From: Lyle Bontrager Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 23:40:19 +0000 Subject: Monkey River (1/1) Title: Monkey River (1/1) Author: RocketMan >lbontger@wmcstations.com< Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No fringe is intended. Content: ::::: : Alternate Universe, MSR-Angst?ResolvedST? Summary: Hiding out in Central America NOTES::::::::This is based on my experiences in Belize, Central America and mine solely. So whatever I get wrong, please forgive me. I am trying my best to get it right. ~~~~~ Monkey River ~~~~~ "We hear the tide Roll through the night Come lead the weary Lord please make us one." --'Make Us One' Cindy Morgan ~~~~~ ~~~~~ Monkey River, Belize, Central America 4:03 a.m. ~~~~~ Ellsie listened to the sounds of Monkey River as it rushed past, the water jumping rocks and trees and rain forest in an attempt to make it to the Carribean Sea. They were right on the edge of the town, appropriately called Monkey River, and the sounds of rain forest and water mixed to give a frightening symphony. She didn't like it. But of course, she hadn't grown up here, hadn't ever had to live the way she did now. Squalor was the only term for it. Poverty was not known here, because being poor was everywhere. Sure, you had richer families, those that owned half the town like the Zabanes, but in comparison to what she had known before, everyone lived in poverty, in squalor. Even them, her and him. Ellsie slipped out of the pallet on the rough built up boards, and brushed aside the curtain that was their door. Their . . . house . . . was up on poles, raised to survive floods, with the under side a house for a washing machine and a rusted bike, along with various odds and ends that he thought might come in handy someday. Someday. Here now, was their future. Here was their someday. No more Washington, no more apartments, showers, good reliable air conditioning, no cases, mutants, killers. No more. Just a wooden structure with open windows and a curtain for a door that had made her so proud when they had built it from mahoganey and their own two hands. Mahoganey had been a beautiful sight to them, so much of it everywhere. Now, it was just another wood, just another tropical wood that came in abundance with the rain forest, along with alligators, mosquitos, beef worms, huge beetles, and monkeys. The beef worms scared her the most. They were little flies that bit you and laid their eggs in your flesh. You had to go to the hospital to have the growing things removed surgically. She had been a doctor once, and still, it made her shiver. Ellsie sighed, padded down the wooden steps and onto the ground, the grass sopping after the previous day's continuous rain. She slipped, then regained her footing and jumped across the little river that always formed in front of their house after a rain. The dirt road was littered with broken glass and she had to pick around it in the far away light of the lamp on the corner. A dog scuttled toward her, his tail nonexistent, his teeth bared as she picked up a rock. His body dropped to a crouch, eyes shifted, and she raised the rock, ready to throw. It whined and reluctantly scampered away, knowing the dangers of humans with rocks. She shivered, knowing all the dogs were rabid, but continued on past the other homes, past the palm trees stunted before the No Muerde (No Bite) Bar, on down to the all night Cafe Hello. The cafe was part of the Hotel Hello and it catered to the white missionaries that came during the summers and the immigrant workers that got off the buses to work in the orange groves. The girl behind the long white counter smiled and grabbed a glass bottle with the Coke logo emblazoned on its side, then stuck a straw in the neck, handing it over. Ellsie placed two heavy dollar coins on the counter and walked to an empty table, relishing in the fan that blew directly on her. The girl, whose name was Shermaine, came from behind the counter and sat down, momentarily blocking the fan. "De way, Mestizo?" she said quickly. Ellsie smiled, recalling how confused and almost afraid she'd been when she'd first heard the strange dialect and even stranger language. Something they called Creole, but in it she could detect no French, only gutterized Spanish, screwed up English, and maybe ancient Mayan. Replying with the same she shrugged and the words that rolled from her mouth sounded native, Creole, Belizean. Ellsie told her she had just stopped in, was planning on going nowhere. That's what Shermaine's question had been, roughly - Where are you going? Mestizo was their nickname, being of supposed white and Spanish descent. Mestizos--those whose ancestors were the British colonists of Belize and the Spanish Hondurans. Except neither her, nor her husband had Spanish blood in them. And she herself had no British. They did not tell the people here that. She dropped into heavily accented English. "Ow many peepull you got tonight?" "A few. You, two mans over der. No more." The accent was Carribean, definitely, almost a Jamacian was what she had first guessed. It was easy to fall into after six months. After so long, she no longer thought of it as an accent, but as her language, her tongue. "White mans?" she asked, feeling the horrible urgency that had woken her up come back again. "Si. Bot." Both were white. She shivered and managed to smile at her friend. "Tank you." she murmured and finished the Coke, then gave back the bottle. Ellsie rose and slipped back into the night. No dogs came to attack this time, not so close to the cafe. She would have to tell him. This morning, no matter how early it was. He had to be up at five anyway. ~~~~~ Monkey River 4:47 ~~~~~ His face, the perpetually dark eyes, perpetually sunburned nose, jumped out at her when she got back. He had been afraid, she could see that. "Scully!" he hissed and it made her suddenly want to cry, want to collapse into him and never let go. But she couldn't, wouldn't, let herself do that. "Ellsie." she said back calmly, to give him back his focus, make him realize that they had left behind the old ways. "Where were you?" "At Shermaine's. She's seen two more again." "Whites?" "Yes. Why so many in the off season?" "It can't be good. But how'd they find us? And why are they being so obvious about it?" "I don't know. So far, Shermaine said no one has meentioned us. And she says we're fa enough away to keep dem from coming close. De river and everyting. Der afraid of it, she says." Her voice patterns always had the hint of accent now, even when she didn't have to keep it up for pretenses. "All de whites are. We should be too, but we're too desperate." Ellsie sighed, slipped over to the bed and sat down heavily. "I didn't mean to wake you." "I had a bad feeling." She glanced to him. "I did too." "Monkey River's not safe anymore. Dey must know we're here." "You tink it was the plane, right? De pilot was tracked down and dat little eight seater was abnormal to dem. Dey got our descriptions when dey questioned him." "I tink so. Flying into the private airstrip was a mistake, too different from the norm here. We didn't know. We'll take the Z-line bus to Belize City. Get out. Fly to one of the lesser known tourist spots." "What? Why?" "San Pedro would be good." "But-" "No, dey've got white tourists there. Everywhere. What's two more?" She nodded, blinked and looked around at their squalor. She realized she was going to miss it. "We still have the American money saved up?" "Yes. Shermaine will trade it for us. They get U.S. all de time with de hotel being right der." "Yeah. She will. And she won't tell antyone." They plunged into silence; plans were made, ideas formed, things falling into place. It was dark still, the bull frogs and toads creating too much noise to let her think any longer. She heard the river's namesakes howling, screeching, thrashing. She shivered. "San Pedro. Dat'll be wonderful." "Expensive though. I'll have to get work somehow . . . good work. Not just working in the orange factries." Mulder . . . Manuel she had to call him now, worked in the plant that squeezed the year round oranges into juice and was sold all over the world. It was good, rich, and running much more efficiently under his supervision. He reached out to her while she was caught in her thoughts, brushed his hand through her hair. "You can change it back, Scully." he whispered, making her startle. His voice was the old way, the rich flowing American sounds that she had missed for so long. She glanced to his fingers, which ran down her black hair, the attempt to assimilate into a Spanish culture. His own hair was dark, in spots sun lightened to a brown that turned almost blonde, but that was natural here. Her reddish color was strange, a thing not seen. So he had died it black for her from some plant juices Shermaine had mixed for them. It never washed out. She smiled and took his hands, pulling them around her, needing some kind of warmth in the early morning fear. "We'll make it. We'll blend much better in San Pedro. It's winter and tourist season. No one will think it strange. Then we can relocate. Go to Honduras probably." he said, his voice strangely smooth, silky, wonderfully normal again. She nodded, accepted his words, knew they were not yet trapped. Monkey River jumped along its bed, crashed into the rocks, rumbled over the trees. The rain forest screeched with life, howled with early morning awakenings. The dawn came, and so did their second new beginning. ~~~~~ end how dumb was that? adios RM