The thunder sounded and the lightning flashed, bringing with them the
onslaught of rain and wind. Everyone was chilled to the bone and wished
that, if they were going to die, that it be now before frostbite kicked
in. It was an odd thought, one that was easily pushed aside for the planning
of the next move.
The trees creaked loudly. It sounded to all as if they were going to
be ripped out from their own trunks to fly about in the wind, just to be
free from their hold on the earth. The most damage done, however, were
the breaking of branches that flew about in the night sky to be never seen
again until the break of dawn, which would then shatter their hold on hiding
in the darkness and exposing their position for all to see.
As the wind howled in their ears and the rain threaten to blind them,
they paid no attention to their surroundings and focused on the only thing
that mattered: Barbara Hayes. At first, she just stood there, claws outstretched
(for they were, indeed, claws), teeth bare. It seemed as if she wasn't
aware of her surroundings, her eyes appearing to look outward and inward,
but when her eyes settled on the group before her, they knew they were
mistaken. Barbara was aware of her surrounding, she knew of the situation,
and she knew what to do next. She had to kill everyone in her sight, and
faster than light, she tried.
Her arm shot out before anyone could see, and she was sure, confident
even, that she would make her mark. But then something extraordinary happened:
the curious young boy shot out with his fist and shocked her, her body
going into convulsions, but remaining standing.
Al looked at Robert curiously, and this time he answered his unspoken
question. "Hayes was never meant to be so quick; I couldn't allow her to
remain so."
That remark spoke to him on a magnitude of levels. Robert had actually
stepped in to do Sam's job and perform a duty that Sam was unable to complete.
He was truly a being of great power, especially since the blow he struck
was as if the thunder had flown down from the heavens to move among the
people that it had lived over for thousands of years, sending fear into
their hearts that now was magnified by its close range. Now when Robert
said he was a being of divine power, he would no longer have any doubts.
As Barbara stood on the ground, all her senses shocked, Mulder, Scully,
and Sam advanced on their enemy. Somehow they needed to put an end to her
reign of power before she could do any harm to anyone, and they had no
idea about how to do that. Nonetheless, the endeavored to stop her where
she stood.
Mulder tackled her. Rolling off her body, he grabbed her head while
Scully stood on her left side holding Barbara's hands and Sam stood at
her feet holding her ankles. They reacted purely on instinct, with no awareness
to what they were doing, and they began to pull. She stretched like play
dough, her arms, legs, and head unwilling to tear off. They pulled harder,
faster, but to no avail. With lightning speed, Barbara came out of her
shock and forced her appendages back to their normal shapes and sizes,
and in response to that force, Mulder, Scully, and Sam crashed into each
other and landed on top of her. With a swipe of her hand she threw them
off. They immediately got to their feet, with the house behind them, anticipating
the next attack.
"Give up!" Barbara shouted over the wind and thunder. "You are no match
for me!" They paid her no attention. She felt angry, irritated, annoyed.
For so long she had suffered her condition. At first it had been a blessing,
but now it was a nightmare and she just wanted it to be over. Hers was
a tortured soul, and if anyone else wanted to join her, who was she to
say "No"? At least she and Barry would no longer suffer alone. She lashed
out.
Her arm stretched to cover the distance, she swept her arm around in
an arch, intending to wipe them on their sides, but because of that boy
who interfered, he reaction time had been sluggish, and her enemies were
able to duck out of the way. She saw that boy. He was simply staring at
her, at the situation, and he seemed to have humor in his eyes. He was
laughing at her, she knew, and she didn't like people laughing at her suffering.
She shot her arm directly at him, stretching over the distance between
them, but ultimately, her arm passed right through him and never made contact.
He seemed amused by the action. She turned her attention away from his
damnable eyes; there was nothing she could do to him, and her three attackers
were preparing for another ambush.
Looking back at them, she saw one of the men charging. She swiped her
arm around without stretching it, but he suddenly fell back and kicked
forward in midair. It was the same trick done to her son, and she had mistakenly
fallen for it, and as he body fell to the ground and his ahead of her,
she heard the woman attacker call out, "Mulder!" and run toward her. No.
She was heading for the one called Mulder, and Barbara immediately had
a plan.
As the thunder, lightning, wind, and rain worsened, the woman attacker
ran for the Mulder person, running around Barbara to make sure she wasn't
hit. But she had no intention of hitting the woman attacker; not yet. Instead,
she shot out her hand, and with a cry, the woman attacker fell to the ground
near the Mulder person and skidded to his side. The Mulder person tried
to pick the woman attacker up, and as he did so, Barbara knew that now
was the time to strike. Getting off the soggy ground and standing to her
full height, she reformed her hand into the spike and brought her arm back.
She then shot it forward, and the spike moved. As did the third attacker.
With the speed of Zeus' lightning bolts, Sam ran past Barbara Hayes,
and as the spike flew toward Mulder and Scully, he knew what he had to
do: push the spike out of the way. But that didn't happen. As he tried
to make the attempt, the ground beneath him became more wet than he had
expected, and he slipped. The spike plunged into his abdomen with the force
of a nuclear explosion, and Sam was thrown back, landing on Mulder and
Scully. The lightning flashed, the thunder sounded, and as Sam saw gratification
on Barbara's face, he saw the unexpected lightning bolt thrown down from
the heavens that landed on her head. She took the brunt of the electricity,
as did he, and after standing on her feet for five more seconds, Barbara
Hayes fell to the ground, never to stand again, and her body shattered
into infinite pieces. For a moment, he thought he saw her and her son's
spirit jump out of the ground and reach up, but that vision was shaken
away as he heard Al call out, "Saaaaaaaam!" and felt Mulder and Scully
pick him off the wet soil and carry him through the woods.
He drifted in and out of consciousness. He saw the lightning changing
the arrangement of the trees, and he saw the thunder bring the house of
the demolition man. He saw the wind carry him into the back seat of a car,
and he felt the rain move the vehicle on the ground. The next thing he
knew, he saw a tree blocking the road, and in the back of his mind he heard
the sirens of an ambulance. The wind carried him out of the car and up
the roadblock made of tree and mud, and he saw the ambulance in his mind
as the wind carried him into it. He looked down at himself and saw his
stomach was free of impalement, and then the world around him fell into
complete darkness, and he wondered if he would ever look upon its surface
again.
