Oklahoma (Part 1/41)
  By Amperage and Livengoo
  Copyright October, 1995
   International Readers:  No third season spoilers
  Rating:  NC-17 for language and violence

                              Introduction

    Hiya, folks!  This is for all of you who wondered what happened to
  Amp after Therapy II and Goo after Corpse, not to mention the lost
  souls crying out for Colors.

   So, you ask, where HAVE Amp and Goo been?  Home!  Slaving our
  little fingers off writing Oklahoma.

   So what, besides the obvious, is Oklahoma?  Back in January '95
 Amperage ran a riveting story called The Sacrifice, in which she
 made passing mention of a Mulder case, years in the past, with an
 eviscerated child, and Mulder writing the impossible profile.  It
 was the turning point in 1987, where VICAP and BSU overwhelmed
him and hot-shot young Fox Mulder started to turn away and explore
the fringes of the X-Files.

   Back in June, Amp let me get my slimy lawyer fingers on her
history for Mulder, and expand on that a bit.  She gave me some
history and some details, and I was hooked.  I wanted more and I
whined for it  in the classic manner.

   And then. . . .

   Amp sent along a gritty, gorgeous opening like nothing I'd seen,
 with an idea out of an English Lit. major's dreams - help her write
 Oklahoma, and brace that baby around the poems of T.S.Eliot.  How
 could I say no?  EVERYTHING went on the back burner when the
new piece of Oklahoma needed to be written.  And it's hot.

   If you ask me what this story's about, I'd tell you it's about
transitions.  Those key points when you stop being one thing and
become another.  In this case, it's Mulder's transition from what
he was to what we see in the X-Files.  And transitions from one
kind of society to another, one level of awareness to another.  I'm
sure Amp has her own ideas of what this story's about, but she
keeps her own council.

   Fair warning time.  This story isn't nice and it isn't kind.  It's
hot and rolling, and violent and full of disturbing notions.  NC-17
for violence and language, oh my yes.  And if you didn't like
Therapy or Corpse, I doubt you'll like Oklahoma.  You've been
warned. We accept flames, but personal attacks are never good
 netiquette.  Please toss the email to Livengoo@tiac.net.
So.  You've been warned and you've been enticed.  Just to be sure,
there's a pop quiz. <VBG!>  I hope you decide to try Oklahoma, and
I hope you enjoy it.
  ____
    It's been pointed out to me, by some of the concerned readers on
  the group, that it's eminently unfair of Amp and me to drop
weird-o and tres disturbant concepts (not to mention truly bad
Franglais) on readers all unannounced.  Accordingly, I'd like you to
 take a pop quiz before going on to read Oklahoma.  Please take the
 following with a grain of salt and two aspirins and call me in the
 morning. What you call me is up to you.

    1)  Do you believe that Mulder probably did not exist before Dana
     Scully walked into the basement office?
   2)  Do you believe that Mulder grew up in a wholesome home,
     unexceptional but for skulking spies and aliens?
   3)  Do you believe that Mulder is a well-adjusted adult who
     happens to have some rough interpersonal skills?
   4)  Does all poetry have to rhyme to be any good?
   5)  Does Mulder ever use terms stronger than "darn" and "shucks?"
   6)  Did Mulder pursue the X-Files because he couldn't get a date on
     a Friday night? (they were all watching Picket Fences?)
   7)  Do serial killers, to your knowledge, on average, have profiles
     similar to one Fox Mulder?
   8)  Does Mulder always behave with propriety, in an upright and
     rational fashion?
   9)  Do you require a romantic entanglement between two
     individuals in virtual three-D (i.e. not a magazine!) to feel that
     a story is complete?
   10)  Did Therapy and/or Corpse aggravate or annoy you?
   11)  Should there be a "Psychology Included" warning along with
     the sex and violence warnings?
    If you answered "yes" to any four or more questions, you may
     want to reconsider and turn back now!  This is a dark ride.
     Goo
  ____
   Miscellany:
   Oklahoma is set in 1987.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with the
  bombing.  Mulder is in VICAP, and not partnered at present.
   Abbreviations like BVM for Blessed Virgin Mary crop up here and
  there.
   With a very, very few exceptions, poetry is T.S.Eliot, and your
  best source is The Complete Poems and Plays if you feel inspired.
  It's gorgeous stuff, so I hope at least a few of you go make a run
  on the bookstores.
   Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual
  property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting.  The
  FBI is the property of the US Government.  Oklahoma and Louisiana
  and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and
  everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo.
   There are forty one pieces to this (yeah, another bandwidth hog),
  which should add up to more than a month's worth of
  entertainment at a piece a day.   There's a lot of it ahead of you!
  We sincerely hope you understand how we love doing cliffhangers
  for you all, and that you choose to read it as we post it.
   Here we go!
                               Oklahoma
                      by Amperage and Livengoo

       Fox Mulder, FBI Special Agent, one of ten men in the Bureau
  who got to do the kind of work that was currently flashing
  up on the screen in the front of the airplane - a line of work
  beloved by producers and writers, BSU VICAP, to go the entire
  alphabetic route - was crashed in his narrow, coach class airline
  seat, with a thin line of drool pooling on the hand supporting his
  chin.  Sam Rodriguez shook his head, grinned.  Spooky Mulder.  If
  the public knew the difference between someone like the movie
  version and someone like Spooky Mulder they'd probably run
  screaming into the night or demand Ed Meese resign. . .

        "What's with him?" Special Agent Cooke asked around the
  sleeping mass. "He's like, in a coma or something."

        "He takes Dramamine, I think."  Actually he usually almost
  od'd on the stuff.  Rodriguez frowned.

        "I've taken Dramamine and I never crashed like that," Cooke
  hissed back.

        Rodriguez shrugged.  "I think anti-nausea drugs do that to
  him.  Last winter, he got the flu and his doc gave him a
  prescription for Compazine so he could work. They had to take him
  to the hospital.  Hallucinating, weaving, the whole nine yards.
  Made him crazy."

        Cooke considered Mulder's oversized frame, shook his head in
  disgust.  "Are they sure it was the Compazine?" he asked.
        Rodriguez went back to the open file in his lap, reading
  glasses dangling off the end of his nose.

        Three bodies so far.  One indian boy, one white girl and now
  another white girl.  Weren't serial killers supposed to stick to
  one sex, and kill only in their own racial group?  Sam frowned.  He
  wanted to ask Mulder about that one, but Mulder was drooling
  away next to him.

        This latest corpse, the one they were saving for him in the
  Muskogee morgue. Sam turned over to the initial report.  Seven
  years of age.  Ericka Bettina Jones.  Bettina?  Poor kid.  Found in
  a hayfield, body approximately two weeks old at the time of
  discovery.

        Oh great.  A two week old body.  In summertime heat.  He'd
  need a fucking gas mask.  Maggots and creepy crawlies of all
  descriptions running around the body too.  Flies and ants and, oh
  this was going to be fucking great fun.  Pendajos.
        She'd been gutted, innards taken out, stuffed with dressing,
  they thought, and sewn back up with catgut.  Stuffed with dressing.
   Sam closed his eyes thinking about last year's Thanksgiving dinner
  with Jenni's family in Virginia.  Probably Stovetop or Pepperidge
  farm.  Fuck.  And no internal organs or signs of trauma other than
  the great evisceration job.  Wonderful.

        A few lines of poetry had been found in her pocket.

      "Garlic and sapphires in the mud
       Clot the bedded axle-tree
       The trilling wire in the blood
       Sings below the inveterate scars
       Appeasing long forgotten wars.
       The dance along the artery
       The circulation of the lymph
       Are figured in the drift of stars."

        Francis said it was from T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, Burnt
  Norton.  Sam didn't have any room to argue. If the great, all
  mighty, eidetic memory said it was, then it fucking was.

        They'd found poems with the other two, supposedly, but the
  damn county Medical Examiner for the first body had tossed the
  poem into the trash.  The second was smudged to shit before
  anyone ever figured out what it was.  Sometimes Sam just rolled his
  eyes at the jobs done by GP's.

        The seatbelt light came back on.  Sam put the file back in his
  briefcase, elbowed Mulder in the ribs until Pretty Boy woke.

        Mulder frowned, blinked, eyelashes clogged with crumbs, wiped
  his drooly hand. "Oklahoma City, Francis"  Sam informed him, not
  unkindly.

        Mulder nodded disorientedly.  "I was dreaming," he said
  softly, still out in la-la land.

        "Oh?"  Sam replied.

        "Yeah." He shook himself, closed his eyes.  When he opened
  them he was all Spooky Mulder, king of the unkindest cut, the
  young and coming star of Behavioral Sciences.  "So. Oklahoma."  He
  nodded, moved his tongue around in his mouth, no doubt still trying
  to get bits of rubber chicken out of his mouth.  The plane began
  its downward spiral.

           "Is Jenni still cutting her little man off?" Mulder asked as
  they were waiting for their baggage.

        "Yeah.  And the big man is about to get upset.  Man, I hate
  this shit."  Sam shook his head.  "I've got balls the color of your
  tie.  And it wasn't my fault this time."

        Mulder grinned.  "Okay Frito.  Let's hear it.  Why'd she
  decide that the little general was named McArthur and needed to
  go back home?"

        Sam grinned at Cooke, who was somewhere between thoroughly
  disgusted and thoroughly confused.  No wonder the guy did PR.

        "I thought you said Regional was supposed to meet us."

        "They are," Cooke replied.  "I don't know.  Maybe they're in
  the main lobby."

        "Well."  Sam decided to answer Mulder.  "I got sent out on the
  field.  She thinks since I'm a pathologist that I'm supposed to
  stay at Quantico in my little autopsy bay and cut up bodies."

        "You know there is a cure for the frustrations of a fickle
  wife."  Mulder's mouth crinkled up in a grin.

        Sam knew where this was going.  "Yeah, but doesn't that stunt
  your growth?"

        Mulder surveyed his legs, torso and arms.  "You mean I
  coulda' been *taller*?  Shit.  If I'd known I had a chance at being
  Larry Byrd I woulda' laid off the old tally-whacker."

        Sam, six inches shorter than his friend, shorter than most of
  the women he worked with, frowned.  "Imagine where I'd be today,
  if I'd indulged myself."

        "Fuck; you'd be a midget."  Mulder broke out laughing as he
  snagged his suitbag.  "What about you, Cooke?"

        Cooke frowned and turned beet red.

        "Oh come on. Can't go around one night standing anymore,"
  Mulder said.

        "You do, Francis," Sam said, deciding to pull the pressure
  off poor Cooke.

        Mulder grinned and turned. "Yeah.  But I'm Spooky Mulder.  I'm
  the self-destructive bastard who jacks up everyone's insurance
  premium.  People just expect me not to give a shit.  Well, Cooke?
  Do you groom the terrier?  Wax the porpoise?  Have long intimate
  dates with Mrs. Woo and her four lovely daughters?"

        Sam pulled his own suitbag off the merry go round.  "Marion,
  leave him alone."

        Mulder pulled out his Rayban Aviators.  "Don't get hyper,
  Frito.  Just having a bit of fun.  Cooke doesn't mind?  Do you?"

        Cooke shrugged embarrassedly.

        "Marion," Sam began, shaking his head, "some day you're going
  to fun yourself into an unmarked grave and I'm going to have to do
  the autopsy."

       They found the agents.  Just look for the uncomfortable
  guys in dark suits with bulges that don't attract a woman's glance,
  as Mulder had once put it.  The Agent in Charge, Jack Averman, had
  flown down from DC last night and was with the locals already.
  Hell, word was he *was* a local boy done good.  "How'd I get so
  lucky to have the Spookster?" he asked with a smile that was not
  a smile.

        "I get results on the unsolvable," Mulder smiled, a smile
  that was more a grimace.  "You got an unsolvable here.  There's
  another dead body out there somewhere already, he's already
  kidnapped his next victim, and they're gonna keep coming until
  every kid under the age of twelve has a personal escort, unless you
  got someone like me. I'm probably the only person here who's
  smarter than he is."

        He had just made three enemies.  Sam grimaced.  Jack Averman,
  who had met and worked with Mulder before, frowned.  "How do
  you know he's already killed again and got another child?"

        "I'm Spooky, remember?"  Mulder nodded.  "This guy's got
  attention.  He likes attention.  Makes him produce more if he feels
  like he's got an audience.  These deaths, real Hollywood gory. Oh
  yeah, the more media, the happier he is, the more dead bodies we'll
  see."  He shifted his hang up.  "Now we're going to Muskogee today
  so Frito can get the autopsy done and I can see the field, right?"

       Averman frowned.  "Yeah."

       "Well, let's go.  Who are you guys?" he addressed the other
  agents.  When they said hello, Mulder nodded.  Sam got the
  impression  Mulder had read their dossiers last night.  He knew
  everything about them, knew how they could be used.  Averman
was going to need a choke collar to keep Mulder under control.

           Averman, Mulder, Sam, and the RA  would be going to
  Muskogee, based on Mulder's observations before he'd even come
into the field.  Enough for Sam to autopsy the body, for Mulder to
talk to Mom and Dad about "sweetums" as he'd called her privately.

  Enough for Averman to discuss the matter with the local Sheriff.

  Then they'd head back in; Muskogee was a dead site as far as
Mulder was concerned.  The killer'd had his fun, time to move on.
Mulder didn't even want to stop at the Regional office and Averman,
to Sam's surprise, agreed.  Probably didn't want Mulder alienating
  even *more* people.

        Stengal, the Resident Agent, drove them himself in his bucar,
  told them a little about finding the body.  How the kids who found
  it had vomited all over the hayfield.  Mulder hadn't really been
  listening, but he was quiet behind his Ray-Bans, no insulting
  remarks, and everyone let him be.  "I was only able to get two
  rooms,"  Stengal said, apologetically.

        It woke Mulder from his contemplative state.  He frowned. "Two
  rooms?"

        "Yeah.  Rodeo's in town.  Sorry.  The hotels have been booked
  for weeks."  Stengal shrugged.

        Mulder's mouth pursed up.  He knew that Averman would be in
  one room and Mulder and Sam would be in the other.  Knew that,
  and Sam could tell it bugged the living shit out of him.  He said
  nothing, however, just stared out the window, went back to his
  quiet, staring out at the early summer sunshine and the miles and
  miles of nothing.

        They got to the hotel room around five.  Averman took the one
  with the king and handed Mulder and Rodriguez the keys to the
  other one.  Mulder said nothing, getting his two bags out of the car,
  juggling them with his briefcase, leaving his portable computer out
  in the trunk to swelter in the heat.  Let Sam open the door to the
  room.  He put his things up immediately.

        Sam considered Mulder from the bed.  His suit bag was on the
  rack, so screw everything else.  He wasn't a GQ kind of guy like
  Mulder, who wore and ruined designer suits the way most people
  used kleenex.   "Hey," he tried, grinning, trying to defuse Mulder's
  tenseness, "I know I'm horny.  But man, I don't think I could *get*
  that horny.  Just stay on your bed and we'll be fine."

        Mulder unzipped his hang up, frowned; it was clear he wanted
  to say something.

        Sam frowned in return.  "It's me.  Frito?  What?  You caught
  a nasty and your dick's scaling like the reptilian creature it is?"

        Mulder frowned more deeply.  "I don't want to keep you awake.
  You know how little sleep I need.  I'm usually up all night."  It
  was so obviously an excuse, Sam got off the bed he'd been sitting
  on, went to his friend.

        "Okay.  What the fuck is going on, Marion?"

        "Nothing."  Mulder grinned, trying to dispel the mood.
  "Nothing.  You want to eat before or after the autopsy?"

        Sam wanted to ask again, but Mulder had his shields up, and
  nothing penetrated those muthers; Sam already knew that.

           The corpse was about as bad as Sam had figured.  Ants had
  eaten out most of it.  Fuck.  There wasn't much to find.  He didn't
  know how she'd died.  He took tissue samples, cleaned out maggots,
  looked for trauma.  Maybe he'd find something in the tissue. He
  doubted it.

        By the time Mulder and Averman came back with the Sheriff,
  he was ready to let the poor thing go rest in the quiet earth. He
  made a few private prayers to the BVM for the little girl's soul and
  left her for the locals to slip back into a body bag.

        Mulder was quiet at dinner.  He wasn't working at being a
  horse's ass quite so diligently, and the reasons why Sam was his
  friend were a little more evident.  Sam managed to get him to tell
  about something that had happened at Oxford, and even though
  they didn't mean too, Averman and Stengal found themselves
  laughing at Mulder's sexual/educational exploits.  Sometimes Sam
  wondered why the guy hadn't become an Academic.  His memories
  of his university days were his happiest.  He'd been successful, good
  at the pursuit of knowledge.  He was scarily good at what he did, of
  course, but he was a pretty miserable person.

        The meal was over and they were sitting over coffee when
  Averman brought the case up again.

        Sam reported his findings, engrossed in his work.  When he
  emerged, Mulder was frowning, mind running at ninety on another
  track.  "We need to go back and look at the other two.  Talk to
  social services."

        Averman frowned.  "What are you talking about?"

        "We were lucky that Ericka was a local.  That Sheriff; he
  knew Ericka, felt deeply sorry for her, but not for her parents.
  Especially not Daddy."  Mulder rubbed his jaw.  "Ericka was
  probably sexually abused.  That's the vibes he gave off.  Not
  enough proof to do anything, but the sheriff knew or at least
  suspected."  Mulder dug through his briefcase.  "The first autopsy,
  Christopher Raintree.  The ME found some evidence of anal trauma.
  He assumed it was part of the work of the killer.  We haven't seen
  any sexual trauma on the other two so we. . . I don't think our
  killer is doing it."

        Averman was scribbling.  "I'll get Hitchens and Bond on it,"
  he said, antagonism gone completely.

        "Kids who are sexually molested don't wear big signs
  proclaiming their problem."  Mulder gestured towards his own
  chest.

        Oh God.  Sam closed his eyes.  What was going on here?  "We need
  to know if our second victim, Kimberly Slater, was molested.  If all
  three cases were reported, then our killer may have an inside track
  with the law.  If not, then he has some way of knowing.  Child porn
  or swapping groups.  He has to know *somehow*."

        Averman was nodding.

        Sam swallowed down his fear.  "Anything else?"

        Mulder shrugged.  "I need some time to digest everything."  He
  glanced at the dessert plate.  "Although that cheesecake is
  probably going to be with me awhile."
 

         They went back to their respective hotel rooms, settled in to
  report writing.  Mulder shut everything out when he settled in with
  a case; Sam was used to it.  Mulder just turned on the TV and shut
  out the world outside that case.  It was like a game for him, Sam
  reflected, flipping through the autopsy report.  A big game of
  guessing.

        It was midnight when Sam yawned, decided to turn in.  He
  made a great deal of noise, changing into some shorts and an old t-
  shirt, brushing his teeth, pulling out a Stephen King.  Mulder
  grinned, gathered up his notebook computer and headed for the
  bathroom.  Sam liked the dark to sleep in.
 
 
 

           Screams.  Screams.  Sam's heart was pounding and he couldn't
  breathe, couldn't think, couldn't remember.  Screams and more
  screams and they were coming from here.  Right *here*.  He
  fumbled for his gun, found it.  Safety off.  What the hell was going
  on?

        Screams.  Hoarse, loud, inhuman screams.  He couldn't think.

        The light was on, the bathroom door was open.  The screams
  were coming from in there.  And someone was beating on his door.
  "What the hell is going on?"  Averman.

        Sam went to the bathroom, gun up.

        Mulder was pressed in a corner, eyes wide, arms wrapped
  around his chest, screaming and screaming and screaming.  A
  panicked, animal scream.  The lights were on and nobody was
  fucking home.

        Sam heard more beating on the door.  Panicked beating.  Oh shit.

        Mulder's screams were still going on.

        Sam ran to the door, dropped his gun on the bed, opened the
  door and scurried back to the bathroom.  He didn't have time to
  explain to Averman.  By the time he got back, the screams were
  gone.  Mulder was still huddled in his little ball, still
  terrified, but now he was moaning, deep sobbing moans.

        "What the fuck's happening here?" Averman asked, gun limp in
  his hand.

        Sam shrugged, back to Averman, kneeling on the floor as close
  to Mulder as he could get.  "Francis?  Marion?  You okay?  Mulder?
  Come on."

        Mulder closed his eyes, put his head against his knees.  He
  still didn't know they were there.  Sam felt a deep abiding fear
  run through him.  Mulder had known this was going to happen.
  He'd planned to not sleep at all.  That meant this had been going on.
  It wasn't something new.  Not new at all.  Oh God, please.  His
  stomach turned over.

        "Francis?"  He reached out, put a hand on Mulder's knee. "It's
  Frito."

        Mulder was crying, deep, hard sobs.  Ugly sobs that shook his
  entire body.

        "Francis.  Come on.  Dream's over, man.  You're okay.  You're
  safe and it's okay."

        Mulder finally heard him, pulled his head up.  "Frito?" he
  asked.  Then he saw Averman, swallowed.  "Oh shit." He couldn't
  stop the crying, but he was finally aware of his world and knew
  he'd fucked up big time.

        Averman sighed.

        "Everybody has bad dreams sometimes, man."  Sam was
  consolatory, rubbing Mulder's back.  "Come on.  It's gonna be
  okay."

        Mulder clutched his knees, crying.  He was trying desperately
  to stop, but it seemed to only serve to make the sobs worse.

        "Let's get you out of here and to bed."

        Mulder shook his head.

        "Come on."  Averman had knelt down, was close, there was a
  deep abiding sympathy in his eyes, a sadness Sam hadn't known
  Averman had in him.  "Come on."

        Mulder tried to inch away from Averman, eyes going very wide.
  He was just barely in the land of the sane.

        Sam swallowed, made a decision.  "He's got some Dramamine in
  his carry on," Rodriguez informed Averman.  "Get me two and a
  glass of water."

        Averman glanced at Rodriguez.

        "They work better than Valium on him." Sam shrugged,
  turned back to Mulder.  "Francis, okay, it's okay.  You're in a
  hotel room. You're safe.  You're going to be okay.

        He heard the sounds of Mulder's carry on being up-ended.  Of
  packaging being destroyed.

        "You're safe and okay.  Nobody can hurt you."

        "Why did Averman have to see?" Mulder asked softly through his sobs.
   He couldn't breathe.
        "Don't worry about that right now, okay?"  Water in a glass
  and then Averman came in, handed the pills and glass to Sam.

        "Okay, Francis.  You take these, hokay?"

        Mulder wanted to refuse.

        Sam put the pills to Mulder's mouth.  "Come on.  You take
  these every time you fly.  They won't hurt you.  Promise.  Come
  on."  Mulder opened his mouth, Sam felt the other man's tongue as
  he placed both pills in Mulder's mouth.

        Then the water. It slopped down his chin, but he managed to
  swallow.

        "All gone.  It'll get better," Sam consoled, rubbing Mulder'
  back gently. Sam waited with him; ten minutes seemed like ten
  hours while Sam made comforting sounds, trying to keep Mulder
  calm; the sobs grew quieter, lessened.  Mulder's eyes dilated, not
  from fear this time, but from drugs.  Sam nodded at Averman, and
  they got him into bed.  He fell asleep as soon as he was in the bed;
  his body wrapped around one of the pillows.

        Averman sat on Sam's bed, watched Mulder sleep.  "No wonder
  the guy's such a butthole."

        Sam stared at Averman, surprised.  He'd expected, oh he didn't
  know. . .indignation, fury.  Not understanding.

        "I was in the marines a long time," Averman said, running a
  hand through his short, salt and pepper hair, stared at his own
  bare legs.  "Mulder's not unusual.  A lot of really tough guys have
  nightmares.  And the Bureau uses Mulder like. . .like he can see
  all these dead bodies and get into the minds of all these serial
  killers and never have problems.  Every time there's a really
  disgusting, really unsolvable string of murders, they call in the
  Spooky.  It's gotta get to anyone eventually.  I guess the being
  such a butt is his way of shoving people away before they can find
  out he's got any problems."  He sighed.  "And I hate to say it, but
  we need him on this case.  You're the medico.  Think he can keep it
  together through this one?"

        "My patients are dead when I get to them."  Sam shrugged.  "I
  guess."

        "Oh, that's great," Averman sighed.  "Such reassurance.  If
  I report this, Mulder flies straight back to DC and gets some leave
  and a trip to Psych."

        "He's been okay.  Nothing that I can see," Sam lied.

        "Look, I'll give him a chance to defend himself.  Maybe this
  is isolated."

        Sam nodded.  Maybe not.
________________________
   Continued in part 2
 

=====================================================================
======

From: livengoo@tiac.net
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 2/41
Date: 21 Jan 1996 23:51:11 GMT
 

Oklahoma (Part 2/41)
By Amperage and Livengoo
Copyright October, 1995

International Readers:  No third season spoilers
Rating:  NC-17 for language and violence

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual
property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting.  The
FBI is the property of the US Government.  Oklahoma and Louisiana
and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and
everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo.

_______________________

     Mulder swallowed, tried to get his glands to produce spit.
Dried versions of the stuff were all over his lips, gummy and
nasty, but there was nothing in his mouth.  He was lying on a
pillow and it felt late in the morning.  Blink. Lots of sleep
boogers coated his eyelashes.  His face felt vaguely heavy.
Dramamine.  He clenched his eyes closed as he remembered, suddenly,
what had happened last night.  He put his face against the pillow.

Oh God.  He'd have to fly back to DC in the company of some
regional agent and then they'd make him take some leave time.  The
Spooky finally cracked wide open.  There'd be all these speeches in
front of Thompson and everyone else about how they were sorry, that Mulder
should have told them the stress was getting to him.  They realized it was
an incredible burden for Mulder.  They'd be
reassigning him to something *less* stressful. . .

     He moaned aloud.  From somewhere a glass of water appeared.
Mulder took it, sat up, drank greedily, both hands around the wide
surface of the water glass, then looked at the giver.  Averman.
Mulder swallowed, wished he'd feigned sleep.

     "How're you feeling?"

     "I'm okay," Mulder managed.

     "How long has this been going on?"

     "Not long."

     "Are they this bad?"

     "Not usually."

     "How often?"

     Mulder frowned, considered Averman.  "I don't know.  Not
often.  It's not the work.  I know that's what it must look like.
But it's not."

     Averman nodded.  "You want to tell me what then?"

     Mulder swallowed, looked Averman in the eye.  This man, for
some reason, was giving him a chance.   "When I was twelve my
sister disappeared.  She was eight.  They found me on the floor
with my father's gun, like I'd been trying to shoot whatever it was
that took her.  I was catatonic for four days.  When I woke up I
didn't remember any of it.  I still don't."

     Averman sighed heavily.  "Are there any other problems?"

     Mulder did not pretend not to understand.  "No," he muttered.
"Sometimes I get mad easily, but the men in my family have bad
tempers."

     Averman nodded.  "Is that why you act like such an asshole?"

     Mulder frowned, stared at his lap.  "Yes," he muttered
softly.  "That and I'm sick of all this shit they keep piling on me."

     Averman sighed.  "You're very good.  The Bureau's going to use that."

     Mulder closed his eyes.  "All I see are dead bodies.
Sometimes I go out looking for some and I see a pretty girl and
something flashes in me and I see how she would look dead after
someone like Frito got hold of her.  Sometimes I'm just driving and
I'll pull off because I saw a spot that would make a good spot to
dump a body and I have to go check, just to make sure no one else
has had that same idea.  I've found one or two that way."  He
frowned.  "I sit in a restaurant and I look for the psychopaths.
There are other people in Behavioral who do this work almost as
well as I do.  But they get time between cases and I don't. . .I
flew in from Wyoming yesterday morning, got in around 2 a.m.. Guy
had killed this woman by gutting her like a deer.  I wrote the
profile in the airport terminals and turned it in that night.  I
thought, they'll have me writing reports or doing paperwork, at
least for a few days, but I get called at 6 a.m.. 'So glad you're
back, we'll have someone else wrap everything up--don't worry you
get credit, your ticket's at the airport.'  They wanted Spooky on
this one.  `A rare and unique talent'.  That's what they say when
I complain, then pile this huge guilt trip on me about all the
lives I'm saving."

     Averman swallowed.  Four hours between violent murders.  Four
hours.  God.  Anyone would crack under that kind of pressure.  Four
days would be too few.  Mulder got four hours.  He stayed very
still, waiting for more, but Mulder had run out of breath.  "I'm
okay."  He looked up. "I'm not crazy.  Not yet.  I can finish this
case up.  Don't turn me in."

     Averman frowned.  "Can you?"

     Mulder nodded.

     "Okay.  I want your word that when this is over you'll go to
psych services and get some help."

     Mulder nodded.  "I will.  Thank you."  He did not look at
Averman.

     "Okay.  I'm going to shower and dress."  Averman kept the pity
he felt for Mulder out of his face as he strode to the door.  When
he was back in his hotel room he pressed his eyes closed, breathed
deeply.  What the hell was the Bureau doing to this guy?  And why?
 
 
 

     "You know what's going to happen?  I'll tell you what."  Cooke
hawked noisily and spat.  Averman watched the ugly gob vanish into
a dark patch of dust in moments.  Cooke's voice was also ugly.
"Wonder boy over there will wave his magic dick, make a few
pronouncements, go back to DeeSee and *we* get stuck with the
clean up and the hard work.  Prick."

     Averman's eyes were unreadable behind the mirror-shades that
reflected the bleak field where Mulder was just standing, looking
around.  He turned, and Cooke's florid face was distorted in the
lenses.  "That what you think is going on here, Cooke?"

     "Sure.  Somebody with a hard on for Dirty Harry decides we
need to play glitzy profile games and sends out Spooky.  Now, no
matter what he says, he gets credit when we bag this sicko on good
old police work."  Cooke wrinkled his peeling nose, blinking from
behind expensive-looking shooter's glasses with some kind of
designer signature in the corner.  He'd have a raccoon-eyes burn
when he took the glasses off, his shirt was stained with sticky,
summer sweat and he itched.  And Spooky just stood out there, in
that fucking dried-up corn field, turning in circles and talking to
himself.

     Averman had tried to tune the little turd out.  He put about
as much value on PR flakes as he put on televangelists bringing him
God's true word.  Little horse-fly of a man, pop-eyed and
big-nosed, and he'd been buzzing away at Mulder ever since the
profiler had joined them for lunch. Rodriguez, <what did Spooky
call him?  Frito?> had tried to shut the guy up, but that was
generally Mulder's job and he hadn't made a dent in the man's
verbal barrage.  Besides, Rodriguez wasn't here.  He was riding
back to Tulsa with Stengal to get the tissue samples back in--no
courier services around here--so Cooke had come out with a car.
Tulsa was probably glad to get rid of the twerp.

     Mulder had stopped cold, was scuffing at the dirt.  He
crouched and sort of sighted, like a surveyor would, then he was up
and off across the field at a half-lope.

     "Shit," muttered Cooke.  "Off his rocker."  Averman ignored
him and paced out after Mulder, wondering what the young man had
seen.  Mulder had reached the corn, and was stepping carefully
between rows, looking before every step.  Averman caught up with
him easily enough.

     "You got something?"

     "I have no idea."  Mulder sounded distracted, though, and
Averman had seen good agents in his day.  He believed the tone, the
attitude, more than he believed the words.  "He. . ."  Mulder
seemed too busy to really bother with his sentences, but he tried
again.  "He didn't come from the main road."  A glance back to the
blacktop, where Cooke was sweating bile. "Whoever he is, he knows
the back roads well enough to get here other ways. Look here."
Mulder was fingering yellow damage that marked a bruised stalk.

     "Could have been done by the farmer who found her, Mulder."
Averman might believe him, but the boy would do better if he had to
work for it.  Mulder shook his head.

     "The farmer would have worked with the rows.  And there's a
straight enough path of this kind of bruising.  I'm surprised the
locals didn't catch this, it's easy shit."  He sounded a little
sour, doing work he figured should already have been caught.

     Once they knew what they were looking for, the path was simple
to find.  A rustling, baking trail through dusty green, brushing
bugs from their eyes, tasting the dirt that flavored every breeze
in this hot, dry place, where soil created the fog instead of
water.  The crushed grasses and ripped-up plants of two weeks ago
lay sere, marking where Ericka Jones' murderer pulled off the road.
No Eliot here, no poetry to this land.  It was too dry for such
things to survive.  Fantasy curled up and died in this heat. Or it
should have.  One person's fantasy had been unloaded right here,
thrown away once he was done with it.

     Mulder didn't know what to say.  Averman could see his throat
working, swallowing convulsively, although no spit survived and the
dust was thick in his nose and mouth.  He was glad he couldn't see
the hazel eyes behind those glasses.  The two of them looked.  You
could always hope for something dropped in the dirt, some
miraculous error.  You could also hope to win the lottery, it still
never happened, but you had to try.

     Cooke showed up eventually, looking over the sight and loudly
declaring it useless.

     "I knew they hired you for a reason, Cooke.  They needed an
expert to recognize useless shit."  It was a pale carbon copy of
the Spooky Averman had picked up at the airport, but it was enough
to bring a flush of anger to Cooke's sunburned face.

     "I'm calling it in.  Let the pros do the real search."
Averman lead off back across the fields, hearing the other two
following him.  Mulder caught up with him, a few hundred yards
ahead of Cooke's pudgy, plodding form.

     "They won't find anything."

     "No, but it's something to do.  It's another thing found, and
that's more than we had before.  Maybe I'll put Cooke on it."
Averman's smile was thin.  Mulder's answering grin was wide, manic.
 
 
 

     "Let's drive around a little," Mulder said softly.

     "Looking for what?" Averman asked, curious.

     "For. . ."  Mulder shrugged.

     Averman felt a chill go up his spine, 105 degrees and he was
fucking cold.  "Yeah.  Okay," he said gently.  "You'll know what
you're looking for. . ."

     "When I see it."  Mulder finished.
 
 
 

     The bridge was narrow, rickety and rusting.  When one car was
on it, oncoming traffic had to pull over and wait.  Averman was on
the shoulder, waiting for the old woman to see enough over her
steering wheel to start moving again.  Mulder heard him sigh, but
he wasn't really paying attention.  He was watching the flat, muddy
trickle that was all that was left of the river in this dry season,
and trying to remember what it kept nudging in his head.

     "The circles of the stormy moon
     Slide westward toward the River Plate,
     Death and the Raven drift above
     And Sweeney guards the horned gate."

     "What?"  But Mulder was out the door before Cooke's
exasperated question had died in the car.  Averman flicked off the
key and followed, cursing. Good agents work on instincts, Mulder
was working on fucking autopilot.  Mulder was down, under the
bridge, and Averman yelled to him about moccasins in the rushes.
Little good the kid would be if he got poisoned by some snake.

     Mulder was oblivious.

     "I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
          Fisch weht der Wind
          Der Heimat zu
          Mein Irisch Kind
          Wo weilest du?
     You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
     They called me hyacinth girl.
     --Yet when we came back, late, from the hyacinth garden,
     Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
     Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
     Living nor dead and I knew nothing. . "

Mulder chanted softly.  "He brought her here.  Does this flood when
it rains?"  He asked as though Averman or Cooke would know.  "It's
the closest river to that damn field. . .Frito said that there was
no trauma, no evidence of death.  What if he drowned her?  Not
dead. . .no.  Just unconscious.  You need a water supply when
you're working with meat, drain off the blood.  She's unconscious,
not struggling, but the blood drains.  The heart still pumps itself
dry. . . .brought her here at night.  There was a moon two weeks
ago. . .I was still in Wyoming two weeks ago, we did some work at
night. . .wouldn't need a light.  It's deserted.  Brought her here,
held her under the rushing water long enough so she went
unconscious. Or maybe he drugged her.  I don't know why he stuffed
her.  .  .I think that's part of the game. . .so I won't know. . ."

Mulder paused speculatively.

     "Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged
     And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight
     And the lotus rose, quietly, quietly
     The surface glittered out of heart of light,
     And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
     Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children."

     Averman realized that Mulder, in his head, was back in the
dark, watching.    He waited for more recitation, but Mulder was
speaking again. "Got rid of the blood. . .the entrails. . .if it
flooded, the entrails would wash down river, wouldn't they?  Then
animals would have gotten it.  Coyotes or whatever.  And he didn't
have far to cart her. . ."  Mulder frowned. "That doesn't tell us
where he is, though, does it?  He's gone from here.  Long gone."
Mulder grimaced.  "He knows the backroads 'round here.  But he
knows the backroads in all the places. . .he's going to kill. .
.Dad was a farm worker, maybe?"  Mulder glanced at the sun, winced.

     "It's hot here.  Find out if it floods."  Without any further
word to anyone, Mulder trudged back up to air conditioning and the
car.
 
 
 

     "Yeah she coudda' been drowned.  Yeah," Rodriguez agreed when
he joined up with them again at Regional.  Mulder was leaning back
in his chair, feet on the long conference table of the room they'd
claimed.  He was all Joe Cool now.  Arrogant as hell.  Scoped out
the local secretarial pool, given them a small shy grin and any one
of a number of pretty little rancher's daughters, patriotic to the
core, proud to be typing for the FBI, would probably flop on her
back if he so much as breathed on her neck.  Averman wondered,
with some irritation, how many women in how many cities Spooky
had done.  He didn't even so much as look at them unless they were
Betty Bureau.  Averman had to give him that.

     A receptionist, all of nineteen maybe, brought in a tray of
canned soft drinks, set it down with tall, watering cups of ice.

     Russell, an older, seasoned agent out of Tulsa blinked in
surprise, as did most everyone else.

     "Thanks, Kacy," Mulder muttered, flashing her a smile.

     "No problem.  Ya'll been out in the field and all.  Hotter
than the devil on Christmas."  Kacy flushed to her naturally blonde
roots and nearly ran out of the room.  Mulder glanced at the
selection, grabbed a diet coke.

     "You don't need diet stuff yet," Russell growled.  "How'd you
get a Clerical to do that?"

     Mulder popped the diet drink open, grabbed a cup of ice.  "Do
what?" he asked, genuinely surprised.  "She asked if we could use
anything and I said I was thirsty, but not to bring me anything
unless she thought everybody else could use something to drink. .
."

     Rodriguez grabbed a Sprite.  "Don't worry about how he does
it," he informed the room.  "He came over for supper and my wife's
eyes never left his butt once."

     "You notice she didn't cut you off when you got sent to Nevada
last year, but now that *I*'m gone. . ."  Mulder grinned
mischievously.

     "You're a real cocksucker, Francis," Rodriguez grinned.

     "As they say on the playground. . .takes one," Mulder
replied.

     "Well whip it out and we'll see."  Rodriguez leaned in towards
Mulder.

     "Frito, you couldn't handle what I got.  Takes me twenty
minutes to stuff it down my pants. . .and then I gotta be careful
not to step on it, cause it falls down sometimes. . ."

     "Enough."  Averman's voice cut through their words.  "Enough.
Can we get back to the case?"

     He glanced around the room.  Two agents were grinning, Cooke
was disgusted, and two agents were glancing at Mulder and Rodriguez uneasily.

     "So what else do we know?" Averman asked.

     Hitchens, flipping through his notes, cleared his throat
awkwardly.  "There was no report on Bonnie Grant being sexually
abused.  However, the county sheriff spoke with the family this
morning. . .they said they caught Bonnie "playing" with a cousin
last summer."

     "How old was the cousin?" Mulder asked.

     Hitchens glanced at his notes.  "Sixteen."

     Silence descended on the agents crowded around the table.
Mulder closed his eyes, made a temple of his hands, put the temple
to his face.  "She would have been seven last summer.  Probably
beat the shit of her for it too," he muttered to no one.  "Same
kind of people think a woman in a mini-skirt deserves to be raped."

     "So how does he know?" Averman asked of the room in general.
All eyes turned towards Mulder.

     "I don't know," Mulder sighed, closed his eyes.  "We've got
a little boy buggered.  A little girl. . .fondled. . .another
little girl, maybe something worse.  The timing's off.  There
should be a first body, some kid we haven't found yet."

     "First body?"

     Mulder's eyes snapped open.  "Yeah. He's an intelligent
fellow, our murderer.  I think he wasn't quite sure what he wanted
out of this, there at the first, but now he knows.  He hid the
first body.  Now he wants everyone to know.   He knows just exactly
who's coming to dinner.  Why do you think he stuffed the last one
and left her to bake in the sun?"  The grin was manic and somehow
demonic.  "Ant garnish and all that?"

     It was chilly, summer air conditioning chilly in the
windowless conference room, with the cheap office chairs and the
Oklahoma state map and the picture of William Webster, who was
now fucking around with the real spies, Ronald Reagan, and Edwin
Meese hung up as an odd sort of Trinity, watching over a wizened
flock.  But the agents gathered around the table, staring at Spooky
Mulder who had just promised three more deaths for a certainty.
They were all suddenly ice cold.  The silence was sharp.  Spooky
didn't seem to notice, just closed his eyes, feet still propped up,
brain spinning in realms where demons played and monsters
prowled like housecats underfoot.

     It was Rodriguez, finally, who broke the silence.  "Shit,
Francis.  Does this mean I gotta work with a six week old body next
time?  Fuck."
 
 
 

     Late Afternoon.  Mulder was sitting in his hotel room,
having ducked out of the office on the excuse that he got more
paperwork done in still and quiet--and in full view of a
television set, although this part of it was unstated.
Averman had agreed, but insisted Frito go with him.  Mulder
imagined raised brows at that one.  Why would the Spooky need
a babysitter?

     He had to wonder how much cash Frito and Averman had
dropped to get this room arrangement.  He and Frito had
connecting doors. Averman was in the room next to Mulder's.
Cooke was on another floor.  Frito had opened the connecting
door without comment, and Mulder had decided not to make an
issue of it.  Averman wasn't mentioning what he'd seen to
anyone, and wasn't acting like Mulder was one step from the
loony bin.

     Mulder yawned, stretched on his bed, considered the minor
league baseball game ESPN was showing.  Alexandria Aces versus
somebody with green lettering on their uniforms.

     Next door Frito was actually writing a report.  Mulder
liked behavioral.  For some reason they thought that you
actually had to go back and look up indicators or something.
Yeah right.  He just started typing and saying this indicates
this and this indicates that and these behavioral patterns are
indicative of that. . .you didn't pass your orals at Oxford on
a cute smile. . .anyway, he would write a profile sometime
tonight, run it through his grammar checker and spell checker
and everyone would ooh and ahh and think he worked like mad.
Mulder already knew what the report would say.  Had it
written in his head.  The sexual abuse thing puzzled him.  He
wanted to know how this guy picked his prey, what *he* saw that
made him choose.  Two choices had occurred to Mulder.  First, he
wanted sexual abuse victims.  Second, certain behaviors occurred in
children who had been sexually abused.  Was one of those behaviors
what the killer was focusing in on?  Had the killer been sexually
abused?  The obvious answer was yes.  This guy wasn't very obvious.

     Mulder watched the Aces jog in.  He still didn't know the name
of the other team.  Must have changed uniforms recently.  He knew
his baseball teams.  Oh.  The Beaumont Gators.  New Team.  He
hadn't watched them play before.  Okay.

     Rodriguez glanced through the connecting door.  He'd
given Francis enough time to fall asleep, he hoped.  "Get him
up there, make him take a nap."  Averman had said quietly,
drawing Sam into a quiet office.  "Let him pretend he's going
to do some paperwork.  I don't care.  Get him quiet."

     Mulder was sitting up, rifling through files, reading.
Oh shit.

     "Whatcha' doin' Marion?"

     "These interviews are worthless."  Mulder said throwing
down the files.  "I've got some shit from them, but I need
more.  Can I get some agents to go back to the victims
elementary schools?"

     Sam frowned.  "What you askin' me for?  Shit. If you
want it, you know they'll do it.  But you better tell them
what you want if that's not any good."

     "Yeah. . .stupid gundicks. . ." Mulder swore, picking up
the phone.

     "After you get done, why don't you get some shut eye?"
Sam mentioned mildly.

     Mulder shot him the finger.  "Hi? Peg? It's Mulder.  I
need Agent Averman. . .thanks. . .yeah, you too. . .Averman?
Hi.  Yeah.  Listen.  I need agents sent back out to the
elementary schools.  Listen, I need them to ask about specific
behaviors, I don't have copies of report cards or discipline
reports, Parent-Teacher conferences. . .yeah, no, nothing
about strange men lurking about.  I want to know if these kids
had friends and if they did what social strata they hung out--
you know, tough guys, bimbettes in embryo--what they acted
like in class. . .yeah, exactly. . .if they give you any flack
get a subpoena.  No judge in this state is going to deny us
anything at this point and we all know that. . .yeah. . .I
don't know.  I need more info. Listen. . .also. . .no. .
.yeah. . .I need a list of unsolved adult murders from the
past year. . .male. . .over thirty. . .not the steady sort,
wanderers, drifters. . .yeah.  Thanks."  Mulder grinned and
hung up the phone. "Sorry. I didn't realize I was supposed
to be a good child.  I'll put my shit away and watch baseball
now."
 
 
 

     "Fuck."  Rodriguez sighed and stared at an empty screen that
had been full of text the instant before.  Then he'd hit <return>.
Or thought he'd hit <return>.  Whoever put a delete key there
should be shot and autopsied.  Preferably not in that order.  He
slammed shut the clumsy, heavy, twenty pound portable
pain-in-the-ass that made some tally-whacker down in procurement
feel au courant.  What ever happened to pen and paper?

     Of course, maybe the meat-pullers back in D.C. weren't totally
to blame.  Trying to type and listen at the same time wasn't as easy
as it looked.  Hit <save> and lean back, let yourself listen, focus
on what's there to be heard.

     The game.  Of course.  Some rinky-dink, cow-town team the
local shit-kickers all swore was better than the pros.  Cheers and
beers and announcers, all rambling from Marion's room.  The sound
of cars with lousy mufflers, rusted bodies, and bad alignment since
Oklahoma was where old cars went to die.  Motorcycles.  The low
whistle of wind out here in the fucking end of creation, where God
never bothered to put anything that could slow it down.

     And paper.  Again.  That was when he'd hit the damn delete
key, when he'd heard the soft, little sound of a page folded back.
Up, off the creaky springs of the bed, to hang in the connecting
door, tie undone, dark eyes bloodshot from a night living with
somebody else's bad dreams.

     A friend's bad dreams.

     "What are you doing, Marion?"  Bastard didn't try to hide the
files, or look sorry.  Just grinned back at him like nothing ever
cracked that shell.

     "What, Frito?  You been here so long you've even forgotten
what reading looks like?"  Rodriguez fought the urge to take the
files away.

     "I thought you told Averman you were going to be good?"

     Mulder's expression barely changed, except that all the life went
out of it and left the shell of a smile.  Rodriguez crossed his
arms and stared back, wondering how many years Spooky had
managed to pull it off.  Single rooms, or separate hotels or anything
that kept people from hearing him scream and scream, until he was
too tired to be terrified any more.

     "Francis, do me a favor?  Put the files down."  He had to
grin, [just put the files down and no one has to get hurt. . . ]

     "Do I have to come out with my hands up?"

     "Better be all you get up."

     "Yeah, you'd be cut off forever if she saw what I. . . "

     "Any chance I can get you to shut up and just watch the Hick
Bowl?"   A long hesitation.  "Francis, it's not like I didn't
notice anything.  What were you planning to do?  Go a week without
sleeping?"  The idiot grin he got in return did nothing for Sam's
peace of mind.

     "I tell you what, Frito.  I'll behave."  Mulder handed the
files over.  "Now go screw up more paper work and let me watch the
Gators embarrass themselves."  As if not having the files would
stop him.  Sam shook his head, but Averman had already told Mulder
off, he wasn't going to add anything now.

     "Get some sleep, Francis.  I'll give you your mags back when
you wake up."

     "Celebrity Skin?"

     "Sure, we'll take shifts.  But the pages better not be stiff."

     Mulder snorted, but he'd sprawled back, shoes off.  Sam
crossed his fingers and went back to his fucked report.

_________________________
Continued in part 3..............
 

=====================================================================
======

From: livengoo@tiac.net
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 3/41 NC-17
Date: 23 Jan 1996 07:08:35 GMT
 

Oklahoma (Part 3/41)
By Amperage and Livengoo
Copyright October, 1995

International Readers:  No third season spoilers
Rating:  NC-17 for language and violence

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual
property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting.  The
FBI is the property of the US Government.  Oklahoma and Louisiana
and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and
everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo.
 

     The sun had shifted, letting the rooms cool, by the time he'd
reconstructed his work.  The Gators were humiliated and gone.  Pro
wrestling or monster trucks or some other Taco-circuit cultural
mecca shrieked from the next room.  Rodriguez saved to disk and
went to wash the prickly heat-sweat off his face and under arms.
God, and he'd though D.C. was bad.

     A quick glance.  Francis was crashed, sprawled over his pillow
and drooling on the bedspread.  Rodriguez watched him twitch for a
moment.  Dreaming.  Muttering something about kids, and water,
beaches.  Rodriguez tensed, half-expecting nightmares or screams
after the night before, but relaxed and started breathing again
when the Spookster slid back into dreamless rest.  Near miss, one
pass through R.E.M. complete, can we go for two?

     He stepped back, shut his door most of the way.  The numbers
on the phone pad were almost instinctive.  Rodriguez settled back
on his bed and waited.

     One. . .Two. . .Three. . . then the phone and the machine
picked up at the same time.

     "Hello, you have reached. . ."

     "Hello, who is this, just a second, let this. . ."  Grunt
while she tried to reach the switch in the back.  Sam grinned at
the two Jenni-voices running over each other.  The message finally
ended, leaving him with the husky, out of breath one.

     "All right, hello?"

     "Lucy, I'm gonna be late."  Falsetto that he knew she hated.

     "Sam?  Sam!  Honey, I miss you.  When are you coming home?  I
wasn't expecting you to call until tonight."  Husky voice, oh yes.
He felt his balls throb and his cock twitch at the sound.

     "Yeah, well. I wanted to hear your voice.  Make sure you
weren't out with the pool man."

     "We don't have a pool."

     "That never stopped you and me from getting wet together."

     "You're alone."  He could hear the smile in her voice.

     "More or less."

     "I just. . .took my pants off."  He could hear the fabric.
Her voice got just a little throatier as she told him what she was
doing to herself.  A sudden wet sound, then quiet, then her
breathing again.  "Hear that honey?  Remember how it tastes?"

     Oh god.  "I got a tent pole here, Jenni.  I'm so hard. . . "
she laughed at his voice.  He was dripping, she was talking again.

     "You got your hand around it, Sam?  Go on, baby.  Stroke your
cock."  He glanced up at the door, but the TV was the only sound
from next door.

     "Yeah, Sammy," she growled, and he ached.  She was urging him
on, breathing in time with him, panting.  He could hear her
whimpers, for God's sake he could hear her pussy.  He was slamming
his hand up and down, his hips jumping as he moaned, pumping, phone
clutched next to his ear so he could hear her, come with her.  His heart
was racing, and the mattress squeaked almost one long wheeze now, slamming
and coming and long distance and ogodogodogodogod. .

.  Until he and she sagged back, panting to each other, and all he
could do was lie there, soaked and lonely and listening to his
wife's voice.

     "That good for you, Sam?"  Sweet and smiling, voice like silk.

Sam moaned.

     "I can get the red-eye, be home for the weekend."

     "Unh unh, lover boy.  I told you, D.C. and me.  I'm glad your
hand felt so good, 'cause it's your best friend 'til you come home
for real."

     "Jen, Jenni. . ."  He tried not to whine.

     "You knew the rules, Sam.  'Til you're out of beaner country,
long distance is the next best thing."

     "Christ, Jenni. . . you're a real ball-breaker."

     "Unh hunh.  Thought you hidalgos didn't talk about ladies like that."

     "Ladies don't cut their men off."

     "Go borrow Mulder's skin mags."

     "You can't turn the pages."  He heard the faint sound as she
buried her face in the pillow and laughed.  It took a while for her
to come up for air.

     "You know, Daddy can get you sent back."

     ". . . I can't do that, Jenni."  Suddenly soft-voiced, quiet.

     "Yeah.  I know.  See you when it's over, loverboy."  He could
hear the understanding there.

     "Love you, Jenni."

     "Yeah."  The laugh was back. . .  "You and Rosie Palmer."

     "Bitch."

     "Give Mulder a kiss for me."

     "I will if I'm here much longer."  He grinned as she whooped again.

     "Bye bye, Jenni."

     "Love you, Sam."

     "You too."
 
 
 

     Fox Mulder woke up, face down in the wet spot.  He wiped the
drool off his cheek, and felt like a five year old, groaned and
rolled onto his back.  There was some inane fishing show in the
background.  He stared at the ceiling, trying to remember where he
was this time.  Wyoming?  No, there hadn't been stains on that
ceiling.  And he could hear an electric razor like it was in the
same room?

     Mulder sat up, startled.  Took in the open connecting door,
the sound of someone in the bathroom over next door.  Frito, right.
Oklahoma.  Eliot.  Frito.  He felt a profound relief, suddenly, to
have awakened lying there, quietly, instead of curled somewhere
small and hidden.  He ran a hand over his face to clear the last
cobwebs away.

     God, his mouth tasted awful.  He worked his shoulders, his
neck.  The razor stopped.  He could hear Frito moving around,
getting dressed.  Mulder pulled himself to his feet, taking in the
clock and the angle of the light, surprised to see it was almost
six-thirty.  The phone rang next door, Frito kept his voice down
when he answered.  Mulder caught one or two words, nothing much.

     "What's going on?"

     Frito spun, shirt still only half-buttoned, crisp though,
fresher looking than Mulder by several degrees, and knowing it.
"Hey, it lives.  We'll be down in around forty-five minutes,
Averman.  Spooky just decided to return to the living. . .uh huh.
Right."  Hung up.  "We meet the man for dinner, Francis.  You have
forty-five.  Go get ready."
 
 
 

     Dinner was, surprise, surprise, another steak house.  Except
there were eight agents, all getting a good dinner at the expense
of their favorite butt-fucking uncle.  Mulder was quiet, staring at
walls, at faces, generally reminding everyone why he was called
"Spooky" in the first place.  And he was all work, which pissed
some people off.  It didn't piss Averman off.

     So Frito and Averman and Spooky all found themselves sitting
at one end of the table, discussing the case while three or four
other agents listened and two or three agents, Cooke among them,
watched sourly and complained about how Spooky was a sonofabitch
who brown-nosed.

     "Do we have the interviews of the kids?" Mulder asked over his
house salad, shoving spinach leaf into his mouth.

     Averman nodded towards Russell and Meyer.  "Yeah."  The kid
was shovelling his food away like there was no tomorrow.

     Russell didn't need his notes to tell Spooky what he'd found.
"Raintree was a quiet kid.  Tall for his age. He played little
league and never got into trouble.  He always did what he was told.
He was scared of the dark."

     "Scared of the dark?" Mulder asked.  "How'd you know that
from school?"

     "Principal was his denmaster in cub scouts.  Said the kid was
terrified of the dark."

     Mulder frowned.  "Irrational fears are usually a sign of
something that's wrong in a kid's life. . ."  The wheels turned.
"What about the two white girls?"

     "Umm. . .Stengal sent me this," Averman said.  "Ericka was. .
.a sweet child, always did as told. . .never gave the teachers any
trouble. . ." Mulder nodded as though he now expected to hear this.

    "I'll ask Stengal to go back, see if she was frightened of
anything," Averman finished quietly.

     Mulder nodded.

     Meyers considered his notes.  He was incredibly green, Mulder
realized.  A kid.  Not a brilliant kid like him, to be forgiven
faults and humored.  Just a kid who would one day be a good agent.
Mulder might be shit to most people, but he was nice to those who
had less seniority, less rights than he did.  Sometimes he wondered
if other agents would ever learn that.  It wasn't just poster-boy
looks and a firm butt.  It was recognizing that everyone on this
planet has feelings and emotions and likes knowing that you know
they exist.   Mulder considered his empty salad plate wondering
where the greenery had gotten too.  He'd even, somehow, eaten the
cherry tomatoes.  And he hated cherry tomatoes. . .

     "Bonnie Grant was a quiet shy child.  Good grades.  No
problems.  Her teacher said she was very sensitive and that she
came to school with bruises occasionally.

     "Why didn't they report it to Social Services?" Mulder asked.

     Meyers frowned.  "She said they did," he replied.

     Mulder nodded, sighed.  "Some places Family Development and
those type of people do a good job, some places they're witch
hunters, some places they don't do anything."  His eyes wandered to
the empty glass plate in front of him.  He played with his fork a
moment, lost in some private remembrance.  The other agents
assumed it was from some other case, some child beaten to death by
his parents.  To Frito it was a frightening thing.  Watching Spooky
dredge up memories from somewhere.  From a somewhere where little girls
disappeared and big brothers huddled small and frightened on the floor.
"You'll call and ask if she was scared of anything?"  Mulder asked,
looking up.

     Meyers nodded.

     "Good work," Russell told the kid.

     Meyers smiled.

     From the far end of the table Cooke cleared his throat.  "DC
called.  I have to put out a press report."

     "Make us all look like we're sticking our dicks in the right
holes," Mulder said wearily, putting his fork down, glancing at
Frito's Beck's dark.  "For a 'spic you drink good beer.  I think I
want one of those," he said easily.

     Frito frowned, glanced at Averman, who hadn't caught it.
Spooky Mulder did *not* need alcohol.  "Fuck you," he said easily.
"Designate a driver."

     "Averman's not drinking."

     But Averman did, somehow, in that barest instant before he
screwed up, did catch it.  "Agent in charge.  I reserve the
prerogative."  He tossed his car keys to Mulder.

     Mulder groaned.  Averman glanced at Sam.  Sam gave the barest
nod.

     "So what am I authorized to say?" Cooke asked.

     "He's got a kid alive somewhere," Mulder said.  "He's just
waiting for this pronouncement.  The moment he sees that wire
service the kid's dead."

     "How long before he gets tired and the kid dies?"

     "How do we know she's alive?  All we have is the word of
Spooky."

     "I forgot.  It comes from God to Spooky to the rest of the
world."

     Averman let the agents talk, let them bitch and bellyache.

     "Spooky," he said quietly.  "I have to let a press release
out.  Washington will have my ass if I don't.  They'll have your
ass too if I tell them why.  Besides we don't know if the kid's
alive or not.  Even if she is, we're just removing her from this
misery a little sooner, rather than later."

     Mulder's face closed up tight.  He just stared at the table
and the little metal caddy with Equal and Sweet-n-Low and sugar and salt
and pepper.

     "If all time is eternally present
     All time is unredeemable.
     What might have been is an abstraction
     Remaining a perpetual possibility
     Only in a world of speculation.
     What might have been and what has been
     Point to one end, which is always present.
     Footfalls echo in the memory
     Down the passage which we did not take
     Towards the rose-garden. . ."

Mulder recited tonelessly.  No one heard him but Frito and Averman
and Meyers.  Meyers frowned.

     The waitress came then with a huge tray bearing their dinners.
Mulder smelled the sizzling meat and went pale.  He pushed away
from the table, hands gripping the edge of his barrel chair, and he
left the room.  Frito followed, out into the lobby, into the room
marked "podners," past the urinals.  Mulder didn't even shut the
door, just knelt and vomited his two glasses of tea and crackers
and spinach and lettuce and cucumber and squash and cherry tomatoes and
black olives and croutons into the toilet, heaving, chest
rolling with the brute force behind his vomit.  And then it was
over.  Mulder just knelt on the grey, designer tile, staring at the
toilet and at the remains of his dinner.  He put his head against
the seat for a moment.  "He's going to kill her the moment we
put out that press release.  He's going to take her out and he's
going to kill her," he said without turning around, voice sick and
weary and old.

     "Francis, maybe you're wrong.  Maybe she's already dead.
Maybe he doesn't have another one.  Maybe he'll stop killing once
he knows we're looking for him. . ."

     "Yeah right.  And Santa gave me my subscription to Celebrity
Skin."  Mulder's voice was cold, angry.  He heaved again, dry
heaves this time, dry aching heaves, painful to hear, more painful
to experience.

     "You want some Compazine?"  Frito boosted himself up on the
counter.

     Mulder's response was to shoot him the finger.

     He waited, came over to the counter, shoved his entire face
under the faucet, drank water, spat, drank water, spat, dried
himself in the air drying vent.  "She's fucked," Mulder said
quietly.  "Go eat your dinner, Frito."

     Sam frowned.  "Francis, you gotta eat."

     Mulder shook his head.  "I'm going to go get some crackers or
something from a mini mart.  I don't think I'm up to cooked animal
flesh."

     "If you don't come back, they're going to say worse things."

     "Oh, what the fuck do I care?"

     "If you don't go back, I can't go back."  Frito frowned.  "If
you go back and get sick again, I'll make some apologies and we'll
go back to the hotel room.  Get us both some chick food. . .salads
or some kind of shit."

     Mulder smiled, straightened his hair, or tried to.  He kept it
so short it never really looked all that messy, even when it was.

     On the way back, Frito managed to get the attention of their
waitress.  "He doesn't want his steak.  We'll still pay for it.
Just a baked potato with a little butter and some crackers."  He
tried to think of something they might have that Mulder's stomach
could handle.

     "Could I have some sauteed mushrooms without the steak?"
Spooky asked.  He still looked about as white as the little starched
and bleached, frilly apron around the waitress's waist, so the girl
took pity.

     "Yeah.  No problem."  She smiled brightly.  "You just go sit
down and I'll bring it right out."  She went ahead, grabbed the
steak up.  "I'll fix a doggie bag for it. You might feel better
later."  She was a pert little thing, probably just out of high
school.  Mulder slumped in his seat.  Looked miserable.  Sam
gathered that the other agents had been gossiping about his poetry
quoting and sudden departure from the table.

     "Is there anything we should or shouldn't say?" Cooke asked.

     Mulder glared at the entire table.  "It doesn't fucking matter
what you say.  There's a little girl who's alive tonight who isn't
going to be alive tomorrow night.  Fuck the papers.  Fuck the
bosses in D.C.  You're all killing a little girl."  His voice rose
unsteadily.

     Averman's hand was on his arm; it looked gentle but the grip
was steel.  Mulder jerked away.  The little waitress brought out a
baked potato with butter and two pieces of texas toast and some
sauteed mushrooms in a separate bowl.

     Mulder thanked her softly, then stared at the food.

     Sam resisted the impulse to fix the potato for Mulder.

     The other agents were staring, no doubt getting more than
enough gossip for the mill.  It was enough to continue fixing
Mulder's eccentricities.

     Mulder did not eat anything at supper.
 
 
 
 

     "Okay."  The potato was sitting on a styrofoam tray.  Frito
mashed the poor cold thing up, gave Mulder the plastic fork.  "Come
on.  You've got to eat something."

     Mulder just stared at him.

     "And pray to God to have mercy on us
     And pray that I may forget
     These matters that with myself I too much discuss
     Too much explain
     Because I do not hope to turn again
     Let these words answer
     For what is done, not to be done again
     May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

     Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
     But merely vans to beat the air
     The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
     Smaller and dryer than the will
     Teach us to care and not to care
     Teach us to sit still

     Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death

     Pray for us now and at the hour of our death," he recited
numbly.

     Sam took the fork, put some potato on it, gave it back to
Mulder.  "Francis, if you think I'm gonna feed you, you got another
thing coming."

     Mulder stared at the potato.  "I'm not hungry.  I think I just
want to go to bed."

     Go to bed and do what?  Sit up screaming in the middle of the
night?

     "Okay."  Frito sighed, grabbed the styrofoam box, dumped it
onto the counter.  Went over to his own room.

     He heard the TV go on.  Heard Mulder getting ready for bed.

     Sam went back to his portable pieceofshitmachine and started
pounding out another report.  After a while he heard the keys
flying on Mulder's machine.  Sunofabitch would probably spend two
hours on it and have something that looked better than anyone
else's twelve hours.  Life was fucking unfair.  Just fucking
unfair.

Continued in part four..............
 

=====================================================================
======

From: livengoo@tiac.net
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 4/41 (NC-17)
Date: 24 Jan 1996 05:42:04 GMT
 

Oklahoma (Part 4/41)
By Amperage and Livengoo
Copyright October, 1995

International Readers:  No third season spoilers
Rating:  NC-17 for language and violence

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual
property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting.  The
FBI is the property of the US Government.  Oklahoma and Louisiana
and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and
everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo.
 

     Mulder went to bed a good twenty minutes after Samuel
Rodriguez, certified California gentry of the finest sort.  Mulder
lay back, head against the pillow, tried to think what the killer
was looking for. Sweet children with a fear.  Children who could be
easily led, told what to do.  Sweet children who had been fucked by
some loved one.  He considered the soft sweetness of hotel pillows
with the soft mattress pad and the flat sheets made taut with
perfect hospital corners.  She was still alive.  She.  Why a she?
Because it was time for a she.  The Lady was a she.  The lady of
the rose petals.  Eliot liked writing about The Lady.  He put her
in Tarot cards, saw her in the BVM.  The Lady.  Tiresius was both
a man and a woman.  When Apollo and Aphrodite had a fight over
who liked sex better they asked Tiresius, who said women had a
better time.  Which pissed Apollo and the Roman Catholic church off
and in the 1800's doctors were still cutting the clits off women to
keep them from playing with themselves.

     The easy breath from the next room indicated that Frito, god
bless his horny soul, was finally asleep.  Mulder waited a few
minutes more for Sam to fall into a deeper sleep, waited to be sure
Averman would be in bed asleep, got up, pulled on his blue jeans
and grabbed his room key.

     He was just out the door when Averman emerged, looking
tousled.  "Where you headed, Sport?"

     Mulder hated people who called him `sport'.

     "Ice," he said on impulse.

     "Ain't got no ice bucket."

     "Cold drinks."

     "Caffeine'll keep you up at night," Averman replied, managing
to still look all Federal Agent, just the facts ma'am, in a pair of
ancient jersey shorts and a ratty t-shirt.

     "Sprite?" Mulder questioned.

     "Where're the car keys?" Averman asked.

     Mulder frowned.  "Designated driver, remember?"

     "I don't think I'll be going anywhere tonight."  Averman held
out a hand, fluttered his fingers.

     Mulder reached down into his jean pockets, handed it over.
"You're killing her," he muttered.

     "I know you believe that."  Averman resisted adding "son."  No
reason to piss the kid off without just provocation.  "But I don't
have any proof of it.  I'm sorry.  We have to put out some word.
It's going to be very carefully worded.  Don't worry."

     Mulder stared darkly at Averman.

     "Okay.  Go back to sleep.  Get Rodriguez to give you some
pills if you can't sleep."

     "I'll be okay," Mulder muttered, going back into his room,
slamming the door.
 
 
 

     The screams were sharp and painful and expected this time.
Averman fumbled with his key to Mulder's room, even as Sam woke and was on
his feet without thinking, rushing into Mulder's room.

     Mulder was pressed into a corner, screaming.  When Sam
approached him the screams grew louder, more frantic.  He
recognized neither one of them, though his eyes were open and
crazily dilated.

     "Oh fuck," Averman breathed.

     Sam stood a long moment.  Mulder stopped screaming after
another minute, after Sam's ears were good and thoroughly
deafened.  How had he gotten away with this for so long?  How, in
God's name, had it gone on without anyone catching it?  Saint Luke
help him.  He is so frightened and the world is so cruel, Sam prayed
unconsciously.  He knelt on the carpet, between the lowboy and the
wall, Mulder's corner, under the clothes rack.  At his approach,
Mulder scuttled back further into his corner.

     God, how many nights had it been like this?  Mulder too
terrified to move.  Just screaming and screaming and then curled up
in the dark, terrified until exhaustion or the daylight came and he
stumbled up, put on a clean suit and made snide comments and drank a lot
of bad coffee and made his scary predictions.

     He made a move closer and suddenly Mulder was scrambling like
a rabbit trapped by a predator, clawing without thought or reason
or hope.  "Easy, Rodriguez."  Averman's voice at his back.

     They waited.

     And waited.

     For Mulder to snap out.  For Mulder to calm down and know
them.  For the fear to ease out of his eyes.

     And finally, long after Averman had set pills down on the
counter with a water glass, finally Mulder stared at Frito.  "Sam?"
he asked softly.  "Where's Sam?"

    Frito exchanged a worried glance with Averman.

     "I'm Sam.  I'm here."

     Mulder stared at  Rodriguez, confused, frightened. "Samantha's
gone.  He took her.  She's scared.  He's going to kill her.  And
they all know."  His voice choked with tears.  "They all know. And
they're going to let him kill her."  He was sobbing.

     "Francis?"  Sam's voice was soft and incredibly gentle.
"Francis.  I know.  I know.  I want you to take a pill."

     "I don't want any pills."  His voice went up into hysteria.

     "If you take the pill I'll look for Samantha." Frito played it
by ear.

     "No.  They took her!"

     "Who took her?"  Averman's voice now.

     "Tiresius.  And the Hollow men, them with their grey skin.
The fisher king," Mulder whispered.  "In a blue light."

     He was gone, way gone.  Call the men with the long white
jackets that tie in the back.  Call in the beard strokers.  Fox
Mulder had slipped around the bend.

     Frito got the pills down anyway.  "These are pills that you
have to take, Fox.  We're trying to find her, but we can't right
now, because you're really upset.  I know it hurts. But we're
trying to find her.  Right now you have to take these pills.
They'll help you be quiet so we can hunt."  Frito swallowed.  Oh
Blessed Lady, please.  Please make him take the pills.

     Mulder put out a trembling hand.  Frito handed him the tiny
Dramamine pills, then the water glass.

     And Mulder took it.

     And then they got him into bed and went back to bed themselves
Averman did not say anything.  Sam wondered who they would get
to ride on the plane back.  Someone like Meyers.  Here's what Special
Agents look like when they crack up.  We take their guns and their
dicks and give them seventy percent of their salary so they can
huddle in a hospital waiting for night and the shadows and terror
because we did this to them.
 
 
 

     The bed was shaking, and things slammed and it was the Big
One, oh god, the Big One, and Rodriguez was going to die all alone
with Jenni in D.C. and. . .

     He slammed his eyes open, to see when the ceiling fell in on
him, and Spooky-fucking-Mulder smiled at him and kicked the bed
again.  Frito scrambled back against the headboard, staring like
he'd seen a ghost.  Or a Spook.  Mulder just gave him that
shit-eating grin, with his teeth gritted behind it.

     "Time to get up, Frito.  We gotta go out and find the kid when
Cooke finishes killing her."

     "Jesus, Francis. . . "  What the hell do you say when somebody
rises from the dead, or near as?  Frito just sat there, feeling the
skin on his balls crawling and watching Spooky turn on the TV, look
for a news station.  The clock on top of the set read eight-thirty,
and the morning news was in full swing.

     Mulder watched it, wearing a grin that was nothing like a
smile and waiting for Cooke to blow some kid's brains out, if she
was lucky.  If she wasn't, the autopsy would just take longer to
read.  Frito watched him, suit hanging in perfect creases, poster
boy looks in place, mirror shades hanging off his shirt pocket and
not a hair out of place.  Through the door, he could see the
running shorts, shirt and sneakers littered around the room where
Mulder had dropped them when he came in after one of those
goddamn dawn's-early-light runs he liked to take.  Sam looked back
to Spooky, arms crossed, snarling at the TV, and felt superstitious
dread make his bowels go to ice water.

     He hadn't dreamed it.  He fucking had NOT dreamed it.  Averman
had been here.  The water glass was in there by the Spookster's
bed, the carpet was scuffed down by the lowboy.  God damn it, Frito
had not dreamed that Spooky Mulder was curled in a corner last
night, screaming and totally out of his head.  So why the fuck was
he standing there, dressed to the FBI nines, watching Cooke yank
the media dicks.  Mulder shouldn't even be making sense this
morning.

     Frito had gone to bed, knowing he'd send his friend back with
a handholder and a head full of tranqs.  He'd dreamed about medical
review boards and hearings for permanent psychiatric disability.
And Mulder was still standing there, real as shit, calling Cooke
things he'd never learned at Oxford.  On the whole, the Big One
might not have been as scary.

     Mulder glanced up at him.  "Look at this prick-licker, dancing
the FBI two-step with the pussies at the press.  Ice water, and
tomorrow he'll tell them he had no idea our baby butcher was gonna
kill the kid.  Asshole."  Mulder shook his head and stalked out of
the room.  Sam could hear him yanking stuff together, throwing it
in his briefcase, slamming the lid like he was cutting Cooke's head
off with it.  He swallowed hard, wiped the sweat off his palms onto
his sheets and crawled out of bed.

     Shaking hands pulled a suit out of the closet, turned the
water on in the shower.  The only reason Frito didn't cut his
throat shaving was because he used a Braun electric.  A razor and
he'd have bled to death before he ever finished.  Mulder was out
there on the phone, calling Meyers, Russell, coordinating them and
giving them what he wanted them to do.  Where he wanted them to
look.  How the fuck he thought he knew where to look sent Sam to
the can with the nerve-wracked shits.

     Mulder was pounding on the door and telling him to hurry his
ass up before he was done.  Sam took a last look in the mirror,
seeing skin pale under the hispanic dark tan, eyes bloodshot and
jumping with nerves, teeth he just couldn't. . . get. . . to
unclench for more than a moment.  He had to put his hands in his
pockets, they were shaking so hard when he walked out the door and
looked at Spooky Mulder, who should have been huddled in his bed
drooling and who, instead, was impatiently eyeing his watch and
rocking his briefcase back and forth between his hands while he
waited for Frito to finish having the shits and shakes.

     Averman was waiting on the balcony, and the look he gave the
Spookster was almost as jumpy as Sam's.  Mulder stared at the two
of them a moment, like they were speaking in tongues.  "What the
fuck is wrong with the two of you?"  Angry, snarling, still
seething at the way Cooke had made him party to murder.  "We have
coffee to drink and a dead kid to start looking for.  Cooke's on
the air, and our boy's going to work right now.  He should be
finished sometime between now and tomorrow at six."

     He'd turned his back to them and was clattering down the metal
stairs of the motel balcony, hands off a railing that was already
hot enough to burn.  Dust kicked up behind his feet as he strode
across the dry, yellow-dirt parking lot that baked under the
morning sun.  Sam shivered and looked around at Averman, who was
pale under his tan.  The two of them followed Spooky like they
really couldn't feel their feet.

     "I saw him come in from a run this morning, right about dawn."
Averman sounded distant.  "What was he like when you got up?"

     "You're looking at it."  Sam swallowed.  Mulder was sitting in
a corner booth, drumming silverware on the table and watching them like
they were wasting his time.

     "What the hell is with the two of you this morning?"  He was
staring at them, trying to read them, and they both watched him
like he'd grown horns and a tail.  They were starting to make his
skin crawl.  Sam sat next to him, caging him back into the corner
of the booth.  Averman settled gingerly across from him.  Waved for
three cups of coffee and a basket of breakfast rolls.  Mulder
grabbed a roll and pulled it apart, wolfed it down like he was
starving.  Sam couldn't recall Mulder keeping anything down the day
before, and he shoved the basket over in front of Francis, watching
him eat.

     Francis stopped chewing, swallowed, narrowed his eyes.  He
glared between Averman and Sam.  "What the fuck is with you two?"
He kept his voice low.  "You think this is funny?  We don't have
enough clowns with Cooke on the team?"  Sam took a deep, hard
breath.  Glanced back at Averman.

     "Francis."  Looked into Mulder's eyes.  Clear, hazel eyes.
"Francis, you remember asking for Sam?"

     Mulder worked the bite of breakfast roll from one side of his
jaw to the other.  "I don't know what you're playing at, Frito, but
we have real work to do today.  We can't stop the bastard from
killing her, but the faster we find her body the more we'll learn.
Or do you figure Jenni's gonna put you back on her A-list if you
just get on the news?"  His angry voice told Frito that Francis had
no idea what was going on.  The pathologist swallowed, wracked his
brain for anything from his psych rotation that could help, but
pathologists weren't expected to deal with this kind of shit.  He
looked back across the table and Averman looked just as
out-of-his-depth, though he covered it better.

     Spooky pulled a county surveyor's map out of his briefcase,
spread it out and weighted the corners with coffee cups, bread
baskets, silverware.  Sam opened his mouth to ask another question,
but Averman caught his eye, shook his head.  Sam sat there,
watching Mulder review every dumping location.  They let him have
the rolls, figured he needed them by now.  He probably never even
realized he was eating, his attention was so damn focused on the
map.  Every so often he'd look up at Averman or Sam, gesturing
across the map.

     "He's picking them off strictly in state.  The only
out-of-state abduction we have was taken out of Six-Flags.  The
first little girl.  But she was *from* Oklahoma.  I want somebody,
maybe Cooke's cronies, talking to the parents about any familiar
faces.  I want Meyers and Russell here, the kids know them better at
the school, and that's where our freshest leads are."   Full Spooky
fifth gear today.  Most AICs would jump down his throat and
strangle him with his own dick for this.  Averman just watched him
go.

     "He'll have picked the next one by now, and be ready to pick
him up the minute he's dumped the girl."  Not even worth asking why Spooky
thought, no, knew, it was a girl.  They would get an answer that only made
sense to Spooky, and more likely than not it would be right.

     Averman ordered for all three of them.  Spooky barely noticed.
When the food came he was still going full tilt, and huevos
rancheros went down with barely a break.  Sam was taking it in,
listening and trying to comment, trying to get past the sure
knowledge that Francis should be curled in his bed, watching shows
not listed in TV Guide.  Averman got up somewhere in the middle of
it, went down the hall to make a phone call.  When Spooky was in
the men's room, after four cups of coffee and more food than Frito
believed he could hold, Averman looked across the table.

     "Okay, we play it by ear today.  Let him have his head, if
he's true to form he's right.  And we need him.  I called a friend
of mine from Little Sisters of Mercy.  He's gonna scream bloody
murder, but I want him to talk to this guy."

     "Shrink?"  Frito's tone told the whole story.  Averman just
smiled back at Frito even as the pathologist shook his head.  "He
won't do it.  He hates letting them near him."

     "I wasn't exactly going to ask for volunteers.  I really don't
want to screw with his head, but tonight we got to have a real
serious sit-down talk about Samantha, and about little men with
grey skins."

     Sam swallowed again, looked at Mulder coming back from the
little hall where these places hid their crappers.  Jesus, Mary,
Joseph and holy St. Luke.  Ride with your thumb on the pin, why
don't you, then see what happens when you take your thumb off and
count to seven.

__________________
Continued in part 5...............
 

=====================================================================
======

From: livengoo@tiac.net

Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 5/41 NC-17
Date: 25 Jan 1996 04:45:57 GMT
 

Oklahoma (Part 5/41)
By Amperage and Livengoo
Copyright October, 1995

International Readers:  No third season spoilers
Rating:  NC-17 for language and violence

As ever, Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual
property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting.  The
FBI is the property of the US Government.  Oklahoma and Louisiana
and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and
everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo.
_____________________

     Francis had them up at the fly-specked, old, Social Services
office, running checks on employees from the last ten years,
checking against prior employment, past references, anything that
didn't add up, didn't make sense.  Looking for someone who'd know.
The office administrator had taken offense right off the bat, and
Frito had watched Francis turn the man into little, quivering
chunks of fat.  No mercy, just starting to hammer in the details of
murder after murder, child after child, and what it would mean
when the next one turned up.  All the rage he could not afford to let
go at Cooke, and he just flayed that pompous little bureaucrat alive.

Two of the innocuous agents nearest the carnage had gone white and
nearly blown chunks.  They all watched, horrified, while Mulder
leaned in across the desk, asking where else you'd find a kid with
the label this guy shopped for.  And Frito felt his guts churn as
Francis did that fucking thing again, pulling his hand past his own
body, like he was painting a target on his chest.  This time
Averman caught it too, and Frito saw the older man's eyes widen
just a little, saw him adding up ugly numbers, getting even uglier sums.

     When Marion turned back to ransacking employee records, Frito
had seen that his hands were shaking again, and that he had to
clench them on a grubby, frayed manila file until they'd stop.
Please god, tell me Averman's buddy shits gold, and can make
Francis listen before the kid blows his brains out on this one.

     And sometime around four-thirty, Frito found Mulder in the
men's room down the hall, crouched over the yellow-spotted can,
arm braced against the filthy, graffitti-obscene partition.  He was
pale and wasted from dry heaves.  Frito leaned against the wall,
feeling the ugly, cracked tile, ice cold through his sweat-dark
shirt, chill against his own feverish fears.  The pathologist
swallowed his own nausea and listened to Francis' dazed voice quote
Eliot.  Again.  And knew they had another one out there, waiting
for them.

     "You tossed a blanket from the bed,
     You lay upon your back, and waited;
     You dozed, and watched the night revealing
     The thousand sordid images
     Of which your soul was constituted;
     They flickered against the ceiling.
     And when all the world came back
     And the light crept up between the shutters
     And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
     You had such a vision of the street
     As the street hardly understands;
     Sitting along the bed's edge, where
     You curled the papers from your hair,
     Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
     In the palms of both soiled hands"
 
 
 

     Late evening sun slanted golden across the sky.  Averman had
given Sam the keys to another bucar.  Another Taurus, this one
burgundy.  No one asked, no one even questioned when Frito and
Spooky had packed up and gone to the hotel.  They were getting used
to this.  Cooke was out of pocket, talking to the locals about the
biggest story they'd fucking had in years, and the other agents
just let it ride.

      Marion, of course, just kicked off his shoes, hung up his
jacket and lay back on the bed to watch another baseball game.
Frito felt some irritation build.  Can't make it through the night
without doing the mental watusi, but he can fucking kick back and
watch a fucking baseball game all afternoon while the rest of us
piss our brains out onto diskettes.  And then before he goes to bed
he'll type up something that makes all that we do look like shit.

     Fuck.

     Three dead bodies and he was the only one to do a decent
autopsy.  Well, there were toxicologicals on the other two, that
was something.  Sam frowned sourly at the crabbed handwriting of
Raintree's ME, trying to make out the "distinguishing
characteristics."

     Someone knocked on the door.  Averman.  He motioned to Sam.
They stood by the concrete railing, squinting in the light,
watching heat rise in waves and billows off the concrete.

     "What'd he do at Social Services?"

     "Vomited and recited more Eliot," Sam said sourly, putting
his hands on the railing, leaning over.   "What'd your shrink
friend say?"

     "I couldn't reach him.  His partner gave me the name of a
shrink here who's real good, real discreet."

     Sam nodded.  "What else did his partner say?"

     Averman gazed through his sunglasses at a jiffymart across the
road.  "Mulder's walking a very thin wire."

     "Well, fuck, we knew that."

     "No.  Well, it's PTSD, but hell, we already knew that.  He
said. . .he said Mulder shouldn't be functioning as well as he is.
He said that Mulder shouldn't be psychotic at night and Joe-
fucking-cool all day long."

     "He loses it in the day time."

     "Yeah, but not bad enough to yank him home."

     "So, what do we do?"

     "Well, I told him about the Dramamine.  He said that if it
worked, okay, but we can add some stuff for his daytime anxiety.
And maybe some sleeping pills."

     Sam nodded.  "I'm licensed, but it'd be better if I could get
a local to do the prescribing, one of the ME's or something.  I
don't have a pad or anything."

     "The shrink here is a psychiatrist.  In case we have to commit
him or something."

     Sam felt like swearing.  Instead he hit his hand against the
railing, closed his eyes.

     "What happened with him?" Averman asked softly.

     Sam opened an eye, squinted at the AIC.

     "Was he sexually abused, do you think?  His sister killed to
protect some dirty family secret?"

     Sam shook his head.  "I don't know." He felt his gut churn and
twist at the thought.  "How does he fucking just know?"

     Averman shook his head.  "I've heard him explain his `guesses'
in a debriefing.  An ASAC sat him down in a room with a tape
recorder and Mulder told them.  It was. . .I don't know. . .He was
quoting medieval texts about vampires in Great Britain and Ghost
Rider comic books and JAMA and Rupert Brooke and the ASAC kept the tape
like he'd learned something but all we learned was jack shit."

     Averman shook his head.  "Have you ever heard Mulder's
explanation for his successes?  The one he gave at the Retired
Agent's Luncheon when they asked the young and coming heir apparent to speak?"

     Sam shook his head again.

     Averman leaned against the railing, stared at Mulder's door.
"I quote, `I have a knack for applying behavioral models to
criminal activity and explaining motivation through causal
factors.'  He shovelled enough shit to fertilize all the lawns in
Georgetown.  You heard what Webster said about him?"  Without
waiting for a pause, Averman continued. "A rare and unique talent."

     "If a thing is unique it can't be rare. . ."  Rodriguez
mulled.

     "Don't cast aspersions on our beloved former director."

     Rodriguez grinned.

     Mulder was sitting on the bed, staring numbly at the screen.
"What?  They found out about my screwing the desk clerk? I swear
she said she was nineteen," he teased, flicking the tv off.
Averman grabbed a chair, Sam took a seat on the lowboy. "What?"
Mulder asked, glancing from one to the other.  Frito stared at
Averman.  His goddamn fucking ballgame.

     "Agent Mulder, the past two nights you have woken with
nightmares."  Averman's voice was sonorous and gentle.  "The first
night you became conscious and relatively lucid.  Last night, you
did not."

     Mulder closed his eyes, went very pale.  "Oh fuck," he
muttered.  "Oh fuck."  He swallowed, opened his eyes, stared at
Frito.  "Why didn't you tell me, you mutherfucking taco lover?"

     "Mulder."  Averman's voice was low, almost a growl.  "You
don't remember any of it?"

     Mulder shook his head.  "I'm sorry.  I. . .I don't have these
dreaming episodes very often.  I promise.  I won't let it interfere
with my performance.  I promise.  I don't. . .I won't let it happen
again.  It doesn't. . ."

     "Francis, stop it."  His voice was rising towards hysteria.
Sam was worried.  "Francis.  Stop.  It's okay.  Just stop."

     "What do you remember?" Averman asked softly.

     Mulder shook his head.  "I don't. . .I don't remember
anything.  I never do."

     "But this has happened before?"

     "I. . .I guess so."

     "What happened?"  Frito this time.

     "I. . .there was this girl, we were invo. . .anyway. . .I
scared the shit out of her. She said I screamed and screamed and
then hid in a corner, wouldn't let anyone near me, was babbling
something about aliens and little grey men.  I've. . .I"  He
swallowed convulsively.  "I've woken up in my closet a few times.
I don't know how I got there.  Just in the back of my closet where
it's dark and they can't come for me."

     "Who can't come for you?"

     "I don't know."  Mulder shrugged.  "I'm sorry.  You shouldn't
have to cover for me sir.  I'll. . ." He closed his eyes.  "I'll go
for therapy voluntarily.  Please. . ."  Mulder opened his eyes,
stared at his hands.  He looked like a different person then.  He
did not look like Spooky Mulder, world class pain-in-the-butt.  He
did not look like Fox Francis Marion Mulder, Sam's friend.  He
looked young and stupid and incredibly tired.  "Please don't make
me leave this case."

     Averman sighed.  "You have to agree to some things."

     Mulder nodded slowly.

     "I have a friend who does therapy.  He's going to call
tonight.  I want you to talk to him.  Be honest.  He's not going to
turn you in or tell the big bosses.  He works for the Little
Sisters of Mercy."

     Mulder wanted to refuse.  But they had him strung up by his
cahones and he knew it.  If Averman whispered word of what was
going on Mulder would get a nice long leave of absence and when he
came back he'd be stuck on some shit detail in Mobile Alabama or
something.  He nodded.

     "Sam's going to get some prescriptions for some stuff.  If he
wants you to take a pill you take it.  No questions asked.  Okay?"

     Mulder stared at Averman and Frito a long time.  "Don't. .
.don't turn me into a zombie, Frito."

     "I won't man."  Not unless I have to.

     "Okay."  Mulder put his face in his hands, trembling, pale,
cold, trembling with fear and anxiety and relief.

     "I want you to answer some questions for me," Averman
finished.

     Frito got up to get Marion some water.  Marion took the hands
away from his face.

     "What kinds of questions?"

     "Questions we need answers to when it's 2 a.m. and you're
screaming bloody murder," Frito answered, putting the waterglass
under the tap.

     "I don't have much. . .choice, do I?"  Mulder took the water
glass, drank deeply, spilling just a little down the side of his
mouth.

     He held onto the glass, watched Frito return to the lowboy.

     "How long has this been going on?"

     Mulder swallowed.  "I've always had nightmares.  After I got
into Behavioral Science they started getting worse.  It's been
really bad for a year or so.  And in the. . .when it's kids. . .it
gets bad sometimes. . ."

     Averman felt the breath expel out of his mouth and nose as
though someone had just punched him.  In the corner of his eye, he
watched Rodriguez go completely pale.  Oh God, a year of screams
and waking up and sitting in closets and corners and babbling and
no one had fucking noticed?  A year of crying and terror and
dreams.  Oh God.  And it got worse when there were kids.  Oh
fucking hell.

     "You said you were dreaming about your sister's
disappearance.  What do you remember?"   His voice betrayed
nothing of the nausea in his stomach.

     Mulder shrugged, shook his head.  "Nothing."  He went to his
briefcase, dug through the papers, moved some things around.
"Here."  He handed Averman a very old file.

     "What's this?" Averman asked.

     "When she disappeared the FBI came.  That's their report and
I got a copy of the police report."

     "You carry this with you?"

     Mulder kind of shrugged, sat against the headboard of his bed,
picked up a picture that had been face down.  Frito hadn't even
noticed it.  A girl.  A little girl with a toy in her hands and a
smile.  Dark hair.  "This is Samantha when she was six."  Mulder
gave the picture to Sam.

     Okay.  Guy keeps the file in his briefcase, keeps her picture
on his nightstand the way Frito kept Jenni's picture.  Well, Frito
had a couple of polaroids under the nice portrait and well, Sam
sincerely hoped Marion didn't have any pictures of Samantha under
the portrait.

     "Mulder.  You have a special affinity with these kids."
Averman glanced at Rodriguez.  No easy way to say it.  "You also.
. .show a . . .different understanding of social services.  Were
you abused?"

     Mulder stiffened.

     Oh God.  Bingo.  Oh God.  Mary, Mother of God, please have
mercy on him.  Please help him, Sam prayed spontaneously, hoping
the Blessed Virgin would understand his being rattled at such a
time.  Oh God.

     Mulder was sitting there staring at a wall.  Oh God, he'd gone
off the deep end.  Oh God.  What had happened to him?  Cases
Rodriguez had seen began flashing through his mind.  Babies fucked
by adults, children who'd been tied down while hot curling irons
had been shoved up their anuses or vaginas.  Boys who knew how to
suck a man's dick by five.  Children sold to other adults for the
price of a carton of cigarettes.  Children passed around and around
and raped until they finally died.  There was some line in the
Bible.  Christ had said, that if you hurt a child it were better
that you be cast into the depths of the ocean rather than do that
evil thing. That the very center of hell was reserved for such
people.  Staring at