Death Valley, Nevada
Friday
2:41pm
A car arrived at the parking lot which was labelled "Greenwater – viewing point". The path further into the desert was only to be accessed by foot, exceptions were service vehicles. The entrance was blocked by a barrier where a narrow footpath for one person at a time led past.
There was only one other car parked there with nobody sitting in it. Agent Scully went up to it and looked in. It was a rental car with no obvious hints about who had been driving it. The lot showed loads of tracks leading in and out. Also recent tracks from the foot trail.
A.D. Skinner joined Agent Scully by the car. Both of them walked around it. Alison DuBois, who Skinner and Scully had picked up an hour earlier by the Las Vegas airport, was standing by their car still. For a chance, Skinner tried one of the doors. To his surprise it opened. He looked at Scully who returned his look.
Scully opened the driver's door and climbed in the car, looking around and under the seats. Then she reached underneath it. When she retreated her hand she held a key. A key marked by a tag of a rental car firm. It fitted into the lock.
"I felt something else there", Scully said. She reached down again and this time she held a couple of sunflower seed shells in her hand.
The look she gave Skinner this time was alarmed. Of course Mulder wasn't the only person who ate sunflower seeds, but slowly everything Alison had said began to fall into place.
Alison was still standing by Skinner's car, staring at the foot trail. There was a man standing there who she recognised as the man of her visions: Mulder. He had his face covered in blood. His suit was dusty, torn and also sporting bloody stains. He was saying something, pointing down the trail. "Help!" Alison heard him say.
"Mrs. DuBois?" Skinner called her. Alison looked in his direction, seeing both agents coming towards her. When she returned her look back to where she had just seen Agent Mulder, he was gone.
"We have reason to believe this rental car is the one that Mulder rented", Scully informed Alison when they had reached her. "We found..." Scully started to continue but Alison interrupted her.
"He's here, he went down that path." She pointed at the trail. "We'll need water and bandages", she continued and without anything else Alison began to walk towards the path.
"Wait", Skinner called. "What do you mean?"
"Sir, we don't have much time. He's been here for over 24 hours, injured, in the heat and without water", Alison called back, not stopping.
Scully just ran to their car, got the little medical bag and a bottle of water.
"She's right, Sir. If he's really here, which I strongly believe now, he needs help now rather than in half an hour." With that she followed Alison. Skinner sighed and went after them.
Five minutes into the path Alison stopped.
"What's it?" Scully demanded.
Alison shook her head and held out her hand, staring in the distance. She saw Mulder standing in front of her, this time pointing to his right, down the steep ravine.
"There must be a path which leads down into the valley", Alison explained. "He's somewhere down there."
"Down there?" Scully and Skinner gasped.
Scully went to the edge, swallowing hard. It was a steep and rocky slope down the ravine. As far as Scully's eyes could see there was nothing visible that stated Mulder could be down there. But she saw something else, a small path that was winding its way down the ravine.
"There's the path", she said and went ahead. She was glad she had put her sneakers on. They gave her better traction on the steep, loose ground.
Slowly they made their way down the hill. They had to be very careful not to slip and fall.
Scully, who was still leading the group, suddenly stopped and picked up something. It was the remains of a cell phone. She turned around.
"Sir", she showed Skinner the phone. "Mulder has one of these."
The expression in her eyes began to change from alarmed to alarmed, worried and scared. Skinner also started to worry now.
Alison took the chance to get ahead of Scully. She walked a couple of steps, then stopped again. About fifty yards from her she saw Mulder leaning onto a big rock. Alison turned to look at Scully and Skinner. The she looked back at the rock, but Mulder was gone again.
"We have to check out that bolder over there", she cried.
It took them three minutes to get there. The rock was almost 8 yards wide and 4 yards high. Scully bent down to examine something by her feet. The sand was discoloured but dry.
"What's it, Agent Scully?" Skinner asked her.
"This sand looks like there could have been blood on it, but it's dry as a bone." Something caught here eye that made her interrupt herself.
Between the gravel there was a reflection in the sunlight. She bent down and picked out something from under a pineapple sized rock. She froze.
"What did you find, Agent Scully?" Skinner wanted to know, worry in his voice after seeing her reaction.
Slowly, Scully got up and turned around. In her had she held an ID, Mulder's FBI ID. It was bloody.
Alison reacted first. While Scully and Skinner were still in shock she went around the rock.
"He's here!" she called out, kneeling by the still form.
Apparently he had managed to pull himself up and on the other side of the rock where it was somewhat shady.
Scully awoke from her frozen state and also went around the rock.
"Mulder", she exclaimed, also kneeling by his side. Now her doctor instincts came through. She felt his neck, feeling for his pulse. She let out a sigh of relief when she found it, but almost immediately her face changed into a frown. His pulse was rapid but very irregular.
"Oh Mulder, what have you stumbled in now again?" She looked at him. The right side of his face was almost completely covered in dried blood from several cuts on his head. His lips were dry, his eyes closed.