Jersey

by Jill Selby
jillselby@starband.net


Rating: PG

Feedback: I'd love it!

Disclaimer:  Characters from the X-Files are the property of Ten
Thirteen Productions, the Fox Television Network, and 20th Century
Fox. No animals were harmed during the production of this story.

* * *

Scully clawed at the ground, desperate to pull herself away from the
maniac looming over her, but the twisted wire dug into her legs and
held her fast.

"What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?" she asked, but
the killer only snorted as if to mock the agent's tedious questions.

"You won't get away with this," Scully said. "My partner will find
out what you did to me. He'll grill you until you crumble." It was an
empty threat. No one, not even Mulder, would believe the story she
would soon be too dead to tell.

The killer watched Scully with brown eyes that were as cold and
soulless as Fudgsicles. The bulky, suede-clad female leaned close,
exhaling her hot sticky breath against the agent's face. And when
Scully's demented captor spoke, it was a single syllable. One word
that conveyed an evil unsurpassed by any creature or criminal Scully
had ever encountered.

In a voice like a howl from hell, the murderer said, "Moo."

* * *

Three hours earlier...

"Wakey, wakey, Scully. We're now entering Fort Mercy, Oklahoma.
Population 212."

"Shouldn't that be 206?" Scully opened her eyes to take in the scene
rolling past the car window: a tiny church, abandoned storefronts,
houses on the verge of tumbling down. A grand three-story colonial
cast its shadow over two goats grazing in front of the rusting mobile
home next door.

"Two hours from the airport," Mulder said, as if inconvenience were
a virtue. "Thirty miles from neon and fast food. No traffic jams. No
street crime."

"No zoning ordinances." Scully pulled out her phone, read the
display, and stuffed the useless thing back in her pocket. "No cell
phone service."

"Some people pine for the simple life, Scully."

"If it were so simple, we wouldn't be here."

"You're the one who thinks all six deaths were accidental," Mulder
said. "Sounds pretty simple to me. Did you notice there isn't a fort
in Fort Mercy?"

"And no mercy either," Scully said as she began rifling through the
file in the hope of finding a sinister connection she'd missed the
last 50 times she'd read it. Maybe it wasn't fair to blame Mulder for
this trip. They were here as much for her forensics expertise as
anything. But it was Mulder's contact in the Senate who was buddies
with the governor whose wealthy benefactor was a second cousin of the
sixth victim. Tomorrow she was going to have to autopsy someone who
suffocated in a pile of manure. She was not going to feign good cheer
about it.

Town gave way to country, pavement gave way to gravel, gravel to
ruts and mud. The car swayed and jolted and the file rattled out of
Scully's grip. She made no effort to retrieve what she had already
memorized.

"If there was a crime committed at all," Scully said, "and I'm in no
way convinced of that, then I'd say the prime suspects would be Otis
and Annalee Pretzer. I don't understand why the sheriff hasn't
brought them in for questioning."

"As I'm sure you read in the sheriff's report, the Pretzers are
gentle, quiet people. 'Saintly' I think was the word he used," Mulder
said. "Not a parking ticket or an overdue book fine between them.
Besides, Annalee makes the best apple pie in the county."

"I'm not sure that would stand up in court as proof of her innocence."

Mulder slowed to read the name on a battered mailbox, then turned
down a tree-lined lane. He gestured at the scene in front of them.
"Are you telling me this doesn't appeal to you at all, Scully?"

Fields, some green, some purple with clover, some freshly
cultivated, stretched over the landscape like a patchwork quilt. An
orchard of fruit trees was snowing white blossoms. Roses crept over
the painted fence that surrounded the white clapboard house. Chickens
darted around the yard of a picture-perfect barn. A brown cow looked
up from her salt lick when the car passed. A collie bounded off the
porch, wagging his tail in giddy welcome.

Scully imagined herself standing on that porch in a thin flowered
dress surrounded by the scent of honeysuckle and baking bread. She
pictured herself being caught up in the embrace of a slender
shirtless man, sweaty and dirty from the field. His kiss would heat
her lips like a sunburn and his hands would...

"Scully?"

She fumbled for the door handle. "No, it's not really the life for
me."

* * *

After a brief interrogation and a leisurely dinner of fried chicken,
mashed potatoes, and homemade apple pie, Scully decided the Pretzers
were indeed saints. They were God-fearing people who said grace
before meals and displayed county fair ribbons as if they were
precious art. Their heartbreak over the deaths on their farm was
genuine. Even without the forensic evidence on their side, Scully
would have taken them at their word when they said the deaths were
accidental.

Mulder was high on home cooking and fresh air. Having apparently
decided when he first read the file that the Pretzers were innocent,
he had not resisted their hospitality for an instant. He was sipping
on iced tea two minutes after he crossed the threshold.

"We should take a look at the accident sites before it gets dark,"
Scully said as she pushed away her empty dessert plate. Annalee had
insisted on bringing out the good dishes, a delicate set of
mismatched china, and Scully felt guilty about leaving a mess for the
elderly woman to wash. "Can I help you clear the table first?"

"No, you go on and do your work," Annalee said.

"Just don't let us catch you two sparking out behind the barn," Otis
said with a gruff tone and a gap-toothed smile. Otis winked at
Annalee and Mulder winked at Scully. Scully relocated her front-porch
fantasy to the back of the barn and added some hay.

Annalee scolded her husband. "Otis, you leave these kids alone." To
Scully she said, "You're going to want to change your shoes, dear.
You'll sink up to your ankles out in the field if you wear those
fancy shoes. And I can loan you a sweater if you'd like. It's getting
chilly out there."

"I have a jacket and some boots in the car," Scully said.

As she made her way through the living room toward the front door,
she heard Mulder accept Annalee's offer for one more sliver of pie.

* * *

Mulder would examine the tank where the propane deliveryman fell and
cracked his skull. Scully made her way to the stock pond where a
neighbor had drowned while fishing for perch. She did not make the
trip alone.

"Looks like you've made a friend there," Otis called out to her.

Scully looked back to see the Jersey milk cow lumbering along behind
her.

"Belle's taken with you. Must be your pretty red hair."

The cow moved closer and let Scully scratch her head. "She seems
friendly."

"She's like a member of the family," Otis said. "She'll follow you
around like a pup if you let her."

"I don't mind," Scully said. "Come on, Belle. You can show me the
way to the pond."

With udder swaying, Belle led Scully to a muddy pond encircled by a
thick stand of cattails and blackberry vines.

Scully picked her way around the dam, searching for the place where
Joey Dieker had stumbled into the water. Belle never strayed from her
side. The animal was as attentive as a student trying to learn crime
scene techniques.

"You're a sweet girl," Scully said and reached to pat the cow, but
Belle butted her hand away. "Hey, I thought we were buddies."

Scully turned away from her fickle friend and kneeled to look at a
pair of ruts in the mud. The cow snuffled in the grass near Scully's
shoulder. "That's weird. Do these look like heel marks to you, Belle?"

"Moo," said the cow.

"Almost looks like he was dragged into the --" A force like an
explosion sent Scully tumbling headfirst into the mud and briars. She
was raising herself out of the muck when a second blow, a kick to her
leg, sent her rolling down the embankment toward the water. She
grabbed for her gun but it flew out of her grip and into the water
when Belle kicked her a third time.

Scully lay on her back, panting for breath. Thorns had ripped bloody
trails into her hands. An old coil of barbed wire was tangled around
her legs and only her boots spared her flesh from the rusty barbs.

"Oh, my God," Scully said. "It was you. You killed all those people."

"Moo," said Belle viciously.

"But why? What did they do to you?"

"Moo." Belle put her cloven hoof on Scully's ankle and began to bear
down.

Scully tried reasoning with the remorseless beast. She tried
threats. The cold-blooded bovine did not relent. All that saved
Scully's leg was the distant crunch of a dry stick, a noise that
alarmed the animal.

But Belle did not abandon her prey. She attacked with new urgency,
grabbing the agent's jacket between her cud-crushing jaws and
dragging Scully toward the murky water.

"Mulder!" Scully cried, not daring to hope for an answer. When one
came, she was sure it was a delusion.

"Scully!" her partner called out in alarm as the cow continued to
pummel and punish her. "Scully, take off your jacket! I found a scrap
of leather at the other crime scene. I think Belle is seeking revenge
against anyone who wears leather."

"Moo," Belle said in agreement and yanked Scully closer to a fish-
filled grave.

"Just shoot her, Mulder!"

Mulder did not reach for his weapon. "If I shoot her, she might fall
on you. Besides, I don't think that's necessary. She's just feeling
powerless and threatened."

The slobbering milker blinked her bulbous brown eyes at Mulder, who
suggested a compromise. "Just give her your jacket and boots."

"You've got to be kidding," Scully said.

"Moo," said Belle, and the battered agent could tell by the
threatening tone that time was running out.

With great effort, Scully peeled the jacket from her body and laid
it carefully in the grass. Belle stood near Scully's feet, pawing at
the ground, impatient for the defeated redhead to work her feet free
of their wire prison and pull off the $500 boots she'd found for half-
price at Macy's.

As Scully pried off the first boot, Belle yanked it from her hand
and tossed it into the pond. She did the same with the other, then
the jacket. But the terror didn't end there. Belle returned to her
hostage and pressed a manure-encrusted hoof against Scully's chest.

"Moo," insisted Belle.

Mulder spotted a wild conclusion and leaped to it. "I think she
wants you to apologize."

"Under no circumstances will I apologize to a..." The dairy demon
put more pressure on Scully's chest and Scully knew her petite bones
would snap. Her lungs would collapse under the force of Belle's
mighty cow-strength. "I'm..." Scully gasped. "I'm sorry."

Apparently satisfied, Belle released her bedraggled victim and
meandered to a nearby meadow to graze.

Mulder raced to Scully's side and lifted her from the mud and
thorns. "Scully," he said as he pulled her into his sheltering
embrace. "You're okay. We'll get you cleaned up and you'll be just
fine."

Scully shook her head. "I'm not fine. Not yet."

She ran her hands up Mulder's thighs, caressed the firm, muscular
flesh of his buttocks, and allowed her right hand to drift forward
until she reached her goal. The hardness under her searching
fingertips was all she'd been able to think about since the ordeal
began. She grabbed and pulled, drawing her partner's gun from his
holster and aiming at the cow chewing contentedly on spring grass.

"Don't do it, Scully," Mulder urged. "Otis said Belle is the best
milk producer he's ever owned."

"No," Scully said as she pulled the trigger. "She's hamburger."

* * *

The End


Author's Notes: This story is dedicated to the members of Scullyfic
who, along with an ill-tempered cow named Belle, were my inspiration.
My thanks go to beta readers Shari, Jean and Lisa, and special thanks
to Revely who coordinated the Spring Training '02 Fic Book project
and persuaded me to write one more XF story. I'm pretty sure she'll
never ask me write anything again.