whispered McEllroy. “If we don’t feed it, it will devour us. It will get worse.”

  “No. It’s not like that. If we don’t feed it, it will wither up and die. We can fight this together.”

  McEllroy shook his head sadly. “No. It can never die. I have to do this. Don’t you see? So others won’t have to. The human race has become corrupted. No one cares anymore. There will always be someone willing to feed the beast, willing to sacrifice their pride, their lives, others, just for a few minutes of fame.” McEllroy straightened up. “‘Even the enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.’” He shook his head again. “I have to do this. To stop it getting worse.”

  *****

  Scully paused. She’d seen something up ahead. The flash of bright colors. She drew her sidearm as she and Lester drew closer. She could hear voices now. Voices raised in argument.

  “He won’t want you, you cow. He’ll want someone pure.”

  “That rules you out. Everyone knows that you blew Donny behind the science block.”

  “FBI,” called Scully. “Arms where I can see them.”

  She moved around a tree to find a group of five girls—they looked about seventeen—standing in a huddle. They were dressed like they were about to go clubbing. Scully frowned and holstered her gun.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “What’s it to you?” asked one of the girls.

  Scully raised an eyebrow. “I’m a federal law enforcer. I’m on the hunt for a murderer. So it’s everything to me. I won’t ask again, young lady.”

  “We’re looking for Callum,” snapped another of the girls.

  Lester leaned in to Scully. “These are some of the girls who have been reported missing.”

  “Why are you searching for the vampire?” asked Scully.

  “Because he rejected those other girls. The ones who turned up dead. That means he’s still on the lookout for a real girlfriend. Someone who understands him.”

  “And he’ll pick me,” said another.

  “In your dreams. It will be me.”

  “It will be none of you,” snapped Scully. “Because you’re all going to go home.”

  The girls looked Scully up and down. “I don’t think so, bitch,” said one of them.

  “NOW!” shouted Scully.

  The girls jumped. Even Sheriff Goodman jerked upright.

  “You can’t speak to us like that. It’s an infringement on our human rights.”

  Scully sighed and turned to Lester. “Sheriff. See these girls are returned home. And if they give you any problems, charge them with obstructing a federal officer in the course of her duties.”

  Scully took her phone out again and set off, ignoring the complaints and protests behind her.

  *****

  The glow from the fissure was growing brighter. McEllroy pulled Mulder to his feet.

  “I’m really sorry, man,” McEllroy said. “You seem really cool. Under different circumstances I’d have loved to get high with you. But I have to feed it. It’s my responsibility.”

  “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

  “It does. It’s my punishment. It’s penance for writing those books.”

  He shoved Mulder with the shotgun, angling him toward the crevice. The white glow was growing stronger, spilling out and illuminating the dirt walls. McEllroy pushed him until he was standing on the edge. Mulder couldn’t help it. He peered down into the hole.

  He saw a deep shaft. Broken timber supports jutted out of the walls.

  And he saw the vampire climbing nimbly toward him, almost at the top of the crevice.

  “FBI,” shouted a voice behind them. “Raise your hands where I can see them!”

  Mulder felt the shotgun leave his back. He turned and saw McEllroy swinging the weapon around, aiming for Scully. At the same time he realized she couldn’t fire. He was standing too close to McEllroy for her to make a safe shot.

  He lunged forward and grabbed the shotgun with his tied hands, shoving it upward just as McEllroy pulled the trigger.

  The explosion was deafening in the narrow tunnel. The pellets hit the support beams above them, shredding the ancient wood. Earth and rocks poured from the ceiling. Dust clouds billowed through the passage.

  “Mulder, move!”

  Mulder staggered forward, heading toward the hazy light. He heard McEllroy shout in anger, turned, and could just make out the old man swinging his gun at him.

  Then through the choking clouds of dust Mulder saw two glowing hands rise up through the crevice and grab McEllroy’s ankles.

  Mulder and McEllroy locked eyes.

  Then he was yanke
d backward down the hole.

  Mulder hesitated, debating whether to go back.

  “Mulder! The roof’s going to cave in.”

  Mulder glanced up just as a huge chunk off the wall slid free, rocks and stones following in its wake as they covered the crevice hole.

  Mulder turned and ran just as the entire ceiling came down.

  *****

  Mulder and Scully sprinted from the mine shaft, coughing and spluttering, waving the clouds of dust away. They collapsed onto the snow as the mine entrance caved in, a huge grey and brown cloud billowing up into the sky.

  When Mulder had cleared his lungs he sat up and stared at the pile of dirt that had once been the mine entrance.

  “Did you see it?” he said.

  “See what?”

  “The vampire. It grabbed his legs.”

  “Mulder, all I saw was McEllroy falling down a mine shaft. There was no vampire.”

  Mulder sighed. He held out his hands to Scully and she cut the rope with her pocketknife.

  “His fans aren’t going to be happy,” said Scully.

  “No,” agreed Mulder.

  They got to their feet.

  “Still,” he said. “There’s always fan fiction. Maybe I’ll give it a try. I could put you in it. Dana Scully versus Callum James.”

  “You do that and I’ll leave you.”

  “Come on, Scully. It will be cool. Just you against a three-hundred-year-old vampire, having to fight your own attraction for the creature as you hunt him down. It’s solid gold.”

  They started walking back through the forest. Mulder glanced back over his shoulder, watching the cloud slowly dissipate.

  “Solid gold, I tell you.”

  -The End -

  Loving the Alien

  by Stefan Petrucha

  FBI HEADQUARTERS

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  6th OCTOBER, 1997, 3:15 p.m.

  Stuck in any routine we crave the new, forgetting how easily it can betray us, or how deeply we might miss habit’s comfort when gone. Even fear and paranoia can become banal if that’s all there is. That morning in the office felt so routine, it was hard to pay attention. For instance, I had to ask, as I had a dozen times:

  “Mulder, how can you possibly think this isn’t a complete waste of time?”

  And, of course, he answered with a joke: “A little green man told me, Scully. Or do you find that assertion Scooby-dubious?”

  His sheepish smile earned my expected eye roll, but it wasn’t bad for a bad joke. Maybe he’d held onto it for days, waiting for the right moment to spring it on me. Either way, those were his last words before Agent Mulder, as the cliché goes, disappeared into thin air.

  Not that I didn’t want to investigate the case with him, but I’d already objected. “Wait a day, or I could cancel...”

  “No. You have an appointment with Dr. Zuckerman.”

  “The check-up’s a formality.”

  “So’s this.”

  He held up two local newspaper articles and a Post-It. It was scant even for an X-File, not even worth a slide show. The small-town alien sightings were exactly the sort of tabloid nonsense that crops up in bored towns craving anything new.

  As for the post-it, Mulder dismissed it, too. “It’s like a hand-written version of a Nigerian email offering five million dollars, only I’m getting an exclusive look at a live EBE. At least six people a year claim to capture Bigfoot, the Chupacabra, or living aliens. But there’s only one Dana Scully.”

  We’ve been protective of each other from the beginning. Since my cancer, Mulder’s awkward motherliness, touching at first, had become irritating. Being alive, I wanted to be allowed to live. But that’s what I mean about habit and the betrayal of the new.

  I sighed an old sigh. He smiled and winked as always. “Come on. It’s not like the shadow government would send anything this goofy. I’ll be back in two days, and you can tell me again how Klerksdorp spheres are really natural formations and not proof of ancient astronauts.”

  Ever since Michael Kritschgau convinced Mulder that our very human military is behind the mass abduction of American citizens, his self-deprecating humor has acquired an almost masochistic quality. The thought of a world without aliens seemed to dull him.

  “If it’s obviously fake, why go?”

  “Because it’s from Bishopville, South Carolina, home of the Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp!”

  Speaking of Scooby-dubious, he first brought up the 1988 sightings of a reptilian humanoid years ago just to prove he wasn’t completely gullible. One witness admitted lying, the footprint casts were shown to be fake, and the deep “claw” scratches on the cars were probably caused by a power tool. Even Mr. I Want to Believe thought it was embarrassing.

  Which meant he was leaving something out, so I waited for the truth.

  It seemed we were always waiting for the truth.

  “Okay, you caught me. The handwriting looks familiar.”

  “Familiar? How?”

  “Can’t place it, but it’s bugging me. It’s probably, probably nothing, but...?”

  “You’ve got a better shot at the five million,” I told him. But I was telling myself, Let him go alone. It may improve his mood.

  So, without further objection, I did exactly that. I let him go. At least physically.

  That night, as I lay half-asleep, I thought I saw him standing in a corner by my dresser, all in shadow. But it was nothing, or a dream, a Mulder-shaped dream.

  Next day, when he didn’t answer my calls, I contacted Bishopville’s sheriff, John Quinlan, who seemed to have a lot of time on his hands. He’d not only met Mulder, he provided a simple explanation:

  “He lost his charger and couldn’t get a replacement. The way he dresses, he stands out like a pine tree in a parking lot, so I’m sure I’ll see him. I’ll have him call.”

  The call never came.

  That night I saw another shadow. This one looked like my father, dead three years now. Seeing him was comforting rather than frightening. I even wanted a closer look. But with a twist of my head, Dad vanished, a trick of the light. Disappointed, but expecting as much, I stared at the white ceiling, remembering how he used to call me Starbuck.

  Starbuck was chief mate from Moby Dick. He was a practical man devoted to keeping the ship and its crew working, while mad Captain Ahab set course for the unknown. In other words, Starbuck was the one who made sense. Dad never met Mulder. I don’t know whether he’d have liked him, but I have a pretty good idea what he would have called him.

  Next morning, after receiving Dr. Zimmerman’s expected clean bill of health, I was about to leave his waiting room when I noticed everyone staring at the television. CNN was airing a report on the Bishopville sightings. They even had an “exclusive” blurry alien video taken by an anonymous viewer. It showed a dim figure among dimmer trees, making dazzling leaps from branch to branch. Of course, the anchor failed to mention the lack of any reference that would enable you to judge its size. In the past, the Barred Owl, an albino species with highly reflective eyes, was taken for Mothman. This skittering thing on cable TV’s most respected news source looked like a squirrel.

  But Mulder still hadn’t called. Sheriff Quinlan, now frazzled by an influx of press and sightseers, hadn’t seen him. A credit card check revealed Mulder had rented a room in a motel charmingly named Inn or Out? When my calls there went unanswered, I packed an extra cell phone charger and scheduled a flight.

  *****

  FLORENCE REGIONAL AIRPORT

  FLORENCE, SOUTH CAROLINA

  WEDNESDAY, 4:57 p.m.

  Hours later, I stand in Florence Regional Airport, 35 miles northeast of Bishopville, agitated by a too-familiar concern for my partner’s life. I long for distraction, but nothing works; not the quaint airport, the people, or the car radio. I hope for interesting scenery, but pass mile on mile of flat farmland along Interstate 20. The trip is nearly over before I even glimpse a swamp. A lazy sun sets low behind it, teasing
me with odd silhouettes that refuse to resolve into recognizable objects.

  And, of course, I wonder if Mulder is one of them.

  I don’t think his disappearance has anything to do with a military conspiracy. I’m imagining something more mundane. A fringe believer or two-bit con man upset when Mulder realizes his alien is a pet monkey with mange, murders him in a drunken rage.

  But Mulder is too well trained to be taken off guard easily. More likely he’d gone into the swamp alone and slipped. Or was bitten by a snake. There are six venomous varieties common to South Carolina, including three types of rattlesnake.

  Alligators are also not an unreasonable concern.

  By the time I near Bishopville I find my own motherliness as irritating as Mulder’s.

  He’s probably fine.

  The cheery reptilian face on the sign for the Lizard Man Souvenir Shop is strangely reassuring. Nothing so gaudy could be real. The two motels I pass are full. The view of the town center from the base of an old water tower tells me why. Network satellite trucks, reporters, and curiosity-seekers overburden the main street. Must be a slow news week. My destination, the one-story brick police department, is, of course, at the center of the crowd.

  In a town just four blocks wide, I’m forced to park four blocks away and walk. Dressed for Washington, the heat and humidity feel like a quilt wrapped around my body. At the office, a dark business suit all but fades into the wall. Here, portable lights veer in my direction. Excited journalists thrust microphones and shout stupid questions. They’re all, I imagine, eager to make a name for themselves, if only so they never have to cover a story like this again.

  “Are you a MIB?”

  “Do I look like a man?”

  “No.”

  “Am I wearing black?”

  “No, but...”

  By then I’m pressing my badge against a glass door at two doe-eyed deputies. Inside, beyond an aged Formica counter, I see two more deputies and three non-uniformed staff. Several phones ring with loud, old-style jangles, but everyone’s eyes remain on the crowd outside.

  A compact women with coiffed blonde hair claps her hands and points to the phones. After introducing herself as Deputy Sherry Tate, she ushers me to a windowless backroom. In it, the sheriff, ball point pen in hand, slumps in a plastic chair at a table piled with paperwork and photos.