Kadaitcha
by Michael Aulfrey
Part 3/7



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The police car pulled up in literally the middle of nowhere.
Which was not to say that nothing was there. About four other
cruisers were sitting in a type of cordon around some dark item in
a copse of trees. One or two of them had their lights flashing.
Mulder and Scully got out of the car, sampling the cool night air.
They walked in past the cordon, the police around momentarily
looking at them but not challenging them. Mulder heard the static
screech of C.B. radios.
"Roger, Delta One Nine. When's that ambulance getting here?
Over."
"Echo Seven, we think it'll be there in about half an hour, over."
"Tell him to take his time, Delta--doesn't look like we've got any
live ones out here anyway. Echo Seven over and out."

Towards the centre of the minor chaos was Crawford, resplendent in
jeans and white T-shirt. He was standing back, plastic-gloved
hands on hips, looking at the situation. Mulder's eyes hadn't
adjusted to the dim light, so he couldn't see what it was they
were staring at. Then one of the police brought out a large
searchlight and cast its illuminance across the ground into the
copse, throwing tortured shadows across the earth.

It was an old utility truck. White, smeared with mud and dust,
like every other car in Starkey's Creek. A large searchlight was
mounted on a rack over the cabin and a bull bar in front of the
grille.

There seemed to be bodies everywhere. One hung over the back of
the truck, hands trailing onto the ground. Another was flung up
against the cabin window, his head on what was left of his chest.
Mulder picked out motion about ten metres away. Three officers
were clustered with torches around another body, on its stomach,
further into the wood. Cautiously, he stepped towards the cabin.
Inside was another of the men. This one was so heavily pressed
back into the seat only his chest and limp arms could be seen.
Bright bits of glass covered the seat, the windscreen broken in
one large round hole. Mulder glanced at the hood. And stared at
it. There was little other way to describe it than as shattered.
The iron had been torn open cleanly, peeled open like wrapping
paper. He glanced inside. The engine block had been likewise
smashed. It had been hammer punched into the ground.

Scully slipped towards the back of the truck, and shone a
flashlight on the body thrown back against the window. For all
intents and purposes, she might as well have been looking at Frank Mereweather's body in a different position. This one's abdomen
was slit open as well from sternum to throat. She bit her lip and
was thankful she couldn't see the man's eyes. She flicked a
glance to the one next to her. This one had been killed
differently; there was a round, small hole in his back, with
secondary cuts radiating out from it like a spider's legs. Not a
bullet hole; but deadly nonetheless.

"You're wondering who they are, I presume," said Crawford from
right behind her, making her jump slightly. He pretended not to
notice. "We've identified them already. They were out here
rabbit-shooting. Another common pastime out here."
"Looks like the Easter Bunny speaks softly but carries a big
stick," said Mulder, walking back from the front of the truck.
"How many altogether? Four?"
"I think so. We'll have to check with their friends, I suppose---"

There was a sudden commotion from about twenty metres away.
Lights wobbled crazily in the night, shouts and assorted curses
drifting into the night. Crawford was gone like a night shadow,
running towards the source, his gun already out. Mulder and
Scully quickly followed, scraping their faces on loose branches as
they ran. They emerged on an amazing sight. Four officers were
trying to hold down something on the ground--and not doing so
easily. There was a harsh crack, and one of them reeled back,
clutching his nose.
"Let him up! Let go, damn it!" Crawford was shouting, pulling one
of the men aside. The others muttered, letting go of what they
were holding down and moved back a couple of steps. Scully slowly
lowered her gun, even as Crawford's snapped back into its holster.
The figure got up, and faced the convergent torch beams.

Crawford was shaking his head slowly. "Charlie, you're going to
get yourself killed one of these days."
The figure tossed his head derisively at the police officer still
clutching his nose. "Not if y' keep putting kids like him on the
force, Robbie."
"This isn't your concern. How did you find out we were out here?"
"Anything happenin' on Kaladjuma land concerns me, Rob. You want
to know how I found out? The ground talks to me." There was a
pause, and an expression on Crawford's face Mulder couldn't see.
"Come on, Rob--I've got a wireless like all the others here. How
d'you think I found out?"
There was a truncated guffaw from one of the officers off to the
side, and they began to disperse. The figure's gaze turned to the
two FBI officers. "Who's this?"
Crawford turned to see them. "Hello again. Agent Scully, Agent
Mulder, this is Charles Duggan, one of our officers who should be
out minding other things. Charlie, meet Fox Mulder and Dana
Scully of the FBI. The American FBI."

Scully extended a hand and got her first proper look at Duggan.
Her first preconception vanished the moment she saw his skin.
Deep brown. Not unlike a Negro's. Which meant he was Aboriginal.
A native Australian, here before the English arrived in 1788.
Like the American Indian. He was tall; about six feet, maybe an
inch or two above Mulder's height. His hair was also a deep
brown, curly and wiry and unrestrained by the expected police
officer's cap. Instead, there was only a headband with a yellow
sun on it set against a red and black background. His face wasn't
like a Negro's, either; strangely, it was more European-looking
than she would have expected. His eyes were dark, the moon
shining like coins in the pupils.
"G'day, ma'am." His grip was strong, firm.

Mulder shook his hand next, raising his eyebrows to Scully.
As if in response to the unasked question, Crawford spoke.
"Charlie's the man I was talking to you about. He's sort of our
liaison officer with the Kaladjuma tribe, who live in this area.
He works with the Aboriginal people and--"
"Basically I'm the only voice they have when the cops come round
to pick them up when they're drunk. That's what it amounts to."
There was an uncomfortable pause.
"Are you one of the Kala--Kaladaj--" Mulder stumbled over the
words.
"Kaladjuma. Yeah." He turned back to Crawford. "You're wasting
your time here, Rob. There's nothin' at all."
"I think we can satisfy ourselves of--"
"Nothin'. Just like Frank's place. No tracks in, no tracks out.
You won't find anything." He turned and started walking away.
Mulder took a few steps after him.
"Mr. Duggan, what is it that makes you so sure--?" He felt
Crawford's hand on his shoulder, restraining him.
The Aboriginal stopped, turned around. His expression was even
with a touch of glimmering fear hiding behind it. "Nothing makes
me sure, mate. But I'll tell you one thing. The animals don't
like whoever it was that killed those poor bastards in the truck."
"Huh? What do you--"

But the man was gone, striding off into the brush. Moments later,
the engine of an old truck roared and through the trees, Mulder
spotted an old, khaki-coloured Landrover heading off into the
night. Crawford let his shoulder go.
"What's his problem?" asked Mulder as the three of them turned
back towards the truck.
"I wouldn't take him too seriously. He's normally like that.
Thinks anything that happens on Aboriginal land involves him
because he's their representative or something like that."
"I'm surprised you take that from him," commented Scully.
"Oh, don't mistake Charlie Duggan for a fool. He's the best there
is, as far as trackers go. Did either of you hear about a case a
couple of years ago, where a family of American tourists got lost
in the outback? With three children?"
Mulder saw Scully's frown, but he remembered. "Yeah, I do. That
was a little before your time, Scully. There was an awful
commotion in the FBI over that because a senator's son was one of
the tourists. They even sent a couple of agents out here to help.
They had close to a hundred men searching for them. Planes, dogs,
the works. But they found them."
"Wrong. Charlie Duggan found them. At least forty-eight hours
ahead of any search party." Crawford was grim. "They'd gone off
the track onto granite boulders, where their car left no
treadmarks. The other searchers lost them at that point."
"So how did he find them?" Scully asked.
"He followed the trail of ant corpses on the rocks that the car
had driven over." Crawford lengthened his stride, heading back
towards the site of the killing. Mulder and Scully said nothing
for a minute or two.
"Tonto is alive and well and living in downtown Starkey's Creek,"
said Scully quietly. Mulder was silent. She looked at him. His
face was thoughtful as well. "What?"
"He's right, Scully. Ant corpses or not, the Australians found
the senator's boy just before he would have died of dehydration.
You want confirmation, ask Skinner. He was on the case."

There was another shout from deeper in the woods. Mulder and
Scully looked at each other and started walking briskly over to
the spot where the torches were now gathering. As they reached
the spot, one of the officers--Paul Morris, Mulder suddenly
recognised him--pushed past them, holding a hand over his mouth,
and knelt down behind a tree. The sounds of his retching were
clear in the dark air.

The other officers were shining their torches at something up in
one of the trees, various expressions of horror or disgust
clouding their faces. Mulder dug into a pocket and produced a
flashlight, and switched it on, swinging it up into the branches
to the source.

* * *

FILE #185493-X
DR. DANA SCULLY
EXTRACT: REPORT, 2/12/95

The latest killings at Starkey's Creek have served to illustrate
only that Special Agent Mulder and myself are dealing with someone well-acquainted with blades as weapons and a thorough knowledge of
psychology. Subjects are five young white males, ages from 18 to
25. Said subjects were found deceased in or around the vicinity
of a white Holden Utility.

The first three subjects may be categorised simply. Death in
these cases involved extreme traumatisation of the lower to upper
torso by use of a weapon I have tentatively identified as the same
which killed Frank Mereweather (see file #937848-X) -- namely, a
heavy blade of some kind with features I can as yet only guess at.
This weapon would appear to have a serrated edge of the highest
quality of manufacture. Agent Mulder has suggested that I add
nothing further on the weapon at this point until the results have
come in on the metal slivers I found on Frank Mereweather's body.
I would only add that in all probabilityand in all my fervent hope-
-death was instantaneous in each case.

The cause of the fourth death was puncturing of the heart and
lungs, again by use of what I presume to be a hand-held weapon.
However, the exact nature of this weapon escapes me at this point,
as it for all intents and purposes appears to have been an
extraordinarily thick spearhead of some kind. Entry and exit
wounds were noted on the body, though traumatisation of the wound
suggests the weapon was forced through the victim's torso and then
pulled out again. There was also extensive shattering of the
ribcage in this instance. Again, death was presumably
instantaneous.

The fifth death's cause as yet cannot be determined for a lack of
material to assess a cause. The final corpse was found some
distance from the other bodies, hanging from the ankles in a tree.
This corpse was skinned, certain sundry organs found directly
beneath the body. The extent of traumatisation of tissue means I
cannot hope to try and determine a cause of death in this case. I
can only hope at this stage that the victim was dead before the
operation of skinning was performed. Agent Mulder was similarly
hopeful after recovering himself at the body's location.

If this skinning was used to break morale amongst the officers
here in Starkey's Creek, it is succeeding. There have already
been rumours circulating this morning concerning the killings and
the police are very quiet. Officer Crawford hopes the mood will
pick up. If it was such a morale-breaking action so as to throw
off pursuit of the killer, this would seem to indicate that he--
assuming a connection between Frank Mereweather's death and the
instant case--is prepared for a long fight against the law, whose
resources it would seem he has assessed carefully. The use of
differing weapons is none too encouraging, either; if anything, it
suggests a higher element of rationality than is normally seen
with serial killers insistent upon the same method of death for
each victim. I will add more when greater evidence is available.
However, at this point I think it is safe to say we are no closer
to putting together a suspect profile than we were at the outset.

EXTRACT ENDS.

* * *

Mulder was, to coin a phrase, mad as hell.

"Well, who let the story get out, if it wasn't the local police?"
he asked for what seemed like the eighteenth time. And for the
sixtieth time, Crawford threw up his hands and replied,
"I don't know!" The Australian cop got up from his seat in the
police station chief's office and stared out the window at the
afternoon glare. "If I did know, I'd be God Almighty and not
standing here talking to you! Could've been one of the police on
last night, maybe one of the relatives. We'll never find out.
Surely there's some way to keep the media from blowing this out of
all proportion..."
"Any chance we had of containing this went down the toilet the
moment somebody called the paper, Crawford. They'll be up here in
their thousands within five hours, and we haven't got a hope of
getting the killer before he strikes again!"
Scully's voice was a quiet whisper of conscience in his ear,
though her voice had not changed its pitch. "There's not much we
can do about it now. All we can do is try and follow up the leads
that we've got. Just get the word out that nobody talks about
this."

Mulder had a retort on his lips, but forced it back down. He
vented his anger instead by wishing the newspaper in front of him
a fiery death. KILLING IN THE OUTBACK, screamed the headline of
the local paper. Five dead in massacre, added the byline. It was
hot off the presses. Luckily, the actual article had been fairly
brief and short on details. The skinning of the fifth victim had
somehow been kept off the record. Mulder shook himself. Now he
was getting no better than CancerMan or Mr. X himself. He rubbed
his temples and tried to think. "All right. Have we got anything
back on the metal slivers yet?"
"Not yet," replied Crawford. "I rang them this morning and they
said they still had to run some further tests on them."
"Any time we can expect it by?" asked Scully.
"They were talking about tomorrow afternoon, tops. The report
will get back here by courier, if you want it that fast. Or so
they said."
"Well, there goes roughly our only lead," said Mulder. "You've
got people checking the site now?"
"Yeah. The boys have cordoned it all off, as well. Nobody gets
in there."
"Let's hope it stays that way. All right. Let's run through it
again." Mulder picked up a marker and walked over to the
whiteboard in one corner of the office. "First. Frank
Mereweather gets killed, suspicious circumstances, alone at his
house, seven days ago, right?"
"Yes." Crawford had turned back towards them. "The regular police
decide to leave it to the federal police, they assign me to the
job, I take one look at it and ring you."

Mulder scribbled on the board. "Okay. Now. What's strange about
Frank's death?"
"One, no footprints." Scully was ticking off points on her
fingers. "Two, weapon seems unusually sharp and the user
unusually large and fast. Three, dead pig found at the site.
Four, Frank's gun was loaded but he hadn't fired a shot."
Mulder turned back to them. "Fine. Now. The five boys in the
truck. Three are killed in exactly the same way. One is killed
with possibly a different weapon. One is...done differently
again. What am I missing here?"
"The truck was smashed. Whoever killed them knew how to disable a
truck or set a trap for them. Plus...they were all armed."
Crawford was looking intently at the board. Mulder looked at him,
catching Scully's eye with a raised eyebrow. Crawford continued
on regardless. "We found gun rags and ammunition in Frank
Mereweather's closet. It had a layer of dust on it; hadn't been
used in some time. Frank probably had no reason to pick up that
gun unless he heard something strange. Something like--"
"A wild pig being killed outside?" finished Scully. They were all
silent for a minute, considering the implications.
"He's enjoying it." Mulder was staring at the board again. "The
sonofabitch is hunting them. He gets them in a situation where
they're armed and then takes them down because it's more sport
that way."
"Seems to fit," said Scully, her voice barely above a whisper now.
"He takes down one man, then several after a few days. He's
spreading his wings."

"But that doesn't explain the way he gets in and out without
leaving tracks," said Crawford. "Always the geographical
problems."
"What did you say?" Mulder was suddenly staring at Crawford.
"I said it's a geographical problem---"
"How could I be so stupid!" said Mulder, looking at Scully.
"We've been working too much on odd cases, Scully. We've
forgotten the old technique. Crawford, have you got a map of this
area? Including the two sites?"
"You mean the bastard might be centring on one location? I tried
it already. And we don't have enough sites to even try and create
a perimeter of activity."
Mulder chewed his lip while Crawford stared out the window again.
"I'll get the map anyway," offered Crawford. "If he does kill
again, we might have a pattern turn up. As it is, we've only got
pretty flimsy evidence that these murders are connected."
"Oh, they are," said Scully quietly. "And he won't stop killing
now. Whoever he is, he enjoyed his first kill with Frank
Mereweather and now he knows he can kill in large numbers and get
away with it."
Crawford grimaced. "Right. I'm going. See you shortly." He
left the office.

"I think the basic nature of the killer is something we have to
talk about, Scully." Mulder turned back to her. "I think this is
clearly more than your average serial killer at work here."
Scully shrugged. "I haven't seen anything unexplainable yet,
Mulder. Whoever is doing the killing is just very good at his
job. What's your explanation?"
"I don't have one yet. But you're blinding yourself to the facts.
Look at the truck. The engine was smashed into the ground. After
he'd immobilised it, the killer was able to take down five armed
men solo, in hand-to-hand combat. And then got out without
leaving any tracks. While bearing a good hundred-kilo corpse over
his shoulder, skinning it and then leaving it to hang up in a
tree."
"You're ignoring the possibility of any accomplices. And we don't
have to take Charles Duggan at his word, regardless of how good he
is at tracking. I'd leave it until we get all the evidence in
from the field."
Mulder nodded slowly. "All right. But I still think there's
something seriously wrong with this situation."



END OF PART 3/7.



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