Date sent: Mon, 7 Jul 1997
From: Ten kristena@zen.ocean.com.au

I would love feedback on my work! (And apologies to
anyone who ends up with more than one copy of this, but I
send my stories to several different mailing lists.)

TITLE: "Fox In Box" (1/1)
BY: Ten
E-MAIL ADDRESS: kristena@ocean.com.au

CATEGORY: V, angst
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: How Mulder got out of the boxcar during
"Anasazi" and "The Blessing Way".
TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: "Anasazi" and "The Blessing
Way".

DISCLAIMER: The X-Files and the characters of Mulder and
Scully belong to Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions
and Fox Broadcasting, and are used without permission. No
copyright infringement is intended, no profit will be
gained.

THANKS: To Doctor Crockett for medical and scientific
advice. Any mistakes are my own. Gratitude to Debbie for
trying to straighten out my grammar...

The X-Files: "Fox In Box"
by Ten - Posted July 1997

"What have they done?"

Then the flap slammed down, sealing him in darkness,
cutting his phone link with Scully.

"Eric? Hey, Eric!"

He floundered forwards, totally disorientated, knees
stumbling him against the pile of bodies. He half-fell
against them and gagged, pushing himself back. The bullet
wound in his shoulder flared in protest.

What the hell was the kid doing? Mulder pocketed his
phone and hesitated.

A noise. Vibration.

/Helicopter. Oh hell.../ He'd talked too long to Cancer
Man. He'd let his rage keep him on the line and it had
given the bastard enough time to trace him.

He hoped Eric was hiding somewhere and prayed he'd be as
lucky. There was no choice. As the noise grew louder and
birthed demanding voices above, he threw himself into the
bodies, pulling them on top of him as cover. He ignored
the pain.

Hatch thrown back. Blaze of light. Sound of men in the
boxcar. He didn't have the greatest vantage point, and
kept still as his overworked eyes re-re-adjusted and the
figures prowled the short length. One came over to the
bodies and he heard a sound of amazed disgust. Would the
sight discourage them doing a little excavating? It did.

"Try the doors."

"Rusted - can't budge them."

He heard them leave. Heard yelling...

"Nothing vanishes without a trace! BURN IT!"

/Oh hell.../

He scrambled up from the bodies, sending the brittle
corpses tumbling, no longer caring if he was caught -

/not fire not fire notfirenotfire NOT FIRE!/

Before he could yell above the copter noise, before he
could rush to the shaft of light and impale himself in
it, a package dropped into the car. And he knew his time
had run out.

Couldn't run towards it, to risk a leap for the open
hatchway. To try tossing the package back out. That
sucker was on a short fuse. The doors were not an option.

All this in a second.

Then he saw what his disturbance of the bodies had
uncovered. A hole that had been broken away at the bottom
of the boxcar wall. He dove for it, yanking aside more
creatures.

The rational part of his mind regretfully informed him
there would not be a tunnel beyond. Just more of that red
red rock entombing him. Red, like Scully's hair. Like
fire...

But it could provide some cover. Depended just how much
charge -

He scrambled through, pulling a body after him to block.

The bomb detonated.

The shock wave shoved at the bodies, throwing them and
him forwards. There was space beyond, but the side of his
head struck rock with force.

Heat; as he sank down he could sense heat. The bodies had
been slammed against the hole like misshapen corks,
miraculously taking the brunt of the propelled fire. Air
from the blast went past him like wind.

"Scully..." he whispered, head spinning.

He had to get out; the heat at his back was increasing.
Mulder stumbled forward on his hands and knees, gritting
his teeth against the jarring to his shoulder and head.
No rock. His eyes were processing faint light from the
flames behind him. Eating the bodies. The evidence. There
was air, there was...a tunnel?

There was a body next to him, but he could get past it.
Did he have the strength?

His head sank down into his hands. Consciousness was
dissipating. In its place, haunting images, shrieking
inhumanly.

And suddenly he was not alone. Something entered his
mind, his body. He was back in the boxcar, along with the
creatures...the alien humans.

But they were alive. And even in this darkness he could
see clearly.

They were shifting skittishly, and he reached out to
touch one - to touch proof -

and saw *his hand* had their impossibly long fingers...

He screamed and the hatch opened but this time a canister
dropped in. It began to issue smoke. HYDROGEN CYANIDE on
the label. The hatch shut. The creatures shrieked and
surged forward towards him.

He was right next to the hole in the wall, so it was a
matter of trying to hold his breath as he scrambled
through again. He could feel the surge for life at his
back, hear the telepathic whisper of his friend right
behind him. He felt the pain in his shoulder, his chest,
his head. He felt sick, very sick, but hopefully he
hadn't inhaled enough to kill him.

The others could not get through all at once, he knew. He
tried to disregard that as he clawed along with his long
fingers, in his greyish skin. His friend was still just
behind him, and a few others too, but it was too late for
the rest. There would be a funeral pyre at the hole now,
of the dead and dying, preventing each other from using
the escape route.

His senses were hyper-alert. He could hear noises on the
roof of the car. Burying them. He could see perfectly
well. Stacked rocks and sand...

Red. Like someone's hair... Like blood.

Only his blood wasn't red any more.

Why had they done that to him? He hadn't seen past the
money...but they were his government, he was patriotic,
in service, thought it was for the greater good. Until he
realised they were actually CHANGING him.

He was feeling worse. His system was damaged, but he had
to get out. He couldn't die here. The one behind was
urging him on and he could tell they were failing. Yes,
he would get out.

Had to see his wife again...had to see Dana...

He made himself keep moving.

They had been frightened when herded into the practically
buried boxcar. This was no "holding facility", but with
all the soldiers carrying guns, there had been nowhere to
run. The group had huddled in the boxcar, unable to read
the minds of their guards, but their hyper-hearing able
to pick out enough conversation to get even more scared.
Only a matter of time before they were killed.

A blessed earthquake. It damaged a weakened area of the
car wall, allowing them to break it away. Possibly the
burial or other quakes had done that to the wall, or
something in its past history to get it decommissioned.
They didn't really care. Behind was a hole. A natural
fissure which did not lead far, but they used it as the
first part of an escape tunnel. Knowing that in their
stunted bodies and without weapons they could not get out
the always-guarded hatch, they began digging.

He had organised it, directed the dumping of the rocks
and sand into the bottom of the fissure. They stumbled
upon another fissure that led to the surface - just some
boulders blocking the way. They had been about to go back
to remove the boulders, get their bearings and try a
breakout, when the canister was tossed in. Time up.

And at least among his new "talents" he required less
oxygen, so he could last for longer. But that cyanide had
gotten to him and it would still be a race against
time...

A faint wind fanned his face. The pressure from the blast
- what blast? - rebounding off the end of the tunnel. The
compressed air pushed at the smoke encroaching on him
from behind, driving it back. But that was a temporary
blessing.

There were some rocks. From the earthquake. They were
small and easily pushed aside. And bodies...? How had
they gotten ahead of him? It didn't matter. He wormed
past.

Pull, push. Live, live. /Have to expose the truth. What
they have done./ He dragged himself along fingerlength by
fingerlength. It took forever. The smoke and cyanide were
poisoning him. His head felt like it had tumbled off and
been replaced by one of the boulders.

The smoke was curling around him now. Filling his lungs.
To his dazed mind it was cigarette smoke.

More air. And light. Cracks of light up ahead.

And someone, something... Two forms.

He pulled himself up level with them.

He stared at the husks of the two alien/human bodies,
huge eye sockets gaping up at the light. "Who am I?" he
croaked through lips drier than the desert.

Mulder looked down at his own hands, straining to see in
the gloom. The fingers were normal. Under this light and
the coating of red dust it was hard to tell if the skin
was grey or not.

The presence pulled at him again. /Have to get out...
Weakening.../

He pushed past the bodies, carrying two minds towards the
last boulders blocking the way.

Then - earthquake...the rocks tumbled away. He tried to
move, but couldn't. Disorientation. A shadow falling over
him. A Navajo boy staring down in horror.

/Eric?.../ No - there was resemblance, but the old-
fashioned clothes...it was - /Albert! Albert, help me.../

The boy, shaking with shock and fear, heaved boulders
back over the hole as fast as he could. Trying to hide
the sight from view and memory. Mulder was left in the
near-dark. Hasty footsteps raced away.

Coughing racked him. He managed to move enough to push
desperately at the rocks, but it was too much. There was
no energy left. The darkness was looking good, despite
two sets of voices screaming at him to keep trying. /What
if I succeed?/ He told them. /It's just desert out
there./

/Scully will come,/ one voice said with utter conviction.

/Scully, yes.../

But the darkness had too much of a hold on him.

"MULDER!? MULLLLLLDDDER!"

/Scully.../ He couldn't make a sound, could barely move.
With a desperate effort he thrust his hand through, out
into the light.

Only the desert heat and a lamenting ghost embraced it.

THE END.

Author's Note: (I put these at the end because they are
an optional read. I won't be upset if you don't.)
I wrote this in approximately December 1996 but kept
going back and adding layers. A big help was also when I
bought the script of "The Blessing Way", from which I
realised that Chris & Co DID show us how Mulder and the
hybrids got out. I checked my tape of the ep and in M's
hallucination of the hybrids, instead of it showing (as I
thought) the creatures huddling together against the wall
as they died - they were actually all trying to get into
a hole in the wall! I could see it clearly now I knew
what to look for.

And thanks to my rediscovery of Dr. Seuss for giving me
the title. Much better than my working titles: "The
Boxcar One" and "Just How He Got Out."