The X-Files - 2.

2.10 Red Museum

US Airdate: December 9, 1994

<-J.A.S.D. BEEF; DELTA GLEN, WI->

(Cattle file into their pen as workers cross-cut and package meat in the plant. Two horns go off. A man starts walking out.)

MAN: 7:30. See you tomorrow, Beth.

BETH KANE: Okay. See you tomorrow.

<-BETH KANE'S HOUSE->

(Beth's son Gary lays on the couch, watching a TV show. On the TV, police stand on a porch as two black men are led out, both with their faces scrambled out. Her younger son, Stevie, sits on the floor in front of the TV. Beth walks in.)

MAN ON TV: Got information on a crackhouse... this is some pretty direct information... came from an informant who made the buy.

BETH KANE: I'm home!

(She looks at her younger son. On the TV, the police shout to each other as they surround a house.)

STEVIE KANE: Hi, Mom.

(She rubs his head.)

GARY KANE: Hey.

BETH KANE: "Hey?" All I get is "hey?"

GARY KANE: Hey, Mom.

(She smiles and walks into the bathroom.)

BETH KANE: I'm going to take a quick shower. You guys interested in getting a pizza delivered?

(Gary grunts. Beth laughs.)

If that was a "yes," you can call the order in and no pepperoni for me.

(She closes the door, sighs and starts to take her shirt off. From behind the mirror, a man wearing glasses watches through a peephole, breathing heavily. In the main room, the phone rings and Gary picks it up.)

GARY KANE: Hello? Oh, yeah. Sure.

(He hangs up and grabs his brother's nose with two fingers.)

STEVIE KANE: Ow!

GARY KANE: Tell Mom I'll be back in five minutes, okay, buttcrumb?

(Stevie nods and rubs his nose. Later. The time is 11:55. Beth is on the phone. Stevie lays his head on her lap.)

BETH KANE: He said he was only going to be gone five minutes and that was over four hours ago. Yes? No, I don't know who called him. The last person to see him? His younger brother.

<-DELTA GLEN, WI->

(Morning. Gary runs through the forest in his underwear, whimpering and cowering behind trees. Two sheriffs are driving down the road when one sees Gary runs out into the street.)

SHERIFF #1: Whoa whoa whoa!

(They stop and get out, walking towards him.)

SHERIFF #2: Gary? Gary Kane?

(Gary can do nothing but whimper.)

Go get him a blanket.

(The other sheriff goes to get him one. The first grabs hold of Gary gently by the shoulders.)

It's going to be okay, son. Hey, we're here to help you!

(Gary breaks free and starts to walk away, his feet shuffling. As he turns around, the sheriff sees three words written on his back. "He is One.")

Oh my God.

<-X-FILES OFFICE; FBI HEADQUARTERS; WASHINGTON, D.C.->

(Mulder shows Scully a slide of Gary's back with the words clearly written on it.)

MULDER: Gary Kane, 16 years old, High School Junior. "C" student, first-string varsity football, member of the local 4-H club. Not one of Wisconsin's more remarkable kids but still the apple of his mother's eye.

SCULLY: What does that mean?

MULDER: Nobody knows.

SCULLY: What does the police report say?

(Scully walks over to Mulder and sits on the desk next to him as he shows her the file.)

MULDER: The victim received a phone call and left his home. He was discovered in the woods in his underwear twelve hours later. He's been unable to give a coherent statement.

SCULLY: Any evidence of sexual assault?

MULDER: No.

SCULLY: Does it seem like it might have been a schoolboy prank?

MULDER: The other victims have had to be sedated and hospitalized since their ordeals. They were reportedly hysterical with fear.

(He stands up.)

SCULLY: Victims? You mean there've been others?

(Mulder nods and switches the slide to another person with the same writing.)

MULDER: One in eastern Wisconsin, one three towns away.

(He flips to another slide, then another.)

Both with the same black words written in black magic marker.

SCULLY: What's your interest in this?

MULDER: The local sheriff in Delta Glen, Wisconsin thinks he knows what's been happening to these kids.

SCULLY: What's that?

MULDER: He thinks they've been possessed.

<-DELTA GLEN, WISCONSIN->

(Mulder, Scully and Sheriff Mazeroski drive down a road in the sheriff's car. Mulder is in the back seat.)

MAZEROSKI: There's something I think you ought to see first. They call themselves the Church of the Red Museum. They're followers of a guy named Odin that moved out here from California three years ago and bought a ranch.

SCULLY: What's the significance of the name "Red Museum?"

MAZEROSKI: Well, Odin and the rest of them are a bunch of vegetarians. They drove the ranch right into the ground, turned 500 head of beef cattle into pets. Calls it a monument to barbarism.

MULDER: Probably went over big with the local ranchers.

(Mazeroski laughs.)

MAZEROSKI: Well, you gotta admit, it takes some big ones to set down in the middle of cow country and start a church like his.

<-CHURCH OF THE RED MUSEUM; DELTA GLEN, WISCONSIN->

(They pull up to the church as three worshippers walk by and towards a barn. They are dressed in white except for a red turban. Mulder, Scully and Mazeroski get out of the car and watch them. Mulder takes out an umbrella and holds it over his and Scully's head.)

MAZEROSKI: Kinda stick out like a sore thumb, don't they?

SCULLY: You know, sheriff, from what little we've seen, what, what little you've told us, they seem rather unlikely to be involved in the kind of activities that you described.

MAZEROSKI: Well, I, I won't say another word. You can just see for yourself.

(They walk into the barn and stand in the back. In front of them is a whole congregation of fifty or so people, with a giant viewscreen in the front of the room. A man gets up onto the platform in front, puts his hand together and bows lightly.)

CONGREGATION: Ommm...

MAZEROSKI: That's Odin.

(Odin sits down at a computer and starts typing rapidly. A woman in back of him reads off the screen into a microphone as the words come up on the screen in back of her.)

WOMAN: Today is a blessing from our lord and master, who awaits his flock in this time, the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Eighteen earth years from the beginning of the new kingdom. The guides speak through me today as messengers of word that we may be free from death and the passage into spirit. As the acceleration continues, we, the enlightened, must bring our teachings of the skills for survival to mankind. Repeat in prayer...

MULDER: They're walk-ins.

SCULLY: What are walk-ins?

WOMAN: We, the second souls of the first bodies...

CONGREGATION: We, the second souls of the first bodies...

WOMAN: Bearers of the word and keepers of the sacraments of a new enlightenment...

MULDER: They're believers in soul transference, enlightened spirits who have taken possession of other peoples bodies.

CONGREGATION: Bearers of the word and keepers of the sacraments of a new enlightenment...

WOMAN: Blessed mission and toil.

CONGREGATION: Blessed mission and toil.

WOMAN: Our struggle is transcendent, and your guidance, our guides...

CONGREGATION: Our struggle is transcendent, and your guidance, our guides...

(Odin finishes typing and looks to the back of the room at the three visitors.)

WOMAN: ...will carry us toward the dawning of a new age.

CONGREGATION: ...will carry us toward the dawning of a new age.

(Odin starts typing again.)

WOMAN: Today, we bear witness to three who do not believe.

(The congregation, one by one, slowly turn and look back at the agents.)

We encourage them to open their hearts and minds to our teachings that they who slaughter the flesh slaughter their own souls and must be taught the way.

(Mulder looks at Mazeroski.)

<-BETH KANE'S HOUSE->

(Gary and Beth are sitting down. Mazeroski is as well, but Mulder and Scully are standing.)

GARY KANE: I only remember parts of it.

MULDER: Which parts are those?

GARY KANE: I was in the woods and... I felt... a spirit enter me.

(Mulder walks over and sits down next to him.)

MULDER: When you say spirit, Gary, I'm not sure what you mean.

GARY KANE: It... it might have been an animal spirit. I can't explain it. Something... just came over me.

MULDER: And you don't remember who called you?

(Gary shakes his head no. Scully, standing in the doorway, looks back down the hallway.)

Anything at all about what happened immediately after you left home that night?

(Scully walks down the hallway, looking at various pictures.)

Have you ever had any dealings with anyone from the Church of the Red Museum?

GARY KANE: I've seen them around.

MULDER: Do you have any reason to believe that they may be involved with what happened to you?

(The pictures are of Beth, Gary, Stevie and the whole family.)

MAZEROSKI: Now tell him what you told me, Gary.

(Gary talks in the background. Stevie walks up to Scully.)

SCULLY: Hi.

STEVIE KANE: Hi.

SCULLY: Who are you?

STEVIE KANE: Stevie.

SCULLY: Oh, you're in all the pictures. You must be Gary's younger brother.

(Stevie nods.)

I'm Dana. Stevie... do you remember who your brother might have gone out to see the other night?

(Stevie shakes his head "no.")

Did he say anything?

(Through the peephole in the bathroom mirror, the man watches Scully. Scully hears footsteps in that direction and looks towards the mirror, but does not see anything. The man is gone from behind it. Mulder walks up to Scully.)

MULDER: Scully, we'll meet you outside.

(He and Mazeroski leave. Scully turns back to Stevie.)

SCULLY: Well, thank you for your time.

(Mulder and Mazeroski start down the front steps.)

MULDER: Has this boy ever been in any trouble?

MAZEROSKI: Gary?

MULDER: Yeah.

MAZEROSKI: No, I've known him since he was a kid. Same age as my son. Now, he's done some beer drinking, but he's just your basic sixteen-year-old. Least he was.

MULDER: You see a noticeable difference in him?

MAZEROSKI: Yeah, yeah. Gary Kane lived for football. He's a damn good athlete too. Now he won't even suit up.

MULDER: The Red Museum... how are they treated by the local citizens?

(Scully walks over.)

MAZEROSKI: Nobody much cares for them.

MULDER: Well, are they ever singled out? Shop owners refusing to sell to them, stuff like that?

MAZEROSKI: Well, there's a reasonable amount of tension but most folks are happy to just try to avoid them.

MULDER: Uh, can you recommend a good motel in the area?

MAZEROSKI: Sure. That means you're going to stay on for a bit. You think there might be something to this?

MULDER: Well, I, I want to run a background check on the church and this guy

MAZEROSKI: You've come to the right place for that.

<-CLAY'S BBQ->

(Scully sits with plates upon plates of food in front of her. She has a bib with the store logo on it, and it is covered with sauce. She finishes off a rib and puts down the bone, leaving some more sauce on her cheek by her lip. Mulder is sitting across from her with a bib on as well.)

SCULLY: You know, Mulder... ribs like these, I'd say the Church of the Red Museum has its work cut out for it.

(He wipes off the sauce on her face.)

Thanks.

So, you started to tell me about walk-ins but I'm not sure if I grasped the finer points.

MULDER: Well, it, it's kind of a new age religion based on an old idea. That if you, uh, lose hope or despair and want to leave this mortal coil, you become open and vulnerable.

SCULLY: To inhabitation by a new spirit.

MULDER: A new enlightened spirit. According to the literature, Abe Lincoln was a walk-in. And Mikhail Gorbachev and Charles Colson, Nixon's advisor.

SCULLY: But not Nixon?

MULDER: No. Not even they want to claim Nixon.

SCULLY: So are you still subscribing to the sheriff's claims of a possession?

MULDER: I don't know. In the absence of any other plausible explanation... it's a novel theory.

SCULLY: Well, I'll tell you something, I kind of feel weird saying this...

(Mulder looks out the window and sees a congregant of the Red Museum walking by to hollering and screaming.)

...but I got the creeps in that apartment today.

MULDER: Really?

TEENAGER: Hey, you tofu-eating towelhead!

(A car honks at the boy.)

SCULLY: Yeah, what, what's going on?

(The truck makes a U-turn and the boy in the passenger seat yells at the churchgoer.)

TEENAGER: Hey, veggieburger, who let you out!

(Mulder gets up.)

MULDER: I think the sperm posse just rode into town.

(The teenagers get out of the car and go to the boy, who stops and looks at him.)

RICK MAZEROSKI: Hey, diaperhead! We're talking to you. How's your pet cow?

TEENAGER: Did you get any milk out of him?

RICK MAZEROSKI: We're talking to you, Aladdin.

(He pushes him into the other teenager that is heckling, who pushes him back into Rick.)

What's the matter, diaperhead?

(He pushes him back to the other kid, who pushes him again.)

Huh? Huh?

RED MUSEUM TEENAGER: Nothing.

MULDER: Hey, leave him alone!

(They all turn to see Mulder coming towards them.)

Leave him alone.

(He looks at the Red Museum member.)

Go home. Go ahead, go home.

(The teenager silently turns and walks away.)

TEENAGER: Catch you later, Red.

MULDER: You got a problem?

KATIE: Yeah, but who asked you?

MULDER: I see four against one. I got a problem.

(Scully starts towards the group.)

SCULLY: Mulder?

RICK MAZEROSKI: Yeah, well, why don't you run along with the little wife? You're going to miss the tour bus.

(As Scully puts on her coat, Katie sees that Scully has a gun.)

FEMALE TEENAGER: She's got a gun.

RICK MAZEROSKI: Well, what's she going to do, shoot us? Go call my dad, Katie, I think he'd like to hear about this.

MULDER: Who's your dad?

RICK MAZEROSKI: He's the sheriff.

(Mulder looks at Scully.)

MULDER: Yeah, I think he would like to hear about this.

TEENAGER: Come on, let's just get out of here, Rick.

(Rick glares at Mulder, then walks past him, shoving into him as he does. The rest follow.)

SCULLY: Kind of hard to tell the villains without a scorecard.

<-KATIE'S HOUSE->

(Rick gets out of the driver's side and Katie walks around to him. The radio blares as he grabs her and french kisses her for quite a while. She smiles and he gets in his car. They wave to each other as he drives away. Katie starts towards her house and hears some whimpering. She looks over to the garbage cans and sees her dog.)

KATIE: Pupperdog? Is that you? Pupperdog?

(She starts petting the dog.)

What are you doing here, huh, girl?

(A man reaches out and grabs her, holding a cloth over her mouth. He drags her away, kicking and screaming. In the morning, Katie is sobbing. She is down to her bra and underwear. Every little noise makes her whimper even more. She leans up against a tree and looks up. She looks back at the ravens in an old tree. In her mind, the tree changes into a giant raven and starts pecking at her. She cries in horror and falls to the ground. Then she sees thousands of cockroaches crawling over her arms. She tries to brush them off, but to no avail.)

Get off me. Get off me! Help me! Please, somebody, help me! Help me! Please!

(On her back, the words "She is One" are written.)

<-MOTOR LODGE REGISTRATION->

(Mulder is on the phone writing something down, sitting on the bed.)

MULDER: Yeah, Eddie, this is all good stuff. Yeah, see what else you can find on him from the N.C.I.C. and call me back. At, at this number or on my cellular.

(Scully walks in. He hangs up.)

SCULLY: I just examined the girl.

MULDER: What'd you find?

(Scully sits down.)

SCULLY: Not much until the toxicology report came back. They found trace amounts of an unspecified alkaloid substance in her blood, possibly an opiate derivative, as well as a dangerously large quantity of something called scopolamine.

MULDER: Is that the stuff they use for motion sickness?

SCULLY: Well, only in very small doses. Anything past .2 micrograms and you've got a very powerful anesthetic with hallucinogenic qualities. It's been in the news lately because Colombian gangs have been using it in kidnappings to subdue their victims.

MULDER: Is it a controlled substance?

SCULLY: Yes, you'd probably have to be a doctor or a pharmacist to get hold of these quantities.

(He hands her his notepad and walks over to the table, picking up his gun and other things.)

"Richard Odin. Also known as Doug Herman. Left A.M.A. in 1986 over questionable ethics inquiry. Did not renew license."

(Mulder puts on his coat.)

MULDER: I'll drive.

(They walk out.)

<-RICHARD ODIN'S HOUSE->

(Mulder and Scully pull up. Mulder knocks on the door. The woman reading the words opens it. They show her his badge.)

MULDER: I'm Special Agent Fox Mulder. We're with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We'd like to speak to Richard Odin. Is he in?

WOMAN: Just a moment.

(Odin walks up the door.)

MULDER: Richard Odin?

ODIN: Yes.

MULDER: We'd like to ask you some questions. May we come inside?

(He tries to steps in, but Odin holds up his hand.)

ODIN: I'm sorry. I can't allow you in this house.

SCULLY: We can get a warrant if that's what it takes.

ODIN: You can get a warrant if you'd like, but you will not enter this building.

MULDER: Well, how's that?

ODIN: Because you're meat-eaters. The building that houses our kitchens cannot be desecrated by your presence. I believe I'm well within my religious rights to prevent it.

SCULLY: Yes, sir, but you can't hide behind your rights if a crime has been committed.

ODIN: Have I been accused of a crime?

(A loud moaning starts behind them. The agents turn around to see the congregation of the Red Museum, all surrounding their car, looking at them and chanting.)

CONGREGATION: Ommm...

MULDER: We can always determine that elsewhere. Can you step outside, please, sir?

(Odin looks at him.)

Can you step outside, Mr. Odin? We're placing you under arrest.

<-GRAHAM COUNTY SHERIFF'S STATION->

(Odin is sitting in a seat at a table. Scully sits across from him, Mulder and Mazeroski are standing.)

SCULLY: Are you familiar with a substance called scopolamine, Mister Odin?

ODIN: Are you familiar with bovine growth hormones and inhumane treatment of beef and dairy cow...

MULDER: Just answer the question, Mister Odin.

ODIN: Yes, I know it. But I've never prescribed it or administered it.

SCULLY: Have you ever ordered others to do so?

ODIN: No.

MULDER: Do your religious beliefs preclude you from exacting revenge, either physically or psychically, on those who might not share them?

ODIN: The barbarians will one day be cleansed from the earth...

(Mazeroski starts towards him.)

MAZEROSKI: Answer the question! You did it, didn't you? You did something to those kids!

(Mulder grabs him by the arm and leads him out.)

MULDER: Sheriff...I've already had to go through this once with your kid. Can you just take a walk?

DEPUTY OUTSIDE: Hey, sheriff, can you come here for a second?

(Mulder closes the door.)

MULDER: You know, for a holy man, you've got quite a knack for pissing people off.

(Mazeroski comes in.)

MAZEROSKI: We got problems down the street.

(Outside, a congregation of people stand in the middle of the road outside Clay's BBQ. People are yelling at them.)

WOMAN: Keep your mind open to the wisdom of the guide.

MAN #1: We don't care about the wisdom of the guides!

WOMAN: All we ask is that you listen and...

MAN #2: Woo!

(The woman's talking is drowned out by the townspeople's heckling. Mulder, Scully and Mazeroski are walking towards the scene. Rick and his buddy drive up and get out.)

TEENAGER: All right, man, let's do it!

WOMAN: ...before it is too late. End the slaughter. The rights of the just must be protected.

MAN #1: Please!

WOMAN: Just as the barbarism against nature must cease. Violence against nature begets violence against man.

RICK MAZEROSKI: How about a little cow blood?

(Rick splashes the woman with a bucket of cow's blood. The congregants moan and gasp as the townspeople clap and cheer. Rick's father grabs him by the shoulder.)

MAZEROSKI: What do you think you're doing? Get out of here, get going. Get!

(He pushes Rick away from the scene. The townspeople continue to moan and groan. Scully looks at an old man in a red truck, who motions for her to get in. Scully looks back at Mulder, then walks to the car.)

OLD MAN: You the F.B.I. agents?

SCULLY: Yes.

OLD MAN: There's something I'd like to show you.

(Scully looks back at Mulder, who is watching her. They speed down the road in silence.)

<-CATTLE FARM->

(They reach their destination and get out. They walk over to the fence as cows moo.)

OLD MAN: This pastureland belonged to my granddad. He bought it in 1890. Yeah, he died right over there, next to that cattle pen. Eighty-two years old. Just fell off the tractor one morning. My dad worked this piece for the next forty years. I put in twenty-five myself before I decided to call it quits. Sold it for eighty times what my granddad paid.

(He chuckles.)

SCULLY: Why did you sell it?

OLD MAN: Ah... business changed. People changed too.

MULDER: In what way?

OLD MAN: Competition. Used to get by with fifty milk cows. Now, you got to have five hundred. Used to turn them out to pasture, now you keep them in pens and grain feed them.

SCULLY: You said you wanted to show us something.

OLD MAN: You're looking at it.

(He points to two men tending to the cows.)

See those men over there? Well, they're injecting the cattle with something called B.S.T. Bovine somatotrophin.

SCULLY: A genetically-engineered growth hormone.

OLD MAN: Yeah, shoot them up and the cow will produce ten percent more milk. Feed it to beef cattle, more meat on the hoof. Changed the business. Changed a whole lot of things.

SCULLY: How do you mean?

OLD MAN: Well, that, uh, fracas in town this afternoon. Ten, even five years ago, never would have happened. People around here have changed... gotten mean... spiteful... dog-eat-dog. We had seven rapes here last year by high school boys. Well, that, um... this, this business of the kids being found in the woods... well, I think that you're going to find it all comes from the same root source.

MULDER: The growth hormone.

OLD MAN: Yes, sir.

SCULLY: But these hormones have been proven safe. They've been cleared by the F.D.A.

OLD MAN: Says who? The government? God...

(He walks back to his truck.)

MAN: Yeah, that's good.

(Mulder and Scully look at each other, then follow. One of the men hands the other a needle, then turns back. His name is Gerd Thomas, and he is the man that has been looking through the peepholes. At night, an airplane flies over the farm. Sitting next to the pilot is a doctor carrying a haliburton briefcase.)

PILOT: I don't know, doc. I'm losing oil pressure like crazy. I don't know what's going on!

LARSON: How far are we from the airport?

PILOT: We're not going to make it. I'll have to find someplace to put it down.

(The pilot looks out the window as the engine sputters. The plane is quickly approaching the trees.)

LARSON: Look out!

(The plane nose-dives into the clearing just before the trees. The ensuing explosion is tremendous. In the morning, firemen, deputies and sheriffs survey the wreckage, some talking to one another. Two men wrap up the bodies as Mulder, Scully and Mazeroski walk over.)

MAZEROSKI: We're still trying to I.D. the pilot.

SCULLY: What about the second body?

MAZEROSKI: That's Doctor Jerrold Larson.

MULDER: Did you know him?

MAZEROSKI: Yeah. He delivered my kid. Something else over here I want you to see.

(He leads them over to the briefcase, which is cracked open. Mulder lifts it open with his pen and sees that it is half-filled with money and half-filled with vials, some broken.)

SCULLY: Thank you.

MULDER: Looks like the doctor may have been delivering more than babies.

MAZEROSKI: That's why I brought you out here.

(Scully takes a pouch out from the briefcase and unzips it, holding a rubber glove. She takes out a vial out and smells it. Mulder stands.)

MULDER: Any clue what this is about?

MAZEROSKI: I have no idea. Jerry Larson was a pillar in this community. He was the last of the country doctors.

MULDER: Well, wherever he was coming from, I'd say that was one hell of a house call.

MAZEROSKI: You don't think this has anything to do with what happened to those kids?

(Scully holds up the vial.)

SCULLY: I think we'll know more once we find out what this is.

<-MOTOR LODGE REGISTRATION->

(Scully is on the phone.)

SCULLY: You're sure? Both kids? No, it's okay, I'm... I'm sure you're correct. Thank you very much.

(She hangs up as Mulder walks in.)

MULDER: Scully? You're not going to believe this.

(He closes the door. Scully stands.)

SCULLY: You found a connection between the out-of-town kids and the kids abducted here. Every one of them was delivered and treated through childhood by Doctor Larson.

MULDER: Yeah, the print-outs we found in the briefcase were mostly shipping orders along with a list of credit card numbers, each number corresponding to a card in the victim's family.

SCULLY: Why would he carry a list of credit card numbers?

MULDER: I don't know. Maybe to track them the way credit card companies track stolen cards?

SCULLY: But why? And what was he treating them for?

(Mulder sits.)

MULDER: What was he treating them with?

SCULLY: I don't know. We won't get the test results back on the vial until tomorrow. Are you thinking it might be bovine growth hormone?

MULDER: I know that was the first thing through both of our minds, Scully, but it just doesn't track. Not with that briefcase full of cash.

SCULLY: I know. And it still doesn't answer the question of who's marking those kids... or why.

<-CATTLE FARM->

(Some congregants of the Red Museum walk through the pasture and the man who was handed the needle before opens up the gate.)

MAN: Go on. Away we go.

(He pats the cow on the back, who moos and walks out. The man takes off his gloves and puts his needles away. The peephole man, Gerd Thomas, puts something in the back of his truck.)

GERD THOMAS: So, I'll see you in the morning?

MAN: Yeah. 8:30 sharp.

(He closes up his box and watches Thomas drive off. Thomas stops and watches a man drive by him in a blue car. He looks back and keeps going. The man in the blue car gets out. It is the Crew-Cut Man.)

Howdy.

(The Crew-Cut Man shoots him and goes back to his car.)

<-BETH KANE'S HOUSE->

(Beth is taking out the garbage when Mulder and Scully pulls up.)

SCULLY: Hi. Sorry to come unannounced.

BETH KANE: Gary's not home right now.

SCULLY: Actually, we wanted to talk with you, if that's okay.

(Inside, they are sitting down except for Mulder.)

BETH KANE: I don't know what to say. You think Doctor Larson was doing some kind of tests on Gary?

SCULLY: Well, thinking back, was there anything that seemed strange to you? Was Gary sick often?

BETH KANE: No. Actually, Gary's never been sick a day in his life.

MULDER: Gary was never sick.

BETH KANE: No.

SCULLY: Why was he going to Doctor Larson?

BETH KANE: Doctor Larson gave him vitamin shots. He gave them to a lot of kids. He said it was like treating their teeth with fluoride... as a preventative measure.

MULDER: Did you ever take Gary to another doctor?

BETH KANE: No. Jay had wanted to.

SCULLY: Jay's your husband?

BETH KANE: Yes. He was concerned that Gary wasn't growing. Jay was six-five. He wanted Gary to play college ball.

(Mulder looks into the bathroom.)

But then there was Jay's accident.

SCULLY: What accident?

(Mulder notices the pinhole in the mirror.)

BETH KANE: It was seven years ago. He worked at the packing plant. He had an accident with one of the machines.

(They look away.)

MULDER: Excuse me? What is this?

(They walk into the bathroom. Mulder holds up his hand and the light from the pinhole shines on it.)

BETH KANE: What?

MULDER: This light here.

BETH KANE: I don't know.

(Mulder turns on the lights and looks at the peephole.)

MULDER: There's something back there.

(Mulder punches through the window with a towel wrapped around his hand. He looks in and see a video camera with thousands of videotapes.)

SCULLY: What is it, Mulder?

MULDER: Looks like somebody's private little movie studio.

SCULLY: What?

(They all look in.)

BETH KANE: Oh my God.

<-DELTA GLEN->

(Rick and his friend are getting drunk, sitting in their car in a clearing. Somebody is sneaking through the woods.)

TEENAGER: I got to drain the lizard.

(He looks at Rick, waiting for a response.)

RICK MAZEROSKI: What do you want, applause, man?

(They laugh and the teenager gets out of the car. After, the teen finishes, zips his fly and starts back to the car. Rick takes a sip of his beer when the man, Gerd Thomas holds a cloth over his mouth. When the teenager reaches the car, it is empty. Rick's side of the door is open.)

TEENAGER: Rick? Rick?

(Morning. The sheriff deputies are standing over Rick's body and Rick's friend is off to the side. Sheriff Mazeroski pulls up and gets out. One of the deputies walks over to him.)

DEPUTY: Sheriff? We're going to find who did this to him...

(Mazeroski walks by him.)

MAZEROSKI: Get away from him. Get back.

(Rick is face-down on the ground, the words "He is One" written on his lower back like the others.)

Oh my God... Ricky! Son...

(He turns him over and sees his eyes are open and cold. He lifts up his head.)

No. No, no!

(A short while away, the Crew-Cut Man walks out of the woods and over to his car. He throws his gun in the trunk, slams it shut, and goes to his door. Scully and Mulder are driving down a road. Scully is looking at a folder with a picture of Thomas.)

SCULLY: His name is Gerd Thomas. He's owned the building for twenty-one years. He used to run a day-care center out of it. They're holding him for us.

(The Crew-Cut Man pulls up to the road. They pass him as he makes a right turn. Scully looks at his face as he drives by.)

MULDER: What is it?

SCULLY: I know that face.

MULDER: What?

<-GRAHAM COUNTY SHERIFF'S STATION->

(An officer sits Thomas down in a chair and walks out. Mulder closes the door. Scully sits down.)

MULDER: That's quite a video library you've compiled for yourself. I especially like the ones with the little boys.

(Thomas speaks in a breathy, low, quiet voice.)

GERD THOMAS: I know. I'm... a sick man.

(Mulder sits down across the table.)

MULDER: No. No, men who know they're sick try to get help. You just kept right at it for years.

GERD THOMAS: I didn't mean to hurt anyone.

MULDER: Did you kidnap those kids?

GERD THOMAS: Yes.

MULDER: Are you prepared to confess to those crimes?

GERD THOMAS: Yes.

MULDER: And to the murders of Rick Mazeroski and...

GERD THOMAS: No. I never murdered anybody.

(Mulder opens up a folder and takes some pictures out. He stands and walks around Thomas.)

MULDER: Did you kidnap Rick Mazeroski?

(He puts two pictures down in front of Thomas: a close-up of the words "He is One" and a picture of Rick's dead body.)

Did you write this on his back?

GERD THOMAS: Oh my God...

MULDER: Answer the question.

GERD THOMAS: No, I... I never killed them. I never killed anybody, I... I really loved those kids.

MULDER: Is this how you express your love for them?

(He puts down a picture of Rick's face, looking cold, eyes open. He then pushes Thomas' face towards it.)

Did you kidnap Rick Mazeroski? Did you write that on his back?

GERD THOMAS: Yes!

MULDER: Why?

GERD THOMAS: Because of what he had become.

MULDER: What'd he become?

GERD THOMAS: Because those kids have become monsters.

MULDER: You're not making any sense. Now, you... make sense to me.

(Thomas nods.)

GERD THOMAS: Because of Doctor Larson, because of the tests.

(Scully's mind drifts off. In her mind, she sees the Crew-Cut Man driving in his blue car. Then she remembers seeing him drive by in the white van. She remembers him shooting Deep Throat. The gunshot echoes in her mind.)

SCULLY: Excuse me.

(She stands up and walks out. Mulder looks at her, then back at Thomas. He walks around across the table and sits down.)

MULDER: Okay, what tests?

GERD THOMAS: Doctor Larson was using those kids as guinea pigs and he was using us too.

MULDER: What do you mean, "using you?"

GERD THOMAS: To inoculate the cattle.

MULDER: With growth hormone?

GERD THOMAS: I don't know exactly what it was but he was paying us a lot of money to do it.

MULDER: So you're saying that Doctor Larson was paying you a lot of money to inject the cattle with something and you didn't know what it was.

GERD THOMAS: Not until later. Not until after all those rapes.

(He takes a few jagged breaths.)

Doctor Larson told my boss that he felt responsible for everything that those kids had done... and that he was giving them the same inoculations.

MULDER: Was Doctor Larson involved in the kidnapping?

(Thomas shakes his head.)

GERD THOMAS: No, no... he didn't want his secret to come out. He didn't care about those kids like me.

(Scully walks back in carrying a folder.)

SCULLY: Mulder?

MULDER: Mm-hmm?

(He stands up and goes over to her.)

SCULLY: I, uh... I think he's telling the truth. I don't think he killed anyone.

MULDER: Well, how can you be sure?

SCULLY: I just got the toxicology report back on the broken vial. The residual substance couldn't be analyzed because it contained synthetic corticosteroids with unidentified amino acids. That's "Purity Control," Mulder.

(They walk out. Mulder motions to the deputy, who goes back into the room.)

MULDER: Do you know what you're saying, Scully?

SCULLY: The man who died in that plane crash was inoculating those kids with antibodies derived from what may have been an extraterrestrial source.

MULDER: He's been injecting those kids with alien DNA.

SCULLY: No, Mulder, that was never proven conclusively.

MULDER: But it's the same substance we found in the Erlenmeyer flask, isn't it? The same material my Deep Throat contact died for.

SCULLY: Yes.

MULDER: It all makes sense. The money in the briefcase, they've been conducting an experiment here. Somebody's been paying to have those kids injected with alien DNA to see how they'd react. It's been going on for years.

SCULLY: Does that man know anything about it?

MULDER: No. He's just some poor soul who blew their cover. I don't think he knows any more than he's telling us.

SCULLY: Well, I think his boss must have because they just found him shot to death in a cow pasture.

MULDER: What?

SCULLY: I think I know who shot him, Mulder. That man that I recognized on the road today... that's the same man that executed Deep Throat.

(Mulder stares at her for a second in disbelief.)

MULDER: Well, whoever's behind this, he's here covering their tracks. He's going to go after the kids. You get the sheriff and meet me at Gary Kane's apartment.

(He starts away, then looks at her.)

And, Scully... I want this guy alive.

(He walks away as she stares at him.)

<-BETH KANE'S HOUSE->

(Mulder pulls up, runs out of his car and knocks on the door. Beth opens it.)

MULDER: Where's Gary?

BETH KANE: He's in his bedroom.

MULDER: Go pack some clothes, things you need. You're all coming with me.

(A police car pulls up.)

BETH KANE: What?

MULDER: I'll explain later.

(He runs down the stairs as Mazeroski gets out of his car.)

Those credit card numbers, every kid's family that was listed. Get them packed up. Call out every man you've got.

MAZEROSKI: Where are we taking them?

<-RICHARD ODIN'S HOUSE->

(Odin opens the door to see Mulder standing there.)

ODIN: Yes?

MULDER: I need your help.

(Odin looks at him, a little shocked.)

ODIN: For?

MULDER: It may offend your religious sensibilities but it could help save some kids' lives.

<-CHURCH OF THE RED MUSEUM; DELTA GLEN, WISCONSIN->

(The townspeople file into the main building, murmuring. On the other side of the room, congregated around the seats, are the followers. The Kanes walk in. Mazeroski makes his way through the crowd and looks at the little kids of the Red Museum. Scully walks over to him.)

SCULLY: Sheriff... where's Mulder?

MAZEROSKI: He told me to make sure that the kids were safe. He thought there was some other place this guy might be.

<-J.A.S.D. BEEF; DELTA GLEN, WI->

(Mulder pulls up and gets out. He walks in and moves to a doorway, gun in hand. He reaches out onto the walls next to him with both hands and flicks on the light switch. Walking slowly, he stops and sees a trail of some kind of liquid on the ground. He kneels down and smells it, then follows the path, stepping around the large hanging pieces of meat. He walks over to the gasoline can on the ground. He follows the trail down a corridor where enormous pieces of meat stream down on each side of him, all wrapped up. There is some clanging to his right and he draws his gun again. Walking into the hallway, he sees another gasoline can. Going back to the room, the Crew-Cut Man, carrying another gasoline can, steps out from between two of the pieces of meat and walks the other way, not seeing Mulder. Mulder aims his gun.)

MULDER: Stop right there!

(The Crew-Cut Man does not even bother to look back, he just runs, dropping the gas can. Mulder moves swiftly after him and slowly walks down through the next meat passageway. He looks under some of them, kneeling and moving. Suddenly, the Crew-Cut Man swings out on a meathook and kicks Mulder square in the face with both feet, knocking the gun out of his hand. He smiles and runs off. Mulder gets to his feet and runs after him as the Crew-Cut Man locks him in.)

Hey!

(The Crew-Cut Man takes out his lighter and lights it. Scully and three officers walk in through the door behind him. Scully aims her gun.)

SCULLY: Don't move!

(He turns around.)

Put it down. Now.

(The Crew-Cut Man smiles.)

Just put the lighter down.

(Mazeroski holds his shotgun on him with one hand. His hand is shaking. Mulder bangs on the door. Scully turns to look and the Crew-Cut Man moves his lighter towards the gas can. Mulder bangs a little more but stops when he hears two gunshots and a man yelling in pain. Mulder bangs on the door more as three more gunshots go off.)

MULDER: Hey!

(Mazeroski walks towards the Crew-Cut Man's dead body, firing two more shots until he is out of bullets. He pushes the trigger repeatedly and the gun clicks. Mazeroski starts to cry. A deputy unlocks the door and Mulder walks out. Two officers follow him. Mulder looks at the Crew-Cut Man, then at Mazeroski.)

Get him out of here. Get everyone out of here!

(They start to file out. A deputy grabs Mazeroski's arm.)

DEPUTY: Come on.

(He walks out with Mazeroski, who looks at the Crew-Cut Man the whole time. Scully, typing her report, speaks over the scene.)

SCULLY: File number XWC060361. The identity of the man shot in the slaughterhouse has yet to be determined. His name, any record or artifact of his past, present or immigration status have yet to be found. His fingerprints are not on file in either the F.B.I. or National System of Records. At this time, it remains doubtful that anyone will come forward to I.D. or claim the body.

(Mulder and Scully walk away.)

<-CHURCH OF THE RED MUSEUM; DELTA GLEN, WISCONSIN->

(The children of the town stand together as Scully continues to speak.)

SCULLY: Under further analysis, the inoculant found in the broken vials was isolated and determined to be an unstable antibody of no known biological origin. After three weeks of study, the components of the serum, probably synthetic, have broken down structurally and, in this retrograde state, cannot be analyzed further. This coincides with the development of a severe and undiagnosed flu-like ailment affecting the children who were believed to be inoculated and some of the local families.

(The people of the Red Museum look back at the townspeople.)

To date, none of the congregants or members of the Church of the Red Museum have contracted this illness. I suspect whoever was doing may have been using them as a control group.

(Cut to a shot of the open briefcase.)

The shipping manifests for what is believed to be milk and beef tainted by the unspecified inoculant do not provide enough information to track their destinations.

(Cut to a shot of Clay's BBQ, which has a sign in the window that says "Closed Until Further Notice.")

A local advisory and quarantine have been established. Further inquiry into the tainted beef has been promised by the pertinent government health agencies.

(The old man sits in his car, looking at the closed shop.)

The F.B.I. investigation into this case is currently at a standstill. The case remains open and unsolved.

(He drives off.)