X-Files: Trust No One

by Tim Lebbon

  Table of Contents

  THE X-FILES: VOLUME ONE

  Introduction by Jonathan Maberry

  Catatonia by Tim Lebbon

  The Beast of Little Hill by Peter Clines

  Oversight by Aaron Rosenberg

  Dusk by Paul Crilley

  Loving the Alien by Stefan Petrucha

  Non Gratum Anus Rodentum by Brian Keene

  Back in El Paso My Life Will be Worthless by Keith R.A. DeCandido

  Paranormal Quest by Ray Garton

  King of the Watery Deep by Tim Deal

  Sewers by Gini Koch

  Clair de Lune by W.D. Gagliani and David Benton

  It’s All in the Eyes by Heather Graham

  The House on Hickory Hill by Max Allan Collins

  Time and Tide by Gayle Lynds and John C. Sheldon

  Statues by Kevin J. Anderson

  Author Bios

  THE X-FILES:

  VOLUME ONE

  TRUST NO ONE

  Edited

  By

  Jonathan Maberry

  IDW Publishing

  Dedication

  The authors of X-Files Vol 1: Trust No One wish to thank the legion of fans

  who have supported Scully and Mulder since the beginning.

  We know that you want to believe.

  So do we.

  Trust No One: An Introduction

  The X-Files.

  Every time I hear that name I have two immediate and conflicting thoughts.

  Trust no one.

  I want to believe.

  Always. Bang, bang. Together but different like two sides of a coin.

  Trust no one because, hey, no one is trustworthy. In a world (yes, pause and say it in that actor’s voice) where there are shape-shifting alien bounty hunters, gender-swapping fundamentalist aliens, vampires, double and triple agents, government conspiracies, aliens among us, mind control, and a slew of other proofs positive that observation is fault and certain knowledge is either a joke or a suicidal tactical flaw.

  Trust no one.

  Sage advice from a government mole who lay dying on the street, a man almost certainly gunned down by his own people.

  Trust no one.

  And yet.

  I want to believe.

  I do. I really do.

  Not just in the possibility of extraterrestrial life, but in all of it. The Jersey Devil, dybbuks, Native American medicine men, groups of savvy conspiracy theory gunslingers, astronauts who had seen things, small town sheriffs who have seen lots of things, sewer workers, and everyone else. There is something out there and I am willing to believe in it. Eager to believe.

  On the whole, I more like Mulder. I want to find those things that are probably there. The things that are hidden because no one has been brave enough to shine a flashlight into the darkness. Things that cruise the edges of our culture, relying on our civilized blind indifference. Things that are so radically different from us that we haven’t even learned how to interact.

  Oh, and the bad guys. The ones who hide and obfuscate and outright lie. The ones in black suits that are willing to pull a trigger to silence a voice. I want them dragged out into the light, too.

  I want all of that.

  And if I have my skeptical Scully moments, too, then so be it. Maybe I want to do more than believe. Maybe I want to see it. Test it. Weigh and measure it. Prove it beyond doubt.

  This is The X-Files.

  This wasn’t a show Chris Carter popped out of nowhere. It’s groundbreaking but the ground it breaks is common to many. There are a lot of skeptics out there, a lot of paranoid types. But shoulder-to-shoulder with them are the curious skeptics. The ones who don’t believe but would be willing to crawl through the underbrush, or hide in a crypt, or slog through the storm drains to find out. Not to disprove, not really. They are secretly like Mulder. They want to believe.

  So many of us do.

  The X-Files opened up that secret door in our heads and let our doubt and paranoia and rationalization and restless curiosity all come out to play. We watched through shows with the nit-picking intensity of a crowd sitting through an important documentary.

  We want to believe.

  We want to know.

  Watching a show as intelligent as The X-Files allows us to be partners in the conversation between those who want to know and those who are trying to keep that knowledge secret. And we let the relentlessness of Scully and Mulder drive us forward for nine seasons, two movies, comics, games, novels...

  We still want to believe.

  And with that, we still don’t trust anyone worth a damn.

  Which is the kind of reality check that keeps us from becoming the aluminum foil hat-wearing crowd.

  Which brings us to this anthology. Not the aluminum foil hats, though a case can be made.

  No, it’s the lifelong love of The X-Files that allowed me to reach out to so many notable writers of mystery, thriller, horror, fantasy and science fiction. Every author here has been hand-picked for their love of the show, their understanding of how X-Files ticks, and for the quality of their storytelling. You don’t have to wade through anything lukewarm in order to find a real boiler. Every single writer in The X-Files: Trust No One brought serious game.

  They brought passion, too.

  As if they all believed.

  And they brought their natural skepticism and clinical attention to the details of federal investigation. They don’t trust anyone.

  But they all want to believe.

  So will you.

  Here are fifteen tales of darkness. The darkness from beyond our shared human experience to the far more personal darkness that hides beneath our clothes. These are not tales to pass a casual afternoon. These are tales with teeth. And claws. And...

  Well, you’ll have to discover that for yourself.

  You wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t already caught up in the magic that was The X-Files. But even if you were a casual watcher of the show or a fan dedicated enough to be able to give the full names of each member of the Lone Gunmen, there is something new to discover here. Something new to make you lock your door, check to see if the phone lines are working, and keep the lights on.

  I want to believe, I really do.

  Because the truth is out there.

  Let’s go find it...

  — Jonathan Maberry, Editor

  CATATONIA

  By Tim Lebbon

  LYNOTT SOUND, MASSACHUSETTS

  12th OCTOBER, 1994, 3 a.m.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “Mulder? Urgh... no, I had to get up to answer the phone. Damn, it’s three in the morning. Don’t you ever sleep?”

  “Why?”

  “You get tired. Your eyes get heavy. You sleep.”

  “Oh, that. Sometimes. But not right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “I need your help.”

  “Really? At three in the morning?”

  “It could wait ‘til tomorrow, I guess.”

  “What exactly is ‘it’?”

  “Lynott Sound. Little town in Massachusetts. Four kids vanished from home two nights ago, and yesterday morning they were all found in the local woods. Catatonic. They were brought home, and they’re healthy but completely non-responsive. Sound intriguing?”

  “Sounds like a bunch of kids on drugs.”

  “No drugs found in their systems, Scully.”

  “Mass hypnotism. They love p
laying around with that stuff. The less susceptible ones ran home because they were scared, leaving their friends out in the woods. Kids are cruel.”

  “They all vanished separately, and none of them are close friends. They’d never have been hanging out with each other. Scully, are you really doing this?”

  “Doing what? Maybe they’re just copy-catting. Happens a lot. One has a rare form of sleep apnea, the others think it’s cool and gets them attention, so they do the same. Classic teenage angst.”

  “Doing what you always do. Trying to rationalize it away.”

  “Look, you’re the one who rang me for help!”

  “You sound sexy when you’re angry.”

  “I’m not angry, I’m tired.”

  “Then you sound sexy when you’re tired.”

  “Damn it, why aren’t you asleep? And anyway, we don’t work together anymore.”

  “Officially.”

  “Right. So why do you want me along on this one?”

  “Same reason as always. It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

  “And because I’m the voice of reason.”

  “The reason is what we’re looking for. See you midday tomorrow?”

  “Lynott Sound, right?”

  “A diner called Marshall’s, just outside town. I knew you couldn’t resist.”

  “I’m going back to sleep, Mulder.”

  “Sweet dreams, Scully.”

  ****

  As diners went, it wasn’t the most salubrious Mulder had ever visited. Two trucks stood on blocks at the edge of its graveled car park, wheels gone, windscreens smashed, seats ripped and spewing foam guts. A ditch that ran along the other side of the narrow road smelled like something dead. The building had once been a gas station, and though the pumps were gone, the tattered canopy remained, as did the stench of spilled fuel. It hung in the air as he slammed his car door and walked across the lot, and he felt faintly queasy as the tang of petrol fumes merged with the scent of hot fat and sizzling bacon. Mulder hadn’t eaten for almost twenty-four hours, but this place did little to perk his appetite.

  Paint peeled from walls, the door stuck in the frame, and the sign across the front—“Marshall’s Diner”—had been hand-painted in uneven and dribbled paint. It looked like a place that wanted to be loved but made do with being needed.

  But once inside, a huge woman behind the counter smiled and welcomed him with a friendly wave. There didn’t seem to be any other customers. That didn’t bode well, but the place seemed well used and clean, on the surface at least. And Mulder was suddenly, surprisingly hungry.

  “Now there’s a man who needs a mug of coffee,” she said, and she poured without waiting for a reply.

  “Is it good?” Mulder asked, taking a stool at the counter. Still pouring, the woman looked up at him through wild eyebrows. She was ruddy-faced and round, the clichéd cheery chef.

  “He asks if the coffee’s good, Patton!”

  “Good? Best coffee in the east.” The old man was crouched in a window seat, so small, wizened and hairless that Mulder wondered whether he’d merit a file of his own. The mug on his table was almost as big as him.

  “Patton?” Mulder asked. The old man waved a hand around his head, as if shooing away a fly.

  “My mother didn’t like me, my father never knew me.”

  “First name or last?”

  “Depends on which side I get out of bed.”

  Mulder smiled, then shook his head when the woman—Marshall, he surmised, though he couldn’t guess whether it was her first name or last—offered him cream and sugar. He picked up his hot mug and took a careful sip, and damned if Patton wasn’t right. It was the best coffee he’d tasted in ages.

  Still sipping, he glanced at the menu chalked clumsily on a wide board on the wall above the counter. It offered typical diner fare in an array of delightfully original, and occasionally worrying, forms. Bacon and pancakes with nut-warmingly sweet syrup, triple-death burgers, meatloaf with Heavenly mash fit for the Lord Himself, a variety of pastries baked with Wonder and Love. Cautious, he caught Marshall’s eye where she worked stacking washed plates.

  “So is the food as good as the coffee?”

  “You judge by appearances, Hon?”

  Mulder thought of the stink of gas, the ravaged trucks, and the coffee, and shook his head.

  “I’ll do you my breakfast special.” She smiled and disappeared through a wide doorway into the kitchen beyond.

  “First brewed that coffee myself, almost forty years back,” Patton said. “Sourced the beans, measured the grind, stored them in a way only I knew how. Passed down what I knew to my daughter.” He nodded in the direction of the kitchens, smiling warmly. “Now she’s making coffee just as good as I ever did. People ask, strangers and regulars alike, they ask how we do it, what we do, when we grind and mix and pour, how long we let it stand, whether we use special water from a particular creek or well. They ask, but I don’t tell ’em.” The old man tapped his nose with a twig-like finger. “’Cos it’s a secret.”

  Mulder sat at a table across the aisle from Patton. He couldn’t help liking the man, and knowing that he was Marshall’s father made the diner seem an even warmer, friendlier place.

  “Yeah, well, I won’t ask,” he said, sipping at the divine coffee once more. “I like a good mystery.”

  “But mysteries are there to be solved, eh?” Patton asked. He looked Mulder up and down, his wrinkled smile not quite as open as it had been. “By people like you, I mean.”

  “People like me?” Mulder asked.

  “Cops.”

  “I’m not a cop.”

  “Feds, then.”

  Mulder looked away and drank some more. He’d need a new cup soon, and he wondered whether the second would taste as good as the first. Some mysteries had a way of growing stale.

  “I’m not your usual kind of Fed,” he said softly. He didn’t want to alienate this old guy. In small places like Lynott Sound, old characters like Patton might know things that most other people did not. He might be shriveled and ancient and barely able to move, but Mulder guessed he had his finger on the pulse of the town. It was often people like this that possessed nuggets of information that could make or break a case.

  Patton laughed, a brittle sound like a newspaper being crumpled. “You’ll be here for the sleepers, then.”

  Mulder nodded.

  “Buncha’ kids. Drunk or drugged up, most likely.”

  “You really think that?”

  “Sure.” But Patton wasn’t looking at Mulder anymore. He was staring at his own hands, clasping the edge of the table before him as if terrified to let go. His knuckles were bony nubs, nails blackened scabs.

  “There’s something else,” Mulder said.

  “Angels’ songs,” the old man muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  “Here ya go, hon,” Marshall said, then whispered, “Oh, don’t mind him, mad old coot.” She slid a plate before Mulder, glancing back and forth between him and Patton. She didn’t look quite so welcoming anymore. “You okay, Pop?”

  “Can I get another coffee?” Mulder asked. “And one for my partner, too. She’ll take cream, but no sugar.”

  “Partner?” the woman asked.

  Mulder shrugged. “She’s late.”

  Marshall disappeared back behind the counter, and while he dug into the breakfast of pancakes, eggs and crispy bacon, he glanced at Patton every few seconds, noticing how the tension slowly went out of the old man as he relaxed even more into the shiny leather seat. It could have been his age, diffusing the knowledge of what they’d been discussing. But Mulder thought it was a slow easing of anticipation. Patton had been expecting Mulder to ask some more, to delve deeper, and he was terrified at the prospect.

  He knew to ease back, for now. Simply knowing that there were depths to plumb was enough.

  “You’ll get fat,” a voice said behind him, and Mulder felt a rush of affection. He’d missed Scully. It had been alm
ost two months since they’d seen each other, and although they spoke on the phone—and although she sometimes feigned frustration, he knew that she liked talking with him—nothing could trump meeting face to face.

  “I have a fast metabolism,” he said.

  “Yeah, still full of bullshit.”

  Mulder stood to greet Scully. Her hair was longer, and perhaps she was a little leaner, but other than that she was the Scully he knew. Sharp suit, sharper wit, and a tongue that could cut a man in half from ten paces.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”

  She looked around, smiling briefly at Patton. “You bring me to the nicest places,” she said quietly, so that only Mulder could hear.

  “Yeah, but you’ve gotta try their coffee.”

  She smiled, and this time it touched her eyes. “So where’s your new friend?”

  “Krycek? Still running surveillance on a third-rate gang boss in Boston, and expecting me to relieve him...” He glanced at his watch. “...about an hour ago.”

  “You’ll get into trouble with Skinner.”

  “Again?”

  “Coffee’s here,” Marshall said, emerging from the kitchen. “Oh, so this is your partner. Very pretty, too.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” Mulder said. “Can we get those coffees to go?”

  “I’ve been driving for six hours!” Scully protested.

  “All the more reason not to sit and relax,” he said. “Come on, Scully. Places to go, sleeping people to see.” He sensed movement behind him, and glancing back he saw Patton huddling down deeper into his seat. Perhaps he never moved from there at all. He was watching Mulder, barely acknowledging Scully’s presence. Staring at him with those old, rheumy eyes.

  Mulder dropped some cash onto the table, accepted the coffee cartons from Marshall, and nodded his thanks.

  Outside, breathing in the fresh country air and stale fuel fumes, Scully yawned.

  “I really need to sleep.”

  “You know the saying. You can sleep when you’re dead.”

  “Oh, thanks Mulder, that’s really nice and cheery.”

  “Come on. We’ll take my car.”

  ****

  “Her name’s Laura Connolly,” Mulder said. “Thirteen, doing well at school, comfortable family.”