X-Files: Trust No One

by Tim Lebbon

  His presence spoke of vast unexplored depths and long dormant Gods. As Mulder anticipated the tearing claws and ripping teeth, his thoughts became murky, invaded by a submerged plume of malevolence, both ancient and alien.

  Mahmoud was close enough to Mulder that he could smell the creature’s rotten breath. He turned his head away, awaited the inevitable, and watched as several figures broke the surface of the pool, their skin glistening, heads misshapen, and their breath coming in deep labored exchanges.

  He howled.

  *****

  AN UNIDENTIFIED ISLAND IN THE RED SEA

  SATURDAY, 2143 HOURS

  From above, a pale orange light and the dance of shadows. The surrealism of the moment struck her. Breathing underwater. Clouds of bubbles rising over her head. Beneath the Red Sea.

  Scully followed the others towards the light. Besides Saleh, there were four men—operators from the Ministry of the Interior’s Special Response Team. She kicked until she was alongside them, then they surfaced together.

  As her head rose above the water she was met with a collage of images: a cavernous chamber, golden light, two men and a stone pillar—but something didn’t look right. She pulled off her mask and for a moment it looked as though one of the men was covered in scales, his great webbed talons grasping at the throat of Mulder, chained to an obelisk.

  Saleh yelled something in Arabic and one of the MOI men fired a burst from his HK MP5 submachine gun. The man with scales dropped at Mulder’s feet. The operators quickly climbed out of the water and approached the body.

  Scully removed her fins and walked to Mulder.

  “For a moment I thought—” she said.

  “That I was being attacked by a fish man? Come on, Scully, we’ve danced this dance before.” Mulder nodded towards the body on the ground. “See for yourself.”

  Scully looked down at the body. “Mulder?”

  Mulder followed her gaze.

  Mahmoud laid dead and naked, blood seeping from several bullet wounds in his side.

  “But...” said Mulder.

  Saleh stepped up. “There are others just like Mahmoud, cultists, worshippers of old Sumerian gods. The attack on the Marietta was not the first of its kind. They’ve kept to the ocean, so far, but our fear is that they’ll eventually begin operating further inland. My studies with Doctor Grange have been invaluable in hunting them down. So far it has been targets of opportunity, and those have been in line with the ancient calendar. Your sacrifice was to be aligned with the Araḫ Tisritum, the Sumerian ‘Month of Beginning,’ which signals the start of the new year.”

  “Mahmoud said something about Enki’s need for ‘balance,’” said Mulder. “As if my sacrifice was the second half of the ritual. Was Pepper the first?”

  “Mulder, Pepper is alive. It was Maggie Pelham that they were after,” said Scully. “Mahmoud had been leaning on her husband Gavin over his siddiki business. Gavin told Mahmoud about the boat trip, gave up his wife to save his skin.”

  “The worshippers of Enki have very specific criteria of their offerings,” said Saleh. “They must not be of Sumerian birth or descent, and they must have been born on the mid-month day of Arah Tisritum.”

  “In the Gregorian calendar,” said Scully. “That day is October 13th.”

  “Maggie Pelham and I shared the same birthday?” said Mulder.

  “Let’s get you up to the boat and see to those wrists.”

  *****

  AIR FRANCE FLIGHT 718

  SUNDAY, 2330 HOURS LOCAL TIME

  Scully sat in the first-class cabin and sipped at a glass of champagne. She set her glass down and let her eyes close. A moment later, she sensed Mulder’s presence, looked up, and saw him standing in the aisle.

  “I’m sorry that there were no more seats in first class, Mulder. I can come back to coach if you want. It is your birthday.”

  “Enjoy it,” he said, “while you can.”

  “I’m trying to,” she said, and closed her eyes. “Let’s not tell Skinner about the Prince’s upgrade.”

  “I can’t wrap my ahead around one thing. Mahmoud would have access to MOI databases with dates of birth of all expats in the Kingdom. That explains Maggie. What about me? How did he know?”

  “I don’t know, Mulder, maybe Bates said something. Maybe he got it from the passport officials at the airport.”

  “But that would mean it was all chance, my coming here.”

  “All chance, Mulder.”

  “I’ve been reviewing the case file. What if I were to tell you that the FBI office in Riyadh only requested us at the behest of a Saudi Prince?”

  Scully opened her eyes. “Is that true?”

  Mulder shrugged and smiled.

  The End

  Sewers

  By Gini Koch

  BAILEY’S CROSSROADS, VIRGINIA

  8th DECEMBER, 1963, 10:09 a.m.

  The sewer was dark and dank and smelled far worse than Arthur Dales imagined it would. But there was a monster down here he had to stop.

  Thankfully there were concrete walkways on either side of the wide trench that was filled with water, waste, and God alone knew what else. He walked quickly but quietly, his flashlight in one hand, his Colt .45 in the other. A sound caught his attention—something rough rubbing against the concrete. Something scaly. He moved towards the sound.

  The creature leaped out from around a corner. Hard to see clearly, but the elongated, fang-filled snout and the giant, spiky tail didn’t seem like a costume—especially as the tail slammed into Dales and threw him against the other side of the tunnel.

  “Where’s the boy?” Dales managed to shout as he kept his feet under him, his gun in his hand, and didn’t take a dive into the sewage, though his flashlight did. “Give me the boy!”

  The creature roared, then turned and ran in the water that filled the sewer drain. It ran faster than its size would indicate possible. Dales ran after it. He was so close now. He aimed and fired.

  The bullet deflected off the creature’s body. Unless this was a giant man in a bulletproof alligator suit, the creature had hide that repelled bullets.

  The creature was strong, and Dales’ weapon wasn’t going to make a dent. It didn’t matter—the life of the boy mattered. He ran on into the dark.

  *****

  VISTA BUENA, CALIFORNIA

  DECEMBER 1990

  Jason was late and his mom was going to be pissed. And more pissed that he was with the ABC Girls. “I should probably go.”

  “Come on, Jay,” Amanda said. “Since when are you chicken?”

  “I’m not. It’s just... we’re supposed to be home now.”

  Brittany rolled her eyes. “And since when do you care about that?”

  “Jason’s worried that his mom’s going to freak out,” Caitlin said. “But you know she’s buzzed at best, Jay. She’s probably passed out.”

  There was a lot of truth to that. And they’d biked all the way to the fairgrounds to see the carnival. That his mom didn’t want him going to. Then again, his mom never wanted him going anywhere. She only wanted him to go to school so she’d know where he was most of the time.

  “It’s kind of crummy looking,” he pointed out.

  “It’s old,” Brittany said with a shrug. “So what? I want to ride the Zipper.”

  “I want to see the freaks,” Amanda chimed in.

  “Cotton candy,” Caitlin said. “And funnel cake. And Cokes.”

  “We don’t have money,” Jason pointed out.

  The ABC Girls gave him the exact same look. It was easy because they were triplets, but it was always unnerving to see them all stare at him with their heads cocked to the right, little smirks on their faces, and their left eyebrows raised.

  “Since when has that ever stopped us?” Amanda asked finally.

  “Never,” Jason admitted. Their middle school counselor had called them all budding delinquents. But whatever. The ABC Girls were his friends, and Jason didn’t have a lot of friends.
Besides, the Girls were great pickpockets. Jason wasn’t, but his job was to be the distraction. And to spot the right marks.

  As he looked around, a man approached them from inside the carnival’s chain link fence. “You kids want to come in?” The man was tall and looked like a body builder, and his voice was deep and raspy.

  “Are you the strongman?” Brittany asked.

  “Nope. I’m not the lion tamer or the ringmaster, either.” He winked, and his eyes looked odd—yellow and more like a cat’s than a human’s. But the next moment they looked normal again.

  “Are you one of the freaks?” Amanda asked.

  “You shouldn’t say that!” Jason said.

  The man shrugged. “You four look like kids who skipped school to come to our carnival but don’t have any money to get in.”

  They looked at each other. “We might have no school today,” Caitlin said.

  “We might have money, too,” Brittany added.

  The man laughed. “Right. Look, we’re slow—so I know that school is actually going on today. I have a soft spot for truants. So come around to the back—I’ll let you in the employee’s entrance.” With that, he turned and headed off.

  “Do his pants look weird to you guys?” Jason asked the Girls. They looked like there was something big shoved down the back of one of the man’s pant legs. Something big that was moving differently than the man’s legs were.

  “Don’t care,” Amanda said. “He wants to let us in, we’re going in.”

  They rode their bikes to the back and sure enough, the man was there, waiting for them. The day was overcast, since winter in a beach city meant a lot of fog and rain. More clouds blocked the sun and Jason shivered. The fairgrounds were on a mesa overlooking the beach. He watched the waves crash angrily. “Maybe we shouldn’t go in.”

  Caitlin grabbed his hand and pulled him off his bike. “Don’t be such a sissy, Jay.” Amanda grabbed his other arm and, following Brittany, they pulled Jason through the employee’s entrance.

  The man grinned at them. His teeth looked really big. “Glad you four decided to take advantage of getting in for free.” He turned around. “Come on,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ll show you those freaks you want to see so badly.”

  “Can we get cotton candy first?” Caitlin asked as they trotted to catch up to him. “So we eat long enough before we ride the rides so we don’t get sick.”

  The man shrugged. “Sure. My treat.”

  “Why are you being so nice to us?” Jason asked. He tried not to sound as suspicious as he felt. He failed, if the man’s smirk was any indication. There was something wrong about how the man looked—as if he was wearing a costume that didn’t fit him just right.

  The man shrugged. “I like kids.”

  “What’s your name?” Brittany asked.

  “You can call me Gator. It’s my nickname.”

  “Why do you have that nickname?” Amanda asked.

  Gator grinned, showing long teeth that looked like fangs. “Because, like you guessed, I’m one of the freaks. I’m the Alligator Man.”

  “Cool!” Caitlin squealed as they approached the cotton candy vendor.

  “You don’t have scales,” Brittany said accusingly.

  “That you can see.” Gator chuckled. “Besides, I have other attributes.” He smiled at the vendor. “Four cotton candies for my kiddos, please.”

  The vendor twirled the pink sugar onto the cones. Gator paid. The money smelled bad but the cotton candy man didn’t seem to notice or mind. He smiled when he handed Jason his treat. “You have a nice dad.”

  Jason stared at him. His father had left his family years ago. And besides, didn’t the cotton candy man know Gator? “Ah...”

  Gator laughed. “Come on, kids. Time to see the show.”

  He led them to the Freak Show tent. Like where they’d come in, it was near the back and also by some toilets. The tent looked old and creepy. Gator pulled back a flap—it was pitch black inside. The Girls raced in.

  Jason held back. “I’m not so sure I want to.”

  Gator reached out, put his hand on Jason’s shoulder, and propelled him inside. “You want to. Trust me.”

  As the flap closed behind them, Jason was sure that he heard someone scream. It sounded like one of the Girls. He looked up at Gator. Then Jason screamed, too.

  *****

  FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  DECEMBER 1990

  “Here’s one for you, Spookster.” Johnston tossed a file onto Mulder’s desk.

  “Fox.”

  “What?”

  Mulder sighed as he picked up the file. “I’d rather you called me Fox. Well, honestly, I’d rather you called me Mulder, but if you’re going to insist on something else, call me Fox.” He’d asked Johnston to call him Mulder every day for six weeks. He was trying now for his first name. He hated it, but it was still preferable to the nickname he’d earned at the Academy.

  Johnston stubbornly insisted on calling him by variations of his nickname, but always in a buddy way—Mulder never picked up any real malice or ridicule. That he’d been partnered with Johnston was one of life’s mysteries. Probably because Patterson from ISU didn’t care for him. Probably a lot of his superiors didn’t care for him. Like Johnston, though, this wasn’t worth a lot of Mulder’s focus.

  “Why?” This was the first time Johnston had ever asked.

  “It’s better than Spooky or its derivatives.” Mulder took a drag on his cigarette as he looked at a folder. An abduction case. Only... not quite. Four kids, all aged twelve—three girls, triplets, and a boy, all friends. All from the bad part of wherever Vista Buena, California, was. Ah, Johnston had added a note—an hour north of Los Angeles, thirty minutes south of Santa Barbara. So Johnston was good for something. No ransom involved. The missing kids were all delinquents and truants, at least per their school records, so logic would dictate that they were more likely to be runaways or hanging out at some friend’s house than kidnap victims.

  However, there were eye witnesses to the abduction. There weren’t a lot of them, but the few who’d given statements all corroborated each other. What they corroborated, though, was unbelievable. “What the hell is this?”

  “I see you found our ‘gold.’ Yes, witnesses say they were dragged down into the sewer. By a giant alligator with glowing yellow eyes.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “You wish I was. Local police are assessing—if the kids aren’t found by tonight, then ASAC Carter wants you to take the lead on this one. Kids disappeared at a carnival, and he thinks it could be a publicity stunt. But we’ll need to close it out, give it the Agency’s stamp of unsolvable or reveal the hoax.”

  “This is in California. Don’t we have agents out there?”

  Johnston shrugged. “ASAC Carter tapped you for this one—newest guy always gets the shit jobs and lunatics. But I’ll be riding shotgun, so no worries, Spookarino. It’ll be a fun vacation. We leave tomorrow at six a.m. if the local LEOs don’t have them back by then. I’ll pick you up at your place. Give the wife my apologies in advance.” Johnston walked off.

  Mulder read the rest of the file. Police had investigated the sewer and found no evidence of any of the kids or a giant alligator. Then again, he’d already experienced enough police incompetence, corruption, and cover-ups to understand why ASAC Carter wanted the Bureau to investigate.

  He ground out his cigarette. There was something familiar about this. He’d seen something similar, and not that long ago.

  Mulder headed for the records room, the old one, where the X-Files were stored. Since meeting Arthur Dales last month, he’d been looking at these files more and more. As Dales had said, they were interesting. They might also have some clue about his sister’s abduction. Though he was certain she hadn’t been taken by some urban myth.

  Finding the file didn’t take long—he’d read this one about ten days ago. File X-528791, regarding Allan G. Sewers.
>
  He took the file back up to his desk. This was a case Dales himself had covered. And it sounded eerily similar to the situation in Vista Buena.

  Mulder put both files into his briefcase, grabbed his trench coat, and headed out.

  “Need help, Spookins?” Johnston asked as he walked by.

  “Nope. Going to see an old friend who may have some insights. He’s not much for company, so it’s better if I go alone. Figure I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early.”

  With that, Mulder headed for the parking lot.

  *****

  ARTHUR DALES’ APARTMENT BUILDING

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Dales’ building was older, just like Dales. Maybe that was why he stayed there. Mulder went upstairs, down the hall, and rapped on the door. “Mister Dales? It’s Fox Mulder.”

  The door opened, though the chain lock was still on. “Ah. It is you. You’re back sooner than I’d expected.”

  “A strange case just came across my desk and I think you may be able to give me some insights.”

  Dales closed the door, unlocked it, and let Mulder in. “You’re unclear on the concept of retired, aren’t you?”

  Mulder shrugged. “I’m clear on the concept of getting an expert’s opinion.”

  “Ah, flattery. That I can never get enough of. So,” Dales asked as he sat on his sofa and Mulder took the easy chair he’d occupied the last time he’d been here, “what can I do you for?”

  Mulder handed him the old X-File. “I need to know how much of this case was bullshit and how much was real.”

  Dales’ eyes widened as he glanced at the file number. “Why?”

  “Because we have a case that sounds just like it in Southern California right now. I fly out tomorrow morning with my partner, assuming the missing kids don’t turn up before then. And I want to know if this is a hoax. Because it sounds like a hoax.”

  “It’s no hoax. But, dammit, I thought I’d gotten him.” Dales sighed. “Though, to be honest, I’ve heard rumors... I guess I just wanted to believe I’d taken the bastard out.”