Squirming Maggots Live Under Rocks
An Original "X-Files" Story
It was nearing midnight and a shimmering full moon cast its lascivious gaze upon two figures making their way up a long, steep hill. The young man and woman seemed oblivious to the fact that large clusters of skeletal bones were haphazardly strewn about on the side of this grassy mound. They were far more interested in reaching the summit.
Fox Mulder, a sullen-looking FBI agent with a penchant for spinning wild stories of UFO's to anyone he could entrap into listening to him, turned to his lissome and pouty partner, Dana Scully and muttered, "Geez, Scully. Are you absolutely positive that the answer to everything, the raison d'etre for my pathetically monotonous search for The Truth, whatever that is now, lies at the top of this stupid hill in the freaking Ozarks?" He squinted at the grinning moon, still hopelessly unaware of dem bones lying everywhere. "This is stupid. I could be doing something really dramatic right now that would undoubtedly cause all kinds of personal angst and push my so-called delicate psyche to the breaking point, but here we are, Jack and Jill going up the hill to fetch a pail of---"
"Entrails?" Scully was very apt at finishing Mulder's sentences, primarily because he was so damned predictable. She secretly hoped that "Spooky Mulder" would be beamed up just as his much-talked about sister and she'd finally be able to practise medicine again. How long could she remain strapped to a man who was obviously not all there, just to prove to the world that little green men were indeed among the general population of the earth and that the impetuous, laughing moom was actually made of mouldy cheddar?
Suddenly, Mulder lost his footing and tumbled all the way back down the hill, while Scully, hands planted firmly on her hips, muttered half-aloud, "Just as clumsy as ever, I see. Hey, wait! Is this a human femur I spy with my little eye? Hey!! Get your ass back up here, Mulder!!"
Scully bent down to retrieve the bone and examined it closely, fixing one of her famous studied gazes that spoke oh-so-much more than the screenwriters of the show were capable of showing. It was of a mature adult, close to fifty-five, she deduced, noticing the glaring evidence of advanced osteoporosis. By the time Mulder had climbed back up the hill, Scully was in the process of putting a skeleton back together. He gave her one of his empty-eyed glances and brushed the dirt from his suit.
"We're about to discover something that nobody has ever, ever known existed until now and you're playing with tinker toys?"
Scully rolled her eyes. How in hell did she get stuck with such a lame brain? "This, if you knew anything at all, is a human skeleton. It looks to be over ten years old. Look around you, Mulder. Bones everywhere. It's as if this hill had been used as some kind of mass burial ground."
Mulder couldn't have cared less about that. "Scully, I want to find The Truth. You promised! Are you going back on your word now? Will I have to have some kind of severe crisis so that you can work like hell to save my life and then all your attention will be back on me, where it belongs?"
"Mulder, sometimes I forget that you're a grown man. Get a clue: Not everything is about YOU! These skeletal bones could be those of an ancient tribe. Doesn't that spark your interest at all?"
"Well, not really," Mulder responded, totally unaware of something pushing through the grass on the hill---something that looked for all the world like a person's hand. "I would have thought you'd be nicer to me after all the awful, unspeakable things that have happened to me. Remember the black oil and then the time I went totally nuts for three episodes in a row? Or the time I let this weirdo drill a hole in my head and make me relive memories that were manufactured? Oh, and we can't forget the cigarette story where these tobacco beetles were coming out of my mouth."
"Okay, okay--you win. You've been through the more horrific experiences of the two of us. After all, I just got infected with a deadly cancer. Yeah, I really got off easy, didn't I?"
"Well, you don't have to go and get sarcastic, Scully," Mulder replied, picking up a scull and peering through its eye sockets. "Boo!! Did I scare you, Scully?"
"Mulder, believe me. You do scare me---one hell of a lot."
Here's a smattering of pictures:
Whoa, Mama! Can I have him giftwrapped?
Making the world a much less safe place.
My pick for Stud-Muffin of the Paranormal medium.
Do you guys make house calls?
Mulder and Scully were aware that something supernatural was going on. From the limited research they were able to put together, there was a four-member family of former Ozark mountain hillbillies, now living in an opulant mansion after the patriarch of the family, Uncle Jed, hit gold when he was out hunting the family's dinner. They became instant millionaires and were urged to move to the upscale and trendy Beverly Hills, not thinking of how totally out-of-place they'd be in a world of fox furs, jewelry and plastic people who cared nothing for anyone or anything except pampering themselves and curling up into expensive laps of luxury. Whoever planted that crazy idea in the Clampetts' heads must have been even more clueless than the Ozark family themselves.
The two agents approached the Clampett mansion with trepidation and caution. It certainly had all the earmarks of a Hollywood home, far to large for the number of occupants, settled on several grassy acres, with a pool in the backyard and controlled entry.
"Are you sure this is a very good idea?" Mulder asked, squinting against the sun as he attempted to get a better look at the sprawling home. "These people are no longer associated with the hillbilly fringe. They've assimilated here quite well, it seems and I very much doubt if they had anything to do with the upturned graves. I'd say we've reached a dead end, Scully."
But Scully was not convinced of her partner's overly-simplified opinions. "We have to investigate this family," she insisted, looking around for any sign of human life. "Apparently, there's a young woman named Elly Mae, whose mother's grave was disturbed and unearthed. From what I've gathered about the Clampett clan, they are fiercely loyal and protective of each other. It makes perfect sense that they'd want revenge---it's only norma."
"Remind me never to go digging around your family plot," Mulder quipped in his sardonically witty way. "I sure as hell wouldn't want to piss you off, Scully."
Mulder, will you please take me seriously. You're usually the one who insists that we investigate anything that looks like an X File. When we visited the cemetary, there were a number of bodies that had been dead only a few hours. There were shovels and picks strewn everywhere. Mulder, I have every reason to believe that this Clampett family is really a group of extraterrestrials who have been sent to punish the grave-robbers and those who would use the cemetary to build upon."
"Scully, you know as well as I do that the likelihood of these four hillbillies being aliens is practically zero per cent. We've found no evidence that would link any of them to something other-worldly. If I thought there was any truth to your theories, believe me, I'd be right in there with you, investigating, prosecuting and finding the truth. Elly Mae's mother may very well have been buried in that graveyard. But that fact alone is not substantial enough to pull their masks off, if indeed they are wearing them. Mulder, sometimes I think that you simply do not want to see things as they actually are. You'd rather go out chasing after UFO's or investigate werewolves and vampires. You seriously need to get a life and pull your confused head out of the clouds."
"Are you just about finished?" Mulder asked, a bitterness in his voice. "You know, Scully, you aren't exactly perfect either. I could go on and on about how you get me into situations where I nearly lost my life. In fact----"
"Oh, God Mulder, PLEASE don't get into all that again. Just humour me on this one and let's follow up on the Clampett lead. If it turns out to be nothing, I'll let you have a very pleasant surprise."
Mulder smiled, something he rarely did. "Why, thanks, Scully. I certainly hope I win." He winked at his pouty partner and the two of them approached the Clampett mansion. To the agents's surprise, a scruffy man, badly in need of a shave and wearing a worn-out hillbilly hat, greeted them with a "Well, howdy, folks. What brings you to our fine home this afternoon?" He was polite enough, but standing there, dressed in pants that should have been burned by now and a shirt that likely hadn't seen any laundry soap for many weeks.
"We'd just like to talk to you," Mulder began, trying to get a look inside the opulent home. "We're researching a magazine article about a family such as yours, travelling from the Tennessee Ozarks and finding new roots in the show business capital of the world, the land of palm trees and champagne cocktails, of embarrassingly wealthy manors and shallow values. How would a family of hillbillies ever fit into this foreign world that must seem like living on a different planet.
"We-e-e-l-l-l doggies!" The man cried out, chortling as he told the agents his name was Jed Clampett and that he seemed happy that he and his family would be written about. "You folks want to write about us? We ain't up to a whole lot---just living here so we can drive the Drysdales---our next door neighbours---crazy. I can't tell you how much fun it is to get Ms. Drysdale all hot and bothered. Her and that silly, yappy dog of hers. Granny almost kills herself laughing at the whole thing. Just what do you want to talk about?"
Mulder and Scully were both taken aback at how gracious this man was being, considering that he'd never laid eyes on either of them before. Here he was, opening his home and heart to complete strangers. Surely this meant that they weren't really hiding anything nefarious, right? They could not have been more wrong, as you will see.
Uncle Jed, as he liked to be called, invited Mulder and Scully inside the roomy mansion. Scully was impressed by the spiral staircase and elaborate chandelier. "I've always wanted a place like this," she thought to herself, feeling a bit materialistic. "But I'll never be able to afford it with an FBI agent's salary. Pity."
"I've got to go finish my whittling," Uncle Jed told the duo, "but you will probably run into Granny, Elly Mae and Jethro. They's fine kin and will help you with your writing stuff. See you later."
They were an odd bunch, there was no doubt about that. The most bizarre and exceedingly questionable as to his intelligence (or lack thereof) was the enigma known as Jethro Bodine. His limited education notwithstanding, this man had no clue about how a young man was supposed to behave in what has become the next millennium. Mulder and Scully weren't even certain if he even belonged in the last one. Here's a picture of "the mystery man with the hillbilly mien and "Yeeeeehaaaaw" patter:
Mulder found Jethro's cousin Ellie much more palpable. But a fragile blonde beauty belied a dangerously low IQ---and an even lower libido. She'd put her fingers in her mouth and whistle like a tomboy, then go chasing after the family wart hog at top speed, tangling her hair and getting absolutely covered in mud. "I've dated some questionable females in my time," Mulder thought dismally to himself, "But this one's completely out of this world."
"Out of this world." Well, that was certainly conVENient, considering he and Scully had made a rather dubious name for themselves by investigating the so-called "X Files," a term grossly misused. Their true mission, whether they wished to accept it or not, was to bring the Clampett family back to the Ozarks where they belonged. There was something quite pathetic about seeing poor hayseeds trying to make it in the modern world, particularly in Hollywood, California. After all, this was the heart of the entertainment industry, a town marked for its dispicable opulance and carefree spending. The Clampetts were, in essence, alien beings. California natives saw them as creatures from another galaxy. Oh, but that fetching Elly Mae. Mulder couldn't take his deep blue eyes from her:
Scully had begun talking to Jed Clampett, the family patriarch, as he stood there looking unkempt, scruffy and chewing on smokeless tobacco. Growing uneasy at Jed's broken-toothed grin, she cleared her throat and asked, "Tell me, Mr. Clampett, just how long have you and your family been living here in Los Angeles?" She took a step backward to avoid Jed's spittle (he missed the spitoon by a mile) and repeated her question.
"Well, ain't you just the purtiest li'l thang I've ever laid these sore eyes on." Jed exclaimed, showing even more teeth. Scully couldn't help noticing how mossy they were and stifled the urge to hand him a toothbrush. "You put all the gals back home to shame, yesir, yesir. Just what brings you to our home, Miss? You want to stay for lunch? We're having collard greens and possum stew."
Scully made a face and began to walk away from this man, who was obviously a sick case who would have his daughter, Elly Mae, marry her cousin, that hulking Jethro creature. If this wasn't some kind of X File, she didn't know what was. It had all the earmarks of something that the government wanted covered up. The so-called humans, posing as a friendly, but clearly twisted, hillbilly family, so that they could charm their way into the hearts of the people of Hollywood and disrupt the entire entertainment industry. That was it! She had to tell Mulder: These Clampett people had something nefarious going on----were those really possums boiling on Granny's stove, or------were the agents wandering carelessly into a Jeffrey Dahmer-like horror? It had to be that---the plotlines had gotten so useless that they needed something really sick and disgusting.
Meanwhile, Mulder had just run into Jethro, literally. "Hey, you want to watch where you're steppin' mister," the young and vacuuous man said sharply. "It ain't proper to go around bumping into everybody, you know." Jethro looked quizzically into Mulder's eyes and exclaimed, "You ain't from around here, are you? See, I know a lot, 'cause I done gradeated the sixth grade. I did, believe it or not. Got a diploma thing and now I'm the smartest of the whole Clampett clan. Yeeehaaaw!"
Mulder shook his head, wondering if anything could be gained by picking the brains of this piece of work. He took a deep breath and began. "Okay, Jethro. My partner and I have been investigating you and your family, because there's been a great deal of talk regarding your involvement in something illegal and dangerous. Is that true?"
Jethro made a face and mussed up Mulder's hair. "Aw shoot. You ain't supposed to know all that stuff about me. Nobody pays us any mind except the Drysdales and Miss Jane at the bank. What makes you and that cute little redhead think we're anything but what we are: Jes' plain folks from Tennessee. I reckon you ain't gradeated the sixth grade yet, or you'd know."
Mulder had had enough of this mindless dialogue and walked quickly away from what could only be called a "simple soul." If someone in the Clampett family was homicidal, it most certainly could NOT be Jethro Bodine. Mulder thought he'd better find Scully and go talk to the Drysdales. Perhaps they could shed some light on this hillbilly bunch, to see if everything they'd been told was untrue. From what he'd obvserved and listened to, Mulder found it impossible to implicate these harmless turnip truck riders. They'd have to look someplace else.
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This story is continued. Just click on the link below:
Squirming Maggots Live Under Rocks:
Continued
