by CindyET
art by CindyET

TITLE: THE BENNINGTON TRIANGLE AUTHOR: CindyET E-MAIL ADDRESS: cindyet@tdstelme.net DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere is fine -- I write 'em for you to read 'em. SPOILERS: Several MOTW eps through Season 7 RATING: R (Graphic Violence) CLASSIFICATION: X SUMMARY: A team of wildlife researchers disappears on Glastenbury Mountain in Bennington, Vermont. Abducted by aliens? Eaten by a mythical beast? Drawn into a gravitational vortex? Mulder and Scully travel to Vermont to investigate the "Bennington Triangle." "I'm thinking this might be a case of *un*natural selection, Scully." –- Fox Mulder in "The Bennington Triangle" Disclaimer: Do these characters really belong to Chris Carter, FOX and 1013 Productions? If so, no copyright infringement intended. Entertainment, yes. Profit, no. Author's notes: This story was written for I Made This! Productions Virtual Season 9. Special thanks to betas Brandon and Marybeth. You two are marvelous! THE BENNINGTON TRIANGLE By CindyET -x-x-x-x-x-x- GLASTENBURY MOUNTAIN, VERMONT 11:53 AM "Jesus, Harvey. Not again. You just went." "What can I say?" The older man ducked into the trees. The woods were thick here -- pine and cedar loomed overhead; blowdowns crisscrossed the forest floor; saplings choked the understory. Twenty feet off the trail, Harvey could no longer see Ted or Danielle. "That'll teach you to eat burritos for breakfast," Ted called to him. "Catch up when you're through, huh? We're gonna keep climbing." Harvey was grateful for the privacy. Christ, his stomach was killing him –- he'd been suffering for the last half mile. What a time to get a bout of the runs. He unbuckled his belt. Mosquitoes buzzed in his ears and a persistent deerfly circled his head, looking for an opportunity to land. Too damn buggy to be baring my ass out here, he thought, dropping his pants. A few minutes later, Harvey returned to the trail feeling considerably better. He'd killed the deerfly and his queasiness had all but disappeared. He quickened his pace in an effort to catch up with his companions. The trail grew steeper as he climbed, zigzagging up the mountain between ghostly birches and giant evergreens, following a channel carved by decades of spring runoff. Loose stones lined the path. Easy to miss your footing if you weren't careful. Harvey was working up a sweat. At fifty-eight, he was in no shape to be sprinting up hillsides. "Ted!" he called, and paused to catch his breath. "Danielle?" Where the hell had they gotten to? He swabbed perspiration from his face with his shirtsleeve. "Danieeeeelllle!" Not a sound came back to him. No skittering animals. No bird calls. The forest had fallen utterly silent. Except for... "What the hell?" A soft chuffing noise filtered through the branches ahead. Not the wind –- the air was dead still. More like...breathing. Or panting. Like the sound of Harvey's three- year-old grandson snuffling with a head cold. Eyes glued to the underbrush, ears cocked, Harvey took a few careful steps toward the sound. Something moved beyond the wall of evergreen boughs. Harvey cautiously parted the branches. In a small clearing, not more than four or five yards away, a group of men crouched over something on the ground. A dead deer? Harvey counted five men, all with the same thin, lined face and silver-streaked hair. Their hands were bright with blood. Oh, Christ, the blood...the blood...it wasn't a deer. The men...they used large knives to carve...oh, God...it was Ted. Jesus, Jesus, Danielle...her arms and legs...cut off...stacked like cordwood a few feet away. One of the men sawed his knife through the joint at Ted's hip, and detached the leg with an unbearable tearing sound. Another flayed the muscles from Ted's severed arm. He then raised the meatless arm over one knee and snapped the long upper bone in two against his leg. The end with the dangling hand dropped to the ground. The contents of Harvey's stomach lurched toward his throat. This isn't happening, this isn't happening. Jesus Christ, please. The man who held the broken upper arm spun on his heel and walked away from Harvey toward a gnarled cedar tree, where he squatted next to a clump of ferns. The snuffling grew more desperate. Half hidden in the ferns, something moved. Something big. Something the size of two men. A fleshy mass with too many legs and writhing arms and a flattened grotesque head with two mouths, four eyes, and a mane of dark hair. Its bulging blue-white eyes were so pale they appeared almost colorless. The creature quivered, rolled, seemed unable to lift itself from the ground. Air rattled wetly from its two drooling mouths. The kneeling man held out the broken bone. The creature opened its crooked lips and the man aimed the bone into one of its horrible, begging mouths. The monster latched on and suckled the bone like an infant at its mother's breast. "Nnnoooo--" Harvey moaned, just before something struck the back of his head. The wallop drove him to his knees. Fireworks exploded behind his eyes. A second blow knocked him cold. -x-x-x-x-x-x- ACT ONE FBI HEADQUARTERS TWO DAYS LATER 2:23 PM "You popped corn?" Scully's eyes widened. God, it smelled good. She was hungrier than she realized. Waddling under the weight of fifty-some back issues of the Bennington Banner, circa 1951, she crossed from the door to Mulder's desk. Mulder watched her struggle but didn't move to help her. He stood rocking on the balls of his feet, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, arms wrapped around a big bowl of freshly popped corn. A slanting cat-who-ate-the-canary grin produced a seldom-seen dimple in his cheek. Scully dumped the newspapers onto his desk. Dust spewed from the pile, and she waved it away, nose crinkled and eyes squinty, before reaching for a handful of his popcorn. "Uh-uh," he said, lifting the bowl high above her head. "Gotta earn it, Scully." "What? Mulder, I just finished scrounging the FBI library for you." She stood on tiptoes and grabbed for the bowl. He rose on his toes, too, placing the popcorn impossibly beyond her reach. "On my hands and knees, I might add," she said. She indicated the dust marking her slacks. He took in the stains, but didn't lower the bowl. "Mulder, since when do we not share?" "Switch off the lights." "Excuse me?" "The lights. Off." His eyes targeted the bowl. He waggled his brows. "Fine." She marched to the row of switches next to the door and flicked off the lights. "What's this about?" "Show time, Scully!" Mulder's projector hummed to life and shot a beam of white light toward the wall. A slide dropped into place. Scully found herself blinking at an image of-- "A severed hand?" "Belonged to Harvey Akins, USGS, Biological Resources Division, last seen heading into Vermont's Green Mountains." "For the purpose of...?" Mulder slouched against his desk. He patted the vacant spot beside him with one hand and shook the bowl of popcorn with the other. Lips pursed, Scully crossed the room. With a small hop, she settled beside him on his desk. He helped himself to a handful of popcorn and then placed the bowl in her lap. "Harv and his two companions, Ted Rosenthal and Danielle Valdez," he said, munching his mouthful of corn, "researchers from the National Wildlife Management Institute and UVM's Wildlife Research Unit respectively, were searching Glastenbury Mountain for a large carnivorous animal, allegedly responsible for devouring the Kerber family, who had been hiking on the mountain the previous week." Harvey Akins' dismembered left hand appeared larger than life on the wall. The sun glared off his wedding ring and his blood darkened the ground. "I'd say Mr. Akins found his carnivorous animal. Or it found him." "I'm thinking this might be a case of *un*natural selection, Scully." "Meaning...?" "Glastenbury Mountain. Hotspot for UFO activity, strange lights, sounds, odors, specters, and mysterious creatures." "You aren't going to show me a picture of a mutilated cow next, are you?" "Why would I do that?" He flipped to the next slide, which showed a close-up of Harvey's severed wrist. "Cast your forensic peepers on that, Scully. In your professional opinion, does *that* look like the work of an animal?" Scully had to admit it didn't. "Mr. Akins hand appears to have been cut off with a knife or saw," she said. "Do you have any pictures of the body?" "Nnnnnnnno. But check this out." Mulder flipped to the next slide. "Right femur," Scully said. "Broken at the narrowest part of the shaft. Looks like a child's. What does it have to do with Harvey Akins?" "Lab tests indicate it belonged to eight-year-old Tommy Kerber." "One of the missing hikers." Scully rooted through the popcorn for "old maids." "Yep. It's the only forensic evidence recovered from the mountain -- other than Akins' left hand. The reeeeally curious thing about Tommy's femur is that it contains no bone marrow." "So?" Scully found an unpopped kernel. She showed it to Mulder and smiled. Thrusting the kernel into her mouth, she crunched it loudly between her back teeth. "Some woodland creature probably ate it." "Exactly." Mulder rose to sort through the newspapers Scully had dropped on his desk. "Ever hear of the 'Bennington Beast,' a.k.a., the 'Glastenbury Gorilla'?" "Please tell me you do *not* suspect Bigfoot -- not again. Need I remind you about Doob Creek--" "Who said anything about Bigfoot?" He selected a newspaper from the stack and held it up for Scully to see. He tapped the headline, which read: Missing Woman's Body Found! "Frieda Langer went missing on October 28, 1950, while hiking on Glastenbury Mountain with her cousin Herbert Elsner. After falling in a stream, Frieda told her cousin to wait while she ran the half a mile back to camp to change clothes. She never arrived at camp. Search teams combed the area and found nothing. Repeated searches on November 5 and 7 also turned up nothing. Same result on November 11 and 12 when more than three hundred military personnel, police, firemen, and volunteers scoured the mountain. On May 12, 1951, Langer's body finally turned up on an open ledge where she could not have been missed during the searches. The cause of her death was never conclusively determined. Locals, however, suspected the Bennington Beast." "The Bennington Beast." Mulder advanced the projector to the next slide. Something large and dark blurred the center of the picture, blocking out the pine trees and underbrush. "Photographer Bruce Hallenback snapped this photo on Glastenbury Mountain in 1994 while hiking Long Trail to the summit." "It's nothing but a blur, Mulder." "Hallenback claims it's the Beast. And he's not the only person who's seen it either. Horror stories about a killer beast began to trickle out of Bennington as long ago as the late 1800s when a stagecoach was attacked and overturned on what is now Highway 9, just west of Glastenbury Mountain. The occupants of the coach survived to tell the tale of a hideous creature that, after capsizing them, escaped into the forest." "Two words, Mulder: urban legend. Did anyone in the stagecoach disappear or get killed?" "No, but they saw what they saw." "Stories about ape-like men and Dr. Moreau-esque lycanthropes are just that...stories." "Two words, Scully: Jersey Devil." "The Jersey Devil was not an ape man or even an ape woman. She was as homo sapient as you or I." Mulder took a step toward the image on the wall. "Okay, Scully, I'm willing to leave the Bennington Beast theory...for now. There are other possibilities, all equally X-Filish." "Such as?" A new slide replaced the black blur, filling the wall with an aerial view of the Green Mountains. A fire tower poked from the summit of one craggy hill. "Glastenbury Mountain," –- Mulder walked to the wall and pinpointed the fire tower with an index finger –- "is located in an area of Vermont sometimes referred to as the 'Bennington Triangle,' so called because four people disappeared from there in 1894. Ten more vanished without a trace between the years 1945 and 1950. Only Frieda Langer's mutilated body was ever recovered. All of her bones were broken." "All?" "Apparently. Frieda was the final victim...until the Kerber family vanished last week." "Hikers get lost in the woods everyday. They are missing persons cases, not X-Files." "Twenty-one people, Scully, counting the Kerbers and the biology researchers. All on the same mountain." He swiveled to look at her, fists on his hips. "Maybe it's a particularly dangerous mountain." "It is, but not in the way you might think. Glastenbury Mountain is the mother lode of X-Files. Take your pick: alien abductions, magic stepping stones, cursed winds, interdimensional horizons –- all are said to exist there, and all could explain the multiple disappearances." "Interdimensional horizons?" "Doorways, if you will, between universes. People step in, but they don't step out." "Ah." Scully crunched another unpopped kernel. "Fifty-one years separated the first group of vanishments from the second. Another fifty-one years passed between the disappearances of Frieda Langer and the Kerber family. Did I mention that Ms. Langer was found with all her bone marrow missing?" His last statement stilled her chewing. "Hmm. Change fifty-one years to thirty and bone marrow to liver -- you could be talking about Eugene Victor Tooms." "I noticed that." He studied the image on the wall. "We're flying to Vermont in an hour." "Considering the excess of paranormal possibilities waiting for us there, I'm amazed we haven't visited before." She pitched a fluffy kernel of popcorn at him. It bounced off his head and landed somewhere beneath a bookcase. He faced her and opened his mouth, inviting her to try again. She aimed and lobbed one high and on target. With only the slightest dodge, he caught it on his tongue, delighting them both. Crunching the kernel, he shut off his projector. "Don't forget to pack your fly dope, Scully," he said, turning to find her at his side. "I hear the mosquitoes are big enough to carry you away." "Well, maybe that's the answer to your mystery right there." "Maybe." He snagged his suit coat. "Mutant mosquitoes. Not exactly what I was thinking, but it's very James Arness. I like it." -x-x-x-x-x-x- FIFE 'N' DRUM MOTOR LODGE BENNINGTON, VERMONT 8:16 PM "We got shuffleboard and horseshoe pits, if you're interested," said the pudgy woman behind the front desk. Her nametag proclaimed 'Hi! My name is Tonya.' She processed Mulder's credit card while he studied a rack of tourist brochures. He selected one titled 'Green Mountain Ghosts, Ghouls, and Unsolved Mysteries' and waved it at Scully. "You ever catch a glimpse of the Bennington Beast, Miss...um...Tonya?" he asked. "Not me. A friend of my sister swears she saw it once. You can see it, too, over to the Museum, if you're interested." Tonya smiled at him, charmed by his earnest expression. "Really? Where is that?" "Meddie's Museum. It's a mile and a half outside of town on Highway 9. They got all kinds of interesting things. Stuffed catamount, world's biggest nut, Indian junk." Scully leaned against the counter, her face solemn. "Imagine that, Mulder. World's biggest nut." "The Bennington Beast is at the museum?" Mulder asked. "Just the head. There's a picture in that brochure you're holding." She pointed a plump finger. Mulder unfolded the brochure and held it out for Scully to see. Together they studied the photo of the alleged beast's empty-eyed skull. The cranium was massive with two sets of distorted facial features, one on each side of its misshapen head. "It's got to be a hoax, Mulder." "You think?" "Museum's open 'til nine o'clock, if you wanna see for yourself," Tonya said. She slid Mulder's receipt across the counter for his signature. "Rooms include coffeemakers, microwaves and mini-fridges." "Dataport/modem line?" Mulder asked. "Yes, sir." He signed the receipt. "Museum's on Highway 9?" "Turn left at the war monument." -x-x-x-x-x-x- MEDDIE'S MUSEUM 8:46 PM Meddie's Museum -- a low-slung log structure -- sat tucked into the woods at the base of Glastenbury Mountain. Evergreen trees encroached on its small gravel parking lot, shadowing the entire property and blotting out the setting sun. The lot was surprisingly full -- at least a half dozen cars and trucks waited beneath the overhanging boughs. The plates came from all over: Ohio, Iowa, Virginia, Maine, Alaska. A hand-painted sign above the front door read: "Meddie's Museum –- Emporium of the Unusual." "Your kind of place, Mulder." Scully stood beneath the sign. She sidestepped to allow a young couple and their twin toddlers to exit the front door. "Cute kids," she said and entered the museum. Mulder trailed after her without comment. He paused inside the door to let his eyes adjust to the dim interior. The air smelled musty, thick with mildew and a hint of formaldehyde. Despite the cars in the lot, the museum appeared deserted. "Where is everybody? Hello?" Scully called, looking for an attendant. When no one answered, she headed toward the back, weaving her way around glass display cases and taxidermied wildlife. Mulder dawdled, inspecting the contents of the first case. It held spear points, arrowheads and prehistoric axes. In the next case, butterflies and bugs posed on pins. He recognized a praying mantis and moved on. He passed boat models, farm tools, a spinning wheel. He stopped when he came to a woodland diorama where a large, fierce-looking catamount perched atop a papier- mache mountainside, its fangs bared and glass eyes sparkling. "Must be the kitty chow," he said, and continued his search for the Bennington Beast. He found it displayed between two murky jars, which contained moose testicles and a white-tailed deer fetus. The Bennington Beast's deformed skull was enormous, nearly double the size of an ordinary man. It had four eye sockets and two distinct mouths. Ignoring the 'do not touch' sign, Mulder picked up the beast's head. "Hey, Scully, take a look at this," he called, rotating the head in his hands. She returned to his side, looking puzzled. "No one's here," she said. "Alas, poor Yorick!" He held out the skull. "What do you think, Scully? Is it a fake?" She took the skull. "It...it looks like the head of cephalopagus twins, but--" "Cephalopagus?" "A rare form of conjoined twin -- the upper body is fused, with two faces forming on opposite sides of a single head." She flipped the skull over. "Strange. Most cephalopagus twins are stillborn or die within twenty-four hours. Twins with a defect as severe as this rarely grow to adulthood." "Can you be sure it's an adult?" She traced a zigzagging fissure across the cranium. "You can tell by the sutures, and the teeth." She opened and closed one of the lower jaws. "Maybe it isn't human." "It's human. Deformed, but human." "Not a fake?" "I assure you it's real," a deep voice startled them from behind. They turned to see a slender man with a thin, lined face, silver-streaked hair, and eyes so pale they appeared almost colorless. He wore a dark suit, his knees stained with dust and a cobweb painting one sleeve. He reached for the skull and Mulder noticed what looked like blood beneath his ragged fingernails. Scully relinquished the head and the thin man placed it back on its shelf between the formaldehyde-filled jars. He adjusted the "do not touch" sign to a more prominent position. "Where did it come from?" Mulder asked. "The mountain," he said, tilting his head in the direction of Glastenbury. "Do you work here, sir?" Scully asked. "I'm both curator and owner -- John Meddie." He didn't smile or offer his hand. "And you are...?" "Agents Scully and Mulder, FBI." She held up her ID. "How old is the skull, Mr. Meddie?" "It was discovered by my father in the early fifties. I inherited it –- along with this museum." "You think it's really the Bennington Beast?" The thin man pinned Mulder with a pale-eyed stare. "What else could it be?" -x-x-x-x-x-x- ACT TWO FIFE 'N' DRUM MOTOR LODGE 10:10 PM "Shooz awf muh fed, Muller," Scully said around her toothbrush. Fresh from a shower, she was dressed in her favorite white terry bathrobe and fuzzy slippers. She spit into the sink and grabbed her dental floss. Leaning her head out the bathroom door, she checked to see if Mulder had heard her. He had. Relaxed against her headboard, four pillows stacked behind his shoulders, he toed off his shoes and kicked them to the floor. Case notes and photos surrounded his legs. A notepad rested in his lap. His laptop computer glowed from the nightstand beside his sidearm and the weapon he usually wore at his ankle. He held the Meddie Museum brochure in one hand and the television remote in the other. Scully stood at the bathroom door, flossing her teeth while she squinted at Mulder's clutter. "Why do you..." –- she waved her limp floss at his papers –- "all over my bed? You have a perfectly good bed in your own room." "I can't believe you packed slippers," he said without seeming to take his eyes from the television set. She looked down at her feet. "What's wrong with slippers?" "They're not exactly survival gear. We're sleeping outdoors on a mountain tomorrow night, you know." "I like to be comfortable." She dislodged a fragment of popcorn from between her back teeth. "Besides, I'm not the one clinging to the television remote. Is cable TV considered 'survival gear,' Mr. Boy Scout?" "Indian Guide. And I'm not 'clinging.'" He aimed the remote at the set and raised the volume. David Attenborough's voice boomed across the room: //Many birds build isolated, inconspicuous nests to avoid detection by predators. Some are so successful at hiding their nests that even the all-seeing eyes of man have hardly ever looked upon them...// Scully retreated to the bathroom to finish flossing. "Hey, Scully?" Mulder called from the bed. She tossed her floss in the wastebasket and scuffed back to the bedroom. "Hmmm?" "Physiology of bone marrow –- what's it do?" He spoke loudly to be heard over the TV. She crossed the room, confiscated the remote and muted the television set. Without speaking, she cleared a space beside him on the bed, collected his bios, photographs and assorted newspaper clippings into a jumbled pile, which she dropped into his lap along with the remote. She rounded the bed and powered off his computer. A Web site called 'Mystery Primates: Yetis to Yowies' turned to black when she closed the lid. "Yowies?" she asked, and tugged a pillow out from behind his head. "The planet is full of human-like cryptids, Scully. The wendigo of northern Canada, the Russian alma, the Chinese yaren, the African ngoloko, kakundakari, and Tano Giant--" "The Bennington Beast of Vermont?" She raised an eyebrow. "Bigfoot, Sasquatch, call them what you want, Mulder, these creatures don't exist. Evolutionary throwbacks are genetically impossible." "Impossible?" "Unlikely, at best. Chromosomal abnormalities do occasionally produce primitive characteristics, such as excessive body hair, vestigial tails, two rows of nipples, but these are not the result of devolution." "Two rows of nipples?" His brows peaked and he ran his palms across his chest. "Scully, suppose creatures like the Bennington Beast aren't throwbacks, but have managed to survive unchanged and undetected, hidden away for centuries?" "Survival of the fittest contradicts the possibility. Such creatures would be competing against modern man for resources. Success is extremely unlikely." "But not impossible. We've seen something like this before. The Moth Men--" "Mulder, the Moth Men were not an example of *reverse* evolution. Their mutation was the result of a new environmental stressor that-- What the hell am I saying?" "Go with it, Scully." "It's late." His eyes followed her around the foot of the bed. She placed the commandeered pillow beside his and turned down the blankets. Stepping out of her slippers, she removed her bathrobe and hung it over the rounded post of the headboard. She slid beneath the covers. "Bedtime already?" He blinked at his watch. "You were going to tell me about bone marrow." "Mulder, I'm tired." She closed her eyes. "We could talk some more about cryptids--" Her eyes reopened. A sigh sifted from her lungs. "Bone marrow contains a network of blood vessels surrounded by fat and stem cells that give rise to leukocytes, erythrocytes, and platelets." "I don't know what you just said. Give rise to...?" "White and red blood cells...and platelets." "I got the platelets part." Mulder set his stack of photos and papers on the floor beside the bed. "Go on. I love it when you talk doctor. Wanna take my pulse?" He scooted closer, crowding her side of the bed. "Mulder..." "Tell me more about stem cells," he murmured into her ear. She peeked at him through her eyelashes. "Stem cells are undifferentiated cells, which means they can be used to develop other cell types." "How is that?" His voice was no more than a breath of air. "By treating stem cells with a mixture of antioxidants and growth factors, scientists can generate nerve, muscle, skin and other cells for transplantation." "That's interesting." He nestled closer, pressing his body along the length of hers. "Yes, it is." She waited for him to continue, offering her a new theory of some sort, but he remained uncharacteristically silent. After a minute she asked, "What are you thinking, Mulder?" "I'm thinking...about two rows of nipples." -x-x-x-x-x-x- MOUNTAIN VALLEY DINER 7:16 AM "Here you go." The waitress set a steamy cup of coffee in front of Scully. Not much older than eighteen, the girl wore a tiny denim skirt, dangly earrings and frosty pink lipstick. She placed a second cup in front of Mulder. "My name's Candy. Ready to order?" "I'll have the number three, eggs sunny, extra bacon, and a side of home fries," Mulder said, not waiting for Scully. They sat in a booth by the front window overlooking Bennington's Main Street. Candy turned to Scully, pen ready. "And you, ma'am?" "Toast and orange juice, please." "No, no, no. Bring her the number three, too," he told the waitress. "Mulder, I don't want the number three." She looked at Candy. "Toast and oj." "Uh-uh," Mulder insisted. "You of all people know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. We're going climbing –- bulk up." "Mulder..." "We could get lost, be gone for days." "We won't get lost. We're going with a guide, remember?" "Two words, Scully: Donner Pass. Eat something." "Two words, Mulder: no thanks. If you're worried about survival, watch your cholesterol, not my caloric intake. Just the toast and oj," she repeated to the waitress. "We have great French toast," Candy suggested. "With fresh fruit." Scully sighed, then nodded. "Yes, that would be fine. Thanks." With a wink to Mulder, Candy headed for the kitchen. "Satisfied?" Scully asked. "I am. What time are we meeting Ranger Whidden?" "Nine o'clock. At the base of the mountain. And speaking of survival, what did you pack?" He ignored her question and dug into his pants pocket. He pulled out his tourist brochure and opened it to the photo of the Bennington Beast. "Scully, what evolutionary advantages would a creature with two mouths and four eyes have over us?" "I would guess none." She sipped her coffee. "Wider field of vision. That might be an advantage." "It seemed to be for Sister Katherine. I swear she had eyes in the back of her head." Mulder smiled. "Catch you at something naughty?" "It's too early for this conversation." She turned her attention to the window. He chuckled and went back to his study of the photo. "It has a larger brain case. Maybe it's more intelligent." "Whales' brains are four times larger than humans', and although they're intelligent animals, they are not smarter than us." She watched the driver of an SUV struggle to parallel park behind a car across the street. She winced when the SUV bumped the rear fender. "Most of the time anyway." Unsuccessful, the driver tried again. "Whether you're talking about absolute brain size or the ratio of brain size to body mass, neither determines intelligence. Bigger is not necessarily better." "Refreshing perspective. Men everywhere are sighing with relief." He watched the SUV pull forward, back up, try a third time. It remained cattycorner and hopelessly far from the curb. Mulder tapped the beast's photo. "I wonder what this thing's body looked like. Do you suppose it had four arms and four legs?" "Mulder, stop hunting mutants. Enjoy your breakfast, drink your coffee, watch the ordinary world go by." The driver of the SUV gave up and drove off in search of a larger parking space. A rusty Volvo immediately took its place. Two doors opened and out stepped John Meddie and what could only be his identical twin brother. "Look at that, Scully. There are two of them." "Actually, there are four of them." She nodded at two identical men hurrying down the sidewalk. The newcomers joined the museum owner and his twin at the car. "Quadruplets?" Mulder asked. "Maybe. Or it could be just a strong family resemblance." "They look *exactly* alike." "Clones?" He slid from the booth and headed for the door. "Mulder, where are you going?" "To watch the ordinary world go by," he said over his shoulder. He pushed through the diner's front door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. The four men were already in the car and pulling away from the curb when he approached. Two sets of colorless eyes gazed out at him through the Volvo's rear window as the car drove off down the street. Mulder stared after them until they turned a corner and disappeared from view. Scully came out of the diner to join him on the sidewalk. "Where'd they go?" He shrugged. "I don't know, but I want to talk to Meddie again after we return from Glastenbury." "You think he's involved in the disappearances?" "Maybe." "How?" "I'm not sure yet, but my Spooky Alarm is ringing." -x-x-x-x-x-x- BASE OF GLASTENBURY MOUNTAIN 9:20 AM "Hope you brought fly dope. The bugs'll bleed you dry." A lanky man in his early thirties thrust out a hand to Mulder. Dressed for hiking, he wore a Gortex rain jacket, sturdy boots and a massive backpack. A fog of mosquitoes swirled around his head. "I'm Ranger Whidden, USDA Forest Service, Manchester District. Call me Rick." He turned to the fresh-faced woman who stood beside him. "This is Sheila Baxter, bio-technician on the UOP Wildlife Management Project." "Hi," Sheila said, smiling broadly and exposing a chipped front tooth. "Generally I study bird habitats for the Upland Openings Program, but rumors of a large carnivorous animal in the area piqued my curiosity. Rick was good enough to let me tag along." She wore her long blonde hair pulled back into a thick braid. Like Rick, she was dressed for the wilderness. "I'm Fox Mulder. And this..." –- he gestured toward Scully, who stood not far away stooped over their car's open trunk –- "is my partner, Agent Dana Scully." Scully gave a quick wave and continued pawing through the gear in the trunk. "Mulder, did you remember to bring matches?" she asked. "I don't want to relive the Apalachicola Forest incident." "Got 'em, Scully." Patting his coat pocket, he gave Rick and Sheila an embarrassed smile. "Have you two done much wilderness hiking?" Rick asked. Mulder nodded enthusiastically. "We love the outdoors." "Good, you'll find Glastenbury is an easy climb." Rick pointed to the mountain. "We're gonna take Long Trail –- it runs twenty-two miles to the summit. I expect we'll be on the mountain two or three nights max, depending on how much exploring you need to do. We'll camp near Langer's Ledge." "Langer's Ledge?" "A wide, granite outcropping about two-thirds of the way up. It's where Frieda Langer's body was discovered after she disappeared in 1950. Have you heard the story?" "A few sketchy details." "Mulder?" Scully called, her voice sounding a bit desperate. She wrestled an enormous backpack from the trunk of the car to the ground. It was his -- she already wore her own. Mulder hurried to grab the pack from her. He swung it onto his back with a grunt. Although heavy, the load rested comfortably. He looped the pack's belt around his waist and fastened the clasp. "Ready," he announced when he saw Scully had already shut the trunk and stood waiting at the trail's head. The trail snaked into the trees and Sheila took the lead. Scully fell in behind her, followed by Mulder. Rick brought up the rear. The slope was gradual at first, the ground damp and a bit muddy. Rain clouds blotted the sky and the sour smell of rotting vegetation blended with the sweeter fragrance of pine and cedar. Under the weight of their packs, all four quickly worked up a sweat, despite the cool, overcast morning. After a few minutes, the path grew steeper. Granite cobbles and tree roots served as occasional steps. Enormous evergreens veiled the daylight and blocked the chilly wind, isolating them from the outside world. Every now and again, Sheila stepped to the trail's edge to hold an overgrown branch out of the others' way. She pointed out mud puddles, loose gravel and slippery stones. "Watch your step." Scully breathed in the scent of cedar, pinesap, and last autumn's fermenting crab apples. A dense layer of rust-colored needles muted her footfalls. The climb worked her muscles and she was glad to be out of the office, away from field reports and expense sheets. Behind her, Mulder chattered nonstop to Rick, rattling off one question after the next. The Bennington Beast. Frieda Langer. Bone marrow, lost hikers, upended stagecoaches. Scully listened while she watched Sheila's long braid swing hypnotically back and forth with every step she took. "Agent Scully, does the FBI usually get involved in cases like this?" Sheila asked over her shoulder, upsetting the rhythmic sway of her braid. "You know, where people are lost in the woods or attacked by wild animals?" "Not usually." Deciding it would be best to withhold Mulder's theories about ape-men and interdimensional horizons, she added, "We're here to rule out the possibility of a kidnapping." Behind her, Mulder was asking Rick, "What do you think happened up there?" "My best guess is the victims were attacked by a large carnivorous animal, maybe a catamount. Officially, there hasn't been a wildcat in Vermont since the 1920s, but people claim to see them from time to time. There were several sightings over the summer. Game Warden received five calls from Bennington County alone." "That many?" Rick laughed. "That's at least a dozen fewer than those who reported seeing the Bennington Beast. Glastenbury Mountain has quite a reputation, Agent Mulder. Ghosts, goblins, aliens from outer space -- you name it and somebody swears they've seen it." Mulder dodged a low branch. "You've never witnessed anything...um...out of the ordinary?" "Nah, I've been on this mountain at least a hundred times and I've yet to spot anything that couldn't be rationally explained. There are more than 27,000 acres of mountain wilderness on Glastenbury, Agent Mulder. In my opinion, people get lost, hurt or die here because they come unprepared. They fail to bring even the most basic survival gear. I guess they expect it to start raining Whopper Jr.'s when they get hungry." "I heard it rained weenies and marshmallows in Florida once. Or maybe it was sleeping bags." "That sounds as unlikely as ghosts, goblins and the Bennington Beast." -x-x-x-x-x-x- GLASTENBURY MOUNTAIN 6:26 PM "We'll camp here for the night," Rick said, and slid the pack from his back. The others followed suit. Freed from his burden, Mulder stretched his arms and worked his sore shoulders. Scully handed him a bottle of water and warned him to stay hydrated. With a few thirsty gulps he emptied the bottle. "Agent Mulder?" Rick crouched over a bloodied patch of earth, summoning Mulder with the wave of two fingers. Mulder joined him and squatted, too. "This is where Search and Rescue found Akins' hand." "Nothing else was recovered?" Mulder glanced over his shoulder at the four hefty packs they had carried up the mountain. "Not as far as I know." "I guess we're looking for a catamount with a taste for Evian." He waggled his empty water bottle. "It is strange S&R didn't find more. The wildlife team was carrying a lot of equipment. Cameras, FLIR, GPS." Mulder stood. "Can we go to the Ledge now?" A roll of thunder thrummed in the distance. Rick squinted at the darkening sky. "Storm's heading our way," he warned. "We should set up camp before it starts raining." "Go explore," Sheila said, her pack unloaded and gear spread at her feet. "By the time you get back, I'll have the tents up and a fire going." Rick accepted Sheila's offer with a nod. He rose to his feet. "Okay, agents, this way." He led them to a narrow, cliff-side path. Out in the open, away from the trees, a thickening fog whirlpooled around them. Thunder rumbled and the sky momentarily brightened with a flash of distant lightning. They fell into line and walked along the trail single-file, careful to steer clear of the ravine. "It's not far," Rick said. "You can already see the ledge up ahead." He pointed to a crag of granite that protruded from the mountainside about fifty yards to the north. The ledge was broad and empty, shrouded in fog, and nearly as gray as the sky. "According to native legend, the ledge is enchanted," Rick said. He picked his way around scabby catspruce, past mounds of fragrant mint. Last year's Beggar's Ticks clung to his pants legs. "The four winds are said to meet there, making it a powerful place. The Indians believed the stone was magic and would swallow anyone who stepped on it. They avoided Glastenbury, claiming that not even the animals would come here." "Interesting, considering...*that*." Mulder pointed at the overhang where two identical men stared back at them, their silver-streaked hair billowing in the updraft. "Will the real John Meddie please stand up?" Scully shouldered past Rick. "Let's go." She broke into a run. Mulder sprinted after her. The men on the ledge backed away and disappeared from view. Mulder and Scully hurried up the path. At the base of the ledge, they pulled up short, faced with a six-foot vertical wall of granite. "Hang on," Mulder said. He grabbed her from behind and boosted her up the stone wall to the shelf above. She locked her elbows over the top. With another push from Mulder, she was up. Finding a toehold, he pulled himself up beside her. The ledge was empty. The mysterious men had disappeared. "Where did they go?" Scully spun, looking in all directions. The stone, smoothed by centuries of wind and rain, was about twenty feet wide and protruded from the mountain like an eagle's aerie. The back end was anchored in the forest. Mulder crossed to the trees and drew his gun. Scully positioned herself to one side, aiming her own weapon into the woods, covering his back. Another roll of thunder echoed across the mountaintops. "Come out, come out, wherever you are," Mulder said and stepped through the evergreen boughs. Beneath the trees, it was dark and difficult to see. Mulder listened for footfalls or snapping twigs while he waited for his eyes to adjust to the shadows. Silence raked the back of his neck and the sweat between his shoulder blades felt cold, rousing a rash of goosebumps along his arms beneath his rain jacket. Keeping his gun held high, he took several careful steps into the woods. Then he heard it. A snuffling sound. Wet and labored. "Mulder?" Scully's voice punched through the boughs behind him. The snuffling died away. Mulder ignored Scully's call. He reached into his pocket and withdrew his flashlight. Shining it into the woods, he searched for the source of the noise, but his beam revealed only more tree trunks. He edged forward, arms rigid, flashlight held beneath the barrel of his gun. He rounded a massive pine. Jesus! What the... Four colorless eyes glowed in the light's beam. -x-x-x-x-x-x- ACT THREE GLASTENBURY MOUNTAIN 7:16 PM "Mulder? Are you okay?" Scully called from the ledge behind him. The four eyes vanished. "Mulder?" Mulder swung his flashlight, fanning the forest with its light. The beam bounced off crooked branches and black tree trunks. He saw no sign of the men on the ledge or the pale eyes. Taking three more steps into the trees, he probed the dark with his light. Nothing. Shit. He was certain he'd seen someone looking out at him. Not quite ready to give up his search, he continued on. Six paces. A dozen. There was no one. No one at all. "Mulder?" He took one last look before retracing his steps. "Coming." Mulder found Rick waiting with Scully on the ledge. It had begun to rain in earnest and lightning flashed -- closer this time. "What did you see?" Scully asked when Mulder stepped from the trees. "I'm not sure. It was dark." "And it's getting darker," Rick warned. "We need to get back." "I'd like to come back in the morning." Mulder holstered his gun and pocketed his flashlight. He then lowered himself over the side of the ledge to the path. When he stood with his feet planted firmly on the trail below, he turned to help Scully. She slid down the granite into his arms. He steadied her before reaching up a hand to Rick. A bolt of lightning turned the sky momentarily white. It was followed by a furious crack of thunder that vibrated the ground and filled the air with the smell of ozone. "Let's hurry," Rick said, leading the way. They made good time despite the rain and fog. Back at the campsite, Sheila's fire was a welcome sight. She had pitched three tents and the tidy bivouac appeared deceptively safe. "Sheila?" Rick called. Wind scraped the upper branches and rain sifted through the umbrella of evergreens. The fire sputtered, sending a flare of sparks and smoke into the air. "Sheila?" Rick called more loudly, his voice full of concern. "I'll check the tents," Scully said and poked her head into each. All were empty. "She's not here." "Where could she be?" Rick asked. "Sheila?" He swiveled. "Sheila! SHEEEEILAAAA!" -x-x-x-x-x-x- 10:12 PM Rick dropped another log on the dying fire, bringing the flames back to life. Mulder and Scully stepped closer to warm their hands. After several hours of combing the woods in the pouring rain, they were chilled and exhausted. Finding no sign of Sheila, they had reluctantly given up for the night and returned to camp. "You know what's strange?" Rick crouched by the fire, his expression grim. His voice was hoarse from calling Sheila's name. "All this soft, wet ground and we didn't find a single track." "She must have gone missing before it started to rain." Scully wiped rainwater from her chin. Her hair hung in muggy spirals. Water dripped from her nose. "No, I mean we didn't see *any* tracks. No rabbit, coyote, deer." "Would you expect animals to be moving around during a storm?" Mulder asked. "Animals are always moving. Have you noticed we haven't heard so much as a bird chirp since we unloaded our gear?" Mulder squatted close to the fire, too, hoping the flames would dry him a bit. "Fits with the legend," he said. Rick scowled, clearly not in the mood for legends. "Langer's Ledge is not enchanted." "I'm inclined to agree. I think what we're looking at is a real physical phenomenon, a gravitational anomaly, not something mystical." "Mulder, I think we're too tired for this." Scully stood beside him and laid a palm on his shoulder. "They exist, Scully. The Oregon Vortex in Gold Hill, the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, California, Spook Hill in Lake Wales, Florida, the Wonder Spot in Lake Delton, Wisconsin." "The Wonder Spot?" Scully crouched beside him. "Sounds like something discovered by Masters and Johnson." He smiled, appreciating her joke. "Not bad, G-Woman, considering the late hour." "Go ahead, Mulder -- what are gravitational anomalies?" she asked, knowing he would tell her anyway. "They're places where high concentrations of energy cause magnetic disturbances. Animals won't cross them. Things inside them defy gravity. Balls roll uphill. Light bends. People grow and shrink." "Mulder..." "The vortex in Oregon is more than 165-feet wide, Scully. Witnesses claim to have seen all these things there. Some believe the Bermuda Triangle is just such a vortex, explaining the unsolved disappearances there." Rick stood. "Mythical beasts. Indian legends. Vortexes. This is bullshit. Sitting around the fire telling fairytales won't help us find Sheila." "There's nothing more we can do tonight," Scully said gently. Rick turned his back on the fire and bellowed into the woods, "SHEEEEEILAAAAA!" Scully stood and went to his side. "We can't help Sheila if we're exhausted. We should try to get some sleep." Rick continued to stare into the woods. After a moment, his shoulders slumped and he nodded. "I'll take the first watch," Mulder volunteered. "I'll spell you," Rick said, and went to his tent. "Wake me in three hours." -x-x-x-x-x-x- 1:12 AM A blast of wet wind followed Mulder into the tent and stirred Scully from sleep. "Sorry." He zipped the flap behind him. She snuggled deeper into the sleeping bag. "Whattimezit?" "One o'clock. Rick's on watch. You have another three hours." He saw that she had zipped their sleeping bags together. "You have plans for us, Scully?" "You're the one who brought only one tent." "Oops. Musta been an oversight." He sat beside her and removed his raincoat and boots. "I remembered to unplug the coffeemaker before we left though." "We're on assignment. Sharing a tent might be construed as...inappropriate." Feeling chilled, he considered sleeping in his clothes, but his pants were drenched from the thighs down and rain had leaked into his coat, soaking his shirt. He took off his guns and tucked them under the sleeping bag within easy reach. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Scully" -- he wriggled out of his wet pants –- "but I believe Bureau policy advises against male and female agents consorting in motel rooms while on assignment." He pulled off one damp sock at a time and tossed them to the back of the tent. "This isn't a motel room," -- he yanked his shirt over his head and lobbed it in the direction of his socks -- "and we aren't consorting." Stripped down to his boxers, he slid into the sleeping bag beside her. He leaned close to her ear. "At least not yet." "You're wet." She edged away. "And cold." "Warm me." He wrapped himself around her and buried his nose in her neck. "Dammit, Mulder." Her protest carried no real annoyance. She settled into his arms. His skin was icy and stippled with goosebumps. She combed her fingers through his sopping hair. "See anything out there?" "A guy building an ark. I booked us reservations." She ignored his joke. "Is Rick okay?" "Mmm." They were quiet for a moment, listening to the rain lash against the tent. "Meddie's involved," Mulder said at last. "I think he and his look-alikes are harvesting bone marrow." "For what purpose?" "We've seen this kind of thing before. Samuel Aboah, Virgil Incanto, Eugene Victor Tooms, Leonard Betts, Rob Roberts. Pick a body part, and we've met a mutant who feeds on it. You said yourself that bone marrow contains stem cells -- cells that can be used to create other cell types, even entire organs." "Yes, but those cells are engineered in a lab." "Maybe Meddie's metabolism allows him do the same thing, in vivo." "But why?" "I don't know. But Meddie...his brothers...they're unusual already, aren't they? How common are identical quadruplets?" "In the absence of fertility treatments, about one in 700,000. They're rare but they aren't mutants." She suddenly chuckled. "What?" he asked. "You." "Me?" "Or us, maybe. We're like some sort of mutant magnets." She leaned into his embrace. "You're admitting that Meddie is a mutant?" "No, I'm admitting he's strange." "Mu-tah-to, Mu-tay-to." He closed his eyes and tightened his hold on her. "As soon as it's daylight, I want to go back to the ledge. If we're going to find Sheila, we'll find her there." -x-x-x-x-x-x- 5:16 AM "Mulder?" Scully sat up and unzipped the sleeping bag. The rising sun colored the tent a fiery orange and the rain had stopped. It was late. Why the hell hadn't Rick woken her? She shook Mulder's shoulder. He lay on his side, face buried in the crook of one arm. "Mulder," she said more urgently. His eyes opened. "Get up. It's after five." "Five? Why...why are you still in bed?" He sat up and scrubbed his face with his palms. She fumbled through her backpack for fresh clothes. "Rick never woke me. Something must be wrong." "Maybe he fell asleep," he said, not really believing it. He reached for the previous day's shirt. They dressed quickly and climbed from the tent. The sky was clear and the early morning sun glistened on the dripping evergreens. No smoke rose from the sodden campfire. "Rick?" Scully called. Mulder checked the tents. "Riiiiick!" "He's not here, Scully." "Dammit. I feel as if we're trapped in a remake of 'Ten Little Indians.'" "'And then there were two.'" "Don't leave my sight, Mulder." "That's one thing you don't have to worry about. Come on, let's try the ledge." They retraced their steps from the previous night, following the narrow trail along the cliffs. The air was cool and still. Mosquitoes pestered them, gathering in buzzing clouds around their heads. Driven by the biting insects and their concern for Rick, they made good time. After only a few minutes, the ledge loomed into view, stark and empty against the clear morning sky. "Doesn't look any friendlier in the morning," Mulder said. He led the way to the crag. Once there, he again boosted Scully up and onto the granite shelf, then pulled himself up after her. Looking down at the valley, Mulder felt as if he stood on a primeval stage. The broad, ancient stone jutted out from Glastenbury's north face and the range of Green Mountains stretched away from it like a blue-green washboard as far as the eye could see. Clouds, flat-bottomed and gray as tin, gathered over the most distant peaks. It was eerily quiet. Their isolation and vulnerability prickled the skin on the back of his neck. "Mulder?" Scully faced the trees, weapon in hand. She nodded toward a snarl of ferns at the forest's edge. Sheila's long blond braid, stained with blood, peeked out from the greenery. Scully crossed the ledge and parted the ferns. "Dammit," she whispered. Sheila's head lay on the ground with eyes closed and mouth opened. It appeared to have been severed by a knife or saw. Fresh blood matted the dead woman's hair and stained her cheeks. Scully glanced over her shoulder at Mulder. He put a finger to his lips and tilted his head toward the woods. She nodded and took the lead, stepping through the evergreen boughs. Mulder followed, a brooding uneasiness traveling up his spine when the branches closed behind him. Despite the clear weather and rising sun, it was dark beneath the trees. The air smelled sour. A few paces ahead, Scully stopped and aimed her gun at the base of a large pine tree. Mulder stopped, too, when he heard it -- the snuffling noise, the same sound he'd heard last night. What the hell was that? Scully took a cautious step forward. "Oh, my God," she said, her gun wavering. "Mulder?" He hurried to her side, but even at close range, he wasn't sure what he was looking at. Jesus, it was a man. Or two men. Naked and conjoined, they...it lay on the ground, snuffling through two disfigured noses, its chest heaving for want of air. Its massive head lolled on a too thin neck; its four nearly colorless eyes stared listlessly at nothing. It had four arms and four legs. A single torso. A feeble bleat squeaked from one of its two misshapen mouths. Scully holstered her gun and knelt beside it. "Scully, maybe you shouldn't touch--" She ignored his warning and placed her fingers on its neck. "Pulse is thready. I think..." For a moment, it seemed to focus on her, but then its four pale, frightened eyes rolled upward beneath fluttering lids. "It's dying," Scully said. "Call MediVac. Have them send a chopper." Mulder dug his cell phone from his pocket. "Uh, Scully...?" She looked up at him. "What is it?" He pointed to the ground. Next to the creature, a woman's hiking boot lay on its side. A broken bone protruded from the boot. The splintered tibia was as hollow as a straw, emptied of every trace of bone marrow. -x-x-x-x-x-x- ACT FOUR BENNINGTON COUNTY MORGUE 9:14 PM "What did you find out about our Bennington Beast?" Mulder asked. He stood at the morgue door, leaning against the frame with his rain jacket draped over one arm. Fatigue lined his face. Pine pitch blackened his arms. Mud spattered his jeans from the knees down. He had stayed behind on Glastenbury to help Search and Rescue locate Rick Whidden, while Scully accompanied the dying creature to Bennington Memorial Hospital via helicopter. The S&R Team came up empty handed. Thunderstorms and fog had moved in an hour ago, suspending the search until morning –- assuming the weather cleared. The creature hadn't made it to the hospital alive. Now its corpse lay on an autopsy table, split down the middle by Scully's Y-incision. "That would be plural," she said, her hands thrust into the chest cavity. "Beasts?" He came closer, looked into the open chest and winced at the gore. "Mmhm. This is definitely more than one person." "Twins?" "Not like any I've ever seen or read about." She pointed a gloved finger at the body. "There are duplicate organs -- two hearts, livers, stomachs -- but they're conjoined in ways that are...impossible." She ran her finger along a large bluish vein that connected two sets of lungs. "See this pulmonary vein? It should return arterial blood from the lung to the left auricle of the heart, but it doesn't. It connects to its twin lung instead." "Maybe that's why it...they...died." "What I can't figure out is how they survived in the first place. They have no workable systems –- circulatory, digestive, or anything else." "That's not all they don't have." Mulder pointed to the lower half of the body where four legs sprouted from a single set of hips. "That's right. No genitalia. No reproductive organs of any kind. No prostate, testes, uterus, ovaries." "So is this a girl mutant or a boy mutant?" "Let me show you something." She stripped off her gloves with a rubbery snap and crossed the room to a cluttered counter. Shuffling through a stack of reports, she retrieved a PCR film and held it up for him to see. "What am I looking at, Scully?" "The genetic makeup of your Beast. It has nearly twice as many chromosomal pairs as you or I do, but there's not an X or a Y in the bunch." "How is that possible?" "It's not." She tossed the film onto the counter. Mulder returned to the autopsy table. He studied the creature's head, its oversized cranium, the two mouths, the four opened eyes. Pale blue-white irises stared dully back at him. "Scully, is this sort of mutation inherited? Don't certain birth defects run in families?" "There is one aspect of this case I can state with certainty, Mulder: this anomaly was not a birth defect, not in any literal definition of the term." She crossed the room to the corpse and donned a new pair of gloves. "This creature was not born by conventional means." She folded the flap of abdominal skin back into place. "As you can see, it possesses no umbilicus." "The plot thickens." "More than you know. I had the stomach contents analyzed." "Let me guess. Human bone marrow." "That's right. And I'll bet you a week's pay the lab tests are going to show the marrow is Sheila Baxter's." "No bet. Put this guy on ice, Scully." Mulder slipped his arms into his coat. "Where are we going?" "Two words: Meddie's Museum." -x-x-x-x-x-x- MEDDIE'S MUSEUM 10:02 PM The museum was dark when Mulder and Scully drove into the parking lot. Mulder parked the car beside a Jeep Cherokee with Alaskan plates. The lot was full, just as it had been the last time they'd visited. "Someone's awake," Scully said, nodding toward a dim glow from a basement window at the far end of the building. "Shall we have a look-see?" Mulder asked. They climbed from the car and jogged toward the light, careful not to make noise. The window was small and low to the ground. Dust and cobwebs clouded the glass. They crouched to get a better view. At first, the basement appeared to be empty, but then Mulder caught sight of someone in a back corner. John Meddie –- or one of his look-alikes –- worked at a table skinning meat from a long bone. A single bulb hung from the ceiling above his head, draped with cobwebs and casting a dim circle of light on the gory scene. Rick Whidden's bloody Gortex jacket hung on a chair nearby. "Two words," Scully whispered. "Probable cause?" he mouthed back. She tapped her nose with her index finger and they rose to their feet. They came face to face with two more men who looked exactly like John Meddie. Both held shotguns aimed at the agents' chests. "Just in time for dinner," said the man with the Remington, his blue-white eyes bright in the dark. "How convenient. Put your hands where we can see them." They raised their hands and the man with the Browning gathered Mulder's sidearm and the SIG Scully carried at the small of her back. Pocketing the automatics, he motioned them to the front of the building with a wave of his shotgun. "Which one of you is John?" Mulder asked. "Neither," said the man who held the Remington. "It's polite to introduce yourselves when you kidnap someone at gunpoint." Mulder's smart remark earned him a jab between the shoulder blades with the Browning. "Shut up. Get inside." They entered the museum through the front door and the Meddie brothers marched them through the display area, past the insects, the catamount, the bones of the Bennington Beast. "What's the connection," Mulder asked, glancing at the skull as they passed it, "between you and the creature we found in the woods today?" Neither man answered. They herded the agents on to the back of the museum where a narrow set of stairs led down to the basement. The door was open and light bled up from the room below. "Did you feed it Sheila Baxter's bone marrow?" Mulder asked. "Do you plan to chop us up, too?" He turned to look directly into the men's pale eyes. The man with the Remington responded by driving the butt of his gun into Mulder's temple, toppling him. Mulder clutched for the stair rail but missed, his vision blurred. He lost his balance. His stomach lurched when he dropped into the open stairwell. With a bone-jarring crash, he tumbled to the bottom of the steps. His head hit the concrete floor and he lost consciousness. "Mulder!" Scully shouted. She tried to go to him but the man with the Browning grabbed her upper arm. "Let me go!" She struggled and threw a left punch that caught him in the nose. The blow knocked him backward and he released her. She lunged for the stairs, but halted when the barrel of the Remington speared her ribs. "Walk...slowly," the man said. He jabbed her once more. She did as she was told and descended the stairs. At the bottom she watched two more men who looked like Meddie snag Mulder under the arms and drag him across the room. They dumped him on the floor beside the cutting table where a fifth and sixth man worked, cleaning flesh from bone. Jesus, all these men looked like Meddie. They all had the same thin, lined face, the same silver-streaked hair and they stared at her with the same pale blue-white eyes. "Agent Scully," said one of the men at the table. She guessed he must be the man they met upstairs two nights ago, the real John Meddie. "Have a seat," he invited. His voice was neither cordial nor malicious. In fact, his tenor was so neutral, and the circumstances so extreme –- the bones on the counter, Mulder unconscious on the floor, six identical men watching her from various locations around the room –- they made Scully feel off balance, as if she were having a nightmare and would wake up at any moment to find herself back at the Fife 'N' Drum, or better yet, in her apartment with Mulder asleep beside her and-- "I said *sit*," Meddie repeated, his voice firm. The man with the Browning tugged her arm. He pulled her to the straight-backed chair where Rick Whidden's jacket hung and he forced her to sit. Mulder lay a few feet away, not moving. Blood trickled from his nose. "Let me go to him," Scully said. "It's time," the man with the Browning said, ignoring her request. He appeared suddenly dizzy. Staggering a bit, he handed his shotgun to the man with the Remington, who set the 12-gauge on the stairs. "It's starting." John Meddie stepped forward to help lower the unsteady man to a sitting position on the floor. The man then stretched out onto his back. His skin had taken on a sickly pallor, bluish and sweaty. He began to pant. "What's happening?" Scully demanded. "I'm a doctor. I can help." "There's nothing for you to do," Meddie told Scully. He knelt beside the prone man and stroked his arm, soothing him. "Usually, we do this in private, on the mountain, away from prying eyes. But you and your partner have made that impossible tonight. State Police, Search and Rescue, other nosey do- gooders, like yourself...and him." Meddie's colorless eyes fastened on Mulder. "You've brought danger to the Nest. We'll have to make do here." The man on the floor groaned. The others gathered around him –- all but the one who aimed the Remington at Scully. They removed the sick man's shoes, his shirt. They unbuckled his belt, tugged his pants from his legs. When he lay naked on the floor, Scully saw he had no navel, no genitalia, like the corpse at the morgue. A deepening trench notched the man's torso, striping him from suprasternal notch to pubic bone. Another trough divided each leg. Gutters formed along each finger, furrowed each toe. His flesh ballooned around the indentations. He moaned again. Scully watched, astonished, as the man's arms dimpled lengthwise, and then split. Two arms separated into four. Ten fingers became twenty. Jesus, he was dividing! Mitotic reproduction, like a single-celled organism, only on an unimaginable scale. The man's head expanded. His distorted face stretched to accommodate the impossible formation of four eyes, two mouths, and two snuffling noses. Air rattled in and out of his wet lungs, unable to supply oxygenated blood to new organs. He...they...gasped. Flailed. It was suffocating, just like the creature Scully had brought down from the mountain. "Quickly," Meddie said. He motioned to one of the others who hurried to the cutting table and gathered several long bones. Two of each: femur, tibia, ulna, humerus. Several scythe- shaped ribs. Scully knew these must be Rick Whidden's bones. One man handed Meddie a long femur. Holding the bone in his fists, Meddie brought it down hard against his thigh and cracked it in two. The creature whimpered at the sound. Meddie gently offered the bone to it, holding a broken end to each of the thing's begging mouths and it sucked the bones greedily. Scully saw yellowish marrow leak from the bone onto the creature's lips as it drank. She knew the marrow contained fat and fluid filled with vessels, fibrous tissue, and cells. Leukocytes, erythrocytes, stem cells. Undifferentiated stem cells that could be used to generate new, specialized cells, new organs. That was it. The creature needed stem cells to replicate itself. Meddie cooed like a mother to her newborn while he nourished the creature, feeding it one bone after the next. The other men stood in a circle around them, concern written on their faces. Finally no bone marrow remained. The creature had consumed it all and wanted more. Mitosis was incomplete. The twins remained locked to each other, not entirely divided. Meddie looked over his shoulder at Mulder. "No!" Scully shouted, and rose from the chair. "Don't touch him!" She dashed for the Browning on the stairs. Before she could reach it, the man with the Remington swung his shotgun like a baseball bat and struck her in the neck below her ear. The impact sent her sprawling. She landed face down beside Mulder, her head near his feet. The sharp pain in her ear brought tears to her eyes. She blinked to clear her vision and Mulder's ankle holster came into focus, peeking out from beneath the mud-spattered hem of his pants. "Cut them up," Meddie ordered. Two of the men crossed to the cutting table to sort through the knives. The creature whined, an earsplitting cry, drawing the men's attention. The man with the Remington lowered his gun and took several steps away from Scully. She grabbed for Mulder's gun, slipped it from its holster. In one quick motion, she sat up and aimed the weapon at the man with the Remington. "Drop it!" she shouted. He hesitated, his pale eyes rounding with surprise. "Do it! Now!" she demanded. He let the gun clatter to the floor. She stood on shaky legs. "All of you, against the far wall, away from the table. Leave the knives." Meddie glanced at the Browning on the stairs. "Don't even think about it, Meddie. I will shoot you." He offered her a desperate look, his colorless eyes grieving for the creature that lay dying on the floor. She met his gaze, her weapon steady. Finally, he nodded, surrendering, and walked to the wall. The others followed him. She retrieved both the Remington and the Browning, then stood between Mulder and the five identical men. The only sound in the room came from the creature, snuffling as it labored to breathe. Scully slid her cell phone from her jacket pocket and dialed 911. -x-x-x-x-x-x- EPILOGUE MOUNTAIN VALLEY DINER 7:16 AM "What happened to you?" Candy gaped at Mulder's black eye. She carried two cups of coffee, which she placed on the table. "Mosquito bite." "Really? Wow. You should stay outta the woods, mister." "Good advice." Candy took out her pad and pen. "You want the number three this morning?" "Make it a double order," Scully said. "I'm starving." Mulder smiled and nodded. "Two number threes." "Okeydoke," the waitress said and headed back to the kitchen. Scully sipped her coffee while Mulder dug into his pocket and withdrew the creased museum brochure. He laid it on the table between them and tapped the photo of the Bennington Beast. "You saw it, Scully. You witnessed an X-File...without me." He sounded envious, but pleased. "Gotta be a first." "I'm not convinced it was an X-File, Mulder." "A man split into two right in front of your eyes." "He didn't split entirely." "Scully, *you* are splitting hairs." "I'm pretty sure the process can be explained in scientific terms--" "He had no genitals-- "--recent experiments indicate that stem cells can be stimulated to transform into specialized cells given a suitable environment--" "--or a belly button." "--so it follows that Meddie and his brothers may have developed the capacity to use stem cells to generate new organs, even entire bodies...at least...that's what I plan to write in my report." "Why can't you admit this was an X-File and you saw it?" "Mulder, there were no interdimensional horizons, no enchanted stones, no vortices, and *no* Bennington Beast." "No?" "No. The 'creature' was not a cryptid or an evolutionary throwback. It was a...a..." "Mutant?" "I don't care much for that term." "I bet not." Mulder smiled at her over his coffee cup. "Tell me again how you saved my ass." "Mulder..." "Tell it. I love a happy ending." She leaned an elbow on the table and propped her chin on her hand. "For the millionth time, I grabbed your gun, they surrendered, I called 911." "Hmm. It's lost something since the first time you told it." He sipped his coffee. "Why didn't Meddie attack you?" "What part of 'I grabbed your gun' did you miss?" "But they outnumbered you five to one." She pointed her finger at him and pretended to fire a bullet into his heart. He lurched back in the booth and clutched his chest, making her smile. "The ultimate equalizer," she said, blowing across her finger as if she blew smoke from a gun barrel. "Still, considering everything they stood to lose, you'd think one of them might've taken a bullet for the home team." "The creature was dying and they knew it. Better to stay alive themselves and reproduce later. They're survivors, Mulder." Mulder leaned forward and studied the Beast's photo. "Why *did* the creature die?" "I'm guessing it needed more stem cells to complete the process. Meddie was practically drooling over your foot-long femurs." "So there *is* an evolutionary advantage to those short little legs of yours." He reached across the table and poked her arm just as Candy arrived with their breakfast. Eggs, bacon, homefries, Texas toast and two sides of baked beans, "on the house." Scully picked up her fork and began to dig in even before Candy asked, "Will that be all?" "We're fine," Mulder answered. "For now." With another "okeydoke" Candy headed back to the kitchen. "Meddie called the ledge their 'nest'," Scully said, once Candy was out of earshot. "I have a theory about that if you're interested in hearing it." "Always." "I'm thinking this case is a 'double' X-File." He draped his napkin across his lap. Scully studied her fried eggs. "Look, a double yolk." She tipped her plate so he could see. He acknowledged the irony with a nod of his head. "Why a 'double' X-File, Mulder?" she asked, and scooped a bite of egg into her mouth. "Number one," –- he held up a finger –- "the creature's unique physiology: its ability to reproduce asexually, dividing like an amoeba into two new identical organisms. Number two," –- he held up a second finger –- "the geological anomaly of Glastenbury Mountain, specifically Langer's Ledge. Like the Oregon Vortex, Spook Hill, and the Wonder Spot, I suspect the ledge is a nexus of concentrated energy –- what the Indians called the 'meeting place of the four winds.' The stone's abnormal magnetic properties would guarantee Meddie's clan plenty of privacy, keeping away animals and people, making the ledge the perfect place to procreate. I think Meddie and his progenitors have been using the ledge as a safe, secluded maternity ward for centuries, returning every fifty-one years when it was time to reproduce, the same way a salmon returns to the stream where it was spawned." "The cars in the museum's parking lot..." "That's right. Meddie's brothers traveled from as far away as Alaska to be in the Bennington Triangle at this exact time to propagate their species...a species on the verge of extinction, I might add." "Why do you say that?" "Given the increased number of outdoor enthusiasts who hike Glastenbury each year, it would be impossible for the clan to keep killing victims while hiding the murders. It's like you said a couple of days ago, Scully -- survival of the fittest presupposes the clan's failure. They were competing against the modern American sightseer for territory. The mutants were bound to lose eventually." "Well, they're all in jail now. Without access to human bone marrow, they won't be able to replicate. The species will become extinct." "Maybe not. There may be similar creatures reproducing at the Wonder Spot right now while you and I sit here enjoying breakfast and watching the ordinary world go by." He suddenly grinned. "Scully, what would you think about a side trip to Wisconsin?" She set down her fork, reached across the table and picked up the museum brochure. Looking him squarely in the eye, she folded it in half and tucked it away in her pocket. "Two words, Mulder: case...closed." THE END Author's notes: Feedback, good or bad, is welcome on this or any of my stories. Send comments to cindyet@tdstelme.net. Visit my other fanfic at my Web site at http://cindyet.xfilesfanfiction.com.