Charles Grant - The X-Files - Goblins

Scully’s voice, and Hank’s answer; he couldn’t tell what they said, but the fear was there.

The black figure backed away, firing.

Mulder cursed and moved more quickly, keeping as low as he could without losing his balance. There were too many shadows now, too much movement.

He had to get there before the shooter disappeared.

At the south edge of a small clearing, he braced himself against a trunk, took several deep breaths to calm down and clear his head, and waited until the firing stopped.

There was no silence.

The wind and the woodland husked and shrieked at each other, pinwheeling debris across the clearing.

He would have to go across it; to go around would waste time.

He inhaled, blew out, and spun away from the tree in a crouch. He was halfway across, aiming, finger already squeezing the trigger, before he realized the shooter was gone.

Damn, he thought, and slowly straightened, not trusting his vision, gun still out and ready, squinting into the wind and throwing up one hand in disgust.

Something moved behind him.

He had only half-turned before something hard slammed off his temple, a glancing blow that drove him to his knees. His gun whipped out of his grip. His right arm lashed out automatically and struck something soft, but he couldn’t see clearly; there were too many flares of blinding, painful light.

But he saw something, and it made him hesitate.

Then a blow to his spine almost toppled him, and he lashed out again, losing his balance as he did, landing on his shoulder before he was pinned on his chest.

A giggle in his ear, hoarse and inhuman.

Then a voice: “Mulder, watch your back,” just before a foot caught him under his ribs.

He couldn’t breathe. “Mulder!”

Eyes watering, he tried to push himself to his hands, but he couldn’t breathe. “Mulder!”

Forget it, he told his arms, and rolled over instead, blinking furiously to clear his vision, spitting when a shard of leaf caught on his lips. But he still couldn’t breathe. Voices, normal voices anxious and searching, until his name was called again, and he saw, or thought he saw, Scully kneeling beside him on his left, someone else on his right.

“I don’t see any blood,” Webber said. “Mulder?”

He tried to smile reassurance, but it was too much trouble, and he let himself black out, to rest in the dark for a while.

By the time he regained full consciousness, there were sirens and shouts, the distant crackle of a radio. The wind had died, but the afternoon was still night. Scully was gone; Webber hovered nearby, and Mulder groaned to signal him and bring him over.

“Up,” he said, stretching out an arm when the younger man leaned down.

“I don’t know. Scully said—”

“Up,” he insisted, and Webber brought him to his feet.

It was a mistake.

His head swelled to accommodate the fire inside, and he swayed and didn’t argue when Webber eased him to a stump at the clearing’s north end and made him sit. Bile burned the back of his throat; his stomach surged without delivering. He spat, and spat again, bracing an arm on his leg and resting his forehead on his palm.

“Jesus,” he whispered.

Webber hunkered down beside him, concern adding too many years to his face. Mulder glanced over and smiled briefly.

“I’ll live.”

Webber didn’t look as if he believed it. But he told him that an MP patrol, alerted by the gunfire, had arrived only moments after the shooting had stopped. Within minutes, other patrols had arrived, and Scully was advising them and their captain on a search of the woods. When Mulder looked up, he saw silver beams slashing and darting among the trees. Voices called softly. Through the trees he could see half a dozen MP Jeeps and cruisers parked on the road, and a single civilian patrol car, its roof lights still whirling.

“Chief Hawks,” Webber confirmed.

Mulder nodded, and wished he hadn’t — the fire rose, and fell, and his finger gingerly traced what would be a hell of a lump by nightfall. There was no blood. Then he pushed aside his jacket, opened his shirt, and tried to have a look at his ribs.

“Damn,” Webber said. “What’d he use, a brick?”

“It sure felt like it.” He winced as he probed the area. He knew nothing was broken, however. How a broken rib felt was something you never forgot.

“Button up, Mulder, you’ll catch pneumonia.”

He smiled at Scully hurrying toward him. She seemed more annoyed at the wind slapping hair into her eyes than at him.

“You gonna examine me or what?”

“Please,” she said. “I’ve had a bad enough day.”

“What happened?” He nodded toward the search party.

“The shooter’s gone. No surprise. They found a crushed area back around the bend where he probably stashed his car. No tire tracks, nothing but this.” She dug into her pocket and pulled out a casing. “M-16.”

“Army?”

“Maybe not,” Webber said. “They’re not all that hard to get outside the service anymore. Cops, bad guys, collectors.” He shrugged. “Even guys leaving the service have smuggled them home.”

Mulder muttered about having it easy once in a while. “Well, maybe we should check. How many can there—”

Webber groaned in anticipation. “Mulder, no kidding, it’s the weekend. That means there’s about eight, nine thousand reservists running all over this place. And you want to find one rifle that’s been fired recently?”

“Hank, you amaze me. How did you know that?”

Webber shrugged again. “The interviews, remember? I’ll bet the people in town know as much about what’s going on on post as anyone who works there.”

“Not quite,” he muttered. He straightened slowly, hissing at the too-slow lessening pain.

“What I don’t get,” Scully said, “is how the shooter got to you before we did.” Her expression turned sheepish. “I saw your coat on the ground, I thought it was you.”

“It wasn’t.”

“So I see. I don’t know what he hit you with, but he knew what he was doing. He could’ve cracked your skull wide open.” She frowned. “What I don’t get is how he managed to change positions so quickly. You were a good—”

“No. I mean, it wasn’t the shooter.”

She was startled. “What?”

“It wasn’t the shooter, Scully. I saw him, the shooter, just before I got hit.” He winced as he touched his head again. “From the side, Scully. I was hit from the side, right over there. The shooter was still in front of me.”

Doubt was evident in her expression as she put the casing back into her pocket. “The goblin, right?”

“You got it. I just got a glimpse, but believe me, it was enough.”

Webber almost laughed, but caught himself when she shook her head in exasperation. “Mulder, you’d just been clobbered, remember? Anything you saw, or thought you saw, would be suspect, you know that.”

With Webber’s reluctant help, he stood, looking at but not seeing the MPs’ shifting lights. “It was a hand, and part of the forearm. The skin looked like bark.”

Scully opened her mouth to say something, changed her mind and waited.

“I heard it, too.”

She leaned away, an eyebrow cocked. “He left you a message?”

“It was like no voice I’ve ever heard.” He closed his eyes again, to try to sharpen the memory, felt Webber’s fingers lightly on his arm for balance. “I don’t know. It was hoarse, whispering, as if it had a hard time saying the words.” When he looked, she was scowling, arms folded across her chest. “Honest.”

“I don’t doubt you heard something. But I—”

“This is a joke, right?” Webber asked nervously. He looked from one to the other. “Some kind of private joke, right?”