"I like to watch."
Chauncey Gardiner in Being There by Jerzy Kosinski

XXXX~~~XXXX

Part I
Chapter 1

 

Washington D.C. June 2, 1999 2:20 PM

"What's a Scully?"

Any minute now I expect to get an answer. Sirens are filling my head, beating that old familiar rhythm. Patrol cars arrive first and ambulances pull up but are keeping their distance. I can see SWAT teams moving around on the roof of the building in front of us, getting into position. I motion to my cameraman. "Get some pictures of that." He nods; he's started even before I told him.

A car comes roaring up, screeching to a halt by our van. A tall dark haired man jumps out of the passenger side of the car and runs up towards the building. A lumbering ox of a bald man jumps out too and with surprising quickness for a man of his size manages to grab him before he gets any closer to the building than we are. He murmurs intently in the tall man's ear.

The man ignores him. "SSSccccculllleeeeee!"

Ah, this must be Fox Mulder.

It had been just another day lounging around the newsroom of DC's crappy Fox affiliate. For a guy in my position this wasn't unusual. I don't go looking for the stories, they come to me. I've gotten a reputation in the DC area for my exciting, on the spot reporting. Some would say I'm a jackal feeding on the suffering of others but I can't please everyone. I've got plans to move to a national show, spotlighting my unique talents, but I need the right story to get that attention. So I wait. And wait.

The phone rang. I took my time to pick it up. You want the source to be frothing at the mouth. It adds the right quality.

When I picked it up though, the source was not frothing. He was silent.

I started. "Raaker here. Hello? Hello?"

"Mr. Raaker? This is a friend. I have a story for you."

The calm ones frighten me, frankly. They always turn out to be the one with a bullet in the chamber. I break out in a sweat.

He went on. "Call the FBI. Ask to be patched through to Special Agent Fox Mulder. Give him the address of the old ice plant down the street from your station, do you know where that is?"

"Yeah." TV stations are notoriously in the worst sections of town. We have plenty of old abandoned factories rotting around us. That building happens to be isolated in a wide-open yard, probably just one door in and one door out. Nice choice.

"Good. After you tell him where it is...tell him I have Scully."

"A skull? Whose skull?"

He was impatient, "No, you idiot! Tell him I have Scully."

"Ok, than what's a Scully? Wait a minute..."

"No. You wait. Trust me. This will be a very good story for you. I guarantee you. You'll have time enough after your call to get here and get into position before Mulder gets across town from the Hoover Building. If you want this story you will do as I tell you and not get any sort of morals and call the police." Morals? Me? Please. As I'm gasping on the thought he has hung up.

What's a Scully? To find out I made the call. I motioned to my crew to load up the wagon and get ready to ride as I waited to be connected.

"Hello, Fox Mulder."

"Special Agent Mulder? This is Mike Raaker with Channel 5, Fox News."

He started fussing like a baby down the line at me. I cut him off.

"I've gotten a phone call from a man who gave me this address. It sounded important." Amazingly he didn't ask any more questions and just wrote the address down as I read it off to him. Usually Fed types take you apart before even getting past hello.

"All he told me...his words were...I have Scully."

For the second time today I was hung up on before I could get the next breath out. I jumped up from chair. "Let's go boys!" I smelled blood in the water.

 

So here we all are. Now all we need is the caller and the Scully.

Baldy is bearing down on me. Mulder is in the grasp of several other agents yanking him around, yelling at each other.

I got the jump on Baldy. "We were here first, Bud. Can't throw us out."

He clenches his jaw. "Yah, yah...you're the one who called Mulder?"

"Yah." I'm wary.

"Was it a man? What did he say?"

I stop him. "All he did was give me this address and said he had Scully. What's going on here?"

Baldy turns away. I'm of no use to him. He starts grunting into a walkie-talkie as he goes back up to Mulder. My cell phone rings. Mulder hears it and comes up to me.

"Yah? Raaker here."

"Good job Mr. Raaker. I knew I could count on you. All right. Tell
Mulder I want him to take off his jacket and his guns. I want him to stand in view of the glass door in front of you and turn around slowly. Have him lift the cuffs of his pants. Then I'll bring out Scully." He hangs up.

I pass the message on to Mulder. Baldy starts bawling at him like a stuck ox and Mulder ignores him as he sheds the Armani jacket and the guns from his hip and ankle. He starts walking up to the door and does his little dance.

We all wait. The glass door creaks open and two figures slip out.

People accuse me of having no heart. I have a heart. I just tend to keep it in a box at home. So when that horrible feeling sinks into the place where my heart should be, it can only ricochet off my ribs. This is painful.

A Scully is a little girl. A little red-haired girl with freckles on her nose. And handcuffs so tight on her wrists that they are cut and bleeding. Her white blouse is flecked with blood and untucked. Her canary yellow skirt is dirty and smudged. Her hose are torn and she is barefoot. Her face is of a very old woman, set and still. She looks almost bored tempered with an underlying irritation, as though she is late for an appointment. The combination is unsettling.

My eyes flick up to the SWAT teams. They wouldn't be able to get a clear shot. There is a large overhang and the man keeps he and Scully under it. He has oily hair arranged over a bald spot and large plastic rimmed glasses. He must have been a small man because this was all I can see behind the little girl.

"Dole. Todd Dole. Hey, you know, when a woman says she doesn't want to go out with you, this isn't the way to impress her," Mulder snarls.

Baldy growls.

Mulder is raking his eyes up and down Scully taking in the damage.

"Scully, has this guy hurt you?"

She speaks clearly. "I'm fine."

Mulder explodes with such anger we all jump, including Dole. All of us but Scully. "I didn't ask if you were FUCKIN' fine!" He hisses the rest through clenched teeth. "Has he hurt you...touched you?"

"No," is all she says.

Dole smirks. "No Mulder. I was waiting for you. As you well know, some things just need an audience, don't you think?"

Mulder tries to bring the tension down. "Hey, Dole, let's all calm down here...there's obvious been a misunderstanding, your feelings have been hurt..."

Dole ignores him and turns to the camera. "Don't listen him. You wanna hear about an unbearable work situation? They say nothing's going on, but she won't go out with me! 'I'm not interested!' All day long, trapped in that crappy little office...this damn heat...all day long, on assignment...they're all over each other...touching each other, staring at each other...it's like watching a ping pong match...and you know how the sound of that ball banging back and forth drives you crazy?" He is dripping spit on Scully's shoulder. She and Mulder hold each other in a tight gaze, seeming to ignore Dole. "She looks at him, she looks away, he looks at her, back and forth, back and forth...how's a guy supposed to get any work done!"

Mulder cuts him off. "You've got this all wrong. It's all in your fevered little dirty mind!"

Dole gives his long thin toady smile again. "I wanna play the watching game now, Mulder. Only now I get to play your position."

Both Mulder and Scully tense. I mutter into my cell-phone at my producer. "Switch to three second delay, George, I don't like the feeling on this..."

"Well Scully and me don't wanna play Dole, take your toys and go home." Mulder is cold.

"No, if I had to play, you have to play, that's the first rule." With that he nestles the gun against Scully's chin and drops his hand down the front of her body, pulling her tight against him. His arm seems unnaturally long. He doesn't have to bend over, yet his hand is at the hem of her sensible length skirt.

Scully takes in a sharp breath.

"Ok, your game, Watch Us Fuck...my version, ok? Stockings or Pantyhose, Mulder, which is it going to be?"

"I don't know! I told you, Dole, you've got it wrong!" Mulder shouts at him.

Scully tries to say something but the movement of her neck causes him to push the gun up against her chin again. She looks really pissed. I realize she had yet to look frightened. What is it going to take to scare her?

"Mulder?" Dole asks.

Mulder just shakes his head, staring at Scully like he is looking for the answer.

Dole is enjoying himself. My stomach tightens. "Ah, Mulder, silk, silk, silk..." Rhapsody covers his sweaty face. "Ah, skin! Stockings, Mulder, you lucky shit!"

Scully is trying to pull herself away without jostling Dole's hand.

Mulder speaks clearly and slowly. "I'm going to cut off your dick Todd, and I'm going to shove it down your throat until you choke."

Dole doesn't seem to hear him. "Double or nothing, Mulder. Underwear. Now the choices are, none at all, thong, silk high cuts, oh, help me here, Mulder..."

His hand begins to creep higher.

"White cotton! High cut! Jockey for Her!" Mulder yells out.

Scully gasps in relief. Dole smirks and we watch his hand slither towards her groin. He must find what he is looking for. "Very good, Mulder. Now see how easy it is to play my game?"

He does pull his hand out.

I whisper into the phone. "Are we still on the air, George?" He replies the affirmative.

"Now, let's take the game inside, shall we? You like to watch so much Mulder, well, you're going to watch."

"Think about it, Dole. You sure you're...up...to this?"

Dole growls at him and Scully warns him. "Mulder."

Mulder grins at her. "Come on Scully, I don't think you have anything to worry about."

Dole starts to pull the gun away from Scully's chin. Mulder tenses himself.

Scully speaks. "Mulder, stop it! Don't do this!"

"What?"

"Stop trying to make this man kill you!" It is as though all the rest of us, including Dole, have gone home for them. She looks mad as hell. "Dammit Mulder! Shut up! I can survive anything this man does to me, anything!"

Dole cuts in on them. "Shut up the two of you! We're going to go back inside. Scully and I are going to back up and through the door. Mulder, you will pace us, walking at the same rate. Try anything and I kill her. If you try anything Scully, I'll kill him. See how simple this is?"

The two agents must have decided to keep their argument about his suicidal tendencies for later. They stare at each other for a long minute and then they both blink, slowly.

Dole begins to move. All three move in some sick dance.

I had to watch the whole thing later on the tape to make some sense of it, something more than the whirl of color and screams and blood. On the small monitor I see Scully and Mulder, their eyes locked. I watch Mulder do a head fake, I watch Scully stumble, I watch Dole hesitate for a moment, not sure who to shoot at. He chooses Mulder, somehow missing. This gives Scully time to pivot and slam the gun out of Dole's hand. I see the fear on his face.

She has this look on her face; this look like her mouth is watering. She swings her shackled hands at his head, catching him on the jaw. She cuts him and an arc of blood slaps across her face. Not content to stop there, she swings back to the right, getting him on the chin.

Mulder has been scrambling for Dole's gun and all the agents are running around, waving their guns, and shouting at each other. The Bull is bellowing. "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"

Mulder comes up with the gun and stands, blocking the shot of the other agents. He stands over the two fighting agents, cackling. I can't believe it. Shouldn't he be protecting his woman?

Meanwhile, she is bitch-slapping this guy on some sort of nasty high level, involving a fist made of her clasped hands and the sharp edge of the handcuffs. Dole's face is a bloody pulp and he is down on his knees, but refuses to drop. I thought he was trying to push himself up on his feet, but as I watched the replay I could see him pull the hem of his pant leg up and yank a 9mm pistol out of an ankle holster. He snaps the pistol up and shoots Scully with a quick snarled, "Cunt!"

Scully is lifted by the impact of the shot and drops in a writhing pile at his feet. Dole pulls the hammer back again but by then Mulder is standing over him, pumping three shots into his chest. Dole settles awkwardly back down on the ground gurgles once and dies with his eyes still open.

Scully rolls over awkwardly. "The keys, the keys are in his pocket," she gasps out.

Mulder frantically goes through the pockets of the body as though it was a piece of trash. Other agents are hovering over Scully but backs away when he returns with the keys. He quickly unlocks the shackles, scoops her up and carries her a few feet away from Dole's body before falling down, clutching her to his chest, his eyes wildly looking around.

I'm staring back at the pool of blood she had left behind. It's much too large. So is the puddle that was quickly forming under Mulder. They are just a few feet away from us and I pull the cameraman after me to get a close-up.

Scully is whispering, "Damn, I think he hit the artery...Mulder, you've got to put some pressure on my shoulder."

He rocks her away from his chest and looks at her through cloudy eyes. He nods though, and starts probing at her shoulder until he finds the bubbling fountain of her wound. He lays one hand on each side of her shoulder and presses. She screams weakly. He sobs and eases the pressure.

"No, Mulder, keep it up, I need it that hard, it's ok..." she murmurs.

He presses his huge hands back over the bright red current. She stares up at his face. "Mulder, are you crying?"

He looks away, twisting his head, probably looking for the ambulance that I could see trying to fight its way through the nest of police vehicles.

"Yah..."

She manages to get her right arm out from against his body and reaches up to wipe the tears off his cheeks. She smears blood on his face and this causes her brow to crease in worry. "Don't cry..." she whispers. "...Promise me you'll never cry again...I'm so tired of crying..."

He nods but protests, "You never cry."

"I cry all the time..." she murmurs. "Promise..."

"I promise...I'll never cry again," he answers.

She seems to pass out, but her hand stays resting on his cheek.

The EMTs suddenly appear from somewhere and gently untangle her from his arms and flip her up on a gurney. Mulder struggles to his feet as they roll her away and began working on her closer to the van.

I'm pulling the cameraman with me to get some close-up of Scully, even though I'm pretty sure they were going to cut her blouse and bra off and we'll be taken off the air. But Hal pulls away from me and I turn to see what he's found.

Mulder is staggering through the crime scene. The tape is up already and they have thrown a sheet over Dole and are marking the bullet casings. Mulder reaches down and pulls the sheet completely off of the body in one sweep. He reaches to his waistband where he has tucked Dole's gun and pulls it out.

"Shit, gun!" someone yells.

Mulder takes aim and first blows Dole's head to mush, then shoots him in the balls two times. I think I'm going to hurl. Bald Bull is grabbing him from behind and screaming in his ear, but he doesn't seem to hear him. Mulder shrugs out of his grip but turns and hands him the gun.

Baldy looks down at the gun and then realizes his hands are now covered with blood from grabbing Mulder. He grimaces and tries to wipe it off on his slick FBI jacket. It doesn't work very well.

Mulder looks down at himself to notice the blood for the first time. He looks repulsed. His clothing is soaked in her blood. He tears his dress shirt off and tosses it aside, but his tee shirt is just as badly stained. He yanks that off over his head and wipes his body dry before tossing the tee-shirt aside. His skin is still stained red, but at least it isn't running down his skin. I can't say I blame him.

He wanders past the camera back to Scully's side at the gurney. They have packed the wound and given her oxygen, slapped some IV's in, but apparently have decided that a helicopter will be the fastest way to get her to the hospital.

He stands by her uninjured right side and pulls her hand out from under the blanket. She rolls her head to try to focus on him. From over his shoulder I can see her face and her eyes are almost black from dilated pupils. What the hell have they given her?

She pulls her hand out his grip, reaches up and pulls the oxygen mask away from her face.

"You ok?" she mumbles.

He gives a rusty chuckle. "Yah, you?"

"I'm ok..." She flails her hand around and somehow it lands on his bare red-stained stomach. She draws her hand slowly down, rising and dipping over his abdominal muscles. Her hand comes to rest on his waistband and she tucks it in and pulls. He leans down over her face. She reaches up to stroke his cheek. "You promised not to cry," she grumbles.

His face is still as wet as before. He lies to her. "I'm not crying."

"You are..." She pulls his face down to hers. Panting with effort, she rests her mouth on his cheek. She licks it slowly. "You are..."

Mulder stays that way for a moment, holding himself up with an elbow so that he doesn't put his weight on her. I wonder if she had lost consciousness. The tears are still wet on his face, dripping off the edge of his lips. She turns her face slightly to reach out and catch the teardrop with the end of her tongue, her mouth opening with a gasp for breath. Maybe that's all the encouragement Mulder needs because suddenly they are kissing.

An EMT on the other side of the gurney says what we are all thinking. "Oh, my God!"

Indeed. For a brief moment they are kissing passionately, their lips tugging at each other desperately. Scully stills, she has lost consciousness. Mulder gasps and pulls himself off of her. He gently places the oxygen mask over her mouth again.

We all look up as we hear the approaching helicopter. Bald Bull pulls Mulder back and gives him a jacket to put on over his bare chest.

Mulder tries to climb in after they have loaded Scully on the 'copter, but Baldy holds on to his arm.

"I have to go with her."

"Mulder, we'll go in the car, come on." He shoots a dirty look at me as he drags the disheveled agent away. All the cars began melting away, leaving my crew and I standing by our van.

I look at my watch. Twenty minutes have passed since we arrived. I grab the microphone to finish my report and notice my hand is shaking. Now I know what a Scully is.

 

End(01/07) send feedback to bugsfic@yahoo.com

Chapter 2