Cherub

SCENE 1  COLLUM NATIONAL FOREST, NORTHWEST OREGON
(A woman runs through the forest, grunting as she trips and stumbles over logs and rocks. She is wearing a nightgown and runs through the foliage. She falls over a tree root and stumbles into a small clearing. A loud roaring starts and the wind grows stronger. She looks up to see a light growing, shining through the trees. A silhouette steps out of the light, walking towards her. The leaves around her begin swirling up in a circle, like they are in the center of a tornado. The figure stands over her as the light engulfs them both. Morning. The girl is face-down on the ground, dead. Officials walk around, murmuring to each other. The assistant coroners lean over the body as coroner John Truitt and Detective Miles walk over to the body.)
JOHN TRUITT: I put the time of death between eight and twelve hours ago. No visible cause, no sign of battery or sexual assault. All we have is this.
(He pulls up the back of her nightgown to reveal two small bumps on her lower back. Miles looks at them.)
MILES: Can we turn her over?
(They do so. Miles stands.)
Karen Swenson.
ASSISTANT CORONER: Is that a positive ID?
DETECTIVE MILES: She went to school with my son.
(He walks away as Truitt stands.)
JOHN TRUITT: Would that be the class of '89, detective? It's happening again isn't it?
(Miles keeps walking.)
 
SCENE 2  FBI HEADQUARTERS; WASHINGTON, D.C.
(Agent Dana Scully walks up the stairs and around to a desk where a woman sits.)
SCULLY: Agent Dana Scully.
(She continues through a group of offices and down a hallway. Reaching the door to Section Chief Blevins' office, she knocks.)
SCOTT BLEVINS: Come in.
(Scully walks in and sees Blevins sitting at his desk.)
Agent Scully, thank you for coming on such short notice. Please...
(He motions for her to sit down, which she does. A man smoking a cigarette leans against a file cabinet. He walks around to behind Blevins and leans against the wall. Another man sits next to Blevins.)
We see you've been with us just over two years.
SCULLY: Yes, sir.
SCOTT BLEVINS: You went to medical school but you chose not to practice. How'd you come to work for the F.B.I.?
SCULLY: Well, sir, I was recruited out of medical school. Um, my parents still think it was an act of rebellion, but, uh... I saw the F.B.I. as a place where I could distinguish myself.
THIRD MAN: Are you familiar with an agent named Fox Mulder?
SCULLY: Yes, I am.
(Blevins and the man look at each other.)
THIRD MAN: How so?
SCULLY: By reputation. He's an Oxford educated Psychologist, who wrote a monograph on serial killers and the occult, that helped to catch Monty Props in 1988. Generally thought of as the best analyst in the violent crimes section. He had a nickname at the academy... Spooky Mulder.
(She smiles at the Cigarette-Smoking Man, who gives no response.)
SCOTT BLEVINS: What I'll also tell you is that Agent Mulder has developed a consuming devotion to an unassigned project outside the bureau mainstream. Are you familiar with the so-called "X-Files?"
SCULLY: I believe they have to do with unexplained phenomena.
SCOTT BLEVINS: More or less. The reason you're here, Agent Scully, is we want you to assist Mulder on these X-Files. You will write field reports on your activites, along with your observations on the validity of the work.
(The Cigarette-Smoking Man stubs out his cigarette.)
SCULLY: Am I to understand that you want me to debunk the X-Files project, sir?
SCOTT BLEVINS: Agent Scully, we trust you'll make the proper scientific analysis. You'll want to contact Agent Mulder shortly. We look forward to seeing your reports.
(The elevator rings and the door slides open. Scully steps out into the basement and comes to an office secluded in the back. She knocks on the door.)
MULDER: Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted.
(She opens the door to see Agent Fox Mulder sitting at his desk, going over some slides. Walking slowly to him, she sees various pictures of UFO's and a poster that reads "I Want to Believe" with a UFO on it. He looks at her.)
SCULLY: Agent Mulder. I'm Dana Scully, I've been assigned to work with you.
(He shakes her hand.)
MULDER: Oh, isn't it nice to be suddenly so highly regarded? So, who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?
SCULLY: Actually, I'm looking forward to working with you. I've heard a lot about you.
MULDER: Oh, really? I was under the impression... that you were sent to spy on me.
(He smiles.)
SCULLY: If you have any doubt about my qualifications or credentials, th...
(He stands and takes out a paper from a pile with his telephone as a paperweight.)
MULDER: You're a medical doctor, you teach at the academy. You did your undergraduate degree in physics.
(He takes off his glasses and looks at the paper.)
"Einstein's Twin Paradox, A New Interpretation. Dana Scully Senior Thesis." Now that's a credential, rewriting Einstein.
SCULLY: Did you bother to read it?
MULDER: I did. I liked it.
(He takes a slide canister and puts it into the slide projector.)
It's just that in most of my work, the laws of physics rarely seems to apply.
(He walks past her and turns off the lights. She glares at him slightly.)
Maybe I can get your medical opinion on this, though.
(He presses a button on the control and a slide comes up on the viewscreen of Karen Swenson, face-up.)
Oregon female, age twenty-one, no explainable cause of death. Autopsy shows nothing. Zip.
(He changes the slide to that of the two bumps on her back.)
There are, however, these two distinct marks on her lower back. Doctor Scully, can you ID these marks?
SCULLY: Needle punctures, maybe. An animal bite. Electrocution of some kind.
(She walks up to the viewscreen. He changes the slide to that of a molecular diagram.)
MULDER: How's your chemistry? This is the substance found in the surrounding tissue.
SCULLY: It's organic. I don't know, is it some kind of synthetic protein?
MULDER: Beats me, I've never seen it before either.
(The next slide is of a boy face-down on railroad tracks, his shirt lifted in the back.)
But here it is again in Sturgis, South Dakota.
(The final slide if of a close-up of another set of bumps.)
And again in Shamrock, Texas.
SCULLY: Do you have a theory?
MULDER: I have plenty of theories.
(He walks over to her.)
Maybe what you can explain to me is why it's bureau policy to label these cases as "unexplained phenomenon" and ignore them. Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?
(He whispers the last few words eerily and she smiles.)
SCULLY: Logically, I would have to say "no."
(He nods, having expected that answer.)
Given the distances needed to travel from the far reaches of space, the energy requirements would exceed a spacecraft's capabilties th...
MULDER: Coventional wisdom. You know this Oregon female? She's the fourth person in her graduating class to die under mysterious circumstances. Now, when convention and science offer us no answers, might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a plausibility?
SCULLY: The girl obviously died of something. If it was natural causes, it's plausible that there was something missed in the post-mortem. If she was murdered, it's plausible there was a sloppy investigation. What I find fantastic is any notion that there are answers beyond the realm of science. The answers are there. You just have to know where to look.
MULDER: That's why they put the "I" in "F.B.I." See you tomorrow morning, Scully, bright and early.
(He walks back over to his desk and sits down.)
We leave for the very plausible state of Oregon at eight A.M.
(She smiles and walks out.)
 
SCENE 3  AIRPLANE TO OREGON
(The drink cart passes Mulder, who is lying down across a row of seats, sleeping, headphones in his ears. Scully is sitting nearby, wearing glasses and flipping through newspaper clippings of the dead teenagers. People are murmuring in the back, but the sounds of their voices are covered by the jet engines. Scully focuses on the name "Dr. Nemman." The overhead loudspeakers rings.)
PILOT: I would like to ask all passengers to fasten their seatbelts, as we're about to make our descent...
(Scully starts putting her things away when the plane starts shaking violently. People scream and things are tosses about as Scully grabs on to her seat. She looks at Mulder, who is awake now but still lying down in the seats passively. The plane finally is brought under control and she sighs in relief. He turns over and looks at her.)
MULDER: This must be the place.
 
SCENE 4  BELLEFLEUR, OREGON
(Driving down a long road, they pass a sign that reads "Welcome to Bellefleur, Oregon." Scully is reading the files and Mulder is eating sunflower seeds while driving.)
SCULLY: You didn't mention yesterday, this case has already been investigated.
MULDER: Yeah, the FBI got involved after the first three deaths when local authorities failed to turn up any eviden

Birthday: Sep 11, 1998 (Age: 25)

Location: Meme School

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"I finish my day with a nicotine high, and I find myself staring at the stars in the sky, thinking of him, thinking of the ghosts, of lips together and waves on the coast. Wet rocks and liqueur shots, driving fast, avoiding the cops. Every flick of my lighter is a memory, and every stump of a cigarette butt is another three. Death may be coming, but at least I'm happy."

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