by Tim Lebbon
“Jumping around like that?”
I shrug. “Someone who wanted to drum up business for the town could’ve hired an acrobat, or... a parkour expert.”
“Parkour?”
“A discipline developed in France. Using only your surroundings, you propel yourself around and over any obstacles. It’s based on military training.”
I flash on Mulder smiling. It’s not like the shadow government would send anything this goofy.
What if they would?
*****
SCAPE ORE SWAMP
LEE COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA
THURSDAY, 5:16 a.m.
The view shifts from flat fields to thick trees. We turn onto what I wouldn’t even call a dirt road, more a path that barely fits the SUV.
“ATV trail,” Tate explains. “How far we get depends on how the drainage’s been. I only hope we don’t trash the vehicle.”
We bounce hard. Branches scrape and thud the sides so loudly, I have to raise my voice.
“I appreciate you taking the risk.”
She shrugs. “It’s my job.”
Given what I took for jealousy last night, her professionalism is refreshing. Maybe we all just needed some sleep. An instant later we’re surrounded by incredibly tall, thin pines. The swamp is thick with them, the way a field of grass might look to a mouse.
“Why’s it called Scape Ore Swamp?”
They look at each other. “It’s short for Escaped Whore Swamp. During the Revolutionary War, a British camp in town was ambushed. Three of their ‘pleasure’ women ran and hid here.”
After about two miles, a front wheel spins in the spongy ground, then two. Forced to stop, Tate passes out the high, rubber snake-waders and some orange vests.
“Don’t want to be taken for a deer... or an alien.”
The vest is tight, the boots too big. I can only hope both will serve their purpose. Once they’re on, we begin what Tate says will be “a long march.” Given the damp, muddy ground that gives way to stretches of shallow, murky water, the better word is slog.
I let those with experience lead, try to walk where they walk, do as they do. But when I’m the third to climb over a particularly fat, rotting tree trunk, it collapses. Tate and Hickmon catch me, but not before mossy water tips over a loose boot top, drenching my foot and ankle. I think about removing it to dump the water, but a slithering feeling across my calf changes my mind.
Long hours later, the GPS coordinates are a half-mile off. Knowing we’ll arrive soon, Hickmon heads to the privacy of a thick-bottomed cypress to relieve his bladder. Despite the constant insect drone, he is... loud.
Tate and I look around awkwardly, then at each other.
She grimaces. “About last night. I’ve known John Quinlan since grade school. We been together three years.”
“It’s none of my business, but don’t you think it affects you professionally? He is your superior.”
She gives me a look. “Maybe in some corporation, but it’s no secret in that office who gets promoted or why. John ever did anything funny on my account, he’d get it bad. Mostly from me.”
“But...” Remembering I’m a visitor, I cut myself off.
“Now, flirting with you was out of bounds. He will be apologizing next he sees you.”
Tate’s easy confidence makes it easy to imagine her the dominant partner.
“You got someone?”
“No.”
Her brow acquires the smallest of wrinkles. “I’d have guessed different from the look on your face when you talk about Agent Mulder.”
“It’s not like that. He’s my partner.”
“It can be like that without being like that, if you know what I mean.”
What she may consider southern friendliness is beginning to feel intrusive.
“I admit our relationship is complicated, but...”
Before I can think how to explain, Hickmon, finished at last, calls out: “I see something.”
Sloshing from behind the cypress, he points toward a vague rectangle between the trees, maybe a hundred yards away.
Tate squints. “What the hell...? I’ve seen deer stands out here, but no more than a ladder and a platform.”
The swamp shack sits in a small clearing surrounded by a deep mesh of branches that has to be cut away by Hickmon’s machete. I’d pictured a rotting wooden hut held up on aged dock pilings, but it seems made of the sort of PVC composite used in decks. The windowless shack has one door, but a series of air vents line the low-angled roof. The chug of a gas generator disrupts the insect noises.
Silver screw tops wink in the sunlight, telling me: “It’s new.”
Tate kneels beside me. “Want to tell us what we’re getting into?”
This isn’t a risk I can ask them to take without an explanation, so I sigh an old sigh.
“Agent Mulder was here to meet someone claiming to have captured a live alien.”
There’s an expected beat of incredulity, then: “And he believed him?”
Hickmon looks around. “Why not? Topiary garden’s due east. If there’s a path, that thing last night could’ve come from here.”
I touch his shoulder. “I assume it was a hoax, but that doesn’t make this less dangerous. If someone’s holding him inside, they won’t be happy to see us.”
“Still...”
His fear isn’t as contagious as Mulder’s desire to believe, but, given all I’ve seen, I have to acknowledge I may be wrong.
Tate shrugs. “Your partner, your call.”
Fortunately, alien or not, the play is the same. “No windows works both ways. We can’t see in, but unless they have cameras, they can’t see us. I’m thinking we turn off the generator and see if anyone comes out.”
Staying low, Deputy Tate and I take up positions on either side of the door. A nervous Hickmon makes his way to the generator. It sputters, then stops, the sudden quiet revealing the previously inaudible whirr of fans in the vents. As they slow and stop, I wonder what’s so wrong with the air inside that the swamp smell is preferable. The shack is the right size for a meth lab.
Mulder, what did you wander into this time?
We wait, guns out, but down. After a slow thirty seconds, a mosquito lands on Hickmon’s cheek. I put a finger to my lips to warn him, but he slaps it hard, leaving a bright red smudge. The slap is sharp, loud.
And all hell breaks loose.
They say that in a crisis the adrenaline rush makes time seem slow, but it doesn’t happen now. The moments that follow are as blurry as any bad photo. A thunderous blast tears a head-sized hole in the door. What’s left of it flies open. A wiry figure, at least six feet tall, rushes out, shotgun in hand.
Before I can tell if it’s alien, man, beast, or Mulder, Hickmon fires. Though I assume he’s never shot at a human being before, he hits it in the chest. His next two shots come in such rapid succession, the body doesn’t have time to fall before the third bullet makes contact. When it does, it lands on its back. The black oatmeal of the marsh oozes around it. The sinking face belongs to an older man, maybe seventy, balding, pink skin red from sunburn. It disappears with a moist plop.
Now is not the time to stare. There may be more in the shack.
As if obeying Uriel’s command to jump, I all but leap in. A gross smell hits me, so thick, even the best ventilation couldn’t keep it in check. The single room is dominated by a large empty cage, the source of the odor. Otherwise, the place is empty. Mulder isn’t here and my only chance to find him may already be dead.
I rush back out. Tate, having pulled the man’s head above water, presses a fistful of gauze from her First Aid kit into the wounds. Ignoring the wetness filling both my boots, I straddle him at the waist. Hickmon’s aim was true. The fading heart pumps a stream of blood from the largest of three entry wounds. The man’s eyes waver like small boats about to tear loose from their mooring. He’s barely conscious, if at all.
I have seconds.
“Look at me!” I scream.
Our gazes meet. We both know I’m the last thing he’ll ever see. “Where’s Agent Mulder? What have you done with him?”
A gleam of pure hatred flashes from the man’s eyes—and he dies.
Tate already has a walkie-talkie in hand. “No need for Evac?”
Heart pounding, I fall back. “No, but I want a forensic team out here, stat.”
A loud panting turns us toward Hickmon. He’s on his knees, eyes wide, chest rising and falling so fast he’s in danger of hyperventilating.
“You did the right thing,” I tell him, though part of me wishes he hadn’t. “Keep your head down. Sherry, do you have a bag, anything he can breathe into?”
As she tends Hickmon, I check the corpse. It isn’t easy, but I squeeze my hand into each wet pocket. Empty. No ID, nothing. It’s a small town. He might be local.
“Either of you recognize him?”
No such luck.
Before going back into the shack, I restart the generator. The whirring fans don’t relieve much of the awful smell, part chemical, part fecal. The soiled cage is six by four. Two of its thick bars are impossibly bent and marred by what could be scratches or bites. The lock has been snapped, the cage door ajar. Whatever was inside wanted out, and was powerful enough to get its way.
I hear Hickmon. “W-was that thing locked up in here?”
He, still pale, is at the door. Tate’s beside him.
“Or someone wants it to look that way. Let’s stay out until forensics gets here. I don’t want any contamination.”
Tate’s nose wrinkles. “Already looks pretty contaminated to me.”
“Once they test the biological residue we’ll know if it’s human or...”
“Alien?” Hickson offers.
“Animal. I was going to say animal.”
It is hours before forensics arrives, hours more before I learn that the elderly man’s photo and fingerprints, faxed from the site by satellite phones, aren’t in the national criminal databases. I’m told it’ll be morning before they can even start on the lab-work.
Meanwhile, Mulder, like the truth, is out there.
Soggy, antsy, lacking better ideas, I decide to retrace the “alien’s” path from last night.
“How far is that topiary park?”
Hickmon, though distracted by all the activity, seems no calmer. “Two miles?”
“Whyn’t you show her, Mark? You can still get there by sunset. I’ll have a car meet you,” Tate says. After any shooting, it’s protocol to offer the involved officer an opportunity to step away from the scene. Being stuck in a swamp hasn’t afford any easy opportunities.
And so we begin another slog. While the ground gets drier, the path becomes less clear. Moving inch by inch, it’s clear we won’t beat the sunset. I doubt any alien, real or not, came this way. Hickmon says little. It’s not unusual under the circumstances, but not knowing him, I can’t say how well he’s taking it. I tell Hickmon he had no choice, that he likely saved our lives.
When he finally does speak, it’s a shout: “Cottonmouth!”
Four feet of dull yellow and earthy brown dart in front of me, disappearing behind a stubby branch. My eyes are riveted on the wood, watching for any sign of movement.
“Don’t worry, he’s gone. He’s more afraid of you than you are of him.”
Really? Then “he” must be having a heart attack.
Before I let myself breathe again, I notice that the frayed wood on the branch-end is almost white. It’s freshly fallen. I look up and find a spot on a tree. In fact, more than a few tree branches have been snapped recently. Together, they form a rough line headed east.
Hickmon guesses what I’m thinking. “Parkour?”
I nod.
Whatever the explanation, following the line speeds our trip. We’re out of the swamp by nightfall. Better yet, as my aching feet squish in the wet waders and stars wink into the sky, Al’s Topiary Garden appears on the horizon.
Heartened, I pick up speed, only to stop short at the hint of a cool breeze. In this heat, it’s stranger to find than an alien, and I don’t want to let it go. It hits my fingertips, not my face, as if rising from below. By the time I turn toward it, it’s gone.
The Lizard Man supposedly frequented an abandoned subway. I doubt there’s a subway around here. A salt cavern might not be out of the question.
“Are there any underground caves here?”
“In Linville, about two hundred miles.”
The breeze gone, there’s nothing to follow. The dark growing, there’s nothing to see. In any event, I have no reason to pursue it.
By the time we reach the garden, there’s barely enough light to make out the topiaries. What I can see impresses me. I expected animal-shapes, but these are abstract; entwined trees curving up in a double helix, pyramids, spirals, and wilder shapes that look like freeform doodles.
Halfway across the three short acres, I make out headlights at the far end. Our ride from the sheriff’s office, I assume. Hickmon’s a few steps ahead when I notice that the chorus of crickets, our company for miles now, has stopped. Along a row of bushes looped in serpentine waves, I think I see someone. It could be the owner, or part of the garden. I take a few steps closer. When the thing moves, I remember my words to Sheriff Quinlan—you see what might be a tiger.
It rises like madness—garish, terrifying, but not at all like a dream. Uriel came along with a heaviness in my mind that reassured me he was an illusion. No such comfort here. I’m completely, horrifyingly aware, my inner-animal fearing for its life, my intellect repulsed that a world I’d thought mostly predictable would dare present me with anything so ridiculous.
In a theoretical conversation, reason can debate with the instinct to assume. In the moment you have to choose.
Of course it’s a monster.
Of course it’s not.
I want to believe it’s an animal, but the skull-size and huge, pupil-black eyes make that impossible. A costume? Yes. It must be a costume. Whatever it is, it’s lean, lithe, and about six feet tall, with grey, leathery skin. No sooner does it crouch than it leaps, rising so quickly it looks like a blurry, oversize squirrel. I’ve certainly never seen anything human move so quickly.
A being from another world with heavier gravity, like the astronauts on the moon.
But the astronauts seemed to move in slow-motion. This thing’s free-standing jump, from ground to high branch, is more explosive than a cobra strike. A second leap nearly cracks the branch. It wraps itself around the double-helix trees. They waver, surrounding me with a rain of small leaves. Another jump takes it back to the ground, four short yards away, facing me.
One more leap and it’ll be on me. I seize.
My brain howls: Idiot! It is a tiger. You should’ve run!
“Get down!”
I’m already ducking when the air near my ear sizzles and burns. I hear a pistol’s firecracker pop. The thing somersaults backwards and dives into a bush as if it were water. I hear it flee, or rather, hear brush snapping in its wake.
Hickmon helps me up. We chase after crunching leaves and cracking twigs. They soon dissolve, leaving us at the garden’s end, staring at a wall of shadow. Our brains ache to find a pattern in it, but the blackness only throbs.
Neither of us mention parkour.
Sheriff Quinlan rushes toward us. He’s shouting, but I don’t hear what he’s saying. I train my eyes on the topiaries. I see no blood or no torn clothing, but I’m so exhausted I can’t trust that I’m not missing something. If I don’t get some rest, my uselessness will only increase.
Quinlan, tired and pale himself, escorts us back to the car. A few moments after I climb in, he hands me a note, a hand-written apology for his flirtatious remarks. His description is so objective and complete, if I wanted to press harassment charges, I could use the letter as evidence. I want to question his timing. Instead I thank him and ask to be dropped off at the motel.
The little town center is day-bright again, bullied by klieg ligh
ts, packed with people.
“They can’t all be press.”
Quinlan grows grim. “They’re mostly locals. First two sightings, no one blinked. After eighty, people got a little tense. Something goes strolling through town, they get a little more tense. Now, rumors flying that the government’s involved, they hear about our first shooting in decades and everyone’s more skittish than a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.”
“Rumors of government involvement?”
“Sherry said not to mention it until you got some sleep, but...”
He nods at a newspaper on the seat floor. The front page half-covered by a blurry photo in the digitized black and green of night vision. The bobbed hair and business suit indicate it’s not any alien. It’s me, walking to the motel last night. I was a fool. After I answered the questions from the press so smugly, some enterprising journalist decided to follow me.
Ahead, people mill and swarm, a mob changing shape in insect waves. If they don’t already know about the topiary garden, they will soon. Without some explanation that puts the world back roughly where they left it, things could get ugly.
The main street impossible to navigate, we drive around the long way to the Inn or Out? In the cheap, moldy room, I take what is arguably a shower before collapsing into bed.
Something happens, call it sleep. At least for my body, but my mind will not let go. It careens, counting the possibilities, ruthlessly discarding data and dream. It may be obsession that drives me, inflamed loyalty, even love, but I can’t name it. It’s a habit beyond habit. My partner, my friend, the man who found the cure for my cancer, is out there somewhere and I have to find him.
I think I open my eyes. I see scant, yellow streetlight behind the blinds. As I watch, breathing slowly, the air acquires an odd quality, as if taking on a presence. To get away from the light, I think I roll over. Uriel waits in his spot by the desk, patient, as if he’s been there all eternity. I don’t have to ask, I don’t have to think a word before he speaks:
Jump or he’ll die.
Again, the voice feels like it’s in my mind, very different from the harsh scraping that fills my ears. Uriel is intimate, as close as the air. The scraping is loud, but distant, as if coming from some other room. My best guess is that Uriel is a dream, but the sound is real.