"The X-Files" Characters depicted in this story are property of Ten Thirteen
Productions and Fox Broadcasting. All used without permission and no
infringement is intended.

Many thanks for story consultation to FancyKatz and MelTaylor   

BUMPS IN THE NIGHT
by Rhoda Miel aka ZeusStorag@aol.com
12/2/94
Part four.

  
  Mulder's head ached. His arm had stiffened into a half-bent position. He
couldn't turn his arm to look at his watch or straighten it to his side.
He switched the watch to his right wrist. It felt out of place.
  He'd tried to make some notes on his laptop computer, only to give up.
He couldn't keep his arm in place to type with both hands, and working
one-handed left him frustrated.
  He'd walked through town, trying to clear his mind. The library was two
rooms in the back of the township hall -- half a dozen newspapers sat on
the counter and popular fiction and non-fiction books crowded the shelves.
There was barely room to walk through the stacks. A hand-printed sign asked
for residents to approve a tax request next month to build a new library.
  "I'm sorry," the librarian apologized. "We don't have much on local
history here. The county might have something back at the Sault, but I
don't have anything here."
  It was just as well.
  Every time Mulder tried to read, he could barely concentrate on the
page. The pain thumped behind his eyes. He spent 10 minutes staring at the
map Johnson had left him only to abandon the work when he couldn't figure
out which way was up or down.
  Mulder wished Scully were there. She could help him work it out. She was
good at directions -- good at what was plain and simple, black and white
and laid out before her.
  He relied on her ability to cut past the extraneous elements around them.
She was his sounding board, someone who could listen without judgment.
  Without her, Mulder could lose himself, obsessed in the past and things
he couldn't change. But Scully had better things to do, Mulder realized.
She didn't need him slowing her down.
  Mulder knew Scully could do better by herself, at least as far as the
bureau was concerned. Without him, she wouldn't be weighed down by the
comments about her "eccentric" partner or the whispered nickname of
"Mrs. Spooky."
  He'd told her that before, asking where she thought she'd be if he
hadn't gotten in her way up the FBI's ladder. Scully claimed she probably
would have spent the rest of her life behind a desk at the Academy.
  "That's the problem with an instructor's life," she quipped. "You teach
all the green agents how to do their jobs and then they decide you're far
too valuable as a 'molder of young minds' to be spared out in the real
world. Without you Mulder, I never would have known the joys of
liver-eating serial killers or little green men."
  Mulder was just grateful to have her sound presence. And right now, he'd
be grateful when he could get some sleep.
  He glanced at the clock. One more hour, he silently promised Scully. One
more hour and then I get to sleep.
  Mulder flicked the television back on. There were only three channels
visible -- one of them filled with snow and the sound of a talk host
introducing his victim/guest for the day. A soap opera filled another
channel while on public television two other hosts were begging for pledges.
He leaned back in the chair, thought about taking another walk. A soft
knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.
  Maggie Koehler stood at the door, a steaming tray covered with a dish
towel in her hand. "Hi," she looked down at the floor, awkward with the
moment. "Kenny told us what happened. He said your partner was out with
Toivo. I thought I'd check in with you, see if you're OK."
  "Come on in," Mulder stepped back, held the door open as she swept
past him.
  "I don't know if you've eaten, but I brought some lunch just in case,"
she set the tray on the table. "It's not much. Just some bean soup, some
bread. We've got a little kitchenette in our room."
  She finally stopped talking, looked up at Mulder, the bruise on his
forehead. She looked away again. "I'm sorry," she said, sitting at the
table. "It's silly, but I keep thinking that we shouldn't have bothered
you with our troubles."
  "Don't worry about it, Mrs. Koehler," Mulder said, sitting in front of
the food. "I seem to have this knack of finding trouble wherever I go. I'm
a regular magnet for it."
  She smiled, relaxed. "Call me Maggie," she said. "And go on and eat.
Don't be polite."
  Mulder pulled the towel off the tray and the smell drifted up to him,
prompting him to remember that he'd ignored the hunger pains in his stomach.
  "Let me get you some water," Maggie said, walking back to fill a cup from
the bathroom.
  Mulder took a bite of the bread smothered with butter, then lifted a
spoon of the thick soup to his mouth. "You've lived here all your life?"
he asked before taking a bite.
  "Lord no. I'm a troll," she said with a matter of fact tone, then giggled
at herself and the expression on Mulder's face. "In Michigan, we call people
from the U.P. Yoopers," she explained. "People from the lower peninsula are
called 'trolls' because they live below the Mackinac Bridge. I'm from Flint.
I met Jack back in college, when he headed down to Michigan State for farm
studies. We got married two weeks after he graduated. My family was
convinced that I was moving into the wilderness. They thought I'd be
fighting off bears and living in the ice age."
  She barely paused as she spoke. She seemed shy, out of place, uncertain
what to do -- what to say.
  "I'm a city girl by birth," she said. "But I belong here now."
  She suddenly stood, zipped up the coat she'd never taken off. "And now,"
she continued. "I should leave you to your lunch. I'll pick up the dishes
later. Don't worry about them -- you rest now, hear?" She was out the
door before Mulder could respond.

  Scully and Johnson trudged ahead in the mine's darkness. Scully wished
Mulder were there -- or anyone else to talk to rather than Johnson.
  The deputy suddenly lurched ahead, fumbled for his balance. Scully
grabbed at the back of his jacket, pulled him toward her. In the beam of
his flashlight, Scully could see the floor of the tunnel drop away. Pebbles
dribbled over the edge.
  "Thanks," Johnson said, leaning against the solid wall and pausing to
catch his breath. "Guess we can't go no further that way."
  Scully lowered her pack to the floor and moved cautiously to the edge of
the hole. Rocks caved in toward the bottom. At the far side, more rocks
clung to the walls, blocking the tunnel.
  "Looks like part of this collapsed," Johnson said. He sat on a rock and
fumbled in his pack for another lamp. He lit it and set it on the ground in
front of him.
  The black, coal-filled walls gave back little light, but Scully could see
as well as Johnson that they could go no further. "Do you know where we
are?" she asked. "Are we near the house?"
  "Hard to say for certain. We could be right under it, but I think we're
probably within a half-mile for sure. I guess we're about 30 -- maybe 50
feet down."
  "Well if this happened last night it would explain the tremor we felt at
the house," Scully said.
  She sat beside Johnson, dug out the granola bars from her pack and handed
him one wordlessly.
  "Thanks," he said. "Of course, you can't tell how old this is. Could be
it caved in last night -- it seems awful sturdy now, though. Maybe it's
been this way for a long time."
  "Maybe," Scully said. She stood, pulled her camera out of the pack, took
a couple of shots to document the site, then slid the pack back onto her
back. "Do you know of anyplace else we should look? If you don't, I
suppose we could get out of here," she looked down at Johnson who groaned
as he pushed himself onto his feet.
  "Might as well go," he said. "I think I'm gonna sit in the sauna when I
get home -- chase some of this chill out of my old bones."
  He said nothing more, just gathered his lamp, pack and headed out of the
tunnel.
  The climb back to the surface seemed longer than Scully thought it should
be. She worried if Johnson had lost his way, but then another of his
painted arrows came back into sight.
  The sunlight  crowded into the tunnel at the entrance, cutting through
the darkness.
  Scully blinked her eyes, shielded them from the sudden transition. She
looked down at the ground, unable to take in all the colors around her.
Johnson grabbed an old pair of sunglasses in his truck, handed them to
Scully. His own glasses had turned their shading in the sunlight. He sat
in the truck for a moment, slipping the keys between his fingers.
  "You know, people used to think we were all a bit strange because we
miners used to shy away from the sunniest places, but spend your life down
there, and even midnight seems like it's too bright," he said and turned
the ignition, headed back down the two-track.

*************          

  Mulder didn't respond when Scully knocked at his door. She used a spare
key to let herself into his room.
  The television was on, a cartoon with super-human heroes battling to save
the earth. Mulder slept on as Scully snapped off the set, the blankets
pulled up to his chin. She decided to let him sleep a little longer and
noticed a short note on the table as she headed out of the room.
"Call Rybkowski," was all it said.
  Scully wrote a quick note, left it on the nightstand to let Mulder know
she was back in case he woke up. She locked the door behind her and headed
to her room. Rybkowski's patrol car pulled into the lot as she was
unlocking her door.
  "Agent Scully," he pushed his hat down onto his head as he stepped out of
the car. "I saw Toivo's truck, figured you were back." Rybkowski suddenly
smiled.
  "Looks like you've seen all our dirty little secrets," he joked. "Anyway,
just figured I'd tell you that the building inspector checked out the
house. He says all the supporting walls are still in place. It's
safe -- that is if you want to go back out there. Anything else you need?"
  "Not right now -- nothing but a long shower, anyway."
  Scully waved goodbye and eased into her own room. "Twenty minutes," she
told herself. "Just 20 minutes to do nothing -- that's what I need."
She pulled off her boots, shed her coat and turned up the heat. She padded
into the bathroom in stockinged feet, then laughed at her own reflection.
"So *that's* what he meant," Scully said out loud as she looked in the
mirror. Dirt, mud and coal dust smeared across her forehead and cheek.
Her nose had a speck of dust that looked like it was ready to attach itself
permanently to her skin. Her eyes were bloodshot and shadows and her auburn
hair had turned dark from the coal.
  Scully started the shower and stripped off her filthy jeans and sweater.
She dug clean clothes out from the bottom of her suitcase, then climbed into
the shower.
  She stood there until it seemed there was no more hot water, until her
skin turned red from the heat. Steam filled the bathroom and the towels
were thick. Scully let the moist warmth seep into her bones before she
opened the door and dressed.
  Dusk was creeping across the sky when she left the room.
  This time, Mulder answered her knock -- a mumbled "Who is it," coming
from inside the room. Scully heard the lock turning and Mulder pulled open
the door before ambling back across the room. He was wearing jeans and an
old t-shirt. He sat on the edge of the bed as Scully closed the door behind
her and snapped on a lamp in the darkened space. Mulder's hair stuck out at
every angle and he rubbed his eyes to force the murky corners of his mind
away.
  "How'd you sleep?" she asked.
  "OK, I guess," he replied. "I got about four hours."
  He forced his brain back into working order. "Did you find anything out
there?" he finally asked, remembering where Scully had been.
  "A lot of rocks. There's been a cave-in of some old tunnels near the
house, but we can't tell whether it happened last night or three years ago."
  Mulder nodded. "I, um, took a message," he started, pushing his fingers
back through his hair.
  "I saw," Scully answered before he'd finished.
  Mulder looked straight at her. "Do you always make yourselves to home in
other people's motel rooms, Scully?"
  "Just yours, Mulder," she returned his slight smile. "I was going to go
get some dinner. You up to it?"
  "Anything to get away from these walls. Just give me a minute, will you?"
  Mulder headed into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
  Scully could hear the water running as she flipped absently through a
visitor's guide to the Upper Peninsula.
  Mulder emerged with his face freshly washed, some of the water still
clinging to his hair. He reached into his duffel bag, pulled out a fresh
shirt and stiffly pulled it over his head, grunting as he stretched the
cloth to fit over his still-stiff arm.
  "I thought I'd head back to the house again when we're done," Scully
commented. "If it was that mine creaking that caused all the disturbances,
then it *should* be quiet tonight."
  "I'll go with you," Mulder said, reaching for the door and waiting as
Scully crossed the room toward him.
  "Maybe you shouldn't, Mulder," Scully said, looking up at him. The area
lights in the parking lot accentuated the dark circles under his eyes,
the bruise on his forehead.
  "If you're right, and it's just the mine that's been causing all the
trouble, then we shouldn't have any problems, right?" Mulder had a
familiar, determined set to his mouth. "So what's the difference if I
stretch out on the bed here or the couch there?"
  Scully didn't feel like arguing. Besides, she'd rather have some company
out at the house, in case she was wrong.
  "Let's just get something to eat, OK?" she asked. "We can argue about
it later."
  The diner was half-filled with families and teenagers.
  Young boys with varsity jackets were full of talk of the upcoming
baseball season. Scully couldn't understand the attraction here, where
the ground still waited for spring. A young woman took their order -- the
waitress they'd had that first night was working behind the counter. She
nodded and smiled at them.
  Scully and Mulder sat in silence for a few moments, the conversations of
the town crowding around them.
  Mulder shifted stiffly, leaned against the side of the booth, his back to
the window and the blackness that had settled outside. "So why did you?"
he asked Scully.
  "Excuse me?" she stared over at him, not certain if she'd missed the
first part of the question.
  "The FBI. If you didn't join to be 'my nursemaid,' why did you?" he
turned a guilty eye her way. "Come on. Give."
  Scully sighed, suppressed a laugh. "Mulder, you really don't want to
know about my professional history, do you? There's nothing exciting here."
She paused, only to see her partner looking at her, ready for her reply.
"The challenge, I guess," she finally said. "A way to push myself..."
  "That's for the recruiting poster," Mulder interrupted. "I mean, why did
you even consider it?"
  Scully stopped, thought about it. "To help, I guess," she gave an
embarrassed chuckle. "That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it."
  "Not for you," Mulder said.
  "I don't know. Doctors are a dime a dozen, and with my interest in
pathology? Other than being outright creepy, well, let's face it, you can't
do much to help the patient until it's *way* too late. Putting it all
together with crime research offered a, well, a new twist on an old game.
The bureau gave me a chance to dissect one body, if you will, to help
another." Scully shook her head. "That sounds morbid," and shivered.
  "It's not," Mulder scooted toward her, leaned across the white-paneled
table. "You do help."
  Their salads arrived, slightly wilted iceberg lettuce and a few carrot
shavings topped with dressing. Mulder retreated back across to his side of
the booth. He fumbled awkwardly with the plate in front of him.
"You've helped me," he said, his whispered words barely audible.
  Scully wasn't sure how to respond. She stared down at her salad, pushed
her fork down into it, finally looked up to see Mulder glancing at her.
"We've helped each other," she finally said.
  They spent the rest of the meal in simple, easy conversation. Mulder
lecturing her on the hockey abilities of the local college that won the
national championship three years earlier and Scully filling him in on
Johnson's social skills.
  "He called me 'Little Lady,'" she said, shuddering at the thought.
"'Little Lady.'"
  "And did you fill him in on the last 50 years of social progress?"
  "Well, not knowing where we were at the time, I figured silence was the
smarter idea at the time."
  Mulder fumbled with his sandwich -- 'finger food,' he'd called it,
although with his left arm conspicuously kept out of use below the table,
he still had problems keeping the toppings between the two thick slices of
homemade bread. Mustard and mayonnaise slid out onto his fingers. He gave
up using the napkin to clean off his hands and excused himself, heading
back toward the bathroom.
  Scully closed her eyes, fought back a yawn and a desire for sleep. She
opened her eyes again, stopped the waitress and asked for coffee.
The caffeine wouldn't do much to help her nerves, she knew, but at least
it would help keep her alert.
  Scully tried to think about how many hours she'd have to spend at the
house tonight. Even if it's quiet for a while, she thought to herself,
that's no guarantee if it's going to remain quiet. She didn't want to send
the Koehler's back to a house that would betray them again.
  "Hi!," a small voice interrupted her. Scully looked down to see a boy
looking up at her, holding out his hand to shake hers. "Hi!" he repeated.
"I'm James. I'm three. What's your name?"
  "Um," Scully was taken aback, finally went along with him. "Dana."
  "Hi Dana. I try to meet three new people a day. You're number two,"
James was blond, smiling, happy with the world around him. Scully couldn't
help but return the smile.
  "He's Mulder," James said as Mulder walked past Scully and settled into
the booth. "He's number one!"
  He then ran down the aisle, toward a woman -- his mother, most
likely -- who took her son's hobby in stride.
  "Number one in the hearts and minds of children everywhere," Mulder
joked. "Does that make me special?"
  "I'd never argue that you weren't Mulder," Scully reached for the cream
as the waitress approached with the coffee pot.
  The road up to the house was a familiar one now. Scully eased the rental
car out of the parking lot and turned onto the main road.
  A full moon hung in the sky and stars filled the horizon. The pale light
illuminated the thin pine trees along the muddy ditches. Fog rose from a
narrow stream and hung in the air.
  The house was quiet when they walked in. Mulder tapped his boots against
the concrete steps to shake the mud off. He considered taking them off, but
it took too much time and effort to lace them up again with his stiff arm.
  Someone had swept the broken glass off to the side of the kitchen floor,
but the food stains remained. Scully's shoes squeaked and the rubber clung
to the sticky floor. She considered finding a mop to clean up the debris.
Someone had tracked dirt across the carpet -- the building inspector, most
likely -- and shoved the debris in the living room into one pile.
Scully reached for a lamp, flipped the switch and felt a surge of elation
shock through her when the ever-burning bulb flipped into darkness.
  "That's a good trick Scully," Mulder said. "Think you could cut out my
electric bill that easy?"
  Scully ignored him, tested other lights.
  She knew the operating electricity was no true indication that her
theory was correct. It might have nothing to do with the mine -- after all,
unlike the sounds and shaking she could find no way to connect the two
events. But it was something.
  "You know that doesn't prove you're right," Mulder said, echoing her
thoughts.
  "Are you always this stubborn, Mulder?"
  "I prefer to think of it as tenacity," he said with a smile.
  "Are you going to be in this mood all night?" Scully asked.
  "Probably."
  "I knew I should have left you back at the motel," Scully laughed.
"It's going to be a long night."
  "Scully, I'm hurt," Mulder's mood was as light as hers. "Do you mean
you'd rather spend more time with Toivo Johnson?"
  Scully fixed him with a stare. "Don't get me started."
  Scully walked back into the kitchen, stared down at the sticky floor.
She still had the urge to clean it -- give the Koehler's back some
semblance of their home when she and Mulder finally left it. There'd be
time later, she finally decided.
  Mulder settled himself into one of the easy chairs. Might as well get
comfortable, he reasoned. He leafed through one of the magazines -- a
two-month-old copy of Reader's Digest -- then reached for another one.
"Hey Scully, want to read about the new fertilizer for dry bean
production?" he called out. "Looks like a great read."
  Scully left the kitchen behind, plopped into another chair, eased herself
back. She stretched her weary legs out in front of her and leaned her head
against the pillow. The cushions were soft and she dropped into relaxation.
"Pass," she said.
  Mulder woke to the sound of alarms. He sat up, tried to place the sounds,
the light around him. He choked.
  Smoke alarm. The high-pitched squeal echoed through the house.
  Mulder could feel his stomach clench and tighten, the old fear rising
with the smell of burning wood.
  He held his breath, closed his eyes and cleared his mind. He couldn't
see Scully, forced himself onto his feet and called for her.
  "Here!" Scully stood in the hallway leading to the bedrooms, emptying a
fire extinguisher onto flames climbing up to the ceiling. "There's
another extinguisher by the back door," she yelled to Mulder. "Get it!"
  He took a breath of the smoke-filled air, ordered his feet to move.
The extinguisher hung near the basement stairs. He yanked it off its hook,
carried it back to Scully. The fire was winning. Yellow tongues of flames
sprung past the bathroom door. Scully had backed out toward the dining room.
She choked on the smoke, grabbed the extinguisher.
  "What happened?" he yelled to her and reached for the kitchen telephone.
  "Don't know," Scully yelled back.
  There was no dial tone on the line. Mulder went for his cellular telephone.
  Scully prayed for enough power in the extinguisher to hold off the fire
until the fire crews could arrive. Mulder dialed, frowned, shook his head
and dialed again. He kept backing toward the door, unable to stop his feet
from moving toward safety. His hands shook and he had to force his fingers
into position to operate the small buttons.
  "I can't get through!" he yelled to Scully. "It keeps cutting out!"
  The fire was taking control. It held the rear of the house and Scully
could feel her skin turn red. There was nothing she could do. Nothing to
stop it. She looked for some new weapon to fight the flames.
  "We've got to get out of here," Mulder was saying. "Come on!"
  Scully could hear a window breaking and the fire took new strength from
the air blowing into the house.
  "Come on!" Mulder yelled again.
  The wood crackled around her. The fire popped. Something screamed.
  Scully tried to take another breath, choked on the smoke.
  "I'm right behind you," she called back.
  She took a step toward the door, then turned back, grabbed the knitting
bag and stuffed a photo album into its deep pocket as she ran for the door.
Mulder was waiting outside. He was pale, shaking, but still dialing the
cellular telephone. He finally made connection, shouted out the information
and lowered it from his ear.
  The flames broke through the roof and turned the night sky blood red.
  
************    WASHINGTON D.C., THREE WEEKS LATER     

  Scully was handing in a week's worth of paperwork when Mulder got the
package. He'd already went through it once and made a telephone call by
the time she got back to their cluttered office. He handed the stack to
Scully.
  "It's from Michigan," he told her. "State police fire unit finally
finished its report at the Koehler house."
  The fire had destroyed the building. By the time the volunteer fire crew
had arrived, the flames had pulled the walls in on themselves. There wasn't
much left to investigate.
  "The arson unit searched everything that was left," Mulder walked around
the desk, flipped the reports in Scully's hand to the final page of the
report.
  "Undetermined origin?" she asked, looking to the final paragraph.
  "None of their tests have given them a clue as to its cause," Mulder
repeated. "But they did decide that the flame pattern ruled out arson."
  Scully took the reports over to her desk, sat down and leafed through the
rest of the papers -- diagrams of the fire's spread and chemical tests on
the soot and residue.
  "That it? No answer? Just, 'Sorry about your house?'"
  "Actually, the Koehler's have what they need to get a new house now.
Fire *is* a legitimate claim on a homeowner's insurance policy,"  Mulder
explained. "I called Rybkowski."
  "They going to build in the same place?"
  "I asked," he said. "They sold the land. The tribe bought it back.
They're planning to turn it into a wildlife refuge."
  Scully leaned forward, one elbow on her desk. She pushed her hair back
behind her ear. "I hope the Koehler's find some nice, quiet place this
time," she said.
  Scully could hear the footsteps as someone passed the closed office door.
  Mulder nodded, turned toward his desk, then spun around, reached for his
suit jacket hanging near the door. "How about lunch?" he asked. "I'll
buy -- 'little lady.'"
  Scully looked up to see Mulder with an expectant grin on his face, waiting
for her to take the bait. "You know, Mulder, sometimes you can be a pain in
the ass," she said, but grabbed for her coat.
  "Only sometimes?"
  
************
THE END

