Página PrincipalInternal dating: The flashback events happen on February 10th 1998. Mulder and Scully recall these events on February 11th. They return to Texas on February 11th through 12th and tell their story to Skinner on the 13th.
"Mulder?", Scully asks as she walks into the clearing.
Mulder is the man pounding the stake into the teen. Mulder opens the younger man's mouth and shows Scully a set of fangs. Scully runs her finger along the fangs, which come off the young man's teeth. They are the sort of fangs a kid wears on Halloween. She shows them to Mulder who says "Oh shi..."
The credits roll: The Truth is out There.
The next morning, Mulder tries to write his report as a wary Scully come into the basement office. She tries to engage him in conversation, but he stops her immediately. He balls up the sheet of paper he was writing on and tosses it at the trash pail. He misses, the paper ball joining about a dozen others on the floor.
Calmly, Mulder stands up and kicks the can four times before stomping it nine times.
Skinner, Scully tells Mulder, is expecting their report in an hour. Mulder pretends he is not concerned, since he plans on telling Skinner what he saw. Scully agrees, telling him she plans on telling Skinner what she saw.
"Now how is that different", Mulder asks. Mulder wants Scully to tell him what she is going to say since he could be facing criminal charges.
Scully is clearly bothered by this, "First of all, if the family of Ronnie Strickland does indeed decide on suing the FBI for I think the figure is $446 million then you and I will most certainly be co- defendants. And second of all, I don't even have a second of all Mulder, $446 million. I'm in this as deep as you are and I'm not the one who overreacted. I didn't do the...", Scully makes a stabbing motion "with the thing".
"I did not overreact", Mulder replies, "Ronnie Strickland was a vampire." Mulder says Scully saw what happened. Scully makes a face. Worried, Mulder wants to hear her story, the way she plans on telling it.
Scully tells Mulder she is not "comfortable" with the two of them getting their stories straight.
Mulder says, "Prison, Scully. Your cellmate is going to be nicknamed Large Marge. She's gonna read a lot of Gertrude Stein.
Scully tells her story:
The previous day an "exuberant" Mulder runs through a slide show in a know-it- all way. He answers questions before Scully can ask them about a series of cattle exsanguinations in Texas. Scully tries to suggest cult activity but Mulder blows her off. In passing he mentions a human victim - Dwight Funt -- and hustles out of the office.
In Chaney, Scully and Mulder wait with the town mortician in the funeral home. Sheriff Lucius Hartwell joins them. Scully notices how good looking he is (the Marboro man light). While the Sheriff is smiling at Scully, who is smiling right back, Mulder insists on seeing the body, telling Scully to "get those little legs moving". The Sheriff is clearly smitten.
The body is in a lab. Scully and Hartwell are the models of professionalism in between sly smiles. Mulder, however, is cracking jokes and barking orders. When Scully sees a set of bite marks on the victims neck, Mulder mocks her "theory", complete with finger motioned quotes, about the cult.
Scully tells the Sheriff and skeptical Mulder that her new idea is that this is a regular killer who has seen too many vampire movies. The Sheriff, in awe, agrees with Scully. Scully goes into a long scientific look at the idea of vampirism. Blinded by her wisdom, Hartwell says "You really know your stuff Dana."
"Dana?" Mulder interrupts. "He never even knew your first name."
"You gonna interrupt me or what?" Scully asks.
"No, go ahead," Mulder replies, "Dana."
"Anyway, that's when you had your big breakthrough..whatever.". Back in the lab, Mulder in a eureka moment, notices the corpse has untied shoelaces. He asks Hartwell to take him to a local cemetery, "the creepier, the better."
Mulder orders Scully to do an autopsy, but he's not sure why. Mulder races out of the room. Hartwell follows, but not before tipping his hat to a smiling Scully.
Scully does the autopsy at 4:54pm on a man "who is arguably having a worse time in Texas than I am, but not by much". The man was healthy as Scully weighs his body parts. Shifting on tired feet, she finds that he had a pizza with the works just before he died. Scully decided that pizza would be a delicious dinner.
After the autopsy, Scully checks into the Davy Crockett Motor Court.
Mulder disagrees, saying its the Sam Houston Motor Lodge. The typed credits on the bottom type out the first name, backspace over them and type out the second name.
Scully drops $.50 into the vibrating bed's "Magic Fingers", kicks off her shoes and closes her eyes as the bed noisily works its magic.
Mulder barges into the room, covered in mud. Without opening her eyes, she tells him the "Chloral Hydrate", or knock-out drops, were in the victim's system. When she notices he's a mess, he won't tell her what happened.
Scully thinks that Mulder's vampire had to drug Mr. Funt before he killed him. Mulder didn't think a vampire would have to do that. Scully thought that was the point -- a real vampire wouldn't need knock out drops.
Mulder tells her there was another killing and she had to do another autopsy.
Scully, exhausted and hungry, tells Mulder she just put money into the "Magic Fingers".
Mulder promises not to let her investment go to waste and jumps on the bed. He laughs evilly as she leaves for her autopsy. The pizza she orders arrives just as she gets outside of the room. Scully tells the delivery man that the man inside the room will pay for the pizza.
The pizza delivery man is Ronnie Strickland.
Tired and hungry, Scully does her second autopsy of the day. Paul Lombardo of Naples, Florida was in good health until he was killed. Scully's second autopsy is messier, watching his large intestines fall out of the scale and unspool onto the ground. She believes he was also given knockout drops, probably ingested.
As she starts to examine the stomach contents, her cellphone rings. After saying hello several times, there's nothing but heavy breathing on the phone. She disconnects and returns to the stomach contents. Mr. Lombardo also had pizza.
Scully realizes that the pizza had knockout drops and she just left Mulder with a pizza.
Breaking into the hotel room, Scully finds the pizza vibrating off the bed. A pair of dirty socks stick out along the far side of the bed. As Scully crosses the room, Ronnie Strickland stands up and growls at her. Scully fires her gun two times at Ronnie and four times after he brushes past her.
Scully tends to an unconscious Mulder. He awakens singing the theme song from "Shaft", including the falsetto parts.
"I did not", an indignant Mulder interrupts as he jumps out of his chair.
Scully continues. She shot out one of his tires as Ronnie fled, so Scully followed him on foot. A few minutes later she found Mulder and Ronnie after Mulder "overreacted".
Mulder thinks Scully is afraid to tell the truth since she would "look like an idiot, like me.".
Mulder gives his version:
Scully arrives in an "unexuberant" mood the prior day. In an overly kind and obsequious way, he slowly walks an extra skeptical Scully through the basics of a case. He keeps deferring to her opinion but she just roles her eyes and makes faces throughout.
Mulder recalls the funeral director having way too many caskets for a town with 361 people. The Sheriff arrives again, looking the same but with a bad set of buck teeth.
Scully doesn't remember the buck teeth but Mulder remembers an overbite.
Viewing the body, Mulder is the picture of professionalism while Scully stares dreamily at the Sheriff. While the Sheriff was fairly smart in Scully's version, he's a real dope here. Finding the bite in the victim's neck, Mulder goes into a long history of vampires. Scully makes faces, yawns and roles her eyes as Mulder waxes poetically. The Sheriff is largely confused by Mulder.
Mulder again notices the open shoes and asks Hartwell to take him to the local cemetery.
At the cemetery, Mulder goes on another lesson about what to look for with vampires -- no birds singing, upturned gravestones, murmurs of the undead ripping their death shrouds. Hartwell can't hear any birds, but since its winter, they've gone south. The gravestones are fine and there is no murmuring. The Sheriff, however, defers to Mulder since he works for the "guvenment".
Ronnie Strickland sees the Sheriff and yells a hello to Hartwell. The Sheriff waves back to Ronnie and his pizza delivery car.
Once its dark, Mulder goes through the cemetery, tossing sunflower seeds all over the place. Returning to Hartwell's police SUV, Mulder offers the Sheriff some seeds, spilling a few in the car. The Sheriff declines, picking up the spilled seeds.
The Sheriff is confused about the seeds. Mulder explains that vampires have obsessive compulsive disorder. They must clean up messes and stay in neat places. Spreading the sunflower seeds would make the cemetery a tough place for the vampire to stay. It goes back to the shoelaces. Vampires untie shoelaces since they can't stand to see knots.
The Sheriff sort of understands, confusing OCD with idiot savants - - like Raymond in Rain Man. Mulder tries to make conversation with the Sheriff, but he's just not in Mulder's league. The Sheriff and Mulder are called to a local RV park where there is some "trouble".
The "trouble" is a runaway RV that is circling in the trailer park. Mulder and the Sheriff run into Ronnie again who suggests they shoot out the tires of the runaway RV. Mulder tries to skip ahead at this point, but Scully won't let him. Mulder admits that he and the Sheriff tried to shoot out the tires but missed. Mulder tired to jump on the RV, only to be dragged through the mud. He falls off just as the RV sputters and stalls. Inside Paul Lombardo is dead, complete with untied shoelaces.
Bruised, filthy and exhausted, Mulder returned to the hotel to a furious Scully who was resting on the vibrating bed. She doesn't want to do another autopsy. She's tired from being on her feet all day, "all for you". She also complained that she had nothing to eat except half of a light cream cheese bagel that morning. Finally, she notices he's dirty, but she leaves before he can say anything. Her final warning to him is not to go on the bed with the Magic Fingers.
Mulder toes off his shoes, drops his coat on a chair, drops his jacket on the floor and goes into the bathroom to wash up. Ronnie Strickland knocks on the door and lets himself in, with the pizza. Mulder emerges from the bathroom in his tank undershirt and boxers. He gives Ronnie $13.00 for a $12.98 pizza -- big tipper Mulder.
Mulder eats Scully's pizza and reloads another $.50 into the Magic Fingers. As he sees his shoes, he realizes the laces are untied. Tired, he realizes the knockout drops were in the pizza and Ronnie was the vampire. Dopey from the drops, Mulder tries to call Scully but can only grunt a few times into the phone. Scully calls the heavy breather a "creep" and hangs up. Ronnie lets himself back into the room.
Mulder, realizing he's in big trouble, takes his sunflower seeds and throws them all over the room. Ronnie drops to his knees and starts to pick up the seeds, telling Mulder "You are in big trouble". Mulder loses consciousness until Ronnie is about to bite him. Scully bursts in and shoots Ronnie twice right in the chest. Ronnie flies across the room...
"Like a flying squirrel?", Scully asks.
Mulder continues. He remembers Scully checked on him and going after Ronnie. Getting his strength back, he breaks up a hotel chair, making a leg into a stake. He finds and kills vampire Ronnie.
In the Dallas-Fort Worth morgue, a ME starts to work on Ronnie. Removing the stake from his heart, the doctor guesses that a stake to the heart was the cause of death. As the doctor prepares to work, Ronnie gets up. Flashing his teeth and vampire shiny eyes, he goes after the ME. Ronnie does notice that his fangs are gone.
Mulder and Scully sit outside of Skinner office, waiting for a meeting that Skinner's assistant says could take "several hours". Scully tries to straighten Mulder's tie, but he waves her off. She encourages Mulder to emphasize he was drugged. Mulder tells her to stop that, but when Skinner comes out Mulder yells "I was drugged".
Skinner orders them back to Texas. Ronnie Strickland is missing, the ME was "gnawed", but not dead.
After Skinner returns to his office, Scully, amazed, says "But he was dead."
"I noticed that", Mulder replies.
"With a stake in his heart", Scully continues.
"I noticed that too", Mulder added.
That night, more like themselves, Mulder and Scully are walking through the cemetery. Scully thinks maybe Ronnie is a vampire while Mulder thinks he may have wore the fangs because he saw one too many vampire movies. Scully wanted to know where Ronnie's family -- the ones suing the FBI -- were since Ronnie would probably be there.
The Sheriff arrives, wanting to help. He has a small overbite -- more than Scully's perfect man, less than Mulder's bucktoothed moron. Mulder asks Hartwell to watch the cemetery with Scully while he finds Ronnie's family at the local RV park. Smiling that she gets to spend some time with the Sheriff, Mulder jokes in his worst Texas accent, "Don't say I never did nothin' for ya'."
Hartwell gives Scully some coffee from a thermos in a cowboy boot mug. He wants to know Scully's opinions on vampires. She, no surprise, doesn't believe. He pushes on what she's heard. She talks about the legends of them being attractive, seductive, but she really doesn't believe that either, quoting one of Mulder's long monologues on all the different types of vampires.
The Sheriff agrees with Scully, apologizing that Ronnie's behavior makes them all look bad. "We pay taxes, we are good neighbors", he tells her. Scully realizes that she has been drugged and that the Sheriff is a vampire.
Finding a pizza box divider in front of an RV, Mulder finds Ronnie's casket. Opening it, he makes a joke about Ronnie sleeping late, but Ronnie's in no mood and attacks Mulder. Mulder slams down the casket top and tries to arrest Ronnie. As he handcuffs the coffin closed, all the neighbors, all vampires, converge on the RV. Mulder takes two bread sticks and tries to make a cross. It fails and he is attacked.
The next morning, Mulder wakes up in his car with his shoelaces untied. Scully is outside the car. She spent the night sleeping in the cemetery, wearing the Sheriff's coat, complete with silver badge. Mulder checks Scully out for neck wounds and Scully does the same. The town is deserted, "they pulled up stakes", Mulder mused as he retied his shoes.
The next day, Mulder and Scully give their story to a disbelieving Skinner. Scully confirms all that happened while they were together, but could not confirm or deny what Mulder did out of her sight. Mulder did the same for Scully. Scully reminded Skinner that she was drugged.
Mulder claims that their story was "essentially, exactly the way it happened." Scully agrees, "essentially".
But Mulder ends with "Except the part about the buck teeth". The credits role.
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