From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 1/41 Date: 21 Jan 1996 08:29:49 GMT Oklahoma (Part 1/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence Introduction Hiya, folks! This is for all of you who wondered what happened to Amp after Therapy II and Goo after Corpse, not to mention the lost souls crying out for Colors. So, you ask, where HAVE Amp and Goo been? Home! Slaving our little fingers off writing Oklahoma. So what, besides the obvious, is Oklahoma? Back in January '95 Amperage ran a riveting story called The Sacrifice, in which she made passing mention of a Mulder case, years in the past, with an eviscerated child, and Mulder writing the impossible profile. It was the turning point in 1987, where VICAP and BSU overwhelmed him and hot-shot young Fox Mulder started to turn away and explore the fringes of the X-Files. Back in June, Amp let me get my slimy lawyer fingers on her history for Mulder, and expand on that a bit. She gave me some history and some details, and I was hooked. I wanted more and I whined for it in the classic manner. And then. . . . Amp sent along a gritty, gorgeous opening like nothing I'd seen, with an idea out of an English Lit. major's dreams - help her write Oklahoma, and brace that baby around the poems of T.S.Eliot. How could I say no? EVERYTHING went on the back burner when the new piece of Oklahoma needed to be written. And it's hot. If you ask me what this story's about, I'd tell you it's about transitions. Those key points when you stop being one thing and become another. In this case, it's Mulder's transition from what he was to what we see in the X-Files. And transitions from one kind of society to another, one level of awareness to another. I'm sure Amp has her own ideas of what this story's about, but she keeps her own council. Fair warning time. This story isn't nice and it isn't kind. It's hot and rolling, and violent and full of disturbing notions. NC-17 for violence and language, oh my yes. And if you didn't like Therapy or Corpse, I doubt you'll like Oklahoma. You've been warned. We accept flames, but personal attacks are never good netiquette. Please toss the email to Livengoo@tiac.net. So. You've been warned and you've been enticed. Just to be sure, there's a pop quiz. I hope you decide to try Oklahoma, and I hope you enjoy it. ____ It's been pointed out to me, by some of the concerned readers on the group, that it's eminently unfair of Amp and me to drop weird-o and tres disturbant concepts (not to mention truly bad Franglais) on readers all unannounced. Accordingly, I'd like you to take a pop quiz before going on to read Oklahoma. Please take the following with a grain of salt and two aspirins and call me in the morning. What you call me is up to you. 1) Do you believe that Mulder probably did not exist before Dana Scully walked into the basement office? 2) Do you believe that Mulder grew up in a wholesome home, unexceptional but for skulking spies and aliens? 3) Do you believe that Mulder is a well-adjusted adult who happens to have some rough interpersonal skills? 4) Does all poetry have to rhyme to be any good? 5) Does Mulder ever use terms stronger than "darn" and "shucks?" 6) Did Mulder pursue the X-Files because he couldn't get a date on a Friday night? (they were all watching Picket Fences?) 7) Do serial killers, to your knowledge, on average, have profiles similar to one Fox Mulder? 8) Does Mulder always behave with propriety, in an upright and rational fashion? 9) Do you require a romantic entanglement between two individuals in virtual three-D (i.e. not a magazine!) to feel that a story is complete? 10) Did Therapy and/or Corpse aggravate or annoy you? 11) Should there be a "Psychology Included" warning along with the sex and violence warnings? If you answered "yes" to any four or more questions, you may want to reconsider and turn back now! This is a dark ride. Goo ____ Miscellany: Oklahoma is set in 1987. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the bombing. Mulder is in VICAP, and not partnered at present. Abbreviations like BVM for Blessed Virgin Mary crop up here and there. With a very, very few exceptions, poetry is T.S.Eliot, and your best source is The Complete Poems and Plays if you feel inspired. It's gorgeous stuff, so I hope at least a few of you go make a run on the bookstores. Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. There are forty one pieces to this (yeah, another bandwidth hog), which should add up to more than a month's worth of entertainment at a piece a day. There's a lot of it ahead of you! We sincerely hope you understand how we love doing cliffhangers for you all, and that you choose to read it as we post it. Here we go! Oklahoma by Amperage and Livengoo Fox Mulder, FBI Special Agent, one of ten men in the Bureau who got to do the kind of work that was currently flashing up on the screen in the front of the airplane - a line of work beloved by producers and writers, BSU VICAP, to go the entire alphabetic route - was crashed in his narrow, coach class airline seat, with a thin line of drool pooling on the hand supporting his chin. Sam Rodriguez shook his head, grinned. Spooky Mulder. If the public knew the difference between someone like the movie version and someone like Spooky Mulder they'd probably run screaming into the night or demand Ed Meese resign. . . "What's with him?" Special Agent Cooke asked around the sleeping mass. "He's like, in a coma or something." "He takes Dramamine, I think." Actually he usually almost od'd on the stuff. Rodriguez frowned. "I've taken Dramamine and I never crashed like that," Cooke hissed back. Rodriguez shrugged. "I think anti-nausea drugs do that to him. Last winter, he got the flu and his doc gave him a prescription for Compazine so he could work. They had to take him to the hospital. Hallucinating, weaving, the whole nine yards. Made him crazy." Cooke considered Mulder's oversized frame, shook his head in disgust. "Are they sure it was the Compazine?" he asked. Rodriguez went back to the open file in his lap, reading glasses dangling off the end of his nose. Three bodies so far. One indian boy, one white girl and now another white girl. Weren't serial killers supposed to stick to one sex, and kill only in their own racial group? Sam frowned. He wanted to ask Mulder about that one, but Mulder was drooling away next to him. This latest corpse, the one they were saving for him in the Muskogee morgue. Sam turned over to the initial report. Seven years of age. Ericka Bettina Jones. Bettina? Poor kid. Found in a hayfield, body approximately two weeks old at the time of discovery. Oh great. A two week old body. In summertime heat. He'd need a fucking gas mask. Maggots and creepy crawlies of all descriptions running around the body too. Flies and ants and, oh this was going to be fucking great fun. Pendajos. She'd been gutted, innards taken out, stuffed with dressing, they thought, and sewn back up with catgut. Stuffed with dressing. Sam closed his eyes thinking about last year's Thanksgiving dinner with Jenni's family in Virginia. Probably Stovetop or Pepperidge farm. Fuck. And no internal organs or signs of trauma other than the great evisceration job. Wonderful. A few lines of poetry had been found in her pocket. "Garlic and sapphires in the mud Clot the bedded axle-tree The trilling wire in the blood Sings below the inveterate scars Appeasing long forgotten wars. The dance along the artery The circulation of the lymph Are figured in the drift of stars." Francis said it was from T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, Burnt Norton. Sam didn't have any room to argue. If the great, all mighty, eidetic memory said it was, then it fucking was. They'd found poems with the other two, supposedly, but the damn county Medical Examiner for the first body had tossed the poem into the trash. The second was smudged to shit before anyone ever figured out what it was. Sometimes Sam just rolled his eyes at the jobs done by GP's. The seatbelt light came back on. Sam put the file back in his briefcase, elbowed Mulder in the ribs until Pretty Boy woke. Mulder frowned, blinked, eyelashes clogged with crumbs, wiped his drooly hand. "Oklahoma City, Francis" Sam informed him, not unkindly. Mulder nodded disorientedly. "I was dreaming," he said softly, still out in la-la land. "Oh?" Sam replied. "Yeah." He shook himself, closed his eyes. When he opened them he was all Spooky Mulder, king of the unkindest cut, the young and coming star of Behavioral Sciences. "So. Oklahoma." He nodded, moved his tongue around in his mouth, no doubt still trying to get bits of rubber chicken out of his mouth. The plane began its downward spiral. "Is Jenni still cutting her little man off?" Mulder asked as they were waiting for their baggage. "Yeah. And the big man is about to get upset. Man, I hate this shit." Sam shook his head. "I've got balls the color of your tie. And it wasn't my fault this time." Mulder grinned. "Okay Frito. Let's hear it. Why'd she decide that the little general was named McArthur and needed to go back home?" Sam grinned at Cooke, who was somewhere between thoroughly disgusted and thoroughly confused. No wonder the guy did PR. "I thought you said Regional was supposed to meet us." "They are," Cooke replied. "I don't know. Maybe they're in the main lobby." "Well." Sam decided to answer Mulder. "I got sent out on the field. She thinks since I'm a pathologist that I'm supposed to stay at Quantico in my little autopsy bay and cut up bodies." "You know there is a cure for the frustrations of a fickle wife." Mulder's mouth crinkled up in a grin. Sam knew where this was going. "Yeah, but doesn't that stunt your growth?" Mulder surveyed his legs, torso and arms. "You mean I coulda' been *taller*? Shit. If I'd known I had a chance at being Larry Byrd I woulda' laid off the old tally-whacker." Sam, six inches shorter than his friend, shorter than most of the women he worked with, frowned. "Imagine where I'd be today, if I'd indulged myself." "Fuck; you'd be a midget." Mulder broke out laughing as he snagged his suitbag. "What about you, Cooke?" Cooke frowned and turned beet red. "Oh come on. Can't go around one night standing anymore," Mulder said. "You do, Francis," Sam said, deciding to pull the pressure off poor Cooke. Mulder grinned and turned. "Yeah. But I'm Spooky Mulder. I'm the self-destructive bastard who jacks up everyone's insurance premium. People just expect me not to give a shit. Well, Cooke? Do you groom the terrier? Wax the porpoise? Have long intimate dates with Mrs. Woo and her four lovely daughters?" Sam pulled his own suitbag off the merry go round. "Marion, leave him alone." Mulder pulled out his Rayban Aviators. "Don't get hyper, Frito. Just having a bit of fun. Cooke doesn't mind? Do you?" Cooke shrugged embarrassedly. "Marion," Sam began, shaking his head, "some day you're going to fun yourself into an unmarked grave and I'm going to have to do the autopsy." They found the agents. Just look for the uncomfortable guys in dark suits with bulges that don't attract a woman's glance, as Mulder had once put it. The Agent in Charge, Jack Averman, had flown down from DC last night and was with the locals already. Hell, word was he *was* a local boy done good. "How'd I get so lucky to have the Spookster?" he asked with a smile that was not a smile. "I get results on the unsolvable," Mulder smiled, a smile that was more a grimace. "You got an unsolvable here. There's another dead body out there somewhere already, he's already kidnapped his next victim, and they're gonna keep coming until every kid under the age of twelve has a personal escort, unless you got someone like me. I'm probably the only person here who's smarter than he is." He had just made three enemies. Sam grimaced. Jack Averman, who had met and worked with Mulder before, frowned. "How do you know he's already killed again and got another child?" "I'm Spooky, remember?" Mulder nodded. "This guy's got attention. He likes attention. Makes him produce more if he feels like he's got an audience. These deaths, real Hollywood gory. Oh yeah, the more media, the happier he is, the more dead bodies we'll see." He shifted his hang up. "Now we're going to Muskogee today so Frito can get the autopsy done and I can see the field, right?" Averman frowned. "Yeah." "Well, let's go. Who are you guys?" he addressed the other agents. When they said hello, Mulder nodded. Sam got the impression Mulder had read their dossiers last night. He knew everything about them, knew how they could be used. Averman was going to need a choke collar to keep Mulder under control. Averman, Mulder, Sam, and the RA would be going to Muskogee, based on Mulder's observations before he'd even come into the field. Enough for Sam to autopsy the body, for Mulder to talk to Mom and Dad about "sweetums" as he'd called her privately. Enough for Averman to discuss the matter with the local Sheriff. Then they'd head back in; Muskogee was a dead site as far as Mulder was concerned. The killer'd had his fun, time to move on. Mulder didn't even want to stop at the Regional office and Averman, to Sam's surprise, agreed. Probably didn't want Mulder alienating even *more* people. Stengal, the Resident Agent, drove them himself in his bucar, told them a little about finding the body. How the kids who found it had vomited all over the hayfield. Mulder hadn't really been listening, but he was quiet behind his Ray-Bans, no insulting remarks, and everyone let him be. "I was only able to get two rooms," Stengal said, apologetically. It woke Mulder from his contemplative state. He frowned. "Two rooms?" "Yeah. Rodeo's in town. Sorry. The hotels have been booked for weeks." Stengal shrugged. Mulder's mouth pursed up. He knew that Averman would be in one room and Mulder and Sam would be in the other. Knew that, and Sam could tell it bugged the living shit out of him. He said nothing, however, just stared out the window, went back to his quiet, staring out at the early summer sunshine and the miles and miles of nothing. They got to the hotel room around five. Averman took the one with the king and handed Mulder and Rodriguez the keys to the other one. Mulder said nothing, getting his two bags out of the car, juggling them with his briefcase, leaving his portable computer out in the trunk to swelter in the heat. Let Sam open the door to the room. He put his things up immediately. Sam considered Mulder from the bed. His suit bag was on the rack, so screw everything else. He wasn't a GQ kind of guy like Mulder, who wore and ruined designer suits the way most people used kleenex. "Hey," he tried, grinning, trying to defuse Mulder's tenseness, "I know I'm horny. But man, I don't think I could *get* that horny. Just stay on your bed and we'll be fine." Mulder unzipped his hang up, frowned; it was clear he wanted to say something. Sam frowned in return. "It's me. Frito? What? You caught a nasty and your dick's scaling like the reptilian creature it is?" Mulder frowned more deeply. "I don't want to keep you awake. You know how little sleep I need. I'm usually up all night." It was so obviously an excuse, Sam got off the bed he'd been sitting on, went to his friend. "Okay. What the fuck is going on, Marion?" "Nothing." Mulder grinned, trying to dispel the mood. "Nothing. You want to eat before or after the autopsy?" Sam wanted to ask again, but Mulder had his shields up, and nothing penetrated those muthers; Sam already knew that. The corpse was about as bad as Sam had figured. Ants had eaten out most of it. Fuck. There wasn't much to find. He didn't know how she'd died. He took tissue samples, cleaned out maggots, looked for trauma. Maybe he'd find something in the tissue. He doubted it. By the time Mulder and Averman came back with the Sheriff, he was ready to let the poor thing go rest in the quiet earth. He made a few private prayers to the BVM for the little girl's soul and left her for the locals to slip back into a body bag. Mulder was quiet at dinner. He wasn't working at being a horse's ass quite so diligently, and the reasons why Sam was his friend were a little more evident. Sam managed to get him to tell about something that had happened at Oxford, and even though they didn't mean too, Averman and Stengal found themselves laughing at Mulder's sexual/educational exploits. Sometimes Sam wondered why the guy hadn't become an Academic. His memories of his university days were his happiest. He'd been successful, good at the pursuit of knowledge. He was scarily good at what he did, of course, but he was a pretty miserable person. The meal was over and they were sitting over coffee when Averman brought the case up again. Sam reported his findings, engrossed in his work. When he emerged, Mulder was frowning, mind running at ninety on another track. "We need to go back and look at the other two. Talk to social services." Averman frowned. "What are you talking about?" "We were lucky that Ericka was a local. That Sheriff; he knew Ericka, felt deeply sorry for her, but not for her parents. Especially not Daddy." Mulder rubbed his jaw. "Ericka was probably sexually abused. That's the vibes he gave off. Not enough proof to do anything, but the sheriff knew or at least suspected." Mulder dug through his briefcase. "The first autopsy, Christopher Raintree. The ME found some evidence of anal trauma. He assumed it was part of the work of the killer. We haven't seen any sexual trauma on the other two so we. . . I don't think our killer is doing it." Averman was scribbling. "I'll get Hitchens and Bond on it," he said, antagonism gone completely. "Kids who are sexually molested don't wear big signs proclaiming their problem." Mulder gestured towards his own chest. Oh God. Sam closed his eyes. What was going on here? "We need to know if our second victim, Kimberly Slater, was molested. If all three cases were reported, then our killer may have an inside track with the law. If not, then he has some way of knowing. Child porn or swapping groups. He has to know *somehow*." Averman was nodding. Sam swallowed down his fear. "Anything else?" Mulder shrugged. "I need some time to digest everything." He glanced at the dessert plate. "Although that cheesecake is probably going to be with me awhile." They went back to their respective hotel rooms, settled in to report writing. Mulder shut everything out when he settled in with a case; Sam was used to it. Mulder just turned on the TV and shut out the world outside that case. It was like a game for him, Sam reflected, flipping through the autopsy report. A big game of guessing. It was midnight when Sam yawned, decided to turn in. He made a great deal of noise, changing into some shorts and an old t- shirt, brushing his teeth, pulling out a Stephen King. Mulder grinned, gathered up his notebook computer and headed for the bathroom. Sam liked the dark to sleep in. Screams. Screams. Sam's heart was pounding and he couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't remember. Screams and more screams and they were coming from here. Right *here*. He fumbled for his gun, found it. Safety off. What the hell was going on? Screams. Hoarse, loud, inhuman screams. He couldn't think. The light was on, the bathroom door was open. The screams were coming from in there. And someone was beating on his door. "What the hell is going on?" Averman. Sam went to the bathroom, gun up. Mulder was pressed in a corner, eyes wide, arms wrapped around his chest, screaming and screaming and screaming. A panicked, animal scream. The lights were on and nobody was fucking home. Sam heard more beating on the door. Panicked beating. Oh shit. Mulder's screams were still going on. Sam ran to the door, dropped his gun on the bed, opened the door and scurried back to the bathroom. He didn't have time to explain to Averman. By the time he got back, the screams were gone. Mulder was still huddled in his little ball, still terrified, but now he was moaning, deep sobbing moans. "What the fuck's happening here?" Averman asked, gun limp in his hand. Sam shrugged, back to Averman, kneeling on the floor as close to Mulder as he could get. "Francis? Marion? You okay? Mulder? Come on." Mulder closed his eyes, put his head against his knees. He still didn't know they were there. Sam felt a deep abiding fear run through him. Mulder had known this was going to happen. He'd planned to not sleep at all. That meant this had been going on. It wasn't something new. Not new at all. Oh God, please. His stomach turned over. "Francis?" He reached out, put a hand on Mulder's knee. "It's Frito." Mulder was crying, deep, hard sobs. Ugly sobs that shook his entire body. "Francis. Come on. Dream's over, man. You're okay. You're safe and it's okay." Mulder finally heard him, pulled his head up. "Frito?" he asked. Then he saw Averman, swallowed. "Oh shit." He couldn't stop the crying, but he was finally aware of his world and knew he'd fucked up big time. Averman sighed. "Everybody has bad dreams sometimes, man." Sam was consolatory, rubbing Mulder's back. "Come on. It's gonna be okay." Mulder clutched his knees, crying. He was trying desperately to stop, but it seemed to only serve to make the sobs worse. "Let's get you out of here and to bed." Mulder shook his head. "Come on." Averman had knelt down, was close, there was a deep abiding sympathy in his eyes, a sadness Sam hadn't known Averman had in him. "Come on." Mulder tried to inch away from Averman, eyes going very wide. He was just barely in the land of the sane. Sam swallowed, made a decision. "He's got some Dramamine in his carry on," Rodriguez informed Averman. "Get me two and a glass of water." Averman glanced at Rodriguez. "They work better than Valium on him." Sam shrugged, turned back to Mulder. "Francis, okay, it's okay. You're in a hotel room. You're safe. You're going to be okay. He heard the sounds of Mulder's carry on being up-ended. Of packaging being destroyed. "You're safe and okay. Nobody can hurt you." "Why did Averman have to see?" Mulder asked softly through his sobs. He couldn't breathe. "Don't worry about that right now, okay?" Water in a glass and then Averman came in, handed the pills and glass to Sam. "Okay, Francis. You take these, hokay?" Mulder wanted to refuse. Sam put the pills to Mulder's mouth. "Come on. You take these every time you fly. They won't hurt you. Promise. Come on." Mulder opened his mouth, Sam felt the other man's tongue as he placed both pills in Mulder's mouth. Then the water. It slopped down his chin, but he managed to swallow. "All gone. It'll get better," Sam consoled, rubbing Mulder' back gently. Sam waited with him; ten minutes seemed like ten hours while Sam made comforting sounds, trying to keep Mulder calm; the sobs grew quieter, lessened. Mulder's eyes dilated, not from fear this time, but from drugs. Sam nodded at Averman, and they got him into bed. He fell asleep as soon as he was in the bed; his body wrapped around one of the pillows. Averman sat on Sam's bed, watched Mulder sleep. "No wonder the guy's such a butthole." Sam stared at Averman, surprised. He'd expected, oh he didn't know. . .indignation, fury. Not understanding. "I was in the marines a long time," Averman said, running a hand through his short, salt and pepper hair, stared at his own bare legs. "Mulder's not unusual. A lot of really tough guys have nightmares. And the Bureau uses Mulder like. . .like he can see all these dead bodies and get into the minds of all these serial killers and never have problems. Every time there's a really disgusting, really unsolvable string of murders, they call in the Spooky. It's gotta get to anyone eventually. I guess the being such a butt is his way of shoving people away before they can find out he's got any problems." He sighed. "And I hate to say it, but we need him on this case. You're the medico. Think he can keep it together through this one?" "My patients are dead when I get to them." Sam shrugged. "I guess." "Oh, that's great," Averman sighed. "Such reassurance. If I report this, Mulder flies straight back to DC and gets some leave and a trip to Psych." "He's been okay. Nothing that I can see," Sam lied. "Look, I'll give him a chance to defend himself. Maybe this is isolated." Sam nodded. Maybe not. ________________________ Continued in part 2 ===================================================================== ====== From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 2/41 Date: 21 Jan 1996 23:51:11 GMT Oklahoma (Part 2/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. _______________________ Mulder swallowed, tried to get his glands to produce spit. Dried versions of the stuff were all over his lips, gummy and nasty, but there was nothing in his mouth. He was lying on a pillow and it felt late in the morning. Blink. Lots of sleep boogers coated his eyelashes. His face felt vaguely heavy. Dramamine. He clenched his eyes closed as he remembered, suddenly, what had happened last night. He put his face against the pillow. Oh God. He'd have to fly back to DC in the company of some regional agent and then they'd make him take some leave time. The Spooky finally cracked wide open. There'd be all these speeches in front of Thompson and everyone else about how they were sorry, that Mulder should have told them the stress was getting to him. They realized it was an incredible burden for Mulder. They'd be reassigning him to something *less* stressful. . . He moaned aloud. From somewhere a glass of water appeared. Mulder took it, sat up, drank greedily, both hands around the wide surface of the water glass, then looked at the giver. Averman. Mulder swallowed, wished he'd feigned sleep. "How're you feeling?" "I'm okay," Mulder managed. "How long has this been going on?" "Not long." "Are they this bad?" "Not usually." "How often?" Mulder frowned, considered Averman. "I don't know. Not often. It's not the work. I know that's what it must look like. But it's not." Averman nodded. "You want to tell me what then?" Mulder swallowed, looked Averman in the eye. This man, for some reason, was giving him a chance. "When I was twelve my sister disappeared. She was eight. They found me on the floor with my father's gun, like I'd been trying to shoot whatever it was that took her. I was catatonic for four days. When I woke up I didn't remember any of it. I still don't." Averman sighed heavily. "Are there any other problems?" Mulder did not pretend not to understand. "No," he muttered. "Sometimes I get mad easily, but the men in my family have bad tempers." Averman nodded. "Is that why you act like such an asshole?" Mulder frowned, stared at his lap. "Yes," he muttered softly. "That and I'm sick of all this shit they keep piling on me." Averman sighed. "You're very good. The Bureau's going to use that." Mulder closed his eyes. "All I see are dead bodies. Sometimes I go out looking for some and I see a pretty girl and something flashes in me and I see how she would look dead after someone like Frito got hold of her. Sometimes I'm just driving and I'll pull off because I saw a spot that would make a good spot to dump a body and I have to go check, just to make sure no one else has had that same idea. I've found one or two that way." He frowned. "I sit in a restaurant and I look for the psychopaths. There are other people in Behavioral who do this work almost as well as I do. But they get time between cases and I don't. . .I flew in from Wyoming yesterday morning, got in around 2 a.m.. Guy had killed this woman by gutting her like a deer. I wrote the profile in the airport terminals and turned it in that night. I thought, they'll have me writing reports or doing paperwork, at least for a few days, but I get called at 6 a.m.. 'So glad you're back, we'll have someone else wrap everything up--don't worry you get credit, your ticket's at the airport.' They wanted Spooky on this one. `A rare and unique talent'. That's what they say when I complain, then pile this huge guilt trip on me about all the lives I'm saving." Averman swallowed. Four hours between violent murders. Four hours. God. Anyone would crack under that kind of pressure. Four days would be too few. Mulder got four hours. He stayed very still, waiting for more, but Mulder had run out of breath. "I'm okay." He looked up. "I'm not crazy. Not yet. I can finish this case up. Don't turn me in." Averman frowned. "Can you?" Mulder nodded. "Okay. I want your word that when this is over you'll go to psych services and get some help." Mulder nodded. "I will. Thank you." He did not look at Averman. "Okay. I'm going to shower and dress." Averman kept the pity he felt for Mulder out of his face as he strode to the door. When he was back in his hotel room he pressed his eyes closed, breathed deeply. What the hell was the Bureau doing to this guy? And why? "You know what's going to happen? I'll tell you what." Cooke hawked noisily and spat. Averman watched the ugly gob vanish into a dark patch of dust in moments. Cooke's voice was also ugly. "Wonder boy over there will wave his magic dick, make a few pronouncements, go back to DeeSee and *we* get stuck with the clean up and the hard work. Prick." Averman's eyes were unreadable behind the mirror-shades that reflected the bleak field where Mulder was just standing, looking around. He turned, and Cooke's florid face was distorted in the lenses. "That what you think is going on here, Cooke?" "Sure. Somebody with a hard on for Dirty Harry decides we need to play glitzy profile games and sends out Spooky. Now, no matter what he says, he gets credit when we bag this sicko on good old police work." Cooke wrinkled his peeling nose, blinking from behind expensive-looking shooter's glasses with some kind of designer signature in the corner. He'd have a raccoon-eyes burn when he took the glasses off, his shirt was stained with sticky, summer sweat and he itched. And Spooky just stood out there, in that fucking dried-up corn field, turning in circles and talking to himself. Averman had tried to tune the little turd out. He put about as much value on PR flakes as he put on televangelists bringing him God's true word. Little horse-fly of a man, pop-eyed and big-nosed, and he'd been buzzing away at Mulder ever since the profiler had joined them for lunch. Rodriguez, had tried to shut the guy up, but that was generally Mulder's job and he hadn't made a dent in the man's verbal barrage. Besides, Rodriguez wasn't here. He was riding back to Tulsa with Stengal to get the tissue samples back in--no courier services around here--so Cooke had come out with a car. Tulsa was probably glad to get rid of the twerp. Mulder had stopped cold, was scuffing at the dirt. He crouched and sort of sighted, like a surveyor would, then he was up and off across the field at a half-lope. "Shit," muttered Cooke. "Off his rocker." Averman ignored him and paced out after Mulder, wondering what the young man had seen. Mulder had reached the corn, and was stepping carefully between rows, looking before every step. Averman caught up with him easily enough. "You got something?" "I have no idea." Mulder sounded distracted, though, and Averman had seen good agents in his day. He believed the tone, the attitude, more than he believed the words. "He. . ." Mulder seemed too busy to really bother with his sentences, but he tried again. "He didn't come from the main road." A glance back to the blacktop, where Cooke was sweating bile. "Whoever he is, he knows the back roads well enough to get here other ways. Look here." Mulder was fingering yellow damage that marked a bruised stalk. "Could have been done by the farmer who found her, Mulder." Averman might believe him, but the boy would do better if he had to work for it. Mulder shook his head. "The farmer would have worked with the rows. And there's a straight enough path of this kind of bruising. I'm surprised the locals didn't catch this, it's easy shit." He sounded a little sour, doing work he figured should already have been caught. Once they knew what they were looking for, the path was simple to find. A rustling, baking trail through dusty green, brushing bugs from their eyes, tasting the dirt that flavored every breeze in this hot, dry place, where soil created the fog instead of water. The crushed grasses and ripped-up plants of two weeks ago lay sere, marking where Ericka Jones' murderer pulled off the road. No Eliot here, no poetry to this land. It was too dry for such things to survive. Fantasy curled up and died in this heat. Or it should have. One person's fantasy had been unloaded right here, thrown away once he was done with it. Mulder didn't know what to say. Averman could see his throat working, swallowing convulsively, although no spit survived and the dust was thick in his nose and mouth. He was glad he couldn't see the hazel eyes behind those glasses. The two of them looked. You could always hope for something dropped in the dirt, some miraculous error. You could also hope to win the lottery, it still never happened, but you had to try. Cooke showed up eventually, looking over the sight and loudly declaring it useless. "I knew they hired you for a reason, Cooke. They needed an expert to recognize useless shit." It was a pale carbon copy of the Spooky Averman had picked up at the airport, but it was enough to bring a flush of anger to Cooke's sunburned face. "I'm calling it in. Let the pros do the real search." Averman lead off back across the fields, hearing the other two following him. Mulder caught up with him, a few hundred yards ahead of Cooke's pudgy, plodding form. "They won't find anything." "No, but it's something to do. It's another thing found, and that's more than we had before. Maybe I'll put Cooke on it." Averman's smile was thin. Mulder's answering grin was wide, manic. "Let's drive around a little," Mulder said softly. "Looking for what?" Averman asked, curious. "For. . ." Mulder shrugged. Averman felt a chill go up his spine, 105 degrees and he was fucking cold. "Yeah. Okay," he said gently. "You'll know what you're looking for. . ." "When I see it." Mulder finished. The bridge was narrow, rickety and rusting. When one car was on it, oncoming traffic had to pull over and wait. Averman was on the shoulder, waiting for the old woman to see enough over her steering wheel to start moving again. Mulder heard him sigh, but he wasn't really paying attention. He was watching the flat, muddy trickle that was all that was left of the river in this dry season, and trying to remember what it kept nudging in his head. "The circles of the stormy moon Slide westward toward the River Plate, Death and the Raven drift above And Sweeney guards the horned gate." "What?" But Mulder was out the door before Cooke's exasperated question had died in the car. Averman flicked off the key and followed, cursing. Good agents work on instincts, Mulder was working on fucking autopilot. Mulder was down, under the bridge, and Averman yelled to him about moccasins in the rushes. Little good the kid would be if he got poisoned by some snake. Mulder was oblivious. "I will show you fear in a handful of dust. Fisch weht der Wind Der Heimat zu Mein Irisch Kind Wo weilest du? You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; They called me hyacinth girl. --Yet when we came back, late, from the hyacinth garden, Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead and I knew nothing. . " Mulder chanted softly. "He brought her here. Does this flood when it rains?" He asked as though Averman or Cooke would know. "It's the closest river to that damn field. . .Frito said that there was no trauma, no evidence of death. What if he drowned her? Not dead. . .no. Just unconscious. You need a water supply when you're working with meat, drain off the blood. She's unconscious, not struggling, but the blood drains. The heart still pumps itself dry. . . .brought her here at night. There was a moon two weeks ago. . .I was still in Wyoming two weeks ago, we did some work at night. . .wouldn't need a light. It's deserted. Brought her here, held her under the rushing water long enough so she went unconscious. Or maybe he drugged her. I don't know why he stuffed her. . .I think that's part of the game. . .so I won't know. . ." Mulder paused speculatively. "Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight And the lotus rose, quietly, quietly The surface glittered out of heart of light, And they were behind us, reflected in the pool. Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children." Averman realized that Mulder, in his head, was back in the dark, watching. He waited for more recitation, but Mulder was speaking again. "Got rid of the blood. . .the entrails. . .if it flooded, the entrails would wash down river, wouldn't they? Then animals would have gotten it. Coyotes or whatever. And he didn't have far to cart her. . ." Mulder frowned. "That doesn't tell us where he is, though, does it? He's gone from here. Long gone." Mulder grimaced. "He knows the backroads 'round here. But he knows the backroads in all the places. . .he's going to kill. . .Dad was a farm worker, maybe?" Mulder glanced at the sun, winced. "It's hot here. Find out if it floods." Without any further word to anyone, Mulder trudged back up to air conditioning and the car. "Yeah she coudda' been drowned. Yeah," Rodriguez agreed when he joined up with them again at Regional. Mulder was leaning back in his chair, feet on the long conference table of the room they'd claimed. He was all Joe Cool now. Arrogant as hell. Scoped out the local secretarial pool, given them a small shy grin and any one of a number of pretty little rancher's daughters, patriotic to the core, proud to be typing for the FBI, would probably flop on her back if he so much as breathed on her neck. Averman wondered, with some irritation, how many women in how many cities Spooky had done. He didn't even so much as look at them unless they were Betty Bureau. Averman had to give him that. A receptionist, all of nineteen maybe, brought in a tray of canned soft drinks, set it down with tall, watering cups of ice. Russell, an older, seasoned agent out of Tulsa blinked in surprise, as did most everyone else. "Thanks, Kacy," Mulder muttered, flashing her a smile. "No problem. Ya'll been out in the field and all. Hotter than the devil on Christmas." Kacy flushed to her naturally blonde roots and nearly ran out of the room. Mulder glanced at the selection, grabbed a diet coke. "You don't need diet stuff yet," Russell growled. "How'd you get a Clerical to do that?" Mulder popped the diet drink open, grabbed a cup of ice. "Do what?" he asked, genuinely surprised. "She asked if we could use anything and I said I was thirsty, but not to bring me anything unless she thought everybody else could use something to drink. . ." Rodriguez grabbed a Sprite. "Don't worry about how he does it," he informed the room. "He came over for supper and my wife's eyes never left his butt once." "You notice she didn't cut you off when you got sent to Nevada last year, but now that *I*'m gone. . ." Mulder grinned mischievously. "You're a real cocksucker, Francis," Rodriguez grinned. "As they say on the playground. . .takes one," Mulder replied. "Well whip it out and we'll see." Rodriguez leaned in towards Mulder. "Frito, you couldn't handle what I got. Takes me twenty minutes to stuff it down my pants. . .and then I gotta be careful not to step on it, cause it falls down sometimes. . ." "Enough." Averman's voice cut through their words. "Enough. Can we get back to the case?" He glanced around the room. Two agents were grinning, Cooke was disgusted, and two agents were glancing at Mulder and Rodriguez uneasily. "So what else do we know?" Averman asked. Hitchens, flipping through his notes, cleared his throat awkwardly. "There was no report on Bonnie Grant being sexually abused. However, the county sheriff spoke with the family this morning. . .they said they caught Bonnie "playing" with a cousin last summer." "How old was the cousin?" Mulder asked. Hitchens glanced at his notes. "Sixteen." Silence descended on the agents crowded around the table. Mulder closed his eyes, made a temple of his hands, put the temple to his face. "She would have been seven last summer. Probably beat the shit of her for it too," he muttered to no one. "Same kind of people think a woman in a mini-skirt deserves to be raped." "So how does he know?" Averman asked of the room in general. All eyes turned towards Mulder. "I don't know," Mulder sighed, closed his eyes. "We've got a little boy buggered. A little girl. . .fondled. . .another little girl, maybe something worse. The timing's off. There should be a first body, some kid we haven't found yet." "First body?" Mulder's eyes snapped open. "Yeah. He's an intelligent fellow, our murderer. I think he wasn't quite sure what he wanted out of this, there at the first, but now he knows. He hid the first body. Now he wants everyone to know. He knows just exactly who's coming to dinner. Why do you think he stuffed the last one and left her to bake in the sun?" The grin was manic and somehow demonic. "Ant garnish and all that?" It was chilly, summer air conditioning chilly in the windowless conference room, with the cheap office chairs and the Oklahoma state map and the picture of William Webster, who was now fucking around with the real spies, Ronald Reagan, and Edwin Meese hung up as an odd sort of Trinity, watching over a wizened flock. But the agents gathered around the table, staring at Spooky Mulder who had just promised three more deaths for a certainty. They were all suddenly ice cold. The silence was sharp. Spooky didn't seem to notice, just closed his eyes, feet still propped up, brain spinning in realms where demons played and monsters prowled like housecats underfoot. It was Rodriguez, finally, who broke the silence. "Shit, Francis. Does this mean I gotta work with a six week old body next time? Fuck." Late Afternoon. Mulder was sitting in his hotel room, having ducked out of the office on the excuse that he got more paperwork done in still and quiet--and in full view of a television set, although this part of it was unstated. Averman had agreed, but insisted Frito go with him. Mulder imagined raised brows at that one. Why would the Spooky need a babysitter? He had to wonder how much cash Frito and Averman had dropped to get this room arrangement. He and Frito had connecting doors. Averman was in the room next to Mulder's. Cooke was on another floor. Frito had opened the connecting door without comment, and Mulder had decided not to make an issue of it. Averman wasn't mentioning what he'd seen to anyone, and wasn't acting like Mulder was one step from the loony bin. Mulder yawned, stretched on his bed, considered the minor league baseball game ESPN was showing. Alexandria Aces versus somebody with green lettering on their uniforms. Next door Frito was actually writing a report. Mulder liked behavioral. For some reason they thought that you actually had to go back and look up indicators or something. Yeah right. He just started typing and saying this indicates this and this indicates that and these behavioral patterns are indicative of that. . .you didn't pass your orals at Oxford on a cute smile. . .anyway, he would write a profile sometime tonight, run it through his grammar checker and spell checker and everyone would ooh and ahh and think he worked like mad. Mulder already knew what the report would say. Had it written in his head. The sexual abuse thing puzzled him. He wanted to know how this guy picked his prey, what *he* saw that made him choose. Two choices had occurred to Mulder. First, he wanted sexual abuse victims. Second, certain behaviors occurred in children who had been sexually abused. Was one of those behaviors what the killer was focusing in on? Had the killer been sexually abused? The obvious answer was yes. This guy wasn't very obvious. Mulder watched the Aces jog in. He still didn't know the name of the other team. Must have changed uniforms recently. He knew his baseball teams. Oh. The Beaumont Gators. New Team. He hadn't watched them play before. Okay. Rodriguez glanced through the connecting door. He'd given Francis enough time to fall asleep, he hoped. "Get him up there, make him take a nap." Averman had said quietly, drawing Sam into a quiet office. "Let him pretend he's going to do some paperwork. I don't care. Get him quiet." Mulder was sitting up, rifling through files, reading. Oh shit. "Whatcha' doin' Marion?" "These interviews are worthless." Mulder said throwing down the files. "I've got some shit from them, but I need more. Can I get some agents to go back to the victims elementary schools?" Sam frowned. "What you askin' me for? Shit. If you want it, you know they'll do it. But you better tell them what you want if that's not any good." "Yeah. . .stupid gundicks. . ." Mulder swore, picking up the phone. "After you get done, why don't you get some shut eye?" Sam mentioned mildly. Mulder shot him the finger. "Hi? Peg? It's Mulder. I need Agent Averman. . .thanks. . .yeah, you too. . .Averman? Hi. Yeah. Listen. I need agents sent back out to the elementary schools. Listen, I need them to ask about specific behaviors, I don't have copies of report cards or discipline reports, Parent-Teacher conferences. . .yeah, no, nothing about strange men lurking about. I want to know if these kids had friends and if they did what social strata they hung out-- you know, tough guys, bimbettes in embryo--what they acted like in class. . .yeah, exactly. . .if they give you any flack get a subpoena. No judge in this state is going to deny us anything at this point and we all know that. . .yeah. . .I don't know. I need more info. Listen. . .also. . .no. . .yeah. . .I need a list of unsolved adult murders from the past year. . .male. . .over thirty. . .not the steady sort, wanderers, drifters. . .yeah. Thanks." Mulder grinned and hung up the phone. "Sorry. I didn't realize I was supposed to be a good child. I'll put my shit away and watch baseball now." "Fuck." Rodriguez sighed and stared at an empty screen that had been full of text the instant before. Then he'd hit . Or thought he'd hit . Whoever put a delete key there should be shot and autopsied. Preferably not in that order. He slammed shut the clumsy, heavy, twenty pound portable pain-in-the-ass that made some tally-whacker down in procurement feel au courant. What ever happened to pen and paper? Of course, maybe the meat-pullers back in D.C. weren't totally to blame. Trying to type and listen at the same time wasn't as easy as it looked. Hit and lean back, let yourself listen, focus on what's there to be heard. The game. Of course. Some rinky-dink, cow-town team the local shit-kickers all swore was better than the pros. Cheers and beers and announcers, all rambling from Marion's room. The sound of cars with lousy mufflers, rusted bodies, and bad alignment since Oklahoma was where old cars went to die. Motorcycles. The low whistle of wind out here in the fucking end of creation, where God never bothered to put anything that could slow it down. And paper. Again. That was when he'd hit the damn delete key, when he'd heard the soft, little sound of a page folded back. Up, off the creaky springs of the bed, to hang in the connecting door, tie undone, dark eyes bloodshot from a night living with somebody else's bad dreams. A friend's bad dreams. "What are you doing, Marion?" Bastard didn't try to hide the files, or look sorry. Just grinned back at him like nothing ever cracked that shell. "What, Frito? You been here so long you've even forgotten what reading looks like?" Rodriguez fought the urge to take the files away. "I thought you told Averman you were going to be good?" Mulder's expression barely changed, except that all the life went out of it and left the shell of a smile. Rodriguez crossed his arms and stared back, wondering how many years Spooky had managed to pull it off. Single rooms, or separate hotels or anything that kept people from hearing him scream and scream, until he was too tired to be terrified any more. "Francis, do me a favor? Put the files down." He had to grin, [just put the files down and no one has to get hurt. . . ] "Do I have to come out with my hands up?" "Better be all you get up." "Yeah, you'd be cut off forever if she saw what I. . . " "Any chance I can get you to shut up and just watch the Hick Bowl?" A long hesitation. "Francis, it's not like I didn't notice anything. What were you planning to do? Go a week without sleeping?" The idiot grin he got in return did nothing for Sam's peace of mind. "I tell you what, Frito. I'll behave." Mulder handed the files over. "Now go screw up more paper work and let me watch the Gators embarrass themselves." As if not having the files would stop him. Sam shook his head, but Averman had already told Mulder off, he wasn't going to add anything now. "Get some sleep, Francis. I'll give you your mags back when you wake up." "Celebrity Skin?" "Sure, we'll take shifts. But the pages better not be stiff." Mulder snorted, but he'd sprawled back, shoes off. Sam crossed his fingers and went back to his fucked report. _________________________ Continued in part 3.............. ===================================================================== ====== From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 3/41 NC-17 Date: 23 Jan 1996 07:08:35 GMT Oklahoma (Part 3/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. The sun had shifted, letting the rooms cool, by the time he'd reconstructed his work. The Gators were humiliated and gone. Pro wrestling or monster trucks or some other Taco-circuit cultural mecca shrieked from the next room. Rodriguez saved to disk and went to wash the prickly heat-sweat off his face and under arms. God, and he'd though D.C. was bad. A quick glance. Francis was crashed, sprawled over his pillow and drooling on the bedspread. Rodriguez watched him twitch for a moment. Dreaming. Muttering something about kids, and water, beaches. Rodriguez tensed, half-expecting nightmares or screams after the night before, but relaxed and started breathing again when the Spookster slid back into dreamless rest. Near miss, one pass through R.E.M. complete, can we go for two? He stepped back, shut his door most of the way. The numbers on the phone pad were almost instinctive. Rodriguez settled back on his bed and waited. One. . .Two. . .Three. . . then the phone and the machine picked up at the same time. "Hello, you have reached. . ." "Hello, who is this, just a second, let this. . ." Grunt while she tried to reach the switch in the back. Sam grinned at the two Jenni-voices running over each other. The message finally ended, leaving him with the husky, out of breath one. "All right, hello?" "Lucy, I'm gonna be late." Falsetto that he knew she hated. "Sam? Sam! Honey, I miss you. When are you coming home? I wasn't expecting you to call until tonight." Husky voice, oh yes. He felt his balls throb and his cock twitch at the sound. "Yeah, well. I wanted to hear your voice. Make sure you weren't out with the pool man." "We don't have a pool." "That never stopped you and me from getting wet together." "You're alone." He could hear the smile in her voice. "More or less." "I just. . .took my pants off." He could hear the fabric. Her voice got just a little throatier as she told him what she was doing to herself. A sudden wet sound, then quiet, then her breathing again. "Hear that honey? Remember how it tastes?" Oh god. "I got a tent pole here, Jenni. I'm so hard. . . " she laughed at his voice. He was dripping, she was talking again. "You got your hand around it, Sam? Go on, baby. Stroke your cock." He glanced up at the door, but the TV was the only sound from next door. "Yeah, Sammy," she growled, and he ached. She was urging him on, breathing in time with him, panting. He could hear her whimpers, for God's sake he could hear her pussy. He was slamming his hand up and down, his hips jumping as he moaned, pumping, phone clutched next to his ear so he could hear her, come with her. His heart was racing, and the mattress squeaked almost one long wheeze now, slamming and coming and long distance and ogodogodogodogod. . . Until he and she sagged back, panting to each other, and all he could do was lie there, soaked and lonely and listening to his wife's voice. "That good for you, Sam?" Sweet and smiling, voice like silk. Sam moaned. "I can get the red-eye, be home for the weekend." "Unh unh, lover boy. I told you, D.C. and me. I'm glad your hand felt so good, 'cause it's your best friend 'til you come home for real." "Jen, Jenni. . ." He tried not to whine. "You knew the rules, Sam. 'Til you're out of beaner country, long distance is the next best thing." "Christ, Jenni. . . you're a real ball-breaker." "Unh hunh. Thought you hidalgos didn't talk about ladies like that." "Ladies don't cut their men off." "Go borrow Mulder's skin mags." "You can't turn the pages." He heard the faint sound as she buried her face in the pillow and laughed. It took a while for her to come up for air. "You know, Daddy can get you sent back." ". . . I can't do that, Jenni." Suddenly soft-voiced, quiet. "Yeah. I know. See you when it's over, loverboy." He could hear the understanding there. "Love you, Jenni." "Yeah." The laugh was back. . . "You and Rosie Palmer." "Bitch." "Give Mulder a kiss for me." "I will if I'm here much longer." He grinned as she whooped again. "Bye bye, Jenni." "Love you, Sam." "You too." Fox Mulder woke up, face down in the wet spot. He wiped the drool off his cheek, and felt like a five year old, groaned and rolled onto his back. There was some inane fishing show in the background. He stared at the ceiling, trying to remember where he was this time. Wyoming? No, there hadn't been stains on that ceiling. And he could hear an electric razor like it was in the same room? Mulder sat up, startled. Took in the open connecting door, the sound of someone in the bathroom over next door. Frito, right. Oklahoma. Eliot. Frito. He felt a profound relief, suddenly, to have awakened lying there, quietly, instead of curled somewhere small and hidden. He ran a hand over his face to clear the last cobwebs away. God, his mouth tasted awful. He worked his shoulders, his neck. The razor stopped. He could hear Frito moving around, getting dressed. Mulder pulled himself to his feet, taking in the clock and the angle of the light, surprised to see it was almost six-thirty. The phone rang next door, Frito kept his voice down when he answered. Mulder caught one or two words, nothing much. "What's going on?" Frito spun, shirt still only half-buttoned, crisp though, fresher looking than Mulder by several degrees, and knowing it. "Hey, it lives. We'll be down in around forty-five minutes, Averman. Spooky just decided to return to the living. . .uh huh. Right." Hung up. "We meet the man for dinner, Francis. You have forty-five. Go get ready." Dinner was, surprise, surprise, another steak house. Except there were eight agents, all getting a good dinner at the expense of their favorite butt-fucking uncle. Mulder was quiet, staring at walls, at faces, generally reminding everyone why he was called "Spooky" in the first place. And he was all work, which pissed some people off. It didn't piss Averman off. So Frito and Averman and Spooky all found themselves sitting at one end of the table, discussing the case while three or four other agents listened and two or three agents, Cooke among them, watched sourly and complained about how Spooky was a sonofabitch who brown-nosed. "Do we have the interviews of the kids?" Mulder asked over his house salad, shoving spinach leaf into his mouth. Averman nodded towards Russell and Meyer. "Yeah." The kid was shovelling his food away like there was no tomorrow. Russell didn't need his notes to tell Spooky what he'd found. "Raintree was a quiet kid. Tall for his age. He played little league and never got into trouble. He always did what he was told. He was scared of the dark." "Scared of the dark?" Mulder asked. "How'd you know that from school?" "Principal was his denmaster in cub scouts. Said the kid was terrified of the dark." Mulder frowned. "Irrational fears are usually a sign of something that's wrong in a kid's life. . ." The wheels turned. "What about the two white girls?" "Umm. . .Stengal sent me this," Averman said. "Ericka was. . .a sweet child, always did as told. . .never gave the teachers any trouble. . ." Mulder nodded as though he now expected to hear this. "I'll ask Stengal to go back, see if she was frightened of anything," Averman finished quietly. Mulder nodded. Meyers considered his notes. He was incredibly green, Mulder realized. A kid. Not a brilliant kid like him, to be forgiven faults and humored. Just a kid who would one day be a good agent. Mulder might be shit to most people, but he was nice to those who had less seniority, less rights than he did. Sometimes he wondered if other agents would ever learn that. It wasn't just poster-boy looks and a firm butt. It was recognizing that everyone on this planet has feelings and emotions and likes knowing that you know they exist. Mulder considered his empty salad plate wondering where the greenery had gotten too. He'd even, somehow, eaten the cherry tomatoes. And he hated cherry tomatoes. . . "Bonnie Grant was a quiet shy child. Good grades. No problems. Her teacher said she was very sensitive and that she came to school with bruises occasionally. "Why didn't they report it to Social Services?" Mulder asked. Meyers frowned. "She said they did," he replied. Mulder nodded, sighed. "Some places Family Development and those type of people do a good job, some places they're witch hunters, some places they don't do anything." His eyes wandered to the empty glass plate in front of him. He played with his fork a moment, lost in some private remembrance. The other agents assumed it was from some other case, some child beaten to death by his parents. To Frito it was a frightening thing. Watching Spooky dredge up memories from somewhere. From a somewhere where little girls disappeared and big brothers huddled small and frightened on the floor. "You'll call and ask if she was scared of anything?" Mulder asked, looking up. Meyers nodded. "Good work," Russell told the kid. Meyers smiled. From the far end of the table Cooke cleared his throat. "DC called. I have to put out a press report." "Make us all look like we're sticking our dicks in the right holes," Mulder said wearily, putting his fork down, glancing at Frito's Beck's dark. "For a 'spic you drink good beer. I think I want one of those," he said easily. Frito frowned, glanced at Averman, who hadn't caught it. Spooky Mulder did *not* need alcohol. "Fuck you," he said easily. "Designate a driver." "Averman's not drinking." But Averman did, somehow, in that barest instant before he screwed up, did catch it. "Agent in charge. I reserve the prerogative." He tossed his car keys to Mulder. Mulder groaned. Averman glanced at Sam. Sam gave the barest nod. "So what am I authorized to say?" Cooke asked. "He's got a kid alive somewhere," Mulder said. "He's just waiting for this pronouncement. The moment he sees that wire service the kid's dead." "How long before he gets tired and the kid dies?" "How do we know she's alive? All we have is the word of Spooky." "I forgot. It comes from God to Spooky to the rest of the world." Averman let the agents talk, let them bitch and bellyache. "Spooky," he said quietly. "I have to let a press release out. Washington will have my ass if I don't. They'll have your ass too if I tell them why. Besides we don't know if the kid's alive or not. Even if she is, we're just removing her from this misery a little sooner, rather than later." Mulder's face closed up tight. He just stared at the table and the little metal caddy with Equal and Sweet-n-Low and sugar and salt and pepper. "If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the rose-garden. . ." Mulder recited tonelessly. No one heard him but Frito and Averman and Meyers. Meyers frowned. The waitress came then with a huge tray bearing their dinners. Mulder smelled the sizzling meat and went pale. He pushed away from the table, hands gripping the edge of his barrel chair, and he left the room. Frito followed, out into the lobby, into the room marked "podners," past the urinals. Mulder didn't even shut the door, just knelt and vomited his two glasses of tea and crackers and spinach and lettuce and cucumber and squash and cherry tomatoes and black olives and croutons into the toilet, heaving, chest rolling with the brute force behind his vomit. And then it was over. Mulder just knelt on the grey, designer tile, staring at the toilet and at the remains of his dinner. He put his head against the seat for a moment. "He's going to kill her the moment we put out that press release. He's going to take her out and he's going to kill her," he said without turning around, voice sick and weary and old. "Francis, maybe you're wrong. Maybe she's already dead. Maybe he doesn't have another one. Maybe he'll stop killing once he knows we're looking for him. . ." "Yeah right. And Santa gave me my subscription to Celebrity Skin." Mulder's voice was cold, angry. He heaved again, dry heaves this time, dry aching heaves, painful to hear, more painful to experience. "You want some Compazine?" Frito boosted himself up on the counter. Mulder's response was to shoot him the finger. He waited, came over to the counter, shoved his entire face under the faucet, drank water, spat, drank water, spat, dried himself in the air drying vent. "She's fucked," Mulder said quietly. "Go eat your dinner, Frito." Sam frowned. "Francis, you gotta eat." Mulder shook his head. "I'm going to go get some crackers or something from a mini mart. I don't think I'm up to cooked animal flesh." "If you don't come back, they're going to say worse things." "Oh, what the fuck do I care?" "If you don't go back, I can't go back." Frito frowned. "If you go back and get sick again, I'll make some apologies and we'll go back to the hotel room. Get us both some chick food. . .salads or some kind of shit." Mulder smiled, straightened his hair, or tried to. He kept it so short it never really looked all that messy, even when it was. On the way back, Frito managed to get the attention of their waitress. "He doesn't want his steak. We'll still pay for it. Just a baked potato with a little butter and some crackers." He tried to think of something they might have that Mulder's stomach could handle. "Could I have some sauteed mushrooms without the steak?" Spooky asked. He still looked about as white as the little starched and bleached, frilly apron around the waitress's waist, so the girl took pity. "Yeah. No problem." She smiled brightly. "You just go sit down and I'll bring it right out." She went ahead, grabbed the steak up. "I'll fix a doggie bag for it. You might feel better later." She was a pert little thing, probably just out of high school. Mulder slumped in his seat. Looked miserable. Sam gathered that the other agents had been gossiping about his poetry quoting and sudden departure from the table. "Is there anything we should or shouldn't say?" Cooke asked. Mulder glared at the entire table. "It doesn't fucking matter what you say. There's a little girl who's alive tonight who isn't going to be alive tomorrow night. Fuck the papers. Fuck the bosses in D.C. You're all killing a little girl." His voice rose unsteadily. Averman's hand was on his arm; it looked gentle but the grip was steel. Mulder jerked away. The little waitress brought out a baked potato with butter and two pieces of texas toast and some sauteed mushrooms in a separate bowl. Mulder thanked her softly, then stared at the food. Sam resisted the impulse to fix the potato for Mulder. The other agents were staring, no doubt getting more than enough gossip for the mill. It was enough to continue fixing Mulder's eccentricities. Mulder did not eat anything at supper. "Okay." The potato was sitting on a styrofoam tray. Frito mashed the poor cold thing up, gave Mulder the plastic fork. "Come on. You've got to eat something." Mulder just stared at him. "And pray to God to have mercy on us And pray that I may forget These matters that with myself I too much discuss Too much explain Because I do not hope to turn again Let these words answer For what is done, not to be done again May the judgement not be too heavy upon us Because these wings are no longer wings to fly But merely vans to beat the air The air which is now thoroughly small and dry Smaller and dryer than the will Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death Pray for us now and at the hour of our death," he recited numbly. Sam took the fork, put some potato on it, gave it back to Mulder. "Francis, if you think I'm gonna feed you, you got another thing coming." Mulder stared at the potato. "I'm not hungry. I think I just want to go to bed." Go to bed and do what? Sit up screaming in the middle of the night? "Okay." Frito sighed, grabbed the styrofoam box, dumped it onto the counter. Went over to his own room. He heard the TV go on. Heard Mulder getting ready for bed. Sam went back to his portable pieceofshitmachine and started pounding out another report. After a while he heard the keys flying on Mulder's machine. Sunofabitch would probably spend two hours on it and have something that looked better than anyone else's twelve hours. Life was fucking unfair. Just fucking unfair. Continued in part four.............. ===================================================================== ====== From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 4/41 (NC-17) Date: 24 Jan 1996 05:42:04 GMT Oklahoma (Part 4/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. Mulder went to bed a good twenty minutes after Samuel Rodriguez, certified California gentry of the finest sort. Mulder lay back, head against the pillow, tried to think what the killer was looking for. Sweet children with a fear. Children who could be easily led, told what to do. Sweet children who had been fucked by some loved one. He considered the soft sweetness of hotel pillows with the soft mattress pad and the flat sheets made taut with perfect hospital corners. She was still alive. She. Why a she? Because it was time for a she. The Lady was a she. The lady of the rose petals. Eliot liked writing about The Lady. He put her in Tarot cards, saw her in the BVM. The Lady. Tiresius was both a man and a woman. When Apollo and Aphrodite had a fight over who liked sex better they asked Tiresius, who said women had a better time. Which pissed Apollo and the Roman Catholic church off and in the 1800's doctors were still cutting the clits off women to keep them from playing with themselves. The easy breath from the next room indicated that Frito, god bless his horny soul, was finally asleep. Mulder waited a few minutes more for Sam to fall into a deeper sleep, waited to be sure Averman would be in bed asleep, got up, pulled on his blue jeans and grabbed his room key. He was just out the door when Averman emerged, looking tousled. "Where you headed, Sport?" Mulder hated people who called him `sport'. "Ice," he said on impulse. "Ain't got no ice bucket." "Cold drinks." "Caffeine'll keep you up at night," Averman replied, managing to still look all Federal Agent, just the facts ma'am, in a pair of ancient jersey shorts and a ratty t-shirt. "Sprite?" Mulder questioned. "Where're the car keys?" Averman asked. Mulder frowned. "Designated driver, remember?" "I don't think I'll be going anywhere tonight." Averman held out a hand, fluttered his fingers. Mulder reached down into his jean pockets, handed it over. "You're killing her," he muttered. "I know you believe that." Averman resisted adding "son." No reason to piss the kid off without just provocation. "But I don't have any proof of it. I'm sorry. We have to put out some word. It's going to be very carefully worded. Don't worry." Mulder stared darkly at Averman. "Okay. Go back to sleep. Get Rodriguez to give you some pills if you can't sleep." "I'll be okay," Mulder muttered, going back into his room, slamming the door. The screams were sharp and painful and expected this time. Averman fumbled with his key to Mulder's room, even as Sam woke and was on his feet without thinking, rushing into Mulder's room. Mulder was pressed into a corner, screaming. When Sam approached him the screams grew louder, more frantic. He recognized neither one of them, though his eyes were open and crazily dilated. "Oh fuck," Averman breathed. Sam stood a long moment. Mulder stopped screaming after another minute, after Sam's ears were good and thoroughly deafened. How had he gotten away with this for so long? How, in God's name, had it gone on without anyone catching it? Saint Luke help him. He is so frightened and the world is so cruel, Sam prayed unconsciously. He knelt on the carpet, between the lowboy and the wall, Mulder's corner, under the clothes rack. At his approach, Mulder scuttled back further into his corner. God, how many nights had it been like this? Mulder too terrified to move. Just screaming and screaming and then curled up in the dark, terrified until exhaustion or the daylight came and he stumbled up, put on a clean suit and made snide comments and drank a lot of bad coffee and made his scary predictions. He made a move closer and suddenly Mulder was scrambling like a rabbit trapped by a predator, clawing without thought or reason or hope. "Easy, Rodriguez." Averman's voice at his back. They waited. And waited. For Mulder to snap out. For Mulder to calm down and know them. For the fear to ease out of his eyes. And finally, long after Averman had set pills down on the counter with a water glass, finally Mulder stared at Frito. "Sam?" he asked softly. "Where's Sam?" Frito exchanged a worried glance with Averman. "I'm Sam. I'm here." Mulder stared at Rodriguez, confused, frightened. "Samantha's gone. He took her. She's scared. He's going to kill her. And they all know." His voice choked with tears. "They all know. And they're going to let him kill her." He was sobbing. "Francis?" Sam's voice was soft and incredibly gentle. "Francis. I know. I know. I want you to take a pill." "I don't want any pills." His voice went up into hysteria. "If you take the pill I'll look for Samantha." Frito played it by ear. "No. They took her!" "Who took her?" Averman's voice now. "Tiresius. And the Hollow men, them with their grey skin. The fisher king," Mulder whispered. "In a blue light." He was gone, way gone. Call the men with the long white jackets that tie in the back. Call in the beard strokers. Fox Mulder had slipped around the bend. Frito got the pills down anyway. "These are pills that you have to take, Fox. We're trying to find her, but we can't right now, because you're really upset. I know it hurts. But we're trying to find her. Right now you have to take these pills. They'll help you be quiet so we can hunt." Frito swallowed. Oh Blessed Lady, please. Please make him take the pills. Mulder put out a trembling hand. Frito handed him the tiny Dramamine pills, then the water glass. And Mulder took it. And then they got him into bed and went back to bed themselves Averman did not say anything. Sam wondered who they would get to ride on the plane back. Someone like Meyers. Here's what Special Agents look like when they crack up. We take their guns and their dicks and give them seventy percent of their salary so they can huddle in a hospital waiting for night and the shadows and terror because we did this to them. The bed was shaking, and things slammed and it was the Big One, oh god, the Big One, and Rodriguez was going to die all alone with Jenni in D.C. and. . . He slammed his eyes open, to see when the ceiling fell in on him, and Spooky-fucking-Mulder smiled at him and kicked the bed again. Frito scrambled back against the headboard, staring like he'd seen a ghost. Or a Spook. Mulder just gave him that shit-eating grin, with his teeth gritted behind it. "Time to get up, Frito. We gotta go out and find the kid when Cooke finishes killing her." "Jesus, Francis. . . " What the hell do you say when somebody rises from the dead, or near as? Frito just sat there, feeling the skin on his balls crawling and watching Spooky turn on the TV, look for a news station. The clock on top of the set read eight-thirty, and the morning news was in full swing. Mulder watched it, wearing a grin that was nothing like a smile and waiting for Cooke to blow some kid's brains out, if she was lucky. If she wasn't, the autopsy would just take longer to read. Frito watched him, suit hanging in perfect creases, poster boy looks in place, mirror shades hanging off his shirt pocket and not a hair out of place. Through the door, he could see the running shorts, shirt and sneakers littered around the room where Mulder had dropped them when he came in after one of those goddamn dawn's-early-light runs he liked to take. Sam looked back to Spooky, arms crossed, snarling at the TV, and felt superstitious dread make his bowels go to ice water. He hadn't dreamed it. He fucking had NOT dreamed it. Averman had been here. The water glass was in there by the Spookster's bed, the carpet was scuffed down by the lowboy. God damn it, Frito had not dreamed that Spooky Mulder was curled in a corner last night, screaming and totally out of his head. So why the fuck was he standing there, dressed to the FBI nines, watching Cooke yank the media dicks. Mulder shouldn't even be making sense this morning. Frito had gone to bed, knowing he'd send his friend back with a handholder and a head full of tranqs. He'd dreamed about medical review boards and hearings for permanent psychiatric disability. And Mulder was still standing there, real as shit, calling Cooke things he'd never learned at Oxford. On the whole, the Big One might not have been as scary. Mulder glanced up at him. "Look at this prick-licker, dancing the FBI two-step with the pussies at the press. Ice water, and tomorrow he'll tell them he had no idea our baby butcher was gonna kill the kid. Asshole." Mulder shook his head and stalked out of the room. Sam could hear him yanking stuff together, throwing it in his briefcase, slamming the lid like he was cutting Cooke's head off with it. He swallowed hard, wiped the sweat off his palms onto his sheets and crawled out of bed. Shaking hands pulled a suit out of the closet, turned the water on in the shower. The only reason Frito didn't cut his throat shaving was because he used a Braun electric. A razor and he'd have bled to death before he ever finished. Mulder was out there on the phone, calling Meyers, Russell, coordinating them and giving them what he wanted them to do. Where he wanted them to look. How the fuck he thought he knew where to look sent Sam to the can with the nerve-wracked shits. Mulder was pounding on the door and telling him to hurry his ass up before he was done. Sam took a last look in the mirror, seeing skin pale under the hispanic dark tan, eyes bloodshot and jumping with nerves, teeth he just couldn't. . . get. . . to unclench for more than a moment. He had to put his hands in his pockets, they were shaking so hard when he walked out the door and looked at Spooky Mulder, who should have been huddled in his bed drooling and who, instead, was impatiently eyeing his watch and rocking his briefcase back and forth between his hands while he waited for Frito to finish having the shits and shakes. Averman was waiting on the balcony, and the look he gave the Spookster was almost as jumpy as Sam's. Mulder stared at the two of them a moment, like they were speaking in tongues. "What the fuck is wrong with the two of you?" Angry, snarling, still seething at the way Cooke had made him party to murder. "We have coffee to drink and a dead kid to start looking for. Cooke's on the air, and our boy's going to work right now. He should be finished sometime between now and tomorrow at six." He'd turned his back to them and was clattering down the metal stairs of the motel balcony, hands off a railing that was already hot enough to burn. Dust kicked up behind his feet as he strode across the dry, yellow-dirt parking lot that baked under the morning sun. Sam shivered and looked around at Averman, who was pale under his tan. The two of them followed Spooky like they really couldn't feel their feet. "I saw him come in from a run this morning, right about dawn." Averman sounded distant. "What was he like when you got up?" "You're looking at it." Sam swallowed. Mulder was sitting in a corner booth, drumming silverware on the table and watching them like they were wasting his time. "What the hell is with the two of you this morning?" He was staring at them, trying to read them, and they both watched him like he'd grown horns and a tail. They were starting to make his skin crawl. Sam sat next to him, caging him back into the corner of the booth. Averman settled gingerly across from him. Waved for three cups of coffee and a basket of breakfast rolls. Mulder grabbed a roll and pulled it apart, wolfed it down like he was starving. Sam couldn't recall Mulder keeping anything down the day before, and he shoved the basket over in front of Francis, watching him eat. Francis stopped chewing, swallowed, narrowed his eyes. He glared between Averman and Sam. "What the fuck is with you two?" He kept his voice low. "You think this is funny? We don't have enough clowns with Cooke on the team?" Sam took a deep, hard breath. Glanced back at Averman. "Francis." Looked into Mulder's eyes. Clear, hazel eyes. "Francis, you remember asking for Sam?" Mulder worked the bite of breakfast roll from one side of his jaw to the other. "I don't know what you're playing at, Frito, but we have real work to do today. We can't stop the bastard from killing her, but the faster we find her body the more we'll learn. Or do you figure Jenni's gonna put you back on her A-list if you just get on the news?" His angry voice told Frito that Francis had no idea what was going on. The pathologist swallowed, wracked his brain for anything from his psych rotation that could help, but pathologists weren't expected to deal with this kind of shit. He looked back across the table and Averman looked just as out-of-his-depth, though he covered it better. Spooky pulled a county surveyor's map out of his briefcase, spread it out and weighted the corners with coffee cups, bread baskets, silverware. Sam opened his mouth to ask another question, but Averman caught his eye, shook his head. Sam sat there, watching Mulder review every dumping location. They let him have the rolls, figured he needed them by now. He probably never even realized he was eating, his attention was so damn focused on the map. Every so often he'd look up at Averman or Sam, gesturing across the map. "He's picking them off strictly in state. The only out-of-state abduction we have was taken out of Six-Flags. The first little girl. But she was *from* Oklahoma. I want somebody, maybe Cooke's cronies, talking to the parents about any familiar faces. I want Meyers and Russell here, the kids know them better at the school, and that's where our freshest leads are." Full Spooky fifth gear today. Most AICs would jump down his throat and strangle him with his own dick for this. Averman just watched him go. "He'll have picked the next one by now, and be ready to pick him up the minute he's dumped the girl." Not even worth asking why Spooky thought, no, knew, it was a girl. They would get an answer that only made sense to Spooky, and more likely than not it would be right. Averman ordered for all three of them. Spooky barely noticed. When the food came he was still going full tilt, and huevos rancheros went down with barely a break. Sam was taking it in, listening and trying to comment, trying to get past the sure knowledge that Francis should be curled in his bed, watching shows not listed in TV Guide. Averman got up somewhere in the middle of it, went down the hall to make a phone call. When Spooky was in the men's room, after four cups of coffee and more food than Frito believed he could hold, Averman looked across the table. "Okay, we play it by ear today. Let him have his head, if he's true to form he's right. And we need him. I called a friend of mine from Little Sisters of Mercy. He's gonna scream bloody murder, but I want him to talk to this guy." "Shrink?" Frito's tone told the whole story. Averman just smiled back at Frito even as the pathologist shook his head. "He won't do it. He hates letting them near him." "I wasn't exactly going to ask for volunteers. I really don't want to screw with his head, but tonight we got to have a real serious sit-down talk about Samantha, and about little men with grey skins." Sam swallowed again, looked at Mulder coming back from the little hall where these places hid their crappers. Jesus, Mary, Joseph and holy St. Luke. Ride with your thumb on the pin, why don't you, then see what happens when you take your thumb off and count to seven. __________________ Continued in part 5............... ===================================================================== ====== From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 5/41 NC-17 Date: 25 Jan 1996 04:45:57 GMT Oklahoma (Part 5/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence As ever, Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. _____________________ Francis had them up at the fly-specked, old, Social Services office, running checks on employees from the last ten years, checking against prior employment, past references, anything that didn't add up, didn't make sense. Looking for someone who'd know. The office administrator had taken offense right off the bat, and Frito had watched Francis turn the man into little, quivering chunks of fat. No mercy, just starting to hammer in the details of murder after murder, child after child, and what it would mean when the next one turned up. All the rage he could not afford to let go at Cooke, and he just flayed that pompous little bureaucrat alive. Two of the innocuous agents nearest the carnage had gone white and nearly blown chunks. They all watched, horrified, while Mulder leaned in across the desk, asking where else you'd find a kid with the label this guy shopped for. And Frito felt his guts churn as Francis did that fucking thing again, pulling his hand past his own body, like he was painting a target on his chest. This time Averman caught it too, and Frito saw the older man's eyes widen just a little, saw him adding up ugly numbers, getting even uglier sums. When Marion turned back to ransacking employee records, Frito had seen that his hands were shaking again, and that he had to clench them on a grubby, frayed manila file until they'd stop. Please god, tell me Averman's buddy shits gold, and can make Francis listen before the kid blows his brains out on this one. And sometime around four-thirty, Frito found Mulder in the men's room down the hall, crouched over the yellow-spotted can, arm braced against the filthy, graffitti-obscene partition. He was pale and wasted from dry heaves. Frito leaned against the wall, feeling the ugly, cracked tile, ice cold through his sweat-dark shirt, chill against his own feverish fears. The pathologist swallowed his own nausea and listened to Francis' dazed voice quote Eliot. Again. And knew they had another one out there, waiting for them. "You tossed a blanket from the bed, You lay upon your back, and waited; You dozed, and watched the night revealing The thousand sordid images Of which your soul was constituted; They flickered against the ceiling. And when all the world came back And the light crept up between the shutters And you heard the sparrows in the gutters, You had such a vision of the street As the street hardly understands; Sitting along the bed's edge, where You curled the papers from your hair, Or clasped the yellow soles of feet In the palms of both soiled hands" Late evening sun slanted golden across the sky. Averman had given Sam the keys to another bucar. Another Taurus, this one burgundy. No one asked, no one even questioned when Frito and Spooky had packed up and gone to the hotel. They were getting used to this. Cooke was out of pocket, talking to the locals about the biggest story they'd fucking had in years, and the other agents just let it ride. Marion, of course, just kicked off his shoes, hung up his jacket and lay back on the bed to watch another baseball game. Frito felt some irritation build. Can't make it through the night without doing the mental watusi, but he can fucking kick back and watch a fucking baseball game all afternoon while the rest of us piss our brains out onto diskettes. And then before he goes to bed he'll type up something that makes all that we do look like shit. Fuck. Three dead bodies and he was the only one to do a decent autopsy. Well, there were toxicologicals on the other two, that was something. Sam frowned sourly at the crabbed handwriting of Raintree's ME, trying to make out the "distinguishing characteristics." Someone knocked on the door. Averman. He motioned to Sam. They stood by the concrete railing, squinting in the light, watching heat rise in waves and billows off the concrete. "What'd he do at Social Services?" "Vomited and recited more Eliot," Sam said sourly, putting his hands on the railing, leaning over. "What'd your shrink friend say?" "I couldn't reach him. His partner gave me the name of a shrink here who's real good, real discreet." Sam nodded. "What else did his partner say?" Averman gazed through his sunglasses at a jiffymart across the road. "Mulder's walking a very thin wire." "Well, fuck, we knew that." "No. Well, it's PTSD, but hell, we already knew that. He said. . .he said Mulder shouldn't be functioning as well as he is. He said that Mulder shouldn't be psychotic at night and Joe- fucking-cool all day long." "He loses it in the day time." "Yeah, but not bad enough to yank him home." "So, what do we do?" "Well, I told him about the Dramamine. He said that if it worked, okay, but we can add some stuff for his daytime anxiety. And maybe some sleeping pills." Sam nodded. "I'm licensed, but it'd be better if I could get a local to do the prescribing, one of the ME's or something. I don't have a pad or anything." "The shrink here is a psychiatrist. In case we have to commit him or something." Sam felt like swearing. Instead he hit his hand against the railing, closed his eyes. "What happened with him?" Averman asked softly. Sam opened an eye, squinted at the AIC. "Was he sexually abused, do you think? His sister killed to protect some dirty family secret?" Sam shook his head. "I don't know." He felt his gut churn and twist at the thought. "How does he fucking just know?" Averman shook his head. "I've heard him explain his `guesses' in a debriefing. An ASAC sat him down in a room with a tape recorder and Mulder told them. It was. . .I don't know. . .He was quoting medieval texts about vampires in Great Britain and Ghost Rider comic books and JAMA and Rupert Brooke and the ASAC kept the tape like he'd learned something but all we learned was jack shit." Averman shook his head. "Have you ever heard Mulder's explanation for his successes? The one he gave at the Retired Agent's Luncheon when they asked the young and coming heir apparent to speak?" Sam shook his head again. Averman leaned against the railing, stared at Mulder's door. "I quote, `I have a knack for applying behavioral models to criminal activity and explaining motivation through causal factors.' He shovelled enough shit to fertilize all the lawns in Georgetown. You heard what Webster said about him?" Without waiting for a pause, Averman continued. "A rare and unique talent." "If a thing is unique it can't be rare. . ." Rodriguez mulled. "Don't cast aspersions on our beloved former director." Rodriguez grinned. Mulder was sitting on the bed, staring numbly at the screen. "What? They found out about my screwing the desk clerk? I swear she said she was nineteen," he teased, flicking the tv off. Averman grabbed a chair, Sam took a seat on the lowboy. "What?" Mulder asked, glancing from one to the other. Frito stared at Averman. His goddamn fucking ballgame. "Agent Mulder, the past two nights you have woken with nightmares." Averman's voice was sonorous and gentle. "The first night you became conscious and relatively lucid. Last night, you did not." Mulder closed his eyes, went very pale. "Oh fuck," he muttered. "Oh fuck." He swallowed, opened his eyes, stared at Frito. "Why didn't you tell me, you mutherfucking taco lover?" "Mulder." Averman's voice was low, almost a growl. "You don't remember any of it?" Mulder shook his head. "I'm sorry. I. . .I don't have these dreaming episodes very often. I promise. I won't let it interfere with my performance. I promise. I don't. . .I won't let it happen again. It doesn't. . ." "Francis, stop it." His voice was rising towards hysteria. Sam was worried. "Francis. Stop. It's okay. Just stop." "What do you remember?" Averman asked softly. Mulder shook his head. "I don't. . .I don't remember anything. I never do." "But this has happened before?" "I. . .I guess so." "What happened?" Frito this time. "I. . .there was this girl, we were invo. . .anyway. . .I scared the shit out of her. She said I screamed and screamed and then hid in a corner, wouldn't let anyone near me, was babbling something about aliens and little grey men. I've. . .I" He swallowed convulsively. "I've woken up in my closet a few times. I don't know how I got there. Just in the back of my closet where it's dark and they can't come for me." "Who can't come for you?" "I don't know." Mulder shrugged. "I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to cover for me sir. I'll. . ." He closed his eyes. "I'll go for therapy voluntarily. Please. . ." Mulder opened his eyes, stared at his hands. He looked like a different person then. He did not look like Spooky Mulder, world class pain-in-the-butt. He did not look like Fox Francis Marion Mulder, Sam's friend. He looked young and stupid and incredibly tired. "Please don't make me leave this case." Averman sighed. "You have to agree to some things." Mulder nodded slowly. "I have a friend who does therapy. He's going to call tonight. I want you to talk to him. Be honest. He's not going to turn you in or tell the big bosses. He works for the Little Sisters of Mercy." Mulder wanted to refuse. But they had him strung up by his cahones and he knew it. If Averman whispered word of what was going on Mulder would get a nice long leave of absence and when he came back he'd be stuck on some shit detail in Mobile Alabama or something. He nodded. "Sam's going to get some prescriptions for some stuff. If he wants you to take a pill you take it. No questions asked. Okay?" Mulder stared at Averman and Frito a long time. "Don't. . .don't turn me into a zombie, Frito." "I won't man." Not unless I have to. "Okay." Mulder put his face in his hands, trembling, pale, cold, trembling with fear and anxiety and relief. "I want you to answer some questions for me," Averman finished. Frito got up to get Marion some water. Marion took the hands away from his face. "What kinds of questions?" "Questions we need answers to when it's 2 a.m. and you're screaming bloody murder," Frito answered, putting the waterglass under the tap. "I don't have much. . .choice, do I?" Mulder took the water glass, drank deeply, spilling just a little down the side of his mouth. He held onto the glass, watched Frito return to the lowboy. "How long has this been going on?" Mulder swallowed. "I've always had nightmares. After I got into Behavioral Science they started getting worse. It's been really bad for a year or so. And in the. . .when it's kids. . .it gets bad sometimes. . ." Averman felt the breath expel out of his mouth and nose as though someone had just punched him. In the corner of his eye, he watched Rodriguez go completely pale. Oh God, a year of screams and waking up and sitting in closets and corners and babbling and no one had fucking noticed? A year of crying and terror and dreams. Oh God. And it got worse when there were kids. Oh fucking hell. "You said you were dreaming about your sister's disappearance. What do you remember?" His voice betrayed nothing of the nausea in his stomach. Mulder shrugged, shook his head. "Nothing." He went to his briefcase, dug through the papers, moved some things around. "Here." He handed Averman a very old file. "What's this?" Averman asked. "When she disappeared the FBI came. That's their report and I got a copy of the police report." "You carry this with you?" Mulder kind of shrugged, sat against the headboard of his bed, picked up a picture that had been face down. Frito hadn't even noticed it. A girl. A little girl with a toy in her hands and a smile. Dark hair. "This is Samantha when she was six." Mulder gave the picture to Sam. Okay. Guy keeps the file in his briefcase, keeps her picture on his nightstand the way Frito kept Jenni's picture. Well, Frito had a couple of polaroids under the nice portrait and well, Sam sincerely hoped Marion didn't have any pictures of Samantha under the portrait. "Mulder. You have a special affinity with these kids." Averman glanced at Rodriguez. No easy way to say it. "You also. . .show a . . .different understanding of social services. Were you abused?" Mulder stiffened. Oh God. Bingo. Oh God. Mary, Mother of God, please have mercy on him. Please help him, Sam prayed spontaneously, hoping the Blessed Virgin would understand his being rattled at such a time. Oh God. Mulder was sitting there staring at a wall. Oh God, he'd gone off the deep end. Oh God. What had happened to him? Cases Rodriguez had seen began flashing through his mind. Babies fucked by adults, children who'd been tied down while hot curling irons had been shoved up their anuses or vaginas. Boys who knew how to suck a man's dick by five. Children sold to other adults for the price of a carton of cigarettes. Children passed around and around and raped until they finally died. There was some line in the Bible. Christ had said, that if you hurt a child it were better that you be cast into the depths of the ocean rather than do that evil thing. That the very center of hell was reserved for such people. Staring at Fox Mulder, watching him tremble and stare at something beyond the thin motel wall, Rodriguez echoed Christ's sentiments exactly. "Mulder, I know this is a hard thing. We're not going to ask you any hard questions about it." Averman's voice, very gentle. The shrink must have given him advice. "When you start vomiting, is it because you're remembering?" Mulder just stared. Just sat there and stared, like no one else was in the room, like no one else existed. "Mulder." Averman crossed the room, sat down on the bed beside Mulder. "Fox. It's okay." "Don't call me Fox." Mulder's voice was soft. "Please don't call me Fox." "Was your sister killed because of the sexual abuse?" Averman's voice was even softer now. Mulder started out of his trance, stared at Averman. "No. No. No. We weren't. . .that's not what happened. . .I lost Sam. I lost Sam so Dad hit me." It was so coldly lucid, Sam wasn't sure what to feel or think or say. So accepting. I lost her, ergo I got beaten. My fault, so I was punished. Averman was staring at Mulder. "Is that what happened?" Mulder swallowed, nodded, stared at Averman. "What? You didn't think that. . ." His face drained of blood. "No. No. That. . .I. . .No." Somehow, somehow, the tight knotting in Sam's gut wasn't so bad. It wasn't that things were better because Mulder's dad hadn't buggered him. It wasn't that exactly. But in a way it was. He'd been beaten. Okay. Okay. That was bad, but not bad in the way it had been before. And it maybe made sense. Francis was home with kid sister, kid sister disappears. Parents have no kidnapper to blame, so they blame big brother. Dad beats the shit out of big brother. "Mulder, can you handle this assignment?" Averman asked, very softly. "I'll pull some favors get you off this without the whole world knowing what's happening. Tell them one of the little girls looks exactly like your little sister--shit like that happens, they'll understand." Mulder half-smiled, a dopey little smile. "I can't quit. I'm the only person out here who knows T.S. Eliot." Continued in part 6................ ===================================================================== ====== From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma NC-17 Date: 26 Jan 1996 03:58:53 GMT Oklahoma (Part 6/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. __________________ Frito closed his eyes against the setting sun and took deep, hard breaths of the thick air. Scudding clouds did nothing to relieve the heat, and sweat rolled down his sides, plastered his white, cotton shirt to his ribs. It was cooler inside, in the dark of his room, but he didn't want to go back inside. Francis' panic and misery stained the air in there. He couldn't go back in there until the knots in his guts were gone, until he could look at his friend, and not paint the bruises and marks he'd seen before in autopsies over Mulder's face. Averman stepped out, leaned against the railing and drew a long, shaky breath. Shook his head and spat. The dry air ate most of it before it could stain the parking lot a floor down. "I called Dr. Guiterriez. He's on the line with the kid now. He'll call you when he's done. He said he'd get the background from you." Sam nodded. "Did he say anything else?" Sam kept his voice soft, not really trusting it not to shake. "Mulder? Not really, just that stuff about losing his sister, and trying to convince me he'd be all right." Averman sighed, long and deep and lonely. "What did you make of all that, Rodriguez? You know him. . ." "I thought I did. He never really talked about his parents. I didn't even know he'd had a sister." Frito swallowed against a dry throat, tried to snort the smell of Oklahoma's thin, fine dirt out of his nose. Felt the grainy sense of it on his skin. "Francis. . . always worked hard at keeping everyone as far away as possible. He has a rep as the biggest swinging dick in Violent Crimes, and he offended as many guys as he possibly could, as fast as he possibly could." Averman studied the faint smile on Rodriguez' even-featured face. "I guess he thought he could tick me off, too. Walked in and called me Frito and tried to rack my balls. I think he nearly shit a brick when I called him Marion." "Marion?" "Yeah. You know, the Swamp Fox? He works so hard at being an asshole. . . I always figured anybody who had to work that hard to be a prick had to be a pretty decent guy. He told me so much about Oxford, I never really thought about how much I didn't know about him. You don't, you know?" Sam swallowed again. Averman nodded, but Sam still wasn't sure how he could never have wondered about Mulder, never have seen any of this in him. "Do you think he was telling the truth about. . . his dad, his sister and all?" God, please let him say yes. Sam didn't want to believe. . . "You mean about the sexual abuse thing? Yeah, I don't think his old man raped them. But I don't think he just strapped him once every so often for good measure either. . .you just don't see a kid look like that unless it was. . . " Averman let it trail, lost in memories he'd rather not have. Glad he'd never seen that look on his own kids' faces. He hawked, and spat again. "You better go in, Guiterriez is gonna want to talk to you, then we meet up with the rest of them for dinner. Barbecue joint tonight." Averman grimaced. Sam glanced at Mulder's door, but didn't say it. When he shut his door behind him, he had to stand a minute to find any vision in the gloom. He could just make out Marion's voice from next door. The tight, angry tone carried, but no words, thank god. Frito forced himself into useful movement, pulling off the sticky shirt, washing his bare chest, arms, got out a new shirt and tie. Stuffed the other shirt into a laundry bag to drop at a local cleaner's. Marion's voice, rising and falling with anger, shrill with denial, sometimes a word would come clear but no sense to be had of it all. And finally, the sound of the phone slamming down. Of a fist against a wall, over, and over, and over. The door slammed back against the wall as Frito went through it. "Francis! What the fuck. . . ?" And feeling his heart racing, then calming as he watched Mulder carefully, deliberately, put his palms flat against the wall, back to the room, and just lean his forehead against the cool surface. Finally turned, slid down the wall, eyes open and watching things that had happened a long time ago, a long way away from here. Frito took a step forward, feeling the chill running up and down his arms, until he saw Francis focus on him with wide, dark, terribly young eyes. "Frito? It's okay, man." A hollow smile. "I'm fine. I'm just. . . so tired." He shut his eyes, leaned his head back against the wall. Sam stood still, no idea what to do, and finally let the sound of his phone ringing draw him away, closing the door between the rooms. "Hello?" He knew his voice sounded. . . distracted. "Dr. Rodriguez? I'm Michael Guiterriez." "Yes doctor. I believe you just spoke with. . . my friend." The long sigh on the end of the line was no more than Sam expected. "Yes, we had a very. . . interesting discussion. I can't say I envy you." Sam smiled. "Do you think you can get him in here tomorrow? He was rather. . . resistant when I suggested it." "I can try. When would you want us?" Sam could almost hear the other man's smile when he answered. "Tell you what. You get him in here and I'll make time. Until then, let me get some information." He ran through all the standard questions, personal history, childhood, mostly questions Sam found he couldn't answer. The number of things he did not know about his partner were amazing. Guiterriez was unsurprised. "I very much doubt he left many openings for anyone to learn a lot about him. All right, you're a pathologist, right?" Sam nodded, caught himself. "Does he show indications of anorexia or of bulimia? Jack told me about the bouts of vomiting." Frito thought about Francis, at the pool, working out. No sign of cellulite, thin but not emaciated, ate like a horse most of the time. . . "I think it's very recent, just this case. I've seen him and he's usually healthy, no physical signs related to eating disorders, and I've seen him eat and retain enough food. No real binge eating." He had to smile at that. Most of what Mulder ate would be binge eating for anyone else, but was SOP for Francis. "Moody? Radical shifts in behavior?" "Always." Sam sighed. "Moody is standard for Mulder. Shifts. . . one I've seen lately. He's pretty rough usually, foulest mouth in the room and all." "I noticed. Not out of line for someone in his line of work. They shut it on and off like a light switch depending on whether the mike's live. . . " "Yeah. Unless they're in politics." Sam grinned, heard Guiterriez chuckle, refocused. "And Marion's mastered the fine art of it. Truck drivers blush. But. . . not when he's on to something. I don't know how to explain this, did Averman tell you what he does?" "A little. But I'd like to hear it from you." He didn't ask about the name. Sam supposed Averman had told him something about it. "Mulder does psych profiles on serial killers and violent criminals. Ask him how he does it and he's so full of shit you know why his eyes are brown, but he's good. No, that's the wrong word. There just isn't anybody who can do what Mulder can do. They call him Spooky around the Bureau, and he is. He'll sit there and all of a sudden start telling you about some sick mother who's murdered a dozen kids. Chapter and verse, out of thin air, and every word of it will be right. He's found several bodies himself, says he'll be driving along and he'll see a spot and just. . . know it would be good for dumping a body." Sam felt the chills running up and down his back again. "And often as not, somebody else already thought of it. This time he's quoting Eliot, and we find the poems on the kids' bodies." Sam took a deep breath, felt his pulse racing. Guiterriez waited for him to start again. "Usually he's got the mouth of a Marine sergeant, but when he starts that channeling thing he. . . stops. Like he's somebody else. Or like suddenly he doesn't need to keep anybody away, it's just him and the words and the killer, and he's not scared anymore, not chasing us all away." Frito didn't know where it was all coming from, didn't know that he'd. ever seen this in his friend, but when he said it to Guiterriez he knew it was true. "The only time he trusts us, the only time he stops being afraid of us, is when he starts seeing things like a killer." He stopped, the words stopped him. Just stood there and felt things that had crawled out from under some rock. "That's. . . consistent with the impression I had of him." Guiterriez' voice was a lifeline out of the dark. "I wish we could get a better history on him, but I'd be surprised if anyone but him knows what I want to know. All right, Dr. Rodriguez, I'm calling in a prescription for Haldol, if he gets so you can't control him. And some oral Valium and some suspension Valium. And Jack said something about Dramamine. If it works, use it. I expect you're in for a rough night. He's pretty shaken up. Try to get him in here tomorrow. And I mean, really try. I don't want you physically dragging him in, but don't let him talk you out of it. He's not going to help me a lot, but I want to see him for myself." Sam thanked him, hung up and turned back to the other room. He had to brace himself a moment, but he walked back in like nothing had ever happened. And Francis was sitting on the foot of the bed, like nothing had ever happened. The look he gave Sam agreed to the fiction, and warned him not to poke at it. "Averman's got barbecue lined up for dinner. At least it's not another fucking steak house." Yeah, Marion was back. Forty-five minutes out of Tulsa and the headlights were hazy, shining through dirt and dust driven off the land by the wind. The storm front swept tumbleweeds, dirt, litter of all descriptions across the road in front of Averman's car. The rain hadn't hit. . . yet. Lightning flashed a threat on the horizon and the car rattled when the wind slammed across the road. A big, glowing neon pig doffed a ten-gallon hat down the road. They couldn't see the restaurant. Some kind of big tent fluttered in the wind, ghostly. The sign out front made Frito grin. "Jesus is Your Lifeboat in the Storm of Life." Marion leaned forward between the seats, reading the sign with the disbelief of a staid, New England Yankee faced with Southern, Rock-and-Roll-Me-Over evangelism. His mouth was open, but Frito could see that not even Fox Francis Marion Mulder could conjure a comment worthy of that sign. Averman just grinned the grin of a the Southron resurgent. Past the tent, they could see the Hog-Wallow, a shabby little mecca of pork barbecue with cole slaw on the side, and a plate of greasy fries for anyone with the courage to try. Spilled beer and sawdust muffled their footsteps, not that anything could have been heard over the juke box playing 'My Wife Ran Off with my Best Friend, and I Sure Do Miss Him.' Mulder's grin was manic in the gloom, and Frito was almost relieved to see him acting normal. The collection of suits in the corner didn't need a sign to announce FBI Night Out. Hitchens waved, as if they'd have trouble finding their table. Mulder was smiling at a waitress already. He'd have caught her eye even without the fibbie uniform. Frito and Averman flanked Spooky, and both poured beer fast, defaulting the driving to him. Or tried to. "Unh unh." Mulder leaned over and pulled Sam's beer over to himself. "He's senior, but I got stuck yesterday." Sam looked to Averman a moment, saw Francis take the signal in and saw his jaw go tight. Shit, shit, shit. . . The waitress swung her hips past one table, shot a barb off at another, and made safe harbor hovering between Marion and Averman to take orders. Averman counterclockwise, Mulder last, and Frito crossed his fingers and prayed to St. Jude that Mulder would order food, eat it, stay calm. No need for a menu, barbecue was a safe bet. Order after order, and the suicide blonde barely needed to write a word. She knew this route by heart, could almost have served them letter-perfect without taking an order. Frito just grinned and looked at her, she grinned back and wrote something down and he knew she'd have it right even without the order. And Marion looked up, polished his best smile on her, and ordered cole slaw and a scotch. Her surprise was visible. Averman leaned in, put a gentle looking hand on Marion's arm, and Mulder couldn't have moved that hand for love or money. "You're gonna insult these people, son." Spooky's glare was incandescent. Frito swallowed, feeling the electricity. Meyer was staring, Russell was suddenly very interested in his beer. Mulder looked back up, and deliberately repeated his order. The waitress was taking it in, glancing back to the bar, writing it down. "Tell you what, hon. I'll bring a plate on the side in case you get hungry. And a sweet little thing like you, I'm gonna need to see your ID." Her big, flashy, capped smile settled Spooky down just enough. He looked exasperated, but he pulled his license and let her check his age. She grinned and patted his shoulder, told him she had food in her fridge older than him, but wrote down his order. Marion shook his head and smiled at her again. Frito'd seldom seen him flare at anybody further down the pecking order than he was, and thanked God she was smart enough to handle it. Averman let Mulder shake his hand off, settled back to sip his beer and watch. Cooke, down at the other end, must have cracked a joke. Loud, bad country-western saved them from it. Tyler and Russell were loudly arguing the relative benefits of Toro and Lawnboy mowers, and Meyer, down the way, was steadily demolishing a bowl of chips and salsa, listening closely to Cooke. Spooky scanned them all, narrowed his focus to the beer in front of him, and pointedly ignored Averman and Frito. Dinner showed, and Mulder's scotch made a belated appearance. Sam shot a grateful look to the blonde, behind Marion's back. She winked back. "She's Acting Single, I'm Drinking Doubles" was on the box, and it was clear what conclusion the blonde had reached. Frito could feel the tightrope sway under his feet, and turned as much attention as he could to his dinner. The coleslaw actually vanished, to Sam's relief. It wasn't much, but maybe it would stay down. God, he hoped so. Please, please Blessed Mother, let us get through at least one night without trouble. Please. Song after song, after really lousy song. Where the hell did these crackers find this shit? 'Dropkick me Jesus, Through the Goalposts of Life?' Even Mulder was grinning, sitting back in appalled wonder to take in the sheer variety of crap they could get out of that juke box. And he was nursing the scotch, not shot-gunning it, thank the Blessed Virgin. Sam didn't think he'd prayed so much since he'd taken his boards. Barbecue and cole slaw and fries and beer vanished or vanishing, empty plates collected, and even Cooke feeling mellow, little butt-pimple that he was. Averman excused himself a minute. Cooke, face flushed with beer and heat, leaned in, dipping his tie in barbecue sauce, and shouted to be heard at their end of the table. "Hey Spooky! Better watch out Sunday. They're having a revival and they just might exorcise you!" Sam caught a crack from Bond about faith healing, but didn't pay a lot of attention. He heard Mulder start to shout something back down to Cooke, but the words kind of choked off. Sam's neck cracked viciously when he snapped back around to see Marion knock over what was left of his scotch. Wide, wide dark eyes, but Sam didn't think he was seeing Cooke, or anyone else. He could see Mulder's throat convulse as he swallowed, and cursed. God damn it. Can't you keep anything down? Mulder shoved his chair back, nearly knocked it over as he got up, but he wasn't heading for the men's room. He turned and walked, calm and fast, for the exit. Cooke was laughing, Meyers and Russell staring, and Frito felt his guts implode in one tight, sudden ball of panic. Spin back to the table, lean over to Russell, screaming to make sure every fucking word got heard the first time, and no screw ups. "Get Averman and come after us now! Meyers, you're with me." And out the door. God, God, where the fuck was Spooky going? Frito stared around him, blinded for a moment by the violent, sodium lights and neon in the parking lot. Francis' dark suit and hair made a faint flicker of movement in the dark at the edge. Meyers saw him, pulled Frito after him and took off. Spooky was up on the shoulder of the road, wind blowing his hair, his jacket, walking steadily down the road until he stopped in front of the big, portable sign. Fingers reached out, grazed across the letters of Jesus' name, across the word "boat." Frito only saw him because he was silhouetted against the stark white of the sign, a darker shadow in a moonless night. Thunder in the distance, and Sam could feel the dirt up his nose, taste it between his teeth, where the storm winds drove it. Averman's voice was a faint shout from back in the parking lot. Sam startled to attention, looked back to see the two older men trying to spot them. Averman and Russell were both half-blind back under those lights. Meyers' hiss brought him back around again, to see his friend walk into the big tent. Frito grabbed the kid's arm, sent him scrambling back after Averman and Russell, and followed Fox Mulder into the dark. The tent glowed inside with the lights next door. The wind billowed the walls of the tent, but couldn't move the still, close air inside. Wilted flowers cast a heavy scent around him and around Spooky, up at the front of the tent. His back was to the entrance, just standing and looking up at the dark wood stage and podium, the pale, sagging floral arrangements. Sam walked slowly, soundless on the crushed grass aisle that ran between the folding chairs. He could hear Averman and Russell breathing as they loped in, Meyers panting, babbling the little that he knew. And, just barely, Sam could hear Marion's soft voice. "I never saw one of these until I joined the FBI." "Francis?" Sam kept his own voice almost as soft, praying he wouldn't startle the young man. Mulder glanced back at him, face pale in the eerie glow. His eyes were dark, huge. "Methodists don't have revivals. And the Brits don't. Not in the Anglican church, thank you very much." That last in an atrocious English-snob accent. "The first time the Bureau sent me down South I saw a revival. Faith healing. Speaking in tongues, polyester suits and hymns and. . . " He had trailed off, was letting his hand smooth across the wood of the podium. Frito flinched at the clatter as Mulder hopped up to the stage. He could hear a gasp behind him, knew the others were back there, watching. Spooky Mulder was standing at the podium now, tracing the tilted surface before him. Frito saw a frown cross his face, saw him suddenly stare off into space, angry. "The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed." "What the fuck. . . " Russell's stunned voice was a faint chorus as Spooky worked up to a full thunder, echoing the voice of the coming storm. "And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors, Departed, have left no addresses. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept. . . " Eliot. Oh Christ, more Eliot, it had to be . . . Frito glanced back, caught Averman's wild stare, felt his own heart racing with the wind. Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long." Spooky's sudden whisper froze Rodriguez, hearing the voice of a child in this dark place. The return of the thunder sent him reeling a step back, watching his friend stare far away. "But at my back in a cold blast I hear The rattle of the bones, and the chuckle spread from ear to ear. A rat crept softly through the vegetation Dragging its slimy belly on the bank While I was fishing in the dull canal On a winter evening round behind the gashouse Musing upon the king my brother's wreck And on the king my father's death before him. White bodies naked on the low damp ground And bones cast in a little low dry garret, Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year. But at my back from time to time I hear The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring. O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter And on her daughter They wash their feet in soda water Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!" Mulder fell silent, let the wind scream through the stays of the tent, panting for air, seeing no one who was there. Sam had gathered himself to step forward, but the lost, cracked voice from the dark in front of him stopped him. "I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest- I too awaited the expected guest. He, the young man carbuncular, arrives, A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare, One of the low on whom assurance sits As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire." Frito shivere