This is a work of fiction. Various friends and contributors to aus.tv.x-files have allowed me to use their names in it, but any resemblance between the characters portrayed and the real person is probably accidental.
Copyright Hugh Fisher 1996
Night, with a clear sky and a full moon. We see a house, dark
and silent, with a garden full of trees and bushes. A caption
appears bottom left of screen:
3:20 AM
Waramanga
Canberra, Australia
Interior. A small dark room with no windows. The only furniture is a wooden chair with a broken leg. Steve Leahy half-lies, half-sits next to the chair. His legs are tied. We see that he is scraping the similar bindings on his wrists against the broken chair leg. The ropes part and he reaches for the ankle knots.
Exterior. A patch of soft earth. In extreme closeup, a feline paw thumps into the ground. A shadow moves across, and the paw lifts up, leaving a print.
Interior. Another room, unlit but with moonlight coming in through a window. Leahy is searching amidst various items scattered across a table. He picks up a duck and places it on his head.
A soft footstep outside. He freezes. The footsteps continue and fade away.
Leahy finds a computer disk and jams it into a pocket.
Exterior, special effects shot. Camera is pushing through low foliage/long grass. The contrast is very high and everything stands out clearly. We are obviously not seeing through human eyes. A low rumbling growl is heard.
Interior. Leahy kneels next to a wall and pushes at a small hatch at floor level. The duck is still on his head.
Exterior. Same inhuman view as before. The wall of the house comes into view, and we can see the duck, Leahys head, and upper body emerging from a rectangular hole. He is pushing against the frame, oblivious to whatever is approaching.
The camera accelerates. Leahy looks up, and his expression changes from worry and strain to pure terror.
Long shot of the moonlit house. A scream rings out.
Exterior of the familiar FBI Building, with people coming and
going. The caption reads:
One week later
Interior, Mulders office. Mulder leans on the edge of his desk, in travelling clothes, with a suitcase at his feet and a thin manilla folder in his hand. He is waiting for Scully, who enters with an umbrella and similar suitcase.
SCULLY: (putting down suitcase) Now can you stop being mysterious and tell me why we're going to Australia?
MULDER: (giving her the folder) This is why, Scully. Summary of a police report that one of my sources thought I should take a look at.
SCULLY: (reading first page) Steve Leahy... allegations... disappearance... discovery... Australia? What's the connection with the Bureau?
MULDER: (rising to feet) It's in the details, Scully. C'mon, we have a plane to catch.
SCULLY: I suppose if this show is to run for five more seasons we have to accept some pretty flimsy plot lines.
They exit.
The Los Angeles - Sydney flight, first class section. Mulder and Scully are talking.
SCULLY: OK, one Steve Leahy was found dismembered outside a
house in
(she hesitates slightly)
Waramanga. The occupants were all away at a convention
according to the interviews. I still don't see a connection
to the X Files. This wouldn't be an excuse for you to go
looking for those two female letter writers, would it?
MULDER: This is not the first disappearance of its kind, Scully. In the past five years, twelve other people have disappeared or been found dead within a four kilometre radius of that house. Each time, the occupants were away in another city.
SCULLY: Convenient. Did their alibis check out?
MULDER: Of course.
SCULLY: (flipping pages) There doesn't seem to be any common factor amongst the people mentioned. Except that they all have e-mail addresses.
MULDER: Maybe that could be the connection.
He reaches into his coat, pulls out his phone, and dials a number. Despite the fact that they are at an altitude of 5,000 metres over the Pacific, it works perfectly.
Interior: The offices of the Lone Gunmen. Byers answers the phone.
BYERS: Lone Gunmen.
Back to the plane.
MULDER: Byers? It's Mulder. I want you to trace the net activities of some people for me.
Scully selects out a few sheets of paper from the folder and hands them to him.
Back to the LGM office. Byers is tapping on a keyboard, phone held between ear and shoulder.
BYERS: ... dot a-n-u dot e-d-u dot a-u. Yeah, got them all.
Back to the plane.
MULDER: Fax it to me at our Canberra hotel, will you?
He puts his phone away. In the row behind him, we see a business man pushing buttons on his own phone, and getting increasingly frustrated.
SCULLY: Mulder, you still haven't explained to me why you're interested in this case.
MULDER: Ever hear of the Fuggly, Scull?
SCULLY: No.
MULDER: The tribes who used to live around Quebec told stories of shamans who would summon a spirit to possess the body of a wolf or bear. This "Fuggly" became their familiar and guardian. In some of the legends, the Fuggly is a spirit from the dead. In others, it's a being from above the clouds.
SCULLY: Mulder, those legends must be two hundred years old.
MULDER: Maybe, but in nineteen seventy five a longship from Oslo landed on the east coast of Canada, where the remnants of those tribes now live. One of the crew was killed. The others claim it was by a Fuggly, and that they saw the ceremonies.
SCULLY: It's not conclusive...
("Wait a minute" expression)
You said a longship? A Viking longship in nineteen seventy
five? Another of your time travel cases?
MULDER: No, Thor Heyerdahl. He was trying to prove a link between medieval Scandinavia and some ruins on the Ivory Coast of Africa. Unfortunately for his theory he wound up in Canada instead, so he kept quiet about it.
SCULLY: You're going to tell me Steve Leahy was a Viking?
MULDER: Look at the report of the officers who discovered the body. Or rather, the fragments.
Scully flips a couple of pages.
SCULLY: (startled) Seven hundred and forty four pieces! Who or what could do such a thing?
MULDER: The number of stars visible at winter solstice from the Quebec sacred rock is seven hundred and forty four. And in the tales, a Fuggly always tears its victims into that many pieces.
SCULLY: (sceptical) Mulder, what would a Canadian spirit be doing in the capital of Australia?
MULDER: Maybe it's on vacation.
He closes his eyes and leans back. Scully looks at him for a moment, then continues reading.
Canberra airport building, early afternoon, with only a few people around.
Quick overhead view of Mulder and Scully walking from baggage claim towards car rental.
Car rental desk. Mulder signs for a car using a pen on a chain. While he passes over a credit card, Scully absent- mindedly picks up the pen, unscrews it, and looks inside. Mulder touches her arm. She realises what she is doing and quickly puts it back together. Scully looks at Mulder and shrugs "sorry". He smiles briefly "that's OK".
Exterior of the airport. They walk up to the car.
SCULLY: (opening passenger side door) Hotel? Jet lag is starting to catch up with me.
MULDER: (opening other door) I'd like to take a quick look at the crime scene first. It's not far out of our way.
Inside car, facing Scully. She looks tired. Leans back and closes her eyes.
Sudden SCREECH of tires. The car abruptly swings to the left. We hear another car, horn blazing, go past. Scully snaps to attention.
MULDER: They're trying to kill us, Scully!
He wrenches the steering wheel again. More horns and screeches.
MULDER: Someone knew we were coming!
SCULLY: Mulder, this is Australia!
(she grabs for the wheel)
They drive on the other side of the road here! Pull over!
Exterior, the house in Waramanga, early afternoon. The car, with Scully driving, carefully pulls up by the side of the road. Mulder and Scully exit and start walking up the driveway.
SCULLY: So this is "The Lab".
MULDER: Harmless looking, isn't it? Yet who knows what really goes on behind these quiet suburban doors?
They turn right, up a couple of concrete steps and along the porch.
Special effect shot. We see a repeat of Mulder and Scully getting out of the car, but from further back. The inhuman view in daylight sees slightly different colours, and with infrared as well - blood flows are visible on the faces and hands of Mulder and Scully.
The voices sound loud but somehow blurred and indistinct - unimportant to whatever is listening.
SCULLY: So this is "The Lab".
MULDER: Harmless looking, isn't it?
We hear their breathing loudly and clearly.
Back to normal view. Mulder and Scully are standing in front of a standard door with flyscreen. All is quiet.
MULDER: (knocking) Hello?
Pause.
MULDER: (knocking again, louder) Anyone home?
No response. Mulder starts walking back along the porch. Scully follows.
Instead of going back down the driveway to the car, Mulder turns the other way. We see a garage (closed) and a waist high gate to the back garden. Mulder comes up to the gate and looks in.
Inhuman view again, from concealment of a bush or tree. We see Mulder walking up to the gate. The camera slowly zooms in on his face and throat as he reaches down for the latch. His breathing and heartbeat sound loudly.
Back to normal view. Scully behind Mulder as he seems about to open the gate.
SCULLY: Mulder, don't. We haven't contacted the local police yet. Let's see the full reports and anything your weird friends have found first.
Mulder takes his hand off the gate and they walk down the driveway. Half way, Mulder stops and looks back as if sensing something. Scully notices and looks at him. He shakes his head and they continue towards the car.
A hotel suite, some hours later. Mulder is sitting, shoes off and feet up, on a sofa. He has changed clothes and looks fresher than before. A large pile of papers is on the floor besides him, three or four more on a coffee table nearby, and he is reading another.
Scully enters. She has showered and changed as well, but looks dressed to go out with shoes and a coat. In one hand she has a stapled document of about thirty pages.
SCULLY: (looking at pile) Your gunmen friends have been busy.
MULDER: Yeah, and they managed to reverse the charges on a fax machine. I don't know how I'm going to explain that on the expense account. I've also got the full police reports.
SCULLY: Anything on the house?
MULDER: It's owned by a man named Phil, who's supposedly been living in England for some years.
SCULLY: Supposedly?
MULDER: I did some checking, and there's no record of him in England. And the neighbours in Waramanga have reported someone they thought was a burglar in the house while everyone was away.
SCULLY: What about the tenants?
MULDER: A number of different people have lived there, but a woman named Jakobsen seems to be the only constant factor. There was a Jakobsen on the nineteen seventy five expedition, maybe her uncle or father. She's a student.
SCULLY: Canadian Indian mythology?
MULDER: Just finished a PhD on the possible impact of extra terrestrial DNA on evolution, and is supposedly absent giving a paper on the subject. I thought only oddballs like myself studied that kind of thing.
SCULLY: No, it's been a hypothesis in scientific circles for some decades. Nobody has ever found any hard evidence, so it's largely discounted now.
MULDER: One thing, Scully, Jakobsen and all the other occupants have been roleplayers.
SCULLY: Roleplayers?
MULDER: A weird cult. Like heavy metal, considered a threat to society in some quarters.
SCULLY: Was Leahy a roleplayer?
MULDER: No. And neither was Robert Ewing, who may also have disappeared. At least, he stopped posting on the net quite suddenly.
SCULLY: (indicating pile) Are you going to read all of that?
MULDER: This is aus dot tv dot x files, Scully. All the threads come together here. It's the best material available for building a psychological profile of these people.
He hands her one of the sheets from the coffee table.
SCULLY: (reading) Ingrid Jakobsen...a couple of months ago...plutonic relationship? Well, my profile of her is that she doesn't use a spell checker.
MULDER: What if it isn't a mistake, Scully? Pluto, the Roman god of the dead. The Canadian Indians manipulate the spirits of the dead. The Fuggly is a being from above the clouds, and she's studying alien DNA. Don't you see, Scully? Jakobsen is trying to unite the old beliefs in existence beyond the body with modern genetics.
SCULLY: (hands back paper) Well, I've read the coroners
report on Leahy
(she gestures with the document)
and I'll be examining the actual fragments in half an hour. I
can tell you already that the initial report was wrong.
According to the coroner there are only seven hundred and
forty three pieces...
MULDER: (interrupting) Because they found no trace of the heart?
SCULLY: How did you know that?
MULDER: In the tales, the Fuggly brings the heart of the victim to the shaman, who uses it to enslave the soul. One of the nineteen seventy five expedition claimed to see the heart of their dead companion being taken away after the attack. It was still beating.
SCULLY: Canadian spirits, Roman gods, and now Indiana Jones?
Mulder, someone's been watching too many videos.
I'd better go now. See you later.
Scully exits. Mulder picks up another paper and starts reading.
Late at night. Scully is in her room, typing her report into a portable computer. We hear her words as a voice over:
"The wounds were made by a predatory animal, using both claws and canine teeth, rather than by any artificial weapon or instrument. The absence of blood pooling and other details show that death did not occur until well after the attack began. There is no evidence of any bindings or restraints having been applied. Abrasions on the hands, elbows, and knees; together with the presence of vegetable matter in open wounds, indicate that the subject was conscious and able to move throughout."
"Both the police pathologist and myself agree that the claw spread and bite radius indicate a body size for the animal not exceeding thirty six inches, smaller if the proportions are those of any known species of canid or feline. It is difficult to reconcile this apparent small size with the evident ferocity of the attack."
"The fragments of the body are in remarkably good condition, with no evidence of decomposition despite more than a week having passed since the time of death. The morgue attendants deny having taken any preservative action which might explain this phenomenon. Agent Mulder believes that the heart of the subject, which has yet to be located, is being subjected to some treatment or force which is responsible for cellular activity continuing in the remaining fragments. This is of course impossible by any known scientific or medical means."
Interior: a dimly lit household fridge. In complete silence, surgically gloved hands open the door and remove a large, scientific looking, glass container or jar from amidst the Coke cans, takeaway containers, yoghurt tubs, and milk bottles. A paper label with INGRIDS hand written on it partially obscures the thick liquid and shape floating within.
Close up of a hypodermic needle with a bright green fluid. A measured dose is injected into the jar. We see that within is a human heart, slowly beating.
The hands return the jar to the fridge. Fade out on beating heart.