The X- Files
Chapter 2
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"Unfortunately, this man wasn't as lucky as Mr. Benson." Scully said as she pulled off her surgical mask & gloves. "I still can't believe what I'm looking at, this kind of damage could only have been done by a large predatory reptile, but the likelihood of one surviving the winter down there is very slim." Cody said as he studied the man's body, which had been bitten clean in half. "Unless it had help." Mulder said Cody & Scully both gave him a strange look. "Are you saying there might be more then one down there?" Cody said. "I was thinking more along the lines of human help." Mulder replied.
"Mulder,pleaseremind me again why we are tramping around down here when we have no concrete proof this thing even exists?" Scully said. Giving Mulder a disgusted look through her sanitation suit as they trudged along, knee deep in god knows what. "I have a hunch." Mulder said as he led the way, following the beams of their halogen flashlights. "Mulder, this is crazy, we don't know for sure if anything is even…" Scully trailed off, Mulder had somehow disappeared from her view vision in front of her. "Mulder?" She said again, her voice growing more tentative as her worry & heart rate increased. After a few tense moments, Mulder's disembodied voice reached her ears, it was a welcome sound. "Down here." He said dejectedly, she looked downward straight in front of her to see an uncovered outlet flow manhole which had been hidden by the flow of the thick mystery substance they had been wading through. "Are you okay?" She asked, shining her flashlight down into the manhole just in time to catch him finding his feet. "Yeah, something soft & squishy broke my fall. I think I'm better off not knowing what it was." He said as he located his flashlight & panned it around the drainage area. "I don't see an access latter anywhere. How about joining me down here, Scully? Come on, I'll catch you." He said, grinning widely at her through the mask of his suit as he outstretched his arms in front of him. "Thank you, Mulder but no. I have a better idea, hang on." She said as she disappeared from his view, Mulder panned his light around the small outlet flow area again, while he was waiting, he might as well have a look around. It was about the size of his basement office with one pipe exiting it, he shone his light into it, but it was too small for him to fit through. Just then, a rope cascaded down through the manhole. "Come on, Mulder. I have a bathtub at home that's calling my name." Mulder chuckled at her comment as he took hold of the rope, but before he could hoist himself up, something streaked by out of the corner of his eye, knocking him aside as it went. "Mulder?" Scully called down worriedly as he appeared at the top of the manhole, his face as white as a sheet through his suit. "We need to get these sewers searched, there is something down here & I think I just narrowly avoided becoming its next victim." He said, grimacing as he pulled himself the rest of the way up. "What did you cut yourself on?" Scully said as she examined a long, deep cut that traveled diagonally across his back. "I don't know, whatever shoved me out of the way as it ran past. "We need to get you to a hospital, your suit's torn & you're at serious risk of infection." Scully said as she marched him back to their entry point at the manhole on Fifth Avenue. "I guess you won't be getting that bath, huh?" Mulder said with a boyish grin, thus earning him a withering look.