Episode Summary
When a mother is accused of killing her unborn child, Mulder and Scully begin to suspect a more sinister force at work.
Episode Details
- Writer: David Amann
- Director: Rob Bowman
- Original Broadcast: AU: 24.03.1999 US: 03.01.1999
Cast
- Scully Gillian Anderson
- Mulder David Duchovny
Guest Cast
- EMT Matthew Butcher
- Wayne Weinsider Bruce Campbell
- Kim Britton Lenora May
- Deputy Arky Stevens Michael Milhoan
- Special Agent Jeffrey Spender Chris Owens
- Laura Weinsider Lisa Jane Persky
- Betsy Monroe Grace Phillips
- Dr Couvillion Michael Rothhaar
- Mr Ginsberg Jimmy Staszkiel
- Nurse Karen Stone
Quotes
First Carpool Man: Uh, next time maybe take a leak before we leave work. Okay, Dipwads?
Second Carpool Man: Can you read sign language, guy?
[Giving the first man the finger]
First Carpool Man: Is that your IQ or the number of Dipwads your mother had?
Dr Couvillion: It's important that you realise sonograms are by no means an exact science. I don't want to alarm you or have you jump to conclusions, because honestly, it's not something that we're perfectly able to explain.
Laura Weinsider: But I don't see anything.
Dr Couvillion: As I said, we may be premature in a diagnosis. It may simply be... An intermediate stage of growth.
Wayne Weinsider: But there's a problem.
Dr Couvillion: We see a development — an abnormal bony formation involving the upper vertebrae and something growing here — on the plates of the skull.
[Wayne Weinsider walks away]
Laura Weinsider: Wayne...
Wayne Weinsider: Sweetness?
Laura Weinsider: It might be nothing. I'm serious. Dr Couvillion really just wants to wait and see.
Wayne Weinsider: I just... want it to be normal.
Laura Weinsider: Oh, Wayne... let's go home, okay? Come on.
Wayne Weinsider: I love you, Laura... no matter what. You know that? Poopydoo?
Laura Weinsider: I know. Good night, Wayne.
Wayne Weinsider: Good night, Laura. Sweet dreams.
Wayne Weinsider: Laura?
Laura Weinsider: My baby!
Wayne Weinsider: Laura, it's okay. Laurie, you're having a dream.
Laura Weinsider: Oh, it was terrible.
Wayne Weinsider: It's okay. Shh.
Laura Weinsider: It was... Trying to steal our baby.
[Wayne Weinsider reaches under the sheet to stroke her stomach, when he pulls his hand back it's covered in blood. They stare at it in shock. He pulls the sheet down to that her stomach is much smaller and her night gown is covered in blood. Laura Weinsider starts screaming]
Deputy Stevens: It's not the kind of case where I quite know where to turn, you understand. Down in Hollins we do get our share of the oddball. On the whole, though, we're pretty much like any other little town. You got your home break-ins, your smash and grabs... nothing too wild. But given the victim's statement, the unusually vivid detail... Well, I just had to take Laura's word about her baby being abducted. I hear you specialise in these kind of cases.
Spender: You've come to the right place, Deputy, uh... Stevens. Now this woman making these claims she's your sister?
Deputy Stevens: Yes, sir. Laura Weinsider.
Spender: Mm-hmm.
Deputy Stevens: I've heard about the things people been saying about her, not to my face, of course, but... real mean and awful things about what Laura's part is in all this.
Spender: Now it says here, a doctor's report the day before revealed to her ah... abnormalities in the ultrasound.
Deputy Stevens: Yes, sir, that is true, but nothing conclusive, mind you.
Spender: I see. Okay, Deputy. We're going to put this right into our priority caseload.
Deputy Stevens: Boy... I really want to thank you. I know Laura's really itching to talk to somebody who will really listen to her.
[Deputy Arky Stevens leaves the room. Spender glances at the report again, reaches behind him and feeds it into the paper shredder]
Deputy Stevens: I know this went right into your caseload but I never imagined you would get here so soon, Agent, uh...
Mulder: Oh, Mulder. Fox Mulder. Though I ask you not to make that known to anybody. The FBI likes to keep our work on these cases very hush-hush.
[Mulder is holding a report that has been taped back together]
Deputy Stevens: Sure, of course but I would like to thank Agent Spender.
Mulder: Oh. No, no, no. I'll thank him for you because I have to call in my, uh, progress report.
Deputy Stevens: I hope you have something to call in.
Mulder: Oh, me, too. All right.
Laura Weinsider: I kept calling it a nightmare... But how many people's nightmare's come true?
Mulder: Not many. Certainly not in the way yours did, Mrs Weinsider.
Laura Weinsider: When I was having it... it just seemed so real.
Mulder: You mentioned a fire in the room, in your account and a, uh... a devil that held your legs...
Laura Weinsider: So that it could take the baby.
Mulder: But according to your statement... your baby... was not a normal baby.
Laura Weinsider: No. It was some kind of monster. With, um... horns and a tail. Can you excuse me, please?
Scully: [on mobile phone] Mulder, where are you? I waited 45 minutes for you this morning.
Mulder: I, uh... Before I tell you I'm going to ask you to keep an open mind.
Scully: This isn't an X-File.
Mulder: Call it what you like. Here in Roanoke they're calling it a demon baby snatching.
Scully: You're in Virginia?
Mulder: Look, I want you to take a look at this woman's charts. Strange in utero deformities were detected. I'm going to courier them to you, all right?
Scully: Mulder, we are supposed to be doing background checks not chasing X-Files.
Mulder: Look, Scully, Spender just round filed this case — it's unconscionable.
Scully: And what do you call rooting through his trash?
Mulder: Like that's any different from the assignment we're stuck with.
Scully: We
, Mulder? I'm stuck with. You're not here.
Mulder: Scully, this is a classic case of demon foetal harvest — what they called in the middle ages atum nocturnem — the impregnation of an unwitting woman by a dark lord of the underworld...
Scully: As host for his demon seed.
Mulder: Exactly.
Scully: I saw
Rosemary's Baby
on cable the other night, Mulder.
Mulder: Yeah, but this is the real deal. You check that woman's charts, you'll get hard evidence. Check her prenatal ultrasound.
Scully: Mulder...
Mulder: Just humour me, Scully. Take a look at those medical records. I think they'll prove my theory.
Scully: [on phone] Mulder, I think I found what you're looking for. I've been up all night going over the medical charts on the Weinsider baby.
Mulder: What'd you find?
Scully: The prenatal birth defects that you spoke of? They're all here, but they're subtle.
Mulder: Describe them to me.
Scully: Well, they look to be discrete bony deformities. There are spurs on the superior aspect of the scapula and small protuberances on the skull adjacent to the coronal suture.
Mulder: Protuberances
? You mean, like horns?
Scully: Well, they could be recessive characteristics expressed as vestiges of primitive morphology or a developmental anomaly like craniosynostosis.
Mulder: Do you think this is something that could be passed along by the father?
Scully: No, I wouldn't look to the father as any kind of dark force here, Mulder. I think it's the mother and Virginia law on third-trimester abortions requires you to put her under arrest.
Mulder: What are you talking about?
Scully: Labour was induced, Mulder. In the mother's blood, there was found a significant trace of an herb called mandrake. It's a poison that's been known to facilitate self-abortion.
Mulder: Mandrake
?
Scully: It's also been known to be used as an hallucinogenic.
Mulder: You think Mrs Weinsider self-prescribed?
Scully: Well, I called the doctor on a hunch and he said that the father was very upset about the news while the mother was quite the opposite. Look, Mulder, I'm going to fax this information to you so that you can present it to the commonwealth attorney for the county of Roanoke, but I think we have your baby snatcher here.
[Wayne Weinsider knocks at the door and a very pregnant Betsy Monroe opens the door for him]
Betsy Monroe: What are you doing?
Wayne Weinsider: Sorry. I forgot my key.
Betsy Monroe: Well, where have you been?
Wayne Weinsider: I told you I was going to be on the road until Tuesday... Poopydoo.
Betsy Monroe: I was just so worried, Wayne. We're getting so close now.
Wayne Weinsider: Honey... I wouldn't let anything happen, not to our little bundle of joy.
Mulder: Wayne — Mr Weinsider — I don't want to arrest Laura. I'm sure you'd hate like the devil for that to happen as well.
Wayne Weinsider: I should say so.
Mulder: So why don't you tell Deputy Stevens that it's okay to search the premises so we can clear up any misunderstanding about who's responsible for what happened here?
Wayne Weinsider: Of course.
[Mulder comes out of the kitchen with a large jar of fibre dietary supplement]
Mulder: Whatever else we find, I know everybody in this house is regular.
Laura Weinsider: I know there's nothing they're going to find, but why do I feel guilty anyway?
Wayne Weinsider: Laura, there's something I need to tell you about that... Something that I've kept secret for reasons that I think will explain for themselves.
Laura Weinsider: What? What are you talking about?
Wayne Weinsider: Well, I don't exactly know how to say this. I'm sure that you might find it painful, as I do.
Laura Weinsider: Wayne, what?
Wayne Weinsider: On the night... the night that you lost the baby I had gotten up because I couldn't sleep and when I came back to bed, you were... you had... our little baby in your hands. You were in some kind of trance, I couldn't get you to wake up. You keep chanting over and over
zazas, zazas, nastanada zazas and...
Laura Weinsider: Wayne...
Wayne Weinsider: All I could do was take our little boy, our little baby and wrap him up so I could make sure that no one could ever learn the truth.
Laura Weinsider: Oh, my god.
Wayne Weinsider: And the other night when you saw me outside... when I was burning the leaves?
Laura Weinsider: No! No.
Wayne Weinsider: Laura, I was just doing it to protect you. I knew that I could never bring back our little boy, our precious little Wayne Junior but I couldn't bear losing you.
Laura Weinsider: I don't know what to tell you. All I can think... when they told me that something was wrong... that there was a problem, was that this thing that was growing inside me was evil. I kept thinking that maybe it was something I did wrong and that this was my punishment. I told Wayne that everything was going to be okay... but I lied. But you have to believe me, Arky, I didn't mean to kill it. I didn't know what I was doing. It was the herbal medication. That's all I can think.
Deputy Stevens: Laura, Laura... I don't think you should say any more. I'm going to have to read you your rights. We're going to have to go down to the station and do all that. I'm sorry.
[Deputy Stevens leads her out the door]
Wayne Weinsider: You're going to be okay. I'm going to get the best attorney.
[The door closes and Mulder looks at Wayne Weinsider suspiciously]
Mulder: I know what you are.
Betsy Monroe: [on phone] Hello?
Wayne Weinsider: Hi, Betsy, it's me.
Betsy Monroe: Wayne, where are you?
Wayne Weinsider: I'm on my way.
Betsy Monroe: You're late, Wayne. I'm going without you.
Wayne Weinsider: I want to be there, honey. I don't want to be the kind of husband who isn't there every step of the way.
Betsy Monroe: Well you've already missed a lot of steps already. Anyway, it's just a sonogram.
Wayne Weinsider: No, it's not just a sonogram, honey, it's a picture of the expression of our beautiful love.
Betsy Monroe: Wayne, what have you been smoking?
Wayne Weinsider: I'm three blocks away, Betsy. I'm going to be pulling up in front of the house in less than five minutes.
Betsy Monroe: Okay. I'll wait for you.
Wayne Weinsider: Okay. Five minutes.
[Mulder pulls up beside Wayne Weinsider at a stoplight]
Mulder: Hey, Wayne. Where you going?
Wayne Weinsider: What?
Betsy Monroe: Who you talking to? Who are you talking to?
Mulder: You seem like you're in an awful big hurry.
Betsy Monroe: Wayne.
Wayne Weinsider: I'm late for an appointment.
Mulder: Really? An appointment? Appointment with who?
Wayne Weinsider: A business client.
Betsy Monroe: Wayne, I'm hanging up now.
[Betsy Monroe hangs up]
Mulder: Oh right, you're in the insurance business. That must take you out on the road an awful lot, huh?
Wayne Weinsider: Look, I'm an insurance medical technician, not that it's any of your business.
Mulder: So where is our appointment? How far do we have to go?
Wayne Weinsider: What?
Mulder: Come on, Wayne, I'll race you.
Wayne Weinsider: Those your kids?
Kim Britton: Why, yes.
Wayne Weinsider: I love kids. Got a baby on the way myself. Seems like I've been trying forever. Hold that.
[He puts gauze on her arm to stop the bleeding] Those are fine-looking boys. You don't know how lucky you are. Two cells, with all that can go wrong, and there they are... perfect.
[Kim Britton's kids are laughing and playing with Wayne Weinsider's car with plenty of encouragement from Mulder]
Wayne Weinsider: I want those kids out of my car.
Mulder: Okay, speed racers. That's enough driver's education for today.
[The kids get out]
Wayne Weinsider: Having your fun?
Mulder: [answering mobile phone] Yeah.
Scully: Mulder, you're busted.
Mulder: What?
Scully: I just got an earful from Assistant Director Kersh who got a call from Mr Weinsider who says that you're harassing him.
Wayne Weinsider: Leave me alone.
[He drives off]
Scully: Mulder... Mulder, I have to tell him something. What do you want me to say?
Mulder: Tell him I'm down here doing a background check on somebody.
Wayne Weinsider: I got a message you needed to see me, Laura. What is it?
Laura Weinsider: I'm afraid.
Wayne Weinsider: Well, I've been meeting with attorneys and... given the circumstances and your emotional state they feel confident of an acquittal if that's what you're worried about, Laura.
Laura Weinsider: No, Wayne. I've been thinking.
Wayne Weinsider: Thinking. About what?
Laura Weinsider: About your story. About how it doesn't make sense. You said you... wrapped the baby up to hide it but what they found in the fire was wrapped in the night gown I had on when I woke up from my nightmare.
Wayne Weinsider: But that's not possible, Laura. You must be mistaken.
Laura Weinsider: And I keep thinking about... the face of that terrible creature at the end of the bed. And I remember something that I didn't tell anybody. Not even you.
Wayne Weinsider: Laura, you're scaring me. No matter what you believe I only have one desire: to protect you. To put this all behind us.
[As Wayne Weinsider embraces her, she pulls his collar down slightly, exposing the bite mark she put there the night she lost the baby] Why'd you go and do that, Laura? You've got to know that I love you. And I just wish... you could've been the one.
Laura Weinsider: Let me go, Wayne.
[Laura gasps as he grabs her wrist]
[Wayne Weinsider begins inhaling, Laura Weinsider's the breath flows into Wayne's mouth and Laura collapses]
Betsy Monroe: That was a long five minutes.
Wayne Weinsider: I can explain.
Betsy Monroe: Oh, please, Wayne. I've heard all your excuses. Besides, everything went fine without you. It always does.
Wayne Weinsider: Did you get the sonogram?
Betsy Monroe: Yes.
Wayne Weinsider: Bring it back home?
[Betsy Monroe picks up a folder and looks uncomfortable] Is there a problem?
Betsy Monroe: The doctor found something. She doesn't know yet but there's some kind of bony growths on the baby's spine and skull. It may just be a stage of development. She really just wants to wait and see.
Wayne Weinsider: Okay. Sure. Whatever happens, you know I love you. No matter what.
Betsy Monroe: Do you, Wayne? 'Cause sometimes I wonder what's going on inside your head.
Wayne Weinsider: Nothing but good thoughts. You and this baby are my hopes and dreams.
Betsy Monroe: Mine, too.
Wayne Weinsider: Why don't I get you a warm glass of milk and we'll go to bed.
Betsy Monroe: Okay.
Scully: Mulder, you asked me to come down here and then you're nowhere to be found.
Mulder: I was down in the basement at county records doing a background check.
Scully: Mulder... It's me. That's your cover story, remember?
Mulder: That's where I was. I was piecing together the history of the man that did this to her.
Scully: Well, that's why I was looking for you because, in fact, nobody did anything to her. Mulder, there is absolutely no evidence of bodily injury, of overdose, of suffocation, of anything that would explain why she was in a coma.
Mulder: Perfect.
Scully: No, Mulder, I don't think you heard what I said. I did a complete medical review, just as you asked. What I'm saying is that there is not a shred of evidence to implicate the husband or anyone.
Mulder: Not a shred of evidence is exactly the evidence I'd hoped you'd find. Check this out.
Scully: Ivan Veles, born Czechoslovakia in 1956. Married twice, widowed twice, no children. Prosecuted twice for murder of wives Gisele and Helga. Acquitted twice on lack of evidence. Who is Ivan Veles?
Mulder: Wayne Weinsider. He's a Czech national, emigrated in 1994. He's also known as Bud Hasselhoff, also known as Gordy Boitano.
Scully: Gordy Boitano?
Mulder: There's more. Read on.
Scully: In Slavic societies the name Veles was synonymous with... the Devil. From the Lithuanian root
Vele
— a horned demon who sucks the souls of the innocent. Mulder, you're not suggesting that he is himself... a devil, are you?
Mulder: I'm not suggesting anything. I think the facts speak for themselves.
Scully: Mulder, I will accept that a man can be demonic that he may have demon-like attributes but why would a demon — if there were such a thing — bother with a 9:00-to-5:00
Make Room For Daddy
-routine just so he can off his wife and unborn child?
Mulder: I don't know why; I'm not a psychologist, but this is the best explanation for how that I've heard.
Mulder: He's done this to other women here, Scully, just like in Czechoslovakia. My guess is that baby we just dug up belonged to one of Wayne's other wives.
Scully: What are you saying, that he's trying to propagate? He's trying to breed?
Mulder: He's exercising his biological imperative and he'll do anything or say anything he has to to succeed.
Scully: But it doesn't make sense, Mulder. If he's trying to breed then why would he be snatching his own babies and burying them in his backyard?
Mulder: Because they're demons and he wants a normal child.
[Betsy Monroe screams as the demon at the foot of the bed grabs her legs and spreads them as he pulls her towards him]
Betsy Monroe: No! No! Wayne! Wayne! What are you doing?!
[She sits up and grabs the demon by it's chin. The demon, no longer in shadow, is a very startled Wayne Weinsider] Maybe you didn't hear me! I said, what are you doing, Wayne?
Mulder: Harmony Mutual Insurance has a second address for Wayne Weinsider all the way across the other side of Roanoke County.
Scully: You think he's got a second wife?
Mulder: Well, think about it, Scully. He meets or screens prospective women through work. That's probably why he came to this country in the first place — bigger gene pool, more women — then he plants as many seeds as he can. Let's just hope he hasn't been able to harvest many more of them.
Scully: Mulder.
[Mulder and Scully find Wayne Weinsider outside with a shovel, crying as he digs. They hold their guns on him]
Mulder: Wayne! It's over.
Wayne Weinsider: A normal life. A family. That's all I ever wanted.
Mulder: Where's the baby, Wayne?
Wayne Weinsider: How could she do this to them?
Mulder: Put the shovel down. Your lies won't work any more.
Wayne Weinsider: My lies? What about her lies?
Scully: Whatever the truth, Mr Weinsider, you can't hope to bury it now.
Wayne Weinsider: I'm not burying anything. I'm digging it up.
Mulder: Where's the baby?
Wayne Weinsider: Don't you understand? She took it. Betsy took it!
Mulder: You can't blame anyone else, like you did with Laura.
Wayne Weinsider: Don't you see? Betsy isn't like Laura. Betsy is...
[He collapses as bullets, fired by Deputy Arky Stevens, rip through his body]
Scully: Get the paramedics!
Wayne Weinsider: I just wanted what everyone wants.
Mulder: How many?
Scully: Four total. All here for some time. Maybe years. All normal, though, Mulder. No osteological deformities. And Betsy's baby isn't here. There are no fresh graves.
Mulder: I know.
Scully: What do you think he did with it?
Mulder: I don't think he did anything with it.
Scully: But she was recently pregnant. I mean, I saw her records. There are sonograms in the house. Showing the same defects.
Mulder: These weren't Wayne's babies, Scully.
Scully: Well, whose babies were they?
Mulder: I think Wayne realised something last night. That's why he was out here digging. He realised that he'd met someone even more evil than he was — who would sacrifice what he desperately wanted for himself.
Scully: Betsy?
Mulder: It was no coincidence that she ran into us last night. We were taken in by her just like Wayne was — by a woman who would say anything or do anything to get what she wanted — who was even more driven than he was.
Scully: To what?
Mulder: To have what only Wayne could give her.