TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH(1 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

CLASSIFICATION: X-FILE, HUMOR

RATING: R (for...well, just about everything)

SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully go to a town called Final,
Mississippi to investigate a crime that apparently did
*not* happen.

ARCHIVE: If you want it, you can have it.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a story about the South. Or, rather,
it's about the mystique of the South. When we think of
Mississippi, we think of a hot stew of weirdness and evil.
That mystique has more than a bit of truth to back it up,
but the real thing is a lot more complex than that. Still,
the mystique is fun to play around with.

DEDICATIONS: I would like to say "thank you" to Caroline
Willoughby who first read this and to Laurie Haynes who
edited it.

I would also like to dedicate this story to the KKK who
figure so prominently in my tale. Guys, I would just like
to say...fuck you in the nose!

FEEDBACK must be delivered to ottercrk@sover.net where
it will be brooded over on lonely winter nights.

DISCLAIMER: All right, Chris Carter. "The X-Files" is your
baby. However, if the issue is money, let's look at a few
facts. Not only have watched I your show faithfully (and
"Millennium" pretty faithfully as well), I have purchased
all four "soundtracks," four videotapes and three tie-in
books. I saw the movie three times, twice at a matinee and
once on video. My mother has gotten me an X-File calendar
twice for Christmas and for my birthday, I got to go to
the Expo in New York City on both Saturday and Sunday.
That's a lot of money that got spent. I think you owe *me*
a little something.

Pay up, you suntanned bastard.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A.C. Burnside glared at the crowd as if he was about to
beat them all with his guitar. In the close quarters of The
Shithole, he could probably cleave off the heads of five
people with one swoop of his Gibson.

"All right, you mammy-fuckers, this is the time to
listen!" he growled into the microphone, his big voice made
bigger and just loud enough to get through the din of the
audience's cat-calls, whistles and hollers.

"This next number is a sing-a-long! And I better hear all
you mammy-fuckers sing or I'm gonna chase your smelly asses
out of here! That means you, you, you and you!" With each
'you,' A.C. pointed at an individual person who responded
with a cheer or a grin. Nobody looked too intimidated even
though A.C. didn't seem to be kidding and he did, in fact,
own the bar.

Standing near the doorway, Ben Hedge tensed his large
shoulders. If A.C. ordered him to haul somebody out, then
he was required to do it quicker than shit down a greased
plank. Sometimes, he had do it because the person in
question was making trouble, but simply pissing off A.C.
was also a good way to get yourself tossed out of the
Shithole. And A.C. was always pissed off about something.
Luckily, most of the people who got the shaft from the bar
owner/blues musician took it in good humor. It was even
regarded as a rite of passage in Final, Mississippi.

However, occasionally, someone did not take it in good
humor.

That's when Ben had to move onto the next level.

The woman behind the bar had witnessed A.C.'s temper
longer than Ben had. She was A.C.'s sister, after all. Zola
Burnside believed in God because divine intervention was
the only explanation for her brother's relatively unscathed
life. Here he was, a hot-tempered black man living in the
only state that gave a double-digit percentage of its
electorate to David Duke's presidential campaign...a man
who presided over a blues bar with the highest potency of
alcohol and the least effective air conditioning in the
whole South...a man who took offense at the slightest
affront...yet he had managed to have only a few scars on
his body and a large circle of friends. Or acquaintances,
anyway.

That's why she didn't mind serving the drinks at the
Shithole or think much about supplying A.C.'s Home Brew to
anyone who wanted it. (A.C.'s Home Brew was a mixture
brewed in his own still. Its exact ingredients have been
rumored to be a wide range of items from paint remover to
buckshot to weeds plucked from the ground next to an
outhouse.) She calmly regarded the bar's packed array of
heads and torsos that danced, sweated and occasionally fell
out-of-sight. What others would see as a drunken crowd
ready to go nuts, she saw a sign of the bar's success. Even
before the clock turned nine, the Shithole would usually be
full of people encased between rotting wooden walls covered
with autographed photos of blue musicians who had the
strange fortune to wind up playing in the bar. ("Damn, this
place really is a shithole."---Lil' Ed Williams.) The very
fact that this joint could make money indicated that the
Good Lord looked over A.C. Burnside.

Of course, it could have been someone else other than God
that A.C. had made a bargain with. But Zola doubted that
person would have anything to do with her brother.

She managed to catch Ben's eyes through the crowd. He
communicated his tension to her. She replied with a smile.

Ben smiled back. Zola had that effect on him. Only she
could have convinced him to have faith in the luck of A.C.
What he liked best about her of all the women he had known
was that she could always soothe him. Even their lovemaking
could calm him down. Usually, sex made Ben's heart slam
back and forth in his chest, leaving him overly excited and
unsettled. After a hour in Zola's bed, he was ready to just
stretch out and take a nap. "You have a Valium pussy," he
once told her. (He discovered that women don't really
regard this as a compliment.)

With one last exhortation to the "mammy-fuckers," A.C. and
his band struck up "Smokestack Lightnin'."

"Can't you hear me crying?" A.C. called out as if his
heart could actually be broken. And every last person in
that bar responded, even Ben and Zola. The sound of "Whoa-
HOOOOO" went straight back to the band. A.C. nodded, but
didn't smile. He had demanded no less than this great moan.

Maybe Zola is right, Ben thought. Maybe God is looking
after A.C. Can't figure out the fuck why, but it looks like
this night will turn out fine, after all.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Johnny McDonald clutched his Bible to his chest and
wondered if he dared to enter Hell again.

When he had come the last time, he hadn't been alone. The
assault on the satanic establishment whose name he couldn't
dare utter was supposed to have been a great triumph for
Young Christians for Change. As they had marched across the
railroad tracks and through the streets of the "black half"
of Final, he had felt a general like in God's army.
Marching with him were the representatives of a new
generation who would turn their back on the godless ways of
a fallen America. They were going to show the Devil himself
that not all teenagers were in the sway of his evil music.
And they would throw down the gauntlet in his own camp.

The six of them had burst into the Shi...the bar. There
they were, six white, well-scrubbed faces before an ocean
of black, sweating ones. The two young women in their group
frowned in disapproval at the naked shoulders and lengthy
display of leg on the female patrons. The young men stood
with them, ready to put the armor of their ironed white
shirts and well-polished black shoes between their women's
chastity and the sin that choked the bar's air.

Johnny held up his Bible and cried out, "Repent!"

And for one quiet moment, he could feel the Lord's power
surging through him, a mighty force that no one could
withstand.

In the next moment, every one of the Young Christians for
Change had been tossed outside. All except for Johnny. He
spent the rest of the night tied up and gagged on the
stage, laid out next to the drums. For many hellish hours,
his ears were punished with that evil (yet strangely
enticing) music. He could feel it vibrating through the hot
stage under him. The sinful bar owner would occasionally
place his boot on him, tapping out the music's tempo on his
back to the audience's wicked delight. However, that wasn't
the most humiliating, enraging thing about that night. He
had led this Christian assault on this bar in the hopes of
freeing at least one soul. That one soul was the other
guitarist in the bar, a young man who was none other than
the son of the pastor of Final Baptist Church. Somehow,
his black teenage peer had been seduced into this pit.

He had tried desperately to convince the preacher of the
danger posed to her son. She would only smile and said, "I
have confidence in the goodness of my son's soul. And
whatever you may think of A.C., he's a caring man at heart.
My son is in strong, capable hands."

"God have mercy on you," Johnny shot back and marched away.

This was to be expected. Just because a woman was the
daughter of the town's last preacher doesn't mean that she
should be entrusted with the spiritual life of the
community. Granted that this woman had a certain...effect
on people, but a man was a man and a woman was a woman. If
you let the latter take over, then everything falls apart
into wickedness and despair. He knew that a lot of people
in town felt the same way. He waited for the day on which 
he would overthrow the presumptuous woman from her position
and appoint a more deserving person in her place.

Now, it was time to make a stand. It was time to show the
preacher how a real spiritual leader works. And he would
start by saving the soul of her son.

You would think that the son would appreciate this.

Instead, the preacher's son did nothing to help him. When
Johnny had looked up at him with a plea in his eyes as he
laid on the stage, the guitarist only shrugged and turned
to the audience.

It had angered Johnny so much that he lodged a complaint
with the Chief. Of course, he should have known better.
The Chief was always going to side with the woman that he
lusted after and, besides, he was one of THOSE people. He
only said, "Johnny, you were lucky that A.C. didn't shove
a bottle up your ass."

It turned out that the other members of Young Christians
for Change agreed with the Chief. When he proposed
another raid on the bar, they declined. Cowards, Johnny
thought. Did they not trust in the Lord?

It was his own trust in God that brought Johnny McDonald
back to Hornet Street. He stood a few blocks away from that
unspeakable bar, attempting to work enough up righteousness
to make a solo assault. The heathen music could reach his
ears.

"Fare you well...never see you no more...can't you hear me
crying..." "Whoa-HOOOOO..."

Johnny shuddered. He just didn't understand black people.
One moment they could play such holy music, the next they
were wailing the devil's tunes.

He took several breaths, praying his strength up. While he
was doing this, he saw a car pull up to the curb next to
the bar. He wondered why it was parking there and not in
the lot behind the bar.

Then he saw four white sheets and he pissed in his pants.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ben was almost enjoying himself---the music was so good,
the audience was so happy, Zola was looking so fine---when
he saw the worried look on the face of Malcolm Burnside, Jr.

One thing that you were sure of in the Shithole---how ever
rowdy things might get, none of it touched Malcolm. He
would stand by A.C. on the tiny stage, oblivious to the
rants of his uncle as he checked on his guitar or looked
calmly over the screaming audience. No matter how scorching
hot the music felt, he would pluck his strings with a cool
detachment. (In contrast, the drummer had been playing with
A.C. for over a decade and he still looked tempted to throw
a cymbal at his band leader's head.) You could have said
that Malcolm had gotten that coolness from his father but
Malcolm had never known his daddy. Besides, there was
something else to Malcolm...he seemed to be watching you
from the clouds...

That's why Ben took notice when Malcolm looked towards the
back of the Shithole, fear and uncertainty in his eyes. The
bouncer got himself ready for anything.

Unfortunately, he wasn't ready enough.

One bullet is enough to kill a man. Twenty bullets broke
through the door and Ben Hedge was in the pathway of all of
them. He felt one piece of himself fall away, then another
and another. People turned to see him getting chopped up
into chunks the size of bread loaves. Those in the back
were sprayed with blood. One person was knocked unconscious
by a flying shoulder bone.

There was one-half second where the music stopped and
everyone watched in silence as Ben fell apart. Screaming
followed, of course. Right as the screaming started, the
chewed-up door was kicked easily off its hinges and four
people in white robes rushed in. They quickly formed a
line, their eyes staring out from their hoods and their
machine guns facing the crowd that was pushing itself back
to a space that didn't exist, cramming themselves into a
knot of flesh, sucking out the air that was needed to
sustain their screams. Zola had grabbed a rifle from under
the bar. A.C. was going for a gun that he kept behind a
speaker.

Malcolm was just standing still. He wasn't looking at the
hooded invaders. He was staring at a man standing behind
them. A bowler hat topped off this man's short body while a
black dress suit led down from his neck to his black shoes.
He was waving his hands at Malcolm, eyes wide behind his
spectacles as he shouted out a no that only the black
teenager could hear.

"Fuck it," Malcolm muttered.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Julius Grant sat in the car and wondered who invented
circus peanuts. Maybe it was that George Washington Carver,
he thought. That boy was always doing things with peanuts,
wasn't he? Thought up peanut butter, he did. That it itself
was a miracle-and-a-half, but if he had come up with circus
peanuts as well, then Carver was probably the greatest man
who ever lived. Boy probably deserved a blow job from the
Virgin Mary herself.

Julius munched on the orange circus peanuts as the screams
and gunfire continued inside the Shithole. In a few
moments, there were no more screams, but the gunfire lasted
awhile longer.

Yep, nothing like circus peanuts.

The four hooded men fled the Shithole and jumped into the
car. In a few seconds, the bar was a distant spot in the
rear view mirror.

"We did it," one of them said, exhausted and exhilarated
at the same time. "We really did it."

"Yep," Julius said, munching the last peanut and crumbling
up the plastic bag. "Now let's see if anything grows where
we just took a shit."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Johnny McDonald looked carefully out from the dark alley
he had retreated into. His whole body was trembling. He
made sure that the car carrying the Klan members was out-of-
sight. Then he vomited.

He looked at the Shithole. The next thing he knew, he was
walking towards there. Why are you doing this? he asked.
You know what you're going to see. Just call the police.
Don't look inside. Don't go through that doorway. Don't...

There was blood everywhere, streaked up and down the
walls, forming puddles at your feet, sprinkled across the
ceiling.

That wasn't surprising.

There were burning holes in the walls, shards of smashed
bottles, clothing torn into shreds, speakers and guitars
throwing off sparks.

That wasn't surprising, either.

What was surprising was that people were standing up. They
looked dazed but, despite the blood and damage all around
them, they looked completely unharmed.

On the stage, Malcolm watched over them with his busted
guitar at his side. They stared back at the withdrawn
expression on his face. He seemed to be a hundred feet
above them.

Then A.C. saw Johnny and his wide eyes.

"What are you lookin' at, mammy-fucker?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (2 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Chief Meyer Spiegelman felt like a schmuck. A southern-
fried schmuck. A durn putz.

Why am I doing this? he thought. Why am I wasting time
with this bullshit?

He opened a drawer on his desk. He stared at the inside
for a few seconds, then he closed it and sighed.

Sounds could be heard in the reception area -- a couple of
visitors. He could make out the word "agents." One of his
officers yelled out, "Chief, someone here to see you!" He
forced himself off his chair and left his office.

He was a bit surprised when he saw Agents Fox Mulder and
Dana Scully. He had expected to see a couple of pale-
skinned geeks in glasses. After all, what other kind of
person wastes time with investigating "paranormal
phenomena?" (He had abso-fucking-lutely no idea what that
meant.)

Instead, he found two very good-looking people who were
dressed well enough to make him jealous of an FBI agent's
salary. They waited for him behind the dividing line
between the main office area and the front foyer. The man
was tall and dark-haired with a long nose that gave his
handsome features the right amount of character. The woman
had red hair that curved gracefully down her head and blue
eyes that said, "I'm short, I'm a woman, but I'm not the
receptacle for your bullshit."

They looked like the lead actors of a fancy Hollywood
show. Spiegelman's two patrolmen, on the other hand, looked
like understudies for Boss Hogg. They were standing next to
the snack table, red faces snickering as they added more
doughnuts to bellies that squeezed themselves over their
gun belts.

"Chief Spiegelman, I'm Agent Mulder," the dark-haired man
said. "This is Agent..."

"How many Spics does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" one
of the patrolmen inquired of the other.

"I don't know," the other replied with a giggle. "How
many?" Before the wit could come with up the answer,
Spiegelman hollered at them. "Damn, ain't you two the very
pride of Final's police department? I'm just overjoyed that
these two FBI agents could see you working your fat asses
off!"

The two officers stared at Spiegelman, both angry and
humiliated, powder flaking off the doughnuts in their
frozen hands.

"And...this is Agent Scully," Mulder said slowly.

Spiegelman glanced at Mulder and said, "Hey." Then he
directed another growl towards his patrol officers.

"Call me a kike."

The policemen said nothing.

"I know you call me that behind my back. Why don't you go
ahead and get it out in the air instead of holding it
behind your yellow teeth?"

The fat police officers looked down.

"Well?"

"You're a kike..." one of the cops finally mumbled.

"And you're a couple of whale-sized rednecks with roadkill
for brains. Now this is what we call a mutual understanding."

Spiegelman turned back to the FBI agents. "Follow me," he
said politely.

Mulder and Scully followed the chief to his office, too aware
of the loathing in the policemen's eyes and the guns hanging
at their sides.

"You're probably wondering why I keep them on my team,"
Spiegelman observed after he closed the door.

"Actually, we were wondering if you are in any kind of
physical danger from your own subordinates," Scully told him.

Spiegelman turned his body to her, those six-feet-two-
inches of wide muscle poised carefully on his boots. His
face was as blank as an unplugged TV.

"I ain't worried," he told her. "Have a seat."

Mulder and Scully sat down in front of his desk, a little
quickly.

"I keep them on because I need all the men I can get," he
explained as he took his own chair. "Final has a population
of 700. Small, but that's still a lot for just two people."

"Two?"

"Me and Sally Ash, my one good officer. If nothing else,
those two pissants can stop a few bullets before they reach
us. And they got nowhere else to look for work."

He waved a hand through the air, tossing the subject away.
"Now, about why I asked you here..."

"Yes," Mulder said. "You seem to have an unusual situation
here."

A little smile pulled on Spiegelman's mouth. "You think so?"

"Well...from you told us, you have a crime that has been
witnessed but never happened."

"What I have is some scripture-sucking kid who has used a
yellow highlighter on Revelations so much that the fumes of
the ink has gone to his brain. Next thing you know, he'll
be seeing statues of Jesus bleeding out of their dicks or
something."

Mulder cleared his throat and said, "I'm familiar with the
history of reported religious visions. I'm also aware that
much of it is delusional. However, what Johnny McDonald has
testified to observing deviates from the standard motifs of
spiritual visitation."

"Which is another way of saying someone has imagined a
whole new brand of shit."

Mulder looked at Scully. She looked back at him, then
turned to Spiegelman. "Chief, why did you ask us here?"

Spiegelman turned away in his chair and rubbed his eyes.
"Well...to tell you the truth, I called you people as a
favor to a friend."

"Who is ...?"

"Nadine. Reverend Nadine Burnside. Her son was in the
Shithole when...this supposedly happened."

"The what?"

"It's the name of the bar. Nadine's brother-in-law owns
the place and Malcolm plays music there. Look..." His chair
squeaked back in their direction. "...if you want to tell
me to go stuff this case up my Semitic ass, then you're
more than welcome. If Nadine...if the reverend hadn't
begged me to look into it, I wouldn't give a shit about it
myself. Now, I know sweet f.a. about how to deal with this.
I called you up because I hear that this is your specialty.
So, what do you say?"

Mulder smiled. "First of all, Chief, wasting time is my
specialty as my partner will tell you. Second of all, I
think there is something to this story. Johnny may have
actually witnessed something that night. Maybe not exactly
what he says it is, but let's see if we can find the truth
in his fantasy."

Spiegelman looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, "If
you don't mind me asking, Agent Mulder, you wouldn't be of
the same background as me, would you?"

Scully waited for Mulder's answer. She wanted to know this
herself.

Mulder's smile got longer. "That's for me to know and for
you to find out."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"The Lord was there that night. He sent his angels to
protect the sinners because God loves us all from the most
holy to the most corrupt. With his never-ending power, he
held back Death itself. The flesh was healed and the wounds
were erased. For anyone that might doubt His love and
grace, look to the bar named the Sh...look to that bar and
know that nothing is beyond His..."

"This is an interrogation, not a prayer revival, you dumb
little cracker," Spiegelman snarled. "Just tell these folks
what you think you saw."

Johnny McDonald sighed inside. He knew that the chief
wouldn't understand. His race just couldn't see the light,
even if they were the Chosen People. He doubted that the
male FBI agent with the chief would understand either. That
nose, that name...such a dead giveaway,

On the other hand, the woman was wearing a crucifix. He
had taken special notice of it because it was suspended
next to two firm-looking breasts, both just the right size
to fill a man's hand.

"I will only talk to her."

"Of all the..." Spiegelman started.

"I'm sure it will be all right," Mulder interrupted. "Do
you mind, Scully?"

"If that's what makes Mr. McDonald comfortable."

"Then come along, Chief."

Spiegelman frowned, but opened the door and exited the
interrogation room. Before he left, Mulder whispered into
Scully's ear, "If you need help, just speak out in tongues."

"Now," Scully said, looking straight at the young man
sitting across from her at a table. "What happened?"

McDonald told her everything, taking note of her eyes and
lips and, of course, that gold cross against her black-
suited chest. He took no offense at anything she asked him,
only saying  "no, ma'am" to questions about his drinking
habits and any possibility of head trauma.

When she was satisfied with his answers, Scully told him
that he had been very helpful.

"I see you're a believer, Agent Scully."

She glanced down at her cross. "Yes. I am."

He leaned forward, drawing those breasts closer to him.
"Do you also believe that a miracle has taken place?" he
said.

"It's too soon for me to make a conclusion. Of course,
the Catholic heritage has no shortage of..."

"Catholic?"

"Yes."

Johnny lurched back from Scully as images of blood-filled
cups and the Pope leading murderous armies flashed through
his mind.

"Is there a problem?" Scully asked quietly.

"Well...I suppose that you can't help it."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I can kick him around for a bit, if you like."

"There's no need for Southern chivalry, Chief."

"Nothing chivalrous about it," Spiegelman told Scully.
"The boy just has it coming."

"I sense a bit of hostility from you, Chief," Mulder said.

"That little prick thinks he can be a better preacher than
Nadine. The really fucked-up thing is that he might end up
getting the job. Nadine is a great preacher, but this is
still a cracker town that has trouble with the idea of a
woman being the head of a church."

"Or a Jew being Chief of Police?"

Spiegelman frowned, not at Mulder but at the whole
population of Final.

Scully cleared her throat.

Spiegelman shook his head. "Sorry about that. Well, Agent
Scully, what did you make of his story?"

"As Agent Mulder said, there might be some truth in his
tale. I suggest that we start with the elements in it that
sound most probable."

"That would be the Klan shooting at a bar full of black
people," Mulder commented. "Chief, did you talk with the
owner of the, uh...the Shithole?"

"A.C.? I called him up and asked if there had been any
trouble that night. He said, 'Nope, it was as quiet as two
white people fucking.'"

"Ah. Okay. Well, did you go down there yourself to look
for any signs of gunfire?"

Spiegelman looked at Mulder. "That would be saying that
A.C. lied to me. I don't feel like calling him that under
any circumstances, especially when I have only the word of
some pimply-faced Bible-beater."

"Maybe he's afraid that the Klan will retaliate if he
talks."

Spiegelman got a good laugh out of that.

"If the Klan ever tried to attack his bar," he chortled,
"then A.C. would track them down so he could make a
necklace out of their nuts. Since that hasn't happened, I'm
even more doubtful that Johnny's story is true."

"Then why don't we make sure?"

"How so?"

"Are there any local chapters of the Klan around?"

Spiegelman raised his eyebrows. "You ask that in
Mississippi?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The house looked pretty much like they expected. Holes
were bitten into the screen door. An brown oil drum rested
pointlessly in a lawn that was nourishing an empire of
weeds. An old rebel flag jutted out defiantly under the
shine of the roof's aluminum tiles.

"Fred!" Spiegelman called out. "Fred Udell, you in here?"

"Go away!" a high-pitched voice shot back.

Spiegelman motioned to Mulder and Scully who followed him
into the house where they found more of the expected -- a
television set with a knob on it, gray tape all over the
furniture, "The Turner Diaries" and "Mein Kampf" on the
shelves, commemorative dishes in a display case.

"I said, go away!" Udell hollered. "I'm taking a shit!"

"We can wait," Spiegelman said as they followed the voice
to the bathroom door.

"It's diarrhea!"

There was a sound like a walrus sneezing. Everybody winced
as a smell crept out from under the door. It was the kind
of scent that would have been drawn in comic books as a
wide brown line curving back and forth through the air.

"Oh, man..." Udell groaned.

"Then we'll talk right here," Spiegelman told him.

"Ah, Chief, what is this all about?"

"A couple of nights ago, someone reported that the Klan
tried to shoot up A.C.'s bar."

There was a moment of silence from behind the door.

"Well, was there?" Udell said. Spiegelman glanced at
Mulder and Scully, then said, "It's kind of hard to say."

"What do you mean? Were there any bodies? Did anybody get
killed?"

"No. No one got killed."

"Then what the fuck is the deal? I'm telling you, niggers
get killed, people pick on the Klan. Niggers don't get
killed, people still pick on the Klan."

"That's not a nice word, Mr. Udell," Mulder commented.

"Who the hell is..."

The walrus sneeze again.

"...that, Chief?"

"I'm Agent Fox Mulder from the FBI."

"Oh, that's great. Now, they're sending in the federal
kikes."

Scully saw the look on the two men and decided to step in.
"Mister Udell, it's best that you cooperate in this matter."

"And who are you?"

"I'm Agent Dana Scully. I'm also with the FBI."

"Well, I'll tell you what, Dana. You take your lesbo ass
and go back to..."

Mulder kicked the door in. Before anyone could stop him,
he strode into the bathroom, headed for the sun-burned,
long-necked man sitting on the toilet with his pants
lowered to the cracked tiles.

"Hey, man!" Udell shrieked.

Mulder stood over Udell and placed a hand against the wall
behind him. He had a little smile on his face.

"That's not a nice word, either, Mr. Udell," he commented.

"Mulder..." Scully started, but her partner held up a
hand. She looked to the chief. Spiegelman was uncertain
about all this.

"It's just a simple question," Mulder continued. "You're
the leader of the local Klan chapter, their Grand High
Wizard or Elf or whatever. Did you and your pointy-headed
wonders lead a raid on the Shithole?"

A twitch jumped in Udell's cheek.

"Well, did you?"

Another spurt jettisoned into the water. Udell closed his
eyes.

"Look me in the eyes, Udell."

He slowly lifted his eyelids.

"Now, tell me."

The Adam's apple in Udell's throat went up and down.

Then he said, "You can't prove we were."

Mulder stared into Udell's eyes for a few moments before
he said, "That will be all, Mister Udell."

He went to the door, stopped there and looked back. "Oh,
by the way..."

Udell shifted his eyes in the agent's direction.

"Make sure you get lots of fiber."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

As Spiegelman drove them away in his police car, he said,
"I'm not sure you should have done that, Agent Mulder."

"I thought you would have liked it, Chief."

"I'm not above getting rough. But I like to do it with
cause. We don't know if anything happened at..."

"They were there. They were there with guns."

Spiegelman glanced at Mulder. Scully asked, "How can you
be sure?"

"I looked into his eyes. He was there with his buddies and
he was there to kill."

"All right," Spiegelman said. "Then how come nobody got
killed?"

"They missed?"

"Agent Mulder...if Johnny is telling the truth, they went
in there heavily armed. And there's very little cover in
the Shithole. How could they have missed?"

"That would have been a miracle, wouldn't it?"

Spiegelman looked at Mulder again, then shook his head.

"Okay, Mulder," Scully said. "Try this one. You're a KKK
member who has just tried to kill a bunch of black people.
They all survive."

"Right. A miracle."

"Didn't Mr. Udell seem -- despite his condition -- a
little too relaxed?"

"Hmmm."

"She's right, Mulder," Spiegelman said. "That son-of-a-
bitch should have been over the Mississippi border by now.
If a miracle like that did take place, any Klan member
wouldn't be waiting around in his house and taking a shit.
He would be hiding in the hills, too scared to show himself."

Mulder said nothing.

"Well?"

"Questions, questions, questions," Mulder said with a lazy
air. Before Scully or Spiegelman could respond (her with
weariness and him with a curse), he added, "I would like to
see Mr. Burnside."

Spiegelman sighed. "All right. But I'm waiting in the car."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A few sounds really got on Julius Grant's nerves --
jackhammers, car alarms, Garth Brooks and the sound of Fred
Udell's voice.

"That kike chief was here!" Udell screeched over the
phone. "And he had a couple of FBI agents with him!"

"That's something special," Julius replied in a casual tone
though his body was tense despite being laid across a chair
covered in genuine yak hair. The sound of Fred Udell had
that effect on him.

"They're going to find out what happened!"

"Nothing happened, Fred. You know that."

"Oh, Jesus, Mr. Grant...I mean, you told us to expect
something like this, but...man, this is the weirdest
fucking shit I've seen. Those niggers were dead."

"And now they're not. Hallelujah."

"I hope like hell you know what you're doing."

"Absolutely."

"I'm only doing this because I believe that it will
protect the white race."

"Fred, after I'm done, you'll be able to march through
Harlem and lynch Puff Daddy, Jesse Jackson and Toni
Morrison from the nearest flagpole. On job applications,
the question on race will have two boxes to check --
'white' or 'mud people.' There will be models walking down
the runways in white robes and pointed hoods. UPN will be
shut down forever. And you...you, Fred, will have the
biggest dick in the world."

The silence on the other end was the sound of Fred Udell
taking in that vision.

"But, Fred?"

"Yes, Mr. Grant?"

"This can only work if...we...all...stay...calm."

"Yes, sir. I'm calm."

"Good. Now return to your shitting."

"Yes, sir."

Julius hung up the phone and wondered why did plans like
this always required the help of assholes. A great
trumpeting sound shot through an open window.

"Okay, okay, Stonewall," Julius grumbled. "I'm coming."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH(Part 3 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Mulder and Scully heard the shots right after they got out
of Spiegelman's car. They dropped down to the front lawn of
A.C. Burnside's house, their guns drawn and pointed at his
front door.

Spiegelman called out to them from the curb where he was
parked. "It's okay," he said casually. "Just go on in."

They looked back at the chief. He impatiently waved them
inside. Mulder and Scully then looked at each other.
Another shot banged inside the house.

They climbed to their feet, brushing off the long brown
marks from their clothes. A.C.'s lawn was more dirt than
grass. Planted into the ground were signs that read "If
you're selling something, fuck off!" and "If you're here to
save my soul, fuck off!" and so on and so on. All the
windows on the house had iron bars and a sledgehammer
couldn't knock off the lock on that door.

They could hear another sound beside the occasional
gunshot. A guitar was being played and a voice was singing,
unperturbed by the gunfire. The voice had strong, firm
qualities, but it sang quietly.

"Down in old Mexico, where a child will slap your face.
"Down in old Mexico, where a child will slap your face.
"They make bread with cotton powder.
"Drink gunpowder to kill the taste."

Mulder rang the doorbell which let off a chime that he
recognized as "Got My Mojo Working."

"But it just don't work on you," he said to his partner
with a raised eyebrow.

"There's a reason for that," she informed him.

The guitar player stopped singing. A few moments later,
the door was opened by a tall, thin black youth. His face
still had the softness of teenage years, but there was
nothing soft in his eyes. It wasn't an unfriendly look.,
but he seemed to be testing the two FBI agents. "May I help
you two?" he asked.

Mulder pulled out his badge. "I'm Agent Fox Mulder from..."

Another gunshot echoed from inside the house. Mulder took
a moment before continuing.

"... the FBI. This is my partner, Dana Scully."

A tiny smile touched the young man's face. "You're finally
busting my uncle's still?"

"No. We're here to talk to Mr. Burnside about a reported
incident at his bar."

The young man slowly nodded.

"Excuse me," Scully said, "but are you the son of Nadine
Burnside?"

"That's right. Name's Malcolm. Malcolm, Jr."

He held out his hand. Both the two agents shook it and
felt his long fingers.

"So," Malcolm said. "a reported incident, huh?"

"Yes. Is your uncle in?"

Bang. "Take that, you mammy-fucker!"

The smile on Malcolm's face got bigger. "Oh, he's in. Come
on."

Malcolm led them to the living room, then called out "A.C.!"

"What?!"

"A couple of FBI agents are here to see you!"

There was a moment of silence during which Malcolm sat
down in a chair and picked up his guitar again.

Then a door swung open and a man in his early forties came
marching down a narrow hallway. He was a short, compact man
with a balding head. He looked like a bullet on legs. And
speaking of bullets, a gun was in his hand, its barrel
pointing to the floor.

Naturally, Mulder and Scully tensed up.

"What do you two federal mammy-fuckers want?"

Before they could form any reasonable response, Malcolm
cleared his throat. A.C. glared at his nephew who looked
calmly back as he held out his hand.

A.C. slapped the gun into Malcolm's hand. Malcolm placed
it on the floor and then concentrated on his guitar, making
the strings vibrate with a fluid rhythm.

"Well?" A.C. shouted.

"Well," Scully said in her best "your-fire-can't-melt-my-
ice" voice, "what were you shooting at in there?"

"Nothin'. That's my growlery. Whenever I want to let off a
little steam, I go in there and fire a few bullets into the
walls."

The walls must look like a beehive now, Mulder thought.
"You know," he said in his best "let's-be-friendly-with-the-
lunatic" voice, "there's a character in a Charles Dickens
novel who has something called a 'growlery.'"

A.C. slowly turned his eyes to Mulder and stared at him
for a heartbeat.

Then he yelled, "I know that, you mammy-fucker! You think
that I could think up something like that by myself?"

"Well..."

A.C. pointed at his nephew. "Malcolm gave me a copy of
'Bleak House' to read. He's been keeping me updated on the
fucking glory that is Western Civilization."

"That's right," Malcolm said without looking up. "I have."

"Nice book. Too much of that whiny Esther Summerson bitch,
though. I liked that bad-ass Inspector Bucket."

"Uh, Mr. Burnside..." Scully began.

"The name is A.C. You want something to drink?"

"No."

"I do. Take a seat and I'll be back in a second."

A.C. left the room. Mulder and Scully dutifully sat down
on a couch whose springs creaked like turning gears. As
A.C. searched through a refrigerator, Malcolm took up his
song again.

"The women down in Mexico, they're as bad as bad can be.
"The women down in Mexico, they're as bad as bad can be.
"They eat rattlesnakes for breakfast
"And drink the rattlesnakes' blood for tea."

A.C. came back, a moist bottle of beer in his hand. He
gulped down a cup full, then asked, "You two came down here
just to talk about books?"

Mulder said, "We came here because someone reported that
the KKK attacked your bar a few nights ago."

A moment of silence.

"Don't know where you heard that," A.C. said in an even
voice. "'Cause it didn't happen. If it did happen, I
wouldn't be here talking with you. I would be trying to
track down those pointy-headed mammy-fuckers so I can..."

"Make a necklace out of their testicles?"

"Yeah and then sell it for half-price at Bloomingdale's."
Another swig of beer was tossed down A.C.'s throat. Malcolm
kept playing effortlessly.

Mulder turned to the younger man. "Do you play down at
your uncle's bar?"

"You mean, the Shithole?" Malcolm answered, still looking
at his guitar.

"Yes. The Shithole."

"Yeah, I play there a lot. Me and A.C. are in the house
band."

"You see anything strange recently down there?"

"Now wait a minute," A.C. interrupted, pointing his
bottle's neck at a Mulder like a sword. "I'm the one who
gets the goddamned questions and not..."

"Shut up, A.C.," Malcolm said, his voice still as cool as
ever. Much to Mulder and Scully's surprise, A.C. did shut up.

"I have witnessed a lot of strange things," Malcolm
continued, the guitar singing under his touch. "I've seen a
parked car with no driver suddenly move all the way down
the street and then stop. I've woken up in my bed to see
this old man with a guitar, but only for a second before he
vanishes. I once got on a bus and saw crickets all over the
floor, on the seats, on the passengers. Nobody was
complaining. In the bar itself...well, I've seen plenty
there, too."

He suddenly stopped playing and he looked up. "I've never
seen the Klan attack the bar, though. We've been lucky."

Nobody moved or spoke for many seconds.

Then Mulder said, "I understand that the bar has been
closed."

"Renovations."

"When will you be open?"

Malcolm studied Mulder's face, then said, "Tonight."

A.C. looked sharply at his nephew.

Mulder then stood up and said, "Thank you very much. Come
on, Scully."

Scully left with her partner who looked a little
bewildered by him. A.C. watched them outside through a
window.

"They're with Chief Spiegelman. What the fuck is that
Jewboy up to?"

"I don't know, but that Mulder guy didn't believe us."
Malcolm did a quick scale of notes up the guitar.

A.C. turned to him. "You know, I say when it's time my
goddamned bar is open."

"Well, is it time?"

A.C. wiped off his mouth. "Boy, it don't matter if it is
open. Nobody is going to come. Not if Muddy Waters and
Robert Johnson themselves were playing tonight. People are
spooked and they are spooked good."

"Tonight, I'm going to start it off solo," Malcolm said as
if he hadn't heard A.C. "If that's all right."

A.C. looked at Malcolm sitting casually in the chair and
strumming the guitar. Finally he said, "Yeah. Sure. Why
not? You're a better fucking player than I am."

"Thank you, A.C."

A.C. watched Malcolm for a few more moments, then he
grabbed his gun off the floor and left for the growlery,
sucking his bottle of beer dry.

Malcolm's fingers drew out gentle notes as the gunfire
resumed. "Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson together," he
mused. "I wonder if I could..."

"No, no, no, no!"

Malcolm looked up to see an agitated face under a bowler
hat and a body trembling in a black suit.

"Don't, don't even think that!" the man with the bowler
hat stammered.

Malcolm shrugged. "Just a thought."

"You are treading on thin ice as it were, young man. What
you did in that bar was...understandable. It was a quick
impulse on your part. But it should not be..."

"Okay, okay. I won't do it again. Don't get your balls all
twisted up." Malcolm looked at the other man's pants. "You
do have balls in there, right?"

The man in the bowler hat clenched his fists. "I'm aware
that you don't think much of me. That's fine. But you're my
responsibility and I'm doing my best to keep this situation
from getting out of control. Because if it does, then HE
will get involved and that's the last thing..."

"Down in old Mexico, they're as wild as wild can be,"
Malcolm sang as his fingers picked up the melody again.

"Malcolm, this is serious!"

"Down in old Mexico, they're as wild as wild can be..."

The man in the bowler hat shook his head. Then he
vanished. Malcolm's voice echoed through the space he left.

"I'm leaving this country
"Because they don't kill them fast enough for me."

Bang. "That one was for the mammy you fuck, mammy-fucker!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Main Street in Final, Mississippi had a dusty, faded
quality. Not like, say, a daguerreotype. Those old photos
have a beauty of their own unique fashion. This collection
of stores along the cracked street looked like a magazine
left out in the desert or an empty sardine tin at the
bottom of a garbage can. They didn't look quaint, merely
old and run-down. The hardware dealer appeared to have bent
nails in its inventory. The newsstand probably specialized
in porno and "Reader's Digest." Let us not think about what
they serve down at "Joe's Diner."

The people that could be seen did not change your
impression. The old men who wandered up the sidewalk or sat
on the bench had no stories to tell. They just seemed
hollow and glass-eyed. There were also teenagers with torn
jeans and shirts with no sleeves, their eyes shifting back
and forth as they drank and smoke, looking desperately for
something to shake them out of their boredom. Shopkeepers
and waitresses watched the outside with intense suspicion.

As they stepped out of their rental car, Scully knew that
she and her partner stuck out like a turd in a bowl of
Fruit Loops. She looked around her with her arms crossed
over her chest as Mulder entered a phone booth and looked
through a warped copy of the Yellow Pages.

She caught the attention of a group of young men. One of
them puckered his lips at her and grabbed his crotch, much
to the delight of his companions.

Scully lifted up her coat so they could see her gun. They
immediately moved to another part of the street.

"What are you doing, Scully?" Mulder asked.

"Just scratching myself. I guess practice does make
perfect."

"What?"

"All those times that you've ditched me has served you
well. You ditched Chief Spiegelman expertly."

"How good can I be at ditching? You always find me."

Before Scully could reply to that, Mulder said, "Here she
is. Nadine Burnside. 40 Messenger Road." He put aside the
Yellow Pages and took a small map out of his jacket.
"Luckily, I got a map of Final from the chief's office. Not
that we have a lot of area to cover."

"I can see why you want to talk with Reverend Burnside,
but why don't you want the chief around?"

"Come on, Scully. Where's your woman's intuition?"

Scully looked at Mulder's smile and said, "You think that
Spiegelman has a thing for the town preacher?"

"That's why I told him that we were headed back to the
hotel, 'pending further developments.' A man can get quite
testy if he thinks you're intimidating the woman he loves."

"Is that why you kicked your way into Udell's bathroom?"

Mulder's hand froze as he reached for the car door.

"Or was that just your idea of chivalry?" Scully asked.

He looked at the woman next to him for a moment, then
said, "Oh, you mean that 'lesbo' comment."

"Yes."

With a straight face, Mulder said, "No, actually, I
thought that he was talking about me."

With an equally straight face, Scully answered, "Mulder,
you're riding in the trunk."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Nathaniel Leed hated it when people interrupted his
experiments. The abrupt sound of his mother's voice almost
made his scalpel twitch and ruin some delicate work.

"NAAAA-THAN!"

"WHAT, MOM!"

"YOUR FRIEND, MR. UDELL, CALLED! HE SAID THAT YOU HAVE A
MEETING TONIGHT!"

Nathan rolled his eyes. "OKAY! THANKS, MOM!"

"ARE YOU ALL RIGHT DOWN THERE?"

"YES, MOM!"

"DO YOU WANT ANYTHING TO EAT? SOME COOKIES?"

"NO, MOM!"

"ALL RIGHT THEN!"

Nathaniel sighed and returned to his work. Just what he
needed. Another one of Fred 'Worrywart' Udell's meetings.
Nathaniel wondered why he was even a member of the Klan. He
had problems with the group's philosophy. Not that he
didn't believe that African-Americans were an inferior
race. (He disdained the word 'nigger.' It was so
unscientific.) Where he differed with the Klan was in
policy. Their preferred methods were suppression and
violence. He was searching for another way, a solution that
could only be found in a rigorous, systematic analysis of
the problem.

Of course, he had participated in the attack on the blues
bar. He was, after all, a member of the KKK and obligated
to go along with its current policy. However, it had struck
him as a pointless endeavor. Any one of those people killed
in the bar could have given him necessary data for his
project.

Then, again, none of them were killed, weren't they?

Supposedly?

Nathaniel had a hard time with this concept. He refused to
believe Mr. Grant's story that they had risen from the
dead. After all, he hadn't seen this alleged miracle take
place. Nor had he seen any of these black Lazaruses walking
about. (Of course, he rarely got out and he never ventured
into the black side of Final.)

Nathaniel had been suspicious of Julius Grant from the
moment he had unofficially taken over Udell's chapter of
the Klan. Their 'official' leader had been swayed by
Grant's fantastic promises of power. Yet Grant's story
reeked of superstition and that was the last thing the Klan
needed. Still, Nathaniel was a patient man. If nothing
else, science was about patience. For now, he would be
content to perform his experiments in their current stage,
waiting for the day that he could bring a more suitable
subject down into the basement of his parents' house. He
waited, his table waited and his tools waited.

Today, he had to satisfy his curiosity with a rabbit. He
peeked under its skin as straps secured its trembling limbs
and a gag muffled the screeches from its mouth. He
remembered when he had first dissected a frog in science
class. The experience had been fascinating, but he could
never understand why they had to use a dead frog.

There was so much more to be learned when they were alive.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH(Part 4 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

There were three things that struck Mulder and Scully when
they first saw Nadine Burnside.

One, she was beautiful. Not just beautiful in that her
features were awe-inspiring, but also in that you
immediately knew that she was good. She would help you in
your time of need. She would invite you into her house
during bad weather. She would give her last dollar to feed
you. She would hold you all night if you were heartbroken
(which struck Mulder as being a wonderfully therapeutic
notion.)

Second, she was white.

Third, she had nine fingers. Her ring finger was missing
from her right hand. She made no attempt to hide her
deformity.

When they had came to her house, she had been...

Actually, it was not so much a house as it was a wooden
shack built on top of a tree. In other words, a tree house.
Mulder and Scully had checked the address twice before they
were sure that they had come to the right place. Yet their
eyes did not deceive them -- 40 Messenger Street was a big
oak supporting a small yet sturdy tree house.

Mulder rang a bell next to a water pump.

"Who is it?" a voice called out with pure, musical tones.

"It's Agent Mulder and Agent Scully from the FBI! We're
helping with Chief Spiegelman on a matter you discussed
with him!"

A trap door opened and a rope ladder spilled out,
unfurling itself to the ground. "Come on up!" Nadine
Burnside said. "You're most welcome here!"

"You go first," Scully said to Mulder. "I don't want you
enjoying the view."

"Oh, so it's okay for you to look at my butt?"

"I've seen your butt and I've seen better. Now, go."

As they climbed the ladder, they both expected to find a
dirty-haired woman dressed in rags. Nadine Burnside,
however, was very clean and her dress was made of a
smooth hand-woven fabric. The sunlight that came through
a carved-out window gave her a glow that accentuated her
perfection.

Her almost-perfection. There was that missing finger,
after all.

"Please sit here," she said, indicated two pillows on the
smooth wooden floor. She sat cross-legged in front of them,
her expression serene and kind and helpful.

"Chief Spiegelman told me that you were coming to Final,"
she told them. "I wasn't aware that the FBI had a section
that handled these matters."

Mulder felt like every word had been ripped out of him. He
could only stare at Nadine. For once, Scully did not feel
embarrassed for him. His reaction wasn't too afar from
hers. She found herself remembering what Bette Davis said
when she saw Greta Garbo, "My God, if there was ever a time
to become a lesbian, this is it."

Scully decided to pass on it. "We're not exactly a high-
profile department of the FBI," she explained. "But, yes,
we do handle cases that involve unexplained phenomena.
However, I confess that this case is a bit hard to sort out
from our viewpoint."

"How so?"

"First of all, we're not sure if any unexplained phenomena
took place. Right, Mulder?"

"What?" he said.

Scully said slowly, "We're not sure if any unexplained
phenomena occurred. Right?"

"Uh, yes. Well, no. I mean..."

"You only have the story of Johnny McDonald," Nadine said
helpfully.

"Uh...yeah. That's right. Correct. Now, I'm inclined to
believe his story, but...um..."

"My partner is inclined to believe a lot," Scully
commented. Mulder made a face at her.

"You're a man of faith," Nadine observed.

Mulder shrugged. "In my own way."

Nadine indicated a legless desk in the corner. A pen and a
notebook were on it.

"I was preparing the sermon for Sunday when you came. I'm
incorporating the part from 'Anna Karenin' where Levin
comes to a realization about his own faith. Have you read
'Anna Karenin?'"

"You mean...'Anna Karenina?'"

"My son tells me that according to Vladimir Nabokov, the
proper translation leaves out the 'a' at the end. 'She was
not a ballerina,' Nabokov says." Nadine made the kind of
smile people would pay good money to see. "I bow to my
son's judgment in these matters. He's much better read than
I am. Anyway, Levin realizes that he didn't need to
struggle to believe in God. The belief was in him and it
would always be in him. He could look out at the world and
know God made it."

Nadine leaned forward. Mulder and Scully found themselves
doing the same.

"That's how I know that Johnny McDonald speaks the truth.
I know that a miracle happened in that bar. I know that
because my son was there."

"Malcolm?"

Nadine nodded, then pointed. Mulder and Scully turned to
see a photo held up on a homemade shelf. The photo was of a
handsome black man whose face had a clear similarity to
Malcolm Burnside, Jr. The expression of Malcolm, Sr. was
startling. He looked like a man who should be leading
armies or sitting on a throne. His eyes seemed to look
directly at you and know you instantly. He wasn't
unfriendly, but he had come to an early understanding of
the world, a world that he had accepted and planned to
change.

"Malcolm never knew his father. He wasn't even conceived
yet. It seems that all he got from his father was a name.
But my husband gave more to my son than you can imagine."

There was a brief, silent pause.

"You mean 'born,' right?" Scully said.

"Hm?"

"You said Malcolm, Jr. was even conceived yet. But you
meant 'born.'"

Nadine smiled again. "No. I meant conceived."

Okay, Scully thought. It is now officially weird.

"Perhaps I should explain," Nadine said.

"Please do."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

On one hand, the marriage between Malcolm Burnside, Sr.
and Nadine French could only be viewed as an inevitability.
Here he was, a towering figure in the community. Unlike his
salty brother, he was good-tempered and kind. Yet he was
nobody's fool. He was a man who avoided using his fists,
but he knew how to drop any man to the ground. He was the
organizer of several charities which he ran with as much
practicality as compassion. When faced with bigotry, he
gave back not hatred but his hard dignity.

Fred Udell once told him,  "You're a pretty high-and-
mighty nigger, aren't you?"

"No, sir," Malcolm, Sr. replied. "I'm not much. It's just
that I smell so sweet when I'm next to your foul stench."

Udell turned another shade of red, but only watched
helplessly as Malcolm, Sr. walked away from him. There was
too much strength and respect around the man for him to be
touched.

And then there was Nadine. There was a strength in her as
big as her future husband's. Yet she seemed soft as the
clouds and kind as a rainstorm in the desert. Malcolm, Sr.
got your respect. She got your love. Their union was the
perfect melding of the better parts in the human soul.

Then, again, he was black and she was white.

Initially, there was concern. Could the town accept a
marriage between the daughter of the town minister and the
brother of the Shithole's owner? However, as the day
approached, the separate racial populations of Final,
Mississippi gradually relaxed. It seemed apparent that
racism would not besmirch this wedding. The perfection of
it was too overwhelming for the Klan or any bigot to
resist. As it turned out, however, bigotry did extend its
shadow over that day. Bigotry and another dark emotion of
the heart.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I was under no illusions when Malcolm put the ring on my
finger. We had our disagreements before and we would have
them in the future. We were only human. I also knew that,
despite the smiles on both black and white faces in the
church, hatred would continue to threaten us.

"However, as my father declared that we were one, I came
to believe that I was understanding what heaven truly was.
I felt that God had personally blessed me and that Malcolm
was an angel. I walked out of the church with him into a
shower of rice, certain that my life would be forever happy.

"But Bob Hoag was waiting for us."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Nadine Burnside was kind to everyone, but Bob Hoag had
seen something deeper in the kindness she had given him.
How else could he explain why a vision like her would show
charity on some lonely piece of white trash? Back when they
were in high school, she would occasionally watch the
football team practice. That was when she still was dating
the captain of the football team, Meyer Spiegelman. Yet Bob
suspected...he believed...he knew that her heart really
belonged to him.

If it wasn't true, why did she wave her hand at him
sometimes and smile so warmly? Why did she bother even to
talk to him -- a young man who was only good at tackling
people and lugging iron down at the scrap yard? People
regarded him as a half-wit and maybe he was, but he still
had his intuition. It was telling him that some
unexplainable motivation had made Nadine fall in love with
him.

One day, he finally confronted her with his knowledge of
her love and assured her that he reciprocated it.

As gently as she could, she explained that he was
mistaken. At first, he refused to accept it. His refusals
become so adamant that Spiegelman took him aside and
explained Nadine's position in terms more forceful than hers.

Bob Hoag began to carry something thick and hard inside.
It grew harder as he imagined the laughter just out of his
hearing's range and the jokes behind his back. It grew
stronger every time he looked at his dull face in the
mirror. It grew hotter after every dream where he was
kissing Nadine or killing Spiegelman or killing both.

Maybe he could have learned to live with it. After all,
there had been so much anger in him beforehand. What was a
little more?

One day, he was working in the scrap yard, two years after
his less-than-stellar high school career had concluded,
when he got the word that Nadine Burnside was marrying a
nigger.

It was bad enough when she had been dating a Jew. Sure,
Spiegelman was the strong, handsome captain of the football
team, but surely she could have chosen someone who didn't
have the blood of Christ on his hands. Still, he had come
to accept it just as he come to accept that Spiegelman was
team captain.

But this...

One of them...

Touching her...

Smothering her mouth with his big lips...

Ramming his animal penis into her sacred womb...

The thing inside Bob burst loose.

He was waiting for them as they left the church. Rice fell
onto their heads, bouncing off her white gown and his black
tuxedo. And, oh, were they smiling. The nigger was not
known to be much of a smiler, but he was doing it now and
those white teeth were shining and mocking him and saying
"I got your woman now, boy, I'm gonna use her as I please,
shore enuff" and she was smiling as well and she was
laughing at him, "You silly little cracker boy, get out of
my way so I can know a real man" but now they weren't
smiling and he was standing in their way and nobody else
was looking yet as he raised his hand.

There was a flash of red.

As the nigger fell to the ground, Nadine turned to the
side and reached out to him with her right hand stretched
forward as if she might pull him back up into the living.
Bob pointed towards her and pulled the trigger just as a
man collided with him. He recognized the man's touch. He
had been tackled by the man a long time ago during practice
sessions for high-school football. His aim got just a
little off.

And then there was a flash of gold.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Nadine looked at her missing ring finger. "In a way, I was
lucky. The bullet could have done much worse. Instead, it
just went through here." She poked her left forefinger
through that space.

"You know...they never found the ring. Bits of the finger,
but not the ring. Odd."

She looked up. "But something odder happened that night.
Something odd and beautiful."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

She hadn't said a word ever since the shooting. She hadn't
even screamed or cried out in pain. As others pummeled and
kicked Bob, she had sunk down to her knees, clutching her
wounded hand to her gown, a red spot spreading out from
under her hand and her face that of a sleepwalker. Despite
the nausea and shock, she had managed to stay conscious.
She still remained awake even after they had bandaged her
hand and injected a sedative into her veins. Of course, you
wouldn't exactly call the empty look in her eyes 'awake.'

Trapped in a comatose of her own design, the only thing
she could see was the white ceiling of her hospital room.
Sounds dimly registered in her ears---the quiet
conversation of doctors and nurses, a bed being wheeled by,
the hollow call of an intercom.

She became aware of two other voices. Even though they
were coming from inside the room, they were fainter than
the noises in the hallway. She couldn't make out their
words, though both voices had a sad tone.

Then there was a sudden crack, followed by something
falling to the floor.

And she saw him.

And she heard him.

"You are my wife bound to me by a vow taken before God. No
one will come between me and you. No one will keep us from
knowing each other."

And she felt him.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"He only came to me once. There is a limit to even what
love can do. But once was enough to consummate our love.
And to bring our son into the world."

She smiled. "I let others think that Malcolm and I had
gave into lust before our vows. I didn't mind. What
mattered is that I knew.

"I knew that my son had been born of two worlds as well as
two races. I knew that he had been unlike anything the
world had seen before, not since another birth nearly two
thousand years ago.

"I'm not saying my son is a savior. I don't know what he
is exactly. But soon we all shall know.

"I'm telling this to you because I believe that you're
ready for it. I sense that you will accept the
responsibilities with this knowledge.

"We must all look after him. We must help him and guide
him and teach him. Because the time is coming when he must
choose his destiny. He must understand his duties and face
the world accordingly. He must do what is right under God.

"I know you'll do well.

"Thank you for coming and God bless."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Scully took the final step off the ladder and felt the
earth beneath her feet. Mulder then dropped down next to
her and stood by her side. They were both quiet and looking
away from each other.

Finally, Scully said, "Have you heard anything like this
before, Mulder?"

He slowly turned his head to her.

"Well, have you?"

"No, Scully," he said. "I haven't heard too many stories
about ghosts who come back to pork the living."

"Mul-der!"

Mulder was jarred by the sight of his partner's hot eyes
and red cheeks. "What?" he said.

"That definitely ranks among the top five stupidest things
you've ever said."

"Wait a second. Wait one goddamned second. Are you telling
me that you believe this story?"

"No. I'm not. I don't."

"Then what are you so pissed off about?"

"Because you don't have any romance in you."

Now, Mulder had to grin. "I think you've dissected one
corpse too many, Scully. It's given you a positive outlook
on necrophilia."

"You better stand back, Mulder."

"Oh, come on," he said, though he did take a step back.

"Don't you find anything romantic about a man who loved a
woman so much that he transcended death itself?" she asked.

Before he could answer, she added, "No! Of course not!
You're too busy playing Mr. Cool. Well, take your glib
male, frat-boy, beer-swilling, porno-magazine, Comedy-
Centralized sarcasm and shove it up your ass, okay?"

It was quiet again.

Then Mulder said, "Are you a big fan of 'Ghost,' Scully?"

"Yes, Mulder. I'm a big fan of Demi Moore's inanimate face."

"I'm glad you're the one being sarcastic now because you
were scaring me there for a moment. A necrophiliac Scully
is one thing..."

"But a Swayzephiliac is another?"

"Exactly."

Now, it was Scully's turn to smile. "This is one of our
sillier arguments."

"I agree. Let's move on to our standard argument."

"I'm not sure we can have it. You don't seem to believe
Nadine Burnside's story."

"I have no idea what to believe, now. And I won't get an
idea until I get an inside look at the...at the, you know..."

"The Shithole?"

"Yes and I resolve to say that without hesitancy."

"Well, I agree with you on that. But A.C. Burnside doesn't
seem too eager to let us take a look."

"Then we'll just mingle with the crowd." He put an arm
around Scully's shoulders. "Feel like the blues tonight,
Scully?"

"Around you, Mulder, that's a gratuitous question."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (Part 5 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Fred Udell could feel the shit building up inside him. The
pressure was crushing his kidneys. He needed to wind up
this meeting soon or his underwear was going to feel the
wrath of his colon.

Unfortunately, he had to deal with another pain-in-the-ass
-- that mother-fucking high-school science geek Nathaniel
Leed.

"I have yet to see any proof that this incident really
took place," Nathaniel primly declared, his bony arms
crossed over his plaid shirt and his eyes looking at Udell
stubbornly behind his wire-rimmed glasses.

"What the hell do you mean, proof?" Udell shouted. "What
do you need to believe this happened?"

"Some sort of quantifiable evidence."

"Oh, would you quit talking like a pussy?!"

"Hey!"

That was Maggie Morrison. She was normally the biggest
aggravation in Final's chapter of the KKK. With her shaved
head and unshaved armpits, she was an one-woman crusader
against "the sexist patriarchal belief systems of the
Klan." She was determined to prove that "women were as
important to the preservation of the white race as men."
Udell was seriously inclined to kick her out with one of
her own combat boots and toss Nathaniel out with her.
However, that would leave him alone with Ed.

Ed was not an aggravation. He never protested anything. He
hardly even spoke except for the occasional grunt which the
others had learned to translate. His eyes gave away none of
his emotions, whether they were good-willed or malicious.
The only time that you knew Ed was displeased was when he
stood his six-foot-four inch body up, stomped his way
towards you on his size twelve shoes, grabbed you with an
arm of thirty inches width and rammed your face repeatedly
into the ground.

Udell had once seen Ed single-handedly beat three huge
niggers almost to death. When he approached Ed for Klan
membership, Ed just nodded. Truthfully, Udell wasn't sure
that Ed believed in the Klan philosophy. More likely, he
joined up so he could indulge in his favorite hobby --
grievous bodily damage. Udell liked having Ed around, but
he didn't want to be alone in a room with him.

That's why Udell had to take a breath and say, "Sorry,
Maggie. I'm just a little frustrated with Nathan, here..."

"Nathaniel," the teenage boy corrected.

"I'm a little frustrated with this BOY who can't see the
actual shit that's going down." Speaking of shit that was
going down...oh, man...Udell looked at the bathroom that
was so far away from his living room.

"Look," Udell growled, trying to hold it in just awhile
longer. "We killed a lot of people in that bar, right?"

"Yes," Nathaniel said.

"Now, have you heard anything about this? Anything about
it in the local news? Anywhere? Hell, some nigger in Texas
gets dragged behind a car or some nigger in New York City
gets a plunger shoved up his ass, everybody hears about it
and they all start crying about what a fuckin' injustice it
is. We killed twenty niggers at least in that bar. That
should have brought Jesse fuckin' Jackson down on our
heads." Udell spread out his arms. "You see Jesse Jackson
anywhere near?"

"I could point that logic in the other direction,"
Nathaniel calmly replied. "Several African-Americans come
back from the dead and no one talks about it?"

"He's got a point there, Fred," Maggie interjected.

Udell said, "Look, there's...Mr. Grant told me...they
weren't...ah, hell!"

"I really fail to see what we're trying to accomplish
here," Nathaniel stated.

"All right, all right. You talk to Mr. Grant. How about
giving him some of your shit?"

"That's an excellent idea."

Udell blinked. "Huh?"

"I'll call him up right now."

Udell could feel his insides bubble and churn. "Now, wait.
You shouldn't go bothering..."

Nathaniel left his chair and sauntered to the kitchen.
Udell heard him pick up the phone.

"I said, wait!" he shouted, his kidneys in a stranglehold.
"You don't go calling up a man like Mr. ..."

Ed grunted. This particular grunt meant "Let him make the
call."

Udell doubled over as the pain become intolerable. He ran
to the bathroom.

Nathaniel heard the bathroom door slam as the phone on the
other end rang. He waited until he heard that cracked,
scratched, torn-up voice say, "Yeah?"

"Mr. Grant, this is Nathaniel Leed."

"Nathaniel Leed, Nathaniel Leed," Julius mused. "You're
one of Udell's men, ain't you?"

*Aren't,* Nathaniel thought, but only said, "Yes, sir. I
am."

"How did you get my number?"

"It's written right above Fred's phone."

Nathaniel heard a brief sigh. It sounded like sawdust
being poured out of a bag.

"That's a private number. I would appreciate it if your
grand poobah didn't leave it around for every Johnny
Cracker to find."

"Perhaps, sir."

"So what do you want anyway, boy?"

Nathaniel told Julius Grant what was on his mind.

Then he waited several seconds before Julius gave his
response.

"That's interesting. Real interesting. Sounds like you
have a few doubts, boy."

"Yes, sir. I do."

"Tell you what, then...did you know that the Shithole is
open tonight?"

"No, sir. I didn't."

"Why don't you and Fred take a drive on by there? I think
you'll be pleasantly surprised."

Nathaniel considered the proposal, then said, "All right,
sir. I'll do that."

"Now, you've gone and put a smile on my face. Thanks for
calling up, son."

"Yes, sir."

Nathaniel hung up and then went to the bathroom door.

"Fred, Mr. Grant said that you should take me down to the
Shithole."

"Oooooohhh..."

"Whenever you're done, of course."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Why did they come?

One obvious reason was that something miraculous had
happened there. Scary yet miraculous. Nothing like a
miracle to give a place a certain aura that could draw you
in.

Another possible reason is that they wanted to be there
for the second act. There just had to be a follow-up to
what happened. Not that they wanted a replay of that event,
but...

It could have also been that it was their bar, goddammit.
This was the place where they had fun. Why should they let
anything keep them away from it?

Or maybe they just didn't have a choice. They had to come.

In any case, the bar was full. Some of the people there
had been present on that strange night. Some of them had
only heard about it. A few didn't know what the fuck was
going on, but they could feel something bizarre was afoot.
It was the quietest that the Shithole had ever been or ever
will be. People only talked in whispers. There were glasses
of liquor in many hands, but they were only being sipped
from cautiously as if it was some kind of tea party.

Zola Burnside watched them all with her hands under her
armpits. She had never felt nervous like this before. The
bar was scarier when it was quiet. The Shithole's normal
kind of chaos was easier to understand. She knew what could
be expected from open craziness.

She had no idea what would come out of this silence.

The bar opened at eight. Music was usually scheduled for
nine. Tonight didn't call for punctuality. The band could
have waited till dawn to come out and their audience would
have still been standing there quietly.

However, 9:00 still meant 9:00.

Malcolm Burnside, Jr. came out on the stage. He was
wearing his usual jeans and casual shirt. He still had the
same calm expression.

Every sound in the bar disappeared except for the ones he
made. People looked at him as if the slightest twitch from
Malcolm would reveal a mystery.

He was alone. He carried an acoustic guitar.

He looked at everyone. Every last person.

Then he did a little tuning of his guitar.

And he played.

He started out with a sixteen-bar instrumental that flowed
from one note to the other like a river over rocks. Its
sound slid past the patrons and echoed off the back wall.

Then he just strummed a rhythm and he sang...

"Oh, by and by, by and by
"I'm going to lay down my heavy load.

"Oh, by and by, by and by
"I'm going to lay down my heavy load."

The voice touched everyone like a strong hand stroking up
and down their backs. Zola closed her eyes. There was too
much of her dead brother up there right now, too much of
him in his son's voice. She wouldn't have been able to
watch without crying.

"I know my robe's going to fit me well.
"I'm going to lay down my heavy load.
"I've tried it on at the gates of Hell..."

As Malcolm sang "I'm going to lay down my heavy load," his
eyebrows lifted when he heard everybody sing with him.

"Oh, Hell is deep and a dark despair," he told them and
waited for a response.

"I'm going to lay down my heavy load," the crowd answered.

"Oh, stop, poor sinner, and don't go there."

"I'm going to lay down my heavy load."

Then they were all singing.

"Oh, by and by, by and by
"I'm going to lay down my heavy load."

Malcolm strummed one last chord, then stopped. He looked
over the crowd again. Their eyes showed awe and even trust.
They waited quietly for his next move.

He carefully placed his acoustic guitar in the corner.
Then he motioned to someone offstage. A.C. came out with
the drummer. A.C. was carrying two electric guitars. He
handed one to his nephew and they both plugged in.

Malcolm turned to the audience and said, "Well, as Buddy
Bolden used to say, 'Let's call the children home.'"

And the guitars and drums went right into a rhythm that
seemed to circle around you, then slap you on your head.
A.C. and Malcolm went up to the microphone, the former's
rough throat giving a nice underlying grit to the younger
man's pure voice.

"Well, I was gone.
"Gone to the Army.
"I was gone
"For a long, long time."

Shoulders started to sway. Heads began to bob. The floor
was being tapped by dozens of feet.

"When I come back home,
"My baby...
"Still says she's mine.
"Still says she's mine."

The music abruptly stopped and the band looked at the
audience. Without missing a beat, the listeners called out...

"SHE'S ALRIGHT, SHE'S ALRIGHT..."

The music crashed and boomed out another few quick notes.

"SHE'S ALRIGHT, SHE'S ALRIGHT..."

Crash, boom.

"SHE'S ALRIGHT, SHE'S ALRIGHT..."

The music picked up again and this time, nothing would
stop it. The audience whooped it up and Zola smiled as she
got three orders for A.C.'s Home Brew.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Two slumming middle-class honky motherfuckers off the port
bow, Ben Hedge thought as the two white people headed for
the front door of the Shithole. He was going to take
pleasure in telling them to get lost.

Ben Hedge had been in a tense, brittle mood. Getting
killed can do that to you. He had spent the last few days
in bed with Zola. They had less actual sex and more of just
feeling and touching. They had come to know the fragility
of their bodies in a way like never before. They needed to
know that they were still warm and that their hearts were
still beating.

Then A.C. called up and told Zola that he was opening the
bar.

"He can't be serious," Ben said.

"It's true. The Shithole will be open tonight." She
slipped out of bed and started to put on her clothes.

"You're going to be there?" he asked in disbelief.

"Someone needs to serve the drinks." She turned to him.
"And someone needs to guard the door."

Like everyone else in the bar, Ben couldn't really explain
why he came. One thing for sure, though...tonight, he'll be
standing guard on the outside rather than the inside. He
did not want a repeat of the other night's nasty surprise.
Also, he didn't want to be in that bar, didn't want to get
too close to its strangeness, didn't want to look Malcolm,
Jr. in the eye.

He could hear him, though, singing and playing his guitar.
Its sweet sounds didn't relax him. When the full blues band
started up and the audience started cheering, he could only
roll his eyes. This doesn't change a damn thing about the
situation, he thought. Man, I could sure use Zola's pussy
right now.

So, when the two well-dressed, white people got out of
their car and headed for him, he was going to take pleasure
in telling them to fuck off. He had seen their likes before
-- college kids, music critics, tourists looking for a kick
of the "authentic." "Say, honey, why don't we go on down to
that big bad blues joint everybody's talking about?" Ben
sometimes gently warned them that this wasn't the place for
them. Sometimes, he would let them in and then laugh when
they came staggering out a half-hour later. Of course,
there were a few who actually enjoyed the place and came
back again like that guy from Texas. What was his name?
Stevie something?

No way was he going let these two in, though. Before he
could open his mouth, however, the tall dark-haired man
pulled out a badge and said, "Agent Mulder. FBI."

Well, ain't that just a shit-and-a-half?

The male agent put away his badge and said, "My partner
and I would like to come inside."

Ben closed his eyes and sighed.

"Sir?"

"Look, I have no idea why you've come but this really
isn't a good time."

The male agent smiled at the music and cheers from the
bar. "Sounds like a good time to me," he said.

Ben opened his eyes and said, "Why don't you come back
later? Once the bar is clear..."

"Quit the bullshit, Ben."

Everybody jumped.

"Sally?" Ben said, looking left and right.

A woman stepped from around a corner of the bar, leaving
the shadows that she had expertly used to hide herself. She
didn't look like the kind of woman who could sneak up on
you. She was a hefty woman with stomach and breasts forming
a cylinder shape that stretched out her police uniform.
Yet, when she moved, there was a balance and sureness to
her step. It was reflected in the low-key confidence of the
face under her short black hair.

"Evening," she said to the FBI agents. "I'm Sgt. Sally
Ash. Meyer assigned me to watch over the place."

"We don't need..." Ben started.

"Don't need what?"

Ben bit his lip and looked away.

"All kinds of stories been floating around, Ben," Sally
said nonchalantly. "Don't know which ones are true and
which ones are just crap, but I'm gonna be on the lookout,
nevertheless."

Ben said nothing.

"In the meantime, why don't you go ahead and let these two
people in?"

Ben tapped his foot on the ground, then opened the door
for the FBI agents. The speakers were allowed to display
their full volume to the outside. The agents winced at the
sound but they went in.

After he closed the door, Ben turned to the female cop.
"There's nothing here that concerns the police, Sally."

"Maybe. But the chief told me to stay here and I will."

"Just because the chief is a good-looking man doesn't mean
that everything he says is..."

Sally took a step towards Ben. Her pug nose flared a
little. "What do you mean, exactly?" she asked.

There were a few people that Ben actively avoided a fight
with. Sgt. Ash was one of them. He held up his hands and
said, "Forget I said it."

Sally's brown eyes looked Ben over. She said, "I'll do my
damnedest." Then she went back into the shadows.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Mulder, did you ever get the feeling that you were a
little inconspicuous?"

"Whatever makes you say that?"

The two FBI agents tried to push their way through the
crowd as politely as possible. Unfortunately, this one of
the nights where the air conditioning decided to take a
vacation. The sweat getting rubbed off other people was
enough to dampen their clothes.

And, of course, they were getting the look. The look that
says you're a long way from Simi Valley, boys and girls.

They finally made it to the bar where the female bartender
looked at them with no less suspicion. "May I help you?"
she asked.

Mulder flashed the badge again, Those who saw it moved as
far off as they could. Zola stood her ground defiantly
behind the bar.

"So?" she responded.

"We're investigating the possibility of a Klan attack on
this place." Mulder looked down at the bar. He rubbed his
hands over spots where a hole had been filled up and
painted over.

"Looks like you've done some repairs here."

"So?"

"And those bottles behind the counter...most of them are
full as if you just put up new ones."

"So?"

Before Mulder could say something like, "Only with thread
and needle," he heard something. Or, rather, nothing. The
music had gone away, leaving only ringing ears and an
uncomfortable silence.

Mulder and Scully looked to the stage.

They saw A.C. looking straight back at them.

"It appears," he said. "that we have a couple of first-
timers here."

It's ass-kicking time, everybody thought. It's the wrath
of A.C.

"Thanks for coming on down," the bar-owner said.

"Huh?" was the next thought on the collective mind. A.C.
looked at their confused faces.

"What? Just because they're white, they can't be here? You
think that black people are the only people who understand
the blues? That you have to be poor and dirty to listen to
it?"

A.C. shook his finger. "The blues is about heartbreak.
It's about love. It's about the hardness of life." He
pointed his finger at Mulder. "Tell us something bad that's
happened to you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you, you mammy-fucker! Any heartbreak in your life?"

"Well...my sister disappeared when I was twelve..."

"You see! Right there! That boy is not only entitled to
listen to the blues, he could probably play them, too!"

A snicker involuntarily left Scully's mouth.

"Oh, you can laugh, girl, but what about you? What sad,
hard things have happened to you?"

Scully said, "I, uh...I once almost died of cancer and..."

"Damn! You could get a ten-record box set out of that shit
alone! You see what I'm trying to say?"

The audience nodded.

"As far as I'm concerned, if you pay at the door, then I'm
here to play for you and it don't matter if you're black or
white or any color of the rainbow!"

The audience applauded. Mulder and Scully got patted on
the back. They never felt so welcome in their whole lives.

Then A.C. narrowed his eyes.

"You DID pay at the door, didn't you?"

Mulder and Scully looked at each other, then scrambled for
their wallets.

"That's right. Pay up, mammy-fuckers."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (6 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ben Hedge saw a pickup trick park a hundred feet away from
the Shithole. At first, it looked like your standard
redneckmobile -- rusty bumpers, gun rack, long antenna, a
"GOD BLESS JESSE HELMS" bumper sticker.

Then he recognized it as belonging to Fred Udell and his
blood began to heat up. He found himself reaching for the
gun under his coat.

"Feeling tense, Ben?"

Damn, she was back again. "Maybe," he responded.

"I see Fred Udell is around," Sally said. "Looks like that
little creep Nathaniel Leed is with him."

"Yep."

"Want me to talk with them?"

Ben hesitated, then said, "I won't stop you."

He heard no response. He looked around the corner and saw
no one. He shook his head. How the fuck does she do that?

Then he turned back to the pickup truck. He found himself
smiling.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Now, you see that?"

"Yes."

"You hear all that music coming from inside?"

"I do."

"And isn't that Ben Hedge standing by the front door? The
very first man we killed?"

"It certainly looks like him."

"So, what do you think?"

Nathaniel kept quiet for a long time, his face emotionless.

"I may have to reassess the data," he finally said.

Udell let loose a hard laugh. "Yeah, you..."

The truck door flung open and a meaty hand yanked Udell
out. He landed onto a sidewalk that dug long, bloody
scrapes up his hands. Before he could get up, Nathaniel
was tossed on top of him, banging his nose into the
ground. The bones in his nose gave off a distinct crunch.

"OWWW! Geb ob me! Geb ob me, you fugut!"

Nathaniel rolled off Udell. Udell turned around and looked
up to see Sgt. Ash standing above him.

"Give me your knife," she told him.

Above the hand covering the lower half of Udell's face,
his eyes were raging.

"Give me your knife now, Fred."

With his fingers shaking, he pulled out the knife that he
kept in a sheath tied to his lower back. Sally watched him
calmly as he weighed his chances of sticking that knife in
her throat.

Then he extended it, handle forward. She took it away and
tossed it into the back of his truck. Nathaniel had a
distant expression as if he was watching this conflict
through a telescope.

"What are you two doing here?"

"You bwoke my nobe, you bizz."

"You can consider that the start of a long night for your
sorry self if you don't tell me why you're here."

"We were curious about the bar," Nathaniel said. "There
have all been kinds of strange stories."

Sally's eyes shifted towards Nathaniel, but Udell could do
nothing that could escape her notice. "You must have been
real curious. A couple of Klanboys really shouldn't be in
this part of Final."

"We were just passing through," Nathaniel asked. "Might I
ask what you're doing here, Sgt. Ash?"

Sally watched Nathaniel carefully. She could handle Udell,
but Nathaniel was dangerous in a way Udell would never be.
There were rumors about ugly things that Nathaniel did in
his parents' basement.

"I've been assigned to watch the place tonight," she said.

"Why?"

"That is between me and Chief Spiegelman."

Udell snorted, then winced as the blood sprayed out across
his mouth.

Sally turned her eyes back to him.

Slowly.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

Udell's temper often got the better of him. This was one
of those moments. "Meabing, bat's the onlee think betweeb
you and Spiegebmab."

"Excuse me?"

"Cob on, Sally! You think bat noboby sees it? Do you think
bat the cheef is ever gobba fuct a horf like you? The onlee
womab he wants to fuct is Nadib..."

In the next moment, Udell was standing up. Two arms were
clamped around his back. His chest was lodged against the
thick body of Sgt. Ash.

Then he felt his spine being squeezed.

Nathaniel wondered if he should try to help his leader.
However, he doubted that there was much he could have done.
Furthermore, he found himself fascinated by Udell's
screams, the veins widening in his temples, the blood
shooting out of his nose.

The most interesting development occurred when there was a
honk from the seat of Udell's pants. A dark stain spread
out and slid down his legs. A rancid smell was held tight
in the hot Mississippi air.

Sally Ash was literally squeezing the shit out of Udell.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ben watched all of this and his smile got bigger.
Sometimes, it was more fun to watch somebody get beat up
than actually doing the beating.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

There's this logical fallacy called Plato's Beard. A young
hotshot came up to Plato during one of his public bull
sessions and asked, "How many hairs does it take to make a
beard?"

"Oh, I don't know. Five hundred?"

"Five hundred? But, surely one less than that wouldn't
matter?"

"No. It wouldn't. So, four-hundred-and-ninety-nine hairs
make a beard."

"Yeah, but one less than that wouldn't matter, either,
would it?"

"No. I guess. Four-hundred-and-ninety-eight, then."

"How about one less than that?"

Well, this went on and on all day until Plato found
himself saying "No hairs make a beard." He then went out
and got drunk or buggered a young boy or whatever Greeks
did when they got one-upped. The moral of this story is
that some kind of limit has to be established in certain
cases, however arbitrary. (Or you could be like A.C. and
simply kick the mammy-fucker in the ass for asking such
stupid questions.)

Fox Mulder and Dana Scully found themselves falling into
Plato's Beard that night. Their reasoning went like this --
they were trying to blend in with the environment,
attempting to get the trust of the people there. A lot of
alcohol was being handed around and it would have been
almost rude not to have a glass. And if one glass didn't
hurt, then why not another? The next wouldn't be so
harmful, either. And the one after that...

By the time the Shithole was officially closed (somewhere
around 2 a.m.), Mulder and Scully were both leaning on the
bar, holding on as if they were on a sinking ship. Ben and
A.C. were prodding the other customers out of the bar while
Zola counted up the receipts and Malcolm sat on the stage,
quietly playing an acoustic guitar. "Any trouble out
there?" A.C. asked Ben.

"Fred Udell and Nathaniel Leed showed up."

A.C. raised his eyebrows.

"Don't worry about it," Ben giggled. "Sally Ash kicked
their asses true and blue."

"Are they still alive?"

"Well, yeah."

"Not good enough," A.C. growled. "Those mammy-fuckers
ought to get themselves skinned alive."

"As I recall, that was my original idea, but you talked me
out of it. Remember?"

A.C. looked over at Malcolm and sighed.

"You know, A.C., it's not like I'm ungrateful..."

"I know what you're thinking, Ben. What the fuck is going
on here? Well, I just don't know. I'm not sure if even
Malcolm knows."

Ben nodded, then noticed Mulder and Scully. "What the hell
happened to them?"

"What do you think happened?"

Ben shook his head and called out "Hey, you two, the bar's
closing!"

"Not until we get some answers!" Mulder declared, shaking
his fist at no one in particular.

"It's time you got your asses out of here," Ben informed
Mulder as he walked towards him.

The little red-haired woman stepped in his way. Ben's eyes
widened as she poked his big chest with her finger.

"You don't understand," she said slowly, wobbling slightly
on her feet. "This is a scientific investigation. We are
here to gather and collect data. All I've gotten are a..."
She pulled out a wadded ball of paper napkins. "A lot of
phone numbers from a lot of guys."

"So did I," Mulder said. "From women, I mean."

"Well, that's because you two are a pair of fine-looking
white people," A.C. explained. "Zola, wouldn't you want
Mulder's nose digging into your pussy?"

Ben stiffened and was about to proclaim that a man
shouldn't talk to his sister like that. Zola cut him off by
saying, "Ben's is bigger."

Ben reached up to touch his nose, then frowned at Zola.
She smiled back at him.

"These sexual hijinks aside," Mulder said, "we have yet to
find a satisfactory...a satisfactory..."

"Explanation," Scully suggested.

"Thanks. We have yet to find a satisfactory answer to the
mysteries surrounding this bar." He twisted his body so
that his pointed finger was directed at Malcolm. "You are
the key to all of it. I'm sure of it."

"Why is that?" Malcolm replied with a lazy air.

"Because whenever I'm onto something..." Mulder stood up
straight, a solemn look on his face. "...I get the same
feeling. My balls start to itch."

Then he began to laugh hysterically. Scully watched him
for a moment, then she started laughing as well. Everybody
else was wondering what to do with them when someone
cleared his throat.

The sound came from the open door. They all turned to look.

The most evil man in the world walked in.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (7 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Well, maybe Julius Grant wasn't the most evil man in the
world. There are people who have probably caused more
damage than he has. It's just that he *looked* like the
most evil man in the world.

The suit that he wore was expensive and sleek, but it only
accentuated the sense of decay he gave off. It was hard to
tell his age -- maybe somewhere between 200 and 300. He had
the appearance of a skeleton that had leather stretched
over the bones and two yellow eyes stuffed into the eye
sockets.

And like a skeleton, he was always smiling.

"Evening."

A.C. slowly nodded. "Evening, Mr. Grant. We didn't hear
your car pull up."

"Oh, it's a real nice machine. Got an engine softer than a
cheerleader's cunt."

A.C. glanced outside to see Julius's lovely car. The
driver behind the wheel did not look so lovely. He was a
huge man with a thick brow and scars over his face. He
watched the bar with cold eyes.

"So, you must be wondering why I'm here," Julius
cheerfully observed.

"Yes," Zola said. "We are."

"I'm here because I've got a proposition for you. You know
about The House of Solomon?"

"You'll have to be dead not to have heard about it," A.C.
quietly replied.

"Well, I was wonderin' if you would come on down tomorrow
night and be the house band."

Everybody was silent for many seconds. Then Malcolm
Burnside, Jr. spoke.

"Why should we want to do that?"

Julius Grant turned to the young man sitting on the stage.
He walked towards him with a slow yet steady pace.

"I can pay you well," he told Malcolm. "Whatever money you
lose from closing the bar for one night, I can double it."

"I don't doubt that you could. But is there some other
reason why we ought to play there?"

Julius stopped, his grin a few feet away from Malcolm's
blank face.

"You might learn some things that you didn't know before,"
the old, evil man said.

Malcolm looked back at Julius, one hand around his
guitar's neck and the other tapping a finger on its body.

"We'll be there," he said.

A.C. opened his mouth to say something, but Malcolm
silenced him with a look.

"That's just dandy!" Julius declared. "I'll see y'all
tomorrow night!"

He hobbled his way to the door, then stopped to look at
Mulder and Scully. They watched him with uncertainty and
more than a little fear.

"You two are those FBI agents that the Chief called for,
right?"

They could only nod.

"You two are drunker than a bunch of Shriners on Mardi
Gras, you know that?"

Then he went out the door to his car, grinning all the way.

"Who in God's name was that?" Mulder asked as the car
drove off.

"That was Julius Grant," Ben said. "That was also trouble.
Malcolm, what the fuck are you up to?"

"Worried about something, Ben?" the man on the stage
replied.

"Look, I know what you can..." Ben stopped himself.

"You can what?" Mulder squawked.

"Nothing."

"No, what? What can Malcolm do?"

"Would you forget it? It's time to close up."

Mulder slapped his hand down at the bar. "I am not leaving
and neither is my partner..." He thumped her on the
shoulder in a gesture of solidarity that almost knocked her
over. "...until we get some answers."

Ben was about to move on to "the next level" when Malcolm
said, "All right. We'll give you answers."

Ben, A.C. and Zola looked at Malcolm, startled.

"Terrific," Mulder shouted out.

"Mind if we do it over a drink?"

"Sure. Why not? You down with that, Scully?"

"Only one more," she muttered. "I'm driving."

"All right," Malcolm said. Then a smile crossed his face.
"Have you two tried my uncle's own brew?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When Julius got back home, he found a message on his
answering machine from Nathaniel Leed. He called the
youngster up.

"How's it hanging there, boy?"

"I stopped by the Shithole tonight. Apparently, your story
had been confirmed."

"Ah, you gone and made me smile again. So you back on the
team?"

"I never left it, sir."

Julius found himself laughing. He liked this boy.

"You should also know that we had a little trouble with
Sgt. Ash."

"Oh, my. What kind of trouble?"

Nathaniel explained.

"Damn. That Udell can get himself into more hot water than
crabs in Massachusetts."

"He did...exacerbate the situation more than he should
have."

Julius thought briefly, then said, "Would you do me a
favor, Nathan?"

"Yes, sir. And it's Nathaniel."

"Oh, sure, sure. Nathaniel, would you tell me if anything
is going sour? You know, warn me of any trouble?"

"Certainly, sir."

"That's good."

"By the way, sir, I have to say...this promises to be a
most interesting enterprise."

"Oh, son, the possibilities just make my cock get hard."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (8 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Agent Fox Mulder was being torn apart. The separate parts
were being washed by overweight Russian women who were
dunking them into the river and then beating them with
tennis rackets. Mulder did not find this a painful
experience. In fact, he rather enjoyed it.

What he did not enjoy was being slapped in the face.

The slapping continued until he woke up. "Hey, hey!" he
yelled as he batted away the hand of Police Chief Meyer
Spiegelman.

Spiegelman straightened up and looked down at Mulder. He
shook his head. "My federal tax dollars at work."

Mulder was about to reply with a witty bon mot but a pain
closed up his throat. It felt like Plato's beard was
growing inside his neck.

"If you're wondering where your partner is, she's over
there." Spiegelman jerked his thumb towards a couch. Dana
Scully was laid out on it, looking like a discarded pile of
laundry.

Spiegelman went up to the couch and whistled in her ear.
She awoke with a great shudder.

"Dear God..." she muttered.

"You two had yourself a taste of A.C.'s Home Brew, didn't
you?"

Mulder pulled up a weak memory of something charging down
his throat and laying waste to his stomach. He also had a
weak memory of him calling someone up on the phone.

"Oh, well," Spiegelman said. "Few ever go to the Shithole
for the first time and not wind up drunk. What would I like
to know is why you were there?"

Scully raised up herself to a sitting position, an
impressive achievement. "We were continuing our
investigation."

"Without me. Just like the way you talked to Reverend
Burnside without me present. Oh, yeah, word of that got
around to me. So, what the hell are you two up to?"

Mulder coughed. To his disgust, something dislodged in his
throat and slid down. "Has Mrs. Burnside ever told you
about the particulars of her son's birth?" he managed to ask.

Spiegelman turned his head straight towards Mulder. "I
don't think I need to be told the particulars."

"Well, she told us her own version about Malcolm's
conception..."

"You mean that story about the ghost of Malcolm, Sr.
coming to her bed?"

Mulder's head was starting to pulse. "I guess we're not
the only ones who has secrets."

"There wasn't any need to tell it to you."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Chief..." Mulder tried to get up,
but he fell back into the chair as if a string yanked him
back. "We investigate the paranormal. You knew that when
you brought us here. It's our job to look into stories just
like..."

Spiegelman leaned down, placing one hand on an armrest of
the chair. His face was close to the agent's bloodshot eyes
and his voice was vibrating unpleasantly in Mulder's ears.

"Very few of us in town know about this little...belief of
Nadine's. We would like to keep it that way. She's as good
and pure a human being that ever walked this fucked-up
world. That asshole Bob Hoag almost destroyed that
goodness. If Nadine needs this story to keep her going,
then I've got nothing against it. But I don't want people
to be getting the wrong impression about her."

"I take it you don't believe it."

"What I believe, Agent Mulder, is Nadine and Malcolm, Sr.
had a little fun before their wedding vows. That's it."

Spiegelman stood up. "I don't think that I need you two
feds on this anymore. You just go on back to Washington and
chase after Yetis and E.T.'s or whatever shit gets you
turned on. But stay away from Nadine and her son."

With that, Spiegelman left them. "There goes a very
conflicted man," Scully observed.

"I was tempted to ask him if he thought Nadine was the
kind of person to be sexually active before marriage. Then
I thought, 'Hey, he just might beat the shit out of me for
asking that.'"

"Are you saying, Mulder, that you believe her story now?"

"What do you believe?"

"I think that the chief's explanation is more probable.
What I can't understand is why he even asked us down here
in the first place."

"Guilt," a voice said.

Mulder and Scully turned to see Malcolm, Jr. They both
realized that they were in the living room of A.C.'s house.
They also saw that his nephew was carrying two cups with
steam rising out of them.

Mulder said, "If that's coffee, I will be your slave
forever."

"Hmm. A white slave." Malcolm thought about it, then shook
his head. "Nah, I would hate wearing those white suits and
drinking mint juleps."

He gave the coffee to Mulder and Scully. Scully was about
to take a sip when she said, "This isn't your uncle's own
blend, isn't it?"

"Nope. It's as safe as Starbucks."

Scully nodded and both agents took a moment to let warm
caffeine soothe their smashed bodies.

"What was that you said about guilt?" Mulder asked.

"Meyer blames himself for not seeing Hoag in time to stop
him. That's why he'll go out of his way sometimes to
satisfy my mother's whims."

"They used to date, didn't they?"

Malcolm nodded.

"How many people know about this story of your mother's?"

"Just me, the chief, Zola and A.C."

"What is your opinion of it?"

Malcolm smiled and raised an eyebrow. "You mean, do I
believe that I'm the result of a sexual union between the
living and the dead?"

"Well, do you?"

Malcolm sat down on the floor. He looked at his pants and
picked at the lint.

"The chief was right about my mother. She's as good as a
person gets. And I do want to protect her reputation. But I
also want to protect my own ass as well."

"What do you mean?"

"Meaning, I don't want a bunch of people at my door asking
for a fucking miracle," Malcolm said in a carefully
controlled voice.

Mulder looked at the young man and said, "And it would be
even worse if your mother's story was true, wouldn't it?"

Malcolm raised his eyes, the FBI agent reflected in their
cool depths.

"There was once a man...a good man. He preached about
loving your neighbors and helping the weak. He could also
heal the sick and raise the dead. That didn't keep him from
a public execution, though."

"And the name of this man," Mulder said in a quavering
Paul Harvey imitation, "this man who helped so many but got
whacked anyway...his name was..."

Malcolm picked up a cushion and threw it at Mulder. Both
of them laughed. Scully let out a sigh.

"Just drink your damn coffee," Malcolm said.

"Might I ask a few questions?" Scully asked.

"Agent Scully, any woman who can wake up in your condition
and still look pretty can ask me all the questions she
wants."

Scully rolled her eyes and said, "All right. Who is Julius
Grant?"

Malcolm stopped smiling. "Oh, yeah. Him. Julius Grant is
a very wealthy man, but he didn't get that way selling
computer software."

"How then?"

"Let's just say that it would be easier to list the number
of illegal activities Grant *hasn't* been involved in."

"I take it that he's a powerful man here in Final."

"No, he just lives nearby. He's never exercised his muscle
in town. Nothing worth his interest here."

"Except maybe you."

Malcolm shrugged. "He's a fan, I guess."

Mulder and Scully looked at each other. They knew that
something deeper was going on here.

"So, what is this House of Solomon?" Mulder asked.

Malcolm's smile returned. "Thereby hangs a tale."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Meyer Spiegelman sat at his desk. He had the look of a man
too tired to move. Outside, his two fat patrolmen were
laughing over their latest spic joke.

He unlocked one of his desk drawers and opened it. He
stared at its insides for a long time. Then he slowly
reached inside it.

Knock, knock. "Chief?"

Spiegelman swiftly closed up the drawer and locked it.
"Come on in!" he called out.

Sally Ash came in and closed the door behind her. She sat
herself casually in a chair. "You wanted to see me?"

"Just got a call from Fred Udell. Or Elmer Fudd from the
sound of it. Says you roughed him up a bit."

"Sorry, Meyer. I saw him pointing that rifle at Bugs and
it got me all riled up."

Spiegelman laughed briefly. "He was near the Shithole last
night, I take it."

"Yep. Wasn't clear about why he was there, though."

Spiegelman nodded. "Well, don't worry about it. In fact,
this whole thing is closed."

"I don't know. Seems like there's still..."

"It's done, Sally. It's done."

Sally looked at him for a moment, then said, "What about
those two feds?"

"They're out of it. Forget about them."

"Nice-looking couple. Wonder if they have a thing between
them."

Spiegelman laughed. "Not a chance. You can bet that at
least one of them is as queer as a Broadway chorus star."

"Huh?"

"Bet you it's that Mulder guy. He looks just like that
lawyer faggot on that t.v. show. You know, the one
that's living with some tall redhead? I forget the name
of that show. Seems like there are a lot of lawyer
faggots on t.v. nowadays. Of course, Scully...I mean,
she's got that feminist 'don't-bring-your-dirty-dick-
here' attitude..."

Then Spiegelman saw the disgusted expression on the patrol
woman's face. "What is it?" he asked.

She stood up and said, "They're not gay."

"All right. They're not gay. What's got you pissed off?"

"Because, at the very least, they respect each other. That
you can look at that respect and think it's there because..."

She threw up her hands in the air and stormed out of the
office.

Spiegelman smiled and shook his head. He had gone through
this sort of thing before with Sally Ash. She was his
oldest friend. Their relationship had started in grade
school. They had always backed each other up in the
schoolyard fights and, Lord, they sure needed back-up. A
Jew in Mississippi and a homely girl (which Sally was,
let's face it) in any state were bound to get their share
of taunts, not to mention physical threats. There had
been long, hard battles, but, eventually, the team of
Meyer Spiegelman and Sally Ash become something no one
wanted to mess with.

Still, every now and then, Spiegelman would say something
that would set her off. The first time had been back in
high school. He had suggested in all seriousness that she
should join the football team. She was tougher and faster
than a lot of the pussies he captained and wasn't it
enlightened of him to make the offer?

Man, did that get him in trouble.

She evidently apologized for her outburst, though she
never explained why got her panties all twisted up. There
had been other incidents like this. Once, they had been on
stakeout in a car and he noticed that she was wearing some
kind of extremely sweet perfume. "Don't roll down the
window," he jokingly told her. "The flies will flock on you
like you're a dead raccoon." Another time, she had blown
her stack when she had invited him to see some crappy
romantic movie with Meryl Streep or Sally Field or some
other bitch who gets paid a million dollars for crying. He
had diplomatically suggested that they try Eastwood or
Schwarzennegger instead. Both his joke and his suggestion
had gotten him chewed out.

Always, she would apologize later, but never explain. This
latest fight would undoubtedly resolve the same way.

He hoped.

If there was one solid constant in his life, it was Sally.
And if there was anybody's respect that he had gotten
without being a hard-ass, it was her. She was his partner.
She was his best friend.

Dammit, where did that bitch go off to?

He sighed and unlocked the drawer again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Oh, my God!"

"What? What is it?"

"We got really drunk last night."

Mulder looked at Scully as she drove the car. "You finally
realized this?"

"I finally realized the implications of it."

"Well, I won't say anything about it if you won't."

Scully shook her head, which was still feeling a bit
heavy. She and Mulder had redressed and showered and waited
a long time before their hangover had subsided. Now, she
was driving them carefully over a dirt road. An occasional
dip or pot hole would jar them unpleasantly. The afternoon
sun flashed repeatedly through the trees around them,
creating an annoying strobe effect. The mansion of Julius
Grant was, hopefully, only a few miles away.

"I never got that drunk before," she said.

"Uh-huh."

"No, really, Mulder."

"Sure."

"I mean, I've gotten drunk, but not bad like that."

"Whatever you say, my little Irish Catholic sidekick."

Scully opened her mouth to retort, but decided to drop it.
Instead, she said, "So, what do you want to ask Julius
Grant?" She turned the car around a bend.

"I would like to...LOOK OUT!!"

Mulder could have also said, "Look out for that elephant,"
because there was, in fact, an elephant heading their way.
A big, grey, stomping elephant, his black eyes staring
blankly at the little rental car in its path.

Scully swerved the car to the side, the brake shrieking. A
ditch pulled the car down and a shudder was felt all
through the agents' spines. Then another shudder hit them
from the front as they plowed into the ditch's bottom,
yanking their bodies back and forth before the car was
trapped with the engine uselessly running.

The crash was too much for Mulder. A stomach that had
already taken the abuse of his alcoholic binge declared a
holy war against its own occupants. A yellow-green matter
was expelled and Mulder bent over to let it drop out of his
mouth and onto his shoes.

He regarded the lumpy pile on his shoes for a moment, then
he looked up.

The elephant was right beside them. Mulder and Scully
noticed that it had a rider.

Julius Grant looked down at them with eyes as blank as the
elephant's. He wasn't smiling. There was no doubt that the
elephant would walk all over their car if he prodded it in
their direction.

He said nothing for a few long moments.

Then he grinned.

"Sorry about that. Give you folks a lift?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (Part 9 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When the most evil man in the world offers you a ride on
his elephant, what do you say?

Mulder and Scully reasoned it like this:

1) They were here to question Julius Grant.

2) They wanted to do it at his house and not in the middle
of the damn forest.

3) While they weren't particularly keen on being up there
with Julius, they didn't want to walk alongside that
pachyderm either, just in case it made any sudden moves.

So, they there were, bouncing twenty feet off the ground.
Stonewall the Elephant came equipped with only two
harnesses to hold onto. While Julius rode up near the head,
Mulder and Scully were in the uncomfortably intimate
position of having her bottom nestling in his groin while
he reached around her for the reins that they were both
clutching onto. While this could have been the opportunity
for a million erotic quips, the only thing that went
through both of their minds was, "Please, God, don't let me
fall off this fucking elephant."

"I'll send my boys around to get your car out," Julius
called back to them. "Real sorry about running you off the
road like that. Guess I should be more careful about where
I take Stonewall out for a ride."

They didn't need to see his face to know he was still
grinning. They also knew that Julius could take out his
elephant anywhere he pleased around here.

"You're probably wondering why I've got something like
Stonewall for a pet."

They said nothing. They just held on.

"Sometimes, I wonder that myself. He's a son-of-a-bitch to
kept washed and fed and he drops turds the size of
basketballs. And when he gets horny...whoo-eee, look out!
But every day I wake up, I look out my window and think,
'Goddamn! I've got an elephant!'"

Julius laughed. He sounded like a crow who just saw every
animal in a zoo instantly die.

After a couple of unsteady, shaky miles on the Stonewall
Express, they arrived at the mansion of Julius Grant. A
couple of cold-eyed men helped them off Stonewall after he
knelt on the ground. Their hands were calloused and brusque
in their touch.

Mulder and Scully looked at the mansion.

It seemed that not only did crime pay, but it offered a
comprehensive health plan. The mansion stood in the middle
of a forest clearing, accompanied by a lake, an two-story
garage, a farm, a helicopter pad, Stonewall's private zoo
and a fountain with a statue of a naked lady in its center.
With its stained glass windows, balconies and oak doors,
the mansion itself was an irrefutable testament to Julius
Grant's wealth.

"Nice place, huh?" Julius said. "I call it the Conspicuous
Consumer."

"Thorstein Veblen," Scully said.

"'A Theory of the Leisure Class,'" Julius added and his
eyes gleamed when he saw Scully look surprised.

"Bet you thought that I didn't know who Veblen was, didn't
you?"

"Um, well..."

"I didn't always. I may be a rich hillbilly, but I'm still
a hillbilly. I never heard of Veblen and his whole
'conspicuous consumption' shit until Malcolm, Jr. told me
about it. You see, my car blew out a tire on a street in
Final. A $75,000 car and it blows out a goddamned tire.
Well, my driver was replacing the wheel and we've got the
local hayseeds on the street staring at me and I was
feeling mighty cocky. Then Malcolm came on walking down the
street. That caught my eye 'cause a black boy just doesn't
go walking in certain parts of Final, even if he's the
preacher's son. But he didn't look worried. He was 10 years
old then, but even then he had a...a certain look. Anyway,
he stopped by my car and he was giving it the eye. Not like
'oh, my dear Lord, I would give my left ball to have a
machine like that.' He was just looking at it. I said...

"'See anything you like, boy?' "Then he turned to me and
said, 'That's an act of conspicuous consumption.'

"I say, 'What?' That's a lot of syllables to hear coming
from a 10-year-old boy's mouth. He goes on to explain to me
Thorstein Veblen's theory of conspicuous consumption which
is a fancy way of saying, 'The rich got it so they flaunt
it.'

"'Well, what's wrong with that?' I asked.

"'Camels through the eyes of needles, Mr. Grant,' he
replied and then went on his way, a guitar at his side.'"

Julius laughed. "That Malcolm. He always was a smart one."

"Is that why you've taken an interest in him?" Mulder asked.

Julius kept smiling, but there was an extra meaning to his
smile now. Here there be tigers, boy.

"Come on inside," he said.

They entered the Conspicuous Consumer. Mulder and Scully
weren't too surprised to feel thick carpets under their
feet, to see a couple of Van Goghs and to smell from the
kitchen something unrecognizable but undeniably rich and
covered in butter.

"So," Julius said after he sat himself down in a chair,
"what the fuck is your business with Malcolm anyway?" His
tone was as cheerful and cozy as ever.

Scully said, "We're investigating the reports of a
shooting down at the..." She closed her eyes briefly.
"...the Shithole."

"Oh, yeah. I've heard of that. Sounds like nonsense, don't
you think?"

"You don't think people can come back from the dead, Mr.
Grant?" Mulder asked.

Again, that crow-laugh. "I hope not. There are a lot of
people who died cursing my name."

"Then I guess those are merely collectibles?"

"Hm?"

Mulder pointed at a glass case. Inside was a old leather
book centered on a black cloth. It was surrounded by
medallions, crystals and painted sticks with feathers
tied to them.

"I'm recognizing artifacts from several various cultures
in that case -- Muslim, Native American, African, Asian,
Haitian."

"I've been around."

"However, there is one thing that they have in common.
They're all supposed to be healing charms, capable of even
raising the dead itself."

Julius slowly nodded. "You sure know your shit, Agent
Mulder."

Mulder smiled. "I know it when I smell it."

The smile on Julius's face was rigid as Mulder went up to
the glass case. Scully watched them both.

"I don't recognize this book, though. 'The Swamp Bible.'"

"Just a collection of folklore," Julius said evenly.
"Quaint backwoods legends."

"Uh-huh."

Scully decided to change the subject. "We understand that
you're hiring the Shithole's house band to play at an
establishment of your own."

The threatening look disappeared from Julius's face.
"That's right," he told her with a grin.

"We would like to be present there tonight."

Julius raised an eyebrow. "Why's that? Don't tell me that
two fine-looking people like yourself are in need of the
House of Solomon and its services."

"If anything violent did happen at the Shithole, my
partner and I would like to make sure that it does not
repeat itself."

The grin deepened. "I assure you, Agent Scully...the Klan
know better than to try to attack one of my businesses."

"That depends on what their intent is," Mulder said.

"Intent? Agent Mulder, the only intent that the Klan has is
to wipe out as many black people it can from the Earth."

"I don't know." Mulder walked casually towards Julius. "I
think that if an attack did take place at the Shithole, I
don't believe it was for their usual reasons."

Julius watched the agent as he got closer to him. "And why
do you think that they did it?"

Mulder stopped right in front of the old man. He looked
down at him. "I think that it was a test."

"A test of what?"

Mulder watched the old man in silence. Julius returned the
look.

Then Julius laughed. "You like coming across as all
mysterious, don't you, boy?"

Mulder shrugged. "Only when someone is jerking my chain.
Thank you for your help, Mr. Grant."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Well, don't jerk my chain, Mulder. What was that all
about?"

Scully addressed this question to Mulder after they had
gotten back to their car. Julius's cold-eyed henchmen had
towed it out of the ditch and brought it back to the
Conspicuous Consumer. They didn't say a word as Mulder
scraped out the vomit and then drove off with Scully.

"Everybody in this damn town knows what happened in that
bar," Mulder said. "In fact, I believe that I know, but
nobody will confirm it."

Scully hesitated before saying, "You think that Malcolm
Burnside, Jr. healed everyone who was shot in that bar."

"You see!" Mulder threw his hands into the air. "You know
it, too!"

"No, I don't know that, Mulder."

"Well, I can't figure out what the hell else it could be.
I mean, we do agree that something is being hidden."

Scully nodded.

"And that it is connected to Malcolm somehow."

"Well, maybe. But that's..." She shook her head. "Maybe
our chain really is being jerked, Mulder. Maybe we're being
set up for something."

Mulder thought about that, then sighed.

Scully said, "I know you want to look to the fantastic,
but..."

"No, no. It's possible that you're right. Still, if
someone is fooling around with us, I want to know why. I
think we should keep an eye on Malcolm and see...what's the
matter?"

"No, I agree with you."

"But you made a face there."

"I'm...I'm not too crazy about going to this place."

"The House of Solomon? Why? Doesn't sound anything we
can't handle."

"I don't know. Malcolm gave me the impression that it's
out there even for...its kind of business."

"Don't worry. We'll be okay."

Scully glanced at Mulder, then smiled.

"That's easy for you to say, Mulder. Your video collection
has been readying you for this."

"Right, Scully. I've brought enough Kleenex for everybody."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Julius paced in his living room. That son-of-a-bitch
Mulder had rattled him a little. Clearly, he wasn't just
some dumb government employee. And he had that scrappy
little redhead to back him up.

A slight alteration was needed for tonight's plans. What
to do, what to do?

Then he snapped his fingers and picked up the phone, a
white ivory creation with a receiver shaped like a swan's
neck. He wrapped a handkerchief around the mouthpiece and
dialed a number.

"Hello, is this Johnny McDonald?" he said in a high-
pitched voice. "The Johnny McDonald of Young Christians for
Change?...I'm calling to warn you as a fellow man of God.
Reverend Burnside's son is going to be playing tonight at
the House of Solomon...oh, yes, it's true....Ooooh, I know.
It's horrible. You must do something about it....Thank you
very much, my good man. No, I'm just a fellow Christian who
wants to do right before the Lord. Good-bye."

There. That little pissant could be useful after all. Now
he could...

The phone rang. Julius had a lousy feeling about who was
calling him.

He picked up the phone. "Yeah?"

"Mistuh Gwant, izz me."

"Uh...Fred?"

"Yeb. I'm tawking fubby becuz..."

"Sgt. Ash broke your nose." Julius had to grin. "I heard
about it."

"I wat dat bizz ded."

"One thing at a time, Fred."

"No, I wat dat bizz ded NOW!"

"LOOK, YOU LITTLE COCK-SUCKING HAYSEED,
I'M THE ONLY ONE WHO DOES THE YELLING!
GOT THAT?!"

A very, very long moment of silence.

Then Udell said in a meek voice, "I'b sorry, Mistuh Gwant."

Julius took a breath, then said, "It's okay, Fred. I just
want to make sure that this plan goes smoothly."

"Um, Mistuh Gwant..."

"Yes?"

"Wat iz the pwan ezatly?"

Udell could almost hear Julius's grin over the phone. "I'll
give you a hint, Fred. You're going to have a lot of
back-up soon."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (Part 10 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Nadine Burnside walked by the side of the road. Passing
motorists would slow down and turn their heads to stare at
this goddess passing down the dusty streets. Some would
call out, "Good afternoon, Reverend Burnside," and she
would nod graciously to them. Normally, Nadine would stop
to talk with them, but today she continued on her way. No
one tried to engage her in conversation. Everyone could
sense that she had something on her mind, despite her usual
serene appearance.

Eventually, she reached the house of A.C. Burnside. Her
brother-in-law and her son were loading speakers into the
car. They stopped what they were doing when they saw her
coming.

Malcolm whispered a few words to A.C. who nodded. Then
Malcolm walked away from his uncle, meeting Nadine in the
street.

"Hello, Mother."

"Hello, son. I've just got done talking with Johnny
McDonald."

Malcolm sighed. "And what did he want?"

"He wanted to tell me that you were playing at the House
of Solomon tonight. Is this true?"

Malcolm crossed his arms over his chest. "Yes."

"That may not be a good idea."

"No, it may not. But I feel like it has to be done."

Nadine looked down at the ground. "Why?"

"Because Julius Grant has had his eye on me for some time.
He knows what I am. And I have to know what he has planned
for me."

"He is a sinner."

Malcolm laughed. "That's like calling a redwood just a
tree."

Nadine looked up and touched his face with her four-
fingered hand. "Don't do it," she said.

Malcolm gently pulled her hand away from his face and
squeezed it. "Mother, we decided a long time ago that I
have to go my own way. That's why I'm living with A.C.,
remember?"

"I know, I know."

Both of them kept quiet for a few moments. Then she smiled
and kissed him once on the cheek. She walked away and he
went back to A.C.

"What did your mama have to say?" his uncle asked.

"She didn't want me to play at the House of Solomon."

"I ain't too crazy about the idea, either."

"Well, we're doing it anyway, goddammit."

"Why? What the fuck are you supposed to learn?"

Malcolm gave A.C. that look, the one in which he appeared
to be watching you through a bombsight. "I'm going to learn
just where everybody stands," he said.

A.C. cleared his throat. "And then?"

Malcolm shrugged, then said, "Give me a help with this
damn speaker, will you?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When Nadine returned to her treehouse, she found Johnny
McDonald pacing through the grass underneath it.

"Well?" he snapped when she arrived.

"Malcolm has already made his decision."

Johnny stamped his foot. "What he decided is not
important! What's important is he..."

Nadine raised a finger and placed it on Johnny's lips.
"Shhhh," she said. Johnny's mouth was silent as she pulled
her finger away. He stared at her with blinking eyes.

"I'm very sorry that you have gotten indirectly involved
in this," she told him. "Please leave this between my son
and myself. It's in your best interests, Johnny."

Her voice caressed his ears like water down his back. He
felt hot below his belt as those eyes looked at him and
those lips smiled at him and that skin sweated ever so
lightly right near her...

He shook his head and roared, "Do not try to tempt me, you
harlot!"

Nadine stopped smiling and raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Why this town has tolerated you as our spiritual leader
is beyond me. You're obviously a fallen woman, living in
this...this...this hippie house and raising a son who plays
the devil's music in the devil's home..."

"Get to the point, Johnny," Nadine sighed.

Johnny raised a fist and shook it. "I'll have no more of
this. If you won't rescue your son from damnation, I will."

He started to march away, but the reverend grabbed him by
the arm. He tried to shake it off, but Nadine Burnside's
grip was much stronger than he had thought it was.

"I don't know what you have planned, Johnny, but the House
of Solomon is owned by Julius Grant. You don't go messing
with someone like that."

Johnny sneered. "I have no fear. I have the Lord on my
side."

Nadine looked at Johnny, then released him. "I sincerely
hope so," she told him. Then she climbed her ladder back
into the treehouse.

Johnny watched her climb up, feeling as bewildered as
ever. (He was also looking at her well-rounded bottom.)
Then he straightened his back and left the treehouse, ready
to crusade against the House of Solomon.

Which is precisely what Julius Grant wanted.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (Part 11 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The House of Solomon was located twenty-five miles away
from Final. To get there, Mulder and Scully had to follow a
set of directions more convoluted than a Agatha Christie
novel. More than once, they wondered if A.C. meant for them
to take a right at THAT tree or if they were supposed to be
crossing THIS bridge or whether THESE directions were in
fact a load of crap. The last hours of daylight dripped
away as they went through wide barren landscapes and drove
through claustrophopia-inducing forests. They indulged in a
lot of cursing and snide insults towards the other.

Then, suddenly, there it was.

They had driven into a valley located between two hills.
The hills had long brown patches of dirt running through
sharp patches of trees. Hanging above them was a full moon.
They saw it just as turned a corner on the gravel-covered
road and they wondered why they had so much trouble finding
the place. It didn't seem like you could miss it.

A fleet of cars were parked in front of the House of
Solomon. As they found their own parking spot, they noticed
that their own car looked extremely cheap and unstylish
next to the vast exhibit of pricey cars whose well-polished
metal shined in the moonlight.

They got out of the car and looked.

The House of Solomon was a massive dome in the middle of
the Mississippi badlands. Its color was mostly light pink
except for a circle of red on top. Windows were scattered
all over in crooked lines, some dark and some with lights
shining through the lace curtains. All of them were closed.
A garden of flowers nestled at the bottom and it had a
sweet scent that could hit your nose from a hundred yards
away. Carved into the surface were images of men and women
performing the sort of things that the Greek royalty did in
their waning years, complete with grapes, yards of rope and
the occasional bull. Barely visible was the pink front
door. Its thin frame was almost buried under the long dark
fur draped over it.

Mulder looked at the front door and said, "The subtlety is
astounding."

"I think I can guess what the back door looks like,"
Scully added.

"Or what the whole place looks like from above. Notice
that little bump on top?"

"I saw it, Mulder. I saw it."

"Can you imagine all the planes circling around..."

"Let's just go inside, okay?"

They found a path that led straight to the door. The path
was long, straight and pink-colored. The doormat looked
like a red helmet.

"You better knock on the door," Scully said, "because I'm
sure not going to do it."

Mulder took a breath, then pushed his hand through the fur
to the door.

The door opened itself up. Light from a long red hallway
brushed through the fur.

Mulder grinned at Scully. "If only it was always that easy."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Meyer Spiegelman and Sally Ash watched Scully push Mulder
through the door.

"Fuck," Spiegelman said. "I should have known those two
wouldn't listen to me."

"Maybe they're here for the services."

Spiegelman smirked. "Maybe. Personally, I think they just
don't know when they're not wanted."

Sally turned to the police chief. She was sitting next to
him in a police car discreetly located far off from the
House. She studied his handsome profile for a long time. He
took no notice of her. His testy eyes were focused on the
House.

Finally, she said, "Meyer?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are we here?"

Spiegelman sighed. "I already told you. Reverend
Burnside..."

You mean Nadine, Sally thought.

"...told me that Malcolm was going to be playing here
tonight. She wanted to make sure nothing bad would happen."

"Then why aren't we inside?"

"Because I don't want to be around all those freaks. If
Malcolm needs our help, I'm sure we'll be able to know from
right here."

"Or maybe we're staying outside because you don't see any
point in being here. Maybe you just want to tell the
reverend we were here to clear your conscience."

Spiegelman turned his head to her. "You didn't have to
come," he said in a low voice.

"Well, I'm here. And it's a long walk back to town. So
I'll stay."

"Okay, then."

So, they continued to sit there and watch. And, boy, did
they ever get to see something.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The hot light of candles was everywhere. At least fifty
were in every hallway, suspended over your head in curved
holders that kept three candles apiece. The light was
absorbed into the red wallpaper and ricocheted off the gold-
painted doorknobs and hinges. (At least, it was assumed
that they weren't actual gold.) The candles burned off a
perfume scent that pleased the nostrils until you realize
that its purpose was to cover up another smell.

The House of Solomon was cleaned and fumigated every
morning, but there had been too many nights of perversion
and weird sex. The stink of every bodily fluid known to man
hovered at the edge of your senses like a ghost. You just
knew that if you opened the wrong door, that it would
suddenly become strong enough to make you gag.

Mulder and Scully stood in the front hallway. They saw an
end that branched off to the left and right. A moan, a
cough or a sigh would sneak out from under a doorway.

They stood there, not knowing where to go.

"Why are you here?"

They both jumped at hearing the voice that popped out of a
hidden speaker.

"Why are you here?" the voice repeated. It was a quiet,
assured voice, patience but not tolerant of inefficiency.

"Uh," Mulder said. "We're here to see the band?"

The voice gave them directions to the right room and then
politely requested that they "enjoy themselves."

The two FBI agents followed the directions. Along the way,
they met a few people...

A naked woman riding on a man. The man was naked, too,
except for the horse's head that he was wearing. She kept
slapping him with a whip as he carried her through the
House. They passed the FBI agents, the woman crying
"giddyup" and the man neighing.

Another naked man who was dragging himself very slowly
across the carpets. Great red burns were being scratched
into him from his neck down to his feet. His groans were
not just of displeasure, though. Mulder and Scully were
careful not to step on a thin, sticky line he was leaving
behind him.

A third man, clothed this time. He was dressed up like
Britney Spears from that video where she dances in a school
hallway. A tape recorder was playing the video's same song
that he was miming perfectly through his highly-glossed
lips. His shaved legs were doing a good imitation of her
dance routine. Even his eyes had the same weird glassy stare.

Mulder and Scully squeezed past him. "It's okay," Mulder
said. "There's nothing here we can't handle."

Then they came to the right room. The sound of electric
guitars being tuned could be heard as well as laughter and
groans. And an occasional twangy sound like rubber being
stretched.

They looked at each other again and then Scully knocked on
the door.

The door was opened by a woman. No, it was opened by a man.

Actually, it wasn't clear. He/she was standing there in a
tuxedo that gave no indication of what was underneath it.
The face had long lashes and powder over the cheeks, but
there was something strangely hard about the jaw. A high
collar kept you from seeing the presence or absence of an
Adam's apple.

Both Mulder and Scully wondered what he/she was. They also
wondered if it was wrong to think that he/she looked quite
attractive.

"Please come in," the door greeter said in a deep voice as
indeterminate as his body.

Mulder and Scully stepped in. The door was closed. They
looked around them.

"We can handle this, too," Mulder said.

The room was as long as a basketball court, though the
ceiling was located at a regular height. Here, the light
was provided by glaring cone-shaped lamps. The walls were
yellow and not red. (The color reminded Mulder of
something, but he couldn't quite remember.) There were
around twenty people in the room besides A.C., Malcolm and
the drummer. The three musicians were located on a small
six-inch-high platform. Like Mulder and Scully, they were
staring at the other people with puzzlement and uneasiness.

A man was strapped to a swivel chair. Two female
bodybuilders were taking turns with him, sitting in his lap
and kissing him, then slapping him so hard that he was
facing the other one. A man was dressed like a eighteenth-
century nobleman and reading John Locke out loud while
another man pressed his mouth against his bulging
pantaloons. Two women were standing with their backs
pressed against each other, reaching around to each other's
groin. For some reason, both were covered in sawdust. That
twangy rubber sound Mulder and Scully had heard came from a
man whose belt was attached to a short bungee chord. He
would be pulled up and then fall back down again. Everytime
he would be within touching distance of the ground, he
would try to grab hold of a naked woman lying on the
ground, then push his tongue down into her vagina. The
woman would accept this for awhile, then push him away,
sending him flying back to the ceiling.

There was even a couple practicing straightforward hetero
sex in the missionary position which made you wonder why
they came here in the first place.

The band stood at the center of all this. They were
supposed to be bringing music to this scene. The drummer
looked like he wanted to bolt, but not before he clobbered
A.C. with his own guitar.

Then Malcolm gave him a look. The drummer sighed and
picked up his sticks.

"Call the children home?" A.C. asked.

"Call the children home," Malcolm replied.

They began to play. As the drummer pounded out a beat that
cows would dance to, A.C. and Malcolm stood up to the
microphone. They sang together, the big, rough voice of
A.C. and the smooth throat of Malcolm mixing together to
make something that belonged in both a church and a brothel.

"Good morning little schoolgirl...
"Good morning little schoolgirl...
"Can I come home...
"Can I come home with you..."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In a room full of television monitors, Julius Grant
watched Malcolm's band with the supervisor of the House of
Solomon, Mr. Rogers. Rogers was a man dressed in a gray
suit whose unperturbed eyes watched the monitors behind
gold-rimmed glasses.

"The band seems to be performing quite well," Rogers
commented.

"What would know about music, you soulless cocksucker?"
Julius said in a friendly tone.

"Not much, I suppose, sir," Rogers replied without missing
a beat.

"Well, you're right. But this was just an excuse to get
him..." He pointed at Malcolm. "...up here. But,
unfortunately..." His withered finger moved towards another
tv monitor. Mulder and Scully could be seen there, keeping
as much as distance as they could from everyone else in the
same room. "...they are here, too. When the time is right,
I want you to arrange a little distraction for them."

"Certainly, sir."

"But, for now...let's just enjoy the show."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Malcolm had had enough. He was used to the rowdiness of the
Shithole, but this was different. Nobody was paying
attention to them. They could have been a stereo as far as
these idiots cared. They went through "T.V. Mamma,"
"Rolling and Tumbling," "Terraplane Blues," "Tiger in Your
Tank," and "Shave 'Em Dry," playing as hard as they could.
No one applauded or even watched them. The only one who
noticed them was the guy who had -- for some unfathomable
motivation -- taken an erotic fascination with Malcolm's
acoustic guitar. Malcolm had to keep looking behind him at
the guitar as it laid next to the speakers. More than
once, the guy was there, licking the strings and pressing
his chest against the wood. It didn't matter Malcolm would
run back there and give him a swift kick, still keeping
perfect tempo on his electric Gibson. The asshole kept
coming back for more.

The low point was when they did "What I'd Say"
and...not...one...of...those...mammy-fuckers...sang along.
Goddammit, that was a song you were legally required to
sing along with. When Malcolm and A.C. moaned, "ooooh," the
audience was supposed to replicate the sound. Instead, they
got...well, a lot of moans but very unmusical ones. Not the
one they were supposed to hear. They did it again and
again, but still nothing in return. Still, they plowed on
ahead to the next call-and-response section. This time,
they did hear audience participation, but only in the form
of two atonal voices from the back. Malcolm looked that way
and saw Mulder and Scully shrugging their shoulders.

That did it. Malcolm waved his hand for silence. A.C. and
the drummer stopped playing.

"I'm going to try something," Malcolm said.

He put aside his electric guitar and then plugged in his
acoustic into the speakers (after kicking away the acoustic
guitar's unrequited lover again.) His bandmates watched him
carefully as did Mulder and Scully.

As did Julius Grant.

"I'm going to do a little Memphis soul," Malcolm told the
audience. No one cared until two notes drifted through the
room, gentle as snowflakes yet also pained and anguished.

"As...

"I..."

Just as gently, the acoustic guitar added a rhythm.

"...prepare...

"...to lay down...

"...here alone, dear..."

The slapping, groping, sighing and bouncing stopped in the
room. People were looking at the stage in fascination.

"...I can't help...but wish you were here..."

The only thing to be heard in the room was Malcolm's
voice. The people next door stopped their own special
activities and listened. In fact, everybody in the House of
Solomon became still and quiet, even the ones out of the
voice's range.

You didn't have to hear it. You could feel it.

"...I've done you wrong...and now you're gone...what can I
do..."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In the police car, Meyer Spiegelman reached inside his
jacket and touched the contents of a pocket. Inside was the
thing that he kept hidden in his desk drawer. Occasionally,
he would carry it with him, despite the fear of discovery.

Yet, right now, he didn't care if anybody asked him what
was in his pocket. He was just conscious of something that
spoke of loss and sad memories.

Sally Ash could feel the same thing and she was looking at
the chief, not caring what would happen if he turned to see
the expression on her face. She didn't care that he might
see a longing that even his foolish blindness couldn't
miss. She just stared at him with moist eyes and dared to
hope.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"...don't make spend...the rest of my life...forgetting
you..."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"My God, my cock is HARD!" Julius cackled. "HARD!"

"Sir?"

Julius looked at Mr. Rogers. He noticed that the House's
supervisor had taken off his glasses and was rubbing his
eyes.

"Got something in your eye, Mr. Rogers?"

"Um..."

Julius cackled again. "That boy has something! He has a
power!" He clenched one of his withered hands. "And I'm
gonna have it, by golly."

He marched to the door. "I'm going down there. Get ready
with the distraction for those feds."

"Yes, Mr. Grant."

Julius left the monitoring room. Mr. Rogers sighed and put
his glasses back on. He was normally immune to the effects
of music, but something about that young man's singing...

Still, business had to be taken care of. He picked up a
phone and dialed a two-digit number.

"Room 33, Peterson speaking."

"Peterson, this is Mr. Rogers. Start up a conga line."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"...don't make spend...the rest of my life...forgetting
you."

The song ended and everybody was left with their regrets
and sadness. There was nothing but silence for a long time.

Then somebody clapped. It sounded like someone slapping
two rotting piece of meat together.

Heads turned to see Julius Grant. No one had taken notice
of his quiet entrance, but now they all shuddered at his
presence. It was like an airplane had dropped a stinking
corpse onto a classical music recital.

"Damn fine music there, son," he said, that grin always on
his face. "Feel like taking a break now?"

Malcolm watched Julius Grant carefully, then said, "Sure.
Why not?" He turned to A.C. "Mind handling it alone for
awhile?"

"Malcolm, I can't make you do nothin' you don't want to
do," A.C. said evenly.

"Okay, then." Malcolm unplugged his guitar. Carrying it 
with him, he walked past the occupants in the room who
watched him with awe and a little fear.

"Let's talk in my office," Julius said.

"Mind if we tag along?"

Julius slowly turned his head to Mulder and Scully. "This
is a private conversation, sir," he told them, his smile
becoming shorter.

"We don't want to listen in," Mulder replied calmly. "We
just want to be nearby if something bad happens."

The smile on the face of Julius Grant widened again. "Why,
nothing bad happens in the House of Solomon, son!
Besides...I think you two would rather do something else."

"What does that..." Mulder started, then noticed that he
was holding Scully's hand. They realized that their hands
had been touching throughout Malcolm's song.

They quickly pulled apart, shoving their hands into their
coat pockets. "We're only here on a professional basis,"
Scully said in a voice that sounded a lot more defensive
than she wanted.

Julius laughed (that shrill, mocking sound) and jerked his
thumb at the people in the room. They had picked up their
games again, trying to ignore Julius's presence. "Some of
these are professionals, too," he said. "Not too shocked by
it all, are you?"

"We're FBI agents," Mulder declared. "We've been
trained...why are they doing that?"

"Hm?"

Mulder pointed at the two women and one man who were
licking the yellow walls. "What is that?" he asked, his
voice a little high-pitched. "A paint fetish?"

"That ain't paint, boy. It's come." Julius waved his hand
around the room. "Every wall in this room is covered with
come. Maybe if you're nice to me, I'll tell you how we got
enough to paint with."

Mulder closed his eyes.

"This way, Malcolm," Julius said. "Let's go talk business."

Malcolm followed the old, old man out of the room, guitar
under his arm. Mulder remained motionless, eyes still
closed. Scully tugged on his sleeve.

"Come on, Mul...I mean, let's go, Mulder."

He sighed, then he left the room with her. Back on the
stage, A.C. and the drummer looked at each other. It was
one of the few moments in which they shared a mutual
concern.

"Well," A.C. said. "Let that boy boogie-woogie."

And the music started up again, hard and funky as ever.
And the drummer went back to looking hatefully at A.C.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Spiegelman's hand pulled out of his jacket. He blinked,
looking as if he wasn't sure where he was. Sally had
quickly turned away, rubbing her eyes.

Spiegelman opened his mouth to say something, but stopped.
He looked over at Sally. He saw her touching her eyes.

"What's with you?" he said in an overly gruff tone.

"Not one damn thing," she flatly replied.

He nodded. "Well, good. That's..."

Suddenly, he smacked the steering wheel. "The hell with
it. Let's pack it in. Ain't nothin' gonna happen here..."

"Meyer?" There was a warning in Sally's voice. She was
pointing at something far away. Spiegelman squinted into
the darkness and saw...

"Ah, damn it. Damn it, fuck it and bury it in shit."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I'm telling you, son, I wish I could play like you do.
You've got angels in your voice and demons in your
fingers. The last time I heard something that good was
when I saw Albert King down in Arkansas..."

Julius was going on and on, his cracked voice friendly and
blustering. Malcolm walked by his side, not saying
anything. Mulder and Scully followed them at a distance as
Julius casually led them through the maze of hallways in
the House of Solomon.

Mr. Reed was watching them over the hidden cameras. He saw
Julius led Malcolm down to the end of an hallway and turn
left into another one, out of sight from the FBI agents.
Then he pressed a button.

Mulder and Scully was heading for the corner when they
heard the boisterous sound of a salsa record over the
speakers. From the right end of the hallway ahead of them,
a man appeared. Then another man. Then a woman. And a man,
a woman, a man, a man...

They came around the corner, a long line of them, dancing
a conventional conga beat. The fact that they were naked
was not totally unconventional, either. What was definitely
unconventional was that they were all sodomizing the person
in front of them.

It was a hard task, to be sure. How does one keep the beat
when you have your penis up somebody's butt and another one
up yours? Or, in the case of the woman, how does one keep
your strap-on dildo firmly in place in a conga line? Still,
they were managing to do it and they all looked to be
enjoying themselves except for the man up front. He was
House Whore Peterson and his tanned, handsome face was a
professional blank. His muscular body dragged the pale,
sweaty, overweight man by his dick in Peterson's desired
direction. And that direction was straight towards Mulder
and Scully.

Now, what do you do when you see the world's longest butt-
fuck heading your way?

You back up, of course.

Malcolm looked behind him as Julius rambled on, pretending
nothing was happening. He wondered if he should stop and
let Mulder and Scully catch up.

Nah. It wasn't necessary.

Besides, it was pretty damn funny.

Mulder and Scully stood against the walls, trying to be as
flat as they could be. The conga line went past them. It
took awhile before the last person came. Mulder roughly
counted fourteen people -- five women and nine men.

He looked at Scully and said, "Now, that's Guinness Book
material."

Then they ran after Malcolm and Julius. It was too late,
though. The old man was nowhere to be found and neither was
Malcolm.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (12 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Johnny McDonald had never felt this good before. As he
marched at the front of the crowd, he regarded his past
raid on the Shithole with amusement. That time, he had led
a mere sprinkling of people. He had been so impressed with
himself then.

Today, however, when he had called up people and gone door
to door looking for recruits, he had gotten more people
than he ever could imagine getting. (Granted that there was
also a lot of people who told him to go fuck a duck, but
those were obviously ignorant non-Christians.) A lot of
people were shocked at the idea of the preacher's son
playing at the House of Solomon. Letting him work at the
Shithole was bad enough, but that brothel was vile even by
the standards of your average brothel. Before nightfall,
Johnny had acquired an army of sixty-two Christian
soldiers, old and young, all ready to pray for God's wrath
to drop upon the House of Solomon.

They made one stop, first.

Nadine Burnside was warming a bowl of soup over an open
flame when she heard the sound of a dozen cars stopping
outside her treehouse. She looked out the window.

Johnny stepped out of a car, his arms defiantly crossed
over his chest. His many followers watched from inside
their vehicles.

"Reverend Burnside!" he called out.

"I'm here, Johnny," she sighed.

"We are going to rescue your son from the forces of
darkness. Will you join us?"

"Johnny, you may think that you know what's going on,
but..."

"I said, will you join us?"

"No, I won't. You shouldn't do this. There's a good chance
that you might get hurt."

Johnny then delivered his usual "I shall fear no evil"
spiel, turned on his heel and left with his Christian
soldiers. They drove the several miles to the House of
Solomon. They parked in a semi-circle around the brothel,
got out and marched forward, crosses and Bibles in hand.

Johnny had never felt so proud, so confident.

Maybe a little too confident. He hoped no one noticed that
he had a hard-on.

They had reached the edge of the parking lot. The House of
Solomon was a mere fifty feet away. Nothing could stop them.

Nothing except for a Jewish police chief and a bulky
female cop.

The two of them seemed to have popped out of nowhere. They
stood in front of the crowd as if they could hold the whole
thing back by themselves. And they probably could.

Johnny's group came to an abrupt halt. The marchers
crashed into the back of the person up front. Several
people fell to the ground, including Johnny.

"What the fuck are you doing?" the chief asked.

Johnny picked himself up, brushing the dirt off him.
"We're here to take Malcolm Burnside, Jr. away from this
den of iniquity."

"Oh, not this shit again," Sally complained. "What is it
with you and Nadine's son anyway? You've got a hard-on for
him or something?"

Holding his Bible in front of his pants, Johnny gave Sally
the stiff upper lip. "I don't expect you to understand. And
I certainly don't expect the chief to understand a
Christian's motives."

"You know," Spiegelman growled. "that sounds vaguely anti-
Semitic. How would you like a chainsaw circumcision, you
little peckerwood?"

Johnny opened his mouth, then closed it.

"Or I could do something worse," Meyer said. "I could
stand aside and let you and your Bible-fuckers raid that
place. 'Cause if you do that, then Julius Grant will have
your ass on a silver plate."

Johnny got his voice back. "God is on our side. None of us
need fear the sinner Julius Grant. Isn't that right?"

There was a pause, then a half-hearted cheer.

"It don't matter if God and the Devil are working together
to protect you," Sally said. "Mess with Julius Grant and
he'll bury you in the darkest, smelliest parts of
Mississippi."

She had a point, there. Johnny looked at his congregation.
They all shifted on their feet, scratched the back of their
necks, looked in other directions.

Johnny turned to Spiegelman and Sally. "We...we...we don't
plan to invade this wretched building. We wouldn't dare
contaminate ourselves with its foul air. Am I right?"

The crowd called out its agreement, stronger this time.

"We shall call out Malcolm and all the sinners with him.
We'll let them know that God wishes for them to repent and
accept the glory of Christ."

"And how the hell do you plan to do that?" Spiegelman asked.

Johnny turned back to the crowd. He held up one hand and
waved out a tempo.

"OnWARD, Christian Soooo-ilderrrrss...." he bellowed.

The crowd joined in. "Marching as to WARRRRR..."

Spiegelman's hand slapped against his forehead and went
slowly down his face. It was going to be a long night.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Scully, did you hear something?"

"Forget it, Mulder."

"Sounds like people singing..."

"Mulder, would you forget it and keep up with me, okay? We
don't want to get separated."

That was a threat to take seriously. The House of Solomon
was an impossible place to find your way through. Every
hallway branched off into other directions and since every
hallway looked alike...

And the people they encountered...

A woman laid on the floor dressed up in a frog costume.
She was on her back, shaking her green limbs in the air with
a patch opened to reveal her groin. "Fuck me!" she croaked
to anybody passing by. "Fuuuuck meee!"

A man running through the hallways with his penis stuck in
a lead pipe, screaming "Get it off! GET IT OFF!"

A man with his head pressed against one wall and his toes
touching the base of the opposite wall. His body was as
rigid as a board and he had a big smile on his face.

That damn conga line again.

"Scully, we need to start opening doors."

"No, I don't want to see what's behind..."

"If we're going to find Malcolm, we have to."

Scully sighed. "All right. But you first."

"Okey-dokey," he said and opened a door. "See? Just some
couple having sex. Hi, guys!"

A man and a woman replied with an aggravated shout as
Mulder closed the door.

"And the next door...well, just some guy masturbating.
Nothing big there. And here we have..."

The man in the room turned to Mulder as he opened the
door. "Hello," he said and held out two pumpkins. "Excuse
me for asking, but which of these look more attractive to
you?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Julius Grant had been to the Final Baptist Church once.
Only once. That had been after he had met the 10-year-old
Malcolm, Jr. When the usher had seen Julius enter, he
almost pissed in his pants. Throughout the whole Sunday
service, people kept sneaking glances at the grinning old
man alone in the back. Occasionally, Julius would look one
of them in the eye and wink. They would turn away,
shuddering. From the pulpit, Nadine could see the
uncomfortable effect Julius was having on the church. Even
the choir's singing had become shaky. The only one
unaffected was her son who played his guitar during hymns
and sang with implacable ease. She noticed that Julius had
his eyes fixed straight upon Malcolm.

Halfway through the service, she decided to address the
situation.

"I see we have a new visitor with us today," she said
calmly. "Would you please stand up, sir?"

"Nope," Julius said. "I'm comfortable where I am."

"Well, then. Then I'll come to you."

The congregation murmured as the reverend walked down the
aisle, her robe swaying over the floor. Malcolm watched
her, readying himself to do anything.

She stopped before Julius.

"Hello, Mr. Grant."

"Mornin' to you, Reverend."

"Have you come to hear the good news of the Lord?"

"No, I came to see your tits."

The audience gasped. It gasped even louder when Nadine
turned her back to them and lifted up her robe up above her
head.

Julius stopped grinning. It was the only time that anyone
had seen him look helpless.

Then Nadine dropped the robe. "There," she said. "Do you
still need to stay?"

Julius stumbled out of the church. Thinking about it now
still made Malcolm smile.

"What's so funny, son?" Julius asked him.

"I was just thinking about the time you came to church."

Julius looked uncomfortable for a moment, then he laughed.
"Yeah, your momma sure turned the tables on me. I gotta
admit...I have seen tits and I have seen tits, but I have
never seen tits like..."

"You brought me here to talk about my mother's breasts?"

Julius looked at the young black man sitting before his
desk. The two men were in Julius's office at the House of
Solomon. Like everything else Julius owned, it was
flamboyant and expensive.

"I want to talk about you, Malcolm," Julius said. "About
the things that you can do."

Malcolm looked back at Julius, his finger tapping the
guitar next to his chair. "How did you know?" he asked.

"When you have lived as long as I have...and if you pay
attention to everything around you...you realize that there
is some weird shit in the world. Magical shit. Supernatural
shit. Shit out of the Twilight Zone. Once you accept that,
then you get a sense for its smell."

He pointed a finger at Malcolm. "I smelt it on you."

Malcolm sniffed his armpit. "Gee, I take a bath everyday."

"I wasn't sure what it was. I knew that there was
something you could do, something special. And when I heard
that your daddy was shot on his wedding day, I started to
guess what it was."

"What do you mean?" Malcolm said innocently.

Julius leaned forward. "Son, we both know that your momma
is not the kind to let anybody in until her wedding day.
She was still a virgin when your daddy got killed, I
guarantee it."

"What are you getting at?"

"I have this book. Something that gives me the lowdown on
all the supernatural shit of the world. Never mind how I
got it, but it told me what a child like you could do. It
also told me that at a certain age, your powers would be..."

Malcolm stood up and placed his hands on the desk. His
gaze was still distant but also threatening like dark
clouds in the sky. "It was you, wasn't it? You sent the
goddamned KKK to the Shithole. It was your experiment to
find out if I was the real deal."

"It worked, didn't it?" Julius replied with a smile.

"And if you were wrong?"

Julius gave Malcolm an askance look. "Is this where you
start threatening me, Malcolm?"

"Everybody in Mississippi is afraid of you, Mister Grant.
They have reason to be. But I don't have a reason." Malcolm
leaned forward. "You, on the other hand, have a very good
reason to be afraid of me."

"Oh, yeah," Julius said quietly. "I do. I know that
there's nothing in this world that can harm you."

Then he stood up and there was now a few inches between
each man's face. "But what about outside this world?"
Julius asked.

Malcolm said nothing as he stared into the yellow eyes of
Julius Grant.

"You were something that should never have been, boy. You
have control over life and death. No human in near about
two thousand years has had that power. I imagine that you
have received warnings about using your powers, haven't you?"

Malcolm's eyes looked to the side.

"From what my book tells me, you've been permitted to
exist because trying to get rid of you would be way too
much of a hassle. In fact, it might result in a war between
incredible forces that could rip apart the very fabric of
reality."

Julius blinked, then laughed. "Shit! 'A war between
incredible forces that could rip apart the very fabric of
reality.' Ain't that a fancy way of speaking? Of course, it
hits the nail on the head, don't it?"

"Maybe," Malcolm whispered.

"So, the powers that be will let you go your merry way --
as long as you resist using your powers. But that's all
changed now, hasn't it?"

Malcolm finally walked away from the desk. He went into a
corner of the office, rubbing his hands together.

"You've crossed the line, Malcolm. Now your ass is in their
cross hairs. If you attempt a sequel to the Shithole...will
you be able to accept the punishment?"

Malcolm remained silent for awhile.

Then, with his back still turned, he said, "You haven't
told me what you want."

Julius said, "The real question is -- what do you want?"

Malcolm shoved his hands into his pockets. "You tell me,
Mr. Grant. You're good at figuring out other people's needs."

Julius laughed. "That I am."

He walked over to Malcolm. The younger man shivered when
he felt one of those bony hands on his shoulder.

"What you want," Julius said. "is protection. And I can
give that to you."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (13 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I'll hammer in the MORNIIIING. I'll hammer in the
EVENIINNGG..."

"I know what I would do with a hammer right now," Sally
snarled. "Can we get out of here?"

Spiegelman was about to say "yes" when he saw a man walk
through the singing mob. He was a big guy and it would not
have been advisable to get in his way.

He stopped right before the chief. "Are you Chief
Spiegelman?" he asked in a blunt voice.

Spiegelman pointed at his badge. "Nah, I'm just dressing
up like this for the fun of it."

"Are...you...Chief...Spiegelman?" The look in the man's
eyes could crack a walnut.

Not a man to mess lightly with, Spiegelman thought. "Yeah,
I'm the chief of police. Who are you?"

The man told him.

"Oh."

"I was told you'll be here. I'm looking for Mulder and
Scully. Do you know where they are?"

Spiegelman smiled. "Funny you should ask."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Threesomes, foursomes, oils and creams, rubber suits,
electric fans...

Scully was getting tired of all this. She was tired of
getting to know the perversities of everybody in Mississippi.

Women dressed as men, men dressed as women, role-playing
games of boss and secretary, plantation owner and slave, cat
and mouse...

And that conga line kept popping up. It was as if the
thing was chasing after them, forcing them into new
directions.

Gerbils, mice, even an otter, all being directed to where
the sun don't shine...

She looked behind her at Mulder as he opened another door.
The sound of a whip made him wince before he closed the
door. She shook her head as she reached for a doorknob.

In the monitoring room, Mr. Rogers had his finger over a
button.

Scully opened the door. She was surprised -- gratefully
surprised -- to find nothing. Just a dark empty...

Mr. Rogers pressed the button.

Mulder heard his partner yell and he turned in time to see
the floor in the hallway tilt upward. Scully went spilling
through the doorway. He ran hard over there just as the
hallway floor snapped back down and the door shut itself.

Keeping his feet off the danger spot, he opened the door
and poked his head inside the room.

No one was inside.

"Well, shit," he said.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Just as Scully had been pushed inside, the floor of the
dark room had also tilted and she was sliding down to...

...a very soft, comfortable landing. She found herself
lying on a bed.

"Well, all riiiiighht!"

She also found herself in a room with a big sun-burned guy
with a cropped haircut and a meaty body enclosed in a dress
suit. He looked like he was in college and he most
certainly had been drinking from a liquor cabinet in the
room. "Son-of-a-gun, you're a nice one, ain't you?" he
leered.

"Excuse me," she said and headed for the door. It did not
entirely surprise her that it was locked.

"Do you have a key to this door?" she asked.

"Naw," the college student grinned. "But I can give the
word and they'll open it."

"Then give the word."

The college student pulled himself to his feet. "Guess you
haven't heard. In this room, you only get out until the guy
who pays for it says you get out."

"I see."

"And I will only say it..." He staggered over to her.
"...when I'm satisfied."

"Ah."

"You get what I..."

"I...got what you meant. Now, understand this. Tell them
to open this door or face the consequences."

The college student nodded. "Every pussy is a little tight
when they come here. No problem. You go ahead and get
rough, short stuff." He spread his large, football-playing
arms and looked down at a woman that was a foot shorter
than he was. "Whatever gets your juices going, I say. Then
you're mine, bitch."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Protection?" Malcolm turned to Julius. "You think you can
protect me from..."

"I've done some more reading on the subject," Julius said.
"Turns out that you can protect yourself from the forces
lined against you by pledging yourself to a human. It's
sort of like...getting your own lawyer when you're being
sued."

"Wait a minute? Pledging myself?"

"If anybody wants to deal with you...and I mean, anybody
...they'll have to go through me, first."

Malcolm smirked. "That wouldn't take long."

"You don't understand. You see, there are rules that even
the greatest forces have to abide by. If you are following
a human leader...if you are no longer just an independent
person...then the other side has to follow a certain
decorum. We have to have meetings, discussions, agree to
terms before anything can be done."

"You make it sound like a business deal."

Julius grinned. "Exactly."

"Well, it also sounds like nothing more than a delaying
tactic. After all the 'decorum' has been dealt with, what
then?"

"By then...we should be able to work out an advantage."

Johnny looked at the old man. "What do you mean?"

"I'm still working on it. But once you have rules, you
also have loopholes in those rules. I believe that I've
found one. And once all the bureaucratic shit has been
dealt with, I should be able to find a way of getting us
through that hole."

"Still sounds like a big risk."

"Oh, it is. It is. If it doesn't work, then we are fucked
like a Mexican whore. But...if it does work..." Julius
placed both of his hands on Malcolm's arms. "...then you
and I will be sitting pretty."

"Meaning, you will be sitting pretty. I'll be under your
control."

"Think of me as your manager. But it'll be a partnership.
You'll get what you want and I'll get what I want."

Malcolm hesitated before speaking again.

"Tell me...Mr. Grant...why should I pledge myself to you?
Why not my mom? Or A.C.?"

"Because they don't have my knowledge. They don't have my
skills. They don't have my killer instinct. I can rewrite
the Laws of Heaven for you, son. If you just give me the
chance..."

Malcolm nodded.

"I see you're interested."

"I am. There's just one problem..."

Malcolm pushed the old man's hands off him.

"You are a stinking, lying, evil old mammy-fucker with a
turd for a soul and an empty whiskey bottle for a
conscience. The devil himself wouldn't work a deal with you
and neither will I."

Julius slowly nodded. He went back to his desk and sat
casually down in his chair. "I thought you might say
something like that," he said, then threw his hands up into
the air. "Okay. If you want to handle this alone, that's up
to you."

"I will." Malcolm went to the chair and picked up his
guitar.

"Of course, that still leaves your ass in the gunsight.
And it's a mighty big gun pointed at you."

"It's my problem."

"Sure enough. And it will get bigger if you ever use your
powers again." Julius lifted an eyebrow. "Think you can do
avoid doing that?"

Malcolm stood still for a long time, watching the most
evil man in the world and wondering how he ever got to live
this long.

"By the way," Julius said. "using your powers to kill
somebody is a definite no-no. That would bring shit down on
your head like you were lying under an outhouse. I thought
that I would mention that..." The grin again. "...just in
case you were thinking about killing somebody."

Malcolm kept standing there.

Then he left the office.

Julius slapped his hand down on his desk. "Well, time for
Step Two."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Mulder had went down to the next floor, trying to pinpoint
where Scully landed. He found himself opening doors again,
getting more used to what he found.

Except for the guy who had slit open a dead pig and was
humping it. That he could have done without.

It turned out that the place he was looking for had its
door already open. In it, he found several broken bottles,
a torn bed, and a big college student on the floor. Mulder
noticed that the door had several dents on the inside and
the college student was nursing a bleeding forehead.

"Ooohh," the college student moaned.

"Excuse me," Mulder said. "but did you see..."

Mulder took another look around the room and said, "Never
mind. I'll just follow the trail of kicked groins."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A.C. saw Malcolm enter the come-painted room. His nephew
had an anxious look on his face as he quickly strode around
the perverts. He went right up to A.C. and the drummer as
they were playing.

"Let's get out of here," he said.

A.C. and the drummer saw that he meant NOW. The music
abruptly stopped. Malcolm started to help them break down
the equipment.

"Don't leave!"

A.C. turned to see a man dressed in a pink costume with
ceramic butterfly wings attached to his back. His
distressed face had glitter pasted to it and heavy eyeshadow.

"I want to hear more!" he whined.

A.C. looked at the man.

Then he placed a hand on the man's shoulder.

"Come on down to the Shithole anytime you want to, sir,"
he said solemnly. "The blues is for everybody, even for
faggot mammy-fuckers."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Scully! Scully!"

Mulder twisted and turned through the House of Solomon.
Not only couldn't he find Scully, but he had gotten himself
even more lost. He had gotten so lost that he ended up
going to the very top of the dome-shaped building.

There, he found a ladder leading up to a door in the
ceiling. Not knowing where else to go, he climbed the
ladder and lifted up the door.

The lighting was dim, but he could make out the flash of
red hair.

"Scully?"

"No," a female voice whispered to him.

"Sorry," he said and was about to descend back down when...

"Do you like the unusual?"

The question grabbed him. And not just the questions, but
the warm, low voice that spoke it.

"Do you like to face the unknown? Do you crave for the
mysterious and strange?"

His eyes were adjusting to the lack of light. He was able
to see a woman lying on a silk-covered couch.

"Well...now that you mention, yes. I mean, it's...it's my
job. Not that I'm..."

"Then come here."

"No, no, no. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not..."

The woman left the couch and took a few steps forward with
the grace of ballerina. "You don't have to do anything. I
merely ask that you look."

"Look at what?"

The woman said nothing.

Mulder's curiosity outdid his caution. He climbed up into
the attic and walked up to the woman. He saw that she was
extremely beautiful, her features in the classical shape of
Greek art. She wore a loose green dress.

"I have been given something that nature rarely allows. If
you look upon it, then you'll understand how mysterious and
strange our world is."

Mulder cleared his throat. "What...what were you given?"

The woman hitched up her skirt until its hem was hanging
above her waist. She waited for Mulder to make his move.

He stared at a face that gave away nothing. Then he bent
down and he looked. It was hard to tell what he was seeing
at first in the dark, but then it became clear.

She had...

Oh, sweet Jesus.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (Part 14 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The people in room forty were just having themselves an
orgy, minding their own business, tending to themselves,
peeing in each other's mouths when the door was kicked in.
Everyone became motionless with their hands around somebody
or in somebody. Their bodies were stretched in agonizing
poses as they waited for their intruder to speak.

The intruder was a short, red-haired woman with a trim
dark suit and a very angry expression. "All right," she
growled. "Unhook that strap, put down that can of baked
beans and listen up. And if anybody tries to proposition
me, seduce me or hold out any kind of battery-operated toy
in my direction, then I will take that person and ram one
of my heels up an orifice of my choosing. And if you take a
look at the size of my heels, then you know how painful
that will be. Now, I'm looking for a man named Agent Mulder
and I need to know where he is now."

"So do I," a voice said.

Scully turned and saw the last person in the world she
wanted to see.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Julius Grant left the House of Solomon through the back
exits (which, as Scully suspected, was two large bubble-
shaped doors.) He walked until he was far, far away from
the building. He could faintly hear the sound of Johnny
McDonald's Christian brigade. He nodded in satisfaction.

When there was enough distance, he stopped and turned. He
pulled out a black box that was as small as a pack of
cards. The box had a button in the center and an antenna
that he pulled out to full length.

He looked at the House of Solomon, his thumb hovering
uncertainly over the button.

"Seems like a waste of a perfectly good whorehouse," he
mused.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Hurry the fuck up, will you, A.C.?"

"Okay, okay, don't get your nuts all tied up, Malcolm,"
A.C. said as they carted their equipment down the
hallway, heading for the front door. "What are you so
worked up about?"

"I don't know," Malcolm said. "I don't know."

Then he suddenly stopped.

"What is it now?" A.C. snapped.

"Where's Mulder and Scully?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He couldn't believe...

He must be seeing something, it was too dark in...

No, they were real...

One, two, three...

"They all can pleasure you," the woman whispered. "They
all can bring you to the heights of ecstasy and deliver you
to uncharted lands of bliss. But you must choose wisely."

"Huh?"

"You must choose wisely."

Mulder blinked, then looked up. "What do you mean?"

"One of these is safe to enter."

"And...the other two?"

"One will leave you unable to perform for the rest of your
life. Your pleasure here will be your last. The same for
the third, only the danger is not impotence. It's death."

Mulder looked back down. "You're kidding," he said.

"No."

"Well, in that case..."

"Which do you choose?"

"I'm not going to...

"You don't want my pleasure and joy?"

"I don't want to die or have a defective cock for the rest
of my life, no."

The woman stepped forward. A heady smell took Mulder by
the nostrils and almost dragged him forward. He managed to
scurry back, pulling himself to the open door. The woman
followed after him, her three companions seemingly ahead of
her like a pack of dogs.

"True pleasure can only be known at the edge of the
abyss," the woman said. "Dance on the edge with me."

Mulder's thoughts were two-fold. (My God, this woman is a
freak in more ways than one and...gee, what would it really
be like to...?) His inner debate manifested itself in a
penis that rose and fell like a bouncing tennis ball.

"Come to me, my man of secrets. Come to me and you shall
know what is hidden in..."

"AHHHH!"

Mulder's last comment was the result of him suddenly
feeling the absence of a floor under him. He fell through
the attic door. His hands reached out for anything and
caught the ladder. He slid backwards, the wood hot and
stinging under his hands. He kept his head up and took the
painful landing on his shoulders. There he laid, upside
down with his body propped up against the ladder.

"Very well," the woman whispered above him. "Some other
time, brave wanderer."

The attic door closed.

Mulder almost sighed with relief when he realized that he
wasn't alone. He turned his head and saw Dana Scully with a
man. A big, bald-headed man with glasses and a dark
business suit.

Oh, sweet Jesus, again.

"Agent Mulder," Assistant Director Walter Skinner said.
"what the hell are you doing?"

Maybe he could have said something. Maybe a rushed
explanation or a quip about doing yoga exercises. Or maybe
he could have said, "And just what are YOU doing here,
sir?" Or maybe he could have just sat upside-down and let
Scully try to explain everything.

He never got a chance to try any of those options because
then the House of Solomon blew up.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Ah, what the hell," Julius said and pressed the button.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Malcolm, could you settle down and explain what's going
on?" A.C. said.

"I told you, goddammit," Malcolm shot back. "I don't know.
I just got the feeling that we should find Mulder and
Scully and..."

First, they heard the sound, a roar under their feet that
they had a second to listen to before everything else
happened.

Then the floor burst open and fire charged upwards like
the devil's spear. The walls snapped apart. The ceiling fell.

Malcolm had to make a decision within one heartbeat, one
tiny drop of time in which to think about all the people in
the House of Solomon. They were degenerates and freaks to
be sure, but did they deserve this? And what about Mulder
and Scully? Or his uncle? Or the drummer? Should those
lives be ended simply because they were in the wrong place
at the wrong time?

Could he stand by and watch this happen?

A voice shouted warnings in his ear, told him not to do
anything, cautioned that he was tampering with forces that
man should never control.

And Malcolm Burnside, Jr. said, "Fuck it."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

As if a great mouth below them was blowing and inhaling,
the occupants of the House of Solomon first went up, then
were sucked down. They were pushed skywards on a great wave
of heat before they began to fall. As they tumbled into a
pool of fire and stone, the certainty of their deaths was
as blunt and sudden as a thunderclap. One moment, you're
fucking your brains out. The next, you're dead. Ain't that
a pisser?

Mulder, Scully and Skinner found themselves being
unrealistic as the floor opened up and the walls slammed
down upon them. They had faced death so many times before
that they had become accustomed to looking for a way of
avoiding that cloaked bastard and his scythe. However, they
realized that this was the real deal. They were caught
between fire and an collapsing building. They would be
cooked, then crushed.

This time, they were actually going to die.

But only for a moment.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Johnny and his crew were doing a number from "Godspell."
Sally and Spiegelman were seriously considering using their
truncheons when it happened.

Cars hopped off the ground and cracked themselves as they
landed. There was not one person who was able to stay on
his feet. Every face felt the heat. They all watched in
horror as the House of Solomon tore itself apart into a
pile of wood and rock and glass. A red light covered the
whole valley. No other sound could enter their ears except
the explosion's thunder.

Debris launched itself in all directions, smashing into
cars and imbedding itself into the ground. Spiegelman
rolled himself up into a ball, knowing there was no safe
place to avoid the deadly rain. Luckily, he felt nothing.
(What he didn't know was that he had been struck several
times as were a lot of other people.)

When the last bits of debris hit the ground and when the
echo of the explosion faded away, Spiegelman looked up. He
tenderly stood himself up and stared at the wreckage. So
did Sally, Johnny and everybody else, their eyes watering
from the drifting smoke. The fire had dissipated into a few
small flames.

Then they saw movement---an arm stretching out from under
a pile of stone. Spiegelman went into official mode and
yelled out, "Sally, get a rescue team! The rest of you..."

He was rushing towards the wreckage when he abruptly
stopped. He saw the arm pull out its owner from the
rubble. A man dressed in a diaper stood up and looked out
at the world with a dazed expression. He was dirty and his
diaper was burnt, but he looked just fine.

Then others appeared, pushing aside the mess around them
and rising from the dust. Their clothes were filthy and
singed (if there were wearing clothes), but otherwise they
were okay. Their soot-covered features were completely
bewildered.

Every person who had been in that explosion walked away
from it. Spiegelman saw Malcolm among them, looking a lot
less dazed than everybody else. He rushed towards him.

"Malcolm...are...are you..."

"I'm fine, Chief."

"That's my line," a female voice said. Spiegelman saw
Scully step through the wreckage. Her partner and her boss
were with her. Like Spiegelman, Skinner was looking around
him in disbelief. Scully appeared tense, but seemed less
shocked. As for Mulder, he was a bizarre picture of cool,
unhurriedly brushing off his coat.

"What in the name of fucking God happened?" Spiegelman
cried out.

"I think Malcolm knows," Mulder said. "Isn't that right?"

Before Malcolm could say anything, Johnny McDonald shouted
out---

"ANOTHER MIRACLE! I TOLD YOU THAT I SAW ONE BEFORE! NOW
YOU HAVE SEEN ONE YOURSELF! GOD SHOWED YOU HIS POWER
TONIGHT! ONLY GOD COULD HAVE DONE..."

Johnny stopped himself. His eyes widened. "Only I could
have done it," he whispered. Then he held up his arms and
shouted in an even louder voice. "THE POWER OF THE LORD
FLOWS THROUGH ME! I AM HIS CHOSEN ONE! HE HAS SET ME UP SO
THAT I MIGHT BECOME THE TRUE LEADER OF..."

Malcolm walked over to Johnny and knocked him unconscious.

From his faraway position, Julius grinned and said, "Now
that's just peachy."

Further away, a man in a dark suit and a bowler hat was
jumping up and down, stomping his feet in frustration.

"He did it again!" he yelled. "He...did...it...again!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (15 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Fred Udell wanted two things out of life -- the supremacy
of the white race and a properly working colon.

When Julius Grant had convinced him that Malcolm Burnside,
Jr. was the holder of a great power and that they could
manipulate that power, he had forseen at least one of his
dreams coming true.

So far, he had only received humiliation and a broken
nose. And now it looked like he was going to lose the one
thing that he could call his own -- the Final, Mississippi
chapter of the KKK. All because of Julius Grant and this
slick asshole who had just come to town.

Final's small chapter of the KKK first met Lyndon Owens at
Udell's house. And in that very house and before Udell's
very eyes, Owens was snatching control over his crew.

Lyndon Owens looked like the kind of guy who was used to
taking control and he did it with a big shit-eating smile
on his face. He looked like a cross between a prom king and
an insurance salesman -- a tall, handsome wad of self-
confidence in a three-piece suit.

He was also from...Ohio.

"I'm very pleased to meet you all ," he said to Udell,
Maggie, Nathaniel and Ed. "It's wonderful to meet members
of the Klan, particularly in the South. The noblest
traditions of the Klan extend to the area below the Mason-
Dixon line."

Motherfucking Yankee, Udell thought.

"Oh, yeah, a lot of noble traditions," Maggie sneered
which was the prelude to a long speech about the history of
sexism. For once, Udell was glad to hear it and was looking
forward to hearing it directed at someone else. Before she
could start up, Owens said---

"I'm also very pleased to see a woman amongst you. The
Klan has not had the best track record in acknowledging the
efforts of white women. I hope to change that one day."
Owens gave her a brilliant smile and Maggie...Maggie
actually blushed. "Th-thank you," she stammered.

Udell rolled his eyes. For chrissake, Maggie, I can almost
hear your panties getting wet.

"And you must be Nathan," Owens continued. "Excuse me,
Nathaniel. I hear that you are a highly intelligent young
man."

"I'm only one foot soldier in the army of science,"
Nathaniel replied solemnly.

"Marvelous."

Marvelous? Did this faggot actually say 'marvelous?'

"And you have to be Ed. The muscle of the group."

Ed grunted. It was an amibiguous noise, but since Ed
wasn't ripping off Owens' head, then it could be assumed
that he didn't mind the man from Ohio.

"And you...must be Fred Udell."

"Dab's wight."

Owens' smile faltered a little. "Julius Grant told me a
lot about you."

Udell only nodded, his eyes seething on both sides of his
bandaged, cotton-stuffed nose.

"So," Owens said, clapping his hands together in a 'let's-
get-down-to-business' gesture. "I hear the niggers are
stirring up trouble again."

"Wut hab you heab?"

"Only that there's a lot of nonsense about the Klan
shooting up a nigger bar, but it didn't even happen.
Correct?"

Now, it was obvious that Owens hadn't been told about
Malcolm, Jr. And nobody in that room decided to inform him.
Each had their separate reasons.

Nathaniel didn't mention it because he wouldn't make any
assertion without scientific proof. Maggie was silent about
it because she didn't want Owens to think that she was a nut.

Udell kept it under his hat because he just enjoyed
knowing something Owens didn't know.

And Ed...he just didn't give a flying shit. He was just
waiting for the moment when he could start breaking bones.

So Udell said, "Yeah, batz abowt it."

Owens clucked his tongue. "Typical. Sooner or later,
they'll use this as an excuse to crack down on good white
Americans. Well, don't worry about it. I'm mobilizing
various chapters to come down here and..."

"Hod on a futting mimut..."

"Fred?"

"Batz Mizter Udell to you, buddy. I dob care if you are
Gwand High Dwagon of the whole futting worb. I'm in charz
here. Gob me?"

"You're perfectly clear," Owens calmly replied. "So what
do you wish to be done?"

Udell opened his mouth, then closed it. He opened it
again, then closed it again.

When he opened it for the third time, he managed to say,
"Yeah, shure. Bwing dem here."

"Very well. If that's what you want, Mister Udell. I'll
get on the horn and..."

The pain felt like a hammer had struck his spleen. Udell
rushed to the bathroom, taking note of the amused
expression on the face of Lyndon Owens. All the time he was
on the toilet, Udell imagined that face below his butt.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Well, hello again!" Julius Grant called out. "And I see
you brought a friend with you."

"I'm Assistant Director Walter Skinner," the bald-headed
man said, trying his best not to look at the elephant.
Julius Grant was in the backyard of the Conspicious
Consumer. Of course, his backyard was larger than many
shopping malls. Grant was tossing peanuts into an enormous
pit where Stonewall was being kept. The pit came equipped
with soft grass for eating and a pond for drinking. It also
had a extendable ramp that Stonewall could use to get out
of the pit. Currently, the ramp was pulled out of his reach
much to the relief of the three FBI agents.

"Assistant Director? That's anything like being the
manager of a Wal-Mart?"

Skinner looked briefly at Julius's skeleton grin and said,
"I'm the one that Agents Mulder and Scully report to. Right
now, we would all like a talk with you."

"What about?"

"Well, for starters, your brothel. The one that exploded
last night."

"My brothel? I don't own no brothel."

"Sir," Scully said. "not only do you own it, but Agent
Mulder and I saw you..."

"I don't know where you thought you saw me, little lady,
but I wasn't in no whorehouse. I was with some very
distinguished gentlemen and ladies who are well-placed in
both government and business. All of them will tell you
that we were having a quiet soiree in which we discussed
the great issues of today over chips and little cocktail
weiners."

And what do you want to bet those same distinguished
individuals were at the House of Solomon last night? Okay.
Fine...

"Still," Mulder said, "it might interest you to know that
someone blew up a very interesting brothel last night."

"Any suspects?"

"We think that it might be the owner. The explosives were
too well-placed. It had to be someone who knew the building."

"Now, why would any fool blow up his own whorehouse?
Sounds like it was really done by some crazed religious
fanatic. Were any of them around last night?"

The FBI agents said nothing.

"'Cause if they were, then I would start looking into them.
If you were to investigate their leader, I'm sure you'll
find things like...oh, I don't know...wire and mortar in
his bedroom or something."

"We'll consider that," Scully said in a dry tone. "Of
course, we'll be keeping a close eye on anybody who appears
suspicous."

"Well, you do that, ma'am. Just make sure that you don't
get into too much trouble."

Julius felt someone step close to him. He turned and saw
Skinner's face close to his. Skinner wasn't smiling. His
expression was as far from a smile as it could be.

"I was in that building last night," Skinner said. "That
was enough trouble for me. I don't know how is it I'm
alive, but I do know that if I ever...ever find the man who
planted that bomb, I will beat thirty-six different flavors
of shit out of him. He won't be safe even if he crawls back
into the same putrid womb that spawned his miserable ass. I
will find this murderous, soulless, stinking elephant-
fucker and make him pay with his blood. Understand me?"

Julius slowly nodded. Then Skinner said, "Come on,
agents." He walked away. Mulder smiled and shrugged at
Julius, then left with his partner.

"Hmm," Julius said.

Stonewall let out a horn-like bellow.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Mulder drove the rental car with Skinner in the front
passenger seat and Scully riding in the back. They had been
riding in silence for a long time.

Finally, Skinner said, "All right. How is it that we're
alive? And why do I know Mulder is going to give me some
wild-ass explanation?"

"Well, if you don't want to hear it..." Mulder said.

"Start talking."

So Mulder talked. After he was done, there was another
lengthy and heavy period of silence.

Then Skinner turned to Scully and said, "You think this is
true? About Malcolm?"

"Sir, it's hard to quantify such an improbable theory
without data that is..."

Scully closed her eyes and pinched her nose. Then she
opened her eyes and said, "Fuck it. Yes, sir, I think it's
true."

Skinner let out a sigh as long as the Grand Canyon. "You
two...the shit that you find..." He threw his hands up in
the air and said, "Okay, it's true. And Julius knows it's
true. Why is he trying to kill everybody around Malcolm?"

"He's forcing him to use his powers," Mulder said.
"Putting him into situations where he feels compelled to
restore life."

"Which he did for us last night."

"For us and a lot of other people."

"I still don't get it. What's the point?"

"Maybe Malcolm knows. I think he owes us a few answers."

"Goddammit, Agent Mulder, if you're right, then we're the
ones who owe him."

Silence.

This time, Scully broke it.

"There's another question that needs to be answered."

"What?" Skinner said.

"Why did you come here in the first place, sir?"

Skinner looked at Scully, then at Mulder. Then he reached
into his jacket and pulled out a tape.

"I came to work last morning and found this message on my
machine."

He put the tape in the car's player. A slurry voice came
out of the speakers.

"Skinnnnerr! Skinner, man, Walter...you oughtta come down
here, man, they've got something...oh, wow...they've got
a drink that will put hair back on your head, man...try
it out...I love you, big guy, I want you to loosen up a
little, come on down..."

Skinner ejected the tape from the player. If Mulder could
have, he would have popped himself out of the car as
easily, then find the deepest, darkest hole to hide in.

"Sir, I..."

"I'm going to keep this tape," Skinner said. "Just as I'm
going to keep...this one."

He pulled out another tape. "Mr. Burnside gave it to me.
He said that it might amuse me. It did."

He inserted the tape.

"Is this thing on?" a female voice muttered. "Is this
fucking thing on?"

The woman was assured that it was.

"Allll rrrrigght. Give me a beat."

A rhythm was played on a guitar. There was muffled giggles
in the background as the woman began to sing completely
without tone.

"Your love is like trying to light a fire with a wet
match...you can't even get a spark like that..."

Scully held her face in her hands.

"I'm going to hold onto these tightly," Skinner told them.
"And whenever you get out of line, I'm going to play them
to as many people as possible. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir," Mulder and Scully said.

"Outstanding."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Nadine Burnside was reading her Bible when a voice called
out to her. She looked out her treehouse window, then
rolled down her ladder. Mulder, Scully and Skinner came
climbing up. They found her and her son in the treehouse.
Malcolm was sitting in the corner, a brooding expression on
his face.

"Malcolm?" Mulder said.

He made no response.

"Malcolm, there's no point in hiding anything. We know
what you are. We know what you can do. What he have to know
now is what Julius Grant wants with you."

Malcolm turned his face away.

"We might be able to help you."

Malcolm sighed. "Think so?"

"We won't know until you tell us everything."

"Okay. Okay, I will."

Malcolm replayed his conversation with Julius Grant. After
he was done, he said, "So, what do you think?"

"Does Julius really think he can pull this off?" Mulder
said, stunned.

"He wants to try. And he doesn't back down from an
opportunity for power."

"But who is the 'other side?'" Scully said. "Who doesn't
want you to use..."

She stopped herself, then she whispered, "God?"

"No," Nadine said. "Not God. Or the Devil. Something else."

Mulder cleared his throat and said in a trembling voice,
"It's Death. Death itself views you as a threat."

Malcolm smiled a little. "If I go around raising people
from the dead...well, that kind of screws up his job."

Skinner held up a hand and said, "Let me be clear about
this. You have the power to raise the dead."

"That's right," Malcolm said.

"But Death doesn't want you to do that."

"Of course."

"So, why doesn't he...it...why doesn't Death just wipe you
out?"

"Because," Malcolm said. "I might wipe him out instead."

The three FBI agents all found themselves inching back. "Y-
y-you could do that?" Mulder said.

Malcolm shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. But I've got no need
to do it. So Death and I just leave each other alone."

"You mean...up until now."

Malcolm closed his eyes and lowered his head. "All these
people...all of them were dead. I just couldn't...I just
couldn't..."

Nadine touched her son on the back of his neck. "If my son
uses his power one more time...then Death will come for
him," she said, then looked at the agents. "You can be sure
that Julius Grant is plotting another situation that will
force my son's hand."

"I'm not giving in to that asshole," Malcolm muttered. "No
matter what happens, I'm not going to join up with him."

"We need your help," Nadine said. "You have to stop Grant
from whatever he's planning."

"We'll do that," Skinner affirmed in a blunt tone. "As the
town preacher, maybe you can use your influence to..."

"No," Nadine said, smiling sadly. "I'm no longer the town
preacher. It appears that Johnny McDonald has supplanted me."

"That little turd?" Scully said, amazed.

"It was going to happen, sooner or later. If not Johnny,
then someone else. It doesn't matter. Stop Julius Grant. If
he succeeds, then a lot of people will die."

"At the very least," Mulder said.

Nadine looked at Malcolm and gently rubbed his neck. He kept
his head down.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (16 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

As Lyndon Owens called up various chapters of the Klan,
Nathaniel made his own phone call.

"Mr. Grant, it's me."

"Hey, there, son! Sounds like you're using the cellular
phone I got you!"

"Yes, I am, sir. Thank you very much for it."

"Where are you now?"

"I'm in the backyard of Fred Udell's house. The whole
Final chapter of the Klan is here. So is Lyndon Owens."

"Oh, yeah. Slick as shit, ain't he?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I made a sizable money contribution to him once so
he should do what I expect him to do."

"You didn't tell him about Malcolm Burnside."

"No. No, I didn't. Think I should?"

"I would advise against it."

"That's what I thought. Son, our minds just run together
like two horny rabbits."

"I would advise against it because we have no real
scientific proof for this claim. I believe it's real, but I
would like some solid evidence."

For a few moments, Nathaniel only heard the slight wheeze
of Julius's breathing.

"Sir?"

"I'm here." There was another pause. "Nathaniel...I
think I know how you can get some proof."

"How so?"

"You see, I had this little plan that would get things
really rolling. And I think that I can fit you in very
nicely into it."

"I'm listening, sir."

Julius explained it all to him.

"So, what do you think, Nathaniel? Sounds good?"

Nathaniel slowly nodded and a little smile pulled at his
lips. "Yes, sir. It sounds quite good."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They came to Final.

They were from the South, mostly -- states like Alabama
and Arkansas and Tennessee. A few flocked in from the
Midwest and from Owens's own home state of Ohio. Some of
them worked on car assembly lines and road construction
crews. Some of them were mailmen and file clerks. Others
owned their own business. They ranged in age from 19 to 60.

They all had guns.

The black people of Final knew that they were coming. They
had relatives and friends in other places who kept them
informed of the Klan's movements. Mulder, Scully and
Skinner knew about it from sources that watched the white-
hooded men for signs of anything big.

All told, there was at least hundred of them coming.

Everybody knew that it would only take one little incident
to make it blow.

They waited.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Two days passed.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

And then it happened.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Skinner had spent the past two days trying to get the
National Guard down to Final. He had explained that the
potential for a slaughter was enormous. That the Klan were
on the march. That Final might make Rosewood look like an
episode of "Teletubbies."

In reply, he was told that the request was meeting with
much resistance in the Mississippi government. As one
official put it, "we object strongly to federal
intervention in the concerns of our small communities. The
good people of Mississippi are a proud, independent people
who don't need a truckload of bureaucrats poking their
noses into their concerns."

In other words, the web of Julius Grant reached wide. That
official had probably visited the House of Solomon once or
twice himself.

That meant that the black people of Final were alone.

That meant that there was nothing between them and a
heavily armed lynch mob.

Except for two FBI agents and their assistant director.

Well, ain't that a pip?

Still, Skinner kept trying. Then he got a call from Agent
Mulder.

"It's happened."

Skinner closed his eyes for a moment, then said, "Who was
involved?"

"Who else? A.C. Burnside."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Actually, Mulder was wrong. It wasn't A.C. who was
involved in the trigger incident. It was his sister.

The set-up:

Zola Burnside, walking down the street with a bag of
groceries. Two shithead crackers in a pickup truck on the
same street, both of them from Alabama and here for the KKK
gathering.

How it started:

The truck pulls up alongside Zola, crawling at low speed
to match her pace. The driver rolls down the window and
calls out, "My dick is bigger than any nigger's! You can
suck it anytime you want to!" His passenger giggles at his
witticism.

Zola's reaction:

With alarming speed, she pulls out a can of peas from her
bag and throws it. Before the driver can duck, he feels the
can crack against his head. Then he feels warm blood
sliding down his cheek and the sensation that his brain is
spinning inside his skull. His foot slams on the brake so
he could hold his head and groan.

The passenger's reaction:

As the truck stops, the other Klan members jumps out so he
can go beat a few lessons into that nigger woman. Instead
of running away, Zola jumps towards the truck, tossing
aside her bag of groceries. She reaches inside the cab and
past the head of the moaning driver. By the time the
truck's passenger is within reaching distance of her, she
has pulled out their shotgun from their gun rack.

And pointed it at the other's man head.

"All right," she says. "Now I want to see you two suck the
other's dick."

Both men are shocked by the realization that she means it.
She is determined to make them give each other a blow job
in broad daylight on this street. Luckily, for them, a
couple of the locals who witness all this run up to her and
encourage her to take off. They do this not out of pity for
the two men, but because they're worried that the rest of
the Klan might show up. She leaves, but not before shooting
out a couple of tires on the truck.

Anyway, that's how it went. Mulder, Scully and Skinner
heard the story after they arrived at the house of A.C.
Burnside. Ben Hedge was there as well.

"What the fuck were you thinking?" he yelled at her. "I
expect this kind of bullshit out of A.C., but not from you!"

"What the fuck does that mean?" A.C. growled.

"It fucking means what it fucking means!" Ben shot back.
"That's what it fucking means! This whole fucking family
is not satisfied until it completely fucks up the fucking
situation!"

"Well, fuck you!"

"No, fuck you!"

"I've counted ten 'fucks' and one 'bullshit,'" Mulder
observed. "That's got to be a R-rating at least."

"Fuck you, FBI!" A.C. and Ben both said.

"Those assholes had it coming," Zola said quietly.

"Maybe," Ben said. "But thanks to you, the Klan now has
their fucking excuse. They're going to be riding on us
tonight. Did you think of that?"

Zola slowly looked down to the floor.

"If it hadn't been her, it would have been somebody else,"
Scully said.

"But it wasn't somebody else, was it?" Ben said. He threw
his hands up in the air. "That's it. I've had enough. I've
had enough of this whole goddamned town."

"Now, wait a shit-lickin' minute," A.C. said. "What are
you so worried about? Malcolm is going to protect us, just
like he did before."

Carefully, Mulder said, "I don't think you can depend on
Malcolm now."

A.C. stared at Mulder.

"It's hard to explain," Mulder said. "but if he uses his
powers again, then things might get worse."

"Well, fuck that in the nose," A.C. said in a low voice.

Ben smiled bitterly. "I knew it. So much for all that
mystic shit." He looked at Sally. "You're going to stay
here?"

She looked at Ben and said, "Figure I'm needed right now.
So are you."

Ben shook his head, then left the house. They heard a car
start up and then drive away.

After a moment's pause, Scully said to Skinner, "Any word
from D.C., sir?"

"No. Those scumfucks are still giving me the runaround."

"So, all us black folk are alone with this, aren't we?"
Zola said.

"Yes, ma'am. Looks like it."

Zola stood up straight. "That's pretty much the way it's
always been, hasn't it?"

Skinner turned to Mulder and Scully. He asked a silent
question and got a silent response. He turned back to the
Burnsides.

"You're not completely alone," he told them.

A smile was seen on the face of A.C. Not a big one, but it
was there. "Well, ain't you three a trio of noble mammy-
fuckers? You do know that this is going to be down and
dirty."

"We do," Mulder said. "We should also keep in mind what
this is really all about."

"What's that?"

Mulder explained everything. About Malcolm, about Grant's
plans for him, about the consequences of any attempts by
Malcolm to use his powers.

When he was done, Zola covered her face, looking ready to
cry. "Mammy...fucker," A.C. whispered. "That boy is under a
heavier load than I thought."

"That's why we have make sure one specific person doesn't
get hurt in this whole mess."

"Who?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Down below her treehouse, Nadine Burnside was washing her
clothes. She could hear Malcolm playing his guitar. What
she couldn't hear was the man talking to him.

"I can understand how you feel."

Malcolm made no reply.

"I know that you feel constrained. You have this power to
make things right, but you can't use it. It's hard to
understand the larger picture. I..."

"If you tell me that you can feel my pain, I will knock
you out just like my daddy did."

The man in the bowler hat instinctively touched his nose.
He remembered too well the blow that Malcolm Burnside, Sr.
had given him, not to mention the shock and humiliation.
Before he had been assigned to Final, he had worked in
Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge had worked him like a dog. He
could barely keep with all the souls that he had to gather
and direct to their proper spiritual destination. In
contrast, Final looked like it would be a cakewalk.

He still didn't know how Malcolm, Sr. had did it. There
had been mortals who had resisted before, but he had the
power of an inevitability on his side.

Perhaps, it was because Malcolm, Sr. didn't want life. He
just wanted to spend a hour with the woman he loved.

In any case, Final was no longer a leisurely assignment,
but the location of a situation so dangerous that it could
rock the foundation of the afterlife. And it was his
responsibility.

But maybe not for long.

"No one really knows how powerful you are," he told Malcolm.

Malcolm stopped playing.

"Maybe you could defeat Death itself in combat. But what
then?"

Malcolm smiled.

A very cold smile.

"Well, it might mean that I would be the new king of the
hill, wouldn't it?"

"It could," the man said carefully. "Of course, another
thing that could happen is that you two cancel each other
out. Where does that leave the universe then? Could reality
survive..."

"Look...I will do whatever I think needs doing. Your boss
can do whatever he thinks needs doing."

The man sighed. "Oh, he will, Malcolm. He will."

The man vanished, leaving Malcolm sitting there quietly
for awhile.

Then he heard his mother. "Malcolm, are you all right up
there?"

He didn't speak. He just started up the music again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (Part 17 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It rained hard that night. When it hit the ground, it
sounded like God's frying pan. Flashlights and headlights
could only cut the slightest range of vision through it.
The best illumination came from the lightning that gave
brief white moments of clarity, followed by thunder that
either snapped loudly or echoed over the skies in a long
continuous dirge.

In that rain, men (and one woman) in white robes gathered
together. They slowly headed in their cars and pickup
trucks to the train tracks. Guns were held in every hand,
sticking out like thorns.

They were expected.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Meyer Spiegelman once asked his mother why did the family
live in Final, Mississippi.

"Because we're not smart like those northern Jews," she
wearily replied.

The Spiegelmans had looked like your standard white trash.
Mr. Spiegelman drove a hour everyday to work at a loud,
smelly slaughterhouse and then drove back home to drink
beer. Mrs. Spiegelman cooked, cleaned and mended with a
constant look of depression which only became hopeful when
the tv announcer began to call out tonight's lotto numbers.
Meyer had achieved a bit of success by becoming captain of
a moderately good football team, but his grades had been
nothing special. After high school, he was destined to
become a worker at the same slaughterhouse his dad worked
at. All these details could have blended them into the
background of Final.

But they were still Jewish.

How they came to be living in Final was the result of a
long and complicated family history that Meyer had
forgotten. All he knew was that grade school had been
hell. It had started out as mere incomprehension. ("Huh?
You don't get Christmas presents?") Then it had escalated
from bad jokes to insults to violent hostility. The
school officials hadn't been worth a mule turd in the
matter. In fact, the principal had told Meyer, "You
people tend to be too sensitive about a few jokes."
(Years later, the same principal reported the theft of
his television set to the police. "Ah, don't worry about
it," Chief Spiegelman told him with a smile. "You people
are too sensitive about getting robbed.") Without Sally's
help, Meyer would have ended up a basket case before
middle school, if not seriously injured.

Those young experiences taught Spiegelman that he had to
be harder than the town of Final. He was determined to be
the Number One Man Not To Be Fucked With. He got to be so
tough that making him the high school football captain
seemed only right. Then, he dropped every Christian jaw
when he became the boyfriend of the most beautiful teenage
girl in Final -- the town preacher's own daughter.

Yep, the preacher's daughter.

The one who wouldn't have sex with him, no matter how much
he sweet-talked or begged. "I'm saving myself for
marriage," she calmly told him.

It's not like that he needed the sex. He had already slept
with several local girls who wanted to get the exotic taste
of his circumcised dick. It was just that...

Just that...

Ah, hell, he had fallen in love with her.

I mean, what was surprising about that? She was a fucking
angel. He didn't even really need sex with her. He would
have been content if she would always be at his side for
everybody could see.

Then she dumped him. She did it in a way that it almost
didn't feel like a dump, but that's what it was.

"Your life demands a strength that I can't give you," she
explained. "You need a woman who can hold her own."

He wanted to say that she was strong as well, strong of
heart and strong of character. Instead, he said in a
spiteful voice, "Oh, can you point me out in her direction?"

She looked at him and said, "She might be closer than you
think, Meyer."

He had no idea what she was talking about. And while he
had accepted their "just-friends" status, he would still
look at Nadine and wish for more. Not that he begrudged her
getting married to Malcolm, Sr. Malcolm was the best man in
all of Final. "If you're ever in trouble, let me know,"
Malcolm once told Spiegelman. "I'll help you out." There
was no doubt that he meant it. So, why shouldn't the two
best souls in this miserable little town get married?
(Still, when he had seen them walk out of the church into
a shower of rice...)

Spiegelman would never forget standing alone outside the
church after Bob had done his work. They had taken
everybody away -- the wounded Nadine, the dead Malcolm and
Bob Hoag who had been beaten so badly that he would be
dead himself before the day was out. Sally wanted to stay
with him, but there was nothing else Spiegelman wanted
besides solitude.

He looked down at the rice and blood on the steps. At the
age of twenty, he resolved never to have something like
this happen in Final again. He resolved that Nadine would
never be harmed again.

When he told his father of his plans, Mr. Spiegelman had
told him, "Boy, this town ain't ever gonna accept a Jewish
police chief." Meyer ignored the advice and quit the
slaughterhouse. He literally forced his way onto the police
force and used the same tenacity to get the job of chief.
Within ten years, he was in charge. People had come to
accept his rise. With a tough guy like Meyer Spiegelman,
what else would you expect him to become?

Spiegelman was now officially the toughest man in Final.
His best friend was now his best officer. And Nadine
Burnside was always within his sight.

Now, look at the situation. You have a hundred armed Klan
fuckheads heading straight into your town. You've been told
that the woman you love is being targeted by the most evil
man in the world. On top of all that, you just witnessed
what could only be described as a miracle which would be
nice if this particular miracle didn't seem to make the
situation even more of a mess.

Great job, Chief.

In his office, Spiegelman and Sally Ash were loading up
their guns. To nobody's surprise, Spiegelman's other two
patrolmen had vanished. For all Spiegelman knew, they had
joined up the Klan. Of course, if that meant getting a
chance to shoot their goddamned heads off, that was all
right with him.

"Ready?" Spiegelman asked.

Sally took a breath and nodded.

"This is going to be rough, Sally. As rough as it gets."

She touched him on the arm, an intimate gesture that
surprised Spiegelman.

"Just as long as you're there beside me," she said.

"Um...well...I don't actually need you at the front lines."

She blinked. "Where, then? You're going to need all the..."

"Someone has to guard Nadine."

She yanked back her hand. "What?"

"I've been told that Julius Grant is going after Nadine. I
don't know why. Hell, I'm still trying to figure what
happened at the House of Solomon. But I still..."

"Fuck that."

Spiegelman's face turned into a blank, cold contrast to
Sally's hot eyes.

"The black people of Final are the targets, not Nadine
Burnside," she said. "We are not going to waste time and
ammo trying to protect one single person."

Spiegelman stayed quiet for many heartbeats.

Finally, he said in a voice so quiet that the loud rain
outside should have muffled it. Sally heard him clearly,
though.

"You guard Nadine Burnside. You do it because I'm the
fucking chief and you're under my fucking command and I
gave you a fucking order. And that's the totality of your
existence."

Spiegelman went straight out of the office and straight
out of the department building.

And there was Sally just standing there alone. She remained
still, rubbing her thumb on the handle of her gun.

Then she took a step towards the door.

She stopped. She looked at Spiegelman's desk.

The drawers were all locked, including the one that
Spiegelman would repeatedly glance at when he was taking
with Sally. She never let on, but she knew that Spiegelman
kept something very secret in there and it wasn't porno mags.

If there was ever a time to find out what was inside...

There was no trick to getting it opened. She knew how to
get past a lock with the best of them. She opened the
drawer and looked inside.

Very slowly, she took out an item. She stared at it as if
it was a deep dark hole.

When she left, she took it with her. She walked outside,
not noticing the rain.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They met at the center of town riding three vehicles---one
rental, one police car, one rusty pickup. They stepped out
into the rain and looked at each other.

"All present and accounted for," Mulder said.

"What's the word, A.C.?" Spiegelman asked.

"Everybody is hunkered down and ready," A.C. told him.

Lightning, then thunder.

"If any of you have an idea about how to get out of this,"
Skinner said. "speak up."

"Ain't no way out of it," Zola said.

Lightning.

Thunder.

"Well," Scully said. "let's..."

Then they heard a engine. All of them pulled out their
guns and rifles and held them in the direction of an
approaching motorcycle.

The rider of the motorcycle stopped in front of them. He
took off his helmet. They all lowered their weapons.

Ben Hedge looked everybody over, then shook his head.
"Damn all of you," he said.

Then they headed out, seven people total.

The rain continued to fall. It would rain for most of the
night.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (18 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Sound wakin' me up this mornin'
"Death bell ringin' in my ears..."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

All the lights were out in Final. People were peeking
around the edges of their windows. They kept their doors
locked and their guns loaded.

Some white people in Final had joined up in the march of
the Klan. Others just turned their backs out of bigotry or
cowardice and waited for the worse to be over.

The black people just waited.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Sound wakin' me up in the mornin'
"Death bell ringin' in my ears..."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Lyndon Owens was driving a Saturn. His car was at the head
of the Klan convoy. In the passenger seat next to him was
Maggie Morrison. When she wasn't listening to every word he
said, she was staring at his crotch.

"The way I see it," Lyndon explained. "the major cause of
friction between white men and white women is, in fact, the
black race. The white man is burdened by the reasonable
fear that white women could be sexually assaulted by the
black man and the white woman is reasonably afraid that the
white man is attracted to the jungle ways of every black
woman. That fear translates into sexism and suspicion. Do
you understand?"

"Oh, yes. Yes, I do."

In the pickup truck behind the Saturn, Udell could see the
worshipful looks that Maggie was giving Owens, even in the
darkness and rain. He fumed and fumed. Next to him, Ed
grunted.

"Wut wuz dat?"

Ed grunted again.

"Oh. Yeah, shure, Ed." Udell smiled. "Iz dethineetely time
to kick nibber az."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"It said that I gotta leave on a chariot.
"Wonder what kind of chariot gonna take me away from here?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Scully watched the old houses pass by as Mulder drove the
car. All the houses in town had been standing at least
since the beginning of the twentieth century. They were
being held up by nails and a prayer. There were no lights
and no one walking on the sidewalk. No cars except for
their own little convoy.

"I can't help feel we're alone on this," she said.

"It's an attack on this community, Agent Scully," Skinner
said. "Not us. I'm sure the people here will defend
themselves."

"I know, I know. It's just..." She pointed at the darkness
outside.

Skinner looked around him. "Yeah. I have the same feeling."

Mulder said nothing, concentrating on a road that he could
hardly see.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"My mother told me.
"My father told me, too."

The sound of Malcolm's singing was distant and faint
through the storm, yet Sally Ash was as aware of it as she
was aware of the thing she clutched tightly in her hand.
She turned her head to the treehouse, located on the other
side of Messenger Street. Through the slick windows of her
squad car, it appeared to be melting. She watched it from
her squad car for a long time.

"One day, that chariot is gonna come for you."

Finally, she got out of the car, slamming the door behind
her. The puddles shook under her boots as she marched to
the treehouse.

"NADINE!!"

A few moments later, the ladder unfurled itself. Sally
began to quickly climb it.

"And I wonder what kind of chariot is gonna take me from
here?
"You know the kind of life I've been living here,
people...
"For so many years."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They met at the train tracks. Those at the front of the
Klan convoy saw two cars, a pick-up truck and a motorcycle
parked in their way. Lyndon Owens braked his Saturn and
those behind him did likewise.

From the viewpoint of those in the way, they could see the
leader get out of his car and talk to someone in the pickup
behind him. He had other conversations with a couple more
drivers. Then he returned to his car. Four vehicles
detached themselves from the convoy while the rest waited
and watched.

The approaching Klan members stopped in front of the
tracks. Then they stepped out of their vehicles, all of
them carrying assault rifles and wearing their hoods and
robes. Their total was nine.

At least, right now, they've got us outnumbered only by
two, Mulder thought. That is, until all those people three
hundred feet away decide to join in.

He resisted looking around at the few rickety buildings
around him, trying to spot any other players for his team.

He also vaguely wondered if those white robes were
waterproof.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"They say the Good Lord forgive the black man for most
anything he'll do.
"They say the Good Lord forgive the black man for most
anything he'll do.
"Yeah, and I'm one of those kind of people.
"I wonder if he'll forgive me, too."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (19 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They watched each other from their separate side of the
tracks. Car headlights rendered them dark outlines to their
eyes. The rain coursed down their stern faces and white
hoods and dripped off the gun barrels.

A lightning burst gave them a brief full view of
everything. They could see that nobody was going anywhere
else.

Finally, one of the Klan stepped forward.

He spoke.

"Az leabber uv the Kwan Chapther im Finab, Mizzizzippi..."

"What?" Mulder said.

The man in the white hood cleared his throat and said, "Az
leabber uv the Kwan Chapther im Finab, Mizzizzippi..."

"Leader of the what?" Scully said.

"The Kwan Chapther!"

"Oh," Scully said and suddenly found herself smiling. "Go
ahead."

"Az leabber uv the Kwan Chapther im Finab, Mizzizzippi, I
speat for my white brozzers..."

"Wait a minute," A.C. called out, a smile rising to his
face as well. "Where did you say you were from again?"

The man took a breath and said, "Finab, Mizzizzippi. But I
speak for white pebble..."

"I'm sorry. Where again?"

"MIZZIZZIPPI!"

A laugh came out from Zola in the form of a snort. A.C.
had to clear his own throat to keep from laughing himself.
Ben gave them a warning look, but there was a smirk on his
face, too. Spiegelman had to kept telling himself that this
was a very serious situation.

Fred Udell gripped his rifle tightly. "Do not dare mot the
grat white raz. We are the supewior pebble of this worb..."

"Especially the ones from 'Mizzizzippi," Mulder said.

That did it. Zola and A.C. burst out laughing. So did the
Chief and Ben. Mulder and Scully chuckled. Even Skinner
had a little smile.

Fred Udell stomped his feet. "Stop laffing at me, you
bassards! I'b kill you! I'b kill evwey laz..."

One of the other Klan members placed a hand on Udell's
shoulder and whispered his ear. Udell shrugged the hand
off. The hand came back and this time it was not so gentle.
Udell was pulled back and the other Klan member stepped
forward.

"I am Lyndon Owens, representative of the Klan," he
declared in a honeyed voice. "We are here to seek justice."

"Oh, really?" Spiegelman said, still laughing.

"Yes," Owens said and he pointed at Zola. "We are here for
that woman."

The laughter stopped.

"If you want her, mammy-fucker," A.C. growled. "why don't
you come over here..."

Spiegelman held up a hand for silence. A.C. shut his
mouth, but glowered murderously.

"You're here for Zola, huh?" Spiegelman said.

"That's correct, sir."

"That's a lot of firepower you got back there for one
woman."

Owens shrugged. "We can't help it if the black race has
such violent tendencies. We need to protect ourselves from
their..."

"All right," Skinner said. "That's enough of that shit."

"And who might you be, sir?"

"I'm Assistant Director Skinner from the FBI. We all know
that this is all an excuse to wage terror on the people of
this town."

"Now, why would we do that?"

"Because it's the kind of thing you specialize in. It's
also because Julius Grant is paying you to do it."

"I'm not familiar with the gentleman. However, this is
really an attempt to avoid the main issue. We only came for
the woman who assaulted two of our members..."

"It don't matter if we hand her over or not," Ben shot
back. "You're still going to attack. So are you going to do
it or not?"

For a long time, the rain and thunder became the only
sound that you could hear.

Then Lyndon said, "Well, if that's..."

"You don't know what's really going on here, do you?"
Mulder called out.

The covered head of Owens turned to Mulder. "A bunch of
people facing each other with guns...I think that I can
figure out what's going on."

"I mean, why Julius Grant has set this all up?"

"Again, what Julius Grant wants is not..."

"Tell him, Scully."

For a moment, Scully wondered why he was tossing the ball
over to her. Then she realized that he was expecting her to
do the same thing to Owens that she had been doing to
Mulder for years -- put doubts in his head.

So, with her best "scientific rationalist" tone, she
explained what Julius Grant's motives were. Letting sarcasm
and irony touch every syllable in her speech, she told
Owens about Malcolm, Jr.

After she was done, Owens slowly turned his eyes to Udell.
"Is this true?" he said in a low voice. Udell gulped.

"I said, is this true?"

"Well...kind uv..."

Owens lowered his rifle and yanked the hood from his face.
His expression was angry and embarrassed. "I can't believe
it. I have organized all this shit..." He indicated the
convoy behind him. "...for some crazy old man's
superstition."

"You're going to be the laughingstock of the Klan," Mulder
said dryly. "Now, when even the Klan thinks you're stupid..."

"Wait, Lyndon!" This was a Klan member who turned out to
be female. "I know it sounds crazy, but if you would just..."

"Shut up, you bald-headed cunt," Owens snapped at her. You
didn't need to lift the hood to see the rage on Maggie
Morrison's face.

Owens sighed. "All right. All right."

The people on the other side of the tracks looked at each
other in wonder. Had this whole mess been averted after all?

Owens turned to his Saturn. "Let's head on..."

Then there was a sound heard through the thunder and
falling rain. Owens stopped and tried to identify it.
Everyone tried to figure what it was and where it was
coming from.

Finally, they figured it out.

It was the sound of a great crowd singing a hymn.

And that's when things got fucked up all over again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (20 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Malcolm watched the two women -- one beautiful, one
homely, one calm, one angry. He felt an unease about what
was going to be said in the next minute.

The rain fell and fell.

"What do you want to talk about, Sally?" Nadine asked.

"Do you know how the chief feels about you?" Sally's voice
was thick and bitter.

"Yes. I do."

"No, you don't. You have no idea about how he really,
really feels."

"What do you mean?"

Sally held something up into the light of a kerosene lamp.

Nadine stared at it.

Then she crawled to Sally on quivering legs. She reached
out for...

Sally closed her fist around it and shoved it back into
her pocket.

"Where did you find it?" Nadine whispered.

"In Meyer's desk."

"Is it...it is really..."

"'From Malcolm to Nadine with God's love.' That's the
inscription on it."

Nadine's head bent over. Malcolm sat in the corner and
watched her with a feeling of helplessness.

"You know," Sally said. "for years and years, I've been at
Meyer's side, just waiting for a moment when he might
indicate that he might love me the way he loved you. I just
wanted..." Sally cleared her throat. "I just wanted a bit
of hope. But he never stopped loving you, didn't you? And
that love is as sick as it can get. What do you think of
that?"

Nadine said nothing.

"Come on, Nadine. You're supposed to say something
comforting right now. You're the good little woman of
Final, Mississippi. Little Miss Virtue. Tell me that you
never wanted me to be hurt. Tell me that you never
encouraged Meyer to feel this way. Tell me that you hoped
that he would love me the way I loved him. Hell, it would
be the truth, wouldn't it?"

The rain ran back and forth over the roof. Lightning
flashed behind the curtain covering the window.

"Well? Ain't you gonna say anything?"

Nadine finally spoke.

"Yes."

She lifted her head and the rage in her eyes made the
policewoman flinch.

"Fuck off, Sally."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They came, eighty men and women in all. The rain soaked
the Bibles that they held against their raincoats and their
hymn was raised in defiance of the thunder. They strode
their way to the train tracks.

And Johnny McDonald was at the head of them.

"Johnny, what the fuck do you think you're doing?"
Spiegelman yelled.

"Bringing the light of the Lord to this dark situation! I
would suggest accepting Christ as your savior now, Mr.
Spiegelman!"

Skinner had to grab Spiegelman before he launched himself
onto the young apostle. The others tried their own attempts
at reason.

"People, this is a highly volatile situation!" Scully
called out. "Return to your homes immediately!"

"You don't know what you're doing!" Mulder screamed. "The
KKK have come for blood!"

"Get lost, you mammy-fuckers!" A.C. bellowed.

No good. The crowd made its stand right on the train
tracks. Mulder and Scully couldn't see past them, but they
could hear Owens's slow, careful voice.

"Who...are you people?"

Johnny made a motion for silence and the hymn immediately
stopped. He was in his element. It was undoubtedly the
biggest moment of his pubescent life.

"We are the army of God!" he called out. "We are here
today to turn back the forces of evil! Tremble in fear for
you are in the presence of Christ!"

"Oh, really? And just how are we going to stop us?"

"The Lord has chosen me. He has given me the power to
transcend death itself. I've seen this power work twice and
I know it's as strong and constant as the wind!"

"Johnny, stop!" Mulder yelled. "It's not you! It's
Malcolm, Jr.! He was the one who did it all! He was the one
who kept those people alive..."

"SILENCE, BLASPHEMER! Do not profane the Lord! He would
never grant his power to someone so unholy, someone who
would dare to lay a hand on his chosen warriors!"

"And that would be you," Owens said casually.

"If you don't believe me...then take a shot yourself."

Mulder, Scully, Skinner, Spiegelman and everybody else
heard that. They rushed into the crowd, trying to push
their way through, trying to reach Johnny in time.

Up front, Johnny had ripped out his shirt and was
displaying his pale, hairless chest to Owens. "None shall
harm me because I am with the Lord! None shall besmirch me
because I am with the Lord! None shall kill me because I
am..."

No one knew who fired the shot. Or why he did it. Perhaps
he did it just to shut Johnny up. Maybe he had been paid by
Julius to get the shit flying anyway he could. Maybe he
wanted to see if Johnny's claim was true. Or maybe he did
it for the same unfathomable reason that made him join the
Klan in the first place.

In any case, it happened just as Mulder and the rest had
squeezed halfway through the crowd. They could vaguely see
Johnny jump in the air and then land on his feet. Swaying
like a drunk man, he turned around with his hands still
pulling his shirt open. He had an uncomprehending look on
his face. His chest had been blown wide open. Flesh and
bones had been pushed aside, letting his heart beat its
last in the open air.

Now, when one shot is fired, you might as well fire a few
more, right?

That's what Owens, Udell, Maggie, Ed and the five other
Klan members decided to do. They raised their rifles at the
crowd...

"GET DOWN!" Skinner yelled.

...and shot and shot and shot.

Some people in the crowd did as Skinner commanded. Others
decided to run around screaming and others stood still out
of shock. Those on the ground felt the rain become warm and
heavy as chunks of meat and bone was spread over them along
with crosses and torn Bibles. Mulder and the rest were
doing their best to fire back but it was fucking hard to
get a bead with the rain and the people running everywhere.
Their viewpoint looked like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle
being shifted in a box -- a haze of dark lines and circles
with the frequent flash of red and white. Their ears were
filled with a stew of screams, gunfire, thunder and the
engines of the Klan convoy.

The rest of Owens' troops had taken this cue to move
forward.

A head was blown off its owner and it fell right next to
Mulder's eyes. He looked at it.

"This is hell," he muttered.

The head seemed to agree with him.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Malcolm had seen his mother get angry before. Never like
this, though. Never this ferocious and mean.

"Don't try to lay any of your shit on my doorstep, Sally!"
she roared. "Don't blame me because you don't have the
goddamned balls to tell Meyer you love him!" Now, she was
on her feet, waving her arms around. "I'm so fucking sick
of the way this town looks at me! Like I'm some kind of
perfection! At least, that's when they're not shooting off
one of my fingers or kicking me out of the very church that
I've served for years! I am...so...tired of everything ugly
in this town, everything that gets ignored until it
explodes in our face!"

She stopped pacing and glared at Sally. "You think that
you've got problems, Sally?" She pointed at Malcolm.
"Imagine having a son that is practically a god! A son who
could kill you with just a thought!"

"Mom..." Malcolm started.

"Shut up, son. Mother's ranting. And the point of this
rant is that I just don't give a damn about your little
problems, Sally. I don't care about you or Meyer or
anything else except my son. So you get out of my damn
house or I'll..."

From below the tree, there was this whooshing sound. A
round hard object arced through the window and landed on
the floor. It spewed a yellow gas that filled the whole
house in a few seconds. Malcolm, Nadine and Sally felt
their eyes water, then blur. A dizziness sent them falling
onto their faces.

Another object was fired at the treehouse -- a spike with
a long rope tied to the end of it. The spike imbedded
against the wall. The rope was connected to a gun that came
equipped with an ingenious little arrangement of motor and
pulleys. The person firing the gun pulled a switch and he
was hauled up to the treehouse.

He pushed aside the curtain and looked inside, a gas mask
over his face. Like everything else that he had brought
with him, the gas mask was constructed out of junk and
household appliances.

It's amazing what you can build in a basement.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (21 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"YEE-HAWWW!!! YEE-HAWWW!!!"

The sound of the Klan charge was getting louder and
louder. Mulder and the rest were still in the middle of
Johnny McDonald's panicked crowd. They had managed to get a
few shots in. Skinner had got Maggie Morrison in the leg
and Spiegelman had nailed a Klan member right in the belly.
However, they needed to get out within a few seconds or...

"ARRRGGHHH!!!"

Another battle cry was heard. Skinner looked behind him
and he saw them all coming -- a battalion of black people
in their faded coveralls and patched jeans, all of them
carrying guns, knives and clubs. Those up front were
running in the rain and the rest were riding behind in
their trucks. They were young people who hollered their
rage and they were old people with a cold fury in their eyes.

"ARRGGHHHH!!!"

Their scream met the cry of the Klan in the rain, striking
it head-on, proclaiming that now was not the time for
turning the cheek and forgiving the other seven times
seventy. It was time to kick ass.

Owens realized that he did not want to be in the middle of
this. Without so much as a cry of "retreat!", he ran off
the street and into the shadows of an alley. Udell and Ed
did likewise, leaving Maggie Morrison bleeding on the ground.

"You cocksuckers!" she screamed. "You assholes!
You...you...you men!"

"Let's pull out!" Skinner ordered.

Mulder couldn't have agreed more. He was about to run off
when someone jumped on top of him. He found himself face to
face with a Klan member. The man's hood had fallen off and
he could see wide eyes, gritted teeth and bulging veins.
This was the guy who had taken a bullet in the gut and the
pain had driven him into a crazed bloodlust. He had his
hands around Mulder's throat. The agent could fell dizzy
and numb all over his neck. What he couldn't feel was the
gun that had fallen out of his grasp. Nor could he reach
the gun in his ankle holster.

In situations like this, the hero can usually find a blunt
object to grab onto and then bop the enemy with it. Mulder
was no exception.

He reached out for the head that had fallen next to him.
He grasped it by the nostrils and cracked it across the
noggin of the Klansman. After pushing that guy off, he
quickly searched for Scully. He saw her under a pile of
bodies that included both dead and wounded. He pulled her
out of there.

"Let's go, Scully."

"Mulder, there are people hurt..."

"Let's GO, Scully."

The Klan and the black people of Final were closing in,
only fifty feet between them. Those in the middle were
dragging themselves away to the cover of their cars and
alleyways.

All except A.C.

He had taken a shot in the shoulder and it had ripped off
his right arm. He laid on the ground not with a look of
pain, but with a look of anger. He acted as if someone had
taken away his wallet and not shot off his arm.

"Those mammy-fuckers, gonna get them, gonna get all those
mammy-fuckers..."

Zola was kneeling over him, tears all over her face. "I'm
so sorry, A.C., I'm so sorry..."

Ben grabbed her by the shoulders. "Zola," he whispered.
"Let's go."

"No," she said. "I'm not..."

"Woman, get the fuck out of here!" A.C. yelled at her.

Zola left with Ben, her body trembling as she ran. A.C.
turned himself onto the stomach and began to crawl to his
truck.

The Klan and the black people met in Main Street.

The sound made thunder seem puny. The shots, the screams,
the shattering of windows, the wet plop of discarded flesh...

In the middle of this havoc, A.C. had managed to get to
his pick-up. He muttered to himself, "I may shoot you..."

He grabbed the door handle and yanked open the door. He
hauled himself up into the truck, blood smearing over the
seat.

"I may cut you..."

He sat up. His contorted face looked out the window.
Everywhere, people were being shot, stabbed, and beaten.

"I don't know..."

He turned the key.

"'Cause I'm mad..."

He put the car into drive and hammered down the gas pedal.
With his one arm, he steered the truck over the pile of
bodies, squashing the dead and wounded. He bounced up and
down in the cab.

"...and I'm bad..."

Maggie Morrison had managed to drag herself out of the way
just as the truck crashed through the vehicles parked in
its way. It was headed straight for the Klan. The Klan
scattered or got struck by the cracked hunk of metal on
wheels.

"...like Jesse James..."

It hit another truck head-on and the two vehicles
exploded. A ball of fire mushroomed upwards, defiantly
rising towards the dark rainy skies. Metal and glass was
fired in a spray that burned and scarred and cut.

The killing went on.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

From a long distance, Julius Grant watched this through
his binoculars.

"All right," he said. "Let's say we make things really
crazy."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (PART 22 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Most of the battle between Final's black population and
the Klan took place around the train tracks. Within an
hour, the street was covered with bodies and parts of
bodies that were going soft in the rain. Crows and dogs
watched carefully, waiting for the violence to subside
enough so they could feed.

However, others had strayed from the main battle field,
looking for cover and respite. They were also looking for
easier opportunities for murder. In separate parts of the
town were a number of smaller incidents. Here are some of
them:

A group of Klan members rape a 83-year-old black woman
with a corkscrew.

Another Klan member is captured by a gang of black
children. They tie him down and hammer nails all over his
body.

One Klan member plants a bomb in Final's small library
(the one where Malcolm, Jr. did so much of his reading.)
However, after planting the bomb, he spots a copy of "David
Copperfield." He remembers how much he enjoyed this book
from his youth and finds himself reading it. He gets so
engrossed that he forgets about the bomb and gets blown to
hell.

A black man and a Klan member see each other at opposite
ends of the streets. They both shoot at the same time. They
hear a shriek of metal in mid-air and realize that their
bullets have struck each other in mid-air. They both decide
to take it as a sign and go their separate ways.

And there were stories like these...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Skinner had run to an alley next to a building that
contained a dentist's office and an air-conditioning shop.
He was going to kick down a door, then go up the stairs for
a higher vantage point to shoot from.

Then he heard someone. He quickly turned and saw a guy so
big that his Klan uniform could barely fit around him. The
guy was not carrying a weapon. He must have lost it in the
battle. Or maybe he just tossed it aside, because his hands
were thick enough to be weapons themselves.

Skinner, however, wasn't giving up his gun. "Get lost," he
yelled, aiming at the big man.

The guy took a step towards him. Skinner pulled the trigger.

There had been too much rain. Too much water had gotten
into the gun's mechanisms. No bullet came out of its nozzle.
Skinner pulled the trigger again and got the same result.

Ed took off his hood. His usually dull face now had a grin
on it. He tore off his robe like it was a piece of tissue.

Skinner realized that his gun needed a trip to the repair
shop, but he kept pulling the trigger. He wanted Ed to
think that he was trying desperately to get the gun to work.

Ed charged straight at him, looking like a boulder rolling
down a mountain. At the last possible moment, Skinner side-
stepped and gave Ed a slug in the back of the neck with his
gun handle.

Ed turned around and grunted.

Time for a new approach, Skinner thought.

He tossed the gun aside and held up his fists. Ed took a
swing at him with a right hand as big as a peanut butter
jar and as quick as a dart. Skinner backed off from it,
just as he backed off from the follow-up left. He still
kept his fists up, looking ready to fight.

Ed came at him with more lefts and rights. Skinner ducked
and dodged every blow. That and his antagonistic pose made
Ed angrier with every missed punch.

Skinner knew that he couldn't keep this up for long.
Sooner or later, he wouldn't miss one blow and this giant
would have him then. Or a few of Ed's buddies might pass by
and decide to end this conflict themselves.

Luckily, poor dumb Ed made the mistake Skinner wanted him
to make.

Bellowing a hoarse roar, Ed charged at Skinner, his right
fist directed at Skinner's head. The assistant director had
his back up against a brick wall, making Ed think that he
finally had his opponent trapped. Skinner dodged to the
side again, but Ed's fist did make contact.

With the wall.

It made an admirably large hole. It also shifted Ed's face
from anger to a helpless agony. The agony intensified when
Skinner's foot slammed into Ed's balls and rammed them up
to his eyes.

After that, Skinner got down to business.

After about a minute of punching Ed, kicking Ed and
beating Ed into the wall, Skinner had the big man kneeling
on the ground. Ed's bloody, wrecked face looked not only in
pain, but it also looked in disbelief. He stared at the man
standing above him with the rain sliding down his bald head
and the pitiless look behind his glasses.

"You forgot the Eleventh Commandment," Skinner explained.
"Thou Shalt Not Fuck With A Marine."

With that, Skinner knocked Ed unconscious and went his way.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ben was a few blocks away from the train tracks when he
got shot. He had gotten separated from Zola and had been
charging down the street, crying out for her. He didn't see
Lyndon Owens hiding behind a mailbox. He only saw him when
Owens suddenly appeared and fired.

Feeling both hurt and stupid, Ben crashed to the wet
sidewalk. His gun slid far away from him into the gutter.
He grabbed his wounded leg and howled.

With deliberate slowness, Owens strode up to him, his hood
removed from his head. A lightning burst lit up his smug
expression.

Ben felt the rifle press against his forehead. He held in
his moans behind clenched teeth as Owens spoke to him in
his country club speaker's voice---

"Do you believe in God?"

"Wh-what?"

"Do you believe in God, sir?"

Ben looked straight into the Klan leader's merry eyes.
"Fuck you," Ben Hedge said. "You're not here to get into a
theology discussion. You're here to kill me and you're
going to do it whatever my answer it. So shoot me and quit
wasting my time, you evil asshole."

Owens blinked. His expression was surprised and uncertain.
When he shot Ben, he did it with a mechanical air. He
stared down at the body and scratched his head. That hadn't
been as satisfying as he thought it would...

"Drop your gun and hold your hands up."

Owens had been so lost in his disappointment that Zola had
been able to sneak up on him. His hands were trembling as
he raised them in the air.

Zola looked down at Ben. She had turned the street corner
just in time to see her lover get shot.

She looked back at Owens.

"Take off your robe," she commanded. "Then pull down your
pants and your underwear."

Owens didn't react at first, but then he felt the gun's
mouth kissing his neck. Soon, the rain was splashing on his
bare bottom.

"Now, bend over."

Owens whimpered as he complied. Then he let out a cry as
he felt metal shove itself between his buttocks. He prayed
desperately for the Klan to rescue him. What he didn't know
and Zola didn't know was that they were being watched.

"This is my fault," the woman said. Her voice was firm yet
brittle. Any second, she could start crying. "My brother
and my lover are dead because I didn't control my temper.
It don't matter that this shit would have started anyway
without me. It is still my fault. So, should I get angry
with you or should I get angry with myself?"

Owens couldn't even begin to think of an answer.

"I guess I'll be angry at us both."

Zola pulled the trigger and the bullet burrowed a straight
line from the Klan leader's ass to the top of his head. He
slid off her reddened pistol to the ground. Then Zola heard
clapping. She quickly turned and saw Maggie Morrison using
a broken tree branch for a crutch. Her hood had been tossed
aside.

"I couldn't have done it better myself," Maggie said,
hobbling over to Zola. "That sexist asshole had it coming."

Zola looked back at her with a completely emotionless
expression.

"I've come to an understanding tonight," Maggie continued.
"The black race is not my enemy. And the white race is not
yours. We have the same enemy and that's men. It's time
that we throw away the past and work as one towards a
common goal. Together, we women can make a..."

Zola shot her right between the eyes.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Mulder and Scully had decided to take refuge in Joe's
Diner. Unfortunately...

"Hands up."

They froze as two Klan members rose up from behind the
counter with shotguns ready. Both of them were wearing
their hoods, but Mulder and Scully recognized their voices.
They belonged to Spiegelman's overweight ex-patrolmen.

"Well, well, if it ain't Mr. and Mrs. Pretty from
Washington," said the one with the wide repertoire of
Hispanic jokes.

"Oh, don't I know it," the other said as he came over and
plucked the guns away from his captives' hands. "They're
both so pretty that I don't know who to fuck first."

"But since we ain't faggots, I guess we'll just fuck Mrs.
Pretty while Mr. Pretty watches. How would you like that,
Mr. Pretty?"

Mulder and Scully glanced at each other. Then they looked
back at the Klansmen.

"You don't have to do that," Scully said with the right
amount of trembling in her voice.

The former patrolmen laughed. "Oh, we have to! We have
to!"

"N-n-no, I mean...you can...you can...watch me do it."

They stopped laughing. "Huh?"

"You can watch me...do it to him."

"Scully!" Mulder yelled, his voice suitably outraged. "You
wouldn't!"

"Well, hell, that sounds like a show!" one of the Klansmen
said. "Go ahead, little lady!"

Scully took a breath.

She looked at Mulder.

She looked back at the hooded men.

First, she shrugged off her wet coat. Then, carefully and
slowly, she unbuttoned her soaked blouse and let it slip to
the floor. Her hands smoothed back her wet hair from her
temples and she gave the Klansmen another look.

The Klansmen cleared their throats, their shotguns still
raised.

Instead of taking off her bra or her pants, she turned to
Mulder and removed his own coat. He kept a blank face as
she stripped off his shirt, exposing his damp chest. Then
she knelt down to the floor, her hands trailing down the
lines of his muscles.

Now, the other men were breathing hard.

Scully glanced up at Mulder. He was looking back at her.
She was worried that he might give her away so she undid
his zipper. Mulder was as surprised as the Klansmen were
when she reached inside and pulled out his penis.

"Jesus," one of them said. "that's a big one there, son."

Scully stroked her thumb up the penis. Against his own
will, Mulder's blood rushed to his face and he almost went
cross-eyed. The breathing of the Klansmen was as loud as a
car engine, making their hoods billow in and out. Scully
instinctively knew that their shotguns were lowered now.

Out of sight, her hand reached up Mulder's pants leg and
yanked out his extra gun from its ankle holster. She fell
backwards and shot both Klansmen dead from her prone
position.

"Let's go," she said as she quickly got her blouse back
on. 

Mulder was standing still.

"Mulder, we have to..."

"Just...give me a moment, will you, Scully?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

As the massacre on the train tracks continued, Julius
Grant was having a heart-to-heart talk with somebody.

"Well, big buddy, I enjoyed your company. And maybe you
kind of enjoyed mine. Or, at least, you enjoyed the way I
kept you fed and washed.

"However, I ain't never been a sentimental kind of man.
I've had a lot of friends...well, acquaintances that I had
to leave behind me. I've always been someone to look at the
big picture and never worry too much about a little detail,
whether it be a friend or an enemy.

"In any case...

"See you later."

Julius Grant patted his friend on the leg. Then he got
into his limo. There were two henchmen in the limo, one
driving and the other in the back seat.

Just as the driver stepped on the gas, the other henchmen
shot Stonewall in the butt.

The elephant roared and it charged away from the departing
limo, pain driving it into a blind panic. Julius watched
Stonewall out of the back window and sighed.

"Home, sir?" the driver asked.

"No. Take me to the house of Nathaniel Leed. Then you two
boys can call it quits for the night."

"You want to be alone there, sir?"

"Son, if things go as planned, I won't be alone for long."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Even in the din of battle and the crash of rain, everybody
heard Stonewall coming. The rumble of his steps and the
scream of his pain struck every ear. Julius had positioned
Stonewall so his stampede would take him right through the
center of battle.

And right over anybody in his way.

You could say that circumstance gave the combatants a
brief moment of unity. You could say that bigotry and anger
were forgotten in the threat of something beyond those
poisonous emotions. You could get grandiloquent and say
that the threat of nature can overwhelm the differences
that separate us.

Or you could just say that nobody didn't want to get
squashed by that damn elephant.

And a lot of people did get squashed and trampled and
tossed into the air like dolls. Some people ran. Other shot
Stonewall and discovered to their dismay that it only made
him madder.

One of those people in Stonewall's way was Fred Udell. The
last bits of his bruised pride had made him stay in the
middle of battle instead of scrambling for safety like
Lyndon Owens. Now that he was being chased by an elephant,
he was wondering if he had made a good choice.

Especially when he slipped and fell into the swamp of
blood and rain on the street.

Fortunately, there are only so many bullets that even an
elephant's tough hide can handle. Stonewall's charge had
turned into a stumble that would end with his life.

Unfortunately, he was still stumbling in Udell's
direction. His final steps were right over the constipated,
broken-nosed Klansman. Udell looked up from the ground and
his entire view was taken up by a mass of grey flesh. He
had a second to get out a brief scream before Stonewall
fell on top of him. If anybody had taken notice, the smear
under the elephant's carcass was as much the color brown as
the color red.

Nobody took notice because after they killed Stonewall,
they started to kill each other again.

The crows and dogs were awestruck as just how well they
were going to eat.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Meanwhile, in somebody's basement...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (PART 23 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

She couldn't move. It wasn't just the straps that were
fastened around her. A strange numbness had settled
throughout her flesh. Even blinking could only be done
slowly.

Above her, she could see a dirty cement ceiling and a high
watt bulb.

She could hear sounds -- the hum of a furnace, the falling
rain, the squeak of feet in sneakers.

The click of metal.

She let out a weak moan, muffled by the gag in her mouth.

The other person in the basement still heard it, though.

"Hello, Mrs. Burnside. You'll be interested to know that
you're the first person who has ever been down here. At
least, down here when I'm conducting experiments. Not even
my parents have been witnesses to them. By the way, they're
not in the house right now. Mr. Grant gave them an early
anniversary present. I think they're in Tahiti or Hawaii
right now. I'm sure they're enjoying themselves.

"They're quite proud of me, you know." The young voice
talked of his parents with a distant tone. "They're proud
of how smart I am. Not too many people my age have the same
interest in science.

"Actually, it's not my only interest. My other fascination
is with race relations. Recently, I've come to the
conclusion that the problem between Caucasians and African-
Americans is not of politics, economics or morality. It's
one of biology. The African-American race is, of course,
inferior. Yet I believe that their inferiority does not
have to be their destiny. My belief is that medical science
can cure the African-American of his biological
deficiencies and bring him up to...

"I'm sorry. I'm babbling. This is just a deep fascination
of mine.

"But you might be even more fascinating, Mrs. Burnside."
Nadine heard a cart roll over to her. She tried to turn her
head, but her muscles remained stiff.

"I know what your son can do. It's quite miraculous. Mr.
Grant has given me a rather astounding explanation for his
abilities that I have to admit is not without probability
under the circumstances.

"I would like to explore other possibilities, though.

"What if the cause was not mystical, but biological?
Perhaps there is something fantastically unique about
you...about your body...about your womb. Perhaps the
answers are hidden inside in you, Mrs. Burnside."

Now, she could see his face and those eyes politely
looking at her through black-rimmed glasses.

"It will be interesting to find out.

"Don't worry. I've given you a sedative. You won't feel
too much."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Mulder and Scully had managed to run into Spiegelman on
another street after their encounter with his ex-officers.
The sound of gunfire had lessened but it still could be
heard regularly. It was no longer so concentrated around
the train tracks, but popping up in several parts of town.

"Any idea who is winning, Chief?" Scully asked.

"I have no goddamned idea at all," he answered, then
looked at Mulder. "What's with you? You look all..."

Then the walkie-talkie on the sheriff's belt crackled.
"Meyer, pick up. Pick up now."

It was Sally Ash. Her voice was rough and weak, covered in
static from the rain's interference.

"I'm here, Sally," Spiegelman told her.

"Get over here. I need help."

Spiegelman looked at the two FBI agents.

And all three of them began to run like hell.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The front door was unlocked. Julius entered the Leed
family house, carrying an old book. He walked through the
dark rooms until he got to the basement door. Light slipped
around the edges of the door.

He almost knocked on the door, but decided not to. He
almost put his ear against it, but decided not to do that,
either.

Instead, he sat down on a chair and got out a bag of
circus peanuts.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

After running for several blocks in the rain and having a
couple of shoot-outs, the sheriff and the FBI agents made
it to the treehouse. Sally was waiting at the base of the
tree, blood vessels covering her eyes and vomit touching
her lips.

"She's gone," she told them with a cough.

"What happened?" Scully asked.

"Some kind of...some kind of gas canister got fired into
the treehouse. We all blacked out. When I woke up, Nadine
was gone..."

"We?" Spiegelman said.

"I was up there...with Nadine and Malcolm..."

"What the fuck were you doing up there with them?"
Spiegelman screamed. "You were supposed to be guarding..."

"Settle down, Chief," Mulder said.

"The fuck I will settle down!" The chief pointed a finger
at Sally. "You have screwed up for all time. I trusted you
to take care of..."

Sally threw something at Spiegelman's feet. Mulder, Scully
and Spiegelman all looked down.

"Don't you dare," Sally whispered. "Don't you dare talk
like that. You have no right."

She walked away from them to her car. She sat in there
with an expression ascold as the rain.

Spiegelman looked down below him, staring at the object as
if it was a landmine. It was Mulder who bent down and
picked it up.

He held the ring up to Spiegelman's face.

"How did Sally get this, Chief?" he asked.

The hard look that Spiegelman had carried like armor for
years fell apart. He closed his eyes and hunched his
shoulders as if he was expecting a blow.

"Scully...go up to the treehouse and see what you can
find. I need to talk with the chief."

Scully nodded. After she had scaled the ladder, Mulder
said---

"There's more to this than just your obsession, isn't it?
I don't think Sally realizes it yet. She just sees a man
who took the ring off a woman's amputated finger, but it's
even darker than that."

Spiegelman kept his eyes closed and his mouth shut.

"Tell me, Chief...how was it that you were the one who
reached Bob Hoag first? Was it because you were the
quickest? Was it because you were the one who saw him first?"

Mulder leaned his mouth close to Spiegelman's ear. "Or...was
it because you were watching him the whole time?"

Spiegelman moved several steps away from Mulder.

"You saw Bob Hoag outside that church. You knew
immediately what he was going to do. Maybe you knew even
before the wedding day. Whenever you figured it out, you
had a chance right then to stop him.

"But you didn't.

"You may have respected and admired Malcolm Burnside, but
he was still the man who took Nadine away from you. Hell,
maybe even a little of this town's bigotry is in you as
well, Chief."

"Probably," Spiegelman croaked.

"Whatever. You still were going to stand by and watch him
kill Malcolm. Of course, you might have changed your mind,
but it must have been at a point when it was too late. Or
you changed your mind when you realized that he was going
to kill Nadine as well. Or..." Mulder waved his hand in a
disgusted motion. "...maybe, for a moment, you wanted both
of them dead. You know, I'm a profiler, Chief. I can create
psychological outlines for human behavior."

"You're pretty good at it."

"Yeah, but I'll never be able to figure out your
motivation completely. I've met serial killers who were
less fucked-up than you are. Right now, I'm only bringing
this all up because I want you to sit the rest of this
out."

Spiegelman quickly turned to Mulder. He looked like a
desperate child. "I can't, I have to protect Nadine, I have
to..."

"I can't trust you. I don't care if being police chief has
been your idea of penance. I don't want a man like you
around because I don't know how that messed-up head of
yours will react."

Spiegelman sat down in the mud, his rifle dropped at his
side. Mulder watched him without pity.

"Mulder!"

He looked up and saw Scully looking back at him through
the ladder door.

"I found this!" She tossed down an object that Mulder
caught. It was a soup can with a few wires inside.

"A homemade gas canister," Scully said as she climbed down
the ladder. "Nicely built, actually."

"Why make something like this?" Mulder asked. "If Julius
Grant is behind this and he damn well is, he could supply
his henchman with the best equipment on the market."

Scully came off the final rung. She saw Spiegelman sitting
in the mud and was about to speak.

"Don't ask," Mulder said. "Let's go talk to Sally."

With one last look at the chief, Scully followed her
partner to the car. Mulder banged on the window. "Sally!
Sally, open this window!"

Sally rolled down the window and looked out at Mulder
sullenly. He stuck the gas canister into her face. "Right
now, I need you to forget about Meyer and tell me if
there's anybody in town who could make something like this."

Sally looked at the canister.

Then her eyes widened in horror.

"Oh, Jesus fucked-up Christ," she said.

Within a few moments, the car was screeching away from the
treehouse, geysers of water shooting up from its tires.
Spiegelman was left there in the mud.

As Sally kept the pedal onto the floor, Scully said, "I
didn't see Malcolm anywhere."

"He left before you showed up," Sally said through gritted
teeth. "He didn't say where he was going."

"You think he's heading to the Leed house?"

Mulder said, "I hope not."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (24 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Malcolm didn't know where he was going, exactly. A noise
was buzzing in his head and he was going in the direction
where it felt strongest. He paid no attention to anything
else except the noise.

He didn't notice the rain. He didn't notice how the
fighting stopped everywhere he walked. The awestruck
expressions that he left on the people going by meant
nothing to him. Yet he made a deep impression on everyone
else. The look on his face...the sheer feeling that you got
from his presence...it made black person and Klansman
become still.

Eventually, Malcolm found what he was looking for on
Hornet Street.

They were sitting on the curb, dozens and dozens of them.
The rain passed through their translucent forms. They
looked uncomfortable, confused and grouchy.

One of the grouchiest was Fred Udell. He was being led to
his spot by the man in the bowler hat.

"Sit over there," the man said, looking very exasperated
and tired. "I'll be with you in a moment, sir."

"Wait a mimmut. Wat's goib om?"

"I told you already. You're dead. Now just sit over there
until I can..."

"I'b dead?"

"Yes, yes."

"Den why iz my nobe still bwoken?"

"I don't know!" the man snapped. "Now go sit over there!"

Meekly, Fred took his spot on the curb. The man sighed and
turned.

He found himself face-to-face with Malcolm. "Oh, no," he
moaned.

"Is my mother here?" Malcolm whispered.

The man swallowed.

"Is she?"

"No, she's..." the man said in a weak voice.

Malcolm put his face within a inch of the man's, his
forehead touching the rim of the bowler hat.

"Will she be here?"

The man swallowed again. Malcolm squeezed his hand around
the man's jacket lapel.

"Will she?" he asked.

"Soon," the man replied.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They burst into the house, guns drawn. Julius Grant looked
up at them from his chair, calmly munching on circus peanuts.

"Where is she?" Mulder hollered.

Julius's eyes shifted to the basement door.

The door was kicked down.

They ran down the stairs.

Nathaniel Leed looked up. The mild expression on his face
never went away even when they shot him dead. He fell to
the ground, a sticky scalpel clenched in his hand.

Shooting him had been a reflex action. After seeing what
he was doing, he simply had to die as quickly as possible.

For a few moments, they remained on the steps.

Then Sally sat down and cried. Mulder and Scully slowly
walked over to the metal table. Their bodies were trembling.

So was Nadine Burnside. Her fingers were twitching and
muscles were jumping all over her face.

Mulder looked up at Scully, a ridiculous hope in his eyes.
Was is it possible to be healed ever after this?

Scully silently told him that there was no hope at all.
That was as evident as the organs that Nathaniel had laid
out on a tray, the long slit in Nadine's naked torso and
the wild look in her eyes.

They could only stand and watch her die.

That was all *they* could do, anyway.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Malcolm?"

Malcolm turned and saw A.C. standing up from the curb. The
look on his face was no longer a rigorous anger. He just
looked sad.

"Let it go, boy. Death is death and life is life and
that's all she wrote."

"He's right," Ben Hedge said. "I'm still grateful for the
extra life you gave me, but it wasn't yours..."

"Shut up," Malcolm said.

A.C. and Ben flinched.

"Shut the fuck up, both of you."

"Don't talk like that to your elders, son."

That was a voice Malcolm had never heard before. He turned
and saw a man that he had only seen in photos, the man with
the strong yet kind expression.

"Especially when they're speaking good sense."

Malcolm let go of the man in the bowler hat. He walked up
to the newcomer as if he were in a dream.

"A long time ago, I defied the natural ways of the world,
just so I could have one hour alone with my wife. And look
what that caused." The newcomer waved his hand over the
street. "All this suffering flows from that one act of
defiance. And my wife...she is now dying a horrible death."

The newcomer shook his head. "Don't give in to the
temptations of power, son. That is the evil of Julius
Grant. Rise above that evil."

Malcolm felt a hand on his shoulder. It was both
insubstantial and tangible. Like the wind.

"I know you will choose the right path. You are your
mother's son and I know the goodness that's in you."

The man in the bowler hat watched this. He wondered why he
never thought of this before. He held in his breath,
waiting for Malcolm to say, "Yes, father."

Malcolm looked down at the wet pavement.

Then he looked back up.

"Dad?"

"Yes, son?"

"Fuck you, too."

Malcolm pushed his father away. Malcolm, Sr. fell to the
ground, shocked and hurt.

And afraid.

"FUCK ALL OF YOU!" Malcolm yelled. He looked around at
them with crazed eyes. "What do you think I am? Do you
think that anybody can be given this power and simply
ignore it? Do you know of any man who could see all this
happening and not want to do something about it? I'm..."

Tears spilled from his eyes. "I'm just a human being. And
a human being can only be pushed so far."

Malcolm grabbed the man in the bowler hat again. "That's
why we're going to my mother. Right now."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Nadine Burnside finally died.

Mulder looked away. Scully closed her eyes. Sally
continued to cry.

Then they heard a cough.

They looked back down and saw Nadine completely healed.
Her wounds had vanished. Her skin was still horrifyingly
pale and her eyes were still bright with shock.

Yet she was alive and well.

Mulder and Scully quickly undid her straps. Nadine grabbed
onto both of them, trying to feel as many people close to
her as she could.

"It's a miracle," Sally whispered.

"No."

A man wearing a bowler hat stepped out from a dark corner
of the basement.

"This is trouble."

"It'll be whatever I say it is," Malcolm said, also
appearing out of nowhere.

The two FBI agents moved quickly out of the way as Malcolm
went to his mother. He held her tightly by the hands. She
looked back at him with wide, frightened eyes.

"You...you did this..."

"Yes. I did."

"But that will mean..."

"I don't care." Malcolm turned to look at the man in the
bowler hat. "If Death has a problem with this, then he can
take it up with me."

With a very sad look, the man in the bowler hat said, "He
will, Malcolm."

Just like that, the rain stopped.

"He will."

There was not a sound to be heard.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (25 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They all felt it passing. To some, it was like a cold
wind passing through a tomb. To others, it was the
hot breath of a furnace. Both the living and the dead
took notice as the rain stopped and the dark sky hung
silently over them. They waited like the animals in
the burrows and trees, quietly anticipating the great
event that would happen.

Only one person said anything and he was a ghost.

"This," A.C. said. "will be the mammy-fucker of all
time."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Well, son, you're in the shit now."

Sally jumped out of the way as Julius Grant climbed
down the stairs. The Swamp Bible was in his hands
and, of course, a grin was on his face.

"You pissed off one of the greatest forces in the
universe and he's coming here to whup your ass."

"Not if I whup his," Malcolm replied, his eyes darkly
looking at Julius.

"And you can do that..." Julius held up the old book.
"...if you have me at your side. So, what do you say,
Malcolm? I'm your best hope for..."

Julius's mouth suddenly clamped shut. His eyes bulged
as if someone was grabbing him by the nuts.

Then he changed.

His skin became softer and lighter in color. His white
hair quickly changed to brown, new strands sprouting
all over his skull. His muscles became tighter as he
became younger.

And younger.

Julius shrank inside his clothes, his head pulling
under his collar and his hands retracting into his
sleeves. Eventually, there was only a pile of clothes
with something squirming inside.

Malcolm went over to the pile. He reached inside and
plucked out a trembling little fetus. He took a empty
glass jar off a shelf and tossed the fetus inside.

"You stay in there until I decide what to do with you,"
he said and put the jar back on the shelf.

"Malcolm, you can't..." Mulder began to say.

"Not one word, Agent Mulder. Not one word out of
anybody. That includes you, mother. This is between
me...and Death."

Malcolm crossed his arms and waited.

The man in the bowler hat closed his eyes.

Nadine wanted to get on her knees to pray, but she felt
too weak even for prayer.

Sally watched Malcolm, not fully understanding what was
going on but feeling the sickening gravity of the
situation.

Mulder and Scully held hands. They knew that observing
was the only thing left to do. If nothing else, though,
they had a front-row seat to the biggest fight since the
angel Lucifer rose up against God.

There was still no sound. It was coming, though. Its
presence could be felt like an approaching train.

Very, very close.

So close.

Malcolm raised his hands...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It had existed even before time started. It was the
void that life took shape in and that's why life had to
pay homage to it. Everything that existed must bow down
before it. Every heart must be sacrificed on its altar.
It was more than a power. It was a constant. A fact. An
inevitability.

There had been times that it had looked the other way
on certain matters. There were other great powers in the
universe and it had to accommodate them. It acknowledged
their right to play out their own dramas just as long as
they understood what the end must always be. Even the
mightiest had never challenged him.

It was being challenged now.

By a mere human of all things. A human who had been
granted powers beyond imagining but a human,
nevertheless.

It would not back down. Its supremacy would not be
mocked. Even if it meant its own destruction, it would
confront the challenger and fight until the bitter end.

It was, perhaps, a little scared.

Yet it would fight. It was facing the young man who
stared back at him with unblinking eyes. It would now
let him truly know the forces that he had been defying.
It would teach the young man the bitter truth of
existence. The void was opening up and its darkness
unfurled itself, an infinite web that touched every
molecule of the cosmos and would not shattered by any
man or god who believed himself to be...

"Hold on just a fucking minute."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

By all rights, the voice should have been ignored. The
battle should have commenced and the universe should
have trembled.

Instead, everybody turned and looked.

Everybody.

The chief of the Final Police Department came down the
stairs. He looked over the basement. He could see
Malcolm, Nadine, Sally, Mulder, Scully, a man wearing a
bowler hat...and something else. Something that he
couldn't describe exactly, but was undoubtedly present.

He stood there with mud all over his ass and water
dripping rapidly off him. He had his stern,
badder-than-bad look on his face again. After Nadine
had driven off with Mulder and Scully, he had figured
out who made that canister. It had taken him a minute
to get himself up and running.

But he had come, nevertheless.

"I don't know what's going on here," he said in a
low voice. "but nothing continues until I get told in
clear terms what the hell is this all about."

Someone told him. They couldn't remember who told
him, but someone must have. 

Spiegelman looked down at the floor. "Now...from what
you've told me...all this shit stems back to when
Malcolm, Sr. got killed. Right?"

Right.

"I see."

He slowly nodded.

"What are you getting at, Chief?" Malcolm asked quietly.

"What I'm getting at is...there have been two people
whose inexcusable actions have kept this thing going.
That would be Julius Grant and me."

"What do you mean...?" Nadine asked.

Spiegelman held up a hand for silence.

"Since I doubt Grant will do anything to fix the
situation..."

Mulder and Scully glanced at the jar.

"...then it's gotta be me."

"Sir," the man in the bowler hat said. "I don't know
what you're thinking of, but there is nothing you can
do..."

"What I'm thinking of, you dipshit, is that I correct
the mistake I made."

The man in the bowler hat blinked.

"Are you serious?" Mulder said.

"Like you said, Mulder, I'm a fucked-up man. If there's
one fuck-up that I can fix, I'm going to fix it."

"But that's impossible," the man in the bowler hat
said. "You can't go back..."

"You gotta be shitting me! You're telling me that your
boss can't pull this trick off? With him being one of
the greatest forces in the universe and all that?"

"Well...he could do it, but...it's...it's kind of
unorthodox..."

"Hell, man, it's either that or this mess right here!
I think it's time to get a little unorthodox!"

It was silent in the basement again.

The man in the bowler hat turned to the presence in the
room. There was an unspoken exchange of words.

Then the man turned to Spiegelman and said, "You know
what you would have to do, don't you?"

"I've kind of figured it out, yeah."

"All right, then. Yes. It'll be done."

Scully spoke up. "Can somebody please tell me what the
hell are you people talking about?"

"It doesn't matter if I do explain," Mulder said. "If
it goes right, then we won't remember any of this."

"It'll go right," Spiegelman said. "I'm sure of it."

Then he took a long breath and asked the man in the
bowler hat if he could say good-bye.

"Um...well, go ahead..."

Spiegelman went up to Malcolm.

"Do you understand what I'm going to do, Malcolm?"

"I...I think I do. Meyer, I..." Malcolm looked at
Spiegelman in awe. Then he turned away in shame. "This
is my fault. I lost control. If I hadn't..."

Spiegelman placed a hand on the young man's shoulder.
"You were pushed as far as anybody could be, Malcolm. I'm
just doing what I should have done before. Of course, I
can't guarantee that you will be here anymore..."

Malcolm shook his head. "Don't worry about that. Just do
it."

Spiegelman nodded, then turned to the FBI agents. "Well,
Mulder, Scully...we didn't exactly get along throughout
all this, but you two are all right."

"Thank you, Chief," Mulder said.

"And you two really, really should consider fucking each
other."

Mulder coughed and looked away. Scully blushed, but also
smiled.

Spiegelman went up to Nadine.

"I don't understand what you're doing, Meyer," she
whispered.

"I'm glad you don't. I'm glad you never will. Let's
just say that I'm giving you what I should have gave
you a long time ago."

He didn't touch her. Instead, he turned and went up to
Sally Ash.

"Sally."

She looked straight into his eyes and said, "I think I
understand."

"Yeah. And I understand, too. I understand everything."

He touched her on the cheek. "I hope you also
understand that there wasn't much in me that was worth
loving."

She smiled at him. She reached up to squeeze his hand.
"I see more than enough, now."

He took her in his arms and gave her a long kiss. He
held her until the man in the bowler hat cleared his
throat.

"All right, all right," Spiegelman grumbled. "Let's do
it. Just snap your fingers or whatever you..."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bob Hoag lifted the pistol, ready to let loose the
thunder in his head.

He saw Malcolm and Nadine.

Then he saw Meyer Spiegelman.

His ex-football captain was charging straight at him,
blocking his aim.

Bob shot him. The red hole that appeared in Spiegelman's
chest didn't stop him. Instead, he just roared and fell
upon Bob.

Bob fired again just as they both dropped to the ground.
The heavy body on top of him turned slack. He was trying
to push Spiegelman off when other hands snatched him and
ripped his gun away from him. Then they started to beat
him.

"Stop it!" a voice commanded. "Just hold him!"

The voice of Malcolm Burnside stopped the beating. He
and his wife went to Spiegelman's side. They looked into
his distant eyes and knew that there was nothing to do.

"Where's...where's Sally...?" Spiegelman gasped.

"Sally!" Malcolm yelled.

The burly twenty-year-old woman shoved her way through
the crowd. She had attended this wedding just to see
Nadine forever slip away from the hands of Meyer. Only
now, she was kneeling on the ground before his bleeding
body.

"Sally?"

"Yes?" she said, her eyes stinging with tears.

"You make...something...out of yourself. You know why?"

She shook her head.

"Because I...I love you. And my ghost will...come back
to kick...your ass if you don't do right. Understood?"

She closed her eyes.

"Understood?"

Finally, she nodded.

"Meyer," Malcolm said. "I have no words."

"Then don't say nothin'," Meyer told him.

He grinned.

He died.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Well, then. That fixes everything up."

"Yes," the man in the bowler hat said. "It does."

"What about Malcolm, Jr.? Will he even exist now?"

"Possibly. It's all about the randomness of genetics."

"Maybe your boss can take away a bit of the randomness."

"That's not really his..."

Spiegelman gave the man a look.

"Well...I suppose he could put in a word with the right
people."

"Good."

"Now, we really must be going."

"Just a moment..."

The man turned cold in his stomach.

"Don't worry, you pussy," Spiegelman said. "I just want
to say one last good-bye."

The man sighed and took off his bowler hat to rub his
head. "I really need to get a new assignment," he said.

Spiegelman turned to the town of Final, the place that
he had lived his whole life. He looked over the dusty
streets he knew so well, the buildings that he had
passed by everyday and the people who had shaped his
existence.

He held up both index fingers and grinned again.

"Kiss my Jewish ass, you fucking cracker town!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (26 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Years later after Bob Hoag shot Meyer Spiegelman, Agent
Fox Mulder woke up in his apartment and got the feeling
that he should be somewhere else. The feeling was so strong
that he called up his partner, Dana Scully.

"Hm," she said. "It's strange but I had the same feeling."

"What do you think it means?"

"Well, Mulder, I'll tell you...I had another feeling, too."

"What's that?"

"I felt like that I didn't really give a shit."

"Come to think of it...I felt the same way."

"See you at work, then?"

"See you."

They went to the FBI Headquarters building. As Mulder
drove to work, he caught part of an interview on a radio
music show.

"We're back with Meyer and A.C. Burnside, the uncle-nephew
team whose album, 'Straight Out of Final,' has become one
of the most successful crossover blues albums ever
recorded. Before we get into the music, I have to ask about
one of the dedications on your album. 'To Meyer Spiegelman
who gave his life.' I take it that there's a story behind
that."

An older man with a Southern accent said, "You bet. Meyer
Spiegelman was one brave mammy...uh, one brave man."

"I take it your parents named you after him, Meyer," the
interviewer observed.

"Yes, they did," a teenage boy said. "It was the least
they could do."

Christ, Mulder thought, I know I've heard those people
before...

When he got to work, he got a message that Skinner wanted
to see him and Scully. When they entered the office, they
found him there with a thick-set woman dressed in formal
clothes and wearing a FBI ID card. She wasn't an
attractive woman, but she had a nice smile and an engaging
air of quiet self-confidence.

"This is Agent Sally Ash," Skinner said.

Both Mulder and Scully shook her hand, but they had
strange looks on their faces.

"Is there something the matter?" Sally asked.

Mulder and Scully looked at each other.

They decided that they didn't give a shit about this,
either.

"No, nothing's the matter," Scully said. "How may we help
you?"

"Well...it's like this. I come from this little town in
Mississippi..."

"Final?" Mulder said.

Sally blinked. "How did you..."

"I...never mind. Go ahead."

"Well...it's a tiny town but it's got more than its share
of strangeness. Recently, there's been something happening
even stranger than usual..."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A BRIEF EPILOGUE DEMONSTRATING THAT LIFE CAN BE FAIR WHEN
IT WANTS TO BE...

As you might have guessed, SALLY ASH left the town of
Final for the FBI. She had a long and distinguished career
there.

And "Straight Out of Final" was the first of many
successful albums for MEYER and A.C. BURNSIDE. On tour,
A.C.'s opening cry of "You ready to boogie, you mammy-
fuckers?" would always get the crowd cheering.

Back in Final, ZOLA BURNSIDE and BEN HEDGE took over the
Shithole. They gave it a substantial make-over and a new
name. The Unspeakable Blues Bar got a four-star review in
The National Restaurant Guide who praised it for "cleaning
up its act while retaining its vitality."

REVEREND NADINE BURNSIDE and her husband, MALCOLM, did a
little bit of everything that was good under the sun from
helping the poor to creating racial justice to raising up
four children right.

BOB HOAG spent the rest of his life in prison, but while
he was there, he found God and became a preacher who
touched many a prisoner's life. He also wrote a best-
selling book titled "How a Murderous, Sub-Intelligent
Hillbilly Got Saved."

Others did not end up so well. ED would end up leaving the
Klan out of impatience with Fred. His death would come a
few days later when, for some unusual reason, he decided to
get into a fight with a bull.

FRED UDELL and MAGGIE MORRISON would also later be found
dead due to the result of what was described as "a lover's
quarrel."

Some who left Final didn't do too well, either. NATHANIEL
LEED would go to Ohio and create "The Institute For Racial
Harmony" with the help of LYNDON OWENS. However, the entire
institute would be shut down and its founders arrested when
Nathaniel attempted to procure a black prostitute for his
"experiments." The prostitute turned out to be an
undercover policewoman.

In his later years, JOHNNY MCDONALD would run for Senate
on the "Christian Independent" ticket. He pledged to clean
up the country of its "moral decay." Unfortunately, his
political career would be cut short by a scandal that
involved three women, a trampoline, numerous lubricants and
an electric generator.

One of the enemies of JULIUS GRANT found an original way
of nailing the bastard. In Julius's bedroom, a tape
recorder was planted. It was activated by remote control
whereupon it played the mating call of a female elephant.

After stampeding into the bedroom of his former master,
STONEWALL was captured and handed over to a circus. He was
tamed and became, in the words of the circus manager, "the
friendliest thing on four legs."

As for AGENT FOX MULDER, AGENT DANA SCULLY and ASSISTANT
DIRECTOR WALTER SKINNER...well, you all know what happened
to them.

THE MAN IN THE BOWLER HAT? Well, he was eventually
assigned to Sarajevo where he was happy to report, "the
dead stay dead and that's the way I like it."

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AUTHOR'S NOTES:

"For those of you who liked me, God love ya. For the rest
of you, I HOPE YOU HAVE A HEART ATTACK!" -- Jerry Lee Lewis

Just kidding. Really. Send anything you want to say to
ottercrk@sover.net

As I said before, this story has been more about the
mystique of the South than the actual thing. It's also been
about the mystique of the blues. Now, from what I've heard,
the great blues players behave with dignity and respect.
Overall, they tend to more gentlemanly than the overpaid,
pampered, narcisstic white pop-star mammy-fuckers that
often clutter up the airwaves.

On the other hand, the blues was created out of an 
atmosphere of oppression and danger. If you were in an
old jukejoint, chances are that someone next to you would
be carrying a knife or packing a gun and that someone
could be one of the musicians.

A.C. Burnside got his name from two bluesmen -- A.C. Reed
and R.L. Burnside. Reed is a saxophonist who represents
Chicago blues. Burnside is a member of the Mississippi
tradition. Reportedly, Burnside once shot a man dead and
said, "I just shot him. Him dying was between him and
God."

Granted that this just might be an example of Southern
blarney. However, the blues has always had a potent mix
of sin, salvation, violence and love at its core. My
potrayal of this music here has been a cartoonish one,
but I think that it has a bit of truth in it.

I've also been quoting a lot of songs here. This is a
list of them as well as the musicians who first performed
them and the people who wrote them.

1) "Smokestack Lightnin'" performed and written by
Howlin' Wolf. You haven't lived until you've heard
this man's big voice.

2) "Got the Blues for Murder Only" performed and written
by Lonnie Johnson. One of the legends of early blues.
Widely considered the most technically advanced blues
guitarist of his era.

3) "By and By." This is a traditional gospel song that I
picked up off Michael Tippet's "A Child of Our Time," a
strong (if fairly pretentious) classical piece.

4) "She's Alright" performed and written by Muddy Waters.
Ah, man. For me, M.W. is the King. Louis Armstrong is
probably the only musician who has had more influence
than Waters has had.

5) "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" performed and written
by Sonny Boy Williamson. I confess that I haven't heard
the original. I got this off a Van Morrison album.

6) "Forgetting You." As was mentioned, this is a slice of
Memphis soul. This song was performed by the great
James Carr and was written by O.B. McClinton who was also
one of the few black country singers.

7) "Wet Match" written by George Jackson, Rosetta
Anderson and Johnnie Davis. I got this off a Etta James
album and, yes, the wet match is a metaphor.

7) "Death Bell Blues." I think this was written by
Lightnin' Hopkins. I got it off "Too Bad Jim," a R.L.
Burnside album. I'm not too sure that I got all the
lyrics transcribed right. By the way, "Too Bad Jim" also
has the song that provided the title for this story --
"Goin' Down South." Put it on and it will give you an
idea of what the music of the Shithole sounds like.

8) "I'm Bad Like Jesse James" written and performed by
John Lee Hooker. Fuck Marilyn Manson in the nose. Listen
to this song and you'll know what scary is.

A lot of people insert music into their fan fiction as
a way of giving it a soundtrack. I've used these songs
for the same reason but I'm also trying to be the
promoter here. You really should go out and find this
music. People have to remember this sound and remember
what Waters, Johnson and Wolf have done for our culture.
The day that we forget about them is the day that we can
truly say that we're screwed.

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