Fanfiction

My So-Called X-Files

written by Jason Pennington

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based on stories and characters created by Winnie Holzman

Opening: Three Rivers, PA 11:21 PM. We see a dark wet deserted street running with thick forest on either side. A red convertible (with the top up) is parked alongside the road. Its lights are off. A girl with red hair and a boy with long brown hair are sitting inside. The boy opens his door, gets out and walks around to the front. He pops the hood.

Boy: This will only take a minute.

He looks around under the hood for a second, then sees the problem. A loose battery cable. As he reattaches it to the battery, there is a large spark, and possibly a flash from inside the car, but it is hard to tell with the hood up. The boy jumps back from the pain of the shock. We hear the car door shut and footsteps running hurriedly into the forest. The boy pokes his head around from the front of the car.

Boy: Angela?

The rustling of the underbrush indicates that the girl has run off into the forest. The boy starts after her.

Boy: Angela? Wait, where are you going? ANGELA!

The boy takes of after her. We then see the girl running, with a frightened look on her face, through the forest. The boy is chasing her, not far behind. The girl runs out of shot over the top of a small hill. As soon as she disappears, a light starts to grow from behind the hill. The boy stops when he is almost at the top. We see his face as the light grows even brighter. He stares horrified into the light. Soon the light is so bright we see nothing but white.

We then see the boy from behind, a silhouette against the growing brightness behind the hill. Just as he starts to go down into the valley, we hear a camera click. The camera angle widens until we are looking over the shoulder of another boy, with curly blonde hair, who is taking pictures with his camera. The camera pans around until we are looking directly into the camera lens, with a brilliant light reflected off the glass. There is another click. [Music crescendo]

[X-Files theme]

A car pulls up in the parking lot of a police station. Mulder and Scully get out and walk towards the door. A detective sees them walk in and immediately gets up from his desk and goes over to meet them.

Detective: Agents Mulder, Scully?

Mulder: Yes?

Detective: Hi, I’m glad you could make it. I’m Detective John Dyer, in charge of the investigation. (They walk over to Dyers desk; he begins looking through the large pile of scattered papers on top of it.)

Scully: If you don’t mind me asking, detective Dyer, would you mind telling me why you specifically ask for our involvement in this case. As far as I…

Dyer: Well that’s no mystery. I have a close friend at the FBI, and when I told him about the case, he said you two were the only ones who could really be of any help.

Scully: But you report stated that this was nothing more that a simple case of kidnapping and possible homicide. Certainly any number of agents could have handled…

Dyer: Agent Scully. (He pauses for a second, trying to think of what to say) Perhaps it would be easier to drop this line of discussion until you’ve seen all I’ve seen. (Mulder and Scully give him a look of resignation - meaning "then show us.") This is the girl who’s missing. (He shows them a picture of the red haired girl.) Her name is Angela Chase, 15 years old, at sophomore at the local high school. Decent grades, decent home life. No dark secrets that I could dig up.

Mulder: No reason to run away.

Dyer: Exactly. That coupled with the boyfriend’s story seems to discount that as a likely possibility.

Scully: The boyfriend’s story?

Dyer: Did I not mention that in the report?

Scully: No, you didn’t.

Dyer: Oh. OK. Well, this is the boyfriend (he shows them a picture of the longhaired boy) His name is Jordan Catalano. He claims… Well, I’m not sure he claims anything. But if I were you, I’d definitely start by talking to him. But here is everything I know, all of it (Dyer indicates the files sitting in piles on top of the desk. He starts to walk over to another desk. Mulder starts to look through the files.)

Scully: (going over to Dyer and talking in a quiet tone) Detective Dyer?

Dyer: Yes, Agent Scully?

Scully: Did you ask for us specifically because you believe this case somehow involves abduction by alien life forms?

Dyer: (getting serious): To tell you the truth, Agent Scully, I have no idea what this case involves. But I’m not sure that any possibilities need to be ruled out at this juncture. Would you like some coffee?

Scully: Sure.

(Dyer walks over to the coffee machine.)

Mulder: Detective Dyer, I think we need to bring this "boyfriend" in for further questioning.

Dyer: Certainly, I’ll get right on it. (Dyer walks out)

Scully: What is it?

Mulder: This boy’s story. It doesn’t add up. Something’s not right.

Scully: Oh?

Mulder: Yeah, he claims his girlfriend ran off into the woods and when he chased after her he passed out, and can’t remember anything else. The police found him unconscious in the woods the next morning.

Scully: Convenient. Were there any witnesses?

Mulder: None.

Scully: (flipping through some papers herself) This is odd. His hospital report indicates extremely high levels of adrenaline and alatonin. Dangerously high. Not exactly what you would expect for someone who had spent the whole night unconscious in the woods. I’d really like to take a look at him.

Mulder: Well, such high levels of alatonin are usually present in people who have…

Scully: Mulder, don’t say it.

Mulder: (pauses for a moment, then seems to give the argument up.) Well, I think you'd better prepare yourself, Scully.

Scully: Why’s that?

Mulder: I get the definite feeling that this kid is very good looking. (Gives her a smile.)

[Scene change: Jordan is sitting in a chair in an interrogation room. Scully, Mulder and Dyer are sitting on the other side of the table.]

Jordan: Jordan Adam Catalano.

Mulder: Age?

Jordan: 18.

Mulder: Can you tell me about the night Angela disappeared?

Jordan: Well. We were driving down Johnson road, and all the sudden, the car just stops, you know. For like, no reason. It wouldn’t even turn over. So I got out and looked under the hood. Then all of the sudden, Angela like, jumps out of the car and runs off into the forest.

Scully: And you ran after her?

Jordan: Well, yeah.

Mulder: Why do you think she ran?

Jordan: I don’t know.

Mulder: It wasn’t because of the fight?

Jordan: The fight?

Mulder: The argument that you and Angela were having.

Jordan: We weren’t having a fight.

Mulder: Why else would she run away.

Jordan: (louder) I don’t know.

Mulder: I think you do.

Jordan: I don’t… I don’t know! It had nothing to do with the argument!

(Silence)

Scully: Don’t you think you should tell us about the argument.

Jordan: (silent for a second) Well, it wasn’t really an argument. You see I sent her this letter, and she thought that I wrote it. But I didn’t, someone else did. And when I told her, I thought she’d be like… mad, or something.

Scully: Was she?

Jordan: No. She was… She was… silent.

Mulder and Scully are walking out of the police station.

Scully: I think we almost have enough to convict this kid, Mulder. If we could just find what….

Mulder: (getting into the car) He didn’t do it.

Scully: (also getting into the car) What?

Mulder: (starting the car and driving away) He didn’t do it. He’s telling the truth. Or at least what he remembers of it.

Scully: Mulder, he’s obviously hiding something. He lied during his first questioning, how do we know he’s not still lying? (She looks a Mulder for a moment, trying to figure out what he’s thinking) Come on Mulder. Despite what I may or may not believe about the existence of extra terrestrials, there is absolutely no indication that alien abduction figure in any way to this case.

Mulder: What about the boy’s story?

Scully: The boy had no story, Mulder! He didn’t remember anything!

Mulder: Memory loss is very common in close encounter victims.

Scully: Just because he doesn’t remember what happened? Certainly you can’t believe..

Mulder: Scully?

Scully (exasperated) What?

Mulder: I can’t explain it right now. I… I have a feeling, OK?

Scully looks at him for a second, then looks towards the road, silent.

The curly headed boy is working in a red lit dark room, developing pictures. The first picture he develops is of a red car parked by the side of the road. The next few show two figures running into a light, a light that grows brighter with each photograph. The last picture shows the light lifting up above the ground. The boy holds this last picture for a moment, his hands shaking.

Mulder and Scully park their car by the side of the road and get out. They walk up into the forest, ducking under a "police tape - don’t cross" line. They continue walking through the forest till they get to the top of a small hill.

Scully: I don’t see anything.

Mulder continues to walk down the hill, looking very hard at everything. When he gets down to the bottom, he begins to look disappointed.

Scully: Mulder?

Mulder: There’s nothing here.

Scully: What?

Mulder: There’s nothing here, it’s like….

Man in the bushes: They’ve cleaned everything up.

Mulder and Scully turn around to look at the man. He is standing just at the edge of the clearing, dressed in jeans and a tan shirt and a blue jacket. He has a hat turned around backwards on his head.

Man: All the burn marks and the crushed vegetation, they cleaned it all up before I was able to get out here and document it.

Mulder: Then how do you know it was here?

Man: I know.

Scully: Who are you?

Man: Oh, I’m sorry. Fred Hairbuts the name, current president of the Alien Believers Club.

Scully: The Alien Believers Club?

Fred: Yeah (he turns his hat around and shows that it displays the initials of the organization) a local organization. But one very interested in this kind of thing. I believe this is going to be our biggest find. Speaking locally, of course. Not a Rosswell or anything.

Mulder: Find? Then maybe you can tell us what you found.

Fred: She was abducted, isn’t obvious.

Scully: Obvious?

Fred: What other explanation could there be? (A slight pause) It’s quite the standard government cover up. There were about 10 agents in town the night after it happened. And they did an excellent cleanup job, don’t you think? See over there (he points to some bushes on the edge of the clearing.) It’s my guess that those were planted to cover the burn marks on the ground. In fact, I’d say from the almost complete lack of evidence at this site, we are dealing with a rather high cover up indeed. Rosswell has nothing on this place. (Mulder and Scully look at him a bit incredulously - they seemed stunned by his tirade. Hairbutt continues.) And if you will excuse me, I have some other business to take care of. (He walks off in the trees. Mulder and Scully watch him go for a few seconds in silence.)

Scully: Well that was interesting.

Mulder: You must admit he makes a convincing argument. The lack of evidence is compelling.

(They walk off towards their car.)

A dark street. The curly head boy, looking very upset, is climbing a tree by the street. He has a rope in his hand. He starts to tie the rope around the limb above him, and then to tie the other end into a noose. As he slips the noose around his neck, he begins to cry. He mutters to himself "I’m sorry, Angela, I’m sorry." He stands up on the limb and looks down at the street. The shot shows his point of view of the street, which wobbles slightly. The shot returns to a close-up of the curly haired boy’s face. He closes his eyes and mutters, "I’m sorry".

He jumps.

Scene: Mulder and Dyer are sitting around a desk.

Dyer: Hairbuts? Yeah, I know him. A local nut. Went crazy after his wife and daughter died a few years back. Thinks the little green men are out to get him.

Mulder: But today he was certain that they got the girl.

Dyer: Yeah, well, he thinks they’re out to get everybody. I think he’s tried to convince us that every missing person report we’ve had in the past 2 years has been because of alien abduction.

Mulder: Has he ever been right?

Dyer: [laughs] Not yet. You’d think he give up after a while.

Mulder: Some people never do.

Dyer: You might be right. But I have to agree with Agent Scully, I think we should bring this Catalano boy in on charges of homicide.

Mulder: We have no weapon, no motive. (Scully walks up behind them) We don’t even have a body.

Scully: We do now.

Police cars are parked all around a dark street. Mulder, Scully and Dyer pull up and get out of the car. By a large tree, several policemen are pulling a body down from a rope hanging from the tree. They put the body on a stretcher and cover it completely with a sheet. Scully and Dyer walk over to the policemen and start asking them questions. Mulder spots a lady with short, blond hair standing at the back of the crowd, crying. He walks over to her.

Mulder: Mrs. Chase?

Patty: (still crying) Yes?

Mulder: I’m Fox Mulder, I’m with the FBI (he flashes his badge.) Would you mind if I ask you a few questions?

Patty: I….

Mulder: I know this is hard on you, but I could really use your help.

Patty looks up at him.

Patty and Mulder are sitting at the Chases dining room table.

Patty: Why is this happening? I think maybe, sometimes, I’ll wake up in the morning and she’ll be in her bed, and it will have been a bad dream? This…not knowing. I’m not sure I can live like this much longer. Its like my whole life has been stopped, and it won’t continue until I find out she’s OK. Or she’s… Does that make any sense?

Mulder: A little. (Silence.) Were Brian and Angela close?

Patty: Yeah. They were… they were friends at school. Do you think that’s why…

Mulder: I don’t know why, Mrs. Chase. But I can’t imagine that just the fact that Angela is missing would cause him to do what he did. There must have been something else. Mrs. Chase, this is important, do you know of anyone else we can talk to to find out why Brian might have done this. Someone who knew Brian and Angela?

Patty: Rickie

Mulder: Rickie?

Scully (walking up behind Mulder): Mulder, I think there is something you should take a look at.

Patty: Rickie would know.

Mulder: Thank you Mrs. Chase. We’ll try our best to find out what happened to your daughter.

(Patty stares ahead silently. Mulder and Scully excuse themselves quietly. The shot switches to Mulder and Scully walking down the Chases sidewalk.

Scully: Take a look at these. (She hands him some pictures.) They were found in the boy’s jacket.

Mulder (pausing by a street lamp to get a better look at them) They’re are incredible.

Scully: That’s one word for it. The car in the first picture belongs to Jordan Catalano, and it is in the same location as it was found the morning Catalano was picked up.

Mulder: The boy was a witness to the whole thing.

Scully: He might have been. But he’s not talking now.

Mulder: They seem to substantiate Hairbuts theory.

Scully: (looking at him incredulously) Mulder, they substantiate nothing. They are nothing more than pictures of a bright light in a forest. They could be anything, a fire, a helicopter, a, a very bright flashlight!

Mulder: Its too white to be a fire, besides, wouldn’t we have seen burn marks in the forest? We didn’t find anything, remember? There’s no way a helicopter could have made it into that dense clearing. And Scully, *this* (he holds up the picture of a very bright light streaking up towards the sky) is no flashlight.

Scully: And what do you think it is? A flying saucer? Mulder, you want to believe so much that you don’t see the irrationality of you own thought process. You can accept the story of someone so obviously deranged as Hairbut simply because you want to believe it. There is no proof.

Mulder: We can’t always find proof, Scully. But that doesn’t mean we should stop looking for it.

Fred Hairbut is standing on a podium in a small but very crowded room. "Alien Believers Club" is scrawled in chalk on a green chalkboard.

Fred: People if I could have your attention please!

Mulder, Scully and Dyer walk into the back of the room and stand against the wall. The crowd seems to quiet down a bit.

Fred: Thank you. Thank you all for coming.

Mulder: (under his breath to Dyer as Hairbut continues to talk) Are these meetings usually this well attended?

Dyer: No, usually its just Hairbut and one or two other loonies. This case has been a windfall for him.

Mulder: To say the least.

(Time passes, the meeting continues, Mulder looks at his watch)

Fred: (Continuing) Yes, we know exactly what happened to the girl. She was abducted. Aliens in a flying saucer took her. (There are several cries of disbelief from the crowd.) We believe it was similar to one shown in this photograph here. If you don’t believe me, perhaps you like to hear it from our visiting FBI agent. Perhaps they’d like to show the photographs of the UFO they found on the boy who killed himself last night. Would you like to do that, Agent Mulder?

Mulder (to Scully) Lets get out of here.

Mulder, Scully and Dyer head for the door. Hairbut starts yelling at them as they leave.

Fred: You cant hide the truth forever, Agent Mulder! There are some of us who know the truth! And we won’t rest till everyone knows!

Scully and Mulder are walking down the sidewalk towards their car.

Mulder: There’s something I don’t like about this guy, Scully.

Scully: Really, I thought he’d be just your type.

Mulder: I’m serious. I think he may be involved more than we realize.

Scully: Well, I need to get to the coroners to look at the boy. Then I’d like to talk to this Vasquez boy. Maybe some of Angela and Brians other friends.

Mulder: You better go ahead without me, there’s something I want to take a look at.

Scully: OK, be careful.

Mulder: (Walking off down the sidewalk) Aren’t I always?

A sterile looking lab. Scully is all done up in her autopsy garb. The curly haired boy is lying on a slab. She extracts a blood sample from the body and takes it over to some test equipment located next to the stretcher. She looks into a microscope and writes down some notes. She changes slides on the microscope and looks at it again. This time she seems taken back by what she sees. She looks through her test results again. She stops what she is doing for a moment, trying to figure something out. She reaches for her cellular phone.

[Shot of cellular phone laying in a car seat. It rings. Mulder picks it up.]

Mulder: Mulder.

[Scene changes back and forth between Scully in the lab and Mulder in his car.]

Scully: Mulder, its me.

Mulder: What is it?

Scully: I did a work up on the boy, and I found something that might be interesting. His blood contains extremely high levels of adrinalin and alotonin, just like was found in Jordan Catalanos blood the morning he was picked up.

Mulder: But that’s not that unusual in someone who was worked up enough to kill himself.

Scully: Maybe not, but I also found a trace amount of lithium triperoxin as well.

Mulder: I’m not following you.

Scully: In World War II the Germans did experiments with combining alotonin along with lithium triperoxin to form a kind of ‘truth drug.’ They found that it altered the physiological structure of the adrenal cortex. When combined with a high level of natural adrenaline, it placed the subject in a highly suggestible state.

Mulder: Where the same elements found in the other boy’s test results?

Scully: I don’t know, the test weren’t performed.

Mulder: Could we run the test now as see if the chemical is still present?

Scully: We could, but most likely we wouldn’t find anything. The lithium triperoxin would be broken down by the body’s own chemical processes within a day or two, leaving no way to discern it from the bodies natural chemicals.

Mulder: Plus the two boys extremely different reactions seem to discount it as a likely hypothesis.

Scully: Not necessarily. One reason why the triperoxin treatment was unsuccessful was that the subjects reactions to it where highly individual. On some patients the drug almost had no effect, while others had extreme reactions of anywhere to complete memory loss to delusional psychosis, even hallucination.

Mulder: Are you saying that this Krakow boy could have been drugged? And that who ever drugged him is somehow involved with the abduction of Angela Chase?

Scully: It could be, Mulder, but it makes no sense. There’s no conceivable motive. Who could have possibly benefited from Angela’s disappearance and Brian’s death?

Scene change: Morning. Rickie is walking down the school hallway, looking quite upset. Rayanne and Sharon walk up to him, but he doesn’t seem to see then. Rayanne stops him by force, and he seems to notice her.

Rayanne: Rickie, my God, are you OK?

Rickie: I can’t believe it. Its, like, unbelievable.

Sharon: I know, it’s so unreal. Maybe you better sit down.

[Sharon and Rayanne lead Rickie over to a bench on the side of the hallway and sit him down in-between them. Rickie is still dazed.]

Rickie: Why would he kill himself? I mean…

[They sit in silence for a few seconds]

Sharon: Maybe he didn’t?

Rayanne: Oh, come on, he hung himself, it is pretty obviously suicide.

Sharon: But there was like no note, and no, like, reason.

Rickie: Angela.

Rayanne: What?

Rickie: Maybe he killed himself because of Angela.

Sharon: I don’t think..

Rickie: You know how he felt about her, maybe he couldn’t like, take it anymore.

Rayanne: Rickie, we are all upset about Angela, but I don’t think even Brian would kill himself because she’s still missing.

Sharon: Yeah.

Rickie: Or maybe, maybe Sharon’s right, maybe somebody did it to him…

Rayanne: Rickie.

Rickie: …maybe whoever took Angela, killed Brian too, cause he knew something.

[Rayanne runs her hand across Rickies head, looking perplexed and not sure of what to say.]

Sharon: Maybe the FBI guys will figure it out.

Rayanne: FBI?

Sharon: Yeah, they came to my house yesterday and talked to me. Like, asked me questions.

Rayanne: What about?

Sharon: About Angela. Why did I think she might have run away? Or why someone may have taken her. They didn’t make a lot of sense, really. They didn’t talk to you?

Rayanne: No. [she looks up and sees a woman in a suit walking towards them, silhouetted against the morning sun threw the window.] Not yet.

[The woman walks up. Its Scully. She looks at the group of three.]

Scully: Are you Rayanne Graff?

Rayanne: Yes?

Scully: Would you mind talking to me for a few moments? About your friend Angela?

Rayanne: Yeah, OK. I guess.

Scully: [smiling] it will only take a few minutes.

Scene change: Mulder is in the local library flipping through some files, but to him looking up some newspaper articles, and then to doing more research. He looks frustrated. Detective Dyer walks up to him as he is looking through a series of files.

Dyer: Any luck, agent Mulder?

Mulder: [pushing the files away, disgusted] No. Nothing. [Pauses for a second, thinking] Detective Dyer, can I ask you something?

Dyer [sitting down] Sure.

Mulder: This Hairbut guy, the local UFO nut?

Dyer: Yeah, what about him?

Mulder: You said he went crazy after his family died, right?

Dyer: Right. His wife died about three years ago in a car wreck, then about 8 months after that, his daughter was raped and killed.

Mulder: This all happened here? In Three Rivers?

Dyer: Yeah.

Mulder: Then why can I find no record in any paper of any Fred Hairbut any newspaper or public record that’s more than two years old. And none that mentions anything about his wife or daughter?

Dyer: Oh that’s easy. He changed his name.

Mulder: He changed his name?

Dyer: Yeah, told you he went loony.

Mulder: [slowly] Could you please tell me what his name used to be then.

Dyer: Sure, Fred Barsh.

Mulder: Barsh?

[Mulder flips through some of the newspapers he was looking at, and pulls one out. The headline reads "Still No Suspects In Barsh Rape Case."]

Scene changed, Mulder slaps the newspaper down on the desk in front of Scully.

Mulder: I think we may have something here.

Scully: Wait. Are you telling me someone actually voluntarily changed their name to ‘Hairbut?’

Mulder: Scully, it makes sense. The man who raped daughter was never found. She was missing for almost three weeks before they found her body. He was so unable to deal with the fact that someone kidnapped, raped and killed his daughter that he invented the kidnapped by aliens story to keep himself sane.

Scully: Sane?

Mulder: You know what I mean. But people don’t believe him when he talks about alien abductions, so he fakes another one - this time with Angela Chase - so that other people will believe him. So he can believe that the same thing happened with his own daughter. But this Brian boy sees him, so he drugs him as well, to the point where the boy commits suicide. How else would he have known about the pictures in the boy’s jacket, unless he planted them there himself?

Scully: Mulder, OK, I’ll admit. It is somewhat plausible to believe that such a scenario is a possibility. But to go from there to a concrete case, its. We just don’t have the evidence. It’s just a wild theory.

Mulder: Scully, it’s the best lead we have.

Scully: Mulder, saying that someone is a murder suspect simply because their own daughter was murdered., it’s ludicrous! I mean, we have no other reason to connect Angela Chase with this Jody Barsh! None at all.

[Rayanne pops her head in the door just as Scully finishes her last sentence.]

Rayanne: Jody Barsh? What has she got to do with this?

[Mulder and Scully turn around and stare at her.]

Scene change. Interrogation room.

Rayanne: We were, friends, I guess. We used to hang out, anyway.

Mulder: Were you still friends when she was killed?

Rayanne: Uh, yeah. We were at this party, and there were these guys, and uh…. She said she wanted to go! I didn’t make her go.

Scully: Go where?

Rayanne: With that guy. At Lets Bolt.

Scully: Lets Bolt?

Rayanne: It’s like this club. Ok, see, this is what happened. We were drinking, and these guys came up and started talking to us, and they wanted to us to go somewhere with them.

Scully: Did you go with them?

Rayanne: Yeah. But not together. See, the thing is, Jody didn’t want to go at first. But then she changed her mind.

Mulder: What can you tell us about Jody’s Dad?

Rayanne: That wacko? Not much, other than he’s completely crazy, always has been. I think he’s into weird drugs too. Me and Jody were nosing around in her garage once, and we found this stuff, and wow! That was some of the best stuff I’ve ever had. It’s like it made everything make sense.

Mulder and Scully exchange looks.

Scene change to shots of Police serving a search warrant for Mr. Hairbut, and then his arrest while Mulder does a voice over.

Mulder: A search of Hairbuts home revealed several mixtures of alotonin and lithium triperoxin, along with several photographs of Hairbut that were later proved to have been taken with Brian Krakow’s camera. Hairbut was brought up on charges of the murder of Brian Krakow. However, no evidence directly linking Hairbut to the disappearance of Angela Chase has been found, and her whereabouts or the location of her remains continues to be a complete mystery.

Mulder closes the file he is reading. On the cover is…

X-File # 90210