"Something tells me that may be a few years too late to be Concorde cruising over." Mulder hauled himself to his feet, his partner with her arm around his back as extra support. "I'll come out with you."
"No, no, you'll catch your death, I'll manage, been doing it for years. You sit relax, keep warm."
"Katherine, if you think I'm letting you go by yourself out there after that..." Mulder was adamant and he saw the old lady mulling it over for all of ten seconds before she finally caved.
"Ah, macho pride. I'll play. This time. Okay, but wrap up well... its freezing and you're already sick."
"Mulder, I'm coming too," Scully insisted, her eyes flashed him a look he knew too well. One that brooked no argument. What worried her most then was that not only was her lover's spooky radar going off, but her's had kicked as well. Mulder was right. No way were they letting Katherine go out there alone.
"Do you have any idea what that was Katherine?" Mulder ventured, donning the thick blue parka the older lady handed him in the hall. "..because I don't know about you but with some of the stuff I've seen.., what Scully's seen, that scores a ten on my weird-shitometer."
"Let's just say that up here...you have to expect the unexpected. Here..." She picked up two torches and handed him one. Scully zipped her coat up and snagged the other one.
"I thought the house was going to crack in two.
Are we on an earthquake fault here? I mean the land formations and stuff by the causeway must have been forged from tectonic disturbance at some point in history. I know there was an earthquake in England recently ... but wasn't sure about this area."
"No seismic activity in Antrim that I know of and I've been here a good few years now, and lived in Derry and Belfast during the troubles long enough to know that this wan't a bomb. Too well acquainted with those ...but this coast,.. there have always been ...well," Katherine's mind searched for an appropriate phrase as she opened the back door to the wind swept courtyard. "folklore, odd lights in the sky, strange unatural cries from the beaches. You know the legend of Fionn mac Cumhail?" He nodded as her words were almost snatched away as a gust wind whirled around their heads.
The air was electric, it smelled of ozone and something Mulder couldn't quite put his finger on. Whatever it was, the almost fetid damp was seeping down into his chest and he could feel the air being squeezed tight against his ribs. Was that a scream in his mind or the wind? It was like it was mocking him, laughing at his expense. It felt...odd, making the hair stand up on his neck.
They staggered about in the buffeting wind as they all hurried across the courtyard to one of the barns that housed the generator. Mulder sandwiched in between Scully on one side and her aunt on the other, holding them both for dear life lest they blow away. There was some light from the full moon but as their torchlight raked the cobbled pathway and when he flicked it up a touch he just made out a faint green haze above the far cliff top about three miles away up the gully and what looked like an electrical storm dying out to sea. Weird Lightning? It looked so eerie and after all that noise he half expected to see aliens or a UFO hovering over the bay.
"Mulder...you okay," came his partner's voice through the gloom.
"Yeah.." Mulder found his breath and shone the torch trying to locate the door handle. After finding it stuck fast he managed to shoulder it open for them and they all blustered inside. Momentarily rendered breathless by the blasts of wind all round them, they stood still for a moment to catch their breath listening to the wind making an unearthly evil sound like a dying creature circling all around the barn. Almost like it had stalked them from the house over here. " Fionn mac Cumhail,the legend about the Giant's causeway and how it was forged is well documented. I had to do a paper on it in college. Took a fill in class for mythology."
"Really? Is that the giant that supposedly created the causeway by hurling rocks at another giant in Scotland?" Scully asked, shivering in the cold as she watched her partner get all manly with the generator.
"Yeah Scully, that's him." Mulder worked on the generator as he reached into his eidetic memory for the story. "As the legend goes an Irish Giant (read alien bounty hunter) lived on an Antrim headland and one day when going about his daily business, a Scottish Giant named Fingal began to shout insults, hurl abuse and flip him the bird from across the channel. Quite close to here actually. Angry Dude Finn lifted a clod of earth and threw it at the giant as a challenge, the earth landed in the sea.
Fingal pitched a rock thrown back at Finn and shouted that Finn was lucky that he wasn't a strong swimmer or he would have made sure he could never fight again or father future generations. Well, Finn was kinda pissed off and began lifting huge clumps of earth from the shore, throwing them so as to make a pathway for the Scottish giant to mosey on over in person and open up a can of whup ass. However, ...however, by the time he finished doing an Extreme makeover, coastal edition on the crossing he hadn't slept for a week and so instead devised a cunning plan to fool the Scot, and remembered not to bend down anywhere near Michael Moloney. "
"What? ...More Mulder more!" Scully waggled the torch at him unable to hide her laughter.
Mulder grabbed it from her and stuck it under his chin making a creepy caricature of himself.
He pulled a silly face and went cross-eyed then took a deep breath as he turned his attention back to his work and his storytelling.
"I'm getting to that..." he grunted as he tried to force the spanner under the bolt to free it on the generator side panel but it just wouldn't budge. He feared it was rusted up, probably from the perpetually damp air.
"Sooo, Finn disguised himself as Fro... I mean a baby in a cot and when his adversary came to face him, Finn's wife told the Giant that Finn was away at the Consortium karaoke marathon with CGB but showed him his son sleeping in the cradle with a big green pacifier in its mouth. The Scottish giant became apprehensive, for if the son was so huge,... cast that dirty thought from your mind Scully, ..what size would the father be?
In his haste to escape, Fingal sped back along the causeway Finn had built, tearing it up and farting up a storm as he went. He is said to have fled to a cave on Staffa which is to this day named 'Fingal's Cave' where he stayed forever, discovered Ratboy hiding out there...and had enjoyed baby back rat rib barbecues and later moved into a disused warehouse with two ditzy guy pals in Anacostia.Ughhhhh ow...!"
" You can be so cruel Mulder...but funny all the same, especially the 'Michael Moloney' part. I swear though, the next time I see the guys ... I'm going to get them to spike your cheese steaks with jalapenos."
" Ughh, okay then... think Kersh and Skinman duking out their Mojo either side of the Potomac with big manly bollards." He smirked into her flashlight beam, waggling his eyebrows, despite how tired he was.
" Somehow that's worse..."
"How you doing Fox?" Katherine coughed lightly, enjoying the banter, chuckling to herself... but feeling awkward that Fox was doing himself in while out here in the cold when it should be her job. Why it wasn't working she had no idea. It normally fired up right away.
"Err it seems to be stuck," he grunted, trying hard not to cough up a lung. "either that or the bee pollen Scully made me try the other day robbed me of my Mojo." Turning to grin at her while he kicked viciously at the start handle of stubborn prehistoric contraption.
"Mulder I have better, more inventive ways to make you lose your Mojo. Keep that up and no Cherry Nyquil max strength for you."
" Oooh, hey 'Pervy is sexy' Scully." This time Katherine laughed loudly and rolled her eyes.
Another loud crack overhead and the generator shook to life in a hail of sparks and Mulder who had still been tinkering with it, went flying, and landed in a heap a few feet away.
"Mulder!"
"Aw Fox...Fox!"
END PART 4