The X-Files

Your turn.

Jack?

Honey?

Are you still feeling sick?

What's the matter with you? Can't you hear the baby is crying?

How about some cereal, honey?

You were having those awful dreams again last night.

I didn't sleep long enough to be dreaming.

I want you to go to the doctor. Find out what's wrong.

- Will you do that? - I'd just like to eat my breakfast in peace!

Do you think that's possible?

Jack! What is it?!

Private John McAlpin. One of the few, the proud, but dead.

He wrapped his car around a tree. He died on impact.

Drug and alcohol tests came back negative.

The car shows no evidence of mechanical failure.

The military is calling it a suicide. It's the second one in as many weeks.

- Both at the same base? - Yeah, except it's not exactly a base.

The Marines were stationed at the Folkstone Processing Center,

North Carolina.

More than 12,000 refugees waiting for asylum from Uncle Sam.

- Wasn't there a riot there a month ago? - Yeah. A ten-year-old boy was killed.

- Details of his death were never released. - Why did the military contact us?

They didn't. Mrs McAlpin contacted the Bureau...

...when the military refused to investigate her husband's death further.

She doesn't believe it was suicide.

There.

This is the tree that stopped Private McAlpin's car.

The state police reported there was graffiti on the bark.

Looks like some kind of ritual symbol.

Most of the refugees at Folkstone are Haitian.

Mrs McAlpin believes voodoo was behind her husband's death?

Mrs McAlpin doesn't believe her husband killed himself. She wants to know who did.

Jack used to tell these jokes.

Well, they were pretty dumb, I guess.

But the way he told them always made me laugh.

Then he got transferred to the camp, and nothing was very funny any more.

Did he ever discuss what went on there? What his duties included?

No. He'd just come home angry.

Mostly at himself, though sometimes he'd turn it on Luke and me.

Was he ever treated for depression or stress?

No. I tried getting him to talk to someone... even our minister.

But Jack believed in dealing with his own problems.

Did he believe in voodoo?

The Marines, his family and football sums up everything Jack believed in.

So when did you first think that his death involved something out of the ordinary?

One of the boys in his squad... told me what they found at the accident.

And he said it was some kind of voodoo curse.

The same one they found on the stool that Puerto Rican boy used to hang himself.

- Who told you that? - Harry Dunham.

He's from New Orleans, so he's superstitious about that type of thing.

What about you?

My husband had just died, so I didn't give it much thought either way.

Not until Luke dug this up out of his sandbox.

I know it sounds crazy, me worrying about all this.

The truth is I'm scared.

I'm scared for my child...

...and I just don't know what to do any more.

It's down there on the right, sir.

Va tu! Va tu! Go! Go! Go away! Get out of here! Go! Go!

Away! Go! Go!

He's crazy. Too much rum.

For such a pretty lady, it is dangerous out here.

You need something pour vous garder.

For protection.

- Your lucky charm. - Come on, Mulder.

- How much? - Five. I mean ten.

I'll give you five.

- OK. - Let's go, Mulder.

You should always carry protection. There you go.

I'm still not clearjust what it is you're investigating here.

Two of your men have died in two weeks, allegedly of self-inflicted injuries.

I've taken every measure to see it doesn't happen again.

I've even flown in the 528th Combat Stress Control Detachment from Camp Lejeune.

But your soldiers aren't in combat.

What we're dealing with here is worse.

How so?

We're soldiers. We're not prison guards.

We're policing a hostile population of foreigners...

...without the resources to feed or house them. There are bound to be some conflicts.

So your men bear the brunt of the refugees' frustration?

It's hatred, plain and simple.

They hate us.

And all I can do is... see that they're processed as efficiently as possible.

Colonel Wharton, a, uh... certain ritual sign was found at the scene of both deaths.

Is there anything you can tell us about that?

Not much.

Apparently it's some sort of voodoo marking.

But you haven't investigated it as a possibility?

Possibility of what?

All I know is voodoo caused a riot in my camp.

One night they held some secret ceremony. The next day all hell broke loose.

We understand a refugee was killed. A young boy.

No one felt that tragedy more deeply than me.

I was able to isolate the one responsible for instigating all the trouble.

- Who would that be? - His name is Bauvais. Pierre Bauvais.

- Thinks he's some kind of revolutionary. - Do you think we could speak with him?

If you don't mind listening to his laundry list of complaints.

I'd also like to examine Private McAlpin's body. I have a signed consent from his wife.

Private Dunham will help you both with whatever you need.

Cause of death was no great mystery. That boy was doing 60 when he hit the tree.

- So they pronounced him at the scene? - His head was hanging like a broken peony.

And he had no cardiac functioning.

I saw no reason to conduct an autopsy then and I still don't. You can see for yourself.

What kind of a sick joke is this?

Jackson! Who the hell's been in here?

Someone's tampered with McAlpin's body, and I wanna know who!

- You're Harry Dunham. - Yes, sir.

You knew Private McAlpin.

His wife said you were friends.

We were in the same squad.

Any idea why he might've killed himself?

I can't say, sir.

Can't say, or you won't say?

I'll be right here if you need me.

My name is Mulder. I'm with the FBI.

I was hoping you could answer questions about the Marines who took their own lives.

It is a terrible shame.

I'm not convinced it's as simple as that.

You do not believe I was involved in this, do you?

How could I be...

...when they keep me locked up in here.

You tell me.

These photographs were taken at the sites of both deaths.

The shell was found buried under one of the soldiers' homes.

Can you tell me about the symbol?

Why?

What do you expect to learn from this?

Just the truth.

One of the Marines left behind a wife. She's too frightened to even mourn.

She deserves some peace of mind.

It is the loco-miroir, . ..

...the crossroads between the two worlds.

The mirror in which a man must confront his true self.

These... Marines...

...maybe they did not like what they saw.

Colonel Wharton says you incited the riot last month.

My country was born on the blood of slaves.

Freedom is our most sacred legacy.

Does that mean you'd kill to preserve it?

Wharton will not let us return home.

Which is all we ask.

Mulder, I need to speak with you.

She's come to tell you... the Marine is gone.

- How did you know? - It's the spirits.

Loa have warned you.

Somebody stole McAlpin's body and replaced it with a dog's corpse.

They will only warn you once.

After that, no magic can save you.

Come on, Scully. Let's go.

What do you think happened to Private McAlpin?

Bauvais must've switched the bodies.

- But he's been confined for the last month. - Then he had somebody else do it.

You said there was no evidence. And security's impossible to breach.

Whoever did it was clever and thorough.

I wasn't suggesting that some kind of spirit did it.

Well, just in case, I believe in covering my bases.

Mulder, voodoo only works by instilling fear in its believers.

You saw how Bauvais tried to intimidate me.

I'll admit the power of suggestion is considerable, but...

...this is no more magic than a pair of fuzzy dice.

Scully, look out!

Hey!

Private McAlpin?

He's non-verbal... non-responsive to voice, touch or pain.

The neurologists suspect he suffered a severe concussion, resulting in amnesia.

A plausible diagnosis. Only I'm more interested in how he came back to life.

Well, obviously, he never left.

Dr Foyle made a gross mistake when he signed the death certificate.

- Did you get a copy of the blood test? - Yeah.

Electrolytes, white and red counts are all normal.

Except this is strange.

The lab detected trace levels of tetrodotoxin in his blood.

That's a poison found in the reproductive organs of puffer fish, a Japanese delicacy.

Only I get the feeling that Private McAlpin didn't frequent many sushi bars.

- You have a theory how it got in his blood? - What do you know about zombies?

I hope you don't tell Robin McAlpin that she married one.

In 1982 a Harvard ethnobotanist named Wade Davis...

...did extensive field research in Haiti on the zombification phenomenon.

He analysed several samples of zombie powder prepared by voodoo priests.

- He found tetrodotoxin in all of them. - Mulder, it's a lethal poison.

Small doses can depress cardiorespiratory activities to such a low level...

...that the victim appears clinically dead.

- Zombie or not, Jack McAlpin is alive. - Exactly.

Which is what makes me wonder about the other Marine who allegedly killed himself.

Why would they bury Private Guttierez here?

They beat you to it.

You're the FBI, aren't ya?

Yeah.

We've arranged to exhume the body of Manuel Guttierez.

I prepared the dig as soon as I got the order, but it's too late.

- Too late? - Yeah, the body snatchers got there first.

I caught 'em a few times right in the act, but... it's gettin' I can't keep up any more.

That's, uh... why I got this.

Don't the police intervene?

They got their hands full just tryin' to protect the living.

I'm all these people have to preserve their rest.

These body snatchers, what do they do with the bodies?

- They sell 'em. - To who?

Well, it varies. When the local medical school ran short of cadavers...