From: Matt Treyvaud Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Waldgesit (1/4) Date: Sat, 18 May 1996 13:11:52 +1000 WALDGEIST (1/4) ----------------- By Matt Treyvaud. The characters of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, and all associated concepts, are copyright to Ten Thirteen productions. Caveat, Pax Romanis, Et Cetera. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ N.B. This is a 'real' X-File, i.e. not a 'what if' or a 'what happened after' story, but an attempt at an actual episode-style story. It is also my first attempt at serious X-Files fanfic so go easy on me. :) Thanks to Holly, my editor, and to Eve, -her- editor, for helping me americanise and smooth over rough patches. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I. 'Dead leaves always give up motion.' -- 'E.T.I.', Blue Oyster Cult Wilson, Massachusetts. 11:23 p.m. Everything was quiet in the Rankin household. Upstairs, 15-year-old Natalie Rankin was sleeping peacefully in her bed, resting on her right side and only disturbing the stillness of the night with the occasional faint snore. Downstairs, her parents lay in their bed; her father, Mark, sleeping in a posture almost identical to his daughter's - the main difference was that his snoring was louder and more frequent. Her mother Freida, however, was awake. Freida was an insomniac, but didn't really mind her condition. She was also a person who liked to keep things organised, and the extra hour or so she was awake each day helped her to do this - in her mind at least. She was just trying to decide what she was should make for dinner the next evening when something in the corridor outside the bedroom caught her eye.A moving light, from the other end - near the stairs. _Probably Natalie with a flashlight_, she thought, but was unable to look away as the light grew brighter - presumably due to the source drawing nearer. It didn't look like light from a flashlight - it didn't bob and move, as a flashlight beam does with every footstep of the person holding the flashlight. In fact, when you got right down to it, it wasn't a beam of light at all - it was a _glow_. 'Natalie?' Freida called out, anxious to learn what this strange entity was, and so fit it into her organised mind. 'Is that you?' Then the light source reached the doorway, and she saw that it wasn't Natalie. It wasn't like anything she had seen before - except on television and in movies. It glowed all over with a cold milky-white light, a light that not only gave off no heat but actually seemed to radiate -cold- wherever it shone. Even in her nightgown and under the blankets, Freida was shivering. This was only partly due to the chill light, however - the main source was the Thing that was its source. One look at it and she'd known what it was: an Alien. It was about four feet tall, with a large bald head and disproportionately huge black soulless eyes; it was naked - as far as she could tell - yet there was no genitalia visible. As it stepped into the room, she noticed that it only had four digits on each hand. Yes, it was an Alien all right - Freida had seen her fair share of TV shows and magazine articles featuring 'abductees', 'UFOlogists', and assorted oddballs. She knew what Aliens looked like. She had just never believed in them before now. The Alien seemed to look at her, although it was difficult to tell, given its dark, featureless eyes. She wanted to talk, to ask it what it wanted (or ask it to leave), but she was absolutely petrified with terror. So Freida and the Alien remained motionless for two minutes, each staring at the other, her husband snoring occasionally from what seemed like a million miles away. It was the longest two minutes Freida had ever experienced in her entire life. Then it raised its arm, reaching out to her, and she felt a strange heavy sensation in her mind. Not physical heaviness, not exactly, but it was a presence of some sort - an unwanted presence, one which had no business in her or any sane human being's mind. Still petrified, she stared at it. Her mouth was half-open, and she managed to make a croaking sound in her throat. In her mind, though, she was positively babbling; the same thought, over and over: _Oh please God make it go away please God make it go make it go -away-..._ Then it spoke. Like psychic knives, its words forced their way into her mind and made themselves known to her. It was the most vile sensation she had ever experienced - the feeling of utter violation was overwhelming. All the more so because the words it spoke were not in any language she had ever heard before. She was not even sure that they -were- words - they were more like unnatural vibrations and discordancies in her head. One thing she was sure of: they were not of this earth. Either that, or she was so terrified she had lost her capacity to understand them. Monstrous though they were, they were mercifully short; and as the last one disappated into her psyche, her paralysis broke. Freida screamed. Loudly. Not only did she wake everyone in her own house, but she also woke everyone in the house on either side of the Rankin's - and a good few people even further away. The Alien vanished an instant before her husband woke and jerked bolt-upright. 'Freida?' he said, groggy but worried. 'What's -?' He couldn't even hear himself over the scream, so he grabbed her by the shoulders. This sudden contact seemed to snap her out of her terror, and she stopped screaming. 'What is it?' he demanded. 'Is someone in the house?' She muttered something, eyes still bulging and staring at the doorway. 'What?' he asked, following her line of sight through the doorway to the empty corridor. 'Some_thing_,' she repeated, louder. 'Some_thing_.' II. Washington, D.C. 9:04 a.m. Scully was not overly surprised to see that Mulder was already in their office when she walked in. He frequently came to work early; sometimes she suspected that the main reason he did so was to accumulate a huge amount of information on some obscure topic, and then bombard her with it when she arrived. 'Good morning,' she said, noting that he had the usual assortment of manila folders, each detailing a separate X-File, stacked up on the desk. 'Hey Scully,' Mulder said, without looking up from the file he was currently looking through, 'Have you ever heard of Wilson Forest?' 'No,' Scully said. 'But I suppose you're going to tell me why I should have.' 'It's a smallish patch of woodlands in Massachusetts. Apparently, back in the sixties,' he said, 'It achieved a certain degree of fame among parapsychologists due to the lights that could be seen in and near it. According to this historian, the lights have been floating around there since the turn of the century.' 'Mulder, mysterious lights have been sighted in practically any forest you'd care to name. And a multitude of possible explanations have been suggested. Swamp gas, glowing insects -' 'In general, Scully,' he said, 'I'd agree with you. We have more important things to investigate than haunted forests. But in the specific case of Wilson Forest...' 'You think it does warrant investigation.' 'Precisely. You see, Wilson Forest has a very odd history. According to these reports, people were going into Wilson Forest and never coming out - and let's not forget, it's not all that big - at a rate of one every two to four years, since 1900 - which means the disappearances started at the same time that the lights did.' 'Or at the same time that people started to -notice- the lights.' 'Could be,' Mulder admitted. 'But here's where it starts to get really strange: for some reason, in the early seventies, the dissapearances stopped. No trail-off, no gradual decrease in rate - they just stopped short.' 'Are there any obvious reasons why that might be?' 'Well, during 1970 and 1971, the local railway line was improved - that's the only major historical fact I can find. But if the railway line had anything to do with the disappearances, you'd think that an improvement would make it -easier- to get on a train and vanish, thus -increasing- the number of disappearances, rather than stopping them altogether.' 'Perhaps whoever was responsible for the disappearances died around then?' 'It would take someone pretty sprightly to cause the disappearance of 23 people over seven decades.' Scully smiled wryly. 'We do have a precedent for that sort of thing, you know. Where there's one hybernating, non-aging, murderous mutant, there could be others.' 'True,' Mulder said, grinning, 'but these disappearances follow a pattern different from the Tooms case's. They're more frequent, for one thing, and they're not just murders - they're complete -disappearances-.' Scully nodded. 'Yes... but if the disappearances have stopped, why this sudden interest in them? Nostalgia?' 'No,' Mulder said, 'History repeating itself.' 'They've started again?' 'Possibly. In the past five years, two people have vanished without a trace. One of them disappeared from his bed at night; the other was apparently on a hike in the forest with a friend when her friend lost sight of her - and never saw her again.' 'What about the lights?' 'They've started again too,' Mulder replied, nodding. 'In fact, it's something related to the lights that sparked my immediate interest in this case. A report of a very strange experience.' 'What kind of experience?' 'A Mrs Freida Rankin claims that a white, luminous alien came into her room one night and psychically communicated with her before disappearing when she screamed and woke everyone else up.' 'What a strange time for it to disappear,' Scully said drily. 'Strange also,' Mulder said, 'That out of 25 people gone missing in Wilson Forest, 11 reported similar experiences, a week or less before their disappearance.' 'You think there's a connection?' 'I don't know. But I think it would be a good idea to try to find out.' [cont].. =========================================================================== From: Matt Treyvaud Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Waldgesit (2/4) Date: Sat, 18 May 1996 13:13:02 +1000 WALDGEIST (2/4) ----------------- By Matt Treyvaud. The characters of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, and all associated concepts, are copyright to Ten Thirteen productions. Caveat, Pax Romanis, Et Cetera. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ III. Wilson, Massachusetts. 5:46 p.m. The brass numbers on the were 1 and 0, confirming that Mulder and Scully were, indeed, at 10 Grafton street - the Rankins' address. Mulder pressed the doorbell and waited. In a minute or so, a short, dark-haired woman opened the door. 'Yes?' she said. 'Mrs Freida Rankin? - I'm agent Fox Mulder,' Mulder said, flashing his I.D. 'We spoke on the phone.' 'Oh, yes,' Freida said. 'Come in.' 'Thank you,' Mulder said, and entered the house's entryway. 'This is my partner, agent Dana Scully,' he said, as Freida closed the door. 'Nice to meet you, agent Scully,' Freida said. 'Likewise,' Scully replied, smiling. When she made no move to invite them further inside, Mulder decided not to beat around the bush. 'We realise you're a busy woman, Mrs Rankin,' he said, 'So we'll try to be as quick as we can.' 'I appreciate that,' said Freida. From her tone, however, it was apparent that she actually didn't appreciate the visit at all. Mulder gave up any hope of sitting down in this house. 'First of all, is there anything you didn't mention in the report?' Freida frowned. 'No,' she said. 'I told them everything.' 'Are you sure?' Mulder persisted, seeing something in her eyes that told him that she might know more than even -she- thought she did. 'Something you forgot, or that didn't seem relevant, at the time? - Anything at all.' Freida frowned and thought for a minute. 'Well... maybe one thing,' she said, finally. 'Yes?' Mulder asked. 'It was _cold_.' 'Cold?' Scully asked. 'Yes, it was cold. The light it gave off, I mean - it wasn't hot, like normal light, or temperatureless like fluorescent light - it was actually _cold_. I don't think I remembered to mention that to the police.' Freida's voice was strong and unwavering, but her nervous hands and posture belied her dislike of discussion on this particular topic. Mulder decided not to try to press for much more information, in case they needed to visit her again - goodwill was everything when you were questioning a witness. _One more question_, he thought, and then said it: 'One more question, Mrs Rankin: were you or any member of your family doing anything unusual on the date that it happened? Anything out of the ordinary, not part of your usual schedule?' Frowning again, Freida spoke slowly. 'I wasn't - I was working at the library, like I usually do on Wednesdays. As far as I know, Mark went to work as usual.' 'And your daughter?' 'I don't think... no, wait. She went on a class trip - is that the sort of thing you mean?' 'Yes, exactly,' Mulder said. 'Where did she go?' 'She went with her geography class to the forest,' Freida said. Mulder looked over at Scully with his eyebrows raised. 'Would you mind if we talked to her, Mrs Rankin?' Scully asked. 'Not if she doesn't,' Freida said, obviously relieved that her questioning was over. 'But she didn't see the... what I did. I don't want to waste your time.' 'No,' Mulder said, 'We'd still like to talk to her, if that's all right.' Freida nodded. 'Let me just go up and ask her.' She turned and went up the staircase. As soon as she was out of earshot, Mulder turned to Scully. 'Well, what do you think?' he asked. 'About what?' 'The forest connection.' 'Connection? - there's a difference between coincidence and connection, Mulder.' 'You think it's a coincidence?' 'Well, it wasn't Mrs Rankin who went to the forest, was it? Her daughter didn't see anything.' Before Mulder could reply, Freida returned with her daughter. 'This is Natalie,' she said to them. 'I have to... uh, I'll just be in the kitchen.' 'Thank you, Mrs Rankin,' Mulder said. Freida left the room, presumably headed for the kitchen. 'Hello, Natalie,' Scully said. 'I'm agent Scully and this is agent Mulder. We want to ask you a few questions about yesterday.' 'Mom told me that that's what you wanted,' Natalie said, nodding. 'But I didn't see it.' 'But during the day,' Mulder said, jumping in, 'You went on a class trip to the forest?' 'Yeah,' Natalie said. 'For geography.' 'Did anything unusual happen in the forest?' Mulder asked. Natalie paused. 'Maybe,' she said. Scully raised her eyebrows. 'Maybe?' 'I'm not sure,' Natalie replied. 'I think maybe... something happened.' 'What?' Scully asked. 'I don't know,' Natalie said. 'It's hard to describe.' 'Could you give it a try?' 'It was like... like I suddenly saw myself, and the rest of my class, from above. From up in the treetops.' 'How long did it last?' Mulder asked. 'A second, maybe less,' Natalie said. 'Then everything looked normal again, and I felt kind of faint.' '-Did- you faint?' Scully asked. 'No,' Natalie replied. 'I'm not even sure that it happened.' She shrugged. 'Maybe I imagined the whole thing. It was pretty weird.' 'Sounds it,' commented Mulder. 'Did anything else strange happen that day?' 'Nope,' Natalie said. 'Not until mom woke us all up, at least.' Scully noticed that Natalie didn't seem all that concerned about whatever had happened that night. 'Do you believe your mother?' she asked, intrigued. 'I don't know,' Natalie said, clearly uncomfortable at being asked to judge whether or not her mother was telling the truth. She leaned forward and spoke quietly. 'Between you two and me... I think maybe she just dreamed it. She's been working kinda hard for the past couple of weeks - maybe too hard, you know what I mean?' Scully nodded. 'I know exactly what you mean,' she said, looking at Mulder. 'If you think of anything else,' Mulder said as Freida showed them out, 'Give me a call. Here's my card.' She took it. 'Thank you,' she said, 'I will. Well... goodbye,' she added, and closed the front door on them. 'Well, we didn't learn much there,' Scully said, as they stepped down from the Rankins' front porch. 'Except for a rational explanation of what really happened to Mrs Rankin, given by someone who's known her for 15 years.' 'I thought being skeptical was only your nine-to-five job,' Mulder said, grinning. They got into the Bureau car. 'Around you, Mulder,' Scully said, buckling herself in, 'It's round-the-clock.' 'You'd better be careful,' Mulder said, still. 'I'd hate to see you "work too hard".' Scully smiled. 'Seriously, Mulder,' she said, 'I don't think this case merits any futher explanation. The woman was under stress, there's no material evidence -' 'There's Natalie's out-of-body experience,' Mulder said, interrupting her. 'That's something.' 'There's no proof that that happened - even -she- wasn't sure!' Scully said. 'She strikes me as something of a skeptic,' Mulder said. 'I think that it did happen, and I think that something in the forest -made- it happen.' 'Like what?' Mulder shook his head. 'I don't know,' he said. 'But I'm -sure- that Wilson Forest is involved.' 'Well, what can we do?' Scully said, exasperated. 'Arrest the forest? Bring it in for questioning? We need -leads-, Mulder, not vague suspicions.' 'We have leads,' Mulder said. 'You forget - there were two other disappearances in recent times. The family which lost the girl has moved out of town, but the man who disappeared - Robert Dunn - left behind a son, Douglas, who, if all my information is correct, still lives in Wilson.' Scully sighed. 'All right,' she said. 'We'll go and talk to him. But I still think you're looking for a connection that simply -isn't there-.' 'That's what I like about you, Scully,' Mulder said. He paused to start the engine, before adding, as they pulled away from the curb, 'You humour me.' Scully smiled faintly. IV. 5:56 p.m. 'Nice place,' Mulder said, as he and Scully walked up Dunn's driveway. Dunn's house was small but attractive; the sort of thing that might be expected from a moderately-successful single man. It was white, single-story, with a well-tended front lawn that even had a birdbath in it. Rather than a doorbell, Dunn had a stylish brass knocker. Mulder rapped firmly three times, then stepped back and waited. A minute or so passed before the door was opened by a gaunt, tired-looking man. 'Can I help you?' he asked. 'Mr Douglas Dunn?' Mulder asked. 'Yes,' Dunn replied, face a carefully-composed mask of expectancy. 'Mr Dunn, my name is Fox Mulder, and this is my partner Dana Scully; we're with the FBI.' Mulder and Scully flashed their badges before Mulder continued: 'We'd like to talk to you about your father's disappearance.' Dunn stiffened. 'I wasn't on very good terms with my father when he disappeared. I really don't think I can help you.' 'Nevertheless,' Mulder said, 'Any help you could offer us -' 'I can't offer you any help,' Dunn said firmly 'Why don't you try down at Peterson's?' he added. 'Peterson's?' 'It was his favourite bar. You should find a few of his drinking buddies there, if nothing else,' Dunn said, not entirely without bitterness. 'How can we get there?' Mulder asked. Dunn pointed down the road. 'Third turn on the left, then keep driving until you see it on the left. You can't miss it.' Peterson's turned out to be a bar, small but cosy in an old-town way. It was not the sort of place, Scully sensed, where cellular phones were commonplace, or mineral water was served. Everyone inside - some sitting at the bar, but most clustered in groups at the tables - looked at least forty. It was not a stylish, exciting bar, it was a -comfortable- bar, where the pillars of the community could come to get away from their teenage kids and reminisce about great football games and their college years. Scully had been in this sort of place many times before. Her father had been on first-name terms with bartenders in at least a dozen bars like this, scattered all over the country. Glancing over at Mulder, however, she could see that he was clearly not as used to their surroundings as she was. 'Well, Mulder, what do you think?' she asked, smiling. 'All I can say is, the action in this place is terrible,' he replied. 'Let me do the talking.' She led the way up to the bar and raised her hand, at which the bartender approached them. He was a jovial-looking man, slightly on the portly side, with a large bald spot and an apron covered in a wide assortment of faded stains - in other words, she felt like she knew him already. 'Good evening, folks,' he said. 'My name's Peterson, Claude Peterson, and this is my bar. And may I say,' he added, 'what a pleasure it is to have a lady as lovely as you here. Wouldn't surprise me if you didn't have to pay for a drink all night.' He grinned and gave Scully a conspiratorial wink. She smiled in spite of herself - it was uncanny how similar he was to all the others she knew. 'Well, we won't be drinking tonight,' she said. 'We're on duty.' 'On duty!' Peterson said, leaning back. The cheerful grin began to look uncertain. 'My liquor license is all paid up, if that's what you're -' 'No,' Scully said, 'We're with the FBI.' She pulled out her ID and showed him; Mulder did likewise. 'I'm agent Dana Scully and this is my partner, agent Fox Mulder.' 'Hi,' Mulder said. 'The FBI! What -is- this about?' Peterson asked, looking confused. 'We're investigating the disappearance of Robert Dunn,' Scully said, 'And we were told that someone here might be able to help us out.' 'I see,' Peterson said carefully. He no longer looked confused. 'Do you know anything about his disappearance?' Scully asked. Peterson looked over her shoulder for a moment, staring at something which was no longer there. 'Yeah,' he said finally, and looked back into her eyes. 'I know pretty much everything about it. - Look, why don't you come into my office? I don't think we'll last another minute out here before someone tries to hit on you - no offense,' he added quickly. 'None taken,' Scully replied. 'Where's the office?' She hated to be so abrupt with him, but she didn't want to get too friendly with him either - in case his cheerful manner turned out to be hiding something darker, something which she thought she'd glimpsed for a second when she'd mentioned the disappearances. 'Just a second,' Peterson said, and quickly walked down to the other end of the bar. He muttered something to another, younger man who was serving there. The young man nodded in response and Peterson lifted the hinged barrier and came out from behind the bar. 'Follow me,' he said to them, and quickly began weaving his way through the tables and chairs dotted throughout the restaurant section. They followed him; he soon led them to a small door at the rear of the building marked 'PRIVATE - EMPLOYEES ONLY'. He unlocked the door and opened it, motioning them in. Scully went in first; the office was basically an extension of the business in general, with the same atmosphere - despite the fact that there were no patrons in here - and the same decor. A large desk dominated the room, with one chair behind it and two in front. On the desk there was a chaotic jumble of papers and books, through which a portable fan protruded. In the far corner lurked a filing cabinet covered in dust. 'Please, take a seat,' Peterson said, sitting down behind the desk himself. Scully and Mulder did so, finding the seats surprisingly comfortable. He paused briefly, looking down at his hands. 'So,' he said finally, still not looking up. 'You're investigating Dunn's disappearance.' 'Yes,' Scully said. 'What do you know about it?' 'I know who took him,' Peterson replied. 'Who was it?' Scully asked. Peterson looked up finally, meeting her eyes. 'His own demons,' he told her. 'He fended them off for two decades... it was a damn good effort, but they got him in the end.' 'I'm sorry,' Scully replied, 'I don't quite follow.' Peterson sighed. 'I'll start at the beginning,' he said. [cont...] =========================================================================== From: Matt Treyvaud Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Waldgeist (3/4) Date: Sat, 18 May 1996 13:15:06 +1000 WALDGEIST (3/4) ----------------- By Matt Treyvaud. The characters of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, and all associated concepts, are copyright to Ten Thirteen productions. Caveat, Pax Romanis, Et Cetera. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ V. 'Back in 1968, my grandfather died,' he said, and leaned back in his chair. His eyes left Scully's and found something else - the past. 'He was eighty-eight,' Peterson added. 'He'd hung in there for a long time. But eventually the reaper got him, like it gets everyone else. 'I was his only surviving relative, or so his attorney told me, so I got all of his possessions. There weren't many - just a lot of clothes, books and old bathing magazines. And his furniture, of course, but I donated that to charity. I had no room for it. The rest of his life moldered away up in my attic for a couple of years, until one winter during a blizzard I decided to go through them and see if I couldn't find anything interesting. 'Well, I found something. 'It was his diary. In twelve volumes. The man was a prolific writer, although towards the end the entries became shorter and less frequent... which is understandable. He had all his brains until the very end, but his arthritis made it hard for him to turn a doorknob, let alone use a pen. 'I started reading through the first volume - he'd started it when he was eighteen, way back in 1898. The day he'd lost his virginity. He seemed real proud,' Peterson added, chuckling to himself. 'But anyway, I was skimming through some more entries, and I found a really interesting one. 'Back in 1900, his friends had dared him to spend a night in Wilson Forest, without a lantern or any kind of light. Even back then, you see, there were superstitions that it was haunted; wild horses wouldn't've dragged most young men in there, but my grandpa was different. He actually seemed to be looking forward to it, in the entries he made the week before he was scheduled to do it.' Peterson shook his head. 'He was a fool,' he said sadly, and paused before continuing. 'According to his diary, my grandpa went in there one evening, with a couple of blankets, a flask of whiskey and a colt revolver in case of trouble. He walked in as far as he could before it got dark, then bedded down and started drinking. I guess he figured it'd make the time pass faster. 'Anyway, it wasn't long before he fell asleep, and he slept quite comfortably until suddenly some godawful noise up overhead woke him up. When he opened his eyes, he saw what he called 'the aftermath of an explosion' in the sky, bright enough to shine down through all the trees. Then he started to hear this whistling sound. 'It grew louder and louder - it only lasted a couple of seconds, but that can be a long time when you're alone in the dark - before there was another godalmighty noise, closer this time - up in the treetops. Some weird kind of tearing crash. 'So he got up, and peered up into the branches overhead. The moon was half-full, and he thought he saw something - something moving. Something that was thrashing around up there like nobody's business. 'Well, this was back at the turn of the century, and my family always -was- religious; the first thing he decided was that it was a fallen angel. And since our family had always leaned more towards the darker side of the Christian faith, the second thing he decided was that it hadn't fallen by mistake - that God had cast it out. And, well, he decided that if God didn't want it in heaven, He probably wouldn't want it on earth either. So he pulled out his revolver and emptied the barrel into the treetops. 'All six bullets. The thing stopped thrashing by the third. 'My grandpa spent the rest of the night in that forest - even if the Devil himself had ridden up and danced on his head, he wouldn't go back on a dare. But he didn't sleep a wink. Peterson's eyes returned to Scully's; he was back in the present. 'What do you think of that?' he asked. 'Crazy, right?' 'Frankly,' Scully said, 'It sounds like the hallucinations of a man who'd been drinking a little too much. Mulder looked at Peterson without saying anything. 'That's what I thought, too,' Peterson replied. 'But Dunn didn't. We looked it up in the town records, and there -was- some weird kind of explosion out over the Forest that night. "Unseasonal, cloudless lightning", they called it.' 'Then we noticed, a few months later, the first disappearance - and the first sighting of the lights.' 'I thought it was just a coincidence. Dunn didn't. We spent at least a month's worth of our evenings going over the old town records, searching for a disappearance or a report of some weird lights in the forest - but we didn't find -one-. And you'd -expect- at least a couple. I mean, people have been here a very long time - not even any of the Indian stories say that the forest is anything to be feared. God only knows how the rumour that the place was haunted had gotten started, because from what we could see, you were safer in the forest than you were in Wilson itself! 'That is, before the night my grandpa spent in there. 'After that, all the weird stuff started happening. Lights, phantoms, disappearances - it was like the trees were making up for lost time, going out of their way to spook people. 'Anyway, after we'd gone through all the records in city hall, Dunn said to me, "You know what I think? I think the forest is haunted." 'I laughed at him. I didn't believe in ghosts. "By what?" I asked. "Pink Elephants?" - I still thought that my grandpa had just dreamed it all up under the influence, you see. '"No," he said. "By whatever the hell it was that fell out of the sky." 'So I looked at him, and he looked at me, and I said, "You're crazy, Dunn." '"Then humour me," he said. 'Well, one thing led to another, and before long he'd managed to convince me to go out into the forest with him and give whatever-it-was a decent Christian burial. He did admit that it might not be Christian, but as he said, it was "better than nothing". 'Now, my grandfather had said that he'd just kept on walking north until it'd gotten dark - so we did the same, except in the middle of the day. We worked out exactly where he'd gone in, near as we could figure from the diary, and then hiked north through that forest, shining a flashlight into the trees and looking for something - body, bones, whatever. I was basically hoping that we'd walk for a few hours and then come out the other side; it was a nice day for a hike, at any rate. 'We walked for about half an hour without finding anything, me carrying the shovel and him carrying the flashlight and a little white crucifix we'd knocked together for its grave marker. Then all of a sudden he shouted out "There! In the trees!" 'Well, I looked up, and I'm telling you, there was a -skeleton- hanging from the branches up there, all yellowed from what little sun filtered down through the treetops. I guess the birds must have picked the body clean. Anyway, we had a small argument about who was going to go up and get it; I lost, so I did. 'When I got close enough to get a real good look at it, I wished I'd argued a little more forecefully. It was the spookiest thing I ever laid eyes on. 'It looked like a human skeleton - maybe a little kid, about four feet tall - except, judging by the size of its eye sockets, the kid it'd belonged to would have had to've had eyes almost as big as dinner plates. Also, as far as I could see it only had four fingers on each hand, and four toes on each foot. 'I pushed it, dislodged it, and it fell to the ground with a horrible dry clatter - a sound I wouldn't particularly like to hear again. I heard Dunn say "Jesus!" as I started to climb down; I guess it spooked him a little too. 'By the time I got to the ground, Dunn'd started digging the grave. We'd only brought one shovel, so I sat down and rested, trying not to look at the skeleton. Most of the time, though, I couldn't help it. I was extremely glad when he finally finished the hole and we hoisted it in. 'I have to hand it to Dunn, he was certainly professional. If I were by myself, I'd've thrown those bones in, tossed a few shovelfuls of dirt over it, and gotten out of that forest just as soon as I could. But he was very careful. "If we're gonna do this," he said, "We're gonna do it right." So he arranged the bones so that they were laid out nice, with the hands resting on the chest - or rib cage, as the case may be - and then he carefully filled in the hole. It was a nice little plot when he was finished. For the finishing touch, I jammed the crucifix into the ground at the head end of the grave. 'Then we stood back, and looked at our work, and it was good. So we went home. 'I don't mind telling you I was pretty damn shaken by that set of bones out there in the forest. I was very glad to have my wife to come back to. But Dunn wasn't so lucky. 'You see, while he was out burying weird bugeyed skeletons, his wife had dropped dead. He came home to a crying baby son and a stiffening corpse in the living room. 'It was an aneurism. One of those things, you know? But Dunn didn't buy that. The first person he rang after the ambulance and the police was me, and one of the things he said to me was, "It can't be a coincidence. The thing in the forest - it did it. I don't know how, and I don't know -why-, but it did." Then he started sobbing. "Why would it do this to me?" he asked. "We were trying to help it!" 'Well, I tried to reassure him, told him what I told you - that it wasn't anything to do with what we'd been doing, just a horrible, horrible coincidence. I still believe that that's what it was. Dunn never did. 'Anyway, the years passed. There were no more disappearances, no more lights - I don't know if that was because of what we did, but I'd like to think so. And he raised his son all on his own - did a damn good job, too, until about 1985. That was when he started drinking. Heavily, I mean - he'd been known to occasionally drown his sorrows before then, and with sorrows like him, who could blame him? But in 1985 it really started to take over his life. 'His son was fifteen; it broke my heart to see the boy slowly lose his respect for his old man like that. But that's exactly what happened. In '86 the kid moved out, got a job at the drugstore - now he -owns- the drugstore - and he never spoke to his old man again. 'That probably clinched it for Dunn. He'd lost his wife, then he'd lost his son. He had nothing any more. Every night he just got drunk at my bar - I didn't have the heart to refuse him, or to be too persistent in chasing his tab. I wish I'd been stronger back then now, but I wasn't. His life just slowly fell to pieces, until that night in 1990. 'It was the twentieth anniversary of the burial, and of his wife's death. He got real drunk that night. Eventually he got so drunk I had to throw him out; not literally, of course - I just took him home and put him in bed. I remember the last words he said to me, as I tucked him in just like a little kid: "It did this to me, Claude," he said. "It did this to me and I'm going to get it back." Then he fell asleep - or so I thought. 'I never saw him again. He was the first of the new disappearances. We had the second a couple of years ago. I know I should go out there and check the grave, make sure that that thing's still safely buried out there, but.... I can't. I just can't. I can't face that skull another time. I'd go insane,' he said, almost pleading now. 'I would.' 'So you think that the fallen angel has been dug up?' Mulder asked, speaking for the first time during Peterson's story. 'I think that Dunn dug it up,' Peterson replied. 'I think he went out there and dug it up - some weird kind of revenge. The man was very drunk, and very angry. I think he dug it up and... set it loose again. And that it got him.' 'And you think it's still loose?' 'Like I said, I haven't been back out there. And I don't think anyone else knows about it.' Mulder's eyes were positively shining. 'How can we find it?' he asked. Peterson looked at him. 'I'm not sure that you -can- find it,' he replied. 'What do you mean?' 'Look,' Peterson said, looking tired. 'Wilson Forest isn't that big. People go into it all the time - like back in the sixties, all those "psychic investigators", or whatever they called themselves. But as far as I know, not one of them ever found our little grave, with the wooden crucifix and the spade. 'I don't think you find -it-. I think that -it finds you-.' Mulder looked taken aback. He was about to say something when his cellular phone rang. 'Excuse me a moment,' he said, and pulled it out of his pocket. 'Hello?... Yes, who's speaking?... What's the - ... Mrs Rankin, please try to be calm. What's -... All right. We're on our way,' he said, and hung up. 'What is it?' Scully asked. 'Natalie,' Mulder said. 'She's vanished.' Peterson put his head in his hands. 'My God,' he said. 'It -is- back.' Scully sighed, annoyed - once again, Mulder had managed to surround her with Believers. 'There's no reason to suppose that your experiences -' 'No,' Peterson said, cutting her off. 'There's no reason. But,' he added, looking directly into her eyes, 'If you want to find her... search the forest. And pray that you find her before -it- does.' Scully, looking into the man's anguished, pleading eyes, was lost for words. [cont..] =========================================================================== From: Matt Treyvaud Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Waldgeist (4/4) Date: Sat, 18 May 1996 13:15:52 +1000 WALDGEIST (4/4) ----------------- By Matt Treyvaud. The characters of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, and all associated concepts, are copyright to Ten Thirteen productions. Caveat, Pax Romanis, Et Cetera. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ VI. Wilson Forest, Massachusetts. 6:28 p.m. There was only one road through Wilson Forest, and it was not much used. It had been superceded by the highway built to the west of the forest in the late eighties; nonetheless, it was the road that Mulder and Scully were speeding down at the moment. Scully had initially been reluctant to search the forest; it was against all protocol for kidnappings. But Mulder could be very persuasive at times - not only that, but she had one of her hunches. Intellectually, she knew that what they were doing was not the best way to find Natalie, but on a deeper level - 'Well, Scully,' Mulder said suddenly, eyes flicking from the road to the trees and back again, 'What did you think of Peterson's story?' 'It was certainly very vivid,' Scully said drily as she scanned the trees on the right. 'Do you believe him?' Scully sighed. 'I believe that it's possible that he and Dunn buried a skeleton in the forest. I even believe it's possible that this skeleton could have, for some reason or other, looked like the skeleton of an "alien". There are several bone diseases which could cause this. But,' she added, 'I don't believe that the seventy-year-old skeleton is responsible for Natalie's disappearances, or any of the other ones, for that matter.' 'Don't you believe in the spirit world, Scully?' Mulder asked. 'There's a difference between believing in the spirit world and believing in ghosts,' Scully said. 'There are countless reports of ghosts haunting areas where remains are found,' Mulder insisted. 'In most of these reports, the ghost disappears once the remains are disposed of in what is considered a "decent" manner.' Scully sighed. 'Mulder,' she said, 'supposing, as I think you are, that there is a skeleton out there and that it does belong to an alien, it would be a strange coincidence if the "decent" method of disposal of the dead on its home planet was the same as the Christian one on earth.' 'Well, maybe it's not the disposal that kills the ghost - maybe the sense of closure that the disposal gives the people who discover the remains means that the ghost can't appear to them any more. The point is, what Peterson described is an almost textbook example of a phenomenon that is reported over and over again, throughout most of recorded history - only this is the only case I know of in which the remains were exhumed.' 'If I remember my textbook examples correctly,' Scully said, 'the ghosts that are supposed to haunt the areas where there remains are hidden are generally though to be mindless, repetitive visions - like recordings. You're saying that this one causes disappearances? Isn't that going beyond even what the parapsychologists believe?' 'Maybe the ghost of whatever died out there is able to somehow make use the forest, to tap into the abundant life surrounding it, allowing it to -amplify- itself; make itself a hundred, a thousand times more powerful than it would ordinarily be.' Scully raised her eyebrows. 'A super-ghost?' 'That could explain the origin of a lot of old stories,' Mulder insisted. 'Fairies, goblins, satyrs - practically every forest-based mythical creature could just be a garbled description of what's going on right now in Wilson forest.' 'They could also be a garbled description of a story someone with a good imagination told around a campfire thousands of years ago,' Scully said. 'Look, Mulder; I don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in goblins or satyrs, and, even though I might believe in the "spirit world", I don't believe in ghosts. So I -' 'There she is!' Mulder said suddenly. 'There's Natalie!' He floored the gas pedal. Scully saw her too now, a few meters inside the forest edge, weaving quickly through the trees. She turned her head at the sound of the car accelerating, and paused briefly before turning and heading deeper into the forest. Mulder hit the brakes. 'We'll have to follow her on foot,' he said, pulling off his seat belt as Scully did the same. Leaving the car doors open, they ran towards the forest. 'Natalie!' Scully shouted. Natalie broke into a run. It was hard going through the forest; damp boughs seemed to purposefully swing down and slap into their faces; sharp, fallen branches assailed their ankles with such eye-watering frequency and power that it almost seemed as though the very woodlands were against them. Natalie, however, seemed to be having no problem dodging the many hazards; in fact, slowly but surely, she seemed to be gaining ground on them. A minute or so into the chase, Scully, leading the way, heard a snap and a yell from behind her. She paused and turned to see Mulder sprawled on the ground, leg caught in a tangle of dead branches. 'Mulder!' she said. 'Are you -' 'Forget me!' he shouted. 'Get Natalie!' Scully nodded, slightly embarrassed that she had paused at all - an innocent girl's well-being was surely more important than her partner's - and set off again after Natalie. The girl had a large lead on her now; she was almost completely obscured by the intervening trees. Gritting her teeth, Scully pushed herself harder. Natalie was not going to get away. Mulder watched Scully disappear completely into the forest before he began investigating what had happened to him. His left leg was ensnared firmly, from the knee down, in a cage of deadwood that was far tougher than it looked. After straining with it for a minute or so, he decided that it was hopeless - he would just have to wait for Scully to come back. As he lay on the dirt, listening to the distant sounds of pursuit, Peterson's words came back to him: _I'm not sure that you -can- find it.... I think that -it- finds -you-_ 'I guess this one's Scully's,' he muttered. Once more the prize had been jerked away from him just as he grabbed at it. But this time it was a -forest- pulling the strings. _Even Nature's against me_, he thought morosely. Natalie just ran towards the light. As she ran, Scully became aware of strange darting shapes in the woods around her - in front, to either side, even up above her. They looked like fireflies, only bigger. _Gas_, she thought, and kept running. Staring at the ground, Mulder noticed a change in his shadow - it was shortening rapidly, as though the light source casting it was moving in from behind at great speed. He rolled over as far as his caught leg would allow and watched as the light swooped past overhead. It was travelling in the same direction that Scully was, but much faster. 'What are you?' he shouted in frustration. Up ahead, Scully could see that Natalie had come to a stop and was now standing in some sort of clearing, albeit a very small one. By now the lights were everywhere, flitting through the trees, lighting up the forest almost as well as a full moon. 'Natalie!' Scully said, bursting into the clearing. She ran forward and grabbed the girl to keep her from running off again. 'What are you doing?' Scully asked. Natalie ignored her. She was staring into the sky. Scully looked up too, and realised that it was not the forest lights which were illuminating the clearing so well - there was another light, a far stronger one, in the sky overhead. Even as she stared up, shielding her eyes with one hand, it grew brighter... and closer. 'No!' she shouted, holding Natalie tightly. 'You aren't taking her!' She had no idea who, or what, she was addressing, but this was no time to let the skeptic ride ascendant. But the light grew inexorably nearer, lighting up the clearing as bright as day. Then brighter than day, unbearably bright, so bright it hurt Scully's eyes even though they were shut tight. And then, paradoxically, Scully blacked out. As she fell towards the ground, leaving the light behind, descending into the darkness, she tried to keep her hold on Natalie. _You're not taking her,_ she thought. And then she was gone. Mulder watched the lights in the far reaches of the forest, where Scully had gone, for as long as he could. And then something snapped inside of him. He -had- to get closer. He started pounding at the branches that held him, almost berserk with curiousity, no longer caring about the well-being of his legs or his hands, but to no avail. His only reward was a sore pair of fists which would be covered in bruises the next day. He looked around desperately. He -had- to get closer. So thinking, his eyes fell upon a nearby rock. Reaching out and grabbing it, he thought _Perhaps Nature isn't as bad as I thought._ The rock proved to be much more useful - a few well-placed blows with it, and the dead branches shattered and fell apart, their synergetic strength gone. The final blow had actually gone right -through- them and made quite a nasty gash in his leg, but he didn't even feel it. He got up and ran limping towards the light. the light was infinite but something was amiss, something was very very wrong... not for her, no, but for the light. the light was distressed. Then Scully sank back into complete unconsciousness. Mulder was very close. The light was only ten or fifteen yards away. He could not even see what it was shining on, but he knew - this was the light he was looking for. It didn't matter what the light was illuminating, because this was the light of Illumination. It was - And then, all at once, it vanished. Mulder stumbled; partly due to a protruding tree root, partly due to pure amazement, and partly due to the fact that his eyes had become accustomed to the unnatural light; now, without it, he was blinded. He landed on his hands and knees, and didn't even bother to get up. At that very moment, he wasn't sure if he would ever get up again. 'Mulder?' He looked up. Scully was crouching in the clearing, rocking a sobbing Natalie Rankin back and forth, comforting her gently. 'I got her,' Scully said. Mulder looked at them for a long time, then smiled faintly. He wondered if the real prize would have been as satisfying as the consolation one. EPILOGUE 'Well, Mulder, they searched the entire area,' Scully said, switching off her cellular phone. '"No bones,"' she went on, quoting the Wilson sheriff verbatim. '"Not even animal ones."' Mulder nodded. 'Looks like you were right about my "amplified ghost" theory,' he said. 'I guess I -was- working too hard,' he added, grinning slightly. Scully smiled. 'Don't be so hard on yourself, Mulder,' she said. '-Something- was happening out there.' 'But -what-?' Mulder said, frustration showing in his features. 'I don't know,' Scully said. She paused, then added, 'But I think it's over now.' 'How do you know?' he asked, looking at her curiously. She looked back at him. 'A hunch,' she said. Deep in the Pentagon, in a tiny room furnished only with two wooden chairs and a table, two men with no I.D. were in the middle of a meeting. 'And all of the props have been removed?' the first man was asking. 'All of them which point to anything... extraordinary,' the second man replied, 'Yes.' 'You were lucky,' the first man said, slightly menacingly. 'That would have been a very big mistake on your part.' 'Almost as big as letting them investigate there in the first place?' the second man countered angrily. The first man conceded the point. 'All right,' he said. 'There's no point in trying to blame each other. It was a communication problem, pure and simple... Even so, we need to decide on how we are going to handle the situation.' 'It's obvious we can't discontinue the Wilson series,' the second man said. 'They were making great advances. Full-scale mental hallucination, remote suggestion -' 'I know what they were doing,' the first man interrupted, mildly irritated at the suggestion that he might -not- know about something like the Wilson series. 'Of course you do,' the second man said. 'So, even though we can't discontinue, we had better relocate. I was thinking about somewhere in Iowa, or-' 'Do what you have to,' the first man said. He paused to light up a cigarette, then added, 'I'll keep them out of your way in the future.' THE END 'la mayyitan ma qadirun yatabaqa sarmadi fa itha yaji ash-shuthath al-mautu qad yantahi' - "Al Azif", Abd al-Hazrad ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DOMINANCE - N --------------------------------------------------------------- O O P. Dr. Matt (5) Treyvaud, PPhD, Disreal Founder of the AS. M _-^-_ I /\ e-mail: cthulhu@ariel.its.unimelb.edu.au /\ I /=( o \ S /()\ URL: http://ariel.its.unimelb.edu.au/~cthulhu /()\ N {===\ } S /____\ @}->-->--- <()> ---<--<-{@ /____\ A \=o=) / I N `=_-' M "I got a little overexcited there, didn't I?" C B E U - Lyndal Cairns -- NOISSIMBUS ---------------------------------------------------------------