8ABX04 Patience

First Agent: So, this is where the bad kids are banished to.

Second Agent: Put me down here I'd probably cook up a lot of crazy ideas, too.

[The two agents, with Doggett leading, round the doorway and spot Scully in The X-Files office]

Scully: Good morning.

Doggett: Morning. [to the agents] Um... I'll catch you guys later. [They leave silently] Some friends... they're just curious.

Scully: I'm not here to be a curiosity, Agent Doggett. I'm here to work.

Doggett: I am, too, Agent Scully. I've been here all weekend and early this morning, I went over every X-File in the cabinet there. I just left to get some coffee.

Scully: Well... do you have any questions?

Doggett: Just a few. Maybe first you could tell me where your area is here and... uh... where mine's going to be.

Scully: This is my partner's office, Agent Doggett. You and I will just be using it for a while. [She sets Mulder's nameplate down firmly on the desk]

Doggett: So, where do we get started?

[Scully starts the slide projector]

Scully: Homicides: two... in Idaho. White male, 62, undertaker by profession, he was killed on his front porch about ten feet away from his wife. [She advances a slide — it's a photograph of the damage done to Tall George's face and neck]

Doggett: Holy god.

Scully: Cause of death was blood loss from numerous deep wounds... from bites. Any thoughts, any questions?

Doggett: Bites?

Scully: On his head, torso and hands. Two of his fingers were missing... eaten off.

Doggett: By what, an animal?

Scully: These were murders. The, uh, bites on his wife appear to be human.

Doggett: I've seen some violent crimes, I mean, some seriously screwed up stuff, but, uh... this is extreme. Is there demonstration of motive?

Scully: Not according to local PD.

Doggett: Is there any pattern, uh... ritual or anything? [Scully shakes her head] I have to admit, Agent Scully, I'm at a loss.

Scully: Well, that's a good place to start.

---

Detective Abbott: You the folks from the FBI?

Scully: Yeah.

Detective Abbott: Yale Abbott, Cassia County Sheriff's.

Scully: Hi. Agent Scully. This is Agent Doggett.

[Detective Abbott shakes Scully's hand politely, then turns his back on her, focusing his attention on Doggett]

Detective Abbott: We like to think we can handle our own problems around here, but a couple hotshots up in the county seat seem to think this is beyond us. Not that we don't appreciate your coming out all this way to give us a hand.

Doggett: Well, I hope we can. I have to admit I'm a little baffled by what I've seen.

Detective Abbott: Oh, really?

Scully: Understand, Detective, that we've seen cases like yours regularly on our unit. Agent Doggett has only just been assigned to the X-Files. I can assure you that there's nothing baffling about human bite marks.

Detective Abbott: Well, that's just what I was getting around to, ma'am. We're not so sure now that these bites are human. The bodies were discovered by neighbours, so there was contamination of the general crime scene. My boys did a real damn good job of separating the various shoe prints and pulling these. Come on over. [He shows them a dusted animal-like footprint with four toes] Right there, see that?

Doggett: What is it?

Detective Abbott: It's not human, I know that.

Scully: It's not quite animal, either.

Detective Abbott: There's only four toes.

Scully: That's not an unheard of birth defect. Uh, no more rare than polydactylism.

Detective Abbott: What did she just say?

Doggett: I assume she means it could be human. Is that a fair assumption?

Scully: I say that assumption is the problem here. A strange print is found and immediately the most important piece of evidence is just thrown out to try and force an explanation. Maybe this print can help explain those bite marks.

Detective Abbott: How?

Scully: I'm not quite sure yet.

Detective Abbott: [to Doggett] She's not quite sure yet.

Doggett: Well, I have to say I've worked a lot of homicides but if the victims laid out here for any time at all in a setting like this, it'd be pretty remarkable if they didn't attract animals.

Scully: I think that post-mortem predation is definitely a consideration here, but I only see one print and if it were an animal there would be numerous prints all over here and in the yard. [They turn to the deputies and technicians standing in the yard, who sheepishly look down at their feet and begin carefully stepping aside, searching for any clues they may have inadvertently contaminated] You agree, Agent Doggett?

Doggett: I'm going to go take a look around. [He goes into the house]

Detective Abbott: You know I got two old folks in the morgue mauled beyond recognition. I have no motive to go on, no intent. There's not one shred of evidence that cries out for a human explanation, yet you stand there telling me flat out that what we're looking for is a man. Thanks for everything, Agent Scully. We'll take it from here.

Scully: I'm sure your explanation will mollify all those hotshots down at the county seat, Detective, and relieve any general anxiety about what this thing might be... but only until it strikes again. And one more thing: I never said that what you're looking for is a man. [Detective Abbott leaves]

Doggett: Agent Scully. [Scully joins him at the foot of the stairs] Is that a second print?

Scully: It could be but I'm not sure if it tells us anything.

Doggett: Well, maybe there's no prints in the yard because whatever made these didn't go through the yard. It came through the house.

Scully: Well, if anything, I'd say this print leads up the stairs.

[Doggett goes upstairs and looks under the bed]

Doggett: Think I've got another partial here. You know, there is a more obvious explanation.

Scully: Mm-hmm.

Doggett: A more basic answer, is what we're dealing with here is simply a man. A psychotic killer with a deformed foot. You're familiar with the principle of Occam's Razor?

Scully: Yeah. You take every possible explanation and you choose the simplest one. Agent Mulder used to refer to it as Occam's Principle of Limited Imagination. Unless you have a simple explanation as to how a killer with a deformed foot leaves a print only every 25 feet.

Doggett: No.

Scully: Or to what he'd even be doing up here.

Doggett: I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out just like you are. [He tries to open the bedroom window, but it's painted shut. Scully goes into the wardrobe and looks up]

Scully: Agent Doggett. [They look up at the open hatch to the attic. Doggett helps Scully up into the attic] It's dark up here.

Doggett: What do you see? Agent Scully?

Scully: Right now, not a heck of a lot. [Doggett joins her in the attic] If there was anything up here it might have gone out that window.

Doggett: You ever carry one of these? [A mini maglite]

Scully: Never.

[They look around the attic]

Doggett: V for victory. [Doggett spots two mutilated fingers on an old table]

Scully: What?

Doggett: You said the male victim was missing two fingers? Well, how did the fingers get up here?

Scully: Well, from their smell, I'd say they were regurgitated. Recently.

Doggett: By what?

Scully: I saw those on the porch, too. [There are deep gouges in the rafters]

Doggett: Looks like, to me... I don't know. Like it was... it was...

Scully: Hanging there?

---

Doggett: You're still here.

Scully: Yeah. Well, I was waiting for some lab results and then I wanted to take another look at the body.

Doggett: Why? What did you find?

Scully: Nothing that will allay anyone's fears about what killed this man or his wife.

Doggett: What? You mean who killed them.

Scully: Well, to be honest, what I found here leans more towards an animal explanation. The, uh, scratches on the body match the four-toed prints that we found. And the bites have fang-like tears. What I thought were marks left by human molars are now inconclusive because of enzymes that were found in the bites which are clearly inhuman — anticoagulants which... are found solely in the saliva of bats.

Doggett: Bats.

Scully: Yeah. I can't exactly explain it but I realise that I owe the Detective an apology.

Doggett: Well, I'm not so sure about that. Montana headline circa 1956. The story's the same as what you told me. [He shows her an old newspaper — the Montana Press Telegram. Hunters kill Human Bat! Three men are proudly holding a dead Bat Thing creature between them like a trophy]

Scully: [reading] The creature was taken to the county coroner who confirmed it was neither man nor animal.

Doggett: Two days later, the county coroner was disembowelled by something with sharp teeth and four-toed claws. Something that ate several body parts and regurgitated them elsewhere.

Scully: Did they ever find it?

Doggett: Five men died or disappeared and then the killing stops. Doesn't say why. But 44 years later it appears it's back and killing again.

---

Detective Abbott: You see those marks, right? And the ones over here on the rafter? If you ask me, those look like claw marks. I don't care what kind of a savage he is, what did this isn't human.

Doggett: Well, if I may speak for Agent Scully, I think we're both prepared to concede that point, Detective.

Detective Abbott: Then you know what this thing is?

Doggett: I've got a newspaper article I want to show you.

Scully: Agent Doggett... [She is coming up the attic stairs]

Doggett: A rather strange account from 1956...

Scully: I found something. A photo album. I think it's our first break on this case.

Detective Abbott: What is it?

Scully: The victim's daughter — Ariel — her dead body was pulled from the river here last week.

Detective Abbott: I got that call. Had to come tell Mrs McKesson the bad news. You trying to say there's some kind of connection?

Scully: Well, you not only told her mother that her 62-year-old daughter was dead but that her body had been horribly and inexplicably burned. A daughter who, by the way, she hadn't even seen in over 40 years. Since 1956, to be exact — which is the date your article says those first killings started.

Detective Abbott: Do you see the connection?

Doggett: I'm not, uh... sure where you're going with this, Agent Scully.

Scully: The daughter is the connection.

Detective Abbott: How is that?

Scully: I don't know exactly but these killings only started up since her burned body has been found.

Detective Abbott: Honest to god. You just jump at whatever explanation is the wildest and most far-fetched, don't you?

Scully: Well, I suggest that you jump at it too, because her body may have been burned for a reason and you're going to want to exhume it in order to find out why.

Detective Abbott: You want me to dig up a dead body when I have real people out there whose lives are in real danger?

Doggett: Hey... [He steps between Detective Abbott and Scully and speaks softly to the detective, who then leaves]

Scully: What did you say to him?

Doggett: Well, I told him to dig up the body. Isn't that what you wanted?

Scully: What else did you say to him?

Doggett: Well, I told him that you were... um... a... leading authority on paranormal phenomena and who are we to argue with an expert.

Scully: Look, I am not an expert. I am a scientist who happens to have seen a lot. I am just making a leap here.

Doggett: Well, I am sure you have your reasons.

Scully: Look, so what, you told him to exhume the body when you don't even necessarily believe me yourself?

Doggett: I told you I spent the weekend looking through that cabinet full of X-Files and I saw how pretty much every X-File broke — with a leap. Now, maybe I'm just an old-fashioned cop but I don't take leaps. In my experience, leaps only get people killed.

Scully: Well, I'd say that you're taking a pretty big leap believing in that article... about a human bat.

---

Detective Abbott: I don't know how you do it. Called the judge's order in a half ago. You guys are fast.

Gravedigger: Yep, we're really fast when someone's done most of our work.

Detective Abbott: What are you talking about?

Gravedigger: We got out here, somebody had already dug up the box. All we had to do was haul it out. I don't know what they were using but they scratched up the wood on the lid real good. See?

Detective Abbott: Let's get this down to the morgue. I think the sooner, the better.

---

Sheriff's Deputy: I want a word with you. [He takes Doggett aside] Look, we listened to you. The Detective listened to you. We could have been out hunting this thing down, Agent Doggett.

Doggett: You should be doing that now.

Sheriff's Deputy: Now? Now's too late for the Detective, isn't it? Look, we don't need you telling us what to do, or your partner. She's the one responsible for this.

Doggett: Nobody's responsible for this except for whatever did it.

Sheriff's Deputy: Look, I don't care who she is or what she is, she's not touching that body. We don't need her far-out theories. She's not welcome here.

---

Scully: What happened to the lynch mob?

Doggett: You hear all that?

Scully: I heard enough.

Doggett: Things have taken a little turn.

Scully: I don't think so, Agent Doggett.

Doggett: Well, you can think what you want, but I think this looks bad for the FBI.

Scully: It was unavoidable.

Doggett: How do you figure that?

Scully: This is the body pulled from the river. She died of natural causes — congestive heart failure — but her body was only burned afterwards.

Doggett: By who, and why burn it?

Scully: Well, obviously to cover something up.

Doggett: Yeah, but what?

Scully: That's what I still don't know.

Doggett: Look, we know what we're looking for. We should be out there looking for it. We're not going to catch it standing here speculating.

Scully: Look, it kills like an animal, but with purpose. It stalked the detective for the same reason that it stalked the old woman and the undertaker. Each of those victims had had contact with this burnt body. The undertaker prepared it. Her mother IDed it and the Detective got the call when she was found.

Doggett: Well, who else would have had contact with it?

Scully: The, uh, man who found her in the river. A, uh, Myron Stefaniuk.

Doggett: Stefaniuk?

Scully: Yeah.

Doggett: One of the hunters in the photo in 1956 was Ernie Stefaniuk.

Scully: There's an address in his file. I hope we're not too late.

---

Doggett: Mr Stefaniuk?

Scully: Myron Stefaniuk?

Myron Stefaniuk: That's me.

Scully: Good. Sorry. You gave us a bit of a scare. We went to your home up the road and we couldn't find you.

Myron Stefaniuk: Why would that scare you?

Doggett: Well, sir, we work with the FBI and we have reason to believe that your life may be in danger.

Myron Stefaniuk: I'm in danger?

Scully: Well, we're investigating some murders, sir, that we believe may be connected to the burnt body that you found recently.

Myron Stefaniuk: I fished it out of the river. What have I got to do with anything?

Doggett: Well, we're not saying for sure that you do.

Scully: It may just be your connection to the body.

Myron Stefaniuk: There is no connection. I just fished it out of the river.

Scully: Well, sorry, sir, but that may be enough.

Myron Stefaniuk: It's nonsense. Leave me alone.

Doggett: Ernie Stefaniuk. Lived in Montana in 1956. Do you know him?

Myron Stefaniuk: Ernie was my brother.

Doggett: He was one of three hunters that killed a man that was half animal.

Myron Stefaniuk: Please! That was a long time ago.

Doggett: Do you know where we can find him to talk with him, sir?

Myron Stefaniuk: My brother's dead. That thing killed him.

Doggett: Well, I have a newspaper story that says your brother disappeared.

Myron Stefaniuk: That was 40 years ago. Leave it alone! Leave me alone!

---

Scully: You know, we've been out here for nine hours. The only thing this man seems to be in danger of is terminal loneliness. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is all just a... a grand coincidence and we're wasting our time out here.

Doggett: You were so sure before.

Scully: Yeah, I was sure of the facts as I had deduced them scientifically. Maybe I'm... I'm trying to force them into shape. Maybe I'm manufacturing a theory.

Doggett: Well, what happened to taking a leap?

Scully: Maybe I'm just trying too hard.

Doggett: To do what? To be Mulder? You know, I'm not Oxford educated. About all I know about the paranormal is men are from Mars and women are from Venus. But I don't think you're wrong, Agent Scully.

Scully: What makes you say that?

Doggett: Well, I'm no Fox Mulder, but I can tell when a man's hiding something. Myron Stefaniuk fishes a woman out of the river who's been gone for 40 years. He has a brother he hasn't seen in over 40 years. A brother who just happened to hunt down some kind of creature over 40 years ago.

Scully: Well, what does he have to hide?

Doggett: Well, that's what I'm hoping this good cop work is going to show us.

---

Ernie Stefaniuk: How's a man supposed to live... when his fear becomes obsession? You'd do the same thing. Who wouldn't who wanted to live?

Doggett: You never left the island?

Ernie Stefaniuk: 44 years — I wouldn't dare knowing it was out there. That it could come back for me.

Doggett: You know something about it? About what this thing is?

Ernie Stefaniuk: I know on the evolutionary ladder, bats are real close by the apes, and just as we came from the apes, so might a man, have sprung from a bat. To live and hunt like a bat but with the cold-blooded vengeance of a man.

Scully: Even if that were true, sir, how could it possibly find you out here on an island?

Ernie Stefaniuk: I needed to cut off all contact. Communication could be only one-way. My brother helped me. And then there was my wife.

Doggett: It was her body your brother pulled in.

Ernie Stefaniuk: She gave up everything to be with me. I forbade her to tell her mother. 44 years on six acres of island, she made only one demand. To be buried in consecrated earth. She was a Catholic her whole life.

Scully: Mr Stefaniuk... it's killed four people. All of whom would have had traces of your scent through various degrees of contact with your wife's body.

Ernie Stefaniuk: My brother?

Doggett: Your brother's okay, Ernie.

Ernie Stefaniuk: But he had contact with Ariel's body. It'll come after him, too.

Scully: He's all right. We spoke with him earlier today.

Ernie Stefaniuk: Today? Today, he might have been fine but this thing hunts likes a bat. It only attacks at night.

Doggett: [to Scully] Stay here. Stay with him.

---

Ernie Stefaniuk: I still don't understand.

Scully: What's that?

Ernie Stefaniuk: How'd you find me out here?

Scully: We followed your brother.

Ernie Stefaniuk: No, I mean who figured it out?

Scully: I was sure that what we were looking for was something other than a man. Uh, the detective who was running the case didn't believe that, and... uh... he's dead.

Ernie Stefaniuk: But your partner, he believed it?

Scully: I think he does now.

Ernie Stefaniuk: So it was you who figured it.

Scully: Well, I... I made the connections but it was Agent Doggett that got us out here.

Ernie Stefaniuk: You ought to be wishing he hadn't.

Scully: Excuse me?

Ernie Stefaniuk: The moment you stepped foot here... You're marked now, you know that.

Scully: Sir, I'm here to protect you.

Ernie Stefaniuk: And how are you going to do that? You thought of everything... Except that.

Scully: Well, this thing, Mr Stefaniuk is... uh... still flesh and blood. It can be killed.

Ernie Stefaniuk: What do you think? It's just going to come walking through the door, there? It's waited 44 years. It'll wait out there as long as it takes until you can't stand it any more. How long can you wait, huh? A lifetime? To live in fear like this, a young woman — are you prepared to sacrifice family, children and spend your life terrorised by a monster?

Scully: What is that? [A loud beeping sound]

Ernie Stefaniuk: It's ground radar. The sensor's set at ten feet high. Anything big enough to set it off is coming in through the trees.

[They hear a thumping on the roof. Scully draws her gun, points it at the roof and fires]

Scully: You hear it?

Ernie Stefaniuk: No.

Scully: Maybe I got it. Maybe I killed it. If you've got a gun, get it.

---

[Scully hears a shotgun blast and runs back inside to see The Bat Thing attacking Ernie Stefaniuk. She fires at it and it flies out of sight]

Doggett: Agent Scully. [The Bat Thing flies at him, knocking him to the ground. Doggett fires at it as it flies away] You okay?

Scully: Yeah. I'm okay. But you're not, Agent Doggett. I got you. [She checks Doggett's injuries and looks up at the sound of the Bat Thing screeching in the distance]

---

Doggett: Sorry I'm late. I received a fax up in my old office from Ernie's brother, Myron Stefaniuk.

Scully: He's alive? Where is he?

Doggett: He doesn't say. He sent this from a small storefront business just across the state line in Wyoming. He's gone into hiding.

Scully: Do you believe it, Agent Doggett?

Doggett: Believe it?

Scully: That this thing is still out there and some day it's going to come after us?

Doggett: I'm pretty sure I hit it, Agent Scully. Pretty sure you hit it, too. The guys upstairs were making some noise about this case — about what's in our field report.

Scully: Yeah. You'll get used to it. I, uh... I never had a desk in here, Agent Doggett, but I'll see that you get one.

Doggett: All right.

Scully: And I just want to say, um... thank you for watching my back.

Doggett: Well, I never saw it as an option. I'm sure you don't either.

[Scully looks at Mulder's nameplate, then puts it away in a drawer]