by Tim Lebbon
She gasped when all of the bottles of perfume and jars of creams and scattered jewelry that had been knocked from the dressing table rose swiftly in a single, unified motion. They hovered in the air almost six feet from the hardwood floor for no more than a heartbeat before rocketing directly toward her.
She dropped the glass of water and lifted her arms protectively across her face and chest as she dropped to the floor. Two of the bottles hit her before she dropped flat to the floor—one on the elbow, the other on the left side of her neck—but the rest shot over her and hit the wall with sharp pops. Some of them went through the open doorway and hit the opposite wall outside the room.
The door swung as if kicked and slammed with a bang.
“Annie!” she shouted as she got up and knelt on the bed.
Annie lay on her back, mouth open, eyes darting around behind closed lids. Her lips and cheeks twitched, but she remained unconscious.
The house was shaking harder now, enough to do structural damage if it continued for long.
A woman screamed downstairs and a jarring explosion followed a moment later.
Scully clutched Annie’s upper arms and shook her against the mattress, shouting her name over and over.
The panes of both windows shattered and blew inward, as if a powerful bomb had been detonated just outside the house. Instead of falling to the floor, the shards swirled in the air, chattering like glass teeth, spinning fiercely around Scully in a sparkling vortex that gradually closed in around her.
“Annie! Wake up! You have to wake up, Annie!”
When she felt the first stinging, biting cuts, Scully shouted Mulder’s name twice.
* * * *
Mulder pushed the door open and walked into a smoky cacophony. His training kicked in and he quickly began to process the details of his environment.
Dark smoke rolled out of the kitchen doorway and he assumed something in the kitchen had blown up, perhaps the stove. A moment later, the flaming shape of a man ran out of that smoke, screaming and flailing his burning arms like a child pretending to be a bird. Randy Milsap.
There were more screams from the kitchen as someone ran after Randy, holding up a tablecloth and shouting, “On the floor, Randy, drop to the floor!”
Walsh stopped in the doorway behind Mulder and shouted, “Dear god, she’s snapped!”
The shaking house began to sway. Pictures dropped off the walls and knick-knacks clattered over shelves and fell to the floor. As he sprinted up the stairs, Mulder heard Scully’s voice.
“Annie! Wake up! You have to wake up, Annie!” As he reached the top of the stairs, she screamed, “Mulder! Mulder!”
When he tried to enter the bedroom, the door was met with resistance from inside. Mulder pressed his shoulder against it and shoved. It felt like he was pushing against a powerful wind.
The resistance gave way abruptly, and he fell into the bedroom in time to see, through a spinning, tinkling blur, a drawer shoot like a missile from the dresser. It hit Scully, who was on her knees straddling Annie and shaking her, across her shoulder blades and knocked her flat on her face on top of the unconscious woman.
Mulder dropped to the floor and crawled to the bed with the medical bag in hand, shouting Scully’s name. Staying low, he released the bag, climbed halfway onto the bed, wrapped his arm around Scully’s waist, and pulled her off of Annie, then onto the floor.
“How bad?” he said.
There were three small, freshly-opened cuts on her face crying tiny crimson tears. They matched the small cuts in her blazer. Pain twisted her features as she lay on her back beneath Mulder. “Don’t know yet.”
The tornado of broken glass began to break up and shards embedded themselves in the walls with small pops.
“We’ve gotta get out of here,” he said. “There’s a fire downstairs.”
Scully’s tense eyes widened at something above and behind Mulder.
He sat up and lifted an arm to protect his face from flying bits of glass. He found Annie on all fours on the bed, jaw still slack, the corners of her mouth glistening with moisture, peering over the edge of the bed at them with closed eyes that fluttered under the lids.
The remaining vortex of broken glass above the bed collapsed and the pieces rained loudly onto the hardwood floor.
“Annie, you’ve got to wake up!” he shouted as he got to his feet.
She did not respond or move in any way.
Mulder felt a sudden spike in the room’s temperature. He looked around for flames but saw none, then down at Scully. Her palms were pressed to her cheeks as she looked up at him with fearful eyes.
Touching his face, Mulder knew that it was not the room’s temperature that had changed but his own. His head was growing hot.
He thought Brandi Milsap whispering, “It’s hot,” before her heart blew through her chest.
Scully rolled onto her side with a pained expression, saying, “We’ve got to get out of here!” She started to get to her feet, but dropped flat when a gunshot exploded in the room.
Much of Annie’s head vanished in a fleeting splash of red and her arms and legs collapsed beneath her. She lay face down with what remained of her head sagging limply over the edge of the mattress, dribbling on the floor.
Mulder turned to see Barney Milsap filling the doorway. He lowered the shotgun from his shoulder, jutted his chin, and turned to meet Mulder’s eyes.
“I shoulda done it sooner,” he said.
* * * *
Firefighters managed to save most of the house, but the kitchen and dining room were gutted. Two ambulances and six Sheriff’s deputies in three cars arrived quickly. One of the ambulances rushed Randy Milsap to the hospital while two EMTs from the other ambulances treated minor wounds.
Barney Milsap did not resist or make a sound when he was read his rights by one of the deputies.
“Looks like you really did it this time, Barney,” the deputy said as he put the cuffs on Milsap’s wrists.
Scully sat on the porch steps while one of the EMTs cleaned her small cuts. Mulder stood nearby with Brody Walsh, whose tan seemed to have drained from his face. He looked somehow smaller, deflated.
“They told me to stay in town,” he said in a thin voice. “I’m supposed to go to the Sheriff’s Department from here. They’re going to question me. All of us, I guess. Everyone in the crew.”
“I suggest you answer all of their questions honestly and accurately,” Mulder said.
“I... I’ve never been... questioned before.”
“You’ll get lots of practice from this. And don’t worry, they probably won’t believe you, anyway.”
Walsh gave him a long look. “But you knew. You figured it out. Why? I mean... how?”
Mulder smiled. “Just doing my job.”
Walsh stepped over to Scully and muttered, “I’m sorry. Very sorry.” Then he turned and wandered off in the general direction of the white van.
Tony Barbieri stood alone beside the van looking lost and stunned. When he saw Mulder looking in his direction, he lifted his hand and gave a half-hearted wave.
* * * *
Mulder drove out of Shasta County that night going south on Interstate 5 to Sacramento. There, he and Scully would board a plane and fly back to Washington, D.C.
In addition to the cuts, Scully had a large bruise across her upper back. She had seen a doctor before leaving Redding and was given a painkiller, the effects of which were still giving her voice a certain thickness.
“I can’t help feeling bad for Annie,” she said. “She thought she’d found someone like her, someone who would understand her. I wonder if she’d ever been in love before.”
“She and Tony seemed to have a lot in common,” Mulder said.
“He was too dense to see it. Too... shy and afraid.”
“Which is exactly what they had in common. I suspect both of them have been told in ways both explicit and indirect that they’re never good enough, never measure up to anyone else.”
“We all have those experiences in life, Mulder.”
“Yes, but we’re all not the same person. Some hardly notice those experiences and simply move on unscathed. Others are strengthened by them, see them as a challenge, something to prove wrong. But some people, the Annies and Tonys, are not equipped with the same defense mechanisms. Whatever allows some people to ignore the barbs and move on, whatever that is, the Annies and Tonys don’t have it. It’s as if it were snuffed out in vitro. Or maybe it simply was never there. Whatever they’re missing, they’re not able to get through those experiences unscathed. Because of that missing... something, they aren’t able to defend themselves emotionally. And some of those blows are self-inflicted because they don’t know of any other way to think of themselves than as... something less than.”
“In this case, Annie had something more than.”
Mulder nodded and smiled. “She was missing something most of us have, but she had something none of us have. It was so... alien, even to her, that she didn’t understand it or know how to use it.”
“Let’s hope it’s not an evolutionary change that’s in the works. If it is, I think it’s coming much too soon. Can you imagine somebody like Brody Walsh with that kind of ability? At least this will put an end to his show.”
Mulder chuckled. “That would surprise me.”
“You don’t think this will ruin any credibility that show has?”
“First of all, it’s a TV show, which means, as I’m sure Walsh himself would tell you, that it has no credibility at all. Because it’s just a TV show. Credibility isn’t an issue. Publicity is, and this will give him plenty of that. Secondly, the real story won’t be reported. No one will know that Annie was behind it because the local cops won’t believe or accept that story. Especially not from the producer and host of a paranormal TV show. They’ll come up with something, and that will be the story. As long as Walsh isn’t convicted of anything, and it’s doubtful that he will be, he can go back to his show. And probably to a gigantic spike in the ratings.”
“Without Annie?”
Mulder smiled. “Don’t worry, Scully. He’ll think of something. It’s showbiz, and the show must go on.”
The End
KING OF THE WATERY DEEP
by Tim Deal
OFF THE COAST OF JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA
11th MAY, 2000, 11:00 a.m.
A thick cloud of dust and sand settled over the Red Sea and shrouded the forty-foot Marietta in parched gloom. Jane Pepper pulled her sleeves down and flipped up her sweatshirt hood. Grant Hicks walked by, his wetsuit unzipped to the waist.
“No dive?” she said.
“Captain’s lost,” he said over his shoulder. “Can’t see a damn thing.”
The crew was posted around the Marietta keeping a lookout for the jagged coral that could rip a hole in the hull.
“Grant, relax, let’s go into the cabin and have some wine.”
He waved a hand in the air.
A shout punctuated the air—from the bow, one of the crew members spied something. A dark shape loomed just a few meters ahead.
“What the hell is that?” she said.
“Land!” yelled Tito, one of the Filipino hands.
A sharp outcropping of rock pierced through the sandy veil. It was charcoal gray, mottled with barnacles and broken crab shells.
Jane flipped on her camera and recorded the approach to the cluster of rocks. The expanse of land widened, revealing a small island or peninsula. There was nought but small sagging trees, scattered, dry shrubs, and dead vegetation.
Jane headed to the cabin and walked into the galley. Her friend Maggie Pelham sat at the table, one hand clutching a novel, the other gently rubbing her husband, Gavin’s, head. Gavin, meanwhile, lay on the galley bench with a plastic bag hovering near his face.
“You’re missing all the excitement,” said Jane.
“I don’t know, things are pretty exciting here,” said Maggie.
“Hang in there, Gavin. We’ve had to anchor near an island until the sandstorm blows over.”
Gavin lifted his head up. “Island?”
Jane grabbed a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator and popped the cork. She filled a glass for Maggie, then filled hers. “Happy early birthday my friend.” They clinked glasses.
Gavin sat up, and Maggie looked him. “Feeling better?”
“No,” he said. “I need to get off this boat, I—” he paused and dry-heaved into the plastic bag. He stood, grabbed the table for balance, then left for the deck.
“The air will do him good,” said Maggie. “This wine, however...”
“It’s consulate stock, and it’ll have to do,” she said.
The galley door burst open. It was Tito.
“Miss Maggie,” he said. “Your husband swam to the island.”
“Should I be worried?” said Maggie.
On the deck, most of the crew was perched on the bow calling out to Gavin. Jane could see no sign of him. She looked around for Grant.
“Where’s Grant?”
She yanked the sleeve of one of the crewman, an Indonesian named Bayu, she thought.
“Where’s Grant? The American?”
“The American? He there, he follow.” He pointed at the island.
A scream, sharp and desperate, pierced the air. The crew froze and went silent.
Jane looked at Maggie, saw the smile slip off her face, her eyes widen, hands move involuntarily to her mouth.
“That was Gavin,” said Maggie.
Bayu started hoisting the anchor, Tito and the rest ran towards the cabin.
“What are you doing?” said Jane. She grabbed Bayu’s forearms, tried to stop him from cranking up the anchor. “What the fuck are you doing?”
He continued, his eyes wild with fear.
“That’s my husband,” said Maggie. “He needs help. For god’s sake stop!” She turned back towards the island, screamed out for Gavin, tears beginning to form in the corner of her eyes. Jane hammered at Bayu’s hands with her fists, bellowed into his face.
Bayu turned and was about to say something when he was yanked violently over the bow of the boat. Jane heard the splash, heard the man saying something she could not understand, then nothing.
A sound from shore. She looked up. It was Grant, running towards the boat. He reached the shore, climbed one of the rocks and dove in.
Jane went back to the bow. Grant swam towards her. She found the rescue line with an orange floatation ring and tossed it overboard. Grant got his arm looped around it. The boat suddenly lurched backwards, taking Jane off her feet. She hit the deck hard and smashed her mouth on the stainless steel cleat on the bow. She tasted blood, felt the shards of one of her cuspids on her tongue and spat it out. The boat sped backwards, the engine throttling thick and loud.
Jane got up to her hands and knees and crawled to look over the gunwale. Grant still clung to the ring, pulled by the boat. She looked up at the captain. His face was bathed in the glow of his instruments. The boat veered sharply to the right and stopped in a jarring crunch of fiberglass. It sent Jane soaring backwards onto the deck. The Marietta’s stern was now raised about a foot higher than its bow. The captain shifted into forward, but the boat remained, despite the angry growls of the engine.
Grant had released the ring and swam towards the dive ladder on the aft-end of the boat. She could see a large coral formation on the starboard and aft side of the boat. They had run aground. The engine continued to grind, belching diesel smoke into the foggy air. Grant was able to pull himself onto the dive platform. Jane reached down to help him over the gunwale, grabbed his right hand in hers, and pulled. He caught the railing in his left hand and hooked a leg over.
Thank God.
The boat lurched forward and Grant stumbled back into the water. The engine sputtered, popped, and died in thick plume of black smoke. When it cleared, she saw Grant floating face down in the water.
“No, no, Grant, no!”
&nbs
p; She climbed over the gunwale onto the dive platform. She could almost reach him. She started to slip in when the water around Grant began to churn and bubble. The water turned crimson and Grant was pulled violently beneath the surface.
With her free hand she wiped salt water from her burning eyes. She blinked until the tears cleared and she was sure what she was seeing was real.
It climbed out of the sea and onto the deck, a man-thing, tall and slender, covered in iridescent aquamarine scales, its wide mouth opened and closed revealing sharp rows of teeth. It made it over the gunwale and paused. It turned its head towards Jane, curved its rubbery mouth into something resembling a grin, then ripped the cabin door from its hinges. It entered.
Screams poured from the cabin.
*****
AIR FRANCE FLIGHT 71
FRIDAY, 2130 HOURS LOCAL TIME
Special Agent Dana Scully rubbed her eyes and stared down the aisle until it came back into focus. Dinner service had started, and she contemplated waking Mulder, who had dozed off beside her after three gin and tonics.
“Front-loading,” he’d said. “In preparation for the dryness.”
Three hours since their connection left Charles De Gaul. Three more until they landed at King Abdulaziz Airport, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Dryness. It transcended climate, temperature, and spoke to the restrictive cultural expectations placed on residents and visitors to the Kingdom. Imposed Sharia law. Headscarves and abaya. The ban on alcohol and pork. Public prayer five times a day. Jeddah was supposedly a bit more cosmopolitan than landlocked Riyadh, but the distinction was lost on her. Women couldn’t drive in Jeddah; couldn’t travel by car without a male escort—husband, brother, or father. She bristled at the marginalization, but was concerned more about the practical, operational obstacles such restrictions would create. She thought about the case file in her attaché case under the seat in front of her. She considered variables, weighed options, programmed herself for worst-case scenarios. She suppressed an urge to retrieve the file and look at it again, found herself drifting towards possible conclusions, then stopped herself. Let it sit for now.
