From: livengoo@tiac.net

Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative

Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 7/41 NC-17

Date: 27 Jan 1996 16:27:27 GMT





Oklahoma (Part 7/41)

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.



____________________



     And then he fell into the dust.



     When Frito stood over him, his eyes were closed, his face

unlined like the dead who have no worries left to them anymore. 

His palms were bloody and for a moment all Rodriguez could think

was Stigmata, a sign given to the saints.  Then he saw the blood

was seeping from small moon shaped cuts, from nails driven into

flesh when Averman refused.



     His breathing was slow.  Steady.  "Get him home.  Give him

fluids.  The Spirit is finished with him."  A voice echoed behind

them.  The agents twirled, Meyers' gun, Tyler's gun were out,

trained on the voice.



     She was small, a sparrow perhaps.  At the sight of their guns

her eyes were bemused, her mouth quirked.  "Do you fear me?  After

the Spirit has walked among you."



     The lightening boomed overhead and the lights flickered, went

out, came back on.  She was still there.



     Averman pulled the first words out.  "Who are you?"



     "I might ask you that question.  This is my son's tent. He

doesn't believe in the dark dove with the flickering tongue.  He's

Southern Baptist.  They don't believe that. . .



     The dove descending breaks the air

     With flame of incandescent terror

     Of which the tongues declare



     The one discharge from sin and error

     The only hope, or else despair

       Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre

       To be redeemed from fire by fire."



     "Oh God, another crazy."  Cooke's voice seemed out of place,

artificial, cheap against the sounds of wind, against the terrible

quiet rolling in their souls.



     "No.  T.S. Eliot understood faith.  Who is your Faith Healer?"



     She walked past the agents and they let her, just let her. 

Knelt beside Mulder, stared at Frito.  "You believe."



     "Yes ma'am."  Frito swallowed.  "His name is Fox Mulder,

Ma'am."



     The woman nodded, touched his brow.  "He is very ill.  He has

been that way a long time."



     Frito nodded again.  The woman was familiar.  And old.  But

her gentle eyes were so very clear.



     "He was speaking in tongues.  When that happens, when the

Spirit moves a person, you must be careful.  First, that they do

not hurt themselves.  You have drugs you can give him?"



     Frito wondered, obliquely, why he was just accepting this

woman's advice.  Why he was letting this uneducated rural

hellfire-and-damnation woman with wrinkled dugs tell him about 

Fox Mulder.  "Yes.  Haldol."



     "He needs Valium."  Her words were sharp.



     Sam nodded.



     "Give him food.  And lots to drink.  Give him quiet rooms. 

When he dreams, give him the drugs, but give him your love."  Her

wrinkled, gnarled fingers smoothed Mulder's unwrinkled, young 

brow.



     "Who then devised the torment? Love.

     Love is the unfamiliar Name

     Behind the hands that wove

     The intolerable shirt of flame

     Which human power cannot remove.

        We live, only suspire

        Consumed by either fire or fire."



     Mulder murmured something suddenly, something soft and not

understood.  The woman sighed.  "I know," she whispered as a tear

dropped from her face.  "I know.  It's all right."



     "He needs healing," she told Sam, looking back up.  "It will

take a long time.  And you will not be the one to help him all the

way.  But that is all right.  You will take him into the doorway."



     The woman stood, stared at Averman.  The air was suddenly pure

and clear and their hair stood on end with tingling and then,

without pause for breath or thought or movement, there was a great

crash and the earth shook and they felt their hearts move

arrythmically against their chests.  Yet the rain had not begun. 

The land was desiccate and barren.



     "You have it in your power to let him take the chosen path.



     Here is the impossible union

     Of spheres of existence is actual,

     Here the past and future

     Are conquered and reconciled.



     Can you understand that?" she asked pointedly.



     Averman swallowed, nodded.



     And suddenly they were. . .the air was. . .and their hair was

straight and the sound was sonic driving, driving, draining and

hard and they were diving for cover and all manner of things

shall be. . .the light. Overwhelming light, bewildering, blinding

white light and they could not think could not. . .



     When the lights came back on they were all crouched, listening

to their hearts, feeling their stomachs knot and jerk and their

heads screaming, their bodies jerking and trembling and they could

not think for a moment.



     And the woman was gone as though she had never been.









     Sam had his own ideas, waiting for Myers and Russell with a

car, sitting with Spooky's arm around one shoulder on the rusty

folding chairs.  Averman had the other arm.  No one wanted to talk

about it.  Sam knew.  God, he fucking knew.  When she had touched

Mulder's cheek and cried, he knew.  Oh God, forgive him for ever

doubting.



     Mulder had come around when Rodriguez slapped him several

times, but it was a dazed, confused look and no one really wanted

him lucid or cognizant.  No one wanted to know.  No one had wanted

to know what they'd heard tonight.  Cooke was making the sign of

the cross again and again and again.  God, he hadn't known the

popeyed sonofabitch was Catholic.  Irish Catholic no doubt.



     And then the car came and they ran through the dust and the

wind and the lightening exploding all around them.  It was raining

everywhere but. . .Rodriguez slammed the car door shut, watched as

the other agents got into the other car.  And Mulder closed his

eyes wearily, leaned his head against Sam's shoulder.  When he

looked back, out the window at the second car, it hit.  The rain

and the hail and wind and they couldn't see the road and the hail

was huge, things Mulder could probably fucking pitch.  Looking at

the second car, its lights were the only thing Sam could see.  The

lights were off at the Hog Wallow.  The lights were off everywhere.



     There was only the big yellow and white tent, only the sign

and then, as Tyler decided to try driving in this shit, the lights

of the tent went off.  Like someone had just fucking hit. . .a. .

.switch.









     It was just raining and windy and all fired nasty when they

pulled into the motel parking lot.  Sam pinched Mulder's arm

cruelly and he woke again.  Stared at Sam, pissed.  Lost.  "Come on

Marion," he said.  "Come on.  We're home.  Let's get you into bed."





     They rejected the offers of help from the other agents.  Cooke

helped them tug him up the stairs, and then, because Averman said

it right, not cruelly, not condescendingly, he went back to his own

motel room.



     Mulder was wet.  Hell, they were all wet.  All soaked to the

skin, their suits ruined, their shoes squishing.  Frito stripped

off his jacket and tie, threw it all into the next room.  He wanted

a long, hot shower.  A long hot shower and then he wanted to run

down to the nearest Catholic church.  Instead he watched as 

Averman did the same.  Then they turned their attention to Mulder.  

His shoes slid off easily, his clothes were wet and clumsy and 

Mulder's energy, expended in his speech, was gone.  Used up 

completely.  There was nothing left now for anyone.  He could not 

help them.  They rolled him naked into the bed clothes.  Sam 

remembered he had been sleeping with one pillow clutched like a 

lover and put the second pillow where he could reach it.



     Averman got the Dramamine, handed it silently to Sam who was

sitting on the side of the bed, watching his friend sleep.



     "Francis?  Francis?  Come on.  Wake up."  Mulder's eyes

opened, bloodshot, puffy, his mouth moved, but did not form words.



     "Come on.  Good stuff.  Open your mouth."  Mulder did so

automatically.  Was rewarded with two small pills.



     Sam put his hand under Mulder's head, lifted it up, put the

glass to his mouth.  Mulder swallowed once, twice, three times. 

Good enough.  He put the glass on Mulder's bedside table.



     "Sam?"  Mulder's voice was weak.  No more than a whisper.



     Rodriguez wondered who Mulder was speaking to.  Frito or

Samantha.



     "Sam, the body's going to. . .your evidence will be

destroyed."



     Speaking to his friend.



     "There's nothing we could have done," Frito replied, feeling

the tightening in his gut release just a little bit.



     Mulder's eyes moved restlessly.  At long last he nodded.  He

began to speak again.  Frito had to move close in to hear what

Francis was whispering.



     "There is no end of it, the voiceless wailing,

     No end to the withering of withered flowers,

     To the movement of pain that is painless and motionless,

     To the drift of the sea and the drifting wreckage,

     The bones' prayer to Death its God.  Only the hardly, barely

     prayable

     Prayer to the one Annunciation."



     Francis' eyes searched out Averman, found him and nodded,

satisfied.   He went to sleep then.  A tired, deep sleep, deep like

the very center of the ocean.  Rodriguez did not know what

lurked at those depths.  Monsters perhaps.  Perhaps there was some

peace.









     Rodriguez lay in his bed, listening to the wind and the hail

and the rain.  Listening to the lightening and the thunder and to

the sound of his own heart.  Mulder's room was silent as Mulder's

mind prowled the quiet waters of medicinal sleep.  His mind worked

the prayer of the rosary over and over again.



     "Our Father who art in Heaven

     hallow'd be Thy name.

     Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done

     On Earth as it is in Heaven.

     Give us this day our daily bread

     And forgive us our trespasses

     As we forgive those who trespass

     Against us.

     And lead us not into temptation,

     But deliver us from Evil.



     For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, Lord. 

     Now and forever.



     Keep us free from every evil Lord, and grant us peace in our

     day. 

     For You alone are the Holy One, You alone are the Lord. 

     You alone are the most high, Jesus Christ. 

     We worship You, we give You thanks, we praise You for

     Your glory. 

     Grant us now your peace. Amen.





     When he was in college he'd taken Mythology.  The professor

had droned on about the earth mother archetype and the Madonna

myth, about the need to see women as pure.  That it was something

created by a male dominated society in a need to keep women in

their place.



     Sam had gone home for a weekend, watched his great aunt Maria

pray to the Blessed Virgin in her pure Castillian spanish, watched

her eyes fill with strength and he'd known the professor was

completely and utterly full of shit.



     There was some reason the archetype existed.  And it had

nothing to do with keeping women in their place.  And if it had

been subverted to that purpose, Sam hoped those men rotted in

purgatory until they forgot what a dick was.  But that was not the

reason for the archetype.



     A knock.  Hesitant.  Soft.



     Cooke?  Sam got up, padded over to the door, unlocked it. 

Averman.



     He went back to his bed, turned on the lamp.  Averman sat down

on the chair.



     "What happened out there?"



     Sam shrugged.



     Another knock.  This time Sam knew who it was.



     He opened it.  Cooke came in, sat on the floor.  Looked at the

carpet.



     "He's going crazy."  The voice was soft, gentle.



     Averman exchanged a look with Sam.



     "Yeah," Averman replied.



     "My father is in one of the most expensive nut houses in

Boston because of Korea," Cooke said without looking at anyone. 

"Don't let them put him in a place like that."



     Averman swallowed.  Oh God.  Oh God.



     "It was Her.  Wasn't it?"  Cooke stared at Rodriguez

accusatorially.  "She came and the Fucking storm waited on her."



     Rodriguez said nothing.  Stared at Cooke.



     "This place isn't real.  It was real this afternoon when I was

in front of the camera.  It was real when I was answering

questions.  This place isn't fucking real anymore," Cooke recited.



     No one knew what to say.  Mulder would have known.



     "What do we do?" Sam asked.  "You know what we should do.  You

should put him on a plane tomorrow and report his behavior

bluntly."



     Averman did not reply.  They all knew the procedure.



     "If we do, there'll be more dead babies.  We'd still be

swinging our dicks around, trying to get hard ons," Averman finally

said bluntly.  "If Mulder's right he's killed six children.  And

he's going on a spree now that he knows we're interested."



     "So what do we do?"  Cooke's voice was sharp, acidic.  "You

can't hide this.  Mulder's lost it.  Completely and utterly. 

Delusory."



     "You saw him reciting T.S. Eliot and making a prediction about

a killer.  Want to bet that when we wake him he'll have a perfectly

logical reason for his knowing figured out.  Perfectly logical to

anyone with a 200 IQ, of course, but it will be," Sam replied,

slamming his fists against the bed.



     "No one has to know."  Averman's voice was cold.  Analytic,

devoid of emotion.  Just call him Mr. Fucking Spock.  "It was just

eight agents, who will be willing to cover anything up so they

don't have to deal with what they just saw, or willing to go along

because of what they just saw.  He can get us through this case and

then back to DC and I'll call in my favors and get him a leave of

absence, tell them, I don't know. . .I'll think of something that

they'll bite. . .he can see my friend."



     "Cover up something like this?  That's grounds for dismissal."

Cooke's voice wavered.



     "They'll stuff him so full of Thorazine they'll have to show

him where to take a shit.  He'll sit in the day room and stare at

the sun making patterns on the wall and some Occupational 

Therapist will come by and give him plastic scissors to . . ."



     "Shut up!"  Cooke's voice was choked.  "Just shut the hell up!

Okay?"  Sam shut the hell up.  Oh yes he did.



     "He'll be all right in the morning won't he?"  Averman's voice

again.  Still cold.



     Sam took a deep breath.  It hurt to breathe like that, hurt

through and up and around his lungs and he couldn't really think. 

"Yeah. Oh yeah.  He'll be fine, if I know Spooky Mulder.  He won't

talk about it at all."



     "I'll get the other agents.  Meyers and Williams will be

easy."



     "I can convince Tyler,"  Cooke said tiredly, wiping his face.



     "You'll get Mulder his drugs?"



     Sam nodded.



     "Take him to Guiterriez first thing tomorrow morning.  Call

him.  Let him know how important it is now."



     Another nod. Sam got up.



     "Where're you headed?"  Averman asked.



     "I'm going to look through his stuff."



     He went across to the other room, feeling cheap and disgusting

and not caring.  He heard Cooke and Averman talking and then the

door opening and closing.  And silence.



     Clothes and porn.  Big deal.  Some condoms.  Good man.



     Heterosexuals gonna have some real bad surprises in a couple

of years if they don't start using these. . .Sam popped the

aluminum briefcase open.  Case files.  Case files.  Okay, he should

be hitting the old profiles, the old q and a, the theoretical stuff

the. . .red and white edged folders. . . .Sam read a tired stamp,

inhaled in the dim light given by the lamp.  "X-File."  He flipped

through, trying to think of something logical, something that made

sense.  Oh God.  Oh God.  X-File.  X-File.  X-File.  X-File.  X-

File.  Dumping ground for ghosts and ghouls and UFO's.  For

psychics and faith healers and entity rape.  Fifteen X-Files.  Sam

snatched them up.  Ten or eleven of them, left a couple of them

lying in  the bottom.  It was raining and rain was getting on

confidential FBI files and Sam was cold and his feet were tender

against the concrete.  But he pounded and pounded on Averman's

door.  Averman opened the door, was instantly alarmed.  "What?  Is

he. . ."



     Sam rushed in dumped the files on Averman's bed.  "Oh God.

He's. . .God. . ."



     The files spilled onto the rumpled spread, lay, mute accusers

of an insanity that Sam had never suspected, never thought about,

never dreamed ran and travelled and tunnelled in the dark passages

of Fox Mulder's head.



     "We need to send him back.  He goes back tomorrow.  We need to

call ahead and make arrangements."  Sam swallowed the nausea, the

fear that he was betraying Marion, and the fear that if he didn't

he'd watch his friend spiral into the dark forever.



     Averman stood next to him, looking at the files Frito was

pulling apart.  The sucking sound of wet paper pulled from wet

paper was the only sound for a moment. Then Averman sighed and 

ran his hand over his short, grey brush cut.



     "What's this about, Sam?  What are all these?  Why you so

upset at a few files after all that's gone on tonight, son?"  Sam

looked up at him, face shadowed by the lights behind the bed, next

to him.  Averman looked at him, saw the oval face pale under

the Spanish-dark skin, softly defined features now haggard, and the

wild look in dark brown eyes.  Soft, good looks of Spanish

aristocracy, California Hidalgo, distorted by fear and worry and a

primitive dread that confused Averman.  Sam's compact body was

trembling with a barely restrained panic, as Averman directed him

into a chair, got him a glass, poured just a tot from the flask he

had in his luggage.



     Sam sipped at the amber liquid, let the burn of it fight the

chills that had nothing to do with being wet, or with the

air-conditioning.  "I. . . I. . . "   He was stammering.



     Averman picked up his own glass, took a file and started

glancing through it, letting Rodriguez sip his drink and calm down

a little.  Abduction case, about fourteen years old.  Strange that

he'd never seen this kind of code on anything. .  .



     "I looked through Francis'. . . through Mulder's briefcase and

found those, like, eight of them."  Averman glanced up to meet his

eyes, saw the real fears and concern there.  Nodded and let Sam

go on, taking in the rapid, flat tone as well the words.  "I looked

at them, and they're crazy, just crazy.  Why anyone would look, why

Marion would. . . " just rattling through the words at first.  Let

him get it out of his system, exhaust that hysteria he'd needed to

let out for hours now.  "He's right around the bend. He must've

been around the bend for. . . for. . . Oh god. How did I miss it?" 

He was sitting there, drink cradled against his forehead.



     Averman watched Sam, saw his eyes go far away, then close, and

could almost hear the doctor playing back months, maybe years. 

Looking for any hint or clue he could recall.  Averman had seen

men, men he'd commanded, slip into the dark and never come back. 

He knew the look, and he'd seen the look on Sam's face in the

mirror each time, seeing himself let a friend slip past the point

of no return.



     "Sam!"  Averman's voice, just barely raised.  The AIC took

Rodriguez' glass and recharged it, handed it back to him and sat,

waiting for the doctor to look at him.  "Sam, listen to me, son.

Calm down now.  I need you thinking clearly."



     Sam fixed on him.  He swallowed again, tried to choke down the

panicky sense of failure, of having lost one he should have caught.

He'd lost people in his residency, as an attending, he'd had

friends and family die, but he'd never lost a friend on the table.

The fact that Fox was going mad was only worse, in Sam's eyes.  How

did you pull someone back from that?  How did you get past knowing

that the body was sitting in some hospital, drawing with crayons,

smiling at nothing.



     Averman had seen this before.  Seeing it once would be one

time too many.  His voice carried a weight of knowledge that cut

through Sam's misery.  "Calm down.  It got scary tonight, didn't

it?  Don't know about you, but I have never, in my entire life,

seen anything like what happened out there tonight.  I know it was

poetry.  I know he remembered it, put something together, figured

something out.  But it still sounded like the Sermon on the Mount. 

You've got a perfect right to feel like you do.  But not over

these."  He shook the files he held in the air, watched Sam track

them like they were rattlesnakes.  "These are just files, open

cases, somebody's fears and illusions reported to some poor agent. 

Poor bastard had to go out and look the ground over, and came back

with an open case and a good campfire story.  Happens all the time.



So Spooky's looking them back over.  Fine, no problem."



     Sam had finally stopped breathing so fast, could finally take

a drink without his hands shaking.  Averman nodded, watching him

calm down.  Curiosity was finally replacing panic, though the worry

was still there.  Averman dredged up a chuckle from somewhere,

watched the doctor relax a little more.  "Hell, after what we saw

tonight, who knows?  Spooky may just be able to solve these things.

So he's got some unsolved crimes, weird crimes.  So what.  That's

what this one is, and we're all here.  Sam, if he wasn't here, this

one would be another campfire story, and a batch of dead kids.  And

someone ten years from now would look at it and shake his

head.  That kid is really sick.  He needs help, but after tonight,

I figure we need help, too.  And he can give it to us.  These,"

shaking the files again, "aren't what I'm scared of with that kid. 

So there's little grey men in here.  I'm almost relieved.  At least

now we've got an idea where THAT came from."



     Sam gulped, took another sip of scotch.  "You figure PTSD, and

he just picked up this stuff and added it to. . . whatever he's

already seeing?"



     "Could be.  Makes more sense than that he's seeing little grey

men on his own, don't you think?  Let's let Guiterriez think about

that, why don't we?  After all, our only shrink is the one who

needs to get shrunk."



     Finally.  A smile out of Rodriguez.  The little spic'd be

okay.  He just got rattled tonight.  Averman hesitated, debated

asking, finally just walked into it.  "You really got shook by the

old woman tonight.  You're Catholic, aren't you?"  No surprise when

Sam nodded.  "She make you feel like the Virgin herself just walked

into the room?"  The hesitation wasn't a surprise, either.

Admitting faith these days was like admitting you didn't walk under

ladders, or let black cats cross your path.  Averman had the

distinct feeling that Mulder's beliefs weren't the only thing

bothering Sam Rodriguez.  "I know my mam raised me believing in

Jesus-Christ-Our-Savior, and 'Nam made me believe in the devil on

Earth.  That old woman tonight, well, she put the chills up my

back, too."  Averman sipped his drink.  "I do know there's more out

there than we know, and that Spooky Mulder is hardly the scariest

thing around.  Fact is, I'm glad he's on our side.  We'll get him

to Guiterriez first thing in the ay-em.  Don't worry, Sam.  We're

gonna get the kid help.  I'm not ready to call DeeCee and tell them

to lock him up on tea and Thorazine.  I'm not ready to

do that yet at all."



Continued in part 8....................





=====================================================================

======



From: livengoo@tiac.net

Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative

Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 8/41 NC-17

Date: 28 Jan 1996 02:19:40 GMT





Oklahoma (Part 8/41)

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.



_____________________



     "This really fucks the duck."  Fox Mulder stood outside the

coffee shop, rolling a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the

other, and glaring at the flat, yellow-hot Oklahoma sky.  His suit

was GQ perfect, creases all in place, in spite of a steaming

morning of body-cavity heat and humidity.  Cooke, red-faced with

heat and shaky with fear, watched him and waited for the sky to

fall.



     Averman was still settling the bill when Frito joined them.

Marion tossed the toothpick into the clumped dust left by the

rapidly drying storm waters.  "Can we finally get this cluster fuck

on the road?  We've got people to find, places to do."  Hitchens

walked out, knocking loose a cigarette from a fresh package,

ignoring the disgusted looks both Mulder and Rodriguez gave him.

He'd been trying to quit.  He wasn't trying this morning.



     Spooky glared around him, taking in the nervous looks, the

jumpy, startled movements every time one of these chicken-chokers

caught him looking at them, any time he made a sudden move.  Even

Frito, for Christ's sake, was jumpy as hell this morning, and

Mulder'd had about enough of this shit.  Hitchens fled to the

safety Bond's car, leaving Mulder with Averman, Frito and Cooke,

while the others packed off in their usual teams and dispersed on

whatever snark hunt Averman had picked for them.  Cooke,

unfortunately, showed no signs of going away.  He jittered

along behind them as they headed to Averman's car.



     "So," Spooky dropped into step next to Averman, "you've got the

Four Stooges back at Social Services?"



     "Yeah.  I think you had a good lead going there, and I want it

checked top to bottom."  Averman unlocked the driver's door, hit

the override to unlock all the doors.  Cooke grabbed the front

passenger seat fast, before Mulder could get it, trying to ignore

the poisonous look Spooky turned on him.  He didn't need the leg

room, but God knows he didn't want Spooky even that near the 

wheel, and he wouldn't sit in back with him to save his soul.  Let

Rodriguez play those games.



     Frito slid in next to Marion, putting his briefcase at his

feet.  He'd been watching Francis all morning, trying to see any

signs of. . . he didn't even know what.  Anything.  Nothing. 

Francis slung himself into the back, then startled as Averman hit

the override again, locking all the doors.  Childproof locks, Frito

noted.  They wouldn't be able to unlock them unless Averman hit his

switch.  He swallowed and waited.



     Francis licked his lips.  Not quick and nervous, a slow,

deliberate motion as he collected his temper and leaned forward.



     "Why don't you lean back and put the seatbelt on?"  Mulder

frowned.  Averman pulled back, out of the parking lot and towards

Oklahoma City.  Sam watched openly now, as Marion sat bolt upright

and stared around him at the road.



     "We're going the wrong way."  His voice was soft, definite. 

Sam suppressed the shudder up his spine, saw Cooke twitch.  Marion

leaned in between the front seats again, visibly calming himself. 

"Turn around, Averman.  We're going the wrong way."



     "I don't think so, son."  Ignoring the sudden, angry frown,

the intentional control of temper.  Sam pulled his briefcase up

onto his lap and flipped off the catch.  Quietly, quietly, please

God.



     "Averman, I'm telling you.  She's back the other way.  We need

to go get her, now, before we lose any more time."  Marion was

keeping his voice steady and reasonable, even though his fingers

were digging into the cloth of Averman's seat back.  Cooke was

trying not to cringe away from him.



     "We got time, Mulder.  We'll go see her, we will, but we've

got an appointment in Oklahoma City first."



     Sam saw Marion's jaw flex as his teeth ground together hard. 

Saw his knuckles go white.  "Averman, there's another storm blowing

in.  There's bugs and birds and every fucking thing that crawls and

flies and eats dead meat."  Jesus.  Controlled, low grind of a

voice that he had to be pulling out of his guts.  Frito opened his

case, thankful that Marion was so focused on Averman he never

noticed.  Load a syringe and pray to God you don't need it.  Pull

out the Valium they'd picked up last night before. . . before

Mulder called down the storm and the hag.  And try not to 

remember that, try to focus on an agent in psychological distress, 

possibly delusional, and very possibly about to snap right here.



     "Marion."  He looked around at Sam's pale, tense face. 

"Marion, it won't rain yet.  We have time.  We'll just go to

Oklahoma City first. . . "  and watched Francis' face twist itself

into a smile he'd never seen before.  Bitter, angry and so, so

alone.



     "You don't believe me.  You think I'm. . . "  Marion

swallowed, stared as Sam's face told the truth his tongue could

choke.  And the smile was gone, a crafty, calm look in its place. 

Averman's eyes were flickering from the mirror to the road. 

Cooke's eyes rolled all the way over to watch without turning. 

Mulder pulled his knees around, half-turned to stare into Frito's

wide eyes.  "All right, you think I'm out of my mind.  I can live

with that."  He smiled, careful and under control, his pale color

the only thing that betrayed that calm, rational expression.  "I

quoted Eliot last night.  Fire Sermon.  With deletions."  He half

smiled.  "It was one of my favorites at Oxford. I know it by heart.

I'd know it even if I didn't have an eidetic memory.  So I know

it's not Eliot that's spooking you this morning."  God, his voice

was so smooth this morning, oil slicks on the Potomac.



     "I'm telling you, we're missing a chance.  We've already lost

some of the evidence on that poor kid.  He's already picked up the

next one.  We can't afford to lose any time on this one.  But you

don't believe me. All right.  What don't you believe?  That I know,

or that there's a body there?"  Sam could feel where this was

going.  Averman had dropped to sixty-five, and trucks and

rust-junkers were tearing past him, horns blaring.



     Spooky's voice was rich, hundred-year-old cognac, dark, and

smooth, and the bite on it was vicious.  Sam watched the logic trap

close and couldn't summon a word to stop it.  "Either way, you

don't believe.  So what harm is there in looking where I want to

look?  We don't find a body, I go with you.  We do whatever it is

you want me to do.  I won't argue.  But we do find a body. . . "

Fox Mulder's pupils were huge, despite the flat glare of the

Oklahoma landscape under the merciless sun.  "But you don't

think that will happen.  So there's no problem."  His smile was

charming and assured, and his dark, steady eyes gave it the lie.



     "Doesn't make a whole lot of sense from where I sit, son."

Averman's voice was brisk and cool in the front seat.  "No body? 

We just waste time and we got to see a busy man."



     "A shrink."  No question, a flat statement of fact instead.



     "You have to admit, your behavior is a bit unusual for FBI

procedures."  Mulder even smiled at Averman's gentle comment.



     "I'll be glad to admit just that, if you do what I want.  I

don't give two shits what you think of me, all I care about is the

case."  He was still leaning between the seats, speaking low and

even to the AIC, ignoring the way Cooke cringed from him.  "It's a

win-win situation for you, Averman."  Mulder's voice held a coaxing

lilt.  "We spend just a little while, a detour.  There's no body,

and I'll be glad to go calmly to talk with your shrink.  No

problem.  Be glad to.  And you win.  And if I'm right, and there is

a body, then you get valuable evidence.  And you win."



     "And you still go to my shrink?  Even if we find a body?" 

God, Averman's eyes were fixed on the road, Mulder's voice in his

ear.  Frito could not believe the bargain being struck.



     "Sure.  Whatever you want. I'll go jump through his hoops."



     "And what if I say 'no', son?  What if I just drive us in to

Oklahoma City?"   Mulder had one shoulder past the bottle-neck of

the seats and was watching the road and wheel as steadily as

Averman.  Cooke was hyperventilating.



     "If you decide to drive in to Oklahoma City," Spooky's voice

was calm, and rational and confident, "then you will need whatever

it is that Frito's got in his case to get me there.  And you had

better pray it works fast."  Oh fuck, oh Jesus and Mary, Mother of

God.  Frito started to lunge but Marion was in motion and suddenly

had one hand, steady and hard on the wheel.  Cooke's shriek, and

Averman's curse together didn't cover Mulder's soft laugh.  "It's

okay, I'm not taking us off the road."  Frito flattened himself

against the seat and tried to believe that.  He couldn't see

Averman past Mulder, but the car had barely twitched.



     "Just one detour.  I don't care who you send me to after

that."  Not so calm now.  Not begging, but asking so hard. 

"Please, Averman.  Please.  I didn't want to do this. . . we can't

let him. . . he's already taken the next one, Averman.  I can't let

you throw her life away like that because you want me to go see

some shrink this morning.  The shrink can wait.  Please turn

around. I can tell you exactly where to go."



     Sam's hands were shaking.  The world flashed by at sixty-five

and they'd never stop in time if Spooky yanked the wheel.  Mulder

sprawled between the seats, the tape box gouging his ribs, but his

hand was steady and he watched the road and waited for Averman 

to decide what their next move was going to be.



     Finally, slowly, he nodded and started to tap the brake, pull

over to a U-turn in the center of the highway.  Mulder let himself

collapse in relief between the seats, breathing hard with the

tension he'd let go.  He stayed there until they had turned and

were going back, then pulled himself back into the back seat. 

Looked at Frito and sadly closed the briefcase, took it away from

him and put it on the floor.  Sam stared at him, shocked and numb. 

Francis curled into a corner of the back seat and watched Frito,

Cooke, and the passing landscape, with eyes lost beyond all hope.









     Red dirt in crumbling, cracked flats flanked the rutted excuse

for a road.  Averman's bureau buggy had struggled and bobbed to 

get this far, and seemed relieved to sit, ticking over, in the crushing

light that ground the young soy fields into wilted wreckage.



     Averman hit the release for the locks, and Mulder was out of

the car an instant later.  The AIC and Frito emerged more slowly,

gingerly picking a path across fractured, treacherous fields of

sun-baked plates on mud, marred by Francis' heedless footsteps. 

Cooke didn't budge from the safe, almost cool interior of the car.



     Marion's white shirt was painfully bright out there, tall and

scarecrow-thin where heat ripples distorted him a few hundred 

yards into the fields.  A moment later he had sunk into the earth 

itself, and the two men following him broke into a run, stumbling as 

the soil gave under their feet.



     They found him in the irrigation ditch, bent, with his hands

braced on his knees.  Frito feared for a moment that he'd been sick

again, would collapse.  Then he saw the body reflected in the

mirrors of his friend's shades.  Let his eyes trail down the ditch,

to see the shallow, muddy fluid disturbed by what should never 

have been there.



     The child looked like a hillock of mud at first, her body

coated as the sudden water had taken her, then yielded her back up

the night before.  Frito could hear Marion's feet dragged from the

sucking mud, then splashing back in as he carefully, slowly worked

his way up the ditch to her side.  Little speckles of mud marred

his shirt, his suit pants, as he stood and rolled his sleeves.  His

face was expressionless when he leaned down to roll her over.  The

glasses flashed sun into their eyes when he looked up at them,

straightened, threw his head back and screamed.  Screamed again,

letting it fade into hard, sobbing breaths.  Sam almost felt,

rather than heard, Averman gulp next to him.  Mulder's face wasn't

expressionless anymore.



     "She's been here.  She's been alone since last night.  We

stood there and let him kill her.  We told him he could kill her. 

We told him we *wanted* him to."  The sentences rode breathless,

dry sobs that wracked his chest and shook his shoulders.



     "Calm down, Mulder."  Averman's voice had the soothing note

Sam had heard the night before.  A note Sam needed right then as

surely as Marion.  Averman held a hand out at the edge of the

ditch.  "Come out of there. I'll need to get the evidence team down

there.  Best you don't stir it up any more."



     Mulder's face pulled, forehead furrowed, teeth digging into

his lower lip as he choked on the sobs of grief.  Sam could barely

hear him.  "We lost her. . . I lost her again. . . I'm so sorry. .

. I lost her again."  Averman glanced at Frito, as much as asking

what the hell to do now.  Sam shut his eyes, sucked in air that

hurt and burned, a solid mass that bruised his chest.  Opened his

eyes and stepped forward, letting the edge crumble and send him

sliding down the bank to splash into filthy water and the sound of

flies.  Tried to ignore the crayfish he could see crawling across

the body, ignore the reflections in Marion's glasses, fixed on what

could only be a child's poor clay, abandoned in this lonely place.



     "Francis. . . Francis.  C'mere."  Wrapped an arm around his

friend's back, half dragging him to the edge.  He could feel the

ribs through the thin material, feel the trembling as each breath

shook the man.  Francis reached a dazed hand up to take Averman's,

and was pulled out of the ditch, with Sam guiding his feet safely

up the crumbling bank.  He stood, still dazed, staring across the

flats while Averman helped Rodriguez, too.  A glance back at the

poor thing who could not be helped out of the mud, out of the

slough.



     Averman and Rodriguez each took a thin, lean arm and guided

Mulder back across the fields, slowly retracing their paths under

a sun that lashed sweat from them, scorched their vision into a

white blur, but that would, inevitably, give way to darkness. 

Little tremors ran through Francis every so often, shivering his

muscles, but he let them draw him back to the car.  Let them get

him into the back, carefully guarding his head so it wouldn't

strike the door as he got in.



     He stared back across the field they'd left, silent, face

pulled into a private grief as Averman called it in and carefully

pulled them away.  The whine of the air conditioner announced the

cooler air pumped into the car, but there was no relief to be had. 

Cooke stared at them, looked away fast, and kept his mouth shut

despite the smell of mud and death that clung to them all.



     And finally, the car bumped onto blacktop, the tires droned up

to speed, the world rushed away again in a long, washed-out blur

with Oklahoma City at its end.  But Mulder's eyes were still back

there, on a field and a ditch and a shape that broke the water that

should have been still and flat.











     It was eight stories up, a large office, furnished in dark

cherry and mahogany furniture, in brocade and tapestries.  When

Averman went to the receptionist's desk, they were shown back

immediately, no waiting.  The room was large, with a view of

downtown Oklahoma City a view of a sprawling city of green trees

and springs and rolling little hills. 



     Their shoes left a trail of mud on the rich carpeting, 

mud that had seen a young girl die.  Common dirt and water mixed, 

obscene and holy against the plush backdrop of an office of

psychiatry. Mulder stood by the window looking out.  He did not

stop his perusal when someone came in, as conversation swirled

around him.  He heard Averman talking to someone.  He heard Sam. 

He heard them leave.



     The hand was gentle.



     Mulder did not turn.



     "I like watching the hills," the voice behind him said.



     Mulder said nothing.



     "Agent Mulder, please come and sit down."



     "Why?  So you can tell them that I'm experiencing severe PTSD?

That I hallucinate and get angry easily?  That I'm having fucking

flashbacks?"



     "Is that what's happening?"



     Mulder put a hand to the window, pressed against it.   "No.

But that's not what you'll tell them."



     "You don't know me.  You don't know what I'll say."  The voice

was intelligent and educated, but it carried a trace of spanish

in its deep baritone lilt.  Frito was fluent in three languages and

his voice carried no trace of an accent in any of them unless he

wanted it to.



     "I know what you'll say."



     "Because you're a psychologist and you know what categories

your behavior falls into?"



     "Yes."



     "You probably find this more frightening than an untrained

person."



     Mulder did not respond.  It was an opening.  Too deliberate.

Too easy for Guiterriez to get the answers he sought.



     "If you want to stay there and look at the city a while, all

right.  I'll wait until you want to talk."  Guiterriez went away.



     Mulder looked at the city.



     He lost track of the time, staring at the vehicles, watching

them until a building hid them, watching the sky pass over head.

Watching the city, the skyline, the people and the streets he did

not have to think about the girl.  He replayed and replayed the

day's events, trying to find some way he could have saved her,

something he could have said.  Instead he'd played by the rules,

done what the FBI said.  Oh Fuck his career anyway.  A little girl

was dead now and he'd known and just sat there quietly.



     He heard the knock, heard Guiterriez talking to someone.

Recognized Averman.  And then Averman went away.  Realized he

must have been standing in front of the window for over an hour.

Realized what this meant about Guiterriez.



     He turned.  "You cleared your schedule for me?"



     Guiterriez shrugged.  "If I need to."



     Mulder stared at him.  "You shouldn't do that."



     "Why not?"



     "I'm just one patient."



     "But you're the patient who needs me right now."



     "I don't need you."



     Guiterriez nodded.  He wasn't going to fight.   "Your friends

are worried about you."



     Mulder turned back to the city, abandoned it after a few

minutes more.  He kept seeing faces in the glass.  "Frito was born

worried," he said,  still staring out the window.



     "Would you like to sit down?"



     "All the seats are lower than your chair."



     "Never take a psychologist as a patient."  Guiterriez was a

big man, not fat, just tall and big muscled, with a neatly trimmed

beard over his round face, and reading glasses that sat halfway

down his nose.  He picked up his pad of paper, a thin folder, and

a tape recorder, moved from his seat in a desk chair to a love

seat, spread himself out over the love seat.  "They know all the

tricks.  There?  Satisfied, Mr. FBI?"



     Mulder turned and sat down on the loveseat across from

Guiterriez.  There was a pile of mud where he had stood, like what

a ghost might leave in a story you tell your kids on Halloween. 

*Halloween fires. Jump over the coals!*



     "Have you ever been in therapy?"



     "I. . .when I was a kid, and then a couple of times when

policy mandated it."



     Guiterriez nodded, turned the tape recorder on.



     Mulder swallowed.  "Can we come to an understanding?"



     Guiterriez considered him.  "I don't know.  Can we?"



     "If I tell you some things, you won't lock me away.  I know

what reality is.  I'm not psychotic.  I'm not going to hurt myself

or hurt anyone else, I promise you that."  He leaned forward.

Cursing himself for wanting to tell anything, almost leaping out

of his skin at wanting to tell someone and have them listen, listen

and understand what it felt like, what he felt like, what seeing

that body that hadn't been there yesterday had done to him.



     "I can't promise you. I can tell you that if you tell me

things I won't tell anyone, not even your friends."



     Mulder rubbed his eyes.  "That's not good enough."  Never

mind.  He would go through the spiel.  Make this short.  Give the

good explanations that would get him back in the field. It didn't

matter.  It really didn't matter.  Tell the lies that made everyone

happy with him.



     "Agent Mulder, there are two good hospitals in Oklahoma City.

Right now, I'm contemplating them both.  Trying to decide which one

to send you to."



     Mulder looked up, color draining from his face.  The man

sitting in front of him wasn't bluffing.



     "Now, I want you talk to me and tell me the truth, but I can't

make promises like that.  I know you're hurting.  And it's obvious

to me from the way you came in here and just stood there, staring

at the city that whatever's going on it's hitting pretty deep."



     Mulder shrank back against the pillow.  "I'm not. . .I'm

okay."



     "Don't feed me whatever line you've been feeding your friends.

Tell me the truth.  I'm not the overworked MSWs the Bureau hires. 

I'm not some sweet kiddie psychologist like whatever ones your

parents sent you to.  I work with disturbed adults.  I'm not going

to accept any lies."



     Mulder wrapped his arms around his chest, nodded, closed his

eyes.  The lies wouldn't work.  He was dealing with a man with at

least Mulder's own intelligence and training and twenty years of

dealing with emotionally disturbed adults.  He was dealing with

someone who did not suffer his fools lightly.  He was dealing

with someone who would not be bluffed.  In some strange, almost

masochistic way he nearly welcomed it, even as he felt panic

bursting in his chest and the warning that this man could destroy

him, destroy everything.  And he would never be allowed to find the

truth.









     The fragile little corpse before him was quiet.  She had been

shot once, at the base of her neck, and died.  The bullet had been

cut out.  And then the killer had cut out her eyes.  And cut off

her ears.  He'd taken her child's nipples.  He'd left her naked,

except for some pink ribbon barrettes.  Hand made barrettes that

had fluttered in her clear blonde hair.  Sam imagined some young

mother sliding them into her daughter's hair that morning, sending

her out to play, never dreaming that the monsters were swarming,

swarming and licking their chops.  They found the poem stuffed up

her vagina.  Sam could tell on this one.  She had been a pretty

little eight year old.  Someone had fucked her fairly often in the

past.



     Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

     In death's dream kingdom

     Those do not appear

     There, the eyes are

     Sunlight on a broken column

     There, is a tree swinging

     And voices are

     In the wind's singing

     More distant and more solemn

     Than a fading star.



     A tiny scrap of poetry.



     He stripped his gloves, went out of the room.  Prayed to Mary

that the child would come to her now, that it would be all right

and Mary would help Francis.









     Mulder and Averman were sitting in a tiny lounge.  Rodriguez

came in, got himself a cup of coffee.  Mulder's eyes were vaguely

glazed over.  Valium will have that effect, he reminded himself and

quietly sat with them.



     "Are you done?" Mulder asked.  "They wouldn't let me down to

see the body."



     'They' was Averman and whom ever had been with him.  "How 

did

the meeting with Guiterriez go?" Sam asked softly.



     Mulder smiled.  Sipped his coffee.  "I'm a fucking nut case

and I need a nice long stay someplace where there are lots of

people there to protect me."



     Averman caught Sam's eye and nodded.



     "They can't prove involuntary yet," Mulder finished, staring

at Sam.  "What was the poetry?"



     Sam glanced at Averman, who shrugged.



     "What did he say we need to do?" he asked Averman.



     "Keep him quiet.  Never let him alone."



     "God knows.  I might fucking eat my gun or solve this case.

What was the fucking poetry, Frito?"



     Sam sighed, fished around in his pocket for a copy.



     Mulder scanned it in a matter of seconds.  "A short snatch

shoved into a short snatch.  He didn't tell us anything.  Shit." 

Mulder put his head down on the scarred table.  A technician came

in got her coffee, watched the three strangers.



     "How badly was she scarred?"  Mulder asked.



     "I'd guess there had been anal and vaginal penetration several

times," Sam told him.  "Not the killer.  Nothing new."



     "Momma had a boyfriend.  Boyfriend didn't have a job so he

babysat," Mulder said numbly.  "Were there hair ribbons or a

necklace?"



     "Hair ribbons."  The technician stared, figured out what they

were talking about. Her face went white and she left.



     "Momma didn't give them to her.  He did.  He told her about

Jesus and told her that he would take her to see Jesus. He was kind

and gentle and he took her to Dairy Queen and he didn't hit her. 

She thought he was her daddy."  Mulder closed his eyes, weary

beyond all mention.  He leaned back in his chair and for the first

time Sam saw that his holster was empty.  He glanced at Averman 

who shook his head.  "He took the other body, another little girl out

somewhere and buried it.  We'll find it when we find the first

body, no doubt.  Our little girl was in the car and she played

with a Barbie doll he'd bought her.  Happiest days of her entire

five years were four days riding around in the car of a serial

killer.  And she knew what he was going to do, but she was so

happy, because he was taking her to Jesus.



     "Who is the third who walks always beside you?

     When I count, there are only you and I together

     But when I look ahead up the white road

     There is always another one walking beside you

     Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded

     I do not know whether a man or a woman

     --But who is that on the other side of you?"



     Mulder's voice was soft, gentle.  "Momma hasn't reported her

missing because she thinks the boyfriend killed her.  And in a way

he did.  He sold her to the killer for some money.  Probably enough

to get his car fixed and get out of town."



     He swirled the coffee in his cup.  "He's not here anymore.

He's in Ashton.  I don't know.  Probably a boy first."  Mulder

swallowed.  "Is Oklahoma City a big enough city to accommodate

fetishes?  Have dungeons?"



     "Why do you want to know?" Averman asked.



     "Because I want to go get spanked."  Mulder grinned.  "Do you

remember I asked for a list of drifters killed?  He was. . .he used

to like being spanked or being given enemas, something like that.

. . it was one thing someone used to do. . .It could have happened

in Tulsa, I guess."



     "What about Dallas?" Sam asked sharply.  "I know there are

several places like that in Dallas."



     Mulder glanced at Sam, smiled.  "Yeah.  He could have visited

Dallas.  Do I want to know *how* you know that?"



     "What?  It's not like I'm going to fuck you."



     "Oh right.  I see the way you eye my butt.  You dream about

slamming me in the rump.  Admit it.  You have raging wet dreams

about fucking the Fox."



     "Don't confuse your fantasies with mine. Just because you want

a piece of the old Sammiester doesn't mean I want anything to do

with your sick, VD-ridden, chocolate canal."



     "Dream on.  Me?  Want that shrivelled up piece of manhood?

You're lucky you married an Anglo, Frito, you swaggering piece of

Spanish machismo.  Any good Hispanic girl would have laughed

herself silly the moment you dropped your drawers and showed her

that one eyed reptile."



     "Oh right.  And you're any different?  Yeah, I know most

people think you're really well hung, but I think it's some kind of

falsies for dicks.  You go swimming and come out and nothing's

shrunk.  That's fucking impossible.  Your balls should be crawling

straight up your ass and instead there's a wad the size of a

fucking softball."



     Mulder grinned.  "You want to go skinny dipping and see?"



     "Hah.  You *are* interested in me.  I got you, Francis."



     "Oh yeah.  And I also want to dress up in a skirt and hose and

wear my mommy's make up."



     "Oh, bucking to be director now that the slot is open?"



     "Somebody has to fill those pumps."



     "Excuse me."  Averman's voice cut through their banter.  "Can

we get back to the case?"



     Sam grinned broadly.  "What?  Hitting a little close to home

Averman?"



     "I draw the line at menage a trois and I haven't been able to

fit into a girdle in years," Averman replied easily.  "So you're

saying he what?  He took someone home and killed them?"



     "Umm. . .yeah.  A night of buttbeating or water up the old

sphincter and he killed him.  I don't think he meant to.  He feels

guilty about killing the guy."



     "But not about the kids?" Averman asked, watching him.



     Mulder shook his head.  "He figures he's doing the kids a

favor and preaching to the unsaved all at one time."



     "Is this guy a minister?"



     Mulder stared at Averman.  "I already told you, his father was

the minister."



     "What is he?"



     Mulder shrugged, did not answer.  His drug filled eyes were

dull with exhaustion.  "He has money.  He doesn't have a formal

education, but he made lots of money," he said wearily.  "Can we go

take our nap, Frito, or do I have to seduce Cooke?"



     Sam smiled, but his heart raced with fear that Mulder was

asking to go, asking and not making up some excuse.



     Averman sighed and the look he gave Sam explained a lot.

Francis had very nearly come apart in Guiterriez' office.



     "Yeah.  Come on.  You're the only thing I've got since Jenni

cut me off."



     Mulder rose wearily, staring at nothing.  "All right.  But I'm

on top today."



Continued in part 9...............





=====================================================================

======









From: livengoo@tiac.net

Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative

Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 9/41 NC-17

Date: 29 Jan 1996 04:09:54 GMT





Oklahoma (Part 9/41)

By Amperage and Livengoo

Copyright October, 1995



Housekeeping note: For those who couldn't find Oklahoma 6, I did post it

but forgot to number it. It's the Oklahoma with no numbers after the

title. Sorry about that.

Goo





International Readers:  No third season spoilers

Rating:  NC-17 for language and violence



_______________________



     Marion relaxed back into the seat, closed his eyes.  Frito

turned the ignition and debated locking the doors, but decided not

to add insult to injury.  The city streets were lined with

cottonwoods the cool green of human intervention, but the land's

true desolation reasserted itself as they left the city limits.



     Dusty flats had surrounded them a long time when Marion's

voice startled Frito from the boredom of the drive out to the

motel.  "Frito, you actually believe in God, don't you."  It might

have been a question.  It might not.  Rodriguez paused, long and

long, wondered at it, finally nodded.



     "Yes.  I don't believe in God the way I was taught, but I

believe there is a God."



     "I'm afraid to believe in God."  The voice was a pale whisper,

dry as the dust in the air.  Sam waited, half-hoped for more, but

the silence held and only the engine spoke, until finally they

pulled in and even that fell quiet.  Marion seemed to shake himself

back from wherever he'd been as Sam got out of the car.  He moved

slowly, carefully, as though things wouldn't stay where he thought

they were.  He jumped when Sam slammed his car door, closed his 

own so softly it barely caught.



     Rodriguez kept Francis in the corner of his eye as he turned

and started for the stairs, made certain his friend was following

before he started up the step.  The cool dark of the rooms was

a haven, and Francis seemed half-asleep already.  Frito paused to

see if he'd pull his own jacket off, not wanting to have to treat

Marion like a child.  Breathed a sigh when Francis stripped of the

jacket and kicked off his shoes. He didn't sprawl in sleep, relaxed

and comfortable.  He pulled into the center of the bed, lying on

his side with knees drawn up and arms crossed over his chest. 

Frito watched until his breathing had settled into an even rhythm,

and his face smoothed into enigma.



     Sam left the door open when he retreated to his own room,

praying from habit, from lack of a better option, that Francis

would rest easy and peaceful at least for this afternoon.  He

almost couldn't dial Jenni's number.  He wanted to hear her voice

so badly, he was so afraid she might not be there.  When she

answered, his vision blurred.



     "Hi.  It's me."



     "Sam!"  She sounded. . .like home.  He heard her laugh, and he

drew a shaky, painful breath.  Suddenly she was still on the other

end.



     "Sam?  Are you all right baby?"  He tried to answer, but the

sniff caught him, and the sob deep in his throat, and tears were

rolling down his face and he missed her. . .oh. . .so. . .much. 

"Oh god, baby."  Her voice was an appalled whisper.  "What is it,

honey?  What's happened?  Are you hurt?"



     He wanted to tell her, wanted to stop, to be a man, to

reassure her, but the sobs were shaking him and they hurt, they

hurt.  He tried to hang up, but he couldn't get his hand to let go

of the phone, and her little sounds of comfort drew the pain like

poison out of his soul.  Samuel Alvarez Rodriguez curled onto his

bed, around a pillow, listening to his wife's voice, and sobbed

until his eyes were dry and his ribs were sore, and he couldn't cry

any more.  And Jenni listened, and she was there. 



     When the sobs had stopped wracking him, and she could hear him

gulping air instead of sucking it in painful, whistling breaths,

could hear him blow his nose and picture him unwinding in

exhaustion, she tried again.  "Sam, baby, are you all right?  Is

Fox all right?  Are. . . " but the catch in his breathing told her.



     "Oh god, Sam.  Oh god, is he dead?"



     "No."  He could hear something creak as she shifted, knew

she'd heard even that whisper.  "No, Jenni.  Fox isn't dead, but.

. . "  what did you say?  How did you tell your wife that your

partner was going mad, was hearing the poetry of insanity, and

following a killer's voice.  Or, worse, was not going insane.



     "Sam, tell me.  Are you hurt?"  He smiled and the smile was

painful on his face.



     "No.  I'm okay.  Nothing like that, no, not like that at all."



     "Then what?  Honey, I'll get the next flight. . . "  Did he

want her here?  Did he?  A snatch of Marion's Eliot flitted through

his mind.  Did he want her 'In the circles of the stormy moon'? 

The words drove a shudder through him.



     "No.  No.  I'm sorry, I didn't want to worry you. . ."



     "Sam. . . "



     "I. . .needed to hear you so much.  Jenni, I love you so

much."



     "You're scaring me, Sam.  Are you sure you're all right?

Where are you right now?"



     "I'm in my room Jenni."  Calmer now, at the still point of the

turning world.  "Marion. . . Fox, is asleep.  He's. . . this case

is really getting to him.  He's having a lot of trouble on this

one."  Her long, sympathetic sigh told him of an understanding that

she couldn't possibly have.



     "You poor thing.  Both of you.  It's got to be really hell.

He's got you to talk to, but you. . . I can ask Daddy. . . "



     "No.  No, I just needed to hear you, Jenni.  I needed to know

you're there, you'll be there, and you won't change.  I need. . .

"  He bit his lip, couldn't find words that weren't sobs.  She let

him lie there, and just breathed for him, was just there for him.



     "Sam.  You said you can't come home yet.  I. . . this must be

important to you.  I'm here.  I'll be here when you come home. 

I'll be here. I love you.  I love you."



     "Jenni, I want to go to sleep now, but I don't want to hang

up.  Can you just. . . "



     "Baby, it's on the FBI's bill, and they owe us for this one."

The chuckle in her voice made him finally smile.  And she crooned

to him as he slid into a darkness barely less haunted than the one

that held Fox Mulder.









     The sound of a door opening rocketed him from sleep into a

panic-stricken wakefulness.  Dark, and the soft sound of motion in

the next room and Sam remembered why his heart slammed against 

his ribs and his throat clutched in terror.  Lunged off the bed and to

his own door.  He slammed it open, into the wall, and nearly scared

Mulder into a heart attack.



     "What the fuck are you doing, Frito!"  Marion's hands were up

in a defensive stance, and his shirt fluttered with frightened

panting.  "Shit-cock-sucking-mother-fucking. . .  Do you mind?"  A

door on the other side opened, and Averman stepped out, the light

from his door brilliant in the dusk.



     "Where are you going, Marion?"  Sam looked him up and down,

took in sneakers, running shorts, FBI Academy T-shirt.



     "Cruising for real men, Frito.  What the fuck does it look

like?  I was going for a run.  Now I'm going for CPR."  He took a

visible breath, puffed it out, and turned to the walk away.  Frito

stepped out, blocking him one way while Averman blocked the other.



     "Why don't you give it a pass tonight, Mulder."  Spooky

turned, a long measuring look at Averman.



     "I'm not giving it a pass, *sir*, because I want to go for a

run."



     "It's been a rough day, Francis. . ."  Frito tried to make

peace, keep him quiet.  "Why don't you wait until morning?"



     Mulder's eyes were wide and black in the gloom.  "I'm going

running because I want to go running."  A tone he'd use to explain

to a five year old.  "Because I'm bored.  I want to run and think. 

It relaxes me.  And I'm not under involuntary and I'm not under

arrest."  Averman stepped towards him, seeing Sam flinch at the

words.



     "That's not called for, son. . ."



     "Fuck.  You.  Sir."  Mulder turned a flat glare on Averman.

"I'm going running.  Sir.  It's still legal to go running.  Sir. 

You want, you can come with me, but get out of my way."  Hard and

low and final.  Averman was not about to pick a fist fight with

Mulder, particularly over such a stupid topic.



     "Give me a minute, son.  You run, Sam?"  Frito shook his

head.



     "Nah, I think Neil Armstrong's right.  We got only a limited

number of heartbeats in our lives, and I won't waste mine running. 

That's why I have a wife, but Francis only has Rosie Palmer, so he

runs."  Thank God Marion grinned at that, relaxed and let Averman

get changed.  The AIC came out in an old shirt and shorts that

announced a prior incarnation as a Marine.  Tossed his car keys to

Frito.



     "Here, pace car in case I need a pick up."  Marion snorted,

gave Averman a look of pure exasperation, but let it pass.  Frito

closed his door, and followed them down, caught up a tenth of a

mile down the road, where he cruised at a crawl with his flashers

on and totally frustrated the drivers desperate to get out of

Oklahoma's "natural beauty" as quickly as possible.



     For the first three miles, Averman kept up pretty well.  Right

turn at two miles.  Marion was probably planning eight miles.  The

young man ran steadily, but Frito could see Averman was flagging by

the end of the fourth mile out, with four back ahead of him.  Frito

smiled and tapped the wheel, expecting company on the ride back. 

Five miles out and the AIC was laboring visibly, while Mulder ran

like a machine, mindless, steady, pounding miles without any real

attention to anything around him.  When Mulder suddenly slowed 

and stopped, Frito shook his head in exasperation.  Show off, running

Averman out.  So impressive, running out a man thirty years his

senior.  At least he was finally taking a rest.



     It wasn't until he pulled up abreast that Frito realized

Mulder wasn't resting.  He wasn't folded over his knees, catching

his breath, he probably didn't even know Averman wasn't with him

any more.  Mulder was staring at the horizon, lips moving as if he

was reading, tasting the words, not saying them.  He spun, scanned

back along the way they'd come, spotting the hotel's lights.  And

cut straight across the flat, hard-pan surface, running flat out.



     "Shit!  Guadalupe hidalgo. . ."  Sam breathed prayers and

curses under his breath as he whipped the car back around in a

three point turn and waited, cursing, for Averman to tumble into

the passenger seat.  Tore back to a right angled turn, whipped in,

driving slowly, looking for a pale man in navy blue shorts and

shirt, running.  Not much to say to each other besides curses, just

drive, slowly, hating the cars that blinded them with oncoming

brights, hating the ones that tore past with horns blaring, hating

Mulder and looking for him.  And it was full dark out here.  They

reached the hotel, tumbled out, looking back now that the lights of

traffic didn't dazzle directly, trying to see a tall, young man. 

Sam scrambled up the stairs while Averman paced along the parking

lot, trying to see.  Sam fumbled his keys, finally got the lock,

was throwing himself past the corner of his bed and reaching for

the phone when he stopped.  Realized he heard tapping keys, a

voice.  Froze and felt the rich surge of fury in his gut.



     He held himself, held so hard and still.  Then he went to get

Averman, to keep himself from walking in and beating Fox Francis

Marion fucking Mulder to a pulp.  Averman stared at him when Sam

stalked up.



     "He's inside."



     A long pause.  "What?"



     "He beat us back.  He's in there.  He's typing."



     "But. . ."



     "You'd better talk to him, Jack.  If I try to talk to him I'm

gonna kill him."  Frito knew it wasn't reasonable.  He tried to

choke it down, breathing fast with the effort, but all that fear

and worry and. . .and. . . and Francis was here.  Talking to

himself.  Typing.  Frito was going to kill him if he walked in

there just then.  "I'll stay out here a few minutes.  Go talk to

him." Averman studied Rodriguez, thought about it.  Was profoundly

thankful that these two were based in D.C. and nowhere near his

home in Oklahoma City.



     Mulder looked up at him with fever-shining eyes when he heard

Averman's heavy step.  He couldn't sit still, couldn't sit at all. 

Was standing, hunched over the keyboard, fingers flying and no care

for spelling or anything so long as he could read most of it.



     "He saves them, Averman.  He saves them.  Sends them to Jesus,

but their bodies, their bodies are in the wasteland, but that's too

obvious, not right."



     "Slow down, Mulder.  What are you talking about?"



     "What the thunder said, Averman.



     'Here is no water but only rock

     Rock and no water and the sandy road

     The road winding above among the mountains of rock without

          water

     If there were water we should stop and drink

     Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think

     Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand

     If there were only water amongst the rock"

     

     His voice growled with emphasis, distracted and desperate as

he typed.  "They aren't saved, Averman.  They can't taste the

water.  They're among the rocks. . .



     Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot

          spit

     Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit

     There is not even silence in the mountains

     But dry sterile thunder without rain

     There is not even solitude in the mountains

     But red sullen faces sneer and snarl

     From doors of mudcracked houses



     If. .  .there. . . were. . water"



Spooky's voice trailed as he stood, frozen, over the keys.

Rodriguez was standing behind Averman now, no longer angry, just

staring.  Averman heard him swallow, saw him calmly walk into his

room and heard him open the briefcase.



     Mulder looked up, eyes glazed and reflecting the lights of the

room.



     "What is that sound high in the air

     Murmur of maternal lamentation

     Who are those hooded hordes swarming

     Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth

     Ringed by the flat horizon only

     What is the city over the mountains"



     Frito was back, syringe loaded, watching Marion with sad,

lonely eyes, letting him finish.  Mulder's eyes tracked places that

had nothing to do with an ordinary, slightly shabby motel room

outside of Oklahoma City.



     "In this decayed hole among the mountains

     In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing

     Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel

     There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.

     It has no windows, and the door swings,

     Dry bones can harm no one."



     He paused again, so long they thought he'd done.  His eyes

slowly, slowly came closer, almost back to them, but then his voice

whispered to them. . .



     "I have heard the key

     Turn in the door once and turn once only

     We think of the key, each in his prison

     Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison

     Only at nightfall, aethereal

          rumours

     Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus."



     He shut his eyes, and staggered, braced on the table in front

of him.  Sam Rodriguez, tears slowly staining his dark face,

stepped forward and found muscle, above the hip.  His friend barely

twitched as the barrel of Valium slowly forced him back towards an

empty, peaceful void.









     Mulder had typed a name.  Ashton.  A description.  Averman

stared at the writing.  Glanced up to the man lying unconscious,

quiet.  He looked too young to be what he was.  He looked too

young. . .



     Rodriguez sat in one of the chairs, slumped, staring blankly

at his friend.  He and Averman had almost had to pick Mulder up,

carry him to the bed.  Like the night in the rain, whatever drove

him had left him drained, exhausted.  Sam's face was almost as

young, vulnerable, when he glanced back at Averman.



     "Does it make any sense?  Is it gibberish?"  Averman could

hear the listless resignation.  Looked back at the paper and felt

fear thrill into him.  Looked up at Sam.



     "It makes sense, Sam.  Here."  He handed the sheet over.

Watched Sam carefully sit up, reading it.  The color drained from

his face.



     "Oh my God.  Oh my God."  He looked up.  Averman couldn't say

it, didn't have to.  If Mulder's raving made sense, it wasn't

raving.  It was truth.  An ancient dread, from nights when men used

fires to drive back the spirits sang there, under the electric

lights.



     And Mulder kept silent, drugged company with his ghosts.









     Averman got them take out food for supper.  He sent his

apologies through Cooke, who went and ate with some other agents,

and Sam knew that they'd be just as happy to have one meal without

Spooky Mulder.  Four men who hadn't asked to be taken on a ride

into the spirit lands, who thought this was investigative work,

logical and complete unto itself.



     Mulder was still asleep, spread out among the pillows like a

dead Christ waiting for annunciation and for Mary to come with her

tears.  But Mary had already come once.  Sam pulled off his

friend's shoes, covered him with the other edge of the hotel

spread.



     When they got to Ashton, they would have to deal with locals.

The thought of Mulder out there, of the local police watching

Mulder lose it, frightened Sam.  He swallowed.  Closed his eyes. 

Every day it got worse.  Every day Mulder was losing more of his

sanity, letting something else slip by him.  He remembered taking

Mulder to Guiterriez, watching Mulder go to the window and become

oblivious.  This afternoon, no calm relaxing, no baseball game. 

He'd gone to the center of the bed and tucked himself fetal.  This

morning, Mulder's look, throwing himself forward, taking over the

steering wheel.  And that scene with the little girl.  Mulder

hadn't been there, he'd been screaming and apologizing to someone

not present.  Someone who held a belt, someone who made him

responsible for every fucking bad thing.



     Oh God.  What world was this?



     It was the world of the dead and the priests.  The mystics and

the nuns in their quiet black robes before Vatican II.  Oil of

anointing and ash.  Once there had been a place for men who moved

in dreams, whose voices whispered of things unseen.  They would

have been called prophets and have had women sent to them, to be

sure they bathed, to call in strong men when they went into passion

and fits.



     Sam hugged his arms around himself and thought, whether to

Aunt Tia or himself, or even Mulder, he didn't care to know.  We

give them Thorazine and put them where we cannot see.  Science has

outstripped the Myth and made it unlovely.  Men like Francis have

no place in our world.  Latin.  Once the church had reverenced

itself in Latin, in the ancient and the mysterious.  Tia Rosa,

whispering to herself in the time worn tongue, praying for the

babies who had died in her womb.  Latin, with a sweet smell of

incense and the dark of polished woods against sweating stone.  But

now there was no latin and the churches were bright.  The priests

were no longer mysterious, no longer unworldly in their long black

robes.  No longer does one kneel in confessional, staring at the

darkened screen.



     Tia Rosa and the beads clicking against her fingers.  Her

mouth moving in diligent prayer.  She would have known, before 

they laid her to sleep with her rosary and her Bible, dressed in her

black widow's dress and her mantilla of handwoven lace.  She would

have seen his eyes and known.  Known he was haunted with the 

power of God, doing holy work. `When he speaks with God, he cannot 

see himself.'  Her voice was warm on his ear.  Sam looked up.  Francis

was making tiny smacking noises in his sleep.



     We send them to psychiatrists and hold them down for

injections to send them into darkness.



     Sam picked up the report and reread it.



     "Subjects is in Aston.  He lived in Ashton when they first

     came here, travelling across the dust and the dirta nd anever

     knowing what theyr father was going to say.  Momma was dead,

     the cancer came and took her in ther sleep and her face was

     like waxen slil.  and srosepetals.  When she died poppas face

     closed up tight and the children felt fear grow ni their

     harts.



     The knew what had happened.  Everyone knew.  His father's

     fingers hard against the little boys penis, his fingers deep

     in the sweet soft anus, breath heavy and the boy crying and

     not knowing."



     Sam looked up.  Mulder's right hand was open, fingers curled.

A casual invitation like that of God's.  His scrotum tightened.

He felt the breath come harsh across his mouth, dry like desert

winds.



     "He told them stories abvout Harvard.  His tongue was thick

     and the scotch whiskey always burned eligha when it went down.



     Ariel stole it for them.  They drank it so their father would

     not hurt.  And so it would not matter.



     So they drove across the painted sky and across the fields and

     theough the towns.  Elijah stared at the chldren ad wondered

     if they knew the feel of their father's dick as it slid in and

     thraobbed and you screamed but he did not hear you and the

     little ones were asleep in the back room.  He saw ones who

     knew and they stared at each other, as their worlds slid past

     each other, resolute.

     

     Their cousin was a tall man.  Elijah had not known he was

     Indian.  Eastern towns with tall trees and friends and his

     mother ad graduated Radcliffe.  Harvard Divinity SChool, that

     was Daddy's realm.



     His aunt held him down and gave him enemas, gave them to all

     the children, said they were good, Elijah saw his father's

     look.  He was clean now when he turned around and he did not

     scream, feeling the forbidden whiskey course in his veins.  He

     only screamed when Uncle beat Ariel for stealing whiskey to

     make it through the nights.



     Ariel. . .Ariel did not see the rock.  Cleft the rock and

     water will pour out.  Reverend Coop preached the funeral. 

     Father cried for the first time."



     Sam swallowed, tried to think, tried to move someplace past a

small house and tortures done to children because they had the

audacity to be born.  Oh Tia Rosa.  Can you pray for him in heaven

Tia Rosa?



     "Reverand Coop prayed with his father and they spent long

     nights on their knees and the whiskey was forbidden and Elijah

     had to steal.



     They travelled in a tent.



     the heathen are come into thine inheritance

     and the tympel have they defiled



     His father held the bible in one hand and his white shirts

     dripped sweat.  He never touched another child.  But for

     Elijah and SArah, and Nehamiah, and Rebecca.  Elijah wanted

     his father to do him, but he got too tall and dark hairs

     curled in his forbidden places.  Reverend Coop caught him

     stroking his penis one night and beat him until he could

     not stand.



     The tents rippled under hot oklahmoa suns and his father told

     about the idoltary of the over educated.  Sodom and Gomorrah

     were aomng the college boys.  Here there were good, simple

     people, and he had been saved.



     But at night his father read them Eliot.  His mother had read

     it aloud over their cribs.  Insteadof nursery rhymes.

     disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose petals.  It was his

     kindest voice, his gentlest self.  It was the only good thing

     left.



     The hair was dark and he hated it.  He went to Reverend Coop

     and Reverend Coop taught him about the love of men.



     Rebekkah cried when their father took her.  Cried and cried

     and stopped eating.  Elijah kept her with him, when he could. 

     When he got dark hairs his father didn't want him anymore.  He

     wanted the other ones. and the reality between the motion and

     the act falls the Shadow



     Nehamiah found their uncles rifle and two sobs stopped one

     night.  The police said it was an accident.  Elijah failed

     them both.  He lay on top of the graves at night, so far from

     his mother's sweet Massachuesetts dirt.  His uncle hit him for

     it.  His father said nothing.



     Sarah ran away.



     Elijah went out into the plains to find her. He found her near

     a spring of soft waters.  Just her body, bloated and gone.  He

     sat with her and he buried her.  He understood then.  It was

     all right.  The children were with Jesus.  And it was all

     right.



     He hated the police who came to question and never stayed,

     knew but never said.



     There is a place beyond all space and time.

     Right action is freedom"



     Sam slid down the wall, staring at Mulder, his mouth half

open, as he struggled up into REM like it was a high mountain.  

Sam checked his watch.  Three hours.  Too soon.



     "Dallas.  He was 15 but he looked older. The warmth of men

     curled warm around him.



     Forestlawn.  A church, an indoor tent, and the minister

     smiling his bible in one hand.



     They loved to let him work with the children.  He was 16 and

     he looked 22.  And no one questioned him.  One of his RA's

     father was fuckinghim.  Nehamiah was dead.



     He beat the man to a bloody pulp.  The police came out but no

     one ever pressed charges.  He cried in the pastors study and

     whispered of darkness and his father's slickened penis and

     Nehamiah dead.  Thechurch paid for a hopsital until he could

     remember that he was grown.  The DA did not want to prosecute.



     Warm gentle hands.  They called him nephew, and he kept the

     secret and protected him.  They told him 



     A man named Gates made sense.



     Unreal City.



     Ashton, where the children laughed at him.  Ashton where his

     Aunt's clean bathrom and her smirk.  There are children.  He

     is preching to the sinner.



     He kills them then mutilates.  Preching us.



     The children run to him, because he means them no harm.  There

     areno tears in the dark.



     He sends them to Jesus.  Nehamiah was right.



     The church is so very small.  But in it there is light.  And

     Jesus saves them all.



     The pain of livng and the drug of dreams

     Curl up the small soul in the window seat

     Behind the Encyclopedia Britannica.

     Issues from the hand of time the simple soul

     Irresolut and selfish, mishapen, lame,

     Unable to fare forward or retreet,

     Fearing the warm realty, the offered good,

     Deny the importunity of the blood,

     Shadow of its own shadows, spectre in its own gloom,

     Leaving disordered papers in a dustyroom

     Living first inthe silence after the viatcum."



     Sam read the last twice.  Wondered who Francis was speaking

of, himself or the killer.  And then finally understood that it

didn't matter.



     Averman came back in with the food.  Saw Sam's whitened face.

Marion turned and curled more tightly on the bed.  He was not the

inopportune Christ but a simple child, huddled against the loss of

body warmth, huddled into a tiny space.



     He walked deliberately into Sam's room and Sam followed, half

shut the door.



     "He. . .is any of this true?" Sam asked softly, cursing

himself for a fool.  "Or is this in Mulder's mind?"



     Averman pulled out styrofoam containers.  Handed one to Sam.

"Barbecue brisket and links," he said.  Sam opened the dinner.

Any other time the food would have smelled sweet.



     "Do you go to church?" Sam asked, accepting the waxed paper

cup of coke.



     "Most Sundays," Averman replied, looking up surprised.  "Why?"



     "You got any kids?"



     "Two. Both grown."



     "Did you take them to church?"



     "Yeah.  One actually still goes regular.  The other will once

she's calmed down."



     Sam nodded.  "I haven't been in three or four months.  It

always seemed so. . .stand up, sit down, kneel.  Stand up, sit

down, stand up. . .watch the priest, take communion, go home. .

.And Jenni doesn't like it much."



     "Your wife?"



     "Yeah.  She's. . .she converted because she knew how important

it was in my family.   But it was just so everyone would be happy.

Not for real."



     Sam shrugged, tore some brisket off and ate it with his

fingers.  "Francis doesn't believe in God.  He said God scared

him."



     "God took his little sister away," Averman replied.  "And then

the ministers came and said it was God's will.  It was God's will

for him to be beaten."



     "What did Guiterriez tell you?"



     Averman considered his own plate, slowly ate some potato

salad.  "Mulder's concentration is. . .poor, his mind wanders.

There's some evidence of exaggerated startle reflexes. . .

Guiterriez said the rest was mostly guessing.  Mulder wanted to

talk to him, he could see that, but talking scared the shit out of

him.  He thinks there may be some reality impairment, not so much

Mulder isn't functioning.  Probably some paranoid and magical

thinking. . .but not delusional.  Not yet."  Averman swallowed.

"Mulder admits to abuse after his sister's disappearance.

Guiterriez thinks it was continual, since early childhood.  But

that Mulder admits to the abuse he does because he believes himself

responsible for his sister's disappearance.  He. . .thinks his dad

was right for battering him."  Averman's voice was tight.  "His

fault for everything, so the abuse was all right."



     Sam pushed the barbecue tray away.  Stared at it

distastefully.  Felt his stomach draw up.



     "You haven't read that FBI file on the sister yet, have you?"



     "No."  Sam put his head between his knees and tried to

breathe.



     "He was twelve, in the eighth grade."



     "Eighth grade?"  Sam looked up, puzzled.  "My niece is

fourteen.  She's in the eighth."



     Averman shrugged.  "Think about Fox Mulder and tell me a

school system might not want to push him through as quickly as

possible.  Umm. . .It's November, right before Thanksgiving.  He's

left to babysit the sister.  She's in the third grade, eight or

nine.  Parents come home and the lights are all off.  Fox is on the

carpet, huddled up.  The family gun is beside him, unfired.  No

sister.  He was catatonic four days.  When he came out of it, he

didn't remember diddly.  He still doesn't.  The Fibbies they sent

out spent several days investigating the kid."  Averman made a

disgusted face.  "Waste of time.  He didn't kill her.  No evidence,

no clues.  Just a little girl gone.  Umm. . .all the fuses in the

house were blown, melted I guess, if that makes any weird kind of

sense.  The case was never officially put into the X-Files, but it

belonged there. That's probably why Mulder's reading them."



     Sam swallowed.  There was a strangled noise next door.  Sam

was up immediately.  Mulder was not on the bed.  Oh God.  Oh God.

Mother of God hear our prayers.

_____________________



Continued in part 10....................





=====================================================================

======



From: livengoo@tiac.net

Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative

Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 10/41 NC-17

Date: 30 Jan 1996 05:19:54 GMT





Oklahoma (Part 10/41)

By Amperage and Livengoo

Copyright October, 1995



International Readers:  No third season spoilers

Rating:  NC-17 for language and violence



______________________



     "I need the autopsy reports."  Mulder's voice emerged from the

bathroom.  They heard him pee, heard the toilet flush.  "I need to

know if there were any links at Social Services.  I need the photos

from the last crime scene."



     He stepped out from the bathroom, eyes blood shot, FBI academy

shirt filthy.  His step was springy.



     And the dead will rise on that day and speak again.



     "How are you feeling?" Frito asked softly.



     "I'm okay.  You didn't have to drug the shit out of me."

Francis smiled tolerantly, ran a hand through his hair.  "I smell

food."



     Averman nodded.  "Why don't you come eat, and leave the work

alone."  It was a patented calming voice and Mulder turned to him,

stared at the older agent, eyes narrowing.  Decided it wasn't worth

it.



     "I'll eat in a minute."  Mulder stalked over to his bag,

grabbed a clean t-shirt and a pair of shorts.  He stripped, pulled

on the clean clothes.  "I haven't written any psych stuff in a

couple days."  He found his deodorant, rubbed some on.  "They'll

have my butt back at Quantico."   Went over to the computer, back

to his clothes bag.  Swung his arms.  Rifled through his clothes,

didn't find anything.  Threw his underwear on the floor, moved on.

He moved and moved and made motions that went nowhere, just

released some of the energy building up within him.



     "How much adrenaline are you pumping?" Sam asked quietly,

leaning against the door frame.



     Marion paused, considered his friend.  Smiled easily.  "Just

about seventy percent I'd guess."  He went to his briefcase, dug

around.  "Thanks for screwing up my shit, Frito, you inbred

hildago."



     Sam nodded.  "You're manic, aren't you?  Too much energy,

can't stop moving."



     "Probably more than you want to know," Mulder replied.  "But

I'm not psychotic.  I'm not."



     "Not yet.  How much is it costing you to move around like a

human being and not start just doing for the sake of doing?"



     Mulder shrugged, sat down at his computer, began rifling

through files, rifling through documents, pulling what he wanted,

tossing the rest right and left.  No order.  He stood, kicked the

papers he had piled up.  Frantic motions.  Dances of a man who knew

he was at the edge of losing control.



     Sam took a deep breath and expelled it.  "If you don't want

Cooke drooling at your butt you probably need a shot right now."



     "Let me get the report done," Mulder replied, frowning at

something in his own thoughts.  "Then I'll take your Valium."  He

put his hands on the chair, expelled breath.  "I thought we had a

police report on one of the kids.  On the sexual abuse.  I hadn't

read it, but I thought we had it."  He muttered to himself, stood

straight, went to the door, turned around, paced to the desk.



     "No Valium," Sam replied softly.



     Mulder stared at Sam, his brow creased, then decided to ignore

the implications of his friend's comment.  "I have got to get this

report done.  Do you have the crime scene photos and a copy of your

autopsy report?" he asked, picking up his shoes off the floor,

tossing them over against the wall.  Moving again, quickly.



     "I have the crime scene photos.  I'm a little behind on my

autopsy report for this one."



     "Well, anything's better than nothing."  Mulder wandered into

the bathroom, back out into the hotel room. "I can ask you for

pertinent data."



     "If you'll sit down and eat.  Sit quietly and eat," Sam

replied.



     "Oh fuck you," Mulder almost snarled.  Pushing into his

friend's room, grabbing a styrofoam box at random.  He opened Sam's

briefcase, began rifling through it. "Where are the damn photos?"



     Oh God.  Sam really didn't need this.  "Leave my shit alone,"

he ordered, striding across his room, grabbing Mulder's wrist,

jerking his hands out of the suitcase.  "Sit down for a minute and

let me get something to calm you down."



     "Give me the fucking photos."  Mulder stared at Sam, shook out

of the hold.  Behind him, Averman moved into position.  Sam shook

his head.



     "Francis.  I'm going to give you five milligrams of Haldol.

If it doesn't calm you down I have to give you more in two

milligram dosages, and it may hurt.  Do you understand?  This isn't

a punishment, this is just to get you calm."



     Mulder spun so that he could see both Averman and Frito.

"Look.  I'm fine.  For the moment, I'm actually fine.  I can think

and there aren't any. . ."  deep breath "aren't any flashbacks and

I have to get this shit done.  I'm really, really hyper.  I'd go

jogging but you'd follow me again in that damn Taurus and Averman

would probably have a massive coronary trying to keep up.  I've got

to get rid of the energy somehow.  Look, just give me the photos

and I'll work on my report."



     "The report can wait.  You just need to calm down."  Averman

stepped in, cool and logical.



     "What?  I'm your psychological profiler.  VICAP's finest."

Mulder turned completely to face Averman.  "If you think I should

just be coddled and petted and given injections of

psychopharmaceuticals then you fucking send me back home.  Sir.

Because I should be in a hospital drooling somewhere.  This is a

serial killer.  Sir.  I am your profiler.  That's what I'm trained

to do.  Now either let me do my job or you relieve me of duty."



     Frito had the Haldol out, had the syringe.



     "No one said you can't do your job."



     "It fucking looks that way.  I get up after Frito's pumped me

full of drugs and try to do what I'm getting paid to do and the

first thing you shiteaters want to do is drug me again."  Mulder

stared at his friend, at the needle and the vial of clear liquid.

He glanced at Averman.  "Fucking leave me alone, and let me do my

job."



     The words were running together now, too fast, too hard.

His mind must be racing at ninety miles an hour, unable to catch

any of it, unable to stop and unable to catch hold of any moorings.

His eyes were dilated and huge, his breath fast, in and out and he

was still holding that damn box of food and the box was shaking and

he was trying to decide what to do, Sam saw that.  Wondering if

Averman and Sam could take him, if they could hold him down and

pressure that awful thing into him, that thing that would rob him

of his passion and his cognition.  Wondering if they were right,

sure they weren't.  Sure he knew everything and that everything 

was

all right.



     But it wasn't.



     "Marion, calm down."  Sam forced his voice to become level.

"Look, we trust you to do your job, but right now you need to get

some more rest.  Your mind is racing, and your heart rate's up.

You may think you're fine, but you're not.  Look at your hands.

Your hands are trembling."



     Mulder stared down at the styrofoam box of food he had gotten

from the floor.  And then the box was suddenly flying across the

room, flying and hitting the wall, cracking open, falling to the

carpet.  Mulder's hands clenched and unclenched.



     "Mulder."  Averman's voice was cold and stern.  "Mulder,

Rodriguez is trying to help you before you hurt yourself.  If you

keep up this behavior then I'm going to have to call 911."



     "Oh, fuck you."  Mulder's voice had tears in the back.



     "Mulder, do you know your behavior is. . .frantic?" Sam asked.

A friend's voice.



     Mulder stood, trembling, staring at the barbecue plate.  He

nodded slowly, wrapped his arms around his chest, to contain the

hard, hard beating of his heart.  "Please Sam.  Please.  Don't hold

me down and drug me.  Please let me write this.  He's got another

one.  A boy.  A little boy.  Oh God, a little boy who's sweet and

gentle, whose momma hurts him at night. . .Please let me write.  If

you let me do the profile I'll take your drugs.  I'll go to psych

services and tell them everything.  It won't be a profile like the

other one.  This one you can use.  I swear.  Everything will be

real.  I promise.  It'll look good to the brass.  Please."  Tears

stood in his eyes.  "I promise," he pleaded.



     Averman's voice was gentle.  "Okay, Mulder.  Okay."



     Mulder nodded.  Sam got the data Mulder wanted.



     They sat and watched him, watched his movements, his hands

trembling with fear and pain and his eyes huge, staring at the

glowing screen, watching the cursor move.  He referred to the

documents almost never, typing from instinct.  He kicked the chair

out and hunched over the computer screen, feet dancing and moving,

unable to keep still.



     Sam wondered what he was typing, what nonsense he was 

putting

onto the screen.   If someone like Guiterriez would be able to use

it, to understand what was going on, how Mulder was coming apart.



     It seemed to take forever, sitting and watching and praying

and wondering why there was no smell of incense. But it was only

twenty minutes until Mulder stopped and was quiet.  He ran it

through the spellchecker.  Went back and deleted a lot of material.

Then finished.  Nodded.



     "I don't want to."  It was the plea of a child who knows he is

defeated.



     Sam nodded. "But you will?"



     Mulder nodded, went to the bed, pulled down his shorts. Made

no comment of the long, sharp stinging.  Then was up, cleaning.  He

was frightened now, frightened of the way his thoughts coursed and

moved and the way he couldn't control any of it and he hit his hand

against the wall several times, hard enough that Averman started

shadowing him more closely, in case he tried to harm himself in

some more tangible way.  It frightened Sam and he was glad Cooke

was not here to be reminded of a father gone into the nightmare

void.



     "Come on," Sam told him, when it became obvious that the first

dose wasn't even making a dent on the frantic behavior.



      Mulder stared at him.  "I can feel the drug. Please."



     "I know," Sam said sadly.  "But you need more.  That wasn't

enough."



     Averman was there or Mulder would have refused longer.  He let

Sam inject him again.  Sam knew he should be dead on his feet now,

not moving, not aware.  But he wasn't.  He reorganized his suits on

the rack, he sorted through his laundry, only to toss everything

back into a corner with exasperation.  He paced back and forth

through their rooms.



     "Come on."  Sam had the needle out, was filling it.



     "No," Mulder replied, sharply.  "No more.  I don't want any

more.  No."



     Averman was there.  "Come on, son," he said gently.  "Come

on."



     "I don't want any more," Mulder replied angrily, teeth

clenched.



     Averman swallowed and put an arm around Mulder's shoulders,

drew him over to the bed.  Held him down, by his shoulders.  Mulder

did not kick, did not move.  Just turned his head away, stared at

the radio-clock, seething.



     But the next dose was enough.  Mulder calmed rapidly, slowing

down until he finally fell onto the bed, curled around a pillow.

Then everything kicked in.  He was almost incoherent as Sam helped

him under the covers, mouth flung open.



     "They said they wouldn't hurt her," Mulder whispered to no one

as Sam turned off the light. "I remember that.  They said they

wouldn't hurt her.  Daddy hit me so hard when I told him that."









     Sam got the floppy disk, printed things up on his word

processor.   Didn't even read it at first, staring at Averman,

staring at the darkened room.  "God. I put enough Haldol into his

system to stop a 747.  He very nearly lost it tonight, closer than

we realized.  We should have sent him home after the first

nightmare," he said softly, "when he was still almost normal."



     Averman didn't say anything.  Just took the printed pages from

Sam's fingers.  After a moment he looked up.  "Read it," he

ordered.  Sam stared at the former marine.  Averman put the papers

into Sam's fingers.



     Once upon a time the world was green and perfect.  We are all

     born into Eden.  The great Gods, our parents, give us love and

     all the things we need in life.  There were bright flowers in

     the spring time and crystalline snows in winter.  Summer's

     heat was a palatable blanket wrapped around us as we dove into

     summer pools.



     Our killer was not born into Oklahoma.  He sees himself in a

     wasteland.  He was born into a coastal existence, somewhere

     much greener, most likely temperate or semi-tropical, some

     place with large forests and abundant water.



     Our killer sees Eliot as a prophet and places pieces of T.S.

     Eliot's poetry on or in his victims.  This behavior is not

     bragging, identifying himself or trying to bring attention to

     himself.  The choices are too well made and indicate a

     critical understanding of Eliot's poetry.  Instead the killer

     is using these poems as a means of "preaching" what he is

     trying to tell his listeners: the media, the FBI, local law

     enforcement, ultimately the general public; some lesson or

     moral.



     The method in which the bodies have all been killed also

     indicates this.  Christopher Raintree was given an overdose of

     Restoril.  Kimberly Slater died of carbon monoxide poisoning,

     and Ericka Jones was drowned.  The latest victim, a caucasian

     girl, approximately six years old, was shot at the base of the

     skull.  These are not painful deaths.  Our subject killed

     quickly, as painlessly as he could.  He then prepared the body

     for our discovery, located it so that we would find it and

     draw our messages from the location and arrangement of the

     corpse as well as the poetry he placed at each of the bodies.



     He is trying to tell us all something.  His message is

     relatively simple.  Each of the children discovered had either

     physical evidence of sexual abuse or we have found some

     anecdotal evidence for sexual abuse.  In the time before they

     are killed the subject treats his children well.  Christopher

     Raintree was wearing a friendship bracelet the parents could

     not identify.  Kimberly Slater was found with a full stomach

     and had probably eaten at a McDonalds recently.  Ericka Jones'

     hair had been cut into a softly attractive bob when her

     mother, a devout member of the Assemblies of God church, never

     allowed her to cut her hair.  The latest victim had new hair

     ribbons carefully arranged in her hair.  There were no recent

     bruises on any child, although Kimberly Slater and the latest

     victim were both healing from possible physical abuse meted

     out by their parents.



     It is obvious he cares for the children, does not want them to

     suffer.  It is also obvious he finds it necessary to kill

     them.  Our killer evidences a great deal of faith, judging by

     his Eliot selections.  He does not think killing these

     children is an evil thing.  He is slaying the children and in

     doing so he sends these children on to Heaven and Jesus, where

     they cannot be hurt anymore.



     What happens to the empty shell is his business.  And he

     chooses to use the shell as a teaching device.



     Christopher Raintree was found with his arms out in a classic

     Christ-Crucifixion pose.  The obviousness of this pose is not

     worth discussion.  Kimberly Slater was coiled fetal with a

     blanket wrapped around her, genitals removed.  Again, the

     symbolic nature of this gesture is almost deafening.  Ericka

     Jones was found gutted and stuffed.  She was an invitation to

     us, the FBI, that we were welcome at his table, to learn his

     messages.  In addition the reference to Christ's Last Supper

     is not to be missed.  Christ offered his disciple his blood

     and flesh.  As a sacrifice.  Much as this child, or at least

     her shell, became.  The latest victim was killed only after he

     knew he had our attention.  She was laid at the end of a

     drainage canal, where the killer knew mud would come and cover

     her body.  Her eyes, ears, and nipples were removed.  This

     mutilation was quite deliberately random.  He simply cut out

     some parts of her, parts easy to remove.  What was important

     was that something was removed.  She lay covered in mud, being

     eaten by small bugs.  Here, he was reporting to his

     congregation, here is how you believe children should be

     treated. As products used and disposed of.



     Our subject is killing children who have been sexually abused,

     sending them on to heaven and warning us that we are

     destroying our children through such abuse.  His anger at this

     abuse is probably derived from a childhood of enduring sexual

     trauma from an early age.  He was the oldest sibling and there

     were several children in his family younger than he.  He

     respects and reveres the Mary images found in Eliot's poetry;

     his mother died quite young, most likely through some long,

     drawn out process such as cancer.  It was after the death of

     the mother that the sexual abuse began.  It was also a short

     time after the death of the mother that the family was moved

     to Oklahoma.  The father's pedophilic interests were

     discovered and the family was forced to move to Oklahoma.



     The subject's lack of distinction between Indian and White

     children leads me to believe that this move was undertaken

     because the father had Native American relations in Oklahoma. 

     It was probably the first time our subject realized he was, in

     fact, partly Native American.



     I believe the father, although originally from Oklahoma, did

     not like this place.  His belief in this land being a

     wasteland was probably transmuted to the son.  This indicates

     that the father was a lover of Eliot and gave this passion to

     the son.  Due to the choices of poetry and the subject's

     innate sense of Christian symbols as well as a certain flair

     for the delivery of his message, he cannot be anything other

     than a minister's child.



     There was no sexual abuse of the subject before the move to

     Oklahoma.  Our killer remains sharply in state, only choosing

     Oklahoma children, only killing in state.  Oklahoma and sexual

     abuse are too firmly linked in his mind for any other

     conclusion to be drawn.



     The father abused his son sexually throughout the time they

     were in Oklahoma, only abusing the son.  For some reason he

     did not molest any of the younger siblings until the son was

     no longer a child, but becoming a man.  Only at this time did

     the father move on to a younger sibling.  The killer still

     evidences a great deal of guilt and rage at young children

     being sexually abused.



     The childhood sexual abuse of our killer no doubt influenced

     his sexual behavior as an adult.  Our killer has definite

     homosexual leanings, although he feels some religious guilt

     over it and most likely has fetishes related to procedures

     practiced on children by adults, which, while sexual in

     nature, are approved by our society.  Namely, spanking and

     enemas.  These things were not practiced by the father,

     however, but were inflicted upon him by the relatives his

     father came to meet in Oklahoma, otherwise the subject would

     not have any positive feelings towards these fetishes.



     Once the father had moved on to the younger children one of

     these children killed him or herself in an effort to get out

     of the hellacious circumstances of the family.  Our killer saw

     in this the germination of the idea of killing children and

     sending them where they could no longer be hurt.



     Our killer worked for several years out of state before coming

     here.  I do not know the precipitating factor, but I would

     assume that at some point he was participating in some

     activity related to his fetishes and became irrationally

     angry, displacing his anger towards his father at his partner.



     He killed the partner and in his remorse, decided it was time

     he come home and put an end to the pain and misery suffered by

     children in the wastelands.





     Now that he knows he has a congregation watching him, learning

     from him, now that he has drawn our attention, our subject

     will begin killing more frequently.  He does not kidnap by

     force, but chooses children who will come with him willingly,

     will die for him voluntarily.  When he finds such children he

     will take them, and prepare them for their death by "saving

     them."  In some way he makes sure they understand how special

     and wonderful he finds them and then he will kill them.  It

     will happen as fast as he can go through these steps.



     He will continue moving, for although he sees us as his

     congregation, he knows that we will stop him when we catch

     him.  He knows, from travelling with his father, the roads of

     this state very well.  He will criss-cross the state, not   

     waiting for us to catch up, trusting that God will lead us as

     fast as God wishes us to be led, but that God will not let us

     catch him as long as he practices his craft well.



     Sam swallowed.  "My God. . .It's. . .so . . .logical."



     Averman nodded.  "Nothing that cannot, once it has been

pointed out, be logically deduced from the site and the evidence."

He put his face in his hands.  "I don't have a fucking clue what's

going on in his head now.  When I read that first document I just.

. .I thought we were going to have to send him home with two

babysitters and enough drugs to sedate half of Dallas. . .But this.

. .I. . ."



     Sam nodded, stomach churning with unidentifiable fears and

concerns.









     The ride was long, and bright in the summer heat.  The sun

caught them, even insulated as they were by metal and glass and air

conditioning.  Two hours to Ashton, just on the border of Texas.



     Frito lifted sunglasses and wiped the oily sweat from his

face.  The front seat was cool..  Cooke and Averman rode in

comfort despite the light on their legs, but the back seat still

sweltered.  The bottled water and soda had gone flat and warm, but

was better than nothing.



     Sweat darkened Francis' hair, and he stirred restlessly,

slumped asleep in the corner of the seat.  He hadn't said a word

after they left, just twisted himself into the corner, favoring the

hip where Frito had injected him the night before.  His blank,

shielded stare had said enough, and had haunted them until the

wheels had lulled him to sleep.  Sam said nothing about having to

help him get dressed, having to lay out the clothes in order on the

bed and help him tie the hideous tie.



     Cooke had sat rigid and watchful until he was certain Mulder

was more than asleep.  His voice since had been low, harsh,

fearful.  Averman and he had. . . planned.  Discussed how to

deflect the Cherokee cops if Marion fell apart in front of them. 

Sending him home was no longer an option.  Even Cooke agreed.

'Between hiding a madman and losing one', was how Cooke had

put it.



     Frito felt his lips purse with anger at the thought,

then relaxed again, watching the landscape go by.  Marion would

sleep a long, long time from the looks of him, and Sam let himself

drift off.



     The motor's frequency changed, and Sam opened his eyes to find

hills, dry and rolling, instead of flat land.  Pockets of green

reminded him that summer could end, and rain could return.  The

world had not always been this sere, brown thing.  He took off the

glasses, rubbed at an ear made sore by the earpiece.  Scrubbed the

sleep from his eyes.  Cooke was reading BusinessWeek and Averman

drove as though it was what he'd been born to do, as though there

were nothing else fit for man to do.  And Francis' long frame still

molded itself, in boneless discomfort, in the corner of the seat.



     "We there yet, dad?"  Sam's voice was light, but the strain

was there.  He saw Cooke twitch when he leaned forward, looking

past them at the road.



     Averman's grin showed at the back of his neck, a shifting of

jaw and cheekbone.  "Be a little while longer.  You'll need to

start waking the kid up soon."



     "Why?"  Cooke sounded nervous.  Having Mulder in the same car

was bad enough, Mulder awake. . .  Frito stiffened and opened his

mouth, unsure what he intended to say, but knowing he had to say

something.  Averman beat him to it.



     "Relax, Cooke.  We're going where he wants us to go." 

Averman's voice was dry and slightly patronizing.  Cooke stiffened,

but Frito grinned.  "We. . . we pushed his buttons yesterday.  We

should have thought about what we were doing."



     Cooke's stare clearly announced that he was not going to be

able to think for a madman.  Averman's face tightened with fleeting

anger.  "He's not your father, Cooke.  He's not wiping his own crap

on the walls and screaming at nurses.  I don't really understand

what's going on, but he's still doing his job and you will treat

him with that much respect."



     "But. . . "  Averman's glare cut him off.



     "Not 'but.'  You read that profile.  The kid's under a lot of

stress and it's showing, but so far he's gotten us closer to

catching this bastard than you and all your press conferences and

releases.  He needs some  help right now, but you will treat him

with the respect due a fellow agent."  Steady voice that didn't

need to be raised to get attention.  Sam sighed and sat back,

watching Cooke accept that.



     And Ashton's buildings slowly came into sight, scattered at

first, then clustered.  Frito leaned over and shook Marion.  It

took a while, and his eyes were glazed when he did open them.  Sam

gave him a bottle of water, watched him drink it, listlessly at

first, then desperately, trying to get the taste out of his mouth. 

It dribbled down his chin, spotted his tie, but his eyes were still

glazed when he wiped his mouth dry with the back of his hand,

looked around with less curiosity than resignation.



     "Ashton."  It wasn't a question.  Frito nodded.









    The hotel was polished and pleasant and could have been

anywhere in the fifty states.  Not a Holidome, but comfortable. 

Mulder leaned against the back of the elevator and let the others

guide him, carry the bags, do the work.  He just wanted to sleep,

or write, or run.  He was caught somewhere between all three and

didn't know which way to turn.  All he really knew was that

somewhere here, a small boy was being fed and listened to, played

with and cared for, and would very soon be dying.  The certainty of

that burned through the thick fog of drugs and anxiety, and he

shivered.



     They were on two floors.  Most of the team was on the second

floor, but Averman and Rodriguez had rooms on the third floor,

flanking Mulder's, with the inevitable connecting door.  God, he

was coming to hate the sight of that door in the wall.  He wanted

to go home, where his apartment was quiet and calm and no one

hovered on the other side of any of the doors, with needles and

threats.  The only good point was that he'd outrun Guiterriez.  All

he had to contend with here was Averman and Frito.  And the killer.



     Mulder settled on his bed, flipping through the book of

tourist traps hotels left out, while they hid the Bibles.  He could

hear Frito through the open door, talking with Averman.  Something

about rest and food, but Mulder preferred to ignore Averman and

Frito.  Cooke had a room down the hall.  The thought put a sour

smile on his face.  Cooke was so scared he broke a sweat when

Mulder glanced at him.  Irish mackerel snapper.  Damned

superstitious idiot.



     The pages felt hot in his fingers, and were hard to turn.  He

slammed his hand across several, shoving halfway through the book,

and stared.  Swallowed.  Put the book down, open at the ad for a

helicopter tour, and sat there.  He didn't know he'd been holding

his breath until his chest hurt, didn't know how long he stared

until Frito was shaking his shoulder, eyes wide and frightened.



     "Francis.  Francis!  C'mon, look at me."  Mulder looked up

with startled eyes, lips open, trying to shape a word that reached

out of the page and announced itself.  A brilliant smile flashed

over his face.



     "Look at it."  He flipped the book around, the ad.  Showed it

to Frito and waited to see if he'd recognize what was there.  The

pathologist glanced at it, looked back at him with concern. 

Averman was in the doorway, watching.  "Do you see it?"



     "We. . . we need to check with the locals.  Check missing

persons reports, pay our respects. . . "  Sam was still trying to

find the traditional path, solid procedural ground in this shifting

landscape.  Marion was staring at him, expecting him to see

something, say something, and he felt his guts twist.



     "Frito, I'm beginning to think they knew what they were

talking about when they said jacking off would make you blind.  In

your case, at least."  Marion flipped the book back around,

frustrated.  "Averman, you choke the chicken too much, or do you

see it?"



     Jack Averman felt the corner of his mouth quirk.  The kid put

on a good show, no matter what else you had to say about him.  The

AIC walked over and leaned past Rodriguez to see what Mulder had

found.



     "The chapel, Averman.  The chapel."  Mulder's voice had

dropped to a whisper, his long, thin fingers tracing a rock

formation, aerial tourist trap, natural wonder.  Wilderness Chapel

was what the florid copy announced, and it was true.  Beautiful,

graceful stone structure up there in the hills.  The glossy photo

showed a remote road with a chopper's shadow on the hills.  It was

parched and lovely.



     'Here is no water but only rock. . .'  Mulder's voice was

calm.  He knew where he was and what he was saying.  Averman 

could see his eyes, glazed only by lingering Haldol, studying the

picture.  "The empty chapel, only the wind's home."  He looked up

at Averman.  "I don't care who talks to the cops, or finds the

kid's mother.  His mother isn't the one who cares about him now.

And this is where we'll find the first one."  He tapped the

picture, and there was no doubt in his voice.



     Frito met Averman's eyes. . .  shivered. But the air

conditioning wasn't that high.



Continued in part 11...............





=====================================================================

======



From: livengoo@tiac.net

Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative

Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 11/41 NC-17

Date: 31 Jan 1996 05:11:20 GMT





Oklahoma (Part 11/41)

By Amperage and Livengoo

Copyright October, 1995



International Readers:  No third season spoilers

Rating:  NC-17 for language and violence



___________________



     They had to pay their respects.  The police station was a

long, low, yellow brick building, with cars lined up along the curb

out front.  The grass was sere, stiff in the heat.  The few trees

were tamarisks, their rose and green fingers dusty in the sun. 

Little spots of color floated in front of Averman's eyes as he

stood in Wilson Hardman's office, studying the stocky man, and the

objects that surrounded him.



     Hardman's hand was solid, calloused across the palm in a

pattern Averman knew from a childhood spent around livestock.  

The pictures of horses, children, competitions, that were centrally

displayed spoke of his true love.  The police captain smiled,

showing silver fillings in two teeth.



     "We really appreciate the FBI's discretion and help in this.

It's taken long enough to get this town on its feet, keep it

stable.  We don't need the kind of notoriety that. . .  Well.  We'd

like to keep our kids safe on our streets.  This is a small place

and we value our people."



     Averman had heard political expediency in police departments

before and considered this about an average example.  Just as well.

He was too busy to pay that much attention to Hardman.  He could

feel Mulder behind him, studying everything in this office, this

place.  Could hear Rodriguez moving, trying to keep subtle.  Cooke,

in the other visitor's chair, was better suited to coddling local

authorities and petting bruised egos.  Let the man earn his money

for once.



     Averman tuned out Cooke, who was engaged in the pro forma

patter that law enforcement agencies used when they were 

pretending to be happy to deal with each other.  An interior window 

lined the wall to his left, where it let Hardman monitor his station.  

Now, it let Averman watch Mulder.  The young man had come to rest 

in front of a map.  The chair creaked as Averman got up to join him,

watching the patterns Mulder traced.  He knew Hardman was 

watching them, had been since he'd shaken Mulder's hand and seen 

the faint glaze in the profiler's eyes.  Averman prayed to the god 

he'd been raised to believe that nothing would happen.



     Frito, on Mulder's other side, felt his neck aching from

tension.  He could see Marion's lips move just slightly, but heard

no words.  One long, slender finger traced a river bed, and the

hand spread out, framing a factory district, old, short streets in

a bend of river.  Mulder glanced back at Hardman and Frito twitched

to hear his voice.



     "This neighborhood, down by the docks. . . what was it?"



     "Old factory works.  There's the mattress factory down

there, and up a little further is a place that makes motors for

lawnmowers."  He beamed his pride in it.  "Real coup for the city

council, that.  Employs twelve-hundred people."  Mulder looked back

at the map.



     "What about the mattress works?"



     "Maybe three-fifty, four hundred. Been there forever."

Puzzled voice.  Cooke caught the questioning glance but had no idea

how to answer it.  Mulder licked his lips, frowned at the map.  He

could feel Frito and Averman, tensed on either side of him but

trying to look like everything was SOP, normal.  But the ache in

his head and the fuzzy, Haldol fog wasn't standard operating

procedure.  Mulder swallowed, felt his stomach twisting even though

he'd eaten nothing.  He knew Hardman was watching them, knew 

Cooke was frightened and knew there were words to be said.  He 

spun a manic smile on Averman.



     "Excuse me, I think I'd like to see. . . the missing persons

reports.  And a map."  God, yes.  That would make them all happy. 

Mulder breathed a sigh of relief and followed Hardman, feeling

Frito's eyes, Averman's, on his back as he let Hardman and Cooke

lead them.  Was able to hold his silence as they were shown into a

small office and given a thin bundle of files.  He looked at them

in self-defense, but they told him nothing new.  The map. . .



     Marion was spreading the map out across a table, smoothing it

with little, jerky motions.  His glasses, folded and hooked in his

shirt pocket, swung in time with his tie, little oscillations as

his quick breathing changed rhythm.  Hardman and Cooke were

outside, thank god, negotiating support and space arrangements. 

That much at least they'd weathered.  Frito stepped up next to

Marion.



     "Francis, are you all right?"  The sheen of sweat might have

been from the heat outside.  So might the faint flush across his

cheekbones.



     "Quit asking me that, Frito."  Distracted.  He had no time for

this.  Averman was back at his left elbow.  Caught a flat, spooky

stare. "He picked up the child yesterday.  Half-past two."



     "What?"  Averman leaned in.  He wanted to not believe Spooky.

He desperately wanted to sort, rationally and sanely, through those

files and know their next victim's face was in there.  And he'd

already seen the files tossed on the desk and known a formality for

what it was.



     "The secret of its skeleton,

     Stiff and white.

     A broken spring in a factory yard,

     Rust that clings to a form that the strength has left

     Hard and curled and ready to snap."



     "Mulder, stop this.  Stop.  We're in the fucking Ashton police

station and the captain's standing out there with Cooke.  Please,

don't do this."  Spooky stared back into his eyes, not aggressive

now, desperate.  Looking at him, really at him, for the first time

that he remembered today.  But his eyes flickered back and forth

too fast, pale skin and flushed cheekbones that made Averman's

alarms go off.  Mulder swallowed convulsively.



     "He took the. . .the n-next one already, yesterday, at

half-past two.  From the quay.  He gave him a toy.  His mother

sells his mouth at night and hurts him when he cries."  Spooky's

mouth tightened.  He screwed his eyes shut and smoothed the map

again.  "She won't report him missing until the social worker sees

them again because he's run away before but he always comes back. 

She doesn't even know yet.  She hasn't come down.  Her boyfriend

will notice first, when he wants to screw the kid."  Mulder had

gone white as a sheet, and his throat was working.



     He spun on his heel, very straight and definite, went past

Hardman and Cooke and all those desks and held it until he'd

slammed through the door of the men's room in the hall, where dry

heaves crumpled him up by the toilets.  The tiles were hard under

his knees, and he could feel the grooves between them, knew he'd

have little, geometric bruises on his knees.  God, he hated the

feel of porcelain under his hands, the ache in his ribs and his gut

as he heaved and heaved and only air and retching.  And, finally,

Frito's hand on his shoulder.  Wet paper towels handed down so he

could wipe his face, drop back on the floor, legs sprawled flat

because he couldn't pull them up anymore without the muscles of his

groin aching.



     "God, Frito.  At least I didn't eat breakfast."  His eyelids

were too heavy to raise.  The metal of the stall was cold through

his hair, the shirt on his shoulders.  He shivered as the sweat

chilled.  He heard the rustle of fabric,  Frito moved to sit by the

sinks, letting his shoes tap back against the cabinet below the

counter.



     "You'll never market it as a diet plan, Francis."  Mulder

could feel every muscle he had to use for the smile.



     "Look for oral herpes when we find this one, Frito.  The

social worker missed it."



     Sam swallowed.  Stared at Francis.  Wondered if he could feel

the stare through closed lids.  "And how long will it take you to

come up with the rationale for that, Francis?"



     "Not long.  The oral imagery gives this one away, though how

he found this one. . ."  Sam hopped off the counter, saw Francis

flinch at the sound.



     "Let me give you a hand up."  Fair warning to let him expect

the steps that walked up to him.  "I bet Averman's jumpy as hell,

but figures the whole team in here's bound to panic the natives."



     "Un-fucking-PC, Frito.  Careful or they'll scalp you."



     "And use my balls for a tobacco pouch?"  God, he was almost a

dead-weight.  His palm felt cold and damp.



     Not worth it for one smoke, spic.  More likely as a golf-ball

cover."



     "Beats your fuzzy dice."



     Marion let his weight open the door, using only the muscle

needed to catch himself as it swung inward.  "Keep your hands off. 

You can beat a lot of things, but not my fuzzy dice."  Frito let it

drop, let him have the last word.









     Averman was waiting, had got them off the hook somehow.  Some

excuse about the flu and decongestants.  Frito wasn't really paying

attention.  They left Cooke to publicly relate to Hardman and his

people, piled Marion into Averman's Taurus and pulled out to go

back to the hotel.  Or wanted to go back to the hotel.



     "Turn here."



     "Look son. . . "



     "We've done this before.  Turn here."  Averman glanced at

Rodriguez, assessed the tense note in the voice over his shoulder. 

There'd be no point in a lunge for the wheel, but no real point in

frustrating the kid, either.  He turned.  Followed a sickly,

yellowish river that veered away to run under lonely loading docks

where no barge had visited in too long.  Shivered at the rusting,

twisted shapes of cranes.  Spooky pointed them down a sad, scarred

residential street of pocked asphalt and peeling houses.



     "So the hand of the child, automatic,

     Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the

          quay.

     I could see nothing behind that child's eye.

     I have seen eyes in the street

     Trying to peer through lighted shutters. . . "



     Spooky's voice was a thin, acid-scoured whisper from behind

him, weaker and stronger as he scanned from side to side.  The

street was still and dead under the sun's punishment.  Averman felt

sick, deep in his gut, glanced at the rear view mirror to see a

pale, thin face and eyes that couldn't settle on any one object.



     "A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,

     Her hand twists a paper rose,

     That smells of dust and eau de Cologne,

     She is alone

     With all the old nocturnal smells

     That cross and cross across her brain.

     The reminiscence comes

     Of sunless dry geraniums

     And dust in crevices,

     Smells of chestnuts in the streets,

     And female smells in shuttered rooms

     And cigarettes in corridors

     And cocktail smells in bars."



     His voice had grown thinner than ever, but now he was focused.

Averman heard him slide across the back seat, up behind Rodriguez'

seat, suddenly craning to see past Sam's shoulder.  But the steady,

hypnotic whisper still rattled over his lips.



     "The lamp said,

     'Four o'clock,

     Here is the number on the door."





     "Stop here, Averman."  Barely stronger.  "Put your shoes at

the door, sleep, prepare for life.



     The last twist of the knife.



     And he was out the door and pacing up a cracked sidewalk to

the sagging porch.  Rodriguez was out after him, at a half-run to

come apace.   Averman hesitated only long enough to lock the doors,

then turned and followed the younger men up to where the rust on

the dark, dusty-clogged screens could be smelled.  Up to the

peeling paint and cracked wood of a screen door.  And Mulder's

knuckles sounded loud in the silence of a seared afternoon.



     There was no answer from his knocking.  No answer but the

humming buzz of a fan.  Mulder knocked hard, again.



     "She doan' hear nothin'," a voice informed them. The speaker

was a short, wide woman, dark eyes and skin, grey hair.  A faded

print dress and athletic socks with house shoes.  "She been

snortin' her brains away."  The woman leaned against the bannister

dividing the two halves of the porch.



     Mulder glanced at the other Agents.  "Ma'am, I'm with the

FBI," he said, drawing on all his cordial, shining, agent gloss. 

He took out his credentials.  The woman took the leather wallet

into both hands.



     "Fox?  You're not a Fox.  Who named you Fox?" the woman

demanded, handing it back.



     "My father."



     The snort told them all what she thought of this.  "What do

people