From: gyrfalcon@delphi.com (Gerri Oliver)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: "The Men"
Date: 12 May 1995 05:25:49 GMT
This is a post for a member of the AOL E-Mail X-Creative Club. Remember, I
just post them, not write them. So all comments to the author listed, NOT ME!
Story has been sent to trustno1.pc.cc.cmu.edu and aql.gatech.edu.
Gerri
***************************************************************************
"The X-Files" and its characters are a creation of Chris Carter
and Co. and Fox Broadcasting. No copyright infringement intended,
etc., etc., etc.
This is just a little musing of mine on the roots of Mulder-angst
which may or may not eventually become part of a longer story. Let me
know what you think.
THE MEN
by Rhoda Miel
(ZeusStorag@aol.com)
March 1995
This one called himself Jeffers.
A fat man in a cheap suit. He combed his thinning hair across the
top of his head, stood up when Fox entered the living room.
"Here he is," his mother announced. "Fox, dear, this is the man I
told you about."
Another detective. The third this year. Fox didn't bother to count
the ones who'd shown up over the past three years.
His mother kept calling the men in. His father kept paying the bills
without a word.
Fox pretended he didn't care. He'd answer their questions, keep
out of their way, look over the reports they sent his mother when she
wasn't paying attention.
The expense reports would track the men, living well on the
family's money. New Orleans, Miami, Boston, Washington D.C.
Sometimes they didn't go far at all, just took the money, talked to the
people around Chilmark everyone had talked to before, enjoyed a
week's vacation among the beautiful people who were the summer
tourists.
"Sit down, Fox," his mother said, tapping the cushion on the
couch beside her.
She looked tired, leaning hard against the thick padding, the sun
shining against the hair that had turned so gray, so fast.
The man in the cheap suit sat across the room, in the stiff chair
reserved for company.
Fox slouched into the corner of the couch, stretching his legs out in
front of him.
He knew the questions the man would ask. He'd heard them again
and again -- a slight change in the words they used, but they wanted
the same result.
The first detective had been a surprise, a switch from the men in
uniforms who all looked alike. Fox believed in that man. Believed him
when he'd said he had access to information outside the legal
mainstream.
He still believed them. He didn't want to. Fox wanted to tell them
all they had no business there. In their house, his house -- Samantha's
house -- but for a reason he couldn't explain, couldn't define, Fox
believed Samantha would return and maybe these men were the ones
who would bring her home.
So he answered the questions. Went through the routine.
One of the men had gone through the familiar routine, sat down,
talked to him with a quiet voice that made Fox want to trust him. The
man told his parents Fox was responsible for Samantha's
disappearance.
"I've studied some psychology," the detective had said as Fox
listened through the old heating grate from the room above. "He's
obviously been covering for his sins for so long, he's forgotten the
truth himself."
Mom had ordered the man out of the house, slammed the door
behind him. Dad said nothing.
It was a few days later that Dad packed up, carried his bags out to
the driveway. He stopped just long enough to look back at the house,
then drove away.
Mom didn't seem to care anymore.
She called the detectives, looked for comfort in religion and locked
herself in her bedroom.
Fox could hear her cry in the night as he lay awake, trying to
convince himself the world was a safe place to fall asleep in.
He straightened up the house, cooked the supper, made sure Mom
ate when she was having a bad week -- answered the detectives
questions when she'd had a good week and called another man to the
house.
"You were the last one to see your sister, right?" Jeffers asked.
"Yeah," Fox stared down at the coffee table in front of him.
"Why didn't she go to her own bedroom?"
"Samantha often slept in the spare bed in Fox's room," Mom
interrupted. "She had nightmares sometimes and didn't like to wake up
alone."
Fox went through the evening's routine for the detective. Mom and
Dad were visiting the neighbors. They'd played a game, watched TV
until the power went out.
"Then what happened?" the man asked, crossing his legs, looking
for comfort in the chair.
"We went to bed, I guess," Fox said.
"You guess?"
"We went to bed," Fox repeated. "Nothing else."
"Do you remember if anything unusual happened after that?" the
man asked.
Idiot. Fox wanted to walk out of the room. Yeah, sure, Fox
thought to himself. Like nobody's ever thought to ask me that before.
Idiot.
He took a quick glance over at Mom, saw her looking at him, an
encouraging smile pasted on her face. Answer the questions. Keep her
happy.
"Fox?" the man interrupted.
"Um, no," Fox stared back down at the table. "I guess I fell asleep
right away."
"And you didn't notice she was missing until morning, right?" the
question was to Mom this time.
She shook her head.
Samantha's bed on the lower bunk was empty when Fox woke
early the next day. He'd been confused, not certain where he was -- an
odd dream hanging at the edge of his mind.
He figured she was already awake -- or had decided to go back to
her own bedroom sometime during the night. Samantha did that
sometimes.
Her room was empty. Fox could hear a television from the family
room downstairs. He dressed, headed for the kitchen, poured a glass
of orange juice.
"Samantha, want some juice?" No answer. "Samantha?"
The TV played to an empty room. Fox shrugged, put the juice
back, looked outside at the gray November skies, heard movement
upstairs.
Maybe Samantha was with Mom.
She wasn't. She wasn't anywhere. They looked through the house,
Dad screaming for his baby. The police came, helped search the
neighborhood, watched as Dad grabbed Fox by the shoulders, shook
him, yelled, asking for Samantha.
He didn't say anything then. Couldn't say anything.
Now Fox rose from the couch to retrieve the information his
mother wanted.
The reports were in the desk that'd belonged to Dad. The blinds in
his study shut the light out of the room.
Fox opened the blinds, squinted as the light burst through the
window. He leaned against the pane -- the glass felt cool against his
face. He took a deep breath, tried to settle the spinning in the pit of his
stomach.
Samantha's smiling face looked out at him from a photograph on
the desk and he traced her outlines across the dusty frame.
"Fox?" Mom called from the hallway. "Did you find it?"
"Yeah, Mom," he spun away from the photograph, away from the
desk, closed the door behind him. "Don't worry. I'll take care of it."
end.
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