Wednesday, 26 October 2022

No. Not Even THEY Want to Claim Nixon.


SCENE 4 

X-FILES OFFICE; 

FBI HEADQUARTERS 

WASHINGTON, D.C.


Mulder shows Scully a slide of Gary's back 

with the words clearly written on it.


" HE IS ONE "


MULDER: 

Gary Kane, 16 years old, High School Junior. 

"C" student, first-string varsity football, 

member of the local 4-H club. 


Not one of Wisconsin's more remarkable kids 

but still the apple of his mother's eye.


SCULLY: 

What does that mean?


MULDER: 

Nobody knows.


SCULLY: 

What does The Police report say?


Scully walks over to Mulder and sits on the desk next to him as he shows her the file.


MULDER: 

The victim received a phone call and left his home. 

He was discovered in the woods in his underwear twelve hours later. 

He's been unable to give a coherent statement.


SCULLY: 

Any evidence of sexual assault?


MULDER: 

No.


SCULLY: 

Does it seem like it might have been a schoolboy prank?


MULDER: 

The other victims have had to be sedated and hospitalized since their ordeals. 

They were reportedly hysterical with fear.


(He stands up.)


SCULLY: 

Victims? You mean there've been others?

(Mulder nods and switches the slide to another person with the same writing.)


MULDER: 

One in eastern Wisconsin, one three towns away.

(He flips to another slide, then another.)

Both with the same black words written in black magic marker.


SCULLY: 

What's your interest in this?


MULDER: 

The local sheriff in Delta Glen, Wisconsin thinks he knows what's been happening to these kids.


SCULLY: 

What's that?


MULDER: 

He thinks they've been possessed.




SCENE 5 

DELTA GLEN, WISCONSIN

Mulder, Scully and Sheriff Mazeroski drive down a road in the sheriff's car. 

Mulder is in the back seat.)


MAZEROSKI: 

There's something I think you ought to see first. 

They call themselves the Church of the Red Museum. 

They're followers of a guy named Odin that moved out here from California three years ago and bought a ranch.


SCULLY: 

What's the significance of the name "Red Museum?"


MAZEROSKI: 

Well, Odin and the rest of them are a bunch of vegetarians. 

They drove the ranch right into the ground, 

turned 500 head of beef cattle into pets. 

Calls it a monument to barbarism.


MULDER: 

Probably went over big with the local ranchers.


(Mazeroski laughs.)


MAZEROSKI: 

Well, you gotta admit, it takes some big ones to set down in the middle of cow country and start a church like his.



SCENE 6 
CHURCH OF THE RED MUSEUM 
DELTA GLEN, WISCONSIN
They pull up to the church as three worshippers walk by and towards a barn. They are dressed in white except for a red turban. Mulder, Scully and Mazeroski get out of the car and watch them. Mulder takes out an umbrella and holds it over his and Scully's head.

MAZEROSKI: 
Kinda stick out like a sore thumb, don't they?

SCULLY: 
You know sheriff, from what little we've seen, what, what little you've told us, they seem rather unlikely to be involved in the kind of activities that you described.

MAZEROSKI: 
Well, I, I won't say another word. 
You can just see for yourself.

(They walk into the barn and stand in the back. In front of them is a whole congregation of fifty or so people, with a giant viewscreen in the front of the room. A man gets up onto the platform in front, puts his hand together and bows lightly.)

CONGREGATION: 
Ommm...

MAZEROSKI: 
That's Odin.

Odin sits down at a computer and starts typing rapidly. A woman in back of him reads off the screen into a microphone as the words come up on the screen in back of her.

WOMAN: 
Today is a blessing from our lord and master, who awaits his flock in this time, the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. 
Eighteen earth years from the beginning of the new kingdom. 

The guides speak through me today as messengers of word that we may be free from death and the passage into spirit. 

As the acceleration continues, we, the enlightened, must bring our teachings of the skills for survival to mankind. 
Repeat in prayer...

MULDER: 
They're walk-ins.

SCULLY: 
What are walk-ins?

WOMAN: 
We, the second souls of the first bodies...

CONGREGATION: 
We, the second souls of the first bodies...

WOMAN: 
Bearers of the word and keepers of the sacraments of a new enlightenment...

MULDER: 
They're believers in soul transference
enlightened spirits who have taken possession of other peoples bodies.

CONGREGATION: 
Bearers of the word and keepers of the sacraments of a new enlightenment...

WOMAN: 
Blessed mission and toil.

CONGREGATION: 
Blessed mission and toil.

WOMAN: 
Our struggle is transcendent, and your guidance, our guides...

CONGREGATION: 
Our struggle is transcendent, and your guidance, our guides...

Odin finishes typing and looks to the back of the room at the three visitors.

WOMAN: 
...will carry us toward the dawning of a new age.

CONGREGATION: 
...will carry us toward the dawning of a new age.

(Odin starts typing again.)

WOMAN: 
Today, we bear witness to three who do not believe.

The congregation, one by one, slowly turn and look back at the agents.
We encourage them to open their hearts and minds to our teachings that they who slaughter the flesh slaughter their own souls and must be taught the way.

Mulder looks at Mazeroski.



SCENE 7 
BETH KANE'S HOUSE
(Gary and Beth are sitting down. Mazeroski is as well, but Mulder and Scully are standing.)

GARY KANE: 
I only remember parts of it.

MULDER: 
Which parts are those?

GARY KANE: 
I was in the woods and... I felt... a spirit enter me.

(Mulder walks over and sits down next to him.)

MULDER: 
When you say spirit, Gary, 
I'm not sure what you mean.

GARY KANE: 
It... it might have been an animal spirit. 
I can't explain it. Something... just came over me.

MULDER: 
And you don't remember who called you?

(Gary shakes his head no. Scully, standing in the doorway, looks back down the hallway.)

Anything at all about what happened immediately after you left home that night?
(
Scully walks down the hallway, looking at various pictures.)
Have you ever had any dealings with anyone from the Church of the Red Museum?
GARY KANE: I've seen them around.
MULDER: Do you have any reason to believe that they may be involved with what happened to you?
(The pictures are of Beth, Gary, Stevie and the whole family.)
MAZEROSKI: Now tell him what you told me, Gary.
(Gary talks in the background. Stevie walks up to Scully.)
SCULLY: Hi.
STEVIE KANE: Hi.
SCULLY: Who are you?
STEVIE KANE: Stevie.
SCULLY: Oh, you're in all the pictures. You must be Gary's younger brother.
(Stevie nods.)
I'm Dana. Stevie... do you remember who your brother might have gone out to see the other night?
(Stevie shakes his head "no.")
Did he say anything?

Through the peephole in the bathroom mirror, the man watches Scully. 
Scully hears footsteps in that direction and looks towards the mirror, but does not see anything. 
The man is gone from behind it. 
Mulder walks up to Scully.

MULDER: 
Scully, we'll meet you outside.

He and Mazeroski leave. Scully turns back to Stevie.

SCULLY: 
Well, thank you for your time.

Mulder and Mazeroski start down the front steps.

MULDER: 
Has this boy ever been in any trouble?

MAZEROSKI: 
Gary?

MULDER: 
Yeah.

MAZEROSKI: 
No, I've known him since he was a kid. Same age as my son. 
Now, he's done some beer drinking, but he's just your basic sixteen-year-old. Least he was.

MULDER: 
You see a noticeable difference in him?

MAZEROSKI: 
Yeah, yeah. Gary Kane lived for football. He's a damn good athlete too. Now he won't even suit up.

MULDER: 
The Red Museum... 
how are they treated by the local citizens?

Scully walks over.

MAZEROSKI: 
Nobody much cares for them.

MULDER:
Well, are they ever singled out? 
Shop owners refusing to sell to them, stuff like that?

MAZEROSKI: 
Well, there's a reasonable amount of tension 
but most folks are happy to just try to avoid them.

MULDER: 
Uh, can you recommend a good motel in the area?

MAZEROSKI: 
Sure. That means you're going to stay on for a bit. 
You think there might be something to this?

MULDER: 
Well, I, I want to run a background check 
on the church and this guy

MAZEROSKI: 
You've come to the right place for that.



SCENE 8 
CLAY'S BBQ
Scully sits with plates upon plates of food in front of her. 
She has a bib with the store logo on it, and it is covered with sauce. 
She finishes off a rib and puts down the bone, leaving some more sauce on her cheek by her lip. 
Mulder is sitting across from her with a bib on as well.

SCULLY: 
You know, Mulder... ribs like these, 
I'd say the Church of the Red Museum 
has its work cut out for it.

He wipes off the sauce on her face.

Thanks.
So, you started to tell me about walk-ins 
but I'm not sure if I grasped the finer points.

MULDER: 
Well, it, it's kind of a new age religion based on an old idea. 

That if you, uh, 
lose hope or despair 
and 
want to leave this mortal coil
you become 
open and vulnerable.

SCULLY: 
To inhabitation by a new spirit.

MULDER: 
A new enlightened spirit. 

According to the literature, 
Abe Lincoln was a walk-in. 

And Mikhail Gorbachev 
and Charles Colson
Nixon's advisor.

SCULLY: 
But not Nixon?

MULDER: 
No. Not even they want to claim Nixon.

I Do.


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