I Scream, You Scream

By Jean Robinson
jeanrobinson@yahoo.com


Disclaimer: Characters from the X-Files are the property
of Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Television
Network. All others are property of the author. No
infringement is intended.
Rating: PG-13
Classification: X
Archive: Please ask permission.
Spoilers: Up through "Redux II"
Summary:  A hot case and a cool reception marks
Scully's return to work.
Feedback: Thrill me, chill me, fulfill me at
jeanrobinson@yahoo.com
Author's notes at the end
*****************************

I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM
By Jean Robinson


Coralos, Texas
November 1997
Friday

The sun beat down relentlessly on the small
neighborhood. The adults said it was the hottest
November on record so far. It was all they talked about in
town at the bar, the supermarket and the department
stores. How hot it was. How much hotter it might get.
How hot it would finally be before it was all over.

The kids didn't care about the weather records that were
being broken left and right. They didn't care that the
crops at the outlying farms were dying, and the lawns
were crisping, and the risk of brush fires grew greater
every day.

They just knew it was hot. And there was really only one
way to keep cool in this kind of weather, because only
sissies stayed indoors with the air conditioning.

**************

"Anthony! You're not apposed to!"

Eleven-year-old Anthony Puglisi looked over his shoulder
with an expression reserved exclusively for boys afflicted
with totally annoying younger brothers. Sure enough,
there was Joey, running up behind him, ready to ruin a
perfectly good Friday afternoon, right on schedule.

Anthony reached out and grabbed the smaller boy by the
collar of his Dallas Cowboys t-shirt. Five years separated
them in age, and Anthony took after their tall father with
his height. Joey would never be a physical threat, and
the little punk couldn't seem to learn that particular
lesson no matter how many times Anthony pounded it
into him.

Flexing one suntanned arm, Anthony lifted his little
brother right off the ground. "Listen, snotnose, don't tell
me what I'm 'apposed' to do. If you get your ugly face out
of my sight right now, I might forget to hurt you."

Joey squirmed and kicked, but couldn't connect with
anything vital. "Mom said! Mom said!" he squealed,
falling back on the veiled threat of parental authority as
a last resort.

His brother secured his grip with a second hand, raised
him even higher, and then heaved. Joey flew through the
air and thudded on his back on the solid cement
sidewalk, scraping both elbows bloody. He burst into
tears of pain and frustrated rage.

Ignoring his sibling's braying wails, Anthony turned back
to the business at hand. He held a tattered dollar bill and
two warm quarters up to the man in the black and white
truck, the one who dispensed chilly, soothing treats with
a smile and never asked if you were 'apposed' to spoil
your appetite by eating ice cream before dinner. The man
who sold cheap relief from the sweltering sun.

The Frosty Cow Man.

"I'll have a Green Alien, please," Anthony said politely.

"Here you go, son. Enjoy it!" The man handed him a slim
frozen package.

Tearing the wrapper loose, Anthony exposed the bright
green popsicle and slipped the blessedly cool column of
lime sweetness into his mouth. "Thanks," he mumbled
between slurps.

***************

Washington DC
Friday

She was being watched.

There was no creeping sensation, no feeling the hairs on
her arms or the back of her neck stand up, no disturbing
anxiety coiling in her stomach to alert her to the
surveillance. She just knew.

He'd been watching her ever since she came back to
work. There were days he spent doing nothing more
productive than exercising his optic nerves by staring at
her. If she looked up and caught him at it, he wouldn't
back down, either. No quick body shift, no embarrassed
cough, no papershuffling bluffs for Fox Mulder. No, the
man simply held her gaze for as long as she cared to
continue the staring contest, apparently amazed by the
fact that she was there at all.

Well, he wasn't alone in that regard. Just about everyone
she knew was amazed she was still alive. Including
herself. After all, the cure rate for that kind of cancer
wasn't exactly encouraging, was it?

If she considered her survival nothing short of a miracle,
how could she blame Mulder for sharing that sentiment?

Scully couldn't. But that he chose to demonstrate his
pleasure and wonder at her continued company with
such all-encompassing and intense observation was
starting to unnerve her.

Today was the fifth day in a row that he'd found her more
intriguing than any of his files. Even the one that had
come in yesterday's interoffice mail, emblazoned with the
bold title, "Killer Chinchillas Terrorize Town." In the past,
such a document would have acted as kind of a Mulder-
magnet, encouraging her partner to advance any number
of increasingly far-fetched theories to explain why a
bunch of small, furry mammals were suddenly snacking
on their human keepers instead of their normal diet of
Purina Chinchilla Chow. Hell, he would have called up to
Travel for airline tickets before he'd even finished reading
the opening paragraph.

In the good old days, that is.

Now he seemed lethargic. Almost paralyzed.

It scared her. Her once-energetic, imaginative and
enthusiastic partner had been reduced to a sluggish
shell. Afraid to move. Afraid to act. Afraid to think.

Because of her.

Scully didn't need ESP to read the thoughts behind his
hazel eyes as he slumped in his chair day in and day out,
focusing on her as she typed, filed and returned his
phone calls as well as her own.

If I don't look at these cases, they'll go away. I won't have
to work on them. We won't have to go anywhere or do
anything or meet anyone that will hurt her ever again.
We can just sit here safely in the basement for the rest of
our lives.

But she didn't want to sit in the basement doing nothing.
She hadn't survived a fatal disease to be a desk jockey.
And if she was ever going to shake Mulder out of his
overprotective lassitude, she'd have to do it soon.

**************

Coralos, Texas
Friday

"Old MacDonald had a farm. . ." The tinkling chimes
played the familiar tune as the truck rolled slowly along
the street beside the playground. A pack of children
disengaged themselves from the swings and came
charging over, while others clambered down the monkey
bars or scrambled from the big sandbox.

Tracy Owens jostled for a place in line amid the crowd of
sweating, sunburned children. Someone slammed her in
the back, knocking her aside. She tried to step back in
and was met with immediate resistance. "No cutting!"

"I'm not cutting. I was there. You pushed me!"

"Yeah, well, you're not here now, are you, Freak?" Her
tormentor was a classmate, a boy who had not yet
experienced his own growth spurt and stood about two
inches shorter than she did. Nonetheless, he grinned up
at her with the supremely confident smile of a bully
secure in his power over a weaker opponent.

"Let me in!" Tracy tried once more to worm back into the
line.

The boy thrust her back out unceremoniously. "End of
the line, Freak," he drawled contemptuously.

When they apologized later, her parents blamed it on the
weather and the stress. Tracy hasn't been herself, they
said. True enough. Normally she wouldn't have fought
back, but today she raised her hand for the first time and
swung.

Guided more by luck than aim, she smacked her
adversary directly in the nose. The boy staggered back,
howling, his hands flying to his face to stop the blood. In
a fair fight, he could have taken Tracy, but he hadn't
been prepared for her to instigate a rumble right here
and now. All thoughts of retaliation evaporated as he
tried in vain to defend himself from the blows that rained
down on his face, head and shoulders.

Suddenly it was over. Tracy stood over the moaning boy,
both of them coated with dust and spattered with blood,
surrounded by a silent circle of children. She dropped
her clenched fists and stalked over to the truck, where
the man still waited. He had not interfered with the fight,
had done nothing to prevent or shorten the battle that
had been waged not five feet from his little concession.
He merely accepted Tracy's money and handed her the
Green Alien popsicle she specified.

"Enjoy it, honey," he said cheerfully.

**************

Washington DC
Friday

"You're going home?"

It was the first thing he'd said all afternoon, and,
considering that she'd just logged off her computer and
was gathering files and picking up her coat, it was hardly
an ingenious leap of logic. Still, it was progress. "Yes. I'll
see you on Monday, Mulder."

"Got any plans?"

If he hadn't been blatantly eyeballing her all week, she
might have missed the tiny trace of desperation in his
tone. The minute inflection shouted out at her, giving
voice to the dozens of questions he wanted to ask but
didn't dare.

Will you be alone? Will you eat properly? Will you get
enough rest? Will you call me if you feel sick? Will you be
all right? Are you all right now, Scully?

There was only so much reassurance she could give. And
even less that he would accept. So she answered only the
question he'd spoken aloud, not the others that hung
suspended around them, making the very air seem heavy
and still. "No plans. I'll see you on Monday."

**************

Coralos, Texas
Friday

Little Sharon Schwartz had watched with interest but
without emotional involvement as the big blond girl beat
up the boy. She didn't know either of the combatants,
and her main concern was that she was near the back of
the ice cream queue. At seven, Sharon was small for her
age and she hadn't been able to outrace her long-legged
playmates for a better place in line. She hopped
impatiently from one foot to the other, convinced that all
the kids in front of her were just taking their time to
tease her. Her long brown curls bounced against her
shoulders with each little jump.

Finally, finally, it was her turn. She reached up with a
handful of moist, warm change and demanded,
"Strawberry Twist."

"Oh, I'm sorry, little lady," the Frosty Cow Man said with
real regret. "I just ran out of Strawberry Twists."

Tears stung Sharon's eyes. "What?" she squeaked.

"I don't have any more Strawberry Twists, honey. How
about a Dreamy Fudge Bar?"

At home, Sharon's mother always made sure there was
enough cake or pudding or cookies. At school, Sharon's
teacher always made sure the shortest student could see
the blackboard. At daycamp, Sharon's counselor always
made sure the littlest, youngest camper had enough
poster paint and drawing paper to create a masterpiece.

How come the Frosty Cow Man didn't know he was
always supposed to have enough Strawberry Twists?

"I DON'T WANT A DREAMY FUDGE BAR!! I WANT A
STRAWBERRY TWIST!!"

If the Frosty Cow Man was surprised that such a
deafening bellow of vengeful wrath could emanate from
such a tiny source, he didn't show it. "Sweetie, I'm sorry.
There are no more Strawberry Twists. But how would
you like a Green Alien, for free?"

The mercenary in her was well-developed enough to
recognize this as a good deal, something worthy of
releasing her carefully manufactured anger. Sharon gave
an artistic sniffle while she pretended to consider the
offer, then nodded. "Okay."

"Here you go, honey." He handed her the lime treat.
"Enjoy it!"

**************

end part 1/9



I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM (2/9)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


Washington DC
Saturday

It was amazing, Scully thought, sitting on the floor with
her back against the couch and her legs stretched under
her coffee table, the amount of busywork generated by
her illness. While she'd been hospitalized, her mother
had taken on the task of responding to all the get-well
cards, good wishes and Mass cards and acknowledging
the flower arrangements, fruit and nut baskets, balloon
bouquets, stuffed animals and boxes of chocolate. Once
it become clear that the sentiments behind all the
offerings were not in vain and she was going to live,
Scully had insisted on finishing the chore.

Funny word, chore. When she was small, it meant things
like taking out the trash, helping with the dishes or
cleaning her room. At the Bureau, it meant keeping
Mulder out of trouble, seeing that their reports were
turned in on time and spot-checking them for her
partner's attempts to slip in unauthorized references to
alleged paranormal events, or cleaning out the clutter in
their office. There just might be an agent in the Bureau
who was a bigger packrat than Fox W. Mulder, but Scully
doubted it.

While the sheer volume of gifts and cards to be addressed
was staggering despite what her mother had already
completed, the word "chore" didn't seem appropriate
when applied to the task of thanking people who told you
in one way or another that they wanted you to live. Were,
in some cases, asking various Gods in various ways to
make a special exception on your behalf and not spirit
you off to some ethereal wonderland just yet.

She looked at the pile of greeting cards alone with some
dismay. Do I even know this many people? she thought.
Does anybody?

The top card showed a colorful spray of red, pink, yellow
and white roses in a vase, and the verse inside read,
"Many happy thoughts are being sent your way with
wishes that you'll continue to feel better each day." It was
one of those cards that you got by the packet in the mail
with a request for a donation. The kind with the little
paragraph on the back describing how the front picture
had been mouthpainted by a paralyzed artist.

The kind you gave to someone you didn't know well
enough to spend two dollars on a name brand card, but
who deserved some type of gesture due to the severity of
their illness alone.

The sender had scrawled one personal line below the
card's sentiment. "Hope to see you back at the office
soon, Dana, Pat Seibert."

Pat Seibert? Who was she? Or he?

At least the mysterious Pat had put a last name on the
card instead of just on the long-discarded envelope and
provided some clue, however vague, to an identity. Was
Pat Seibert someone from the HR department? Maybe a
lab tech who'd run some unofficial tests for her the last
time Mulder brought in a sample of unidentified goo?
That guy at the desk who always cracked stupid jokes
about sneaking off to the drive-in when she and Mulder
came to requisition a car for their travels?

It would have to wait until Monday; Scully didn't have a
Bureau directory at her apartment. She set Mr./Ms.
Seibert and his/her spur-of-the-moment card aside and
picked up the next one, a large, humorous Hallmark
from Kimberly, Skinner's secretary.

Finally. Someone she recognized. Pulling her stationery
to a comfortable writing angle on the table, Scully started
her thank-you letter.

**************

Coralos, Texas
Saturday

Marty Thorpe hated losing. He especially hated losing
after throwing two perfect passes that his receivers, who
were wide open, dropped. Idiots. Morons. Jerks. Coach
oughtta bench the whole team, except for him. Flinging
his helmet onto the hard, dusty ground, Marty stormed
off the field. The rest of the pansies could line up and
shake hands with opposing team and mutter, "Good
game." Everyone knew you didn't mean it, and today
Marty didn't even feel like pretending.

How was he ever going to make the high school varsity
when all he had to practice with were kids who couldn't
catch a ball if you dipped them in super glue? Sure, high
school was still two years away, but as Marty's dad
always said, you have to build a reputation. Show the big
guys what the next generation would be like. You never
knew when the high school coach might come and hang
around the junior high field, scouting out the talent.

A sudden coughing fit doubled him over; he hacked up a
mouthful of mucus and spat it on the dusty ground.
Marty had just ended a three-week argument with
bronchitis. Today had been his first game in nearly a
month and he'd been looking forward to mopping the
floor with the other team. He'd have done it, too, if only
he'd had a little help.

In the distance, he heard the jingle of chimes playing,
"Old MacDonald Had a Farm," and his step quickened.
The Frosty Cow Man. That's what he needed; a quick
sugary pick-me-up. Then he slowed down again,
frowning. The doctor had told him not to eat ice cream or
drink too much milk; it felt good but it would only cause
his throat to clog further. Normally, he would have
ignored the advice, but he needed to stay in top form
after being sick for so long. The second string
quarterback was just waiting for the chance to oust him
permanently, the little weasel.

Then he remembered the full menu of the Frosty Cow
Man, and picked up the pace again. There were plenty of
non-dairy frozen goodies in that truck.

The black and white vehicle had pulled over to the far
edge of the playing field, and Marty started to run. When
he arrived, a crowd of kids from both teams was already
there, wrestling for positions closest to the front to see
and be served.

Marty never hesitated in situations like this. You have to
look out for yourself, his dad told him frequently. No
one's gonna do it for you.

He waded into the group, shoving players left and right
and ignoring the indignant shouts of, "Hey!" and "Cut it
out!" and "Marty, watch it!" until he was in front, facing
the little counter. He'd made his decision on the way
through, and he dug in his gym bag for change.

"Gimme a Green Alien," he ordered, sorting through
coins.

**************

Washington DC
Sunday

The priest's voice settled into a comfortably soothing
drone for the homily, allowing Scully time to compose her
own thoughts. Technically, there were definite sections of
the Mass set aside to offer up prayers of thanks, and the
sermon wasn't one of them. You were supposed to listen
to the homilist's  message and apply it to your life, not sit
back and lose yourself in your own private meditation.

Scully didn't care. Reciting the rosary in a voice so
choked with tears the words were barely audible with
Father McCue in the hospital, certain she was about to
die, she'd come to an understanding with God.

The important thing was actually talking to Him, not
when you did it or where. And if she decided to start a
conversation with the Almighty instead of listening to a
verbatim recitation of today's gospel reading, she didn't
think He would mind all that much.

Thank you, God, for letting me carry on here a little
longer with my family, my friends, and my work.

Thank you, God, for giving me a partner who is willing to
risk his life to save me.

Now give me the strength to help him accept that I have
survived, so he can start living again, too.

Amen.

**************

Coralos, Texas
Sunday

The Plath house still smelled like flowers, even though
the funeral had been three days ago. Jennie hated it. She
hated everything about the funeral: the endless parade of
weeping relatives, the little black skirt and white blouse
her mother made her wear, the droning church service,
the wooden coffin sitting over the grave in the cemetery,
and finally, the party at the house afterwards, where
everyone cried some more and ate too much food and
drank too much beer.

None of it meant anything. Nothing meant anything now
that Grandma was gone.

And nobody seemed to care about that but her. Grandpa
just kept nodding and agreeing when everyone said it
was such a mercy, she'd been so ill. Dad had long, boring
talks with her uncles about how the insurance
companies wouldn't pay the medical bills.

Mom was the worst of all. Jennie had escaped into the
kitchen for a glass of water and arrived in time to hear
Mom tell Aunt Evelyn, "I took care of them for eight
years. It's your turn now. Once this is over, Dad will have
to stay with you for at least half the year. I need my life
back."

Aunt Evelyn started to argue, complaining about her
house being too small, and then the two of them saw her
and clammed up.

Nobody, it seemed, loved Grandma except for Jennie.
Nobody missed her. Nobody wanted Grandpa.

She was curled up now on Grandma's bed, which was
still neatly made up, even though Grandma had been in
the hospital for a week before she finally died. Her
mother appeared in the doorway with a giant black trash
bag.

"Get up, Jennie. I have to strip the bed and clean the
room out."

"Why?"

"Because we have to give Grandma's things to people
who need them."

Stricken, Jennie stared at her mother. Give Grandma's
things away? "You mean her clothes?" she whispered.

"Everything, honey. The clothes, the bedding, the
furniture. We're going to make this room a study."

Jennie felt her throat close up. "What about Grandpa?
Won't he need some of this stuff?"

Mom shook out the trash bag. "Grandpa is going to stay
with Aunt Evelyn for a while. He's already packed the
things he wants to keep, and all her good jewelry is in
the safe deposit box. Some day we'll divide it between you
and Amanda."

Jennie didn't care if her cousin Amanda got all of
Grandma's rings, necklaces and cameo pins. She was
suddenly desperate to keep something of Grandma's
right this minute, something she'd touched and been
close to. "Can't I have her sheets?" she asked hoarsely,
fighting to keep back the tears. If she cried, her mother
would just get impatient and yell. "My bed is the same
size." The thought of sweeping every last remnant of
Grandma out of the house was absolutely unbearable.

Her mother sighed. "All right. If you promise to go outside
and play like a good girl, I'll save the sheets for you." She
softened for a moment. "Do you want her towels, too?"

Jennie nodded vigorously, biting hard on her lower lip to
keep it from quivering.

"All right. You run along and play, and I'll put them in
your room." She opened the closet door and started
pulling dresses off their hangers. "It's almost time for the
Frosty Cow Man. Why don't you go get a cone or
something? Look in my purse for some change."

It was the sight of her mother ripping away the final
pieces of Grandma's presence in the house that propelled
Jennie out the door more than the promise of a rare mid-
afternoon treat. Once outside, however, she let the tears
fall as she wandered aimlessly down the street. Oh,
Grandma, you're really, really dead. Why do people have
to die, God?

At first she thought the sweet sound of music was God
announcing his answer, but then she realized it was only
the Frosty Cow truck turning the corner. She joined the
little cluster of neighbors, wiping furiously at her eyes
and nose with the back of one hand.

"Why are you crying, Jennie?" Sarah Lopez asked her.
Sarah was ten, just a year older. They'd been good
friends until the end of school last June, when Sarah
apparently decided that it wasn't cool to be seen with a
mere nine-year-old anymore. Not with junior high
looming in the distance.

"I'm not crying," Jennie denied stoutly.

"You are, too." Sarah took a ladylike nibble from her
Vanilla Fudge Bar and eyed her critically. "Your eyes are
all red and your nose is running."

"I'm NOT crying!"

"Jennie's crying, Jennie's crying, crybaby, crybaby!"
Sarah taunted, obviously hoping to incite the rest of the
kids.

"Stop it!"

"Crybaby! Crybaby!"

Jennie's temper snapped. Her hand flashed out and she
knocked the ice cream from Sarah's hand. It fell to the
ground with a squishy splat, spattering Sarah's sneakers
with slivers of chocolate coating and vanilla dribbles.

"I'm gonna tell!" Sarah shrieked, clearly forgetting that
the mature, cool kids she envied in junior high didn't
threaten to "tell" on each other when things didn't go
their way. "You're gonna get it now!" She turned and fled
for the Lopez house, two doors away.

Jennie didn't care. Let Sarah snitch on her. Nothing
mattered without Grandma. She blinked back the tears
again and realized she was the only one left at the truck.

"What would you like, sweetie?" the Frosty Cow Man
asked her kindly.

"A Super Almond Crunch bar."

The Frosty Cow Man leaned over his little counter. "You
know," he said in a confidential whisper, "your
grandmother really liked the Green Aliens."

Jennie smiled a little at the thought of Grandma sucking
on a bright green popsicle. "She did?"

"Scout's honor." The Frosty Cow Man solemnly drew a
cross over his heart with one finger and held up his
hand, palm forward. "Maybe you'd like to try one, too?"

"Okay." She handed up her money and took the popsicle.
"Thank you."

He smiled at her. "Enjoy it, honey."

**************

Washington DC
Monday

She beat him to the office by almost half an hour, a
rarity. But when Mulder walked in the door, it was clear
that he'd been here earlier and actually had been
working. There was a spring in his step and a light in his
eyes that she almost didn't recognize, so long had they
both been absent.

He was clasping a familiar red and white striped folder. A
new case. Whatever it was, it had tickled his fancy
enough to rouse him from last week's torpor.

Although her main emotion was intense, overwhelming
relief at her partner's apparent return to normal, Scully
realized she was curious. After all, man-eating
chinchillas hadn't even made him blink. Whatever was
contained within that candy-cane folder had to be utterly
amazing.

She'd spent hours the night before composing and
rehearsing her speech to shock him back to some sort of
productivity. Mulder, you have to stop this. Mulder, I'm
not going anywhere. Mulder, everyone dies sometime but
you have to stop behaving as if I've only got minutes left.

By the time she went to bed, she came to the conclusion
that no matter what she said, Mulder would nod, agree,
and continue to conduct himself as he had been doing.

Because she wasn't cured. She was in remission. And for
Mulder, finder of mysterious miracle microchips, believer
in extreme possibilities, that would forever mean that all
his efforts to save her life had been for naught, and they
were still living with the specter of her death hanging
over them.

Scully's rational side knew he was technically correct.
But her irrational side for once refused to back down and
allow the full implications of the word "remission" to
govern her attitude and her actions.

She'd survived. She was alive. Unless and until her
health changed, nothing else mattered. She intended to
spend her time living, not worrying about when and if
she was going to start dying again.

Now, looking at the little grin playing about Mulder's
mouth, she was thrilled her careful planned oration
would no longer be necessary. It was horrible to think
that someone else's misfortune would make her so
happy, but she couldn't help it.

"New case?" she queried, raising her eyebrows as she
nodded toward the folder in his grip.

"Skinner called me up the minute I got here. This might
be it, Scully. This might be where we actually get some
reliable witnesses." He opened the folder and handed it
over to her.

Scully started to skim the contents, half listening as her
partner recited the main points of the situation.

"Between Saturday morning and this morning, five
children in Coralos, Texas became mute."

She looked up. "Mute?"

Mulder nodded. "Completely and utterly. They can't talk
at all. Five unrelated children, ages seven to twelve. So
far, no physical reason for the sudden disability has
turned up."

"And you're thinking. . ."

"I think they saw something, Scully. I think they saw
something so incredible, so unbelievable and so
potentially frightening that they can't articulate it. Or
anything else. I think they might be witnesses to some
kind of alien visitation."

Scully sighed. "I hate to burst your bubble, Mulder, but. .
."

He grinned. "I'd be sorely disappointed if you didn't try,
you know."

"But the medical information in here is sketchy at best.
They could have contracted some kind of virus, or been
injured in some way. Yes, they might have seen
something to scare them into silence, but that doesn't
mean they got a peek at E.T. phoning home. They could
have witnessed a murder. It's even possible that the
trauma might be the result of something with even
deeper psychological implications, such as
unintentionally witnessing the act of sexual intercourse
for the first time."

"Ooh, Scully. Are you telling me you walked in on your
parents doing the wild thing when you were a kid?"

She'd known before she said it that he would zing that
last theory with some kind of innocently lecherous
comeback. She'd done it on purpose, just to make sure
he was on the road to recovery. If he hadn't picked up on
it, she would have known he was faking his excitement
for her benefit. Now she hid her mental hip-hip-hooray
behind the cool blue stare she knew he expected and
replied, "No. I'm telling you that with the information and
evidence I see here, an alien visitation is at present the
least likely scenario."

**************

end part 2/9



I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM (3/9)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


Coralos, Texas
Tuesday

"I can't believe this heat."

Mulder had already removed his suit jacket, rolled up his
sleeves and turned the rental car air conditioning on full
blast. "We're about as far south in Texas as you can get
without crossing over into Mexico. And you thought I was
kidding when I said to pack your bikini." He shook his
head in mock dismay.

Scully unbuckled her seatbelt to slip out of her blazer as
well. As she refastened the shoulder harness and flipped
down the sun visor, she said, "I haven't owned a bikini
since I was eight years old, Mulder. You're about twenty-
five years too late."

"Don't shatter all my hopes, Scully. A man's gotta have
some dreams."

"I know all about your dreams. You and that video
collection you keep arguing with Frohike about are not
what I'd call subtle."

Good. This was good. When she'd been sick he'd made
feeble attempts at humor, and she'd been too ill to either
encourage or chastise him for it. When she was
recovering he'd been too busy hovering or gaping to
engage in the casual sexual banter he'd tossed about so
easily in the days before the disease nearly consumed
her. Now it appeared that her hormone-riddled partner
was back on track. How odd that a conversation that in
any other context could be construed as sexual
harassment could prove so soothing.

It took her mind off her own discomfort. She =was=
warm, a great deal warmer than Mulder realized. The
chemotherapy had played havoc with her internal
thermostat. The doctors told her it would eventually
straighten itself out; eventually she would stop feeling as
if she was going through the hot flashes of menopause at
the ripe old age of thirty-three.

But until that day arrived, she would just have to suffer
through the times when she could feel her body baking
from the inside out, radiating so much heat she
sometimes wondered if her clothes would simply ignite
and engulf her in flames.

"So the Coralos police chief's son is one of the victims?"
she asked, needing a new distraction.

"Chief Puglisi, yeah. His son Anthony was the first one to
lose his voice."

Scully had been half expecting Chief Michael Puglisi to
embody his name as a short, bullish man with a
pugnacious attitude. But while the head of Coralos' law
enforcement division did have the dark eyes and hair
commonly associated with Italian surnames, he was tall
and slender, with a long, sad face that spoke of worries
and fears extending well beyond what his job title alone
might bring.

He welcomed them into his office with an expression that
reminded Scully of Catholics who had seen the Pope
during one of his American tours; a curious combination
of respect, genuine awe and monumental relief.

He also scored a big point in her favor by immediately
offering liquid refreshment, and didn't seem at all
amused or surprised when she requested ice water over
hot coffee.

"The heat's been a killer this winter," he observed,
returning with their drinks and settling himself behind
his desk again. His Texas twang was noticeable but low-
key, implying that he'd spent his formative years
somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon line. "Haven't had
a spell like this in a long time."

"How long has it been this way?" Mulder asked.

Puglisi tilted back in his chair, tapping one finger against
his temple as he pondered the question. "I guess it never
really stopped being summer," he said finally.

There was an awkward pause.

Scully was about to gently nudge the conversation back
to the case at hand when Puglisi seemed to shake
himself out of his mini-fugue. "But I guess you want to
talk about my son, not the weather," he sighed.

"I understand this is difficult for you," she said quietly,
"but if you can tell us about Anthony's activities before
he was incapacitated, it would be helpful."

There wasn't much to tell. Anthony had gone to school,
come home, played outside with his little brother,
consumed three chili dogs for dinner, watched two hours
of television, played another hour of video games by
himself, and went to bed without protest at 11:00.

On Saturday morning, he'd awoken to find his voice was
gone.

"Did you take him to the doctor?"

"His mother did." Chief Puglisi dropped his eyes to his
desk blotter, then raised them again. "Anthony and Joey
live with my wife. . . my ex-wife. We've been separated
since July. We just signed the divorce papers last
Monday. It's been hard on the boys."

"What did the doctor say?"

"Laura first thought maybe he had laryngitis or
bronchitis or something like that, so she took him to his
regular pediatrician. He couldn't find anything wrong
with him. Sent him over to the hospital for tests that very
afternoon, and they couldn't find anything wrong with
him. By Sunday night, they were telling her Anthony
needed to see a shrink, that it was all in his head and he
was making it up to get attention." Puglisi had been
toying with a pen and now he threw it angrily down on
the desk. "Like he could just decide overnight to pull
something like this even though he'd been acting
perfectly fine before."

"What do you think happened to him?" Mulder asked.

"Agent Mulder, by the time Laura called me to say the
bigshots at St. Christopher's Hospital thought my son
was mentally ill, I had reports of three other kids struck
dumb the same way. By Monday morning, Regina Plath
was on the phone screaming that her little girl couldn't
talk either, and that made it five. Frankly, I don't know
what the hell's going on down here, but I don't see five
kids all going psycho on us within one weekend. There's
a lot of people saying I should have called the CDC, not
the FBI. Please don't tell me I made the wrong decision."

"We're going to do everything we can to figure this out, I
assure you," Mulder said firmly. "Agent Scully is a
medical doctor. If she or I feel that it is necessary to call
in the Centers for Disease Control to ensure the health
and safety of your children, believe me, we will do so.
Where is your son now?"

"Home. Laura checked him out of St. Christopher's on
Sunday night. Said she didn't want any head doctor
poking away at him."

"Does she have legal custody of both boys?" Scully asked.

"Yes. But I agreed with her anyway. I know Anthony. He
can be a pain in the neck sometimes and he's not exactly
the kind of kid who'll make the honor roll every semester
in school, but when he wants to pull a stunt, it's not
something like this. His idea of goofing with an adult is
lying when Laura asks him if he's cleaned his room or
done his homework. He's never faked being sick." Puglisi
sighed again. "Not even to get out of school for a test or
something."

"We'd like to talk to Anthony, if that's all right with you
and your ex-wife."

"Go right ahead." Puglisi pushed a piece of paper toward
them. "That's the names and addresses of all the kids. All
the parents know I called you, and they're all expecting
to hear from you at some point. Laura's taken this week
off from work to stay home with Anthony, so she's there
right now."

"Thank you." Scully stood up to leave, hoping Mulder
wasn't going to interject any queries about lights in the
sky or unexplained time loss. He followed her out docilely
enough, seemingly lost in thought as they retraced their
steps to the rental car. That type of pensive silence
usually meant he was cooking up an idea she wasn't
going to like. "What, Mulder?"

He unlocked the car door and slid inside. "I was just
thinking about something Puglisi said. He said he
guessed it never really stopped being summer."

Scully punched the button for the air conditioning; even
a minute out of some climate control was enough to
make you wilt. "So now you think this is connected to the
weather?"

"I'm not sure what I think anymore."

"We won't know for certain until we talk to Anthony and
his mother, but despite what Chief Puglisi thinks, it is
entirely possible that Anthony's condition is a physical
manifestation of his emotional state."

"In English, please, Scully."

She smiled slightly. "Divorce takes no prisoners, Mulder.
You of all people should know that. You saw the way the
man looked; he's clearly distressed about his marital
problems. Anthony's picking up on the conflicting
emotions from both parents and it simply became too
much for him to vocalize."

"Just like that."

"Mulder, the separation took place in July; who knows
how long the family stress dates back. What seems to be
'just like that' could have been months in the making."

"And how do you explain the other four children?
Simultaneous divorce trauma?"

She bridled at his slightly caustic tone. "Of course not.
But there are any number of physical or mental factors
that could have promoted similar symptoms in the other
children. When we interview them, I'm sure we'll find out
what they are."

The Puglisi home sat nestled in a quiet neighborhood; the
stucco house was in no way different from any of the
surrounding domiciles. Short, dry lawn, neat flagstone
pathway leading up to a dark brown door. Laura Puglisi
answered so quickly Scully suspected she'd received a
warning call from her ex-husband and had been
watching for their arrival.

After refreshments had been offered and declined, Laura
had no excuse to pace nervously but looked as if she
wanted to do so. She sat perched on the edge of her
living room armchair, a small woman with short brown
hair, minimal makeup and no jewelry, whose once-pretty
face was now creased with parental anxiety.

They engaged her slowly, trying not to frighten her more
than she already was. Her chief emotion, other than fear
for her son's plight, was anger at the doctors who dared
suggest Anthony needed psychiatric help. "Just because
they can't look at his blood or take a throat culture and
make an easy diagnosis they won't even try. I asked them
to send the samples away to a bigger lab. Up to Dallas or
Houston, or maybe that place in Tennessee where they
send all those kids with cancer."

"What happened?" Scully asked, although she thought
she already knew the answer.

"They =laughed=." Laura Puglisi's rage vibrated
throughout the tastefully decorated room, a presence
almost as tangible as an additional witness to the
interview. "They told me there was absolutely no reason
to waste the time of a university hospital on what was
clearly 'a psychosomatic issue.' They said even if they
wanted to, there was no way the insurance would pay for
that kind of testing, given the capabilities of the hospital
here and the kind of symptoms Anthony was presenting."

"Mrs. Puglisi, how long was Anthony out of your sight on
Friday?" Mulder asked.

"He left for school at 7:45, same as always. He and Joey
got home at three and called me, just like they always do.
I like to make sure they're not off making trouble in town
while I'm at work. He and Joey were in the yard playing
when I got home at 5:30, and he was in plain view the
rest of the night."

"He ate and drank all the things he normally would?"

She nodded. "Friday chili dogs are kind of a tradition.
The boys love them."

"And Joey is fine?"

The woman nodded again, fighting to control the tears
that were pooling in her eyes. "Joey's perfect," she
choked.

Mulder handed her a tissue from his pocket. It was a
long-practiced gesture; both of them had so much
experience dealing with sobbing subjects that they
carried travel-size Kleenex packets as routinely as they
carried their weapons.

"Mrs. Puglisi?" Scully asked gently. "Do you mind if we
talk to Anthony now?"

She mopped her eyes rather frantically and blew her
nose. "I'm sorry. Yes, I'll take you up to his room. It's just
that he normally talks a blue streak, and now he's so
quiet. . . it's upsetting."

"It's quite all right. We understand this is a hard time for
everyone."

They followed her up the stairs to a door covered with
signs both professional and hand-lettered. Everything
from "Private Property: No Trespassing" to "KEEP OUT
JOEY" and "MOM YOU BETTER KNOCK" indicated that
the occupant valued his solitude and did not look kindly
upon intrusions, especially ones involving relatives.

Laura Puglisi knocked twice and called, "Anthony, I have
some people here to meet you. I'm coming in now." She
twisted the doorknob and pushed open the door.

The room was decorated in Early Adolescent Sports, with
just a touch of Upcoming Rebellion. Well-known legends
of basketball, baseball and football, all frozen in poses of
heroic athleticism, dominated the wall space,
interspersed with a few posters of rock bands with
ominous names such as The Desperate Boys, Wyld
Tymes and Groan. Clothes adorned the maple furniture
and the floor. Shelving up one wall cradled childhood
treasures, everything from seashells and unimpressive-
looking rocks to piles of video game cartridges and CDs.

The owner of all the chaos lay on his blue-patterned
bedspread, a slim, sullen boy with his father's features.
He frowned at Mulder and Scully and waved off his
mother when she asked if he wanted her to stay while he
talked with them.

There was a tattered notebook beside his feet. "He's been
using that to write down his answers," Mrs. Puglisi
whispered, and Anthony made another impatient gesture
to punctuate the fact that he was mute, not deaf, and
would his mother please bug off.

She did, with a final backward worried glance.

Mulder pulled up the boy's desk chair and sat backwards
on it, leaning his arms on the chair back and affecting a
casual, let's-just-be-pals attitude. Scully half-sat on the
edge of the desk, willing to let him take the lead for the
moment.

"Hi, Anthony. I'm Agent Mulder, and this is Agent Scully.
Your dad asked us to come down to see what was going
on here."

There was a brief flicker in his brown eyes at the mention
of his father, but otherwise Anthony maintained his
stony expression.

"You feel like answering a few questions?"

Shrug.

"How'd your day go at school on Friday?"

Shrug.

"Anybody bother you? Get in any fights you didn't want
to tell your mom about?"

An elaborate eye roll, a clear statement of, "Get real,
stupid."

Mulder continued, unfazed. "Okay, you made it through
school without any problems, and you came home. Then
what?"

Anthony reached for the notebook for the first time and
folded it back to a new page. He scrawled briefly and held
it out. *Nothing.*

"Your mom says you were outside playing with your
brother."

Shrug.

"Anybody come by? Talk to you? Anyone you didn't
know?"

Anthony shook his head, looking slightly puzzled, as if
Mulder had failed the Do Not Talk To Strangers lecture
as a child. Scully smiled to herself.

"What kind of games did you play?"

He scribbled briefly again. *Just ball.*

"Anthony," Mulder asked carefully, "did you see anything
strange while you were playing ball with your brother?
Like a person you didn't know, or a car you'd never seen
before? Or maybe hear anything that sounded funny, like
a big bang, or an explosion?"

He shook his head. Firmly. A definite no, even from a kid
who might like to spin fairy tales to escape his chores or
his homework.

"Does your throat hurt, Anthony?" Scully spoke for the
first time.

He shook his head again, his expression turning
resigned, as if he'd been asked this question a dozen
times in the last few days.

"Did it hurt at all on Friday?"

Another head shake.

"When did you see your dad last, Anthony?"

Mulder quickly glanced at her, eyes narrowed, surprised
at the question, but Scully ignored him and concentrated
on the boy.

Anthony sighed and pulled his gaze away from them to
wander about the room, roaming over various clumps of
clutter before writing in his notebook again. *Last
Thursday.*

"You see him every week?"

Nod.

"Do you have fun when you visit him?"

Another shrug, accompanied by a head tilt with more
averted eyes. The visual equivalent of, "I guess so."

Mulder stood up. "Thanks, Anthony. You've been very
helpful. We appreciate your talking to us."

They made their farewells to Laura Puglisi, assuring her
with as much confidence as they could that they were
indeed taking all of this very seriously.

Mulder started the car and pulled out of the driveway.
"What was that all about?"

"What do you mean?"

"All those questions to Anthony about his relationship
with his father."

Oh, how quickly we forget, Mulder, she thought. "Exactly
what they're supposed to mean. It is possible that the
divorce has affected him in a way that caused him to
verbally withdraw. He's obviously distressed about the
break up of his family."

"So you agree with his pediatrician and the doctors at St.
Christopher's. That Anthony should see a psychiatrist."

I'm out of practice, Scully suddenly thought with dismay.
Normally she could have defended herself and her
hypothesis without difficulty. Normally she wouldn't be
struggling to validate her ideas.

Normally Mulder wouldn't have taken that kind of
patronizing tone with her until much later in the case.
They'd only been here half a day and he was halfway to
accusing her of not seeing the forest for the trees.

The angry words escaped before she realized she'd even
intended to lash out at him.

"I'm saying that it =might= just help, Mulder. No, I
haven't spoken to any of the doctors involved in this yet,
but I'm not about to overlook one possible rational
explanation for this child's problem. He didn't see
anything and nothing happened to him; the fact that his
brother was with him and remains unaffected points to
an individual issue rather than a group experience."

There was a long silence. Finally Mulder merely said,
"Well, tomorrow you'll have a chance to talk to his
doctors, while I see if I can interview the rest of the
children."

"It's only four o'clock. I could talk to them now."

Her partner shook his head. "No. We're going to check in
to the motel and get something to eat."

She stared at him. Waste the rest of the day? "Mulder?"

"That's the way it's going to be, Scully."

"What do you mean, 'that's the way it's going to be'?
What the hell is going on here?" she demanded.

He clicked on the turn signal as the motel sign loomed
ahead. "You're only back a week," he said softly.

Aha. Light began to dawn, bringing fresh anger. "I've
been fully cleared for active duty," she snapped icily.
"You were made aware of that."

He shook his head, still refusing to look at her. "I
promised Skinner," was all he said.

Skinner? Skinner was in on this, too? Blinding rage
swept over her, obscuring her vision in a haze of red. "I
don't care if you've promised Janet Reno," she retorted.
"You have no right to dictate limitations on my
participation in this case. Furthermore, I find it
reprehensible that you went behind my back to enlist the
support of my superior, who was not only informed of my
clearance, but signed the final approval for my active
status. I don't know what game you're playing, Mulder,
but you've stepped over the line this time. You and
Skinner both. I'm not some fragile china doll you can
protect by hiding me in the basement. If you are not
willing to allow me to conduct my end of the investigation
in the manner I see fit, then I'm returning to DC on the
next flight out to file a complaint against you and request
an immediate transfer out of the X-Files. Is that clear,
Agent Mulder?"

How he continued to drive while she unleashed her
wrath upon him was a mystery, but he did manage to
pull into the motel lot and park without causing an
accident. After he switched off the ignition he finally
turned to face her, a dozen different emotions warring for
supremacy on his face.

She waited to see which one would be the victor.

And was stunned to see sadness come out on top.

"Maybe you should go back, Scully," he murmured.

"I'm not letting you off that easily, Mulder. You dragged
me down here, and we're going to finish this case. After
that, we'll see whether I stay or not." She shoved the car
door open, got out and slammed it shut.

Dinner was out of the question. Mulder knew better than
to ask what she planned to do for food that night. Even if
she had been hungry enough to eat, she was not willing
to give in and share a table with him, dodging the jagged
edges of their argument while engaging in meaningless
small talk about the case.

Knowing that part of the reason he wanted to eat with
her was to assure himself that she was, in fact, eating.
As if she was some small child incapable of taking on the
responsibility for her body's physical needs. As if
watching her swallow mashed potatoes and salad and
steak in cow country would convince him that she was
fine.

When she knew perfectly well that no amount of food
would persuade him that she was all right ever again.
The word "remission" had been branded into his brain.
No matter how much she ate or how healthy she
appeared, he would continue to treat her as if she was
teetering on the edge of death.

It took twenty minutes storming about her motel room
before she calmed down enough to try and call Anthony
Puglisi's pediatrician. By then all she got was the
answering service, so she left her name and the nature of
her call with the service and hung up.

She could try the hospital, but she didn't want to speak
to them before getting some primary information from
the pediatrician. Round one to Mulder. He'd kept her
from the doctors and effectively off the case for a few
more hours. If more children turned up mute because of
the delay, she'd be sure to include a vivid description of
his evasive tactics in her field report.

**************

end part 3/9



I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM (4/9)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


Coralos, Texas
Wednesday

Any fairy tale assumptions that a good night's sleep
would put everything in perspective and add a shine to
the day were dashed immediately. The temperature,
which had hovered in the low 80s all night long, soared
to 98 before 10:00 a.m., the time of her first stop on a
long list of medical consults for the day.

She'd set up all the interviews from her room, pointedly
leaving Mulder as her last call to tell him he could have
the car to meet with the other children as long as he
dropped her at the Coralos Medical Group's offices first.

Mulder agreed without comment.

His demeanor on the phone was so subdued she almost
gave in and offered to meet him for breakfast before they
started on the day's tasks. The ebullience from Monday
seemed to have vanished entirely in the wake of her
outburst, leaving only the lackluster pacifist from the
week before.

Almost. She gritted her teeth and steeled herself against
his emotional weaponry. After this case was done, they
could duke it out about her health and his attitude. Not
before.

Dr. Raymond Montero, cold and unhelpful on the phone,
fulfilled his initial impression as a man jealously
guarding his professional reputation from the
government's taint by keeping her waiting for over an
hour. Scully sat in the waiting room watching a revolving
door of parents and small squalling patients come
through, finally surrendering her seat to a weary mother
with yet another coughing, damp-eyed child. Giant,
colorful puzzle pieces, blocks and plastic trucks littered
the floor, making the limited space between the seats and
the front desk an obstacle course worthy of training pro
football players.

Scully hadn't pressed the point initially; she'd anticipated
such a delaying tactic from the doctor. As the hands of
her watch crawled closer to noon and the air
conditioning in the room failed to keep up with the
number of occupants, she decided she'd been patient
and pleasant long enough.

If Montero expected a government intrusion, she could
give him one.

Cautiously picking her way between the toys and
roaming tots, Scully approached the front desk again and
pulled out her badge.

"Excuse me."

The harried clerk raised one finger in response, still
attempting to take information from one caller while
three other lights blinked on the phone.

Scully reached out and pulled the receiver away,
replacing it back in its cradle and holding it there. The
clerk's mouth dropped open in stunned surprise and she
started to protest.

Scully cut her off. "Tell Doctor Montero I need to speak to
him now. If he does not wish to see me in his office, I will
be happy to escort him to the police station and conduct
my interview there. I am a federal agent assigned to
investigate the illnesses of children under his care, and I
know he will want to take care of this immediately
instead of wasting any more time."

Flaunting her Bureau credentials and making thinly-
disguised threats were usually her last resort. But there
were individuals who responded to nothing less than
such bullying tactics, and apparently Montero was one of
them. The clerk's mouth snapped shut; she jumped up
and disappeared into the back examining area. Two
minutes later she reappeared at the waiting room door;
all the parents looked up hopefully and then settled back
in resignation when Scully was ushered into the inner
sanctum.

Despite the modern, HMO trappings of his office and the
presence of three other pediatricians on staff,
personality-wise Montero fit the bill as The Revered
Country Doctor.

The Revered Cranky Country Doctor, that is.

He was the pediatrician of record of two of the five
children; Sharon Schwartz was the patient of one of his
office colleagues, Dr. Susan Messina. Marty Thorpe and
Jennie Plath had been taken directly to St. Christopher's
emergency room.

His office space was atypical of a children's doctor; there
were no childish mementos of thanks, no clumsy statues
or humorous medical cartoons. Only his medical degrees
decorated the walls. His desk blotter, which should have
been overflowing with paperwork and samples from
pharmaceutical companies, was meticulously bare.

Montero's sharp dark eyes held nothing but anger at the
interruption as he curtly directed her to sit. He was
perhaps twenty years older than she, and nothing about
him suggested he was any friendlier or kinder to his
small patients.

He rejected immediately any suggestions that Anthony or
the other children's conditions were caused by physical
means. There were no throat obstructions found during
his examinations or those done at St. Christopher's, no
structural damage to the esophagus, larynx, trachea, or
vocal chords. None of the children had ingested any
caustic compounds that might have caused the problem;
there were no burns on the tongue, lips or gums to
support such a possibility.

"Of course I'd be happy to share the children's medical
records with you, Agent Scully," Montero remarked, his
expression and tone indicating anything but pleasure at
the prospect of collaborating with her, "and I am just as
anxious to find out the reason for their distress. But I'm
sure you'll find, as we all have, that it's definitely not a
physical issue."

"So you conclude that these five children ceased
speaking simultaneously due to some kind of psychiatric
coincidence?"

"What I'm saying, Agent Scully, is that there are other
factors here at work, as there are in any small town.
Tracy Owens is learning disabled and was mainstreamed
into regular classes for the first time in her life this fall.
Tell me that's not a stressful situation for a child,
particularly an adolescent. Her mother brought her in
here the day after I'd sutured the lip of a boy who she
beat up on the playground for teasing her." Montero
stood up, indicating the interview was at an end. "Now if
you'll excuse me, I have a waiting room full of patients to
see."

"Fine. If you could direct me to Doctor Messina's office,
I'd like to speak to her before I go over to the hospital."

Montero sighed heavily. "Doctor Messina is very busy."

Scully drew herself up and stared unflinchingly into his
eyes. "So am I, Doctor. So I would appreciate it if you
could bring me to Doctor Messina so I can complete my
investigation as soon as possible."

A new voice chimed in from the doorway. "It's all right,
Doctor Montero. I have time now before my next patient."

Scully turned to see a very thin woman about her own
height, wearing a regulation white lab coat and a slightly
nervous smile. "Good afternoon," the woman said,
extending a hand to Scully, "I'm Doctor Susan Messina."

"Special Agent Dana Scully."

Messina led her to an empty exam room; Montero
delivered one final admonishment not to take too long.
"Don't mind him. He's always like that," Messina
confided. "How can I help you?"

Scully flipped through her notes. "Sharon Schwartz was
your patient?"

"Yes. Her mother brought her in on Saturday morning."

"What kind of a child was she under normal
circumstances?"

Dr. Messina laughed, then turned sober. "I'm sorry. I
know this isn't really funny. But normally, Sharon is
your average seven-year-old kid. Every other word is
'why' or 'what' or 'how come?' She's an only child and
she's been catered to for her entire life. There's nothing
she doesn't want that she doesn't get."

"It says here that she recently had a tonsillectomy."

"Yes. About a month ago. Routine surgery at St.
Christopher's. Nothing abnormal; standard case of too
many throat infections. No problems during the surgery,
nothing afterward. All tissue samples were normal."

"She didn't make any post-operative complaints?"

"Nothing other than whining about what flavor ice cream
she wanted." Messina smiled. "Apparently the hospital
selection was not to her liking; I remember her parents
sneaking in a half gallon of strawberry."

What else, thought Scully. "Could the surgeons have
damaged her vocal chords during the procedure?"

For the first time, Messina looked dubious. "I suppose
they =could= have nicked something, but I've never
heard of it happening. And if it did, I would think the
results of that kind of injury would have been apparent
before now."

In other words, possible, but not likely. And if it was
possible, Messina was not going to squeal on her
colleagues and invite a lawsuit from the precocious
child's doting parents.

"She was at the playground when Tracy got in the fight,
though," the doctor continued thoughtfully. "When I
asked her what happened she took two of the dolls I keep
in my office and bashed them together a few times."

There were no other obvious coincidences to be found
here. Scully sighed and closed her notepad. "Thank you,
Doctor Messina. I appreciate your candor."

Messina's apprehensive smile of farewell was the last
vaguely friendly expression she encountered the rest of
the day.

The medical staff at St. Christopher's Hospital, from the
emergency room doctors to the surgeons to the sole
otorhinolaryngologist to the pediatric psychiatrist all
closed ranks against the outsider. She cajoled, she
questioned, she suggested and she argued. She reviewed
medical charts, surgical notes and dietary plans, and
looked at X-rays, MRIs and CAT scans until her eyesight
blurred. She tracked down nurses, candy stripers and
orderlies for discussions until her legs ached from
roaming the hallways.

Nothing. There was nothing to suggest any paranormal
influence at work, but plenty to infer that coincidental or
not, these five children had simply taken all they could
take in this one weekend and ceased speaking.

"Of course they're frustrated," the pediatric psychiatrist
said in a tone so patronizing that Scully, who was hot
and frustrated herself at that point, realized with horror
that she was seriously contemplating drawing her
weapon just to make him show her some respect. "When
I talked with Marty Thorpe, all he did was throw things
around the room. He wouldn't even try to write down an
account of his activities for me. The boy'd just gotten his
voice back after bronchitis and now this happens to him.
I tried to give him an ice cream cone to calm him down
and he mashed it against the wall." The man indicated a
brown stain marring the soothing cream paint.
"Maintenance is going to have to come in and repaint
that. You can't wash off chocolate."

She called Mulder from the pay phone in the lobby of the
hospital. "Mulder, it's me. Where are you?"

"Just driving away from the Plath home. Are you done?"

He sounded. . . careful. It was the only word to describe
the nuance in his voice, as if he was very afraid of setting
her off. At the moment she was too tired to worry about
what that might mean. "Yes, I'm finished. Can you come
get me at St. Christopher's?"

"Be there in a few minutes. I have a lot to tell you."

"I have a lot to tell you, too." She hung up and leaned
wearily against the wall, staring out at the shimmering
parking lot through the double glass doors.

The small boy loitering outside on the walkway failed to
catch her attention at first. Then she realized his nervous
gestures and glances were directed toward her. He clearly
didn't want to come into the hospital, but wanted her to
come outside.

Mentally groaning at the thought of carrying on a
conversation in the blazing late afternoon heat, Scully
pushed through the doors.

He looked slightly familiar. She crouched down to his
level, summoned up a non-threatening smile and said,
"Hi, there."

"Hi."

"I'm Dana. What's your name?"

"Joey."

"Did you want to talk to me, Joey?"

The boy shifted from foot to foot, his brown eyes darting
back and forth. He didn't seem to be holding a mental
debate with himself about the dangers of talking to
strangers; his reluctance to come to the point appeared
grounded in other quarters.

Which meant she wasn't a stranger to him.

Joey.

Brown eyes, brown hair.

Joey Puglisi. Anthony's little brother. Although she
hadn't seen him during their time at the Puglisi house,
he'd probably observed her from the kitchen or his own
room.

Now that she placed him, Scully tried again. "Joey, do
you want to tell me something? Something about
Anthony?"

"I told him he wasn't apposed to do it." The boy looked
down at his sneakers, scuffing one toe along the rough
walkway. He picked at a large scab on one elbow; Scully
saw he had a matching wound on the other arm.

"Did Anthony do something he wasn't supposed to do on
Friday?"

"Yeah."

"Can you tell me what?"

The toe scuffed harder. Scully could almost see the battle
going on in his head – am I being a tattletale or a hero?

Joey finally blurted it out. "Mom said no snacks before
dinner."

Scully fought back a smile. "Anthony spoiled his
appetite?"

"Yeah."

"What did he eat?"

"A Green Alien."

Oh, God. Of all the things for him to say on a day when
she'd been snubbed by her own profession and now felt
as if her bones were melting inside her body. Mulder
would absolutely love this. "Anthony ate a Green Alien?"
She felt stupid even repeating it.

"Yeah."

"Joey, can you tell me what a Green Alien is?"

He looked at her blankly and made a broad, circular
gesture with both hands. "You know. A Green Alien.
They're Anthony's favorites. I don't like 'em. I like Red
Rockets. Daddy likes Orange Ooze."

Okay, the conversation had just gone from merely
incomprehensible to completely unfathomable. Scully felt
as though she was frantically treading water, observed by
a confused jury of her peers wondering why she didn't
just walk to the ladder and get out of the pool. "Joey,
what do you mean?"

Such exasperation was almost comical coming from such
a young source. She had a sudden flashback to a
childhood memory, of trying to explain to her
grandmother the theory behind the workings of her mood
ring. The grand dame of the Scully family couldn't follow
the science involved in a temperature-controlled piece of
jewelry, and although at the time of the incident Scully
had been a few years older than the little boy facing her
now, she distinctly remembered expressing the exact
same amount of contempt at the seeming density of her
elder.

A far-away tinkle of music broke the stalemate; Joey
swung around and scanned the street. "There!" He
pointed to the far end of the avenue, where a black and
white truck was turning the corner. "The Frosty Cow
Man. He sells Green Aliens and Red Rockets and Orange
Ooze."

Scully was about to plead continued ignorance when the
truck drew closer and enlightenment struck full force.

Ice cream.

Of course.

God, had the chemotherapy damaged her higher brain
functions so severely that she couldn't reason out a six-
year-old's meaning until it was literally staring her in the
face in the form of a truck painted to match the hide of a
Holstein cow, showing caricatures of giant dancing ice
cream cones on its black and white sides?

Maybe she should go back to DC, if such simple
connections were now beyond her grasp.

"Anthony ate some ice cream before dinner, and he
wasn't supposed to," she said now, half dazed at her own
obtuseness.

"That's what I =said=," Joey replied, and she didn't
begrudge him the disgust in his tone. She felt it herself.

The jingling faded as the truck passed by. Scully, who
had straightened up to watch the vehicle roll along its
appointed route, stooped down again to her small
informant's level. "Did you have one, too?"

The boy shook his head. "Mom said no snacks before
dinner," he repeated virtuously.

If what she'd seen of the older boy's room and his
personality held true, Scully thought it more likely that
Anthony had control of the family fortunes while their
mother was at work and habitually refused to share the
largesse. Either way, she doubted Joey had enjoyed a
cool treat that day.

It was the first discrepancy in the story of Anthony's
"normal" day she'd found, albeit a minor one. An ice
cream truck like that probably served hundreds of
customers a day, particularly during a heat wave. A
contaminant in the frozen confections was a possible
explanation, but given the tiny pool of victims she was
inclined to assign it a lower priority.

Still, she'd ask Mulder if he'd learned if his interview
subjects had been clients of the Frosty Cow Man before
their afflictions.

Assuming he'd asked them something other than
whether they'd seen any convenient UFOs buzzing
overhead.

**************

end part 4/9



I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM (5/9)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


Agreeing to eat dinner with her partner had not been a
bad idea.

It had been a monumentally bad idea, perhaps the worst
one she'd ever had in her entire life. That included the
time she'd agreed to let Missy give her a home dye job the
day before her sixteenth birthday party, lured by her
older sister's assurances that blondes had more fun.

 Scully recognized that now, but she'd been too tired, hot
and disturbed with herself to formulate a decent excuse.
When Mulder inquired about meal plans in the car on
the way back to the motel, she'd merely mumbled a
wordless sound of assent and had gone back to her
private deliberations about whether she was indeed fit for
duty.

Mulder was trying. She recognized and acknowledged
that, but it didn't change the fact that they'd progressed
from a rational and mature discussion about the case to
a full-blown argument before the salad plates had even
been cleared.

He'd listened politely and attentively to her findings from
her day at the hospital and the doctors' offices. About
Tracy's problems at school, Sharon's recent operation,
Marty's recent illness. To his credit, he even admitted
that Mrs. Plath told him Jennie had just lost her
grandmother, further supporting her theory that all of
the children had some obvious external reason for their
mute behavior.

And then he proceeded to decimate her hours of sweat
and indignities by claiming that it proved nothing, that
dozens of other children in a town this size suffered
divorce, academic pressures, surgery, sickness and loss
every day without manifesting a similar problem.
Implying that there had to be a paranormal explanation
somewhere and they were going to figure out what it was,
even if it took until Christmas.

If the conversation – or altercation, as it could more
accurately be described – had taken place anywhere
other than over plates of food, Scully might have behaved
differently. Might have held back the worst of the vitriol,
contained the bitterness at having her views so casually
dismissed.

In other words, she might have acted as she normally did
when their opinions differed on a case, and eventually
Mulder would perform as he normally did; recognize his
shortcoming, apologize profusely and sincerely and
promise to do better in the future.

She might even have remembered to mention her
conversation with Joey Puglisi about Green Aliens and
Red Rockets and Orange Ooze.

But the tedium of the meal itself, when added to the
combined weight of the doctors' earlier disdain, the
overpowering heat and her own growing sense of
insecurity shattered the internal dam suppressing all
that rancorous emotion.

Another nasty side effect of the chemotherapy that she
hadn't shared with Mulder was how it affected her sense
of taste. The last and most potent of the poisonous
chemical cocktails Dr. Zuckerman had introduced into
her system in a final effort to stave off her death had left
her with flavor receptors that registered little other than
texture and a faint tang of salt.

Her tastes buds were slowly recovering, but for now she
might have been eating notebook paper instead of a cobb
salad.

The thought of having to placate his concerns by
pretending to enjoy food she couldn't distinguish from
the cloth napkin on her lap while she listened to him
reject her scientifically grounded hypothesis in favor of
The Theory From Planet X was too much to bear, and she
let him have it.

"Mulder, =stop it=."

He broke off midway through a sentence about the fairy
tale of the Little Mermaid trading her voice for human
legs. "What?"

"Enough. There is no evil witch in this town stealing
children's voices. They did not get abducted by aliens
and returned mute so as to prevent them from telling
what happened to them. They were not rendered
speechless from shock at seeing their parents turn into
extraterrestrials, or their teachers, or their teddy bears.
This is not an X-File. Do you hear me? THIS IS NOT AN
X-FILE!!"

He stared at her as if he'd never seen her before, eyes
wide and jaw hanging. His fork dropped from his slack
fingers, sending a small spatter of creamy Italian
dressing fanning across the red checked tablecloth.

Scully had leaned over her own plate as she snapped out
the words in what originated as a modulated tone and
escalated to a near-shout. Mulder accordingly pressed
back against the vinyl booth, retreating from her
menacing stance as much as from the words themselves.
Although her eyes were focused on his, she could sense
other diners staring at them, could hear those little
whispered noises that meant everyone was talking about
you.

"Scully. . . " Mulder began, his voice cracking slightly.

She cut him off, throwing down her napkin and standing
up. "Don't. Don't even bother. I don't want to hear it. I'm
leaving. I'll see you back in Washington, after I've spoken
to Skinner."

Dignity required that she exit the restaurant at a sedate
walk, so she did, holding her spine ramrod straight and
her eyes fixed firmly on the goal, the door. A Naval
Academy graduate fresh from the parade grounds
couldn't have bettered her rigidly perfect posture.

But in her heart Scully was running for her life.

**************

If she were a presumptuous person, Scully could have
deluded herself into believing that she knew Mulder so
well that she could discern his presence on the opposite
side of her door simply by his knock. And while her
partner did, for the most part, adhere to a percussive
beat that mimicked "Shave and a Haircut" whenever he
requested entrance to her motel room or apartment in
circumstances other than dire emergencies, that wasn't
how she knew Mulder was the one rapping on the thin
plywood portal to her room at the Coralos Wheel Inn two
hours after she'd stalked out on him.

No, she knew it was Mulder because absolutely no one
else had reason to come to her room. Few people other
than the maintenance staff or her mother had reason to
frequent her apartment in DC, either. Using the highly
scientific process of elimination, that left Mulder, now
and always.

Still, she checked the peephole just to be sure. After all,
she'd already proven herself so clueless an elementary
school child had lost patience with her. It would be the
ultimate capper on a dandy day to discover she'd
forgotten all her training and her past experiences and
let in a homicidal maniac through sheer carelessness.

But it was Mulder, as she'd known it would be. Scully
slid the security chain and opened the door.

They eyed each other warily, silently.

"May I come in?" Mulder asked finally.

Scully stepped back in response, waving him into the
room. He strode by her, his gaze taking in the open
suitcase on the bed, the neatly packed clothing, the one
suit left hanging in the closet, ready for the morning.

"You're really leaving." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes. I have a flight back at ten tomorrow."

He turned back to look at her, and she wanted to cringe
at the incomprehensible pain she saw in his eyes.
"Scully, please. Don't do this."

I'm not doing anything, Mulder. You've done it all for me.
You wanted me safe and secure in the basement, and
that's where I'm going. Although I may not actually end
up in the basement, it'll be somewhere that you don't
have to worry about me. And =I= won't have to worry
about me. Or you. Or you worrying about me.

This time she held the words in check, not wanting to
hurt him more than she had already. "We'll talk about it
when you get back, all right?" she said gently.

"No, it's not all right, Scully. Why are you doing this?" he
demanded.

She took a deep breath. "Mulder, last week you did
nothing but watch me breathe. Now we're finally on a
case that has your attention, and you've made it quite
clear that my input is not only unwanted, but
unnecessary. You were the one who suggested I go home
in the first place. Well, I am. Why are you so upset now
that I'm acting upon that suggestion?"
 
"Bullshit. You're not taking my advice, you're giving up,"
he snapped.

That stung, and she flinched visibly. Because after what
had happened this afternoon, it was closer to the truth
than he knew.

But damned if she'd tell him that now.

She picked her words carefully, waiting until she was
certain she had both her anger and her fear well in hand
before speaking. "When you're finished down here, we'll
talk. Until then, I will hold off on requesting a meeting
with Skinner. That's all I can promise for now. All right?"

His shoulders slumped; despite his uncanny ability to
bend her to his will 99.9 percent of the time, even Mulder
the Mulish could tell this was that one time when all of
his persuasive skills were not going to help him budge
her. "All right, Scully."

"What's that?" she queried, noticing for the first time that
his hands were not empty. When her partner arrived on
her threshold bearing gifts, such bequests were usually
inexplicable residue from a crime scene stored in clear
plastic evidence bags, not oddly-shaped packages
wrapped in black and white paper.

"Oh. Here." He held out one of the objects and she took
it, feeling a sudden chill pass through the wrapper to her
palm. "It's a Dreamy Fudge Bar. I saw the ice cream
truck pass by after you left."

He'd bought her a chocolate ice cream bar from the
Frosty Cow Man. Scully felt the back of her throat close
up.

"He had these on the menu, so I couldn't resist," Mulder
continued, stripping the paper off his own dessert, a
bright green popsicle. "They're called Green Aliens."

Scully found her voice and her memory at the same time.
"I ran into Joey Puglisi this afternoon. Anthony's younger
brother. He said Anthony had one of those before he got
sick."

"I'm not surprised." Mulder slid the green ice bar into his
mouth and mumbled around it, "It's still over 90 degrees
outside. The entire town's probably been living on these
things for days."

"I guess."

"Are you going to eat that?"

Scully, who'd been holding the Dreamy Fudge Bar and
staring dejectedly at the list of ingredients without really
seeing them, glanced up to find Mulder pointing at the
confection. "I. . . maybe later. I'm not very hungry right
now."

In truth, she wasn't capable of summoning anything
other than fake delight over the unexpected snack. And
Mulder, who'd pigeonholed her secret vice for frozen
dairy products early in their partnership, would never be
fooled by an artificial display of enthusiasm for his gift.

He bit off a piece of his popsicle, chewed it and produced
a weak, sad smile. "I told the guy I needed something
special as a peace offering. I said I'd had a fight with my
best friend and if I didn't show up with something good,
she'd kick my ass from here to the next county."

Mulder, don't do this, she begged silently. Just let me go
home while I've still got some self-respect left. Aloud, she
said the first thing that came to mind. "The next state,
you mean."

"I would have said, 'All the way back to Washington,' but
I didn't want to scare him."

"What did he say to that?"

"Offered me the Green Alien for nothing and told me to
enjoy it. Said anyone who made their best friend walk
out on them deserved a popsicle guaranteed to turn their
lips green."

"He was right. That thing is turning your lips green. And
your tongue, for that matter." Scully sat down on her
bed, suddenly too bone-weary to continue the discussion
from a standing position. The siren song of a cool
shower, an air conditioner turned to full power, and the
light comfort of a billowing cotton sheet beckoned.
"Mulder, go to bed. I'll see you in the morning before I
leave."

He acquiesced, pausing at the door for one last comment.
"I'm sorry, Scully. I want you to know that."

"I know you are. But this is for the best. Thanks for the
ice cream."

She sat staring sightlessly at the door for a long time
after he left, until the Dreamy Fudge Bar succumbed to
the temperature in the room and the warmth of her grip
and seeped through the wrapper, leaking chocolate ooze
over her fingers and palm. She jumped up before it could
drip onto her slacks, dumping the melting brown mess
into her bathroom sink before giving in to the
temptations of the shower stall and the cooling system.

The frantic pounding woke her the next morning shortly
after six. Her first thought was that the management was
warning of a fire or some other external emergency; it
never occurred to her that the assault on her door might
be her partner.

But when she threw on her bathrobe to answer the
furious banging, it was indeed Mulder.

Clad only in a gray t-shirt and sleeping shorts, his hair
spiking out in all directions.

Panic clouding his hazel eyes.

Scully threw open the door. "Mulder? What is it? What's
wrong?"

He brushed past her, pacing in agitated circles. His
hands drew wild slashes in the air, as if he was playing
an early-morning round of charades.

Scully grabbed him by his biceps at his next pass, her
fingers digging into his flesh as she held him in place
long enough to answer her. "Mulder, =tell me what's the
matter=."

He stared down at her and Scully's own terror suddenly
seized her with its paralyzing grip, squeezing the air from
her lungs and the strength from her limbs.

Because Mulder's mouth was moving, but he was now
truly speechless.

**************

end part 5/9



I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM (6/9)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


Coralos, Texas
Thursday

It took less than ten minutes to calm him down, give him
a cursory examination and obtain a somewhat coherent
written account of what had transpired between the time
he'd left her room and awakened to discover his vocal
abilities had gone AWOL.

Nothing in two-page, hastily scribbled account of Fox
Mulder's scintillating evening of channel surfing at the
Coralos Wheel Inn could account for this.

Nothing in his mouth other than a slight discoloration of
his tongue, dye particles from the popsicle that had
tenaciously defied the cleansing strokes of his
toothbrush.

Frustrated and frightened, Scully ducked into her
bathroom for a minute to splash some cold water on her
face and compose herself. Mulder needed to be seen by a
throat expert. Mulder would strenuously object to such a
suggestion. He didn't need his voice to express his
displeasure in that regard.

She reached for the faucet, and her gaze fell on the sticky
puddle of brown sludge and soggy paper that still littered
the sink.

Oh, my God.

The ice cream. The Green Alien.

She flew back into the bedroom; now it was her turn to
startle her partner with panicky eyes and abrupt
movements.

"Anthony had one of those Green Aliens. When you
talked to the children, did anyone else mention eating
one?"

His eyes widened as the connection clicked. She waited
impatiently while he thought, his brow scrunched up in
an effort to remember the details of all his conversations
with the children and their parents. Finally, he grabbed
another  piece of the Coralos Wheel Inn stationery and
printed, *I don't think it came up. Nobody mentioned it
that I can recall.*

"Do you still have the list of phone numbers for all the
children?"

*Yes. In my room.*

"Get it. I'm going to call Chief Puglisi to alert him. I don't
want that truck going out today until we know if we're
right or not."

Mulder stood up and glanced down at himself, as if
realizing for the first time his state of undress. He
flushed.

Scully smiled thinly. "I suppose you can put on some
clothes while you're at it, too."

**************

Chief Puglisi was stunned. "The Frosty Cow Man? You
think the Frosty Cow Man is somehow part of this?" He
sounded as if Scully had just suggested they arrest Santa
Claus.

"I'm not sure yet. All I know is that your son and my
partner both ate a green popsicle from that truck right
before they became mute. It's the first common element
we've found. I'll be checking on the other children as
soon as I hang up with you, but that truck needs to be
impounded. Immediately. Is it the only truck in the
town? Is it an individual enterprise, or part of some
larger corporation? Who drives it?"

"Um. . ." The chief was flustered. Scully understood how
he felt. It wasn't often she had to roust people out of bed
to inform them that the friendly neighborhood ice cream
man might be a vicious predator. "I. . . I don't know off
the top of my head, Agent Scully. I'll have to find out. I'll
need to get some people out of bed and over to the town
hall to check on the Frosty Cow business license."

"Here's my cell phone number." Scully read it out to him.
"Call me the minute you find anything."

"Will do."

Scully made one more call to the airline to cancel her
flight and finished throwing on her own clothes just
before Mulder returned. He had, she noticed gratefully,
taken the time for a quick wash and shave; all his
buttons were fastened correctly and his tie was properly
knotted. Some sense of security had returned to his
world. They'd figured out what was wrong. Scully the
doctor would figure out how to fix it.

God, she hoped she could live up to that expectation. For
all the times she'd ever wished Mulder would just shut
up, she found his total silence unsettling and eerie.

While they weren't definite proof, the phone calls
nonetheless convinced them. Mrs. Plath confirmed that
she herself had sent Jennie out to the ice cream truck,
although she didn't know what the girl had bought. Mr.
Schwartz said that Sharon always had money for ice
cream; strawberry was her favorite. The Thorpes weren't
home. Mrs. Owens confessed that Tracy had indeed
eaten ice cream after getting into a fight while on line
waiting for her turn.

Scully hung up the motel phone as her cell rang.
"Scully."

"The corporation headquarters are in California," Chief
Puglisi said without preamble. "Each Frosty Cow truck is
an individually owned franchise. The one here in town
was sold last month to a Paul Kinder." Puglisi read out
the address. "It's about a mile from your motel; how do
you want to play this?"

Scully glanced over at Mulder, who was following the half
of the conversation audible to him with narrowed and
suspicious eyes. "Send me backup. To the location."

"Right. You're by far the closest, Agent Scully. I just want
to warn you that it'll be at least half an hour before I can
contact any of my people and send them out that way.
Right after I spoke to you we had a tour bus accident out
on the main highway with five other cars involved. . ."

"Do what you can. I'm going over now." She disconnected
and turned around to find a piece of stationery shoved
under her nose.

*I'M COMING WITH YOU.*

Mulder had penned the words with heavy, thick strokes,
some of which had torn jagged holes in the flimsy paper.
The stubborn expression on his face punctuated his
insistence.

"No. You know that as you are now, you're a liability. You
can't call for help if you get in trouble. You can't call for
help if =I= get in trouble. For once, I need you to stay
safely in one place while I go get the bad guys."

Instead of responding with another written salvo, Mulder
merely dangled the keys to the rental just out of reach.
The message was clear: I go with you, or you don't go at
all.

"Fine." They were wasting time; Scully had no idea when
Paul Kinder set out on his Frosty Cow route, but she had
every intention of stopping him before he left his
driveway this morning.

They pulled up across from a slightly rundown two-story
home on the end of a dead-end street. The window
shades were drawn; it was barely 8:00 but the day's heat
had already started its customary ascension. Scully had
noticed that most of the town kept their shades down all
day to block the worst of the sun's assault.

The black and white cow-patterned truck sat in the
unpaved drive.

She'd allowed Mulder to drive and now she turned to try
and reason with him yet again. "It looks quiet. I'm going
to check the truck, then come back here while we wait
for the backup. Stay here."

He shook his head vehemently, determined to accompany
her.

"Damn it, Mulder, STAY HERE," she implored
desperately. "If you see something or hear something,
blow the horn. Otherwise you're no good to either of us!"

He reached out suddenly and touched her cheek with his
fingertips, mouthing a phrase she had no trouble lip-
reading.

*Be careful.*

"I will. I'll be right back." She slipped from the car and
unholstered her weapon.

There was no cover between their vehicle and the silent
Frosty Cow truck. If Kinder had already spotted her from
behind his closed blinds, there was nothing Scully could
do about it except duck and run, keeping herself as small
a target as possible.

She reached the back of the truck and flattened her back
against it, weapon up and ready, listening for any sound,
any indication that Kinder was in the vicinity instead of
puttering around inside his house. So far their adversary
had shown himself to be disabling rather than
dangerous, but Scully knew that any animal could attack
if cornered and threatened. Just because he'd chosen to
affect his victims from afar didn't mean he wouldn't be
prepared to defend himself with deadly force.

Silence. She nodded to Mulder, who thankfully remained
in the driver's seat of their car, about twenty-five yards
away on the opposite side of the street. She saw his head
bob in a return salute.

Scully eased around the far side of the truck and slipped
down the length of it to check the driver's compartment,
uncomfortably aware that someone could be lurking
inside, tracking her progress through the sideview
mirror.

Where the hell was that backup? What was taking them
so damned long?

She crouched down below the open window, then sprang
up, arms extended, gun shoved through the space to the
empty compartment.

Empty.

She exhaled in relief.

Standing on tiptoe, Scully raked her gaze around the
small front area of the Frosty Cow truck; but there was
little to see other than the driver's seat and the vehicle
controls. No one skulked under the overhanging
dashboard or cowered behind the adjustable pilot's chair.

She slipped back the way she'd come, navigating along
the far side of the truck, out of sight of the house.
Slithering around to the back of the truck again, she
reached up and grasped the handle on the double door.

It turned easily. Unlocked.

All her instincts warned her that she was walking into a
trap. To wait for the promised backup. To realize that she
was being set up. But her common sense was at war with
her training. Kinder lived on the end of a nearly-empty
road, away from town. Coralos was in southern Texas,
where the daily high temperatures rivaled that of the
Sahara. Was it so unreasonable then that he neither
locked the truck's doors nor rolled up its windows?

All that notwithstanding, if the source of their problem
was a particular Frosty Cow product, there might be
evidence in the truck. Evidence that could easily melt or
be reclaimed by the parent company if she didn't hurry
up and secure a sample right now.

Scully yanked the handle and pulled the door open,
throwing herself sideways in case Kinder came charging
out.

He didn't.

She swung around to face the open door, weapon drawn
and ready again, but saw nothing but banks of white
coolers in the dim interior. Unless he was hiding in one
of the refrigeration units, there were no places of
concealment in the cramped space. Every inch was taken
up with the insulated containers for a day of Frosty Cow
sales. There was a small main aisle, barely wide enough
to accommodate one person, running the length of the
truck.

A faint humming emanated from inside. The refrigeration
units apparently worked off a generator.

Ignoring the unpleasant memories of past suspects who
could have compressed their bodily masses to fit neatly
into the coolers with room to spare, Scully holstered her
gun and hoisted herself up into the truck, taking a few
steps forward.

Only to whirl around too late as Mulder sounded the
alarm with a blast from the car horn the same instant
the truck door slammed shut behind her, plunging her
into darkness.

**************

end part 6/9



I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM (7/9)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


She wasn't alone.

Paul Kinder was in here somewhere with her. Scully
pressed back against the nearest waist-high cooler,
gripping her weapon lightly, trying to regulate her
breathing as her eyes adjusted to the lack of light.

The last time she was trapped in a truck with a killer,
he'd said. . .

NO!

Scully stamped down on thoughts of Leonard Betts and
his death sentence. She'd survived despite him. She had
nothing this man needed, either.

"FBI. I'm armed." It sounded paltry to her own ears, but
if nothing else, she was required to warn him before
applying deadly force.

"I know. You're his partner, aren't you? The doctor?"

Young. Ordinary. Curious. Calm. Non-threatening. A
catalog of vocal descriptions flowed through her head
when he spoke. Useless knowledge. No, not useless.
Everything has a meaning. Sift through this and find it.
Find his weakness. Take the advantage.

The voice had come from her right, what should be the
back of the van. Scully shifted slightly to face in that
direction. "Yes. Are you Paul Kinder?"

"Yes. That's me."

There was a loud banging from outside. Mulder had
deserted his post and was pounding fruitlessly on the
exterior. From the inside, it reverberated like a kettle
drum solo.

"He can't get in," Kinder replied conversationally. "I've
locked the doors. And the connecting door from the
driver's section back to here is locked, too."

"If you don't surrender soon, he might just take out his
weapon and fire through the body of the truck," Scully
said equably. She could be as calm and rational as he
seemed to be.

"I doubt that. He'd never put you in danger. I saw that
when I sold him the Dreamy Fudge Bar for you. Did you
enjoy it?"

"I didn't eat it. I'm afraid my tastes have changed lately."
Could she really be standing here in the dark
nonchalantly discussing ice cream with a man who
robbed people of their voices?

"That's a shame. I see he enjoyed his Green Alien."
Kinder sounded as though he was smiling now.

Scully squinted desperately, trying to locate him. It
should be easy; the truck wasn't that big and he couldn't
be more than seven or eight feet away. But it was just too
dark. There were a few slivers of daylight seeping in from
around the edges of the back door frame, but the meager
strips of brightness were not enough to enable her to
distinguish anything other than a dim shape that might
be him and might be another ice cream container. And
the risks of a ricochet within the confined space were
just too great. She had no choice but to keep him talking
until she saw an opening to strike.

The pounding ceased for the moment. Scully prayed that
the backup had arrived, although she couldn't hear any
approaching car engines.

"Why have you done this?" she demanded.

"My name is Kinder. Most people pronounce it to rhyme
with cinder, you know? But they're all wrong. It's really
Kinder like finder. That's what my mother always said,
anyway. And she said that it gave me a special mission in
life."

"Which was?"

Kinder sneered. "Can't you guess? I'm supposed to help
everyone be nicer to each other, to love one another, to
bring joy and happiness. What better way to fulfill that
mission than to drive an ice cream truck?"

Scully took a deep breath. "You have a peculiar way of
spreading happiness by striking your clients mute,
unless your idea of cheer is total silence."

"That's not my fault." Kinder's voice hardened. "It's
theirs. No matter what I do, no matter how I try, they
always fight. Adults too, but it starts when they're just
kids. They're mean to each other, they're rude to me,
they have no idea how to be polite and generous to their
relatives and friends. They think they can bully each
other and get away with it, enjoy life while making
someone else miserable."

"They're children," Scully said coldly. "Eventually they
learn manners."

"Their youth and inexperience is nothing but an excuse,
and a poor one at that," Kinder rapped back. "Trust me.
I've been doing this for a long time. They =never= learn."

"So why take their voices? What does that prove?"

Kinder laughed unpleasantly. "You really don't get it, do
you? What did your mother always tell you when you
were little?"

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

"Nice try. And you are in the right ballpark. I'm talking
about, 'if you can't say something nice, don't say
anything at all.' Ever hear of that one, Ms. 'FBI, I'm
Armed'?"

"Yes."

"Then you understand. Not only could these kids not say
anything nice, they had the temerity to say all their
cruelest things and show their most vicious sides in front
of me." Kinder sounded aggrieved, affronted at the
behavior of his young patrons. "The language some of
them use, it's unbelievable. Then they expect a reward
from me. A treat." He laughed again, an ugly sound that
echoed through the small space. "I gave them a treat, all
right. They'll never have to worry about saying anything
nice again. They'll never have to worry about being kind
to anyone in word and deed. They'll just have to hope the
world is kind to =them= from now on."

"Your mother was misinformed. Your name does not give
you the right to be judge and jury over the etiquette of
others."

"It's not polite to contradict your betters, Agent Scully."

She felt a chill skitter down her spine that had nothing to
do with the low temperature in the van. The floor rocked
suddenly under her feet and she stumbled, catching her
balance only by letting go of her weapon with one hand
to steady herself against the cooler.

"Your friend is behaving quite poorly himself," Kinder
commented. The van swayed again. "I believe he's in the
driver's compartment trying to rip the connecting door
right off the frame."

"Give him enough time and I'm sure he'll succeed," Scully
replied, re-establishing her grip on her gun and edging
backwards. If she could get enough distance between
them, she would risk a shot.

Where was the backup? Damn it, where was the backup?

"Unfortunately, we've run out of time, Agent Scully. I'm
sure your friend isn't the only one waiting out there for
me. I've been here on the job for a month, and now it's
time to move on. There are other communities that need
to be educated about the difference between true
enjoyment and happiness and heartlessness and spite.
But I've got one final pupil to teach."

Oh, dear God, not again. Don't tell me I'm locked in a
truck facing a psychopath =again=. This is so unamusing
I might actually laugh, a feat which would surely give
new meaning to the term "she died laughing."

She steadied her weapon in the direction of his voice and
put every ounce of steel she possessed into her own. "I'm
sorry, but I'm not interested in any more graduate
degrees. Now put your hands up and face the back of the
truck. Otherwise I will shoot you."

If the vehicle had been bigger, giving him a longer
runway to gather more momentum, the outcome might
have been different. But Kinder made the most of the tiny
section afforded him. Alerted by the thud of his footsteps
and the sudden rush of air, Scully braced herself and
fired.

At the same time the van shook again from Mulder's
frantic efforts at the door.

And Scully missed.

**************

end part 7/9



I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM (8/9)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


The shot went wild, pinging around the metal interior
like an angry fly in a bell jar. Scully paid it no heed; it
was too late to worry about it. Kinder was on her before
she could fire again, slamming into her body with his
own, knocking her backwards to the floor.

She cracked the back of her head against the lip of the
cooler as she went down, but barely registered the pain.
What she felt instead was rage – pure unadulterated fury
that she ended up flat on her back =again=, pinned down
at the mercy of some delusional fool who felt it his
appointed duty in life to erase her presence from this
earth.

She managed to hold on to her gun with one hand, but
Kinder's full body weight was planted firmly on her
stomach, and he grabbed her around the throat, fingers
squeezing firmly against vital airways and arteries, palm
pressing down on her larynx.

The darkness suddenly got darker.

Kinder whispered, "He says he had an argument with
you. I think you started it. After all, he said you walked
out on him. Now, is that a nice way to treat somebody? Is
it?"

Scully struggled to breathe, to move, to do anything to
stop him from suffocating her. She could feel her
strength leeching away under the relentless pressure at
her throat, the back of her head adding its own verse to
the chorus of woes being sung throughout her body.

"And now you're not even polite enough to answer me
back. No treat for you, Agent Scully. Not until you learn
some manners!"

She felt him move and draw back his free arm, and a
flash of silver glittered in the hazy blackness. Too thin for
a knife.

An ice pick.

He brought his arm down, aiming the sharpened tool at
her throat, meaning to sever her vocal chords and render
her voiceless forever.

The van swayed again, and he lost his balance and
faltered on the downstroke.

Scully's body, already in overdrive, responded to the
slight shift in the  oppressive weight on her neck and
abdomen with a flood of fresh adrenaline. She brought
her gun hand up in a blind swing and smashed the
unforgiving metal of the weapon against the side of
Kinder's head.

He howled but the blow didn't deflect his assault entirely;
the ice pick missed its intended target and pierced her
left shoulder instead, the point slicing effortlessly
through her linen suit jacket and the silky fabric of her
blouse to spear the flesh beneath.

There was a flash of unbearable agony as the tip of the
pick crunched audibly against bone. He yanked the silver
spike back out and then took his hand off her neck. She
saw his shadowy shape raise the pick high over his head
with both hands, poised to drive it home with all his
might and kill her.

Scully sucked in a ragged breath, ignoring the searing
fire that followed the flow of air over her abused throat
tissues. The air that brought a return to full
consciousness. The air that brought strength. The air
that brought the energy and the will to finish this once
and for all. She dragged her hands up to her chest,
coughing, aware that although her shoulder was
bleeding, her left hand still functioned. She closed it over
her right around the gun.

"Red light, green light, one, two, three!" chanted Kinder
gleefully. He lunged down.

Scully fired again.

At such close quarters, the gunshot sounded more like
an explosion. The recoil bucked against her hands and
dug painfully into her ribs.

Kinder hovered above her, gurgling. The ice pick slipped
from his hands and plunked harmlessly onto her chest.
Scully flung it aside with one hand, struggling to sit up
before her mortally wounded foe collapsed face first on
top of her and pinned her again.

Her movements shifted his stance, and he crumpled
backwards over her legs instead.

The back door of the van was suddenly flung open,
flooding the small interior with blinding daylight.
Squinting to block the intense glare, Scully tried again to
sit up, a precursor to gaining her feet before Mulder,
Chief Puglisi and the four other police officers with him
squeezed in and found her lying in such an ignominious
heap.

No such luck. Her frenzied partner leaped inside as if
he'd been shot from a gun barrel himself. She couldn't
see him properly as her eyes were still tearing from the
sun and his back was to the light coming in from the
door, but she could imagine his words and his horrified
expression without any difficulty.

Scully, Scully, Scully, oh, God, Scully. . .

"It's not. . . " she rasped, grimacing at the appalling
discomfort that accompanied her effort to reassure him,
"it's not my blood. I'm all right, Mulder, it's not my
blood."

She didn't need to look to know that her chest and neck
were coated in gore; she'd felt the warm liquid raining
down on her the instant she'd shot Kinder and she
understood immediately how such an alarming sight
could affect her partner.

Unseen but helpful hands dragged Kinder's dead weight
off her legs, releasing her from the last of his lethal
embrace. She coughed again, one hand to her aching
throat, the other pushing herself upright.

Mulder tried to hold her down, and she shook him off
with a mix of impatience and anger. "I'm all right! Let go
of me!"

Her eyes had finally adjusted to the light, allowing her to
see her prison clearly for the first time. It didn't differ
much from her original impression; just a small space
crowded with lots of white coolers.

Now redecorated with an abstract artist's brush and
gallons of red paint, or so it seemed.

She also got her first good look at Paul Kinder, the Frosty
Cow Man. He looked just like his vocal quality had
implied, the diametric opposite of what his words and
actions had construed. Young. Ordinary. Non-
threatening. Just a young man in a white shirt with a
smiling cow on the pocket and a hole in his chest.

Scully struggled to her knees, feeling slightly queasy as
she glanced down at herself.

No wonder Mulder wanted to keep her in a prone
position. She looked like she'd been attacked by a meat
cleaver, not an ice pick. She lifted her left arm to place
her palm on the nearest refrigeration unit, meaning to
lever herself to her feet. Fresh pain raced down her arm,
awakening nerve endings that had, up to this moment,
been slumbering uneasily under the effects of her
adrenaline fog. She hissed in pain and slumped back
down to the floor, clutching her bad arm.

"Shit." That hurt. She was certain it wasn't more than an
oversized puncture wound, that the bone was only
bruised instead of broken, but it really hurt. And she
couldn't kid herself that the warm wetness running down
her arm under her suit jacket sleeve was Kinder's blood
this time. Oversized puncture wound or not, she was
bleeding badly. Between the blood loss and the head
trauma, she suddenly realized she was decidedly dizzy as
well. If she did manage to stand up, she might very well
fall right back down, or swoon into Mulder's arms like a
Victorian maiden in some swashbuckling romance novel.
Neither was a very appealing option, so she allowed her
partner to settle her more comfortably in a seated
position on the floor of the truck.

"Agent Scully?" Chief Puglisi crowded into the tiny space
and crouched down with her and Mulder. "Jesus. Are
you all right?"

"No. Yes. I mean no, I'm not dying, but yes, if you have
an ambulance out there, I need some medical attention."
On top of everything else, her voice was going to generate
that distinctly husky timbre for the near future, she
thought dismally. The kind that so many people found
alluring and sexy, which would have been bearable if she
didn't have the memory of ghastly reasons behind her
condition.

Puglisi smiled slightly despite her gruesome appearance.
"You do look a little green around the gills at that. I'll go
holler for the medics. Just stay here."

Mulder was fluttering around her like a moth at a flame,
mouthing sentences and paragraphs she couldn't even
begin to translate. She could guess the gist of most it,
unfortunately. How stupid she'd been to go to the truck
without waiting for backup in the first place. How he'd
tried to help her. How sorry he was that she got hurt.
How she should have let him come with her.

"Mulder, stop. I'll be fine. This is all superficial."

He ceased his silent ranting and glared at her.
Superficial, Scully? that glare announced. You're
=covered= in blood and it's superficial?

"I told you. Most of it isn't my blood." How peculiar that
he didn't even need to speak to carry on a coherent
conversation with her. Or maybe not so peculiar. She
was used to filling in the blanks he left in his personality.
It was when she got quiet that he got lost.

Lost and found, hide and seek.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.

Red light, green light, one, two, three.

Red everywhere around her. Except for the aliens. There
were green.

Gray.

No, that's only Reticulans. The ice cream aliens were
green. The rockets were red. Just like ". . .and the
rocket's red glare. . ."

Red and green. Red Rockets and Green. . .

Scully's eyes, which had drifted half-shut, snapped open.
"Mulder!"

He spun around from his new position by the door; he'd
picked his way over there in a frustrated attempt to
hurry the paramedics. Disturbed by the urgency in her
voice, he knelt down next to her again, one hand going to
her face to brush back the sweat-matted hair clinging to
her cheek, the other smoothing up and down her
uninjured arm, trying to soothe what he perceived as
distress.

"The coolers. Look in the coolers."

He frowned, making shushing motions, clearly thinking
she was hallucinating or worse from the bang on the
head. Scully pushed his hands away. "Mulder, listen to
me. Look in the coolers. The Frosty Cow Man sells
something called a Red Rocket. Find one! Do it now!"

He stood up hesitantly, then flipped open the nearest
cooler lid and began rooting through the contents.
Finally, he pulled out a slim, wrapped popsicle with red
writing on the black and white wrapper and held it up for
her inspection.

"Eat it."

He stared at her, eyebrows shooting skyward, as if she'd
just made the most deliciously obscene suggestion he'd
ever heard in his life. And maybe she had. But he still
didn't understand, and he still wasn't moving to devour
the cherry-flavored ice.

"Red is the color opposite of green, Mulder." She paused,
then added what she hoped might be the final touch.
"Please," she pleaded softly. "Please eat the Red Rocket,
Mulder. Please."

The expression on his face shifted to one of total wonder,
and he pulled the wrapper off and shoved the popsicle
into his mouth.

"Thank you," Scully whispered.

Mulder crunched down on a softened bit of the snack,
swallowed it, and smiled with red-tinged lips as he
crouched down beside her again. "You're welcome," he
responded hoarsely.

**************

end part 8/9



I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM (9/9)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


Coralos, Texas
Friday

"I can't thank you enough, " Chief Puglisi said, emotion
making his voice raw and uneven. "I never thought I'd be
so happy to hear someone arguing with his brother about
what channel to watch on TV. It's incredible."

Scully smiled. "You're welcome. I'm glad the other
children are all right now, too."

"Did you get those test results back from the lab okay?"

"Yes." She didn't add that they confirmed nothing other
than the presence of the normal ingredients for ice cream
and popsicles – a montage of milk products, sugars and
corn syrups, natural and artificial flavors, assorted
chemical thickening and preserving agents and food
colorings.

Not that there had been much left to analyze. By the time
the contents of the Frosty Cow truck had been
transported to the lab for testing, most of the individual
products had melted together in one slushy, multi-hued
pool of viscous goop. If there ever had been any secret
compound in either the Green Aliens or the Red Rockets
to instigate such vocal disruption, it was now
indistinguishable from the regular ingredients making up
the Dreamy Fudge Bars, Super Almond Crunches,
Vanilla Fudge Bars, Orange Oozes and Strawberry
Twists.

"You're going back to DC this afternoon, right?"

"Yes. Mulder and I have a flight at four."

"How's the shoulder?" Puglisi gestured at her sling.

"It's all right. Just a little sore, like my throat." Her neck
was ringed with a necklace of ugly bruises from Kinder's
fingers, but she'd been able to conceal the worst of the
damage with makeup.

"And Agent Mulder?"

"He's fully recovered. He's picking me up in a little while."
Mulder was back in full verbal form, even if his normal
baritone was a little rough around the edges. He'd sent
her off to Puglisi's office on the basis that with only one
good arm, she'd be a liability when it came to packing.

"Oh, so I'm well enough to drive a car with one hand, but
I'm not safe to have around the motel room amid the
hazards of folding and creasing?" she'd asked, amused.

"You never know when one of these double-breasted
suits is going to fight back, Scully. I can't let you take
that chance."

"Admit it, Mulder. You just don't want go down to the
station and fill out all that paperwork."

"True enough. But," he looked up from where he sat
tucking her cranberry suit into her suitcase to regard her
with serious eyes, "you were the one in the truck with
him all that time."

She silently thanked him for padding the truth,
cushioning her from the stark reality of, "You were the
one who shot and killed Paul Kinder, Scully."

The taking of a human life was not an act she took
lightly, even in the most desperate situations.

He nodded back in acknowledgment of her unspoken
gratitude, the expression on his face soft and concerned.

As she left Puglisi's office, Mulder pulled up in their
rental and beeped the horn.

She wondered if she would ever hear that sound again
without thinking of the events of the past day. She
slipped into the passenger seat and buckled the seatbelt,
wincing as the motion twisted her injured arm.

Bless him. Mulder had the air conditioning on full tilt.
Scully sighed in relief, gingerly leaning back against the
headrest and closing her eyes.

"All set?" he inquired.

"Yes. Let's go."

They drove in silence for a few miles, then Scully turned
her head to regard him through her lashes.

"Have I got a bug on me or something, Scully?"

"No. I. . . I feel I owe you an apology."

"You do, huh?"

"Yes." She paused, looking down at her hands. "I was
annoyed at the way you were treating me, as if I would
crumble into dust if someone so much as touched me the
wrong way. As if I was still an invalid."

"I think you've proven in the last twenty-four hours that
that's nowhere near the truth," he responded wryly.

"But when you started behaving the way you usually do
on a case, challenging my opinions and my theories, I
became even more angry. I. . . I had reasons for to be
upset. Those reasons don't have anything to do with you,
yet I took my bad temper out on you. My behavior was
uncalled for and unprofessional, and I'm sorry."

"For what its worth, Scully, I don't think you need to
apologize. You had every right to say some of the things
you did, right down to filing complaints about Skinner
and me for trying to limit your case involvement. I think
you know how scared I was that you wouldn't survive.
And I forgot that no matter what else happened, it wasn't
up to me to make life or death decisions for you. If you
didn't want to live as badly as you did, you would have
died, chip or not." He paused to change lanes, edging
carefully around an eighteen-wheeler. "I know you're fit
for duty. Hell, you're probably more fit than I am. Red
Rockets and Green Aliens and I still didn't understand
what you were talking about until it was almost too late."

"That's because aliens aren't really green, Mulder," she
replied affectionately, easing herself down to a more
comfortable position in the bucket seat. "Everyone knows
they're gray."


End



Author's notes: Eeek. A casefile. I can't believe I actually
did this. To all those who have written casefiles, you have
my deepest admiration and respect. :-) In case you were
wondering, I did deliberately ignore any canon about
Mulder being colorblind, despite my feature popsicle
colors. My eternal thanks to Jill, who provided
inspiration when I was stuck and beta-read the finished
product.

Feedback: Thrill me, chill me, fulfill me at
jeanrobinson@yahoo.com