X-Files: Trust No One

by Tim Lebbon

  “Who? Sewers or the alligator?”

  “One and the same, son. One and the same. So, you’ll need to go armed for bear. Take guns with high velocity and large rounds. And lots of rounds. He won’t go down easily.”

  “Wait, seriously? You want me to believe that alligators in the sewers are real?”

  “You believe in aliens. What’s the difference?”

  “The fact that alligators need a certain temperature range to survive and thrive, and New York, D.C., most of the places where we get alligator in the sewer stories, aren’t the right climate.”

  “Southern California would be. Besides, he’s not an alligator. Well, not only an alligator.”

  “Right.”

  Dales sighed. “All that I told you before, all that you’ve already seen—all the unexplainable by rational means. Somehow, those things you accept. And yet you want to argue this one with me?”

  “Alligator in the sewer rumors have been around longer than you’ve been alive, sir.”

  Dales nodded. “Rumors usually have some grain of truth in them, son. Sometimes much more than a grain.”

  “So, tell me about it, why you think this is real.”

  “Because I followed up on the rumors even before I was in the Bureau.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. I was always fascinated by the rumors, in part for the reasons you gave earlier—alligators can’t really survive a New York winter, not without the protections a zoo or an animal park would give them. But the rumors never let up. Some of them were just bullshit, of course. But more than you’d think weren’t. And I found a pattern to them. Then I joined the Bureau and I had to focus on finding so-called communists.”

  “And you told me how well that went.”

  Dales chuckled dryly. “I thought the business with your father had ended my career, but I was too good to waste, and Mister Hoover chose to keep me around. And then I discovered that a missing persons case intersected with my lifelong alligator in the sewers hunt...”

  *****

  BAILEY’S CROSSROADS, VIRGINIA

  NOVEMBER 1963

  The small carnival was set up, but not opened—it was too early in the morning.

  “Artie, are you sure this is the place?” Hunter asked as they got out of their sedan.

  “I’m sure.” Dales wasn’t just sure—he was positive. “I’ve tracked this thing for too long, Jack.”

  “Yeah, yeah, since before you were in the Bureau, I know, I know. We need to find those missing kids, though.”

  “They’ll be here. They’ll be wherever it is.”

  The carnies were here already, setting up. A quick flash of their badges got them access. Dales headed straight for the Freak Show tent. A man raced up to them. He was about Dales’ height, stout, hairy, and half-dressed, which was how Dales knew he was hairy. “I’m the owner. What’s this about? We have our permits.”

  “It’s not about your right to be here. What kind of background checks do you do on your employees, Mister...?”

  “And for God’s sake, button your shirt up,” Hunter added.

  “Zartec,” he said as he so buttoned. “Emilio Zartec. We’re a carnival. We don’t do background checks. If someone has a talent, and is willing to work, I put them to work. This isn’t a lifelong career choice for most.”

  “Where do your freaks come from?” Dales asked as they reached the tent.

  “All over. Are you going to make me prove that the freaks are real?” Zartec didn’t sound worried about this, more annoyed than anything else.

  “Possibly.” Dales went into the tent. It was dark, and the setup inside made it darker. The interior was a maze, with the walls made up of canvas stretched between wooden stakes, interspersed with “cages” that held the freaks. “Get me to your Malligator.”

  “Half man, half gator,” Zartec said rather proudly. “He’s been with us for years.”

  “I’ll bet he has,” Dales muttered under his breath.

  Zartec cleared his throat. “That one is, ah, a costume, you know. I mean, Gator, as we call him, has an issue with his teeth, but the rest is, ah, showbiz magic. He’s my man in charge of the Freak Tent—sets it up, makes sure we give the people what they want.”

  Zartec led them through the maze towards the back of the tent. “So, where is he?” Dales asked—the Malligator cage was empty.

  “Possibly getting breakfast,” Zartec said. “He’s an employee, not a slave, and the tent, as you can see, is already set up and just awaiting its cast and audience.” Zartec looked at his watch. “And I have a carnival to prepare for opening.”

  “We’ll have a look around,” Hunter said. “You don’t need to stay with us.”

  Zartec didn’t look happy, but Hunter was a big man, like his late partner, Hayes Michel had been, only he had more muscle than Michel had ever had. Zartec took Hunter’s hint and left them. Dales pulled out his flashlight and took a closer look.

  Like the rest of the freak cages, this one was Plexiglas on three sides with wooden bars in front—presumably so the freaks could grab at the gawkers and make their experience more thrilling. A wooden box at the back was both a trunk and a seat, and there was a great deal of sawdust on the floor. What was absent was the Malligator and anyone, or anything, else.

  Dales opened the wooden trunk. There were some shelf-stable foodstuffs and a thermos filled with water. No false bottom, no missing kids.

  “I’m going to take a look at the rest of this area,” Hunter said. Dales grunted and Hunter wandered off.

  Dales kicked the sawdust around and was rewarded by finding a manhole cover with “Sewer” on it. “Interesting location.”

  “Artie!”

  Dales ran towards the sound of Hunter’s voice. He was a few yards away at another freak cage, with the wooden bench trunk opened. Dales looked in to see a young girl, covered in what looked like mud but smelled like something else. “Is she alive?”

  Hunter nodded. “Just barely. We need to call for an ambulance.”

  “We need to check the rest of these trunks.” Dales ran off, through the maze, checking each cage, while Hunter shouted for Zartec. Sure enough, Dales found two more girls, both covered in sewage, both barely alive.

  Local police were on their way—he could hear the sirens in the distance. Hunter was locking down the carnival personnel with Zartec’s frantic help. But the Malligator was still nowhere around.

  Precious time was wasted waiting for the local LEOs to arrive, but Dales had an obligation to the girls’ families to not allow their daughters to be left without his guard—and it wasn’t as if he and Hunter could reliably trust the carnival people to guard and not destroy evidence.

  “What now?” Hunter asked as the local police cordoned off the scene and the emergency personnel tended to the kidnapped girls.

  “There’s still one kid missing, the boy. And I think I know where he and our suspect are.” Dales strode back to the Malligator’s cage, Hunter following. Dales pulled up the sewer manhole cover. “This moved pretty easily, Jack. He’s down there, and he’s got the boy with him. And,” Dales said, stepping onto the metal ladder, “I’m going after them both.”

  *****

  ARTHUR DALES’ APARTMENT BUILDING

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  DECEMBER 1990

  “So, what happened after you went after them?” Mulder asked. Dales was a good storyteller and he wanted the ending.

  “I tracked them for hours to the spillway that went to the Potomac. Emptied my gun into the Malligator’s eye. He went down, but he had a good hold on the boy and took the child with him.” Dales shook his head. “I went back for reinforcements and to call the Coast Guard, but as soon as I got up onto land, Hunter told me we’d been called off.”

  “Why? Was the Malligator actually an alien?”

  “I doubt it. No, we were called off because President Kennedy had been assassinated, and Hoover wanted a full showing of all Special Agents to work the case.�
��

  “But you still had a child missing!”

  “And he was a kid from a poor neighborhood. Meaning no one in authority cared. I tried to follow up, but by the time we were done with the Kennedy investigation I was at retirement age and decided I was getting too old for the game. And I hadn’t seen any activity in the sewer rumors for a couple of years. So, I had hope that I’d gotten him and stopped him, even though I’d lost the boy.”

  “So, this could still be a hoax or a bunch of kids hiding from their parents.”

  “No. It’s not. You need to take this seriously. Have you read the file?”

  Mulder nodded. “But it was incomplete.”

  “Because we were pulled off the case. The girls were mutilated.”

  Mulder repressed a shudder. “What happened to them?”

  “Externally? Nothing. But internally? He removed their ovaries somehow, without cutting them open.”

  “Why?”

  “I have no idea. However, there was raw sewage inside them, where their internal organs had been. Two of the girls died by the time they got to the hospital. The third girl survived, but she hanged herself before she turned eighteen.” Dales’ eyes flashed. “Every time, the times that it’s real, he does this—takes three girls and takes their ovaries. The girls almost always die. And the boy he takes, we have no idea what happens to him—none of the missing boys have ever been found.”

  “And the Bureau just ignored this? Despite your evidence?”

  “Just like they ignore most of the X-Files. Doesn’t mean they’re right to ignore it, and you’re not right to dismiss it, either. He’s a murderer, and he’s been doing this for far too long. He has to be stopped. You have to stop him.”

  “I’ll take it under advisement.” Mulder stood to go. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Where in California is this going on?” Dales asked as he walked Mulder to the door.

  “Someplace called Vista Buena.”

  “Ah. Good luck. And please keep me posted.”

  “Will do.” Mulder shook Dales’ hand, then left. He respected Dales, but the story was still hard to swallow. Lurid and horrific, but still, difficult to believe. “I want to believe... I think.”

  He got into his car and considered what to do from here. He could go over this with Johnston, but they’d have far too much time together on the plane tomorrow, so reviewing what he’d learned could absolutely wait.

  He checked his watch. Samanda would be home by now. Might as well use a perk of marriage and discuss this with her.

  *****

  ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

  “Hey, honey, I’m home.” Mulder opened the apartment door and sniffed. “Pupusas tonight?” They were his favorite, the El Salvadoran version of tamales. So the evening promised to be much better than the day had been and the next day would be.

  Samanda came out of the kitchen. Her long, black hair was pulled back into a thick braid, which was his favorite look for her. She was in Georgetown sweats, but clearly hadn’t run yet. “Yes, but dinner won’t be ready for another hour. You’re early. Everything alright?”

  “Yeah. Weird new case that might not actually be weird. If it’s not actually weird, it’s a standard missing kids case, meaning that there’s a small chance I won’t be flying out at the buttcrack of dawn tomorrow.”

  She laughed. “You want to sleep in the bedroom tonight?”

  “Nah. I kind of like the couch. It’s more comfortable than the bed.”

  “Says you. So, you able to share all the weird that’s taking you away from your wife?”

  “Sure.” He handed her the file, then glanced at the end table where the mail lived. “Hey, is that what I think it is?” He picked up a letter from the University of Southern California addressed to Dr. Samanda Rodriguez-Mulder.

  “It is.” Samanda looked nervous. “The offer came sooner than I expected.”

  Mulder scanned the letter. “You’re going to be a law professor at USC. You’re going to take it, right?”

  “If I can.” She grimaced. “They jumped on me a lot faster than I thought anyone would.”

  “You’re an expert on immigration, congressional, and entertainment law. I can understand why they wanted to tie you up before your alma mater could.”

  “You know why I can’t take Georgetown, even if they offer me more money than USC.” She took his hand. “It wouldn’t have been possible if not for you, Fox.”

  He squeezed her hand. Samanda was the only one he liked calling him Fox. Possibly because she reminded him of Samantha. Her hair, her smile, her name—they were like his little sister’s. Which was why he’d been willing to marry her to keep her safely in the country as opposed letting her be deported back to El Salvador. Someone like Samanda could do so much more here than she could as a warlord’s daughter trapped in a war-torn country. “Well, I think you taking a job across the country is a good reason for us to divorce, even though we still love each other.”

  “Hopefully the Department of Immigration will buy that story and agree.”

  “You interned with the top immigration firm in the country. I feel confident that they’ll help us get divorced or annulled without the government causing a problem.”

  “Probably,” She said absently, as she read the file. “Mister Dales was part of this? Have you spoken with him?”

  “Right before I came home. He thinks it’s real.”

  “I think he’s right.” She closed the file and handed it back to him. “Besides, you owe it to him, and those children, to treat it as if it’s real until such time as you discover it isn’t.”

  “Yes, Counselor.”

  “Have you gone over this with Clayton?”

  He grimaced. “No. I asked him to call me Fox today.”

  “Really? Did he?”

  “No.” He sighed. “I don’t get him.”

  “And yet you’re the one who majored in psychology. If you want my opinion, he wants to be your friend, and he thinks nicknames mean friendship.”

  “They don’t.”

  “Not to you, no. But to most people? They do.”

  “Only nicknames you like.”

  Samanda grinned. “Not always. You want to run before or after dinner?”

  “Probably before.” He liked to have a cigarette after dinner, not a run.

  She sighed. “You need to quit smoking. Change and let’s go, Mister Wheezy.”

  “Hey, I’m in shape.”

  “Not the shape you could be in. I’ll race you. Whoever does the slowest mile has to clean the dishes and kitchen.”

  Mulder laughed. “You’re on.”

  Later, as he did the dishes and cleaned the kitchen, Mulder thought about what Samanda had said about Johnston. Maybe he should give the guy a chance. Maybe if he did, Johnston would stop calling him stupid names and use the one Mulder liked.

  *****

  LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  CALIFORNIA

  The flight into Los Angeles had been uneventful. Mulder had filled Johnston in on his conversation with Dales and let Johnston read the X-File. Johnston shared Mulder’s skepticism about an alligator man or alligators in the sewers in general, but also agreed with Samanda that they needed to treat this case seriously, particularly since the kids hadn’t been found yet.

  “Those kids are gone,” Johnston pointed out. “Their bikes were found outside the carnival. No matter who actually took them, I think we need to assume they’ve been kidnapped.”

  “Any ransom requests yet?”

  Johnston shook his head. “Which gives your Mister Dales’ suspicions a little more credence.”

  Once on the ground and luggage in hand, they headed for the rental car area. Johnston insisted on doing the driving—not because Mulder wanted him to, but Johnston said he’d been in Los Angeles several times and the idea of being the driver seemed vitally important to him. As with so many things about Johnston, it just wasn’t worth arguing about. The idea of being friends with Johnst
on had worn off by the time the plane had taxied down the runway in D.C.

  As they reached the rental desk, a man in a light blue raincoat and fedora turned around and Mulder jumped. “Mister Dales, what are you doing here?”

  “Making sure Sewers goes down for good.” Dales nodded to Johnston. “Thanks for pulling those strings.”

  “What?” Mulder stared at Johnston. “What’s he talking about?”

  Johnston shrugged. “Artie called me last night, explained his concerns about the case, I took those concerns to ASAC Carter, and he approved us bringing on a consultant.” He cleared his throat. “Artie was on our flight. Sitting a few rows behind us.”

  “Which you didn’t notice,” Dales pointed out. “Shocking lack of attention to detail, son. You need to focus. It’s a good thing for you that Clay and I are here.”

  “How the hell did you know to call Johnston?” Mulder asked.

  Dales’ eyes twinkled. “I’m retired, son, but I’m a retired Special Agent. I still have my ways.” He clapped Johnston on the shoulder. “Clay, let’s get rolling, time’s wasting.”

  Johnston beamed. “It’s an honor to work with you, sir.”

  “I may be sick,” Mulder muttered.

  Dales chuckled. “Likewise, Clay. Mister Mulder, try to keep up.”

  Mulder gave Dales shotgun, but quickly regretted it, because Dales and Johnston had spent the first half of the hour-plus drive discussing how agency procedures had changed throughout the years. And Dales made him roll down his window when he had a smoke.

  “Death sticks, son. That’s what those are. You need to take up something less deadly for your oral fixation.” Then it was back to Agency Procedure Throughout the Ages.

  Finally Mulder couldn’t take it anymore. “Does anyone besides me remember that we’re here to investigate the disappearance of four kids which could be linked to a gigantic alligator? Anyone?”

  Dales turned around and winked at him. “I do. But you’re the holdout. You’re still expecting those children to be found by the time we reach our location.”

  Mulder had to admit that this was true. He pulled out the files and re-read them, while Johnston verified with Dales the weaponry that would be waiting for them once they reached their destination.