Character: Dana Scully

Fandom: The X-files

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: Looks That Kill-Motley Crue Vol 2. Wk 14

Setting: Season Three Episode "731"

AN: Borrowed dialogue

Perkey was as rural and quiet of an area as one could find this close to the Washington DC metropolitan area. Not far from Harpers Ferry, it was tiny, remote, tucked in between the rolling hills that trapped the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers, the sort of remote place where people could hide things they didn't want found…such as secret government experimental programs. Her eyes roamed the darkness along the winding, country road, searching for the area from the address that Agent Pendrell had given her. So far the hills were ominously silent.

Mulder's informant said that she could find all the information she needed to know on that chip, about her abduction, who killed her sister, about what was on that train that they were so intent on destroying. If she could find out, get Mulder off of there…what in the world had possessed him to board that train? It was a rhetorical question at best; she knew that, it was Mulder, careless and heedless as always, hell bent on his truths no matter what the cost. He had a penance to pay, and as usual it was up to her to fit the pieces of the mystery together before he did something completely stupid.

Resentful much, she asked herself, as the headlights of her car landed a small street sign, almost invisible in the darkness. Rural Route 214, to her left along the deserted highway, she turned onto the road, scanning it for a gate, buildings. Several miles later, and over a rise one particular grouping of low, squat, gray buildings caught her eye, the sort of industrial look favored by everything from county road commissioners to military barracks compounds. It lacked any sort of signage introducing itself, and in fact Scully wasn't all together sure it was the place she was looking for. She slowly pulled her car up a crunching, gravel drive, waiting for a locked gate guarded by a stern looking soldier, curious as to why a woman from the FBI was driving up at a time well after midnight.

Eerily enough, she found none. The gate that should have enclosed the property now hung open drunkenly, flung wide but left as if forgotten. Scully paused, her brake lights glowing an eerie red in the growing fog surrounding the area. Was this Zama's facility, she wondered, glancing at the map lying on the seat beside her. The buildings in the distance were dark, there were no signs marking this as any place special, in fact all signs of life seemed missing from the expanse of squat buildings and wide, grassy yard. Carefully, she pulled her vehicle up the drive, parking it as she turned off her engine and watched the area for long moments.

If anyone did have a secret testing facility in this area, either they hadn't been here for some time, or they had gone to great lengths to hide its secrets. The protection and activity she would have expected for such a place were non-existent. Had Pendrell's information turned up an old, abandoned sight? Bitter frustration threatened to overwhelm her, but she ignored it, reaching behind her in her backseat for a flashlight. Quietly she stepped out of her car, flipping on the white beam to cut into the darkness, shining it around the darkened grass towards the buildings beyond, lighting her way as she made her way to the closest one.

So still was the night and everything in it, the nearby woods were even eerily silent as she walked. Her breath was loud in her ears as she moved, her breath misting in front of her in the chill, November air. There was no one here, she realized, and certainly nothing that marked this as a place where any sort of secret testing was done. Nothing in the cloudy, resurfacing memory spoke to her that this should be a place she should remember. She paused, shining her light around the buildings. Nothing moved.

She had nearly given in to the niggling thought that despite Pendrell's best efforts, his investigation was for naught. Clearly there was no one and nothing here. Frustration warred with defeat inside of her, and the desperate thought that Mulder was still on that train, still trying to find whatever was on that doomed boxcar. She had no way of stopping the train or him until she found evidence of what was on that boxcar, evidence enough to use her authority to stop the train. So far, she had nothing.

The bang to her side madder her heart leap as she spun, concentrating her beam in the direction of the noise while silently cursing that she couldn't hold it and reach for her weapon at the same time. Perhaps an animal, she tried to rationalize when she found nothing under the shine of her flashlight, but in the distance just beyond it she could hear someone scrabbling, and her eyes caught something flickering in darkness.

"Hey," she yelled, as suddenly the noise of not just one but several footsteps sounded by her, all moving towards the first of the squat, gray buildings. Without thinking Scully took off after them, her flying across the grassy expanse, her flashlight catching glimpses of white tennis shows in the flickering light.

"Stop," she commanded, though none of the feet seemed to want to listen to her. Into the building they ran as she followed suit, running up a set of wooden stairs that let into the dark building. She paused in the doorway, flashing her light around…nothing. It was a large room, expansive, with bunks covering the walls like a dormitory of some sort. There was a desk close by, and a lamp on it. She reached for it, seeking to shed some light, but pulled back her probing fingers as the soft skin scorched on the heat of lamps reflector. It had been on, just turned off…but the room and the building appeared vacant now.

She turned her light towards the back of the room and each of the windows. There was no other door than the one she had entered in, and none of the windows were open or even easily accessible for anyone to climb out. She stepped carefully into the room, looking towards the beds, wondering if anyone was cowering behind some piece of furniture, perhaps hoping she wouldn't see in the darkness.

Another sound behind her, a creak, and she spun again, training her light on the spot. A figure was rushing through a trapdoor in the floor, pushing down almost as soon as her light trained on the spot. If she had blinked she would have missed it, but thankfully she caught the movement and moved slowly, carefully towards the spot in the floor where the trapdoor almost fit seamlessly with the rest of the wood.

A chord stuck out, incongruous with the other wood panels. Scully bent to pluck it up between her fingers and pull. It came up easily, so recently opened as it was, and she shined her flashlight down into the darkness below, as murmurs and fearful whimpers rang up from underneath her, and one figure, bald, pale, and cowering, held up its hands over its face, murmuring plaintively.

"Please…don't hurt us," the voice was a masculine one, though if Scully had to judge by his oversized, misshapen head she would have never have guessed what gender he was until he spoke. What in the hell had happened to him?

"I'm not going to hurt you," she breathed softly, staring down at the huddled figures, all watching her from deep, misshapen eye sockets. They looked, eerily enough, like the very images of the aliens Mulder was forever chasing after. Carefully she raised her free, left hand, high enough that they could see it. "My gun is put away…see…I'm a federal agent." She swallowed hard as she crouched down closer to the hole. "I was looking for Dr. Zama."

The collective group of them either didn't seem to hear her or were too frightened to say anything. They continued to huddle closer to one another, as if for protection from the lone women above them wielding a flashlight. "Who are you," she asked, watching them in wonder.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm an FBI agent." She fumbled in her long, overcoat pocket for her badge, flipping it open with her left hand to show to the group below.

The speaker, the man bold enough to say something in the first place lowered his hands carefully as he gazed up at her. "We, we live here. We've lived here at the facility most of our lives.

Most of their lives…for what reason, "What kind of facility?"

"The Hansen's Disease Research Facility." He blinked up at her from his ruined, misshapen face.

"Hansen's Dis... Do you mean this is a leper colony?" Did they have those anymore in the United States? A treatment had been discovered years before, the disease was curable…why did this place exist?

"No more, they... the facility's closed now." He returned mournfully, glancing around to the other lepers around him, all with their sunken, white faces and heads elongated more than was natural for a human. What sort of leprosy did that to anyone?

"I," she began helplessly, horrified by the pitiful scene before her. "Look, I came here looking for a Doctor Shiro Zama."

"Doctor Zama... isn't here anymore. None of the medical staff is."

"Where did they go?" And why would they leave their patients alone here, huddling in the dark like frightened animals.

"Well... they all left right before the death squads started coming," he said mournfully, with the shell-shocked sort of tone in his voice that said that he had not only seen something horrible, he had barely escaped it himself.

"What death squads?" Just what had happened hear, what was going on? Death squads were terms one used in reference to Nazi Germany, not a research program for lepers in the middle of West Virginia.

"That's, that's who we've been hiding from." He waved an elongated hand towards his compatriots, all of who watched her with solemn fear. "We thought you'd come to kill us... like they killed all the others."

"Others," her mouth went dry as she stared at them. "You mean that you are all that's left?"

The man nodded solemnly, silent and grievous.

"How…why," she began, too stunned for words. It was unimaginable what he was suggesting, that anyone would do this to poor, helpless people in this day and age, in this country even.

Except they were willing to mow down an entire boxcar full of doctors on Mulder's video…and they were willing to blow another up to hide their evidence. And then there was Betsy Hagopian, dying in the hospital in Allentown. Of course these things could happen, they were happening all around her the entire time, as far back as Deep Throats death in her arms. These were men who would stop at nothing to hide their evidence, even at the death of innocents.

"Can you show me," Scully asked quickly, holding a hand out to the man speaking.

He stared at her hand reluctantly, as if still fearful she was going to kill him.

"I promise, I'm not hear to hurt you…I'm hear to stop this." She said this last bit on impulse. Not that she could do much to stop what had happened already. She could however learn of what was going on, find out what was occurring in this camp, to these people, and bring it to light.

The man watched her outstretched fingers for a long, breathless moment. Then, unsteadily, he reached one of his long, cold hands, and wrapped it around her small one. He ignored the murmurs of his fellows as he climbed up the ladder, Scully helping to keep him steady as he scaled up to the top.

He wasn't much taller than her, and seemed stooped by the disease that obvious ravaged his body. In the darkness, his sunken eyes seemed to glitter, the resemblance to one of Mulder's gray aliens becoming more eerily distinct. He was dressed in worn, dirty linen clothes, almost pajamas, and on his shirt was printed the last name "Escalante".

"Is that your name," she pointed towards his left breast pocket, his eyes following where she pointed.

"Yes," he whispered, something like a frown crossing his scared visage. "Mando….Armando Escalante." His English was flawless, but he spoke his own name with a pronounced accent…Mexican perhaps?

"How long have you been here," he had said most of his life.

"Since I was eighteen…ten years," he shrugged, shuffling his feet. "They took me because I had the disease."

"Hansen's?" He nodded briefly as Scully thought. "Where are you from?"

"They found me in Brownsville," Escalante sighed. "I guess you can say I was from there. My grandma…she took me to a clinic there, that's when they found the Hansen's Disease. Next thing I knew someone showed up telling her that they had a place that could make someone like me better."

"And she let them take you?" Ten years hear…ending up like this. Clearly something had gone horribly wrong. Escalante shrugged again. Perhaps with everything he had seen in these last days, it mattered little to him why or how it was he ended up here.

"Grandma, she was a good Catholic, she thought this was the answer to her prayers. I came…they never let me out again."

"What sort of tests were they running here, Mando?"

He watched her quietly again with his deep, glittering eyes. "Come…I'll show you."

Scully glanced down at the others, all watching her and Escalante with fearful gazes. "We'll be back," she tried to assure them as she reached for the trap door and closed it firmly, gesturing for Escalante to lead so that she could follow him in the darkness.

Her flashlight could hardly keep up with the younger man in the dark. He moved them carefully, building to building, across the yards of the facility towards a growth of trees must on the outskirts. Familiar with the territory, he picked out a path through the tangle of tall trees and low-lying bushes, slowing enough to allow Scully to follow at her more encumbered pace.

"How many have been killed," she gasped as she hurried up behind him, trying to keep up.

"Hundreds. All but us."

Hundreds…could he be serious? "I don't understand how there could have been hundreds of people here when, when leprosy is supposed to be a treatable disease." The frequency of outbreaks was so small, it was hardly heard of in the United States anymore, certainly not enough for hundreds of patients at this facility.

"Well, it is," he muttered grimly, though Scully was unclear what he meant by that. "Me and the other people back at the hiding place? We're the last. Our disfigurement forced us into the camps before there was a treatment."

But there had been a treatment for decades, a very effective treatment for the last twenty years. Zama had lied to these people….but why?

"Who were the others?"

"We never knew." Escalante replied, shaking his head. "They began arriving several years ago but they were kept apart from us."

"And they had Hansen's disease?"

"No, no, they had the Hansen's deformities. Doctor Zama would... round them up in groups for treatment. And then the, the ones that returned always came back worse, with terrible burns all over their bodies.""

Worse? If they didn't have the disease, what were they receiving treatments for? A niggling voice in the back of her brain reminded Scully of Mulder's video, of the substance he pointed out. Could this be another angle of their experiments….people who had been subjected to the Purity Control virus and who were now suffering from its effects? She shuddered as she thought of it, thought of Escalante and his horrible deformities, and how they were used as a cover up for what was really going on. Just what did this Purity Control virus do to people?

When they broke through the woods it was into a field, large and empty. In the distance a mound of earth lay, turned over a deep trench in the soft dirt.

"Over there," he shuddered, pointing with one inhumanely pale hand towards the ditch, moving steadily to it, glancing over his shoulder to see if she followed. Scully did, her light leading the way, half afraid of what she might see inside. Escalante stopped, glancing sadly over the edge, his face pensive as he waved her up, urging her to come and see too.

"Oh….my…" She gasped as her eyes locked on the scene below. "Oh my god!"

Hundreds of bodies lay piled below her feet, like a nightmarish scene out of black and white film of the German concentration camps. Bodies, more deformed even than Escalante's lay heaped on one another, their bodies riddled with bullet holes, like some horrible re-enactment of the very stories heard from Jewish survivors of World War II. They all lay, like broken dolls, human bodies with horrible alien heads, features looked like something out of one of Mulder's abduction stories.

Or the boxcar in New Mexico he had found…..or the baby she had recovered in the Erlenmeyer flask, the one with the same rounded, flattened head, and the large, rounded eyes. Was this what Purity Control was designed to do to people? Was this what they were trying to test it on? What had they done to these people? What had they done to her?

"There are more of these pits." Escalante murmured sadly beside her. "They just... dump the bodies on top of each other... like they were garbage."

Over the trees, through the valley in which the facility sat, there was a distinct thumping of blades against air, the sound of a helicopter coming from somewhere. Instinctively, Scully's eyes flew upwards as she searched the skies, Escalante besides her becoming agitated. "They're coming," he panicked, fear causing him to turn from her and run, back the way they had come.

"Wait…hey," she called, glancing at the light that was beginning to approach over the clearing, confused as to what Escalante meant by running. Was it the death squads again? Why? Didn't they believe they had killed everyone?

The light shined down on them, pinpointing them both, as Escalante screamed "No," and ran faster for the woods. She paused, unsure of what to do as the white, hot light from above suddenly blinded her, wondering if it was pointless to run from whatever it was coming or if Escalante didn't have a point, she should hide. Deciding at least to follow him, she rushed after him back the way they had come, the light following them both as they dodged through the trees and underbrush again, red lights now dotting the woods where only moments ago there had been none.

As suddenly as the helicopter appeared she was surrounded. Red lights flashed, and a hard, cold voice in front of her growled, low and deadly. "Move and your dead."

If the threat wasn't enough to stun her in to quiet, the shot in the distance was. She stilled, her blood freezing at what she knew was the consequences of that meant. She turned to the sound, uncaring if they fired on her for it.

"You killed that man," she whispered, glaring at him as he returned her disgust with cold indifference.

"You are trespassing on private property." His gun remained fixed on her, unyielding. From the side one of the other soldiers closed in on her, grabbing one of the arms she now held up in the face of the weapon trained on her.

"I'm a federal agent here conducting an investigation," she snapped, as the soldier immediately began patting her down, finding her weapon instantly. He confiscated it, ignoring her protests as his fellow's eyes narrowed on her dangerously.

"You have no authorization to be here."

"Look in my pocket," she glanced at the soldier at her side. The man did as she asked, slipping a hand in first her right, then her left coat pockets, pulling out the billfold that contained her badge and holding it up to his compatriot. The other man's cheek twitched slightly before he nodded.

"Take her back to the facility." He spat the words out as if he were sorry that she wouldn't meet the same fate as poor Escalante. Scully's heart went out to the poor man, who had done nothing more than become ill with a rare disease, and had been used as a convenient cover for the sins of others.

Why had those people back there been killed? And why did they look the way that they did?

"Move," the man with the rifle trained on her ordered, waving the muzzle in the direction of the facility. From there she could hear the sounds of shouts and screams…they had found the others. Scully's stomach lurched much as she did through the underbrush, pushed along by the men with the guns. She didn't need to ask what would happen to the poor souls, hiding for their lives in their cellar. She had already seen what would happen to them.