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PUBLISHED
AT THE X-PHILES
CAPISTRANO
One of my favorite one-season wonders was " The
Night Stalker ," a Friday night frightfest with more than it's
share of creepy laughs. Darren McGavin played the lead, Carl Kolchak, a
seedy, middle-aged wire service reporter given to tacky suits and straw
hats. Every week, Kolchak would
stumble onto some manifestation of the unknown, from unfrozen cavemen
or
a headless homicidal biker to Satan stealing souls in the guise of a
politician.
Really cheesy, really great TV, plus terrific cameos by old-time
comedians
and movie stars. In my tale, Kolchak is drafted by Mulder to
investigate a mysterious migratory creature linked to a series of
health food store killings,
a bestselling toy phenomenom.
WEREWOLVES
OF BURBANK
James Scott Rockford (of The Rockford
Files) was the king of cool for us '70s kids -- the greatest private
eye ever
to be beaten senseless on behalf of an ungrateful client. Whether he
was
looking for a missing heiress or dealing with corrupt smalltown
politicians
or pulling off a million-dollar scam on some corporate scumbag,
Rockford
always knew what to say and how to say it in a way that would get him
punched
in the nose. My story finds Rockford entangled with a pop music
superstar,
greedy showbiz agents, tough guy cops, a demon monster, and a pair of
federal
agents named Mulder and Scully.
MURDER
WITH A FUTURE
The greatest TV detective of all time? Get outta here! Lt. Columbo , LAPD. The first
time I saw this show, back in junior high, I thought this was the
heighth of the television art -- the clever cat-and-mouse games, the
deliciously elitist villains sowing their own murderous destructions at
the hands of clumsy proletariat Columbo. Well, I had a thought, years
ago:
What if they got Shirley MacLaine, made her a Hollywood psychic who
kills
somebody for something they're going to do in the future, and set
Columbo on her trail. Well, they never did it, the maladroits, so I
wrote this tale of detection teaming the good lieutenant with Agents
Mulder and Scully.
TOMODACHI
The first of my non-crossover stories features Robert Patrick Modell,
a maladjusted maniac known as The Pusher, who is into Samurai lore and
who
can psychically talk anyone into doing his bidding or even, in one
case,
having a heart attack. The Pusher was featured on two episodes of The
X-Files,
"Pusher" and "Kitsunegari." When I found a site devoted (somewhat
disturbingly)
to Modell, I posited to them this scenario: What if Agent Mulder woke
up
one morning, went to work, found himself partnered with The
Pusher,
and had no idea anything was amiss? The story within the story deals
with
past life regression and murder in the pharmaceutical industry.
GRACE
LAND
In this, the finale of what has come to be
known as my Hollywood Trilogy, Agent Dana Scully is induced to
unearthing one of the most famous "missing" persons in history -- Elvis
Presley --
before a crazed Elvis impersonator can make The King dead again. This
story
features a pair of characters from the X-Files canon: Jose Chung, a
sci-fi/expose writer who was portrayed by Charles Nelson Reilly, and
Morris Fletcher,
a sleazy federal Man in Black played by Michael McKean.
WHEN
HARRY MET SCULLY
One of the most common type of X-Files
fanfic is the "shipper story," devoted to exploring and or expanding
the emotional relationship between Mulder and Scully. Well, I felt a
bit left out, so
I applied myself to the task. However, I'm not the most adept at things
romantic, so I took a different slant and composed a sort of X-Files
chick flick/supernatural comedy. Substitute Meg Ryan or Sandra Bullock
for Gillian Anderson and Tom Hanks or Hugh Grant for David Duchovny.
SOUL
SURVIVOR
One of the more mystifying media trends of
late is the networks' aping of the "reality concept" popularized by MTV
(as in "I want my, I want my"? Dire Straits? Heathens!). This involves
taking a diverse group of real people with workaday jobs such as
performance artist or aromacolorist and narcissistic personalities,
placing them together
in a claustrophobic environment where their vapidity and egos will
begin
to collide, and then listen to their self-conscious ramblings to the
cameraman. If you can't tell, I think it's just FAB!! Actually, though,
I did think it would make for an interesting narrative experiment and a
good way to explore the nearly psychic connection between our Mulder
and Scully. In this novelette, Mulder is competing with a
Survivors-type crew in a sort of haunted Big Brothers environment off
the coast of Maine, feeding televised clues to a decades-old mystery to
Scully back home. Point of interest: After I completed this story, I
was told the British were planning to produce a Survivors-type show in
a haunted house. Eerie? Uh huh, yeah.
SAMPLER
I recently accompanied the wife on a
week's odyssey to Pigeon Forge and Nashville, Tenn. I will admit at
this juncture I'm no big country fan: Waylon and Willie sounds to me
like a urinary exam gone terrrribly wrong. But I remembered the 50-50
partnership that is marriage, kept murmuring "barbecue" to myself, and
started plotting this tale of
murder and magic in Music City. This is what I'd call meat-and-potatoes
X-Files: A serial killer, folklore-steeped intrigue, and some
supernatural
comeuppance for the villain. Yee-haw.
KENNETH
ETIAM
My good new friend Stacy at The X-Philes
has been kind enough over the last several months to publish several of
my stories, and this tale is my Christmas card to a hard-working
student
who gives others the opportunity to create and share their enjoyment of
The X-Files. This is a Christmas story about a man who finds himself in
a
situation similar to Jimmy Stewart in "It's a Wonderful Life," but with
nightmarish
implications. Fox Mulder takes the Clarence the Angel role here, with
partner
Scully a concerned observer. But this is no "ordinary" X-file, as I
hope
you will discover.
DEFRAG
Since an early age, I've loved the
old-fashioned Ellery Queen/Agatha Christie-style whodunit, especially
what's known as
the "locked room murder" -- the homicide committed in a room sealed
from
the inside or in the snow, with no footprints surrounding the body, or
in
a space station with no other astronauts around to have committed the
deed.
This is my attempt at the locked room, with an old-fashioned dying clue
and
a mansion full of suspects thrown in. For a new-fangled touch, the
victims is a Bill Gates sort of fellow, and my Sherlocks are no other
than our good agents, Mulder and Scully. So pull up an armchair and see
if you can figure out who or what dunit...
REMISSION
My mother, Jean Ross, died on Mother's Day
1993. She was a scientist at a time when a lot of women wouldn't have
felt welcome in the field. She had a wry sense of humor, but woe to
anyone who injured or slighted her family. If you had Jean Ross in your
corner, you had a formidable champion. Cancer was about the only foe
she couldn't face down in my lifetime. I married in 1993, months after
my mother's death.
My wife as well has been my champion, and each year, she walks for
cancer
victims and survivors. So when I decided to write a solo case for Agent
Dana Scully, something a bit more reflective and somber than is my
normal
style, I focused on two factors my mother had in common with Scully:
Her
scientific acumen and her battle with cancer. For this story, I brought
back an old X-Files nemesis, Leonard Betts.
CANARY
The resignation and departure of Agent Fox
Mulder last season sent X-Files fans into a chronic stage of anxiety.
The recent announcement that the X-Files would be closed at the end of
this
season elicited varying reactions: Resigned satisfaction from those who
couldn't accept Scully without Mulder or the Files without either;
frustration from others (myself included) who believe John Doggett was
a worthy heir to the files and that the storytelling of Chris Carter
and company was still in
top form. But enough, already. We all wonder where Mulder is right now
(no,
not sipping margaritas with Tea Leoni), and I speculated that he just
wouldn't be able to stay from the wierd and phantasmagorial. But how
does former
Agent Mulder cope without a gun or official sanction? To answer that,
we
travel from 31 million B.C. to the remote reaches of man's future and
learn
a little about a distinctly Illinoisan phenomenom called the Tully
monster...
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PUBLISHED
AT VIRTUAL SEASON
LOVE,
HONOR, AND OBEAH
The new alliance I've begun with the splendid folks at Virtual Season
11 (soon to be VS12) began with what famed neurotic George Costanza
might
have called a collision of universes. With the demise of The X-Files
after
nine seasons, I felt a distinct lack of closure. Thus was born 10X, my
fanfic continuation in the style and spirit of the series. And thus I
ventured into murky territory. I promoted my new "season" at the former
Haven discussion group, where Doggett and Reyes turned out to be
fighting words for many of the fans. Bloodied and bruised after a dozen
or so replies to my initial posts,
I launched into a volley of e-mails with Vickie, one of the Watchers of
her
own universe, now known as the Virtual Season. After discovering our
common
ground -- we're both Illinoisans, we work with bureaucrats on a daily
basis,
and we love Fox and Dana -- I persuaded Vickie to visit my universe.
The
result, Dreamcatcher, wound up shaping the climactic nexus of my
mythology. As my "series" came to a conclusion at the end of 2003,
Vickie generously invited me on board her own universe, which takes off
following the events of Je Souhaite. This is vintage XF, sans my pals
Doggett and Reyes but with Mulder and Scully finally having
acknowledged and consummated their shippiness (huh?). Thus, this story,
written for a VS crossover challenge, is somewhat lighter and
banterish. In what I feel to be a fitting touch, Love, Honor, and Obeah
-- a story of witchcraft and the law -- features one of the stars of my
XF Sunday replacement, The Practice. Read how ethically challenged
Boston
attorney Alan Shore -- with the aid of our agents -- defends a man who
killed
to protect his family from sorcery.
ASURYA
LOKAS
This one, another short-short, was written for a VS Valentine's Day
challenge. Mulder and Scully's parallel universe romance offered the
backdrop for a story of post-911 paranoia, Eastern religion, and an
impossible "murder" motivated
by, well, it's a Valentine's story, right?...
MOA A
MOANA
My first full-length adventure in the VS universe, and probably my
best-researched tale. Ripped from (recent) headlines and inspired by a
recent Hawaiian vacation, this is a real fish story complete with
genetically engineered "killer(?)" tuna, CIA experimentation, and
island "little people." As for the title, look it up yourself for a
chuckle...
BANSHEE
In honor of St. Patrick, we take you back to an early episode in the
life
of Fox Mulder, Oxford crinimal psychology prodigy, and his old flame,
Phoebe
Green, as he investigates a banshee in Dublin and a mystery that
literally
screams to be solved...
TRICK OR
TREATISE
As Virtual Season 12 commences, we find our intrepid agents knocking
once again at the door to the unknown, on Halloween night. This time
around, I lampoon the world of academics as I unravel this tale of
serial murder and ancient ritual...
DARK MEAT
Mix Thanksgiving with a mildly demented family not unlike my in-laws,
crazed gobblers, retro ghosts, and two visiting FBI agents, and you
have a holiday tale flavored by my vocational interest in agriculture...
SLIM
DICKENS
I love time travel stories -- all those twisty, sinister, neck-snapping
anomalies. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure may be one of my favorite
riffs on the theme, though I gotta admit my hatred for Ashton Kutcher
subsided when I caught The Butterfly Effect recently. So when I set out
to write my VS12 buddies a Yuletide story, I decided to rewrite history
with a zany, time-torturing Christmas Carol...
DOCKED
One of my favorite X-Files X-periments was Kill Switch, that great
William Gibson story of artificial intelligence and virtual life, with
one of the greatest opening acts ever on TV. I tapped my own inside
perspective on Congress and current affairs to compose this cyberspace
adventure with an Agatha Christie twist...
THE
BICOASTAL,
BILOCATED, FLY-BY MURDER CASE
Columbo meets Mulder again, this time in a tale of two horror writers,
a killer who apparently can be two places at once, and a coupla guys
who like to bust impossible crimes...
COLD
FILE
To me, the crossover is an art form -- capturing accurately the flavor
of two disparate TV series isn't easy, and a good crossover connects
universes and fan bases. Before he turned into a crazed political
rantmeister, David E. Kelley was the Crossover King, throwing the
bucolic residents of Picket Fences together with the Type A doctors of
Chicago Hope, casting the attorneys of The Practice into the looneytic
universe of Ally McBeal and the adolescent angst of Boston Public, and
even nearly accomplishing the legendary Cross-Network Crossover That
Never Was between the oddball Picket Fences and The X-Files. My own
fantasy crossover would be a magnum mixup of Jerry Bruckheimer's
multi-jurisdictional CSI scientists, Cold Case cops, and Without a
Trace feds. I satisfied myself instead with a crossed-up salute to
Philly Town, which I visited recently. Mulder and Scully help Det.
Lilly Rush and the other members of Philadelphia's Cold Case Squad
solve a murder and a radical bombing during the Summer of '69...
NICHTOPHOBIA
Dark is fun, and this one is straight from
the backside of the moon, asking cosmic questions about fate, genetics,
violence, and the human soul. Plus, Vickie at VS12 generously allowed
me to pull a fast one, offering an alternate world version of one of
the key moments of Season Nine...
FIRST
STRIKE
Despite covering high school football and basketball for nearly five
years on a daily paper, I must admit I'm no jockhead. But like all
transplanted Central Illinoisans, I just gotta love the Cubbies -- the
Chicago Cubs. But the Cubs enjoy a true love-hate relationship with the
public, and thereby hangs my tale of baseball, homicide, and, yes, the
supernatural...
COLONIAL
MODERN
Thanksgiving again, and Mulder and Scully must solve a series of
small-town new England murders if they hope to make it home for turkey
time...
STAR
OF THE EAST
One of the pivotal moments in The X-Files was Mulder's final
revelations regarding the fate of his missing sister in Sein Und
Zeit/Closure, and I felt Anthony Heald (Harold Piller) turned in one of
the series' best, most touching guest performances. Here, Mulder and
Piller are reunited on Christmas Eve, with a parallel universe assist
from DETECTIVE John Doggett...
GOD
AND BAD PLANNING
Crossover time again: This time, Mulder and Scully cross sabers and
scalpels with Dr. Greg House, he of the world's most brilliant
diagnostic mind and the planet's worst bedside manner. Plus, as the Law
and Order folk say, we rip our story from recent headlines, adding a
soupcon of lycanthropy...
LIED
TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ABOUT UFO ABDUCTION
Two crossovers for one: Earl Hickey, the likable if incorrigible
trailer park king of My Name Is Earl, runs afoul of Mulder, Scully,
shrewish ex-wife Joy, and a pizza-loving alien...
DOGGED
I am the most sports-deficient geek in Central Illinois. Thus, when I
sought to submit a story for the annual VS sports special, I turned to
the quasi-sport of competitive eating for quite possibly the grossest
story I have yet writ...
Z1372
Crossover craziness; a Bruckheimer buffet. CSI's Gil Grissom, Without a
Trace's Jack Malone, and Cold Case's Lilly Rush and Will Jeffries lend
a hand in a cross-country case of serial abduction, radical amnesiacs,
Nazi secrets, and Mulder's own demons...
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