Chapter 2
Authors Notes: Thank you for the reviews I've had so far, it gave me the confidence to continue with the story after I had a touch of writers block. Anyway I hope you will enjoy this next instalment. Please feel free to review-whether good or bad it all helps! X
Disclaimer: The characters don't belong to me (I wish!) I am just borrowing them for a while.
He paused and looked at Scully thinking to himself ..."here comes the tricky part" but continued to tell her anyway, she deserved to hear the truth even if it wasn't very pretty.
"Well we kinda got settled for the night...separate sleeping bags of course!"
"Of course..." said Scully, who was flinching inwardly at the thought of their sleeping arrangements but continued to portray a totally blank exterior.
"And well, basically...Diana made a pass at me. She was talking about how she didn't trust Spender with the X Files; with my work- so she said wouldn't it be better if we were partners again?" He cringed as he went on to say "partners in every sense of the word..."
He heard Scully let out a small 'huff' sound, as she visibly recoiled- shocked by his last statement. She had moved further away from him and he could plainly see the betrayal and hurt written all over her face.
"Scully, you know that's not what I want... " He said as his voice lowered almost to a whisper. "She's not what I want. " He reached out a shaky hand and laid it on top of hers "Not anymore."
Once again they continued to stare at one another silently and Scully then felt the atmosphere change between them suddenly. Mulder was looking at her so intensely with a look in his eyes that she'd never seen before, and for whatever reason it made her feel nervous. She slipped her hand out from under his, with the pretence of tucking her hair behind her ears and spoke with slight hesitation in her voice.
"Mulder...its fine. I'm fine, that's none of my business. What I'm interested in, is how you ended up halfway down a cliff with a broken ankle?"
Nice dodge Scully, thought Mulder as he noticed how quickly she'd regained her composure. The enigmatic Dr Scully is back in the building...
"To cut a long story short, I set her straight on a few things. Probably things that she didn't want to hear so she upped and left. Grabbed her sleeping bag and rucksack and before I could talk her out of it..She had stormed off into the night."
"I tried to follow her but lost her on one of the trails. I have no idea what happened to her."
Scully mulled this information over in her mind for a while. What exactly had Mulder said to her? It was obviously unpleasant, seen as how it resulted in her taking off into the woods alone. She was probably lost too, maybe even laying injured somewhere. At this last thought a little voice popped up into the back of her mind "Good, she deserves it the bitch!" But as quickly as the thought had occurred to her, she then chastised herself for even thinking such a thing.
"So what happened after that?"
"Well I somehow made it back to the tent, and began to pack up my things. And that's when I heard it." He said looking up at Scully who had adopted a wide eyed expression with both eyebrows raised in anticipation. "Heard what?" she answered quickly.
"The sound of something big moving or should I say, slithering across the ground..and hissing"
"Shut up Mulder, you did not hear hissing!" cried Scully who had by now moved into a kneeling position and was leaning forward as if she was hanging on his every word.
"That's what I heard Scully" he said with a slight smirk on his face. "Something was making its way closer to my tent, something LARGE. So I grabbed my gun and went out to face it"
"It wasn't the Bear..." she was cut short by Mulder who had jumped in to finish her sentence
"Lake Monster? Yeah I think it was Scully." She was looking at him with that doubt filled expression he had come to know and love so well. 'She thinks I'm crazy' he thought fleetingly.
"Look Scully, whatever it was hit me so damn hard I felt like I'd been knocked over by a freight train. It had the strength and power to drag me over to the cliffs. There I think it might have been disturbed or distracted as the next thing I know, I wake up hanging halfway off a cliff edge with my ankle busted...and then there was this " he stopped and appeared be digging in the front pocket of his jeans.
Scully leant closer as he held something out to her in the palm of his hand. It was a tooth. A very large tooth.
She took it and examined it closely before handing it back to him saying "Mulder it could have been an alligator. We both know what they are capable of..Does Big Blue ring any bells at all?" before adding "I mean, did you even get a good look at it?"
"Scully, an alligator couldn't drag a fully grown man 60 feet up a slope! What would it even be doing so far away from the lake?" His voice had taken on an exasperated tone, and she knew there would be no reasoning with him, but she tried anyway.
"It's just...I find it hard to believe that something so big would be living out here- an area so popular with hikers and tourists, and it has never been seen up close. I bet there are no photographs of it? No legitimate ones at least.."
Mulder just shook his head at her in response "You know that thing could come back for seconds at anytime, and trust me a few bullets won't stop it.."
Meanwhile 4 miles west of where Scully and Mulder had set up camp...Special Agent Diana Fowley was making her way across a low valley that separated two large areas of Woodland. As dawn approached, she knew that she'd been walking for hours and although she didn't want to admit it to herself...she was now hopelessly lost.
Her whole body ached from relentlessly ploughing through the deep snow, while carrying the heavy rucksack on her back. Her wet hair was plastered to the sides of her face, pale with weariness and worry. However hard she tried, strong feelings of panic were threatening to overcome her.
"Why the hell did I run from Mulder?" She kept saying to herself. Although in her heart she knew why. His angry words came rushing back to her, as she wiped away the tears that now spilled over her frozen cheeks.
"What? You don't seriously think I would ditch Scully...everything we've worked towards for 6 years, for you?"
"Let me tell you something Diana...it's not the work, it's not my quest -whatever the hell that is these days...that's important to me... that I care about."
"It's her...it's always been her, not you. You mean NOTHING to me..Absolutely nothing."
As she continued along the valley, she was unaware of the creature that had been slowly and quietly stalking her for hours. Waiting for the perfect time to attack, its massive body was now hidden by the dark line of trees barely 300 yards behind her. Muscles tensed and eyes became focused as it began its assault, with frightening speed it flew out of the tree line and out onto the open field towards Diana...
Her mind was still reeling as she thought about what he'd said to her. How could he be so cruel? The Fox Mulder she knew would never speak like that. It's got to be her- that stupid red haired bitch Scully twisting his mind, poisoning his thoughts against her. If only she'd stayed with him all those years ago, who knows where they'd be by now?
She stopped and took off one of her gloves as she attempted to remove something from her eye, a piece of grit maybe blown along in the harsh winds, when suddenly she felt something strange. A vibration in the ground so slight she had barely noticed it at first, but was now becoming stronger. And then a kind of whooshing noise, getting louder and louder. "What the hell it that?" She said out loud suddenly dropping her glove onto the snowy ground. As she bent down to pick it up, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Spinning round, she barely had time to utter a cry as the creature leapt up from the ground in front of her.
She had less than a second to register what was happening, before it was upon her. With the lithe and agile body of a snake it moved with ferocious speed, grabbing Diana and throwing her into the air as if she were a rag doll. Its massive head was that of an alligator, with a long snout and powerful jaws lined with razor sharp teeth, no human would stand a chance against this enormous creature.
It was a violent and frenzied attack... and with her body broken, she weakly lifted her head from the frozen ground. She saw blood all around her, and it was to her horror that she realised the creature had torn off one of her legs and was now proceeding to eat it less than 6 feet away from her. Her head began to spin, as she realised this would be her last few seconds on earth and wondered hopelessly how it had come to this...
Time stood still as her head sank to the ground once more, with her cheek pressed against the frozen earth there was suddenly no pain. The edges of her vision began to fade, as she turned her face up towards the stormy sky, just in time to see the creature lean over her and open its gigantic jaws. The Bear Lake Monster ate Diana Fowley and then continued on its way back into the woods, a thought registering somewhere in its primitive brain, that it hadn't had a meal as good as that in ages.
Stay tuned for more soon...
Hope you are enjoying the story so far! - Was the death scene of "The Fowl One" gruesome enough for ya? Don't hesitate to let me know what you think-Reviews please! X
