Charles Grant - The X-Files - Goblins

She turned in a slow circle, shaking her head. The corporal had been drinking; he had, for some reason, come out of the woods down there by the ditch, staggered up here… and had been killed.

Mulder joined her, waving Webber to them. “You see it?” he asked.

The road was a flattened loop that left the county highway just west of Marville, skirted the post boundary here, and met the highway again a mile farther on. While it was possible Grady had been a random victim, there was no way she would believe Ulman had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The killer had followed him through the woods.

“He was meant to die,” she said.

He nodded. “I think so, yes.”

Webber trotted up. “So is it hollow or what?”

She frowned. “What? The tree?”

“Sure. That woman saw—”

Scully took his arm gently and turned him around, pointing to the place he’d just left. “There are no lights, there was no moon, and all she saw, from way back there, was whatever the corporal’s flashlight showed her.”

She waited.

“Okay.” He nodded. “Okay. But what was she doing out here?”

Mulder didn’t answer. He grunted, and headed back for the tree.

“Well,” she said, watching Mulder circle the tree again, squeezing between it and the caged white birch on either side, “she could be an accomplice. She could have been waiting for the killer.”

Webber disagreed, as she knew he would. “That would mean they both knew Ulman would be here, at that time. And they didn’t, right?”

“Right.”

“So it was what? Her bad luck?”

“That’s about the size of it,” she said. She also reminded them that the so-called witness, Fran Kuyser, had been drinking, and taking heroin. Not exactly the most reliable observer they could hope for.

“When are we going to see her?”

Scully hunched her shoulders briefly. “Later, or tomorrow. From what the chief said, the condition she’s in, she won’t be able to tell us anything anyway.”

“A hell of thing,” Webber said. He shifted uneasily. “Can you tell me something?”

She nodded.

“Are the cases you work on… I mean, are they always this screwy? Messed up, I mean.” He shook his head once, violently. “I mean—”

She laughed in spite of herself. “Yes. Sometimes.”

“Brother,” he said.

“Tell me about it.”

Mulder rapped the trunk with a knuckle, then pried at the overlapping bark. Scully knew, however, that he saw more than just the tree. That was only the center; his focus touched it all.

“That old lady you told me about,” Webber said, for some reason keeping his voice low.

Scully didn’t look at him. “Ms. Lang. What about her?”

“She said… I mean, she was talking about goblins.”

She did look then, sharply. “There are no goblins, Hank.”

But she knew what he was thinking: She and Mulder were the X-Files, and that meant this case contained something well out of the ordinary. It didn’t matter that the so-called paranormal had perfectly reasonable explanations, once you bothered to examine such incidents more closely. It didn’t matter that the extraordinary was only the ordinary with curious trappings. They were here, goblins were mentioned, and now she wasn’t sure Hank didn’t believe it a little himself.

Mulder snagged his coat on a bush, yanked it free angrily, and took it off.

A hoarse cry overhead made her look up — a pair of crows flew lazily across the road, ignoring the wind.

“This place is kind of spooky,” Hank said, rolling his shoulders against the damp chill.

She had no argument there. They could see barely a hundred feet into the trees now. If it was twilight out here, it was near midnight in there.

Slipping her hands into her pockets, she called Mulder’s name. They would find nothing here; the trail was, for now, too cold.

He didn’t hear her.

Goblins, she thought; please, Mulder, don’t.

“I’ll get him,” Hank offered, and was off before she could respond.

He hadn’t taken three steps before the first shot was fired.

Immediately, Scully yelled a warning, threw herself around the car and pressed herself hard against the rear fender, gun in hand before she even realized she’d drawn it.

A second shot chipped the tarmac at Hank’s foot, and he cried out, moving backward so rapidly he fell.

Scully eased herself up, squinting into the wind, trying to pinpoint the location of the shooter, knowing only that he was hidden somewhere in the woods east of them. She fired off a quick, blind shot, was answered by a barrage that peppered the road, forcing her back down just as Hank scrambled around the hood and squatted beside her, panting.

“You okay?” she asked.

He nodded, winced, and nodded again.

There was blood on his shoe.

He saw her look and shrugged. “Just a chip from the road on my ankle, that’s all.” He grinned. “I’ll live.”

She could see it, he was scared, but she could see the adrenaline, too.

Another barrage, this time at Mulder’s position, and she rose again and fired as Hank fired over her head.

Nothing.

She could see nothing.

There was no question it was an automatic weapon, its bark suggesting something less than an Uzi. M-16, maybe. Not that it made much difference now. Bullets slammed into the trunk, walking up to and shattering the rear window.

“Mulder!” she called into the silence that followed.

No answer.

Hank tugged at her sleeve when the firing paused. “Gas tank,” he warned, and on a count of three, they slipped back toward the hood. When the next round was aimed at Mulder, she took the opportunity to dart low across the pebbled verge and into the trees, pressing her shoulder against the trunk of a fat black oak. Webber found a position to her right and deeper into the woods.

“There!” he called, and fired at a point just beyond the far end of the ditch on the other side of the road.

She couldn’t see anything, and then — she rubbed a hand quickly across her eyes. In the twisting leaves, a shadow. Or a figure all in black. It didn’t move until Hank fired again, and then it vanished.

She looked to her left, and caught her breath.

“He’s down!” she called to Webber. “Mulder’s down!”

Mulder froze in shocked surprise at the first shot, dropped to the ground at the second, his own weapon out as he heard Scully and Hank return fire. But he couldn’t see where the shooter was. The oak, the birch, the underbrush, all blinded him. Quickly, keeping low, he moved to his left, and dropped again when leaves and twigs were shredded above him, peppering his skull, stinging his cheeks.

He covered his head with one arm and waited, moving again when the firing concentrated again on the road, letting instinct take him deeper into the woods, tree to tree, searching for a muzzle flash, firing once, and once again, in hopes of diverting the shooter’s attention away from Scully and Webber.

He heard glass shatter.

He heard Scully’s voice.

A pine gave him cover, but he flinched anyway when the attack resumed on his original position.

It was luck, then, that the shooter hadn’t seen him maneuvering deeper and around, and he used the time to search again, grunting softly when he saw the flash, and a dark figure pressed against the dark trunk of a lightning-blasted tree. He couldn’t tell from this distance who it was; the figure had dressed in black from ski mask to shoes.

It didn’t look like any goblin to him.

The wind quickened.

He angled inward again, and east, hoping the coming storm’s thrashing branches and spinning leaves would make enough noise and present enough distraction that he’d be able to get close enough for a decent shot.