SCULLY :
No exam has been done?
The Sheriff :
Uh ... No, Ma'am. Once I heard y'all was interested
I figured we'd best leave it to
The Experts. (Scully smiles broadly)
Now, uh ... that can't be
what it looks like, right?
MULDER:
That depends on what you think
it looks like, Sheriff Hartwell.
Vampires have always been with Us,
in ancient myths and stories
passed down from early Man.
(Scully stands behind Mulder, smiling, eyes wide,
rocks from side to side, goofing around)
From the Babylonian Ekimu to the Chinese Kuang-Shi
to Motetz Dam of the Hebrews, the Mormo
of ancient Greece and Rome*
to the more familiar Nosferatu
of Transylvania.
The Sheriff :
Mormo.* Yeah.
SCULLY:
In short, Sheriff, no. This can't be what it looks like.
I think what we're dealing with here is
simply a case of some lunatic. (She chuckles)
Who, uh, has watched too many Bela Lugosi movies.
He wishes that he could transfigure himself
into a creature of the night.
The Sheriff :
Yeah. Okay. Uh ... what she said,
that's what I'm thinking,
and, uh ... Yeah.
(Scully loves being right)
MULDER:
Still, that leaves us in something of a quandary
because there are as many different
kinds of vampires as there are
cultures that fear them.
(Scully yawns and covers her mouth)
Some don't even subsist on blood.
The Bulgarian Ubour, for example,
eats only manure.
SCULLY: (sarcastically)
Thank you.
MULDER:
To The Serbs, a prime indicator
of vampirism is red hair.
(raises his hand to Scully's head)
Some vampires are thought to be eternal.
Others are thought to have
a Life-span of only 40 days.
(Scully's pointing at her watch, rolling her eyes, carrying on.)
Sunlight kills certain vampires
while others come and go
as they please, Day or night.
(Scully sighs deeply from boredom).
SCULLY:
If There's A Point, Mulder,
please feel free to come to it.
MULDER:
My Point is that We Don't know
exactly what we're looking for.
What kind of vampire, or if you prefer,
what kind of vampire this killer
wishes himself to be.
(Mulder notices the untied shoes on the corpse
and stands with his head between his feet)
SCENE 19
TODAY X FILES OFFICE
SCULLY:
Now, why is it so important
that his shoes were untied?
MULDER:
I'm getting to it.
CEMETERY - DAY
MULDER VOICE OVER:
So, while You stayed behind to do The Autopsy,
The Sheriff drove me to the town cemetery.
(Hartwell opens the gate and they walk through.
This cemetery is certainly not off the beaten path,
the creepier the better)
The Sheriff :
Agent Mulder, you mind me
asking you why we're out here?
MULDER:
Historically, cemeteries were thought to be
a haven for vampires, as are castles,
catacombs and swamps,
but unfortunately, you don't
have any of those.
The Sheriff :
We used to have swamps only
The EPA made us take to
calling them ‘wetlands’.
MULDER:
Yeah. So, we're out here looking
for any signs of vampiric activity.
The Sheriff :
Which would be like, uh...?
MULDER:
Broken or shifted tombstones.
The absence of birds singing.
The Sheriff :
There you go. Cuz I ain't hearing any birds singing.
Right? Course, it's winter, and We ain't
got no birds. Is there anything else?
Mulder :
A faint groaning coming from under the earth.
The sound of manducation -- of the creature
eating its own death shroud.
The Sheriff :
Nope. No manuh... ma-ma...
MULDER:
Manducation.
The Sheriff :
Manducation. No.
MULDER:
Now, Sheriff, I know my methods
may seem a little odd to you, but..
The Sheriff :
Hey, look, y'all work for the federal
guv'mint and that's all I need to know.
I mean, CIA, Secret Service --
-- y'all run the show, so --
MULDER:
It's just that my gut instinct tells me
that the killer will visit this place.
That it may well hold some fascination --
some kind of siren call for him, you know.
(A horn honks)
RONNIE:
Howdy, Sheriff.
(The teen delivery boy is in a red car on the street, a Gremlin)
The Sheriff :
Oh, hey, Ronnie. How's it going?
RONNIE:
Can't complain.
The Sheriff :
Well, all right, then.
(Ronnie drives off)
MULDER:
Maybe after nightfall, Sheriff,
but he'll come. Oh, he'll come.
(we watch the car drive off down the road)
SCENE 20
CEMETERY - NIGHT
(Mulder looking around with his flashlight)
MULDER VOICE OVER:
So, we staked out the cemetery.
SCENE 21
TODAY X FILES OFFICE
SCULLY:
Mulder, shoelaces?
MULDER:
Hmm?
SCULLY:
On The Corpse. You were going to tell me
what was Meaningful about
finding untied shoelaces.
MULDER:
I'm getting to it.
SCENE 22
CEMETERY - NIGHT
(Mulder is spreading sunflower seeds around
the cemetery, he gets into Sheriff's car)
MULDER:
Sunflower seed?
(He accidentally drops some) Sorry.
The Sheriff :
No, thanks. Do you mind ... (he picks up a seed that fell
from Mulder's bag and tosses it) Do you mind
me asking you what you were ...
MULDER:
Historically, certain types of seeds
were thought to fascinate vampires.
Chiefly oats and millet, but you
make-do with what you have.
Remember when I said before
that we didn't know what type of
vampire we were looking for?
The Sheriff :
Yeah.
MULDER:
Well, oddly enough, there seems
to be one obscure fact which
in all the stories told
by the different cultures
is exactly the same, and that's
that vampires are really,
really obsessive-compulsive.
Yeah, you toss a handful of seeds
at one, no matter what he's doing
he's got to stop and pick it up.
If he sees a knotted rope,
he's got to untie it.
It's in His Nature.
In fact, that's why,
I'm guessing that our victim's
shoelaces were untied.
The Sheriff :
Yeah, obsessive... Like Rain Man. (Mulder nods)
It's like when that old boy dropped them matchsticks,
he had to pick them all up.
Same thing, right?
MULDER:
Well, he didn't actually
pick them up.
He counted them.
The Sheriff :
Oh, yeah. 247.
Right off the top of your head.
MULDER:
Well, if he had picked them up,
he would have been
The Sheriff :
Yeah. I'll tell you what.
I know I'm in Law-enforcement,
but I'd like to take him
to Vegas myself.
Am I right?
MULDER:
Well, that would be illegal, right?
The Sheriff :
He's like a little calculator.
MULDER:
Yeah.
EndNotes :
* : “Mormu. Yeah.” Is The Sherrif answering The Question implicit in Mulder’s colloray, qualifying his response to The Sherriff own initial Question…?
This Line of Enquiry, more fully-explored by way
of being Gamed-out via Free-Play would,
therefore, run as follows :
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