Capistrano Mulder and Scully meet Carl Kolchak, the "Night Stalker," in a case of murder, monsters, and the maternal instinct.   Disclaimer: The X-Files, Dana Scully, Fox Mulder, and all other X-Files related characters do not belong to me, but belong to Chris Carter, 20th Century Fox, and 1013 Productions. Carl Kolchak similarly is the property of Universal, Jeff Rice, Dan Curtis, and talented others, and this story is merely an affectionate tribute. Feedback: Send feedback to fwidsvnt@ilfb.org   Journal of Carl Kolchak, Washington, D.C.: Spring displays our nation's capital at its unbuttoned finest: Cherry blossoms sweetly conceal the organic aroma of deals being cut, law being processed, and dirty little secrets being repackaged into cable sound bytes to be digested quickly before they linger in the history books. Congressional aides stop reaching for the brass ring long enough to pull a pop-top or two, and the first signs of summer -- spandexed joggers on the Mall -- begin to bloom. As a result of a slight tussle over ethics or expenses or some such thing with my periodic editor, one Tony Vincenzo, I was at loose ends and had landed a short-term, free-lance research gig with Nightsides, a syndicated piece of TV pulp with all the journalistic integrity of a New York Post in a cage full of incontinent golden retrievers. It wasn't Woodward and Bernstein, but that's what you tend to get when you hang out with streetwise vampires. The object of my quest this spring afternoon was a junior G-man with the unlikely label of Fox Mulder. A one-time FBI behavioral specialist with credentials from Oxford, no less, Mr. Mulder had somehow fallen from official graces and was now assigned to a glorified storage locker in the basement of J. Edgar Hoover's stone-faced monument. As I sauntered toward the blocky guard at the metal detectors, I felt like a zit-faced frat boy at a Masonic funeral. Mr. Mulder's reportedly keen, compartmentalized mind was greatly at odds with the office into which I was escorted. A chaotic array of news clippings, including a few of my own vintage pieces, papered almost every inch of one wall. A relatively crisp poster implored me, "I Want to Believe." It didn't take a post-doc in Freud, Jung, or Dr. Ruth to realize this kid needed a little more fresh oxygen, a daily dose of Dos Equis, or? Or perhaps the petite, redheaded apparition that was sitting behind a computer at Agent Mulder's desk, earnestly rapping away at the keyboard. I removed my Panama hat and moved toward her with my best Kevin Costner smile. She glanced up, raising a brow and tacitly plowing a frosty furrow in my immediate field of dreams.   "Ms?"   "Scully," she rose. "Agent Dana Scully, remember? Are you taking a cruise or something, Mr. Dales? Because--"   "You must have me confused," I smiled. I thought my new (1994) cream suit was rather natty, but the source is always right until they can be documented as wrong. "My name is Carl Kolchak; I'm a researcher with Nightsides. I'm supposed to meet an Agent Mulder here -- ?"   "Mr. Kolchak?" a boyish voice piped behind me. "Carl Kolchak? I'm Fox Mulder. I am a major fan of your writings."   "Ah," I said. J. Edgar at a Star Trek convention. Still in all, Agent Mulder was a pleasant-looking young man with a benign glint of intelligence setting off a quasi-lupine nose. Fox -- somebody had had a sense of humor in the OB ward that day.   "Mulder, we do have a team resources meeting scheduled in less than an hour with AD Skinner," Agent Dana drily informed him. "Remember?"   He looked crestfallen, but grinned slyly. "You're briefed on my resources, right?" He nodded toward me. "Bureau public relations, good for everybody, right?"   Scully pursed her lips, crossed her arms, and sighed as she breezed past me.   "I'll remember this," Mulder assured her.   "Count on it," Scully murmured, disappearing.   --------   "You, ah, had a possible lead for me?" I inquired. Mulder was beaming at me like a kid who'd been beaned with Sammy Sosa's game-winning ball. As my question sank in, he shook himself and dived for his cluttered desk. He tossed a disembodied monkey's paw and a jar with a pickled?something?into a side drawer.   "Actually, I was hoping you might be able to give me some advice on a case I'm working," Mulder said, retrieving a thick manila folder from the jumble. He tossed me what appeared to be a four-color glossy circular for a popular toy chain. "Are you familiar with Morgwongs?"   "I have a fleeting recollection of the Jabberwocky from high school lit," I said, squinting at the splashy layout. An odd, vaguely mammalian, apish-bearish critter with outsized eyes stared cheerfully up at me. Then I stopped, creaked forward in his guest chair, and looked up. "Actually, I believe I may be familiar with the Morgwong after all, though I'll be damned if I can think where. Closest I've been to a toystore was in Times Square, and they had live dancing girls."   "See if this jogs your memory," Mulder said, handing me a page apparently printed from the Web. I recognized a page of manuscript and a half-assed pencil sketch from a story I'd trashcanned for good reason. "This is from a site called www.cryptozoo.com that deals with lost or mythical animal species. You know anyone named Randy Phibes?"   I nibbled a lip for a second. "Oh, yeah, he was an intern at Independent News Service for about a month. Nice kid, a little goofy. I seem to remember he got 86ed after getting caught rifling through Tony's -- my boss's desk."   "Well, apparently, that wasn't the extent of his inneroffice larceny. Mr. Phibes ran this story on his Web page with this."   I knew what he was going to offer me, and I realized why the Morgwong was so familiar to me.   I'd met the real thing. In an alley near the Chicago Loop, about three years ago. Except the Morgwong I'd danced with was around six-two, had big yellow talons, and wouldn't have fit well between the Pound Pups and the Furbies in the bedroom closet, unless it happened to be a walk-in.   "What's the story here?" I asked.   "I'm hoping you can help me figure it out," Mulder said. "According to this account, you encountered this beast in 1997, in Chicago. You were looking into a series of break-ins and murders at Loop-area health food stores. The victims had been beaten severely, and bulk bins in each of the stores had been ripped apart."   "The CPD ran DNA on the saliva found on some of the grain left at a few of the stores," I supplied. "They threw a solid stone wall up around the whole case, and I decided to look into it.   "I finally, um, befriended a very nice lady in CPD Records, and while she was, ah, let's say, getting me a cup of coffee, I managed to find my way into the investigating officer's desk. They obviously were trying to keep the DNA report under wraps. What I could make out was that the DNA of the assailant was from some mammal of unknown origin, and that there was some sticky note on the report to fax somebody named Sidney. That's when the lights came on and I found myself in a holding cell. When Tony -- my boss -- showed up with the bail, I was told the brass would drop all charges if I'd peddle my papers elsewhere."   Mulder frowned. "That was enough to shut you up about what had to be the story of your career?"   I chuckled. "You don't know the half of it, kid. OK, there was also some business about a prior incident in which I'd been involved. I'd, um, sort of, oh, impaled a Transylvanian teashop owner with a, well, a sawed-off baseball bat. That kind of thing's kind of hard to explain, unless there are a few bloodless corpses in the wine cellar. Even then, I didn't want to have to explain that on CNN."   "Tell me about it. Obviously, you didn't peddle your papers as instructed."   "Ah, no. I started with what little data I had. From the context of the report, I assumed Sidney was a mammologist or serologist or something of that sort. I scanned all the university biology listings I could find on the Web, poured through scientific journals, but nothing connected. So I took it from the other end, and tried to put myself in this beastie's shoes, well, footprints. It killed only health store owners, after hours, and destroyed their merchandise. I talked to clerks in some of the shops, and found the killer had only damaged bins containing whole grains and dried fruit. It never mauled or ate its victims, but it inhaled binfuls of fruit and grain at each store.   "Most of the health food shops around the area had curtailed their evening hours for obvious reasons, and given the profit margins of the average organic snack shop, I found pretty easy to rent a shop near the west edge of the Loop. I opened a few bins of bulgur wheat and soybeans, and sat back with a nine millimeter and a bottle of, ah, coffee. The -- what-did-you-call-it? -- Morgwong burst in the alley door and made a beeline for the bins. I got off a shot or two, and it decided I was a threat to its midnight munchies. I ran. Like hell. It caught up to me near a Dumpster, and I unloaded a few rounds into it. I assume, that is, because it set off a howl that brought out half the Chicago law enforcement community. The creature ambled off, and I got scarce. And no more health food stores got knocked over."   Mulder silently nodded. "This was all in October 1997?"   "Yep."   "And you never printed any story or showed this sketch of the 'critter' to anyone?"   "I put it in deep-freeze. Apparently 'til young Randy raided the fridge."   "Mr. Phibes told me he worked at INS in July 1999."   "Yeah, that's when the little shi-. . .the young man worked there."   "Then, Mr. Kolchak, how did a major corporation design the top-selling Christmas toy of 1998 based on a creature that had never been seen in print, on videotape, or, as far as I know, mano a mano?"   I scratched my head and replied, cleverly, "Hmm."   "Well," Mulder said, reaching into his folder, "try this on for size?"   --------   Case file of Fox Mulder:   It had begun, as best as I could determine, in 1992, when farmers in British Columbia, Canada, began to find the bludgeoned and/or disemboweled corpses of cattle, deer, and even moose in and around corn and wheat fields. The Canadian RCMP and wildlife agencies were unable to identify the predator that had savaged but had not eaten these creatures.   Similar cases were reported in Minnesota and Wisconsin, beginning in 1995. Examination of photos and animal control documents indicated distinct differences between these attacks and standard cattle mutilations or Satanic rituals (Mr. Kolchak mouthed the word "Standard?" at this point in my report). A mammologist at the Washington National Zoo suggested the best rationale for the attacks was that these herbivorous "victims" were perceived as a threat to habitat or food supplies, but that herbivores didn't customarily display this level of violence over territory.   "Do you have a Coke machine?" Mr. Kolchak interrupted. "I'm getting a little parched."   "Breakroom, left and left again." He nodded, and was back in two minutes.   "Proceed, please."   In August 1996, near Oscauaga, Wisconsin, a pair of teens out on a Saturday night drive nearly left the deserted country road when they came upon a large, seemingly dead animal. High school senior Carter Cristensen instructed his girlfriend, Francie Black, to stay in the car while he moved the carcass out of the road. The "carcass" wasn't a carcass, and Carter was fortunate to escape with a few dozen stitches before the animal escaped into the woods. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife search failed to unearth the animal; a bear advisory was put out for area landowners, though Cristensen insisted it "wasn't any f---ing bear, man."   In 1997, reporter Carl Kolchak encountered a predatory creature with a voracious appetite for grain and fruit.   In May 1998, a series of suspiciously familiar livestock killings and grain bin break-ins across Pennsylvania went unsolved amid talk of (mountain) lions, (escaped) tigers, and bears.   "Oh, my," Kolchak said, yawning.   "And just imagine what's gone unreported." I pulled a Rand-McNally Atlas from under a Koran and tapped the U.S.-Canadian map to which it had been opened. "If these reports are connected, then what I think we have is the migratory pattern of some cryptozoological creature."   "Pardon?"   "A species that's somehow managed to evade man's detection, at least until now. A fluke of evolution or adaptation that's emerged from some remote ecosystem."   "A Bigfoot."   I smiled patiently. "But I think it's much more than that. Look at this progression, from killing rural livestock potentially in competition for corn residues and wild berries to nocturnally killing shopowners for large stocks of grain in a highly populated area."   "It blundered into the city and adapted the best it could to a new environment. Bright little guy, huh?"   I shook my head. "No. It adapted to this new environment and, after nearly being killed, it reasoned the risks of remaining in an urban setting and settled instead on farm grain elevators and bins in less hazardous areas. It reasoned. This animal seems to possess a relatively high degree of intelligence."   "Which I appear to lack," Kolchak said, not unkindly. "Because I fail to see where we're heading with this."   "We're heading to Shiban Falls, Virginia," I said hopefully, tossing him the local news item I'd clipped a few days earlier.   "'Livestock killings destructive prank? Wildife officials perplexed.' So our friend the granola-eater has popped up again. Why me?"   "Identification, confirmation, civic duty? Shiban Falls is only about two hours away."   Mr. Kolchak put his hands on his knees and pushed out of his chair. "Agent Mulder, while a sojourn through rural Virginia sounds damned near idyllic, I have too much muck to rake for my current employer to go monster-hunting."   "Not to mention A.D. Skinner's almost certain delight in us -- strike that, I mean you -- hauling the media around on a case," drawled Scully, who was standing in the doorway.   I leaned across my desk, trying not to sound desperate. "Mr. Kolchak, would you be interested to learn Shiban Falls is home to Lee Nicholas? A designer with Arcadia Toys. The designed of a popular little item called the Morgwong?"   Mr. Kolchak sat down, nibbling his lip.   "Road trip, Scully?" I asked, smiling charmingly.   She peered at me blankly and sighed. "Yippee skippee; I'll bring the beef jerky."   --------   "Road bingo, anybody?" I asked. "I?see?a?Sasquatch."   "I see a flock of wild geese, with you in hot pursuit," Scully murmured from the backseat.   Kolchak had taken shotgun, and he rode with his Panama slouched over his eyes.   "Agent Mulder, if I could play devil's advocate for a few minutes, would you indulge me in a game of journalistic Five 'W's?"   "Shoot."   "Okay. What do you think this thing is, honestly? Some kind of Bigfoot?"   "I don't know -- the Sasquatch sightings that've surfaced to date appear to indicate some kind of prehominid primate. This 'morgwong,' if the doll's an accurate representation, looks almost like some sort of amalgamation of several mammals -- a little ape, a little bear, a little something else I can't put my finger on? But I think we're talking about a cryptozoological creature, like the coelecanth, a prehistoric fish discovered to be living off Africa in 1938, or the agua mala?"   "Mulder," Scully warned.   "Well, like any number of recent finds. Of course, an aggressive herbivorous ape-bear the size of a Lakers center would seem a bit more unusual and harder to find."   Kolchak tipped his hat back. "OK. That brings me to 'where.' Where in the world would this thing have come from where it's managed to avoid human contact?"   "Well, the first reported occurrence, if all of this is connected, was in British Columbia. There are still a few fairly uncharted areas in Northern British Columbia. Maybe this creature came from even further north, in the sub-Arctic region."   "All right, then. Why? Why did it come south and, more importantly, east? And by extension, when?"   I shrugged as I swerved slightly to avoid a possum in the road. As I looked back, it scrambled to its feet and scampered off. "That's a total puzzle to me. I can guess why it might have left its native habitat. Clear-cutting of Canadian forests, oil exploration, a growing wave of sports fishermen. Man's incursion ever-further into the wilderness. Or maybe the lure of Chicago-style pizza. Why this particular migratory pattern? Maybe some instinctual drive unknown to us. As for when, I've been trying to track major natural or manmade events in the Northern Canadian-Arctic region, something traumatic that drove the creature out and, from the isolated nature of reports surrounding it, something that might have killed off most of its species. I've been trying to get into some sealed reports of unauthorized Cold War nuclear testing."   "Great, Mulder," Scully said, nervously flipping the unused backseat ashtray. "Why don't we just get Mike Wallace in on this little hunting expedition, too?"   "I wouldn't worry," Kolchak said wistfully. "Nightsides wouldn't be very interested in Cold War intrigue unless Marilyn Monroe and Elvis had been trading spy secrets for sex. 'W' number four, Agent Mulder: Who is Lee Nicholas, and what's his connection to our furry friend here?"   "I read a piece in People after the Morgwong caught on so big. Nicholas was a graphic production artist in Elmhurst, Illinois, who hired on with a New York toy company in the late '90s. He specialized in upscale educational 'learning' toys, but when Arcadia decided to expand into the mainstream market, Nicholas submitted a sketch of the Morgwong, and the rest is retail history. He's an outdoorsman -- enjoys freshwater fishing, rock climbing, the whole shmear. My theory is, he saw this thing in the wild on a fishing trip or something and either the memory of it subconsciously influenced his design or he never reported the sighting because he didn't want to admit his masterpiece was a work of zoological plagiarism."   "Hmm, OK? Now for the big Regis, wanna-be-a-millionnaire question: How? How are we going to approach this guy? And how are we going to bag our morgwong, if that's your plan?"   I grinned despite myself. "My friend at the Washington Zoo loaned me a few pistols and a week's supply of tranquilizer darts would knock a black rhino off its leathery butt."   "Shhh," Scully said in a mock Mel Blanc. "Weah hunting mowgwomps! Is that what this is, Mulder? It's spring, and your testosterone is rising? Even a college-trained behavioral psychologist is vulnerable to some Cro-Magnon hunting instinct."   I spotted the exit for Shiban Falls. "We're gonna take this one alive, Scully. This is a major cryptozoological discovery. It could teach us reams on evolution."   "Ah," she replied sourly. "Wrong literary reference. This is Herman Melville, not Warner Bros., we're talking about."   "Thar she blows," I announced, pointing. "Who wants a Big Mac?"   --------   Lee Nicholas and his wife could have been the product of some Mengele-style cloning experiment, though a little Rogaine might have completed Lee's picture of blonde, Northern European perfection. Wiry and tight in his Ralph Lauren polo and jeans, Nicholas was congenial as he ushered us into his den. Elaine Nicholas settled into a thick brown leather wing chair and Nicholas plopped down behind a desk seemingly carved from part of a rainforest.   Nicholas' d飯r was unusual, to say the least: Native American and African artifacts added a touch of Third World chic to the den, while a scattering of perfectly preserved toy trucks, stuffed animals, and framed game boards contributed a consciously whimsical touch. In a place of honor on the shelf behind Nicholas' head was a solitary Morgwong, the apparent lord of this manor.   "The house that Morgwongs built?" I inquired.   "Yup," Nicholas beamed. "This little guy earned me a home in the country, a condo in Palm Beach, matching his-and-hers Jaguars, and a Forbes cover story."   "I would've thought Arcadia would've seen most of the profits."   Nicholas tapped his forehead. "Would have, except I hired some smart legal talent and kept a share of creative control. Arcadia's still raking it in -- the European and Japanese markets are eating these little guys up."   I nodded, smiling with admiration. "How do you get an idea like this?"   Nothing changed much on the designer's face, except his jaw muscles appeared to tighten. I heard Elaine's chair creak behind me. "Just a whim, Agent. Just a whimsical thought that popped into my head one day. We're always happy to have guests out here in the boonies, but could I ask why the FBI is interested in me?"   "Because this is the weirdest coincidence," I said, pushing a manila folder across Nicholas' desk. Nicholas pulled Kolchak's sketch out, peered at it, set a smile on his face, and looked up.   "What is this? Somebody's else's so-called design? FBI investigating trademark infringement claims now?"   "No, sir. That creature attacked Mr. Kolchak here a few years ago in Chicago."   "We ran a big piece on it, sketch and all," Kolchak interrupted. "It played big with the wire services for a few days, then fizzled out."   "Hold on," Elaine Nicholas said coolly as I puzzled Mr. Kolchak's lie. "You're with the media?"   "Mr. Kolchak is a witness in this case," I said, catching the newly respectful half-smile on Scully's face as she regarded Mr. Kolchak. "Ah, the question is, why is your Morgwong so strikingly similar to the creature witnessed by Mr. Kolchak?"   Nicholas looked relieved. "OK, confession time. A buddy of mine showed my a clip of Mr. Kojak's--"   "Kolchak," Mr. Kolchak amended.   "Mr. Kolchak's story, and I guess I thought it would make a great doll. There's no law against borrowing from nature, right? Once we hit the jackpot with the Morgwong, I didn't see any reason to tell my employer I'd lifted the idea from some Bigfoot Mr. Kolchak -- no offense -- claimed to have seen."   Mr. Kolchak had handed Lee Nicholas a perfect out, and the toy designer had jumped at it. If he'd lied about something this potentially embarassing, there had to be more to the story. But what?   "Hey, I like that," Kolchak interrupted again, pointed to a shelf near Elaine's head. "That's a Native American totem, isn't it? Maybe, what, Okanagan Indian? British Columbian, right?"   Nicholas appeared pleased this gaudily dressed, pleasantly seedy man was diverting the discussion. I was lost, but I had begun to see the method to Mr. Kolchak's madness. "Yeah, that's right on target. I took the family up to the Canadian wilderness some years ago for some hiking and fishing. Great area. You an anthropology major?"   "I pick up stuff," Mr. Kolchak shrugged. In actually, if I remembered the story, he'd nearly picked up a curse from a shaman who was into animalistic shapeshifting.   The den door practically flew open, and a pretty but sullen blonde teen stood in the doorway. She was slightly out of breath, and it was apparent in her speech. "Gonna go jogging, then go see Final Destination with Heather and Gina, 'kay?"   Nicholas frowned. "Dona, I don't really care for you seeing that horror crap, but all right. You get home pronto after the movie, hear? And do not play with that mangy mutt of Heather's." He turned to me. "I have killer animal dandruff allergies."   "I know," Dona snapped with surprising venom, then disappeared. I saw Scully lapse into intense thought.   "So what is this all about?" Nicholas asked impatiently.   "Mulder?" Scully asked, rising. "I forgot to check with Skinner about those team resources reports. I'll be back."   "Team--?" I asked. "Oh, sure, OK."   Scully walked briskly into the hall, and a second later, I heard the front door close. And a piece of the puzzle falling into place.   If Nicholas had been to British Columbia some time within the timeframe of the morgwong's first appearances, and had lived in Chicago, then his own movements coincided with the creature's theoretical migratory pattern. But while he'd lied about his knowledge of the creature and its relation to the toy Morgwong, he'd freely admitted visiting British Columbia. Why create a chain of evidential logic like that? Unless he knew of the creature, but had no idea that it had originated in Canada or parts north.   On the other hand, Dona Nicholas had breathlessly barged into the room as he was discussing the Canadian trip, just to inform her parents and their guests she was going for a run. Was she trying to divert the conversation away from Canada?   "Agent Mulder?" Nicholas prompted firmly.   "Oh, sorry. The reason we're here is that this creature may have been responsible for some recent livestock killings right here in the area."   Nicholas caught his breath. "When?" he asked gravely.   "About a week or so ago."   Nicholas turned white and leaned back in his chair. Elaine Nicholas was staring at me in sheer horror. "What's going on here, Mr. Nicholas. You'd better be straight with me."   Nicholas grasped the edge of his desk, glanced at his wife, and sighed. "All right. I can't imagine it's a crime, anyway. I killed it."   I stepped back as a wave of disappointment washed over me. Kolchak wiped a hand over his face. "You killed it?"   "It was in the woods behind the house, threatening Elaine, and I shot it. It's, it's buried back there. But?"   "Yes, Mr. Nicholas?" I prompted, leaning over the desk.   "But I killed it three months ago."   --------   Field report of Agent Dana Scully, Shiban Falls, Virginia:   Dona Nicholas had not, as she had told her parents, gone for a run in the country. Instead, I followed her into a grove in the woods far behind the house, where the teenager dropped into the lotus position. I attempted to get in as close as I could.   Carl Kolchak's ploy had revealed Nicholas had had something to hide. So had Dona Nicholas' hasty interruption of her father. What, I had no idea. But I did believe this family held a secret, possibly concerning Mulder's alleged "cryptozoological creature."   "Go away, go away, go away?" I could hear Dona chant in near-anguish as I crept closer. I stepped into the clearing, and her eyes popped open.   "Who, Dona?" I asked gently. "Who needs to go away. Is it the morgwong? The creature?" Dona looked defiantly -- and defensively -- up at me. I saw something else that sparked a flood of memories, of my little Emily, gone long ago; of my playful Queequeeq, a victim of Nature's food chain. The realization was staggering. It was a fierce light of maternal protectiveness in her young eyes.   "It's your pet, isn't it?" I asked slowly.   --------   The Nicholases had taken 10-year-old Dona with them into the deep wilderness of British Columbia, despite Elaine's concerns for the curious girl's safety. "He wouldn't even let me have a hamster, but he was so hyped about stomping around in the woods," Dona recounted.   Elaine's fears were well-founded. While her father was fishing a nearby stream and her mother was preparing some lunch, she embarked on her own expedition into the woods. Near a bluff, she found it: A large mammalian carcass, cold and in a state of early rigor. From it's wounds, she guessed some hunter had gotten off a shot, but that this adult morgwong hadn't died until later.   Dona's instinct was to run in terror, but then she noted a small, dark lump moving near the body. It was an infant, she guessed, and it was scared and nearly starving as it quivered near its dead mother's corpse. A more primal instinct took hold of the adolescent girl, and Dona scrounged up some plants and berries to nourish the young morgwong.   "She was so beautiful," Dona sighed, love in her eyes. "I couldn't let it just die. It was cold, so I let it sniff my hand -- to make sure it wouldn't bite -- and wrapped it up in my jacket. We just sat there for hours, me rocking her like a baby. Then Dad found us.   "He had a gun, and I knew what he'd do. The big protector, the great hunter. I held her in front of me, so if he shot her, he'd have to kill me, too. I guess I hoped I could talk Dad into -- oh, I don't know. But while we were yelling at each other, she wriggled out of my arms and took off into the woods."   I sat down on the hard, scrubby ground. An idea was taking shape, a Mulder sort of idea. I could deal with cryptozoology -- something with definite roots in science -- but I was having trouble wrapping my mind around what I expected to hear next.   "It?followed you, didn't it?" I pursued.   Dona nodded, tears beginning to form. "When those people got killed in Chicago, I didn't connect things up -- we'd moved here by that time. Then, one day, I was out in the woods, looking for mushrooms, and she was just there. I was scared shitless; she was 10 times bigger than when I'd found her. But, suddenly I knew I didn't need to be afraid. It's so hard to explain. And, this is going to sound even weirder, but I felt like I'd, umm?"   "Wished her here?" I whispered.   "Yeah. It was kind of like that. Dad had never let me have a pet, even though I think that allergy of his is a bunch of bullshit just to hide the fact he hates animals. Winona was the closest I ever had to a pet."   "Winona?"   Dona smiled sheepishly. "My favorite actress. At the time, that is. So, anyway, I thought a lot about her, even though Dad had some big stroke about me telling anybody about her. Thought it would reflect badly on him or something. I'd think about Winona, and I'd feel something. I can't really describe it. And then she just showed up here with Brad."   I leaned back on my palms as my mouth went completely dry. "Brad."   "Pitt, you know. She brought her boyfriend, or husband, or whatever he was. He was a little suspicious of me at first, but I think she explained I was okay." Dona darkened. "Guess she was wrong.   "See, I figured they'd have trouble finding food without some farmer blowing their brains out, so I'd raid the refrigerator, use my allowance on cereal, fruit, whatever, and sneak food to them. I'd see reports in the paper about farm break-ins, but nobody'd steal anything -- just mess up some grain -- and I knew they were 'shopping.'   "But then my folks realized that I wasn't going the places I told them -- I guess they musta called some of my friends' parents or something. I think Dad got it into his head I was into drugs or sex. Oh, yeah, sure. So one day, like a few months ago. I'm delivering some apples to Brad and Winona, and who shows up with his shotgun, like some kind of Elmer Fudd from Hell. He told me to back away. I said they were my friends, but he wouldn't listen." A tear rolled Dona's left cheek.   "He killed them?" I heard a crackling of branches in the thicket nearby, but I had to know the entire story. Dona looked up, alarmed; I grabbed Dona's shoulder. "He killed them, Dona?"   Dona tried to shake free. "Just run, lady, please. She won't hurt you if I'm here, unless she thinks you're hurting me. Let me go!"   At her last plea, it crashed through the foliage. Tall, covered in an unusual thick auburn fur, large brown eyes, almost human eyes. Two large not-paws-but-hands, hands, with yellowish talons curling. The face was bearlike, a touch of lemur, maybe, except those eyes. They were full of something like I'd seen in Dona's blue eyes a few minutes earlier.   "My God," I gasped, intelligently.   "Get up and leave me alone," Dona said, more firmly. "We're fine; leave us alone, and you won't get hurt."   She'd said the last threateningly, and I looked at her tear-stained face. She looked lovingly at the creature, a crazed sort of love only she could feel for it, for her.   "Dona," I said, refusing to relinquish my grasp.   "Let me go," she said, icily. The creature edged forward, it's "fingers" curling and flexing. "She doesn't like people mistreating me. Let me go, now."   I tightened my grip, half out of stupid reflexive fear. "Winona" set up a low growl that rose quickly into a menacing, doglike, apelike howl. It was then I saw the animal's bulging abdomen.   "All right, lady, if that's the way you want it," Dona smiled meanly.   The creature raised its arms and launched itself toward me. I couldn't get to my gun in time, and I squeezed my eyes shut. They popped open at an explosion behind me. Dona shrieked and began to wail like something wild. Winona was still on a bed of dried pine needles, a red, wet hole in the fur of her forehead. I glanced behind me. A dirt-streaked Mulder, shock in his eyes, held his weapon at arms-length. Lee Nicholas was leaning against a tree, white and bleak; Kolchak was studying the creature and Dona, a mix of journalistic interest and sympathy on his lined face.   "It was homing in on Dona all along," Kolchak explained, needlessly.   "She," I emphasized quietly. "She."   --------   A wide-eyed cadre of deputies and animal control officials bagged Winona and took her away to the medical examiner's office. Mulder, Kolchak, and Nicholas had exhumed Brad's body from deeper in the woods, and it, too, would be prepared for my post-mortem.   As I helped Dona into an ambulance, Mulder materialized at my side. "She's going to need some big-time psychological help," he suggested.   "A distinct understatement, Mulder," I said. "To her, that animal was not just a pet. In her own immature adolescent way, Winona was her 'child.' A child she had to protect from her own father, a man who'd refused her the love of animals."   "I guess maybe the maternal instinct is a stronger primal force than the hunting instinct, huh?" Mulder, in shirtsleeves and sweating from his excavation, pondered. "Older, anyway. My guess is, somehow Dona bonded psychically with the morgwong up in the Canadian wilds. Maybe Dona has some advanced telepathic or empathic ability that this creature tuned in on."   "Imprinting," I implied, tired to the bone with some empathic feeling of my own for a lonely, disturbed girl destined for the impersonal care of strangers. For a pair of alien creatures likely forced from their home and killed for operating by rules they could not conceivably perceive as anything but the appropriate natural order. The knowledge of Winona's pregnancy deepened my fatigue. "A child imprints, forms a powerful bond, with the first real mother figure it encounters. You hear cases of dogs and cats lost hundreds of miles from their owners, who somehow find their way home. Perhaps, in this case, Dona made some sort of imprint on Winona that allowed the animal to home in on her."   Mulder considered silently. I leaned slightly on his arm and reached behind his back. He leaned tentatively back, and I came up smiling with a heavy tranquilizer pistol.   "You had this within reach," I said, mock-accusingly. "I know how important it was to you to take her alive, to fulfill that sense of mysterious hope of yours. Thanks, Mulder; I'm sorry you were deprived of that."   Mulder grinned. "I guess instinct is stronger than intellect. Some instincts, at least." He glanced away and then back. "This mean I get Supersize fries on the way home?"   "And a large strawberry shake."   --------   Journal of Carl Kolchak, Mel's Fall Inn, Shiban Falls:   Our little hunting/archeological expedition had left Agent Mulder and I in need of cool darkness and strong drink. Mel's Fall Inn provided a bargain basement version of both, as well as a heavy does of Hank Williams, courtesy of a drunk and dejected suitor who had become one with the corner jukebox. Scully had begged off for a cool one down at the county morgue.   "We still don't know where these things came from, you know," I reminded Mulder. "If the Chicago cops are any indication, we may never. But at the risk of sounding medialike, this story could be my ticket back into the good graces of Tony Vincenzo."   "The truth is out there," the agent said, dousing his dry humor with a gulp of near-beer.   I waved down the barperson, a svelte redhead who wore her starched white blouse impressively. "Another scotch-rocks, please. And could you ask Mel if he has any more of these nuts?" I requested, nudging the empty bar bowl toward her.   "I'm Mel, hon, Melvyn with a Y," she reported cheerfully. "My old man liked Melvyn Douglas and had a poor sense of judgment. Let me get refill you. How 'bout you, sweetie?"   "I'm fine, thanks," Mulder murmured, his brow furrowing. Mel floated off.   "You okay?" I inquired as Hank yodeled off the walls.   "Mr. Kolchak, Carl, are you sure that note, the one attached to the Chicago police report on the health food killings, said to call 'Sidney,' with an I? Could it have said 'Sydney,' with a Y?"   "Whoa, that was a long time ago, but the way some of these cops write, I suppose it's possible. Where you heading with this?"   Mulder flipped open his cell phone. He anxiously punched in some numbers and waited. "Yeah, this is Gene Tooms with the deputy chief's office. Can I talk to the chief, please? It's very important."   He put a hand over the phone. "You know if the head forensics guy who worked the health food killings is still around?"   "Pete Lazzaro?"   "Yeah, Dr. Lazzaro, Gene Tooms with the deputy chief's office," Mulder said into the phone with a mild bratwurst-and-beer accent. "Moved up from narcotics, thanks. I assume this phone's secure, right? Good. We may have a press problem -- some guy with the Trib's doing a piece on those health food store murders, back around '97? Yeah, us neither. He just wants to make sure you've got that report on ice. You know, the one about the marsuvian spit, you know? Yeah, marsupial saliva, whatever. The DNA analysis. Yeah, great, you bury that thing deeper than Jimmy Hoffa, you hear? Good man; we'll be in touch."   Mulder pocketed his phone and wheeled around. "Let's go. We've got to get to the morgue."   -------   "How familiar are you with zoology, marsupials?" Mulder asked, spinning gravel.   "Marsupials are like kangaroos, Tasmanian devils, possums, right?" I advanced.   "Yeah. Until our little find today, the opossum was the only known North American marsupial. Most are found in Australia, as I'm sure you know. Marsupials are among the world's most variable species in morphology -- size, shape, appearance. And a lot of our non-marsupial species have rough marsupial analogs, as if they followed parallel evolutionary tracks. As a result, there are herbivorous marsupials, carnivorous marsupials, omnivorous marsupials that eat a variety of foods."   "And ours was a vegetarian?" I queried as Mulder screamed past a minimart.   "Makes sense if the morgwong evolved in a sub-Arctic environment with few ready sources of meat protein. I believe that what we've discovered is the last vestiges of a race of hominid marsupials that have evolved in man's general design, opposable thumbs and all."   "How did you figure the morgwong was a marsupial? And if I may be so bold, so what if he, she, it is a marsupial?"   "When we drove up here, I almost hit an opposum -- when I looked in the rearview mirror, I realized it had been pretending to be dead. 'Playing possum,' one of the creature's major defense mechanism. Many species within the same animal family share common behaviors. You ever notice how a big cat at the zoo grooms itself like a housecat? How wild canines shake the life out of their prey like a poodle shakes the life out of a rag doll? I remembered Carter Cristensen's account of encountering the morgwong lying 'dead' in the middle of the highway. Playing possum. Perhaps it's a shared behavior.   "Put that together with the Morgwong doll's vaguely marsupial features, and I began to wonder if maybe the Chicago PD had detected DNA in the spilled grain similar to known marsupial species, and consulted somebody at the University of Sydney or somewhere with a strong knowledge of marsupial behavior and geography."   Mulder spotted the yellow brick City/County Building, and yanked into a spot near the back where a simple hanging sign identified the "Police/Morgue" entrance. "I don't want to seem thickheaded or anything, Agent Mulder, but what does Agent Scully have to fear from a dead marsupial?" I asked as he pulled his revolver and jumped from the car.   "Marsupials carry their young in pouches, sometimes for an extended period of time," the agent said, throwing open the door and sprinting down a set of stairs toward the county morgue. "If the female wasn't pregnant, then Scully could be in for an unpleasant surprise. We know they're aggressive and territorial, maybe even at an early age."   I rushed down a dark corridor past a breakroom where two uniforms were finishing supper. They looked up; I motioned them toward the morgue.   "Scully!" Mulder yelled as he approached the heavy metal morgue door.   "In here," I could hear Agent Scully call. She didn't sound jeopardized.   Mulder shoved open the door to find the partially decomposed body of "Brad" and his freshly dead mate cut open on side-by-side exam tables. Agent Scully was standing at a third metal table in scrubs and gloves, her back to us.   Mulder and I stepped forward tentatively. His partner was bent over an auburn, terrier-sized creature that looked far more like the amiable Morgwong that had flooded Toys 'R Us shelves than the beasts we'd encountered at the Nicholsons' home. Scully of all things was stroking the small animal, a beatific smile on her face and a warm light in her eyes. It might've been my avid imagination, but I could swear the juvenile morgwong was purring lightly.   "Gentlemen," Dana Scully scolded softly. "You'll disturb the baby."   Mulder leaned back against the lab table, a sheepish grin on his lupine face. "I guess it's Cro-Magnons zero, Earth Mothers one this time out."   "Or, as the man said, 'Women are from Venus, men are from Mars,'" I suggested.   "Well, you're half right, anyway," Mulder murmured, cryptically.