The Truth You Leave Behind...Page 2
Scene 6
"I don't know about Sassy, but these black flies are so large...I think they should be an X file," Scully joked, swatting at her ear again. The air smelled like rain, but it wasn't raining yet. She hoped it would hold off for a while.
"Shhht!" Mulder said, putting his finger to his lips.
Scully rolled her eyes. She felt more than a little foolish crouching in the bushes waiting for a mythological creature to come out from nowhere and reveal itself. More than that, she felt miffed that Mulder was spending all of his energy on this instead of searching for his friend. It was the most illogical thing she had ever seen. How could she be a part of it? But, she was a part of it. She was here, getting dirt all over her butt and fly bites all over her body. She was as guilty as he was.
"Are you sure this will work?" whispered Yearling.
"No," Mulder whispered back. "I don't know what kind of bait is supposed to lure a sasquatch."
Scully looked in even more disbelief as Mulder produced a banana from his coat pocket. This was beginning to look like a bad Bonzo movie.
Mulder placed the banana in an obvious place near Mike's abandoned campsite. He ran back to their damp hiding spot and waited. They waited all afternoon. They took turns sneaking into the woods to go to the bathroom. They waited longer than they dared. Darkness would be falling before they made it back to Yearling's house. There was no way around it.
"I say we go home," Yearling demanded, still whispering. "It's not coming!"
"Wait!" Mulder urged, for the hundredth time today. "A little longer."
"Mulder," Scully shouted. Well, she whispered, but she was shouting inside. "This is insane. We're not here to look for a sasquatch. We're here to find Michael Robbins!"
"Exactly." Mulder agreed.
This took his partner by surprise. What was he talking about?
Mulder continued: "If Mike was attacked by a sasquatch, maybe we need to find out where he was dragged. Maybe we can only do that by following it. Maybe..."
All conversation stopped dead. You could hardly hear a breath and their heartbeats sounded like the most primitive tribal drum, calling from the eons of time past to the present as the two, history and this moment, kissed, and Sassy emerged from the forest in all her (her?)... what? Beauty? Glory? Maybe not like the cover of Vogue magazine, but she was beautiful nonetheless, and somehow she had defied the conquest of technology and the ravaging of nature by mankind.
Scully's blue eyes grew wide as her box of scientific knowledge exploded open, expanding her belief and her fear and her almost childlike wonder. This creature was no simple ape, no creature she or anyone else had ever seen before. No. Wait. Some had seen it, but the gods of reason had shouted down their unimportant little voices. Even now, while she crouched only a few feet away from the creature, her mind did not want to accept what her eyes dictated she must.
Sassy found the banana. It took her a minute to figure out how to get into the soft fruit she was smelling inside, but she did it.
"Be prepared," Mulder mouthed, without uttering a sound.
Then, it happened. Mulder stood up. Sassy bolted. He ran. Thomas ran. Scully ran. They ran madly into the forest chasing this figment of their imagination, this piece of folklore into the trees. It was precarious going, what with all the downed limbs and disappearing daylight.
They plunged on, blinded by curiosity, fury, terror, need. It was all or nothing now. When they finally stopped running, realizing that Sassy had eluded them as easily as if they were mere children, Mulder couldn't hide the disappointment on his face.
"Damn!" he spat. "We're never going to find it. It's impossible. I should've known. I...why do I do these things? I...Thomas?"
"Yeah?" Thomas said, trying desperately to catch his breath. "That was...well...it was incredible. Why didn't I think of it before?"
"Where's Agent Scully?"
Thomas looked around. "Isn't she here? She was right behind me. I can't see a thing. It's too dark."
Mulder flipped on his flashlight. "Scully? Scully?! Where are you?"
No answer. Somehow they had been separated. It wasn't hard to do in this kind of light and in this kind of forest. Scully found herself alone in unfamiliar territory.
"Stay calm," she told herself. "You'll be all right."
A wolf howl answered her and she shuddered. Suddenly, all of Sgt. Stewart's talk about the ice storm and strange animal behaviour was not what she wanted to remember, but that's what was running through her head. She shone her flashlight in every direction, hoping to find something familiar, even a footprint, a path, anything.
Her heartbeat suddenly sounded like a freight train in her ears. She swallowed, but it was hard to get past the lump in her throat. She wished, with all her heart, for the comfort of Mulder's voice, his presence. She leaned on that more than she wanted to admit, even to herself. Now that he wasn't here, in this dark, foreboding place, she felt like a scared little girl and, in her mind, she scolded herself for it.
She walked a few feet, then stopped, looked and listened. She continued on this way, for how long she didn't know. Her feet crunched in the dirt, every step she took. She hadn't noticed that before, but alone, in the dark, everything became magnified.
"Mulder!" she cried out, hoping, but not counting on, an answer. "Mulder!!"
A rustling sound? It came from the left. No! The right. No! It came from behind her. She turned around, slowly, drawing her revolver as she did so. Whoever or whatever it was, she was going to be ready for it.
"Great," she thought. "I'm going to go down in history as the person who discovered...and shot...Sassy."
"Who's there?" she asked. The wind blew, but there was no other sound. "Answer me!" She knew it was silly to demand anything from nature, but all she had left of her courage right now, all she could muster, was routine protocol, for all that was worth. "I'm a Federal Agent, from the FBI. Come out with your hands up," she added, senselessly. Maybe she thought the firmness in her voice would hide her fear. Maybe it was all that was holding her together right now.
Another rustling sound. Scully gasped, holding her breath and pointing her gun into the unknown darkness. Out of the shadows and into the real world stepped a figure. Was it a wolf? Sassy? A bear?
"D-d-d-don't shoot," said a weak and raspy voice.
Scully shone her flashlight into a face, a human face. She was visibly shocked. "Who..."
"My..my name is Michael Robbins. I'm a nature photographer and I've just been through a hell of an ordeal. Please, don't shoot me."
Scully lowered her gun. He was human and he was the reason she was lost in these woods right now. "I'm Agent Dana Scully, Federal Bureau of Investigation. There are a lot of people looking for you, Mr. Robbins."
"Scully?" he said, smiling weakly. He had seen better days. "You're Fox's partner. You came all the way to the wilds of Canada to look for me?"
Dana smiled. "Yeah, and now, I'm just as lost as you are."
"I'm sorry, Agent Scully," said Robbins. "I..."
"Scully!"
Mulder's voice carried on the wind like a beacon from Heaven. "We're here! Over here!!" She yelled as loudly as she could.
"Agent Scully," Yearling said. "We thought we had lost you. Mike? Mike!! You're okay!"
"I've been better," Mike said. "Can we go home now? Hey! Sly Fox!! You're a site for sore eyes."
Mulder smiled. His friend was alive. It was better than he could have hoped for. Now the troops could head home. Home? Where was home? Mulder surveyed their surroundings, more than a little worried.
"Relax," said Thomas. "Follow me."
Scene 7
"Seven feet tall," said Thomas.
"Eight...it was eight feet tall at least," Mulder argued, sipping on a cup of the best hot chocolate he had ever tasted, or was it just because he was so glad to be warm and dry in front of Yearling's fire?
"It looked nine feet tall to me," Scully interjected. She could hardly believe she just said that.
"That's because you, Scully, are a dwarf," Mulder joked, laughing boyishly.
She should have been angry with him, but it was good to hear him laughing and relaxing. She wished she could see that side of him more often.
"I won't argue," said Mike. "They were all of those things."
"They?" Scully asked.
"Yeah, they," Mike replied. "A whole colony...well...a herd...well...what do you call it? I caught a glimpse of how they live. I had to hide out for days behind a ridge to observe it...and I won't tell you where, not for a million dollars."
"Wow!" Yearling said. "I could paint that."
"Whoa, Tom," Mike said. "Nobody's painting anything. I saw how they live. It's an absolute pristine and untouched part of the world and, well, I hate to say it. I'm a wildlife photographer, for Pete's sake. I can't let this cat out of the bag. I'm sorry. It would make me famous, respected, and responsible for the decimation of another species. No, thanks."
"But, your campsite," Mulder argued. "It was torn to shreds. We thought you had been attacked by Sassy."
Mike smiled. "No. They're the gentlest creatures I've ever seen. It was probably a bear that broke into my camp to scavenge for food."
"We found...sasquatch hair," Scully said, almost choking on saying the words.
"That was my own personal sample," Mike explained. "I dropped it accidentally, I guess. It was a bear. End of story."
There was a prolonged silence, then Mike added. "Did I tell you about the time when Sly Fox and I raided Penny Whitmore's slumber party?"
Mulder laughed. "You wouldn't dare!"
Mike winked mischievously. "That's one story I will tell."
Mulder took the sofa cushion and whipped Mike with it.
"Oh...you're getting feisty now!" Mike put down his cocoa and the chase was on. The chase, the wrestling match, the reminiscing. It turned into two schoolmates holding onto a friendship from the past. And wasn't the whole trip that way? An attempt to grasp the past and hold it tightly in their hands...a truly impossible task. Still, it felt good, just for a time, to be there and taste the bittersweetness of something that looked real, but was really a reflection of what had been, a testimony to the bond of childhood friendships where you can be apart for years, get together, and it seems like only five minutes have passed.
Epilogue
"I'm glad your friend is all right," Scully said when they were finally alone in the car on their way back to Washington.
"Yeah, he's quite a character. Mike the Pike. We were like the dynamic duo, you know," Mulder said, smiling reflectively.
"I know what that's like," she replied. "He seems very nice...even if he did tell some of your nasty childhood secrets."
Mulder laughed. "It was always his idea."
"I find that hard to believe."
There was silence for a moment. Then, Mulder said, "He lied."
Scully looked puzzled. "He lied? Why do you say that?"
"It wasn't a bear. It wasn't a bear that attacked his campsite and it wasn't his own personal hair sample. I think he was hiding something."
"What? Mulder, why would he lie?"
"He's protecting Sassy," Mulder replied. "I think we were too close to their...colony. Mike had to make out like he'd been in the deep, deep woods because that's supposedly where they're colony lives. It doesn't add up to me. Why was Junior there? Why did Mama come and get that banana?"
"Why does it matter?" Scully asked. "We both saw what we saw. What do you want to do about it?"
"Nothing," Mulder said. "Mike's right. We can't let an unknown species be decimated by the all-knowing species of man."
Scully was surprised. "I can't believe it, Mulder. I thought you'd be all geared up to tell your story..to..to tell the truth. I thought you'd want to scour the forest to find this creature and expose it to the world."
"Remember the Jersey Devil?" Mulder asked, with more than a hint of anger in his voice.
Scully remembered. They had killed her, for no other reason than to preserve the tourist season. She understood and, though the scientist in her wanted so badly to explore this further, she knew that Mulder was right. Sassy was only safe as long as she remained a myth.
"I don't want to talk about it anymore," she said, having resolved it within herself.
"Fine."
She reached into the back seat and grabbed a package wrapped in plain brown paper. "I can't wait to hang these loons on my wall," she said. "Thomas really is a good artist, and I never would have found him if it hadn't been for you."
Mulder smiled. "I got one too."
"You did?" Scully said, wondering where in his bachelor pad he had room to fit a work of art. She looked at his wry grin, then it hit her.
"You didn't."
"I did," he said.
Scully knew that Sassy was coming home with them.
The End
Story written and conceived by The Mayz
Copyright 1998 The Mayz
