The X-Files: Goblins

ELEVEN

The overcast thickened, splotches of shifting cloud from grey to black bulging and spreading, using the wind to warn that the rain that had fallen before would be nothing like the rain to come.

Dana stood uneasily in the middle of a narrow paved road, not at all caring for the way the woodland pressed around her, not liking the faint hint of ozone that promised lightning when the storm broke again.

They had eaten in the diner as planned, but neither she nor Mulder had been either surprised or pleased with what they had heard: Webber and Andrews had learned nothing that hadn’t been recorded or implied in the reports already. No one had seen anything, no one had heard anything; many of the shopkeepers knew Grady, most of them not kindly; a couple recognized Ulman’s picture, but there was nothing more than that. He was from the post. Big deal.

No miracles.

No one had mentioned goblins, either.

Hawks had explained that, over the past couple of months, some kids and a couple of adults had reported seeing… something drifting around the town. They called it a goblin because everyone knew of Elly Lang’s obsession.

“But it doesn’t mean anything,” he had insisted calmly. “A story like that, it kind of feeds on itself.”

By two, the afternoon light had worsened, shifting closer to false twilight. Mulder decided to check the site of the corporal’s murder before the storm broke. Andrews, on a hunch, volunteered to return to the motel to interview the owner; it was possible, she said, Ulman had used the out-of-the-way place for weekend escapes. Maybe he had provoked the wrath of someone’s husband. Chief Hawks quickly volunteered to drive and introduce her.

“And keep her out of trouble,” Mulder had said later, in the car.

Scully hadn’t liked the idea then, and she didn’t like it now. Webber, on the trip out, had already told them that Andrews, her attitude unchanged, had made the interviews, brief as they were, “kind of difficult.” Except, predictably, when the subjects were men.

Webber stood now some fifty yards up the road, hands in his pockets, playing the part of the Jeep the Ulman witness had been in. He looked miserable as the wind slapped his hair and coat around; about as miserable as she felt.

Mulder was on his third circle of the tree from which the arm and weapon had allegedly appeared. It had been easy to find — there was still a ragged piece of yellow crime scene ribbon wrapped around its thick trunk.

She glanced up; the sky was lower.

Nothing moved in the woods but leaves and bare branches. And the slow-strengthening wind.

Behind her, their car shuddered when a gust slammed it broadside.

She turned in a slow circle, shaking her head. The corporal had been drinking; he had, for some reason, come out of the woods down there by the ditch, staggered up here… and had been killed.

Mulder joined her, waving Webber to them. “You see it?” he asked.

The road was a flattened loop that left the county highway just west of Marville, skirted the post boundary here, and met the highway again a mile farther on. While it was possible Grady had been a random victim, there was no way she would believe Ulman had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The killer had followed him through the woods.

“He was meant to die,” she said.

He nodded. “I think so, yes.”

Webber trotted up. “So is it hollow or what?”

She frowned. “What? The tree?”

“Sure. That woman saw—”

Scully took his arm gently and turned him around, pointing to the place he’d just left. “There are no lights, there was no moon, and all she saw, from way back there, was whatever the corporal’s flashlight showed her.”

She waited.

“Okay.” He nodded. “Okay. But what was she doing out here?”

Mulder didn’t answer. He grunted, and headed back for the tree.

“Well,” she said, watching Mulder circle the tree again, squeezing between it and the caged white birch on either side, “she could be an accomplice. She could have been waiting for the killer.”

Webber disagreed, as she knew he would. “That would mean they both knew Ulman would be here, at that time. And they didn’t, right?”

“Right.”

“So it was what? Her bad luck?”

“That’s about the size of it,” she said. She also reminded them that the so-called witness, Fran Kuyser, had been drinking, and taking heroin. Not exactly the most reliable observer they could hope for.

“When are we going to see her?”

Scully hunched her shoulders briefly. “Later, or tomorrow. From what the chief said, the condition she’s in, she won’t be able to tell us anything anyway.”

“A hell of thing,” Webber said. He shifted uneasily. “Can you tell me something?”

She nodded.

“Are the cases you work on… I mean, are they always this screwy? Messed up, I mean.” He shook his head once, violently. “I mean—”

She laughed in spite of herself. “Yes. Sometimes.”

“Brother,” he said.

“Tell me about it.”

Mulder rapped the trunk with a knuckle, then pried at the overlapping bark. Scully knew, however, that he saw more than just the tree. That was only the center; his focus touched it all.

“That old lady you told me about,” Webber said, for some reason keeping his voice low.

Scully didn’t look at him. “Ms. Lang. What about her?”

“She said… I mean, she was talking about goblins.”

She did look then, sharply. “There are no goblins, Hank.”

But she knew what he was thinking: She and Mulder were the X-Files, and that meant this case contained something well out of the ordinary. It didn’t matter that the so-called paranormal had perfectly reasonable explanations, once you bothered to examine such incidents more closely. It didn’t matter that the extraordinary was only the ordinary with curious trappings. They were here, goblins were mentioned, and now she wasn’t sure Hank didn’t believe it a little himself.

Mulder snagged his coat on a bush, yanked it free angrily, and took it off.

A hoarse cry overhead made her look up — a pair of crows flew lazily across the road, ignoring the wind.

“This place is kind of spooky,” Hank said, rolling his shoulders against the damp chill.

She had no argument there. They could see barely a hundred feet into the trees now. If it was twilight out here, it was near midnight in there.

Slipping her hands into her pockets, she called Mulder’s name. They would find nothing here; the trail was, for now, too cold.

He didn’t hear her.

Goblins, she thought; please, Mulder, don’t.

“I’ll get him,” Hank offered, and was off before she could respond.

He hadn’t taken three steps before the first shot was fired.

Immediately, Scully yelled a warning, threw herself around the car and pressed herself hard against the rear fender, gun in hand before she even realized she’d drawn it.

A second shot chipped the tarmac at Hank’s foot, and he cried out, moving backward so rapidly he fell.

Scully eased herself up, squinting into the wind, trying to pinpoint the location of the shooter, knowing only that he was hidden somewhere in the woods east of them. She fired off a quick, blind shot, was answered by a barrage that peppered the road, forcing her back down just as Hank scrambled around the hood and squatted beside her, panting.

“You okay?” she asked.

He nodded, winced, and nodded again.

There was blood on his shoe.

He saw her look and shrugged. “Just a chip from the road on my ankle, that’s all.” He grinned. “I’ll live.”

She could see it, he was scared, but she could see the adrenaline, too.

Another barrage, this time at Mulder’s position, and she rose again and fired as Hank fired over her head.

Nothing.

She could see nothing.

There was no question it was an automatic weapon, its bark suggesting something less than an Uzi. M-16, maybe. Not that it made much difference now. Bullets slammed into the trunk, walking up to and shattering the rear window.

“Mulder!” she called into the silence that followed.

No answer.

Hank tugged at her sleeve when the firing paused. “Gas tank,” he warned, and on a count of three, they slipped back toward the hood. When the next round was aimed at Mulder, she took the opportunity to dart low across the pebbled verge and into the trees, pressing her shoulder against the trunk of a fat black oak. Webber found a position to her right and deeper into the woods.

“There!” he called, and fired at a point just beyond the far end of the ditch on the other side of the road.

She couldn’t see anything, and then — she rubbed a hand quickly across her eyes. In the twisting leaves, a shadow. Or a figure all in black. It didn’t move until Hank fired again, and then it vanished.

She looked to her left, and caught her breath.

“He’s down!” she called to Webber. “Mulder’s down!”

Mulder froze in shocked surprise at the first shot, dropped to the ground at the second, his own weapon out as he heard Scully and Hank return fire. But he couldn’t see where the shooter was. The oak, the birch, the underbrush, all blinded him. Quickly, keeping low, he moved to his left, and dropped again when leaves and twigs were shredded above him, peppering his skull, stinging his cheeks.

He covered his head with one arm and waited, moving again when the firing concentrated again on the road, letting instinct take him deeper into the woods, tree to tree, searching for a muzzle flash, firing once, and once again, in hopes of diverting the shooter’s attention away from Scully and Webber.

He heard glass shatter.

He heard Scully’s voice.

A pine gave him cover, but he flinched anyway when the attack resumed on his original position.

It was luck, then, that the shooter hadn’t seen him maneuvering deeper and around, and he used the time to search again, grunting softly when he saw the flash, and a dark figure pressed against the dark trunk of a lightning-blasted tree. He couldn’t tell from this distance who it was; the figure had dressed in black from ski mask to shoes.

It didn’t look like any goblin to him.

The wind quickened.

He angled inward again, and east, hoping the coming storm’s thrashing branches and spinning leaves would make enough noise and present enough distraction that he’d be able to get close enough for a decent shot.

Scully’s voice, and Hank’s answer; he couldn’t tell what they said, but the fear was there.

The black figure backed away, firing.

Mulder cursed and moved more quickly, keeping as low as he could without losing his balance. There were too many shadows now, too much movement.

He had to get there before the shooter disappeared.

At the south edge of a small clearing, he braced himself against a trunk, took several deep breaths to calm down and clear his head, and waited until the firing stopped.

There was no silence.

The wind and the woodland husked and shrieked at each other, pinwheeling debris across the clearing.

He would have to go across it; to go around would waste time.

He inhaled, blew out, and spun away from the tree in a crouch. He was halfway across, aiming, finger already squeezing the trigger, before he realized the shooter was gone.

Damn, he thought, and slowly straightened, not trusting his vision, gun still out and ready, squinting into the wind and throwing up one hand in disgust.

Something moved behind him.

He had only half-turned before something hard slammed off his temple, a glancing blow that drove him to his knees. His gun whipped out of his grip. His right arm lashed out automatically and struck something soft, but he couldn’t see clearly; there were too many flares of blinding, painful light.

But he saw something, and it made him hesitate.

Then a blow to his spine almost toppled him, and he lashed out again, losing his balance as he did, landing on his shoulder before he was pinned on his chest.

A giggle in his ear, hoarse and inhuman.

Then a voice: “Mulder, watch your back,” just before a foot caught him under his ribs.