The X-Files

Quiet! Quiet! Listen to me.

It was a terrible thing.

You are not going to believe me, even when I tell you.

Some say it is a story, a fairy tale.

But I saw it.

I saw it with my own eyes.

Quiero hombres fuertes. iRépidol

O ye, mi amor.

- Pértate bien. - Tu también.

Pues claro.

Gracias.

- No. - Si.

No.

Let's gm!

Maria!

Eso es seguro.

Las cabras.

Maria!

Maria!

Maria!

Maria!

Madre de Dios.

Mulder, this happened how long ago?

Tres dias. Muy increible, (mo?

Only the smell.

You brought me out here under the pretence of investigating an unexplained death.

Can you tell me why we're standing out here looking at a dead goat?

According to eyewitnesses, the death was preceded by a fortean event:

a highly unusual or infrequent meteorological phenomenon...

- ...also known as a transient. - A transient?

Witnesses described a bright flash about 30 degrees off the horizon.

A hot, yellow rain fell from a cloudless sky. Fortean researchers call these liquid falls.

Black and red rains are common, but there have also been blue, purple and green rains.

- Purple rain? - Yeah. Great album.

Deeply flawed movie, though.

Mulder, this transient, as you call it...

...this bright flash in the sky - I assume you think it has some connection to...

Fortean events have been linked to alien encounters. Cattle mutilations.

The kind of exsanguinated animal carcass you were looking at.

The victim, Maria Dorantes - did she die in a similar fashion?

- I would assume so. - You assume?

- Nobody's examined the body? - Nobody cares, Scully.

The victim and many of the witnesses are illegal immigrants, migrant farm workers.

I thought it might be important to talk to them before they migrated.

No, no.

No Ia migra. No Ia migra.

No Ia migra.

We're FBI. No la migra.

It's all right. We don't wanna take anybody away. Relax. No, it's OK.

What do you want?

We wanna know what happened to Maria Dorantes.

Does anybody know what happened to Maria Dorantes? Did anybody see anything?

El Chupacabra. That's what happened to Maria Dorantes.

- El Chupacabra? - Yeah, it's a Mexican folk tale.

El Chupacabra, the goat-sucker: a small, grey creature...

...with a big head and a small body and big, black bulging eyes.

Si, si, si.

Light, then rain.

Then El Chupacabra, it comes and eats away Maria's eyes and face.

- Did you see the Chupacabra? - No.

But everyone here knows that this is the truth.

This woman's a liar. There is no Chupacabra.

It's nothing but a story told to children.

I know the killer of Maria Dorantes.

- Who would that be, sir? - It's my brother. Eladio Buente.

He killed Maria because she loved only me.

How do you explain the yellow rain then, and the dead goat over the hill?

It is a trick... for fools who believe in fool superstitions.

Thank you, Mr Buente. You've been very helpful.

"Maria, Maria."

"I've just met a girl named Maria."

- Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, Scully. - Makes perfect sense.

Admit it, you fell for it.

Your fortean event turned out to be nothing more than the oldest story in the world.

Two men, one woman, trouble.

I admit there's a strong suspicion of motive and intent.

But the detail, the description of that Chupacabra.

Mulder, what we've walked into here

is a Mexican soap opera, one for the local cops.

Local cops don't care, Scully. I don't know who does.

OK, I care, but what are we supposed to do about it?

Find out what killed Maria Dorantes. Take a look at her body.

- While you do what? - Try to find this man, Eladio Buente.

Agent Lozano?

Special Agent Mulder. I'm with the FBI.

The FBI? Here?

We're investigating the death of a migrant worker.

Really?

Eladio Buente. He hasn't been seen for three days, and he's not in police custody.

- I thought he might be in INS custody. - He might.

Let's see.

OK, we have a José Feliciano. We have Juan Valdez.

We have César Chévez. We have Plécido Domingo here.

But I don't see any Eladio Buente.

So you are telling me that no one here uses their real name.

- What is this man wanted for? - Possibly the murder of Maria Dorantes.

Oh, man. The Chupacabra?

Yeah. You've heard of it. You don't believe it.

No, I believe these people. Their lives are small.

So they have to make these fantasies just to keep on going, to feel alive.

Because they are strangers here. They feel hated, unwanted.

When their passions become inflamed they resort to violence...

...and then they cannot turn to the law so they make up these fantastic tales.

Call it anything you want, but this is an age-old story.

I've heard that.

Let's see if we can find your Eladio Buente.

Excuse me.

- Excuse me. - Can I help you?

I'm Agent Dana Scully with the FBI, investigating the death of a migrant worker.

- Juan or Juanita? - I'm sorry?

Doe. A man or a woman?

Maria Dorantes. I need to determine a cause of death in order to close an investigation.

It sounds vaguely familiar, but I don't think I've got to her yet.

Well, I'm a medical doctor. If you show me the body, I could examine it myself.

It's in the fridge.

I don't think he's going anywhere.

That's her.

Oh, my God.

This must be him.

Why is he segregated like this?

¢Por qué Io tienes segregado?

Los otros detenidos lo molestaban mucho.

Ninguno se le acerca a él. Le tienen un miedo terrible.

The other detainees were giving him a hard time. They don't wanna go near him.

- They think he's the Chupacabra. - That may be.

But I will tell you, with a tremendous degree of certainty, this guy is not Erik Estrada.

Buente!

El FBI quiere hacerte unas preguntas.

Ask him if he killed Maria Dorantes.

Quiere saber si mataste a Maria Dorantes.

INg!

No Io hice. Soy inocente.

[No soy asesino!

- What did he say? - "I didn't do it."

Ask him what happened.

G Que' fue lo que paso'?

Un ruido como un relémpago muy cerca.

There was a noise like thunder, but very close.

And then there was lightning, very bright.

It blinded me. And I fell to the ground.

And then I felt the hot rain fall on me.

And when I finally could open my eyes and see...

...I saw the dead goat.

And then I saw Maria. Maria.

She called my name... once.

She was lying in a puddle of yellow rain.

Something had eaten at her face.

And I held her in my arms, and then she died.

And then I got up, and I ran screaming.

[Soy inocente!

This guy is better than Erik Estrada.

What's gonna happen to him?

He'll get his 45 seconds before the judge and he'll be placed on a southbound bus.

- Is there any way to delay that? - Why would you wanna do that?

- To try to solve an unexplained death. - Hasn't the FBI got better things to do?

File your paperwork.

By the time they process it, he'll probably be back here anyway.

Put him in the front.

Come on. Up front.

OK, vamos. Let's go.

- Did you find Eladio Buente? - Yeah, I found him.

Did he confess to the murder of Maria Dorantes?

Not exactly, no.

- Did he tell you what happened? - Flash of light, yellow rain.

"Maria! Maria!"

He didn't kill her, Mulder. I examined the body of Maria Dorantes...

...and I believe that her cause of death was natural, albeit strange.

She seems to have succumbed to a massive fungal infection.

- A fungus? - Aspergillus, according to the coroner.

It's a mould that's found in dead leaves, compost, even household dust.

- And it can kill? - Not normally.

- It's very common and quite harmless. - You don't think that's weird?

Well, aspergillus can be lethal to people with immunodeficiencies...

...like AIDS patients and transplant recipients.

I found high levels of methyl bromide in her blood workup.

It's a pesticide that's used for soil sterilisation - highly toxic.

Now, I think that her body was so ravaged by pesticides...

...that a normally benign fungus may have compromised her whole immune system.

Still doesn't explain the flash of light and the yellow rain...

...and El Chupacabra.

Mulder, I know you don't wanna hear this...

...but I think the aliens in this story are not the villains, they're the victims.

Look at that.

Mulder.

What does it look like?

It appears he died of systemic shock,

brought on by what appears to be a fungal infection.

- The same one that killed Maria Dorantes? - No, I don't know what this is.

But its speed and aggressiveness are frightening.

The infection's covered 90 percent of his body, through both layers of skin.

Did you find him?

We rounded up most of the people who escaped. Eladio Buente wasn't among them.

No one knows where he ran?

Agent Lozano, this is my partner, Agent Scully.

They all ran away from El Chupacabra, the man they say is responsible for this tragedy.

- Eladio Buente didn't kill anybody. - I'm not so sure about that, Scully.

This is the work of a pathogen of some kind of a highly virulent strain.

Right now Eladio Buente is the only connection we have to this death...

...and to the death of Maria Dorantes, which is why I need manpower to try to find him.

Manpower? We don't have the resources to go chasing after one poor illegal.