Something New.

Glasgow, Kentucky.

May 17, 2010.

Gene Foster was a peculiar man. He craned his neck to see over the steering wheel of a dark blue, windowless van. He wore a lab coat with navy shorts and a tank top underneath. He reminded Mulder of himself, youthful and unguarded in the way he spoke. He gave every word a mystical purpose. He even looked similar to Mulder, with his spiky brown hair and kind brown eyes. His behavior made his age impossible to guess, but the fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror gave Mulder the impression that he was a child of the sixties as well.

Mulder hopped into the passenger's seat of the van, glancing around at the piles of books that littered every corner. He was surprised the vehicle wasn't sitting lower.

It started raining before they left the airport. Mulder squinted at the wall of water pouring over the windshield. Despite it, the van was stuffy and humid. Mulder was uncomfortable at first, squeaking as he shifted around on the plastic chair cover, but as the drive went on he let himself become curious, surveying the contents of the broken glove compartment that rested on his knees. He even toyed with one of the buttons on his flannel shirt, irritated with himself for wearing something so warm. For some reason he had thought Kentucky would be chilly.

Gene took interest in conversation when they made it to a quieter part of the city. He turned down a few side roads, putting on a decent amount of speed but still tensing up whenever a shadow swept over their path. "I'm glad for your interest in this. The ranger who disappeared was a friend of mine. We bowled together sometimes. He was a good guy."

"So, you think an animal is responsible for this?" Mulder wondered. His emails had alluded to something more paranormal, but Mulder could see the piles of research strewn across the backseat. Rather than folklore and legends, it was all biological. Strictly normal information.

Gene sat a little straighter. "Uh, yes, that's right. I don't have a name for you, but whatever is killing these people is a long-term resident of the Mammoth Cave System."

"Killing? No bodies have been recovered."

"I'm sure they won't be recovered."

"So you believe an alligator is attacking these people?"

Gene glanced back, a mischievous light in his eyes. "Oh? Why do you say that?"

"I looked you up on the plane. You wrote your thesis on the hunting methodology of the American alligator – I'm interested to know why you're in Kentucky studying alligators."

"Very observant, Mr. Mulder," Gene said, smiling a little. "I guess you looked up the local alligator population and found out that it didn't exist."

"Explain that to me."

"I came here a little over a year ago to research the inhabitants of the cave system. I thought maybe a few of the native gators could have survived in such a damp underground environment, but when the disappearances started I began to suspect differently. Alligators are excellent hunters, powerful, patient, and fearsome, but they're only silent until they leave the water. It occurred to me that whatever is attacking these people is something… else."

"What do you mean? Another water predator?"

"I spent a few hours inside the caves recently, mapping the terrain, getting a census of the local wildlife, and I realized that there is something unseen sitting at the top of the food chain, and it's not something we're familiar with."

"How can you-?"

"I walked through the tunnels," Gene interrupted her, his voice becoming low and eerie. "I walked, and I listened to the water running, and recorded the sounds of frogs and insects echoing from all over, and then everything went silent."

Mulder sat up a little. His neck tingled. "Total silence?"

Gene nodded. "I was in the lower chambers when it happened. I could hear a rumbling up above, like something absolutely massive was moving overhead. I ran up, tried to climb a few levels to see what was making the sound, but the tunnels were empty."

"The witnesses reported hearing a low rumbling sound several minutes after the victim went missing. It always happens the same way. They hear the rumbling, and then they hear someone screaming, and then everything goes silent."

"I heard that, too," Gene said. "I knew it couldn't be a coincidence. Whatever it was that has been stalking these caves for hundreds, maybe thousands of years has finally stepped up its appetite."

"If something so massive really existed in those caves someone would have seen it by now," Mulder pointed out, playing both the believer and the sceptic to fill the empty seat in the car. She would have been proud of him for that.

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"Have you looked into the local legends?" Mulder wondered.

Gene nodded, leaning over the steering wheel again to try and see through the wall of rain. It was getting louder, so he had to shout so Mulder could hear him. "I did some research, but I couldn't find anything to explain the disappearances."

Mulder pulled his tablet from his damp backpack. He powered it up and glanced over the webpage he had been reading on the plane. It was heavily decorated with leaves and arrowheads, with several paragraphs of text written in a spooky font.

"Is that about the caves? Read it." Gene urged.

Mulder smiled. "Some would say it sounds a little out there, but I think these local stories have some credibility. This is the documentation from the Native American side, passed down through the generations as oral history. In the seventies an anthropologist took interest in some kind of religious ceremony. I found another record when I searched for historical documents pertaining to this area. In 1650 a group of French explorers set out to classify the local tribes. Francois Rousseau was the expedition leader, and his son Bastien was the medic – or the cook, I'm not good with French. Anyway, the French recorded that Rousseau died after taking ill in the early spring, but according to the journals written by his son, they were investigating a vast cave system when Rousseau became severely disturbed and eventually died of fright. I haven't been through the whole journal yet, but there are some pretty obvious discrepancies between it and the official story."

"How do you know these sources are credible?"

"He kept a record so the truth wouldn't be buried. He spent pages detailing the creatures he encountered. I have the translation in my bookmarks. I'm not done with it yet, but from what I've read so far, the explorers may have something much more dangerous than an ancient animal. I think they incurred the wrath of a poltergeist."

Gene gave him a doubtful, 'you just lost me' kind of look. "I have never found empirical evidence of ghosts, Mr. Mulder. Ancient animals, on the other hand, are very real."

"What kind of animal could do such a thing? You said it yourself. It was absolutely silent, bigger than anything we know of. It didn't leave signs of a struggle and no one saw it." He smirked, realizing he wasn't getting anywhere with his logic. "Either way, we'll get to the truth. We both know that the press story was full of crap."

"Yes, twenty people including a trained park ranger making a wrong turn in the same part of the cave system. And, to top it off, they all vanished without a trace."

Mulder nodded.

"But it wasn't a ghost."

He smiled, catching a competitive jab in those words. "Oh yeah?"

"Yes."

"Consider it, though, just for a moment. What if those screams the witnesses heard were actually the final words of souls being dragged into the Underworld? What if that thudding sound was a portal closing – or opening – between our world and the next? I've read accounts of people in caves experiencing an intense sense of malice and fear in the hours leading up to their deaths, almost like something was hunting them, even when they were above ground again. You can't tell me that doesn't fascinate you."

Gene took a moment to look at him, for once diverting his attention from the road. He still seemed doubtful and amused, but there was a sense of wonder hidden away in his expression. "You have a remarkable mind, Mr. Mulder."

Mulder smiled, not sure how to respond to that.

"But you're still dead wrong."

His smile turned into a smirk. "I guess we'll find out soon enough."

Gene lived in an appropriately spooky house. Despite the rain pouring down on him, Mulder lingered on the sidewalk for a few precious seconds to take in the two-story masterpiece of Civil War Era architecture. It was a piece of art. It reminded him of his own home in Virginia, and he wondered if they had been constructed around the same time. He wasn't standing there for more than a minute when Gene beckoned him from the porch. He was frowning at him.

He walked across the grass, water soaking through his shoes, and jumped up the front steps, waiting while Gene struggled with the lock. When the door finally opened it jerked forward, slamming against the interior wall, and they both jumped. He followed Gene inside, stopping on the mat to kick off his soaked shoes. He dragged his suitcase in and set it on the carpet, sliding out of the way as Gene shut the door.

"Is there someplace I can change?" Mulder wondered of the scientist, glancing around.

Gene motioned to the narrow, carpeted staircase that led almost vertically to an old wooden door. There was very little room to walk, but he had managed to stack boxes, files, and computer equipment on the edges. "Your room is up there. Make yourselves at home. If you get hungry, there's food in the kitchen, but we'll pick up some breakfast before we leave tomorrow."

Mulder trudged up the stairs, hauling the suitcase along with him. It was a modest bedroom, dominated by a king-sized bed and a psychedelic carpet. Somehow it manage to be warm and cozy, despite the raging storm outside.

"Home sweet home," he murmured to himself. He shut the door, set his suitcase beside the dresser, and lost his clothing on the way to the bed. He got sidetracked by the heating vent, realizing for the first time that he was cold. When he finally made it to the mattress he sunk in like it was made of feathers, the coiled muscles in his back loosening. He let his eyes drift shut. "Oh, this bed… I need this bed…"

He laid there for a little while, fantasizing about sleeping, but he couldn't get his departure off of his mind. He kept remembering the last words Scully had said to him, and he needed to hear her voice saying something sweeter. He stole the home phone from the kitchen counter and went back upstairs, laying across the bed like a teenage girl talking to her crush.

Scully picked up midway through the second ring. "Mulder?"

He was pleased with the worry in her voice. "Everything's fine," he responded. "I just wanted to say goodnight."

"Is that really why you called?"

He sighed. "Why do I have to have an ulterior motive?"

"Because you're you." She was quiet for a moment. He heard her say something softly, and the dog whined in the background. "By the way, your half of the bed is still warm. I won't say who is sleeping there, but it's scandalous, I promise."

He smiled, glad that she didn't seem angry with him. "You done me wrong, Scully."

She laughed, but it died away. "Do you really think this is something supernatural, Mulder?"

"I think people are missing, and something is taking them. This can't be a series of accidents."

"I suppose the odds would be… astronomical."

He let his eyes shut again, imagining himself lying in bed with her. She was so easy to talk to. Sometimes they say the sun rising, and realized that they had been talking through the night, completely oblivious to the rest of the world. "You said once that you really thought about dying – really thought about it. You described how you felt about it, but you never said what you… expected to find when it ended."

"Something kind, I would hope."

"Like a meadow?"

"Like peace… like the family I had lost…"

"This case… I was interested in it because of all the lore surrounding caves and caverns. The interior is the second least understood part of our world."

"What is the least understood part, then?"

"Oceans."

She hummed deep in her chest.

"Anyway, when I think of death, of dying, I can't zero in on what might happen. I mean, the concept of the Underworld has been a part of human mythology since the beginning. Stories of gods fighting titans and assigning the land amongst themselves, stories of Hades and the black depths where souls can never escape. You were raised to call it Hell, to picture a tangible series of chambers with hellfire and brimstone, but others think of it in more abstract ways."

He paused, glancing at the pale outline of the window. Every now and then lightning lit the world outside, and he could see the limbs of a tree reaching out for him.

"Buddhists see afterlife as only pleasant, or, rather, separated from suffering altogether. Samsara, the continuation of unenlightened life, is the only alternative. Egyptian beliefs were centered on the total apartness one experienced when they died, to know everything that is to be known, to see the future, the past, and the present in unison. Even the Hebrews started off with the notion that when people died they become lesser beings, like wraiths, and haunted the living."

"Are you still talking about the caves?"

"I was reading this journal… I think the author – someone who explored these caves – encountered a real poltergeist. I've encountered ghosts, but the way that he described it…"

He heard the bed shift, as if Scully was sitting up. "Are you afraid, Mulder?"

He hadn't expected that question. He stumbled over it. "He has a way with words. Conveying terror is something that most people find… terrifying."

"Is he better than Stephen King?"

He smiled, trying to squash the unease in his skin. "Not even close. Look, I've got to go. I'll call you before we enter the caves, okay?"

"If you don't, I'll send Deloris after you."

"Got it. Goodnight, Scully. I love you."

"I love you, too."

Mulder followed the sound of typing through the house until he located Gene. He was in a tiny corner office, not unlike the one Mulder had at home, and he was typing rapidly into his computer. He noticed Mulder standing in the doorway and urged him inside, continuing his typing for a few more minutes. Mulder wandered around, studying the paper-plastered walls.

Gene was fascinated with ecology and evolution. Papers detailing the evolutionary lines of dozens of creatures were accompanied by complicated food chain diagrams, soil and water content charts, and percentage-based formulas designed to assess animal populations. Mulder admired his dedication, and marveled at the organization of the room. Anyone else would have assumed this man was insane, posting his ravings all over the place, but Mulder saw the pattern almost immediately. Creatures, beginning with the simplest and moving to the most complicated, moved out in a spiral pattern from the far corner of the room. It was like a train of thought – a train of millions of years of life summarized in one small room.

"Mr. Mulder," the scientist said, finally turning from his computer. He had shut the screen off. He smiled with all the warmth of an old friend. "May I call you Fox? I love that name."

Mulder grimaced, shrugging. "I guess."

Gene smiled, motioning to an old trunk resting beneath an open window. "Have a seat. I guess it's hard to sleep with all the thunder."

"That's not the problem. I actually like storms." Mulder went to sit on the trunk, looking out the window and frowning when he found a small dog mulling about in the rain. It looked miserable. His train of thought stuttered a little. "Um, I thought we could talk."

"Of course." He fished through his papers, presenting Mulder with a snippet of a newspaper article. It was a picture of him from nearly fourteen years ago. He smiled reflexively at the irritated look his partner was wearing. "Betty sent these over. She thought you might like to keep them."

Mulder nodded, taking the clippings delicately in one hand. He sat back against the window, leafing through the pictures. "In your emails you said that this expedition might take several days. Is that true?"

"Four hundred miles is a lot of territory to cover."

"And what about this creature… what kind of animal do you think it is?" Mulder found himself looking around again, pulling information from the walls. "I mean, obviously it's not an alligator. What else could make a home down there? Is it mammalian or reptilian?"

"Or something else entirely," Gene said, his voice lowering an octave. "Have you ever read the accounts of the basilisk?"

Mulder perked up immediately. "The king of the snakes. Supposedly a little guy with a crown shape on his head – unless you're in a movie theater."

"What if a true king of snakes did exist? Those caverns would be the perfect home."

"But isn't it too cold for reptiles?"

"Therein lies the mystery."

He stood, flattened his lab coat against his body, and then went for the door. "Go through anything of mine if you want. I have some records of other species in the caves and a few Twinkies hidden in those drawers."

"You hitting the hay?"

"No, no, I'm going to get that dog and bring it in, then I'll sleep, I think. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Mulder stayed where he was for a little while, smiling as he watched the other man unhook the dog and walk it back into the house. Its tail wagged all the way across the yard. He walked around the office, lingering on some interesting creatures that Gene had investigated. Evidently the biologist was starting in on the twisted world of cryptozoology, beginning with the infamous, elusive terror bird, whose wingspan was reported to be longer than a city bus.

He was interested in the research, but his eyes were starting to drag down. He ended up in a small living room near the back of the house, tablet in hand. This room had no windows, making it the perfect retreat from the storm.

He was not exaggerating when he said Bastien Rousseau had a way with words. His phrasing, his descriptions, and his own fears haunted Mulder, but he could not stop reading. It was fascinating, and horrifying, in every sense of the word. Rousseau described a hooded figure pursuing them through the woods, some kind of specter, and his fear was alive in every page.

He thought about the diviner who had stood on his porch that morning, about her dark warning. Perhaps she really was psychic, but rather than drowning in the water, or knitwear, he was going to drown in fear, as the explorers had. Perhaps what had pursued the Frenchmen was still out there, dragging people down into the depths.

Perhaps they would encounter it, and his questions about the afterlife would be answered.