Charles Grant - The X-Files - Goblins

“Rain,” the chief reminded her. “And it was at least an hour before he was found.”

She nodded. “But the trail, even after all that time, seemed pretty clear, at least from the pictures.” She looked up, squinting, using her chin to show the chief the opposing roofs’ slight overhang, bulging with sagging copper gutters; it may have been raining, but only a downpour and strong wind would have made the alley as soaked as the street. Then she looked at Mulder. “He was facing the wall.”

And that, Mulder knew, was a hell of a thing.

If Scully was right, Grady Pierce would have had to have been damn near blind not to see his attacker.

Unless the attacker was invisible.

“No,” she said to the look on his face. “There’s another explanation, Mulder.”

He didn’t respond. He walked carefully, slowly, to the back and poked a finger at the fence. The wood was spongy with rot, and there were no marks on or in it to indicate anyone had climbed over. Or had tried to.

So the killer had left the way he had come in.

“Pierce must have known him,” Scully said as he rejoined them.

Hawks agreed. “The way it looks, there’s no other reasonable explanation.” He sniffed, laughed, hitched at his belt. “Unless you believe Elly.”

“The witness,” Mulder said.

“If you want to call her that. I wouldn’t bet my life on it, though.” He led them back to the sidewalk. “See, Elly is what we call in our small town, scientific jargon, a fruitcake.” He laughed again, shaking his head. “She’s a dear, Elly Lang is, but she has this theory.”

“Which is?”

“Oh, no. I’m not going to spoil it. This is something you have to hear firsthand.”

The first floor apartment was nearly as dark as the approaching storm.

A single lamp with a saffron chimney on a tilted end table lit only that part of the love seat where Elly Lang sat. Hawks stood in the living room entrance, his back to the tiny foyer; he leaned casually against the wall, hands loose in his pockets. Scully sat in a Queen Ann wingback that smelled of must and mildew. Mulder was on a padded footstool, leaning forward, hands clasped on his knees.

A small room, a Pullman kitchenette at the end of a short hall, a bathroom, a bedroom barely large enough for the single bed and a dresser missing two of its five drawers. Framed prints on the papered walls; a false fireplace with no logs; a jumbled collection of plastic and ceramic horses on the mantel; a fringed carpet worn through in places, only the ghosts of its original colors left behind. The bay window was covered with yellowed flocked curtains tattered along the edges and at the bottom. No television; only a small, portable clock radio on the end table beneath the lamp.

Elly Lang wore discolored, thick-soled nurse’s shoes, argyle socks rolled down to mid-shin, and a simple brown dress without a belt or trim. There was no telling how old she was. In the lamplight she could have been ancient — no lower teeth, collapsed cheeks, strings of dirty white hair untrapped by a hair net. No makeup at all. She kept her hands primly folded in her lap, no rings or watch.

But Mulder watched her eyes. They weren’t old at all, and of an odd pale grey that made them appear almost transparent.

“Goblin,” she said with a sharp nod, and a don’t you dare contradict me glare at the chief.

Mulder nodded. “Okay.”

She closed one eye partway as she regarded him suspiciously. “I said goblin.”

He nodded again. “Okay.”

“They live in the woods, you know.” Her voice was low, harsh, the rasp of a childhood Halloween witch. “Came when the army did, back in '16, '17, I don’t remember, just before I was born.” She straightened her spine, and she faded, leaving only the shine of her eyes, the bloodless line of her lips. “Things happen sometimes, and they don’t like it.”

“What things?” he asked patiently.

“I wouldn’t know. I ain’t a goblin.”

He smiled, just barely, and just barely, she smiled back.

“Miss Lang—”

“Ms.,” she instructed. “I ain’t blind. I read the papers.”

“I’m sorry. Ms. Lang. What my partner and I need to know is what you saw that night. The night Grady Pierce died.”

“Profanity,” she answered without hesitation.

He waited, head tilted, watching her eyes, watching her lips.

“A profane man was Grady Pierce. Every other word out of his mouth a profanity Especially when he was drinking. Which”—her lips pursed in disapproval—“he was most of the time. Always going on about his ghosts, his stupid ghosts. Like he was the only one in the world who saw them.” A slow disapproving shake of her head. “He never listened to me, you know. I told him once, I told him a hundred times to stay home when the goblins were out, but he never listened. Never.”

Quietly, respectfully: “You were out?”

“Of course. My obligations, you know.”

Mulder questioned her with a look.

“I mark them,” she explained. “The goblins. When I see them, I mark them, so this so-called policeman can lock them away until they burn up in the sun. But he never does, you know.” The head turned, and Mulder sensed another glare. “He could have saved that old coot’s life if he had picked up the marked ones.”

“I have a feeling that will change, Ms. Lang,” Scully said.

“Damn right it will,” the old woman snapped.

“What you saw,” Mulder prompted softly.

She shifted, pushing back into the love seat. Her fingers began an endless weaving.

“I was heading home.”

“From?”

“The Company G.”

Mulder kept his expression neutral. “And that’s… a bar?”

“A cocktail lounge and restaurant, young man, use the brains God gave you. I do not go to bars. Never have, never will.”

“Sorry. Of course.”

“It’s east of that hideous place Grady always went to, whores and old men, that’s all that’s there. Around the corner, on Marchant Street. A very nice establishment.” The lips smiled. “I know the owner personally.”

He heard the chief shift impatiently, heard a faint rustle as Scully shifted in her chair.

Elly cleared her throat to recapture his attention. “I saw Grady up ahead, going into that alley between McConnell’s and The Orion Shop. The Orion Shop is closed, you know. They cheated on your change. And the clothes they sold weren’t fit for a cow. The goblins drove them away. They do that sometimes, drive the robbers away.”

The fingers weaving.

The patter of light rain against the windows.

“I didn’t care, of course. About Grady, I mean. He called me names all the time, drunk and sober, so I didn’t care at all when he went into the alley. I kept on walking, didn’t dare stop, it isn’t safe for a woman on the streets at night these days, you know.” She looked over to Scully, who nodded her agreement. “I heard a voice.”

“From across the street?”

“He was yelling, young man. Grady Pierce always yelled. The army did that to him, made him deaf, I think, so he was always yelling even when he wasn’t, if you know what I mean.”

Mulder looked at the carpet. “Did you hear what he said?”

She sniffed. “I don’t pay attention to things that don’t concern me. He was yelling, that’s all. I just kept walking.”

Fingers weaving, then abruptly still.

He watched her left heel rise and fall, silently tapping.

“I looked over. Natural curiosity, to see what a drunk was yelling at in an alley.”

He watched her hands clasp, in a grip so tight he thought the bones might snap. He wanted to cover them, calm them, but he didn’t dare move.

“I couldn’t see him, except one leg kind of sticking into the light. I saw the goblin, though.”