by Tim Lebbon
“There’s a guy at a diner out of town, place called Marshall’s. Old guy, Patton. I’m pretty sure he knows something he’s not telling. He already knows me and Scully and why we’re here, so maybe you’d have a better chance of getting something from him.”
“Sending me on an errand, Spooky?” Krycek asked. “And I’ve only just arrived.”
“You want to investigate?” Mulder asked, perhaps harshly. “I guess you already know the basics. Scully and I are checking in on the victims, but that guy Patton knows more. Ask him about the angels singing. Weird thing he said to me. Then perhaps between us we can clear up the bigger picture.”
“Yeah, perhaps.” Krycek yawned again and took a long, slow look around them. “Pretty little place. Sort of place you’d never remember visiting.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Scully said.
But Mulder thought not.
****
“He got here quickly,” Scully said. They were standing on the front deck of the big blue house, waiting for their knock to be answered.
“He’s got a nose for an interesting case.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute,” she said.
The door opened. A young black man answered, dressed in shorts and a tight tee shirt. Good looking, fit, exuding arrogance.
“We’re looking for Walter Russell,” Scully said.
“Yeah.”
“Is he home?”
The man pointed at himself with his thumb.
“You?”
No reply.
“Is this the home of Rosie Russell?”
The man’s face softened a little, but he only nodded.
“Can we see her?” Mulder asked.
“You Feds?”
Scully reached for her badge, but the man waved them in. Mulder had told her that Rosie Russell, another one of those who’d vanished and turned up catatonic, was almost eight years old, so she’d been expecting someone in their early thirties, at least. This man looked barely old enough to be out of college.
The house was large, well appointed, and as attractive as its owners. Inside they were met by Walter Russell’s wife, equally young and fit and pretty, and she showed them upstairs to their little girl’s bedroom.
It was mostly the same. Scully examined the girl while Mulder prowled the bedroom, opening books, looking inside wardrobes, running his fingers along shelves. He grunted softly a couple of times, but said nothing. The mother remained in the doorway. They asked her questions and she answered through tears, and Scully could see that she had been crying a lot. None of the answers seemed evasive, and the parents displayed only a deep concern for their daughter. She’d been examined by the town’s doctor and pronounced in good health, other than the strange sleep that held her low.
Scully checked the girl’s hands and nails. They were clean. But she wasn’t clean all over.
Outside, standing by their car with the sun warming her skin, Scully closed her eyes and looked to the sky.
“Well?” Mulder asked.
“She had dried blood at the corners of her mouth and in a couple of creases in her lower lip.”
“Her own?”
“Not sure.” She felt strange even saying it, because the implications seemed too heavy. She kept her eyes closed, sensing Mulder’s expectant silence. “But I don’t think so. No sign of wounds, no damage inside her mouth.” She opened her eyes. The glare of the sun hurt them, and she squinted and turned her head away. It hurt to look too closely.
“We should visit the other victims,” Mulder said.
“Maybe they don’t need us,” she replied. “Maybe they need psychologists. Therapy. There’s nothing apparently wrong with Connolly or Marshall, and I’m guessing the other two will be the same.”
“Apart from the blood.”
“That’s jumping out just because we’re looking for something amiss.”
“Scully, that doesn’t sound a bit like you.”
“What, you think we should go jaguar hunting?”
A police car approached quickly along the street, nose dipping as it braked. “No need,” he said.
Krycek jumped from the passenger seat. The cop who climbed awkwardly from the driver’s side was huge, tall and round, his uniform stained with sweat marks and dried food. He looked grim.
“Agents,” he said, touching the brim of his hat as if he welcomed FBI into his small town every day.
“So you didn’t get to the diner,” Mulder said.
“Sheriff Meloy picked me up before I could,” Krycek said. “He needs us to go with him to the doctor’s surgery.”
“Why?” Scully asked.
“Because that’s where the bodies are.”
****
Bodies, thought Mulder. There are always bodies. This time he’d been hoping that they were sleeping ones, but it seemed they weren’t that lucky.
He remained by the door of the examination room. They were waiting for an ambulance to come and take them to the nearby hospital, but meanwhile Scully was checking them over, much to the Sheriff’s chagrin. But he did not try to intervene. He stood in the corner, breathing like a landed walrus and whispering with the old doctor who’d probably been treating the town for half a century.
Krycek had remained in the reception area, saying he had to use the phone. Mulder suspected he was checking in, perhaps with Skinner. Trouble was brewing. But with three dead people laid out before him, he was hardly concerned.
They had died badly.
“I’m done here,” Scully said to the Sheriff and doctor. “I agree, looks like animal attacks. Could be black bear or coyote.”
Mulder raised an eyebrow in surprise, but refrained from making any comment. Even from where he stood he could see obvious signs that she had pretended to ignore, and she’d have a reason for that. Looking at the sheriff and doctor, seeing an apparent relaxing of tension in them, he thought he knew what that was.
“Okay, we’re all done here,” Krycek said from behind Mulder. He’d approached quietly. Mulder would have to watch that.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Skinner’s ordered us back to Boston, and Scully’s been missed from the Academy. We’re all in trouble. Thanks, Mulder.”
“I’m used to it.”
“Yeah, but I’m not.” The big man couldn’t keep the smile from his eyes, and Mulder sensed something deeper. There was excitement there, not fear over being reprimanded.
“You should make sure you get some specialists in, hunt down whatever did this,” Scully said.
“Oh, we will, we will,” the sheriff said. “So you’ll be leaving?” He’d heard Krycek and directed the question to him.
“Tomorrow,” Mulder said. “We’re all tired, and it’s a long way back. Is there a good place to stay in town?”
If there was a good place, the sheriff certainly didn’t seem keen on telling them.
“If not, we can just hang around town for the evening, asking questions.”
“Deakin’s Hotel out on 12th is pretty decent,” the sheriff said. “Tell them I sent you.”
“Will that get us a discount?” Mulder asked.
The sheriff didn’t answer. He was talking to the doctor again as the little man covered the bodies.
“I guess we are done here,” Mulder said.
“We should get back now,” Krycek said when they were outside. “It’s not that late. We can make the journey before midnight and be back where we’re supposed to be tomorrow.”
“I think I’m supposed to be here,” Mulder said. He surveyed the little town square, trying to see it with fresh eyes, not filtered through the knowledge of what had happened here. Four people in a deep slumber, three more dead.
“Animal attack,” Scully said as if weighing the words. “And all three victims were from out of town.”
“Coincidence,” Krycek said.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Mulder said.
Krycek laughed out loud,
attracting the attention of a group of kids on their way home from school. “Really? You believe in everything else.”
“I’m tired and hungry,” Mulder said. He wanted Krycek away from them, wanted to be closer to Scully so they could talk, bounce ideas off each other, and do the thing they did best. He hadn’t known her for long, but already it felt like forever. They worked well together. They were a team, and even though they’d been pulled apart, the draw between them felt stronger than ever. That’s why he’d called her down here.
“You’re really staying at this town’s crummy hotel?”
“Sure. See you there.” Mulder and Scully walked towards her car.
“My car’s halfway across town!” Krycek protested.
“Enjoy your walk,” Mulder said.
****
“Animals, Scully?”
She started the engine and pulled away, glancing in her rearview mirror. Krycek was watching them go, and there was something about his stance that scared her. He watched intently, wound like a spring. She pressed on the gas and got them away from there as fast as she could. The guy spooked the hell out of her.
“I’d say they were beaten, clawed, and bitten to death by other people,” she said. “Some of the bite marks looked like they were done by human teeth. Scratches were done by nails, not claws. Brutal. Horribly violent.”
“I really don’t like the way this is going.”
“I don’t think it’s going. I think it’s here already.”
“Is that little Russell kid really capable of—”
“What’s that?” Mulder was pointing ahead, and above a huddle of houses a dull blue light glowed high in the sky. It pulsed, as bright as the sun and then brighter, seeming to grow and shrink with each beat.
Several cars skidded to a halt, drivers leaving them and dashing towards the closest buildings. Pedestrians ran. In moments the street was deserted.
“Not good,” Mulder said. Scully gripped the steering wheel hard.
The sound smashed in. Loud, sudden, sharp, and clear, the ululating call might have been a scream or a song, all in a language she did not know. It came from outside and rang within, reverberating inside her skull like fantastical hymns in a cathedral’s dome. It hurt, and it was beautiful. It caused pain, and ecstasy.
Scully gasped, pressing her hands to her ears, and for a moment she lost herself, forgetting where she was and what she was doing. She had the presence of mind to slip her foot from the gas, but the car drifted to the right and its wheels struck the high curb, rocking them in their seat, before nudging the back end of a parked truck and stalling. She leaned back in her seat, pushing harder against her ears but then relaxing. She wanted to shut out the noise altogether, and welcome it completely into her head. It’s the song of forever, she thought, and she would have been happy to accompany it.
A shadow flickered before her, a shape distorted in her blurred vision. The shadow moved quickly and her head flipped to one side.
She saw across the road, and the previously busy street was deserted.
“Scully!” The voice cut in over the song, crass and clumsy and so much less than the beauty and horror of what she was hearing. She tried to ignore it but was struck across the face again, and when she turned her head back she saw Mulder. He was saying something, holding both hands out to her and clasping something between his fingers. Small, silvery shapes. She couldn’t hear him. She didn’t want to hear him. Bucking, trying to shake him off, she raised her hands and—
Mulder pressed against her and she felt pressure in her ears. Cold pressure, heavy and harsh.
“No!” she shouted, because the song was all but gone. Her own voice was muffled.
Mulder held her face in his hands and stared at her. He held up one finger, picked up his gun’s magazine with the other hand, and slipped out a shell. Then he turned his head and touched his own ear, and she saw the tip of another shell pushed deep into his ear canal.
“What the hell...” she said, but realized he couldn’t hear her. She could barely hear herself.
Mulder waved both hands around, then froze as he looked past her towards the rear of the vehicle.
Scully twisted in her seat to follow his gaze.
Along the street, back the way they had come, Krycek was struggling with two shapes. One of them was a tall youth she didn’t know, dressed in shorts and nothing else. The other was Laura Connolly.
Scully tumbled from her door, fell to the ground, scrabbled upright, and pulled her gun. Mulder was already running across the quiet street. Several cars sat badly parked, doors open and occupants missing. She saw no one else.
Krycek was pushing the boy back, one hand held flat in front of him, the other raised in a threatening fist. He looked terrified, distracted, and in pain, as if he was struggling to fight against something inside. But while he fended off the tall boy, Laura Connolly was scratching at his clothing and biting at his hip and stomach. Gnawing, Scully saw as she drew close. And there was blood.
A whisper came in, an insinuation of the strange song she had heard. She wanted to dig the shells from her ears and hear again, but she saw Mulder power into the boy, shoving him away from Krycek and against the glass window of a bookstore. The glass rattled but held.
Scully went for Laura Connolly, grabbing her beneath the arms and pulling her aside. She had her teeth well into the minimal flab around Krycek’s waist, and as Scully pulled a shred of clothing and skin stretched, splitting and spitting blood.
Krycek screamed, distant and strange. His eyes were still wide and he appeared not to have seen Mulder and Scully. He was looking for something else.
Scully threw the girl. She bounced from a parked car and sprang upright again, attacking with hands outstretched and an expression that was completely neutral and vacant.
Scully raised her gun but the girl took no notice.
She could not fire. Instead, she stepped aside, tripped the girl, and shoved her in the back as she fell. Laura hit the pavement, her head ricocheting from the concrete. She lay still. Scully was glad she hadn’t heard the impact, and she took a moment to feel for the girl’s pulse. It was slow, gentle, as if she still slept.
Mulder had fought off the tall boy and punched him to the ground, securing him to a bike rack with his handcuffs. He wiped blood from his face and nodded at Scully, then looked past her at Krycek.
He was wandering across the road, stumbling and aimless, looking up at the sky with his hands held out as if praying for rain.
Scully ran at him, slipping the magazine from her gun as she went. Her heavy breathing echoed in her head, and she was glad, because it cut out any errant whispers of that weird song. She pushed a couple of shells from the magazine, thrust it and the gun into her pocket, then paused behind Krycek.
What if he’s now as bad as them? she thought.
But then Mulder was with her. He snatched one shell from her and pressed it firmly into Krycek’s left ear. Scully did the same to the right, and the man slumped before them, going to his knees and then lying flat out on the pavement. He had his head to one side, and Scully could see his wide, fearful eyes.
She and Mulder stood staring at each other, taking comfort. Then they looked around. She saw blinds flicker along the street, and spinning around she caught sight of a curtain falling back into place. The boy was struggling against his handcuffs, and Laura Connolly was stirring, lifting herself up and ignoring the ugly, bloody bruise on her forehead.
And then they both fell again and grew completely still, and a pressure Scully had barely even noticed lifted from her skin. It was as if a heavy, cloying atmosphere had suddenly been sucked away. She gasped, probed a fingernail into her right ear, and flicked out the shell.
Cool air rushed in, and silence. A deeper silence than she had ever heard. Until Mulder said, “Holy shit.”
“That way,” Scully said, pointing away over a row of shops.
“Yeah,” Mulder said. “Where that weird glow was.”
; “Like a beacon.”
“What was it?”
Scully shook her head. “I’ve no idea. But it did something to the sleepers, the town was ready for it, and it was horrible.”
Mulder walked back to the fallen boy and girl. They were motionless. “Were they even awake?”
“We need to find out,” Scully said. “I think if we hadn’t been here, if you hadn’t thought of that bullet thing, Krycek might be dead now.”
“Yeah. And looks like the locals are taking an interest again.”
Mulder was right. Doors were opening, townsfolk emerging. Many of them were slack-jawed and dribbling, some wandering almost aimlessly. A few looked their way, but none of them seemed particularly threatening. Some appeared drunk. A few simply stood there and smiled.
“Why was Krycek so scared?” she asked.
“Because he knows more than he’s letting on,” Mulder said. “Come on. I should have put it together before, but I think I’ve got an idea where that sound was coming from.”
“And where’s that?”
“That old guy Patton talked about the angels’ song, and when X passed me the tip about this place, he mentioned that the sleepers were all found in a clearing in a woodland outside of town. Nephilim Woods.”
“Him?” Scully asked, nodding down at Krycek.
Mulder grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the car. “He can thank me later.”
****
It felt good driving from town and out into the countryside. The sun was dipping down into the hills to their left, and ahead of them were swathes of woodland. It was beautiful.
Scully had asked him to drive, saying she still felt dizzy and disconcerted. So did he. But he didn’t need to tell her that.
Something weird was happening here. The townsfolk were involved, and he was sure that Krycek had an inkling as well. But Mulder wanted the whole picture. Both of them had dropped the two shells they’d used into their jacket pockets. The shells remaining in the guns themselves were protection of a more aggressive manner.
The road wound across the hillside, then veered off down to the right and towards a spread of woodland, signposted Nephilim Woods. He drove between the trees, and the road quickly narrowed, shaded by the tall pine and birch and lined with shallow ditches on both sides.
