STORE MANAGER: I don’t know. But Dave, the butcher .. I think he’s dead.
(SCULLY goes to the back and looks at DAVE’S body, knife sticking out of his eye socket.)
SCENE 3 (X-Files office. Mulder is eating sunflower seeds and watching television. Lots of groaning and moaning from a male and a female voice. Empty video cassette box on MULDER’S desk reads 'Alien Probe.' Phone rings.)
MULDER: (on phone) Mulder.
SCULLY: (on phone, voice) Mulder, it’s me.
MULDER: (on phone) I thought you said you were on vacation.
SCULLY: (on phone, voice) I am. I’m up in Maine.
MULDER: (on phone) I thought you said you didn’t want to be disturbed. You wanted to get out of your head for a few days.
SCULLY: (on phone, voice) I don’t … I mean, I do. I …. (moaning from TV is loud) What are you watching, Mulder?
MULDER: (on phone) It’s the World’s Deadliest Swarms. (Fumbles with remote to stop the tape.) Um .. you said you were going to be unreachable. What’s going on?
SCULLY: (on phone) I, uh … I’m at a market here. I’m just trying to give the local PD a handle here.
MULDER: (on phone, voice) A handle on what?
(SCULLY is in store office watching security tape footage of people clawing at their eyes.)
SCULLY: (on phone) Well, I’m not quite sure how to describe it, Mulder. I didn’t witness it myself but there seems to be some kind of an outbreak of people acting in a violent, involuntary way.
MULDER: (on phone) Towards who?
(MULDER switches off TV, which now shows man being attacked by bugs. Remember, tape has already been stopped.)
SCULLY: (on phone, voice) Toward themselves.
MULDER: (on phone) Themselves?
SCULLY: (on phone) Yeah. Beating at their faces, clawing at their eyes. One man is dead.
MULDER: (on phone, voice) Dead? How?
SCULLY: (on phone) Self-inflicted, it appears.
MULDER: (on phone) Huh … it sounds to me like that’s witchcraft or maybe some sorcery that you’re looking for there.
(Local PD Captain, JACK BONSAINT watches SCULLY strangely throughout conversation with MULDER.)
SCULLY: (on phone) No, I don’t think it’s witchcraft, Mulder, or sorcery. I’ve had a look around and I don’t see any evidence that warrants that kind of suspicion.
MULDER: (on phone) Maybe you don’t know what you’re looking for.
SCULLY: (on phone) Like evidence of conjury or the black arts or shamanism, divination, Wicca or any kind of pagan or neo-Pagan practice. Charms, cards ….
(MULDER is listening, spellbound.)
SCULLY: (on phone) … familiars, bloodstones, or hex signs or any of the ritual tableaux associated with the occult, Santeria, Voudoun, Macumba, or any high or low magic?
MULDER: (on phone) Scully …
SCULLY: (on phone) Yes?
MULDER: (on phone) Marry me.
SCULLY: (on phone) I was hoping for something a little more helpful.
MULDER: (on phone) Well, you know, short of looking for a lady wearing a pointy hat riding a broomstick, I think you pretty much got it covered there.
SCULLY: (on phone) Thanks anyway. (hangs up, looks at tape again) (to OFFICER BUDDY RIGGS) Who’s that woman right there?
BUDDY: Melissa Turner.
SCULLY: She’s the only one I’ve seen who looks unaffected.
BUDDY: What’s your point?
SCULLY: You might want to talk to her.
(SCULLY leaves the store office. Captain JACK BONSAINT follows her.)
BONSAINT: (smiling, very friendly) Ms. Scully … you staying in town?
SCULLY: Yes. I’m on vacation. Why?
BONSAINT: Well, what you said back there about Melissa Turner kind of put a spin on this whole business here today.
SCULLY: How’s that?
