X-Files: Trust No One

by Tim Lebbon

  Scully asked, “Does Charity have a steady boyfriend?”

  The parents looked at each other and shrugged, then Alice said, “Not that we know of.”

  Mulder asked, “How about a potential stalker among would-be boyfriends?”

  The Creeds shook their heads.

  Midnight approached. Arthur Creed’s study was now the nerve center of the FBI’s operation, and from there, agents would attend the phones round-the-clock. The large, modern, but rustic-walled house provided enough guest quarters for the FBI to maintain their presence, in residence, with both Mulder and Scully in guest rooms just off the kitchen.

  Mulder stayed up reading, determined to look into the history of the house. Creed gave Mulder permission to look at the author’s manuscript-in-progress. It seemed that the hill the house and—before that—the barn were built on had indeed been the site where witches had been hanged in the Salem era. Rather than a gallows, the trees on Hickory Hill itself had been used for the hangings.

  Finally putting the manuscript aside, Mulder was about to drift off to sleep when he heard what seemed to be the sound of an intruder. Cautiously, he followed the sounds to find Scully in the kitchen, raiding the refrigerator.

  “My stomach was growling at me,” Scully said, mildly embarrassed, “and I figured I better feed it before it bit me.”

  “I could eat something.”

  As they sat at the kitchen table having a pajama-clad snack, Scully seemed sympathetic to Mulder’s intense interest in this investigation, invoking memories, as it did, of the abduction of his sister.

  “Heather’s a sweet child, but very sheltered,” Scully pointed out. “It’s no wonder the other kids give her a rough time, her mother sending her to school dressed like that.”

  “Dressed how?”

  “Like Martha Stewart’s little girl.”

  “Well, Heather’s not a little girl, or anyway won’t be much longer.... You know, Scully, in a way this is really quite typical—poltergeist activity often surrounds an adolescent female approaching puberty.”

  “You’re not saying Heather caused the manifestations herself? What, and the kidnapping, too?”

  “Maybe the kidnapping and the manifestations aren’t interrelated... other than a general aura of evil lending itself to both. Don’t you feel a certain...creepiness in this place?”

  “No. Just an occasional draft.”

  Mulder gestured up toward Heather’s room. “That girl could be the vehicle, the vessel, for the spirit of some lower entity that hasn’t moved onto the next plane of existence.”

  Scully sighed. “‘Lower entity.’ Somebody dead, you mean? What, Clayton Geech is hanging around, possessing or... channeling himself through that adolescent girl?”

  “Spiritualists believe that a spirit who hasn’t come to terms with his or her violent traumatic death can—”

  “If that girl caused the walls to bulge or bleed or whatever—and that’s a very big ‘if,’ Mulder—it’s a natural mechanism of the mind.”

  Mulder grinned. “Are you admitting the existence of psychokenesis?”

  She shrugged. “The ability to move objects with the mind is recognized by science, just not yet explained. Telepathy, too—if that girl has telepathic abilities, she could be misinterpreting ‘data’ she’s receiving as the sounds of a ‘haunted house.’”

  “You mean she might be like a receiver picking up strange signals from this station and that one.”

  “Perhaps. But in any case, I don’t think Clayton Geech possessed that girl, who then kidnapped her own sister. Do you?”

  Brought back to earth, Mulder admitted, “No.”

  As if expressing its own opinion on the subject, the house interrupted their table talk with an array of strange sounds, moanings, creakings....

  “Let’s check this out,” Mulder said.

  But Scully was already on her feet. The agents returned to their rooms for guns and flashlights, then prowled the house, peeking into rooms. Everyone seemed peacefully asleep, including Hertel and other slumbering agents. On the third floor, Mulder lingered, studying the sleeping form of young Heather.

  “If that kid is generating this poltergeist phenomenon,” Mulder whispered, joining Scully in the hallway, “she’s doing it in her sleep—and a restful sleep at that.”

  Scully, wrapped in a robe now, said, “Every old house makes unexplained noises in the middle of the night.”

  “Yeah,” Mulder said drawing out the word, “but...do the walls bleed?”

  And down at the other end of the hall, blood streamed down in scarlet trails, like the ceiling had a leeching wound.

  Carefully, they approached it—wet to the touch! The sticky substance even had the coppery scent of blood....

  “I’ll be right back,” Scully said, an eyebrow arched.

  “I’ll keep it covered,” Mulder said, gun still in hand.

  But as soon as Scully disappeared, so did the blood—not all at once, rather seeming to soak into the wood, as if the house were siphoning the liquid back within itself. Even the stickiness on Mulder’s fingers evaporated.

  And when Scully returned with a small vial to take a sample, Mulder was touching a now dry, clean wall.

  *****

  BANEWICH, MASSACHUSETTS

  WEDNESDAY, 9:45 a.m.

  The next morning, as the two agents drove into Banewich, Scully reminded Mulder that there was no proof of what they’d seen last night. “It was dark,” she said. “Moonlight was streaming in. After what we’d been discussing, we were in a suggestive state.”

  “You know what we saw, Scully,” Mulder said irritably.

  “I know we saw something, but what? That house may look new, but strip away the remodeling and you have a very old structure, in a region where they’ve had heavy precipitation all year.”

  “That was rainwater? We saw rainwater.”

  “Mulder, behind those walls is ancient barn wood, painted red probably, with who-knows-what in the paint, and the absorption of years of insecticides and other farm chemicals. The coppery smell could come from copper pipes. Plus, we don’t know what building compounds, past and/or present—adhesives, wallpaper paste, insulation—might have combined to—”

  “Turn into blood?”

  “I’ll scrape a few wood shavings off that wall and send them in for analysis, if that will perk you up.”

  He gave her a tiny smile. “I feel perky already.”

  “But we’ll keep this to ourselves. There’s no need to upset the Creeds any further... and discussing this with Agent Hertel isn’t necessary, as any paranormal activity that might exist in this house seems quite apart from the kidnapping.”

  “Scully, I don’t mind keeping Hertel out of the loop, or the Creeds... but how can we know what we witnessed last night doesn’t in fact relate to the kidnapping? Young Heather saw the same things we did, the night Charity was taken.”

  “How on earth could it relate?”

  Mulder gave her a boyish grin. “Who said anything about ‘on earth’?”

  “Please. I suppose Clayton Geech returned from the dead and kidnapped that girl.”

  “Well, he did sign the note. Anyway, if you were coming back from the dead after thirty years, don’t you think you could use half a million bucks walkin’-around money?”

  First stop for the agents was Banewich High, where friends and teachers substantiated Charity’s wild nature. From several of the girl’s peers—she seemed not to have had any really close friends—they heard that Charity had been seeing an “older boy” who attended the local community college, one Cliff Dain. According to one girl, Charity met Dain in New York last summer.

  At Banewich Community College, a college administrator talked openly to the agents, telling them that Dain—a would-be rock musician—had been recently expelled, and was suspected of selling drugs.

  “We don’t have a current address on him,” the middle-aged male administrator said, checking on a computer monitor, “but
I can give you a previous address—that of his parents in Malden, near Boston.”

  “He didn’t have a New York address?” Mulder asked the administrator.

  “No. According to his transcript, he was a Massachusetts boy.”

  In a college corridor, Scully and Mulder stood and discussed their next move, Mulder suggesting a drive down to Malden to look for Dain. Listening, Scully noticed a yellow-and-gray poster on a bulletin board.

  “Mulder, take a look at this...”

  The poster advertised Coven—an area heavy metal band—making an appearance at a Banewich bar.

  “Glad to see you taking an interest in the local culture, Scully.”

  She pointed to the lower right corner of the poster. “This is the poster that somebody ripped from Charity’s bedroom wall.”

  “So it is.... You think one of these jokers is Cliff Dain?”

  “Well, there’s a booking address. Shouldn’t be too hard to find out.”

  *****

  BANEWICH, MASSACHUSETTS

  WEDNESDAY, 1:23 a.m.

  In a rundown farmhouse in the country on the edge of the woods, a band was practicing—classic heavy metal with Satanic-themed lyrics. The agents walked to the front door, but their knocking was either unheeded or unheard, so Mulder went over to a living room window with a view on the band and held up his FBI I.D.

  Soon Cliff Dain was at the door. The agents and their sullen host talked on the porch, away from the rest of the band.

  “Yeah, I date Charity.” Smoking, Cliff was beefily handsome, early twenties, with long hair and a well-tended beard; he wore a leather vest and jeans. “She’s a lot of fun. Why, is she in trouble or something?”

  “Why?” Scully asked. “Would you expect her to be?”

  The musician grinned. “Well, she is kinda ‘out there.’ Particularly, for Banewich...for all the witchy trappings, y’know, it’s still just another conservative little jerkwater.”

  Mulder smiled. “Like Malden?”

  “Yeah, but worse. Listen, is she okay?”

  “You met her in New York last summer, right?” Scully asked. “Were you living there?”

  “No, the band did some gigs in Soho. Is she okay or not?”

  “When did you see her last?” Mulder asked.

  “It’s been two weeks, at least. She’s been grounded.”

  Mulder smirked. “You know they’re young when their parents can still ground ‘em, huh, Cliff?”

  Dain’s frown mingled irritation and concern. “What’s going on, anyway?”

  Scully filled him in about the kidnapping.

  “Oh god,” Dain said, apparently surprised, and then only the concern was left. “Oh God....”

  The rocker slumped to a seat on the porch steps, seemingly shaken by the news.

  Mulder asked, “Where were you last night, Cliff?”

  “What, am I a suspect?”

  “Depends on where you were last night.”

  But Scully already knew. “Your band was playing at a bar in Banewich, right?”

  Both Dain and Mulder were surprised by this.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Dain said, and nodded toward the house. “You can ask the guys.”

  Dain said he was with his band members until at least three a.m. The agents asked a few more questions, until finally Dain said, “Listen, I want to help you people out, but I’m kinda in the middle of a rehearsal here.”

  “We’ll need to talk again, Mr. Dain,” Scully said, “in more depth.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “That’s right,” Mulder said.

  As they walked to their car, Scully said, “He did seem upset.”

  “Not enough to call off band practice. How’d you know our boy Cliff had a gig last night?”

  “Maybe I’m psychic, Mulder,” she said, not revealing what she had noticed that her partner hadn’t: that the poster at the college had been advertising last night’s appearance.

  Back at the house on Hickory Hill, Mulder and Scully brought Agent Hertel up to speed.

  “You’re right, Agent Scully,” Hertel said, his hostility on hold. “We need to interview Dain and his band members in depth. I can arrange to do that at the Banewich police station with back-up from local law enforcement.”

  Mulder took Scully aside. “You mind handling this? Looks like you’ll have plenty of help.”

  “If you like. Why, Mulder, you have another angle?”

  “Yeah. There’s a suspect we’ve been neglecting.”

  “Who?”

  “Clayton Geech.”

  “Mulder....”

  *****

  BANEWICH, MASSACHUSETTS

  WEDNESDAY, 2:23 a.m.

  At the Banewich library, utilizing microfilmed newspapers, Mulder researched the original murders in the house, turning up an interesting anomaly. The clergyman was charged only with the murder of his wife, not that of his slain children. Noting the name of the county attorney who prosecuted the case—Gerald Allison—Mulder went to a phone book and found the man listed.

  “Jerry’s been retired for many years now,” the attorney’s wife said to Mulder over the phone. “But if you’d like to talk to him, he’s doing volunteer work this afternoon, over at the historical society.”

  That proved to be housed in the Banewich Witch Museum, a two-storied many-gabled mansion that seemed a more likely candidate for being haunted than the Creeds’ modernized barn.

  Mulder presented his credentials to the retired attorney, an elderly, dignified gentleman in a three-piece suit, explaining in confidence that he was investigating a kidnapping.

  Allison appeared happy to help, and filled Mulder in on many additional details about the original murders, though expressing some confusion as to why those murders might have a bearing on the kidnapping of the Creed girl.

  Mulder said, “The ransom note was signed ‘Clayton Geech.’”

  “Ah, but Clayton Geech is long dead.”

  “Well, his signature’s alive and well, or anyway a reasonable facsimile thereof—in blood, yet.”

  “That’s just some sociopath’s sick joke.”

  They were seated in an austere chamber, with plain dark wood and long wooden tables, where centuries ago witches had been tried.

  “You know, Agent Mulder, the misguided men in this room believed that evil existed.... And I can say, as a former judge myself, that however foolish they were about how they went about it, they were correct in that belief.”

  “Maybe they were evil themselves.”

  “Perhaps. But evil does exist. And Clayton Geech was infected with it. I saw the bodies of his family myself... I still see them, after all these years.”

  “Why wasn’t Geech charged with all the murders?”

  “Wasn’t he?”

  “Not according to the Banewich Bugle.”

  “Well, it’s been so many years... I don’t remember.”

  “Mr. Allison, with all due respect, sir, if the sight of those slain children has lingered in your memory all these years, surely you remember whether or not you prosecuted Geech for their murders.”

  Allison bristled. “With all due respect to you, Agent Mulder, as a former county attorney, and a current taxpayer, I’d like to see you get the hell out of this library and go down some more productive avenue. You’ve got a child to find, don’t you?”

  Mulder’s cell phone chirped and he excused himself.

  Scully said, “I’m at Dain’s farmhouse with Hertel and the local law.”

  “The boys still rehearsing?”

  “Not exactly. The house is empty—not only has Coven flown the coop, they’ve taken their instruments, amplifiers, the works, with them. No sign of Dain, or any of his things. He’s cleared out. Skipped.”

  *******

  BANEWICH, MASSACHUSETTS

  WEDNESDAY, 4:17 a.m.

  Back at the house on Hickory Hill, Mulder and Scully were discussing with Hertel the probability of Dain’s involvement when
the phone rang.

  Creed, as was the case whenever any call came in, answered it.

  And finally, after many false alarms, this was the real thing: an anonymous, electronically distorted male voice with the details for the ransom drop, to be made by Creed himself that very night in a park in Boston.

  “How will we make the exchange?” Creed asked.

  “No exchange,” the voice said, as Mulder, Scully and Hertel listen in. “First I get the money. When I’m safe and away and it’s been counted, I’ll release her.”

  The phone clicked dead.

  “First,” Hertel said to a wide-eyed Creed, “get it out of your head right now that you’ll be delivering this ransom yourself, whatever the kidnapper demands.”

  “But surely we have to comply with—”

  “Mulder here is approximately your build and coloration, so he’ll be delivering the money.”

  After some further heated discussion, Creed acquiesced.

  Mulder gave the SAIC an innocent smile. “See? Sometimes having a Ghostbuster around comes in handy.”

  *****

  BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

  WEDNESDAY, 8:27 p.m.

  Boston Common was fifty central acres downtown, where—starting at midnight—Mulder was sent hopscotching from one phone booth to another on the surrounding streets—Tremont, Park, Beacon, Charles, Boylston—until at last, in the darkness of the park, he saw a brawny jogger in a ski mask and hooded sweatshirt headed his way.

  Like a relay runner, the figure held out his hand, not breaking his stride, and Mulder passed the briefcase of money.

  Mulder watched as the figure jogged off, briefcase of money in hand; after a few beats, he followed, cutting around behind some bushes...

  ...and almost stumbling over a corpse of someone he’d never met but immediately recognized: Charity Creed.

  The girl showed no signs of violence, and might have been curled up sleeping—if she’d had a pulse.

  Pinned to her t-shirt was another cut-and-paste note—signed again by the long-dead clergyman, in blood, saying, TOLD YOU NO AUTHORITIES.

  Whipping out his cell phone, already on the run, Mulder reported the dire news to Scully, waiting in an FBI unmarked van on Tremont. But as he came from around the bushes, the jogger was no longer in sight.